translated, and they have been printed, and here they lie before you--an
undiscovered land wherein you are free to travel!

Harmachis speaks to you from his forgotten tomb. The walls of Time fall
down, and, as at the lightning's leap, a picture from the past starts
upon your view, framed in the darkness of the ages.

He shows you those two Egypts which the silent pyramids looked down upon
long centuries ago--the Egypt of the Greek, the Roman, and the Ptolemy,
and that other outworn Egypt of the Hierophant, hoary with years, heavy
with the legends of antiquity and the memory of long-lost honours.

He tells you how the smouldering loyalty of the land of Khem blazed
up before it died, and how fiercely the old Time-consecrated Faith
struggled against the conquering tide of Change that rose, like Nile at
flood, and drowned the ancient Gods of Egypt.

Here, in his pages, you shall learn the glory of Isis the Many-shaped,
the Executrix of Decrees. Here you shall make acquaintance with the
shade of Cleopatra, that "Thing of Flame," whose passion-breathing
beauty shaped the destiny of Empires. Here you shall read how the soul
of Charmion was slain of the sword her vengeance smithied.

Here Harmachis, the doomed Egyptian, being about to die, salutes you who
follow on the path he trod. In the story of his broken years he shows to
you what may in its degree be the story of your own. Crying aloud from
that dim Amenti[*] where to-day he wears out his long atoning time, he
tells, in the history of his fall, the fate of him who, however sorely
tried, forgets his God, his Honour, and his Country.

[*] The Egyptian Hades or Purgatory.--Editor.

BOOK I--THE PREPARATION OF HARMACHIS

CHAPTER I

OF THE BIRTH OF HARMACHIS; THE PROPHECY OF THE HATHORS; AND THE SLAYING
OF THE INNOCENT CHILD

By Osiris who sleeps at Abouthis, I write the truth.

I, Harmachis, Hereditary Priest of the Temple, reared by the divine
Sethi, aforetime a Pharaoh of Egypt, and now justified in Osiris and
ruling in Amenti. I, Harmachis, by right Divine and by true descent of
blood King of the Double Crown, and Pharaoh of the Upper and Lower Land.
I, Harmachis, who cast aside the opening flower of our hope, who turned
from the glorious path, who forgot the voice of God in hearkening to the
voice of woman. I, Harmachis, the fallen, in whom are gathered up all
woes as waters are gathered in a desert well, who have tasted of every
shame, who th