Let us stop and eat, as I suppose even the lady Amada does sometimes." On the following afternoon we crossed the Nile, and towards sunset entered the vast and ancient city of Memphis.

On its white walls floated the banners of the Great King which Bes pointed out to me, saying that wherever we went in the whole world, it seemed that we could never be free from those accursed symbols.
"May I live to spit upon them and cast them into the moat," I answered savagely, for as I drew near to Amada they grew ten times more hateful to me than they had been before.
In truth I was nearer to Amada than I thought, for after we had passed the enclosure of the temple of Ptah, the most wonderful and the mightiest in the whole world, we came to the temple of Isis.

There near to the pylon gate we met a procession of her priests and priestesses advancing to offer the evening sacrifice of song and flowers, clad, all of them, in robes of purest white.

It was a day of festival, so singers went with them.

After the singers came a band of priestesses bearing flowers, in front of whom walked another priestess shaking a _sistrum_ that made a little tinkling music.
Even at a distance there was something about the tall and slender shape of this priestess that stirred me.