I
For a long time, a slave massaged Aoura’s body, still warm from the bath, with balms from Araby that were incorporated into the skin, and light Syrian perfumes that recalled the enchanted breezes of the Liban at every movement.
Aoura contemplated herself in a large silver mirror that Thutmose had sent her from Asia. Her torso had grown; she was almost perfect, and her breasts, delicate and round, with their little pink fruits, were connected in a charming fashion to the tender neck, the voluptuous nape and the beautiful, well polished shoulders. She loved herself. Braced in front of the bright mirror, she tried the innumerable play of attitudes, sometimes raising her arms, curious about the shadow of the armpits, sometimes flexed for the caress, sometimes full of emotion in contemplating the mystery of life and imagining the happiness of the man who would be designated by her brother Thutmose to know her.
Once she had dreamed that the king himself might be her first lover. That would not displease her, although she was fearful of displeasing her sister Hatsheput, who was jealous. But that dream no longer visited her. Her choice was fixed; among all men, only one veritably attracted her flesh.
Twelve months, however, had passed since she had spoken to him in the enclosure of the old temple of Amenemhat. She ought to have forgotten him, and, in fact, she could no longer form an exact image of his bearing or his face; nothing remained but an impression of tall stature, supple forms and bold eyes. Alone, perhaps she would have let the memory fade, but she saw Gaila every day. The two of them stimulated the flame. Thus, far from decreasing, the amour of the Princes of Thebes increased with absence; she could no longer compose a legend of happiness without binding Setne tightly within it.
When the slave had finished infusing her with balms and sprinkling her with perfumes, Aoura dressed in a swathe of byssus and went on to the terrace. Thebes was scintillating in the strong morning light. The new temple built by Thutmose was growing among those of the ancestors. The city of the hundred gates was more populated with sphinxes than the Libyan desert with lions, buffaloes and elephants; columns and obelisks sprouted like an immense forest of stone, enameled walls sparkled like immense gems. The Theban people could be seen swarming in the squares, on the steps, in the narrow streets, outside houses on mud and papyrus, and in boats floating on the Nile all the way to the horizon of the plains, pyramids and pullulating cities.
But Aoura, sated by that spectacle, did not pay much attention to it. She agitated in the shade of the tamarinds; like a great mobile flower, she embalmed the air with each of her gestures. Joyful at first, impatience slowly took possession of her. Gaila was late. For the slave had been able to remain free to come and go at her caprice, by virtue of the tender generosity of the princess of Thebes and the enigmatic reasons she gave for her conduct.
“She promised to come!” said Aoura, nervously.
She knew full well that the promise of the daughter of the Gulf had not been categorical, but in her chagrin she did not want to admit that to herself.
“I want her to obey me!”
It was the thousandth time that she had proposed to herself forcing the will of the mysterious Bedouin. Fundamentally quick tempered, but not tyrannical, the princess did not dislike Gaila’s capricious tendencies; it was a more complex attraction, which gave an extraordinary price to the strange young woman’s submissions.
Suddenly, a smile brought Aoura’s eyelids closer together. A red silhouette appeared down below, among the sycamores. The princess would have recognized that stride in a hundred thousand, which sowed rhythm and sensuality.
When Gaila had climbed the steps of the terrace, Aoura said, coldly: “You’re late!”
“No,” replied the slave. “I hadn’t promised anything.”
She stood before Aoura, serious, mild and firm. The princess, her eyes lowered, saw the small feet enveloped in ribbons, a delicate ankle, scarcely burnished, quivering. The spectacle softened her. She raised her head, and saw Gaila’s magnificent lips, where the redness of the flesh took on the charming tones of petals and moist seashells. Then she smiled, and, kissing the slave’s eyes tenderly, said; “Oh, you’re indifferent! Don’t you know the impatience with which I await your coming? You make me suffer.”
“I can’t do otherwise. And I’m not indifferent. I think about your happiness day and night.”
“But you don’t experience any impatience. Here you are before me like a submissive slave. That’s not what I want, Gaila.”
The Bedouin woman smile enigmatically. Her large eyes stared at Thebes, full of dreams.
“Have I not said that the daughters of my race are simple?” she replied. “They are only able to love the amour of a man. But their amity is as faithful as their hatred. Now, I would die for you, daughter of Ahmose, as I would die for my vengeance; why desire anything else? As well ask a lioness to engender monkeys, or a vine to produce dates.”
Chagrined, Aoura exclaimed: “I’m beautiful, though...”
“You are the most beautiful of all women, Mistress. From the Red Gulf to Syria, no daughter of men is comparable to you.”
The princess smiled, drew Gaila to the silver mirror and, contemplating their delicious images complaisantly, she said: “Witch, the man who possessed us both would be more fortunate than the gods.”
Those words troubled the slave. “But you would not permit,” she said, “a man to love both of us?”
“Why not?” said Aoura, tenderly.
“Would your pride not revolt, or would you not be jealous?”
Aoura started laughing. “No, Gaila, I would not be jealous, I would be glad. The man who loved you would appear more beautiful to me if he loved me too. I would find that very pleasant. And, then, he would no longer be able to think of any other woman. We would be able to render him faithful!”
Gaila contemplated the princess with a shiver of joy. “You merit that someone would die for you!” she said. “Nevertheless, consider that I am only a wanderer, a thousand times outraged.”
“One does not lose the force of the blood! Have you not told me that your brother commanded a large tribe of the Gulf? Thutmose esteems the chiefs of your race; Thutmose knows me well.”
The nomad’s face was covered with darkness. “My father is not avenged,” she said, “nor my mother, nor my brothers. Those who seized our pastures live in peace and abundance. The first virtue is hatred.”
Her eyes darted a red flame. Aoura sensed clearly that her companion possessed the first virtue of vigorous races fully. She had the same maxims, albeit more tenderly.
“Do you believe that one of Thutmose’s phalanges could get rid of your enemies?” she said.
“No. The men of Daour have a thousand warriors in the vigor of age, and as many old men and boys capable of handling a sword. Ten phalanges would not be sufficient to envelop them, for the chiefs must not flee. It is necessary that they perish, buried up to the neck, or roasted in the furnace, that their women are raped and their entrails thrown to the jackals. Only thus will justice be satisfied.”
Aoura listened to the nomad with admiration. She liked strength. Pensively, she said: “Would your tribe consent to pay tribute to Thutmose? The king is not avid. A few beasts of burden would acquit your debt.”
“We would no longer be free,” said Gaila, bitterly.
“Oh, yes! You would be the king’s allies; no tribe could attack you without igniting his anger.”
