The prince returned to his cell, crushed and excited; his heart throbbed like that of a bird caught in a net. For the first time in many years he fell with his face to the earth and prayed ardently for favor and forgiveness.
"Thou wilt be heard," answered a sweet voice above him.
Ramses raised his head quickly, but there was no one in the cell: the door was closed, the walls were thick. He prayed on therefore more ardently, and fell asleep in that position, with his face on the stones and his arms extended.
When he woke next morning, he was another man: he had experienced the might of the gods, and favor had been promised.
From that time through a long series of days he gave himself to devotional exercises with faith and alacrity. In his cell he spent long hours over prayers, he had his head shaven, and put on priestly garments, and four times in twenty-four hours he took part in a chorus of the youngest priests.
His past life, taken up with amusements, roused in him aversion, and the disbelief which he had acquired amid foreigners and dissolute youth filled him with dread in that interval. And if that day the choice had been given him to take either the throne or the priestly office, he would have hesitated.
A certain day the great prophet of the temple summoned the prince, and reminded him that he had not entered for prayers exclusively, but to learn wisdom. The prophet praised his devotion, declared that he was purified then from worldly foulness, and commanded him to become acquainted with the schools connected with that temple.
Rather through obedience than curiosity, the prince went directly from him to the interior court, where the department of reading and writing was situated.
That was a great hall, lighted through an opening in the roof. On mats some tens of naked pupils were seated holding wax tablets in their hands. One wall was of smooth alabaster; before it stood a teacher who wrote characters with chalks of various colors.
When the prince entered, the pupils, almost all of the same age that he was, fell on their faces. The teacher bowed, and stopped his actual labor to explain to the youths the great meaning of knowledge.