CHAPTER XIV.
Pentauer also soon quitted the but of the paraschites.
Lost in meditation, he went along the hill-path which led to the temple
which Ameni had put under his direction.
[This temple is well proportioned, and remains in good preservation.
Copies of the interesting pictures discovered in it are to be found
in the "Fleet of an Egyptian queen" by Dutnichen. Other details may
be found in Lepsius' Monuments of Egypt, and a plan of the place has
recently been published by Mariette.]
He foresaw many disturbed and anxious hours in the immediate future.
The sanctuary of which he was the superior, had been dedicated to her
own memory, and to the goddess Hathor, by Hatasu,
[The daughter of Thotmes I., wife of her brother Thotmes II., and
predecessor of her second brother Thotmes III. An energetic woman
who executed great works, and caused herself to be represented with
the helmet and beard-case of a man.]
a great queen of the dethroned dynasty.
The priests who served it were endowed with peculiar chartered
privileges, which hitherto had been strictly respected. Their dignity
was hereditary, going down from father to son, and they had the right of
choosing their director from among themselves.
Now their chief priest Rui was ill and dying, and Ameni, under whose
jurisdiction they came, had, without consulting them, sent the young
poet Pentaur to fill his place.
They had received the intruder most unwillingly, and combined strongly
against him when it became evident that he was disposed to establish
a severe rule and to abolish many abuses which had become established
customs.
They had devolved the greeting of the rising sun on the temple-servants;
Pentaur required that the younger ones at least should take part
in chanting the morning hymn, and himself led the choir. They had
trafficked with the offerings laid on the altar of the Goddess; the new
master repressed this abuse, as well as the extortions of which they
were guilty towards women in sorrow, who visited the temple of Hathor in
greater number than any other sanctuary.
The poet-brought up in the temple of Seti to self-control, order,
exactitude, and decent customs, deeply penetrated with a sense of the
dignity of his position, and accustomed to struggle with special zeal
against indolence of body and spirit--was disgusted with the slothful
life and fraudulent dealings of his subordinates; and the deeper insight
which yesterday's experience had given him into the poverty and sorrow
of human existence, made him resolve with increased warmth that he would
awake them to a new life.
The conviction that the lazy herd whom he commanded was called upon to
pour consolation into a thousand sorrowing hearts, to dry innumerable
tears, and to clothe the dry sticks of despair with the fresh verdure of
hope, urged him to strong measures.
Yesterday he had seen how, with calm indifference, they had listened to
the deserted wife, the betrayed maiden, to the woman, who implored
the withheld blessing of children, to the anxious mother, the forlorn
widow,--and sought only to take advantage of sorrow, to extort gifts for
the Goddess, or better still for their own pockets or belly.
Now he was nearing the scene of his new labors.
There stood the reverend building, rising stately from the valley on
four terraces handsomely and singularly divided, and resting on the
western side against the high amphitheatre of yellow cliffs.
On the closely-joined foundation stones gigantic hawks were carved in
relief, each with the emblem of life, and symbolized Horus, the son of
the Goddess, who brings all that fades to fresh bloom, and all that dies
to resurrection.
On each terrace stood a hall open to the east, and supported on two and
twenty archaic pillars.
[Polygonal pillars, which were used first in tomb-building under the
12th dynasty, and after the expulsion of the Hyksos under the kings
of the 17th and 18th, in public buildings; but under the subsequent
races of kings they ceased to be employed.]
On their inner walls elegant pictures and inscriptions in the finest
sculptured work recorded, for the benefit of posterity, the great things
that Hatasu had done with the help of the Gods of Thebes.
There were the ships which she had to send to Punt
[Arabia; apparently also the coast of east Africa south of Egypt as
far as Somali. The latest of the lists published by Mariette, of
the southern nations conquered by Thotmes III., mentions it. This
list was found on the pylon of the temple of Karnak.]
to enrich Egypt with the treasures of the east; there the wonders
brought to Thebes from Arabia might be seen; there were delineated
the houses of the inhabitants of the land of frankincense, and all the
fishes of the Red Sea, in distinct and characteristic outline.
