CHAPTER VI.
During the occurrence we have described, the king's pioneer and theyoung wife of Mena were obliged to wait for the princess.
The sun stood in the meridian, when Bent-Anat had gone into the hovel ofthe paraschites.
The bare limestone rocks on each side of the valley and the sandy soilbetween, shone with a vivid whiteness that hurt the eyes; not a hand'sbreadth of shade was anywhere to be seen, and the fan-beaters of thetwo, who were waiting there, had, by command of the princess, staidbehind with the chariot and litters.
For a time they stood silently near each other, then the fair Nefertsaid, wearily closing her almond-shaped eyes:
"How long Bent-Anat stays in the but of the unclean! I am perishinghere. What shall we do?"
"Stay!" said Paaker, turning his back on the lady; and mounting a blockof stone by the side of the gorge, he cast a practised glance all round,and returned to Nefert: "I have found a shady spot," he said, "outthere."
Mena's wife followed with her eyes the indication of his hand, and shookher head. The gold ornaments on her head-dress rattled gently as she didso, and a cold shiver passed over her slim body in spite of the middayheat.
"Sechet is raging in the sky," said Paaker.
[A goddess with the head of a lioness or a cat, over which the Sun- disk is usually found. She was the daughter of Ra, and in the form of the Uraeus on her father's crown personified the murderous heat of the star of day. She incites man to the hot and wild passion of love, and as a cat or lioness tears burning wounds in the limbs of the guilty in the nether world; drunkenness and pleasure are her gifts She was also named Bast and Astarte after her sister-divinity among the Phoenicians.]
"Let us avail ourselves of the shady spot, small though it be. At thishour of the day many are struck with sickness."
"I know it," said Nefert, covering her neck with her hand. Then she wenttowards two blocks of stone which leaned against each other, and betweenthem afforded the spot of shade, not many feet wide, which Paaker hadpointed out as a shelter from the sun. Paaker preceded her, and rolleda flat piece of limestone, inlaid by nature with nodules of flint,under the stone pavilion, crushed a few scorpions which had taken refugethere, spread his head-cloth over the hard seat, and said, "Here you aresheltered."
Nefert sank down on the stone and watched the Mohar, who slowly andsilently paced backwards and forward in front of her. This incessant toand fro of her companion at last became unendurable to her sensitive andirritated nerves, and suddenly raising her head from her hand, on whichshe had rested it, she exclaimed
"Pray stand still."
The pioneer obeyed instantly, and looked, as he stood with his back toher, towards the hovel of the paraschites.
After a short time Nefert said, "Say something to me!"
The Mohar turned his full face towards her, and she was frightened atthe wild fire that glowed in the glance with which he gazed at her.
Nefert's eyes fell, and Paaker, saying:
"I would rather remain silent," recommenced his walk, till Nefert calledto him again and said,
"I know you are angry with me; but I was but a child when I wasbetrothed to you. I liked you too, and when in our games your mothercalled me your little wife, I was really glad, and used to think howfine it would be when I might call all your possessions mine, the houseyou would have so splendidly restored for me after your father's death,the noble gardens, the fine horses in their stables, and all the maleand female slaves!"
Paaker laughed, but the laugh sounded so forced and scornful that it cutNefert to the heart, and she went on, as if begging for indulgence:
"It was said that you were angry with us; and now you will take my wordsas if I had cared only for your wealth; but I said, I liked you. Do youno longer remember how I cried with you over your tales of the badboys in the school; and over your father's severity? Then my uncledied;--then you went to Asia."
"And you," interrupted Paaker, hardly and drily, "you broke yourbethrothal vows, and became the wife of the charioteer Mena. I know itall; of what use is talking?"
"Because it grieves me that you should be angry, and your good motheravoid our house. If only you could know what it is when love seizes one,and one can no longer even think alone, but only near, and with, and inthe very arms of another; when one's beating heart throbs in one's verytemples, and even in one's dreams one sees nothing--but one only."
"And do I not know it?" cried Paaker, placing himself close before herwith his arms crossed. "Do I not know it? and you it was who taught meto know it. When I thought of you, not blood, but burning fire, coursedin my veins, and now you have filled them with poison; and here in thisbreast, in which your image dwelt, as lovely as that of Hathor in herholy of holies, all is like that sea in Syria which is called theDead Sea, in which every thing that tries to live presently dies andperishes."
Paaker's eyes rolled as he spoke, and his voice sounded hoarsely as hewent on.