They fell silent. Then Aoura sighed. “Who can tell where Thutmose’s warriors are fighting now?”
Gaila smiled. That morning, she had seen one of the men of the desert, who, invariably outdistancing the king’s couriers, was spreading among the lower orders the news that was as yet unknown to the upper castes.
“Thutmose is victorious,” she said. “He has defeated his enemies in a great plain one day’s journey from the Euphrates.”
“How do you know?” cried the princess of Thebes, trembling with pleasure. “Why are you talking today, having kept silent on other days?”
“Have I not told you that the arcana are not always efficacious?”
“Is the news certain?”
“Unless an evil god...”
Aoura interrupted, impatiently: “And what do you know of Setne?”
Gaila hesitated, because she knew nothing about her master. But she only dared hide that partially.
“I have seen that he has fought gloriously, then the signs became obscure. Nevertheless, it seems that he had gained the king’s favor...”
She stopped. Trumpets sounded at the great pylon. A courier appeared, thin and black, followed by servants who were crying: “Thutmose has slain twenty thousand men, and Setne has felled ten thousand!”
The young women had raced on to the terrace; they were pale with joy. Aoura, kissing the face of the slave passionately, cried: “I believe in you, witch!”
II
The courier appeared before Queen Hatsheput, the elder sister of Thutmose III.22 Tall and massively proportioned and benevolent appearance, with the eyes of a heifer, misty and slow, she was jealous, imperious and vindictive. She did not look at the man blackened by the deserts, desiccated by hunger, tanned as if with dust, who had thrown himself on the ground. She remained as motionless and dormant as the statues of temples, but, as no one could speak before her without her having permitted it, she finally said: “King Thumtmose has sent you?”
“The king of kings has sent me,” the man replied, “with five other runners, by the Syrian route. Three of my companions fell, of malady and lassitude. The other two perished under the swords of nomads. There were also runners on other roads. If any of them have arrived before me, daughter of Ahmose, I am only bringing you dead news.”
“No one has preceded you,” said the queen, coldly. “Speak.”
And the courier spoke, his face to the ground.
“Three months after the battle of the Hennar, Thutmose encountered the enemy again, in greater number, in the plain of Sades, near the Euphrates. Ten sars have crawled at his feet; thirty others have lost their breath. In the evening, the count was made of twenty thousand hands, cut from the dead. And there is an innumerable booty of gold, silver, precious stones, amulets, beasts and weapons. All of Assyria fled before the face of the king and that of his servant Setne.”
“Who is that man?” said the queen, with a cold curiosity.
“He is the right arm of Thutmose, terrible in battle, full of cunning. The king wants him to march after him in the command and in the council.”
“His name has never been mentioned to me.”
“He comes from Tanis,” said the courier. “At the beginning of the war he commanded a phalanx, but Thutmose, having recognized that he was successful in his enterprises, sent him with a thousand men to the gorge of the Hennar, where Setne surprised a caravan. Then he commanded the right wing in the battle; he overturned five thousand Ninevites. Afterwards, at Sades, he enveloped a third of the Assyrian army. That is why our lord has raised him above the other chiefs of war.”
After a pause, the courier added: “Admirable Queen, the king will follow his couriers at a distance of four months.”
“Withdraw,” said the queen. And she added, for she was not miserly: “You have served well. You will be given three four-year-old oxen; the protection of your masters will extend over you and your race.”
When the courier had left the room, Hatsheput summoned her sister and communicated the news to her. Then she said: “Have you ever heard any mention of this young Tanite warrior?”
Aoura blushed. “Yes,” she replied. “Have I not spoken about him? He is the man I saw teaching your son Amenhotep the use of the bow. His family, it is said, was allied to the old kings.”
“Perhaps Thutmose will finally allow you to know a man,” said Hatsheput, with a sort of vivacity, for she feared that the king might keep that charming sister for himself. “Would you like that chief?”
Divining her sister’s desire, Aoura replied without hesitation: “I would like him.”
Hatsheput’s features relaxed. “Then I will speak in favor of that marriage,” she said.
She dismissed her sister. Aoura fled joyfully and went to find the nomad. She reported the queen’s words to Gaila, who listened with pleasure, and then with pity; she saw that the fate of the princess was now settled.
But a shadow of death, of the jealousy of the queen, hovered over her.
III
At the end of the first moon of Autumn, the rumor spread through the valley of the Nile that the army of Thutmose was approaching the isthmus. Thin and rapid men ran from city to city announcing the great news.
Among the boats of the Nile, the swarming cities, and all the way to the smallest clusters of huts constructed of dry wood and papyrus, Egypt entire soon knew that his army was bringing back an enormous booty, ten thousand captives, horses, donkeys and singular beasts. At the new moon, the standards of the advance guard appeared before Thebes; then the sand was seen rising all the way to the horizon. The soldiers arrived, black, savage, fleshless and indefatigable in tattered, dirty or absent garments. But the weapons were still shining, and the satisfaction of a great booty rendered the faces dignified.
At the gates of Thebes the trumpets sounded. Closer and closer, the fanfares followed one another along the dusty roads. Then the light Theban drums rattled like an innumerable army of cicadas. The carts jolted along the road, sparkling with scythes, harrows and sharp lances.
The phalanges massed, slow and formidable, bristling with points and shadowed by great bucklers. They seemed heavy by comparison with the archers, sling-wielders and swordsmen, but those who carried clubs were marching like stone statues.
The army was not to enter Thebes. It dispersed around it and chose its encampments, while three elite phalanges, which guarded Thutmose, presented themselves before the great pylon.
In a fulgurant cedar-wood chariot, encrusted with suns and moons, the king was standing, covered with a garment as coarse as those of his soldiers, his head shaded by a light woolen pschent. Other chariots followed in which chiefs were seen flamboyant with sardonyxes, beryls or sapphires, with multicolored baldrics, bucklers laminated with gold and silver; for Thutmose, sober, simple and almost a stranger to any sensory joy, showed a disdainful indifference for his person. By contrast, he rejoiced in seeing a magnificent luxury streaming around him in his companions. In order not to displease him, Setne had put on embroidered garments and ardent jewelry.
The first phalanx of guards was engulfed within the pylon, amid the savage clamors of the Thebans.
A frightening crowd expanded, like a foam of faces, a swell of brown bodies, with long waves of violet, crimson, white, green or saffron fabrics, and cries, reinforced by sudden surges of enthusiasm or weakened by long refluxes of curiosity, imitated all the noises of a tempest against rocks and among great trees.
