o him, the sailor on the sea beat the
deck with his forehead and prayed that wind might blow from the east a
week longer. The earth-worker wished that swamps might dry up quickly
after inundation; the needy fisherman begged that the swamps might not
dry up at any time.

Their prayers killed each other and never reached the divine ears of
Amon.

The greatest uproar reigned above the quarries where criminals, lashed
together in chain gangs, split enormous rocks with wedges, wetted with
water. There a party of day convicts prayed for the night, so that they
might lie down to slumber; while parties of night toilers, roused by
their overseers, beat their breasts, asking that the sun might not set
at any hour. Merchants who purchased quarried and dressed stones prayed
that there might be as many criminals in the quarries as possible,
while provision contractors lay on their stomachs, sighing for the
plague to kill laborers, and make their own profits as large as they
might be.

So the prayers of men from the quarries did not reach the sky in any
case.

On the western boundary the pharaoh saw two armies preparing for
battle. Both were prostrate on the sand, calling on Amon to rub out the
other side. The Libyans wished shame and death to Egyptians; the
Egyptians hurled curses on the Libyans.

The prayers of these and of those, like two flocks of falcons, fought
above the earth and fell dead in the desert. Amon did not even see
them.

And whithersoever the pharaoh turned his wearied glance he saw the same
picture everywhere. The laborers were praying for rest and decrease of
taxes, scribes were praying that taxes might increase and work never be
finished. The priests implored Amon for long life to Ramses XII and
death to Phoenicians, who interfered with their interests; the nomarchs
implored the gods to preserve the Phoenicians and let Ramses XIII
ascend the throne at the earliest, for he would curb priestly tyranny.
Lions, jackals, and hyenas were panting with hunger and desire for
fresh blood; deer and rabbits slipped out of hiding-places, thinking to
preserve wretched life a day longer, though experience declared that
numbers of them must perish, even on that night, so that beasts of prey
might not famish. So throughout the whole world reigned cross-purposes
everywhere. Each wished that which filled others with terror; each
begged for his own good, without asking if he did harm to the next man.

For this cause their