CHAPTER V.
The night during which the Princess Bent-Anat and her followers hadknocked at the gate of the House of Seti was past.
The fruitful freshness of the dawn gave way to the heat, which began topour down from the deep blue cloudless vault of heaven. The eye couldno longer gaze at the mighty globe of light whose rays pierced the finewhite dust which hung over the declivity of the hills that enclosed thecity of the dead on the west. The limestone rocks showed with blindingclearness, the atmosphere quivered as if heated over a flame; eachminute the shadows grew shorter and their outlines sharper.
All the beasts which we saw peopling the Necropolis in the evening hadnow withdrawn into their lurking places; only man defied the heat of thesummer day. Undisturbed he accomplished his daily work, and only laidhis tools aside for a moment, with a sigh, when a cooling breath blewacross the overflowing stream and fanned his brow.
The harbor or clock where those landed who crossed from eastern Thebeswas crowded with barks and boats waiting to return.
The crews of rowers and steersmen who were attached to priestlybrotherhoods or noble houses, were enjoying a rest till the parties theyhad brought across the Nile drew towards them again in long processions.
Under a wide-spreading sycamore a vendor of eatables, spirituous drinks,and acids for cooling the water, had set up his stall, and close to him,a crowd of boatmen, and drivers shouted and disputed as they passed thetime in eager games at morra.
[In Latin "micare digitis." A game still constantly played in the south of Europe, and frequently represented by the Egyptians. The games depicted in the monuments are collected by Minutoli, in the Leipziger Illustrirte Zeitung, 1852.]
Many sailors lay on the decks of the vessels, others on the shore; herein the thin shade of a palm tree, there in the full blaze of the sun,from those burning rays they protected themselves by spreading thecotton cloths, which served them for cloaks, over their faces.
Between the sleepers passed bondmen and slaves, brown and black, in longfiles one behind the other, bending under the weight of heavy burdens,which had to be conveyed to their destination at the temples forsacrifice, or to the dealers in various wares. Builders dragged blocksof stone, which had come from the quarries of Chennu and Suan,
[The Syene of the Greeks, non, called Assouan at the first cataract.]
on sledges to the site of a new temple; laborers poured water under therunners, that the heavily loaded and dried wood should not take fire.
All these working men were driven with sticks by their overseers, andsang at their labor; but the voices of the leaders sounded muffled andhoarse, though, when after their frugal meal they enjoyed an hour ofrepose, they might be heard loud enough. Their parched throats refusedto sing in the noontide of their labor.
Thick clouds of gnats followed these tormented gangs, who with dull andspirit-broken endurance suffered alike the stings of the insects and theblows of their driver. The gnats pursued them to the very heart of theCity of the dead, where they joined themselves to the flies and wasps,which swarmed in countless crowds around the slaughter houses, cooks'shops, stalls of fried fish, and booths of meat, vegetable, honey, cakesand drinks, which were doing a brisk business in spite of the noontideheat and the oppressive atmosphere heated and filled with a mixture ofodors.
The nearer one got to the Libyan frontier, the quieter it became, andthe silence of death reigned in the broad north-west valley, where inthe southern slope the father of the reigning king had caused his tombto be hewn, and where the stone-mason of the Pharaoh had prepared a rocktomb for him.
A newly made road led into this rocky gorge, whose steep yellow andbrown walls seemed scorched by the sun in many blackened spots, andlooked like a ghostly array of shades that had risen from the tombs inthe night and remained there.
At the entrance of this valley some blocks of stone formed a sort ofdoorway, and through this, indifferent to the heat of day, a small butbrilliant troop of the men was passing.
Four slender youths as staff bearers led the procession, each clothedonly with an apron and a flowing head-cloth of gold brocade; the mid-daysun played on their smooth, moist, red-brown skins, and their supplenaked feet hardly stirred the stones on the road.
