CHAPTER XVIII.
While the two friends from the House of Seti were engaged in
conversation, Katuti restlessly paced the large open hall of her
son-in-law's house, in which we have already seen her. A snow-white cat
followed her steps, now playing with the hem of her long plain dress,
and now turning to a large stand on which the dwarf Nemu sat in a heap;
where formerly a silver statue had stood, which a few months previously
had been sold.
He liked this place, for it put him in a position to look into the eyes
of his mistress and other frill-grown people. "If you have betrayed me!
If you have deceived me!" said Katuti with a threatening gesture as she
passed his perch.
"Put me on a hook to angle for a crocodile if I have. But I am curious
to know how he will offer you the money."
"You swore to me," interrupted his mistress with feverish agitation,
"that you had not used my name in asking Paaker to save us?"
"A thousand times I swear it," said the little man.
"Shall I repeat all our conversation? I tell thee he will sacrifice his
land, and his house-great gate and all, for one friendly glance from
Nefert's eyes."
"If only Mena loved her as he does!" sighed the widow, and then again
she walked up and down the hall in silence, while the dwarf looked out
at the garden entrance. Suddenly she paused in front of Nemu, and said
so hoarsely that Nemu shuddered:
"I wish she were a widow." "The little man made a gesture as if to
protect himself from the evil eye, but at the same instant he slipped
down from his pedestal, and exclaimed:
"There is a chariot, and I hear his big dog barking. It is he. Shall I
call Nefert?"
"No!" said Katuti in a low voice, and she clutched at the back of a
chair as if for support.
The dwarf shrugged his shoulders, and slunk behind a clump of ornamental
plants, and a few minutes later Paaker stood in the presence of Katuti,
who greeted him, with quiet dignity and self-possession.
Not a feature of her finely-cut face betrayed her inward agitation,
and after the Mohar had greeted her she said with rather patronizing
friendliness:
"I thought that you would come. Take a seat. Your heart is like your
father's; now that you are friends with us again it is not by halves."
Paaker had come to offer his aunt the sum which was necessary for
the redemption of her husband's mummy. He had doubted for a long time
whether he should not leave this to his mother, but reserve partly
and partly vanity had kept him from doing so. He liked to display his
wealth, and Katuti should learn what he could do, what a son-in-law she
had rejected.
He would have preferred to send the gold, which he had resolved to give
away, by the hand of one of his slaves, like a tributary prince.
But that could not be done so he put on his finger a ring set with a
valuable stone, which king Seti I., had given to his father, and added
various clasps and bracelets to his dress.
When, before leaving the house, he looked at himself in a mirror, he
said to himself with some satisfaction, that he, as he stood, was worth
as much as the whole of Mena's estates.
Since his conversation with Nemu, and the dwarf's interpretation of
his dream, the path which he must tread to reach his aim had been plain
before him. Nefert's mother must be won with the gold which would save
her from disgrace, and Mena must be sent to the other world. He relied
chiefly on his own reckless obstinacy--which he liked to call firm
determination--Nemu's cunning, and the love-philter.
He now approached Katuti with the certainty of success, like a merchant
who means to acquire some costly object, and feels that he is rich
enough to pay for it. But his aunt's proud and dignified manner
confounded him.
He had pictured her quite otherwise, spirit-broken, and suppliant;
and he had expected, and hoped to earn, Nefert's thanks as well as her
mother's by his generosity. Mena's pretty wife was however absent, and
Katuti did not send for her even after he had enquired after her health.
The widow made no advances, and some time passed in indifferent
conversation, till Paaker abruptly informed her that he had heard of her
son's reckless conduct, and had decided, as being his mother's nearest
relation, to preserve her from the degradation that threatened her. For
the sake of his bluntness, which she took for honesty, Katuti forgave
the magnificence of his dress, which under the circumstances certainly
seemed ill-chosen; she thanked him with dignity, but warmly, more for
the sake of her children than for her own; for life she said was opening
before them, while for her it was drawing to its close.
"You are still at a good time of life," said Paaker.
