"'I am fat, because my voice is very woeful; hence I am a martyr at this temple. When people come to service here, I crawl into an opening and groan with all the strength that is in my body; for this they give me food abundantly throughout the year, and a large jug of beer every day when I am tortured.'
"Thus do they manage in the unbelieving land of Aram," said the leech, as he raised a finger to his lips, and added, "Remember, prince, what Thou hast promised, and of boiling pitch in this place think whatever suits thee."
This story roused the prince anew; he felt relief because a man had not been killed in the temple, but all his earlier distrust of priests sprang into life again.
That they deluded simple people, he knew. He remembered the priests' procession with the sacred bull Apis, while he was in their school. The people were convinced that Apis led the priests, while every student saw that the divine beast went in whatever direction priests drove him.
Who could tell, therefore, that Pentuer's discourse was not intended for him, as that procession of Apis for the people? For that matter, it was easy to put on the ground beans of red or other colors, and also it was not difficult to arrange tableaux. How much more splendid were those exhibitions which he had seen, even the struggles of Set with Osiris, in which a number of hundreds of persons assisted. But in that case, too, did not the priests deceive people? That was given as a battle of the gods: meanwhile it was carried on by men in disguise. In it Osiris perished, but the priest who represented Osiris came out as sound as a rhinoceros. What wonders did they not exhibit there! Water rose; there were peals of thunder; the earth trembled and vomited fire. And that was all deception. Why should the exhibition made by Pentuer be true? Besides, the prince had discovered strong indications that they wished to deceive him. The man groaning underground and covered, as it were, with boiling pitch by the priests was deception. But let that pass. The prince had convinced himself frequently that Herhor did not want war; Mefres also did not want it. Pentuer was the assistant of one of them, and the favorite of the other.
Such a struggle was taking place in the prince that it seemed to him at one time that he understood everything, at another that he was surrounded by darkness; now he was full of hope, and now he doubted everything. From hour to hour, from day to day, his soul rose and fell like the waters of the Nile in the course of its yearly changes.
Gradually, however, the prince recovered his balance, and when the time came to leave the temple, he had formulated certain views of the problem.
First of all, he understood clearly that Egypt needed more land and more people. Second, he believed that the simplest way to find men was a war with Asia. But Pentuer had proved to him that war could only heighten the disaster. A new question rose then, did Pentuer speak the truth, or was he lying? If he spoke the truth, he plunged the prince in despair, for Ramses saw no means to raise the state except war. Unless war were made, Egypt would lose population yearly, and the treasury of the pharaoh would increase its debts till the whole process would end in some ghastly overthrow, perhaps even in the reign of the coming pharaoh.
"But if Pentuer lied? Why should he lie? Evidently because Herhor, Mefres, and the whole priestly corporation had persuaded him to act thus.
"But why did priests oppose war? What interests had they in opposing?
Every war brought immense profit to them and the pharaoh.