"To-morrow I will visit the House of Seti; till then I beg that this
affair may be left to rest."
Ameni bowed, and the Regent left the hall to withdraw to a wing of the
king's palace, in which he dwelt.
On his writing-table lay sealed papers. He knew that they contained
important news for him; but he loved to do violence to his curiosity, to
test his resolution, and like an epicure to reserve the best dish till
the last.
He now glanced first at some unimportant letters. A dumb negro, who
squatted at his feet, burned the papyrus rolls which his master gave him
in a brazier. A secretary made notes of the short facts which Ani called
out to him, and the ground work was laid of the answers to the different
letters.
At a sign from his master this functionary quitted the room, and Ani
then slowly opened a letter from the king, whose address: "To my brother
Ani," showed that it contained, not public, but private information.
On these lines, as he well knew, hung his future life, and the road it
should follow.
With a smile, that was meant to conceal even from himself his deep
inward agitation, he broke the wax which sealed the short manuscript in
the royal hand.
"What relates to Egypt, and my concern for my country, and the happy
issue of the war," wrote the Pharaoh, "I have written to you by the hand
of my secretary; but these words are for the brother, who desires to be
my son, and I write to him myself. The lordly essence of the Divinity
which dwells in me, readily brings a quick 'Yes' or 'No' to my lips, and
it decides for the best. Now you demand my daughter Bent-Anat to wife,
and I should not be Rameses if I did not freely confess that before I
had read the last words of your letter, a vehement 'No' rushed to
my lips. I caused the stars to be consulted, and the entrails of the
victims to be examined, and they were adverse to your request; and yet I
could not refuse you, for you are dear to me, and your blood is royal as
my own. Even more royal, an old friend said, and warned me against your
ambition and your exaltation. Then my heart changed, for I were
not Seti's son if I allow myself to injure a friend through idle
apprehensions; and he who stands so high that men fear that he may try
to rise above Rameses, seems to me to be worthy of Bent-Anat. Woo her,
and, should she consent freely, the marriage may be celebrated on the
day when I return home. You are young enough to make a wife happy, and
your mature wisdom will guard my child from misfortune. Bent-Anat shall
know that her father, and king, encourages your suit; but pray too to
the Hathors, that they may influence Bent-Anat's heart in your favor,
for to her decision we must both submit."
The Regent had changed color several times while reading this letter.
Now he laid it on the table with a shrug of his shoulders, stood up,
clasped his hand behind him, and, with his eyes cast meditatively on the
floor, leaned against one of the pillars which supported the beams of
the roof.
The longer he thought, the less amiable his expression became. "A pill
sweetened with honey,
[Two recipes for pills are found in the papyri, one with honey for
women, and one without for men.]
such as they give to women," he muttered to himself. Then he went back
to the table, read the king's letter through once more, and said: "One
may learn from it how to deny by granting, and at the same time not to
forget to give it a brilliant show of magnanimity. Rameses knows his
daughter. She is a girl like any other, and will take good care not
to choose a man twice as old as herself, and who might be her father.
Rameses will 'submit'--I am to I submit!' And to what? to the judgment
and the choice of a wilful child!"
With these words he threw the letter so vehemently on to the table, that
it slipped off on to the floor.
The mute slave picked it up, and laid it carefully on the table again,
while his master threw a ball into a silver bason.
Several attendants rushed into the room, and Ani ordered them to
bring to him the captive dwarf of the Lady Katuti. His soul rose in
indignation against the king, who in his remote camp-tent could fancy he
had made him happy by a proof of his highest favor. When we are plotting
against a man we are inclined to regard him as an enemy, and if he
offers us a rose we believe it to be for the sake, not of the perfume,
but of the thorns.
The dwarf Nemu was brought before the Regent and threw himself on the
ground at his feet.
Ani ordered the attendants to leave him, and said to the little man
"You compelled me to put you in prison. Stand up!" The dwarf rose and
said, "Be thanked--for my arrest too."
The Regent looked at him in astonishment; but Nemu went on half humbly,
half in fun, "I feared for my life, but thou hast not only not shortened
it, but hast prolonged it; for in the solitude of the dungeon time
seemed long, and the minutes grown to hours."
