cord gave
out a hiss and burned quickly. Then with a knife be removed the cover
very carefully and saw inside the pot as it were sand and pebbles of an
ashen color. He took out a couple of the pebbles and going aside
touched them with the torch. In one moment a flame burst forth and the
pebbles vanished leaving thick smoke behind and a disagreeable odor.
Samentu took some of the ash-colored sand, poured it on the pavement,
put in the middle of it a piece of the cord which he had found at the
pot, covered all with a heavy stone. Then he touched the cord with his
torch, the cord burned and after a while the stone sprang up in a
flame.

"I have that son of the gods now!" said Samentu smiling. "The treasure
will not be lost."

He went from column to column to open slabs and take out hidden pots.
In each pot was a cord which Samentu cut, the pots he left at one side.

"Well," said the priest, "his holiness might give me half these
treasures and make my son a nomarch and surely he will do so, for he is
a magnanimous sovereign."

When he had rendered the lower hall safe in this way Samentu returned
to the treasure chamber, and hence went to the upper hall. There also
were various inscriptions on the walls, numerous columns and in them
pots provided with cords and filled with kernels which burst when fire
touched them. Samentu cut the cords, removed the pots from the interior
of the columns, and tied up in a rag one pinch of the sand. Then being
wearied he sat down to rest. Six of his torches were burnt now. The
night must have been nearing its end.

"I never should have supposed," said he to himself, "that those priests
had such a wonderful agent. Why, with it they could overturn Assyrian
fortresses! Well, we will not tell our own pupils everything either."

The wearied man fell to thinking. Now he was certain that he would hold
the highest position in Egypt, a position higher than that held by
Herhor. What would he do? Very much.

He would secure wealth and wisdom to his posterity. He would try to
gain their secrets from all the temples and this would increase his
power immensely; he would secure to Egypt preeminence above Assyria.

The young pharaoh jeered at the gods, that would facilitate to Samentu
the establishment of the worship of one god, Osiris, for example; and
the union of Phoenicians, Jews, Greeks, and Libyans in one state with
Egypt.

Together they would make the canal to join the Red Sea and the
Med