"Are those Assyrians?" thought the prince, as he looked at their strange figures and heard their hated, though un-understood language. "So already Assyrians are on the Nile, to become brothers to us, or to deceive us, and their dignitary, Sargon, is courting Kama?" He returned home. His imaginings died before the light of a passion felt then for the first time. He, a man mild and noble, felt a deadly hatred toward the ancient enemies of Egypt, whom he had never met till that evening. When leaving the temple of Hator, and after his interview with Hiram, he began to think of war with Asia; that was merely thinking that Egypt needed population, and the pharaoh needed treasure; and since war gave the easiest means to win them, and since, besides, it agreed with his need of glory, Rameses conceived the plan of warfare. But now he was concerned neither with slaves, nor treasures, nor glory, for in him was sounding at that moment a voice mightier than every other,--the voice of hatred. The pharaohs had struggled so long with the Assyrians, both sides had shed so much blood, the struggle had fixed its roots in their hearts so profoundly, that the prince grasped for his sword at the very sight of Assyrian warriors. It seemed that the spirits of all the slain Egyptians, their toils and sufferings, had risen in the soul of this descendant of pharaohs and cried for retribution. When Rameses reached the palace, he summoned Tutmosis. One of them had drunk too much, the other was raging. "Dost thou know what I have seen just now?" asked the prince of his favorite. "One of the priests, perhaps." "I have seen Assyrians. O ye gods! what I felt! What a low people! Their bodies from head to foot are covered with wool, as wild beasts are; the stench of old tallow comes from them; and what speech, what beard, what hair!" The prince walked up and down the room quickly, panting, excited. "I thought," said he, "that I despised the robberies of scribes, the deceit of nomarchs, that I hated the cunning and ambition of priests; I felt repulsion for Jews, and I feared the Phœnicians; but I convinced myself to-night that those were all amusements. I know now, for the first time, what hate is, after I have seen and heard Assyrians. I understand now why a dog tears the cat which has crossed his path." "Thou art accustomed to Jews and Phœnicians, worthiness, thou hast met Assyrians now for the first time," put in Tutmosis. "Stupidity! the Phœnicians!" continued the prince, as if to himself. "The Phœnicians, the Philistines, the Arabs, the Libyans, even the Ethiopians seem, as it were, members of our own family. When they fail to pay tribute, we are angry; when they pay, we forget our feeling. "But the Assyrians are something strange, something inimical, so that--I shall not be happy till I can count one hundred thousand of their hands cut off by us." Never had Tutmosis seen the prince in such a state of feeling. CHAPTER XXXIII