On the third and fourth terraces were the small adjoining rooms of
Hatasu and her brothers Thotmes II. and III., which were built against
the rock, and entered by granite doorways. In them purifications
were accomplished, the images of the Goddess worshipped, and the more
distinguished worshippers admitted to confess. The sacred cows of the
Goddess were kept in a side-building.
As Pentaur approached the great gate of the terrace-temple, he became
the witness of a scene which filled him with resentment.
A woman implored to be admitted into the forecourt, to pray at the
altar of the Goddess for her husband, who was very ill, but the sleek
gate-keeper drove her back with rough words.
"It is written up," said he, pointing to the inscription over the gate,
"only the purified may set their foot across this threshold, and you
cannot be purified but by the smoke of incense."
"Then swing the censer for me," said the woman, and take this silver
ring--it is all I have."
"A silver ring!" cried the porter, indignantly. "Shall the goddess be
impoverished for your sake! The grains of Anta, that would be used in
purifying you, would cost ten times as much."
"But I have no more," replied the woman, "my husband, for whom I come to
pray, is ill; he cannot work, and my children--"
"You fatten them up and deprive the goddess of her due," cried the
gate-keeper. "Three rings down, or I shut the gate."
"Be merciful," said the woman, weeping. "What will become of us if
Hathor does not help my husband?"
"Will our goddess fetch the doctor?" asked the porter. "She has
something to do besides curing sick starvelings. Besides, that is not
her office. Go to Imhotep or to Chunsu the counsellor, or to the great
Techuti herself, who helps the sick. There is no quack medicine to be
got here."
"I only want comfort in my trouble," said the woman.
"Comfort!" laughed the gate-keeper, measuring the comely young woman
with his eye. "That you may have cheaper."
The woman turned pale, and drew back from the hand the man stretched out
towards her.
At this moment Pentaur, full of wrath, stepped between them.
He raised his hand in blessing over the woman, who bent low before him,
and said, "Whoever calls fervently on the Divinity is near to him. You
are pure. Enter."
As soon as she had disappeared within the temple, the priest turned to
the gate-keeper and exclaimed: "Is this how you serve the goddess, is
this how you take advantage of a heart-wrung woman? Give me the keys of
this gate. Your office is taken from you, and early to-morrow you go out
in the fields, and keep the geese of Hathor."
The porter threw himself on his knees with loud outcries; but Pentaur
turned his back upon him, entered the sanctuary, and mounted the steps
which led to his dwelling on the third terrace.
A few priests whom he passed turned their backs upon him, others looked
down at their dinners, eating noisily, and making as if they did not
see him. They had combined strongly, and were determined to expel the
inconvenient intruder at any price.
Having reached his room, which had been splendidly decorated for his
predecessor, Pentaur laid aside his new insignia, comparing sorrowfully
the past and the present.
To what an exchange Ameni had condemned him! Here, wherever he looked,
he met with sulkiness and aversion; while, when he walked through the
courts of the House of Seti, a hundred boys would hurry towards him, and
cling affectionately to his robe. Honored there by great and small, his
every word had had its value; and when each day he gave utterance to his
thoughts, what he bestowed came back to him refined by earnest discourse
with his associates and superiors, and he gained new treasures for his
inner life.
"What is rare," thought he, "is full of charm; and yet how hard it is
to do without what is habitual!" The occurrences of the last few days
passed before his mental sight. Bent-Anat's image appeared before him,
and took a more and more distinct and captivating form. His heart began
to beat wildly, the blood rushed faster through his veins; he hid his
face in his hands, and recalled every glance, every word from her lips.
"I follow thee willingly," she had said to him before the hut of the
paraschites. Now he asked himself whether he were worthy of such a
follower.
He had indeed broken through the old bonds, but not to disgrace the
house that was dear to him, only to let new light into its dim chambers.
"To do what we have earnestly felt to be right," said he to himself,
"may seem worthy of punishment to men, but cannot before God."
He sighed and walked out into the terrace in a mood of lofty excitement,
and fully resolved to do here nothing but what was right, to lay the
foundation of all that was good.
