"Cannot a man cease to be himself for a single hour?
Didst thou but know the pains that it has cost me to learn to play this part--and now thou readest who I am even in the dark!" And then, still talking in his loud voice, he told me how he had travelled hither on foot, the better to escape the spies who ply to and fro upon the river.

But he said he should return by the water, or take another guise; for since he had come as a doctor he had been forced to play a doctor's part, knowing but little of the arts of medicine; and, as he greatly feared, there were many between Annu and Abouthis who had suffered from it.[*] And he laughed loudly and embraced me, forgetting his part.

For he was too whole at heart to be an actor and other than himself, and would have entered Abouthis with me holding my hand, had I not chid him for his folly.
[*] In Ancient Egypt an unskilful or negligent physician was liable to very heavy penalties .-- Editor.
At length all were gathered.
It was night, and the gates of the temple were shut.

None were left within them, except the thirty-seven; my father, the High Priest Amenemhat; that aged priest who had led me to the Shrine of Isis; the old wife, Atoua, who, according to ancient custom, was to prepare me for the anointing; and some five other priests, sworn to secrecy by that oath which none may break.

They gathered in the second hall of the great temple; but I remained alone, clad in my white robe, in the passage where are the names of six-and-seventy ancient Kings, who were before the day of the divine Sethi.