the price which she had promised for the gift of the divine child, the
price of her own life, and smiled upon Pharaoh her husband, and died
happily with a radiant face.

Now joy was turned to mourning, and during all the days of embalming
Egypt wept for Ahura until, at length, the time came when her body was
rowed across the Nile to the splendid tomb which she had made ready in
the Valley of the Queens, causing masons and artists to labour at it
without cease. For Ahura knew from the day of her vision that she was
doomed to die, and remembered that the tombs of the dead remain as the
live hands leave them, since few waste gold and toil upon the eternal
house of one who is dead.

So Ahura was buried with great pomp and all her jewels, and Pharaoh, who
mourned her truly, made splendid offerings in the chapel of her tomb,
and having laid in the mouth of it the funeral boat in which she was
borne across the Nile, he built it up for ever, and poured sand over the
rock, so that none should find its place until the Day of Awakening.

Meanwhile, the infant grew and flourished, and when it was six months
old, was taken to the college of the priestesses of Amen, there to be
reared and taught.



Now on the day of the birth of the Princess Neter-Tua, there happened
another birth with which our story has to do. The captain of the
guard of the temple of Amen was one Mermes, who had married his own
half-sister, Asti, the enchantress. As was well known, this Mermes was
by right and true descent the last of that house of Pharaohs which had