The Pharaoh and the Priest: An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt
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Title: The Pharaoh and the Priest: An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt
Author: Bolesław Prus
Translator: Jeremiah Curtin
Release date: March 6, 2011 [eBook #35499]
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PHARAOH AND THE PRIEST: AN HISTORICAL NOVEL OF ANCIENT EGYPT ***
Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Sam W. and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
THE PHARAOH
AND THE PRIEST
_AN HISTORICAL NOVEL OF
ANCIENT EGYPT_
FROM THE
ORIGINAL POLISH OF ALEXANDER GLOVATSKI
BY
JEREMIAH CURTIN
TRANSLATOR OF "WITH FIRE AND SWORD," "THE DELUGE,"
"QUO VADIS," ETC.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
BOSTON · LITTLE, BROWN
AND COMPANY · 1902
_Copyright, 1902_,
By Jeremiah Curtin.
_All rights reserved._
Published September, 1902.
UNIVERSITY PRESS · JOHN WILSON
AND SON · CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.
[Illustration: Alexander Glovatski]
[Illustration: Jeremiah Curtin at the Statue of Rameses the Great
in the Temple of Luxor]
PREFATORY REMARKS
The position of Ancient Egypt was unique, not in one, but in every
sense. To begin at the very foundation of life in that country, we
find that the soil was unlike any other on earth in its origin. Every
acre of fruitful land between the first cataract and the sea had been
brought from Inner Africa, and each year additions were made to it.
Out of this mud, borne down thousands of miles from the great fertile
uplands of Abyssinia by rivers, grew everything needed to feed and
clothe man and nourish animals. Out of it also was made the brick from
which walls, houses, and buildings of various uses and kinds were
constructed. Though this soil of the country was rich, it could be
utilized only by the unceasing co-ordinate efforts of a whole
population constrained and directed. To direct and constrain was the
task of the priests and the pharaohs.
Never have men worked in company so long and successfully at tilling
the earth as the Egyptians, and never has the return been so
continuous and abundant from land as in their case.
The Nile valley furnished grain to all markets accessible by water;
hence Rome, Greece, and Judæa ate the bread of Egypt. On this national
tillage was founded the greatness of the country, for from it came the
means to execute other works, and in it began that toil, training, and
skill indispensable in rearing the monuments and doing those things
which have made Egypt famous forever, and preserved to us a knowledge
of the language, religion, modes of living, and history of that
wonderful people who held the Nile valley. No civilized person who has
looked on the pyramid of Ghizeh, the temple of Karnak, and the tombs
of the pharaohs in the Theban region, can ever forget them. But in
those monuments are preserved things of far greater import than they
themselves are. In the tombs and temples of Egypt we see on stone and
papyrus how that immense work of making speech visible was
accomplished, that task of presenting language to the eye instead of
the ear, and preserving the spoken word so as to give it to eye or ear
afterwards. In other terms, we have the history of writing from its
earliest beginnings to the point at which we connect it with the
system used now by all civilized nations excepting the Chinese. In
those monuments are preserved the history of religion in Egypt, not
from the beginning of human endeavor to explain first what the world
is and then what we ourselves are and what we and the world mean
together, but from a time far beyond any recorded by man in other
places.
Egyptians had the genius which turned a narrow strip of Abyssinian mud
and a triangular patch of swamp at the end of it into the most
fruitful land of antiquity. They had also that genius which impels man
to look out over the horizon around him, see more than the material
problems of life, and gaze into the beyond, gaze intently and never
cease gazing till he finds what his mind seeks. It was the possession
of these two kinds of genius and the union of the two which made the
position of Egypt in history unique and unapproachable.
The greatness of Egypt lay primarily in her ideas, and was achieved
through a perfect control over labor by intellect. While this control
was exerted even approximately in accordance with the nation's
historical calling, it was effectual and also unchallenged. But when
the exercise of power, with the blandishments and physical pleasures
which always attend it, had become dearer to the priesthood and to
pharaohs than aught else on earth or in their ideals, then began the
epoch of Egypt's final doom: foreign bondage and national ruin.
The action presented in the volume before us relates to those days
when the guiding intellect of Egypt became irrevocably dual, and when
between the two parts of it, the priests and the pharaohs, opposition
appeared so clearly defined and incurable that the ruin of both sides
was evident in the future.
The ruin of a pharaoh and the fall of his dynasty, with the rise of a
self-chosen sovereign and a new line of rulers, are the double
consummation in this novel. The book ends with that climax, but the
fall of the new priestly rulers is a matter of history, as is the
destruction wrought on Egypt by tyrants from Assyria and Persia. The
native pharaohs lost power through the priesthood, whose real interest
it was to support them; but fate found the priests later on, and
pronounced on them also the doom of extinction.
* * * * *
Alexander Glovatski was born in 1847 in Mashov, a village of the
Government of Lublin. He finished his preliminary studies in the
Lublin Gymnasium, and was graduated from the University of Warsaw. He
took part in the uprising of 1863, but was captured, and liberated
after some months' detention. As a student he showed notable power,
and was exceptionally attracted by mathematics and science, to which
he gives much attention yet, though occupied mainly in literature.
Glovatski's published works are in seventeen volumes. These books,
with the exception of "The Pharaoh and the Priest," are devoted to
modern characters, situations, and questions. His types are mainly
from Polish life. Very few of his characters are German or Russian; of
Polish types some are Jewish.
Alexander Glovatski is a true man of letters, a real philosopher,
retiring, industrious, and modest. He spends all his winters in
Warsaw, and lives every summer in the country. He permits neither
society nor coteries, nor interests of any sort, to snatch away time
from him, or influence his convictions. He goes about as he chooses,
whenever he likes and wherever it suits him. When ready to work he
sits down in his own house, and tells the world carefully and with
kindness, though not without irony, what he sees in it. What he sees
is exhibited in the seventeen volumes, which contain great and vivid
pictures of life at the end of the recent century. Men and women of
various beliefs, occupations, and values, are shown there.
Glovatski is entirely unknown to Americans. This book will present
him.
Excepting the view in the temple of Luxor the illustrations given in
this volume are from photographs taken by me in 1899, while I was
travelling in Egypt.
The title of this volume has been changed from "The Pharaoh" to "The
Pharaoh and the Priest," at the wish of the author.
JEREMIAH CURTIN.
Bristol, Vermont, U. S. A.,
_July 28, 1902_.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Alexander Glovatski _Frontispiece_
Jeremiah Curtin at the Statue of Rameses the
Great in the Temple of Luxor _Page_ v
Step Pyramid " 135
Village of Bedreshen on the site of Memphis " 143
Pyramid of Cheops " 470
The Great Sphinx " 475
Statue of the Pharaoh Tutankhamen " 545
General View of the Ruins of Karnak " 582
Tomb of a Pharaoh in the Libyan Hills " 592
Avenue of Sphinxes from the Temple of Karnak to the Nile " 617
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER I 6
CHAPTER II 17
CHAPTER III 21
CHAPTER IV 27
CHAPTER V 36
CHAPTER VI 43
CHAPTER VII 51
CHAPTER VIII 56
CHAPTER IX 62
CHAPTER X 68
CHAPTER XI 74
CHAPTER XII 82
CHAPTER XIII 93
CHAPTER XIV 99
CHAPTER XV 110
CHAPTER XVI 116
CHAPTER XVII 123
CHAPTER XVIII 131
CHAPTER XIX 143
CHAPTER XX 153
CHAPTER XXI 165
CHAPTER XXII 175
CHAPTER XXIII 181
CHAPTER XXIV 187
CHAPTER XXV 200
CHAPTER XXVI 212
CHAPTER XXVII 220
CHAPTER XXVIII 231
CHAPTER XXIX 243
CHAPTER XXX 250
CHAPTER XXXI 259
CHAPTER XXXII 272
CHAPTER XXXIII 282
CHAPTER XXXIV 292
CHAPTER XXXV 305
CHAPTER XXXVI 317
CHAPTER XXXVII 326
CHAPTER XXXVIII 337
CHAPTER XXXIX 348
CHAPTER XL 359
CHAPTER XLI 372
CHAPTER XLII 391
CHAPTER XLIII 398
CHAPTER XLIV 413
CHAPTER XLV 428
CHAPTER XLVI 437
CHAPTER XLVII 445
CHAPTER XLVIII 453
CHAPTER XLIX 467
CHAPTER L 478
CHAPTER LI 485
CHAPTER LII 493
CHAPTER LIII 503
CHAPTER LIV 515
CHAPTER LV 524
CHAPTER LVI 546
CHAPTER LVII 559
CHAPTER LVIII 577
CHAPTER LIX 592
CHAPTER LX 600
CHAPTER LXI 612
CHAPTER LXII 632
CHAPTER LXIII 644
CHAPTER LXIV 657
CHAPTER LXV 665
CHAPTER LXVI 684
CHAPTER LXVII 693
THE PHARAOH AND THE PRIEST
INTRODUCTION
In the northeastern corner of Africa lies Egypt, that land of most
ancient civilization. Three, four, and even five thousand years ago,
when the savages of Central Europe wore untanned skins for clothing
and were cave-dwellers, Egypt had a high social organization,
agriculture, crafts, and literature. Above all, it carried out
engineering works and reared immense buildings, the remnants of which
rouse admiration in specialists of our day.
Egypt is that rich ravine between the Libyan sands and the Arabian
desert. Its depth is several hundred metres, its length six hundred
and fifty miles, its average width barely five. On the west the gently
sloping but naked Libyan hills, on the east the steep and broken
cliffs of Arabia form the sides of a corridor on the bottom of which
flows the river Nile.
With the course of the river northward the walls of the corridor
decrease in height, while a hundred and twenty-five miles from the sea
they expand on a sudden, and the river, instead of flowing through a
narrow passage, spreads in various arms over a broad level plain which
is shaped like a triangle. This triangle, called the Delta of the
Nile, has for its base the shore of the Mediterranean; at its apex,
where the river issues from the corridor, stands the city of Cairo,
and near by are the ruins of Memphis, the ancient capital.
Could a man rise one hundred miles in the air and gaze thence upon
Egypt, he would see the strange outlines of that country and the
peculiar changes in its color. From that elevation, on the background
of white and orange colored sands, Egypt would look like a serpent
pushing with energetic twists through a desert to the sea, in which
it has dipped already its triangular head, which has two eyes,--the
left Alexandria, the right Damietta.
In October, when the Nile inundates Egypt, that long serpent would be
blue, like water. In February, when spring vegetation takes the place
of the decreasing river, the serpent would be green, with a blue line
along its body and a multitude of blue veins on its head; these are
canals which cut through the Delta. In March the blue line would be
narrower, and the body of the serpent, because of ripening grain,
would seem golden. Finally, in the first days of June the line of the
Nile would be very narrow and the serpent's body gray from dust and
drought. The chief climatic feature in Egypt is heat. During January
it is 57° above zero, in July 99½°; sometimes the heat reaches 149°
which answers to the temperature of a Roman bath. Moreover, in the
neighborhood of the Mediterranean, on the Delta, rain falls barely ten
times a year; in Upper Egypt it falls once during ten years.
In these conditions Egypt, instead of being the cradle of
civilization, would have been a desert ravine like one of those which
compose the Sahara, if the waters of the sacred Nile had not brought
life to it annually. From the last days of June till the end of
September the Nile swells and inundates almost all Egypt; from the end
of October to the last days in May the year following it falls and
exposes gradually lower and lower platforms of land. The waters of the
river are so permeated with mineral and organic matter that their
color becomes brownish; hence, as the waters decrease, on inundated
lands is deposited fruitful mud which takes the place of the best
fertilizer. Owing to this mud and to heat, Egyptian earth-tillers,
fenced in between deserts, have three harvests yearly and from one
grain of seed receive back about three hundred.
Egypt, however, is not a flat plain, but a rolling country; some
portions of its land drink the blessed waters during two or three
months only; others do not see it every year, as the overflow does not
reach certain points annually. Besides, seasons of scant water occur,
and then a part of Egypt fails to receive the enriching deposit.
Finally, because of heat the earth dries up quickly, and then man has
to irrigate out of vessels.
In view of all these conditions people inhabiting the Nile valley had
to perish if they were weak, or regulate the water if they had genius.
The ancient Egyptians had genius, hence they created civilization.
Six thousand years ago they observed that the Nile rose when the sun
appeared under Sirius, and began to fall when it neared the
constellation Libra. This impelled them to make astronomical
observations and to measure time.
To preserve water for the whole year, they dug throughout their
country a network of canals many thousand miles in length. To guard
against excessive waste of water, they built mighty dams and dug
reservoirs, among which the artificial lake Moeris occupied three
hundred square kilometres of surface and was fifty-four metres deep.
Finally, along the Nile and the canals they set up a multitude of
simple but practical hydraulic works; through the aid of these they
raised water and poured it out upon the fields; these machines were
placed one or two stories higher than the water. To complete all,
there was need to clear the choked canals yearly, repair the dams and
build lofty roads for the army, which had to march at all seasons.
These gigantic works demanded knowledge of astronomy, geometry,
mechanics, and architecture, besides a perfect organization. Whether
the task was the strengthening of dams or the clearing of canals, it
had to be done and finished within a certain period over a great area.
Hence arose the need of forming an army of laborers, tens of thousands
in number, acting with a definite purpose and under uniform
direction,--an army which demanded many provisions, much means, and
great auxiliary forces.
Egypt established such an army of laborers, and to them were due works
renowned during ages. It seems that Egyptian priests or sages created
this army and then drew out plans for it, while the kings, or
pharaohs, commanded. In consequence of this the Egyptians in the days
of their greatness formed as it were one person, in which the priestly
order performed the rôle of mind, the pharaoh was the will, the people
formed the body, and obedience gave cohesion.
In this way nature, striving in Egypt for a work great, continuous,
and ordered, created the skeleton of a social organism for that
country as follows: the people labored, the pharaoh commanded, the
priests made the plans. While these three elements worked unitedly
toward the objects indicated by nature, society had strength to
flourish and complete immortal labors.
The mild, gladsome, and by no means warlike Egyptians were divided
into two classes,--earth-tillers and artisans. Among earth-tillers
there must have been owners of small bits of land, but generally
earth-tillers were tenants on lands belonging to the pharaohs, the
priests, and the aristocracy. The artisans, the people who made
clothing, furniture, vessels, and tools, were independent; those who
worked at great edifices formed, as it were, an army.
Each of those specialties, and particularly architecture, demanded
power of hauling and moving; some men had to draw water all day from
canals, or transport stones from the quarries to where they were
needed. These, the most arduous mechanical occupations, and above all
work in the quarries were carried on by criminals condemned by the
courts, or by prisoners seized in battle.
The genuine Egyptians had a bronze-colored skin, of which they were
very proud, despising the black Ethiopian, the yellow Semite, and the
white European. This color of skin, which enabled them to distinguish
their own people from strangers, helped to keep up the nation's unity
more strictly than religion, which a man may accept, or language,
which he may appropriate.
But in time, when the edifice of the state began to weaken, foreign
elements appeared in growing numbers. They lessened cohesion, they
split apart society, they flooded Egypt and absorbed the original
inhabitants.
The pharaohs governed the state by the help of a standing army and a
militia or police, also by a multitude of officials, from whom was
formed by degrees an aristocracy of family. By his office the pharaoh
was lawgiver, supreme king, highest judge, chief priest; he was the
son of a god, a god himself even. He accepted divine honors, not only
from officials and the people, but sometimes he raised altars to his
own person, and burnt incense before images of himself.
At the side of the pharaoh and very often above him were priests, an
order of sages who directed the destinies of the country.
In our day it is almost impossible to imagine the extraordinary rôle
which the priests played in Egypt. They were instructors of rising
generations, also soothsayers, hence the advisers of mature people,
judges of the dead, to whom their will and their knowledge guaranteed
immortality. They not only performed the minute ceremonies of religion
for the gods and the pharaohs, but they healed the sick as physicians,
they influenced the course of public works as engineers, and also
politics as astrologers, but above all they knew their own country and
its neighbors.
In Egyptian history the first place is occupied by the relations which
existed between the priests and the pharaohs. Most frequently the
pharaoh laid rich offerings before the gods and built temples. Then he
lived long, and his name, with his images cut out on monuments, passed
from generation to generation, full of glory. But many pharaohs
reigned for a short period only, and of some not merely the deeds, but
the names disappeared from record. A couple of times it happened that
a dynasty fell, and straightway the cap of the pharaohs, encircled
with a serpent, was taken by a priest.
Egypt continued to develop while a people of one composition,
energetic kings, and wise priests co-operated for the common weal. But
a time came when the people, in consequence of wars, decreased in
number and lost their strength through oppression and extortion; the
intrusion of foreign elements at this period undermined Egyptian race
unity. And when the energy of pharaohs and the wisdom of priests sank
in the flood of Asiatic luxury, and these two powers began to struggle
with each other for undivided authority to plunder the toiling people,
then Egypt fell under foreign control, and the light of civilized
life, which had burnt on the Nile for millenniums, was extinguished.
The following narrative relates to the eleventh century before Christ,
when the twentieth dynasty fell, and after the offspring of the sun,
the eternally living Rameses XIII., San-Amen-Herhor, the high priest
of Amon and ever-living offspring of the sun, forced his way to the
throne and adorned his head with the ureus.
CHAPTER I
In the thirty-third year of the happy reign of Rameses XII., Egypt
celebrated two festivals which filled all its faithful inhabitants
with pride and delight.
In the month of Mechir--that is, during January--the god Khonsu
returned to Thebes covered with costly gifts. For three years and nine
months he had travelled in the country of Buchten, where he restored
health to the king's daughter, Bentres, and expelled an evil spirit
not only from the royal family, but even from the fortress.
So in the month Farmuti (February) Mer-Amen-Rameses XII., the lord
of Upper and Lower Egypt, the ruler of Phoenicia and nine nations,
after consultation with the gods to whom he was equal, named as
erpatr, or heir to the throne, his son, aged twenty years,
Cham-Sem-Merer-Amen-Rameses.
This choice delighted the pious priests, the worthy nomarchs, the
valiant army, the faithful people, and every creature living in Egypt,
because the older sons of the pharaoh, who were born of a Hittite
princess, had been visited by an evil spirit through enchantments
which no one had the power to investigate. One son of twenty-seven
years was unable to walk after reaching maturity; the second opened
his veins and died; the third, through poisoned wine, which he would
not cease drinking, fell into madness, and believing himself a monkey,
passed whole days among tree branches.
But the fourth son, Rameses, born of Queen Nikotris, daughter of the
priest Amenhôtep, was as strong as the bull Apis, as brave as a lion,
and as wise as the priests. From childhood he surrounded himself with
warriors, and while still a common prince, used to say,--
"If the gods, instead of making me the youngest son of his holiness,
had made me a pharaoh, like Rameses the Great, I would conquer nine
nations, of which people in Egypt have never heard mention; I would
build a temple larger than all Thebes, and rear for myself a pyramid
near which the tomb of Cheops would be like a rosebush at the side of
a full-grown palm-tree."
On receiving the much desired title of heir, the young prince begged
his father to be gracious and appoint him to command the army corps of
Memphis. To this his holiness, Rameses XII., after consultation with
the gods, to whom he was equal, answered that he would do so in case
the heir could give proof that he had skill to direct a mass of troops
arrayed for battle.
A council was called under the presidency of the minister of war,
San-Amen-Herhor, high priest of the great sanctuary of Amon in Thebes.
The council decided in this way: "The heir to the throne, in the
middle of the month Mesore, will take ten regiments, disposed along
the line which connects Memphis with the city of Pi-Uto, situated on
the Bay of Sebenico.
"With this corps of ten thousand men prepared for battle, provided
with a camp and with military engines, the heir will betake himself
eastward along the highroad from Memphis toward Hittite regions, which
road lies on the boundary between the land of Goshen and the
wilderness. At this time General Nitager, commander of the army which
guards the gates of Egypt from attacks of Asiatic people, will move
from the Bitter Lakes against the heir, Prince Rameses.
"Both armies, the Asiatic and the Western, are to meet near Pi-Bailos,
but in the wilderness, so that industrious husbandmen in the land of
Goshen be not hindered in their labors.
"The heir will be victorious if he does not let himself be surprised
by Nitager, that is, if he concentrates all his forces and succeeds in
putting them in order of battle to meet the enemy.
"His worthiness Herhor, the minister of war, will be present in the
camp of Prince Rameses, and will report to the pharaoh."
Two ways of communication formed the boundary between the land of
Goshen and the desert. One was the transport canal from Memphis to
Lake Timrah; the other was the highroad. The canal was in the land of
Goshen, the highroad in the desert which both ways bounded with a half
circle.
The canal was visible from almost every point upon the highroad.
Whatever artificial boundaries might be, these neighboring regions
differed in all regards. The land of Goshen, though a rolling country,
seemed a plain; the desert was composed of limestone hills and sandy
valleys. The land of Goshen seemed a gigantic chessboard the green and
yellow squares of which were indicated by the color of grain and by
palms growing on their boundaries; but on the ruddy sand of the desert
and its white hills a patch of green or a clump of trees and bushes
seemed like a lost traveller.
