"All those things are vanishing," said Menes, shaking his head. "The young pharaoh will grow old, while the people, well, the people have had the seventh day for rest more than one time, and they have had land but afterward they lost both! Ah, if that were all that changed! During three thousand years how many dynasties have passed over Egypt, and priests, how many cities and temples have fallen into ruins; nay more! how many new strata of earth have overlaid the country. Everything has changed except this, that two and two are four, that a triangle is half a quadrangle, that the moon may hide the sun, and boiling water hurl a stone through the air.
"In this 'transitory world wisdom alone is enduring and permanent. And woe to him who deserts the eternal for things as fleeting as clouds are. His heart will never know peace, and his mind will dance like a boat in a whirlwind."
"The gods speak through thy lips," replied Pentuer, after some thought, "but barely one man in millions may serve them directly. And well that it is so, for what would happen if laborers gazed for whole nights at the firmament, if warriors made reckonings, and officials and the pharaoh, instead of ruling the people, hurled stones by means of boiling water? Before the moon could go once round the earth all would die of hunger. No wheel or cattle would defend the laud from barbarians, or give justice to those who were injured by wrong-doers.
"Hence," ended Pentuer, "though wisdom is like the sun, blood and breath, we cannot all be sages."
To these words Menes made no answer.
Pentuer passed some days in the temple of the divine Nut; he admired at one time the view of the sandy ocean, at another the fertile valley of the Nile. In company with Menes he looked at the stars, examined the wheel for raising water, and walked at times toward the pyramids. He admired the poverty and the genius of his teacher, but said in spirit,
"Menes is a god in human form, surely, and hence he has no care for common matters. His wheel to raise water will not be accepted in Egypt, for first we lack timber, and second to move such wheels one hundred thousand oxen would be needed. Where is there pasture for them even in Upper Egypt?"
CHAPTER LXI
WHILE Pentuer was going around the country and choosing out delegates,
Ramses XIII tarried in Thebes, arranging the marriage of his favorite,
Tutmosis.
First of all, the ruler of two worlds, surrounded by a grand retinue, drove in a golden chariot to the palace of the most worthy Antefa.