"Keep your wit for the ladies," replied the Regent. "Did I not know that
you meant well, and acted in accordance with the Lady Katuti's fancy, I
would send you to the quarries."
"My hands," mumbled the dwarf, "could only break stones for a game of
draughts; but my tongue is like the water, which makes one peasant rich,
and carries away the fields of another."
"We shall know how to dam it up."
"For my lady and for thee it will always flow the right way," said the
dwarf. "I showed the complaining citizens who it is that slaughters
their flesh and blood, and from whom to look for peace and content. I
poured caustic into their wounds, and praised the physician."
"But unasked and recklessly," interrupted Ani; "otherwise you have shown
yourself capable, and I am willing to spare you for a future time. But
overbusy friends are more damaging than intelligent enemies. When I need
your services I will call for you. Till then avoid speech. Now go to
your mistress, and carry to Katuti this letter which has arrived for
her."
"Hail to Ani, the son of the Sun!" cried the dwarf kissing the Regent's
foot. "Have I no letter to carry to my mistress Nefert?"
"Greet her from me," replied the Regent. "Tell Katuti I will visit her
after the next meal. The king's charioteer has not written, yet I hear
that he is well. Go now, and be silent and discreet."
The dwarf quitted the room, and Ani went into an airy hall, in which
his luxurious meal was laid out, consisting of many dishes prepared with
special care. His appetite was gone, but he tasted of every dish, and
gave the steward, who attended on him, his opinion of each.
Meanwhile he thought of the king's letter, of Bent-Anat, and whether it
would be advisable to expose himself to a rejection on her part.
After the meal he gave himself up to his body-servant, who carefully
shaved, painted, dressed, and decorated him, and then held the mirror
before him.
He considered the reflection with anxious observation, and when he
seated himself in his litter to be borne to the house of his friend
Katuti, he said to himself that he still might claim to be called a
handsome man.
If he paid his court to Bent-Anat--if she listened to his suit--what
then?
He would refer it to Katuti, who always knew how to say a decisive word
when he, entangled in a hundred pros and cons, feared to venture on a
final step.
By her advice he had sought to wed the princess, as a fresh mark of
honor--as an addition to his revenues--as a pledge for his personal
safety. His heart had never been more or less attached to her than to
any other beautiful woman in Egypt. Now her proud and noble personality
stood before his inward eye, and he felt as if he must look up to it
as to a vision high out of his reach. It vexed him that he had followed
Katuti's advice, and he began to wish his suit had been repulsed.
Marriage with Bent-Anat seemed to him beset with difficulties. His mood
was that of a man who craves some brilliant position, though he knows
that its requirements are beyond his powers--that of an ambitious soul
to whom kingly honors are offered on condition that he will never remove
a heavy crown from his head. If indeed another plan should succeed,
if--and his eyes flashed eagerly--if fate set him on the seat of
Rameses, then the alliance with Bent-Anat would lose its terrors; there
would he be her absolute King and Lord and Master, and no one could
require him to account for what he might be to her, or vouchsafe to her.
CHAPTER X.
During the events we have described the house of the charioteer Mena had
not remained free from visitors.
It resembled the neighboring estate of Paaker, though the buildings
were less new, the gay paint on the pillars and walls was faded, and
the large garden lacked careful attention. In the vicinity of the house
only, a few well-kept beds blazed with splendid flowers, and the open
colonnade, which was occupied by Katuti and her daughter, was furnished
with royal magnificence.
The elegantly carved seats were made of ivory, the tables of ebony, and
they, as well as the couches, had gilt feet. The artistically worked
Syrian drinking vessels on the sideboard, tables, and consoles were
of many forms; beautiful vases full of flowers stood everywhere; rare
perfumes rose from alabaster cups, and the foot sank in the thick pile
of the carpets which covered the floor.
And over the apparently careless arrangement of these various objects
there reigned a peculiar charm, an indescribably fascinating something.
Stretched at full-length on a couch, and playing with a
silky-haired white cat, lay the fair Nefert--fanned to coolness by a
negro-girl--while her mother Katuti nodded a last farewell to her sister
Setchem and to Paaker.
