One spectacle was presented to the eyes of the onlookers: in the middle of a broad bend in the river sailed the great barge of the pharaoh, rising in front like the breast of a swan. At the right and left sides of it, like two giant wings, pushed forward the countless boats of his subjects, and in the rear, like a rich fan, stretched the retinue of the ruler of Egypt.
Every one living shouted, sang, clapped hands, and threw flowers at the feet of the lord whom no one even saw. It was enough that under that gilded canopy and those ostrich plumes waved a ruddy blue flag, denoting that the pharaoh was present.
The people in the boats were as if drunk, the people on the shore as if mad. Every moment some boat struck or overturned a boat and some man fell into the water, out of which luckily the crocodiles had fled, frightened by the unparalleled uproar. On the banks men ran into one another, for no one paid heed to his neighbor, his father, or his child, but fixed his wild eyes on the gilded beak of the barge and the tent of the pharaoh. Even people who were trampled, whose ribs the wild crowd broke stupidly, and whose joints they put out, had no cry save this,
"May he live through eternity, O our ruler! Shine on, Thou the sun of
Egypt!"
The madness of greeting spread to the barge of Ramses: officers, soldiers, and oarsmen pressed into one throng and strove to outshout one another. Tutmosis, forgetting the heir to the throne, clambered up on the prow, and almost flew into the water.
Meanwhile a trumpet sounded from the pharaoh's barge, and soon after one answered from the barge of Ramses. A second signal, and the barge of the heir touched the great barge of the pharaoh.
Some official called to Ramses. From barge to barge they extended a gangway of cedar with carved railings, and the prince found himself next in the embrace of his father.
The presence of the pharaoh, or the storm of shouts roaring about him, so stunned Prince Ramses that he could not utter a syllable. He fell at his father's feet, and the lord of the world pressed the heir to his sacred bosom.
A moment later the side walls of the tent rose, and all the people on both banks of the Nile saw their ruler on a throne, and on the high step of it Ramses kneeling, with his head on the breast of his father.
Such silence followed that the rustling of banners on the barges was audible. Then on a sudden burst forth one immense roar, greater than all which had preceded. With this the Egyptian people honored the reconciliation of son and father; they greeted their present, and saluted their future ruler.