"Perhaps at the best," replied the widow, "at any rate from my point of
view; regarding life as I do as a charge, a heavy responsibility."
"The administration of this involved estate must give you many, anxious
hours--that I understand." Katuti nodded, and then said sadly:
"I could bear it all, if I were not condemned to see my poor child being
brought to misery without being able to help her or advise her. You once
would willingly have married her, and I ask you, was there a maiden in
Thebes--nay in all Egypt--to compare with her for beauty? Was she not
worthy to be loved, and is she not so still? Does she deserve that her
husband should leave her to starve, neglect her, and take a strange
woman into his tent as if he had repudiated her? I see what you feel
about it! You throw all the blame on me. Your heart says: 'Why did she
break off our betrothal,' and your right feeling tells you that you
would have given her a happier lot."
With these words Katuti took her nephew's hand, and went on with
increasing warmth.
"We know you to-day for the most magnanimous man in Thebes, for you have
requited injustice with an immense benefaction; but even as a boy you
were kind and noble. Your father's wish has always been dear and
sacred to me, for during his lifetime he always behaved to us as an
affectionate brother, and I would sooner have sown the seeds of sorrow
for myself than for your mother, my beloved sister. I brought up my
child--I guarded her jealously--for the young hero who was absent,
proving his valor in Syria--for you and for you only. Then your father
died, my sole stay and protector."
"I know it all!" interrupted Paaker looking gloomily at the floor.
"Who should have told you?" said the widow. "For your mother, when that
had happened which seemed incredible, forbid us her house, and shut her
ears. The king himself urged Mena's suit, for he loves him as his own
son, and when I represented your prior claim he commanded;--and who may
resist the commands of the sovereign of two worlds, the Son of Ra? Kings
have short memories; how often did your father hazard his life for him,
how many wounds had he received in his service. For your father's sake
he might have spared you such an affront, and such pain."
"And have I myself served him, or not?" asked the pioneer flushing
darkly.
"He knows you less," returned Katuti apologetically. Then she changed
her tone to one of sympathy, and went on:
"How was it that you, young as you were, aroused his dissatisfaction,
his dislike, nay his--"
"His what?" asked the pioneer, trembling with excitement.
"Let that pass!" said the widow soothingly. "The favor and disfavor of
kings are as those of the Gods. Men rejoice in the one or bow to the
other."
"What feeling have I aroused in Rameses besides dissatisfaction, and
dislike? I insist on knowing!" said Paaker with increasing vehemence.
"You alarm me," the widow declared. "And in speaking ill of you, his
only motive was to raise his favorite in Nefert's estimation."
"Tell me what he said!" cried the pioneer; cold drops stood on his brown
forehead, and his glaring eyes showed the white eye-balls.
Katuti quailed before him, and drew back, but he followed her, seized
her arm, and said huskily:
"What did he say?"
"Paaker!" cried the widow in pain and indignation. "Let me go. It is
better for you that I should not repeat the words with which Rameses
sought to turn Nefert's heart from you. Let me go, and remember to whom
you are speaking."
But Paaker gripped her elbow the tighter, and urgently repeated his
question.
"Shame upon you!" cried Katuti, "you are hurting me; let me go! You will
not till you have heard what he said? Have your own way then, but the
words are forced from me! He said that if he did not know your mother
Setchem for an honest woman, he never would have believed you were your
father's son--for you were no more like him than an owl to an eagle."
Paaker took his hand from Katuti's arm. "And so--and so--" he muttered
with pale lips.
"Nefert took your part, and I too, but in vain. Do not take the words
too hardly. Your father was a man without an equal, and Rameses cannot
forget that we are related to the old royal house. His grandfather, his
father, and himself are usurpers, and there is one now living who has a
better right to the throne than he has."