"We men," thought he, "prepare sorrow when we come into the world, and
lamentation when we leave it; and so it is our duty in the intermediate
time to fight with suffering, and to sow the seeds of joy. There are
many tears here to be wiped away. To work then!" The poet found none of
his subordinates on the upper terrace. They had all met in the forecourt
of the temple, and were listening to the gate-keeper's tale, and seemed
to sympathize with his angry complaint--against whom Pentaur well knew.
With a firm step he went towards them and said:
"I have expelled this man from among us, for he is a disgrace to us.
To-morrow he quits the temple."
"I will go at once," replied the gate-keeper defiantly, "and in behalf
of the holy fathers (here he cast a significant glance at the priests),
ask the high-priest Ameni if the unclean are henceforth to be permitted
to enter this sanctuary."
He was already approaching the gate, but Pentaur stepped before him,
saying resolutely:
"You will remain here and keep the geese to-morrow, day after to-morrow,
and until I choose to pardon you." The gate-keeper looked enquiringly at
the priests. Not one moved.
"Go back into your house," said Pentaur, going closer to him.
The porter obeyed.
Pentaur locked the door of the little room, gave the key to one of the
temple-servants, and said: "Perform his duty, watch the man, and if he
escapes you will go after the geese to-morrow too. See, my friends,
how many worshippers kneel there before our altars--go and fulfil your
office. I will wait in the confessional to receive complaints, and to
administer comfort."
The priests separated and went to the votaries. Pentaur once more
mounted the steps, and sat down in the narrow confessional which was
closed by a curtain; on its wall the picture of Hatasu was to be seen,
drawing the milk of eternal life from the udders of the cow Hathor.
He had hardly taken his place when a temple-servant announced the
arrival of a veiled lady. The bearers of her litter were thickly veiled,
and she had requested to be conducted to the confession chamber. The
servant handed Pentaur a token by which the high-priest of the great
temple of Anion, on the other bank of the Nile, granted her the
privilege of entering the inner rooms of the temple with the Rechiu, and
to communicate with all priests, even with the highest of the initiated.
The poet withdrew behind a curtain, and awaited the stranger with a
disquiet that seemed to him all the more singular that he had frequently
found himself in a similar position. Even the noblest dignitaries had
often been transferred to him by Ameni when they had come to the temple
to have their visions interpreted.
A tall female figure entered the still, sultry stone room, sank on
her knees, and put up a long and absorbed prayer before the figure of
Hathor. Pentaur also, seen by no one, lifted his hands, and fervently
addressed himself to the omnipresent spirit with a prayer for strength
and purity.
Just as his arms fell the lady raised her head. It was as though the
prayers of the two souls had united to mount upwards together.
The veiled lady rose and dropped her veil.
It was Bent-Anat.
In the agitation of her soul she had sought the goddess Hathor, who
guides the beating heart of woman and spins the threads which bind man
and wife.
"High mistress of heaven! many-named and beautiful!" she began to pray
aloud, "golden Hathor! who knowest grief and ecstasy--the present and
the future--draw near to thy child, and guide the spirit of thy servant,
that he may advise me well. I am the daughter of a father who is great
and noble and truthful as one of the Gods. He advises me--he will never
compel me--to yield to a man whom I can never love. Nay, another has met
me, humble in birth but noble in spirit and in gifts--"
Thus far, Pentaur, incapable of speech, had overheard the princess.
Ought he to remain concealed and hear all her secret, or should he step
forth and show himself to her? His pride called loudly to him: "Now
she will speak your name; you are the chosen one of the fairest and
noblest." But another voice to which he had accustomed himself to listen
in severe self-discipline made itself heard, and said--"Let her say
nothing in ignorance, that she need be ashamed of if she knew."
He blushed for her;--he opened the curtain and went forward into the
presence of Bent-Anat.
The Princess drew back startled.
"Art thou Pentaur," she asked, "or one of the Immortals?"
"I am Pentaur," he answered firmly, "a man with all the weakness of his
race, but with a desire for what is good. Linger here and pour out thy
soul to our Goddess; my whole life shall be a prayer for thee."
The poet looked full at her; then he turned quickly, as if to avoid a
danger, towards the door of the confessional.
Bent-Anat called his name, and he stayed his steps:
"The daughter of Rameses," she said, "need offer no justification of
her appearance here, but the maiden Bent-Anat," and she colored as she
spoke, "expected to find, not thee, but the old priest Rui, and she
desired his advice. Now leave me to pray."
