“Are you not afraid?” asked Asti, looking at her curiously.  “He is the greatest of all the gods, and to summon him lightly is a sacrilege.”

“Should a daughter fear her father?” answered Tua.

“When the divine Queen your mother and Pharaoh knelt before him in his shrine, praying that a child might be given to them, Amen did not deign to appear to them, save afterwards in a dream.  Will you dare more than they?  Lie down and dream, O Star of the Morning.”

“Nay, I trust no dreams which change like summer clouds and pass as soon,” answered the girl boldly.  “If the god is my father, in the spirit or the flesh, I know not which, let him appear before me face to face.  I ask his wisdom for myself and his favour for another.  Call him, if you have the power, Asti.  Call him even if he slay me.  Better that I should die than——­”

“Hush!” said Asti, laying her hand upon her lips, “speak not that name.  Well, I have some skill, and for your sake—­and another’s—­I will try, but not here.  Perchance he may listen, perchance not, or, perchance, if he comes you and I must pay the price.  Put on your robes, now, O Queen, and over them this veil, and follow me—­if you dare.”

Along narrow passages they crept and down many a secret-stair, till at length they came to a door at the foot of a long slope of rock.  This door Asti unlocked and thrust open, then when they had entered, re-locked it behind them.

“What is this place?” whispered Tua.

“The burial crypt of the high priestesses of Amen, where it is said that the god watches.  None have entered it for hard on thirty years.  See here in the dust run the footsteps of those who bore the last priestess to her rest.”

She held up her lamp, and by the light of it Tua saw that they were in a great cave painted with figures of the gods which had on either side of it recesses.  In each of these was set a coffin with a gilded face, and behind it an alabaster statue of her who lay therein, and in front of it a table of offerings.  At the head of the crypt stood a small altar of black stone, for the rest the place was empty.

Asti led Tua to a step in front of the altar and bidding her kneel, departed with the lamp which she hid away in some side chapel, so that now the darkness was intense.  Presently, through the utter silence, Tua heard her creep back towards her, for although she walked so softly the dust seemed to cry beneath her feet, and her every footstep echoed round the vaulted walls.  Moreover, a glow came from her, the glow of her life in that place of death.  She passed Tua and knelt by the altar and the echo of her movements died away.  Only it seemed to Tua that from each of the tombs to the right and to the left rose the Ka of her who was buried there, and drew near to watch and listen.  She could not see them, she could not hear them, yet she knew that they were there and was able to count their number—­thirty and two in all—­while within herself rose a picture of them, each differing from the other, but all white, expectant, solemn.