then they had climbed a rocky shoulder and crossed a small plateau. They
had paused for their night's rest in the gorge which led to the mines;
the guides and soldiers lighted fires, grouped themselves round them,
and lay down to sleep under the shelter of a cleft in the rocks; the
prisoners stretched themselves on the earth in the middle of the
valley without any shelter, and shivering with the cold which suddenly
succeeded the glowing heat of the day. The benumbed wretches now looked
forward to the crushing misery of the morning's labor as eagerly as, a
few hours since, they had longed for the night, and for rest.
Lentil-broth and hard bread in abundance, but a very small quantity of
water was given to them before they started; then they set out through
the gorge, which grew hotter and hotter, and through ravines where they
could pass only one by one. Every now and then it seemed as if the
path came to an end, but each time it found an outlet, and went on--as
endless as the torment of the wayfarers.
Mighty walls of rock composed the view, looking as if they were formed
of angular masses of hewn stone piled up in rows; and of all the
miners one, and one only, had eyes for these curious structures of the
ever-various hand of Nature.
This one had broader shoulders than his companions, and his burden
Weighed on him comparatively lightly. "In this solitude," thought he,
"which repels man, and forbids his passing his life here, the Chnemu,
the laborers who form the world, have spared themselves the trouble of
filling up the seams, and rounding off the corners. How is it that Man
should have dedicated this hideous land--in which even the human heart
seems to be hardened against all pity--to the merciful Hathor? Perhaps
because it so sorely stands in need of the joy and peace which the
loving goddess alone can bestow."
"Keep the line, Huni!" shouted a driver.
The man thus addressed, closed up to the next man, the panting leech
Nebsecht. We know the other stronger prisoner. It is Pentaur, who had
been entered as Huni on the lists of mine-laborers, and was called by
that name. The file moved on; at every step the ascent grew more rugged.
Red and black fragments of stone, broken as small as if by the hand of
man, lay in great heaps, or strewed the path which led up the almost
perpendicular cliff by imperceptible degrees. Here another gorge opened
before them, and this time there seemed to be no outlet.
"Load the asses less!" cried the captain of the escort to the prisoners.
Then he turned to the soldiers, and ordered them, when the beasts were
eased, to put the extra burthens on the men. Putting forth their
utmost strength, the overloaded men labored up the steep and hardly
distinguishable mountain path.
The man in front of Pentaur, a lean old man, when half way up the
hill-side, fell in a heap under his load, and a driver, who in a narrow
defile could not reach the bearers, threw a stone at him to urge him to
a renewed effort.
The old man cried out at the blow, and at the cry--the paraschites
stricken down with stones--his own struggle with the mob--and the
appearance of Bent Anat flashed into Pentaur's memory. Pity and a sense
of his own healthy vigor prompted him to energy; he hastily snatched the
sack from the shoulders of the old man, threw it over his own, helped up
the fallen wretch, and finally men and beasts succeeded in mounting the
rocky wall.
The pulses throbbed in Pentaur's temples, and he shuddered with horror,
as he looked down from the height of the pass into the abyss below, and
round upon the countless pinnacles and peaks, cliffs and precipices,
in many-colored rocks-white and grey, sulphurous yellow, blood-red and
ominous black. He recalled the sacred lake of Muth in Thebes, round
which sat a hundred statues of the lion-headed Goddess in black basalt,
each on a pedestal; and the rocky peaks, which surrounded the valley
at his feet, seemed to put on a semblance of life and to move and
open their yawning jaws; through the wild rush of blood in his ears he
fancied he heard them roar, and the load beyond his strength which he
carried gave him a sensation as though their clutch was on his breast.
Nevertheless he reached the goal.
The other prisoners flung their loads from their shoulders, and threw
themselves down to rest. Mechanically he did the same: his pulses beat
more calmly, by degrees the visions faded from his senses, he saw and
heard once more, and his brain recovered its balance. The old man and
Nebsecht were lying beside him.
His grey-haired companion rubbed the swollen veins in his neck, and
called down all the blessings of the Gods upon his head; but the captain
of the caravan cut him short, exclaiming:
"You have strength for three, Huni; farther on, we will load you more
heavily."