"The Regent Ani!" exclaimed Paaker decisively. Katuti nodded, she went
up to the pioneer and said in a whisper:
"I put myself in your hands, though I know they may be raised against
me. But you are my natural ally, for that same act of Rameses that
disgraced and injured you, made me a partner in the designs of Ani. The
king robbed you of your bride, me of my daughter. He filled your soul
with hatred for your arrogant rival, and mine with passionate regret for
the lost happiness of my child. I feel the blood of Hatasu in my veins,
and my spirit is high enough to govern men. It was I who roused the
sleeping ambition of the Regent--I who directed his gaze to the throne
to which he was destined by the Gods. The ministers of the Gods, the
priests, are favorably disposed to us; we have--"
At this moment there was a commotion in the garden, and a breathless
slave rushed in exclaiming "The Regent is at the gate!"
Paaker stood in stupid perplexity, but he collected himself with an
effort and would have gone, but Katuti detained him.
"I will go forward to meet Ani," she said. "He will be rejoiced to see
you, for he esteems you highly and was a friend of your father's."
As soon as Katuti had left the hall, the dwarf Nemu crept out of his
hiding-place, placed himself in front of Paaker, and asked boldly:
"Well? Did I give thee good advice yesterday, or no?"
Put Paaker did not answer him, he pushed him aside with his foot, and
walked up and down in deep thought.
Katuti met the Regent half way down the garden. He held a manuscript
roll in his hand, and greeted her from afar with a friendly wave of his
hand.
The widow looked at him with astonishment.
It seemed to her that he had grown taller and younger since the last
time she had seen him.
"Hail to your highness!" she cried, half in joke half reverently, and
she raised her hands in supplication, as if he already wore the double
crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. "Have the nine Gods met you? have the
Hathors kissed you in your slumbers? This is a white day--a lucky day--I
read it in your face!" "That is reading a cipher!" said Ani gaily, but
with dignity. "Read this despatch."
Katuti took the roll from his hand, read it through, and then returned
it.
"The troops you equipped have conquered the allied armies of the
Ethiopians," she said gravely, "and are bringing their prince in fetters
to Thebes, with endless treasure, and ten thousand prisoners! The Gods
be praised!"
"And above all things I thank the Gods that my general Scheschenk--my
foster-brother and friend--is returning well and unwounded from the
war. I think, Katuti, that the figures in our dreams are this day taking
forms of flesh and blood!"
"They are growing to the stature of heroes!" cried the widow. "And you
yourself, my lord, have been stirred by the breath of the Divinity. You
walk like the worthy son of Ra, the Courage of Menth beams in your eyes,
and you smile like the victorious Horus."
"Patience, patience my friend," said Ani, moderating the eagerness
of the widow; "now, more than ever, we must cling to my principle of
over-estimating the strength of our opponents, and underrating our own.
Nothing has succeeded on which I had counted, and on the contrary many
things have justified my fears that they would fail. The beginning of
the end is hardly dawning on us."
"But successes, like misfortunes, never come singly," replied Katuti.
"I agree with you," said Ani. "The events of life seem to me to fall in
groups. Every misfortune brings its fellow with it--like every piece of
luck. Can you tell me of a second success?"
"Women win no battles," said the widow smiling. "But they win allies,
and I have gained a powerful one."
"A God or an army?" asked Ani.
"Something between the two," she replied. "Paaker, the king's chief
pioneer, has joined us;" and she briefly related to Ani the history of
her nephew's love and hatred.
Ani listened in silence; then he said with an expression of much
disquiet and anxiety:
"This man is a follower of Rameses, and must shortly return to him. Many
may guess at our projects, but every additional person who knows them
may be come a traitor. You are urging me, forcing me, forward too
soon. A thousand well-prepared enemies are less dangerous than one
untrustworthy ally--"
"Paaker is secured to us," replied Katuti positively. "Who will answer
for him?" asked Ani.
"His life shall be in your hand," replied Katuti gravely. "My shrewd
little dwarf Nemu knows that he has committed some secret crime, which
the law punishes by death."
The Regent's countenance cleared.
"That alters the matter," he said with satisfaction. "Has he committed a
murder?"
"No," said Katuti, "but Nemu has sworn to reveal to you alone all that
he knows. He is wholly devoted to us."
