Already two of them who were leaders in the great plot have died by their own hands, and another is mad, while the rest have become my secret but my bitter foes, because they love my Queen and think that I stand between her and them." "Is that all ?" asked Kaku again.
"No, not all, for my power is taken from me.

I who was great, after Pharaoh the greatest in all the land, now am but a slave.

From morning to night I must work at tasks I hate; I must build temples to Amen, I must dig canals, I must truckle to the common herd, and redress their grievances and remit their taxes.

More, I must chastise the Bedouin who have ever been my friends, and--next month undertake a war against that King of Khita, with whom I made a secret treaty, and whose daughter that I married has been sent back to him because I loved her." "And then ?" asked Kaku.
"Oh! then when the Khita have been destroyed and made subject to Egypt, then her Majesty purposes to return in state to Thebes 'to attend to the fashioning of my sepulchre' since, so she says, this is a matter that will not bear delay.

Indeed, already she makes drawings for it, horrible and mystic drawings that I cannot understand, and brings them to me to see.