A couple of times, for instance, the heir noticed that in the evening Tafet sent off to Memphis immense baskets with food, linen, even vessels. Next day she complained in heaven-piercing accents that flour, wine, and even vessels were lacking. Since the heir had come to the villa ten times more of various products had been used there than formerly.
"I am certain," thought Ramses, "that that chattering termagant robs me for her Jews, who vanish in the daytime but are prowling around in the night, like rats in the nastiest comers!"
The prince's only amusement in these days was to look at the date harvest. A naked man took his place at the foot of a high palm without side branches, surrounded the trunk and himself with a circular rope which resembled the hoop of a barrel. Then he raised himself on the tree by his heels, his whole body bent backward, but the hoop-like rope held him by squeezing his body to the tree. Next he shoved the flexible hoop up the trunk some inches, raised himself by his heels again, then shoved the rope up. In this way he climbed, exposed meanwhile to the peril of breaking his neck, till he reached the top, where grew a crown of great leaves and dates.
The prince was not alone when he saw these gymnastics; Jewish children also were spectators. At first there was no trace of them. Then among bushes and from beyond the wall curly heads and black gleaming eyes appeared. Afterward, when they saw that the prince did not drive them away, these children came out each from a hiding-place and approached the tree gradually. The most daring among the girls picked up a beautiful date which she brought to Ramses. One of the boys ate the smallest date, and then the children began to eat and to give the prince fruit. At first they brought him the best, then inferior dates, finally some that were spoilt altogether.
The future ruler of the world fell to thinking, and said to himself,
"They crawl in at all points, and will treat me always in this way: they will give the good as a bait, and what is spoiled out of gratitude."
He rose and walked away gloomily; but the children of Israel rushed, like a flock of birds, at the labor of the Egyptian, who high above their heads was singing unmindful of his bones and of this, that he was harvesting not for his own use.
Sarah's undiscovered disease, her frequent tears, her vanishing charms, and above all the Jews, who, ceasing to hide, managed the place with increasing tumult, disgusted Ramses to the utmost degree with that beautiful comer. He sailed no more in a boat, he neither hunted nor watched the date harvest, but wandered gloomily through the garden, or looked from his roof at the palace. He would never go back to that palace unless summoned, and now he thought of a trip to his lands near the sea, in Lower Egypt.
In such a state of mind was he found by Tutmosis, who on a certain day came in a ceremonial barge to the heir with a summons from the pharaoh.
"His holiness is returning from Thebes, and wishes the heir to go forth and meet him."