Next they interfered with his amusements, his women, his relations with the pharaoh, his debts, and, finally, to humiliate and render him ridiculous in the eyes of Egyptians, they made his first-born a Hebrew.
Where was the laborer, where the slave, where an Egyptian convict in the quarries who had not the right to say, "I am better than thou, the viceroy, for no son of mine is a Hebrew."
Feeling the weight of the insult, Ramses understood at the same time that he could not avenge himself immediately. Hence he determined to defer that affair to the future. In the school of the priests he had learned self-command, in the court he had learned deceit and patience; those qualities became a weapon and a shield to him in his battle with the priesthood. Till he was ready he would lead them into error, and when the moment came he would strike so hard that they would never rise again.
It began to dawn. The heir fell asleep, and when he woke the first person he saw was the steward of Sarah's villa.
"What of the Jewess?" asked the prince.
"According to thy command, worthiness, she washed the feet of her new mistress," answered the official.
"Was she stubborn?"
"She was full of humility, but not adroit enough; so the angry lady struck the Jewess with her foot between the eyebrows."
The prince sprang up.
"And what did Sarah do?" inquired he, quickly.