"How much the kindly Gods care for our prayers for the blessing of
others!" exclaimed Nebsecht. "How well they know how to reward a good
action!"
"I am rewarded enough," said Pentaur, looking kindly at the old man.
"But you, you everlasting scoffer--you look pale. How do you feel?"
"As if I were one of those donkeys there," replied the naturalist. "My
knees shake like theirs, and I think and I wish neither more nor less
than they do; that is to say--I would we were in our stalls."
"If you can think," said Pentaur smiling, "you are not so very bad."
"I had a good thought just now, when you were staring up into the sky.
The intellect, say the priestly sages, is a vivifying breath of the
eternal spirit, and our soul is the mould or core for the mass of matter
which we call a human being. I sought the spirit at first in the heart,
then in the brain; but now I know that it resides in the arms and legs,
for when I have strained them I find thought is impossible. I am too
tired to enter on further evidence, but for the future I shall treat my
legs with the utmost consideration."
"Quarrelling again you two? On again, men!" cried the driver.
The weary wretches rose slowly, the beasts were loaded, and on went the
pitiable procession, so as to reach the mines before sunset.
The destination of the travellers was a wide valley, closed in by two
high and rocky mountain-slopes; it was called Ta Mafka by the Egyptians,
Dophka by the Hebrews. The southern cliff-wall consisted of dark
granite, the northern of red sandstone; in a distant branch of the
valley lay the mines in which copper was found. In the midst of the
valley rose a hill, surrounded by a wall, and crowned with small stone
houses, for the guard, the officers, and the overseers. According to the
old regulations, they were without roofs, but as many deaths and much
sickness had occurred among the workmen in consequence of the cold
nights, they had been slightly sheltered with palm-branches brought from
the oasis of the Alnalckites, at no great distance.
On the uttermost peak of the hill, where it was most exposed to the
wind, were the smelting furnaces, and a manufactory where a peculiar
green glass was prepared, which was brought into the market under the
name of Mafkat, that is to say, emerald. The genuine precious stone was
found farther to the south, on the western shore of the Red Sea, and was
highly prized in Egypt.
Our friends had already for more than a month belonged to the
mining-community of the Mafkat valley, and Pentaur had never learned
how it was that he had been brought hither with his companion Nebsecht,
instead of going to the sandstone quarries of Chennu.
That Uarda's father had effected this change was beyond a doubt, and the
poet trusted the rough but honest soldier who still kept near him, and
gave him credit for the best intentions, although he had only spoken to
him once since their departure from Thebes.
That was the first night, when he had come up to Pentaur, and whispered:
"I am looking after you. You will find the physician Nebsecht here; but
treat each other as enemies rather than as friends, if you do not wish
to be parted."
Pentaur had communicated the soldier's advice to Nebsecht, and he had
followed it in his own way.
It afforded him a secret pleasure to see how Pentaur's life contradicted
the belief in a just and beneficent ordering of the destinies of men;
and the more he and the poet were oppressed, the more bitter was the
irony, often amounting to extravagance, with which the mocking sceptic
attacked him.
He loved Pentaur, for the poet had in his keeping the key which alone
could give admission to the beautiful world which lay locked up in his
own soul; but yet it was easy to him, if he thought they were observed,
to play his part, and to overwhelm Pentaur with words which, to the
drivers, were devoid of meaning, and which made them laugh by the
strange blundering fashion in which he stammered them out.
"A belabored husk of the divine self-consciousness." "An advocate of
righteousness hit on the mouth." "A juggler who makes as much of this
worst of all possible worlds as if it were the best." "An admirer of the
lovely color of his blue bruises." These and other terms of invective,
intelligible only to himself and his butt, he could always pour out in
new combinations, exciting Pentaur to sharp and often witty rejoinders,
equally unintelligible to the uninitiated.
Frequently their sparring took the form of a serious discussion, which
served a double purpose; first their minds, accustomed to serious
thought, found exercise in spite of the murderous pressure of the burden
of forced labor, and secondly, they were supposed really to be enemies.
They slept in the same court-yard, and contrived, now and then, to
exchange a few words in secret; but by day Nebsecht worked in the
turquoise-diggings, and Pentaur in the mines, for the careful chipping
out of the precious stones from their stony matrix was the work best
suited to the slight physician, while Pentaur's giant-strength was
fitted for hewing the ore out of the hard rock. The drivers often looked
in surprise at his powerful strokes, as he flung his pick against the
stone.
