Suddenly he heard a repressed voice,
"My son! O son!"
The pharaoh sprang up from his chair.
"Who art thou?" exclaimed he.
"I am, I Hast Thou forgotten me already?"
"O my son," said the voice again, "respect the will of the gods if Thou wish to receive their blessed assistance O respect the gods, for without their assistance the greatest power on earth is as dust and shadows O respect the gods if Thou wish that the bitterness of thy faults should not poison my existence in the happy region of the West."
The voice ceased, Ramses ordered to bring a light. One door of the room was closed, at the other a guard stood. No stranger could enter there.
Anger and alarm tore the pharaoh's heart. "What was that? Had the shade of his father spoken indeed to him, or was that voice only a new priestly trick?"
But if the priests, notwithstanding thick walls, could speak to him from a distance, they could overhear him. And then he, the lord of the world, was like a wild beast caged in on all sides.
It is true that in the palace of the pharaoh secret listening was common. Ramses had thought, however, that his cabinet was safe, and that the insolence of priests had stopped at the threshold of the supreme ruler.