Ram-tah, cheated of his place in history's pantheon,
should here at last come into his own; serene, beauteous, majestic,
looking every inch a king, where mere Pharaohs looked like--like the
coffee-stained, untidy fragments they were.
He left the place in a tolerant mood. He had weighed himself with the
other great dead of the world.
That night he sat again before this old king, staring until he lost
himself, staring as he had before stared into the depths of his shell.
The shell, when he had looked steadily at it for a long time, had always
seemed to put him in close touch with unknown forces. He had once tried
to explain this to his Aunt Clara, who understood nearly everything, but
his effort had been clumsy enough and had brought her no enlightenment.
"You look into it--and it makes you _feel_!" was all he had been able to
tell her.
But the shell was now discarded for the puissant person of Ram-tah. The
message was more pointed. He drew power from the old dead face that yet
seemed so living. He was himself a wise and good king. No longer could
he play the coward before trivial adversities. He would direct large
affairs; he would live big. Never again would he be afraid of death or
Breede or policemen or the mockery of his fellows--or women! He might
still avoid the latter, but not in terror; only in a dignified dread
lest they talk and spoil it all.
He would choose, in due time, a worthy consort, and a certain Crown
Prince would, in further due time, startle the world with his
left-handed pitching.
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