rough betrayal have betrayed, who in losing the glory that
is here have lost the glory which is to be, who am utterly undone--I
write, and, by Him who sleeps at Abouthis, I write the truth.

O Egypt!--dear land of Khem, whose black soil nourished up my mortal
part--land that I have betrayed--O Osiris!--Isis!--Horus!--ye Gods of
Egypt whom I have betrayed!--O ye temples whose pylons strike the sky,
whose faith I have betrayed!--O Royal blood of the Pharaohs of eld, that
yet runs within these withered veins--whose virtue I have betrayed!--O
Invisible Essence of all Good! and O Fate, whose balance rested on my
hand--hear me; and, to the day of utter doom, bear me witness that I
write the truth.

Even while I write, beyond the fertile fields, the Nile is running red,
as though with blood. Before me the sunlight beats upon the far Arabian
hills, and falls upon the piles of Abouthis. Still the priests make
orison within the temples at Abouthis that know me no more; still
the sacrifice is offered, and the stony roofs echo back the people's
prayers. Still from this lone cell within my prison-tower, I, the Word
of Shame, watch thy fluttering banners, Abouthis, flaunting from thy
pylon walls, and hear the chants as the long procession winds from
sanctuary to sanctuary.

Abouthis, lost Abouthis! my heart goes out toward thee! For the day
comes when the desert sands shall fill thy secret places! Thy Gods are
doomed, O Abouthis! New Faiths shall make a mock of all thy Holies, and
Centurion shall call upon Centurion across thy fortress-walls. I weep--I
weep tears of blood: for mine is the sin that brought about these evils
and mine for ever is their shame.

Behold, it is written hereafter.

Here in Abouthis I was born, I, Harmachis, and my father, the justified
in Osiris, was High Priest of the Temple of Sethi. And on that same day
of my birth Cleopatra, the Queen of Egypt, was born also. I passed my
youth in yonder fields watching the baser people at their labours and
going in and out at will among the great courts of the temples. Of my
mother I knew naught, for she died when I yet hung at the breast. But
before she died in the reign of Ptolemy Auletes, who is named the Piper,
so did the old wife, Atoua, told me, my mother took a golden uraeus, the
snake symbol of our Royalty of Egypt, from a coffer of ivory and laid
it on my brow. And those who saw her do this believed that she was
distraught of the Divinity, and in he