Moon of Israel: A Tale of the Exodus

  It was a still, hot evening, so hot that Merapi had bid the nurse bringthe child's bed and set it between two pillars of the great portico.There on the bed he slept, lovely as Horus the divine. She sat by hisside in a chair that had feet shaped like to those of an antelope.Seti walked up and down the terrace beyond the portico leaning on myshoulder, and talking by snatches of this or that. Occasionally as hepassed he would stay for a while to make sure by the bright moonlightthat all was well with Merapi and the child, as of late it had becomea habit with him to do. Then without speaking, for fear lest he shouldawake the boy, he would smile at Merapi, who sat there brooding, herhead resting on her hand, and pass on.

  The night was very still. The palm leaves did not rustle, no jackalswere stirring, and even the shrill-voiced insects had ceased theircries. Moreover, the great city below was quiet as a home of the dead.It was as though the presage of some advancing doom scared the world tosilence. For without doubt doom was in the air. All felt it down tothe nurse woman, who cowered close as she dared to the chair of hermistress, and even in that heat shivered from time to time.

  Presently little Seti awoke, and began to prattle about something he haddreamed.

  "What did you dream, my son?" asked his father.

  "I dreamed," he answered in his baby talk, "that a woman, dressed asMother was in the temple, took me by the hand and led me into the air. Ilooked down, and saw you and Mother with white faces and crying. I beganto cry too, but the woman with the feather cap told me not as she wastaking me to a beautiful big star where Mother would soon come to findme."

  The Prince and I looked at each other and Merapi feigned to busy herselfwith hushing the child to sleep again. It drew towards midnight andstill no one seemed minded to go to rest. Old Bakenkhonsu appeared andbegan to say something about the night being very strange and unrestful,when, suddenly, a little bat that was flitting to and fro above us fellupon his head and thence to the ground. We looked at it, and saw that itwas dead.

  "Strange that the creature should have died thus," said Bakenkhonsu,when, behold! another fell to the ground near by. The black kitten whichbelonged to Little Seti saw it fall and darted from beside his bed whereit was sleeping. Before ever it reached the bat, the creature wheeledround, stood upon its hind legs, scratching at the air about it, thenuttered one pitiful cry and fell over dead.

  We stared at it, when suddenly far away a dog howled in a very piercingfashion. Then a cow began to bale as these beasts do when they have losttheir calves. Next, quite close at hand but without the gates, therearose the ear-curdling cry of a woman in agony, which on the instantseemed to be echoed from every quarter, till the air was full ofwailing.

  "Oh, Seti! Seti!" exclaimed Merapi, in a voice that was rather a hissthan a whisper, "look at your son!"

  We sprang to where the babe lay, and looked. He had awakened and wasstaring upward with wide-opened eyes and frozen face. The fear, if suchit were, passed from his features, though still he stared. He rose tohis little feet, always looking upwards. Then a smile came upon hisface, a most beautiful smile; he stretched out his arms, as though toclasp one who bent down towards him, and fell backwards--quite dead.

  Seti stood still as a statue; we all stood still, even Merapi. Then shebend down, and lifted the body of the boy.

  "Now, my lord," she said, "there has fallen on you that sorrow whichJabez my uncle warned you would come, if ever you had aught to do withme. Now the curse of Israel has pierced my heart, and now our child, asKi the evil prophesied, has grown too great for greetings, or even forfarewells."

  Thus she spoke in a cold and quiet voice, as one might speak ofsomething long expected or foreseen, then made her reverence to thePrince, and departed, bearing the body of the child. Never, I think, didMerapi seem more beautiful to me than in this, her hour of bereavement,since now through her woman's loveliness shone out some shadow of thesoul within. Indeed, such were her eyes and such her movements that wellmight have been a spirit and not a woman who departed from us with thatwhich had been her son.

  Seti leaned on my shoulder looking at the empty bed, and at the scarednurse who still sat behind, and I felt a tear drop upon my hand. OldBakenkhonsu lifted his massive face, and looked at him.

  "Grieve not over much, Prince," he said, "since, ere as many years as Ihave lived out have come and gone, this child will be forgotten and hismother will be forgotten, and even you, O Prince, will live but as aname that once was great in Egypt. And then, O Prince, elsewhere thegame will begin afresh, and what you have lost shall be found anew, andthe sweeter for it sheltering from the vile breath of men. Ki's magicis not all a lie, or if his is, mine holds some shadow of the truth, andwhen he said to you yonder in Tanis that not for nothing were you named'Lord of Rebirths,' he spoke words that you should find comfortableto-night."

  "I thank you, Councillor," said Seti, and turning, followed Merapi.

  "Now I suppose we shall have more deaths," I exclaimed, hardly knowingwhat I said in my sorrow.

  "I think not, Ana," answered Bakenkhonsu, "since the shield of Jabez,or of his god, is over us. Always he foretold that trouble would come toMerapi, and to Seti through Merapi, but that is all."

  I glanced at the kitten.

  "It strayed here from the town three days ago, Ana. And the bats alsomay have flown from the town. Hark to the wailing. Was ever such a soundheard before in Egypt?"