"Indeed!" said the pharaoh, feeling that anger was filling him.
"Thy ever-living father," continued the queen, "told me, full of sadness, that Thou wert entering on a way of error. Thou refusest with contempt the ordination of high priest, and treatest badly the servants of divinity."
"'Who will remain with Ramses,' said thy father, 'if he angers the gods and the priests desert him? Tell him tell him,' repeated the revered shade, 'that in this way he will ruin Egypt, himself, and the dynasty.'"
"Oho!" said the pharaoh, "then they threaten me thus from the first day of my reign. My mother, a dog barks loudest when he is afraid; so threats are of evil omen, but only for the priesthood."
"But thy father said this," repeated the anxious lady.
"My immortal father and my holy grandfather," said the pharaoh, "being pure spirits know my heart, and see the woeful condition of Egypt. But since my heart wishes to raise the state by stopping abuses they would not prevent me from carrying out my measures."
"Then dost Thou not believe that the spirit of thy father gives thee counsel?" asked the queen, with rising terror.
"I know not. But I have the right to suppose that those voices of spirits, which are heard in various comers of our palace, are some trick of the priesthood. Only priests can fear me, never the gods, and spirits. Therefore it is not spirits which are frightening us, mother."
The queen fell to thinking; it was clear that her son's words impressed her. She had seen many miracles in her life and some of them had seemed to her suspicious.
"In that case," said she, with a sigh, "Thou art not cautious, my son. This afternoon Herhor visited me; he was very much dissatisfied with the audience. He said that it was thy wish to remove the priests from thy court."