Pharaoh was troubled when he learned that I was yet alive, and he sent me away, saying, “Tomorrow come to me and tell me a thing which neither I nor my nobles have ever heard.”  So I took thought, and wrote in the name of Pharaoh a bond in which it was said that he owed to my lord Esarhaddon nine hundred talents of gold.  And next day I brought it before Pharaoh; but before I had opened it the nobles cried out, saying, “We know it of old, we know it well!” Then said I, “I thank you for acknowledging the debt.”  And I gave the paper to the king, and he looked on it and said to them, “What!  Do you acknowledge that I owe nine hundred talents of gold to Esarhaddon?” And they were confounded, and cried out again, “No! no! we have never heard of any such thing.”  So I said, “If it be so, I have done what you required.”

But Pharaoh said, “It is enough:  I have sent for you to build me a castle between the earth and the heavens; even a thousand cubits above the earth.  Come forth into the plain to-morrow and accomplish this.”  And I said, “Well, O king; and do you for your part bring masons and that which is necessary for building.”  So on the morrow a great multitude assembled to see how the matter would go.  But I had my eagles and my boys in readiness; and when Pharaoh gave the word, I sent them up, the boys riding on the eagles; and when they were high up in the air, the boys called out, as I had taught them, “Bring us mortar, lime, and stones:  we are ready to begin the building!” And the masons and all the people were amazed, gaping at the boys.  And I fell upon the masons and beat them, saying, “Why delay you?  Make haste, give them what they ask for,” and such-like words, till they fled before me.  And I said to Pharaoh, “If your people refuse to do their part, how can I do mine?” And Pharaoh and his nobles murmured, but they could not think of any answer.  So Pharaoh said, “It is enough; leave the matter of the castle; I have other questions to ask you.”

On the morrow he called for me, and said, “I saw a great pillar built of 8763 bricks, and about it are planted twelve cedars, and each has thirty branches, and on each branch are a black and a white mouse which gnaw it.”  I laughed and made answer, “O king, there is not a child in the land of Assyria who could not interpret this riddle.  The pillar is the year, the bricks are the hours, the cedars the months, their branches the days, and the black and white mice are the night and the day.”

Pharaoh’s face fell, and he said, “Well.  But now I command you to plait me a rope out of the sand.”  I answered, “Let them bring me a pattern out of your store-house, O king, that I may have it to copy.”  He said, “You trifle with me; and unless you plait me such a rope I will not pay you the revenues of Egypt.”  I went aside therefore and considered; and knowing that the Egyptians were foolish, I thought upon a plan.  I got a mass of sand and put it in a chest, and made it run out through two pipes so that when the sun shone upon it, it appeared like the strands of a rope; and I called to the king, “Let your servants plait together the two strands of the rope which I have made, and when they have done so I will make more.”  And again they were dismayed, and could say nothing.