The ritual condemned
his act, but if Rameses in the realm of inexorable justice and supernal
wisdom did not, how should he reconcile the threats of the ritual and
the evident passiveness of the royal soul? If he found the signet and
achieved his ends, aside from its civil power over him, what weight
would the canonical thunderings have to his inner heart?
Once again he paused. The deductions of his free reasoning led him
upon perilous ground. They made innuendoes concerning the stability of
the other articles of hieratical law. He was startled and afraid of
his own arguments.
"Nay, by the gods," he muttered to himself, "it is not safe to reason
with religion."
But every stroke of his oar was active persistence in his heresy.
He believed he should find the signet.
Thereafter he could turn a deaf ear to any renegade ideas such an event
might suggest.
It was an unlucky chance that befell the theological institutions of
Egypt as far as this devotee was concerned, that Kenkenes had landed at
the capital of the hated Pharaoh.
But he shook himself and tried to fix his attention on the night. The
stars were few--the multitude obliterated by the moon, the luminaries
abashed thereby.
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