So in the end they went down and not up the Nile, tarrying for a while
at every great city, and especially at Atbu, the holy place where the
head of Osiris is buried, and tens of thousands of the great men of
Egypt have their tombs. Here Tua was crowned afresh in the very shrine
of Osiris amidst the rejoicings of the people.

Then they sailed away to On, the City of the Sun, and thence to make
offerings at the Great Pyramids which were built by some of the early
kings who had ruled Egypt, to serve them as their tombs.

Neter-Tua entered the Pyramids to look upon the bodies of these Pharaohs
who had been dead for thousands of years, and whose deeds were all
forgotten, though her father would not accompany her there because the
ways were so steep that he did not dare to tread them. Afterwards, with
Asti and a small guard of the Arab chiefs of the desert, she mounted a
dromedary and rode round them in the moonlight, hoping that she would
meet the ghosts of those kings, and that they would talk with her as the
ghost of her mother had done. But she saw no ghosts, nor would Asti try
to summon them from their sleep, although Tua prayed her to do so.

"Leave them alone," said Asti, as they paused in the shadow of the
greatest of the pyramids and stared at its shining face engraved from
base to summit with many a mystic writing.

"Leave them alone lest they should be angry as Amen was, and tell your
Majesty things which you do not wish to hear. Contemplate their mighty
works, such as no monarch can build to-day, and suffer them to rest
therein undisturbed by weaker folk."