“Because you have shown yourself both brave and wise, with this gold I give you the title of Councillor and King’s Companion, and the right to inscribe the same upon your funeral stele.  Let it be noted.  Retire, Scribe Ana, Councillor and King’s Companion.”

So I withdrew confused, and as I passed Seti, he whispered in my ear: 

“I pray you, my lord, do not cease to be Prince’s Companion, because you have become that of the King.”

Then Pharaoh ordered that the Captain of the guard should be advanced in rank, and that gifts should be given to each of the soldiers, and provision be made for the children of those who had been killed, with double allowance to the families of the two men whom I had disguised as runners.

This done, once more Pharaoh spoke, slowly and with much meaning, having first ordered that all attendants and guards should leave the chamber.  I was about to go also, but old Bakenkhonsu caught me by the robe, saying that in my new rank of Councillor I had the right to remain.

“Prince Seti,” he said, “after all that I have heard, I find this report of yours strange reading.  Moreover, the tenor of it is different indeed to that of those of the Count Amenmeses and the officers.  You counsel me to let these Israelites go where they will, because of certain hardships that they have suffered in the past, which hardships, however, have left them many and rich.  That counsel I am not minded to take.  Rather am I minded to send an army to the land of Goshen with orders to despatch this people, who conspired to murder the Prince of Egypt, through the Gateway of the West, there to worship their god in heaven or in hell.  Aye, to slay them all from the greybeard down to the suckling at the breast.”

“I hear Pharaoh,” said Seti, quietly.

“Such is my will,” went on Meneptah, “and those who accompanied you upon your business, and all my councillors think as I do, for truly Egypt cannot bear so hideous a treason.  Yet, according to our law and custom it is needful, before such great acts of war and policy are undertaken, that he who stands next to the throne, and is destined to fill it, should give consent thereto.  Do you consent, Prince of Egypt?”

“I do not consent, Pharaoh.  I think it would be a wicked deed that tens of thousands should be massacred for the reason that a few fools waylaid a man who chanced to be of royal blood, because by inadvertence, he had desecrated their sanctuary.”

Now I saw that this answer made Pharaoh wroth, for never before had his will been crossed in such a fashion.  Still he controlled himself, and asked: 

“Do you then consent, Prince, to a gentler sentence, namely that the Hebrew people should be broken up; that the more dangerous of them should be sent to labour in the desert mines and quarries, and the rest distributed throughout Egypt, there to live as slaves?”

“I do not consent, Pharaoh.  My poor counsel is written in yonder roll and cannot be changed.”