"Well and good," said Ani thoughtfully, "but he too is imprudent--much
too imprudent. You are like a rider, who to win a wager urges his horse
to leap over spears. If he falls on the points, it is he that suffers;
you let him lie there, and go on your way."
"Or are impaled at the same time as the noble horse," said Katuti
gravely. "You have more to win, and at the same time more to lose than
we; but the meanest clings to life; and I must tell you, Ani, that I
work for you, not to win any thing through your success, but because you
are as dear to me as a brother, and because I see in you the embodiment
of my father's claims which have been trampled on."
Ani gave her his hand and asked:
"Did you also as my friend speak to Bent-Anat? Do I interpret your
silence rightly?"
Katuti sadly shook her head; but Ani went on: "Yesterday that would have
decided me to give her up; but to-day my courage has risen, and if the
Hathors be my friends I may yet win her."
With these words he went in advance of the widow into the hall, where
Paaker was still walking uneasily up and down.
The pioneer bowed low before the Regent, who returned the greeting with
a half-haughty, half-familiar wave of the hand, and when he had seated
himself in an arm-chair politely addressed Paaker as the son of a
friend, and a relation of his family.
"All the world," he said, "speaks of your reckless courage. Men like you
are rare; I have none such attached to me. I wish you stood nearer to
me; but Rameses will not part with you, although--although--In point of
fact your office has two aspects; it requires the daring of a soldier,
and the dexterity of a scribe. No one denies that you have the first,
but the second--the sword and the reed-pen are very different weapons,
one requires supple fingers, the other a sturdy fist. The king used to
complain of your reports--is he better satisfied with them now?"
"I hope so," replied the Mohar; "my brother Horus is a practised writer,
and accompanies me in my journeys."
"That is well," said Ani. "If I had the management of affairs I should
treble your staff, and give you four--five--six scribes under you,
who should be entirely at your command, and to whom you could give the
materials for the reports to be sent out. Your office demands that you
should be both brave and circumspect; these characteristics are rarely
united; but there are scriveners by hundreds in the temples."
"So it seems to me," said Paaker.
Ani looked down meditatively, and continued--"Rameses is fond of
comparing you with your father. That is unfair, for he--who is now with
the justified--was without an equal; at once the bravest of heroes and
the most skilful of scribes. You are judged unjustly; and it grieves me
all the more that you belong, through your mother, to my poor but royal
house. We will see whether I cannot succeed in putting you in the right
place. For the present you are required in Syria almost as soon as
you have got home. You have shown that you are a man who does not fear
death, and who can render good service, and you might now enjoy your
wealth in peace with your wife."
"I am alone," said Paaker.
"Then, if you come home again, let Katuti seek you out the prettiest
wife in Egypt," said the Regent smiling. "She sees herself every day in
her mirror, and must be a connoisseur in the charms of women."
Ani rose with these words, bowed to Paaker with studied friendliness,
gave his hand to Katuti, and said as he left the hall:
"Send me to-day the--the handkerchief--by the dwarf Nemu."
When he was already in the garden, he turned once more and said to
Paaker
"Some friends are supping with me to-day; pray let me see you too."
The pioneer bowed; he dimly perceived that he was entangled in invisible
toils. Up to the present moment he had been proud of his devotion to
his calling, of his duties as Mohar; and now he had discovered that the
king, whose chain of honor hung round his neck, undervalued him, and
perhaps only suffered him to fill his arduous and dangerous post for the
sake of his father, while he, notwithstanding the temptations
offered him in Thebes by his wealth, had accepted it willingly and
disinterestedly. He knew that his skill with the pen was small, but that
was no reason why he should be despised; often had he wished that he
could reconstitute his office exactly as Ani had suggested, but his
petition to be allowed a secretary had been rejected by Rameses. What
he spied out, he was told was to be kept secret, and no one could be
responsible for the secrecy of another.
As his brother Horus grew up, he had followed him as his obedient
assistant, even after he had married a wife, who, with her child,
remained in Thebes under the care of Setchem.
He was now filling Paaker's place in Syria during his absence; badly
enough, as the pioneer thought, and yet not without credit; for the
fellow knew how to write smooth words with a graceful pen.
