"Where dost Thou dwell? What is thy name?" asked Ramses.
"My name is Fondling, and I dwell Ei, why should I tell? Thou wilt not come soon to me."
She waved her hand and vanished. The prince, as if stunned, did not move from his chair. When after a while he looked through the window, he saw a rich litter which four Nubians bore toward the Nile swiftly.
Ramses was not sorry for the departing woman; she astonished, but did not attract him.
"Sarah is calmer," thought he, "and more beautiful. Moreover, it seems to me that that Phoenician must be cold, and her fondlings are studied."
But from that time the prince ceased to be angry at Dagon, all the more since on a day when he was at Sarah's earth-tillers came to him, and thanking him for protection declared that the Phoenician forced them to pay new rents no longer.
That was the case close to Memphis, but on other lands the prince's tenants made good Dagon's losses.
CHAPTER XIV
In the month of Choeak (from the middle of September to the middle of October), the waters of the Nile were highest, and began to fall slightly. In the gardens people gathered tamarinds, dates, olives; and trees blossomed a second time.
At this juncture his holiness Ramses XII left his sun-bright palace in Memphis, and with a grand suite on some tens of stately barges sailed to Thebes, to thank the gods there for the bounteous inundation, and also to place offerings oil the tombs of his eternally living ancestors.