him
above the crowd on a level with the young girl, had slowly fixed upon
her his dark glance. He had not turned his head, not a muscle of his
face had moved, and his features had remained as motionless as the
golden mask of a mummy, yet his eyes had turned between his painted
eyelids towards Tahoser, and a flash of desire had lighted up their
sombre discs, an effect as terrific as if the granite eyes of a divine
simulacrum, suddenly lighted up, were to express a human thought. He
had half raised one of his hands from the arm of his throne, a gesture
imperceptible to every one, but which one of the servants marching near
the litter noticed, and at once looked towards the daughter of
Petamounoph.

Meanwhile night had suddenly fallen, for there is no twilight in
Egypt,--night, or rather a blue day, treading close upon the yellow day.
In the azure of infinite transparency gleamed unnumbered stars, their
twinkling light reflected confusedly in the waters of the Nile, which
was stirred by the boats that brought back to the other shore the
population of Thebes; and the last cohorts of the army were still
tramping across the plain, like a gigantic serpent, when the barge
landed Tahoser at the gate of her palace.

IV

The Pharaoh reached his palace, situated a short distance from the
parade ground on the left bank of the Nile. In the bluish transparency
of the night the mighty edifice loomed more colossal still, and its huge
outlines stood out with terrifying and sombre vigour against the purple
background of the Libyan chain. The feeling of absolute power was
conveyed by that mighty, immovable mass, upon which eternity itself
could make no more impression than a drop of water on marble. A vast
court surrounded by thick walls, adorned at their summits with deeply
cut mouldings, lay in front of the palace. At the end of the court rose
two high columns with palm-leaf capitals, marking the entrance to a
second court. Behind these columns rose a giant pylon, consisting of two
huge masses enclosing a monumental gate, intended rather for colossi of
granite than for mere flesh and blood. Beyond these propylaea, and
filling the end of a third court, the palace proper appeared in its
formidable majesty. Two buildings projected squarely forward, like the
bastions of a fortress, exhibiting on their faces low _bassi-relievi_
of vast size, which represented, in the consecrated manner, the
victorious Pharaoh scourging his enemie