Herhor shook his head.
"It cannot be that a man gifted with such sight, a man who at some tens of yards away sees sacred scarabs in the sand, should not see so great a personage as the heir to the throne is."
"Indeed I did not see him!" explained Eunana, beating his breast.
"Moreover no one commanded me to watch Ramses."
"Did I not free thee from leading the vanguard? Did I assign to thee an office?" asked the minister. "Thou wert entirely free, just like a man who is called to important deeds. And didst Thou accomplish thy task? For such an error in time of war Thou shouldst suffer death surely."
The ill-fated officer was pallid.
"But I have a paternal heart for thee, Eunana," said Herhor, "and, remembering the great service which Thou hast rendered by discovering the scarabs, I, not as a stern minister, but as a mild priest, appoint to thee a very small punishment. Thou wilt receive fifty blows of a stick on thy body."
"Worthiness!"
"Eunana, Thou hast known how to be fortunate, now be manful and receive this slight remembrance as becomes an officer in the army of his holiness."
Barely had the worthy Herhor finished when the officers oldest in rank placed Eunana in a commodious position at the side of the highroad. After that one of them sat on his neck, another on his feet, while a third and a fourth counted out fifty blows of pliant reeds on his naked body.
The unterrified warrior uttered no groan; on the contrary, he hummed a soldier song, and at the end of the ceremony wished to rise. But his stiffened legs refused obedience, so he fell face downward on the sand; they had to take him to Memphis on a two-wheeled vehicle. While lying on this cart and smiling at the soldiers, Eunana considered that the wind does not change so quickly in Lower Egypt as fortune in the life of an inferior officer.