Paaker, accustomed to solitude, became absorbed in thought, forgetting
everything that surrounded him; even the widow herself, who had sunk on
to a couch, and was observing him in silence.
He gazed into vacancy, while a crowd of sensations rushed confusedly
through his brain. He thought himself cruelly ill-used, and he felt too
that it was incumbent on him to become the instrument of a terrible fate
to some other person. All was dim 'and chaotic in his mind, his love
merged in his hatred; only one thing was clear and unclouded by doubt,
and that was his strong conviction that Nefert would be his.
The Gods indeed were in deep disgrace with him. How much he had expended
upon them--and with what a grudging hand they had rewarded him; he knew
of but one indemnification for his wasted life, and in that he believed
so firmly that he counted on it as if it were capital which he had
invested in sound securities. But at this moment his resentful feelings
embittered the sweet dream of hope, and he strove in vain for calmness
and clear-sightedness; when such cross-roads as these met, no amulet, no
divining rod could guide him; here he must think for himself, and beat
his own road before he could walk in it; and yet he could think out no
plan, and arrive at no decision.
He grasped his burning forehead in his hands, and started from his
brooding reverie, to remember where he was, to recall his conversation
with the mother of the woman he loved, and her saying that she was
capable of guiding men.
"She perhaps may be able to think for me," he muttered to himself.
"Action suits me better."
He slowly went up to her and said:
"So it is settled then--we are confederates."
"Against Rameses, and for Ani," she replied, giving him her slender
hand.
"In a few days I start for Syria, meanwhile you can make up your mind
what commissions you have to give me. The money for your son shall
be conveyed to you to-day before sunset. May I not pay my respects to
Nefert?"
"Not now, she is praying in the temple."
"But to-morrow?"
"Willingly, my dear friend. She will be delighted to see you, and to
thank you."
"Farewell, Katuti."
"Call me mother," said the widow, and she waved her veil to him as a
last farewell.
CHAPTER XIX.
As soon as Paaker had disappeared behind the shrubs, Katuti struck a
little sheet of metal, a slave appeared, and Katuti asked her whether
Nefert had returned from the temple.
"Her litter is just now at the side gate," was the answer.
"I await her here," said the widow. The slave went away, and a few
minutes later Nefert entered the hall.
"You want me?" she said; and after kissing her mother she sank upon her
couch. "I am tired," she exclaimed, "Nemu, take a fan and keep the flies
off me."
The dwarf sat down on a cushion by her couch, and began to wave the
semi-circular fan of ostrich-feathers; but Katuti put him aside and
said:
"You can leave us for the present; we want to speak to each other in
private."
The dwarf shrugged his shoulders and got up, but Nefert looked at her
mother with an irresistible appeal.
"Let him stay," she said, as pathetically as if her whole happiness
depended upon it. "The flies torment me so, and Nemu always holds his
tongue."
She patted the dwarf's big head as if he were a lap-dog, and called
the white cat, which with a graceful leap sprang on to her shoulder and
stood there with its back arched, to be stroked by her slender fingers.
Nemu looked enquiringly at his mistress, but Katuti turned to her
daughter, and said in a warning voice:
"I have very serious things to discuss with you."
"Indeed?" said her daughter, "but I cannot be stung by the flies all the
same. Of course, if you wish it--"
"Nemu may stay then," said Katuti, and her voice had the tone of that of
a nurse who gives way to a naughty child. "Besides, he knows what I have
to talk about."
"There now!" said Nefert, kissing the head of the white cat, and she
gave the fan back to the dwarf.
The widow looked at her daughter with sincere compassion, she went up to
her and looked for the thousandth time in admiration at her pretty face.
"Poor child," she sighed, "how willingly I would spare you the frightful
news which sooner or later you must hear--must bear. Leave off your
foolish play with the cat, I have things of the most hideous gravity to
tell you."