The stupendous images that in such moments of wild energy rose before
the poet's soul, the fearful or enchanting tones that rang in his
spirit's ear-none could guess at.
Usually his excited fancy showed him the form of Bent-Anat, surrounded
by a host of men--and these he seemed to fell to the earth, one-by-one,
as-he hewed the rock. Often in the middle of his work he would stop,
throw down his pick-axe, and spread out his arms--but only to drop them
with a deep groan, and wipe the sweat from his brow.
The overseers did not know what to think of this powerful youth, who
often was as gentle as a child, and then seemed possessed of that demon
to which so many of the convicts fell victims. He had indeed become a
riddle to himself; for how was it that he--the gardener's son, brought
up in the peaceful temple of Seti--ever since that night by the house
of the paraschites had had such a perpetual craving for conflict and
struggle?
The weary gangs were gone to rest; a bright fire still blazed in front
of the house of the superintendent of the mines, and round it squatted
in a circle the overseers and the subalterns of the troops.
"Put the wine-jar round again," said the captain, "for we must hold
grave council. Yesterday I had orders from the Regent to send half the
guard to Pelusium. He requires soldiers, but we are so few in number
that if the convicts knew it they might make short work of us, even
without arms. There are stones enough hereabouts, and by day they have
their hammer and chisel. Things are worst among the Hebrews in the
copper-mines; they are a refractory crew that must be held tight. You
know me well, fear is unknown to me--but I feel great anxiety. The last
fuel is now burning in this fire, and the smelting furnaces and the
glass-foundry must not stand idle. Tomorrow we must send men to Raphidim
[The oasis at the foot of Horeb, where the Jews under Joshua's
command conquered the Amalekites, while Aaron and Hur held up Moses'
arms. Exodus 17, 8.]
to obtain charcoal from the Amalekites. They owe us a hundred loads
still. Load the prisoners with some copper, to make them tired and the
natives civil. What can we do to procure what we want, and yet not to
weaken the forces here too much?"
Various opinions were given, and at last it was settled that a small
division, guarded by a few soldiers, should be sent out every day to
supply only the daily need for charcoal.
It was suggested that the most dangerous of the convicts should be
fettered together in pairs to perform their duties.
The superintendent was of opinion that two strong men fettered together
would be more to be feared if only they acted in concert.
"Then chain a strong one to a weak one," said the chief accountant of
the mines, whom the Egyptians called the 'scribe of the metals.' "And
fetter those together who are enemies."
"The colossal Huni, for instance, to that puny spat row, the stuttering
Nebsecht," said a subaltern.
"I was thinking of that very couple," said the accountant laughing.
Three other couples were selected, at first with some laughter, but
finally with serious consideration, and Uarda's father was sent with the
drivers as an escort.
On the following morning Pentaur and Nebsecht were fettered together
with a copper chain, and when the sun was at its height four pairs of
prisoners, heavily loaded with copper, set out for the Oasis of the
Amalekites, accompanied by six soldiers and the son of the paraschites,
to fetch fuel for the smelting furnaces.
They rested near the town of Alus, and then went forward again between
bare walls of greyish-green and red porphyry. These cliffs rose higher
and higher, but from time to time, above the lower range, they could see
the rugged summit of some giant of the range, though, bowed under their
heavy loads, they paid small heed to it.
The sun was near setting when they reached the little sanctuary of the
'Emerald-Hathor.'
A few grey and black birds here flew towards them, and Pentaur gazed at
them with delight.
How long he had missed the sight of a bird, and the sound of their chirp
and song! Nebsecht said: "There are some birds--we must be near water."
And there stood the first palm-tree!
Now the murmur of the brook was perceptible, and its tiny sound touched
the thirsty souls of the travellers as rain falls on dry grass.
On the left bank of the stream an encampment of Egyptian soldiers formed
a large semicircle, enclosing three large tents made of costly material
striped with blue and white, and woven with gold thread. Nothing was to
be seen of the inhabitants of these tents, but when the prisoners
had passed them, and the drivers were exchanging greetings with the
out-posts, a girl, in the long robe of an Egyptian, came towards them,
and looked at them.
