with fire, and I awoke and lo! darkness was all about me, nothing but
darkness, and at my side I heard you sleeping."

Now when Pharaoh had listened to this dream, he kissed the queen and
blessed her because of its good omen, and clapped his hands to summon
the women of honour who slept without. They ran in bearing lights, and
by the lights he saw that beneath the throat of the Queen upon her fair
skin, appeared a red mark, and the shape of it was the shape of the Sign
of Life; yes, there was the loop, and beneath the loop the cross.

Then Pharaoh commanded that the chief of his scribes should come to him
with papyrus and writing tools, and that the high-priest of Amen
should be brought swiftly from the temple. So the scribe came to the
bed-chamber of the King, and in the presence of the high-priest all
the words of Amen were written down, not one of them was omitted, and
Pharaoh and the Queen signed the roll, and the high-priest witnessed
it and, copies having been made, bore it away to hide it in the secret
treasury of Amen. But the mark of the Cross of Life remained upon the
breast of the Queen Ahura till the day that she died.



Now in the morning Pharaoh summoned his Court and commanded that the
Prince Abi should be brought before him. So the Prince came and Pharaoh
addressed him kindly.

"Son of my father," he said, "I have considered your request that I
should take you to rule with me on the throne of Egypt, and name you and
your sons to be Pharaohs after me, and it is refused. Know that it has
been revealed to me and to the royal wife, Ahura, by the greatest of the