"Speak on," replied Nefert. "To-day I cannot fear the worst. Mena's
star, the haruspex told me, stands under the sign of happiness, and I
enquired of the oracle in the temple of Besa, and heard that my husband
is prospering. I have prayed in the temple till I am quite content. Only
speak!--I know my brother's letter from the camp had no good news in it;
the evening before last I saw you had been crying, and yesterday you did
not look well; even the pomegranate flowers in your hair did not suit
you."
"Your brother," sighed Katuti, "has occasioned me great trouble, and we
might through him have suffered deep dishonor--"
"We-dishonor?" exclaimed Nefert, and she nervously clutched at the cat.
"Your brother lost enormous sums at play; to recover them he pledged the
mummy of your father--"
"Horrible!" cried Nefert. "We must appeal at once to the king;--I will
write to him myself; for Mena's sake he will hear me. Rameses is great
and noble, and will not let a house that is faithfully devoted to him
fall into disgrace through the reckless folly of a boy. Certainly I will
write to him."
She said this in a voice of most childlike confidence, and desired Nemu
to wave the fan more gently, as if this concern were settled.
In Katuti's heart surprise and indignation at the unnatural indifference
of her daughter were struggling together; but she withheld all blame,
and said carelessly:
"We are already released, for my nephew Paaker, as soon as he heard what
threatened us, offered me his help; freely and unprompted, from pure
goodness of heart and attachment."
"How good of Paaker!" cried Nefert. "He was so fond of me, and you know,
mother, I always stood up for him. No doubt it was for my sake that he
behaved so generously!"
The young wife laughed, and pulling the cat's face close to her own,
held her nose to its cool little nose, stared into its green eyes, and
said, imitating childish talk:
"There now, pussy--how kind people are to your little mistress."
Katuti was vexed daughter's childish impulses.
"It seems to me," she said, "that you might leave off playing and
trifling when I am talking of such serious matters. I have long since
observed that the fate of the house to which your father and mother
belong is a matter of perfect indifference to you; and yet you would
have to seek shelter and protection under its roof if your husband--"
"Well, mother?" asked Nefert breathing more quickly.
As soon as Katuti perceived her daughter's agitation she regretted that
she had not more gently led up to the news she had to break to her; for
she loved her daughter, and knew that it would give her keen pain.
So she went on more sympathetically:
"You boasted in joke that people are good to you, and it is true; you
win hearts by your mere being--by only being what you are. And Mena too
loved you tenderly; but 'absence,' says the proverb, 'is the one real
enemy,' and Mena--"
"What has Mena done?" Once more Nefert interrupted her mother, and her
nostrils quivered.
"Mena," said Katuti, decidedly, "has violated the truth and esteem which
he owes you--he has trodden them under foot, and--"
"Mena?" exclaimed the young wife with flashing eyes; she flung the cat
on the floor, and sprang from her couch.
"Yes--Mena," said Katuti firmly. "Your brother writes that he would have
neither silver nor gold for his spoil, but took the fair daughter of the
prince of the Danaids into his tent. The ignoble wretch!"
"Ignoble wretch!" cried Nefert, and two or three times she repeated her
mother's last words. Katuti drew back in horror, for her gentle, docile,
childlike daughter stood before her absolutely transfigured beyond all
recognition.
She looked like a beautiful demon of revenge; her eyes sparkled, her
breath came quickly, her limbs quivered, and with extraordinary strength
and rapidity she seized the dwarf by the hand, led him to the door of
one of the rooms which opened out of the hall, threw it open, pushed the
little man over the threshold, and closed it sharply upon him; then with
white lips she came up to her mother.
"An ignoble wretch did you call him?" she cried out with a hoarse husky
voice, "an ignoble wretch! Take back your words, mother, take back your
words, or--"
Katuti turned paler and paler, and said soothingly:
"The words may sound hard, but he has broken faith with you, and openly
dishonored you."
