"Only the lowest people strike the earth with their foreheads before statues in the old way. Even working women have doubts now about the all-might of Osiris, Set, and Horus; the scribes cheat the gods in accounts, and the priests use them as a lock and chain to secure their treasures."
"Oho!" continued Tutmosis; "the clays have passed when all Egypt believed in everything announced from temples. At present we insult the Phoenician gods, the Phoenicians insult our gods, and no thunderbolt strikes any man of us."
The viceroy looked carefully at Tutmosis.
"How did such thoughts come to thy head?" inquired he. "But it is not so long ago that Thou wouldst pale at the very mention of the priesthood."
"Yes, because I felt alone. But today, after I have seen that all the nobles understand as I, I feel encouraged."
"But who told thee and the nobles of that treaty with Assyria?"
"Dagon and other Phoenicians," answered Tutmosis. "They even said that when the time came they would rouse Asiatic races to rebellion, so that our troops might have a pretext to cross the boundaries, and when once on the road to Nineveh, the Phoenicians and their allies would join us. And thy army would be larger than that which Ramses the Great had behind him,"
This zeal of the Phoenicians did not please the heir, but he was silent on that subject.
"But what will happen if the priests learn of your conversations?" inquired he. "None of you will escape death, be sure of that."
"They will learn nothing," replied Tutmosis, joyfully. "They trust too much in their power, they pay their spies badly, and have disgusted all Egypt with their pride and rapacity. Moreover, the aristocracy, the army, the scribes, the laborers, even the minor priests are only waiting for the signal to attack the temples, take out the treasures, and lay them at the feet of the pharaoh. When their treasures fail, all their power will be lost to the holy fathers. They will cease even to work miracles, for to work them gold rings are needed."