amentu, shaking himself. "For think, lord,
that monster was as tall as an obelisk."

Ramses made a movement of displeasure.

"Samentu," said he, "it seems to me that Thou didst visit thy caves in
a dream."

"I swear to thee, holiness, by the life of my children!" exclaimed the
priest, "that I speak truth. Yes; that monster in the skin of a reptile
covered with a scaly armor, if lying on the ground, would with its tail
be fifty paces long. In spite of fear and repulsion I returned a number
of times to that cave and examined the creature most carefully."

"Then it was alive?"

"No, it was dead. Dead a very long time, but preserved like our
mummies. The great dryness of the air preserved it, and perhaps some.
salt of the earth unknown to me.

"That was my last discovery," continued Samentu. "I went no more into
caves, for I meditated greatly. 'Osiris,' said I, 'creates lions,
elephants, horses, and Set gives birth to serpents, bats, crocodiles;
the monster which I met is surely a creation of Set, and since it
exceeds everything known by us under the sun, Set is a mightier god
than Osiris.'

"So I turned to Set, and on returning to Egypt fixed myself in his
temple. When I told the priests of my discovery they explained to me
that they knew a great many monsters of that sort."

Samentu drew breath, then continued,

"Shouldst Thou desire to visit our temple at any time, holiness, I will
show thee wondrous and terrible beings in coffins: geese with lizards'
heads and bats' wings. Lizards like swans, but larger than ostriches,
crocodiles three times as long as those which live now in the Nile,
frogs as bulky as mastiffs. Those are mummies, or skeletons found in
caves and preserved in our coffins. People think that we adore them,
but we merely save them from decay and examine their structure."

"I shall believe thee when I see them myself," replied the pharaoh.
"But tell me, whence could such creatures come?"

"The world in which we live, holiness, has suffered great changes. In
Egypt itself we find ruins of cities and temples hidden in the earth
deeply. There was a time when that which is now Lower Egypt was an arm
of the sea, and the Nile flowed through the whole width of our valley.
Still earlier the sea was here, where this kingdom is now. Our
ancestors inhabited the region which the western desert has taken.
Still earlier tens of thousands of years ago the people were not as we
are, they rather resembled monke