“I go to Ethiopia, my Mother, where it seems that Bes is a great man and can shelter me.”

“So we go to Ethiopia, do we?  Well, it is a long journey for an old woman, but I weary of Memphis where I have lived for so many years and doubtless the sands of the south make good burial grounds.”

“We!” I exclaimed. “We?”

“Surely, my Son, since in losing a wife you have again found a mother and until I die we part no more.”

When I heard this my eyes filled with tears.  My conscience smote me also because of late, and indeed for years past, I had thought so much of Amada and so little of my mother.  And now it was Amada who had cast me out, unjustly, without waiting to learn the truth, because at the worst I, who worshipped her, had saved myself from death in slow torment by speaking her name, while my mother, forgetting all, took me to her bosom again as she had done when I was a babe.  I knew not what to say, but remembering the pearls, I drew them out and placed them round my mother’s neck.

She looked at the wonderful things and smiled, then said,

“Such gems as these become white locks and withered breasts but ill.  Yet, my Son, I will keep them for you till you find a wife, if not Amada, then another.”

“If not Amada, I shall never find a wife,” I said bitterly, whereat she smiled.

Then she left me to make ready before she slept a while.

Work as we would noon had passed two hours, on the following day, before we were prepared to start, for there was much to do.  Thus the house must be placed in charge of friends and the means of travel collected.  Also a messenger came from Pharaoh praying me for his and Egypt’s sake to think again before I left them, and an answer sent that go I must, whither the holy Tanofir would know if at any time Pharaoh desired to learn.  In reply to this came another messenger who brought me parting gifts from Pharaoh, a chain of honour, a title of higher nobility, a commission as his envoy to whatever land I wandered, and so forth, which I must acknowledge.  Lastly as we were leaving the house to seek the boat which Bes had made ready on the Nile, there came yet another messenger at the sight of whom my heart leapt, for he was priest of Isis.

He bowed and handed me a roll.  I opened it with a trembling hand and read: 

 “From the Prophetess of Isis whose house is at Amada, aforetime
  Royal Lady of Egypt, to the Count Shabaka,

“I learn, O my Cousin, that you depart from Egypt and knowing the reason my heart is sore.  Believe me, my Cousin, I love you well, better than any who lives upon the earth, nor will that love ever change, since the goddess who holds my future in her hands, knows of what we are made and is not jealous of the past.  Therefore she will not be wroth at the earthly love of one who is gathered to her heavenly arms.  Her blessing and mine be on you and if we see each other no more face