Come now and do
homage to your Queen, and after you those slaves of yours who dared to
lift the sword against her."
Then a great tumult arose, a tumult of rage and of dismay, for well nigh
all in that vast place were partners in this crime, and knew that if
Neter-Tua prevailed death yawned wide for them.
They shouted to Abi to take no heed of her. They shouted to him to tear
her from the throne, to kill her, and seize the crown. They drew their
swords and raged like an angry sea. Those who were loyal among them to
Pharaoh's House, and those who feared turmoil, began to work their way
backwards, and slipped by twos and threes out of the great open doors,
till Tua had no friend left in all that hall. But ever as they went,
others of the turbulent and the rebellious who had been concerned in the
slaughter of Pharaoh's guard, took their place, pouring in from the mob
without.
Wild desert-dwellers of the Bedouin tribes, who for thousands of years
had been the bitter enemies of Egypt; descendants of the Hyksos, whose
forefathers had ruled the land for a dozen generations, and at last been
driven out; those Hyksos whose blood ran in Abi's veins, and who looked
to him to lift them up again; evil-doers who had sought shelter in his
regiments; hook-nosed Semites from the Lebanon; black, barbarian savages
from the shores of Punt--with such as these was that hall filled.
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