“These darkened views make fools of them, but certainly good soldiers too—­perhaps by reason indeed of this very exalted self-consciousness and their firm reliance on their supreme god.”

“Yes, they certainly are,” assented Hierax.  “But they serve your brother more willingly, and at a lower price, than us.”

“I will show them,” cried the king, “that their taste is a perverted and obnoxious one.  I require of the priests that they should instruct the people to be obedient, and to bear their privations patiently; but the Jews,” and at these words his eyes rolled with an ominous glare, “the Jews I will exterminate, when the time comes.”

“That will be good for our treasury too,” laughed Komanus.

“And for the temples in the country,” added Euergetes, “for though I seek to extirpate other foes I would rather win over the priests; and I must try to win them if Philometor’s kingdom falls into my hands, for the Egyptians require that their king should be a god; and I cannot arrive at the dignity of a real god, to whom my swarthy subjects will pray with thorough satisfaction, and without making my life a burden to me by continual revolts, unless I am raised to it by the suffrages of the priests.”

“And nevertheless,” replied Hierax, who was the only one of Euergetes’ dependents, who dared to contradict him on important questions, “nevertheless this very day a grave demand is to be preferred on your account to the high-priest of Serapis.  You press for the surrender of a servant of the god, and Philometor will not neglect—­”

“Will not neglect,” interrupted Euergetes, “to inform the mighty Asclepiodorus that he wants the sweet creature for me, and not for himself.  Do you know that Eros has pierced my heart, and that I burn for the fair Irene, although these eyes have not yet been blessed with the sight of her?

“I see you believe me, and I am speaking the exact truth, for I vow I will possess myself of this infantine Hebe as surely as I hope to win my brother’s throne; but when I plant a tree, it is not merely to ornament my garden but to get some use of it.  You will see how I will win over both the prettiest of little lady-loves and the high-priest who, to be sure, is a Greek, but still a man hard to bend.  My tools are all ready outside there.

“Now, leave me, and order Eulaeus to join me here.”

“You are as a divinity,” said Komanus, bowing deeply, “and we but as frail mortals.  Your proceedings often seem dark and incomprehensible to our weak intellect, but when a course, which to us seems to lead to no good issue, turns out well, we are forced to admit with astonishment that you always choose the best way, though often a tortuous one.”

For a short time the king was alone, sitting with his black brows knit, and gazing meditatively at the floor.  But as soon as he heard the soft foot-fall of Eulaeus, and the louder step of his guide, he once more assumed the aspect of a careless and reckless man of the world, shouted a jolly welcome to Eulaeus, reminded him of his, the king’s, boyhood, and of how often he, Eulaeus, had helped him to persuade his mother to grant him some wish she had previously refused him.