Her blessing and mine be on you and if we see each other no more face to face in the world, may we meet again in the halls of Osiris.

Farewell, beloved Shabaka.

Oh! why did you suffer that black master of lies, the dwarf Bes, to persuade you to hide the truth from me ?" So the writing ended and below it were two stains still wet, which I knew were caused by tears.

Moreover, wrapped in a piece of silk and fastened to the scroll was a little gold ring graven with the royal _uraeus_ that Amada had always worn from childhood.

Only on the previous night I had noted it on the first finger of her right hand.
I took my stylus and my waxen tablets and wrote on one of them: "Had you been a man, Amada, and not a woman, I think you would have judged me differently but, learned priestess and prophetess as you are, a woman you remain.