g
the troops of Mentezufis are visible, and that the Libyans are
surrounded on three sides.

"They would fly like deer if the sand did not hinder them."

"Victory! May our chief live forever!" cried Pentuer.

It was only two hours after midday.

The Asiatic cavalry sing loudly, and send arrows into the air in honor
of Ramses. The staff officers discount, and rush to kiss the hands and
feet of the viceroy; at last they take him from the saddle, raise him
in the air, shouting,

"Here is a mighty leader! He has trampled the enemies of Egypt! Amon is
on his right, and on his left, who can oppose him?"

Meanwhile the Libyans, pushing back all the time, had ascended the
sandy hills on the south, and after them Egyptians. From out the cloud
came horsemen every minute and rushed to Ramses.

"Mentezufis has taken them in the rear!" cried one.

"Two hundred have surrendered!" cried another.

"Patrokles has taken them in the rear!"

"Three Libyan standards are captured: the ram, the lion, and the
sparrow-hawk!"

More and more men gathered round the staff: it was surrounded by
warriors who were bloody and dust-covered.

"May he live through eternity! May he live through eternity, our
leader!"

The prince was so excited, that he laughed and cried in turn and said
to his retinue,

"The gods have been compassionate. I feared that we had lost. Evil is
the plight of a leader; without drawing a sword and even without
seeing, he must answer for everything!"

"Live thou, O conquering commander, live through eternity!" cried the
warriors.

"A fine victory for me!" laughed Ramses. "I do not know even how they
won it."

"He wins a victory, and wonders how it came!" cried some one in the
retinue.

"I say that I saw not the face of the battle," explained the prince.

"Be at rest, our commander," said Pentuer. "Thou didst dispose the army
so wisely that the enemy had to be beaten. And in what way? Just as if
that did not belong to thee, but the regiments."

"I did not even draw a sword. I do not see one Libyan," complained the
prince.

On the southern heights there was a struggling and a seething, but in
the valley the dust had begun to settle here and there, and a crowd of
Egyptian soldiers were visible as through a mist, their spears pointed
upward.

Ramses turned his horse in that direction and rode out to the deserted
field of battle, where just recently had been the struggle of the
central column. It was a pl