Thither in after time she followed him and again urged her love.
"Learning of the thing and knowing it for sacrilege, I summoned this priest and warned him of his danger and of the doom which awaited him should he continue in that path.

He grew affrighted.

He flung himself upon the ground before me with groans and supplications, and kissing my feet, vowed most falsely to me that his dealings with the royal Amenartas were but a veil and that it was I whom he worshipped.

His unhallowed words filled me with horror and sternly I bade him begone and do penance for his crime, saying that I would pray the goddess on behalf of him.
"He went, leaving me alone lost in thought in the darkening shrine.

Then sleep fell on me and in my sleep I dreamed a dream, or saw a vision.
For suddenly there stood before me a woman beauteous as myself clad in nothing save a golden girdle and a veil of gossamer.
"'O Ayesha,' she said in a honeyed voice, 'priestess of Isis of the Egyptians, sworn to the barren worship of Isis and fed on the ashes of her unprofitable wisdom, know that I am Aphrodite of the Greeks whom many times thou hast mocked and defied, and Queen of the breathing world, as Isis is Queen of the world that is dead.