The World's Desire

  I

  THE VENGEANCE OF KURRI

  The Wanderer and Pharaoh's Queen stood face to face in the twilight ofthe chamber. They stood in silence, while bitter anger and burning shamepoured into his heart and shone from his eyes. But the face of Meriamunwas cold as the dead, and on it was a smile such as the carven sphinxeswear. Only her breast heaved tumultuously as though in triumph, and herlimbs quivered like a shaken reed. At length she spoke.

  "Why lookest thou so strangely on me, my Lord and Love; and why hastthou girded thy harness on thy back? Scarcely doth glorious Ra creepfrom the breast of Nout, and wouldest thou leave thy bridal bed,Odysseus?"

  Still he spoke no word, but looked on her with burning eyes. Then shestretched out her arms and came towards him lover-like. And now he foundhis tongue again.

  "Get thee from me!" he said, in a voice low and terrible to hear; "getthee from me. Dare not to touch me, thou, who art a harlot and a witch,lest I forget my manhood and strike thee dead before me."

  "That thou canst not do, Odysseus," she answered soft, "for whateverelse I be I am thy wife, and thou art bound to me for ever. What was theoath which thou didst swear not five short hours ago?"

  "I swore an oath indeed, but not to thee, Meriamun. I swore an oath toArgive Helen, whom I love, and I wake to find thee sleeping at my side,thee whom I hate."

  "Nay," she said, "to me thou didst swear the oath, Odysseus, for thou,of men the most guileful, hast at length been over-mastered in guile.To me, 'Woman or Immortal,' thou didst swear 'for now and for ever,for here and hereafter, _in whatever shape thou goest on the earth, bywhatever name thou art known among men_.' Oh, be not wroth, my lord, buthearken. What matters the shape in which thou seest me? At the least amI not fair? And what is beauty but a casket that hides the gem within?'Tis my love which thou hast won, my love that is immortal, and not theflesh that perishes. For I have loved thee, ay, and thou hast loved mefrom of old and in other lives than this, and I tell thee that we shalllove again and yet again when thou art no more Odysseus of Ithaca, andwhen I am no more Meriamun, a Queen of Khem, but while we walk in otherforms upon the world and are named by other names. I am thy doom, thouWanderer, and wherever thou dost wander through the fields of Life andDeath I shall be at thy side. For I am She of whom thou art, and thouart He of whom I am, and though the Gods have severed us, yet must wefloat together down the river of our lives till we find that sea ofwhich the Spirit knows. Therefore put me not from thee and raise not mywrath against thee, for if I used my magic to bring thee to my arms, yetthey are thy home." And once more she came towards him.

  Now the Wanderer drew an arrow from his quiver, and set the notchagainst his breast and the keen barb towards the breast of Meriamun.

  "Draw on," he said. "Thus will I take thee to my arms again. Hearken,Meriamun the witch--Meriamun the harlot: Pharaoh's wife and Queen ofKhem. To thee I swore an oath indeed, and perchance because I sufferedthy guile to overcome my wisdom, because I swore upon That which circlesthee about, and not by the Red Star which gleams upon the Helen'sbreast, it may be that I shall lose her whom I love. So indeed the Queenof Heaven told me, yonder in sea-girt Ithaca, though to my sorrow Iforgot her words. But if I lose her or if I win, know this, that I loveher and her only, and I hate thee like the gates of hell. For thou hasttricked me with thy magic, thou hast stolen the shape of Beauty's selfand dared to wear it, thou hast drawn a dreadful oath from me, and Ihave taken thee to wife. And more, thou art the Queen of Khem, thou artPharaoh's wife, whom I swore to guard; but thou hast brought the lastshame upon me, for now I am a man dishonoured, and I have sinned againstthe hospitable hearth, and the God of guests and hosts. And thereforeI will do this. I will call together the guard of which I am chief, andtell them all thy shame, ay, and all my sorrow. I will shout it in thestreets, I will publish it from the temple tops, and when Pharaoh comesagain I will call it into his ear, till he and all who live in Khem knowthee for what thou art, and see thee in thy naked shame."

  She hearkened, and her face grew terrible to see. A moment she stood asthough in thought, one hand pressed to her brow and one upon her breast.Then she spoke.

  "Is that thy last word, Wanderer?"

  "It is my last word, Queen," he answered, and turned to go.

  Then with the hand that rested on her breast she rent her night robesand tore her perfumed hair. Past him she rushed towards the door, and asshe ran sent scream on scream echoing up the painted walls.

  The curtains shook, the doors were burst asunder, and through thempoured guards, eunuchs, and waiting-women.

