The music ever increased in volume and, as if to add contrast to the grace and beauty of the peerless dancer, a hideous naked pigmy, beating a tiny onoga-skin drum, leaped out upon the floor beside her, and grotesquely imitated her every move and gesture.
Thus, to a chorus of wild staccato yells from Tutīya and the excited time-beaters, Nōfert-āri, her form seeming to undulate in fierce spasmodic waves from breast to hip, with arms thrown high above her head, fingers clenched and eyes fast closed, sank slowly to the stucco floor.
Presently, as she rose, still trembling, and while the echoes of that clamorous applause still reverberated amid the flaring lotus-capitals, a royal usher hurried to her side, and in the name of Pharaoh, presented her with a blue fayence goblet of lotiform design. Inlaid in green, white and red about the foot was an inscription revealing her euphonious and happily—chosen name, Nōfert-āri, “She who is made of beauty.”
Following the dance, Pharaoh had retired within himself. He had assumed an air of studied abstraction and aloofness.
Yet, Dedu remarked signs of nervousness in the twitching of the jaw. Dedu had been born in the palace, in the self-same year as his exalted master. Dedu might well have been called, as indeed at times he was, his master’s “double,” his other self.
In Pharaoh’s slightly twitching hands and in the covert glances which from time to time he directed toward the haughty leader of the Hittites, Dedu spelled expectancy and, withal, a nameless fear.
Then it was the Hittite, not Enana the Magician, his royal master feared! Dedu knew there had been much speculation as to the true meaning of Belur’s sudden and quite unexpected visit to the Egyptian capital.
So far, oriental courtesy—coupled with the Egyptian’s inherent regard for the rights of hospitality—had forbidden any outward evidences of impatience on the part of Pharaoh or his august Mother.
And Pharaoh did well to distrust the wily Hittite. With the pause that had followed the withdrawal of Nōfert-āri and her assistants, the Asiatic prince rose to his feet, slowly lifting his jeweled hand to command attention. His keen glance swept the heads of the swaying crowd which craned its neck the better to see him and to hear his words.