making thee ready for the battle. Fear not for thyself, thou art
protected from all ill. No harm may touch thee from without; thyself
alone can be thine own enemy. I have said."

Then I went forth with a full heart. The night was very still, and none
were stirring in the temple courts. I hurried through them, and reached
the entrance to the pylon that is at the outer gate. Then, seeking
solitude, and, as it were, to draw near to heaven, I climbed the pylon's
two hundred steps, until at length I reached the massive roof. Here I
leaned my breast against the parapet, and looked forth. As I looked,
the red edge of the full moon floated up over the Arabian hills, and
her rays fell upon the pylon where I stood and the temple walls beyond,
lighting the visages of the carven Gods. Then the cold light struck the
stretch of well-tilled lands, now whitening to the harvest, and as the
heavenly lamp of Isis passed up to the sky, her rays crept slowly down
to the valley, where Sihor, father of the land of Khem, rolls on toward
the sea.

Now the bright beams kissed the water that smiled an answer back, and
now mountain and valley, river, temple, town, and plain were flooded
with white light, for Mother Isis was arisen, and threw her gleaming
robe across the bosom of the earth. It was beautiful, with the beauty
of a dream, and solemn as the hour after death. Mightily, indeed, the
temples towered up against the face of night. Never had they seemed so
grand to me as in that hour--those eternal shrines, before whose walls
Time himself shall wither. And it was to be mine to rule this moonlit
land; mine to preserve those sacred shrines, and cherish the honour of
their Gods; mine to cast out the Ptolemy and free Egypt from the foreign
yoke! In my veins ran the blood of those great Kings who await the
day of Resurrection, sleeping in the tombs of the valley of Thebes.