“Did you note anything?” she asked.
“Aye, Lady,” he answered. “Men try to enter by the gates, but find them closed. The old slave reported to me that they were coming and has fled to hide himself. Now go up to the top of the little pylon above this door and tell me if you can see aught.”
Kemmah went, climbing a narrow stair in the dark, and presently found herself on the roof of the pylon some thirty feet above the ground, where in times of trouble a watchman was stationed. Round it ran a battlement with openings through which arrows could be shot or spears thrown. The moon shone brightly, flooding the palace gardens and the great city beyond them with silver light, but the Nile she could not see because of the roofs behind her, though she heard the distant murmur of those who kept festival upon its waters, from which they would not return until the sun had risen.
Presently in the shadow of one of the great gateways she saw a group of men standing and, as it seemed to her, taking counsel together. They moved out of the shadow and she counted them. They were eight in all, armed every one of them, for the light shone upon their spears. They came to some decision, for they began to walk across the open court towards the private door of the royal apartments. Kemmah ran down the stairs and told Ru what she had seen.
“Now were I standing on that roof perhaps I might put a javelin into one or more of these night birds before they come to the doors,” he said.
“Nay,” answered Kemmah. “They may be messengers of peace, or soldiers who will guard the Queen. Wait to smite till they show themselves otherwise.”
He nodded and said:
“Yonder door is old and not of the strongest. It can soon be battered in and then perhaps there will be fighting—one man against eight, Lady Kemmah. What if aught should happen to me, Lady Kemmah? Is there any other way by which the Queen and the royal babe may escape?”
“Nay, for the doors into the great hall where the Council was held are barred; I have tried them. There is no way save by leaping from the palace wall at the back, and a babe’s bones are tender. Therefore, Ru, nothing must happen to you. Pray the gods to give you strength and cunning.”
“Of the first I have plenty, of the second I fear but little. Still I will do my best and may Osiris be good to him on whom my axe falls.”