Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 28, 2025
"They will try various tricks," added the treasurer, yawning; "but in fact they have not strength enough. In every case I thank the gods who put me in the pharaoh's camp. Well, let us go to sleep." After the dignitaries had left the chamber of the pharaoh, Tutmosis opened a secret door in one of the walls, and led in Samentu.
"Art Thou the man who informed Hiram of the treaty of our priests with Assyria?" "I am," replied Samentu, without dropping his eyes. "Didst Thou share in that iniquity?" "I did not. I overheard the conditions. In the temples, as in thy palaces, holiness, the walls are honeycombed with passages through which it is possible to hear on the summit of pylons what is said in the cellars."
When he had rendered the lower hall safe in this way Samentu returned to the treasure chamber, and hence went to the upper hall. There also were various inscriptions on the walls, numerous columns and in them pots provided with cords and filled with kernels which burst when fire touched them.
Samentu did not even feel aversion toward them, he was only curious as to who could have betrayed him. But even that point did not concern him overmuch, for incomparably more important then seemed the question: Why must he die, and why had he been brought into existence?
Samentu cut the cords, removed the pots from the interior of the columns, and tied up in a rag one pinch of the sand. Then being wearied he sat down to rest. Six of his torches were burnt now. The night must have been nearing its end. "I never should have supposed," said he to himself, "that those priests had such a wonderful agent. Why, with it they could overturn Assyrian fortresses!
"It appears," replied the priest, "that Samentu was discovered in one of the halls of the labyrinth, and that he poisoned himself to escape torture. It seems that Mefres discovered him through the aid of a certain Greek, who, as they tell us, resembles thee, holiness." "Again Mefres and Lykon!" exclaimed Tutmosis in anger.
Samentu took some of the ash-colored sand, poured it on the pavement, put in the middle of it a piece of the cord which he had found at the pot, covered all with a heavy stone. Then he touched the cord with his torch, the cord burned and after a while the stone sprang up in a flame. "I have that son of the gods now!" said Samentu smiling. "The treasure will not be lost."
"There is the traitor!" Samentu approached him with a smile, and said, "I recognize thee by that cry, Mefres. When Thou canst not be a cheat, Thou art merely an idiot." Those present were astounded. Samentu spoke with calm irony. "Though it is true that at this moment Thou art both cheat and fool.
And Thou sayst that he complains of the priests? Bring him hither." The pharaoh told Samentu to go into the second division of the tent. The unfortunate officer soon showed himself. He fell with his face to the earth, and then kneeling, and sighing, continued,
He went from column to column to open slabs and take out hidden pots. In each pot was a cord which Samentu cut, the pots he left at one side. "Well," said the priest, "his holiness might give me half these treasures and make my son a nomarch and surely he will do so, for he is a magnanimous sovereign."
Word Of The Day
Others Looking