his soul took wing to the throne of Amon. He contemplates the
lord of heaven face to face, reminds him of the benefits which he had
received from him, and summons him to his aid with an imperiousness
which betrays the sense of his own divine origin. The expected help was
not delayed. "While the voice resounds in Hermonthis, Amon arises at my
behest, he stretches out his hand to me, and I cry out with joy when he
hails me from behind: 'Face to face with thee, face to face with thee,
Ramses Miamun, I am with thee! It is I, thy father! My hand is with
thee, and I am worth more to thee than hundreds of thousands. I am the
strong one who loves valour; I have beheld in thee a courageous heart,
and my heart is satisfied; my will is about to be accomplished!' I am
like Montu; from the right I shoot with the dart, from the left I seize
the enemy. I am like Baal in his hour, before them; I have encountered
two thousand five hundred chariots, and as soon as I am in their midst,
they are overthrown before my mares. Not one of all these people has
found a hand wherewith to fight; their hearts sink within their breasts,
fear paralyses their limbs; they know not how to throw their darts, they
have no strength to hold their lances. I precipitate them into the water
like as the crocodile plunges therein; they are prostrate face to the
earth, one upon the other, and I slay in the midst of them, for I have
willed that not one should look behind him, nor that one should return;
he who falls rises not again." This sudden descent of the god has, even
at the present day, an effect upon the reader, prepared though he is
by his education to consider it as a literary artifice; but on the
Egyptian, brought up to regard Amon with boundless reverence, its
influence was irresistible. The Prince of the Khati, repulsed at the
very moment when he was certain of victory, "recoiled with terror. He
sends against the enemy the various chiefs, followed by their chariots
and skilled warriors,--the chiefs of Arvad, Lycia, and Ilion, the
leaders of the Lycians and Dardanians, the lords of Carchemish, of the
Girgashites, and of Khalupu; these allies of the Khati, all together,
comprised three thousand chariots." Their efforts, however, were in
vain. "I fell upon them like Montu, my hand devoured them in the space
of a moment, in the midst of them I hewed down and slew. They said one
to another: 'This is no man who is amongst us; it is Sutkhu the great
warrior, i