Behind them followed an elegant, two-wheeled chariot, with two prancingbrown horses bearing tufts of red and blue feathers on their nobleheads, and seeming by the bearing of their arched necks and flowingtails to express their pride in the gorgeous housings, richlyembroidered in silver, purple, and blue and golden ornaments, which theywore--and even more in their beautiful, royal charioteer, Bent-Anat, thedaughter of Rameses, at whose lightest word they pricked their ears, andwhose little hand guided them with a scarcely perceptible touch.
Two young men dressed like the other runners followed the chariot, andkept the rays of the sun off the face of their mistress with large fansof snow-white ostrich feathers fastened to long wands.
By the side of Bent-Anat, so long as the road was wide enough to allowof it, was carried Nefert, the wife of Mena, in her gilt litter, borneby eight tawny bearers, who, running with a swift and equally measuredstep, did not remain far behind the trotting horses of the princess andher fan-bearers.
Both the women, whom we now see for the first time in daylight, were ofremarkable but altogether different beauty.
The wife of Mena had preserved the appearance of a maiden; her largealmond-shaped eyes had a dreamy surprised look out from under her longeyelashes, and her figure of hardly the middle-height had acquired alittle stoutness without losing its youthful grace. No drop of foreignblood flowed in her veins, as could be seen in the color of her skin,which was of that fresh and equal line which holds a medium betweengolden yellow and bronze brown--and which to this day is so charming inthe maidens of Abyssinia--in her straight nose, her well-formed brow,in her smooth but thick black hair, and in the fineness of her hands andfeet, which were ornamented with circles of gold.
The maiden princess next to her had hardly reached her nineteenth year,and yet something of a womanly self-consciousness betrayed itself inher demeanor. Her stature was by almost a head taller than that ofher friend, her skin was fairer, her blue eyes kind and frank, withouttricks of glance, but clear and honest, her profile was noble butsharply cut, and resembled that of her father, as a landscape in themild and softening light of the moon resembles the same landscape in thebroad clear light of day. The scarcely perceptible aquiline of her nose,she inherited from her Semitic ancestors,
[Many portraits have come down to us of Rameses: the finest is the noble statue preserved at Turin. A likeness has been detected between its profile, with its slightly aquiline nose, and that of Napoleon I.]
as well as the slightly waving abundance of her brown hair, over whichshe wore a blue and white striped silk kerchief; its carefully-pleatedfolds were held in place by a gold ring, from which in front a hornedurarus
[A venomous Egyptian serpent which was adopted as the symbol of sovereign power, in consequence of its swift effects for life or death. It is never wanting to the diadem of the Pharaohs.]
raised its head crowned with a disk of rubies. From her left temple alarge tress, plaited with gold thread, hung down to her waist, the signof her royal birth. She wore a purple dress of fine, almost transparentstuff, that was confined with a gold belt and straps. Round her throatwas fastened a necklace like a collar, made of pearls and costly stones,and hanging low down on her well-formed bosom.
Behind the princess stood her charioteer, an old officer of noble birth.
Three litters followed the chariot of the princess, and in each sattwo officers of the court; then came a dozen of slaves ready for anyservice, and lastly a crowd of wand-bearers to drive off the idlepopulace, and of lightly-armed soldiers, who--dressed only in the apronand head-cloth--each bore a dagger-shaped sword in his girdle, an axein his right hand, and in his left; in token of his peaceful service, apalm-branch.
Like dolphins round a ship,
little girls in long shirt-shaped garmentsswarmed round the whole length of the advancing procession, bearingwater-jars on their steady heads, and at a sign from any one who wasthirsty were ready to give him a drink. With steps as light as thegazelle they often outran the horses, and nothing could be more gracefulthan the action with which the taller ones bent over with the water-jarsheld in both arms to the drinker.
The courtiers, cooled and shaded by waving fans, and hardly perceivingthe noontide heat, conversed at their ease about indifferent matters,and the princess pitied the poor horses, who were tormented as they ran,by annoying gadflies; while the runners and soldiers, the litter-bearersand fan-bearers, the girls with their jars and the panting slaves, werecompelled to exert themselves under the rays of the mid-day sun in theservice of their masters, till their sinews threatened to crack andtheir lungs to burst their bodies.
