down before me.  O Amen, they deny thee in their hearts who worship other gods, as did the barbarians who begat them and threw down thy shrines in Egypt, but I know that thou sentest me forth, and in thee I put my trust, aye, even if thou slay me.  Amen my Father, yonder sinks that glory in which thou dost hide thy spirit.  Now, ere it be gone and night falls upon the world, declare thyself in such fashion that all men may know that indeed I am thy child; or if this be thy decree, desert me and Egypt, and leave me to my shame.”

She ended her prayer and, sinking back upon the throne, rested her chin upon her hand, and gazed steadily upon the splendour of the sinking sun.  Nor did she gaze alone, for every man in that vast hall turned himself about, and stared at its departing glory.  There in the red light they stood, and stared, and since the place was open to the sky, the shadows of the two towering obelisks without fell on them like the shadows of swords whereof the points met together at the foot of Tua’s throne.  They did not believe that anything would happen, no, not even the priests believed it who here at Memphis, the city of Ptah, thought little of Amen, the god of Thebes.  They thought that this piteous prayer was but a last cry of dying faith wrung from a proud and fallen woman in her wretchedness.

And yet, and yet they stared, for she had spoken with a strange certainty like one who knew the god, and was she not named Star of Amen, and were there not wondrous tales as to her birth, and had not a lotus-bloom seemed to turn to gold and jewels in the hand of this young, anointed Queen who bore the Cross of Life upon her breast?  No, nothing would happen, but still they stared.

It was a very strange sunset.  For days the heat had been great, but now it was fearful, also a marvellous stillness reigned in heaven and earth.  Nothing seemed to stir in all the city, no dog barked, no child cried, no leaf quivered upon the tall palms; it might have been a city of the dead.

Dense clouds arose upon the sky, and moved, though no wind blew.  Where the sun’s rays touched them they were gold and red and purple, but above these of an inky blackness.  They took strange shapes those clouds, and marshalled themselves like a host gathering for battle.  There were the commanders moving quickly to and fro; there the chariots, and there the sullen lines of footmen with their gleaming spears.  Now one cloud higher than the rest seemed to shoot itself across the arch of heaven, and its fashion was that of a woman with outspread hair of gold.  Her feet stood upon the sun, her body bent itself athwart the sky, and upon the far horizon in the east her hands held the pale globe of the rising moon.

The watchers were frightened at this cloud.  “It is Isis with the moon in her arms,” said one.  “Nay, it is the mother goddess Nout brooding upon the world,” answered another.  And though they only spoke softly, in that awful silence their voices reached Tua on the throne, and for the first time her face changed, for on it came a cold, curious smile.