Now farewell.

Let me hear how fortune favours you from time to time, Shabaka, for you take part in a great game, such as I loved in my youth before I became a holy hermit.
Oh! if they had listened to me, things would have been different in Egypt to-day.

But it was written otherwise, and as ever, women were the scribes.

Good night, good night, good night! I am glad that my thought reached you yonder in the East, and taught you what to say and do.

It is well to be wise sometimes, for others' sake, but not for our own, oh! not for our own." "Master," said Bes as we ambled homewards beneath the stars, "the holy Tanofir is a man for thought to feed on, since having climbed to the topmost peak of holiness, he does not seem to like its cold air and warns off those who would follow in his footsteps." "Then he might have spared himself the pains in your case, Bes, or in my own for that matter, since we shall never come so high." "No, Master, and I am glad to have his leave to stay lower down, since that hot place of dead bulls is not one which I wish to inhabit in my age, making use of a maiden to stare into a pot of water, and there read marvels, which I could invent better for myself after a jug or two of wine.