"But Mena was near to the king--nearer than I, and your mother--"
"My mother!"--Nefert interrupted the angry Mohar. "My mother did notchoose my husband. I saw him driving the chariot, and to me he resembledthe Sun God, and he observed me, and looked at me, and his glancepierced deep into my heart like a spear; and when, at the festival ofthe king's birthday, he spoke to me, it was just as if Hathor had thrownround me a web of sweet, sounding sunbeams. And it was the same withMena; he himself has told me so since I have been his wife. For yoursake my mother rejected his suit, but I grew pale and dull with longingfor him, and he lost his bright spirit, and was so melancholy that theking remarked it, and asked what weighed on his heart--for Rameses loveshim as his own son. Then Mena confessed to the Pharaoh that it was lovethat dimmed his eye and weakened his strong hand; and then the kinghimself courted me for his faithful servant, and my mother gave way,and we were made man and wife, and all the joys of the justified in thefields of Aalu
[The fields of the blest, which were opened to glorified souls. In the Book of the Dead it is shown that in them men linger, and sow and reap by cool waters.]
are shallow and feeble by the side of the bliss which we two haveknown--not like mortal men, but like the celestial gods."
Up to this point Nefert had fixed her large eyes on the sky, like aglorified soul; but now her gaze fell, and she said softly--
"But the Cheta
[An Aramaean race, according to Schrader's excellent judgment. At the time of our story the peoples of western Asia had allied themselves to them.]
disturbed our happiness, for the king took Mena with him to the war.Fifteen times did the moon, rise upon our happiness, and then--"
"And then the Gods heard my prayer, and accepted my offerings," saidPaaker, with a trembling voice, "and tore the robber of my joys fromyou, and scorched your heart and his with desire. Do you think you cantell me anything I do not know? Once again for fifteen days was Menayours, and now he has not returned again from the war which is raginghotly in Asia."
"But he will return," cried the young wife.
"Or possibly not," laughed Paaker. "The Cheta, carry sharp weapons, andthere are many vultures in Lebanon, who perhaps at this hour are tearinghis flesh as he tore my heart."
Nefert rose at these words, her sensitive spirit bruised as with stonesthrown by a brutal hand, and attempted to leave her shady refuge tofollow the princess into the house of the parascllites; but her feetrefused to bear her, and she sank back trembling on her stone seat.She tried to find words, but her tongue was powerless. Her powersof resistance forsook her in her unutterable and soul-feltdistress--heart-wrung, forsaken and provoked.
A variety of painful sensations raised a hot vehement storm inher bosom, which checked her breath, and at last found relief in apassionate and convulsive weeping that shook her whole body. She sawnothing more, she heard nothing more, she only shed tears and feltherself miserable.
Paaker stood over her in silence.
There are trees
in the tropics, on which white blossoms hang close bythe withered fruit, there are days when the pale moon shows itself nearthe clear bright sun;--and it is given to the soul of man to feel loveand hatred, both at the same time, and to direct both to the same end.
Nefert's tears fell as dew, her sobs as manna on the soul of Paaker,which hungered and thirsted for revenge. Her pain was joy to him, andyet the sight of her beauty filled him with passion, his gaze lingeredspell-bound on her graceful form; he would have given all the bliss ofheaven once, only once, to hold her in his arms--once, only once, tohear a word of love from her lips.
After some minutes Nefert's tears grew less violent. With a weary,almost indifferent gaze she looked at the Mohar, still standing beforeher, and said in a soft tone of entreaty:
'My tongue is parched, fetch me a little water."
"The princess may come out at any moment," replied Paaker.
"But I am fainting," said Nefert, and began again to cry gently.
Paaker shrugged his shoulders, and went farther into the valley, whichhe knew as well as his father's house; for in it was the tomb of hismother's ancestors, in which, as a boy, he had put up prayers at everyfull and new moon, and laid gifts on the altar.
The hut of the paraschites was prohibited to him, but he knew thatscarcely a hundred paces from the spot where Nefert was sitting, livedan old woman of evil repute, in whose hole in the rock he could not failto find a drink of water.
He hastened forward, half intoxicated with had seen and felt within thelast few minutes.
The door, which at night closed the cave against the intrusions of theplunder-seeking jackals, was wide open, and the old woman sat outsideunder a ragged piece of brown sail-cloth, fastened at one end to therock and at the other to two posts of rough wood. She was sorting a heapof dark and light-colored roots, which lay in her lap. Near her was awheel, which turned in a high wooden fork. A wryneck made fast to itby a little chain, and by springing from spoke to spoke kept it incontinual motion.--[From Theocritus' idyl: The Sorceress.]--A largeblack cat crouched beside her, and smelt at some ravens' and owls'heads, from which the eyes had not long since been extracted.
