spread over the entire crowd, till the clamour became deafening, till the hymns sounded like an ode of triumph, then he calmly dropped the curtain and, smiling, turned to Ur-tasen.
"Didst thou speak of power, oh, mighty priest of Ra?" he asked.
"Wouldst thou defy the might that made thee?" thundered the high priest, advancing threateningly towards Hugh and brandishing the massive wand over his head. "Beware, I tell thee, thou stranger in the land, lest the same hands which set thee above all the people of Kamt should hurl thee from that throne and send thee bruised and bleeding into the dark valley of death, a prey to the carrion of the wilderness from whence thou camest, followed by the maledictions of that same populace which is now ready to proclaim thee akin to the gods!"
The old man was still vigorous, and I had jumped forward, seriously fearing that the next instant the heavy gold wand would descend on Hugh's skull, with a strength which might have silenced this dispute for mastery for ever. Queen Maat-kha, too, had put out both her arms imploringly towards the high priest, who seemed to have lost all self-control; but it was evident that, with all his wisdom, the old gentleman knew nothing about the temperament of a son of prosy old England. Hugh looked down on him from his full altitude of six feet two inches and, with an impatient frown and a shrug of the shoulders, he quietly wrenched the massive wand of office from out Ur-tasen's nervous hands and, apparently without the slighest effort, bent it right across his knee till with a dull metallic sound the golden wand broke clean in half; then he threw the pieces on the marble floor at the astonished priest's feet and, smiling, shook the dust from off his hands.
"Thy age and thy weakness make thee sacred at my
