"That is not true! I know the history of this country, which is hidden to thee. The leaders of armies and the masters of officials were the pharaohs alone, or at least the most energetic among them. Those rulers did not pass their days in making offerings and prayers, but in managing the state." "If it is the desire of his holiness to pass his days that way?" said Tutmosis. "It is not my father's wish that nomarchs should govern as they please in the capitals of provinces. Why, the governor of Ethiopia considered himself as almost equal to the king of kings. And it cannot be my father's wish that his army should inarch around two golden beetles because the minister of war is a high priest." "He is a great warrior," whispered Tutmosis, with increasing timidity. "He a great warrior? Because he dispersed a handful of Libyan robbers ready to flee at the mere sight of Egyptians. But see what our neighbors are doing. Israel delays in paying tribute and pays less and less of it. The cunning Phoenician steals a number of ships from our fleet every year. On the east we are forced to keep up a great army against the Hittites, while around Babylon and Nineveh there is such a movement that it is felt throughout all Mesopotamia. "And what is the outcome of priestly management? This, that while my great-grandfather had a hundred thousand talents of yearly income and one hundred and sixty thousand troops, my father has barely fifty thousand talents and one hundred and twenty thousand troops. "And what an army! Were it not for the Greek corps, which keeps them in order as a dog watches sheep, the Egyptian soldiers today would obey only priests and the pharaoh would sink to the level of a miserable nomarch." "Whence hast Thou learned this?" asked Tutmosis, with astonishment. "Am I not of a priestly family? And besides, they taught me when I was not heir to the throne. Oh, when I become pharaoh after my father, may he live through eternity! I will put my bronze-sandaled foot on their necks. But first of all I will seize their treasures, which have always been bloated, but which from the time of Ramses the Great have begun to swell out, and today are so swollen that the treasure of the pharaoh is invisible because of them." "Woe to me and to thee!" sighed Tutmosis. "Thou hast plans under which this hill would bend could it hear and understand them. And where are thy forces, thy assistance, thy warriors? Against thee the whole people will rise, led by a class of men with mighty influence. But who is on thy rider?" Ramses listened and fell to thinking. At last he said, "The army." "A considerable part of it will follow the priests." "The Greek corps." "A barrel of water in the Nile." "The officials." "Half of them belong to the priests." The prince shook his head sadly, and was silent. From the summit they went down by a naked and stony slope to the opposite base of the hill. Then Tutmosis, who had pushed ahead somewhat, cried,