Two sparrow-hawks sat huddled up over the door of the cave, out of whichcame the sharp odor of burning juniper-berries; this was intendedto render the various emanations rising from the different strangesubstances, which were collected and preserved there, innocuous.
As Paaker approached the cavern the old woman called out to some onewithin:
"Is the wax cooking?"
An unintelligible murmur was heard in answer.
Then throw in the ape's eyes,
[The sentences and mediums employed by the witches, according to papyrus-rolls which remain. I have availed myself of the Magic papyrus of Harris, and of two in the Berlin collection, one of which is in Greek. ]
and the ibis feathers, and the scraps of linen with the black signs onthem. Stir it all a little; now put out the fire,
"Take the jug and fetch some water--make haste, here comes a stranger."
A sooty-black negro woman, with a piece of torn colorless stuff hanginground her hips, set a large clay-jar on her grey woolly matted hair, andwithout looking at him, went past Paaker, who was now close to the cave.
The old woman, a tall figure bent with years, with a sharply-cut andwrinkled face, that might once have been handsome, made her preparationsfor receiving the visitor by tying a gaudy kerchief over her head,fastening her blue cotton garment round her throat, and flinging a fibremat over the birds' heads.
Paaker called out to her, but she feigned to be deaf and not to hear hisvoice. Only when he stood quite close to her, did she raise her shrewd,twinkling eyes, and cry out:
"A lucky day! a white day that brings a noble guest and high honor."
"Get up," commanded Paaker, not giving her any greeting, but throwing asilver ring among the roots that lay in her lap,
[The Egyptians had no coins before Alexander and the Ptolemies, but used metals for exchange, usually in the form of rings.]
"and give me in exchange for good money some water in a clean vessel."
"Fine pure silver," said the old woman, while she held the ring, whichshe had quickly picked out from the roots, close to her eyes; "it is toomuch for mere water, and too little for my good liquors."
"Don't chatter, hussy, but make haste," cried Paaker, taking anotherring from his money-bag and throwing it into her lap.
"Thou hast an open hand," said the old woman, speaking in the dialectof the upper classes; "many doors must be open to thee, for money isa pass-key that turns any lock. Would'st thou have water for thy goodmoney? Shall it protect thee against noxious beasts?--shall it help theeto reach down a star? Shall it guide thee to secret paths?--It is thyduty to lead the way. Shall it make heat cold, or cold warm? Shallit give thee the power of reading hearts, or shall it beget beautifuldreams? Wilt thou drink of the water of knowledge and see whether thyfriend or thine enemy--ha! if thine enemy shall die? Would'st thou adrink to strengthen thy memory? Shall the water make thee invisible? orremove the 6th toe from thy left foot?"
"You know me?" asked Paaker.
"How should I?" said the old woman, "but my eyes are sharp, and I canprepare good waters for great and small."
"Mere babble!" exclaimed Paaker, impatiently clutching at the whip inhis girdle; "make haste, for the lady for whom--"
"Dost thou want the water for a lady?" interrupted the old woman. "Whowould have thought it?--old men certainly ask for my philters muchoftener than young ones--but I can serve thee."
With these words the old woman went into the cave, and soon returnedwith a thin cylindrical flask of alabaster in her hand.
"This is the drink," she said, giving the phial to Paaker. "Pour halfinto water, and offer it to the lady. If it does not succeed at first,it is certain the second time. A child may drink the water and it willnot hurt him, or if an old man takes it, it makes him gay. Ah, I knowthe taste of it!" and she moistened her lips with the white fluid. "Itcan hurt no one, but I will take no more of it, or old Hekt will betormented with love and longing for thee; and that would ill please therich young lord, ha! ha! If the drink is in vain I am paid enough, ifit takes effect thou shalt bring me three more gold rings; and thou wiltreturn, I know it well."
Paaker had listened motionless to the old woman, and siezed the flaskeagerly, as if bidding defiance to some adversary; he put it in hismoney bag, threw a few more rings at the feet of the witch, and oncemore hastily demanded a bowl of Nile-water.
"Is my lord in such a hurry?" muttered the old woman, once more goinginto the cave. "He asks if I know him? him certainly I do? butthe darling? who can it be hereabouts? perhaps little Uarda at theparaschites yonder. She is pretty enough; but she is lying on a mat, runover and dying. We must see what my lord means. He would have pleasedme well enough, if I were young; but he will reach the goal, for he isresolute and spares no one."
