When she returns with him and
a certain Beggar, then I shall depart and you will die, both of you,
for such is the punishment decreed upon you. Until then, arise and do my
bidding."
CHAPTER XIV
THE BOAT OF RA
Tua, Star of Amen, opened her eyes. For some time already she had lain
as one lies between sleep and waking, and it seemed to her that she
heard the sound of dipping oars, and of water that rippled gently
against the sides of a ship. She thought to herself that she dreamed.
Doubtless she was in her bed in the palace at Thebes, and presently,
when it was light, her ladies would come to waken her.
In the palace at Thebes! Why, now she remembered that it was months
since she had seen that royal city, she who had travelled far since
then, and come at last to white-walled Memphis, where many terrible
things had befallen her. One by one they came into her mind; the snare,
Pharaoh's murder by magic, the battle, and the slaughter of her guards,
the starvation in the tower, with death on one hand, and the hateful Abi
on the other; the wondrous vision of that spirit who wore her face, and
said she was the guardian Ka given to her at birth, the words it spoke,
and her dread resolve; and last of all Asti and herself standing in
the lofty window niche, then a flame of fire before her face, and that
fearful downward rush.
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