“My mirror!” she called to a maid servant, who squatted in a corner of the tent.  She held the metal mirror so as to conceal her face from the captain of the watch, put the little flask to her lips and emptied it at one mouthful.  The mirror fell from her hand, she staggered, a deadly convulsion seized her—­the officer rushed forward, and while she fixed her dying look upon him she said: 

“My game is lost, but Ameni—­tell Ameni that he will not win either.”

She fell forward, murmured Nefert’s name, struggled convulsively and was dead.

When the draught of happiness which the Gods prepare for some few men, seems to flow clearest and purest, Fate rarely fails to infuse into it some drop of bitterness.  And yet we should not therefore disdain it, for it is that very drop of bitterness which warns us to drink of the joys of life thankfully, and in moderation.

The perfect happiness of Mena and Nefert was troubled by the fearful death of Katuti, but both felt as if they now for the first time knew the full strength of their love for each other.  Mena had to make up to his wife for the loss of mother and brother, and Nefert to restore to her husband much that he had been robbed of by her relatives, and they felt that they had met again not merely for pleasure but to be to each other a support and a consolation.

Rameses quitted the scene of the fire full of gratitude to the Gods who had shown such grace to him and his.  He ordered numberless steers to be sacrificed, and thanksgiving festivals to be held throughout the land; but he was cut to the heart by the betrayal to which he had fallen a victim.  He longed—­as he always did in moments when the balance of his mind had been disturbed—­for an hour of solitude, and retired to the tent which had been hastily erected for him.  He could not bear to enter the splendid pavilion which had been Ani’s; it seemed to him infested with the leprosy of falsehood and treason.

For an hour he remained alone, and weighed the worst he had suffered at the hands of men against that which was good and cheering, and he found that the good far outweighed the evil.  He vividly realized the magnitude of his debt of gratitude, not to the Immortals only, but also to his earthly friends, as he recalled every moment of this morning’s experience.

“Gratitude,” he said to himself, “was impressed on you by your mother; you yourself have taught your children to be grateful.  Piety is gratitude to the Gods, and he only is really generous who does not forget the gratitude he owes to men.”

He had thrown off all bitterness of feeling when he sent for Bent-Anat and Pentaur to be brought to his tent.  He made his daughter relate at full length how the poet had won her love, and though he frequently interrupted her with blame as well as praise, his heart was full of fatherly joy when he laid his darling’s hand in that of the poet.