At a spot where the road widened, and where, to the right, lay the steepcross-valley where the last kings of the dethroned race were interred,the procession stopped at a sign from Paaker, who preceded the princess,and who drove his fiery black Syrian horses with so heavy a hand thatthe bloody foam fell from their bits.
When the Mohar had given the reins into the hand of a servant, he sprangfrom his chariot, and after the usual form of obeisance said to theprincess:
"In this valley lies the loathsome den of the people, to whom thou, Oprincess, dost deign to do such high honor. Permit me to go forward asguide to thy party."
"We will go on foot," said the princess, "and leave our followers behindhere."
Paaker bowed, Bent-Anat threw the reins to her charioteer and sprang tothe ground, the wife of Mena and the courtiers left their litters, andthe fan-bearers and chamberlains were about to accompany their mistresson foot into the little valley, when she turned round and ordered,"Remain behind, all of you. Only Paaker and Nefert need go with me."
The princess hastened forward into the gorge, which was oppressive withthe noon-tide heat; but she moderated her steps as soon as she observedthat the frailer Nefert found it difficult to follow her.
At a bend in the road Paaker stood still, and with him Bent-Anat andNefert. Neither of them had spoken a word during their walk. The valleywas perfectly still and deserted; on the highest pinnacles of the cliff,which rose perpendicularly to the right, sat a long row of vultures, asmotionless as if the mid-day heat had taken all strength out of theirwings.
Paaker bowed before them as being the sacred animals of the GreatGoddess of Thebes,
[She formed a triad with Anion and Chunsu under the name of Muth. The great "Sanctuary of the kingdom"--the temple of Karnak--was dedicated to them.]
and the two women silently followed his example.
"There," said the Mohar, pointing to two huts close to the left cliff ofthe valley, built of bricks made of dried Nile-mud, "there, the neatest,next the cave in the rock."
Bent-Anat went towards the solitary hovel with a beating heart; Paakerlet the ladies go first. A few steps brought them to an ill-constructedfence of canestalks, palm-branches, briars and straw, roughly throwntogether. A heart-rending cry of pain from within the hut trembled inthe air and arrested the steps of the two women. Nefert staggered andclung to her stronger companion, whose beating heart she seemed to hear.Both stood a few minutes as if spellbound, then the princess calledPaaker, and said:
"You go first into the house."
Paaker bowed to the ground.
"I will call the man out," he said, "but how dare we step over histhreshold. Thou knowest such a proceeding will defile us."
Nefert looked pleadingly at Bent-Anat, but the princess repeated hercommand.
"Go before me; I have no fear of defilement." The Mohar still hesitated.
"Wilt thou provoke the Gods?--and defile thyself?" But the princess lethim say no more; she signed to Nefert, who raised her hands in horrorand aversion; so, with a shrug of her shoulders, she left her companionbehind with the Mohar, and stepped through an opening in the hedge intoa little court, where lay two brown goats; a donkey with his forelegstied together stood by, and a few hens were scattering the dust about ina vain search for food.
Soon she stood, alone, before the door of the paraschites' hovel. No oneperceived her, but she could not take her eyes-accustomed only to scenesof order and splendor--from the gloomy but wonderfully strange picture,which riveted her attention and her sympathy. At last she went up tothe doorway, which was too low for her tall figure. Her heart shrunkpainfully within her, and she would have wished to grow smaller, and,instead of shining in splendor, to have found herself wrapped in abeggar's robe.
Could she step into this hovel decked with gold and jewels as if inmockery?--like a tyrant who should feast at a groaning table and compelthe starving to look on at the banquet. Her delicate perception madeher feel what trenchant discord her appearance offered to all thatsurrounded her, and the discord pained her; for she could not concealfrom herself that misery and external meanness were here entitled togive the key-note and that her magnificence derived no especial grandeurfrom contrast with all these modest accessories, amid dust, gloom, andsuffering, but rather became disproportionate and hideous, like a giantamong pigmies.
She had already gone too far to turn back, or she would willingly havedone so. The longer she gazed into the but, the more deeply she felt theimpotence of her princely power, the nothingness of the splendid giftswith which she approached it, and that she might not tread the dustyfloor of this wretched hovel but in all humility, and to crave a pardon.
