which was considered a deadly insult. When the king heard of this, he was more vexed than ever, and determined to find out the thief at any cost. He bade his daughter keep open house for all comers, and promise to marry the man who would tell her most to her satisfaction the cleverest and wickedest thing he had ever done. If any one told her the story of the robbery, she was to lay hold of him. But the thief was not to be thus outwitted. He procured a dead man's arm, put it under his dress, and went to call on the princess. When she put the question, he answered at once that the wickedest thing he had ever done was cutting off his brother's head in the king's treasury, and the cleverest was making the guards drunk, and carrying off his body. The princess made a grasp at him, but in the darkness he left the arm of the corpse in her hand and fled. But now the king was overwhelmed with astonishment and admiration for the man's cleverness, and made a proclamation of free pardon and a rich reward, if the thief would declare himself. He boldly came forward, and Rhampsinitus gave him his daughter in marriage. "The Egyptians," he said, "are the wisest of men, and thou art the wisest of the Egyptians."
Till the death of Rhampsinitus, Egypt enjoyed prosperity. Cheops, who succeeded him, and who built the Great Pyramid, is said to have shut up all the temples, that his people might do nothing but work for him; and he kept a hundred thousand labouring at a time, who were relieved every three months. It took ten years to make the causeway (of which traces still remain) for the conveyance of stones, and another twenty to build the Pyramid itself. The next kings,