Pentaur started as if he had seen a ghost; but Nebsecht gave expression
to his astonishment in a loud cry.
At the same instant a driver laid his whip across their shoulders, and
cried laughing:
"You may hit each other as hard as you like with words, but not with
your hands."
Then he turned to his companions, and said: "Did you see the pretty girl
there, in front of the tent?"
"It is nothing to us!" answered the man he addressed. "She belongs to
the princess's train. She has been three weeks here on a visit to the
holy shrine of Hathor."
"She must have committed some heavy sin," replied the other. "If she
were one of us, she would have been set to sift sand in the diggings,
or grind colors, and not be living here in a gilt tent. Where is our
red-beard?"
Uarda's father had lingered a little behind the party, for the girl had
signed to him, and exchanged a few words with him.
"Have you still an eye for the fair ones?" asked the youngest of the
drivers when he rejoined the gang.
"She is a waiting maid of the princess," replied the soldier not without
embarrassment. "To-morrow morning we are to carry a letter from her to
the scribe of the mines, and if we encamp in the neighborhood she will
send us some wine for carrying it."
"The old red-beard scents wine as a fox scents a goose. Let us encamp
here; one never knows what may be picked up among the Mentu, and the
superintendent said we were to encamp outside the oasis. Put down your
sacks, men! Here there is fresh water, and perhaps a few dates and sweet
Manna for you to eat with it.
["Man" is the name still given by the Bedouins of Sinai to the sweet
gum which exudes from the Tamarix mannifera. It is the result of
the puncture of an insect, and occurs chiefly in May. By many it is
supposed to be the Manna of the Bible.]
But keep the peace, you two quarrelsome fellows--Huni and Nebsecht."
Bent-Anat's journey to the Emerald-Hathor was long since ended. As far
as Keft she had sailed down the Nile with her escort, from thence she
had crossed the desert by easy marches, and she had been obliged to wait
a full week in the port on the Red Sea, which was chiefly inhabited
by Phoenicians, for a ship which had finally brought her to the little
seaport of Pharan. From Pharan she had crossed the mountains to the
oasis, where the sanctuary she was to visit stood on the northern side.
The old priests, who conducted the service of the Goddess, had received
the daughter of Rameses with respect, and undertook to restore her to
cleanness by degrees with the help of the water from the mountain-stream
which watered the palm-grove of the Amalekites, of incense-burning, of
pious sentences, and of a hundred other ceremonies. At last the Goddess
declared herself satisfied, and Bent-Anat wished to start for the north
and join her father, but the commander of the escort, a grey-headed
Ethiopian field officer--who had been promoted to a high grade by
Ani--explained to the Chamberlain that he had orders to detain the
princess in the oasis until her departure was authorized by the Regent
himself.
Bent-Anat now hoped for the support of her father, for her brother
Rameri, if no accident had occurred to him, might arrive any day. But in
vain.
The position of the ladies was particularly unpleasant, for they felt
that they had been caught in a trap, and were in fact prisoners. In
addition to this their Ethiopian escort had quarrelled with the
natives of the oasis, and every day skirmishes took place under their
eyes--indeed lately one of these fights had ended in bloodshed.
Bent-Anat was sick at heart. The two strong pinions of her soul, which
had always borne her so high above other women--her princely pride and
her bright frankness--seemed quite broken; she felt that she had loved
once, never to love again, and that she, who had sought none of her
happiness in dreams, but all in work, had bestowed the best half of her
identity on a vision. Pentaur's image took a more and more vivid, and at
the same time nobler and loftier, aspect in her mind; but he himself had
died for her, for only once had a letter reached them from Egypt, and
that was from Katuti to Nefert. After telling her that late intelligence
established the statement that her husband had taken a prince's
daughter, who had been made prisoner, to his tent as his share of the
booty, she added the information that the poet Pentaur, who had been
condemned to forced labor, had not reached the mountain mines, but, as
was supposed, had perished on the road.
Nefert still held to her immovable belief that her husband was faithful
to his love for her, and the magic charm of a nature made beautiful by
its perfect mastery over a deep and pure passion made itself felt in
these sad and heavy days.
