"This is a bold fellow," said he. "Which of you would dare speak thus, while looking death in the face so close?"
Nobody answered; but a murmur went round the circle, to the effect that "Pharaoh lived for ever!"
The king turned to a venerable man who, with the exception of that indispensable official the fan-bearer, stood nearest the throne, and asked him,
"Have these sons of shepherds been numbered according to the royal decree?"
"The king hath spoken," was the subservient reply, while with a low obeisance a roll of papyrus was laid at the royal feet.
The fan-bearer handed it to his lord, who scanned it with an angry frown. "So many!" muttered Pharaoh; "and so poor a tale of work! Increasing, multiplying, swarming over the land, while they lay it waste like locusts! Sleeping more than they labour, devouring more than they produce, hoarding substance, no doubt, and having children at their desire. Is Pharaoh's arm shortened, or has my hand waxed faint? I must take order with this scum of nations, lest at last they outnumber us, spreading through the land to eat it away like a sore. I have reached to them the sceptre of my protection; it is time they should feel the edge of my wrath!"
Round the king's neck hung a small image in gold of Thmei, goddess of Truth, corresponding in every respect with the statue that towered above his throne. A similar ornament glittered on the breast of the old man whom he addressed, denoting the regent of his kingdom, a magnate second only in power to Pharaoh himself. When such an official possessed the wisdom and courage to oppose the royal decree, for the king's own welfare and that of his people, his granaries were full, his subjects prospered, and, to use their own expression, "the land sung for joy." Too often, however, he was only the echo of his lord.
"The breath of Pharaoh's nostrils shall consume them," was his answer to the king's outbreak, "even as the wind sweepeth a plague of locusts into the sea."
Again the evil smile passed across that weary sallow face. Sensual, selfish, and indolent as was the great ruler of the South, he had yet the political wisdom that foresees a crisis, the subtlety that prevents it, and the resolution that opposes it when it comes. His smile, while it boded no good to the children of Israel, indicated at the same time that he considered his regent an imbecile old man. The facts of the case now laid before him had been detailed to his private ear long before he ascended the judgment-seat, and had been discussed with one of his confidential advisers; a magician of no mean repute, whose keen intellect and scientific knowledge influenced his lord no less than did the startling resources of his art.
This trusted counsellor had pointed out to Pharaoh the impolicy of permitting one of the Assyrian nation to remain amongst a people—situated in their very midst—whose increasing prosperity tyranny and oppression seemed powerless to keep down; and the king recognised in the bold out-spoken prisoner now before him such a leader as the Israelites might be glad to obey, should they determine on a general rising to cast off the Egyptian yoke. True, they had neither arms nor horses nor war-chariots of iron; but they were formidable nevertheless in their numbers, their organisation, and their dogged persistence in some strange inscrutable belief. Pharaoh resolved to find out more of this stranger from the enemy's country ere he let him slip through his grasp either by acquittal or condemnation to death.