To this great ceremony the Prince Seti was not bidden, lest, as Bakenkhonsu told me afterwards, his presence should cause some rising in his favour, with or without his will.

For this reason also the dead god, as he was named, was not suffered to rest at Memphis on his last journey up the Nile.

Disguised as a man of the people the Prince watched his father's body pass in the funeral barge guarded by shaven, white-robed priests, the centre of a splendid procession.

In front went other barges filled with soldiers and officers of state, behind came the new Pharaoh and all the great ones of Egypt, while the sounds of lamentation floated far over the face of the waters.

They appeared, they passed, they disappeared, and when they had vanished Seti wept a little, for in his own fashion he loved his father.
"Of what use is it to be a king and named half-divine, Ana," he said to me, "seeing that the end of such gods as these is the same as that of the beggar at the gate ?" "This, Prince," I answered, "that a king can do more good than a beggar while the breath is in his nostrils, and leave behind him a great example to others." "Or more harm, Ana.