"Permit, prince, that we return in a couple of hours, when thou shalt have calmed thyself," said Mefres.

"There is no need of that. I know what is happening on our western boundary. Or rather it is not I who know, but my cooks, stable-boys, and laundrymen. Perhaps then ye will have the goodness, worthy fathers, to communicate your plans to me."

Mentezufis a.s.sumed a look of indifference, and said,--

"The Libyans have rebelled and are collecting bands with the intention of attacking Egypt."

"I understand."

"At the desire, therefore, of his holiness," continued Mentezufis, "and of the supreme council, thou art to take troops from Lower Egypt and annihilate the rebels."

"Where is the order?"

Mentezufis drew forth from his bosom a parchment provided with seals, and gave it to the viceroy.

"From this moment then I command, and am the supreme power in this province," said the viceroy.

"It is as thou hast said."

"And I have the right to hold a military council with you?"

"Of course," replied Mefres. "Even this moment--"

"Sit down," interrupted the prince.

Both priests obeyed his command.

"I ask because in view of my plans I must know why the Libyan regiments were disbanded."

"Others too will be disbanded," caught up Mentezufis. "The supreme council desires to disband twenty thousand of the most expensive warriors, so that the treasury of his holiness may save four thousand talents yearly, without which want may soon threaten the court of the pharaoh."

"A thing which does not threaten the most wretched of Egyptian priests," added Rameses.

"Thou forgettest, worthiness, that it is not proper to call a priest wretched," replied Mentezufis. "And if want threatens none of them, the merit is found in their moderate style of living."

"In that case the statues drink the wine which is carried every day to the temples, while stone G.o.ds dress their wives in gold and jewels,"

jeered Rameses. "But no more about your abstemiousness. Not to fill the treasury of the pharaoh has the council of priests disbanded twenty thousand troops and opened the gates of Egypt to bandits."

"But why?"

"This is why: to please King a.s.sar. And since his holiness would not agree to give Phnicia to a.s.syria, ye wish to weaken the state in another way, by disbanding hired troops and rousing war on our western boundary."

"I take the G.o.ds to witness that thou dost astonish us, worthiness,"

cried Mentezufis.

"The shades of the pharaohs would be more astonished if they heard that in this same Egypt in which the power of the pharaoh is hampered, some Chaldean trickster is influencing the fate of the nation."

"I do not believe my own ears," replied Mentezufis. "What dost thou say of some Chaldean?"

The viceroy laughed sneeringly.

"I speak of Beroes. If thou, holy man, hast not heard of him, ask the revered Mefres, and if he has forgotten turn then to Herhor and Pentuer."

"That is a great secret of our temples--"

"A foreign adventurer came like a thief to Egypt, and put on the members of the supreme council a treaty so shameful that we should be justified in signing it only after we had lost battles, lost all our regiments and both capitals. And to think that this was done by one man, most a.s.suredly a spy of King a.s.sar! And our sages let themselves be so charmed by his eloquence, that, when the pharaoh would not let them give up Phnicia, they disbanded regiments in every case, and caused war on our western boundary. Have we ever heard of a deed like this?" continued Rameses, no longer master of himself. "When it was just the time to raise the army to three hundred thousand and hurry on to Nineveh, those pious maniacs discharged twenty thousand men and fired their own dwelling-house."

Mefres, still and pale, listened to these jeers. At last he said,--

"I know not, worthy lord, from what source thou hast taken thy information. May it be as pure as the hearts of the highest counsellors! But let us suppose that thou art right, that some Chaldean priest had power to bring the council to sign a burdensome treaty with a.s.syria. If it happened thus, whence knowest thou that that priest was not an envoy of the G.o.ds, who through his lips forewarned us of dangers hanging over Egypt?"

"How do the Chaldeans enjoy your confidence to such a degree?" asked the viceroy.

"The Chaldean priests are elder brothers of the Egyptians,"

interrupted Mentezufis.

"Then perhaps the a.s.syrian king is the master of the pharaoh?"

"Blaspheme not, worthiness," said Mefres, severely. "Thou art pushing into the most sacred things frivolously, and to do that has proved perilous to men who were greater than thou art."

"Well, I will not do so. But how is a man to know that one Chaldean is an envoy of the G.o.ds, and another a spy of King a.s.sar?"

"By miracles," answered Mefres. "If, at thy command, prince, this room should fill with spirits, if unseen powers were to bear thee in the air, we should know that thou wert an agent of the immortals, and should respect thy counsel."

Rameses shrugged his shoulders. "I, too, have seen spirits: a young girl made them. And I saw a juggler lying in the air in the amphitheatre."

"But thou didst not see the fine strings which his four a.s.sistants had in their teeth," put in Mentezufis.

The prince laughed again, and, remembering what Tutmosis had told him about the devotions of Mefres, he said in a jeering tone,--

"In the days of Cheops a certain high priest wished absolutely to fly through the air. With this object he prayed to the G.o.ds, and commanded his inferiors to see whether unseen powers were not raising him. And what will ye say, holy fathers? From that time forth there was no day when prophets did not a.s.sure the high priest that he was borne in the air,--not very high, it is true, about a finger from the pavement.

But--what is that to thy power, worthiness?" inquired he of Mefres, suddenly.

The high priest, when he heard his own story, shook in the chair, and would have fallen had not Mentezufis supported him.

Rameses bustled about, gave the old man water to drink, rubbed vinegar on his temples and forehead, and fanned him.

Soon the holy Mefres recovered, rose from the chair, and said to Mentezufis,--

"May we not go now?"

"I think so."

"But what am I to do?" asked the prince, feeling that something evil had happened.

"Accomplish the duties of leader," said Mentezufis, coldly.

Both priests bowed to the prince ceremoniously, and departed. Rameses was not entirely sober, but a great weight fell on his heart. At that moment he understood that he had committed two grievous errors: He had confessed to the priests that he knew their great secret, and he had jeered, without mercy, at Mefres. He would have given a year of his life could he have blotted from their memories all that drunken conversation. But it was too late then to do so.