Tachot understood the look and said, evidently speaking with great
difficulty: "You think I am wandering, mother. No, indeed, I really saw
and spoke to him. He gave me my sistrum again, and said he was my
friend, and then he took my lotus-bud and vanished. Don't look so
distressed and surprised, mother. What I say is really true; it is no
dream.--There, you hear, Tentrut saw him too. He must have come to Sais
for my sake, and so the child-oracle in the temple-court did not deceive
me, after all. And now I don't feel anything more of my illness; I
dreamt I was lying in a field of blooming poppies, as red as the blood of
the young lambs that are offered in sacrifice; Bartja was sitting by my
side, and Nitetis was kneeling close to us and playing wonderful songs on
a Nabla made of ivory. And there was such a lovely sound in the air
that I felt as if Horus, the beautiful god of morning, spring, and the
resurrection, was kissing me. Yes, mother, I tell you he is coming soon,
and when I am well, then--then--ah, mother what is this? . . . I am
dying!"

Ladice knelt down by her child's bed and pressed her lips in burning
kisses on the girl's eyes as they grew dim in death.

An hour later she was standing by another bedside--her dying husband's.

Severe suffering had disfigured the king's features, the cold
perspiration was standing on his forehead, and his hands grasped the
golden lions on the arms of the deep-seated invalid chair in which he was
resting, almost convulsively.

When Ladice came in he opened his eyes; they were as keen and intelligent
as if he had never lost his sight.