On the fertile land of Goshen from each hill shot up a dark grove of
acacias, sycamores, and tamarinds which from a distance looked like
our lime-trees; among these were concealed villas with rows of short
columns, or the yellow mud huts of earth-tillers. Sometimes near the
grove was a white village with flat-roofed houses, or above the trees
rose the pyramidal gates of a temple, like double cliffs, many-colored
with strange characters. From the desert beyond the first row of
hills, which were a little green, stared naked elevations covered with
blocks of stone. It seemed as if the western region, sated with excess
of life, hurled with regal generosity to the other side flowers and
vegetables, but the desert in eternal hunger devoured them in the
following year and turned them into ashes.
The stunted vegetation, exiled to cliffs and sands, clung to the lower
places until, by means of ditches made in the sides of the raised
highroad, men conducted water from the canals to it. In fact, hidden
oases between naked hills along that highway drank in the divine
water. In these oases grew wheat, barley, grapes, palms, and
tamarinds. The whole of such an oasis was sometimes occupied by one
family, which when it met another like itself at the market in
Pi-Bailos might not even know that they were neighbors in the desert.
On the fifteenth of Mesore the concentration of troops was almost
finished. The regiments of Prince Rameses, which were to meet the
Asiatic forces of Nitager, had assembled on the road above the city of
Pi-Bailos with their camp and with some military engines.
The heir himself directed all the movements. He had organized two
parties of scouts. Of these the first had to watch the enemy, the
other to guard its own army from attack, which was possible in a hilly
region with many ravines. Rameses, in the course of a week, rode
around and examined all the regiments, marching by various roads,
looking carefully to see if the soldiers had good weapons and warm
mantles for the night hours, if in the camps there was dried bread in
sufficiency as well as meat and dried fish. He commanded, besides,
that the wives, children, and slaves of warriors marching to the
eastern boundary should be conveyed by canal; this diminished the
number of chariots and eased the movements of the army.
The oldest generals admired the zeal, knowledge, and caution of the
heir, and, above all, his simplicity and love of labor. His court,
which was numerous, his splendid tent, chariots, and litters were left
in the capital, and, dressed as a simple officer, he hurried from
regiment to regiment on horseback, in Assyrian fashion, attended by
two adjutants.
Thanks to this concentration, the corps itself went forward very
swiftly, and the army was near Pi-Bailos at the time appointed.
It was different with the prince's staff, and the Greek regiment
accompanying it, and with some who moved military engines.
The staff, collected in Memphis, had the shortest road to travel;
hence it moved latest, bringing an immense camp with it. Nearly every
officer, and they were young lords of great families, had a litter
with four negroes, a two-wheeled military chariot, a rich tent, and a
multitude of boxes with food and clothing, also jars full of beer and
wine. Besides, a numerous troop of singers and dancers, with music,
had betaken themselves to journey behind the officers; each woman
must, in the manner of a great lady, have a car drawn by one or two
pair of oxen, and must have also a litter.
When this throng poured out of Memphis, it occupied more space on the
highway than the army of Prince Rameses. The march was so slow that
the military engines which were left at the rear moved twenty-four
hours later than was ordered. To complete every evil the female
dancers and singers, on seeing the desert not at all dreadful in that
place, were terrified and fell to weeping. To calm these women it was
necessary to hasten with the night camp, pitch tents, arrange a
spectacle, and a feast afterward.
The night amusement in the cool, under the starry sky, with wild
nature for a background, pleased dancers and singers exceedingly; they
declared that they would travel thenceforth only through the desert.
Meanwhile Prince Rameses sent an order to turn all women back to
Memphis at the earliest and urge the march forward.
His dignity Herhor, minister of war, was with the staff, but only as a
spectator. He had not brought singers himself, but he made no remarks
to officers. He gave command to carry his litter at the head of the
column, and accommodating himself to its movements, advanced or rested
under the immense fan with which his adjutant shaded him.
Herhor was a man of forty and some years of age, strongly built,
concentrated in character. He spoke rarely, and looked at people as
rarely from under his drooping eyelids. He went with arms and legs
bare, like every Egyptian, his breast exposed; he had sandals on his
feet, a short skirt about his hips, an apron with blue and white
stripes. As a priest, he shaved his beard and hair and wore a panther
skin hanging from his left shoulder. As a soldier, he covered his head
with a small helmet of the guard; from under this helmet hung a
kerchief, also in blue and white stripes; this reached his shoulders.
Around his neck was a triple gold chain, and under his left arm a
short sword in a costly scabbard. His litter, borne by six black
slaves, was attended always by three persons: one carried his fan,
another the mace of the minister, and the third a box for papyrus.
This third man was Pentuer, a priest, and the secretary of Herhor. He
was a lean ascetic who in the greatest heat never covered his shaven
head. He came of the people, but in spite of low birth he occupied a
high position in the state; this was due to exceptional abilities.
Though the minister with his officials preceded the staff and held
himself apart from its movements, it could not be said that he was
unconscious of what was happening behind him. Every hour, at times
every half hour, some one approached Herhor's litter,--now a priest of
lower rank, an ordinary "servant of the gods," a marauding soldier, a
freedman, or a slave, who, passing as it were indifferently the silent
retinue of the minister, threw out a word. That word Pentuer recorded
sometimes, but more frequently he remembered it, for his memory was
amazing.
No one in the noisy throng of the staff paid attention to these
details. The officers, sons of great lords, were too much occupied by
running, by noisy conversation, or by singing, to notice who
approached the minister; all the more since a multitude of people were
pushing along the highway.
On the sixteenth of Mesore the staff of Prince Rameses, together with
his dignity the minister, passed the night under the open sky at the
distance of five miles from the regiments which were arranged in
battle order across the highway beyond the city of Pi-Bailos.
In that early morning which precedes our six o'clock, the hills grew
violet, and from behind them came forth the sun. A rosy light flowed
over the land of Goshen. Villages, temples, palaces of magnates, and
huts of earth-tillers looked like sparks and flames which flashed up
in one moment from the midst of green spaces. Soon the western horizon
was flooded with a golden hue, and the green land of Goshen seemed
melting into gold, and the numberless canals seemed filled with molten
silver. But the desert hills grew still more marked with violet, and
cast long shadows on the sands, and darkness on the plant world.
The guards who stood along that highway could see with the utmost
clearness fields, edged with palms, beyond the canal. Some fields were
green with flax, wheat, clover; others were gilded with ripening
barley of the second growth. Now earth-tillers began to come out to
field labor, from huts concealed among trees; they were naked and
bronze-hued; their whole dress was a short skirt and a cap. Some
turned to canals to clear them of mud, or to draw water. Others
dispersing among the trees gathered grapes and ripe figs. Many naked
children stirred about, and women were busy in white, yellow, or red
shirts which were sleeveless.
There was great movement in that region. In the sky birds of prey
from the desert pursued pigeons and daws in the land of Goshen. Along
the canal squeaking sweeps moved up and down, with buckets of
fertilizing water; fruit-gatherers appeared and disappeared among the
trees, like colored butterflies. But in the desert, on the highway,
swarmed the army and its servants. A division of mounted lancers shot
past. Behind them marched bowmen in caps and petticoats; they had bows
in their hands, quivers on their shoulders, and broadswords at their
right sides. The archers were accompanied by slingers who carried bags
with missiles and were armed with short swords.
A hundred yards behind them advanced two small divisions of footmen,
one division armed with darts, the other with spears. Both carried
rectangular shields; on their breasts they had thick coats, as it were
armor, and on their heads caps with kerchiefs behind to ward off the
sun-rays. The caps and coats had blue and white stripes or yellow and
black stripes, which made those soldiers seem immense hornets.
Behind the advance guard, surrounded by a retinue of mace-bearers,
pushed on the litter of the minister, and behind it, with bronze
helmets and breastplates, the Greek companies, whose measured tread
called to mind blows of heavy hammers. In the rear was heard the
creaking of vehicles, and from the side of the highway slipped along
the bearded Phoenician merchant in his litter borne between two asses.
Above all this rose a cloud of golden dust, and heat also.
Suddenly from the vanguard galloped up a mounted soldier and informed
Herhor that Prince Rameses, the heir to the throne, was approaching.
His worthiness descended from the litter, and at that moment appeared
a mounted party of men who halted and sprang from their horses. One
man of this party and the minister began to approach each other,
halting every few steps and bowing.
"Be greeted, O son of the pharaoh; may he live through eternity!" said
the minister.
"Be greeted and live long, O holy father!" answered Rameses; then he
added,--
"Ye advance as slowly as if your legs were sawn off, while Nitager
will stand before our division in two hours at the latest."
"Thou hast told truth. Thy staff marches very slowly."
"Eunana tells me also," here Rameses indicated an officer standing
behind him who was covered with amulets, "that ye have not sent scouts
to search ravines. But in case of real war an enemy might attack from
that side."
"I am not the leader, I am only a judge," replied the minister,
quietly.
"But what can Patrokles be doing?"
"Patrokles is bringing up the military engines with his Greek
regiment."
"But my relative and adjutant, Tutmosis?"
"He is sleeping yet, I suppose."
Rameses stamped impatiently, and was silent. He was a beautiful youth,
with a face almost feminine, to which anger and sunburn added charm.
He wore a close-fitting coat with blue and white stripes, a kerchief
of the same color behind his helmet, a gold chain around his neck, and
a costly sword beneath his left arm.
"I see," said the prince, "that thou alone, Eunana, art mindful of my
honor."
The officer covered with amulets bent to the earth.
"Tutmosis is indolent," said the heir. "Return to thy place, Eunana.
Let the vanguard at least have a leader."
Then, looking at the suite which now surrounded him as if it had
sprung from under the earth on a sudden, he added,--
"Bring my litter. I am as tired as a quarryman."
"Can the gods grow tired?" whispered Eunana, still standing behind
him.
"Go to thy place!" said Rameses.
"But perhaps thou wilt command me, O image of the moon, to search the
ravines?" asked the officer, in a low voice. "Command, I beg thee, for
wherever I am my heart is chasing after thee to divine thy will and
accomplish it."
"I know that thou art watchful," answered Rameses. "Go now and look
after everything."
"Holy father," said Eunana, turning to the minister, "I commend my
most obedient service to thy worthiness."
Barely had Eunana gone when at the end of the marching column rose a
still greater tumult. They looked for the heir's litter, but it was
gone. Then appeared, making his way through the Greek warriors, a
youth of strange exterior. He wore a muslin tunic, a richly
embroidered apron, and a golden scarf across his shoulder. But he was
distinguished above all by an immense wig with a multitude of tresses,
and an artificial beard like cats' tails.
That was Tutmosis, the first exquisite in Memphis, who dressed and
perfumed himself even during marches.
"Be greeted, Rameses!" exclaimed the exquisite, pushing aside officers
quickly. "Imagine thy litter is lost somewhere; thou must sit in mine,
which really is not fit for thee, but it is not the worst."
"Thou hast angered me," answered the prince. "Thou sleepest instead of
watching the army."
The astonished exquisite stopped.
"I sleep?" cried he. "May the man's tongue wither up who invented that
calumny! I, knowing that thou wouldst come, have been ready this hour
past, and am preparing a bath for thee and perfumes."
"While thus engaged, the regiment is without a commander."
"Am I to command a detachment where his worthiness the minister of war
is, and such a leader is present as Patrokles?"
Rameses was silent; meanwhile Tutmosis, approaching him, whispered,--
"In what a plight thou art, O son of the pharaoh! Without a wig, thy
hair and dress full of dust, thy skin black and cracked, like the
earth in summer. The queen, most deserving of honor, would drive me
from the court were she to look at thy wretchedness."
"I am only tired."
"Then take a seat in my litter. In it are fresh garlands of roses,
roast birds, and a jug of wine from Cyprus. I have kept also hidden in
the camp," added he in a lower voice, "Senura."
"Is she here?" asked the prince; and his eyes, glittering a moment
before, were now mist covered.
"Let the army move on," said Tutmosis; "we will wait here for her."
Rameses recovered himself.
"Leave me, tempter! The battle will come in two hours."
"What! a battle?"
"At least the decision as to my leadership."
"Oh, laugh at it!" smiled the exquisite. "I would swear that the
minister of war sent a report of it yesterday, and with it the
petition to give thee the corps of Memphis."
"No matter if he did. To-day I have no thought for anything but the
army."
"In thee this wish for war is dreadful, war during which a man does
not wash for a whole month, so as to die in-- Brr! But if thou couldst
see Senura, only glance at her--"
"For that very reason I shall not glance at her," answered Rameses,
decisively.
At the moment when eight men were bringing from beyond the Greek ranks
the immense litter of Tutmosis for the use of Rameses, a horseman
raced in from the vanguard. He dropped from his horse and ran so
quickly that on his breast the images of the gods or the tablets with
their names rattled loudly. This was Eunana in great excitement.
All turned to him, and this gave him pleasure apparently.
"Erpatr, the loftiest lips," cried Eunana, bending before Rameses.
"When, in accordance with thy divine command, I rode at the head of a
detachment, looking carefully at all things, I noticed on the highroad
two beautiful scarabs. Each of these sacred beetles was rolling an
earth ball toward the sands near the roadside--"
"What of that?" interrupted Rameses.
"Of course," continued Eunana, glancing toward Herhor, "I and my
people, as piety enjoins, rendered homage to the golden symbols of the
sun, and halted. That augury is of such import that no man of us would
make a step forward unless commanded."
"I see that thou art a pious Egyptian, though thou hast the features
of a Hittite," answered the worthy Herhor; and turning to certain
dignitaries standing near, he added,--
"We will not advance farther by the highway, for we might crush the
sacred beetles. Pentuer, can we go around the road by that ravine on
the right?"
"We can," answered the secretary. "That ravine is five miles long,
and comes out again almost in front of Pi-Bailos."
"An immense loss of time!" interrupted Rameses, in anger.
"I would swear that those are not scarabs, but the spirits of my
Phoenician usurers," said Tutmosis the exquisite. "Not being able,
because of their death, to receive money from me, they will force me
now to march through the desert in punishment!"
The suite of the prince awaited the decision with fear; so Rameses
turned to Herhor,--
"What dost thou think of this, holy father?"
"Look at the officers," answered the priest, "and thou wilt understand
that we must go by the ravine."
Now Patrokles, leader of the Greeks, pushed forward and said to the
heir,--
"If the prince permit, my regiment will advance by the highway. My
soldiers have no fear of beetles!"
"Your soldiers have no fear of royal tombs even," added the minister.
"Still it cannot be safe in them since no one has ever returned."
The Greek pushed back to the suite confounded.
"Confess, holy father," hissed the heir, with the greatest anger,
"that such a hindrance would not stop even an ass on his journey."
"True, but no ass will ever be pharaoh," retorted the minister,
calmly.
"In that case thou, O minister, wilt lead the division through the
ravine!" exclaimed Rameses. "I am unacquainted with priestly tactics;
besides, I must rest. Come with me, cousin," said he to Tutmosis; and
he turned toward some naked hills.
CHAPTER II
Straightway his worthiness Herhor directed his adjutant who carried
the mace to take charge of the vanguard in place of Eunana. Then he
commanded that the military engines for hurling great stones leave the
road, and that the Greek soldiers facilitate passage for those engines
in difficult places. All vehicles and litters of staff-officers were
to move in the rear.
When Herhor issued commands, the adjutant bearing the fan approached
Pentuer and asked,--
"Will it be possible to go by this highway again?"
"Why not?" answered the young priest. "But since two sacred beetles
have barred the way now, we must not go farther; some misfortune might
happen."
"As it is, a misfortune has happened. Or hast thou not noticed that
Prince Rameses is angry at the minister? and our lord is not
forgetful."
"It is not the prince who is offended with our lord, but our lord with
the prince, and he has reproached him. He has done well; for it seems
to the young prince, at present, that he is to be a second Menes."
"Or a Rameses the Great," put in the adjutant.
"Rameses the Great obeyed the gods; for this cause there are
inscriptions praising him in all the temples. But Menes, the first
pharaoh of Egypt, was a destroyer of order, and thanks only to the
fatherly kindness of the priests that his name is still
remembered,--though I would not give one brass uten on this, that the
mummy of Menes exists."
"My Pentuer," added the adjutant, "thou art a sage, hence knowest that
it is all one to us whether we have ten lords or eleven."
"But it is not all one to the people whether they have to find every
year a mountain of gold for the priests, or two mountains of gold for
the priests and the pharaoh," answered Pentuer, while his eyes
flashed.
"Thou art thinking of dangerous things," said the adjutant, in a
whisper.
"But how often hast thou thyself grieved over the luxuries of the
pharaoh's court and of the nomarchs?" inquired the priest in
astonishment.
"Quiet, quiet! We will talk of this, but not now."
In spite of the sand the military engines, drawn each by two bullocks,
moved in the desert more speedily than along the highway. With the
first of them marched Eunana, anxiously. "Why has the minister
deprived me of leadership over the vanguard? Does he wish to give me a
higher position?" asked he in his own mind.
Thinking out then a new career, and perhaps to dull the fears which
made his heart quiver, he seized a pole and, where the sands were
deeper, propped the balista, or urged on the Greeks with an outcry.
They, however, paid slight attention to this officer.
The retinue had pushed on a good half hour through a winding ravine
with steep naked walls, when the vanguard halted a second time. At
this point another ravine crossed the first; in the middle of it
extended a rather broad canal.
The courier sent to the minister of war with notice of the obstacle
brought back a command to fill the canal immediately.
About a hundred soldiers with pickaxes and shovels rushed to the work.
Some knocked out stones from the cliff; others threw them into the
ditch and covered them with sand.
Meanwhile from the depth of the ravine came a man with a pickaxe
shaped like a stork's neck with the bill on it. He was an Egyptian
slave, old and entirely naked. He looked for a while with the utmost
amazement at the work of the soldiers; then, springing between them on
a sudden, he shouted,--
"What are ye doing, vile people? This is a canal."
"But how darest thou use evil words against the warriors of his
holiness?" asked Eunana, who stood there.
"Thou must be an Egyptian and a great person, I see that," said the
slave; "so I answer thee that this canal belongs to a mighty lord; he
is the manager and secretary of one who bears the fan for his
worthiness the nomarch of Memphis. Be on thy guard or misfortune will
strike thee!"
"Do your work," said Eunana, with a patronizing tone, to the Greek
soldiers who began to look at the slave.
They did not understand his speech, but the tone of it arrested them.
"They are filling in all the time!" said the slave, with rising fear.
"Woe to thee!" cried he, rushing at one of the Greeks with his
pickaxe.
The Greek pulled it from the man, struck him on the mouth, and brought
blood to his lips; then he threw sand into the canal again.
The slave, stunned by the blow, lost courage and fell to imploring.
"Lord," said he, "I dug this canal alone for ten years, in the night
time and during festivals! My master promised that if I should bring
water to this little valley he would make me a servant in it, give me
one fifth of the harvests, and grant me freedom--do you hear? Freedom
to me and my three children!--O gods!"
He raised his hands and turned again to Eunana,--
"They do not understand me, these vagrants from beyond the sea,
descendants of dogs, brothers to Jews and Phoenicians! But listen,
lord, to me! For ten years, while other men went to fairs and dances
or sacred processions, I stole out into this dreary ravine. I did not
go to the grave of my mother, I only dug; I forgot the dead so as to
give freedom with laud to my children, and to myself even one free day
before death. Ye, O gods, be my witnesses how many times has night
found me here! how many times have I heard the wailing cries of hyenas
in this place, and seen the green eyes of wolves! But I did not flee,
for whither was I, the unfortunate, to flee, when at every path terror
was lurking, and in this canal freedom held me back by the feet? Once,
beyond that turn there, a lion came out against me, the pharaoh of
beasts. The pickaxe dropped from my hands, I knelt down before him,
and I, as ye see me, said these words: 'O lord! is it thy pleasure to
eat me? I am only a slave.' But the lion took pity, the wolf also
passed by; even the treacherous bats spared my poor head; but thou, O
Egyptian--"
The man stopped; he saw the retinue of Herhor approaching. By the fan
he knew him to be a great personage, and by the panther skin, a
priest. He ran to the litter, therefore, knelt down, and struck the
sand with his forehead.
"What dost thou wish, man?" asked the dignitary.
"O light of the sun, listen to me!" cried the slave. "May there be no
groans in thy chamber, may no misfortune follow thee! May thy works
continue, and may the current not be interrupted when thou shalt sail
by the Nile to the other shore--"
"I ask what thy wish is," repeated Herhor.
"Kind lord," said the man, "leader without caprice, who conquerest the
false and createst the true, who art the father of the poor, the
husband of the widow, clothing for the motherless, permit me to spread
thy name as the equal of justice, most noble of the nobles."[1]
[1] Authentic speech of a slave.
"He wishes that this canal be not filled in," said Eunana.
Herhor shrugged his shoulders and pushed toward the place where they
were filling the canal. Then the despairing man seized his feet.
"Away with this creature!" cried his worthiness, pushing back as
before the bite of a reptile.