The room into which she looked was low but not very small, and obtainedfrom two cross lights a strange and unequal illumination; on one sidethe light came through the door, and on the other through an opening inthe time-worn ceiling of the room, which had never before harbored somany and such different guests.
All attention was concentrated on a group, which was clearly lighted upfrom the doorway.
On the dusty floor of the room cowered an old woman, with darkweather-beaten features and tangled hair that had long been grey. Herblack-blue cotton shirt was open over her withered bosom, and showed ablue star tattooed upon it.
In her lap she supported with her hands the head of a girl, whoseslender body lay motionless on a narrow, ragged mat. The little whitefeet of the sick girl almost touched the threshold. Near to themsquatted a benevolent-looking old man, who wore only a coarse apron, andsitting all in a heap, bent forward now and then, rubbing the child'sfeet with his lean hands and muttering a few words to himself.
The sufferer wore nothing but a short petticoat of coarse light-bluestuff. Her face, half resting on the lap of the old woman, was gracefuland regular in form, her eyes were half shut-like those of a child,whose soul is wrapped in some sweet dream-but from her finely chiselledlips there escaped from time to time a painful, almost convulsive sob.
An abundance of soft, but disordered reddish fair hair, in which clunga few withered flowers, fell over the lap of the old woman and on tothe mat where she lay. Her cheeks were white and rosy-red, and whenthe young surgeon Nebsecht--who sat by her side, near his blind, stupidcompanion, the litany-singer--lifted the ragged cloth that had beenthrown over her bosom, which had been crushed by the chariot wheel, orwhen she lifted her slender arm, it was seen that she had the shiningfairness of those daughters of the north who not unfrequently came toThebes among the king's prisoners of war.
The two physicians sent hither from the House of Seti sat on the leftside of the maiden on a little carpet. From time to time one or theother laid his hand over the heart of the sufferer, or listened to herbreathing, or opened his case of medicaments, and moistened the compresson her wounded breast with a white ointment.
In a wide circle close to the wall of the room crouched several women,young and old, friends of the paraschites, who from time to time gaveexpression to their deep sympathy by a piercing cry of lamentation. Oneof them rose at regular intervals to fill the earthen bowl by the sideof the physician with fresh water. As often as the sud
den coolness of afresh compress on her hot bosom startled the sick girl, she openedher eyes, but always soon to close them again for longer interval,and turned them at first in surprise, and then with gentle reverence,towards a particular spot.
These glances had hitherto been unobserved by him to whom they weredirected.
Leaning against the wall on the right hand side of the room, dressed inhis long, snow-white priest's robe, Pentaur stood awaiting the princess.His head-dress touched the ceiling, and the narrow streak of light,which fell through the opening in the roof, streamed on his handsomehead and his breast, while all around him was veiled in twilight gloom.
Once more the suffering girl looked up, and her glance this time metthe eye of the young priest, who immediately raised his hand, andhalf-mechanically, in a low voice, uttered the words of blessing; andthen once more fixed his gaze on the dingy floor, and pursued his ownreflections.
Some hours since he had come hither, obedient to the orders of Ameni,to impress on the princess that she had defiled herself by touchinga paraschites, and could only be cleansed again by the hand of thepriests.
He had crossed the threshold of the paraschites most reluctantly, andthe thought that he, of all men, had been selected to censure a deedof the noblest humanity, and to bring her who had done it to judgment,weighed upon him as a calamity.
In his intercourse with his friend Nebsecht, Pentaur had thrown off manyfetters, and given place to many thoughts that his master would haveheld sinful and presumptuous; but at the same time he acknowledged thesanctity of the old institutions, which were upheld by those whom he hadlearned to regard as the divinely-appointed guardians of the spiritualpossessions of God's people; nor was he wholly free from the pride ofcaste and the haughtiness which, with prudent intent, were inculcated inthe priests. He held the common man, who put forth his strength to win amaintenance for his belongings by honest bodily labor--the merchant--theartizan--the peasant, nay even the warrior, as far beneath the godlybrotherhood who strove for only spiritual ends; and most of all hescorned the idler, given up to sensual enjoyments.
