"Then ye deceive your people?" laughed the prince.
"We deceive no one," answered the Tyrian, with dignity. "Each man deceives himself when he does not seek the explanation of a solemnity which he does not understand."
"I am curious," said Ramses.
"In fact," continued Hiram, "we have a custom that indigent mothers wishing to assure their sons a good career give them to the service of the state. In reality, those children are taken across the statue of Baal, in which there is a heated stove. This ceremony does not mean that the children are really burnt, but that they have been given to the temple, and so are as much lost to their mothers as if they had fallen into fire.
"In truth, however, they do not go to the stove, but to nurses and women who rear them for some years. When they have grown up sufficiently, the school of priests of Baal receives and educates them. The most competent become priests or officials; the less gifted go to the navy and obtain great wealth frequently. Now I think the prince will not wonder that Tyrian mothers do not mourn for their children. I will say more: Thou wilt understand, lord, why there is no punishment for parents who kill their children, as there is in Egypt."
"Wretches are found in all lands," replied the prince.
"But there is no child murder in our country," continued Hiram, "for with us children, when their mothers are unable to support them, are taken to the temple by the state."
The prince fell to thinking; suddenly he embraced Hiram, and said with emotion,
"Ye are much better than those who tell tales of you. I am greatly rejoiced at this."
"Among us, too, there is no little evil," answered Hiram; "but we are all ready to be thy faithful servants shouldst Thou call us."