This unheard-of event occurred under the following conditions: The high priest of the temple sent Kama to the town Sabne-Chetam at Lake Menzaleh with offerings for the chapel of Astaroth in that place. To avoid summer heat and secure herself against curiosity and the homage of people, the priestess journeyed in a boat and during night hours. Toward morning, when the three wearied rowers were dozing, boats manned by Greeks and Hittites pushed out suddenly from among reeds at the shore, surrounded the boat bearing Kama, and carried off the priestess. The attack was so sudden that the Phœnician rowers made no resistance. The strangers gagged Kama, evidently, for she remained silent. The Greeks and Hittites after the sacrilege vanished in the reeds, to sail toward the sea afterward. To prevent pursuit they sank the boat which had borne the priestess. Pi-Bast was as excited as a beehive. People talked of nothing else. They even guessed who did the deed. Some suspected Sargon, who had offered Kama the title of wife if she would leave the temple and remove to Nineveh. Others suspected Lykon, the temple singer, who long had burned with passion for the priestess. He was moreover rich enough to hire Greek slaves, and so godless that he would not hesitate to snatch away a priestess. A Phœnician council of the richest and most faithful members was summoned to the temple. The council resolved, first of all, to free Kama from her duties as priestess and remove from her the curse against a virgin who lost her innocence in the service of the goddess. That was a wise and pious resolution, for if some one had carried off the priestess and deprived her of sacredness against her will, it would have been unjust to punish her. A couple of days later they announced, with sound of trumpet, to worshippers in the temple that the priestess Kama was dead, and if any man should meet a woman seeming like her he would have no right to seek revenge or even make reproaches. The priestess had not left the goddess, but evil spirits had borne her off; for this they would be punished. That same day the worthy Hiram visited Rameses and gave him in a gold tube a parchment furnished with a number of seals of priests and signatures of Phœnician notables. That was the decision of the spiritual court of Astaroth, which released Kama from her vows and freed her from the curse if she would renounce the name which she had borne while priestess. The prince took this document and went after sundown to a certain lone villa in his garden. He opened the door in some unknown way and ascended one story to a room of medium dimensions, where by light from a carved lamp in which fragrant olive oil was burning, he saw Kama. "At last!" cried he, giving her the gold tube. "Thou hast everything according to thy wishes." The Phœnician woman was feverish; her eyes flashed. She snatched the tube, looked at it, and threw it on the floor.