"We must do away with foreign regiments at the earliest," said Mefres.

"They are costly, unsuitable, and teach our people infidelity and insolence. At present there are many Egyptians who do not fall on their faces before the priests; more, some of them have gone so far as to steal from graves and temples."

"Therefore away with the mercenaries!" said Mefres, pa.s.sionately. "The country has received from them nothing save harm, and our neighbors suspect us of hostile ideas."

"Away with mercenaries! Dismiss these unruly infidels!" cried the priests.

"When in years to come, O Rameses, thou wilt ascend the throne," added Mefres, "thou wilt fulfil this sacred duty to the G.o.ds and to Egypt."

"Yes, fulfil it! free thy people from unbelievers!" cried the priests.

Rameses bent his head, and was silent. The blood flew to his heart. He felt that the ground was trembling under him.

He was to dismiss the best part of the army,--he, who would like to have twice as great an army and four times as many mercenary warriors.

"They are pitiless with me," thought Rameses.

"Speak on, O Pentuer, sent down from heaven to us," said Mefres.

"So then, holy men," continued Pentuer, "we have learned of two misfortunes,--the pharaoh's income has decreased, and his army is diminished."

"What need of an army?" grumbled the high priest, shaking his head contemptuously.

"And now, with the favor of the G.o.ds and your permission, I will explain why it has happened thus, why the treasury will decrease further, and troops be still fewer in the future."

The prince raised his head and looked at the speaker. He thought no longer now of the man put to death beneath the corridor.

Pentuer pa.s.sed a number of steps along the amphitheatre, and after him the dignitaries.

"Do ye see at your feet that long, narrow strip of green with a broad triangular s.p.a.ce at the end of it? On both sides of the strip lie limestone, granite, and, behind these, sandy places. In the middle of the green flows a stream, which in the triangular s.p.a.ce is divided into a number of branches."

"That is the Nile! That is Egypt!" cried the priests.

"But look," interrupted Mefres, with emotion. "I will discover the river. Do ye see those two blue veins running from the elbow to the hand? Is not that the Nile and its ca.n.a.ls, which begins opposite the Alabaster mountains and flows to Fayum? And look at the back of my hand: there are as many veins there as the sacred river has branches below Memphis. And do not my fingers remind you of the number of branches through which the Nile sends its waters to the sea?"

"A great truth!" exclaimed the priests, looking at their hands.

"Here, I tell you," continued the excited high priest, "that Egypt is the trace of the arm of Osiris. Here on this land the great G.o.d rested his arm: in Thebes lay his divine elbow, his fingers reached the sea, and the Nile is his veins. What wonder that we call this country blessed!"

"Evidently," said the priest, "Egypt is the express imprint of the arm of Osiris."

"Has Osiris seven fingers on his hand," interrupted the prince, "for the Nile has seven branches falling into the sea?"

Deep silence followed.

"Young man," retorted Mefres, with kindly irony, "dost suppose that Osiris could not have seven fingers if it pleased him?"

"Of course he could!" said the other priests.

"Speak on, renowned Pentuer," said Mentezufis.

"Ye are right, worthy fathers," began Pentuer: "this stream with its branches is a picture of the Nile; the narrow strip of green bounded by stones and sand is Upper Egypt, and that triangular s.p.a.ce, cut with veins, is a picture of Lower Egypt, the most extensive and richest part of the country.

"Well, in the beginning of the nineteenth dynasty, all Egypt, from the cataract to the sea, included five hundred thousand measures of land.

On every measure lived sixteen persons: men, women, and children. But during four hundred succeeding years almost with each generation a piece of fertile soil was lost to Egypt."

The speaker made a sign. A number of young priests ran out of the building and sprinkled sand on various parts of the green area.

"During each generation," continued the priest, "fertile land diminished, and the narrow strip of it became much narrower. At present our country instead of five hundred thousand measures has only four hundred thousand--or during two dynasties Egypt has lost land which supported two millions of people."

In the a.s.sembly again rose a murmur of horror.

"And dost thou know, O Rameses, servant of the G.o.ds, whither those s.p.a.ces have vanished where on a time were fields of wheat and barley, or where flocks and herds pastured? Thou knowest that sands of the desert have covered them. But has any one told thee why this came to pa.s.s? It came to pa.s.s because there was a lack of men who with buckets and ploughs fight the desert from morning till evening. Finally, dost thou know why these toilers of the G.o.ds disappeared? Whither did they go? What swept them out of the country? Foreign wars did it. Our n.o.bles conquered enemies, our pharaohs immortalized their worthy names as far away as the Euphrates River, but like beasts of burden our common men carried food for them, they carried water, they carried other weights, and died along the road by thousands.

"To avenge those bones scattered now throughout eastern deserts, the western sands have swallowed our fields, and it would require immense toil and many generations to win back that dark Egyptian earth from the sand grave which covers it."

"Listen! listen!" cried Mefres, "some G.o.d is speaking through the lips of Pentuer. It is true that our victorious wars are the grave of Egypt."

Rameses could not collect his thoughts. It seemed to him that mountains of sand were falling on his head at that moment.

"I have said," continued Pentuer, "that great labor would be needed to dig out Egypt and restore the old-time wealth devoured by warfare. But have we the power to carry out that project?"

Again he advanced some steps, and after him the excited listeners.

Since Egypt became Egypt, no one had displayed so searchingly the disasters of the country, though all men knew that they had happened.

"During the nineteenth dynasty Egypt had eight millions of inhabitants. If every man, woman, old man, and child had put down in this place one bean, the grains would make a figure of this kind."

He indicated with his hand a court where one by the side of another lay eight great quadrangles covered with red beans.

"That figure is sixty yards long, thirty yards wide, and as ye see, pious fathers, the grains composing it are of the same kind, for the people of that time were from Egyptian grandfathers and great-grandfathers. But look now."

He went farther, and indicated another group of quadrangles of various colors.

"Ye see this figure which is thirty yards wide, but only forty-five yards in length. Why is this? Because there are in it only six quadrangles, for at present Egypt has not eight, but only six millions of inhabitants. Consider, besides, that as the former figure was composed exclusively of red Egyptian beans, in the present one are immense strips of black, yellow, and white beans. For in our army and among the people there are now very many foreigners: black Ethiopians, yellow Syrians and Phnicians, white Greeks and Libyans."

They interrupted him. The priests who listened began to embrace him; Mefres was weeping.

"Never yet has there been such a prophet. One cannot imagine when he could make such calculations," said the best mathematician in the temple of Hator.

"Fathers," said Pentuer, "do not overestimate my services. Long years ago in our temples the condition of the state was represented in this manner. I have only disinterred that which later generations had in some degree forgotten."

"But the reckoning?" asked the mathematician.

"The reckonings are continued unbrokenly in all the provinces and temples," replied Pentuer. "The general amounts are found in the palace of his holiness."

"But the figures?" exclaimed the mathematician.

"Our fields are arranged in just such figures, and the geometers of the state study them at school."