It seemed as though she had changed parts with Bent-Anat. Always
hopeful, every day she foretold help from the king for the next; in
truth she was ready to believe that, when Mena learned from Rameri that
she was with the princess, he himself would come to fetch them if his
duties allowed it. In her hours of most lively expectation she could go
so far as to picture how the party in the tents would be divided, and
who would bear Bent-Anat company if Mena took her with him to his camp,
on what spot of the oasis it would be best to pitch it, and much more in
the same vein.
Uarda could very well take her place with Bent-Anat, for the child
had developed and improved on the journey. The rich clothes which the
princess had given her became her as if she had never worn any others;
she could obey discreetly, disappear at the right moment, and, when she
was invited, chatter delightfully. Her laugh was silvery, and nothing
consoled Bent-Anat so much as to hear it.
Her songs too pleased the two friends, though the few that she knew were
grave and sorrowful. She had learned them by listening to old Hekt, who
often used to play on a lute in the dusk, and who, when she perceived
that Uarda caught the melodies, had pointed out her faults, and given
her advice.
"She may some day come into my hands," thought the witch, "and the
better she sings, the better she will be paid."
Bent-Anat too tried to teach Uarda, but learning to read was not easy to
the girl, however much pains she might take. Nevertheless, the princess
would not give up the spelling, for here, at the foot of the immense
sacred mountain at whose summit she gazed with mixed horror and longing,
she was condemned to inactivity, which weighed the more heavily on her
in proportion as those feelings had to be kept to herself which she
longed to escape from in work. Uarda knew the origin of her mistress's
deep grief, and revered her for it, as if it were something sacred.
Often she would speak of Pentaur and of his father, and always in such a
manner that the princess could not guess that she knew of their love.
When the prisoners were passing Bent-Anat's tent, she was sitting within
with Nefert, and talking, as had become habitual in the hours of dusk,
of her father, of Mena, Rameri, and Pentaur.
"He is still alive," asserted Nefert. "My mother, you see, says that no
one knows with certainty what became of him. If he escaped, he beyond
a doubt tried to reach the king's camp, and when we get there you will
find him with your father."
The princess looked sadly at the ground. Nefert looked affectionately at
her, and asked:
"Are you thinking of the difference in rank which parts you from the man
you have chosen?"
"The man to whom I offer my hand, I put in the rank of a prince," said
Bent-Anat. "But if I could set Pentaur on a throne, as master of the
world, he would still be greater and better than I."
"But your father?" asked Nefert doubtfully.
"He is my friend, he will listen to me and understand me. He shall know
everything when I see him; I know his noble and loving heart."
Both were silent for some time; then Bent-Anat spoke:
"Pray have lights brought, I want to finish my weaving."
Nefert rose, went to the door of the tent, and there met Uarda; she
seized Nefert's hand, and silently drew her out into the air.
"What is the matter, child? you are trembling," Nefert exclaimed.
"My father is here," answered Uarda hastily. "He is escorting some
prisoners from the mines of Mafkat. Among them there are two chained
together, and one of them--do not be startled--one of them is the poet
Pentaur. Stop, for God's sake, stop, and hear me. Twice before I have
seen my father when he has been here with convicts. To-day we must
rescue Pentaur; but the princess must know nothing of it, for if my plan
fails--"
"Child! girl!" interrupted Nefert eagerly. "How can I help you?"
"Order the steward to give the drivers of the gang a skin of wine in the
name of the princess, and out of Bent-Anat's case of medicines take the
phial which contains the sleeping draught, which, in spite of your wish,
she will not take. I will wait here, and I know how to use it."
Nefert immediately found the steward, and ordered him to follow Uarda
with a skin of wine. Then she went back to the princess's tent, and
opened the medicine case.
[A medicine case, belonging to a more ancient period than the reign
of Rameses, is preserved in the Berlin Museum.]
"What do you want?" asked Bent-Anat.
"A remedy for palpitation," replied Nefert; she quietly took the flask
she needed, and in a few minutes put it into Uarda's hand.
The girl asked the steward to open the wine-skin, and let her taste the
liquor. While she pretended to drink it, she poured the whole contents
of the phial into the wine, and then let Bent-Anat's bountiful present
be carried to the thirsty drivers.