Then, as the king passed by, there was a long silence, of which the density of beings made something strangely material. The simplicity of the formidable master disconcerted the people every time. They searched therein for a symbol, a myth, a mystery, experiencing at first an obscure disappointment, but very rapidly, a reaction as violent as thunder rumbled in their souls, and then, immense, frantic and irresistible, the entire adoration of a people for the victorious chief, all the confused life of a crowd sensing its unity, all the passionate servitude of a nation that can only exist by virtue of a powerful authority, agitated that great human flood, drawing inexhaustible cries therefrom.
Thutmose traversed that hurricane of emotion with a visage as hard as granite; but a gleam of arrogant joy filtered into his gaze. The guards drove back the audacious. One man, mad with enthusiasm, succeeded in getting through the hedge of lances and threw himself upon the king’s chariot with a savage affection. It would be his death if he touched Thutmose, but a glorious death, which entailed, for those who believed themselves in a state to appear before the infernal judges, exemption from several ordeals.
The king, annoyed, gestured to the fanatic to withdraw. The other took no account of the order. With an extraordinary leap he reached the platform of the chariot. There, prostrate, holding the master’s feet, he requested with loud cries that his life be cut short by the royal sword. Already, soldiers were about to seize the man. Thutmose, no longer able to save him without falling in the eyes of the Thebans, drew his weapon with a smile and plunged it into the heart of the supplicant. Roars of joy saluted that execution; a long tempest of enthusiasm rose from the depths of the multitude, and a thousand furious creatures rushed forward to touch the bloody dust.
The escort reached the palace. Thutmose entered it with the ten great chiefs of his army. The queen was waiting in a hall strewn with herbs, roses and lotuses, with cut palm leaves, myrtles and great Nile seeds. Hatsheput displayed herself on red petals, with pale rubies and beryls in her hair, stout and heavy, her eyes enveloped by thick lids, and Thutmose, who had loved her dearly, found her still desirable.
“Here you are, finally,” she said, “conqueror of the vast earth. Egypt was sad and miserable during your absence. But like the beneficent Nile, your return makes your people cry out with joy.”
Less inclined than her to emphasis, he replied: “I’ve brought you a thousand slaves, coffers full of embroidered cloth, gold and silver jewelry, fiery stones, enamels, precious leather and perfumes without number...”
His gaze, moving sideways, encountered the elegant body of Aoura. She was standing on herbs mingled with young nelumbos, so tightly clad in gold and hyacinth cloth that every contour was perceptible. Her black hair was a night constellated with amber stars; her proud eyes, soft and more changeable than the evening sky, astonished Thutmose.
“How beautiful you are, my sister!” he said. “There is nothing about you that is not delightful to see.” His nostrils flared; a heavy frisson of lust ran through the entire body of the man, sensible to the beauty of women.
Hatsheput went pale, her slow soul filled with murder, while Aoura, charmed at first and then anxious, turned her eyes toward Setne, standing at the back of the room in front of the other war chiefs.
Already, the king, an energetic master of his will, had postponed his desire until later. He went on, gravely: “For you also, Aoura, I have brought slaves, precious stones, gold, silver, and the perfumes of the Euphrates and Syria.”
Then he made a sign to Setne, who advanced and prostrated himself before the queen.
“This,” said the king, “is my beloved servant. His strength has been half of my strength, his arm has brought victory everywhere. I want him to have the first place after the king and the queen, and let everyone incline to his commands.”
He placed his hand gently on Setne’s head, and declared: “You have not asked me for anything yet. I would like to do for you whatever you desire.”
“The king has heaped me with benefits,” replied the Tanite. “He has recompensed me a thousand times.”
“But you have not asked me for anything,” repeated Thutmose. “Let me know your desire.”
Setne darted his gaze at Aoura. She went pale; their faces confessed then that they loved one another, but they understood immediately that the time had not come, and Setne said: “My lord will permit me to wait for a few days. I am not yet ready to express a desire.”
“Very well,” said Thutmose, with a smile. “I will wait until the day of Osiris.”
He raised Setne up himself, and sent out all the chiefs. And while he sat down beside the queen, he was still considering her younger sister with an ardent covetousness.
Thutmose spent the night with Hatsheput and rendered his duty to her. He took scarcely any pleasure in it.
The queen, anxious and vindictive, knew that her brother desired another woman. She would have passed over a slave carelessly, or even a free daughter of Thebes, but she could not suffer the idea of sharing with her sister. Only Aoura, in Egypt or in the lands conquered by Thutmose, was her equal, and against her alone. Hatsheput experienced an insupportable jealousy.
The king got up early in the morning, dressed with his usual simplicity, and then, having made a meal of fish and papyrus stems, he picked up an ivory staff in order to go out.
“Where is my lord going?” asked Hatsheput, softly.
Thutmose never lied to his family, his servants or his soldiers. He only masked the truth with enemies. Above all, he had never hidden anything from his wife. This time he hesitated, imperceptibly, for he was not unaware of Hatsheput’s jealousy.
“I’m going to visit the gardens and the works,” he said. “I shall also go to see our sister Aoura.”
She could not contain herself. She demanded: “And what do you want with our sister?”
Thutmose no longer hesitated. His sovereign will did not want to fear obstacles. “It is time,” he said, “that she knew a man.”
“And who will you give her?” said Hatsheput, very pale.
“She will have the same master as you.”
Although, in the reign of Thutmose III, everything bowed down before royal authority, even the formidable power of the priests, the legitimate wife retained almost intact the prerogatives that would be successively weakened thereafter.
Hatsheput rebelled. “I do not want to have a rival!” she cried. “Take any other, and I will say nothing. But for her, Thutmose, it is necessary to give her a husband.”
“No will can rise above mine!” said the king, forcefully. “You will not have a rival. Only you will be my wife. But it is good that our sister has children of the blood of Ahmose. Ours might perish.”
She replied vehemently: “Why give vain reasons? You are only thinking of your desire; that is unworthy of you. No king of our dynasty has coveted more than one of his sisters, and all of them, however, have counted them in great number. Such was the will of Ahmose. Be careful, in defying it, of attracting the anger of Ammon and ending your magnificent reign in defeat or shame!”
“I have done as much as Ahmose,” he said, angrily. “Why should I not have a will equal to his?”
She feigned a profound dejection. “Woe betide whoever scorns the ancestral law! Thutmose, are you forgetting that that man founded our dynasty? Are you forgetting that he labored for our glory, that he delivered us from filthy slavery?”
