“Now will your Majesty go to bed?” asked Asti when she had returned to her own apartments.

“By no means,” answered Tua, “I wear Pharaoh’s shoes and have much business left to do to-night.  Summon Mermes, your husband.”

So Mermes came and stood before her.  He was still what he had been in the old days when Tua played as an infant in his house, stern, noble-looking and of few words, but now his hair had grown white and his face was drawn with grief, both for the sake of Rames, whose hot blood had brought him into so much danger, and because Pharaoh, who was his friend, lay between life and death.

Tua looked at him and loved him more than ever, for now that he was troubled some new likeness to Rames appeared upon his face which she had never seen before.

“Take heart, noble Mermes,” she said gently, “they say that Pharaoh stays with us yet a while.”

“I thank Amen,” he answered, “for had he died, his blood would have been upon the hands of my House.”

“Not so, Mermes; it would have been upon the hands of the gods.  You spring from a royal line; say, what would you have thought of your son if after being struck by that fat Nubian, he had cowered at his feet and prayed for his life like any slave?”

Mermes flushed and smiled a little, then said: 

“The question is rather—–­What would you have thought, O Queen?”

“I?” answered Tua.  “Well, as a queen I should have praised him much, since then Egypt would have been spared great trouble, but as a woman and a friend I should never have spoken to him again.  Honour is more than life, Mermes.”

“Certainly honour is more than life,” replied Mermes, staring at the ceiling, perhaps to hide the look upon his face, “and for a little while Rames seems to be in the way of it.  But those who are set high have far to fall, O Queen, and—­forgive me—­he is my only child.  Now when Pharaoh recovers——­”

“Rames will be far away,” broke in Tua.  “Go, bring him here at once, and with him the Vizier and the chief scribe of the Council.  Take this ring, it will open all doors,” and she drew the signet from her finger and handed it to him.

“At this hour, your Majesty?” said Mermes in a doubtful voice.

“Have I not spoken,” she answered impatiently.  “When the welfare of Egypt is at stake I do not sleep.”

So Mermes bowed and went, and while he was gone Tua caused Asti to smooth her hair and change her robe and ornaments for others which, although she did not say so, she thought became her better.  Then she sat her down in a chair of state in her chamber of audience, and waited, while Asti stood beside her asking no questions, but wondering.

At length the doors were opened, and through them appeared Mermes and the Vizier and the chief of the scribes, both of them trying to hide their yawns, for they had been summoned from their beds who were not wont to do state business at such hours.  After them limped Rames, for his wound had grown stiff, who looked bewildered, but otherwise just as he had left the feast.