"Nay," I answered; "how should I believe such tales? Surely she is mad.
All the people know her for mad."

Now for the first time he looked towards me, who was standing in the
shadow.

"My son! my son!" he cried; "thou art wrong. She is not mad. The woman
spoke the truth; she spoke not of herself, but of the voice within her
that cannot lie. For this Atoua is a prophetess and holy. Now learn thou
the destiny that the Gods of Egypt have given to thee to fulfil, and woe
be unto thee if by any weakness thou dost fail therein! Listen: thou art
no stranger adopted into my house and the worship of the Temple; thou
art my very son, saved to me by this same woman. But, Harmachis, thou
art more than this, for in thee and me alone yet flows the Imperial
blood of Egypt. Thou and I alone of men alive are descended, without
break or flaw, from that Pharaoh Nekt-nebf whom Ochus the Persian drove
from Egypt. The Persian came and the Persian went, and after the Persian
came the Macedonian, and now for nigh upon three hundred years the
Lagidæ have usurped the double crown, defiling the land of Khem and
corrupting the worship of its Gods. And mark thou this: but now, two
weeks since, Ptolemy Neus Dionysus, Ptolemy Aulêtes the Piper, who would
have slain thee, is dead; and but now hath the Eunuch Pothinus, that
very eunuch who came hither, years ago, to cut thee off, set at naught
the will of his master, the dead Aulêtes, and placed the boy Ptolemy
upon the throne. And therefore his sister Cleopatra, that fierce and
beautiful girl, has fled into Syria; and there, if I err not, she will
gather her armies and make war upon her brother Ptolemy: for by her
father's will she was left joint-sovereign with him. And, meanwhile,
mark thou this, my son: the Roman eagle hangs on high, waiting with