As she said the words, of a sudden, as though at a given signal, all the
long lines of palm trees that grew in the rich gardens upon the river
banks were seen to bow themselves towards the east, as though they did
obeisance to the Queen upon her throne. Thrice they bowed thus, without
a wind, and then were straight and still once more. Next the clouds
rushed together as though a black pall had been drawn across the
heavens, only in the west the half-hidden globe of the sun shone on
through an opening in them, shone like a great and furious eye. By slow
degrees it sank, till nothing was left save a little rim of fire. All
the hall grew dark, and through the darkness Neter-Tua could be heard
calling on the name of Amen.

"Ra is dead!" shouted a voice. "Have done, Bastard, Ra is dead!"

"Aye," she answered in a cold triumphant cry, "but Amen lives. Behold
his sword, ye Traitors!"

As the words left her lips the heavens were cleft in twain by a fearful
flash of lightning, and in it the people saw that once again the
palm-trees bowed themselves, this time almost to the ground. Then with a
roar the winds were loosed, and beneath their feet the solid earth began
to heave as though a giant lifted it. Thrice it heaved like a heaving
wave, and the third time through the thick cover of the darkness there
rose a shriek of terror and of agony followed by the awful crash of
falling stones.

Now the whole sky seemed to melt in fire, and in that fierce light was
seen Tua, Star of Amen, seated on her throne, holding her sceptre to the
heavens, and laughing in triumphant merriment. Well might she laugh, for
the two great obelisks without the gate that the old Hyksos lion had set
up there to stand "to all eternity," had fallen across the low pylons
and the doors and crushed them. On to the heads of those who watched
beneath they had fallen, shattering in their fall and carrying death to
hundreds. Beneath the electrum cap of one of them that had been hurled
from it in its descent right into the circle of the priests, lay a
shapeless mass. It was that man who had mocked the Queen and turned
faint beneath her gaze.

Through the western ruin of the hall those who were left alive within
it fled out, a maddened mob, trampling each other to death by scores,
fighting furiously to escape the vengeance of Amen and his daughter.
Within the enclosure the priests lay prostrate on their faces, each
praying to his god for mercy. In front of the