After a while, the mother of the dead child returned from the market-place, and when she found what had been done, she and her husband would have killed Atoua the old wife, her mother, and given me up to the soldiers of Pharaoh.  But my father came in also and learned the truth, and he caused the man and his wife to be seized by night and hidden away in the dark places of the temple, so that none saw them more.

But I would to-day that it had been the will of the Gods that I had been slain of the soldiers and not the innocent child.

Thereafter it was given out that the High Priest Amenemhat had taken me to be as a son to him in the place of that Harmachis who was slain of Pharaoh.

CHAPTER II

Of the disobedience of Harmachis; of the slaying of the lion; and of the speech of the old wife, Atoua

And after these things Ptolemy the Piper troubled us no more, nor did he again send his soldiers to seek for him of whom it was prophesied that he should be Pharaoh.  For the head of the child, my foster-brother, was brought to him by the eunuch as he sat in his palace of marble at Alexandria, flushed with Cyprian wine, and played upon the flute before his women.  And at his bidding the eunuch lifted up the head by the hair for him to look on.  Then he laughed and smote it on the cheek with his sandal, bidding one of the girls crown Pharaoh with flowers.  And he bowed the knee, and mocked the head of the innocent child.  But the girl, who was sharp of tongue—­for all of this I heard in after years—­said to him that “he did well to bow the knee, for this child was indeed Pharaoh, the greatest of Pharaohs, and his name was the Osiris and his throne was Death.”

Auletes was much troubled at these words, and trembled, for, being a wicked man, he greatly feared entering into Amenti.  So he caused the girl to be slain because of the evil omen of her saying; crying that he would send her to worship that Pharaoh whom she had named.  And the other women he sent away, and played no more upon the flute till he was once again drunk on the morrow.  But the Alexandrians made a song on the matter, which is still sung about the streets.  And this is the beginning of it—­

     Ptolemy the Piper played
     Over dead and dying;
     Piped and played he well. 
     Sure that flute of his was made
     Of the dank reed sighing
     O’er the streams of Hell. 
     There beneath the shadows grey,
     With the sisters three,
     Shall he pipe for many a day. 
     May the Frog his butler be! 
     And his wine the water of that countrie—­
     Ptolemy the Piper!

After this the years passed on, nor did I, being very little, know anything of the great things that came to pass in Egypt; nor is it my purpose to set them out here.  For I, Harmachis, having little time left to me, will only speak of those things with which I have been concerned.