“I’m forgetting nothing!” he replied, with a more violent anger. “I shall erect a new temple to the sacred memory of Ahmose, and our royalty, magnified by my hands, will accept a few new customs, without the souls of the ancestors being offended…”
She was about to reply, but he did not want to listen any longer; he disappeared into the gardens without her daring to follow him.
IV
Setne, trembling with amour and dread, had retired to his house. He knew that he was loved by Aoura, but he carried away, like a wound, the covetous gaze that the king had cast upon his sister. He wanted to see Gaila very quickly, thirsty for her face, her body and her advice.
An old slave had opened the door. Setne listened distractedly to his salutations. He marched through the rooms and the garden, impatient to see the woman he desired appear. He came to the enclosure of date palms and sycamores where he loved to repose. The water, faint and fresh, was murmuring very softly; memories rose up in the young man, abundant, luminous and so precise that his heart groaned with lust. He thought he could see once again, on the grassy banks, in the penumbra constellated with rays of amber and amethyst, the delightful form of his slave. Everything that she had predicted had been accomplished on the battlefields of Mesopotamia, as in the palace of Thebes; but had she foreseen Thutmose’s desire?
He stamped his feet, impatiently, while the sun began to decline from the zenith. He had been careful to send a soldier with a message to the house of the old women where Gaila was living. Perhaps the nomad had been absent or the soldier had fulfilled his mission poorly? The idea came to him abruptly that she had quit Egypt, weary of such a long wait. He glimpsed the agile form gliding through the cities and solitary lances, prey to need, giving her body to men in exchange for nourishment or shelter.
That imagination, by torturing him with fury and jealousy, made him understand more fully how much he loved his slave. He could not remain in the dwelling any longer, and he was already heading toward the pylon when he heard youthful and silvery laughter, which he recognized as easily as if he had seen a face.
“Gaila!” he cried.
And, turning round, he saw the beautiful black fire of her pupils and the Bedouin’s red lips. Then he forgot his dread; King Thutmose ceased to dominate his soul like a menacing shadow. Nothing remained but that delectable flesh. With a cry of joy he drew Gaila to his heart...
He got up again with the melancholy that the slave’s indifference left him, but he did not express it. He said: “Your predictions are realized, Gaila. I have triumphed over enemies, gained the favor of the Thutmose, and...”
“And the love of Aoura!” she interrupted, with a smile. “Yes, the signs did not lie.”
He took the young woman’s hand with a joyful ardor. “But it’s by you that I knew the signs, and you’ve aided me so well! My strength belongs to you, daughter of the Gulf.”
“Keep your word and we’ll go on to the end!”
He considered her with an eye suddenly filled with anxiety.
“Are you sure of that? This morning, I perceived an obstacle that might become insurmountable...”
She remained silent, full of shadows; her eyelids fluttered at intervals. He respected her silence, because he believed that she was consulting her mysterious science.
“Yes,” she replied, “the danger is great, my master, if you intend to have Aoura for your wife. But remember that I haven’t promised you that. I said that you would know her. Perhaps it will only be after Thutmose. Perhaps also, the king, his desire slaked, will give her to you without difficulty, for he does not love the same woman for long, and he will yield quickly to the anger of Hatsheput. You’re not jealous of your king?”
That question embarrassed Setne. Any other sentiment than the dread and love of Thutmose seemed sacrilegious to him; and yet, an obscure bitterness swelled in his breast.
“How could I be jealous of the king?” he exclaimed, finally. “He sanctifies everything he touches. I only fear that he will not want to give me Aoura.”
She feared that too. In truth, Thutmose was scarcely occupied with women. He knew few caprices, and all were brief; but how much more seductive might the princess of Thebes, his sister, seen to him than all the daughters of Asia, Egypt and Kush?
Gaila’s will had a brief weakness. She sensed against her the star of the man who overturned empires. Then, her Bedouin temerity returned, and enabled hope, and she said: “Let us rest, my master. Thutmose will do nothing before the coming night has passed. Any action would be futile.”
“Can you not interrogate your signs?” he said, with anguish.
“I have interrogated them. They are obscure. They will not speak before tomorrow.”
He resigned himself. Momentarily, he saw again all the perils that he had traversed and vanquished, the favor of Thutmose conquered, the amour surprised in Aoura’s eyes; then, fatalistically, he abandoned himself to destiny, and, turning his eyes toward his beautiful slave, he became disinterested again in everything but touching her red lips.
V
Thutmose spent more than an hour walking through the gardens. He stopped several times beside artisans and questioned them, for the king, curious about everything that men do, took almost as much interest in the works of the sculptor, the mason and the laborer as in his soldiers. Hard and just, he liked to punish by surprise, or recompense abruptly, but that morning he forgot to do either. The image of Aoura persisted in tormenting him. It had been presented to him at the precise moment when, weary of triumphs and voyages, weary of war itself, which had become too facile, Thutmose was prepared to welcome some new form of desire or domination. The only thing that gave him pause, more acutely than he would have thought, was the tradition of Ahmose. On the other hand, the jealousy of Hatsheput drove him to infringe the custom, not because he had the intention of sacrificing his wife, but because hers was the only will that could contest his, the only one before which he had sometimes yielded.
When he had made a tour of the gardens and courtyards, he headed toward the building where the princess lived. His hesitation had disappeared; at least, he believed so. He went up the steps of the terrace without stopping. He passed through the prostrate slaves and, going through the colonnade, he opened the door and went in. The first room was deserted. Thutmose headed toward the chamber where his sister slept.
When he went into it, he perceived a young woman clad in red who watched him come in.
Among the innumerable captives brought on the eve of battles or after the capture of cities, the king could not remember ever having seen eyes of such mysterious beauty, variable at every movement of the eyelids, combined with a more enveloping and profound life. The mouth too was surprising, an admirable flower of red flesh in which, dazzling and soft, the white gleam of the teeth appeared, and whose vague, curious, sensual half-smile astonished the conqueror of the Ninevites.
Motionless at first, she took a step; that simple movement revealed the ardent harmony of her body. Then, bowing, she waited in silence for Thutmose to speak.
“Who are you?” said the king. “You resemble the daughters of the Gulf who read destiny...”
“I am Gaila,” she replied, “daughter of Rub, chief of the Bene-Asher, who reigned over great pastures. And I have received the gift of seeing the future. Before your messengers had arrived in Thebes, I had announced your victories in the Hennar and the Euphrates. I also know, king of kings, what projects are brooding in your heart, and the dangers that they will make you run.”
He considered her with anxiety, suspicion and admiration.
“What are these dangers?” he said, abruptly.
She met the king’s eyes, and did not turn her own away.
“Those that threaten rebel sons.”
