aw that she was as she had been, a most
royal and lovely woman, but no more.

"What are you?" gasped Abi. "The goddess Sekhet in the flesh, or Isis,
Queen of Death, or but dead Tua's ghost sent here for vengeance?"

"All of them, or none of them, as you will, though, Man, it is true that
I am sent here for vengeance. Ask the Wizard yonder. He knows, and I
give him leave to say."

"_She is the Double of Amen's daughter_," moaned Kaku. "She is her Ka
set free to bring doom upon those who would have wronged her. She is
a ghost armed with the might of the gods, and all we who have sinned
against dead Pharaoh and her and her father Amen are given into her hand
to be tormented and brought to doom."

"Where, then, is Neter-Tua, who was Queen of Egypt?" gasped Abi, rolling
his great eyes. "Is she with Osiris?"

"I will tell you, Man," answered the royal Shape. "She is not dead--she
lives, and is gone to seek one she loves. When she returns with him and
a certain Beggar, then I shall depart and you will die, both of you,
for such is the punishment decreed upon you. Until then, arise and do my
bidding."

CHAPTER XIV

THE BOAT OF RA

Tua, Star of Amen, opened her eyes. For some time already she had lain
as one lies between sleep and waking, and it seemed to her that she
heard the sound of dipping oars, and of water that rippled gently
against the sides of a ship. She thought to herself that she dreamed.
Doubtless she was in her bed in the palace at Thebes, and presently,
when it was light, her ladies would come to waken her.

In the palace at Thebes! Why, now she remembered that it was months
since she had seen that royal city, she who had travelled far since
then, and come at last to white-walled Memphis, where many terrible
things had befallen her. One by one they came into her mind; the snare,
Pharaoh's murder by magic, the battle, and the slaughter of her guards,
the starvation in the tower, with death on one hand, and the hateful Abi
on the other; the wondrous vision of that spirit who wore her face, and
said she was the guardian Ka given to her at birth, the words it spoke,
and her dread resolve; and last of all Asti and herself standing in
the lofty window niche, then a flame of fire before her face, and that
fearful downward rush.

Oh! without a doubt it was over; she was dead, and these dreams and
memories were such as come to the dwellers in the Under-world. Only then
why did she hear the sound of lappin