"True," said another. "I am curious to know who fitted him out thus: priests, or scribes?"
"Surely priests. Oh, would that your hands withered, ye scoundrels! And some wretch they are all such dared command us to give the deceased what was best."
"It was not they, but the treasurer."
"They are all rogues."
Thus discoursing, the embalmers took from the deceased his garments of a pharaoh, put on him a gown of cloth of gold and bore the remains to the boat.
"Thanks to the gods," said one of the cowled men, "we have a new pharaoh. He will bring the priests to order. What they have taken with their hands they will bring back with their mouths."
"Uuu! they say that he will be a shrewd ruler," put in another. "He is friendly with the Phoenicians; he passes time willingly with Pentuer, who is not of priestly family, but of such poor people as we. But the army, they say the army would let itself be burnt and drowned for the new pharaoh."
"Besides, he conquered the Libyans most gloriously a few days ago."
"Where is he now, that new pharaoh?" asked another. "In the desert? I am afraid that misfortune may meet him before he comes back to us."
"What will any one do to him when he has an army behind him? May I not live to an honest burial if the young lord will not treat the priests as a buffalo treats growing wheat."