The king’s suspicions increased; his face was covered with anger. “Is it to Queen Hatsheput that you announced my victories?” he cried, in a menacing voice.
But she responded without disturbance: “The queen does not know me.”
“It’s necessary to swear it!” he said harshly. “Those of your race swear on the heads of their fathers.”
“By my father, dead in the furnace, and by my vengeance, to which I have consecrated my life, I swear, King of Thebes, that I have never spoken to Queen Hatsheput.”
He calmed down. His doubts vanished. He knew that Hatsheput was too proud to deign to act directly against a rival, and he had no suspicion of the obscure link that united Aoura and Setne.
“Why have you come?” he said. “And where is my sister Aoura?”
“I’ve come for love of her. My life belongs to her. The dangers you run, she is running with you; and in saving you, it is her that I am saving.”
He did not detest those words; he was pleased to believe that this charming creature had a free and voluntary soul. As the conversation went on, he discovered a beauty more numerous in her, a life more extraordinary, a rare and doubtless unique quality.
Already, the caprice that he had experienced for his sister was partly displaced toward the witch; he softened to the new desire. He did not struggle against that desire. The shade of Ahmose, which he venerated and feared in the same measure as the great gods, twice evoked, troubled him obscurely.
In a low voice he said: “You have not said what perils I am running.”
“The alliance of all your enemies and the arrival of barbarian peoples similar to the Shous, who live far beyond Nineveh, Ecbatana and Syria...armies ten times more numerous than those you have fought.”
The king’s visage palpitated with warrior ardor. “I do not fear all the peoples of the world.”
“No, but your lieutenants surrounded, a wound that renders you incapable of command, and, in sum, the will of the gods?”
She was speaking quietly, in a grave, soft and mysterious tone. The king sensed the unknown forces passing over him that caused conquerors to bow down. “And if I yield to your advice?” he asked.
“The gods will disunite your enemies. Each will want to fight on his own account; you will crush them one after another.”
They had drawn closer together. Thutmose’s hand had encountered the slave’s arm. At that contact, he shivered all the way to the ankles.
“Tell me what it is necessary to do,” he murmured.
“It is necessary to search for the man who ought to know Aoura. Consult the will of your sister; name the best of your warriors to her, in order that she should choose. For your other actions, events will guide you. It is not good that a man should know in advance all that he must do. Fortune too soon predicted becomes insipid, and in any case, a king such as Thutmose, when the will of the gods is not too strong, can even vanquish fate itself.”
Those last words pleased the king violently. His hand pressed more tenderly on the round arm of the slave.
“Very well!” he said. “Aoura will designate her husband, and you will pay the ransom!”
He had seized her; their breasts touched; the king’s desire was entirely detached from Aoura. Understanding that it was necessary to wait, however, in order to give the full price to the ransom, and also—she proudly insisted—in order that Thutmose should retain a finer memory, she said in a low voice: “Go now, king of kings. Give me two days to submit. Thus you will please the gods…”
She interrupted herself, with a faint smile, and added, in an even lower voice: “And you will also please your servant more...”
He hesitated, palpitating with lust, but Gaila’s profound eyes, with an infinite softness, dissolved his will. He also sensed, confusedly, that he would have a strange pleasure himself in obeying and waiting. He yielded.
“Have Aoura summoned,” he said.
VI
It was the day of Osiris. Setne was inspecting troops in the camp of Thebes, but he was scarcely putting any ardor into it. He had not seen Gaila again for three days. He had searched for her in vain throughout the city, and returned in vain ten times to the house of the old women where she had lived while he was at war in Asia.
A papyrus, brought by a man of the people the days before, had predicted a great happiness for him. At first he had been certain that the message came from Gaila, and then he had began to doubt. And he lived uncertain and miserable in the dread of having lost his slave, despairing of the future, no longer believing in Aoura’s amour. Even the favor of Thutmose seemed precarious to him. The king remained enclosed in his palace, neglecting his war chiefs. Setne believed that he divined the cause of that; every time he thought about it, he felt full of a disgust for life.
The sun reached the highest point of the sky. The city and the camp were asleep; only Setne was walking among the barracks, tracked by anxiety. He came to his old phalanx. It was camped almost in the same spot where, in the spring of the preceding year, he had encountered young Prince Amenhotep. His heart beat faster with astonishment and emotion.
Immense periods seemed to have gone by, so prodigious had life been. Everything that the slave had predicted in Ankhi’s gardens and the little house in Thebes had been realized. The favor of the formidable king had descended upon the obscure chief, the vast army of Thebes recognized, after that of Thutmose, the authority of Setne, son of Raneferka.
Like a brilliant painting on the wall of a temple, the Tanite saw once again the desert of Nomi, the land of the dragons, the night of the tigers, the strange People of the Waters and the extraordinary queen who had trembled against his breast. Was it possible? Had those things really happened to the man who, such a short time before, had been exercising two hundred men in the camp of Thebes?
He had a great quiver of pride and strength, and he braved destiny. He could die; he had undertaken a career as vast as if he had lived for a hundred years. And while he contemplated Thebes, motionless in the dazzling light, the sacred Nile, the land of Egypt flourishing in the concluding flood, and the sleeping phalanx with which his glory had commenced, the faces of Aoura and the nomad rose up, so clearly that he made a gesture of seizing them.
His soul weakened. It wanted ardently still to savor the joy of living, it was roaring with lust and amour. The past joy rendered the dread of the future more frightful. He uttered a hoarse sigh, and turned his gaze toward the pale palace that rose up between two temples, in a forest of columns, over a lake of trees and flowers. His entire being convulsed with desire and fear.
An agile troop passed over the plain. Setne recognized the nomad auxiliaries. He had recruited them himself, at the hazard of skirmishes, and had obtained that Intar would be their chief. The sight of them made him shiver. Marching toward then, he made them stop with a sign. Intar advanced toward the Tanite, laughing; his violent eyes, his white pointed teeth and his face the color of old leather—the entire being that hatred or sadness rendered sinister—was now illuminated by joy.
“Are you happy, Intar?” the Egyptian asked.
“You have made me happy,” the nomad relied, ardently.
His gaze wandered over the troop, then, with an ecstatic tenderness, over a veiled palanquin carried by six eunuchs. A curtain lifted. Setne saw a milky face, coppery hair, and the bright eyes of the Persian woman who had been captured in the gorge of the Hennar with the Ninevite caravan.
“For the gift that you have made me of that woman,” Intar murmured, “I will be your slave eternally.”
