"O King, is it for such child's play," said the oldest of the band, "that you have sent for us from the recesses of the secret chambers where under the starry ceilings, by the light of the lamps, we are meditating, bending over undecipherable papyri, kneeling before the hieroglyphic stelae with their mysterious, deep meanings, forcing the secrets of nature, calculating the power of numbers, bearing our trembling hand to the border of the veil of the great Isis? Let us go back, for life is short, and the wise man has scarce time to tell to another the word which he has learned. Let us go back to our laboratories. The merest juggler, the first charmer of serpents who plays the flute on the public squares, will suffice to satisfy you." "Ennana, do what I wish," said the Pharaoh to the chief of the wise men and the magicians. Old Ennana turned towards the band of sages, who remained standing motionless, their minds already lost again in deep meditations. "Cast down every man your rod as you whisper the magic word." The rods fell together with a sharp sound upon the stone slabs, and the wise men resumed their perpendicular attitude like the statues placed against the pillars of the tombs. They did not even deign to look at their feet to see if the miracle were being wrought, so sure were they of the power of their formula. And then was seen a strange and horrible sight. The rods twisted like branches of green wood in the fire, the ends flattened out into the shape of heads, thinned out into the shape of tails. Some remained smooth, others became scaly, according to the kind of serpent. All these swarmed and crawled and hissed, interlaced and knotted into hideous knots. There were vipers bearing the mark of the spearhead upon their low brows, horned snakes with menacing protuberances, greenish, viscous hydras, asps with movable fangs, yellow trigonocephalae, orvets or blind serpents, crotalidae with short heads, black skins, and rattles on their tails, amphisbena, which can glide forward or backward, boas opening mouths wide enough to swallow an ox, serpents with eyes surrounded with discs like those of owls;--the pavement of the hall was covered with them. Tahoser, who shared the throne of the Pharaoh, raised her beautiful bare feet and pulled them back under her, pale with terror. "Well," said the Pharaoh to Mosche, "you see that the skill of my magicians equals, and even surpasses yours; their rods have turned into serpents like that of Aharon. Invent another prodigy if you seek to convince me." Mosche stretched forth his hand, and Aharon's serpent glided towards the twenty-four reptiles. The struggle was not long; it soon had swallowed the hideous things, real or seeming creations of the wise men of Egypt. Then it resumed its former wand shape.