Month by month men go up to look upon her deadly beauty, and month by month they are slain of her sorceries. She takes the husband from his marriage bed; she draws the lover from her who waits to be a bride; the slave flies to her from the household of his lord; the priests flock to her from the altars of the Gods--ay, the very priests of Isis flock forsworn from the altars of Isis. All look upon her witch- beauty, and to each she shows an altered loveliness, and to all she gives one guerdon--Death! Is it not so, women of Tanis?"
"Alas! alas! it is so, O Queen," answered the women as with one voice.
"Woes are fallen on you and Khem, my sisters, but on me most of all are woes fallen. My people have been slain, my land--the land I love-- has been laid waste with plagues; my child, the only one, is dead in the great death; hands have been laid on me, the Queen of Khem. Think on it, ye who are women! My slaves are fled, my armies have been swallowed in the sea; and last, O my sisters, my consort, my beloved lord, mighty Pharaoh, son of great Rameses Miamun, hath been taken from me! Look! look! ye who are wives, look on him who was your King and my most beloved lord. There he sits, and all my tears and all my prayers may not summon one single answering sigh from that stilled heart. The curse hath fallen on him also. He too hath been smitten silently with everlasting silence. Look! look! ye who are wives, and weep with me, ye who are left widowed."
Now the women looked, and a great groan went up from all that multitude, while Meriamun hid her face with the hollow of her hand.
Then again she spoke.
"I have besought the Gods, my sisters; I have dared to call down the majesty of the Gods, who speak through the lips of the dead, and I have learnt whence these woes come. And this I have won by my prayers, that ye who suffer as I suffer shall learn whence they come, not from my mortal lips, indeed, but from the lips of the dead that speak with the voice of the Gods."
Then, while the women trembled, she turned to the body of Pharaoh, which was set upon the knees of Osiris, and spoke to it.
"Dead Pharaoh! great Osirian, ruling in the Underworld, hearken to me now! Hearken to me now, thou Osiris, Lord of the West, first of the hosts of Death. Hearken to me, Osiris, and be manifest through the lips of him who was great on earth. Speak through his cold lips, speak with mortal accents, that these people may hear and understand. By the spirit that is in me, who am yet a dweller on the earth, I charge thee speak. Who is the source of the woes of Khem? Say, Lord of the dead, who are the living evermore?"
Now the flame on the altar died away, and dreadful silence fell upon the Temple, gloom fell upon the Shrine, and through the gloom the golden crown of Meriamun, and the cold statue of the Osiris, and the white face of dead Meneptah gleamed faint and ghost-like.
Then suddenly the flame of the altar flared as flares the summer lightning. It flared full on the face of the dead, and lo! the lips of the dead moved, and from them came the sound of mortal speech. They spake in awful accents, and thus they spoke:
"/She who was the curse of Ach?ans, she who was the doom of Ilios; she who sits in the Temple of Hathor, the Fate of man, who may not be harmed of Man, she calls down the wrath of the Gods on Khem. It is spoken!/"
The echo of the awful words died away in the silence. Then fear took hold of the multitude of women because of the words of the Dead, and some fell upon their faces, and some covered their eyes with their hands.
"Arise, my sisters!" cried the voice of Meriamun. "Ye have heard not from my lips, but from the lips of the dead. Arise, and let us forth to the Temple of the Hathor. Ye have heard who is the fountain of our woes; let us forth and seal it at its source for ever. Of men she may not be harmed who is the fate of men, from men we ask no help, for all men are her slaves, and for her beauty's sake all men forsake us. But we will play the part of men. Our women's milk shall freeze within our breasts, we will dip our tender hands in blood, ay, scourged by a thousand wrongs we will forget our gentleness, and tear this foul fairness from its home. We will burn the Hathor's Shrine with fire, her priests shall perish at the altar, and the beauty of the false Goddess shall melt like wax in the furnace of our hate. Say, will ye follow me, my sisters, and wreak our shames upon the Shameful One, our woes upon the Spring of Woe, our dead upon their murderess?"
She ceased, and then from every woman's throat within the great Temple there went up a cry of rage, fierce and shrill.
"We will, Meriamun, we will!" they screamed. "To the Hathor! Lead us to the Hathor's Shrine! Bring fire! Bring fire! Lead us to the Hathor's Shrine!"