The secretary, Pentuer, turned his head; his lean face had a grayish
color. Eunana seized the man by the shoulders and pulled, but, unable
to drag him away from the minister's feet, he summoned warriors. After
a while Herhor, now liberated, passed to the other bank of the canal,
and the warriors tore away the earth-worker, almost carrying him to
the end of the detachment. There they gave the man some tens of blows
of fists, and subalterns who always carried canes gave him some tens
of blows of sticks, and at last threw him down at the entrance to the
ravine.
Beaten, bloody, and above all terrified, the wretched slave sat on the
sand for a while, rubbed his eyes, then sprang up suddenly and ran
groaning toward the highway,--
"Swallow me, O earth! Cursed be the day in which I saw the light, and
the night in which it was said, 'A man is born!' In the mantle of
justice there is not the smallest shred for a slave. The gods
themselves regard not a creature whose hands are for labor, whose
mouth was made only for weeping, and whose back is for clubs. O death,
rub my body into ashes, so that there, beyond on the fields of Osiris,
I be not born into slavery a second time."
CHAPTER III
Panting with anger, Prince Rameses rushed up the hill, while behind
him followed Tutmosis. The wig of the exquisite had turned on his
head, his false beard had slipped down, and he carried it in his hand.
In spite of exertion he would have been pale had it not been for the
layers of rouge on his face.
At last Rameses halted at the summit. From the ravine came the outcry
of warriors and the rattle of the onrolling balistas; before the two
men stretched the immense plain of Goshen, bathed continually in
sun-rays. That did not seem land, but a golden cloud, on which the
mind painted a landscape in colors of silver, ruby, pearl, and topaz.
"Look," cried the heir to Tutmosis, stretching out his hand, "those
are to be my lands, and here is my army. Over there the loftiest
edifices are palaces of priests, and here the supreme chief of the
troops is a priest! Can anything like this be suffered?"
"It has always been so," replied Tutmosis, glancing around with
timidity.
"That is not true! I know the history of this country, which is hidden
to thee. The leaders of armies and the masters of officials were the
pharaohs alone, or at least the most energetic among them. Those
rulers did not pass their days in making offerings and prayers, but in
managing the state."
"If it is the desire of his holiness to pass his days that way?" said
Tutmosis.
"It is not my father's wish that nomarchs should govern as they please
in the capitals of provinces. Why, the governor of Ethiopia considered
himself as almost equal to the king of kings. And it cannot be my
father's wish that his army should march around two golden beetles
because the minister of war is a high priest."
"He is a great warrior," whispered Tutmosis, with increasing
timidity.
"He a great warrior? Because he dispersed a handful of Libyan robbers
ready to flee at the mere sight of Egyptians. But see what our
neighbors are doing. Israel delays in paying tribute and pays less and
less of it. The cunning Phoenician steals a number of ships from our
fleet every year. On the east we are forced to keep up a great army
against the Hittites, while around Babylon and Nineveh there is such a
movement that it is felt throughout all Mesopotamia.
"And what is the outcome of priestly management? This, that while my
great-grandfather had a hundred thousand talents of yearly income and
one hundred and sixty thousand troops, my father has barely fifty
thousand talents and one hundred and twenty thousand troops.
"And what an army! Were it not for the Greek corps, which keeps them
in order as a dog watches sheep, the Egyptian soldiers to-day would
obey only priests and the pharaoh would sink to the level of a
miserable nomarch."
"Whence hast thou learned this?" asked Tutmosis, with astonishment.
"Am I not of a priestly family? And besides, they taught me when I was
not heir to the throne. Oh, when I become pharaoh after my
father,--may he live through eternity!--I will put my bronze-sandalled
foot on their necks. But first of all I will seize their treasures,
which have always been bloated, but which from the time of Rameses the
Great have begun to swell out, and to-day are so swollen that the
treasure of the pharaoh is invisible because of them."
"Woe to me and to thee!" sighed Tutmosis. "Thou hast plans under which
this hill would bend could it hear and understand them. And where are
thy forces, thy assistance, thy warriors? Against thee the whole
people will rise, led by a class of men with mighty influence. But who
is on thy side?"
Rameses listened and fell to thinking. At last he said,--
"The army--"
"A considerable part of it will follow the priests."
"The Greek corps--"
"A barrel of water in the Nile."
"The officials--"
"Half of them belong to the priests."
The prince shook his head sadly, and was silent.
From the summit they went down by a naked and stony slope to the
opposite base of the hill. Then Tutmosis, who had pushed ahead
somewhat, cried,--
"Has a charm fallen on my eyes? Look, Rameses! Why, a second Egypt is
concealed between these cliffs!"
"That must be an estate of some priest who pays no taxes," replied the
prince, bitterly.
In the depth before their feet lay a rich valley in the form of a fork
the tines of which were hidden between cliffs. At the juncture of the
tines a number of servants' huts were visible, and the beautiful
little villa of the owner or manager. Palm-trees grew there, grapes,
olives, figs with aerial roots, cypresses, even young baobabs. In the
centre flowed a rivulet, and at the source of it, some hundreds of
yards higher up, small gardens were visible.
When they had gone down among grape-vines covered with ripe clusters,
they heard a woman's voice which called, or rather sang in pensive
notes:
"Where art thou gone from me, where art thou, hen of mine? Thou hast
fled, thou art gone from me. I give thee drink and clean grain; what I
give is so good that slaves envy thee. Where art thou gone, my
hen--wilt thou not answer me? Night will come down on thee, think of
that; thou wilt not reach thy home, where all are at work for thee.
Come; if thou come not, a falcon will fly from the desert and tear the
heart out of thee. If he come thou wilt call in vain, as I now call in
vain to thee. Give answer, or I shall be angry and leave this place.
If I leave thou'lt go home on thy own feet."
The song came toward the two men. The songstress was a few yards from
them when Tutmosis thrust his head from between the bushes, and
said,--
"Just look, Rameses, but that is a beautiful maiden!"
Instead of looking, the prince sprang into the path and stopped the
road before the songstress. She was really a beautiful maiden, with
Grecian features and a complexion like ivory. From under the veil on
her head peeped forth an immense mass of dark hair, wound in a knot.
She wore a white trailing robe which she held on one side with her
hand; under the transparent covering were maiden breasts shaped like
apples.
"Who art thou?" cried Rameses.
The threatening furrows vanished from his forehead and his eyes
flashed.
"O Jehovah! O Father!" cried she, frightened, halting motionless on
the path.
But she grew calm by degrees, and her velvety eyes resumed their
expression of mild sadness.
"Whence hast thou come?" inquired she of Rameses, with a voice
trembling a little. "I see that thou art a soldier, but it is not
permitted soldiers to come here."
"Why is it not permitted?"
"Because this is the land of a great lord named Sesofris."
"Ho! ho!" laughed Rameses.
"Laugh not, for thou wilt grow pale soon. The lord Sesofris is
secretary to the lord Chaires, who carries his fan for the most worthy
nomarch of Memphis. My father has seen him and fallen on his face
before him."
"Ho! ho! ho!" repeated Rameses, laughing continually.
"Thy words are very insolent," said the maiden, frowning. "Were
kindness not looking from thy face, I should think thee a mercenary
from Greece or a bandit."
"He is not a bandit yet, but some day he may become the greatest
bandit this land has ever suffered," said Tutmosis the exquisite,
arranging his wig.
"And thou must be a dancer," answered the girl, grown courageous. "Oh!
I am even certain that I saw thee at the fair in Pi-Bailos, enchanting
serpents."
The two young men fell into perfect humor.
"But who art thou?" asked Rameses of the girl, taking her hand, which
she drew back.
"Be not so bold. I am Sarah, the daughter of Gideon, the manager of
this estate."
"A Jewess," said Rameses; and a shadow passed over his face.
"What harm in that? what harm in that?" cried Tutmosis. "Dost think
that Jewesses are less sweet than Egyptian girls? They are only more
modest and more difficult, which gives their love an uncommon charm."
"So ye are pagans," said Sarah, with dignity. "Rest, if ye are tired,
pluck some grapes for yourselves, and go with God. Our servants are
not glad to see guests like you."
She wished to go, but Rameses detained her.
"Stop! Thou hast pleased me, and may not leave us in this way."
"The evil spirit has seized thee; no one in this valley would dare to
speak thus to me," said Sarah, now indignant.
"Yes; for, seest thou," interrupted Tutmosis, "this young man is an
officer of the priestly regiment of Ptah, and a secretary of the
secretary of a lord who carries his fan over the fan-carrier of the
nomarch of Habu."
"Surely he must be an officer," answered Sarah, looking with
thoughtfulness at Rameses. "Maybe he is a great lord himself?" added
she, putting her finger on her lips.
"Whoever I am, thy beauty surpasses my dignity," answered he,
suddenly. "But tell me, is it true that the Jews eat pork?"
Sarah looked at him offended; and Tutmosis added,--
"How evident it is that thou knowest not Jewesses! I tell thee that a
Jew would rather die than eat pork, which, for my part, I do not
consider as the worst--"
"But do they eat cats?" insisted Rameses, pressing Sarah's hand and
looking into her eyes.
"And that is a fable, a vile fable!" exclaimed Tutmosis. "Thou mightst
have asked me about those things instead of talking nonsense. I have
had three Jewish mistresses."
"So far thou hast told the truth, but now thou art lying," called out
Sarah. "A Jewess would not be any man's mistress," added she, proudly.
"Even the mistress of the secretary of a lord who carries the fan for
the nomarch of Memphis?" asked Tutmosis, jeeringly.
"Even--"
"Even the mistress of the lord who carries the fan?"
Sarah hesitated, but answered,--
"Even."
"Then perhaps she would not become the mistress of the nomarch?"
The girl's hands dropped. With astonishment she looked in turn at the
young men; her lips quivered, and her eyes filled with tears.
"Who are ye?" inquired she, alarmed. "Ye have come down from the
hills, like travellers who wish bread and water, but ye speak to me as
might the greatest lords. Who are ye? Thy sword," said she, turning to
Rameses, "is set with emeralds, and on thy neck is a chain of such
work as even our lord, the great Sesofris, has not in his treasury."
"Better tell me if I please thee," insisted Rameses, pressing her hand
and looking into her eyes tenderly.
"Thou art beautiful, as beautiful as the angel Gabriel; but I fear
thee, for I know not who thou art."
Then from beyond the hilltop was heard the sound of a trumpet.
"They are calling thee!" cried Tutmosis.
"And if I were as great a lord as thy Sesofris?" asked Rameses.
"Then maybe--" answered Sarah.
"And if I carried the fan of the nomarch of Memphis?"
"Thou mayest be even as great as that--"
Somewhere beyond the hill was heard the second trumpet.
"Come, Rameses!" insisted the frightened Tutmosis.
"But if I were--heir to the throne, wouldst thou come to me?" cried
the prince.
"O Jehovah!" exclaimed Sarah, dropping on her knees.
From various points trumpets summoned, now urgently.
"Let us run!" cried Tutmosis, in desperation. "Dost thou not hear the
alarm in the camp?"
Rameses took the chain from his neck quickly and threw it on Sarah.
"Give this to thy father. I will buy thee from him. Be in health."
He kissed her lips passionately, and she embraced his knees. He tore
away, ran a couple of paces, turned again, and again fondled her
beautiful face and dark hair with kisses, as if he heard not those
impatient calls to the army.
"In the name of his holiness the pharaoh, I summon thee, follow me!"
cried Tutmosis; and he seized the prince's hand.
They ran toward the trumpet-calls. Rameses tottered at moments like a
drunken man, and turned his head. At last they were climbing the
opposite hill.
"And this man," thought Tutmosis, "wants to battle with the
priesthood!"
CHAPTER IV
Rameses and his comrade ran about a quarter of an hour along the rocky
ridge of the hill, drawing ever nearer to the trumpets, which sounded
more and more urgently. At last they reached a point where they took
in at a glance the whole region. Toward the left stretched the
highway; beyond that were seen clearly the city of Pi-Bailos, the
regiments of the heir drawn up behind it, and an immense cloud of dust
which rose above his opponent hastening forward from the east.
On the right yawned a broad ravine, along the middle of which the
Greek regiment was dragging military engines. Not far from the road
the ravine was lost in another and a broader one which began in the
depth of the desert.
At this point something uncommon was happening. The Greeks stood
unoccupied not far from the junction of the two ravines; but at the
juncture itself, and between the highway and the staff of Rameses,
marched out four dense lines of some other army, like four fences,
bristling with glittering darts.
In spite of the steep road the prince rushed down at full speed to his
division, to the place where the minister of war stood surrounded by
officers.
"What is happening?" called he, threateningly. "Why sound an alarm
instead of marching?"
"We are cut off," said Herhor.
"By whom?"
"Our division by three regiments of Nitager, who has marched out of
the desert."
"Then the enemy is there, near the highway?"
"Yes, the invincible Nitager himself."
It seemed in that moment that the heir to the throne had gone mad.
His lips were contorted, his eyes were starting out of their sockets.
He drew his sword, rushed to the Greeks, and cried,--
"Follow me against those who bar the road to us."
"O heir, live forever!" cried Patrokles, who drew his sword also.
"Forward, descendants of Achilles!" said he, turning to his men. "We
will teach those Egyptian cowkeepers not to stop us!"
Trumpets sounded the attack. Four short but erect Greek columns rushed
forward, a cloud of dust rose, and a shout in honor of Rameses.
After a couple of minutes the Greeks found themselves in the presence
of the Egyptian regiments, and hesitated.
"Forward!" cried the heir, rushing on, sword in hand.
The Greeks lowered their spears. On the opposing side there was a
movement, a murmur flew along the ranks, and spears also were lowered.
"Who are ye, madmen?" asked a mighty voice.
"The heir to the throne!" shouted Patrokles.
A moment of silence.
"Open ranks!" commanded the same voice, mighty as before.
The regiments of the eastern army opened slowly, like heavy
folding-doors, and the Greek division passed between them.
Then a gray-haired warrior in golden helmet and armor approached
Prince Rameses and said with a low obeisance,--
"Erpatr,[2] thou hast conquered. Only a great warrior could free
himself from difficulty in that way."
[2] Heir.
"Thou art Nitager, the bravest of the brave!" cried the prince.
At that moment Herhor approached. He had heard the conversation, and
said abruptly,--
"Had there been on your side such an awkward leader as the erpatr, how
could we have finished the manoeuvres?"
"Let the young warrior alone!" answered Nitager. "Is it not enough for
thee that he has shown the iron claws, as was proper for a son of the
pharaoh?"
Tutmosis, noting the turn which the conversation had taken, asked
Nitager,--
"Whence hast thou come, that thy main forces are in front of our
army?"
"I knew how incompetently the division was marching from Memphis, when
the heir was concentrating his regiments near Pi-Bailos, and for sport
I wished to capture you young lords. To my misfortune the heir was
here and spoiled my plans. Act that way always, Rameses, of course in
presence of real enemies."
"But if, as to-day, he meets a force three times superior?" inquired
Herhor.
"Daring keenness means more than strength," replied the old leader.
"An elephant is fifty times stronger than a man; still he yields to
him, or dies at his hands."
Herhor listened in silence.
The manoeuvres were declared finished. Prince Rameses with the
minister and commanders went to the army near Pi-Bailos. There he
greeted Nitager's veterans, took farewell of his own regiments,
commanded them to march eastward, and wished success to them.
Then, surrounded by a great suite, he returned by the highway to
Memphis amid crowds from the land of Goshen, who with green garlands
and in holiday robes congratulated the conqueror.
When the highway turned toward the desert, the crowd became thinner,
and when they approached the place where the staff of the heir had
entered the ravine because of the scarabs, there was no one.
Rameses nodded to Tutmosis, and pointing to the naked hill,
whispered,--
"Thou wilt go to Sarah--"
"I understand."
"Tell her father that I will give him land outside Memphis."
"I understand. Thou wilt have her to-morrow."
After this conversation Tutmosis withdrew to the troops marching
behind the suite, and vanished.
Almost opposite the ravine along which the army had passed in the
morning, some tens of steps from the road, stood a tamarind-tree
which, though old, was not large. At this point a halt was made by the
guard which had preceded the suite.
"Shall we meet scarabs again?" asked Rameses, with a laugh.
"We shall see," answered Herhor.
They looked; on the slender tree a naked man was hanging.
"What does this mean?" asked the heir, with emotion.
Adjutants ran to the tree, and saw that the hanging man was that old
slave whose canal they had closed in the morning.
"He did right to hang himself!" cried Eunana among the officers.
"Could ye believe it, that wretch dared to seize the feet of his
holiness the minister!"
On hearing this, Rameses reined in his horse, dismounted, and walked
up to the ominous tree.
The slave was hanging with his head stretched forward; his mouth was
opened widely, his hands turned toward the spectators, and terror was
in his eyes. He looked like a man who had wished to say something, but
whose voice had failed him.
"The unfortunate!" sighed Rameses, with compassion.
On returning to the retinue he gave command to relate to him the
history of the man, and then he rode a long time in silence.
Before his eyes was the picture of the suicide, and in his heart was
the feeling that a great wrong had been done,--such a wrong that even
he, the son and the heir of the pharaoh, might halt in face of it.
The heat was unendurable, the dust dried up the water and pierced the
eyes of man and beast. The division was detained for a short rest, and
meanwhile Nitager finished his conversation with the minister.
"My officers," said the old commander, "never look under their feet,
but always straight forward."
"That is the reason, perhaps, why no enemy has ever surprised me."
"Your worthiness reminds me, by these words, that I am to pay certain
debts," remarked Herhor; and he commanded the officers and soldiers
who were near by to assemble.
"And now," said the minister, "summon for me Eunana."
The officer covered with amulets was found as quickly as if he had
been waiting for this summons a long time. On his countenance was
depicted delight, which he restrained through humility, but with
effort.
Herhor, seeing Eunana before him, began,--
"By the will of his holiness, supreme command of the army comes into
my hands again with the ending of the manoeuvres."
Those present bowed their heads.
"It is my duty to use this power first of all in meting out justice."
The officers looked at one another.
"Eunana," said the minister, "I know that thou hast always been one of
the most diligent officers."
"Truth speaks through thy lips, worthy lord," replied Eunana. "As a
palm waits for dew, so do I for the commands of superiors. And when I
do not receive them, I am like an orphan in the desert when looking
for a pathway."
Nitager's scar-covered officers listened with astonishment to the
ready speech of Eunana, and thought, "He will be raised above others!"
"Eunana," said the minister, "thou art not only diligent, but pious;
not only pious, but watchful as an ibis over water. The gods have
poured out on thee every virtue: they have given thee serpent cunning,
with the eye of a falcon."
"Pure truth flows from thy lips, worthiness," added Eunana. "Were it
not for my wonderful sight, I should not have seen the two scarabs."
"Yes, and thou wouldst not have saved our camp from sacrilege. For
this deed, worthy of the most pious Egyptian, I give thee--"
Here the minister took a gold ring from his finger.
"I give thee this ring with the name of the goddess Mut, whose favor
and prudence will accompany thee to the end of thy worldly wandering,
if thou deserve it."
His worthiness delivered the ring to Eunana, and those present uttered
a great shout in honor of the pharaoh, and rattled their weapons.
As Herhor did not move, Eunana stood and looked him in the eyes, like
a faithful dog which having received one morsel from his master is
wagging his tail and waiting.
"And now," continued the minister, "confess, Eunana, why thou didst
not tell whither the heir to the throne went when the army was
marching along the ravine with such difficulty. Thou didst an evil
deed, for we had to sound the alarm in the neighborhood of the enemy."
"The gods are my witnesses that I know nothing of the most worthy
prince," replied the astonished Eunana.
Herhor shook his head.
"It cannot be that a man gifted with such sight, a man who at some
tens of yards away sees sacred scarabs in the sand, should not see so
great a personage as the heir to the throne is."
"Indeed I did not see him!" explained Eunana, beating his breast.
"Moreover no one commanded me to watch Rameses."
"Did I not free thee from leading the vanguard? Did I assign to thee
an office?" asked the minister. "Thou wert entirely free, just like a
man who is called to important deeds. And didst thou accomplish thy
task? For such an error in time of war thou shouldst suffer death
surely."
The ill-fated officer was pallid.
"But I have a paternal heart for thee, Eunana," said Herhor, "and,
remembering the great service which thou hast rendered by discovering
the scarabs, I, not as a stern minister, but as a mild priest, appoint
to thee a very small punishment. Thou wilt receive fifty blows of a
stick on thy body."
"Worthiness!"
"Eunana, thou hast known how to be fortunate, now be manful and
receive this slight remembrance as becomes an officer in the army of
his holiness."
Barely had the worthy Herhor finished when the officers oldest in rank
placed Eunana in a commodious position at the side of the highroad.
After that one of them sat on his neck, another on his feet, while a
third and a fourth counted out fifty blows of pliant reeds on his
naked body.
The unterrified warrior uttered no groan; on the contrary, he hummed a
soldier song, and at the end of the ceremony wished to rise. But his
stiffened legs refused obedience, so he fell face downward on the
sand; they had to take him to Memphis on a two-wheeled vehicle. While
lying on this cart and smiling at the soldiers, Eunana considered that
the wind does not change so quickly in Lower Egypt as fortune in the
life of an inferior officer.
