Pardon me, dear mother, for thus speaking of a royal personage; but I only make use of the language, to express to you how wonderful in every way, save in the color of hair and eyes, is the resemblance of this man to the prince.
"I did but a common duty to a fellow-being," was my reply. "But why did you address me in Syriac?"
"Are you not a Syrian merchant?" he asked, looking at me more closely, after I had spoken.
"I am from Tyre," I answered. "You are a Hebrew?"
"Yes," was his reply, casting down his eyes and moving past me towards the temple.
"Stay one moment," I said. He turned and regarded me with a look of surprise; just such an one as the Hebrew woman Miriam,--to whom also, dear mother, he bore a very striking resemblance,--gave me when I irresistibly addressed her, in the courteous tone I would have used towards any of her sex: such was my tone in speaking to this Hebrew; for although his dress showed that he was only a neophyte, or attendant with secular duties, yet the man himself commanded my respect.
"May I inquire, without offence, why I see a Hebrew in the service of religion?"
"When we are only degraded slaves, and brick and clay workers, and worship not the gods of Egypt?" he answered interrogatively; and I imagined I detected a haughty light in his eyes, and a movement of his lip, caused by a keen sense of the degradation of which he spake.
"You have expressed my motives," I replied. "If you are proceeding along the avenue of sphinxes, I will accompany you, as I am merely loitering."
"Will you be seen walking with a Hebrew, my lord prince?" he said, significantly.
"Your language betrays you; merchants do not speak as you do. Besides, the signet of Prince Remeses, on your hand, designates your rank. I have, moreover, heard you described by one, who will never forget that the first words of kindness he ever received, save from his kinsfolk, fell upon his ears from your lips, O Prince of Tyre!"
"The lad Israel, whom you assisted in restoring to animation by the well of Jacob the Shepherd!"
"At the strangers' fountain!" I repeated. "This little act seems to be known to all the Hebrews!"
"Not to all, but to a few," he answered; "yet it will be heard of by all of them; for kindness and sympathy from any one, especially from a foreign prince, is so strange an event that it will fly from lip to ear. Your name, O noble Sesostris, will be engraven in every memory, and the sound thereof warm hope in every heart!"