Harmachis, last of the true Pharaohs, is raised in secret to take back Egypt from the Macedonian woman on the throne - and is sent to kill her. Haggard went to South Africa at nineteen and helped raise the Union Jack over the Transvaal; he wrote this in 1889 with an Egyptologist checking every detail, and the priest's revenge is told from inside a religion the reader is asked to take entirely seriously.