When, after the brief halt, the retinue of the heir to the throne
moved on its farther journey, Herhor mounted his horse and riding at
the side of Nitager, spoke in an undertone about Asiatic nations and,
above all, about the awakening of Assyria.
Then two servants of the minister, the adjutant carrying his fan and
the secretary Pentuer, began a conversation also.
"What dost thou think of Eunana's adventure?" asked the adjutant.
"And what thinkest thou of the slave who hanged himself?"
"It seems to me that this was his best day, and the rope around his
neck the softest thing that has touched him in life. I think, too,
that Eunana from this time on will watch the heir to the throne very
closely."
"Thou art mistaken," answered Pentuer. "Eunana from this time on will
never see a scarab, even though it were as large as a bullock. As to
that slave, dost thou not think that in every case it must have been
very evil for him--very evil in this sacred land of Egypt?"
"Thou knowest not slaves, hence speakest thus--"
"But who knows them better?" asked Pentuer, gloomily. "Have I not
grown up among them? Have I not seen my father watering land, clearing
canals, sowing, harvesting, and, above all, paying tribute? Oh, thou
knowest not the lot of slaves in Egypt."
"But if I do not, I know the lot of the foreigner. My
great-grandfather or great-great-grandfather was famous among the
Hyksos, but he remained here, for he grew attached to this country.
And what wilt thou say? Not only was his property taken from him, but
the stain of my origin rests on me at present. Thou thyself knowest
what I bear frequently from Egyptians by race, though I have a
considerable position. How, then, can I take pity on the Egyptian
earth-worker, who, seeing my yellow complexion, mutters frequently,
'Pagan! foreigner!' The earth-worker is neither a pagan nor a
foreigner."
"Only a slave," added Pentuer,--"a slave whom they marry, divorce,
beat, sell, slay sometimes, and command always to work, with a promise
besides that in the world to come he will be a slave also."
"Thou art a strange man, though so wise!" said the adjutant,
shrugging his shoulders. "Dost thou not see that each man of us
occupies some position, low, less low, or very low, in which he must
labor? But dost thou suffer because thou art not pharaoh, and thy tomb
will not be a pyramid? Thou dost not ponder at all over this, for thou
knowest it to be the world's condition. Each creature does its own
duty: the ox ploughs, the ass bears the traveller, I cool his
worthiness, thou rememberest and thinkest for him, while the
earth-worker tills land and pays tribute. What is it to us that some
bull is born Apis, to whom all render homage, and some man a pharaoh
or a nomarch?"
"The ten years' toil of that man was destroyed," whispered Pentuer.
"And does not the minister destroy thy toil?" asked the adjutant. "Who
knows that thou art the manager of the state, not the worthy Herhor?"
"Thou art mistaken. He manages really. He has power and will; I have
only knowledge. Moreover, they do not beat thee, nor me, like that
slave."
"But they have beaten Eunana, and they may beat us also. Hence there
is need to be brave and make use of the position assigned us; all the
more since, as is known to thee, our spirit, the immortal _Ka_, in
proportion as it is purified rises to a higher plane, so that after
thousands or millions of years, in company with spirits of pharaohs
and slaves, in company with gods even, it will be merged into the
nameless and all-mighty father of existence."
"Thou speakest like a priest," answered Pentuer, with bitterness. "I
ought rather to have this calm! But instead of it I have pain in my
soul, for I feel the wretchedness of millions--"
"Who tells it to thee?"
"My eyes and my heart. My heart is like a valley between mountains
which never can be silent, when it hears a cry, but must answer with
an echo."
"I say to thee, Pentuer, that thou thinkest too much over dangerous
subjects. It is impossible to walk safely along precipices of the
eastern mountains, for thou mayst fall at any moment; or to wander
through the western desert, where hungry lions are prowling, and where
the raging simoom springs up unexpectedly."
Meanwhile the valiant Eunana moved on in the vehicle, which only added
to his pain. But to show that he was valiant he requested food and
drink; and when he had eaten a dry cake rubbed with garlic and had
drunk sour beer from a thick-bellied pot, he begged the driver to take
a branch and drive the flies from his wounded body.
Thus lying on the bags and packs in that squeaking car, with his face
toward the earth, the unfortunate Eunana sang with a groaning voice
the grievous lot of the inferior officer,--
"Why dost thou say that the scribe's lot is worse than the officer's?
Come and see my blue stripes and swollen body; meanwhile I will tell
thee the tale of a downtrodden officer.
"I was a boy when they brought me to the barracks. For breakfast I had
blows of fists in the belly, till I fainted; for dinner fists in the
eyes, till my mouth gaped; and for supper I had a head covered with
wounds and almost split open.
"Go on! let me tell how I made the campaign to Syria. Food and drink I
had to carry on my back, I was bent down with weight as an ass is
bent. My neck became stiff, like an ass's neck, and the joints of my
back swelled. I drank rotten water, I was like a captive bird in the
face of the enemy.
"I returned to Egypt, but here I am like a tree into which a worm is
boring always. For any trifle they put me on the ground and beat me
till I am breaking. I am sick and must lie at full length; they carry
me in a car, meanwhile serving-men steal my mantle and escape with it.
"So change thy mind, O scribe, about the happiness of officers."[3]
[3] Authentic.
Thus sang the brave Eunana; and his tearful song has outlived the
Egyptian kingdom.
CHAPTER V
As the suite of the heir approached Memphis, the sun was near its
setting, while from countless canals and the distant sea came a wind
filled with cool moisture. The road descended again to the fertile
region, where on fields and among bushes continuous ranks of people
were working, a rosy gleam was falling on the desert, and the mountain
summits were in a blaze of sunlight.
Rameses halted and turned his horse. His suite surrounded him quickly,
the higher officers approached with some leisure, while the marching
regiments drew nearer slowly and with even tread. In the purple rays
of the setting sun, the prince had the seeming of a divinity, the
soldiers gazed at him with affection and pride, the chiefs looked
admiringly.
He raised his hand. All were silent.
"Worthy leaders," began he, "brave officers, obedient soldiers! To-day
the gods have given me the pleasure of commanding you. Delight has
filled my heart. And since it is my will that leaders, officers, and
soldiers should share my happiness at all times, I assign one drachma
to each soldier of those who have gone to the east, and to those who
return with us from the eastern boundary; also one drachma each to the
Greek soldiers who to-day, under my command, opened a passage out of
the ravine; and one drachma to each man in the regiments of the worthy
Nitager who wished to cut off the way to us."
There was a shout in the army.
"Be well, our leader! Be well, successor of the pharaoh, may he live
eternally!" cried the soldiers; and the Greeks cried the loudest.
The prince continued,--
"I assign five talents to be divided among the lower officers of my
army and that of the worthy Nitager. And finally I assign ten talents
to be divided between his worthiness the minister and the chief
leaders--"
"I yield my part for the benefit of the army," answered Herhor.
"Be well, O heir!--be well, O minister!" cried the officers and the
soldiers.
The ruddy circle of the sun had touched the sands of the western
desert. Rameses took farewell of the army and galloped towards
Memphis; but his worthiness Herhor, amid joyous shouts, took a seat in
his litter and commanded also to go in advance of the marching
divisions.
When they had gone so far that single voices were merged into one
immense murmur, like the sound of a cataract, the minister, bending
toward the secretary, asked of him,--
"Dost thou remember everything?"
"Yes, worthy lord."
"Thy memory is like granite on which we write history, and thy wisdom
like the Nile, which covers all the country and enriches it," said
Herhor. "Besides, the gods have granted thee the greatest of
virtues,--wise obedience."
The secretary was silent.
"Hence thou mayest estimate more accurately than others the acts and
reasons of the heir, may he live through eternity!"
The minister stopped awhile, and then added,--
"It has not been his custom to speak so much. Tell me then, Pentuer,
and record this: Is it proper that the heir to the throne should
express his will before the army? Only a pharaoh may act thus, or a
traitor, or--a frivolous stripling, who with the same heedlessness
will do hasty deeds or belch forth words of blasphemy."
The sun went down, and soon after a starry night appeared. Above the
countless canals of Lower Egypt a silvery mist began to thicken,--a
mist which, borne to the desert by a gentle wind, freshened the
wearied warriors, and revived vegetation which had been dying through
lack of moisture.
"Or tell me, Pentuer," continued the minister, "and inquire: whence
will the heir get his twenty talents to keep the promise which he made
this day to the army with such improvidence? Besides, it seems to me,
and certainly to thee, a dangerous step for an heir to make presents
to the army, especially now, when his holiness has nothing with which
to pay Nitager's regiments returning from the Orient. I do not ask
what thy opinions are, for I know them, as thou knowest my most secret
thoughts. I only ask thee to the end that thou remember what thou hast
seen, so as to tell it to the priests in council."
"Will they meet soon?" inquired Pentuer.
"There is no reason yet to summon them. I shall try first to calm this
wild young bull through the fatherly hand of his holiness. It would be
a pity to lose the boy, for he has much ability and the energy of a
southern whirlwind. But if the whirlwind, instead of blowing away
Egypt's enemies, blows down its wheat and tears up its palm-trees!--"
The minister stopped conversation, and his retinue vanished in the
dark alley of trees which led to Memphis.
Meanwhile Rameses reached the palace of the pharaoh.
This edifice stood on an elevation in a park outside the city.
Peculiar trees grew there: baobabs from the south; pines, oaks, and
cedars from the north. Thanks to the art of gardeners, these trees
lived some tens of years and reached a considerable height.
The shady alley led to a gate which was as high as a house of three
stories. From each side of the gate rose a solid building like a tower
in the form of a truncated pyramid, forty yards in width with the
height of five stories. In the night they seemed like two immense
tents made of sandstone. These peculiar buildings had on the ground
and the upper stories square windows, and the roofs were flat. From
the top of one of these pyramids without apex, a watch looked at the
country; from the other the priest on duty observed the stars.
At the right and left of these towers, called pylons, extended walls,
or rather long structures of one story, with narrow windows and flat
roofs, on which sentries paced back and forth. On both sides of the
main gate were two sitting statues fifteen feet in height. In front of
these statues moved other sentries.
When the prince, with a number of horsemen, approached the palace, the
sentry knew him in spite of the darkness. Soon an official of the
court ran out of the pylon. He was clothed in a white skirt and dark
mantle, and wore a wig as large as a headdress.
"Is the palace closed already?" inquired the prince.
"Thou art speaking truth, worthy lord," said the official. "His
holiness is preparing the god for sleep."
"What will he do after that?"
"He will be pleased to receive the war minister, Herhor."
"Well, and later?"
"Later his holiness will look at the ballet in the great hall, then he
will bathe and recite evening prayers."
"Has he not commanded to receive me?" inquired Rameses.
"To-morrow morning after the military council."
"What are the queens doing?"
"The first queen is praying in the chamber of her dead son, and thy
worthy mother is receiving the Phoenician ambassador, who has brought
her gifts from the women of Tyre."
"Did he bring maidens?"
"A number of them. Each has on her person treasures to the value of
ten talents."
"Who is moving about down there with torches?" asked the prince,
pointing to the lower park.
"They are taking thy brother, worthiness, from a tree where he has
been sitting since midday."
"Is he unwilling to come down?"
"He will come down now, for the first queen's jester has gone for him,
and has promised to take him to the inn where dissectors are
drinking."
"And hast thou heard anything of the manoeuvres of to-day?"
"They say that the staff was cut off from the corps."
"And what more?"
The official hesitated.
"Tell what thou hast heard."
"We heard, moreover, that because of this five hundred blows of a
stick were given to a certain officer at thy command, worthiness."
"It is all a lie!" said one of the adjutants of the heir in an
undertone.
"The soldiers, too, say among themselves that it must be a lie,"
returned the official, with growing confidence.
Rameses turned his horse and rode to the lower part of the park where
his small palace was situated. It had a ground and an upper story and
was built of wood. Its form was that of an immense hexagon with two
porticos, an upper and a lower one which surrounded the building and
rested on a multitude of pillars. Lamps were burning in the interior;
hence it was possible to see that the walls were formed of planks
perforated like lace, and that these walls were protected from the
wind by curtains of various colors. The roof of the building was flat,
surrounded by a balustrade; on this roof stood a number of tents.
Greeted heartily by half-naked servitors, some of whom ran out with
torches, while others prostrated themselves before him, the heir
entered his residence. On the ground floor he removed his dusty dress,
bathed in a stone basin, and put on a kind of great sheet which he
fastened at the neck and bound round his waist with a cord for a
girdle. On the first floor he ate a supper consisting of a wheaten
cake, dates, and a glass of light beer. Then he went to the terrace of
the building, and lying on a couch covered with a lion skin, commanded
the servants to withdraw and to bring up Tutmosis the moment he
appeared there.
About midnight a litter stopped before the residence, and out of it
stepped the adjutant. When he walked along the terrace heavily yawning
as he went, the prince sprang up from the couch and cried,--
"Art thou here? Well, what?"
"Then art thou not sleeping yet?" replied Tutmosis. "O gods, after so
many days of torture! I think that I should sleep until sunrise."
"What of Sarah?"
"She will be here the day after to-morrow, or thou wilt be with her in
the house beyond the river."
"Only after to-morrow!"
"Only? I beg thee, Rameses, to sleep. Thou hast taken too much bad
blood to thy heart, fire will strike to thy head."
"What about her father?"
"He is honorable and wise. They call him Gideon. When I told him that
thou hadst the wish to take his daughter, he fell on the ground and
tore his hair. Of course I waited till this outburst of fatherly
suffering was over; I ate a little, drank some wine, and at last
proceeded to bargaining. The weeping Gideon swore first of all that he
would rather see his daughter dead than the mistress of any man. Then
I told him that near Memphis, on the Nile, he would receive land which
gives two talents of yearly income and pays no taxes. He was
indignant. Then I stated that he might receive another talent yearly
in gold and silver. He sighed and declared that his daughter had spent
three years at school in Pi-Bailos; I added another talent. Then
Gideon, still disconsolate, remembered that he would lose his very
good position of manager for the lord Sesofris. I told him that he
need not lose that place, and added ten milch cows from thy stables.
His forehead cleared somewhat; then he confessed to me, as a profound
secret, that a certain very great lord, Chaires, who bears the fan of
the nomarch of Memphis, was turning attention toward Sarah. I promised
then to add a young bull, a medium chain of gold, and a large
bracelet. In this way thy Sarah will cost thee land, two talents
yearly in money, ten cows, a young bull, a chain and a gold bracelet,
immediately. These thou wilt give to her father, the honest Gideon; to
her thou wilt give whatever pleases thee."
"What did Sarah say to this?"
"While we were bargaining she walked among the trees. When we had
finished the matter and settled it by drinking good Hebrew wine, she
told her father--dost thou know what?--that if he had not given her to
thee, she would have gone up the cliff and thrown herself down head
foremost. Now thou mayst sleep quietly, I think," ended Tutmosis.
"I doubt it," answered Rameses, leaning on the balustrade and looking
into the emptiest side of the park. "Dost thou know that on the way
back we found a man hanging from a tree?"
"Oh! that is worse than the scarabs!"
"He hanged himself from despair because the warriors filled the canal
which he had been digging for ten years in the desert."
"Well, that man is sleeping now quietly. So it is time for us."
"That man was wronged," said the prince. "I must find his children,
ransom them, and rent a bit of land to them."
"But thou must do this with great secrecy," remarked Tutmosis, "or all
slaves will begin to hang themselves, and no Phoenician will lend us,
their lords, a copper uten."
"Jest not. Hadst thou seen that man's face, sleep would be absent
to-night from thy eyes as it is from mine."
Meanwhile from below, among the bushes, was heard a voice, not
over-powerful, but clear,--
"May the One, the All-Powerful, bless thee, Rameses,--He who has no
name in human speech, or statue in a temple."
Both young men bent forward in astonishment.
"Who art thou?" called out the prince.
"I am the injured people of Egypt," replied the voice, slowly and with
calmness.
Then all was silent. No motion, no rustle of branches betrayed human
presence in that place.
At command of Rameses servants rushed out with torches, the dogs were
unchained, and every bush around the house was searched. But they
found no one.
"Who could that have been, Tutmosis?" asked the prince, with emotion.
"Perhaps it was the ghost of that slave who hanged himself?"
"I have never heard ghosts talking, though I have been on guard at
temples and tombs more than once. I should think, rather, that he who
has just called to us is some friend of thine."
"Why should he hide?"
"But what harm is that to thee? Each one of us has tens, if not
hundreds, of invisible enemies. Thank the gods, then, that thou hast
even one invisible friend."
"I shall not sleep to-night," whispered the excited prince.
"Be calm. Instead of running along the terrace listen to me and lie
down. Thou wilt see Sleep--that is a deliberate divinity, and it does
not befit him to chase after those who run with the pace of a deer. If
thou wilt lie down on a comfortable couch, Sleep, who loves comfort,
will sit near thee and cover thee with his great mantle, which covers
not only men's eyes, but their memories."
Thus speaking, Tutmosis placed Rameses on a couch; then he brought an
ivory pillow shaped like a crescent, and arranging the prince, placed
his head on this pillow.
Then he let down the canvas walls of the tent, laid himself on the
floor, and both were asleep in some minutes.
CHAPTER VI
The entrance to the pharaoh's palace at Memphis was through a gate
placed between two lofty towers or pylons. The external walls of these
buildings were of gray sandstone covered from foundation to summit
with bas-reliefs.
At the top of the gate rose the arms of the state, or its symbol: a
winged globe, from behind which appeared two serpents. Lower down sat
a series of gods to which the pharaohs were bringing offerings. On
side pillars images of the gods were cut out also in five rows, one
above the other, while below were hieroglyphic inscriptions.
On the walls of each pylon the chief place was occupied by a flat
sculpture of Rameses the Great, who held in one hand an uplifted axe
and grasped in the other, by the hair of the head, a crowd of people
tied in a bundle, like parsley. Above the king stood or sat two rows
of gods; still higher, a line of people with offerings; at the very
summit of the pylons were winged serpents intertwined with scarabs.
Those pylons with walls narrowing toward the top, the gate which
connected them, the flat sculptures in which order was mingled with
gloomy fantasy and piety with cruelty, produced a tremendous
impression. It seemed difficult to enter that place, impossible to go
out, and a burden to live there.
From the gate, before which stood troops and a throng of small
officials, those who entered came into a court surrounded by porticos
resting on pillars. That was an ornamental garden, in which were
cultivated aloes, palms, pomegranates, and cedars in pots, all placed
in rows and selected according to size. In the middle shot up a
fountain; the paths were sprinkled with colored sand.
Under the gallery sat or walked higher officials of the state,
speaking in low tones.
From the court, through a high door, the visitor passed to a hall of
twelve lofty columns. The hall was large, but as the columns also were
large, the hall seemed diminutive. It was lighted by small windows in
the walls and through a rectangular opening in the roof. Coolness and
shade prevailed there; the shade was almost a gloom, which did not,
however, prevent him who entered from seeing the yellow walls and
pillars, covered with lines of paintings. At the top leaves and
flowers were represented; lower down, the gods; still lower, people
who carried their statues or brought them offerings; and between these
groups were lines of hieroglyphs.
All this was painted in clear, almost glaring colors,--green, red, and
blue.
In this hall, with its varied mosaic pavement, stood in silence, white
robed and barefoot, the priests, the highest dignitaries of State,
Herhor, the minister of war, also the leaders Nitager and Patrokles,
who had been summoned to the presence of the pharaoh.
His holiness Rameses XII., as usual before he held council, was
placing offerings before the gods in his chapel. This continued rather
long. Every moment some priest or official ran in from the more
distant chambers and communicated news touching the course of the
service.
"The lord has broken the seal to the chapel-- He is washing the sacred
divinity-- Now he is putting it away-- Now he has closed the door--"
On the faces of courtiers, notwithstanding their offices, concern and
humility were evident. But Herhor was indifferent, Patrokles
impatient, and Nitager now and then disturbed with his deep voice the
solemn silence. After every such impolite sound from the old leader,
the courtiers moved, like frightened sheep, and looked at one another,
as if saying,--
"This rustic has been hunting barbarians all his life, we may pardon
him."
From remoter chambers were heard the sound of bells and the clatter of
weapons. Into the hall came in two ranks some tens of the guard in
gilt helmets, in breastplates, and with drawn swords, next two ranks
of priests, and at last appeared the pharaoh, carried in a litter,
surrounded by clouds of smoke and incense.
The ruler of Egypt, Rameses XII., was nearly sixty years old. His
face was withered. He wore a white mantle; on his head was a red and
white cap with a golden serpent; in his hand he held a long staff.
When the retinue showed itself, all present fell on their faces,
except Patrokles, who, as a barbarian, stopped at a low bow, while
Nitager knelt on one knee, but soon rose again.
The litter stopped before a baldachin under which was an ebony throne
on an elevation. The pharaoh descended slowly from the litter, looked
awhile at those present, and then, taking his seat on the throne,
gazed fixedly at the cornice on which was painted a rose-colored globe
with blue wings and green serpents.
On the right of the pharaoh stood the chief scribe, on the left a
judge with a staff; both wore immense wigs.
