Libyan preparations were very brief. The former warriors of his holiness had no weapons, it is true, but they knew their trade, and it was not difficult in those days to find weapons for an army. A few straps, or pieces of rope for a sling, a dart or a sharpened stick, an axe, or a heavy club, a bag of stones, and another of dates,--that was the whole problem. So Musawasa gave two thousand men, ex-warriors of the pharaoh, and four thousand of the Libyan rabble to Tehenna, commanding him to fall on Egypt at the earliest, seize whatever he could find, and collect provisions for the real army. Assembling for himself the most important forces, he sent swift runners through the oases and summoned to his standard all who had no property. There had not been such a movement in the desert for a long time. From each oasis came crowd after crowd, such a proletariat, that, though almost naked, they deserved to be called a tattered rabble. Relying on the opinion of his counsellors, who a month earlier had been officers of his holiness, Musawasa supposed, with perfect judgment, that his son would plunder hundreds of villages and small places from Terenuthis to Senti-Nofer, before he would meet important Egyptian forces. Finally they reported to him, that at the first news of a movement among the Libyans, not only had all laborers fled from the glass works, but that even the troops had withdrawn from fortresses in Sochet-Heman on the Soda Lakes. This was of very good import to the barbarians, since those glass works were an important source of income to the pharaoh's treasury. Musawasa had made the same mistake as the supreme priestly council. He had not foreseen military genius in Rameses. And an uncommon thing happened: before the first Libyan corps had reached the neighborhood of the Soda Lakes the viceroy's army was there, and was twice as numerous as its enemies. No man could reproach the Libyans with lack of foresight. Tehenna and his staff had a very well-organized service. Their spies had made frequent visits to Melcatis, Naucratis, Sai, Menuf, and Terenuthis, and had sailed across the Canopus and Bolbita arms of the Nile. Nowhere did they meet troops; the movements of troops would have been paralyzed in those places by the overflow, but they did see almost everywhere the alarm of settled populations which were simply fleeing from border villages. So they brought their leader exact intelligence. Meanwhile the viceroy's army, in spite of the overflow, had reached the edge of the desert in nine days after it was mobilized, and now, furnished with water and provisions, it vanished among the hills of the Soda Lakes. If Tehenna could have risen like an eagle above the camp of his warriors, he would have been frightened at seeing that Egyptian regiments were hidden in all the ravines of that district, and that his corps might be surrounded at any instant. CHAPTER XLIII