Both had crossed this threshold for the first time for four years, that
is since the marriage of Mena with Nefert, and the old enmity seemed now
to have given way to heartfelt reconciliation and mutual understanding.
After the pioneer and his mother had disappeared behind the pomegranate
shrubs at the entrance of the garden, Katuti turned to her daughter and
said:
"Who would have thought it yesterday? I believe Paaker loves you still."
Nefert colored, and exclaimed softly, while she hit the kitten gently
with her fan--
"Mother!"
Katuti smiled.
She was a tall woman of noble demeanor, whose sharp but delicately-cut
features and sparkling eyes could still assert some pretensions to
feminine beauty. She wore a long robe, which reached below her
ankles; it was of costly material, but dark in color, and of a studied
simplicity. Instead of the ornaments in bracelets, anklets, ear and
finger-rings, in necklaces and clasps, which most of the Egyptian
ladies--and indeed her own sister and daughter--were accustomed to wear,
she had only fresh flowers, which were never wanting in the garden
of her son-in-law. Only a plain gold diadem, the badge of her royal
descent, always rested, from early morning till late at night, on her
high brow--for a woman too high, though nobly formed--and confined the
long blue-black hair, which fell unbraided down her back, as if its
owner contemned the vain labor of arranging it artistically. But nothing
in her exterior was unpremeditated, and the unbejewelled wearer of the
diadem, in her plain dress, and with her royal figure, was everywhere
sure of being observed, and of finding imitators of her dress, and
indeed of her demeanor.
And yet Katuti had long lived in need; aye at the very hour when we
first make her acquaintance, she had little of her own, but lived on the
estate of her son-in-law as his guest, and as the administrator of his
possessions; and before the marriage of her daughter she had lived with
her children in a house belonging to her sister Setchem.
She had been the wife of her own brother,
[Marriages between brothers and sisters were allowed in ancient
Egypt. The Ptolemaic princes adopted this, which was contrary to
the Macedonian customs. When Ptolemy II. Philadelphus married his
sister Arsinoe, it seems to have been thought necessary to excuse it
by the relative positions of Venus and Saturn at that period, and
the constraining influences of these planets.]
who had died young, and who had squandered the greatest part of the
possessions which had been left to him by the new royal family, in an
extravagant love of display.
When she became a widow, she was received as a sister with her children
by her brother-in-law, Paaker's father. She lived in a house of her own,
enjoyed the income of an estate assigned to her by the old Mohar, and
left to her son-in-law the care of educating her son, a handsome and
overbearing lad, with all the claims and pretensions of a youth of
distinction.
Such great benefits would have oppressed and disgraced the proud Katuti,
if she had been content with them and in every way agreed with the
giver. But this was by no means the case; rather, she believed that she
might pretend to a more brilliant outward position, felt herself hurt
when her heedless son, while he attended school, was warned to work more
seriously, as he would by and by have to rely on his own skill and
his own strength. And it had wounded her when occasionally her
brother-in-law had suggested economy, and had reminded her, in his
straightforward way, of her narrow means, and the uncertain future of
her children.
At this she was deeply offended, for she ventured to say that her
relatives could never, with all their gifts, compensate for the insults
they heaped upon her; and thus taught them by experience that we quarrel
with no one more readily than with the benefactor whom we can never
repay for all the good he bestows on us.
Nevertheless, when her brother-in-law asked the hand of her daughter for
his son, she willingly gave her consent.
Nefert and Paaker had grown up together, and by this union she foresaw
that she could secure her own future and that of her children.
Shortly after the death of the Mohar, the charioteer Mena had proposed
for Nefert's hand, but would have been refused if the king himself had
not supported the suit of his favorite officer. After the wedding, she
retired with Nefert to Mena's house, and undertook, while he was at
the war, to manage his great estates, which however had been greatly
burthened with debt by his father.
Fate put the means into her hands of indemnifying herself and her
children for many past privations, and she availed herself of them
to gratify her innate desire to be esteemed and admired; to obtain
admission for her son, splendidly equipped, into a company of
chariot-warriors of the highest class; and to surround her daughter with
princely magnificence.