At a sign from the judge all sat down or knelt on the pavement, while
the scribe said to the pharaoh,--
"Our lord and mighty ruler! Thy servant Nitager, the great guard on
the eastern boundary, has come to render thee homage, and has brought
tribute from conquered nations: a vase of green stone filled with
gold, three hundred oxen, a hundred horses, and the fragrant wood
teshep."
"That is a mean tribute, my lord," said Nitager. "Real treasures we
can find only on the Euphrates, where splendid kings, though weak so
far, need much to be reminded of Rameses the Great."
"Answer my servant Nitager," said the pharaoh to the scribe, "that his
words will be taken under careful consideration. But now ask him what
he thinks of the military ability of my son and heir, whom he had the
honor of meeting near Pi-Bailos yesterday."
"Our lord, the master of nine nations, asks thee, Nitager--" began the
scribe.
But the leader interrupted quickly, to the great dissatisfaction of
the courtiers,--
"I hear myself what my lord says. Only the heir to the throne could be
his mouth when he turns to me; not thou, chief scribe."
The scribe looked with consternation at the daring leader, but the
pharaoh answered,--
"My faithful Nitager speaks truth."
The minister of war bowed.
Now the judge announced to all present--to the priests, the officials,
and the guards that--they might go to the palace courtyard; and he
himself, bowing to the throne, was the first to go thither. In the
hall remained only the pharaoh, Herhor, and the two leaders.
"Incline thy ears, O sovereign, and listen to complaints," began
Nitager. "This morning the official priest, who came at thy command to
anoint my hair, told me that in going to thee I was to leave my
sandals in the entrance hall. Meanwhile it is known, not only in Upper
and Lower Egypt, but in the Hittite country, Libya, Phoenicia, and the
land of Punt, that twenty years ago thou didst give me the right to
stand before thee in sandals."
"Thou speakest truth," said the pharaoh. "Various disorders have crept
into the court ceremonial."
"Only give command, O king, and my veterans will produce order
immediately," added Nitager.
At a sign given by the minister of war, a number of officials ran in:
one brought sandals and put them on Nitager's feet; others put down
costly stools for the minister and leaders.
When the three dignitaries were seated, Rameses XII. said,--
"Tell me, Nitager, dost thou think that my son will be a leader?--But
tell pure truth."
"By Amon of Thebes, by the glory of my ancestors in whom was blood
royal, I swear that thy heir, Prince Rameses, will be a great leader,
if the gods permit," replied Nitager. "He is a young man, a lad yet;
still he concentrated his regiments, eased their march, and provided
for them. He pleased me most of all by this, that he did not lose his
head when I cut off the road before him, but led his men to the
attack. He will be a leader, and will conquer the Assyrians, whom we
must vanquish to-day if they are not to be seen on the Nile by our
grandchildren."
"What dost thou say to that?" inquired the pharaoh of Herhor.
"As to the Assyrians, I think that the worthy Nitager is concerned
about them too early. We must strengthen ourselves well before we
begin a new war. As to the heir, Nitager says justly that the young
man has the qualities of a leader: he is as keen as a fox, and has the
energy of a lion. Still he made many blunders yesterday."
"Who among us has not made them?" put in Patrokles, silent thus far.
"The heir," continued the minister, "led the main corps wisely, but he
neglected his staff; through this neglect we marched so slowly and in
such disorder that Nitager was able to cut off the road before us."
"Perhaps Rameses counted on your dignity," said Nitager.
"In government and war we must count on no man: one unreckoned little
stone may overturn everything," said the minister.
"If thou, worthiness," answered Patrokles, "had not pushed the columns
from the road because of those scarabs--"
"Thou, worthiness, art a foreigner and an unbeliever," retorted
Herhor, "hence this speech. But we Egyptians understand that when the
people and the soldiers cease to reverence the scarabs, their sons
will cease to fear the ureus (the serpent). From contempt of the gods
is born revolt against the pharaohs."
"But what are axes for?" asked Nitager. "Whoso wishes to keep a head
on his shoulders let him listen to the supreme commander."
"What then is your final opinion of the heir?" asked the pharaoh of
Herhor.
"Living image of the sun, child of the gods," replied the minister.
"Command to anoint Rameses, give him a grand chain and ten talents,
but do not appoint him yet to command the corps in Memphis. The prince
is too young for that office, too passionate and inexperienced. Can we
recognize him as the equal of Patrokles, who has trampled the
Ethiopians and the Libyans in twenty battles? Or can we place him at
the side of Nitager, whose name alone brings pallor to our northern
and eastern enemies?"
The pharaoh rested his head on his hand, meditated, and said,--
"Depart with my favor and in peace. I will do what is indicated by
wisdom and justice."
The dignitaries bowed low, and Rameses XII., without waiting for his
suite, passed to remoter chambers.
When the two leaders found themselves alone in the entrance hall,
Nitager said to Patrokles,--
"Here priests rule as in their own house. I see that. But what a
leader that Herhor is! He vanquished us before we spoke; he does not
grant a corps to the heir."
"He praised me so that I dared not utter a word," said Patrokles.
"He is far seeing, and does not tell all he thinks. In the wake of the
heir various young lords who go to war taking singers would have
shoved themselves into the corps, and they would occupy the highest
places. Naturally old officers would fall into idleness from anger,
because promotion had missed them; the exquisites would be idle for
the sake of amusement, and the corps would break up without even
meeting an enemy. Oh, Herhor is a sage!"
"May his wisdom not cost thee more than the inexperience of Rameses,"
whispered Patrokles.
Through a series of chambers filled with columns and adorned with
paintings, where at each door priests and palace officials gave low
obeisances before him, the pharaoh passed to his cabinet. That was a
lofty hall with alabaster walls on which in gold and bright colors
were depicted the most famous events in the reign of Rameses XII.,
therefore homage given him by the inhabitants of Mesopotamia, the
embassy from the King of Buchten, and the triumphal journey of the god
Khonsu through the land of that potentate.
In this hall was the malachite statue of the bird-headed Horus,
adorned with gold and jewels. In front of the statue was an altar
shaped as a truncated pyramid, the king's armor, costly armchairs and
stools, also tables covered with trifles and small objects.
When the pharaoh appeared, one of the priests burnt incense before
him, and one of the officials announced Prince Rameses, who soon
entered and bowed low before his father. On the expressive face of the
prince feverish disquiet was evident.
"Erpatr, I rejoice," said the pharaoh, "that thou hast returned in
good health from a difficult journey."
"Mayst thou live through eternity, holiness, and thy affairs fill the
two worlds!" replied Rameses.
"My military advisers have just informed me of thy labor and
prudence."
The heir's face quivered and changed. He fixed great eyes on the
pharaoh and listened.
"Thy deeds will not remain without reward. Thou wilt receive ten
talents, a great chain, and two Greek regiments with which thou wilt
exercise."
Rameses was amazed, but after a while he asked with a stifled voice,--
"But the corps in Memphis?"
"In a year we will repeat the manoeuvres, and if thou make no mistake
in leading the army thou wilt get the corps."
"I know that Herhor did this!" cried the prince, hardly restraining
his anger.
He looked around, and added, "I can never be alone with thee, my
father; strangers are always between us."
The pharaoh moved his brows slightly, and his suite vanished, like a
crowd of shadows.
"What hast thou to tell me?"
"Only one thing, father. Herhor is my enemy. He accused me to thee and
exposed me to this shame!"
In spite of his posture of obedience the prince gnawed his lips and
balled his fists.
"Herhor is thy friend and my faithful servant. It was his persuasion
that made thee heir to the throne. But--I--will not confide a corps to
a youthful leader who lets himself be cut off from his army."
"I joined it," answered the crushed heir; "but Herhor commanded to
march around two beetles."
"Dost thou wish that a priest should make light of religion in the
presence of the army?"
"My father," whispered Rameses, with quivering voice, "to avoid
spoiling the journey of the beetles a canal was destroyed, and a man
was killed."
"That man raised his own hands on himself."
"But that was the fault of Herhor."
"In the regiments which thou didst concentrate near Pi-Bailos thirty
men died from over-exertion, and several hundred are sick."
The prince dropped his head.
"Rameses," continued the pharaoh, "through thy lips is speaking not a
dignitary of the state who is thinking of the soundness of canals and
the lives of laborers, but an angry person. Anger does not accord with
justice any more than a falcon with a dove."
"Oh, my father," burst out the heir, "if anger carries me away, it is
because I feel the ill-will of the priests and of Herhor."
"But thou art thyself the grandson of a high priest; the priests
taught thee. Thou hast learned more of their secrets than any other
prince ever has."
"I have learned their insatiable pride, and greed of power. And
because I will abridge it they are my enemies. Herhor is not willing
to give me even a corps, for he wishes to manage the whole army."
When he had thrown out these incautious words, the heir was
frightened. But the ruler raised his clear glance, and answered
quietly,--
"I manage the state and the army. From me flow all commands and
decisions. In this world I am the balance of Osiris, and I myself
weigh the services of my servants, be they the heir, a minister, or
the people. Imprudent would he be who should think that all intrigues
are not known to me."
"But, father, if thou hadst seen with thy own eyes the course of the
manoeuvres--"
"I might have seen a leader," interrupted the pharaoh, "who in the
decisive moment was chasing through the bushes after an Israelite
maiden. But I do not wish to observe such stupidity."
The prince fell at his father's feet, and whispered,--
"Did Tutmosis speak to thee of that, lord?"
"Tutmosis is a child, just as thou art. He piles up debts as chief of
staff in the corps of Memphis, and thinks in his heart that the eyes
of the pharaoh cannot reach to his deeds in the desert."
CHAPTER VII
Some days later Prince Rameses was summoned before the face of his
most worthy mother, Nikotris, who was the second wife of the pharaoh,
but now the greatest lady in Egypt. The gods were not mistaken when
they called her to be the mother of a pharaoh. She was a tall person,
of rather full habit, and in spite of forty years was still beautiful.
There was in her eyes, face, and whole form such majesty that even
when she went unattended, in the modest garb of a priestess, people
bowed their heads to her.
The worthy lady received Rameses in her cabinet, which was paved with
porcelain tiles. She sat on an inlaid armchair under a palm-tree. At
her feet, on a small stool, lay a little dog; on the other side knelt
a black slave woman with a fan. The pharaoh's wife wore a muslin robe
embroidered with gold, and on her wig a circlet in the form of a
lotus, ornamented with jewels.
When the prince had bowed low, the little dog sniffed him, then lay
down again; while the lady, nodding her head, made inquiry,--
"For what reason, O Rameses, hast thou desired an interview?"
"Two days ago, mother."
"I knew that thou wert occupied. But to-day we both have time, and I
can listen."
"Thy speech, mother, acts on me as a strong wind of the desert, and I
have no longer courage to present my petition."
"Then surely it is a question of money."
Rameses dropped his head; he was confused.
"But dost thou need much money?"
"Fifteen talents--"
"O gods!" cried the lady, "but a couple of days ago ten talents were
paid thee from the treasury. Go, girl, into the garden; thou must be
tired," said she to the black slave; and when alone with her son she
asked,--
"But is thy Jewess so demanding?"
Rameses blushed, but raised his head.
"Thou knowest, mother, that she is not. But I promised a reward to the
army, and--I am unable to pay it."
The queen looked at him with calm loftiness.
"How evil it is," said she, after a while, "when a son makes decisions
without consulting his mother. Just now I, remembering thy age, wished
to give thee a Phoenician slave maiden sent me by Tyre with ten
talents for dowry. But thou hast preferred a Jewess."
"She pleased me. There is not such a beauty among thy serving maidens,
mother, nor even among the wives of his holiness."
"But she is a Jewess!"
"Be not prejudiced, mother, I beg of thee. It is untrue that Jews eat
pork and kill cats."
The worthy lady laughed.
"Thou art speaking like some boy from a primary school," answered she,
shrugging her shoulders, "and hast forgotten the words of Rameses the
Great: 'The yellow people are more numerous than we and they are
richer; let us act against them, lest they grow too powerful, but let
us act carefully.' I do not think, therefore, that a girl of that
people is the one to be first mistress of the heir to the throne."
"Can the words of Rameses the Great apply to the daughter of a poor
tenant?" asked the prince. "Besides, where are the Jews? Three
centuries ago they left Egypt, and to-day they form a little state,
ridiculous and priest-governed."
"I see," answered the worthy lady, frowning slightly, "that thy
mistress is not losing time. Be careful, Rameses; remember, that their
leader was Messu (Moses), that traitor priest whom we curse to this
day in our temples. Remember that the Jews bore away out of Egypt more
treasures than the labor of their few generations was worth to us;
they took with them not only gold, but the faith in one god, and our
sacred laws, which they give out to-day as their own faith and laws.
Last of all, know this," added she, with great emphasis, "that the
daughters of that people prefer death to the bed of a foreigner. And
if they give themselves even to hostile leaders, it is to use them for
their policy or to kill them."
"Believe me, mother, that it is our priests who spread all these
reports. They will not admit to the footstool of the throne people of
another faith lest those people might serve the pharaoh in opposition
to their order."
The queen rose from the armchair, and crossing her arms on her breast,
gazed at her son with amazement.
"What they tell me is true then, thou art an enemy of our priests.
Thou, their favorite pupil!"
"I must have the traces of their canes to this day on my shoulders,"
said Rameses.
"But thy grandfather and my father, Amenhôtep, was a high priest, and
possessed extensive power in this country."
"Just because my grandfather was a pharaoh, and my father is a pharaoh
also, I cannot endure the rule of Herhor."
"He was brought to his position by thy grandfather, the holy
Amenhôtep."
"And I will cast him down from it."
The mother shrugged her shoulders.
"And it is thou," answered she, with sadness, "who wishest to lead a
corps? But thou art a spoiled girl, not a man and a leader--"
"How is that?" interrupted the prince, restraining himself with
difficulty from an outburst.
"I cannot recognize my own son. I do not see in thee the future lord
of Egypt. The dynasty in thy person will be like a Nile boat without a
rudder. Thou wilt drive the priests from the court, but who will
remain with thee? Who will be thy eye in the Lower and the Upper
Country, who in foreign lands? But the pharaoh must see everything,
whatever it be, on which fall the divine rays of Osiris."
"The priests will be my servants, not my ministers."
"They are the most faithful servants. Thanks to their prayers thy
father reigns thirty-three years, and avoids war which might be
fatal."
"To the priests?"
"To the pharaoh and the state!" interrupted the lady. "Knowest thou
what takes place in our treasury, from which in one day thou takest
ten talents and desirest fifteen more? Knowest thou that were it not
for the liberality of the priests, who on behalf of the treasury even
take real jewels from the gods and put false ones in their places, the
property of the pharaoh would be now in the hands of Phoenicians?"
"One fortunate war would overflow our treasury as the increase of the
Nile does our fields."
"No. Thou, Rameses, art such a child yet that we may not even reckon
thy godless words as sinful. Occupy thyself, I beg, with thy Greek
regiments, get rid of the Jew girl as quickly as may be, and leave
politics to us."
"Why must I put away Sarah?"
"Shouldst thou have a son from her, complications might rise in the
State, which is troubled enough as matters now are. Thou mayst be
angry with the priests," added she, "if thou wilt not offend them in
public. They know that it is necessary to overlook much in an heir to
the throne, especially when he has such a stormy character. But time
pacifies everything to the glory of the dynasty and the profit of
Egypt."
The prince meditated; then he said suddenly,--
"I cannot count, therefore, on money from the treasury."
"Thou canst not in any case. The grand secretary would have been
forced to stop payment to-day had I not given him fourteen talents
sent from Tyre to me."
"And what shall I do with the army?" asked the prince, rubbing his
forehead impatiently.
"Put away the Jewess, and beg the priests. Perhaps they will make a
loan to thee."
"Never! I prefer a loan from Phoenicians."
The lady shook her head.
"Thou art erpatr, act as may please thee. But I say that thou must
give great security, and the Phoenicians, when once thy creditors,
will not let thee go. They surpass the Jews in treachery."
"A part of my income will suffice to cover such debts."
"We shall see. I wish sincerely to help thee, but I have not the
means," said the lady, sadly. "Do, then, as thou art able, but
remember that the Phoenicians in our state are like rats in a granary;
when one pushes in through a crevice, others follow."
Rameses loitered in leave-taking.
"Hast thou something more to tell me?" inquired the queen.
"I should like to ask-- My heart divines that thou, mother, hast some
plans regarding me. What are they?"
She stroked his face.
"Not now--not yet. Thou art free to-day, like every young noble in the
country; then make use of thy freedom. But, Rameses, the time is
coming when thou wilt have to take a wife whose children will be
princes of the blood royal and whose son will be thy heir. I am
thinking of that time--"
"And what?"
"Nothing defined yet. In every case political wisdom suggests to me
that thy wife should be a priest's daughter."
"Perhaps Herhor's?" said the prince, with a laugh.
"What would there be blamable in that? Herhor will be high priest in
Thebes very soon, and his daughter is only fourteen years of age."
"And would she consent to occupy the place of the Jewess?" asked
Rameses, ironically.
"Thou shouldst try to have people forget thy present error."
"I kiss thy feet, mother, and I go," said the prince, seizing his own
head. "I hear so many marvellous things here that I begin to fear lest
the Nile may flow up toward the cataract, or the pyramids pass over to
the eastern desert."
"Blaspheme not, my child," whispered the lady, gazing with fear at
Rameses. "In this land most wonderful miracles are seen."
"Are not they this, that the walls of the palace listen to their
owners?" asked her son, with a bitter smile.
"Men have witnessed the death of pharaohs who had reigned a few months
only, and the fall of dynasties which had governed nine nations."
"Yes, for those pharaohs forgot the sword for the distaff," retorted
Rameses.
He bowed and went out.
In proportion as the sound of Rameses' steps grew less in the immense
antechamber, the face of the worthy lady changed; the place of majesty
was taken by pain and fear, while tears were glistening in her great
eyes.
She ran to the statue of the goddess, knelt, and sprinkling incense
from India on the coals, began to pray,--
"O Isis, Isis, Isis! three times do I pronounce thy name. O Isis, who
givest birth to serpents, crocodiles, and ostriches, may thy name be
thrice praised. O Isis, who preservest grains of wheat from robber
whirlwinds, and the bodies of our fathers from the destructive toil of
time, O Isis, take pity on my son and preserve him! Thrice be thy name
repeated--and here--and there--and beyond, to-day and forever, and for
the ages of ages, as long as the temples of our gods shall gaze on
themselves in the waters of the Nile."
Thus praying and sobbing, the queen bowed down and touched the
pavement with her forehead. Above her at that moment a low whisper was
audible,--
"The voice of the just is heard always."
The worthy lady sprang up, and full of astonishment looked around. But
there was no one in the chamber. Only the painted flowers gazed at her
from the walls, and from above the altar the statue of the goddess
full of superterrestrial calm.
CHAPTER VIII
The prince returned to his villa full of care, and summoned Tutmosis.
"Thou must," said Rameses, "teach me how to find money."
"Ha!" laughed the exquisite; "that is a kind of wisdom not taught in
the highest school of the priests, but wisdom in which I might be a
prophet."
"In those schools they explain that a man should not borrow money,"
said Rameses.
"If I did not fear that blasphemy might stain my lips, I should say
that some priests waste their time. They are wretched, though holy!
They eat no meat, they are satisfied with one wife, or avoid women
altogether, and--they know not what it is to borrow. I am satisfied,
Rameses," continued the exquisite, "that thou wilt know this kind of
wisdom through my counsels. To-day thou wilt learn what a source of
sensations lack of money is. A man in need of money has no appetite,
he springs up in sleep, he looks at women with astonishment, as if to
ask, 'Why were they created?' Fire flashes in his face in the coolest
temple. In the middle of a desert shivers of cold pass through him
during the greatest heat. He looks like a madman; he does not hear
what people say to him. Very often he walks along with his wig awry
and forgets to sprinkle it with perfume. His only comfort is a pitcher
of strong wine, and that for a brief moment. Barely has the poor man's
thoughts come back when again he feels as though the earth were
opening under him.
"I see," continued the exquisite, "that at present thou art passing
through despair from lack of money. But soon thou wilt know other
feelings which will be as if a great sphinx were removed from thy
bosom. Then thou wilt yield to the sweet condition of forgetting thy
previous trouble and present creditors, and then-- Ah, happy Rameses,
unusual surprises will await thee! For the term will pass, and thy
creditors will begin to visit thee under pretence of paying homage.
Thou wilt be like a deer hunted by dogs, or an Egyptian girl who,
while raising water from the river, sees the knotty back of a
crocodile--"
"All this seems very gladsome," interrupted Rameses, smiling; "but it
brings not one drachma."
"Never mind," continued Tutmosis. "I will go this moment to Dagon, the
Phoenician banker, and in the evening thou wilt find peace, though he
may not have given thee money."
He hastened out, took his seat in a small litter, and surrounded by
servants vanished in the alleys of the park.
Before sunset Dagon, a Phoenician, the most noted banker in Memphis,
came to the house of Rameses. He was a man in the full bloom of life,
yellow, lean, but well built. He wore a blue tunic and over it a white
robe of thin texture. He had immense hair of his own, confined by a
gold circlet, and a great black beard, his own also. This rich growth
looked imposing in comparison with the wigs and false beards of
Egyptian exquisites.
