“Ah! yes, yes!—­I did forget!  Well; and what is thy sin?  A woman was thy bane, as women have been to those before thee, and shall be to those after thee.  And what a woman! La! la! I saw her, a beauty such as never was—­an arrow pointed by the evil Gods for destruction!  And thou, a young man bred as a priest—­an ill training—­a very ill training!  ’Twas no fair match.  Who can wonder that she mastered thee?  Come, Harmachis; let me kiss thee!  It is not for a woman to be hard on a man because he loved our sex too much.  Why, that is but nature; and Nature knows her business, else she had made us otherwise.  But here is an evil case.  Knowest thou that this Macedonian Queen of thine hath seized the temple lands and revenues, and driven away the priests—­all, save the holy Amenemhat, who lies here, and whom she left, I know not why; ay, and caused the worship of the Gods to cease within these walls.  Well, he’s gone!—­he’s gone! and indeed he is better with Osiris, for his life was a sore burden to him.  And hark thou, Harmachis:  he hath not left thee empty-handed; for, so soon as the plot failed, he gathered all his wealth, and it is large, and hid it—­where, I can show thee—­and it is thine by right of descent.”

“Talk not to me of wealth, Atoua.  Where shall I go and how shall I hide my shame?”

“Ah! true, true; here mayst thou not abide, for if they found thee, surely they would put thee to the dreadful death—­ay, to the death by the waxen cloth.  Nay, I will hide thee, and, when the funeral rites of the holy Amenemhat have been performed, we will fly hence, and cover us from the eyes of men till these sorrows are forgotten. La! la! it is a sad world, and full of trouble as the Nile mud is full of beetles.  Come, Harmachis, come.”

CHAPTER III

OF THE LIFE OF HIM WHO WAS NAMED THE LEARNED OLYMPUS, IN THE TOMB OF THE HARPERS THAT IS BY TAPE; OF HIS COUNSEL TO CLEOPATRA; OF THE MESSAGE OF CHARMION; AND OF THE PASSING OF OLYMPUS DOWN TO ALEXANDRIA

These things then came to pass.  For eighty days I was hidden of the old wife, Atoua, while the body of the Prince, my father, was made ready for burial by those skilled in the arts of embalming.  And when at last all things were done in order, I crept from my hiding-place and made offerings to the spirit of my father, and placing lotus-flowers on his breast went thence sorrowing.  And on the following day, from where I lay hid, I saw the Priests of the Temple of Osiris and of the holy shrine of Isis come forth, and in slow procession bear his painted coffin to the sacred lake and lay it beneath the funeral tent in the consecrated boat.  I saw them celebrate the symbol of the trial of the dead, and name him above all men just, and then bear him thence to lay him by his wife, my mother, in the deep tomb that he had hewn in the rock near to the resting-place of the Holy Osiris, where, notwithstanding my sins, I, too, hope to sleep ere long.  And when all these things were done and the deep tomb sealed, the wealth of my father having been removed from the hidden treasury and placed in safety, I fled, disguised, with the old wife, Atoua, up the Nile till we came to Tape,[*] and here in this great city I lay a while, till a place could be found where I should hide myself.