He held him unclean who had been branded by the law; and how shouldit have been otherwise? These people, who at the embalming of the deadopened the body of the deceased, had become despised for their office ofmutilating the sacred temple of the soul; but no paraschites chose hiscalling of his own free will.--[Diodorus I, 91]--It was handed down fromfather to son, and he who was born a paraschites--so he was taught--hadto expiate an old guilt with which his soul had long ago burdened itselfin a former existence, within another body, and which had deprived itof absolution in the nether world. It had passed through various animalforms, and now began a new human course in the body of a paraschites,once more to stand after death in the presence of the judges of theunder-world.
Pentaur had crossed the threshold of the man he despised with aversion;the man himself, sitting at the feet of the suffering girl, hadexclaimed as he saw the priest approaching the hovel:
"Yet another white robe! Does misfortune cleanse the unclean?"
Pentaur had not answered the old man, who on his part took no furthernotice of him, while he rubbed the girl's feet by order of the leech;and his hands impelled by tender anxiety untiringly continued the samemovement, as the water-wheel in the Nile keeps up without intermissionits steady motion in the stream.
"Does misfortune cleanse the unclean?" Pentaur asked himself. "Does itindeed possess a purifying efficacy, and is it possible that the Gods,who gave to fire the power of refining metals and to the winds power tosweep the clouds from the sky, should desire that a man--made in theirown image--that a man should be tainted from his birth to his death withan indelible stain?"
He looked at the face of the paraschites, and it seemed to him toresemble that of his father.
This startled him!
And when he noticed how the woman, in whose lap the girl's headwas resting, bent over the injured bosom of the child to catch herbreathing, which she feared had come to a stand-still--with the anguishof a dove that is struck down by a hawk--he remembered a moment in hisown childhood, when he had lain trembling with fever on his little bed.What then had happened to him, or had gone on around him, he had longforgotten, but one image was deeply imprinted on his soul, that of theface of his mother bending over him in deadly anguish, but who had gazedon her sick boy not more tenderly, or more anxiously, than this despisedwoman on her suffering child.
"There is only one utterly unselfish, utterly pure and utterly divinelove," said he to himself, "and that is the love of Isis for Horus--thelove of a mother for her child. If these people were indeed so foul asto defile every thing they touch, how would this pure, this tender, holyimpulse show itself even in them in all its beauty and perfection?"
"Still," he continued, "the Celestials have implanted maternal love inthe breast of the lioness, of the typhonic river-horse of the Nile."
He looked compassionately at the wife of the paraschites.
He saw her dark face as she turned it away from the sick girl. She hadfelt her breathe, and a smile of happiness lighted up her old features;she nodded first to the surgeon, and then with a deep sigh of relief toher husband, who, while he did not cease the movement of his left hand,held up his right hand in prayer to heaven, and his wife did the same.
It seemed to Pentaur that he could see the souls of these two, floatingabove the youthful creature in holy union as they joined their hands;and again he thought of his parents' house, of the hour when his sweet,only sister died. His mother had thrown herself weeping on the paleform, but his father had stamped his foot and had thrown back his head,sobbing and striking his forehead with his fist.
"How piously submissive and thankful are these unclean ones!" thoughtPentaur; and repugnance for the old laws began to take root in hisheart. "Maternal love may exist in the hyaena, but to seek and findGod pertains only to man, who has a noble aim. Up to the limits ofeternity--and God is eternal!--thought is denied to animals; they cannoteven smile. Even men cannot smile at first, for only physicallife--an animal soul--dwells in them; but soon a share of the world'ssoul--beaming intelligence--works within them, and first shows itself inthe smile of a child, which is as pure as the light and the truth fromwhich it comes. The child of the paraschites smiles like any othercreature born of woman, but how few aged men there are, even among theinitiated, who can smile as innocently and brightly as this woman whohas grown grey under open ill-treatment."
