When Ramses reached the palace, he summoned Tutmosis. One of them had drunk too much, the other was raging.
"Dost Thou know what I have seen just now?" asked the prince of his favorite.
"One of the priests, perhaps."
"I have seen Assyrians. O ye gods! what I felt! What a low people! Their bodies from head to foot are covered with wool, as wild beasts are; the stench of old tallow comes from them; and what speech, what beard, what hair!"
The prince walked up and down the room quickly, panting, excited.
"I thought," said he, "that I despised the robberies of scribes, the deceit of nomarchs, that I hated the cunning and ambition of priests; I felt repulsion for Jews, and I feared the Phoenicians; but I convinced myself to-night that those were all amusements. I know now, for the first time, what hate is, after I have seen and heard Assyrians. I understand now-why a dog tears the cat which has crossed his path."
"Thou art accustomed to Jews and Phoenicians, worthiness, Thou hast met
Assyrians now for the first time," put in Tutmosis.
"Stupidity! the Phoenicians!" continued the prince, as if to himself.
"The Phoenicians, the Philistines, the Arabs, the Libyans, even the
Ethiopians seem, as it were, members of our own family. When they fail
to pay tribute, we are angry; when they pay, we forget our feeling.
"But the Assyrians are something strange, something inimical, so that I shall not be happy till I can count one hundred thousand of their hands cut off by us."
Never had Tutmosis seen the prince in such a state of feeling.