"
"Aye, Kaku, but how will the Queen answer him? There are stories
afloat----"
"Lies, every one of them, Prince. She would have executed him at once
had it not been for the influence of Mermes, and her foster-mother,
Asti. This Rames has in him the royal blood of the last dynasty, and the
Star of Amen is not one who will share her sky with a rival star, unless
he be her lawful Lord, which is your part. If Rames or the foul Beggar
brings you any message it will be that you are King of Kesh as well as
of Egypt, and then you can kill him and take the heritage. A fig for
Rames and its stalk for the Beggar!"
"Perhaps," replied Abi more cheerfully, "at any rate I do not fear that
risk; but how about all Pharaoh's talk of tombs?"
"Being dead, Prince, it is natural that the mind of his Ka should run
on tombs, and his own royal burial, which as a matter of policy we must
give to him. Besides there the prophesy was safe, since to these same
tombs all must come, especially those of us who have seen the Nile rise
over sixty times--as I have," he added hastily.
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