She followed him. A cordon of sentries guarded the approach to the gates of Amon's temple. The centurion recognised Dio: he had seen her at the Viceroy's white house; he let them both through and told the soldiers to give her Pentaur's body.
He was lying where he had been killed—by the threshold of the western gates. Their gold with the hieroglyphics of dark bronze—two words 'Great Spirit'—dimly glittered in the moonlight.
Dio knelt down, and looking into the dead man's face, kissed him on the lips. Their cold penetrated down to her very heart.
"It is my doing—His doing," she thought and the word 'He' had a double meaning for her: he—the king, and He—the Son.
IX
Dio was watching the fire beyond the River from the flat roof of Khnum's house. Charuk Palace was burning—the residence of the Viceroy Tutankhaton.
Built of very old dry cedar and cypress wood, it burned hotly and steadily like a resin torch. The bare crags of the Lybian Mountains above it glowed as though red hot; the flames were reflected in the river as a pillar of fire and white smoke coiled in clouds of moonlight blue and fiery crimson.
Khnum's servants were standing by Dio's side on the roof. All the faces wore the look of that unaccountable joy which people always feel at the sight of a fire at night.