When the nomads departed again, Setne felt his heart even heavier. The sun was declining; the shadows of the tents and barracks began to extend over the plain. A slight breeze rippled the Nile. Already, the army was waking up.
Then, from the northern pylon of Thebes, three heralds of Thutmose appeared, clad in red, preceded by a fanfare. They advanced slowly. Their arrival announced a grave event; the military chiefs got up as they approached, attentively. For a long time they remained silent, and then the trumpets fell silent. The oldest cried, in a voice that could be heard two thousand cubits away: “King Thutmose, king of kings, summons his servant Setne!”
Setne advanced, full of anxiety, uncertain whether he was to receive a new favor of whether Thutmose, having discovered Aoura’s secret, wanted to exile a rival. He followed the heralds without saying anything, impatient with their slowness, but it was necessary not to think of making them walk any faster.
They reached the palace; the king was in the enameled hall that had served, since Ahmose for judging powerful chiefs and monarchs, or for decreeing great recompenses.
Thutmose was seated on a cedar chair encrusted with ivory and silver. Queen Hatsheput was sitting beside him. They were alone; only a few servants could be seen prostrate at their feet, faces to the ground.
“Approach, my servant,” said the king. “Today is the day of Osiris. You promised me to ask me a great favor. What shall I give to the conqueror of the Euphrates?”
In spite of his anxiety, those words transported Setne, for he adored his master. Tremulously, he said: “You have heaped me with favors, King of Thebes. I have searched in vain for another that I might desire. No one is as able as you to recompense his servants.”
Thutmose smiled. He believed in the Tanite’s sincerity.
“What can we do for Setne?” he asked, turning to the queen.
Hatshetput fixed her bovine eyes on the chief and said, in her heavy voice: “What would you prefer, chief of great courage: all the taxes of the nome of Tanis, for your entire life, or to mingle your race with that of your kings?”
He went very pale, and trembled on his legs. His thought escaped him, vertiginously. For a minute, he was unable to respond.
“You’re hesitating?” said Hatsheput.
“Oh no!” he cried, impetuously. “I’m not hesitating. What are all the tributes of all the people of the earth compared with a union with the race of Ahmose, Thutmose and Hatsheput? But your words fill me with astonishment and dread!”
Then Thutmose, leaning his ivory staff on the young man’s shoulder, said: “Go and seek the consent of Aoura. Afterwards, we shall fix the day of your union...”
A slave conducted Setne. He reached the raised terrace that preceded the princess’s apartments. There he felt a kind of weakness. Prodigious as his good fortune appeared to him, everything seemed pale compared with this supreme victory. Undoubtedly, he had audaciously coveted the daughter of kings, he had trusted in Gaila’s prediction and his fortune to be accomplished in accordance with his wish, but in the depths of that prodigious adventure, everything had seemed shadows, dreams, moving and delicious visions, not realities, whereas now he was marching toward Aoura as his phalanges had to encounter the Ninevites.
He took a few paces more. A door opened of its own accord; he saw the young princess, in the midst of her maidservants. She was clad in the same garment of gold and hyacinth as on the day of Thutmose’s arrival. Her breasts stood forth as proudly as if they were naked; her small white feet reposed on a carpet of acacia flowers; her legs were scintillatingly clad, tapering, round, delicate and quivering on the saffron wool of her chair.
She got up as Setne approached.
“The king has sent me, holy princess…to ask you whether you will consent to unite yourself with your servant.”
She was slightly troubled. A charming languor appeared in her beautiful eyes; she dispersed her slaves with a gesture.
“It is the will of the gods…,” she said, in a low voice.
They were very close to one another, Setne half-prostrate before her. He straightened up when she had spoken.
Their bodies touched; an equal intoxication hastened their respiration.
Setne felt on his mouth the sacred and magnificent mouth of the daughter of kings.
VII
The king of Egypt remained Gaila’s lover for six months. She was Thutmose’s only veritable amour, the only one of whom he retained a delicious memory through his life of a great conqueror. Neither the jealousy of Hatsheput, who was discontented with the perseverance of that liaison, nor the revolts in Syria, could separate him at first from the daughter of the Gulf. She was faithful to him. She paid loyally for the marriage of Aoura and the vengeance against the despoilers of the Bene-Asher.
The heart of Setne bled because of the absence of the woman who had been his slave. He could not destroy his love for her; he hid in Thutmose’s gardens in order to see her pass by; Aoura’s caresses could not charm his pain.
In the sixth month, however, the imminent war occupied Thutmose. The nomad took advantage of it. She made him know the future. He knew that the gods ordered their separation. As that prediction coincided with others that the famous scribes had made to him, he believed in it. Nevertheless, he resisted. A hot ember of passion persisted in his heart. Moreover, he experienced for Gaila an attachment more durable than amour. She inspired a superior confidence in him, and her prophesies seemed to him the most valid of all.
One day, he said to her: “I want to obey the gods, Gaila, but they have not ordered me to forget you, nor to neglect your science…and how will I be able to consult you if you depart?”
“I can live with your sister Aoura, my Lord. She desires that; I would be happy with her.”
“It will be as you request. You shall have riches at your desire. I have also prepared the vengeance against your enemies. The best of my chiefs will retake the pastures of your ancestors from the men of Daour.”
He looked at her tenderly. Like a country one is abandoning after long days of joy, he saw her in all her beauty, and was profoundly saddened. But he never went back on his word. She had already raised an insurmountable mountain between them.
He said then: “Daughter of the Gulf, Thutmose does not forget! I have known very sweet pleasures through you, which I will regret for a long time. In any case, my shadow will extend over you to protect you, and I want you to retain, for as long as you live, a little of my power. You will possess the land of Sikeren, two thousand oxen, a thousand donkeys, five thousand sheep, five hundred slaves and authority over the ten towns that depend on that land.”
The next day, Setne received the order to mobilize ten thousand men. First he was to retake the patrimony of the Bene-Asher, and then dissipate the coalitions of nomad tribes that had formed to the east of the Red Gulf, while Thutmose would march against the Syrians.
In four days, the Tanite had finished his preparations. Aoura had obtained permission to accompany her husband; Gaila brought her infant brother, in order to have him recognized by the tribe of his fathers.
The expedition’s march was rapid. Setne had agile troops under his orders, hardened to marching, among whom were Intar’s nomads and the troops that had followed him to the land of the Men of the Waters. Gaila’s presence rejoiced his heart, but, as if still enveloped by the amour of Thutmose, she inspired a kind of dread in him. She seemed renewed. The caresses of the king of Thebes had effaced the memory of all the violences suffered by the slave, and even her union with Setne, so that he spoke to her as if she were, like Aoura, the daughter of a royal race.