"And shall I believe it?" said Nefert with a scornful laugh. "Shall
I believe it, because a scoundrel has written it, who has pawned his
father's body and the honor of big family; because it is told you by
that noble and brave gentleman! why a box on the ears from Mena would
be the death of him. Look at me, mother, here are my eyes, and if
that table there were Mena's tent, and you were Mena, and you took the
fairest woman living by the hand and led her into it, and these eyes saw
it--aye, over and over again--I would laugh at it--as I laugh at it now;
and I should say, 'Who knows what he may have to give her, or to say to
her,' and not for one instant would I doubt his truth; for your son is
false and Mena is true. Osiris broke faith with Isis--but Mena may be
favored by a hundred women--he will take none to his tent but me!"
"Keep your belief," said Katuti bitterly, "but leave me mine."
"Yours?" said Nefert, and her flushed cheeks turned pale again. "What do
you believe? You listen to the worst and basest things that can be said
of a man who has overloaded you with benefits! A wretch, bah! an ignoble
wretch? Is that what you call a man who lets you dispose of his estate
as you please!"
"Nefert," cried Katuti angrily, "I will--"
"Do what you will," interrupted her indignant daughter, "but do not
vilify the generous man who has never hindered you from throwing away
his property on your son's debts and your own ambition. Since the
day before yesterday I have learned that we are not rich; and I have
reflected, and I have asked myself what has become of our corn and our
cattle, of our sheep and the rents from the farmers. The wretch's estate
was not so contemptible; but I tell you plainly I should be unworthy to
be the wife of the noble Mena if I allowed any one to vilify his name
under his own roof. Hold to your belief, by all means, but one of us
must quit this house--you or I."
At these words Nefert broke into passionate sobs, threw herself on her
knees by her couch, hid her face in the cushions, and wept convulsively
and without intermission.
Katuti stood behind her, startled, trembling, and not knowing what to
say. Was this her gentle, dreamy daughter? Had ever a daughter dared to
speak thus to her mother? But was she right or was Nefert? This question
was the pressing one; she knelt down by the side of the young wife,
put her arm round her, drew her head against her bosom, and whispered
pitifully:
"You cruel, hard-hearted child; forgive your poor, miserable mother, and
do not make the measure of her wretchedness overflow."
Then Nefert rose, kissed her mother's hand, and went silently into her
own room.
Katuti remained alone; she felt as if a dead hand held her heart in its
icy grasp, and she muttered to herself:
"Ani is right--nothing turns to good excepting that from which we expect
the worst."
She held her hand to her head, as if she had heard something too strange
to be believed. Her heart went after her daughter, but instead of
sympathizing with her she collected all her courage, and deliberately
recalled all the reproaches that Nefert had heaped upon her. She did not
spare herself a single word, and finally she murmured to herself: "She
can spoil every thing. For Mena's sake she will sacrifice me and the
whole world; Mena and Rameses are one, and if she discovers what we are
plotting she will betray us without a moment's hesitation. Hitherto
all has gone on without her seeing it, but to-day something has been
unsealed in her--an eye, a tongue, an ear, which have hitherto been
closed. She is like a deaf and dumb person, who by a sudden fright is
restored to speech and hearing. My favorite child will become the spy of
my actions, and my judge."
She gave no utterance to the last words, but she seemed to hear them
with her inmost ear; the voice that could speak to her thus, startled
and frightened her, and solitude was in itself a torture; she called
the dwarf, and desired him to have her litter prepared, as she intended
going to the temple, and visiting the wounded who had been sent home
from Syria.
"And the handkerchief for the Regent?" asked the little man.
"It was a pretext," said Katuti. "He wishes to speak to you about the
matter which you know of with regard to Paaker. What is it?"
"Do not ask," replied Nemu, "I ought not to betray it. By Besa, who
protects us dwarfs, it is better that thou shouldst never know it."
"For to-day I have learned enough that is new to me," retorted Katuti.
"Now go to Ani, and if you are able to throw Paaker entirely into
his power--good--I will give--but what have I to give away? I will be
grateful to you; and when we have gained our end I will set you free and
make you rich."
Nemu kissed her robe, and said in a low voice: "What is the end?"
"You know what Ani is striving for," answered the widow. "And I have but
one wish!"
"And that is?"
"To see Paaker in Mena's place."
"Then our wishes are the same," said the dwarf and he left the Hall.
