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.

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