Not yet, O Nitocris, is the murderous crime of thy death-bridal forgotten.

The souls of those who died by thy hand in the banqueting chamber of Pepi still call for vengeance out of the glooms of Amenti.

The thirst of hate and the hunger of love are still unslaked and unsatisfied.

I, Phadrig, the poor trader, who was once Anemen-Ha, hate thee still, and the Russian warrior-prince, who was once Menkau-Ra, shall love thee yet again with a love as fierce as that of old, and so, if the High Gods permit, between love and hate shalt thou pass to the doom that thou hast earned." He paused in his walk and stood staring blankly out of the grimy little window with eyes which seemed to see through and beyond the smoke-blackened walls of the wretched houses opposite, and away through the mists of Time to where a vast city of temples and palaces lay under a cloudless sky beside a mighty slow-flowing river, and his lips began to move again as those of a man speaking in a dream: "O Memphis, gem of the Ancient Land and home of a hundred kings, how is thy grandeur humbled and thy glory departed! Thy streets and broad places which once rang with the tramp of mighty hosts and echoed with the songs of jubilant multitudes welcoming them home from victory are buried under the drifting desert sands; in the ruins of thy holy temples the statues of the gods lie prone in the dust, and the owl rears her brood on thy crumbling altars, and hoots to the moon where once rose the solemn chant of priests and the sweet hymns of the Sacred Virgins; the jackal barks where once the mightiest monarchs of earth gave judgment and received tribute; thy tombs are desecrated, and the mummies of kings and queens and holy men have been ravished from them to adorn the unconsecrated halls of the museums of ignorant infidels; the heel of the heathen oppressor has stamped the fair flower of thy beauty into the deep dust of defilement.

Alas, what great evil have the sons and daughters of Khem wrought that the High Gods should have visited them with so sore a judgment! How long shall thy bright wings lie folded and idle, O Necheb, Bringer of Victory ?" A deep sigh came from his heaving breast as he turned away and began his walk again.