Katuti looked after him and muttered:
"It must be so. For if every thing remains as it was and Mena comes home
and demands a reckoning--it is not to be thought of! It must not be!"
CHAPTER XX.
As Nemu, on his way back from his visit to Ani, approached his
mistress's house, he was detained by a boy, who desired him to follow
him to the stranger's quarter. Seeing him hesitate, the messenger showed
him the ring of his mother Hekt, who had come into the town on business,
and wanted to speak with him.
Nemu was tired, for he was not accustomed to walking; his ass was dead,
and Katuti could not afford to give him another. Half of Mena's beasts
had been sold, and the remainder barely sufficed for the field-labor.
At the corners of the busiest streets, and on the market-places, stood
boys with asses which they hired out for a small sum;
[In the streets of modern Egyptian towns asses stand saddled for
hire. On the monuments only foreigners are represented as riding on
asses, but these beasts are mentioned in almost every list of the
possessions of the nobles, even in very early times, and the number
is often considerable. There is a picture extant of a rich old man
who rides on a seat supported on the backs of two donkeys. Lepsius,
Denkmaler, part ii. 126.]
but Nemu had parted with his last money for a garment and a new wig, so
that he might appear worthily attired before the Regent. In former times
his pocket had never been empty, for Mena had thrown him many a ring of
silver, or even of gold, but his restless and ambitious spirit wasted no
regrets on lost luxuries. He remembered those years of superfluity with
contempt, and as he puffed and panted on his way through the dust, he
felt himself swell with satisfaction.
The Regent had admitted him to a private interview, and the little man
had soon succeeded in riveting his attention; Ani had laughed till the
tears rolled down his cheeks at Nemu's description of Paaker's wild
passion, and he had proved himself in earnest over the dwarf's further
communications, and had met his demands half-way. Nemu felt like a duck
hatched on dry land, and put for the first time into water; like a bird
hatched in a cage, and that for the first time is allowed to spread its
wings and fly. He would have swum or have flown willingly to death if
circumstances had not set a limit to his zeal and energy.
Bathed in sweat and coated with dust, he at last reached the gay tent
in the stranger's quarter, where the sorceress Hekt was accustomed to
alight when she came over to Thebes.
He was considering far-reaching projects, dreaming of possibilities,
devising subtle plans--rejecting them as too subtle, and supplying
their place with others more feasible and less dangerous; altogether
the little diplomatist had no mind for the motley tribes which here
surrounded him. He had passed the temple in which the people of Kaft
adored their goddess Astarte, and the sanctuary of Seth, where they
sacrificed to Baal, without letting himself be disturbed by the dancing
devotees or the noise of cymbals and music which issued from their
enclosures. The tents and slightly-built wooden houses of the dancing
girls did not tempt him. Besides their inhabitants, who in the evening
tricked themselves out in tinsel finery to lure the youth of Thebes into
extravagance and folly, and spent their days in sleeping till sun-down,
only the gambling booths drove a brisk business; and the guard of police
had much trouble to restrain the soldier, who had staked and lost all
his prize money, or the sailor, who thought himself cheated, from such
outbreaks of rage and despair as must end in bloodshed. Drunken men
lay in front of the taverns, and others were doing their utmost, by
repeatedly draining their beakers, to follow their example.
Nothing was yet to be seen of the various musicians, jugglers,
fire-eaters, serpent-charmers, and conjurers, who in the evening
displayed their skill in this part of the town, which at all times had
the aspect of a never ceasing fair. But these delights, which Nemu had
passed a thousand times, had never had any temptation for him. Women and
gambling were not to his taste; that which could be had simply for the
taking, without trouble or exertion, offered no charms to his fancy,
he had no fear of the ridicule of the dancing-women, and their
associates--indeed, he occasionally sought them, for he enjoyed a war
of words, and he was of opinion that no one in Thebes could beat him at
having the last word. Other people, indeed, shared this opinion, and not
long before Paaker's steward had said of Nemu:
"Our tongues are cudgels, but the little one's is a dagger." |
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