"No my friend, I will not let you go, and you would not go yourself—you are fond of me... Bear up a little longer, the time is getting short—I shall soon go myself," he whispered in his ear.
"Go where? Where?" Ramose asked with prophetic terror.
"Don't speak, don't ask, you will soon know everything!" the king answered and got up, showing that the Council was over.
VIII
Leaving the Council Chamber, they went to the Beggars' Court. Telling the courtiers to go on, the king lagged behind so as to remain alone with Dio. Passing through a number of rooms they came into a small hothouse garden where incense trees brought from the far-away Punt, the land of the gods, grew in pots of earthenware, like huge heather plants fine as cobweb, dropping amber rosin tears in the warm sunshine.
The king sank down on a bench and sat for some minutes in silence without moving. He seemed to have forgotten Dio's presence, but suddenly he looked at her and said:
"Shame! Shame! Shame! You have looked enough at my shame, go away!"
Dio knelt down before him.