Bent-Anat sank on her knees, and Pentaur went out into the open air.
When the princess too had left the confessional, loud voices were heard
on the south side of the terrace on which they stood.
She hastened towards the parapet.
"Hail to Pentaur!" was shouted up from below. The poet rushed forward,
and placed himself near the princess. Both looked down into the valley,
and could be seen by all.
"Hail, hail! Pentaur," was called doubly loud, "Hail to our teacher!
come back to the House of Seti. Down with the persecutors of
Pentaur--down with our oppressors!"
At the head of the youths, who, so soon as they had found out whither
the poet had been exiled, had escaped to tell him that they were
faithful to him, stood the prince Rameri, who nodded triumphantly to
his sister, and Anana stepped forward to inform the honored teacher in a
solemn and well-studied speech, that, in the event of Ameni refusing to
recall him, they had decided requesting their fathers to place them at
another school.
The young sage spoke well, and Bent-Anat followed his words, not without
approbation; but Pentaur's face grew darker, and before his favorite
disciple had ended his speech he interrupted him sternly.
His voice was at first reproachful, and then complaining, and loud as he
spoke, only sorrow rang in his tones, and not anger.
"In truth," he concluded, "every word that I have spoken to you I could
but find it in me to regret, if it has contributed to encourage you to
this mad act. You were born in palaces; learn to obey, that later you
may know how to command. Back to your school! You hesitate? Then I will
come out against you with the watchman, and drive you back, for you do
me and yourselves small honor by such a proof of affection. Go back to
the school you belong to."
The school-boys dared make no answer, but surprised and disenchanted
turned to go home.
Bent-Anat cast down her eyes as she met those of her brother,
who shrugged his shoulders, and then she looked half shyly, half
respectfully, at the poet; but soon again her eyes turned to the plain
below, for thick dust-clouds whirled across it, the sound of hoofs and
the rattle of wheels became audible, and at the same moment the chariot
of Septah, the chief haruspex, and a vehicle with the heavily-armed
guard of the House of Seti, stopped near the terrace.
The angry old man sprang quickly to the ground, called the host of
escaped pupils to him in a stern voice, ordered the guard to drive them
back to the school, and hurried up to the temple gates like a vigorous
youth. The priests received him with the deepest reverence, and at once
laid their complaints before him.
He heard them willingly, but did not let them discuss the matter; then,
though with some difficulty, he quickly mounted the steps, down which
Bent-Anat came towards him.
The princess felt that she would divert all the blame and
misunderstanding to herself, if Septah recognized her; her hand
involuntarily reached for her veil, but she drew it back quickly, looked
with quiet dignity into the old man's eyes, which flashed with anger,
and proudly passed by him. The haruspex bowed, but without giving her
his blessing, and when he met Pentaur on the second terrace, ordered
that the temple should be cleared of worshippers.
This was done in a few minutes, and the priests were witnesses of
the most painful, scene which had occurred for years in their quiet
sanctuary.
The head of the haruspices of the House of Seti was the most determined
adversary of the poet who had so early been initiated into the
mysteries, and whose keen intellect often shook those very ramparts
which the zealous old man had, from conviction, labored to strengthen
from his youth up. The vexatious occurrences, of which he had been a
witness at the House of Seti, and here also but a few minutes since, he
regarded as the consequence of the unbridled license of an ill-regulated
imagination, and in stern language he called Pentaur to account for the
"revolt" of the school-boys.
"And besides our boys," he exclaimed, "you have led the daughter of
Rameses astray. She was not yet purged of her uncleanness, and yet you
tempt her to an assignation, not even in the stranger's quarters--but in
the holy house of this pure Divinity." Undeserved praise is dangerous
to the weak; unjust blame may turn even the strong from the right way.
Pentaur indignantly repelled the accusations of the old man, called them
unworthy of his age, his position, and his name, and for fear that
his anger might carry him too far, turned his back upon him; but the
haruspex ordered him to remain, and in his presence questioned the
priests, who unanimously accused the poet of having admitted to the
temple another unpurified woman besides Bent-Anat, and of having
expelled the gate-keeper and thrown him into prison for opposing the
crime.