While she muttered these and similar words, she filled a graceful cup ofglazed earthenware with filtered Nile-water, which she poured out of alarge porous clay jar, and laid a laurel leaf, on which was scratchedtwo hearts linked together by seven strokes, on the surface of thelimpid fluid. Then she stepped out into the air again.
As Paaker took the vessel from her looked at the laurel leaf, she said:
"This indeed binds hearts; three is the husband, four is the wife,seven is the chachach, charcharachacha."--[This jargon is fund in amagic-papyrus at Berlin.]
The old woman sang this spell not without skill; but the Mohar appearednot to listen to her jargon. He descended carefully into the valley, anddirected his steps to the resting place of the wife of Mena.
By the side of a rock, which hill him from Nefert, he paused, set thecup on a flat block of stone, and drew the flask with the philter out ofhis girdle.
His fingers trembled, but a thousand voices seemed to surge up and cry:
"Take it!--do it!--put in the drink!--now or never." He felt lik
e asolitary traveller, who finds on his road the last will of a relationwhose possessions he had hoped for, but which disinherits him. Shall hesurrender it to the judge, or shall he destroy it.
Paaker was not merely outwardly devout; hitherto he had in everythingintended to act according to the prescriptions of the religion of hisfathers. Adultery was a heavy sin; but had not he an older right toNefert than the king's charioteer?
He who followed the black arts of magic, should, according to the law,be punished by death, and the old woman had a bad name for her evilarts; but he had not sought her for the sake of the philter. Was it notpossible that the Manes of his forefathers, that the Gods themselves,moved by his prayers and offerings, had put him in possession by anaccident--which was almost a miracle--of the magic potion efficacy henever for an instant doubted?
Paaker's associates held him to be a man of quick decision, and, infact, in difficult cases he could act with unusual rapidity, but whatguided him in these cases, was not the swift-winged judgment of aprepared and well-schooled brain, but usually only resulted from theoutcome of a play of question and answer.
Amulets of the most various kinds hung round his neck, and from hisgirdle, all consecrated by priests, and of special sanctity or thehighest efficacy.
There was the lapis lazuli eye, which hung to his girdle by a goldchain; When he threw it on the ground, so as to lie on the earth, if itsengraved side turned to heaven, and its smooth side lay on the ground,he said "yes;" in the other case, on the contrary, "no." In his purselay always a statuette of the god Apheru, who opened roads; this hethrew down at cross-roads, and followed the direction which the pointedsnout of the image indicated. He frequently called into council theseal-ring of his deceased father, an old family possession, which thechief priests of Abydos had laid upon the holiest of the fourteen gravesof Osiris, and endowed with miraculous power. It consisted of a goldring with a broad signet, on which could be read the name of ThotmesIII., who had long since been deified, and from whom Paaker's ancestorshad derived it. If it were desirable to consult the ring, the Mohartouched with the point of his bronze dagger the engraved sign of thename, below which were represented three objects sacred to the Gods, andthree that were, on the contrary, profane. If he hit one of the former,he concluded that his father--who was gone to Osiris--concurred in hisdesign; in the contrary case he was careful to postpone it. Often hepressed the ring to his heart, and awaited the first living creaturethat he might meet, regarding it as a messenger from his father;--if itcame to him from the right hand as an encouragement, if from the left asa warning.
By degrees he had reduced these questionings to a system. All that hefound in nature he referred to himself and the current of his life. Itwas at once touching, and pitiful, to see how closely he lived with theManes of his dead. His lively, but not exalted fancy, wherever he gaveit play, presented to the eye of his soul the image of his father and ofan elder brother who had died early, always in the same spot, and almosttangibly distinct.
But he never conjured up the remembrance of the beloved dead in orderto think of them in silent melancholy--that sweet blossom of the thornywreath of sorrow; only for selfish ends. The appeal to the Manes ofhis father he had found especially efficacious in certain desires anddifficulties; calling on the Manes of his brother was potent in certainothers; and so he turned from one to the other with the precision of acarpenter, who rarely doubts whether he should give the preference to ahatchet or a saw.
These doings he held to be well pleasing to the Gods, and as he wasconvinced that the spirits of his dead had, after their justification,passed into Osiris that is to say, as atoms forming part of thegreat world-soul, at this time had a share in the direction of theuniverse--he sacrificed to them not only in the family catacomb, butalso in the temples of the Necropolis dedicated to the worship ofancestors, and with special preference in the House of Seti.
