“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.”
“I do not understand. Will it please you to be more plain?” I said faintly.
“I will be more plain, Count Shabaka, more plain than you have been with me. Since we speak together for the last time it is well that I should be plain. Hear me. When first you returned from the East, in yonder hall you told us of certain things that happened to you there. Then the dwarf your servant took up the tale. He said that he gave my name to the Great King. I was wroth as well I might be, but even when I prayed that he should be scourged, you did not deny that it was he who gave my name to the King, although Pharaoh yonder said that if you had spoken the name it would have been another matter.”
“I had no time,” I answered, “for just then the messengers came from Idernes and afterwards when I sought you you were gone.”