She herself went towards the kitchen tent, and found a young Amalekite
sitting on the ground with the princess's servants. He sprang up as soon
as he saw the damsel.
"I have brought four fine partridges,"
[A brook springs on the peak called by the Sinaitic monks Mr. St.
Katherine, which is called the partridge's spring, and of which many
legends are told. For instance, God created it for the partridges
which accompanied the angels who carried St. Katharine of Alexandria
to her tomb on Sinai.]
he said, "which I snared myself, and I have brought this turquoise for
you--my brother found it in a rock. This stone brings good luck, and is
good for the eyes; it gives victory over our enemies, and keeps away bad
dreams."
"Thank you!" said Uarda, and taking the boy's hand, as he gave her the
sky-blue stone, she led him forward into the dusk.
"Listen, Salich" she said softly, as soon as she thought they were far
enough from the others. "You are a good boy, and the maids told me that
you said I was a star that had come down from the sky to become a woman.
No one says such a thing as that of any one they do not like very
much; and I know you like me, for you show me that you do every day by
bringing me flowers, when you carry the game that your father gets to
the steward. Tell me, will you do me and the princess too a very great
service? Yes?--and willingly? Yes? I knew you would! Now listen. A
friend of the great lady Bent-Anat, who will come here to-night, must
be hidden for a day, perhaps several days, from his pursuers. Can he,
or rather can they, for there will probably be two, find shelter and
protection in your father's house, which lies high up there on the
sacred mountain?"
"Whoever I take to my father," said the boy, "will be made welcome;
and we defend our guests first, and then ourselves. Where are the
strangers?"
"They will arrive in a few hours. Will you wait here till the moon is
well up?"
"Till the last of all the thousand moons that vanish behind the hills is
set."
"Well then, wait on the other side of the stream, and conduct the man to
your house, who repeats my name three times. You know my name?"
"I call you Silver-star, but the others call you Uarda."
"Lead the strangers to your hut, and, if they are received there by your
father, come back and tell me. I will watch for you here at the door of
the tent. I am poor, alas! and cannot reward you, but the princess will
thank your father as a princess should. Be watchful, Salich!"
The girl vanished, and went to the drivers of the gang of prisoners,
wished them a merry and pleasant evening, and then hastened back to
Bent-Anat, who anxiously stroked her abundant hair, and asked her why
she was so pale.
"Lie down," said the princess kindly, "you are feverish. Only look,
Nefert, I can see the blood coursing through the blue veins in her
forehead."
Meanwhile the drivers drank, praised the royal wine, and the lucky
day on which they drank it; and when Uarda's father suggested that the
prisoners too should have a mouthful one of his fellow soldiers cried:
"Aye, let the poor beasts be jolly too for once."
The red-beard filled a large beaker, and offered it first to a forger
and his fettered companion, then he approached Pentaur, and whispered:
"Do not drink any-keep awake!"
As he was going to warn the physician too, one of his companions came
between them, and offering his tankard to Nebsecht said:
"Here mumbler, drink; see him pull! His stuttering mouth is spry enough
for drinking!"
CHAPTER XXXV.
The hours passed gaily with the drinkers, then they grew more and more
sleepy.
Ere the moon was high in the heavens, while they were all sleeping,
with the exception of Kaschta and Pentaur, the soldier rose softly.
He listened to the breathing of his companions, then he approached the
poet, unfastened the ring which fettered his ankle to that of Nebsecht,
and endeavored to wake the physician, but in vain.
"Follow me!" cried he to the poet; he took Nebsecht on his shoulders,
and went towards the spot near the stream which Uarda had indicated.
Three times he called his daughter's name, the young Amalekite appeared,
and the soldier said decidedly: "Follow this man, I will take care of
Nebsecht."
"I will not leave him," said Pentaur. "Perhaps water will wake him."
They plunged him in the brook, which half woke him, and by the help of
his companions, who now pushed and now dragged him, he staggered and
stumbled up the rugged mountain path, and before midnight they reached
their destination, the hut of the Amalekite.
The old hunter was asleep, but his son aroused him, and told him what
Uarda had ordered and promised.