When the Regent, who had been a friend of her late husband, removed into
the palace of the Pharaohs, he made her advances, and the clever and
decided woman knew how to make herself at first agreeable, and finally
indispensable, to the vacillating man.
She availed herself of the circumstance that she, as well as he, was
descended from the old royal house to pique his ambition, and to open to
him a view, which even to think of, he would have considered forbidden
as a crime, before he became intimate with her.
Ani's suit for the hand of the princess Bent-Anat was Katuti's work. She
hoped that the Pharoah would refuse, and personally offend the Regent,
and so make him more inclined to tread the dangerous road which she was
endeavoring to smooth for him. The dwarf Nemu was her pliant tool.
She had not initiated him into her projects by any words; he however
gave utterance to every impulse of her mind in free language, which was
punished only with blows from a fan, and, only the day before, had been
so audacious as to say that if the Pharoah were called Ani instead of
Rameses, Katuti would be not a queen but a goddess for she would then
have not to obey, but rather to guide, the Pharaoh, who indeed himself
was related to the Immortals.
Katuti did not observe her daughter's blush, for she was looking
anxiously out at the garden gate, and said:
"Where can Nemu be! There must be some news arrived for us from the
army."
"Mena has not written for so long," Nefert said softly. "Ah! here is the
steward!"
Katuti turned to the officer, who had entered the veranda through a side
door:
"What do you bring," she asked.
"The dealer Abscha," was the answer, "presses for payment. The new
Syrian chariot and the purple cloth--"
"Sell some corn," ordered Katuti.
"Impossible, for the tribute to the temples is not yet paid, and already
so much has been delivered to the dealers that scarcely enough remains
over for the maintenance of the household and for sowing."
"Then pay with beasts."
"But, madam," said the steward sorrowfully, "only yesterday, we again
sold a herd to the Mohar; and the water-wheels must be turned, and
the corn must be thrashed, and we need beasts for sacrifice, and milk,
butter, and cheese, for the use of the house, and dung for firing."
[In Egypt, where there is so little wood, to this day the dried dung
of beasts is the commonest kind of fuel.]
Katuti looked thoughtfully at the ground.
"It must be," she said presently. "Ride to Hermonthis, and say to the
keeper of the stud that he must have ten of Mena's golden bays driven
over here."
"I have already spoken to him," said the steward, "but he maintains that
Mena strictly forbade him to part with even one of the horses, for he is
proud of the stock. Only for the chariot of the lady Nefert."
"I require obedience," said Katuti decidedly and cutting short the
steward's words, "and I expect the horses to-morrow."
"But the stud-master is a daring man, whom Mena looks upon as
indispensable, and he--"
"I command here, and not the absent," cried Katuti enraged, "and I
require the horses in spite of the former orders of my son-in-law."
Nefert, during this conversation, pulled herself up from her indolent
attitude. On hearing the last words she rose from her couch, and said,
with a decision which surprised even her mother--
"The orders of my husband must be obeyed. The horses that Mena loves
shall stay in their stalls. Take this armlet that the king gave me; it
is worth more than twenty horses."
The steward examined the trinket, richly set with precious stones,
and looked enquiringly at Katuti. She shrugged her shoulders, nodded
consent, and said--
"Abscha shall hold it as a pledge till Mena's booty arrives. For a year
your husband has sent nothing of importance."
When the steward was gone, Nefert stretched herself again on her couch
and said wearily:
"I thought we were rich."
"We might be," said Katuti bitterly; but as she perceived that Nefert's
cheeks again were glowing, she said amiably, "Our high rank imposes
great duties on us. Princely blood flows in our veins, and the eyes
of the people are turned on the wife of the most brilliant hero in the
king's army. They shall not say that she is neglected by her husband.
How long Mena remains away!"
"I hear a noise in the court," said Nefert. "The Regent is coming."
Katuti turned again towards the garden.
A breathless slave rushed in, and announced that Bent-Anat, the daughter
of the king, had dismounted at the gate, and was approaching the garden
with the prince Rameri.
Nefert left her couch, and went with her mother to meet the exalted
visitors.