The dwelling of the heir to the throne was swarming with youth of the
aristocracy. Some on the ground floor were bathing and anointing
themselves, others were playing chess and checkers on the first story,
others in company with dancing-girls were drinking under tents on the
terrace. Rameses neither drank, played, nor talked with women; he
walked along one side of the terrace awaiting the Phoenician
impatiently. When he saw him emerge from an alley in a litter on two
asses, he went to the first story, where there was an unoccupied
chamber.
After awhile Dagon appeared in the door. He knelt on the threshold and
exclaimed,--
"I greet thee, new sun of Egypt! Mayst thou live through eternity, and
may thy glory reach those distant shores which are visited by the
ships of Phoenicia."
At command of the prince, he rose and said with violent
gesticulations,--
"When the worthy Tutmosis descended before my mud hut--my house is a
mud hut in comparison with thy palaces, erpatr--such was the gleam
from his face that I cried at once to my wife, 'Tamara, the worthy
Tutmosis has come not from himself, but from one as much higher than
he as the Lebanon is higher than the sand of the seashore.' 'Whence
dost thou know, my lord, that the worthy Tutmosis has not come for
himself?' 'Because he could not come with money, since he has none,
and he could not come for money, because I have none.' At that moment
we bowed down both of us to the worthy Tutmosis. But when he told us
that it was thou, most worthy lord, who desirest fifteen talents from
thy slave, I asked my wife, 'Tamara, did my heart teach me badly?'
'Dagon, thou art so wise that thou shouldst be an adviser to the
heir,' replied my Tamara."
Rameses was boiling with impatience, but he listened to the
banker,--he, Rameses, who stormed in the presence of his own mother
and the pharaoh.
"When we, lord, stopped and understood that thou wert desirous of my
services, such delight entered my house that I ordered to give the
servants ten pitchers of beer, and my wife Tamara commanded me to buy
her new earrings. My joy was increased so that when coming hither I
did not let my driver beat the asses. And when my unworthy feet
touched thy floor, O prince, I took out a gold ring, greater than that
which the worthy Herhor gave Eunana, and presented it to thy slave who
poured water on my fingers. With permission, worthiness, whence came
that silver pitcher from which they poured the water?"
"Azarias, the son of Gaber, sold it to me for two talents."
"A Jew? Erpatr, dost them deal with Jews? But what will the gods say?"
"Azarias is a merchant, as thou art," answered Rameses.
When Dagon heard this, he caught his head with both hands, he spat and
groaned,--
"O Baal Tammuz! O Baaleth! O Astoreth!--Azarias, the son of Gaber, a
Jew, to be such a merchant as I am. Oh, my legs, why did ye bring me
hither? Oh, my heart, why dost thou suffer such pain and palpitation?
Most worthy prince," cried the Phoenician, "slay me, cut off my hand
if I counterfeit gold, but say not that a Jew can be a merchant.
Sooner will Tyre fall to the earth, sooner will sand occupy the site
of Sidon than a Jew be a merchant. They will milk their lean goats, or
mix clay with straw under blows of Egyptian sticks, but they will
never sell merchandise. Tfu! tfu! Vile nation of slaves! Thieves,
robbers!"
Anger boiled up in the prince, it is unknown why, but he calmed
himself quickly. This seemed strange to Rameses himself, who up to
that hour had not thought self-restraint needed in his case in
presence of any one.
"And then," said the heir on a sudden, "wilt thou, worthy Dagon, loan
me fifteen talents?"
"O Astoreth! Fifteen talents? That is such a great weight that I
should have to sit down to think of it properly."
"Sit down then."
"For a talent," said Dagon, sitting in an armchair comfortably, "a man
can have twelve gold chains, or sixty beautiful milch cows, or ten
slaves for labor, or one slave to play on the flute or paint, and
maybe even to cure. A talent is tremendous property--"
The prince's eyes flashed,--
"Then thou hast not fifteen talents?"
The terrified Phoenician slipped suddenly from the chair to the
floor.
"Who in the city," cried he, "has not money at thy command, O child of
the sun? It is true that I am a wretch whose gold, precious stones,
and whole property is not worth one glance of thine, O prince, but if
I go around among our merchants and say who sent me, I shall get
fifteen talents even from beneath the earth. Erpatr, if thou shouldst
stand before a withered fig-tree and say 'Give money!' the fig-tree
would pay thee a ransom. But do not look at me in that way, O son of
Horus, for I feel a pain in the pit of my heart and my mind is growing
blunted," finished the Phoenician, in tones of entreaty.
"Well, sit in the chair, sit in the chair," said the prince, laughing.
Dagon rose from the floor and disposed himself still more agreeably in
the armchair.
"For how long a time does the prince wish fifteen talents?"
"Certainly for a year."
"Let us say at once three years. Only his holiness might give back
fifteen talents in the course of a year, but not the youthful heir,
who must receive young pleasant nobles and beautiful women.--Ah, those
women!--Is it true, with thy permission, that thou hast taken to
thyself Sarah the daughter of Gideon?"
"But what per cent dost thou wish?" interrupted Rameses.
"A trifle, which thy sacred lips need not mention. For fifteen talents
the prince will give five talents yearly, and in the course of three
years I will take back all myself, so that thou, worthiness, wilt not
even know--"
"Thou wilt give me to-day fifteen talents, and during three years take
back thirty?"
"Egyptian law permits percentage to equal the loan," answered Dagon,
confusedly.
"But is that not too much?"
"Too much?" cried out Dagon. "Every great lord has a great court, a
great property, and pays no per cent save a great one. I should be
ashamed to take less from the heir to the throne; if I did the prince
himself might command to beat me with sticks and to drive me out of
his presence."
"When wilt thou bring the money?"
"Bring it? O gods, one man would not have strength to bring so much. I
will do better: I will make all payments for the prince, so that,
worthiness, thou wilt not need to think of such a wretched matter."
"Then dost thou know my debts?"
"I know them a little," answered Dagon, carelessly.
"The prince wishes to send six talents to the Eastern army; that will
be done by our bankers. Three talents to the worthy Nitager and three
to the worthy Patrokles; that will be done here immediately. Sarah and
her father I can pay through that mangy Azarias--even better to pay
them thus, for they would cheat the prince in reckoning."
Rameses began to walk through the room impatiently.
"Then am I to give a note for thirty talents?"
"What note? why a note? what good would a note be to me? The prince
will rent me for three years lands in the provinces of Takens, Ses,
Neha-Chent, Neha-Pechu, in Sebt-Het, in Habu."
"Rent them?" said the prince. "That does not please me."
"Whence then am I to get back my money, my thirty talents?"
"Wait! I must ask the inspector of my granaries how much these
properties bring me in yearly."
"Why so much trouble, worthiness? What does the inspector know? He
knows nothing; as I am an honest Phoenician, he knows nothing. Each
year the harvest is different, and the income different also. I may
lose in this business, and the inspector would make no return to me."
"But seest thou, Dagon, it seems to me that those lands bring far more
than ten talents yearly."
"The prince is unwilling to trust me? Well, at command of the heir I
will drop out the land of Ses. The prince is not sure of my heart yet?
Well, I will yield Sebt-Het also. But what use for an inspector here?
Will he teach the prince wisdom? O Astoreth! I should lose sleep and
appetite if such an overseer, subject and slave, dared to correct my
gracious lord. Here is needed only a scribe who will write down that
my most worthy lord gives me as tenant for three years lands in such
and such a province. And sixteen witnesses will be needed to testify
that such an honor from the prince has come to me. But why should
servants know that their lord borrows money from Dagon?"
The wearied heir shrugged his shoulders.
"To-morrow," said he, "thou wilt bring the money, and bring a scribe
and witnesses. I do not wish to think of it."
"Oh, what wise words!" cried the Phoenician. "Mayst thou live,
worthiest lord, through eternity!"
CHAPTER IX
On the right bank of the Nile, on the edge of the northern suburb of
Memphis, was that land which the heir to the throne had given as place
of residence to Sarah the daughter of Gideon.
That was a possession thirty-five acres in area, forming a quadrangle
which was seen from the house-top as something on the palm of the
hand. The land was on a hill and was divided into four elevations. The
two lowest and widest, which the Nile always flooded, were intended
for grain and for vegetables. The third, which at times was untouched
by the overflow, produced palms, figs, and other fruit-trees. On the
fourth, the highest, was a garden planted with olives, grapes, nuts,
and sweet chestnuts; in the middle garden stood the dwelling.
This dwelling was of wood, one story, as usual, with a flat roof on
which was a tent made of canvas. On the ground dwelt the prince's
black slave; above Sarah with her relative and serving-woman Tafet.
The place was surrounded by a wall of partially burnt brick, beyond
which at a certain distance were houses for cattle, workmen, and
overseers.
Sarah's chambers were not large, but they were elegant. On the floor
were divans, at the doors and windows were curtains with stripes of
various colors. There were armchairs and a carved bed, inlaid boxes
for clothing, three-legged and one-legged tables on which were pots
with flowers, a slender pitcher for wine, boxes and bottles of
perfume, golden and silver cups and goblets, porcelain vases and
dishes, bronze candlesticks. Even the smallest furniture or vessel was
ornamented with carving or with a colored drawing; every piece of
clothing with lace or bordering.
Sarah had dwelt ten days in this retreat, hiding herself before people
from fear and shame, so that almost no one of the servants had seen
her. In the curtained chamber she sewed, wove linen on a small loom,
or twined garlands of living flowers for Rameses. Sometimes she went
out on the terrace, pushed apart the sides of the tent with care, and
looked at the Nile covered with boats in which oarsmen were singing
songs joyfully. On raising her eyes she looked with fear at the gray
pylons of the pharaoh's palace, which towered silent and gloomy above
the other bank of the river. Then she ran again to her work and called
Tafet.
"Sit here, mother," said she; "what art thou doing down there?"
"The gardener has brought fruit, and they have sent bread, wine, and
game from the city; I must take them."
"Sit here and talk, for fear seizes me."
"Thou art a foolish child," said Tafet, smiling. "Fear looked at me
too the first day from every corner; but when I went out beyond the
wall, there was no more of it. Whom have I to fear here? All fall on
their knees before me. Before thee they would stand on their heads
even! Go to the garden; it is as beautiful as paradise. Look out at
the field, see the wheat harvest; sit down in the carved boat the
owner of which is withering from anxiety to see thee and take thee out
on the river."
"I am afraid."
"Of what?"
"Do I know? While I am sewing, I think that I am in our valley and
that my father will come right away; but when the wind pushes the
curtain aside from the window and I look on this great country it
seems to me,--knowest what?--that some mighty vulture has caught and
borne me to his nest on a mountain, whence I have no power to save
myself."
"Ah, thou--thou! If thou hadst seen what a bathtub the prince sent
this morning, a bronze one; and what a tripod for the fire, what pots
and spits! And if thou knew that to-day I have put two hens to set,
and before long we shall have little chicks here."
Sarah was more daring after sunset, when no one could see her. She
went out on the roof and looked at the river. And when from afar a
boat appeared, flaming with torches, which formed fiery and bloody
lines along the dark water, she pressed with both hands her poor
heart, which quivered like a bird caught that instant. Rameses was
coming, and she could not tell what had seized her,--delight because
that beautiful youth was approaching whom she had seen in the valley,
or dread because she would see again a great lord and ruler who made
her timid.
One Sabbath evening her father came for the first time since she had
settled in that villa. Sarah rushed to him with weeping; she washed
his feet herself, poured perfumes on his head, and covered him with
kisses. Gideon was an old man of stern features. He wore a long robe
reaching his feet and edged at the bottom with colored embroidery;
over this he wore a yellow sleeveless kaftan. A kind of cape covered
his breast and shoulders. On his head was a smallish cap, growing
narrow toward the top.
"Thou art here! thou art here!" exclaimed Sarah; and she kissed his
head again.
"I am astonished myself at being here," said Gideon, sadly. "I stole
to the garden like a criminal; I thought, along the whole way from
Memphis, that all the Egyptians were pointing me out with their
fingers and that each Jew was spitting."
"But thou didst give me thyself to the prince, father."
"I did, for what could I do? Of course it only seems to me that they
point and spit. Of Egyptians, whoever knows me bows the lower the
higher he is himself. Since thou art here our lord Sesofris has said
that he must enlarge my house; Chaires gave me a jar of the best wine,
and our most worthy nomarch himself has sent a trusty servant to ask
if thou art well, and if I will not become his manager."
"But the Jews?" inquired Sarah.
"What of the Jews! They know that I did not yield of my own will.
Every one of them would wish to be constrained in like manner. Let
the Lord God judge us all. Better tell how thou art feeling."
"In Abraham's bosom she will not have more comfort," said Tafet.
"Every day they bring us fruit, wine, bread, meat, and whatever the
soul wishes. And such baths as we have, all bronze, and such kitchen
utensils!"
"Three days ago," interrupted Sarah, "the Phoenician Dagon was here. I
did not wish to see him, but he insisted."
"He gave me a gold ring," added Tafet.
"He told me," continued Sarah, "that he was a tenant of my lord; he
gave me two anklets, pearl earrings, and a box of perfumes from the
land of Punt."
"Why did he give them to thee?" asked her father.
"For nothing. He simply begged that I would think well of him, and
tell my lord sometimes that Dagon was his most faithful servant."
"Very soon thou wilt have a whole box of earrings and bracelets," said
Gideon, smiling. But after a moment he added: "Gather up a great
property quickly and let us flee back to our own land, for here there
is misery at all times, misery when we are in trouble, and still more
of it when we are prosperous."
"And what would my lord say?" asked Sarah, with sadness.
Her father shook his head.
"Before a year passes thy lord will cast thee aside, and others will
help him. Wert thou an Egyptian, he would take thee to his palace; but
a Jewess--"
"He will cast aside?" said Sarah, sighing.
"Why torment one's self with days to come, which are in the hand of
God? I am here to pass the Sabbath with thee."
"I have splendid fish, meat, cakes, and wine of the Jews," put in
Tafet, quickly. "I have bought also, in Memphis, a seven-branched
candlestick and wax tapers. We shall have a better supper than has
Lord Chaires."
Gideon went out on the flat roof with his daughter.
"Tafet tells me," said he, when they were alone, "that thou art always
in the house. Why is this? Thou shouldst look at least on the garden."
"I am afraid," whispered Sarah.
"Why be afraid of thy own garden? Here thou art mistress, a great
lady."
"Once I went out in the daytime. People of some sort stared at me,
and said to one another, 'Look! that is the heir's Jewess; she delays
the overflow.'"
"They are fools!" interrupted Gideon. "Is this the first time that the
Nile is late in its overflow? But go out in the evening."
Sarah shook her head with greater vigor.
"I do not wish, I do not wish. Another time I went out in the evening.
All at once two women pushed out from a side path. I was frightened
and wished to flee, when one of them, the younger and smaller, seized
my hands, saying, 'Do not flee, we must look at thee;' the second, the
elder and taller, stood some steps in front and looked me in the eyes
directly. Ah, father, I thought that I should turn into stone. What a
look, what a woman!"
"Who could she be?" asked Gideon.
"The elder woman looked like a priestess."
"And did she say anything?"
"Nothing. But when going and they were hidden behind trees, I heard
surely the voice of the elder say these words: 'Indeed she is
beautiful!'"
Gideon fell to thinking.
"Maybe they were great ladies from the court."
The sun went down, and on both banks of the Nile dense crowds of
people collected waiting impatiently for the signal of the overflow,
which in fact was belated. For two days the wind had been blowing from
the sea and the river was green; the sun had passed the star Sothis
already, but in the well of the priest in Memphis the water had not
risen even the breadth of a finger. The people were alarmed, all the
more since in Upper Egypt, according to signals, the overflow
proceeded with regular increase and even promised to be perfect.
"What detains it at Memphis then?" asked the anxious earth-tillers
waiting for the signal in disquiet.
When the stars had appeared in the sky, Tafet spread a white cloth on
the table, placed on it the candlestick with seven lighted torches,
pushed up three armchairs, and announced that the Sabbath supper would
be served immediately.
Gideon covered his head then, and raising both hands above the table,
said with his eyes looking heavenward,--
"God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Thou who didst lead our people out
of Egypt, who didst give a country to the slave and exile, who didst
make with the sons of Judah an eternal covenant, O Jehovah, O Adonai,
permit us to enjoy without sin the fruits of the enemies' country.
Bring us out of sorrow and fear in which we are buried, and restore us
to the banks of the Jordan, which we left for Thy glory."
At the moment a voice was heard from beyond the wall,--
"His worthiness Tutmosis, the most faithful servant of his holiness
and of his son Prince Rameses!"
"May he live through eternity!" called a number of voices from the
garden.
"His worthiness," said a single voice again, "sends greeting to the
most beautiful rose of Lebanon."
When the voice ceased, the sound of harps and flutes was heard.
"That is music!" exclaimed Tafet, clapping her hands. "We shall pass
the Sabbath with music."
Sarah and her father, frightened at first, began to laugh, and sat
down again at the table.
"Let them play," said Gideon; "their music is not bad for the
appetite."
The flute and harp played, then a tenor voice sang,--
"Thou art more beautiful than all the maidens who look at themselves
in the Nile. Thy hair is blacker than the feathers of a raven, thy
eyes have a milder glance than the eyes of a deer which is yearning
for its fawn. Thy stature is the stature of a palm, and the lotus
envies thee thy charm. Thy bosoms are like grape clusters with the
juice of which kings delight themselves."
Again the flute and harp were heard, and next a song,--
"Come and repose in the garden. The servants which belong to thee will
bring various vessels and beer of all kinds. Come, let us celebrate
this night and the dawn which will follow it. In my shadow, in the
shadow of the fig, giving sweet fruit, thy lover will rest at thy
right hand; and thou wilt give him to drink and consent to all his
wishes--"
Next came the flutes and harps, and after them a new song,--
"I am of a silent disposition, I never tell what I see, I spoil not
the sweetness of my fruits with vain tattling."[4]
[4] Authentic.
CHAPTER X
The song ceased, drowned by an uproar and by a noise as of many people
running.
"Unbelievers! Enemies of Egypt!" cried some one. "Ye are singing when
we are sunk in suffering, and ye are praising the Jewess who stops the
flow of the Nile with her witchcraft."
"Woe to you!" cried another. "Ye are trampling the land of Prince
Rameses. Death will fall on you and your children."
"We will go, but let the Jewess come out so that we may tell our
wrongs to her."
"Let us flee!" screamed Tafet.
"Whither?" inquired Gideon.
"Never!" said Sarah, on whose mild face appeared a flush of anger. "Do
I not belong to the heir, before whose face those people all prostrate
themselves?"
And before her father and the old woman had regained their senses,
she, all in white, had run out on the roof and called to the throng
beyond the wall,--
"Here I am! What do ye want of me?"
The uproar was stilled for a moment, but again threatening voices were
raised,--
"Be accursed, thou strange woman whose sin stops the Nile in its
overflow!"
A number of stones hurled at random whistled through the air; one of
them struck Sarah's forehead.
"Father!" cried she, seizing her head.
Gideon caught her in his arms and bore her from the terrace. In the
night were visible people, in white caps and skirts, who climbed over
the wall below.
Tafet screamed in a heaven-piercing voice, the black slave seized an
axe, took his place in the doorway, and declared that he would split
the head of any man daring to enter.
"Stone that Nubian dog!" cried men from the wall to the crowd of
people.
But the people became silent all at once, for from the depth of the
garden came a man with shaven head; from this man's shoulders depended
a panther skin.
"A prophet! A holy father!" murmured some in the crowd. Those sitting
on the wall began now to spring down from it.
"People of Egypt," said the priest, calmly, "with what right do ye
raise hands on the property of the erpatr?"
"The unclean Jewess dwells here, who stops the rise of the Nile. Woe
to us! misery and famine are hanging over Lower Egypt."
"People of weak mind or of evil faith," said the priest, "where have
ye heard that one woman could stop the will of the gods? Every year in
the month Thoth the Nile begins to increase and rises till the month
Choeak. Has it ever happened otherwise, though our land has been full
at all times of strangers, sometimes foreign priests and princes, who
groaning in captivity and grievous labor might utter the most dreadful
curses through sorrow and anger? They would have brought on our heads
all kinds of misfortune, and more than one of them would have given
their lives if only the sun would not rise over Egypt in the morning,
or if the Nile would not rise when the year began. And what came of
their prayers? Either they were not heard in the heavens, or foreign
gods had no power in presence of the gods of Egypt. How then is a
woman who lives pleasantly among us to cause a misfortune which is
beyond the power of our mightiest enemies?"
"The holy father speaks truth. Wise are the words of the prophet!"
said people among the multitude.
"But Messu (Moses), the Jewish leader, brought darkness and death into
Egypt!" said one voice.
"Let the man who said that step forth," cried the priest. "I challenge
him, let him come forward, unless he is an enemy of the Egyptian
people."
The crowd murmured like a wind from afar blowing between trees, but no
man came forward.
