“Witch, accursed witch!” shouted Pharaoh. “Take her, Tenes, and begone, though sooner would I nurture a viper in my bosom,” and rising from the board, he turned and fled away.
Again I laughed as I answered,
“I must go, but it seems that Pharaoh has gone first. Royal Amenartas, watch the good god, your father, for I think that he is too superstitious and that which men believe fulfils itself upon them.”
Then I went to Noot and spoke with him—few words for already the guards were advancing upon me.
“Fear nothing, Daughter,” he said, “you are safe.”
“I know that I am safe, Master, yet be ready to come to my aid when I call, as my spirit tells me that call I shall.”
He bent his head and the guards came up. As I went I glanced at the priest Kallikrates, who taking no note of me or of my fate, still stood staring at the royal Amenartas like a statue cut in stone, while she stared back at him.
CHAPTER VII
The Quelling of the Storm
They set me on board a great ship, on the prow of which were images of certain gods of the Phœnicians, called by the Greeks Pataeci, not unlike to that which the Egyptians worshipped by the name of Bes, before which images burned fire. There was a royal cabin in that ship which was given to me, and with it splendid robes and furnishings of gold for my table.
At dawn we cast off from the quay of the white-walled city while thousands of the worshippers of Isis who learned that I was being taken from them, stood upon the quay and wailed, crying that the Mouth-of-Isis was sent away to slavery and that where her “Mouth” went, there the goddess would follow, leaving vengeance to fall upon their heads. For that the head-priestess of Isis should be given into the hands of barbarians and their foreign gods was such a crime as had not been known in Egypt.