As the mother and daughter bowed to kiss the robe of the princess,
Bent-Anat signed them back from her. "Keep farther from me," she said;
"the priests have not yet entirely absolved me from my uncleanness."
"And in spite of them thou art clean in the sight of Ra!" exclaimed the
boy who accompanied her, her brother of seventeen, who was brought up at
the House of Seti, which however he was to leave in a few weeks--and he
kissed her.
"I shall complain to Ameni of this wild boy," said Bent-Anat smiling.
"He would positively accompany me. Your husband, Nefert, is his model,
and I had no peace in the house, for we came to bring you good news."
"From Mena?" asked the young wife, pressing her hand to her heart.
"As you say," returned Bent-Anat. "My father praises his ability, and
writes that he, before all others, will have his choice at the dividing
of the spoil."
Nefert threw a triumphant glance at her mother, and Katuti drew a deep
breath.
Bent-Anat stroked Nefert's cheeks like those of a child. Then she turned
to Katuti, led her into the garden, and begged her to aid her, who had
so early lost her mother, with her advice in a weighty matter.
"My father," she continued, after a few introductory words, "informs me
that the Regent Ani desires me for his wife, and advises me to reward
the fidelity of the worthy man with my hand. He advises it, you
understand-he does not command."
"And thou?" asked Katuti.
"And I," replied Bent-Anat decidedly, "must refuse him."
"Thou must!"
Bent-Anat made a sign of assent and went on:
"It is quite clear to me. I can do nothing else."
"Then thou dost not need my counsel, since even thy father, I well know,
will not be able to alter thy decision."
"Not God even," said Anat firmly. "But you are Ani's friend, and as I
esteem him, I would save him from this humiliation. Endeavor to persuade
him to give up his suit. I will meet him as though I knew nothing of his
letter to my father."
Katuti looked down reflectively. Then she said--"The Regent certainly
likes very well to pass his hours of leisure with me gossiping or
playing draughts, but I do not know that I should dare to speak to him
of so grave a matter."
"Marriage-projects are women's affairs," said Bent-Anat, smiling.
"But the marriage of a princess is a state event," replied the widow.
"In this case it is true the uncle
[Among the Orientals--and even the Spaniards--it was and is common
to give the name of uncle to a parent's cousin.]
only courts his niece, who is dear to him, and who he hopes will make
the second half of his life the brightest. Ani is kind and without
severity. Thou would'st win in him a husband, who would wait on thy
looks, and bow willingly to thy strong will."
Bent-Anat's eyes flashed, and she hastily exclaimed: "That is exactly
what forces the decisive irrevocable 'No' to my lips. Do you think that
because I am as proud as my mother, and resolute like my father, that I
wish for a husband whom I could govern and lead as I would? How little
you know me! I will be obeyed by my dogs, my servants, my officers, if
the Gods so will it, by my children. Abject beings, who will kiss my
feet, I meet on every road, and can buy by the hundred, if I wish it,
in the slave market. I may be courted twenty times, and reject twenty
suitors, but not because I fear that they might bend my pride and my
will; on the contrary, because I feel them increased. The man to whom I
could wish to offer my hand must be of a loftier stamp, must be
greater, firmer, and better than I, and I will flutter after the mighty
wing-strokes of his spirit, and smile at my own weakness, and glory in
admiring his superiority."
Katuti listened to the maiden with the smile by which the experienced
love to signify their superiority over the visionary.
"Ancient times may have produced such men," she said. "But if in these
days thou thinkest to find one, thou wilt wear the lock of youth,
[The lock of youth was a curl of hair which all the younger members
of princely families wore at the side of the head. The young Horus
is represented with it.]
till thou art grey. Our thinkers are no heroes, and our heroes are no
sages. Here come thy brother and Nefert."
"Will you persuade Ani to give up his suit!" said the princess urgently.
"I will endeavor to do so, for thy sake," replied Katuti. Then, turning
half to the young Rameri and half to his sister, she said:
"The chief of the House of Seti, Ameni, was in his youth such a man as
thou paintest, Bent-Anat. Tell us, thou son of Rameses, that art growing
up under the young sycamores, which shall some day over-shadow the
land-whom dost thou esteem the highest among thy companions? Is there
one among them, who is conspicuous above them all for a lofty spirit and
strength of intellect?"
