"I feel," replied he, "that it is time for me to return to my radiant father."
"Thou canst not do that, holiness, without the greatest harm to thy people," said Herhor, hurriedly.
"I leave you my son, Ramses, who is a lion and an eagle in one person. And in truth, if ye will obey him, he will prepare for Egypt such a fate as the world has not heard of since the beginning of ages."
A chill passed through holy Herhor and the other priests at that promise. They knew that the heir to the throne was a lion and an eagle in one person, and that they must obey him. But they would have preferred to have for long years that kindly lord, whose heart, filled with compassion, was like the north wind which brings rain to the fields and coolness to mankind. Therefore they fell down all of them as one man to the pavement, groaning, and they lay prostrate till the pharaoh consented to let himself be treated.
Then the physicians took him out for a whole day to the gardens, among frequent pine-trees, they nourished him with chopped meat; they gave him strong herbs with milk and old wine. These effective means strengthened his holiness for something like a week yet; then a new faintness announced itself, and to overcome that they forced their lord to drink the fresh blood of calves descended from Apes.
But neither did this blood help for a long time, and they found it needful to turn for advice to the high priest of the temple of the wicked god Set.
Amid general fear, the gloomy priest entered the bedchamber of his holiness. He looked at the sick pharaoh and prescribed a dreadful remedy.
"It is needful," said he, "to give the pharaoh blood of innocent children to drink; each day a full goblet."
The priests and magnates in the chamber were dumb when they heard this prescription. Then they whispered that the children of earth-tillers were best for the purpose, since the children of priests and great lords lost their innocence even in infancy.
"It is all one to me whose children they are," said the cruel priest, "if only his holiness has fresh blood given him daily."