Then I heard the priests saying,

“Pharaoh the Osiris greets Pharaoh the living on the Earth and sends to him this message—­’As I am, so shalt thou be, and where I am, there thou shalt dwell through all the ages of Eternity.’”

Then Pharaoh the living rose and bowed to Pharaoh the dead and Pharaoh the dead was taken away back to his Eternal House and I wondered whether his Ka or his spirit, or whatever is the part of him that lives on, were watching us and remembering the feasts whereof he had partaken in his pomp in this pillared hall, as his forefathers had done before him for hundreds or thousands of years.

Not until the mummy had gone and the last sound of the chanting of the priests had died, did the hearts of the feasters grow light again.  But soon they forgot, as men alive always forget death and those whom Time has devoured, for the wine was good and strong and the eyes of the women were bright and victory had crowned our spears, and for a while Egypt was once more free.

So it went on till Pharaoh rose and departed, the great gold earrings in his ears jingling as he walked, and the trumpets sounding before and after him.  I too rose to go with my mother when a messenger came and bade me wait upon Pharaoh, and with me the dwarf Bes.  So we went, leaving an officer to conduct my mother to our home.  As I passed her she caught me by the sleeve and whispered in my ear,

“My son, whatever chances to you, be brave and remember that the world holds more than women.”

“Yes,” I answered, “it holds death and God, or they hold it,” though what put the words into my mind I do not know, since I did not understand and had no time to ask her meaning.

The messenger led us to the door of Peroa’s private chamber, the same in which I had seen him on my return from the East.  Here he bade me enter, and Bes to wait without.  I went in and found two men and a woman in the chamber, all standing very silent.  The men were Pharaoh who still wore his glorious robe and Double Crown, and the high priest of Isis clothed in white; the other was the lady Amada also clothed in the snowy robes of Isis.

At the sight of her thus arrayed my heart stopped and I stood silent because I could not speak.  She too stood silent and I saw that beneath her thin veil her beautiful face was set and pale as that of an alabaster statue.  Indeed she might have been not a lovely living woman, but the goddess Isis herself whose symbols she bore about her.

“Shabaka,” said Pharaoh at length, “the Royal Lady of Egypt, Amada, priestess of Isis, has somewhat to say to you.”

“Let the Royal Lady of Egypt speak on to her servant and affianced husband,” I answered.

“Count Shabaka, General of the armies,” she began in a cold clear voice like to that of one who repeats a lesson, “learn that you are no more my affianced husband and that I who am gathered again to Isis the divine, am no more your affianced wife.”