But no promises were needed to incite the worthy mountaineer to
hospitality. He received the poet with genuine friendliness, laid the
sleeping leech on a mat, prepared a couch for Pentaur of leaves and
skins, called his daughter to wash his feet, and offered him his own
holiday garment in the place of the rags that covered his body.
Pentaur stretched himself out on the humble couch, which to him seemed
softer than the silken bed of a queen, but on which nevertheless he
could not sleep, for the thoughts and fancies that filled his heart were
too overpowering and bewildering.
The stars still sparkled in the heavens when he sprang from his bed of
skins, lifted Nebsecht on to it, and rushed out into the open air. A
fresh mountain spring flowed close to the hunter's hut. He went to it,
and bathed his face in the ice-cold water, and let it flow over his body
and limbs. He felt as if he must cleanse himself to his very soul,
not only from the dust of many weeks, but from the rebellion and
despondency, the ignominy and bitterness, and the contact with vice and
degradation. When at last he left the spring, and returned to the little
house, he felt clean and fresh as on the morning of a feast-day at
the temple of Seti, when he had bathed and dressed himself in robes of
snow-white linen. He took the hunter's holiday dress, put it on, and
went out of doors again.
The enormous masses of rock lay dimly before him, like storm-clouds, and
over his head spread the blue heavens with their thousand stars.
The soothing sense of freedom and purity raised his soul, and the air
that he breathed was so fresh and light, that he sprang up the path
to the summit of the peak as if he were borne on wings or carried by
invisible hands.
A mountain goat which met him, turned from him, and fled bleating, with
his mate, to a steep peak of rock, but Pentaur said to the frightened
beasts:
"I shall do nothing to you--not I!"
He paused on a little plateau at the foot of the jagged granite peak
of the mountain. Here again he heard the murmur of a spring, the grass
under his feet was damp, and covered with a film of ice, in which were
mirrored the stars, now gradually fading. He looked up at the lights in
the sky, those never-tarrying, and yet motionless wanderers-away, to
the mountain heights around him-down, into the gorge below--and far off,
into the distance.
The dusk slowly grew into light, the mysterious forms of the
mountain-chain took shape and stood up with their shining points, the
light clouds were swept away like smoke. Thin vapors rose from the oasis
and the other valleys at his feet, at first in heavy masses, then they
parted and were wafted, as if in sport, above and beyond him to the
sky. Far below him soared a large eagle, the only living creature far or
near.
A solemn and utter silence surrounded him, and when the eagle swooped
down and vanished from his sight, and the mist rolled lower into the
valley, he felt that here, alone, he was high above all other living
beings, and standing nearer to the Divinity.
He drew his breath fully and deeply, he felt as he had felt in the first
hours after his initiation, when for the first time he was admitted to
the holy of holies--and yet quite different.
Instead of the atmosphere loaded with incense, he breathed a light pure
air; and the deep stillness of the mountain solitude possessed his soul
more strongly than the chant of the priests.
Here, it seemed to him, that the Divine being would hear the lightest
murmur of his lips, though indeed his heart was so full of gratitude and
devotion that his impulse was to give expression to his mighty flow of
feelings in jubilant song. But his tongue seemed tied; he knelt down in
silence, to pray and to praise.
Then he looked at the panorama round him. Where was the east which in
Egypt was clearly defined by the long Nile range? Down there where it
was beginning to be light over the oasis. To his right hand lay the
south, the sacred birth-place of the Nile, the home of the Gods of
the Cataracts; but here flowed no mighty stream, and where was there a
shrine for the visible manifestation of Osiris and Isis; of Horns, born
of a lotus flower in a thicket of papyrus; of Rennut, the Goddess of
blessings, and of Zeta? To which of them could he here lift his hands in
prayer?
A faint breeze swept by, the mist vanished like a restless shade at the
word of the exorcist, the many-pointed crown of Sinai stood out in
sharp relief, and below them the winding valleys, and the dark colored
rippling surface of the lake, became distinctly visible.
All was silent, all untouched by the hand of man yet harmonized to
one great and glorious whole, subject to all the laws of the universe,
pervaded and filled by the Divinity.