The young Rameri looked gaily at the speaker, and said laughing: "We are
all much alike, and do more or less willingly what we are compelled, and
by preference every thing that we ought not."
"A mighty soul--a youth, who promises to be a second Snefru, a Thotmes,
or even an Amem? Dost thou know none such in the House of Seti?" asked
the widow. "Oh yes!" cried Rameri with eager certainty.
"And he is--?" asked Katuti.
"Pentaur, the poet," exclaimed the youth. Bent-Anat's face glowed with
scarlet color, while her, brother went on to explain.
"He is noble and of a lofty soul, and all the Gods dwell in him when
he speaks. Formerly we used to go to sleep in the lecture-hall; but his
words carry us away, and if we do not take in the full meaning of his
thoughts, yet we feel that they are genuine and noble."
Bent-Anat breathed quicker at these words, and her eyes hung on the
boy's lips.
"You know him, Bent-Anat," continued Rameri. "He was with you at the
paraschites' house, and in the temple-court when Ameni pronounced you
unclean. He is as tall and handsome as the God Mentli, and I feel that
he is one of those whom we can never forget when once we have seen them.
Yesterday, after you had left the temple, he spoke as he never spoke
before; he poured fire into our souls. Do not laugh, Katuti, I feel it
burning still. This morning we were informed that he had been sent from
the temple, who knows where--and had left us a message of farewell. It
was not thought at all necessary to communicate the reason to us; but
we know more than the masters think. He did not reprove you strongly
enough, Bent-Anat, and therefore he is driven out of the House of
Seti. We have agreed to combine to ask for him to be recalled; Anana is
drawing up a letter to the chief priest, which we shall all subscribe.
It would turn out badly for one alone, but they cannot be at all of us
at once. Very likely they will have the sense to recall him. If not, we
shall all complain to our fathers, and they are not the meanest in the
land."
"It is a complete rebellion," cried Katuti. "Take care, you lordlings;
Ameni and the other prophets are not to be trifled with."
"Nor we either," said Rameri laughing, "If Pentaur is kept in
banishment, I shall appeal to my father to place me at the school at
Heliopolis or Chennu, and the others will follow me. Come, Bent-Anat,
I must be back in the trap before sunset. Excuse me, Katuti, so we call
the school. Here comes your little Nemu."
The brother and sister left the garden.
As soon as the ladies, who accompanied them, had turned their backs,
Bent-Anat grasped her brother's hand with unaccustomed warmth, and said:
"Avoid all imprudence; but your demand is just, and I will help you with
all my heart."
CHAPTER XI.
As soon as Bent-Anat had quitted Mena's domain, the dwarf Nemu entered
the garden with a letter, and briefly related his adventures; but in
such a comical fashion that both the ladies laughed, and Katuti, with a
lively gaiety, which was usually foreign to her, while she warned him,
at the same time praised his acuteness. She looked at the seal of the
letter and said:
"This is a lucky day; it has brought us great things, and the promise
of greater things in the future." Nefert came close up to her and said
imploringly: "Open the letter, and see if there is nothing in it from
him."
Katuti unfastened the wax, looked through the letter with a hasty
glance, stroked the cheek of her child, and said:
"Perhaps your brother has written for him; I see no line in his
handwriting."
Nefert on her side glanced at the letter, but not to read it, only to
seek some trace of the well-known handwriting of her husband.
Like all the Egyptian women of good family she could read, and during
the first two years of her married life she had often--very often--had
the opportunity of puzzling, and yet rejoicing, over the feeble signs
which the iron hand of the charioteer had scrawled on the papyrus for
her whose slender fingers could guide the reed pen with firmness and
decision.
She examined the letter, and at last said, with tears in her eyes:
"Nothing! I will go to my room, mother."
Katuti kissed her and said, "Hear first what your brother writes."
But Nefert shook her head, turned away in silence, and disappeared into
the house.
Katuti was not very friendly to her son-in-law, but her heart clung
to her handsome, reckless son, the very image of her lost husband,
the favorite of women, and the gayest youth among the young nobles who
composed the chariot-guard of the king.
