“There lie the stairs! that is serious!” said the king cooly; then he went back into his room, and looked out of a window to estimate the danger.  Bright flames were already bursting from the northern end of the palace, and gave the grey dawn the brightness of day; the southern wing or the pavilion was not yet on fire.  Mena observed the parapet from which Paaker had fallen to the ground, tested its strength, and found it firm enough to bear several persons.  He looked round, particularly at the wing not yet gained by the flames, and exclaimed in a loud voice: 

“The fire is intentional! it is done on purpose.  See there! a man is squatting down and pushing a brand into the woodwork.”

He leaped back into the room, which was now filling with smoke, snatched the king’s bow and quiver, which he himself had hung up at the bed-head, took careful aim, and with one cry the incendiary fell dead.

A few hours later the dwarf Nemu was found with the charioteer’s arrow through his heart.  After setting fire to Bent-Anat’s rooms, he had determined to lay a brand to the wing of the palace where, with the other princes, Uarda’s friend Rameri was sleeping.

Mena had again leaped out of window, and was estimating the height of the leap to the ground; the Pharaoh’s room was getting more and more filled with smoke, and flames began to break through the seams of the boards.  Outside the palace as well as within every one was waking up to terror and excitement.

“Fire! fire! an incendiary!  Help!  Save the king!” cried Kaschta, who rushed on, followed by a crowd of guards whom he had roused; Uarda had flown to call Bent-Anat, as she knew the way to her room.  The king had got on to the parapet outside the window with Mena, and was calling to the soldiers.

“Half of you get into the house, and first save the princess; the other half keep the fire from catching the south wing.  I will try to get there.”

But Nemu’s brand had been effectual, the flames flared up, and the soldiers strained every nerve to conquer them.  Their cries mingled with the crackling and snapping of the dry wood, and the roar of the flames, with the trumpet calls of the awakening troops, and the beating of drums.  The young princes appeared at a window; they had tied their clothes together to form a rope, and one by one escaped down it.

Rameses called to them with words of encouragement, but he himself was unable to take any means of escape, for though the parapet on which he stood was tolerably wide, and ran round the whole of the building, at about every six feet it was broken by spaces of about ten paces.  The fire was spreading and growing, and glowing sparks flew round him and his companion like chaff from the winnowing fan.

“Bring some straw and make a heap below!” shouted Rameses, above the roar of the conflagration.  “There is no escape but by a leap down.”

The flames rushed out of the windows of the king’s room; it was impossible to return to it, but neither the king nor Mena lost his self-possession.  When Mena saw the twelve princes descending to the ground, he shouted through his hands, using them as a speaking trumpet, and called to Rameri, who was about to slip down the rope they had contrived, the last of them all.