Either I must have sent her to the quarries, or have had her beheaded before all the people--In the name of the Gods, what is that ?" They heard a loud cry in a man's voice, and at the same instant a noise as if some heavy mass had fallen to the ground from a great height.
Rameses and Mena hastened to the window, but started back, for they were met by a cloud of smoke.
"Call the watch!" cried the king.
"Go, you," exclaimed Mena to Ani.

"I will not leave the king again in danger." Ani fled away like an escaped prisoner, but he could not get far, for, before he could descend the stairs to the lower story, they fell in before his very eyes; Katuti, after she had set fire to the interior of the palace, had made them fall by one blow of a hammer.

Ani saw her robe as she herself fled, clenched his fist with rage as he shouted her name, and then, not knowing what he did, rushed headlong through the corridor into which the different royal apartments opened.
The fearful crash of the falling stairs brought the King and Mena also out of the sleeping-room.
"There lie the stairs! that is serious!" said the king cooly; then he went back into his room, and looked out of a window to estimate the danger.

Bright flames were already bursting from the northern end of the palace, and gave the grey dawn the brightness of day; the southern wing or the pavilion was not yet on fire.

Mena observed the parapet from which Paaker had fallen to the ground, tested its strength, and found it firm enough to bear several persons.