ht! When, however, he saw the sad, sincere
expression of sympathy in the boy's countenance ho became calmer, and
said; "Yes, my boy, I am sick."

"King," said Jesus, "I know what is the matter with you."

"You know!"

"You keep shadows within and light without. Reverse it."

Directly the boy had said that Pharaoh got up, thinner and taller than
he usually appeared to be, and haughtily pointed to the door, an angry
light in his eyes.

The boy went out quietly, and did not look back.

But his words were not forgotten. In the noise and tumult of the
daytime Pharaoh did not hear them; in the night, when all the
brilliance was extinguished and only the miserable and unhappy waked,
he heard softly echoed from wall to wall of his chamber, "Reverse it!
Bring the light inside!"

Shortly before that time Jesus had discovered an aged scholar who dwelt
outside the gate of Thebes, in a vaulted cave at the foot of the
Pyramid. He would have nothing to do with any living thing except a
goat of the desert which furnished him with milk. And as he kept
always within the darkness of the vault, bending over endless
hieroglyphics on half-decomposed slabs of stone, on excavated household
vessels, and papyrus rolls, the goat likewise never saw the sun. Both
were contented with the food brought them daily by an old fellah. The
hermit was one who had surely reversed things--shadow without and light
within. When Pharaoh dismissed Jesus, he sought the learned
cave-dweller in order to find wisdom. At first the old man would not
let him come in. What had young blood to do with wisdom?

"My son, first grow old, and then come and seek wisdom in the old
writings."

The boy answered: "Do you give wisdom only for dying? I want it for
living."

Then the old man let him in.

Jesus now visited the wise man every day and listened to his teachings
about the world and life, and also about eternal life. The hermit
spoke of the transmigration of souls, how in the course of ages souls
must pass through all beings, live through all the circles of
existence, according as their conduct led them upwards to the gods, or
downwards to the worms in the mud. Therefore we should love the
animals which the souls of men may inhabit. He spoke with deep awe of
the serpent Kebados, and of the sublime Apis in the Temple of Memphis.
He lost himself in all the depths and shoals of thought, verified
everything by the hieroglyphics, and declared it to b