"Then perhaps the Assyrian king is the master of the pharaoh?"
"Blaspheme not, worthiness," said Mefres, severely. "Thou art pushing into the most sacred things frivolously, and to do that has proved perilous to men who were greater than Thou art."
"Well, I will not do so. But how is a man to know that one Chaldean is an envoy of the gods, and another a spy of King Assar?"
"By miracles," answered Mefres. "If, at thy command, prince, this room should fill with spirits, if unseen powers were to bear thee in the air, we should know that Thou wert an agent of the immortals, and should respect thy counsel."
Ramses shrugged his shoulders. "I, too, have seen spirits: a young girl made them. And I saw a juggler lying in the air in the amphitheatre."
"But Thou didst not see the fine strings which his four assistants had in their teeth," put in Mentezufis.
The prince laughed again, and, remembering what Tutmosis had told him about the devotions of Mefres, he said in a jeering tone,
"In the days of Cheops a certain high priest wished absolutely to fly through the air. With this object he prayed to the gods, and commanded his inferiors to see whether unseen powers were not raising him. And what will ye say, holy fathers? From that time forth there was no day when prophets did not assure the high priest that he was borne in the air, not very high, it is true, about a finger from the pavement."
"But what is that to thy power, worthiness?" inquired he of Mefres, suddenly.
"The high priest, when he heard his own story, shook in the chair, and would have fallen had not Mentezufis supported him."