Aharon lifted up his rod and smote the waters that were in the river. The train of the Pharaoh awaited the result anxiously. The King, who had a heart of brass within a breast of granite, smiled disdainfully, trusting in the skill of his wise men to confound the foreign magicians. As soon as the river had been smitten by the rod of the Hebrew,--the rod which had been a serpent,--the waters began to turn muddy and to boil; their mud colour was gradually changed; reddish tones began to mingle with it; then the whole mass assumed a sombre purple colour, and the Nile seemed a river of blood with scarlet waves that edged the banks with rosy foam. It seemed to reflect a vast conflagration or a sky rayed by lightning, but the atmosphere was calm, Thebes was not burning, and the unchanging azure spread over the red stream, marked here and there by the white bellies of dead fishes. The long crocodiles, using their crooked paws, emerged from the river on to the bank, and the heavy hippopotami, like blocks of rose granite covered with leprous, black moss, fled through the reeds, or raised above the stream their mighty heads, unable to breathe in that water of blood. The canals, the fish-ponds, and the pools had all turned the same colour, and the vessels full of water were red like the basins in which the blood of victims is collected. The Pharaoh was not astonished at the wonder, and said to the Hebrews,-- "This miracle might terrify a credulous and ignorant people, but it has nothing surprising for me. Let Ennana and the wise men come. They will repeat this enchantment." The wise men came, led by their chief. Ennana cast a glance on the river and its purple waves, and saw at once what was the matter. "Restore things to their primitive condition," he said to Mosche's companion; "I will repeat your wonder." Aharon again smote the stream, which at once resumed its natural colour. Ennana nodded briefly, like an impartial expert who does justice to the skill of a colleague; he considered the enchantment was well wrought for one who had not had, like himself, the opportunity of studying wisdom in the mysterious chambers of the labyrinth, where a very few of the initiated can alone enter, so trying are the tests which have to be undergone. "It is my turn now," he said; and he stretched out over the Nile his rod engraved with hieroglyphic signs, muttering a few words of a tongue so old that it had probably ceased to be understood even in the days of Mene, the first king of Egypt,--a language spoken by sphinxes, with syllables of granite. A vast red flood stretched suddenly from one bank to the other, and the Nile again rolled ensanguined waves to the sea. The twenty-four magicians saluted the king as if they were about to withdraw. "Remain," said the Pharaoh. They resumed their impassible countenances. "Have you no other proof of your mission than that? My wise men, you see, imitate your wonders very well."