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WHEN the priests and the heir to the throne returned to the courtyard in the evening, several hundred torches were gleaming so brightly that it was as clear there as in the daytime. At a sign from Mefres there came out again a procession of musicians, dancers, and minor priests carrying a statue of the cow-headed Hator; and when they had driven away evil sprits, Pentuer began to explain again.
So in the month Hator, after thirty-four years of rule, died the Pharaoh Mer-Amen-Ramses XII, the ruler of two worlds, the lord of eternity, the giver of life and every happiness. He died because he felt that his body was growing weak and useless. He died because he was yearning for his eternal home and he wished to confide the cares of earthly rule to hands that were more youthful.
Those were the same dignitaries who, giddy with pride, had the past year refused him the corps of Memphis, and who had made him viceroy only when it seemed to them that he had performed an act of penitence by withdrawing from the palace the very same who watched every movement of his, made reports regarding him, but did not tell him, the heir to the throne, even of the treaty with Assar, the very same dignitaries who had employed deceit against him in the temple of Hator, and who at the Soda Lakes slaughtered prisoners to whom he had promised freedom.
How long is it since the prophets are occupied with my household?" "Since the time that Thou hast shown them thy favor, worthiness." "Is that true?" asked the prince, and he fell to thinking. He recalled the scene of the previous night in the temple of Astaroth, and compared it with a similar spectacle in the temple of Hator. "They called my name," said he to himself, "both here and there.
But there was something worse still: Pentuer and Mef res had proved to him in every way that Egypt must avoid war. In the temple of Hator that emphasis had seemed to him suspicious, since a war might obtain for the state thousands of legions of slaves, and raise the general prosperity of the country.
Catice said to Maskull, "Prove your sincerity. Kill this man and his mistress, according to the laws of Hator." "I can't do that. I have travelled in friendship with them." "You denied duty; and now you must do your duty," said Spadevil, calmly stroking his beard. "Whatever law you accept, You must obey, without turning to right or left.
What is done is done for the people." In the temple of Hator the pharaoh passed quickly through the school of medicine, and listened without great interest to predictions given by astrologers concerning him. When the astrologer high priest showed him a tablet on which was engraved a map of heaven, he asked, "How often do these predictions come true which ye read in the stars?"
"Thou wilt be heart and lips for me before the face of the pharaoh," said the prince to him, "and this is what Thou must do there. "When the most worthy Herhor asks what, to my thinking, causes the poverty of Egypt and the treasury, tell the minister to turn to his assistant, Pentuer, and he will explain my views in the same way that he did his own in the temple of Hator.
Finally, the direction of the centre, at the glass huts, was taken by Ramses, who had Pentuer near his person. On the fifteenth of Hator about seven in the morning, some tens of Libyan horsemen moved at a brisk trot through the valley. They stopped a moment at the huts, looked around, and, seeing nothing suspicious, rode back again.
As he stared at the object, a strange, sudden flush of confident vanity and self-sufficiency seemed to pass through him, but it was so momentary that he could be sure of nothing. "What may that be, Tydomin?" "It is Hator's Trifork." "And what is its purpose?" "It's a guide to Sant." "But who or what is Hator?" "Hator was the founder of Sant many thousands of years ago.
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