Tenes appeared among them. They shouted to him and he shouted back to them, but what they said I could not hear because of the howling of the wind.
Philo crept into the cabin and his face was very heavy.
“Holy one,” he said, “make ready to join Isis in the heavens. Fearing for his own life, that dog of a Sidonian king has consented to your sacrifice and I am come to die with you.”
“The goddess thanks you, O great-hearted man, and I, her servant, thank you also,” I said, smiling at him. “Yet have no fear, since my spirit tells me that neither I nor you shall die this night. Help me now and let us go forth and talk with these hissing snakes of Sidon.”
“But what will you say to them, Holy one?”
“The goddess will teach me what to say,” I answered, who in truth did not know what I should say. All I knew was that some spirit moved me to go forth and to talk with them.
So we went, I leaning upon Philo as it was hard to stand upon my feet, and came to the stump of the broken mast in the midst of the hollow ship, all the mob of the crew drawing back before me. Here with one arm I clung to the mast, and beckoned to them with the other in which I held the sistrum of our worship. They drew near, Tenes among them, his face covered by a cloak.
“Hearken!” I cried. “I learn that you would offer me, the Prophetess of Isis, as a sacrifice to your gods. Fools! Is not Isis greater than your gods? O Queen of Heaven! send a sign to show that thou art greater than these foreign gods!”
So I spoke and stared upward at the moon, for the wind had torn away my veil, and waited.
A great billow came and struck the forepart of the ship, burying it deep in green water. As she rose I saw two dark forms fly from her high-tossed prow and a voice cried,