wed 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.

In a few hours they were brought to a close, for the Asiatic and Egyptian
scribes had agreed, in the course of the long march southwards, on the
stipulations to be signed; the treaty itself was to be drawn up after the
articles had been carefully considered, and to be signed in the city of
Rameses called Tanis--or, by the numerous settlers in its neighborhood,
Zoan. The