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Updated: June 29, 2025
Have I won thine enmity, my Prince?" "I hold naught against thee, O Har-hat, but thou hast not been a profitable counselor to my father in these days of his great need." The young prince spoke frankly and returned the comprehending gaze of the fan-bearer. Har-hat's eyes fell on his daughter, and again on the prince. Slow discomfiture overspread his features.
Har-hat moved forward a pace. She noted the movement and playfully waved him back. "Encroach not. This hour is mine." Har-hat's face wore a dubious smile. "He hath a son," she repeated. "He had a son, but he is dead," the king answered. "Not so! He is in prison where thy counselor, the wicked, unfeeling, jealous, rapacious Har-hat hath entombed him!"
South only could it flee, into a torrid, arid, uninhabited desert. The slaves were entrapped. The pursuer had but to follow the pursued in the only open direction, and overtake the starving, thirsting multitude at last. But from Har-hat's movement he had meant to continue along this plateau, out of sight of Israel, until he had posted part of his army in the way of escape to the south.
In the council chamber he lounged in his chair with his eyes upon nothing and apparently hearing nothing. But the slow shifting of the spark in his sleepy eyes indicated to those who observed closely that he heard but kept his own counsel. If Meneptah spoke to him he but seconded Har-hat's suggestions.
The betrothal of Rameses to Har-hat's daughter gave further material for contention. It seemed to indicate that the fan-bearer had builded for himself for two reigns. Hotep's situation was most poignantly unhappy.
With calmness and deliberation he had studied conditions, assembled all contingencies and fortified himself against them, gathered hypotheses, summarized his evidence and brought about that which he had planned to accomplish the destruction of Har-hat's rule over Meneptah. Har-hat was alone. Before him were all the powers of the land arrayed against him.
In rapid succession he accepted and rejected the thought that the messenger had played him false, had been assassinated and robbed; that Meneptah had recalled the signet, or had added the penalty of suspense to his indorsement of Har-hat's fiat of imprisonment. When the climax of his sensations was reached, his self-sufficiency collapsed and he entered into ceaseless supplication of the gods.
He could not ask the wounded Israelite to return to the camp now, seeing that she had suffered mistreatment at the hands of Har-hat's servants and deserted not. "If there were but a grotto in the rocks a cave or a tomb " he stopped and smote his hands together. "By Apis! I have it the Tomb of the Discontented Soul!"
But once again the observant ones noted that the fan-bearer did not advise at wide variance with any of the prince's known ideas. Thus far the most caviling could not see that Har-hat's favoritism had led to any misrule, but the field of possibilities opened by his complete dominance over the Pharaoh was crowded with disaster, individual and national.
He turned to Har-hat in his perplexity and craved his counsel. The fan-bearer laughed good-naturedly and begged the Pharaoh's permission to send her to the mines before she bewitched his cattle and troubled him with visions. Har-hat's unconcern made men of us all once more, but Meneptah shook his head. 'The name of Neferari Thermuthis defends her, he said; 'let her go hence'."
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