  "Help," she cried, pointing to the Wanderer. "Help, help! oh, save minehonour from this evil man, this foreign thief whom Pharaoh set to guardme, and who guards me thus. This coward who dares to creep upon me--theQueen of Khem--even as I slept in Pharaoh's bed!" and she cast herselfupon the floor and threw her hair about her, and lay there groaning andweeping as though in the last agony of shame.

  Now when the guards saw how the thing was, a great cry of rage and shamewent up from them, and they rushed upon the Wanderer like wolves upon astag at bay. But he leapt backwards to the side of the bed, and even ashe leapt he set the arrow in his hand upon the string of the great blackbow. Then he drew it to his ear. The bow-string sang, the arrow rushedforth, and he who stood before it got his death. Again the bow-stringsang, again the arrow rushed, and lo! another man was sped. A third timehe drew the bow and the soul of a third went down the ways of hell. Nowthey rolled back from him as the waters roll from a rock, for none daresface the shafts of death. They shot at him with spears and arrows frombehind the shelter of the pillars, but none of these might harm him, forsome fell from his mail and some he caught upon his buckler.

  Now among those who had run thither at the sound of the cries ofMeriamun was that same Kurri, the miserable captain of the Sidonians,whose life the Wanderer had spared, and whom he had given to the Queento be her jeweller. And when Kurri saw the Wanderer's plight, he thoughtin his greedy heart of those treasures that he had lost, and of how hewho had been a captain and a rich merchant of Sidon was now nothing buta slave.

  Then a great desire came upon him to work the Wanderer ill, if so hemight. Now all round the edge of the chamber were shadows, for the lightwas yet faint, and Kurri crept into the shadows, carrying a long spearin his hand, and that spear was hafted into the bronze point which hadstood in the Wanderer's helm. Little did the Wanderer glance his way,for he watched the lances and arrows that flew towards him from theportal, so the end of it was that the Sidonian passed round the chamberunseen and climbed into the golden bed of Pharaoh on the further side ofthe bed. Now the Wanderer stood with his back to the bed and a spear'slength from it, and in the silken hangings were fixed spears and arrows.Kurri's first thought was to stab him in the back, but this he didnot; first, because he feared lest he should fail to pierce the goldenharness and the Wanderer should turn and slay him; and again becausehe hoped that the Wanderer would be put to death by torment, and he wasfain to have a hand in it, for after the fashion of the Sidonians he wasskilled in the tormenting of men. Therefore he waited till presentlythe Wanderer let fall his buckler and drew the bow. But ere the arrowreached his ear Kurri had stretched out his spear from between thehangings and touched the string with the keen bronze, so that it burstasunder and the grey shaft fell upon the marble floor. Then, as theWanderer cast down the bow and turned with a cry to spring on him whohad cut the cord, for his eye had caught the sheen of the outstretchedspear, Kurri lifted the covering of the purple web which lay upon thebed and deftly cast it over the hero's head so that he was inmeshed.Thereon the soldiers and the eunuchs took heart, seeing what had beendone, and ere ever the Wanderer could clear himself from the coveringand draw his sword, they rushed upon him. Cumbered as he was, they mightnot easily overcome him, but in the end they bore him down and heldhim fast, so that he could not stir so much as a finger. Then one criedaloud to Meriamun:

  "The Lion is trapped, O Queen! Say, shall we slay him?"

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sp; But Meriamun, who had watched the fray through cover of her hands,shuddered and made answer:

  "Nay, but lock his tongue with a gag, strip his armour from him, andbind him with fetters of bronze, and make him fast to the dungeon wallswith great chains of bronze. There shall he bide till Pharaoh comeagain; for against Pharaoh's honour he hath sinned and shamefully brokenthat oath he swore to him, and therefore shall Pharaoh make him die insuch fashion as seems good to him."

  Now when Kurri heard these words, and saw the Wanderer's sorry plight,he bent over him and said:

  "It was I, Kurri the Sidonian, who cut the cord of thy great bow,Eperitus; with the spear-point that thou gavest back to me I cut it, I,whose folk thou didst slay and madest me a slave. And I will crave thisboon of Pharaoh, that mine shall be the hand to torment thee night andday till at last thou diest, cursing the day that thou wast born."

  The Wanderer looked upon him and answered: "There thou liest, thouSidonian dog, for this is written in thy face, that thou thyself shaltdie within an hour and that strangely."

  Then Kurri shrank back scowling. But no more words might Odysseus speak,for at once they forced his jaws apart and gagged him with a gag ofiron; and thereafter, stripping his harness from him, they bound himwith fetters as the Queen had commanded.

  Now while they dealt thus with the Wanderer, Meriamun passed intoanother chamber and swiftly threw robes upon her to hide her disarray,clasping them round her with the golden girdle which now she must alwayswear. But her long hair she left unbound, nor did she wash the stain oftears from her face, for she was minded to seem shamed and woe-begone inthe eyes of all men till Pharaoh came again.