tired.”

“Then take a seat in my litter. In it are fresh garlands of roses, roast birds, and a jug of wine from Cyprus. I have kept also hidden in the camp,” added he in a lower voice, “Senura.”

“Is she here?” asked the prince; and his eyes, glittering a moment before, were now mist covered.

“Let the army move on,” said Tutmosis; “we will wait here for her.”

Rameses recovered himself.

“Leave me, tempter! The battle will come in two hours.”

“What! a battle?”

“At least the decision as to my leadership.”

“Oh, laugh at it!” smiled the exquisite. “I would swear that the minister of war sent a report of it yesterday, and with it the petition to give thee the corps of Memphis.”

“No matter if he did. To-day I have no thought for anything but the army.”

“In thee this wish for war is dreadful, war during which a man does not wash for a whole month, so as to die in— Brr! But if thou couldst see Senura, only glance at her—”

“For that very reason I shall not glance at her,” answered Rameses, decisively.

At the moment when eight men were bringing from beyond the Greek ranks the immense litter of Tutmosis for the use of Rameses, a horseman raced in from the vanguard. He dropped from his horse and ran so quickly that on his breast the images of the gods or the tablets with their names rattled loudly. This was Eunana in great excitement.

All turned to him, and this gave him pleasure apparently.

“Erpatr, the loftiest lips,” cried Eunana, bending before Rameses. “When, in accordance with thy divine command, I rode at the head of a detachment, looking carefully at all things, I noticed on the highroad two beautiful scarabs. Each of these sacred beetles was rolling an earth ball toward the sands near the roadside—”

“What of that?” interrupted Rameses.

“Of course,” continued Eunana, glancing toward Herhor, “I and my people, as piety enjoins, rendered homage to the golden symbols of the sun, and halted. That augury is of such import that no man of us would make a step forward unless commanded.”

“I see that thou art a pious Egyptian, though thou hast the features of a Hittite,” answered the worthy Herhor; and turning to certain dignitaries standing near, he added,—

“We will not advance farther by the highway, for we might crush the sacred beetles. Pentuer, can we go around the road by that ravine on the right?”

“We can,” answered the secretary. “That ravine is five miles long, and comes out again almost in front of Pi-Bailos.”

“An immense loss of time!” interrupted Rameses, in anger.

“I would swear that those are not scarabs, but the spirits of my Phœnician usurers,” said Tutmosis the exquisite. “Not being able, because of their death, to receive money from me, they will force me now to march through the desert in punishment!”

The suite of the prince awaited the decision with fear; so Rameses turned to Herhor,—

“What dost thou think of this, holy father?”

“Look at the officers,” answered the priest, “and thou wilt understand that we must go by the ravine.”

Now Patrokles, leader of the Greeks, pushed forward and said to the heir,—

“If the prince permit, my regiment will advance by the highway. My soldiers have no fear of beetles!”

“Your soldiers have no fear of royal tombs even,” added the minister. “Still it cannot be safe in them since no one has ever returned.”

The Greek pushed back to the suite confounded.

“Confess, holy father,” hissed the heir, with the greatest anger, “that such a hindrance would not stop even an ass on his journey.”

“True, but no ass will ever be pharaoh,” retorted the minister, calmly.

“In that case thou, O minister, wilt lead the division through the ravine!” exclaimed Rameses. “I am unacquainted with priestly tactics; besides, I must rest. Come with me, cousin,” said he to Tutmosis; and he turned toward some naked hills.

CHAPTER II

STRAIGHTWAY his worthiness Herhor directed his adjutant who carried the mace to take charge of the vanguard in place of Eunana. Then he commanded that the military engines for hurling great stones leave the road, and that the Greek soldiers facilitate passage for those engines in difficult places. All vehicles and litters of staff-officers were to move in the rear.

When Herhor issued commands, the adjutant bearing the fan approached Pentuer and asked,—

“Will it be possible to go by this highway again?”

“Why not?” answered the young priest. “But since two sacred beetles have barred the way now, we must not go farther; some misfortune might happen.”

“As it is, a misfortune has happened. Or hast thou not noticed that Prince Rameses is angry at the minister? and our lord is not forgetful.”

“It is not the prince who is offended with our lord, but our lord with the prince, and he has reproached him. He has done well; for it seems to the young prince, at present, that he is to be a second Menes.”

“Or a Rameses the Great,” put in the adjutant.

“Rameses the Great obeyed the gods; for this cause there are inscriptions praising him in all the temples. But Menes, the first pharaoh of Egypt, was a destroyer of order, and thanks only to the fatherly kindness of the priests that his name is still remembered,—though I would not give one brass uten on this, that the mummy of Menes exists.”

“My Pentuer,” added the adjutant, “thou art a sage, hence knowest that it is all one to us whether we have ten lords or eleven.”

“But it is not all one to the people whether they have to find every year a mountain of gold for the priests, or two mountains of gold for the priests and the pharaoh,” answered Pentuer, while his eyes flashed.

“Thou art thinking of dangerous things,” said the adjutant, in a whisper.

“But how often hast thou thyself grieved over the luxuries of the pharaoh’s court and of the nomarchs?” inquired the priest in astonishment.

“Quiet, quiet! We will talk of this, but not now.”

In spite of the sand the military engines, drawn each by two bullocks, moved in the desert more speedily than along the highway. With the first of them marched Eunana, anxiously. “Why has the minister deprived me of leadership over the vanguard? Does he wish to give me a higher position?” asked he in his own mind.

Thinking out then a new career, and perhaps to dull the fears which made his heart quiver, he seized a pole and, where the sands were deeper, propped the balista, or urged on the Greeks with an outcry.

They, however, paid slight attention to this officer.

The retinue had pushed on a good half hour through a winding ravine with steep naked walls, when the vanguard halted a second time. At this point another ravine crossed the first; in the middle of it extended a rather broad canal.

The courier sent to the minister of war with notice of the obstacle brought back a command to fill the canal immediately.

About a hundred soldiers with pickaxes and shovels rushed to the work. Some knocked out stones from the cliff; others threw them into the ditch and covered them with sand.

Meanwhile from the depth of the ravine came a man with a pickaxe shaped like a stork’s neck with the bill on it. He was an Egyptian slave, old and entirely naked. He looked for a while with the utmost amazement at the work of the soldiers; then, springing between them on a sudden, he shouted,—

“What are ye doing, vile people? This is a canal.”