"Never yet has there been such a prophet. One cannot imagine when he could make such calculations," said the best mathematician in the temple of Hator. "Fathers," said Pentuer, "do not overestimate my services. Long years ago in our temples the condition of the state was represented in this manner. I have only disinterred that which later generations had in some degree forgotten." "But the reckoning?" asked the mathematician. "The reckonings are continued unbrokenly in all the provinces and temples," replied Pentuer. "The general amounts are found in the palace of his holiness." "But the figures?" exclaimed the mathematician. "Our fields are arranged in just such figures, and the geometers of the state study them at school." "We know not what to admire most in this priest, his wisdom or his humility," said Mefres. "Since we have such a man, the gods have not forgotten us." At that moment the guard watching on the pylons of the temple summoned those present to prayer. "In the evening I will finish the explanations," said Pentuer; "now I will say a few words in addition. "Ye inquire, worthy fathers, why I use beans for these pictures. I do so because a grain put in the ground brings a harvest to the husbandmen yearly; so a man brings tribute every year to the treasury. "If in any province two million less beans are sown than in past years, the following harvest will be notably less, and the earth-tillers will have a poorer income. In the state also, when two millions of population are gone, the inflow of taxes must diminish." Rameses listened with attention, and walked away in silence. CHAPTER XXVIII When the priests and the heir to the throne returned to the courtyard in the evening, several hundred torches were gleaming so brightly that it was as clear there as in the daytime. At a sign from Mefres there came out again a procession of musicians, dancers, and minor priests carrying a statue of the cow-headed Hator; and when they had driven away evil spirits, Pentuer began to explain again. "Ye see, worthy fathers," said he, "that since the time of the nineteenth dynasty a hundred thousand measures of land and two million people have vanished out of Egypt. This explains why the income of the state has decreased thirty-two thousand talents; that it has decreased is known to all of us. "But this is only the beginning of misfortunes to the state and the treasury. Ninety-eight thousand talents of income apparently remain to his holiness. But do ye think that the pharaoh receives all this income? "I will tell you what his worthiness Herhor discovered in the province of the Hare.