The haruspex ordered that the "ill-used man" should be set at liberty.
Pentaur resisted this command, asserted his right to govern in this
temple, and with a trembling voice requested Septah to quit the place.
The haruspex showed him Ameni's ring, by which, during his residence
in Thebes, he made him his plenipotentiary, degraded Pentaur from his
dignity, but ordered him not to quit the sanctuary till further notice,
and then finally departed from the temple of Hatasu.
Pentaur had yielded in silence to the signet of his chief, and returned
to the confessional in which he had met Bent-Anat. He felt his soul
shaken to its very foundations, his thoughts were confused, his feelings
struggling with each other; he shivered, and when he heard the laughter
of the priests and the gatekeeper, who were triumphing in their easy
victory, he started and shuddered like a man who in passing a mirror
should see a brand of disgrace on his brow.
But by degrees he recovered himself, his spirit grew clearer, and when
he left the little room to look towards the east--where, on the farther
shore, rose the palace where Bent-Anat must be--a deep contempt for his
enemies filled his soul, and a proud feeling of renewed manly energy.
He did not conceal from himself that he had enemies; that a time of
struggle was beginning for him; but he looked forward to it like a young
hero to the morning of his first battle.
CHAPTER XV.
The afternoon shadows were already growing long, when a splendid chariot
drew up to the gates of the terrace-temple. Paaker, the chief pioneer,
stood up in it, driving his handsome and fiery Syrian horses. Behind him
stood an Ethiopian slave, and his big dog followed the swift team with
his tongue out.
As he approached the temple he heard himself called, and checked the
pace of his horses. A tiny man hurried up to him, and, as soon as he had
recognized in him the dwarf Nemu, he cried angrily:
"Is it for you, you rascal, that I stop my drive? What do you want?"
"To crave," said the little man, bowing humbly, "that, when thy business
in the city of the dead is finished, thou wilt carry me back to Thebes."
"You are Mena's dwarf?" asked the pioneer.
"By no means," replied Nemu. "I belong to his neglected wife, the lady
Nefert. I can only cover the road very slowly with my little legs, while
the hoofs of your horses devour the way-as a crocodile does his prey."
"Get up!" said Paaker. "Did you come here on foot?"
"No, my lord," replied Nemu, "on an ass; but a demon entered into the
beast, and has struck it with sickness. I had to leave it on the road.
The beasts of Anubis will have a better supper than we to-night."
"Things are not done handsomely then at your mistress's house?" asked
Paaker.
"We still have bread," replied Nemu, "and the Nile is full of water.
Much meat is not necessary for women and dwarfs, but our last cattle
take a form which is too hard for human teeth."
The pioneer did not understand the joke, and looked enquiringly at the
dwarf.
"The form of money," said the little man, "and that cannot be chewed;
soon that will be gone too, and then the point will be to find a recipe
for making nutritious cakes out of earth, water, and palm-leaves. It
makes very little difference to me, a dwarf does not need much--but the
poor tender lady!"
Paaker touched his horses with such a violent stroke of his whip that
they reared high, and it took all his strength to control their spirit.
"The horses' jaws will be broken," muttered the slave behind. "What a
shame with such fine beasts!"
"Have you to pay for them?" growled Paaker. Then he turned again to the
dwarf, and asked:
"Why does Mena let the ladies want?"
"He no longer cares for his wife," replied the dwarf, casting his eyes
down sadly. "At the last division of the spoil he passed by the gold and
silver; and took a foreign woman into his tent. Evil demons have blinded
him, for where is there a woman fairer than Nefert?"
"You love your mistress."
"As my very eyes!"
During this conversation they had arrived at the terrace-temple. Paaker
threw the reins to the slave, ordered him to wait with Nemu, and turned
to the gate-keeper to explain to him, with the help of a handful of
gold, his desire of being conducted to Pentaur, the chief of the temple.
The gate-keeper, swinging a censer before him with a hasty action,
admitted him into the sanctuary. "You will find him on the third
terrace," he said, "but he is no longer our superior."
"They said so in the temple of Seti, whence I have just come," replied
Paaker.