How fully he had written to-day--he who weilded the reed-pen so
laboriously.
This really was a letter; while, usually, he only asked in the fewest
words for fresh funds for the gratification of his extravagant tastes.
This time she might look for thanks, for not long since he must have
received a considerable supply, which she had abstracted from the income
of the possessions entrusted to her by her son-in-law.
She began to read.
The cheerfulness, with which she had met the dwarf, was insincere, and
had resembled the brilliant colors of the rainbow, which gleam over
the stagnant waters of a bog. A stone falls into the pool, the colors
vanish, dim mists rise up, and it becomes foul and clouded.
The news which her son's letter contained fell, indeed, like a block of
stone on Katuti's soul.
Our deepest sorrows always flow from the same source as might have
filled us with joy, and those wounds burn the fiercest which are
inflicted by a hand we love.
The farther Katuti went in the lamentably incorrect epistle--which she
could only decipher with difficulty--which her darling had written to
her, the paler grew her face, which she several times covered with her
trembling hands, from which the letter dropped.
Nemu squatted on the earth near her, and followed all her movements.
When she sprang forward with a heart-piercing scream, and pressed her
forehead to a rough palmtrunk, he crept up to her, kissed her feet, and
exclaimed with a depth of feeling that overcame even Katuti, who was
accustomed to hear only gay or bitter speeches from the lips of her
jester--
"Mistress! lady! what has happened?"
Katuti collected herself, turned to him, and tried to speak; but her
pale lips remained closed, and her eyes gazed dimly into vacancy as
though a catalepsy had seized her.
"Mistress! Mistress!" cried the dwarf again, with growing agitation.
"What is the matter? shall I call thy daughter?"
Katuti made a sign with her hand, and cried feebly: "The wretches! the
reprobates!"
Her breath began to come quickly, the blood mounted to her cheeks
and her flashing eyes; she trod upon the letter, and wept so loud and
passionately, that the dwarf, who had never before seen tears in her
eyes, raised himself timidly, and said in mild reproach: "Katuti!"
She laughed bitterly, and said with a trembling voice:
"Why do you call my name so loud! it is disgraced and degraded. How
the nobles and the ladies will rejoice! Now envy can point at us with
spiteful joy--and a minute ago I was praising this day! They say one
should exhibit one's happiness in the streets, and conceal one's misery;
on the contrary, on the contrary! Even the Gods should not know of one's
hopes and joys, for they too are envious and spiteful!"
Again she leaned her head against the palm-tree. "Thou speakest of
shame, and not of death," said Nemu, "and I learned from thee that one
should give nothing up for lost excepting the dead."
These words had a powerful effect on the agitated woman. Quickly and
vehemently she turned upon the dwarf saying.
"You are clever, and faithful too, so listen! but if you were Amon
himself there is nothing to be done--"
"We must try," said Nemu, and his sharp eyes met those of his mistress.
"Speak," he said, "and trust me. Perhaps I can be of no use; but that I
can be silent thou knowest."
"Before long the children in the streets will talk of what this tells
me," said Katuti, laughing with bitterness, "only Nefert must know
nothing of what has happened--nothing, mind; what is that? the Regent
coming! quick, fly; tell him I am suddenly taken ill, very ill; I cannot
see him, not now! No one is to be admitted--no one, do you hear?"
The dwarf went.
When he came back after he had fulfilled his errand, he found his
mistress still in a fever of excitement.
"Listen," she said; "first the smaller matter, then the frightful, the
unspeakable. Rameses loads Mena with marks of his favor. It came to a
division of the spoils of war for the year; a great heap of treasure lay
ready for each of his followers, and the charioteer had to choose before
all the others."
"Well?" said the dwarf.
"Well!" echoed Katuti. "Well! how did the worthy householder care for
his belongings at home, how did he seek to relieve his indebted estate?
It is disgraceful, hideous! He passed by the silver, the gold, the
jewels, with a laugh; and took the captive daughter of the Danaid
princes, and led her into his tent."
"Shameful!" muttered the dwarf.
"Poor, poor Nefert!" cried Katuti, covering her face with her hands.
"And what more?" asked Nemu hastily.