Deep sympathy began to fill his heart, and he knelt down by the side ofthe poor child, raised her arm, and prayed fervently to that One whohad created the heavens and who rules the world--to that One, whom themysteries of faith forbade him to name; and not to the innumerable gods,whom the people worshipped, and who to him were nothing but incarnationsof the attributes of the One and only God of the initiated--of whom hewas one--who was thus brought down to the comprehension of the laity.
He raised his soul to God in passionate emotion; but he prayed, notfor the child before him and for her recovery, but rather for thewhole despised race, and for its release from the old ban, for theenlightenment of his own soul, imprisoned in doubts, and for strength tofulfil his hard task with discretion.
The gaze of the sufferer followed him as he took up his former position.
The prayer had refreshed his soul and restored him to cheerfulness ofspirit. He began to reflect what conduct he must observe towards theprincess.
He had not met Bent-Anat for the first time yesterday; on the contrary,he had frequently seen her in holiday processions, and at the highfestivals in the Necropolis, and like all his young companions hadadmired her proud beauty--admired it as the distant light of the stars,or the evening-glow on the horizon.
Now he must approach this lady with words of reproof.
He pictured to himself the moment when he must advance to meet her, andcould not help thinking of his little tutor Chufu, above whom he toweredby two heads while he was still a boy, and who used to call up hisadmonitions to him fr
om below. It was true, he himself was talland slim, but he felt as if to-day he were to play the part towardsBent-Anat of the much-laughed-at little tutor.
His sense of the comic was touched, and asserted itself at thisserious moment, and with such melancholy surroundings. Life is rich incontrasts, and a susceptible and highly-strung human soul would breakdown like a bridge under the measured tread of soldiers, if it wereallowed to let the burden of the heaviest thoughts and strongestfeelings work upon it in undisturbed monotony; but just as in musicevery key-note has its harmonies, so when we cause one chord of ourheart to vibrate for long, all sorts of strange notes respond and clang,often those which we least expect.
Pentaur's glance flew round the one low, over-filled room of theparaschites' hut, and like a lightning flash the thought, "How will theprincess and her train find room here?" flew through his mind.
His fancy was lively, and vividly brought before him how the daughter ofthe Pharaoh with a crown on her proud head would bustle into the silentchamber, how the chattering courtiers would follow her, and how thewomen by the walls, the physicians by the side of the sick girl, thesleek white cat from the chest where she sat, would rise and thronground her. There must be frightful confusion. Then he imagined how thesmart lords and ladies would keep themselves far from the unclean, holdtheir slender hands over their mouths and noses, and suggest to the oldfolks how they ought to behave to the princess who condescended to blessthem with her presence. The old woman must lay down the head that restedin her bosom, the paraschites must drop the feet he so anxiously rubbed,on the floor, to rise and kiss the dust before Bent-Anat. Whereupon--the"mind's eye" of the young priest seemed to see it all--the courtiersfled before him, pushing each other, and all crowded together into acorner, and at last the princess threw a few silver or gold rings intothe laps of the father and mother, and perhaps to the girl too, and heseemed to hear the courtiers all cry out: "Hail to the gracious daughterof the Sun!"--to hear the joyful exclamations of the crowd of women--tosee the gorgeous apparition leave the hut of the despised people,and then to see, instead of the lovely sick child who still breathedaudibly, a silent corpse on the crumpled mat, and in the place of thetwo tender nurses at her head and feet, two heart-broken, loud-lamentingwretches.
Pentaur's hot spirit was full of wrath. As soon as the noisy cortegeappeared actually in sight he would place himself in the doorway, forbidthe princess to enter, and receive her with strong words.
She could hardly come hither out of human kindness.
"She wants variety," said he to himself, "something new at Court; forthere is little going on there now the king tarries with the troops ina distant country; it tickles the vanity of the great to find themselvesonce in a while in contact with the small, and it is well to haveyour goodness of heart spoken of by the people. If a little misfortuneopportunely happens, it is not worth the trouble to inquire whetherthe form of our benevolence does more good or mischief to such wretchedpeople."
