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Updated: May 24, 2025
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.
"Pardon, I beseech thee!" he answered, shrinking. "I say but those things that I am bid." "Well, I know it, Captain. Fear not; I come." So on that very day I departed, together with the aged Atoua. Ay, I went as secretly as I had come; and the tomb of the Divine Rameses knew me no more.
Now, as, riding across the fields, I came nigh to the enclosure of the Temple, the priests and people issued forth to bid me welcome, and with them the old wife, Atoua, who, but for a few added wrinkles that Time had cut upon her forehead, was just as she had been when she threw the sandal after me five long years before.
Thereon old Atoua crept forward from the shadow of the columns, and earnestly told those things that have been written. "Ye have heard," said my father: "do you believe that the woman who was my wife spake with the Divine voice?" "We do," they answered. Now my uncle Sepa rose and spoke: "Royal Harmachis, thou hast heard.
Now, as it chanced, my father was away in that part of the Place of Tombs which is to the left of the large fortress, and Pharaoh's guards, mounted on asses, were hard upon us. Then the messenger cried to the old wife, Atoua, whose tongue had brought about the evil, and told how the soldiers drew near to slay me.
For a moment I stood watching them, idly wondering if they were from Abouthis, when suddenly I heard a familiar voice beside me. "La! la!" said the voice. "Why, what a city is this for an old woman to seek her fortune in! And how shall I find those to whom I am known? Hence Atoua's saying. I turned, wondering, and found myself face to face with my foster-nurse, Atoua.
I sat; and crouched upon a rug near to the door, lay the aged Atoua. Her hair was white as snow, and shrivelled with age was the wrinkled countenance of the woman who, when all deserted me, had yet clung to me, in her great love forgetting my great sins. Nine years! nine long years! and now, once again, I set my foot in Alexandria!
And taking the body of Antony, Cæsar permitting, I and Atoua caused it to be most skilfully embalmed after our Egyptian fashion, covering the face with a mask of gold fashioned like to the features of Antony. Also I wrote upon his breast his name and titles, and painted his name and the name of his father within his inner coffin, and drew the form of the Holy Nout folding her wings about him.
And by the faint light of the dawn creeping through the entrance I saw that it was spacious and that within were chambers. On the following night, therefore, I returned, bearing lights, with Atoua, my nurse, who ever ministered faithfully to me as when I was little and without discretion.
For a while as I, Harmachis, went, the juice of the green herbs which the old wife, Atoua, had placed upon my wounds caused me much smart, but presently the pain ceased. And, of a truth, I believe that there was virtue in them, for within two days my flesh healed up, so that after a time no marks remained.
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