Many were the wiseacres who readily solved this problem to their own satisfaction. Thus, for example, the priests of Melkarth--the name they gave to Baal in his special office as guardian of the city--had a theory of their own. It was to the effect that the gods were offended at the growing laxity of worship, and especially at the falling-off of the temple revenues, which were in great measure the sumptuous perquisites of the priests themselves. They were especially disaffected towards their young king, Hiram, whom they regarded as an obstacle to any reforms on this line. Hiram had spent his early training years with the fleet, and was conversant with the faiths and customs of many countries. Thus he was educated to a cosmopolitan, not to say sceptical, habit of mind, and was led to doubt whether any movement that originated in the ambition of a horde of unscrupulous and superstitious priests could win the favor of the gods, even admitting that such supernal beings existed, of which the king was reported to have expressed a doubt. King Hiram had been but a few months on the throne, to which he had succeeded on the death of his father, when he opened the meeting of the Great Council which issued the proclamation regarding the sacrifice. His Majesty sat upon the bronze throne. Above him shone a canopy of beaten gold. At his back hung a curtain of richest Tyrian purple, in the centre of which gleamed a silver dove with outspread wings, the symbol of Tyre from those ancient days when its commerce and renown began to fly abroad over the world. Hiram's face was typically Phoenician, and betokened the clear tide of his racial blood. His forehead was broad, and prominent at the brows. His eyes were gleaming black. His nose started as if with the purpose of being Jewish, but terminated in the expanded nostril that suggested the Egyptian. His hair was black, with the slightest touch of red, which, however, only strong light would reveal. He wore the conical cap of the sailor, for his pride of naval command had never become secondary to even his sense of royal dignity; and many a time had he declared that a true Phoenician king was chiefly king of the sea. The royal cap was distinguished from that of common sailors by the uræus, or winged serpent's crest, which was wrought in golden needlework upon the front. The king's throat and chest were bare, except for a purple mantle which hung from his left shoulder, and crossed his body diagonally; and for a broad collar of silk embroidered with silver threads, which shone in contrast with his weather-bronzed skin. His arms were clasped above the elbows with heavy spirals of gold. He wore a loose white chiton, or undergarment, which terminated above the knees, and revealed as knotty a pair of legs as ever balanced so graceful a figure. But one thing marred his appearance--a deep scar on his chin, the memorial of a hand-to-hand fight with Egyptian pirates off the mouth of the Nile.