that a goddess would kiss so sweetly,
and again he started like one who would ask a question that his lips do not dare to frame.
I remained silent, watching him, till presently he broke out,
You tell me that I am accursed, Priestess. Tell me also why Isis is so wrath with me?
Did you not swear yourself to her alone and break your oath, Kallikrates? Do you not know that if women can be jealous, goddesses who are set far above them can be more greatly so of those who are bound to them in the mystic marriage? Have you not heard that to turn from them to a daughter of man is to offer them the most terrible of insults?
Isis herself was wed to Osiris, Prophetess, and I have heard of priests and priestesses who served her who were also wed.
Perchance, Kallikrates, after absolution given by one upon whom authority is conferred to strain vows for some high end. But who gave you authority to marry, you, who indeed are not married but only a woman's lover? Did you mayhap seek it from the holy Noot upon the ship Hapi?
Nay,
he answered, that thought never came to me. Or if it came I believed that he would but heap curses upon me, or mayhap call down the vengeance of Isis upon another. You have heard, Prophetess, of what fate sometimes awaits those who tempt the feet of priests or priestesses from the strait path of their vows.
Aye, Kallikrates, they die by fire, or they starve, or they perish shut up in some narrow, airless hole; each worship works its own vengeance for that unmeasured crime. Yet you were foolish not to make your prayer of Noot, by whom alone it could be
