At last the mother, seeing that the sun was beginning to sink in the sands of the desert, put away her mill stones, and, going out, seized the boy, who raced around like a little colt. He resisted but gave way to superior force finally. The mother, drawing him to the hut as quickly as possible, held him with her hand so that he might not escape from her.
"Do not twist," said she, "put thy feet under thee, sit upright, put thy hands together and raise them upward. Ah, Thou bad boy!"
The boy knew that he could not escape now; so to be free again as soon as possible he raised his eyes and hands heavenward piously, and with a thin squeaky voice, he said,
"O kind, divine Amon, I thank thee, Thou hast kept my papa today from misfortune, Thou hast given wheat for cakes to my mamma. What more? Thou hast made heaven. I thank thee. And the earth, and sent down the Nile which brings bread to us. And what more? Aha, I know now! And I thank thee because out-of-doors it is so beautiful, and flowers are growing there, and birds singing and the palms give us sweet dates. For these good things which Thou hast given us, may all love thee as I do, and praise thee better than I can, for I am a little boy yet and I have not learned wisdom. Well, is that enough, mamma?"
"Bad boy!" muttered the cattle scribe, bending over his register. "Bad boy! Thou art giving honor to Amon carelessly."
But the pharaoh in that magic globe saw now something altogether different. Behold the prayer of the delighted little boy rose, like a lark, toward the sky, and with fluttering wings it went higher and higher till it reached the throne where the eternal Amon with his hands on his knees was sunk in meditation on his own all-mightiness.
Then it went still higher, as high as the head of the divinity, and sang with the thin, childish little voice to him:
"And for those good things which Thou hast given us may all love thee as I do."
At these words the divinity, sunk in himself, opened his eyes there came to the earth immense calm. Every pain ceased, every fear, every wrong stopped. The whistling missile hung in the air, the lion stopped in his spring on the deer, the stick uplifted did not fall on the back of the captive. The sick man forgot his pains, the wanderer in the desert his hunger, the prisoner his chains. The storm ceased, and the wave of the sea, though ready to drown the ship, halted. And on the whole earth such rest settled down that the sun, just hiding on the horizon, thrust up his shining head again.
The pharaoh recovered. He saw before him a little table, on the table a black globe, at the side of it Beroes the Chaldean.