He would fain have raised his hand in thanksgiving to Apheru, "the Guide
on the way;" but he dared not; and how infinitely small did the Gods
now seem to him, the Gods he had so often glorified to the multitude
in inspired words, the Gods that had no meaning, no dwelling-place, no
dominion but by the Nile.
"To ye," he murmured, "I cannot pray! Here where my eye can pierce the
distance, as if I myself were a god-here I feel the presence of the One,
here He is near me and with me--I will call upon Him and praise him!"
And throwing up his arms he cried aloud: "Thou only One! Thou only One!
Thou only One!" He said no more; but a tide of song welled up in his
breast as he spoke--a flood of thankfulness and praise.
When he rose from his knees, a man was standing by him; his eyes were
piercing and his tall figure had the dignity of a king, in spite of his
herdsman's dress.
"It is well for you!" said the stranger in deep slow accents. "You seek
the true God."
Pentaur looked steadily into the face of the bearded man before him.
"I know you now," he said. "You are Mesu.--[Moses]--I was but a boy when
you left the temple of Seti, but your features are stamped on my soul.
Ameni initiated me, as well as you, into the knowledge of the One God."
"He knows Him not," answered the other, looking thoughtfully to the
eastern horizon, which every moment grew brighter.
The heavens glowed with purple, and the granite peaks, each sheathed
in a film of ice, sparkled and shone like dark diamonds that had been
dipped in light.
The day-star rose, and Pentaur turned to it, and prostrated himself as
his custom was. When he rose, Mesu also was kneeling on the earth, but
his back was turned to the sun.
When he had ended his prayer, Pentaur said, "Why do you turn your back
on the manifestation of the Sun-god? We were taught to look towards him
when he approaches."
"Because I," said his grave companion, "pray to another God than
yours. The sun and stars are but as toys in his hand, the earth is his
foot-stool, the storm is his breath, and the sea is in his sight as the
drops on the grass."
"Teach me to know the Mighty One whom you worship!" exclaimed Pentaur.
"Seek him," said Mesu, "and you will find him; for you have passed
through misery and suffering, and on this spot on such a morning as this
was He revealed to me."
The stranger turned away, and disappeared behind a rock from the
enquiring gaze of Pentaur, who fixed his eyes on the distance.
Then he thoughtfully descended the valley, and went towards the hut
of the hunter. He stayed his steps when he heard men's voices, but the
rocks hid the speakers from his sight.
Presently he saw the party approaching; the son of his host, a man
in Egyptian dress, a lady of tall stature, near whom a girl tripped
lightly, and another carried in a litter by slaves.
Pentaur's heart beat wildly, for he recognized Bent-Anat and her
companions. They disappeared by the hunter's cottage, but he stood
still, breathing painfully, spell-bound to the cliff by which he
stood--a long, long time--and did not stir.
He did not hear a light step, that came near to him, and died away
again, he did not feel that the sun began to cast fierce beams on him,
and on the porphyry cliff behind him, he did not see a woman now coming
quickly towards him; but, like a deaf man who has suddenly acquired the
sense of hearing, he started when he heard his name spoken--by whose
lips?
"Pentaur!" she said again; the poet opened his arms, and Bent-Anat fell
upon his breast; and he held her to him, clasped, as though he must hold
her there and never part from her all his life long.
Meanwhile the princess's companions were resting by the hunter's little
house.
"She flew into his arms--I saw it," said Uarda. "Never shall I forget
it. It was as if the bright lake there had risen up to embrace the
mountain."
"Where do you find such fancies, child?" cried Nefert.
"In my heart, deep in my heart!" cried Uarda. "I am so unspeakably
happy."
"You saved him and rewarded him for his goodness; you may well be
happy."
"It is not only that," said Uarda. "I was in despair, and now I see that
the Gods are righteous and loving."
Mena's wife nodded to her, and said with a sigh:
"They are both happy!"
"And they deserve to be!" exclaimed Uarda. "I fancy the Goddess of Truth
is like Bent-Anat, and there is not another man in Egypt like Pentaur."
Nefert was silent for awhile; then she asked softly: "Did you ever see
Mena?"
"How should I?" replied the girl. "Wait a little while, and your
turn will come. I believe that to-day I can read the future like a prophetess. But let us see if Nebsecht lies there, and is still asleep.The draught I put into the wine must have been strong." |
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