“Thy servant, the Servant of Ra,

“Snofru.”

When the priest finished, the king was sitting upright, his face flushed with feeling.

“Sedition!” he exclaimed; “organized rebellion in the very heart of my realm!”

He paused for a space and thrust back the heavy fringes of his cowl with a gesture of peevish impatience.

“What evil humor possesses Egypt?” he burst forth irritably.  “Hardly have I overthrown an invader before my people break out.  I quiet them in one place and they revolt in another.  Must I turn a spear upon mine own?”

“Well,” he cried, stamping his foot, when the three before him kept silence, “have ye no word to say?”

His eyes rested on Har-hat, with an imperious expectation in them.  The fan-bearer bent low before he answered.

“With thy gracious permission, O Son of Ptah,” he said, “I would suggest that it were wise to cool an insurrection in the simmering.  The disaffection seems to be of great extent.  But the Rameside army assembled on the ground might check an open insurrection.  Furthermore, thou hast seen the salutary effect of thy visit to Tape when she forgot her duty to her sovereign.  Thy presence in the Delta would undoubtedly expedite the suppression of the rebellion likewise.”

“O, aye,” Meneptah declared.  “I must go to Tanis.  It seems that I must hasten hither and thither over Egypt pursuing sedition like a scent-hunting jackal.  Mayhap if I were divided like Osiris[1] and a bit of me scattered in each nome, I might preserve peace.  But it goes sore against me to drag the army with me.  Hast thou any simpler plan to offer, holy Father?”

The old priest shifted a little before he answered.

“The mysteries of the faith are in possession of Mesu,” he began at last.  “The writing saith he hath exerted great influence over the bond-people—­in truth he hath entered a peaceful land and stirred it up—­and time is but needed to bring the unrest to open warfare.  Thou, O Meneptah, and thou, O Rameses, and thou, O Har-hat, each being of the brotherhood—­ye know that we hold the faith by scant tenure in the respect of the people.  Ye know the perversity of humanity.  Obedience and piety are not in them.  Though they never knew a faith save the faith of their fathers, we must pursue them with a gad, tickle them with processions and awe them with manifestations.  So if it were to come over the spirit of this Hebrew to betray the mysteries, to scout the faith and overturn the gods, he would have rabble Egypt following at his heels.

“As the writing saith, he hath the destruction of the state in mind, and his own aggrandizement.  He but beginneth on the faith because he seeth in that a rift wherein to put the lever that shall pry the whole state asunder.  So with two and a half millions of Hebrews and a horde of renegade Egyptians to combat, I fear the Rameside army might spill more good blood than is worth wasting on a mongrel multitude.  The rabble without a leader is harmless.  Cut off the head of the monster, and there is neither might nor danger in the trunk.  Put away Mesu, and the insurrection will subside utterly.”