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 CHAPTER XIX

me of what has passed in Egypt since Ochus conquered and Nectanebes fled away. Does Ochus still live, Daughter? asked Noot after a pause during which both of us had sat staring at the ground.

Nay, Father, Ochus is dead and by my hand, or through it, and I told him all that story of the burning of the temple of Isis at my command and of the Persians who defiled it.

A great deed such as you alone could have planned, he muttered, but terrible, terrible!

Then your soul must bear its burden, Prophet, since it was your voice that we heard in the sanctuary, when in our extreme we prayed for guidance, and it told us to go forward. There are those with me who can bear witness that they heard your very voice, as I do.

Mayhap, Daughter. It is true that on a certain day not so many moons ago, I seemed to hear you calling to heaven in great trouble and danger, also that by direction which came I know not whence, I answered in my spirit that you must fulfil and fear not. What you were to fulfil I did not know, though it came to my mind that the business had something to do with the burning of a temple.

As it had indeed. Well, I fulfilled, as Ochus Artaxerxes and some hundreds of his Persian