He accepted advice, nay even blame, from Ameni and the other priestsunder his direction; and so lived full of a virtuous pride in being oneof the most zealous devotees in the land, and one of the most pleasingto the Gods, a belief on which his pastors never threw any doubt.
Attended and guided at every step by supernatural powers, he wanted nofriend and no confidant. In the fleld, as in Thebes, he stood apart, andpassed among his comrades for a reserved man, rough and proud, but witha strong will.
He had the power of calling up the image of his lost love with as muchvividness as the forms of the dead, and indulged in this magic, not onlythrough a hundred still nights, but in long rides and drives throughsilent wastes.
Such visions were commonly followed by a vehement and boiling overflowof his hatred against the charioteer, and a whole series of ferventprayers for his destruction.
When Paaker set the cup of water for Nefert on the flat stone and feltfor the philter, his soul was so full of desire that there was no roomfor hatred; still he could not altogether exclude the idea that he wouldcommit a great crime by making use of a magic drink. Before pouring thefateful drops into the water, he would consult the oracle of the ring.The dagger touched none of the holy symbols of the inscription on thesignet, and in other circumstances he would, without going any farther,have given up his project.
But this time he unwillingly returned it to its sheath, pressed thegold ring to his heart, muttered the name of his brother in Osiris, andawaited the first living creature that might come towards him.
He had not long to wait, from the mountain slope opposite to him rose,with heavy, slow wing-strokes, two light-colored vultures.
In anxious suspense he followed their flight, as they rose, higherand higher. For a moment they poised motionless, borne up by the air,circled round each other, then wheeled to the left and vanished behindthe mountains, denying him the fulfilment of his desire.
He hastily grasped the phial to fling it from him, but the surgingpassion in his veins had deprived him of his self-control. Nefert'simage stood before him as if beckoning him; a mysterious power clenchedhis fingers close and yet closer round the phial, and with the samedefiance which he showed to his associates, he poured half of thephilter into the cup and approached his victim.
Nefert had meanwhile left her shady retreat and come towards him.
She silently accepted the water he offered her, and drank it withdelight, to the very dregs.
"'Thank you," she said, when she had recovered breath after her eagerdraught.
"That has done me good! How fresh and acid the water tastes; but yourhand shakes, and you are heated by your quick run for me--poor man."
With these words she looked at him with a peculiar expressive glance ofher large eyes, and gave him her right hand, which he pressed wildly tohis lips.
"That will do," she said smiling; "here comes the princess with apriest, out of the hovel of the unclean. With what frightful words youterrified me just now. It is true I gave you just cause to be angry withme; but now you are kind again--do you hear?--and will bring yourmother again to see mine. Not a word. I shall see, whether cousin Paakerrefuses me obedience."
She threatened him playfully with her finger, and then growing grave sheadded, with a look that pierced Paaker's heart with pain, and yet withecstasy, "Let us leave off quarrelling. It is so much better when peopleare kind to each other."
After these words she walked towards the house of the paraschites, whilePaaker pressed his hands to his breast, and murmured:
"The drink is working, and she will be mine. I thank ye--ye Immortals!"
But this thanksgiving, which hitherto he had never failed to utter whenany good fortune had befallen him, to-day died on his lips. Close beforehim he saw the goal of his desires; there, under his eyes, lay the magicspring longed for for years. A few steps farther, and he might slake atits copious stream his thirst both for love and for revenge.
While he followed the wife of Mena, and replaced the phial carefully inhis girdle, so as to lose no drop of the precious fluid which, accordingto the prescription of the old woman, he
needed to use again, warningvoices spoke in his breast, to which he usually listened as to afatherly admonition; but at this moment he mocked at them, and even gaveoutward expression to the mood that ruled him--for he flung up his righthand like a drunken man, who turns away from the preacher of morality onhis way to the wine-cask; and yet passion held him so closely ensnared,that the thought that he should live through the swift moments whichwould change him from an honest man into a criminal, hardly dawned,darkly on his soul. He had hitherto dared to indulge his desire forlove and revenge in thought only, and had left it to the Gods to actfor themselves; now he had taken his cause out of the hand of theCelestials, and gone into action without them, and in spite of them.
The sorceress Hekt passed him; she wanted to see the woman for whom shehad given him the philter. He perceived her and shuddered, but soon theold woman vanished among the rocks muttering.
