hink I am wandering, mother. No, indeed, I really saw and spoke to
him. He gave me my sistrum again, and said he was my friend, and then he
took my lotus-bud and vanished. Don't look so distressed and surprised,
mother. What I say is really true; it is no dream.--There, you hear,
Tentrut saw him too. He must have come to Sais for my sake, and so the
child-oracle in the temple-court did not deceive me, after all. And now I
don't feel anything more of my illness; I dreamt I was lying in a field
of blooming poppies, as red as the blood of the young lambs that are
offered in sacrifice; Bartja was sitting by my side, and Nitetis was
kneeling close to us and playing wonderful songs on a Nabla made of
ivory. And there was such a lovely sound in the air that I felt as if
Horus, the beautiful god of morning, spring, and the resurrection, was
kissing me. Yes, mother, I tell you he is coming soon, and when I am
well, then--then--ah, mother what is this? . . . I am dying!"

Ladice knelt down by her child's bed and pressed her lips in burning
kisses on the girl's eyes as they grew dim in death.

An hour later she was standing by another bedside--her dying husband's.

Severe suffering had disfigured the king's features, the cold
perspiration was standing on his forehead, and his hands grasped the
golden lions on the arms of the deep-seated invalid chair in which he was
resting, almost convulsively.

When Ladice came in he opened his eyes; they were as keen and intelligent
as if he had never lost his sight.

"Why do not you bring Tachot to me?" he asked in a dry voice.

"She is too ill, and suffers so much, that . . ."

"She is dead! Then it is well with her, for death is not punishment; it
is the end and aim of life,--the only end that we can attain without
effort, but through sufferings!--the gods alone know how great. Osiris
has taken her to himself, for she was innocent. And Nitetis is dead too.
Where is Nebenchari's letter?"

"Here is the place: 'She took her own life, and died calling down a heavy
curse on thee and thine. The poor, exiled, scorned and plundered oculist
Nebenchari in Babylon sends thee this intelligence to Egypt. It is as
true as his own hatred of thee.' Listen to these words, Psamtik, and
remember how on his dying bed thy father told thee that, for every drachm
of pleasure purchased on earth by wrong-doing, the dying bed will be
burdened by a talent's weight of remorse. Fearful misery is coming on
Egypt