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He made a long speech, beginning with his regret that his majesty had not thought fit to consult him earlier, and concluding with a learned discourse on the habits of rats. "This is all very interesting," said Rhampsinitus, "but I do not see that it helps very much to protect my treasure." "I crave your majesty's pardon," the prime minister answered.
Moreover, King Rhampsinitus erected several enormous statues of himself, as well as many fine palaces and a beautiful temple, bearing inscriptions which related all his great and glorious deeds, so that the people who lived after him might know how great a king he had been. But, in spite of all his greatness, there was one thing that prevented King Rhampsinitus from being a happy man.
Almost would Cornelia have been glad if the prows of the barges had been turned up the river, and she been enabled to behold with her own eyes the mighty piles of Cheops, Chephren, Mycerinus, Sesostris, Rhampsinitus, and a score of other Pharaohs whose deeds are recorded in stone imperishable.
One has only to turn over the pages of his Romancero, a collection of poems written in the first years of his illness, with his whole power and charm still in them, and not, like his latest poems of all, painfully touched by the air of his Matrazzen-gruft, his "mattress-grave," to see Heine's width of range; the most varied figures succeed one another, Rhampsinitus, Edith with the Swan Neck, Charles the First, Marie Antoinette, King David, a heroine of Mabille, Melisanda of Tripoli, Richard Coeur de Lion, Pedro the Cruel , Firdusi , Cortes, Dr.
And when Rhampsinitus heard of the secret way into his treasury, he would not rest until he had seen the sliding stone and moved it for himself. He laughed heartily when he remembered how he had put another lock on the door, and how he had posted a sentinel in the one place where he could see nothing of the thieves. Then he returned to the palace, and sent for the princess, his daughter.
Then the trumpets began to blare, the drums rattled, the cymbals clashed, and the courtiers shouted, "Long live our gracious princess! Long live Rhampsinitus and his son-in-law Ladronius!"
To their surprise they found everything quiet and nothing displaced. They examined the outside of the building thoroughly, and then, supposing that they had been roused by a false alarm, they returned to the palace. In the morning, Rhampsinitus paid his daily visit to the chamber, and discovered the headless body in the trap. He was more puzzled than ever.
He commanded the princess to sit on a throne in the temple of Ra, the sun-god, and to speak to all who came to pay their homage to her, asking them what was the cleverest and most wicked deed they had done. But secretly Rhampsinitus told her that, if any one related the story of the robbing of the treasury, she was to seize him by the hand, and hold him till the guards came and secured him.
Then they replaced the stone, and returned to lay the treasure before their mother; for in those days stealing was considered rather a clever trick, and even the thief's mother did not scold him, so long as he was not so clumsy as to be caught. Imagine the consternation of King Rhampsinitus when he visited the chamber the following morning!
The fastenings of the door were firm, and the lock was one which it was perfectly impossible to pick. For greater security, however, Rhampsinitus sent at once for a locksmith, and commanded him to fit the door with a second lock, the key of which he kept with the other.
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