execrated, and he was never
laid in the mausoleum he had built for himself. You see our custom of
judging kings after their death is not without advantages. After a
king is dead the people are gathered together and the question is put
to them, Has the dead monarch ruled well? If they reply with assenting
shouts, he is buried in a fitting tomb which he has probably prepared
for himself, or which his successor raises to him; but if the answer
is that he has reigned ill, the sacred rites in his honor are omitted
and the mausoleum he has raised stands empty forever.

"There are few, indeed, of our kings who have thus merited the
execration of their people, for as a rule the careful manner in which
they are brought up, surrounded by youths chosen for their piety and
learning, and the fact that they, like the meanest of their subjects,
are bound to respect the laws of the land, act as sufficient check
upon them. But there is no doubt that the knowledge that after death
they must be judged by the people exercises a wholesome restraint
even upon the most reckless."

"I long to see the pyramids," Chebron said. "Are they built of brick
or stone? for I have been told that their surface is so smooth and
shiny that they look as if cut from a single piece."

"They are built of vast blocks of stone, each of which employed the
labor of many hundreds of men to transport from the quarries where
they were cut."

"Were they the work of slaves or of the people at large?"

"Vast numbers of slaves captured in war labored at them," the priest
replied. "But numerous as these were they were wholly insufficient for
the work, and well-nigh half the people of Egypt were forced to leave
their homes to labor at them. So great was the burden and distress
that even now the builders of these pyramids are never spoken of save
with curses; and rightly so, for what might not have been done with
the same labor usefully employed! Why, the number of the canals in the
country might have been doubled and the fertility of the soil vastly
increased. Vast tracts might have been reclaimed from the marshes and
shallow lakes, and the produce of the land might have been doubled."

"And what splendid temples might have been raised!" Chebron said
enthusiastically.

"Doubtless, my son," the priest said quietly after a slight pause.
"But though it is meet and right that the temples of the gods shall
be worthy of them, still, as we hold that the gods love Egypt an