About one o'clock in the morning, Mahu galloped up from the city to the royal gardens of Maru Aton, bringing nine war chariots, and gave orders to place the best detachments of the palace guards so as to defend Maru Aton from a double attack of Tuta's army and rebels from the city.
"Where is the king?" Mahu asked, running into the ground floor hall of the palace.
"He is asleep," Pentu, the physician, answered, glancing at Mahu in alarm: he looked terribly upset and his head was bandaged: he had evidently been wounded.
"Go and wake him," Mahu said.
"Wake a sick man in the middle of the night?"
"Make haste and go!"
"But what has happened?"
"Rebellion in the town. The king must be saved."
Both ran up to the first storey where the king lay asleep on a humble bed in a small panelled room that had belonged to the princess's nurse, Asa.
They called Dio and sent her to the king. Screening the flame of the lamp with her palm, she went on tiptoe into the king's room and stopped to look at him from a distance. He slept so sweetly that it seemed a pity to wake him. But recalling Mahu's words 'life is dearer than sleep,' she went up to the sleeper and, bending down, kissed him on the head.