The porter shrugged his shoulders with a sneer, and said: "The palm-tree
that is quickly set up falls down more quickly still." Then he desired a
servant to conduct the stranger to Pentaur.
The poet recognized the Mohar at once, asked his will, and learned that
he was come to have a wonderful vision interpreted by him.
Paaker explained before relating his dream, that he did not ask this
service for nothing; and when the priest's countenance darkened he
added:
"I will send a fine beast for sacrifice to the Goddess if the
interpretation is favorable."
"And in the opposite case?" asked Pentaur, who, in the House of Seti,
never would have anything whatever to do with the payments of the
worshippers or the offerings of the devout.
"I will offer a sheep," replied Paaker, who did not perceive the subtle
irony that lurked in Pentaur's words, and who was accustomed to pay for
the gifts of the Divinity in proportion to their value to himself.
Pentaur thought of the verdict which Gagabu, only two evenings since,
had passed on the Mohar, and it occurred to him that he would test
how far the man's superstition would lead him. So he asked, while he
suppressed a smile:
"And if I can foretell nothing bad, but also nothing actually good?"--
"An antelope, and four geese," answered Paaker promptly.
"But if I were altogether disinclined to put myself at your service?"
asked Pentaur. "If I thought it unworthy of a priest to let the Gods
be paid in proportion to their favors towards a particular person, like
corrupt officials; if I now showed you--you--and I have known you from
a school-boy, that there are things that cannot be bought with inherited
wealth?"
The pioneer drew back astonished and angry, but Pentaur continued
calmly--
"I stand here as the minister of the Divinity; and nevertheless, I see
by your countenance, that you were on the point of lowering yourself by
showing to me your violent and extortionate spirit.
"The Immortals send us dreams, not to give us a foretaste of joy or
caution us against danger, but to remind us so to prepare our souls
that we may submit quietly to suffer evil, and with heartfelt gratitude
accept the good; and so gain from each profit for the inner life. I will
not interpret your dream! Come without gifts, but with a humble heart,
and with longing for inward purification, and I will pray to the Gods
that they may enlighten me, and give you such interpretation of even
evil dreams that they may be fruitful in blessing.
"Leave me, and quit the temple!"
Paaker ground his teeth with rage; but he controlled himself, and only
said as he slowly withdrew:
"If your office had not already been taken from you, the insolence with
which you have dismissed me might have cost you your place. We shall
meet again, and then you shall learn that inherited wealth in the right
hand is worth more than you will like."
"Another enemy!" thought the poet, when he found himself alone and stood
erect in the glad consciousness of having done right.
During Paaker's interview with the poet, the dwarf Nemu had chatted to
the porter, and had learned from him all that had previously occurred.
Paaker mounted his chariot pale with rage, and whipped on his horses
before the dwarf had clambered up the step; but the slave seized the
little man, and set him carefully on his feet behind his master.
"The villian, the scoundrel! he shall repent it--Pentaur is he called!
the hound!" muttered the pioneer to himself.
The dwarf lost none of his words, and when he caught the name of Pentaur
he called to the pioneer, and said--
"They have appointed a scoundrel to be the superior of this temple;
his name is Pentaur. He was expelled from the temple of Seti for his
immorality, and now he has stirred up the younger scholars to rebellion,
and invited unclean women into the temple. My lips hardly dare repeat
it, but the gate-keeper swore it was true--that the chief haruspex from
the House of Seti found him in conference with Bent-Anat, the king's
daughter, and at once deprived him of his office."
"With Bent-Anat?" replied the pioneer, and muttered, before the dwarf
could find time to answer, "Indeed, with Bent-Anat!" and he recalled the
day before yesterday, when the princess had remained so long with the
priest in the hovel of the paraschites, while he had talked to Nefert
and visited the old witch.
"I should not care to be in the priest's skin," observed Nemu, "for
though Rameses is far away, the Regent Ani is near enough. He is a
gentleman who seldom pounces, but even the dove won't allow itself to be
attacked in is own nest."
Paaker looked enquiringly at Nemu.
"I know," said the dwarf "Ani has asked Rameses' consent to marry his
daughter."
"He has already asked it," continued the dwarf as Paaker smiled
incredulously, "and the king is not disinclined to give it. He likes
making marriages--as thou must know pretty well."
