nor to Amon carelessly."

But the pharaoh in that magic globe saw now something altogether
different. Behold the prayer of the delighted little boy rose, like a
lark, toward the sky, and with fluttering wings it went higher and
higher till it reached the throne where the eternal Amon with his hands
on his knees was sunk in meditation on his own all-mightiness.

Then it went still higher, as high as the head of the divinity, and
sang with the thin, childish little voice to him:

"And for those good things which Thou hast given us may all love thee
as I do."

At these words the divinity, sunk in himself, opened his eyes there
came to the earth immense calm. Every pain ceased, every fear, every
wrong stopped. The whistling missile hung in the air, the lion stopped
in his spring on the deer, the stick uplifted did not fall on the back
of the captive. The sick man forgot his pains, the wanderer in the
desert his hunger, the prisoner his chains. The storm ceased, and the
wave of the sea, though ready to drown the ship, halted. And on the
whole earth such rest settled down that the sun, just hiding on the
horizon, thrust up his shining head again.

The pharaoh recovered. He saw before him a little table, on the table a
black globe, at the side of it Beroes the Chaldean.

"Mer-Amen-Ramses," asked the priest, "hast Thou found a person whose
prayers reach the footstool of Him who existed before the ages?"

"I have."

"Is he a prince, a noble, a prophet, or perhaps an ordinary hermit?"

"He is a little boy, six years old, who asked Amon for nothing, he only
thanked him for everything."

"But dost Thou know where he dwells?" inquired the Chaldean.

"I know, but I will not steal for my own use the virtue of his prayer.
The world, Beroes, is a gigantic vortex, in which people are whirled
around like sand, and they are whirled by misfortune. That child with
his prayer gives people what I cannot give: a brief space of peace and
oblivion. Dost understand, O Chaldean?"

Beroes was silent.

CHAPTER XLIX

AT sunrise of the twenty-first of Hator there came from Memphis to the
camp at the Soda Lakes an order by which three regiments were to march
to Libya to stand garrison in the towns, the rest of the Egyptian army
was to return home with Ramses.

The army greeted this arrangement with shouts of delight, for a stay of
some days in the wilderness had begun to annoy them. In spite of
supplies from Egypt and from conquer