side. As I had hoped, another gateway, also of marble tracery, led into this part of the temple, and to my delight I found that this gateway was opened sufficiently to allow me to slip inside, which I did.
I found myself, however, not in the temple itself, but in a kind of chamber or passage, I did not know which, for it was very dark. Some five feet from the ground a narrow opening, scarce the width of an arm, in the granite wall, showed beyond it the brilliantly-lighted sanctuary. At first, in looking through this aperture, I could scarcely see, for the dazzling brightness of the innumerable hanging lamps, and the thick fumes of burning herbs, shut everything out from my view. But gradually, as my anxious gaze travelled round, I saw Ur-tasen and Maat-kha not ten feet away from me to my left; but the gossamer curtain hung between the sanctuary and them, and I could only vaguely distinguish their forms. Beyond them I could see nothing but gloom; the dim shadow, which I had fancied to be Princess Neit-akrit, had apparently disappeared, if indeed it had ever been there, and the high priest and the Queen evidently thought themselves alone.
"He often used to evade his attendants at night-time," Maat-kha was saying, apparently in answer to a query from the priest, "and wander about aimlessly in the gardens or the palace. I had come into the temple to pray, bidding my women go and leave me in peace for an hour, when suddenly I saw the Pharaoh before me."
"I know the rest, for I saw and heard all," replied the high priest, quietly.
"And thou didst not move a finger to save him from death, and thy Queen from a crime ten thousand times worse than any torment?" she exclaimed with a smothered shriek.
