And often I wondered if this talk and prophecy of the things that were to be was but a dream born of the brains of men whose wish ran before their thought.

I was, indeed, of the Royal blood, that I knew: for my uncle, Sepa the Priest, showed me a secret record of the descent, traced without break from father to son, and graven in mystic symbols on a tablet of the stone of Syene.

But of what avail was it to be Royal by right when Egypt, my heritage, was a slave--a slave to do the pleasure and minister to the luxury of the Macedonian Lagidae--ay, and when she had been so long a serf that, perchance, she had forgotten how to put off the servile smile of Bondage and once more to look across the world with Freedom's happy eyes?
Then I bethought me of my prayer upon the pylon tower of Abouthis and of the answer given to my prayer, and wondered if that, too, were a dream.
And one night, as, weary with study, I walked within the sacred grove that is in the garden of the temple, and mused thus, I met my uncle Sepa, who also was walking and thinking.
"Hold!" he cried in his great voice; "why is thy face so sad, Harmachis?
Has the last problem that we studied overwhelmed thee ?" "Nay, my uncle," I answered, "I am overwhelmed indeed, but not of the problem; it was a light one.

My heart is heavy, for I am weary of life within these cloisters, and the piled-up weight of knowledge crushes me.
It is of no avail to store up force which cannot be used." "Ah, thou art impatient, Harmachis," he answered; "it is ever the way of foolish youth.

Thou wouldst taste of the battle; thou dost tire of watching the breakers fall upon the beach, thou wouldst plunge into them and venture the desperate hazard of the war.