off my signature. Ye are
sages, I am unlearned; but by the beard of my king, I would not change
what I know for your wisdom. Ye are men to whom the world of papyrus
and brick is laid bare; but the real world in which men live is closed
to you. I am unlearned, but I have the sniff of a dog; and, as a dog
sniffs a bear from a distance; so I with reddened nose sniff a hero.

"Ye will give counsel to the prince! But ye are charmed by him already,
as a dove is by a serpent. I, at least, do not deceive myself; and,
though the prince is as kind to me as my own father, I feel through my
skin that he hates me and my Assyrians as a tiger hates an elephant.
Ha! ha! Only give him an army, and in three months he would be at
Nineveh, if soldiers would rise up to him in the desert instead of
falling down and dying."

"Even though Thou wert speaking truth," interrupted Mentezufis, "even
if the prince wished to go to Nineveh, he will not go."

"But who will detain him when he is the pharaoh?"

"We."

"Ye? ye? Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Sargon. "Ye think always that that young
man does not feel this treaty. But I but I ha! ha! ha! I will let the
skin be torn from me, and my body be impaled if he does not know
everything."

"Would the Phoenicians be so quiet if they possessed not the certainty
that your young lion of Egypt would shield them before the bull of
Assyria?"

Mentezufis and Mefres looked at each other stealthily. The genius of
the barbarian almost terrified them; he had given bold utterance to
that which they had not thought of. What would the result be, indeed,
if the heir had divined their plans and wished to cross them?

But Istubar, silent thus far, rescued them from momentary trouble.

"Sargon," said he, "Thou art interfering in affairs not thy own. Thy
duty is to conclude with Egypt a treaty of the kind that our lord
wishes. But what the heir knows or does not know, what he will do or
will not do, is not thy affair, since the supreme, eternally existent
priestly council assures us that the treaty will be executed. In what
way it will be executed is not a question for our heads."

The dry tone with which Istubar declared this calmed the riotous joy of
the ambassador. He nodded and muttered,

"A pity for the man in that case! He is a grand warrior, and
magnanimous."

CHAPTER XXXVII

AFTER their visit to Sargon the two holy men, Mentezufis and Mefres,
when they had concealed themselves carefully with their bu