agitation, she came back from her criminal task.

Now she waited in vain for Nemu and Paaker.

Her steward, whom she sent on repeated messages of enquiry whether the
Regent had returned, constantly brought back a negative answer, and added
the information that he had found the body of old Hekt lying on the open
ground. The widow's heart sank with fear; she was full of dark
forebodings while she listened to the shouts of the people engaged in
putting out the fire, the roll of drums, and the trumpets of the soldiers
calling each other to the help of the king.

To these sounds now was added the dull crash of falling timbers and
walls.

A faint smile played upon her thin lips, and she thought to herself:
"There--that perhaps fell on the king, and my precious son-in-law, who
does not deserve such a fate--if we had not fallen into disgrace, and if
since the occurrences before Kadesh he did not cling to his indulgent
lord as a calf follows a cow."

She gathered fresh courage, and fancied she could hear the voice of
Ethiopian troops hailing the Regent as king--could see Ani decorated
with the crown of Upper and Lower Egypt, seated on Rameses' throne, and
herself by his side in rich though unpretending splendor. She pictured
herself with her son and daughter as enjoying Mena's estate, freed from
debt and increased by Ani's generosity, and then a new, intoxicating hope
came into her mind. Perhaps already at this moment her daughter was a
widow, and why should she not be so fortunate as to induce Ani to select
her child, the prettiest woman in Thebes, for his wife? Then she, the