that you would crush me to powder. Let me live a little longer in
this pleasant land of Egypt. I shall not harm you. You are much too
beautiful a child for that." He stopped, and then continued in a
different tone: "Wait, and look more closely at Pharaoh, and see if he
is really so terribly wicked, and whether it would be so dreadful to
live in his palace and hand him the goblet when he is thirsty. Well?
Be assured, old man, I shall do you no violence. Boy, you shall come
to my court of your own free will, you shall share the education and
instruction of the children of my nobles; only sometimes I shall have
you with me, you fine young gazelle. Now go home with your father.
To-morrow I will send and ask, mark you--only ask, not command. He who
is tired of plundered booty knows how to value a free gift. You hear
what I say?"

When the crowd heard Pharaoh speak to these poor people with such
unwonted kindness, the like of which they had never heard before, they
uttered mad shouts of joy. As the king proceeded on his way in his
two-wheeled golden chariot, a long array of soldiers, cymbal players,
and dancing girls following behind, the palm-groves resounded with the
cries of the people. Joseph fled with the boy down narrow streets so
as to avoid the crowd that wanted to press round him and look at and
pet Pharaoh's little favourite.

The same evening an anxious council was held in the little hut. The
boy, Jesus, was drawn to Pharaoh without saying why. They were
terrified about it. The two working people had no idea that their life
was becoming too narrow for his young soul, that he wanted to fortify
himself with the knowledge to be obtained from the papyrus rolls of the
ancient men of wisdom, with the intellectual products of the land of
the Pharaohs. And still less did they imagine that a deeper reason led
their boy to desire to learn something of life in the world.

Joseph admitted that the manuscripts in the royal collection counted
for something. But Mary put little trust in the writings, and still
less in Pharaoh.

"We've had," she said, "a painful experience of the good intentions of
kings. Having escaped the violence of Herod with difficulty, are we to
submit to that of Pharaoh? They all play the same game, only in a
different way. What Jerusalem could not accomplish by force, Memphis
will accomplish by cunning."

Joseph said: "My dear wife, you are not naturally so mistrustful. Yet
after