daughter, who was a sculptor, and shaped effigies of the holy Gods
in the tombs that are fashioned in the rock--telling the daughter, my
nurse, how great must be her care and love toward the child that
should one day be Pharaoh, and drive the Ptolemies from Egypt. But the
daughter, my nurse, was so filled with wonder at what she heard that she
could not keep the tale locked within her breast, and in the night she
awoke her husband, and, in her turn, whispered it to him, and thereby
compassed her own destruction, and the destruction of her child, my
foster-brother. For the man told his friend, and the friend was a spy of
Ptolemy's, and thus the tale came to Pharaoh's ears.

Now, Pharaoh was much troubled thereat, for though when he was full of
wine he would make a mock of the God of the Egyptians, and swear that
the Roman Senate was the only God to whom he bowed the knee, yet in his
heart he was terribly afraid, as I have learned from one who was his
physician. For when he was alone at night he would scream and cry aloud
to the great Serapis, who indeed is no true God, and to other Gods,
fearing lest he should be murdered and his soul handed over to the
tormentors. Also, when he felt his throne tremble under him, he would
send large presents to the temples, asking a message from the oracles,
and more especially from the oracle that is at Philæ. Therefore, when
it came to his ears that the wife of the High Priest of the great and
ancient Temple of Abouthis had been filled with the Spirit of Prophecy
before she died, and foretold that her son should be Pharaoh, he was
much afraid, and summoning some trusty guards--who, being Greeks, did
not fear to do sacrilege--he despatched them by boat up the Nile, with
orders to come to Abouthis and cut off the head of the child of the High
Priest and bring it to him in a basket.

But, as it chanced, the boat in which the guards came was of deep