“He is the most unhappy of all the many youths, who were intrusted to my care,” said Ameni, “and I believe I know why,—­he never had a childlike disposition, even when in years he was still a child, and the Gods had denied him the heavenly gift of good humor.  Youth should be modest, and he was assertive from his childhood.  He took the sport of his companions for earnest, and his father, who was unwise only as a tutor, encouraged him to resistance instead of to forbearance, in the idea that he thus would be steeled to the hard life of a Mohar.”

     [The severe duties of the Mohar are well known from the papyrus of
     Anastasi I. in the Brit.  Mus., which has been ably treated by F.
     Chabas, Voyage d’un Egyptien.]

“I have often heard the deeds of the Mohar spoken of,” said the old priest from Chennu, “yet I do not exactly know what his office requires of him.”

“He has to wander among the ignorant and insolent people of hostile provinces, and to inform himself of the kind and number of the population, to investigate the direction of the mountains, valleys, and rivers, to set forth his observations, and to deliver them to the house of war,

     [Corresponding to our minister of war.  A person of the highest
     importance even in the earliest times.]

so that the march of the troops may be guided by them.”

“The Mohar then must be equally skilled as a warrior and as a Scribe.”

“As thou sayest; and Paaker’s father was not a hero only, but at the same time a writer, whose close and clear information depicted the country through which he had travelled as plainly as if it were seen from a mountain height.  He was the first who took the title of Mohar.  The king held him in such high esteem, that he was inferior to no one but the king himself, and the minister of the house of war.”

“Was he of noble race?”

“Of one of the oldest and noblest in the country.  His father was the noble warrior Assa,” answered the haruspex, “and he therefore, after he himself had attained the highest consideration and vast wealth, escorted home the niece of the King Hor-em-lieb, who would have had a claim to the throne, as well as the Regent, if the grandfather of the present Rameses had not seized it from the old family by violence.”

“Be careful of your words,” said Ameni, interrupting the rash old man.  “Rameses I. was and is the grandfather of our sovereign, and in the king’s veins, from his mother’s side, flows the blood of the legitimate descendants of the Sun-god.”

“But fuller and purer in those of the Regent the haruspex ventured to retort.

“But Rameses wears the crown,” cried Ameni, “and will continue to wear it so long as it pleases the Gods.  Reflect—­your hairs are grey, and seditious words are like sparks, which are borne by the wind, but which, if they fall, may set our home in a blaze.  Continue your feasting, my lords; but I would request you to speak no more this evening of the king and his new decree.  You, Pentaur, fulfil my orders to-morrow morning with energy and prudence.”