He ground his teeth angrily, and thought no more of the defilement whichmight threaten Bent-Anat from the paraschites, but exclusively, onthe contrary, of the impending desecration by the princess of the holyfeelings astir in this silent room.
Excited as he was to fanaticism, his condemning lips could not fail tofind vigorous and impressive words.
He stood drawn to his full height and drawing his breath deeply, likea spirit of light who holds his weapon raised to annihilate a demon ofdarkness, and he looked out into the valley to perceive from afar thecry of the runners and the rattle of the wheels of the gay train heexpected.
And he saw the doorway darkened by a lowly, bending figure, who, withfolded arms, glided into the room and sank down silently by the side ofthe sick girl. The physicians and the old people moved as if to rise;but she signed to them without opening her lips, and with moist,expressive eyes, to keep their places; she looked long and lovingly inthe face of the wounded girl, stroked her white arm, and turning to theold woman softly whispered to her
"How pretty she is!"
The paraschites' wife nodded assent, and the girl smiled and moved herlips as though she had caught the words and wished to speak.
Bent-Anat took a rose from her hair and laid it on her bosom.
The paraschites, who had not taken his hands from the feet of thesick child, but who had followed every movement of the princess, nowwhispered, "May Hathor requite thee, who gave thee thy beauty."
The princess turned to him and said, "Forgive the sorrow, I have causedyou."
The old man stood up, letting the feet of the sick girl fall, and askedin a clear loud voice:
"Art thou Bent-Anat?"
"Yes, I am," replied the princess, bowing her head low, and in so gentlea voice, that it seemed as though she were ashamed of her proud name.
The eyes of the old man flashed. Then he said softly but decisively:
"Leave my hut then, it will defile thee."
"Not till you have forgiven me for that which I did unintentionally."
"Unintentionally! I believe thee," replied the paraschites. "The hoofsof thy horse became unclean when they trod on this white breast. Lookhere--" and he lifted the cloth from the girl's bosom, and showed herthe deep red wound, "Look here--here is the first rose you laid on mygrandchild's bosom, and the second--there it goes."
The paraschites raised his arm to fling the flower through the door ofhis hut. But Pentaur had approached him, and with a grasp of iron heldthe old man's hand.
"Stay," he cried in an eager tone, moderated however for the sake of thesick girl. "The third rose, which this noble hand has offered you, yoursick heart and silly head have not even perceived. And yet you must knowit if only from your need, your longing for it. The fair blossom of purebenevolence is laid on your child's heart, and at your very feet, bythis proud princess. Not with gold, but with humility. And whoever thedaughter of Rameses approaches as her equal, bows before her, even if hewere the first prince in the Land of Egypt. Indeed, the Gods shall notforget this deed of Bent-Anat. And you--forgive, if you desire to beforgiven that guilt, which you bear as an inheritance from your fathers,and for your own sins."
The paraschites bowed his head at these words, and when he raised itthe anger had vanished from his well-cut features. He rubbed his wrist,which had been squeezed by Pentaur's iron fingers, and said in a tonewhich betrayed all the bitterness of his feelings:
"Thy hand is hard, Priest, and thy words hit like the strokes of ahammer. This fair lady is good and loving, and I know; that she did notdrive her horse intentionally over this poor girl, who is my grandchildand not my daughter. If she were thy wife or the wife of the leechthere, or the child of the poor woman yonder, who supports life bycollecting the feet and feathers of the fowls that are slaughtered forsacrifice, I would not only forgive her, but console her for having madeherself like to me; fate would have made her a murderess without anyfault of her own, just as it stamped me as unclean while I was stillat my mother's breast. Aye--I would comfort her; and yet I am not verysensitive. Ye holy three of Thebes!--[The triad of Thebes: Anion, Muthand Chunsu.]--how should I be? Great and small get out of my way thatI may not touch them, and every day when I have done what it is mybusiness to do they throw stones at me.
[The paraschites, with an Ethiopian knife, cuts the flesh of the corpse as deeply as the law requires: but instantly takes to flight, while the relatives of the deceased pursue him with stones, and curses, as if they wished to throw the blame on him.]