One evening, when they were no more than eight days from the pastures of Daour, the fires of the camp were reddening the plain and the hill, and the desert extended its profound frissons, its asphodels, its harsh grass, its rare islets of date palms and cacti and its prodigious lakes of stars, Aoura said to her husband: “Why are you hiding yourself from me?”
He was mute with shock. She smiled, gentle and mocking.
“I penetrated your heart a long time ago. I know who it is for whom you agitate by night on your couch, and on whom your gaze is fixed during the marches, with so much trouble and chagrin. I don’t experience any astonishment in consequence. Her beauty has already troubled my soul; even my brother Thutmose, who had laughed at amour, was unable to escape her. There is no woman who is comparable to her.”
“Oh yes!” cried Setne, vehemently. “The one who reposes by night against my bosom cannot be surpassed by any other: I would die if she were to be taken away from me!”
They were the words she desired to hear. She replied: “I believe in your love, Setne, but I would be surer of keeping it forever if Gaila remained with us...”
They fell silent. Setne, moved by gratitude, kissed Aoura’s little foot. Nothing could he beard but the cries of the sentinels calling to one another at intervals, the yapping of jackals and, occasionally, the thunderous clamor of a lion.
The hills were well-guarded; the Egyptian phalanges sheltered from any surprise. And the chief, indifferent to the nomads that were prowling around his army, was only anxious about the obscure tent where the woman he had possessed as a slave, and perhaps would never possess again, was asleep.
That was because she seemed, in fact, to have forgotten the old days. She did not flee Setne, but she greeted him with a strange gravity, and as she never quit her young brother, Eloh, any intimate conversation became impossible. Heaped by Thutmose with slaves and wealth, she marched in the midst of troops like a queen. And she lived as naturally in command as she once had in slavery. Her attitude, without her being severe, dominated the servants, the soldiers, and the chiefs. Even Setne was submissive to that elegant and strong majesty, which excited his passion to the point of delirium.
One morning when she had come to see Aoura, he waited on her route. Eloh was not with her. Only two slaves accompanied her. Then he approached her and said, in an imploring voice: “Have you forgotten me, Gaila?”
She looked at him seriously. “I have not forgotten anything. Have I not accomplished all that I announced to you?”
“Yes,” he said, with a tremor of his entire body, “you have accomplished more than I dared to wish. But you have withdrawn from me, Gaila, and you know that I love you.”
“I belonged to the King of Thebes.”
“You’re free now...”
“I will not be free until the vengeance is accomplished and Eloh is recognized by the chiefs of the Bene-Asher.”
Every day, Intar and his nomads brought back Bene-Asher dispersed in small groups in the solitudes. Since the conquest of their pastures by the warriors of Daour, they had wandered, poor and starving, in the plains where grass in sparse and in marshy lands. Fallen, they scarcely lived, on the milk of their thin cattle, the paltry plants that grow in the desert, hunting wild beasts, and booty captured from their enemies when they could surprise them in small numbers.
They retained the memory of their beautiful pastures bitterly; stubborn in faith, like all those of their race, they were awaiting the hour of vengeance. So, Intar found them credulous to the great news that he had announced to them secretly. They arrived among the Egyptians clad only in rough hides—for they had no longer woven wool or flax for some time—with large black horns on their heads, emaciated to the point that Thutmose’s soldiers, hardened to all miseries, were disgusted by them. They prostrated themselves before Gaila, swore obedience to Eloh, son of Rub, in whom they recognized not only the descendant of great chiefs but also the elect of prophecies, for whom the phalanges of the terrible King of Thebes were marching.
Meanwhile, Setne divided up his troops. Intar, with a thousand nomads, supported by twelve hundred light infantrymen, headed southwards by roundabout routes; they were to bar the way to fugitives. Eight phalanges veered to the south-east in echelons. Setne intended to lead the attack from the north himself. For several days the Daourites had been agitated. They knew that an Egyptian army was advancing toward their pastures, but, especially because of the size of the contingents, they could not believe that it had been raised against them. Even when they learned that a large number of the Bene-Asher had joined the arriving forces, they did not conceive any great anxiety, for the idea never occurred to them that King Thutmose would want to avenge a paltry tribe dispersed in the desert.
When Setne was no more than half a day’s march away, however, the rumor went around that he was bringing back Gaila, daughter of Rub, with her brother Eloh. Nevertheless, no one was certain of that, for Setne and Intar had sown contradictory stories among their own soldiers, and the Bene-Asher, alerted, did not betray the secret.
The Daourites sent messengers. They offered their alliance, and they came to ask the Egyptian chief whether he intended to pass through their lands. Setne did not want to receive them.
The nomads realized that it was war. Assembling their tents and flocks in haste, they commenced the exodus. Setne had hastened the march of his light troops. They reached the rearguard of the enemy, encumbered by cattle, cats and sheep. The rearguard prepared for battle, in order to protect the flight of the bulk of the army. The terrain was favorable to them, marshy and strewn with brushwood.
Sheltered, the Daourites seemed redoubtable. A frontal assault by the old Theban phalanges might have succeeded, at the price of immense sacrifices. Setne contented himself with a violent skirmish of archers and sling-wielders. In the meantime, the bulk of his forces moved up stealthily, some distance away, behind the dunes.
The nomads, defending themselves doggedly against what they believed to be the principal attack, did not perceive them at first. When they understood, the flanking movement was pronounced. Egyptian lances and bucklers glittered to their right. At the same time. Setne launched a new frontal assault.
Abruptly, the Bedouins decided to retreat, inasmuch as their center and their advance guard, with the women and children, ought to be safe. But they were unable to withdraw in order; many were obstinate in wanting to save the livestock; they were seen driving oxen and sheep. Their cries, mingled with the bellowing, disrupted them spontaneously. The long Theban trumpets sounded the charge. The phalanges closed up like immense pincers.
Only two or three hundred Daourites escaped. The rest fought energetically at first, but could not hold firm against the forests of lances. The indecisive lines collapsed; the bravest persisted vainly in hurling themselves against the wall of bucklers bristling with iron. Then, sensing their weakness, they threw away their weapons and begged the victors for mercy. One of their chiefs cried: “What have we done, men of Egypt? We live in peace with King Thutmose and we would not have refused to pay him tribute...”
But the others, their expressions bleak, were not astonished. They had never known anything but the war of tribes falling upon one another unexpectedly and snatching land and flocks at hazard. Vanquished, they no longer hoped for life.
