we had the ancient sacred documents which exempted our peasantry from
military service, and, as you know, he outrageously defies them. From
the most ancient times no one has been permitted to raise temples in this
land to strange Gods, and Rameses favors the son of the stranger, and,
not only in the north country, but in the reverend city of Memphis and
here in Thebes, he has raised altars and magnificent sanctuaries, in the
strangers' quarter, to the sanguinary false Gods of the East."

[Human sacrifices, which had been introduced into Egypt by the
Phoenicians, were very early abolished.]

"You speak like a Seer," cried old Gagabu, "and what you say is perfectly
true. We are still called priests, but alas! our counsel is little
asked. 'You have to prepare men for a happy lot in the other world,'
Rameses once said; 'I alone can guide their destinies in this.'"

"He did say so," answered Ameni, "and if he had said no more than that he
would have been doomed. He and his house are the enemies of our rights
and of our noble country. Need I tell you from whom the race of the
Pharaoh is descended? Formerly the hosts who came from the east, and
fell on our land like swarms of locusts, robbing and destroying it, were
spoken of as 'a curse' and a 'pest.' Rameses' father was of that race.
When Ani's ancestors expelled the Hyksos, the bold chief, whose children
now govern Egypt, obtained the favor of being allowed to remain on the
banks of the Nile; they served in the armies, they distinguished
themselves, and, at last, the first Rameses succeeded in gaining the
troops over to himself, and in pushing the old race of the legitimate
sons of Ra, weakened as they were by heresy, from the throne. I must
confess, however unwillingly, that some priests of the true faith--among
them your grandfather, and mine--supported the daring usurper who clung