Bai, the second prophet of Amon, alone seemed untouched alike by sorrow, anxiety, or the enervating atmosphere of the day; he greeted the warrior in the ante-room as vigorously and cheerily as ever, and assured him—­though in the lowest whisper—­that no one thought of holding him responsible for the misdeeds of his people.  But when Hosea volunteered the acknowledgment that, at the moment of his summons to the king, he had been in the act of going to the commander-in-chief to beg a release from military service, the priest interrupted him to remind him of the debt of gratitude he, Bai, owed to him as the preserver of his life.  Then he added that he would make every effort in his power to keep him in the army and show that the Egyptians—­even against Pharaoh’s will, or which he would speak farther with him privately—­knew how to honor genuine merit without distinction of person or birth.

The Hebrew had little time to repeat his resolve; the head chamberlain interrupted them to lead Hosea into the presence of the “good god.”

The sovereign awaited Hosea in the smaller audience-room adjoining the royal apartments.

It was a stately chamber, and to-day looked more spacious than when, as of yore, it was filled with obsequious throngs.  Only a few courtiers and priests, with some of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting, all clad in deep mourning, stood in groups near the throne.  Opposite to Pharaoh, squatting in a circle on the floor, were the king’s councillors and interpreters, each adorned with an ostrich plume.

All wore tokens of mourning, and the monotonous, piteous plaint of the wailing women, which ever and anon rose into a loud, shrill, tremulous shriek, echoed through the silent rooms within to this hall, announcing that death had claimed a victim even in the royal dwelling.

The king and queen sat on a gold and ivory couch, heavily draped with black.  Instead of their usual splendid attire, both wore dark robes, and the royal consort and mother, who mourned her first-born son, leaned motionless, with drooping head, against her kingly husband’s shoulder.

Pharaoh, too, gazed fixedly into space, as though lost in a dream.  The sceptre had slipped from his hand and lay in his lap.

The queen had been torn away from the corpse of her son, which was now delivered to the embalmers, and it was not until she reached the entrance of the audience-chamber that she had succeeded in checking her tears.  She had no thought of resistance; the inexorable ceremonial of court etiquette required the queen to be present at any audience of importance.  To-day she would gladly have shunned the task, but Pharaoh had commanded her presence, and she knew and approved the course to be pursued; for she was full of dread of the power of the Hebrew Mesu, called by his own people Moses, and of his God, who had brought such terrible woe on the Egyptians.  She had other children to lose, and she had known Mesu from her childhood, and was well aware how highly the great Rameses, her husband’s father and predecessor, had prized the wisdom of this stranger who had been reared with his own sons.