ious, but a
very learned high priest."

"But if the pharaoh will not follow that example?" "Then we shall
dispense with him," said Herhor. "Listen to me Pentuer," continued he,
after a while. "I know not only the acts, but even the thoughts of that
pharaoh of thine, who, moreover, has not been solemnly crowned yet,
hence for us he is nothing. I know that he wants to make the priests
his servants, and himself sole lord of Egypt.

"But such a plan is stupid, it is even treasonable. Not the pharaohs,
as Thou knowest well, but the gods and the priests created Egypt. It is
not the pharaohs who mark the rise and fall of the Nile and regulate
its overflows; it is not the pharaohs who teach the people to sow, to
gather fruits and rear cattle. It is not the pharaohs who cure diseases
and watch over the safety of the state against foreign enemies.

"What would happen, tell me that, were our order to yield Egypt to the
mercy of the pharaohs? The wisest pharaohs have behind them the
experience of a few years at the longest, but the priestly order has
investigated and taught during tens of thousands of years. The
mightiest ruler has two eyes and two hands, while we possess thousands
of eyes and thousands of hands in all provinces at home, and in all
foreign countries.

"Can the activity of a pharaoh equal ours; and when opinions differ who
should yield, we or the pharaoh?"

"Well, what am I to do now?" inquired Pentuer.

"Do what that stripling commands if Thou betray not holy secrets. And
leave the rest to time. I wish most sincerely that the youth called
Ramses XIII might come to his senses, and I suppose that he would were
it not that he has attached himself to disgusting traitors over whom
the hands of the gods are now suspended."

Pentuer took farewell of the high priest. He was filled with dark
forebodings, but he did not fail in spirit, since he knew that whatever
he might gain in improving the condition of the common man would
remain, even were the pharaoh to bend before the power of the priestly
order.

"In the worst case," thought he, "we must do what we can, and what
pertains to us. When conditions improve, what is sown today will give
fruit hereafter."

But still he determined to renounce agitation among the people. He was
even ready to calm the impatient, so as not to increase trouble for the
pharaoh.

A couple of weeks later Pentuer entered the boundaries of Lower Egypt,
looking about on the way for the w