"That holy One was wed and bore a child, Amada, who avenged his
father, as I trust that we shall avenge Egypt. Therefore she looks
with a kind eye upon wives and mothers. Also you have not taken your
final vows and can be absolved."

"Yes," she said softly.

"Then, Amada, will you give yourself into my keeping?"

"I think so, Shabaka, though it has been in my mind for long, as you
know well, to give myself only to learning and the service of the
heavenly Lady. My heart calls me to you, it is true, day and night it
calls, how loudly I will not tell; yet I would not yield myself to
that alone. But Egypt calls me also, since I have been shown in a
dream while I watched in the sanctuary, that you are the only man who
can free her, and I think that this dream came from on high. Therefore
I will give myself, but not yet."

"Not yet," I said dismayed. "When?"

"When I have been absolved from my vows, which must be done on the
night of the next new moon, which is twenty-seven days from this.
Then, if nothing comes between us during those twenty-seven days, it
shall be announced that the Royal Lady of Egypt is to wed the noble
Shabaka."

"Twenty-seven days! In such times much may happen in them, Amada.
Still, except death, what can come between us?"

"I know of nothing, Shabaka, whose past is shadowless as the noon."