Setne was having the weapons collected and the captives penned when great rumors and clouds of dust rose up. It was the Daourites’ center and advance guard returning; to the south, they had been driven back by Intar’s warriors; to the west they had encountered phalanges placed in echelons. Their rout was complete. They were fleeing in panic, seeking an issue among the brushwood and the dunes, careless of the fate of the women and children.
Very few broke the line of investment; it was sufficient for Setne to launch his reserves to terminate the battle. Almost the entire tribe was captive. In that quivering mass, parked between the marshes and the hills, the plaints of the wounded mingled with the shrill cries of women and children. Sometimes, moved by a sudden revolt or a vertigo of terror, a man launched himself against the guards; lances and swords nailed him to the ground. But almost all the warriors awaited destiny without a movement or a word.
Setne occupied himself with gathering the chiefs. He found nearly sixty of them, who were to appear before Gaila and Eloh. An hour before dusk, they were taken to a pasture where the Bene-Asher were assembled. Gaila and her brother were standing on a high platform hung with violent cloths. The vanquished chiefs understood their fate. Only one prostrated himself to beg for mercy. The others stamped their feet scornfully. The daughter of Rub had the oldest brought forward, and spoke to him in a soft voice.
“Do you remember, chiefs of the Daour? Ten years have passed since the night when you surprised our people. For ten generations our forefathers nourished their flocks on these plains. But you came; the night was not finished and our chiefs were dead. Five hundred warriors lay on the ground, my father perished by fire after his entrails had been spread, and my mother had succumbed to your outrages. Now, it is said: Vengeance is holy; death will pay for death; torture will be the price of torture. Chiefs of the Daour, it will be done to you as you have done to ours; you will perish in the furnace, your warriors will be sold in the slave markets, your wives, after being raped, will be subjected to the same fate. Let anyone among you who believes that is not just raise his voice.”
The chiefs did not protest in the name of justice. They too knew that vengeance is holy. But they proffered threats. A giant whose eyes were blazing like carbuncles in the light of a torch cried: “Our race is not dead. Those who have escaped will roam the desert in their turn, until strength returns to them. The tree of the Daourites will be verdant again. Our sons will multiply like the fish of the Gulf. We will take back our pastures again. Your chiefs will be roasted in the furnace, your women raped, your warriors sold in the markets of cities!”
“It will be thus!” cried the others.
Gaila listened to them without anger. Now that she held them at her feet, her hatred had disappeared; she admired their courage.
“Bene-Asher,” she said. “Do to these men as they did to yours.”
With a roar of joy, the ragged multitude of the Bene-Asher fell upon the Daourite chiefs. It seemed that the massacre was about to commence. By means of their insults, the vanquished tried to summon a rapid death. But a strange order succeeded the initial fury. The convulsed faces resumed an apparent impassiveness, the clamors died down; of so many armed hands raised to strike, not one fell. The torture was organized.
Like good workmen, taciturn and laborious, men lit fires around the Daourites, while others built pyres on the plain. After sunset, those great sinister fires illuminated the slow and measured torture of the chiefs. They eyelids or their lips were cut off, or their teeth were broken, one by one, with a hammer. Sometimes their fingernails were torn out or their nipples burned. One eye was punctured, while their wives and daughters were raped in front of them. Only toward the middle of the night did they begin to perish. The entrails were withdrawn from some, but slowly, in order that they would not perish prematurely; others had their feet roasted first and firebrands were drawn over their bellies. Some were sprinkled with boiling water. Two old men, buried up to the neck on a mound that the fires rendered ardent, screamed like onagers.
Gaila had withdrawn. Her pious work was completed; the dead were no longer crying out for vengeance. As she was no longer taking pleasure in the suffering or the cries of agony she had had her tent and Eloh’s moved to behind the dunes, where the earth was silent.
The night was pure; the star of Isis had an extraordinary glare. It was blue, it seemed to be leaping, paling the little constellations around it. Gaila lingered there, considering it. That was the star chosen by Setne, and its brightness, on that evening of triumph, troubled the nomad. She sighed. Now that everything was done in accordance with her will, she felt a violent desire for happiness, which filled her with dread.
Her guards lit large fires. At times, the star of Isis became imprecise in the smoke or was confounded with the rapid edge of a flame. The breeze, curt and abrupt, stimulated or suppressed the red gleams. It brought the rumors of the camp and the field of tortures, but attenuated and murmurous.
Gaila sensed, confusedly, that for her, the time had come to live. Her gaze, surpassing the zone of the fires, strove to catch sight of Setne; for she knew that he would come. Every evening, after having checked the vigilance of the sentinels, he passed close to the nomad’s tent.
Finally, she perceived him. He advanced slowly, before his attentive escort. A dip in the terrain hid him, and then he reappeared between two fires, as visible as in broad daylight. He saw Gaila standing in front of her tent, and dread paled his face. She made him a sign to advance.
“Are you satisfied with your vengeance, Gaila?” he asked.
“Yes,” she replied, “you have done as I desired in capturing the chiefs. The blood of my people is no longer crying out to the heavens. And my last servitude is over. From this evening only, I am free.
And it seemed that she had changed again. The slave and the king’s concubine had disappeared. Something soft and indomitable shone in her splendid face, as if Gaila had never quit that naïve soil, and she was a new young woman, awaiting the caresses of a man. Then Setne realized that she was the foremost among all women; he prostrated himself before her.
“Do you remember,” he said, “that I loved you when you were a slave, and that your liberty never depended on anyone but yourself?”
“I remember. Then, again, I was not your slave any more than I was Ankhi’s or the others. I could have run away; I could have rejoined my vanquished tribe. Then vengeance would have escaped me. Only Egypt could give it to me, and the evening when you chose me, I read in your face that we ought to unite our stars. And see, we are victorious.”
“Gaila,” he said, in a low voice, “ought they not remain united?”
“They ought never to cease to be.”
He seized the nomad’s hand and tried to draw her toward him.
Gaila pushed him away gently. “But it is not indispensable that my body be given to you, Setne...”
“Is it forbidden?” he murmured, in a hoarse voice. “Gaila, my star cannot shine without you. If I have known you only to lose you, victory becomes odious and fortune miserable. You are destroying your work.”
“Let me look at your star,” she said, maliciously.
The breeze languishing, the flames of the pyres rose straight and bright. The star of Isis vibrated higher and brighter.
“Come,” said the nomad.
They found themselves in the shadow of the tent.
Then a small flexible hand seized Setne’s hand; he felt cool and amorous lips against his mouth; and in the profound tremor of his being, he knew that it was the supreme moment of his happiness.