But these wise reflections could not drown the small but annoying
disquiet in the heart of Ramses. So his tenant Dagon had imposed an
unjust rent which the tenants could not pay!

At this moment the prince was not concerned about the tenants, but his
mother. His mother must know of this Phoenician management. What would
she say about it to her son? How she would look at him! How sneeringly
she would laugh! And she would not be a woman if she did not speak to
him as follows: "I told thee, Ramses, that Phoenicians would desolate
thy property."

"If those traitorous priests," thought the prince, "would give me
twenty talents today, I would drive out that Dagon in the morning, my
tenants would not be plunged under water, would not suffer blows, and
my mother would not jeer at me. A tenth, a hundredth part of that
wealth which is lying in the temples and feeding the greedy eyes of
those bare heads would make me independent for years of Phoenicians."

Just then an idea which was strange enough flashed up in the soul of
Ramses, that between priests and earth-tillers there existed a certain
opposition.

"Through Herhor," thought he, "that man hanged himself on the edge of
the desert. To maintain priests and temples about two million Egyptian
men toil grievously. If the property of the priests belonged to the
pharaoh's treasury, I should not have to borrow fifteen talents and my
people would not be oppressed so terribly. There is the source of
misfortunes for Egypt and of weakness for its pharaohs!"

The prince felt that a wrong was done the people; therefore he
experienced no small solace in discovering that priests were the
authors of this evil. It did not occur to him that his judgment might
be unjust and faulty. Besides, he did not judge, he was only indignant.
The anger of a man never turns against himself, just as a hungry
panther never eats its own body; it twirls its tail and moves its ears
while looking for a victim.

CHAPTER XIII

The expedition of the heir to the throne, undertaken with the object of
discovering the priest who had saved Sarah and had given him legal
advice, had a result that was unexpected.

The priest was not discovered, but among Egyptian earth-tillers legends
began to circulate which concerned Ramses.

Some mysterious man sailed about from village to village and told the
people that the heir to the throne freed the men who were in danger of
condemnation to the quarries for attackin