“Bless me too!” The pious entreaty, which wells so trustingly from the human heart in the hour of anguish, had pierced his soul like a dagger.  It had seemed as if such a petition, uttered by the royal lips to such a man, had broken the crozier in the hand of the whole body of Egyptian priests, stripped the panther-skin from their shoulders, and branded with shame the whole people whom he loved.

He knew full well that Moses was one of the wisest sages who had ever graduated from the Egyptian schools, knew that Pharaoh was completely under the thrall of this man who had grown up in the royal household and been a friend of his father Rameses the Great.  He had seen the monarch pardon deeds committed by Moses which would have cost the life of any other mortal, though he were the highest noble in the land—­and what must the Hebrew be to Pharaoh, the sun-god incarnate on the throne of the world, when standing by the death-bed of his own son, he could yield to the impulse to uplift his hands to him and cry “Bless me too!”

He had told himself all these things, maturely considered them, yet he would not yield to the might of the strangers.  The destruction of this man and all his race was in his eyes the holiest, most urgent duty—­to accomplish which he would not shrink even from assailing the throne.  Nay, in his eyes Pharaoh Menephtah’s shameful entreaty:  “Bless me too!” had deprived him of all the rights of sovereignty.

Moses had murdered Pharaoh’s first-born son, but he and the aged chief-priest of Amon held the weal or woe of the dead prince’s soul in their hands,—­a weapon sharp and strong, for he knew the monarch’s weak and vacillating heart.  If the high-priest of Amon—­the only man whose authority surpassed his own—­did not thwart him by some of the unaccountable whims of age, it would be the merest trifle to force Pharaoh to yield; but any concession made to-day would be withdrawn to-morrow, should the Hebrew succeed in coming between the irresolute monarch and his Egyptian advisers.  This very day the unworthy son of the great Rameses had covered his face and trembled like a timid fawn at the bare mention of the sorcerer’s name, and to-morrow he might curse him and pronounce a death sentence upon him.  Perhaps he might be induced to do this, and on the following one he would recall him and again sue for his blessing.

Down with such monarchs!  Let the feeble reed on the throne be hurled into the dust!  Already he had chosen a successor from among the princes of the blood, and when the time was ripe—­when Rui, the high-priest of Amon, had passed the limits of life decreed by the gods to mortals and closed his eyes in death, he, Bai, would occupy his place, a new life for Egypt, and Moses and his race would commence would perish.

While the prophet was absorbed in these reflections a pair of ravens fluttered around his head and, croaking loudly, alighted on the dusty ruins of one of the shattered houses.  He involuntarily glanced around him and noted that they had perched on the corpse of a murdered Hebrew, lying half concealed amid the rubbish.  A smile which the priests of lower rank who surrounded his litter knew not how to interpret, flitted over his shrewd, defiant countenance.