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When it was pointed out to the Queen that, owing to the lack of dwelling-rooms, none which were fitting were left for her to occupy, she replied that this mattered nothing, since in the old pylon tower were two small chambers hollowed in the thickness of its walls, which were very pleasing to her, because of the prospect of the Nile and the wide flat lands and the distant Pyramids commanded from the lofty roof and window-places.
There near to the pylon gate we met a procession of her priests and priestesses advancing to offer the evening sacrifice of song and flowers, clad, all of them, in robes of purest white. It was a day of festival, so singers went with them. After the singers came a band of priestesses bearing flowers, in front of whom walked another priestess shaking a /sistrum/ that made a little tinkling music.
From the pylon summits shrill voices were heard calling people to prayer. A moment later, the pharaoh saw with astonishment flocks of silvery birds over the earth everywhere. They were flying up out of palaces, temples streets, workshops, Nile barges, country huts, even from the quarries.
As the last notes died away in the still air, again the murmur rose while the darkness gathered about the pylon, hiding her from the gaze of men. Hand in hand as they had come, the two deserted women descended the stair to their sleeping-place. "They dare not help us, Asti," said Tua, "let us lie down and die." "Nay, Queen," answered Asti, "let us turn to one that giveth help to the helpless.
The First Pylon or gigantic portal to the Temple of Ammon, which was dedicated to Ammon-Re, the King of the Gods, is three hundred and seventy-two feet wide, with walls sixteen feet thick and one hundred and forty-two feet high. The wonderful Hypostyle Hall, or Hall of Columns, is three hundred and thirty-eight feet long by one hundred and seventy feet broad."
"My father will communicate the answer to thee," replied Bent-Anat shortly and proudly. "Not to me," returned Ameni, "but to the Gods, in whose name I now command thee to quit this sanctuary, which is defiled by thy presence." Bent-Anat's whole form quivered. "I will go," she said with sullen dignity. She turned to recross the gateway of the Pylon.
But in my rough disguise and limping gait none knew me. At length, as the sun sank, I came near to the great outer pylon of the temple; and here I crouched down in the ruins of a house, not knowing why I had come or what I was about to do. Like a lost ox I had strayed from far, back to the fields of my birth, and for what?
AT that same hour to a minute, the priest, watching on the pylon of the temple of Ptah in Memphis, informed the high priests and nomarchs counseling in the hall, that the palace of the pharaoh was giving some signals. "It seems that his holiness will beg us for peace," said one of the nomarchs, smiling. "I doubt that!" answered Mefres.
The pharaoh stands above them all, as if he were standing on the highest pylon of the temple of Ptah, and sees not only Memphis, but the cities, Sochem, On, Cheran, Turra, Tetani, with their suburbs, and a portion of the western desert.
The other, wrapped in a dark cloak, beats the air with her hands, casting up her eyes as though to call the curse of Heaven upon her rival's head. And those women are she into whose sleeping ear the shadow had whispered, and the royal Egyptian who had kissed her lover beneath the pylon gate.
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