shore of the Nile-if one tooth is missing the whole comes to a stand-still however strong the beasts that labor to turn it.  Each of you—­bear this in mind—­is a main-wheel in the great machine of the state, and can serve an end only by acting unresistingly in obedience to the motive power.  Now rise! we may perhaps succeed in obtaining good security from the Asiatic king, though we have lost our hostage.”

Heralds at this moment marched into the tent, and announced that the representative of the Cheta king and the allied princes were in attendance in the council tent; Rameses put on the crown of Upper and Lower Egypt and all his royal adornments; the chamberlain who carried the insignia of his power, and his head scribe with his decoration of plumes marched before him, while his sons, the commanders in chief, and the interpreters followed him.  Rameses took his seat on his throne with great dignity, and the sternest gravity marked his demeanor while he received the homage of the conquered and fettered kings.

The Asiatics kissed the earth at his feet, only the king of the Danaids did no more than bow before him.  Rameses looked wrathfully at him, and ordered the interpreter to ask him whether he considered himself conquered or no, and the answer was given that he had not come before the Pharaoh as a prisoner, and that the obeisance which Rameses required of him was regarded as a degradation according to the customs of his free-born people, who prostrated them selves only before the Gods.  He hoped to become an ally of the king of Egypt, and he asked would he desire to call a degraded man his friend?

Rameses measured the proud and noble figure before him with a glance, and said severely: 

“I am prepared to treat for peace only with such of my enemies as are willing to bow to the double crown that I wear.  If you persist in your refusal, you and your people will have no part in the favorable conditions that I am prepared to grant to these, your allies.”

The captive prince preserved his dignified demeanor, which was nevertheless free from insolence, when these words of the king were interpreted to him, and replied that he had come intending to procure peace at any cost, but that he never could nor would grovel in the dust at any man’s feet nor before any crown.  He would depart on the following day; one favor, however, he requested in his daughter’s name and his own —­and he had heard that the Egyptians respected women.  The king knew, of course, that his charioteer Mena had treated his daughter, not as a prisoner but as a sister, and Praxilla now felt a wish, which he himself shared, to bid farewell to the noble Mena, and his wife, and to thank him for his magnanimous generosity.  Would Rameses permit him once more to cross the Nile before his departure, and with his daughter to visit Mena in his tent.

Rameses granted his prayer:  the prince left the tent, and the negotiations began.