"I speak truth," continued the priest; "evil men are moving among you
like hyenas in a sheepfold. They have no pity on your misery, they
urged you to destroy the house of the heir and to rebel against the
pharaoh. If their vile plan had succeeded and blood had begun to flow
from your bosoms, they would have hidden before spears as they hide
now before my challenge."
"Listen to the prophet! Praise to thee, man of God!" cried the people,
inclining their foreheads.
The most pious fell to the earth.
"Hear me, Egyptian people. In return for your faith in the words of a
priest, for your obedience to the pharaoh and the heir, for the honor
which ye give to a servant of the god, a favor will be shown you. Go
to your houses in peace, and even before ye have left this hill the
Nile will be rising."
"Oh, may it rise!"
"Go! The greater your faith and piety the more quickly will ye see the
sign of favor."
"Let us go! Let us go! Be blessed, O prophet, thou son of prophets!"
They began to separate, kissing the robe of the priest. With that some
one shouted,--
"The miracle, the miracle is accomplished."
On the tower in Memphis a light flamed up.
"The Nile is rising! See, more and more lights! Indeed a mighty saint
spoke to us. May he live through eternity!"
They turned toward the priest, but he had vanished among shadows.
The throng raging a little while earlier, amazed and filled now with
gratitude, forgot both its anger and the wonder-working priest. It was
mastered by a wild delight; men rushed to the bank of the river, on
which many lights were burning and where a great hymn was rising from
the assembled people,--
"Be greeted, O Nile, sacred river, which appearest on this country!
Thou comest in peace, to give life to Egypt. O hidden deity who
scatterest darkness, who moistenest the fields, to bring food to dumb
animals, O thou the precious one, descending from heaven to give drink
to the earth, O friend of bread, thou who gladdenest our cottages!
Thou art the master of fishes; when thou art in our fields no bird
dares touch the harvest. Thou art the creator of grain and the parent
of barley; thou givest rest to the hands of millions of the
unfortunate and for ages thou securest the sanctuary."[5]
[5] Authentic.
At this time the illuminated boat of Rameses sailed from the shore
opposite amid songs and outcries. Those very persons who half an hour
earlier wished to burst into his villa were falling now on their faces
before him, or hurling themselves into the water to kiss the oars and
the sides of the boat which was bearing the son of their ruler.
Gladsome, surrounded by torches, Rameses, in company with Tutmosis,
approached Sarah's dwelling. At sight of him Gideon said to Tafet,--
"Great is my alarm for my daughter, but still greater my wish to avoid
Prince Rameses."
He sprang over the wall, and amid darkness through gardens and fields
he held on in the direction of Memphis.
"Be greeted. O beauteous Sarah!" cried Tutmosis in the courtyard. "I
hope that thou wilt receive us well for the music which I sent to
thee."
Sarah appeared, with bandaged head on the threshold, leaning on the
black slave and her female attendant.
"What is the meaning of this?" cried the astonished Rameses.
"Terrible things!" called out Tafet. "Unbelievers attacked thy house;
one hurled a stone and struck Sarah."
"What unbelievers?"
"But those--the Egyptians!" explained Tafet.
The prince cast a contemptuous glance at her, but rage mastered him
straightway.
"Who struck Sarah? Who threw the stone?" shouted he, seizing the arm
of the black man.
"Those from beyond the river," answered the slave.
"Hei, watchman!" cried the prince, foaming at the mouth, "arm all the
men in this place for me and follow that rabble!"
The black slave seized his axe again, the overseers fell to summoning
workmen from the buildings, some soldiers of the prince's suite
grasped their sword-hilts mechanically.
"By the mercy of Jehovah, what art thou doing?" whispered Sarah, as
she hung on the neck of Rameses.
"I wish to avenge thee," answered he; "whoso strikes at that which is
mine strikes at me."
Tutmosis grew pale, and shook his head.
"Hear me, lord," said he; "wilt thou discover in the night and in a
multitude the men who committed the crime?"
"All one to me. The rabble did it, and the rabble must give answer."
"No judge will say that," reflected Tutmosis. "But thou art to be the
highest judge."
The prince became thoughtful. Tutmosis continued,--
"Stop! what would the pharaoh our lord say to-morrow? And what delight
would reign among our foes in the east and the west, if they heard
that the heir to the throne, almost at the royal palace, was attacked
in the night by his own people?"
"Oh, if my father would give me even half the army, our enemies on all
sides of the world would be silent forever!" said the prince, stamping
on the pavement.
"Finally, remember that man who hanged himself; thou wert sorry when
an innocent man lost his life. But to-day is it possible that thou art
willing thyself to slay innocent people?"
"Enough!" interrupted Rameses, in a deep voice. "My anger is like a
water-jar. Woe to him on whom it falls! Let us enter."
The frightened Tutmosis drew back. The prince took Sarah by the hand
and went to the terrace. He seated her near the table on which was the
unfinished supper, and approaching the light drew the bandage from her
forehead.
"Ah!" cried he, "this is not even a wound, it is only a blue spot."
He looked at Sarah attentively.
"I never thought," said he, "that thou wouldst have a blue spot. This
changed thy face considerably."
"Then I please thee no longer?" whispered Sarah, raising on him great
eyes full of fear.
"Oh, no! this will pass quickly."
Then he called Tutmosis and the black, and commanded to tell him what
had happened that evening.
"He defended us," said Sarah. "He stood, with an axe, in the doorway."
"Didst thou do that?" asked the prince, looking quickly into the eyes
of the Nubian.
"Was I to let strange people break into thy house, lord?"
Rameses patted him on the curly head.
"Thou hast acted," said he, "like a brave man. I give thee freedom.
To-morrow thou wilt receive a reward and mayst return to thy own
people."
The black tottered and rubbed his eyes, the whites of which were
shining. Suddenly he dropped on his knees, and cried as he struck the
floor with his forehead,--
"Do not put me away, lord."
"Well," replied Rameses, "remain with me, but as a free warrior. I
need just such men," said he, turning to Tutmosis. "He cannot talk
like the overseer of the house of books, but he is ready for battle."
And again he inquired for details of the attack, when the Nubian told
how a priest had approached, and when he related his miracles the
prince seized his own head, exclaiming,--
"I am the most hapless man in all Egypt! Very soon I shall find a
priest in my bed even. Whence did he come? Who was he?"
The black servitor could not explain this, but he said that the
priest's action toward the prince and toward Sarah was very friendly;
that the attack was directed not by Egyptians, but by people who, the
priest said, were enemies of Egypt, and whom he challenged to step
forward, but they would not.
"Wonders! wonders!" said Rameses, meditating, and throwing himself on
a couch. "My black slave is a valiant warrior and a man full of
judgment. A priest defends a Jewess, because she is mine. What a
strange priest he is! The Egyptian people who kneel down before the
pharaoh's dogs attack the house of the erpatr under direction of
unknown enemies of Egypt. I myself must look into this."
CHAPTER XI
The month Thoth has ended and the month Paofi (the second half of
July) has begun. The water of the Nile, from being greenish and then
white, has become ruddy and is rising continually. The royal indicator
in Memphis is filled to the height of two men almost, and the Nile
rises two hands daily. The lowest land is inundated; from higher
ground people are removing hastily flax, grapes, and cotton of a
certain species. Over places which were dry in the early morning,
waves plash as evening approaches. A mighty, unseen whirlwind seems to
blow in the depth of the Nile. This wind ploughs up broad spaces on
the river, tills the furrows with foam, then smooths for a moment the
surface, and after a time twists it into deep eddies. Again the hidden
wind ploughs, again it smooths out, whirls, pushes forward new hills
of water, new rows of foam, and raises the rustling river, wins
without ceasing new platforms of land. Sometimes the water, after
reaching a certain boundary, leaps across in a twinkle, pours into a
low place, and makes a shining pond where a moment earlier withered
grass was breaking up into dust heaps.
Though the rise of the river has reached barely one third of its
height, the whole region near the banks is under water. Every hour
some little height takes on the semblance of an island, divided from
others by a narrow channel, which widens gradually and cuts off the
house more and more from its neighbors. Very often he who walked out
to work comes home in a boat from his labor.
Boats and rafts appear more and more frequently on the river. From
some of them men are catching fish in nets; on others they bring the
harvest to granaries, or bellowing cattle to their stables. With other
boats visits are made to acquaintances to inform them amid shouts and
laughter that the river is rising. Sometimes boats gather in one
place, like a flock of daws, and then shoot apart on all sides before
a broad raft bearing down from Upper Egypt immense blocks of stone
hewn out in quarries near the river.
In the air, as far as the ear can hear, extend the roar of the rising
water, the cries of frightened birds, and the gladsome songs of
people. The Nile is rising, there will be bread in abundance.
During a whole month investigation continued in the affair of the
attack on the house of Rameses. Each morning a boat with officials and
warriors came to some small estate. People were snatched from their
labor, overwhelmed with treacherous questions, beaten with sticks.
Toward evening two boats returned to Memphis: one brought officials,
the other brought prisoners.
In this way some hundreds of men were caught, of whom one half knew
nothing, the other half were threatened by imprisonment or toil for a
number of years in the quarries. But nothing was learned of those who
led the attack, or of that priest who had persuaded the people to
leave the place. Prince Rameses had qualities which were uncommonly
contradictory. He was as impetuous as a lion and as stubborn as a
bullock, but he had a keen understanding and a deep sense of justice.
Seeing that this investigation by officials gave no result whatever,
he sailed on a certain day to Memphis and commanded to open the
prison.
The prison was built on an eminence surrounded by a lofty wall, and
was composed of a great number of stone, brick, and wooden buildings.
These buildings for the main part were merely the dwellings of
overseers. Prisoners were placed in subterranean dens hewn out in a
cliff of limestone.
When Prince Rameses passed the gate, he saw a crowd of women washing
and feeding some prisoner. This naked man, who resembled a skeleton,
was sitting on the ground, having his hands and feet in four openings
of a square plank which took the place of fetters.
"Has this man suffered long in this way?" asked Rameses.
"Two months," said the overseer.
"And must he sit here much longer?"
"A month."
"What did he do?"
"He was insolent to a tax gatherer."
The prince turned and saw another crowd, composed of women and
children. Among them was an old man.
"Are these prisoners?"
"No, most worthy lord. That is a family waiting for the body of a
criminal who is to be strangled--oh, they are taking him already to
the chamber," said the overseer.
Then, turning to the crowd, he said,--
"Be patient a short time, dear people. Ye will get the body soon."
"We thank thee greatly, worthy lord," answered an old man, doubtless
the father of the delinquent. "We left home yesterday evening, our
flax is in the field, and the river is rising."
The prince grew pale, and halted.
"Dost thou know," asked he of the overseer, "that I have the right of
pardon?"
"Erpatr, thou hast that right," answered the overseer, bowing; and
then he added: "The law declares, O child of the sun, that in memory
of thy presence men condemned for offences against the state and
religion, but who conduct themselves properly, should receive some
abatement. A list of such persons will be placed at thy feet within a
month."
"But he who is to be strangled this moment, has he not the right to my
grace?"
The overseer opened his arms, and bent forward in silence.
They moved from place to place, and passed a number of courts. In
wooden cases on the bare ground were crowded men sentenced to
imprisonment. In one building were heard awful screams; they were
clubbing prisoners to force confession.
"I wish to see those accused of attacking my house," said the heir,
deeply moved.
"Of those there are more than three hundred," said the overseer.
"Select according to thy own judgment the most guilty, and question
them in my presence. I do not wish, though, to be known to them."
They opened to Rameses a chamber in which the investigating official
was occupied. The prince commanded him to take his usual place, but
sat himself behind a pillar.
The accused appeared one by one. All were lean; much hair had grown
out on them, and their eyes had the expression of settled
bewilderment.
"Dutmoses," said the official, "tell how ye attacked the house of the
most worthy erpatr."
"I will tell truth, as at the judgment seat of Osiris. It was the
evening of that day when the Nile was to begin rising. My wife said to
me, 'Come, father, let us go up on the hills, where we can have an
earlier sight of the signal in Memphis.' Then we went up where we
could see the signal in Memphis more easily. Some warrior came to my
wife and said, 'Come with me into that garden. We will find grapes
there, and something else also.' Then my wife went into the garden
with that warrior. I fell into great rage, and I looked at them
through the wall. But whether stones were thrown at the prince's house
or not I cannot tell, for because of the trees and darkness I could
not see anything."
"But how couldst thou let thy wife go with a warrior?" asked the
official.
"With permission, worthiness, what was I to do? I am only an
earth-worker, and he is a warrior and soldier of his holiness."
"But didst thou see the priest who spoke to you?"
"That was not a priest," said the man, with conviction. "That must
have been the god Num himself, for he came out of a fig-tree and he
had a ram's head on him."
"But didst thou see that he had a ram's head?"
"With permission I do not remember well whether I saw myself or
whether people told me. My eyes were affected by anxiety for my wife."
"Didst thou throw stones at the garden?"
"Why should I throw stones, lord of life and death? If I had hit my
wife, I should have made trouble for a week. If I had hit the warrior,
I should have got a blow of a fist in the belly that would have made
my tongue stick out, for I am nothing but an earth-worker, and he is a
warrior of our lord who lives through eternity."
The heir leaned out from behind the column. They led away Dutmoses,
and brought in Anup. He was a short fellow. On his shoulders were
scars from club-strokes.
"Tell me, Anup," began the official again, "how was it about that
attack on the garden of the heir to the throne?"
"Eye of the sun," said the man, "vessel of wisdom, thou knowest best
of all that I did not make the attack, only a neighbor comes to me and
says he, 'Anup, come up, for the Nile is rising.' And I say to him,
'Is it rising?' And he says to me, 'Thou art duller than an ass, for
an ass would hear music on a hill, and thou dost not hear it.' 'But,'
says I, 'I am dull, for I did not learn writing; but with permission
music is one thing and the rise of the river is another.' 'If there
were not a rise,' says he, 'people would not have anything to be glad
about and play and sing.' So I say to thy justice, we went to the
hill, and they had driven away the music there and were throwing
stones at the garden."
"Who threw stones?"
"I could not tell. The men did not look like earth-workers, but more
like unclean dissectors who open dead bodies for embalming."
"And didst thou see the priest?"
"With thy permission, O watchfulness, that was not a priest, but some
spirit that guards the house of the erpatr--may he live through
eternity!"
"Why a spirit?"
"For at moments I saw him and at moments he went somewhere."
"Perhaps he was behind the people?"
"Indeed the people sometimes were in front of him. But at one time he
was higher and at another time lower--"
"Maybe he went up on the hill and came down from it?"
"He must have gone up and come down, but maybe he stretched and
shortened himself, for he was a great wonder-worker. Barely had he
said, 'The Nile will rise,' and that minute the Nile began to rise."
"And didst thou throw stones, Anup?"
"How should I dare to throw stones into the garden of the erpatr? I am
a simple fellow, my hand would wither to the elbow for such
sacrilege."
The prince gave command to stop the examination, and when they had
led away the accused, he asked the official,--
"Are these of the most guilty?"
"Thou hast said it, lord," answered the official.
"In that case all must be liberated to-day. We should not imprison
people because they wished to convince themselves that the holy Nile
was rising or for listening to music."
"The highest wisdom is speaking through thy lips, erpatr," said the
official. "I was commanded to find the most guilty, hence I have
summoned those whom I have found so; but it is not in my power to
return them liberty."
"Why?"
"Look, most worthy, on that box. It is full of papyruses on which are
written the details of the case. A judge in Memphis receives a report
on the progress of the case daily, and reports to his holiness. What
would become of the labor of so many learned scribes and great men if
the accused were set free?"
"But they are innocent!" cried the prince.
"There was an attack, therefore an offence. Where there is an offence
there must be offenders. Whoever has fallen once into the hands of
power, and is described in acts, cannot get free without some result.
In an inn a man drinks and pays; at a fair he sells something and
receives; in a field he sows and harvests; at graves he receives
blessings from his deceased ancestors. How, then, could any one after
he has come to a court return with nothing, like a traveller stopping
half-way on his journey and turning back his steps homeward without
attaining his object?"
"Thou speakest wisely," answered the heir. "But tell me, has not his
holiness the right to free these people?"
The official crossed his arms on his breast and bent his head,--
"He is equal to the gods, he can do what he wishes; liberate accused,
nay, condemned men, and destroy even the documents of a case,--things
which if done by a common man would be sacrilege."
The prince took farewell of the official, and said to the overseer,
"Give the accused better food at my expense." Then he sailed, greatly
irritated, to the other bank, stretching forth his hands toward the
palace continually, as if begging the pharaoh to destroy the case.
But that day his holiness had many religious ceremonies and a counsel
with the ministers, hence the heir could not see him. The prince went
immediately to the grand secretary, who next to the minister of war
had most significance at the court of the pharaoh. That ancient
official, a priest at one of the temples in Memphis, received the
prince politely but coldly, and when he had heard him he answered,--
"It is a marvel to me that thou wishest, worthiness, to disturb our
lord with such questions. It is as if thou wert to beg him not to
destroy locusts which devour what is on the fields."
"But they are innocent people."
"We, worthy lord, cannot know that, for law and the courts decide as
to guilt and innocence. One thing is clear to me, the state cannot
suffer an attack on any one's garden, and especially cannot suffer
that hands should be raised against property of the erpatr."
"Thou speakest justly, but where are the guilty?" answered Rameses.
"Where there are no guilty there must at least be men who are
punished. Not the guilt of a man, but the punishment which follows a
crime, teaches others that they are not to commit the crime in
question."
"I see," interrupted the heir, "that your worthiness will not support
my prayer."
"Wisdom flows from thy lips, erpatr," answered the priest. "Never
shall I give my lord a counsel which would expose the dignity of power
to a blow."
The prince returned home pained and astonished. He felt that an injury
had been done to some hundreds of people, and he saw that he could not
save them any more than he could rescue a man on whom an obelisk or
the column of a temple had fallen.
"My hands are too weak to rear this edifice," thought the prince, with
anguish of spirit.
For the first time he felt that there was a power infinitely greater
than his will,--the interest of the state, which even the
all-powerful pharaoh acknowledges and before which he the erpatr must
bend himself.
Night had fallen. Rameses commanded his servants to admit no one, and
walked in loneliness on the terrace of his villa, thinking,--
"A wonderful thing! Down there at Pi-Bailos the invincible regiments
of Nitager opened before me, while in Memphis an overseer of prisons,
an investigating official, and a scribe bar the way to me. What are
they? Mere servants of my father,--may he live through eternity!--who
can cast them down to the rank of slaves at any moment and send them
to the quarries. But why should not my father pardon the innocent? The
state does not wish him to do so. And what is the state? Does it eat?
where does it sleep? where are its hands and its sword, of which all
are in terror?"
He looked into the garden, and among the trees on the summit of an
eminence he saw two immense silhouettes of pylons, on which sentry
lights were burning. The thought came to him that that watch never
slept, those pylons never ate, but still they existed. Those pylons
had existed for ages, mighty, like Rameses the Great, that potentate
who had reared them.
Could he lift those edifices and hundreds of similar grandeur; could
he escape those guards and thousands of others who watch over the
safety of Egypt; could he disobey laws established by Rameses the
Great and other preceding pharaohs still greater, laws which twenty
dynasties had consecrated by their reverence?
In the soul of the prince for the first time in life a certain idea,
dim but gigantic, began to fix itself in outline,--the idea of the
state. The state is something more magnificent than the temple in
Thebes, something grander than the pyramid of Cheops, something more
ancient than the subterranean temple of the Sphinx, something more
enduring than granite--in that immense though invisible edifice people
are like ants in some cranny of a cliff, and the pharaoh a mere
travelling architect who is barely able to lay one stone in the wall
of the edifice and then go on farther. But the walls increase from
generation to generation and the edifice continues.
He, the son of the pharaoh, had never felt yet his littleness as in
that moment, when his glance in the midst of the night was wandering
beyond the Nile among pylons of the pharaoh's palace, and the
indefinite but imposing outlines of the Memphis temples.
At that moment from among the trees whose branches touched the
terrace, he heard a voice.
"I know thy anxiety and I bless thee. The court will not free the
prisoners. But the case will drop, and they may return to their houses
if the overseer of thy land does not support the complaint of attack."
"Then did my overseer make the charge?" asked the astonished prince.
"Thou hast spoken truth. He made the charge in thy name. But if he
does not go to the court, there will be no injured person; and there
is no offence if there is no injured person."
The thicket rustled.
"Stop!" cried Rameses; "who art thou?"
No one gave answer. But it seemed to the prince that in a streak of
light from a torch burning on the lower floor a naked head was visible
for an instant, and also a panther skin.
"A priest," whispered the heir. "Why does he hide himself?"
But at that moment it occurred to him that the priest might answer
grievously for giving counsel which stopped the dispensation of
justice.
CHAPTER XII
Rameses passed most of the night in feverish imaginings. Once the
vision of the state appeared to him as an immense labyrinth with
strong walls through which no one could force a way, then again he saw
the shadow of a priest who with one wise opinion had indicated to him
the method of escape from that labyrinth. And now appeared
unexpectedly before him two powers,--the interest of the state, which
he had not felt thus far, though he was heir to the throne; and the
priesthood, which he wished to debase and then make his servant.