"I?" said Paaker, surprised.
"He forced Katuti to give her daughter as wife to the charioteer. That I
know from herself. She can prove it to thee."
Paaker shook his head in denial, but the dwarf continued eagerly, "Yes,
yes! Katuti would have had thee for her son-in-law, and it was the king,
not she, who broke off the betrothal. Thou must at the same time have
been inscribed in the black books of the high gate, for Rameses used
many hard names for thee. One of us is like a mouse behind the curtain,
which knows a good deal."
Paaker suddenly brought his horses to a stand-still, threw the reins to
the slave, sprang from the chariot, called the dwarf to his side, and
said:
"We will walk from here to the river, and you shall tell me all you
know; but if an untrue word passes your lips I will have you eaten by my
dogs."
"I know thou canst keep thy word," gasped the little man. "But go a
little slower if thou wilt, for I am quite out of breath. Let Katuti
herself tell thee how it all came about. Rameses compelled her to give
her daughter to the charioteer. I do not know what he said of thee, but
it was not complimentary. My poor mistress! she let herself be caught
by the dandy, the ladies' man-and now she may weep and wail. When I pass
the great gates of thy house with Katuti, she often sighs and complains
bitterly. And with good reason, for it soon will be all over with our
noble estate, and we must seek an asylum far away among the Amu in the
low lands; for the nobles will soon avoid us as outcasts. Thou mayst be
glad that thou hast not linked thy fate to ours; but I have a faithful
heart, and will share my mistress's trouble."
"You speak riddles," said Paaker, "what have they to fear?"
The dwarf now related how Nefert's brother had gambled away the mummy of
his father, how enormous was the sum he had lost, and that degradation
must overtake Katuti, and her daughter with her.
"Who can save them," he whimpered. "Her shameless husband squanders his
inheritance and his prize-money. Katuti is poor, and the little words
'Give me!' scare away friends as the cry of a hawk scares the chickens.
My poor mistress!"
"It is a large sum," muttered Paaker to himself. "It is enormous!"
sighed the dwarf, "and where is it to be found in these hard times? It
would have been different with us, if--ah if--. And it would be a form
of madness which I do not believe in, that Nefert should still care for
her braggart husband. She thinks as much of thee as of him."
Paaker looked at the dwarf half incredulous and half threatening.
"Ay--of thee," repeated Nemu. "Since our excursion to the Necropolis
the day before yesterday it was--she speaks only of thee, praising thy
ability, and thy strong manly spirit. It is as if some charm obliged her
to think of thee."
The pioneer began to walk so fast that his small companion once more had
to ask him to moderate his steps.
They gained the shore in silence, where Paaker's boat was waiting, which
also conveyed his chariot. He lay down in the little cabin, called the
dwarf to him, and said:
"I am Katuti's nearest relative; we are now reconciled; why does she not
turn to me in her difficulty?"
"Because she is proud, and thy blood flows in her veins. Sooner would
she die with her child--she said so--than ask thee, against whom she
sinned, for an 'alms'."
"She did think of me then?"
"At once; nor did she doubt thy generosity. She esteems thee highly--I
repeat it; and if an arrow from a Cheta's bow or a visitation of the
Gods attained Mena, she would joyfully place her child in thine arms,
and Nefert believe me has not forgotten her playfellow. The day before
yesterday, when she came home from the Necropolis, and before the letter
had come from the camp, she was full of thee--
["To be full (meh) of any one" is used in the Egyptian language for
"to be in love with any one."]
nay called to thee in her dreams; I know it from Kandake, her black
maid." The pioneer looked down and said:
"How extraordinary! and the same night I had a vision in which your
mistress appeared to me; the insolent priest in the temple of Hathor
should have interpreted it to me."
"And he refused? the fool! but other folks understand dreams, and I
am not the worst of them--Ask thy servant. Ninety-nine times out of a
hundred my interpretations come true. How was the vision?"
