alked out with Parmes we met her, borne upon the shoulders of her
slaves. I was struck with love as with lightning. My heart went out from
me. I could have thrown myself beneath the feet of her bearers. This was
my woman. Life without her was impossible. I swore by the head of Horus
that she should be mine. I swore it to the Priest of Thoth. He turned
away from me with a brow which was as black as midnight.

"There is no need to tell you of our wooing. She came to love me even as
I loved her. I learned that Parmes had seen her before I did, and had
shown her that he too loved her, but I could smile at his passion, for I
knew that her heart was mine. The white plague had come upon the city
and many were stricken, but I laid my hands upon the sick and nursed
them without fear or scathe. She marvelled at my daring. Then I told her
my secret, and begged her that she would let me use my art upon her.

"'Your flower shall then be unwithered, Atma,' I said. 'Other things may
pass away, but you and I, and our great love for each other, shall
outlive the tomb of King Chefru.'

"But she was full of timid, maidenly objections. 'Was it right?' she
asked, 'was it not a thwarting of the will of the gods? If the great
Osiris had wished that our years should be so long, would he not himself
have brought it about?'

"With fond and loving words I overcame her doubts, and yet she
hesitated. It was a great question, she said. She would think it over
for this one night. In the morning I should know of her resolution.
Surely one night was not too much to ask. She wished to pray to Isis for
help in her decision.

"With a sinking heart and a sad foreboding of evil I left her with her
tirewomen. In the morning, when the early sacrifice was over, I hurried
to her house. A frightened slave met me upon the steps. Her mistress was
ill, she said, very ill. In a frenzy I broke my way through the
attendants, and rushed through hall and corridor to my Atma's chamber.
She lay upon her couch, her head high upon the pillow, with a pallid
face and a glazed eye. On her forehead there blazed a single angry
purple patch. I knew that hell-mark of old. It was the scar of the white
plague, the sign-manual of death.

"Why should I speak of that terrible time? For months I was mad,
fevered, delirious, and yet I could not die. Never did an Arab thirst
after the sweet wells as I longed after death. Could poison or steel
have shortened the thread of my existenc