"Look at the fellow with six toes. He makes himself comfortable with theheritage of Assa."
In the middle of the valley walked Nefert and the pioneer, with theprincess Bent-Anat and Pentaur who accompanied her.
When these two had come out of the hut of the paraschites, they stoodopposite each other in silence. The royal maiden pressed her hand toher heart, and, like one who is thirsty, drank in the pure air of themountain valley with deeply drawn breath; she felt as if released fromsome overwhelming burden, as if delivered from some frightful danger.
At last she turned to her companion, who gazed earnestly at the ground.
"What an hour!" she said.
Pentaur's tall figure did not move, but he bowed his head in assent, asif he were in a dream. Bent-Anat now saw him for the first time in falldaylight; her large eyes rested on him with admiration, and she asked:
"Art thou the priest, who yesterday, after my first visit to this house,so readily restored me to cleanness?"
"I am he," replied Pentaur.
"I recognized thy voice, and I am grateful to thee, for it was thou thatdidst strengthen my courage to follow the impulse of my heart, in spiteof my spiritual guides, and to come here again. Thou wilt defend me ifothers blame me."
"I came here to pronounce thee unclean."
"Then thou hast changed thy mind?" asked Bent-Anat, and a smile ofcontempt curled her lips.
"I follow a high injunction, that commands us to keep the oldinstitutions sacred. If touching a paraschites, it is said, does notdefile a princess, whom then can it defile? for whose garment is morespotless than hers?"
"But this is a good man with all his meanness," interrupted Bent-Anat,"and in spite of the disgrace, which is the bread of life to him ashonor is to us. May the nine great Gods forgive me! but he who is inthere is loving, pious and brave, and pleases me--and thou, thou,who didst think yesterday to purge away the taint of his touch with aword--what prompts thee today to cast him with the lepers?"
"The admonition of an enlightened man, never to give up any link ofthe old institutions; because thereby the already weakened chain may bebroken, and fall rattling to the ground."
"Then thou condemnest me to uncleanness for the sake of all oldsuperstition, and of the populace, but not for my actions? Thou artsilent? Answer me now, if thou art such a one as I took the for, freelyand sincerely; for it concerns the peace of my soul." Pentaur breathedhard; and then from the depths of his soul, tormented by doubts, thesedeeply-felt words forced themselves as if wrung from him; at firstsoftly, but louder as he went on.
"Thou dost compel me to say what I had better not even think; but ratherwill I sin against obedience than against truth, the pure daughterof the Sun, whose aspect, Bent-Anat, thou dost wear. Whether theparaschites is unclean by birth or not, who am I that I should decide?But to me this man appeared--as to thee--as one moved by the same pureand holy emotions as stir and bless me and mine, and thee and everysoul born of woman; and I believe that the impressions of this hour havetouched thy soul as well as mine, not to taint, but to purify. If I amwrong, may the many-named Gods forgive me, Whose breath lives and worksin the paraschites as well as in thee and me, in Whom I believe, and toWhom I will ever address my humble songs, louder and more joyfully, as Ilearn that all that lives and breathes, that weeps and rejoices, is theimage of their sublime nature, and born to equal joy and equal sorrow."
Pentaur had raised his eyes to heaven; now they met the proud and joyfulradiance of the princess' glance, while she frankly offered him herhand. He humbly kissed her robe, but she said:
"Nay--not so. Lay thy hand in blessing on mine. Thou art a man and atrue priest. Now I can be satisfied to be regarded as unclean, for myfather also desires that, by us especially, the institutions of the pastthat have so long continued should be respected, for the sake of thepeople. Let us pray in common to the Gods, that these poor people maybe released from the old ban. How beautiful the world might be, if menwould but let man remain what the Celestials have made him. But Paakerand poor Nefert are waiting in the scorching sun-come, follow me."
She went forward, but after a few steps she turned round to him, andasked:
"What is thy name?"
"Pentaur."
"Thou then art the poet of the House of Seti?"
"They call me so."
Bent-Anat stood still a moment, gazing full at him as at a kinsman whomwe meet for the first time face to face, and said:
"The Gods have given thee great gifts, for thy glance reaches fartherand pierces deeper than that of other men; and thou canst say in wordswhat we can only feel--I follow thee willingly!"
Pentaur blushed like a boy, and said, while Paaker and Nefert camenearer to them:
"Till to-day life lay before me as if in twilight; but this moment showsit me in another light. I have seen its deepest shadows; and," he addedin a low tone "how glorious its light can be."