Lives of Alcyone

Sirius died in 3967, and Alcyone mourned deeply for him, until
one day he appeared to her and told her that to mourn for him, was
unworthy of a student of the Hidden Light, and reminded her of the
teaching which the Mysteries gave them as to the coming forth by
day. Often as they had talked over it all, it was now for the first time
tat he made her fully realise of how little importance death is, and
how entirely the dead and the living are one family.
This cheered her greatly, and she could often feel quite clearly
his presence near her, though it was only twice that she actually saw
him, once as above described, and once just before her own death,
which occurred in 3960, at the age of seventy five. He told her then
that he had cast a horoscope, or somehow made a calculation,
about the remote future, and had discovered that, because they both
had sacrificed themselves in this life for the sake of duty, they would
meet once more at the feet of Mercury, after the passage of nearly
six thousand years, and after that they would part no more; so she
passed away quite peacefully and happily.
Orion also appeared in this life, under the name of Kepheren,
as the son of Achilles, another near neighbour of the Indian king and
the Anarseb family, in his childhood he played constantly with Vega,
the little brother of Sirius. He was eight years old when the Captive
Ramasthenese came to reside in the house of Sirius, and he used
often to sit at the stranger’ s feet and listen to this talk. He was
entered as a kind of day-scholar at the temple, and eventually
became a pupil of Ramasthenes. Unfortunately, however, he formed
some undesirable acquaintances, and was led away into the
dissipations of the city life which for the moment he preferred to that
of the temple. When it was definitely known that he had renounced
195