First of all, he understood that a secret battle for life and
death was raging between the priests and the Phoenicians. About what?
Naturally about wealth and influence. Hiram said truly, that should the
Phoenicians be expelled from Egypt, all the estates of the pharaoh, and
even of the nomarchs and the entire aristocracy, would pass into
possession of the temples.

Ramses had never liked the priests, and he had known and seen for a
long time that the greater part of Egypt belonged to them, that their
cities were the richest, their fields the best tilled, their people
satisfied. He understood too that one-half the treasures which belonged
to the temples would suffice to rescue the pharaoh from ceaseless
troubles and give back power to him.

The prince knew this, and more than once he had said so with
bitterness. But when through the influence of Herhor he became viceroy
and received the corps in Memphis, he grew reconciled with the priests
and stifled his previous dislike of them.

All that dislike had revived again.

Not only had the priests not told him of their negotiations with
Assyria, they had not even forewarned him of the embassy of Sargon.
This question might indeed be the great secret of the state and the
temples. But why did they conceal the amount of tributes from various
Asiatic nations, unpaid thus far? One hundred thousand talents why,
that was a sum which might restore immediately the financial status of
the pharaoh! Why had they concealed from him that which even a prince
of Tyre knew, a man who was of the council in that city .'

What a shame for him, the heir to the throne, and the viceroy, that his
eyes were first opened by foreigners! But there was something worse
still: Pentuer and Mef res had proved to him in every way that Egypt
must avoid war. In the temple of Hator that emphasis had seemed to him
suspicious, since a war might obtain for the state thousands of legions
of slaves, and raise the general prosperity of the country. Today this
seemed the more necessary since Egypt ought to receive unpaid sums and
gain still more tribute.

The prince rested his arms on the table and calculated,

"We," thought he, "should receive a hundred thousand talents. Hiram
calculates that the plunder of Nineveh and Babylon would give about two
hundred thousand; together, three hundred thousand. With such a sum we
might cover the cost of the mightiest war, and there would remain
besides several hundred th