"I am," replied Samentu, without dropping his eyes.
"Didst Thou share in that iniquity?"
"I did not. I overheard the conditions. In the temples, as in thy palaces, holiness, the walls are honeycombed with passages through which it is possible to hear on the summit of pylons what is said in the cellars."
"And from subterranean places it is possible to converse with persons in upper chambers?" asked the pharaoh.
"And imitate voices from the gods," added the priest seriously.
The pharaoh smiled. Then the supposition was correct that it was not the spirit of his father, but priests who spoke to him and to his mother.
"Why didst Thou confide to Phoenicians a great secret of the state?" inquired Ramses.
"Because I wished to prevent a shameful treaty which was as harmful to us as to Phoenicia."
"Thou mightst have forewarned some Egyptian dignitary."
"Whom?" inquired the priest. "Men who were powerless before Herhor; or who would complain of me to him and expose me to death and tortures? I confided it to Hiram, for he meets dignitaries of ours whom I never see."