Page:Strange Tales Volume 02 Number 03 (1932-10).djvu/23

whom I had met half an hour before.

"The Princess Amen-Ra," he said, watching me as I stared at the painting, "is of a very old dynasty of Egyptian kings, concerning whose date there is still some dispute. It is certain that she antedated Moses and the Children of Israel by several hundred years. Would you like to hear her story, Jim?

"AFTER her brother’s death," he went on, without waiting for my answer, "she ruled the kingdom. She lived and died unmarried. These others"—he pointed to the four other caskets—"are the priests and councilors who were associated with her.

"Her reign is legendary, but it is called the Golden Age of Egypt. During her life the Nile always gave up its proper quota of fertilizing waters, the land remained at peace. Everywhere was prosperity. She was worshiped as divine.

"Only one thing troubled the priesthood. It was considered necessary that she should marry. The question was, who was fit to mate with her? A foreign spouse was unthinkable, for Amen-Ra was believed to descend from the god Osiris,

"There was a young nobleman of Thebes named Menes, who had fallen in love with the princess, and his love was reciprocated. He was too powerful to be condemned or banished, yet the astrologers had predicted that such a marriage would bring down the anger of the gods upon the realm. So the priests conspired to put the young nobleman to death, together with the princess' councilors, for the sake of Egypt.

"On the night of the nuptial ceremony the conspirators broke into the palace and murdered Menes and the chief councilors who had assented to the marriage, yet not until one of the latter, by his magic arts, had caused the Nile to flood the land, and an earthquake that shook down the palace walls. The princess took her own life by poison, in despair. There seems to have been a peasant uprising, too, which completed the disaster. All this is described in that papyrus."

Neil pointed to the glass-covered scroll which stood immediately behind the casket.

"The body of Menes was never discovered," he continued. "But those who survived the disaster dug out those of the princess and her councilors, and these were carefully embalmed, without removing the brain or viscera, which was not done until a later period in Egyptian history. They were buried in the Temple of Set, and unearthed by our expedition.

"ACCORDING to the Egyptian belief, after a period of some three thousand years the Ba would return to reanimate these bodies, when the princess and her advisors would rearise from the tomb to rule the land again and restore it to its ancient glories."

"The Ba was the soul?" I asked.

"The Ba was the soul, as distinct from the Ka, the double, or astral body. There was also the winged Ish, the spirit that dwelled in the abode of the gods. But as for Menes, it is believed that his body was reduced to ashes. You see, the lovers had sworn eternal fealty, by the god Horus, a pledge that neither life nor death should separate them. And the priests were horribly afraid that Menes would return to claim his bride after three thousand years, when Egypt’s ancient glories would return.

"Over the sarcophagus was inscribed a curse against anyone who should ever tamper with the