The pharaoh fell into anger again.
"What?" cried he. "Then they think really of seizing Phoenicia! And do they suppose that I will sign the infamy of my reign? Evil spirits have seized all of you!"
The audience was ended. Herhor fell on his face this time, but while returning from his lord he considered in his heart,
"His holiness has heard the report, hence he does not reject my services. I have told him that he must sign a treaty with Assyria, hence the most difficult question is finished. He will come to his mind before Sargon returns to us. But he is a lion, and not even a lion, but a mad elephant. Still he became pharaoh only because he is the grandson of a high priest. He does not understand yet that those same hands which raised him so high."
In the antechamber the worthy Herhor halted, thought over something; at last instead of going to his own dwelling he went to Queen Niort's.
In the garden there were neither women nor children, but from the scattered villas came groans. Those were from women belonging to the house of the late pharaoh who were lamenting that sovereign who had gone to the west. Their sorrow, it seemed, was sincere.
Meanwhile the supreme judge entered the cabinet of the new pharaoh.
"What hast Thou to tell me, worthiness?" asked Ramses.
"Some days ago an unusual thing happened near Thebes," replied the judge. "A laborer killed his wife and three children and drowned himself in the sacred lake."
"Had he gone mad?"