"The fulfilment of duty--which brings a living to other men, which makestheir happiness, and at the same time earns them honor, brings me everyday fresh disgrace and painful sores. But I complain to no man, andmust forgive--forgive--forgive, till at last all that men do to me seemsquite natural and unavoidable, and I take it all like the scorching ofthe sun in summer, and the dust that the west wind blows into my face.It does not make me happy, but what can I do? I forgive all--"
The voice of the paraschites had softened, and Bent-Anat, who
lookeddown on him with emotion, interrupted him, exclaiming with deep feeling:
"And so you will forgive me?--poor man!"
The old man looked steadily, not at her, but at Pentaur, while hereplied: "Poor man! aye, truly, poor man. You have driven me out of theworld in which you live, and so I made a world for myself in this hut.I do not belong to you, and if I forget it, you drive me out as anintruder--nay as a wolf, who breaks into your fold; but you belong justas little to me, only when you play the wolf and fall upon me, I mustbear it!"
"The princess came to your hut as a suppliant, and with the wish ofdoing you some good," said Pentaur.
"May the avenging Gods reckon it to her, when they visit on her thecrimes of her father against me! Perhaps it may bring me to prison, butit must come out. Seven sons were mine, and Rameses took them all fromme and sent them to death; the child of the youngest, this girl, thelight of my eyes, his daughter has brought to her death. Three of myboys the king left to die of thirst by the Tenat,
[Literally the "cutting" which, under Seti I., the father of Rameses, was the first Suez Canal; a representation of it is found on the northern outer wall of the temple of Karnak. It followed nearly the same direction as the Fresh-water canal of Lesseps, and fertilized the land of Goshen.]
which is to join the Nile to the Red Sea, three were killed by theEthiopians, and the last, the star of my hopes, by this time is eaten bythe hyaenas of the north."
At these words the old woman, in whose lap the head of the girl rested,broke out into a loud cry, in which she was joined by all the otherwomen.
The sufferer started up frightened, and opened her eyes.
"For whom are you wailing?" she asked feebly. "For your poor father,"said the old woman.
The girl smiled like a child who detects some well-meant deceit, andsaid:
"Was not my father here, with you? He is here, in Thebes, and looked atme, and kissed me, and said that he is bringing home plunder, and thata good time is coming for you. The gold ring that he gave me I wasfastening into my dress, when the chariot passed over me. I was justpulling the knots, when all grew black before my eyes, and I saw andheard nothing more. Undo it, grandmother, the ring is for you; I meantto bring it to you. You must buy a beast for sacrifice with it, and winefor grandfather, and eye salve
[The Egyptian mestem, that is stibium or antimony, which was introduced into Egypt by the Asiatics at a very early period and universally used.]
for yourself, and sticks of mastic,
[At the present day the Egyptian women are fond of chewing them, on account of their pleasant taste. The ancient Egyptians used various pills. Receipts for such things are found in the Ebers Papyrus.]
which you have so long lead to do without."
The paraschites seemed to drink these words from the mouth of hisgrandchild. Again he lifted his hand in prayer, again Pentaur observedthat his glance met that of his wife, and a large, warm tear fell fromhis old eyes on to his callous hand. Then he sank down, for he thoughtthe sick child was deluded by a dream. But there were the knots in herdress.
With a trembling hand he untied them, and a gold ring rolled out on thefloor.
Bent-Anat picked it up, and gave it to the paraschites. "I came here ina lucky hour," she said, "for you have recovered your son and your childwill live."
"She will live," repeated the surgeon, who had remained a silent witnessof all that had occurred.
"She will stay with us," murmured the old man, and then said, as heapproached the princess on his knees, and looked up at her beseechinglywith tearful eyes:
"Pardon me as I pardon thee; and if a pious wish may not turn to a cursefrom the lips of the unclean, let me bless thee."
"I thank you," said Bent-Anat, towards whom the old man raised his handin blessing.
Then she turned to Nebsecht, and ordered him to take anxious care ofthe sick girl; she bent over her, kissed her forehead, laid her goldbracelet by her side, and signing to Pentaur left the hut with him.