Not till the steward timidly touched her did she collect her senses like one suddenly roused from deep sleep.
"What are you doing in my tent ?" she asked the officer, drawing herself up haughtily.
"In the name of the chief judge of Thebes," said the captain of the watch solemnly.

"I arrest you, and hail you before the high court of justice, to defend yourself against the grave and capital charges of high treason, attempted regicide, and incendiarism." "I am ready," said the widow, and a scornful smile curled her lips.

Then with her usual dignity she pointed to a seat and said: "Be seated while I dress." The officer bowed, but remained standing at the door of the tent while she arranged her black hair, set her diadem on her brow, opened her little ointment chest, and took from it a small phial of the rapid poison strychnine, which some months before she had procured through Nemu from the old witch Hekt.
"My mirror!" she called to a maid servant, who squatted in a corner of the tent.

She held the metal mirror so as to conceal her face from the captain of the watch, put the little flask to her lips and emptied it at one mouthful.

The mirror fell from her hand, she staggered, a deadly convulsion seized her--the officer rushed forward, and while she fixed her dying look upon him she said: "My game is lost, but Ameni--tell Ameni that he will not win either." She fell forward, murmured Nefert's name, struggled convulsively and was dead.
When the draught of happiness which the Gods prepare for some few men, seems to flow clearest and purest, Fate rarely fails to infuse into it some drop of bitterness.