That was a burdensome night. The prince turned on his bed repeatedly,
and asked himself whether he had not been blind, and if he had not
received sight that day for the first time in order to convince
himself of his folly and nothingness. How differently during those
night hours did the warnings of his mother appear to him, and the
restraint of his father in enouncing the supreme will, and even the
stern conduct of the minister, Herhor.
"The state and the priesthood!" repeated the prince, half asleep, and
covered with cold perspiration.
The heavenly deities alone know what would have happened had there
been time to develop and ripen those thoughts which were circling that
night in the soul of Rameses. Perhaps if he had become pharaoh he
would have been one of the most fortunate and longest-lived rulers.
Perhaps his name, carved in temples above ground and underground,
would have come down to posterity surrounded with the highest glory.
Perhaps he and his dynasty would not have lost the throne, and Egypt
would have avoided great disturbance and the bitterest days of her
history.
But the serenity of morning scattered the visions which circled above
the heated head of the heir, and the succeeding days changed greatly
his ideas of the inflexible interests of Egypt.
The visit of the prince to the prison was not fruitless. The
investigating official made a report to the supreme judge immediately,
the judge looked over the case again, examined some of the accused
himself, and in the course of some days liberated the greater number;
the remainder he brought to trial as quickly as possible.
When he who had complained of the damage done the prince's property
did not appear, though summoned in the hall of the court and on the
market-place, the case was dropped, and the rest of the accused were
set at liberty.
One of the judges remarked, it is true, that according to law the
prince's overseer should be prosecuted for false complaint, and, in
case of conviction, suffer the punishment which threatened the
defendants. This question too they passed over in silence.
The overseer disappeared from the eyes of justice, he was sent by the
heir to the province of Takens, and soon the whole box of documents in
the case vanished it was unknown whither.
On hearing this, Prince Rameses went to the grand secretary and asked
with a smile,--
"Well, worthy lord, the innocent are liberated, the documents
concerning them have been destroyed sacrilegiously, and still the
dignity of the government has not been exposed to danger."
"My prince," answered the grand secretary, with his usual coolness, "I
did not understand that thou offerest complaints with one hand and
wishest to withdraw them with the other. Worthiness, thou wert
offended by the rabble; hence it was thy affair to punish it. If thou
hast forgiven it, the state has nothing to answer."
"The state!--the state!" repeated the prince. "We are the state,"
added he, blinking.
"Yes, the state is the pharaoh and--his most faithful servants," added
the secretary.
This conversation with such a high official sufficed to obliterate in
the prince's soul those ideas of state dignity which were growing and
powerful, though indistinct yet. "The state, then, is not that
immovable, ancient edifice to which each pharaoh is bound to add one
stone of glory, but rather a sand-heap, which each ruler reshapes as
he pleases. In the state there are no narrow doors, known as laws, in
passing through which each must bow his head, whoever he be, erpatr or
earth-worker. In this edifice are various entrances and exits, narrow
for the weak and small, very wide, nay, commodious for the powerful."
"If this be so," thought the prince, as the idea flashed on him, "I
will make the order which shall please me."
At that moment Rameses remembered two people,--the liberated black who
without waiting for command had been ready to die for him, and that
unknown priest.
"If I had more like them, my will would have meaning in Egypt and
beyond it," said he to himself, and he felt an inextinguishable desire
to find that priest.
"He is, in all likelihood, the man who restrained the crowd from
attacking my house. On the one hand he knows law to perfection, on the
other he knows how to manage multitudes."
"A man beyond price! I must have him."
From that time Rameses, in a small boat managed by one oarsman, began
to visit the cottages in the neighborhood of his villa. Dressed in a
tunic and a great wig, in his hand a staff on which a measure was cut
out, the prince looked like an engineer studying the Nile and its
overflows.
Earth-tillers gave him willingly all explanations concerning changes
in the form of land because of inundations, and at the same time they
begged that the government might think out some easier way of raising
water than by sweeps and buckets. They told too of the attack on the
house of Prince Rameses, and said that they knew not who threw the
stones. Finally they mentioned the priest who had sent the crowd away
so successfully; but who he was they knew not.
"There is," said one man, "a priest in our neighborhood who cures sore
eyes; there is one who heals wounds and sets broken arms and legs.
There are some priests who teach reading and writing; there is one who
plays on a double flute, and plays even beautifully. But that one who
was in the garden of the heir is not among them, and they know nothing
of him. Surely he must be the god Num, or some spirit watching over
the prince,--may he live through eternity and always have appetite!"
"Maybe it is really some spirit," thought Rameses.
In Egypt good or evil spirits always came more easily than rain.
The water of the Nile from being ruddy became brownish, and in August,
the month of Hator, it reached one half its height. The sluices were
opened on the banks of the river, and the water began to fill the
canals quickly, and also the gigantic artificial lake, Moeris, in the
province Fayum, celebrated for the beauty of its roses. Lower Egypt
looked like an arm of the sea thickly dotted with hills on which were
houses and gardens. Communication by land ceased altogether, and such
a multitude of boats circled around on the water--boats white, yellow,
red, dark--that they seemed like leaves in autumn. On the highest
points of land people had finished harvesting the peculiar cotton of
the country, and for the second time had cut clover and begun to
gather in olives and tamarinds.
On a certain day, while sailing along over inundated lands, the
prince saw an unusual movement. On one of the temporary mounds was
heard among the trees the loud cry of a woman.
"Surely some one is dead," thought Rameses.
From a second mound were sailing away in small boats supplies of wheat
and some cattle, while people standing at buildings on the land
threatened and abused people in the boats.
"Some quarrel among neighbors," said the prince to himself.
In remoter places there was quiet, and people instead of working or
singing were sitting on the ground in silence.
"They must have finished work and are resting."
But from a third mound a boat moved away with a number of crying
children, while a woman wading in the water to her waist shook her
fist and threatened.
"They are taking children to school," thought Rameses.
These happenings began to interest him.
On a fourth mound he heard a fresh cry. He shaded his eyes and saw a
man lying on the ground; a negro was beating him.
"What is happening there?" asked Rameses of the boatman.
"Does not my lord see that they are beating a wretched earth-tiller?"
answered the boatman, smiling. "He must have done something, so pain
is travelling through his bones."
"But who art thou?"
"I?" replied the boatman, proudly. "I am a free fisherman. If I give a
certain share of my catch to his holiness, I may sail the Nile from
the sea to the cataract. A fisherman is like a fish or a wild goose;
but an earth-tiller is like a tree which nourishes lords with its
fruit and can never escape but only squeaks when overseers spoil the
bark on it."
"Oho! ho! but look there!" cried the fisherman, pleased again. "Hei!
father, don't drink up all the water, or there will be a bad harvest."
This humorous exclamation referred to a group of persons who were
displaying a very original activity. A number of naked laborers were
holding a man by the legs and plunging him head first in the water to
his neck, to his breast, and at last to his waist. Near them stood an
overseer with a cane; he wore a stained tunic and a wig made of
sheepskin.
A little farther on some men held a woman by the arms, while she
screamed in a voice which was heaven-piercing.
Beating with a stick was as general in the happy kingdom of the
pharaoh as eating and sleeping. They beat children and grown people,
earth-tillers, artisans, warriors, officers, and officials. All living
persons were caned save only priests and the highest officials--there
was no one to cane them. Hence the prince looked calmly enough on an
earth-worker beaten with a cane; but to plunge a man into water roused
his attention.
"Ho! ho!" laughed the boatman, meanwhile, "but are they giving him
drink! He will grow so thick that his wife must lengthen his belt for
him."
The prince commanded to row to the mound. Meanwhile they had taken the
man from the river, let him cough out water, and seized him a second
time by the legs, in spite of the unearthly screams of his wife, who
fell to biting the men who had seized her.
"Stop!" cried Rameses to those who were dragging the earth-tiller.
"Do your duty!" cried he of the sheepskin wig, in nasal tones. "Who
art thou, insolent, who darest--"
At that moment the prince gave him a blow on the forehead with his
cane, which luckily was light. Still the owner of the stained tunic
dropped to the earth, and feeling his wig and head, looked with misty
eyes at the attacker.
"I divine," said he in a natural voice, "that I have the honor to
converse with a notable person. May good humor always accompany thee,
lord, and bile never spread through thy bones--"
"What art thou doing to this man?" interrupted Rameses.
"Thou inquirest," returned the man, speaking again in nasal tones,
"like a foreigner unacquainted with the customs of the country and the
people, to whom he speaks too freely. Know, then, that I am the
collector of his worthiness Dagon, the first banker in Memphis. And if
thou hast not grown pale yet, know that the worthy Dagon is the agent
and the friend of the erpatr,--may he live through eternity!--and that
thou hast committed violence on the lands of Prince Rameses; to this
my people will testify."
"Then know this," interrupted the prince; but he stopped suddenly.
"By what right art thou torturing in this way one of the prince's
earth-tillers?"
"Because he will not pay his rent, and the treasury of the heir is in
need of it."
The servants of the official, in view of the catastrophe which had
come on their master, dropped their victim and stood as helpless as
the members of a body from which its head has been severed. The
liberated man began to spit again and shake the water out of his ears,
but his wife rushed up to the rescuer.
"Whoever thou art," groaned she, clasping her hands before Rameses, "a
god, or even a messenger of the pharaoh, listen to the tale of our
sufferings. We are earth-tillers of the heir to the throne,--may he
live through eternity!--and we have paid all our dues: in millet, in
wheat, in flowers, and in skins of cattle. But in the last ten days
this man here has come and commands us again to give seven measures of
wheat to him. 'By what right?' asks my husband; 'the rents are paid,
all of them.' But he throws my husband on the ground, stamps, and
says, 'By this right, that the worthy Dagon has commanded.' 'Whence
shall I get wheat,' asks my husband, 'when we have none and for a
month past we have eaten only seeds, or roots of lotus, which are
harder and harder to get, for great lords like to amuse themselves
with flowers of the lotus?'"
She lost breath and fell to weeping. The prince waited patiently till
she calmed herself, but the man who had been plunged into the water
grumbled.
"This woman will bring misfortune with her talk. I have said that I do
not like to see women meddle."
Meanwhile the official, pushing up to the boatman, asked in an
undertone, indicating Rameses,--
"Who is this?"
"Ah, may thy tongue wither!" answered the boatman. "Dost thou not see
that he must be a great lord: he pays well and strikes heavily."
"I saw at once," answered the official, "that he must be some great
person. My youth passed at feasts with noted persons."
"Aha! the sauces have stuck to thy dress after those feasts," blurted
out the boatman.
The woman, after crying, continued,--
"To-day this scribe came with his people, and said to my husband, 'If
thou hast not money, give thy two sons. The worthy Dagon will not only
forgive thee the rent, but will pay thee a drachma a year for each
boy.'"
"Woe to me because of thee!" roared the half-drowned husband; "thou
wilt destroy us all with thy babbling. Do not listen to her,"
continued he, turning to Rameses. "As a cow thinks that she frightens
off flies with her tail, so it seems to a woman that she can drive
away collectors with her tongue; and neither cow nor woman knows that
she is stupid."
"Thou art stupid!" said the woman. "Sunlike lord with the form of a
pharaoh--"
"I call to witness that this woman blasphemes," said the official to
his people in a low voice.
"Odorous flower, whose voice is like a flute, listen to me!" implored
the woman of Rameses. "Then my husband answered this official, 'I
would rather lose two bulls, if I had them, than give my boys away,
though thou wert to give me four drachmas; for when a boy leaves home
for service no one ever sees him after that.'"
"Would that I were choked! would that fish were eating my body in the
bottom of the Nile!" groaned the earth-tiller. "Thou wilt destroy all
our house with thy complaints, woman."
The official, seeing that he had the support of the side mainly
interested, stepped forth and began, in nasal tones, a second time,--
"Since the sun rises beyond the palace of the pharaoh and sets over
the pyramids, various wonders have happened in this country. In the
days of the Pharaoh Sememphes marvellous things appeared near the
pyramid of Kochom, and a plague fell on Egypt. In the time of Boetus
the ground opened near Bubastis and swallowed many people. In the
reign of Neferches the waters of the Nile for eleven days were as
sweet as honey. Men saw these and many other things of which I know,
for I am full of wisdom. But never has it been seen that some unknown
man came up out of the water and stopped the collection of rent in the
lands of the heir to the throne of Egypt."
"Be silent," shouted Rameses, "and be off out of this place! No one
will take thy children," said he to the woman.
"It is easy for me to go away," said the collector, "for I have a
swift boat and five rowers. But, worthiness, give me some sign for my
lord Dagon."
"Take off thy wig and show him the sign on thy forehead," said
Rameses. "And tell Dagon that I will put marks of the same kind all
over his body."
"Listen to that blasphemy!" whispered the collector to his men,
drawing back toward the bank with low bows.
He sat down in the boat, and when his assistants had moved off and
pushed away some tens of yards, he stretched out his hand and
shouted,--
"May gripe seize thy intestines, blasphemer, rebel! From here I will
go straight to Prince Rameses and tell him what is happening on his
lands."
Then he took his cane and belabored his men because they had not taken
part with him.
"So it will be with thee!" cried he to Rameses.
The prince sprang into his boat and in a rage commanded the boatman to
pursue the insolent servant of the usurer. But he of the sheepskin wig
threw down the cane, took an oar himself, and his men helped him so
well that pursuit became impossible.
"Sooner could an owl overtake a lark than we overtake them, my
beautiful lord," cried the prince's boatman, laughing. "But who art
thou? Thou art not a surveyor, but an officer, maybe even an officer
of the guard of his holiness. Thou dost strike right always on the
forehead! I know about this; I was five years in the army. I always
struck on the forehead or the belly, and I had not the worst time in
the world. But if any one struck me, I understood right away that he
must be a great person. In our Egypt--may the gods never leave the
land!--it is terribly crowded; town is near town, house is near house,
man is near man. Whoso wishes to turn in this throng must strike in
the forehead."
"Art thou married?" asked the prince.
"Pfu! when I have a woman and place for a person and a half, I am
married; but for the rest of the time I am single. I have been in the
army, and I know that a woman is good, though not at all times. She is
in the way often."
"Perhaps thou wouldst come to me for service? Who knows, wouldst thou
be sorry to work for me?"
"With permission, worthiness, I noticed that thou couldst lead a
regiment in spite of thy young face. But I enter the service of no
man. I am a free fisherman; my grandfather was, with permission, a
shepherd in Lower Egypt, our family comes of the Hyksos people. It is
true that dull Egyptian earth-tillers revile us, but I laugh at them.
The earth-tillers and the Hyksos, I say, worthiness, are like an ox
and a bull. The earth-tiller may go behind the plough or before it,
but the Hyksos will not serve any man, unless in the army of his
holiness,--that is warrior life."
The boatman was in the vein and talked continually, but the prince
heard no longer. In his soul very painful questions grew louder and
louder, for they were new altogether. Were those mounds, then, around
which he had been sailing, on his property? A marvellous thing, he
knew not at all where his lands were nor what they looked like. So in
his name Dagon had imposed new rents on the people, and the active
movement on which he had been looking while moving along the shores
was the extortion of rents. It was clear that the man whom they had
been beating on the shore had nothing to pay with. The children who
were crying bitterly in the boat were sold at a drachma per head for a
twelvemonth, and that woman who was wading in the water to her waist
and weeping was their mother.
"Women are very unquiet," said the prince to himself. "Sarah is the
quietest woman; but others love to talk much, to cry and raise an
uproar."
He remembered the man who was pacifying his wife's excitement. They
had been plunging him into the water and he was not angry; they did
nothing to her, and still she made an uproar.
"Women are very unquiet!" repeated he. "Yes, even my mother, who is
worthy of honor. What a difference between her and my father! His
holiness does not wish to know at all that I left the army for a girl,
but the queen likes to occupy herself even with this, that I took into
my house a Jewess. Sarah is the quietest of women whom I know; but
Tafet cries and makes an uproar for four persons."
Then the prince recalled the words of the man's wife,--that for a
month they had not eaten wheat, only seeds and roots of lotus. Lotus
and poppy seeds are similar; the roots are poor. He could not eat them
for three days in succession. Moreover, the priests who were occupied
in medicine advised change of diet. While in school they told him that
a man ought to eat flesh with fish, dates with wheat bread, figs with
barley. But for a whole month to live on lotus seeds! Well, cows and
horses? Cows and horses like hay, but barley straw must be shoved into
their throats by force. Surely then earth-workers prefer lotus seeds
as food, while wheat or barley cakes, fish and flesh they do not
relish. For that matter, the most pious priests, wonder-workers, never
touch flesh or fish. Evidently magnates and king's sons need flesh,
just as lions and eagles do; but earth-tillers grass, like an ox.
"Only that plunging into the water to pay rent. Ei! but didn't he once
in bathing with his comrades put them under water, and even dive
himself? What laughing they had in those days! Diving was fun. And as
to beating with a cane, how many times had they beaten him in school?
It is painful, but evidently not for every creature. A beaten dog
howls and bites; a beaten ox does not even look around. So beating may
pain a great lord, but a common man cries only so as to cry when the
chance comes. Not all cry; soldiers and officers sing while
belabored."
But these wise reflections could not drown the small but annoying
disquiet in the heart of Rameses. So his tenant Dagon had imposed an
unjust rent which the tenants could not pay!
At this moment the prince was not concerned about the tenants, but his
mother. His mother must know of this Phoenician management. What would
she say about it to her son? How she would look at him! How sneeringly
she would laugh! And she would not be a woman if she did not speak to
him as follows: "I told thee, Rameses, that Phoenicians would
desolate thy property."
"If those traitorous priests," thought the prince, "would give me
twenty talents to-day, I would drive out that Dagon in the morning, my
tenants would not be plunged under water, would not suffer blows, and
my mother would not jeer at me. A tenth, a hundredth part of that
wealth which is lying in the temples and feeding the greedy eyes of
those bare heads would make me independent for years of Phoenicians."
Just then an idea which was strange enough flashed up in the soul of
Rameses,--that between priests and earth-tillers there existed a
certain opposition.
"Through Herhor," thought he, "that man hanged himself on the edge of
the desert. To maintain priests and temples about two million Egyptian
men toil grievously. If the property of the priests belonged to the
pharaoh's treasury, I should not have to borrow fifteen talents and my
people would not be oppressed so terribly. There is the source of
misfortunes for Egypt and of weakness for its pharaohs!"
The prince felt that a wrong was done the people; therefore he
experienced no small solace in discovering that priests were the
authors of this evil. It did not occur to him that his judgment might
be unjust and faulty. Besides, he did not judge, he was only
indignant. The anger of a man never turns against himself,--just as a
hungry panther never eats its own body; it twirls its tail and moves
its ears while looking for a victim.
CHAPTER XIII
The expedition of the heir to the throne, undertaken with the object
of discovering the priest who had saved Sarah and had given him legal
advice, had a result that was unexpected.
The priest was not discovered, but among Egyptian earth-tillers
legends began to circulate which concerned Rameses.
Some mysterious man sailed about from village to village and told the
people that the heir to the throne freed the men who were in danger of
condemnation to the quarries for attacking his dwelling. Besides, he
had beaten down an official who was extorting unjust rent from
tenants. Finally, the unknown person added that Prince Rameses was
under the special guardianship of Amon, who was his father.
Simple people listened to these tidings eagerly, first, because they
agreed with facts, second, because the man who told the story was
himself like a spirit--it was not known whence he came nor whither he
had vanished.
Prince Rameses made no mention whatever of his tenants to Dagon; he
did not even summon him. He felt ashamed in presence of the Phoenician
from whom he had taken money and might require money yet more than one
time.
But a few days after the adventure with Dagon's scribe the banker came
himself to the heir, holding in his hand some covered object.
On entering the prince's chamber he bent down, untied a white
kerchief, and drew forth from it a very beautiful gold goblet; the
goblet was set with stones of various colors, and covered with carving
in relief which on the lower part represented the gathering and
pressing out of grapes and on the cup part a feast.
"Accept this goblet, worthy lord, from thy slave," said the banker,
"and use it for a hundred, a thousand years, to the end of ages."
The prince understood what the Phoenician wanted; so, without touching
the golden gift, he said with a stern expression,--
"Dost thou see, Dagon, that purple reflection inside the goblet?"
"I do, indeed," replied the banker; "why should I not see that which
shows the goblet to be the purest gold?"
"But I declare that to be the blood of children seized away from their
parents," said the heir, angrily.
And he turned and went to an interior chamber.
"O Astoreth!" groaned the Phoenician.
His lips grew blue, and his hands trembled so that he was hardly able
to wrap up the goblet.
A couple of days later Dagon sailed down with his goblet to Sarah's
house. He was arrayed in robes interwoven with gold; in his thick
beard were glass globulets from which issued perfumes, and he had
fastened two plumes to his head.
"Beautiful Sarah," began he, "may Jehovah pour on thy family as many
blessings as there are waters in the Nile at present! We Phoenicians
and ye Jews are brethren and neighbors. I am inflamed with such ardor
of love for thee that didst thou not belong to our
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