One night, a night of terror and of horror, a spectre flew across the whole of Egypt, entering every house the door of which was not marked with red, and the first-born of the males died, the son of the Pharaoh as well as the son of the meanest hind; yet the King, notwithstanding all these dread signs, would not yield. He remained within the recesses of his palace, fierce, silent, gazing at the body of his son stretched out upon the funeral couch with the jackals' feet, and heedless of the tears of Tahoser which wetted his hand. Mosche stood upon the threshold of the room without any one having introduced him, for all the servants had fled hither and thither; and he repeated his demand with imperturbable serenity. "Go," said Pharaoh at last, "and sacrifice unto your God as you please." Tahoser threw herself on the King's neck, and said to him, "Now I love you, for you are a man, and not a god of granite." XVII The Pharaoh did not answer Tahoser; he gazed with a sombre eye upon the body of his first-born son; his untamed pride rebelled, even as he yielded. In his heart he did not believe in the Lord, and he explained away the scourges which had smitten Egypt by attributing them to the magic power of Mosche and Aharon, which was greater than that of his magicians. The thought of yielding exasperated his violent, fierce soul. But even had he wished to retain the Israelites, his terrified people would not have allowed it. The Egyptians, dreading to die, would all have driven out the foreigners who were the cause of their ills and suffering. They kept away from them with superstitious terror, and when the great Hebrew passed, followed by Aharon, the bravest fled, fearing some new prodigy, and they said, "Is not the rod of his companion about to turn into a serpent again and coil itself around us?" Had Tahoser then forgotten Poeri when she threw her arms around the Pharaoh's neck? In no wise; but she felt, springing up within the King's obstinate soul, projects of vengeance and of extermination; she feared massacres in which would have fallen the young Hebrew and the gentle Ra'hel,--a general destruction, which this time would have changed the waters of the Nile into real blood; and she strove to turn away the King's wrath by her caresses and gentle words. The funeral procession came for the body of the young prince, to carry it to the Memnonia quarter, where it was to undergo the preparation for embalming, which lasts seventy days. The Pharaoh saw the body depart with a gloomy look, and he said, as if filled with a melancholy presentiment,-- "Now have I no longer a son, O Tahoser. If I die, you will be Queen of Egypt." "Why speak of death?" said the priest's daughter; "years will follow years without leaving a trace of their passage upon your robust body, and generations will fall around you like the leaves around a tree which remains standing."