"I stood by the Nile," said Paaker, casting down his eyes and drawing
lines with his whip through the wool of the cabin rug. "The water was
still, and I saw Nefert standing on the farther bank, and beckoning to
me. I called to her, and she stepped on the water, which bore her up as
if it were this carpet. She went over the water dry-foot as if it were
the stony wilderness. A wonderful sight! She came nearer to me, and
nearer, and already I had tried to take her hand, when she ducked under
like a swan. I went into the water to seize her, and when she came
up again I clasped her in my arms; but then the strangest thing
happened--she flowed away, she dissolved like the snow on the Syrian
hills, when you take it in your hand, and yet it was not the same, for
her hair turned to water-lilies, and her eyes to blue fishes that swam
away merrily, and her lips to twigs of coral that sank at once, and
from her body grew a crocodile, with a head like Mena, that laughed
and gnashed its teeth at me. Then I was seized with blind fury; I threw
myself upon him with a drawn sword, he fastened his teeth in my flesh, I
pierced his throat with my weapon; the Nile was dark with our streaming
blood, and so we fought and fought--it lasted an eternity--till I
awoke."
Paaker drew a deep breath as he ceased speaking; as if his wild dream
tormented him again.
The dwarf had listened with eager attention, but several minutes passed
before he spoke.
"A strange dream," he said, "but the interpretation as to the future
is not hard to find. Nefert is striving to reach thee, she longs to be
thine, but if thou dost fancy that she is already in thy grasp she will
elude thee; thy hopes will melt like ice, slip away like sand, if thou
dost not know how to put the crocodile out of the way."
At this moment the boat struck the landing-place. The pioneer started
up, and cried, "We have reached the end!"
"We have reached the end," echoed the little man with meaning. "There is
only a narrow bridge to step over."
When they both stood on the shore, the dwarf said,
"I have to thank thee for thy hospitality, and when I can serve thee
command me."
"Come here," cried the pioneer, and drew Nemu away with him under the
shade of a sycamore veiled in the half light of the departing sun.
"What do you mean by a bridge which we must step over? I do not
understand the flowers of speech, and desire plain language."
The dwarf reflected for a moment; and then asked, "Shall I say nakedly
and openly what I mean, and will you not be angry?"
"Speak!"
"Mena is the crocodile. Put him out of the world, and you will have
passed the bridge; then Nefert will be thine--if thou wilt listen to
me."
"What shall I do?"
"Put the charioteer out of the world."
Paaker's gesture seemed to convey that that was a thing that had long
been decided on, and he turned his face, for a good omen, so that the
rising moon should be on his right hand.
The dwarf went on.
"Secure Nefert, so that she may not vanish like her image in the dream,
before you reach the goal; that is to say, ransom the honor of your
future mother and wife, for how could you take an outcast into your
house?"
Paaker looked thoughtfully at the ground.
"May I inform my mistress that thou wilt save her?" asked Nemu. "I
may?--Then all will be well, for he who will devote a fortune to love
will not hesitate to devote a reed lance with a brass point to it to his
love and his hatred together."
CHAPTER XVI.
The sun had set, and darkness covered the City of the Dead, but the moon
shone above the valley of the kings' tombs, and the projecting masses
of the rocky walls of the chasm threw sharply-defined shadows. A weird
silence lay upon the desert, where yet far more life was stirring than
in the noonday hour, for now bats darted like black silken threads
through the night air, owls hovered aloft on wide-spread wings, small
troops of jackals slipped by, one following the other up the mountain
slopes. From time to time their hideous yell, or the whining laugh of
the hyena, broke the stillness of the night.
Nor was human life yet at rest in the valley of tombs. A faint light
glimmered in the cave of the sorceress Hekt, and in front of the
paraschites' but a fire was burning, which the grandmother of the sick
Uarda now and then fed with pieces of dry manure. Two men were seated in
front of the hut, and gazed in silence on the thin flame, whose impure
light was almost quenched by the clearer glow of the moon; whilst the
third, Uarda's father, disembowelled a large ram, whose head he had
already cut off.
"How the jackals howl!" said the old paraschites, drawing as he spoke
the torn brown cotton cloth, which he had put on as a protection against
the night air and the dew, closer round his bare shoulders.
"They scent the fresh meat," answered the physician, Nebsecht. "Throw
them the entrails, when you have done; the legs and back you can roast.
Be careful how you cut out the heart--the heart, soldier. There it is!
What a great beast." |
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