"That," said Katuti, "that is--but I will keep calm--quite calm and
quiet. You know my son. He is heedless, but he loves me and his sister
more than anything in the world. I, fool as I was, to persuade him
to economy, had vividly described our evil plight, and after that
disgraceful conduct of Mena he thought of us and of our anxieties. His
share of the booty was small, and could not help us. His comrades threw
dice for the shares they had obtained--he staked his to win more for us.
He lost--all--all--and at last against an enormous sum, still thinking
of us, and only of us, he staked the mummy of his dead father.
[It was a king of the fourth dynasty, named Asychis by Herodotus,
who it is admitted was the first to pledge the mummies of his
ancestors. "He who stakes this pledge and fails to redeem the debt
shall, after his death, rest neither in his father's tomb nor in any
other, and sepulture shall be denied to his descendants." Herod.
11. 136.]
He lost. If he does not redeem the pledge before the expiration of the
third month, he will fall into infamy, the mummy will belong to the
winner, and disgrace and ignominy will be my lot and his."
Katuti pressed her hands on her face, the dwarf muttered to himself,
"The gambler and hypocrite!" When his mistress had grown calmer, he
said:
"It is horrible, yet all is not lost. How much is the debt?"
It sounded like a heavy curse, when Katuti replied, "Thirty Babylonian
talents."--[L7000 sterling in 1881.]
The dwarf cried out, as if an asp had stung him. "Who dared to bid
against such a mad stake?"
"The Lady Hathor's son, Antef," answered Katuti, "who has already
gambled away the inheritance of his fathers, in Thebes."
"He will not remit one grain of wheat of his claim," cried the dwarf.
"And Mena?"
"How could my son turn to him after what had happened? The poor child
implores me to ask the assistance of the Regent."
"Of the Regent?" said the dwarf, shaking his big head. "Impossible!"
"I know, as matters now stand; but his place, his name."
"Mistress," said the dwarf, and deep purpose rang in the words, "do not
spoil the future for the sake of the present. If thy son loses his honor
under King Rameses, the future King, Ani, may restore it to him. If the
Regent now renders you all an important service, he will regard you as
amply paid when our efforts have succeeded, and he sits on the throne.
He lets himself be led by thee now because thou hast no need of his
help, and dost seem to work only for his sake, and for his elevation.
As soon as thou hast appealed to him, and he has assisted thee, all thy
confidence and freedom will be gone, and the more difficult he finds
it to raise so large a sum of money at once, the angrier he will be to
think that thou art making use of him. Thou knowest his circumstances."
"He is in debt," said Katuti. "I know that."
"Thou should'st know it," cried the dwarf, "for thou thyself hast forced
him to enormous expenses. He has won the people of Thebes with dazzling
festive displays; as guardian of Apis
[When Apis (the sacred bull) died under Ptolemy I. Soter, his
keepers spent not only the money which they had received for his
maintenance, in his obsequies but borrowed 50 talents of silver from
the king. In the time of Diodurus 100 talents were spent for the
same purpose.]
he gave a large donation to Memphis; he bestowed thousands on the
leaders of the troops sent into Ethiopia, which were equipped by him;
what his spies cost him at, the camp of the king, thou knowest. He has
borrowed sums of money from most of the rich men in the country, and
that is well, for so many creditors are so many allies. The Regent is a
bad debtor; but the king Ani, they reckon, will be a grateful payer."
Katuti looked at the dwarf in astonishment. "You know men!" she said.
"To my sorrow!" replied Nemu. "Do not apply to the Regent, and before
thou dost sacrifice the labor of years, and thy future greatness, and
that of those near to thee, sacrifice thy son's honor."
"And my husband's, and my own?" exclaimed Katuti. "How can you know what
that is! Honor is a word that the slave may utter, but whose meaning he
can never comprehend; you rub the weals that are raised on you by blows;
to me every finger pointed at me in scorn makes a wound like an ashwood
lance with a poisoned tip of brass. Oh ye holy Gods! who can help us?"
The miserable woman pressed her hands over her eyes, as if to shut out the sight of her own disgrace. The dwarf looked at her compassionately, and said in a changed tone: |
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