Uarda : a Romance of Ancient Egypt. Complete
“Preacher this, preacher that!” shouted the boy, and he would have rushed forward, but the people held him back, and divided respectfully at Nebsecht’s command to make way for him to get at those who had been hurt.
First he stooped over the old paraschites.
“Shame upon you!” he exclaimed.—“You have killed the old man.”
“And I,” said Pentaur, “Have dipped my peaceful hand in blood to save his innocent and suffering grandchild from a like fate.”
“Scorpions, vipers, venomous reptiles, scum of men!” shrieked Nebsecht, and he sprang wildly forward, seeking Uarda. When he saw her sitting safe at the feet of old Hekt, who had made her way into the courtyard, he drew a deep breath of relief, and turned his attention to the wounded.
“Did you knock down all that are lying here?” he whispered to his friend.
Pentaur nodded assent and smiled; but not in triumph, rather in shame; like a boy, who has unintentionally squeezed to death in his hand a bird he has caught.
Nebsecht looked round astonished and anxious. “Why did you not say who you were?” he asked. “Because the spirit of the God Menth possessed me,” answered Pentaur. “When I saw that accursed villain there with his hand in the girl’s hair, I heard and saw nothing, I—”
“You did right,” interrupted Nebsecht. “But where will all this end?”
At this moment a flourish of trumpets rang through the little valley. The officer sent by Ameni to apprehend the paraschites came up with his soldiers.
Before he entered the court-yard he ordered the crowd to disperse; the refractory were driven away by force, and in a few minutes the valley was cleared of the howling and shouting mob, and the burning house was surrounded by soldiers. Bent-Anat, Rameri, and Nefert were obliged to quit their places by the fence; Rameri, so soon as he saw that Uarda was safe, had rejoined his sister.
Nefert was almost fainting with fear and excitement. The two servants, who had kept near them, knit their hands together, and thus carried her in advance of the princess. Not one of them spoke a word, not even Rameri, who could not forget Uarda, and the look of gratitude she bid sent after him. Once only Bent-Anat said:
“The hovel is burnt down. Where will the poor souls sleep to-night?”
When the valley was clear, the officer entered the yard, and found there, besides Uarda and the witch Hekt, the poet, and Nebsecht, who was engaged in tending the wounded.
Pentaur shortly narrated the affair to the captain, and named himself to him.
The soldier offered him his hand.
“If there were many men in Rameses’ army,” said he, “who could strike such a blow as you, the war with the Cheta would soon be at an end. But you have struck down, not Asiatics, but citizens of Thebes, and, much as I regret it, I must take you as a prisoner to Ameni.”
“You only do your duty,” replied Pentaur, bowing to the captain, who ordered his men to take up the body of the paraschites, and to bear it to the temple of Seti.
“I ought to take the girl in charge too,” he added, turning to Pentaur.
“She is ill,” replied the poet.
“And if she does not get some rest,” added Nebsecht, “she will be dead. Leave her alone; she is under the particular protection of the princess Bent-Anat, who ran over her not long ago.”
“I will take her into my house,” said Hekt, “and will take care of her. Her grandmother is lying there; she was half choked by the flames, but she will soon come to herself—and I have room for both.”
“Till to-morrow,” replied the surgeon. “Then I will provide another shelter for her.”
The old woman laughed and muttered: “There are plenty of folks to take care of her, it seems.”
The soldiers obeyed the command of their leader, took up the wounded, and went away with Pentaur, and the body of Pinem.
Meanwhile, Bent-Anat and her party had with much difficulty reached the river-bank. One of the bearers was sent to find the boat which was waiting for them, and he was enjoined to make haste, for already they could see the approach of the procession, which escorted the God on his return journey. If they could not succeed in finding their boat without delay, they must wait at least an hour, for, at night, not a boat that did not belong to the train of Amon—not even the barge of a noble—might venture from shore till the whole procession was safe across.
They awaited the messenger’s signal in the greatest anxiety, for Nefert was perfectly exhausted, and Bent-Anat, on whom she leaned, felt her trembling in every limb.
At last the bearer gave the signal; the swift, almost invisible bark, which was generally used for wild fowl shooting, shot by—Rameri seized one end of an oar that the rower held out to him, and drew the little boat up to the landing-place.
The captain of the watch passed at the same moment, and shouting out, “This is the last boat that can put off before the passage of the God!”
Bent-Anat descended the steps as quickly as Nefert’s exhausted state permitted. The landing-place was now only dimly lighted by dull lanterns, though, when the God embarked, it would be as light as day with cressets and torches. Before she could reach the bottom step, with Nefert still clinging heavily to her arm, a hard hand was laid on her shoulder, and the rough voice of Paaker exclaimed:
“Stand back, you rabble! We are going first.” The captain of the watch did not stop him, for he knew the chief pioneer and his overbearing ways. Paaker put his finger to his lips, and gave a shrill whistle that sounded like a yell in the silence.
The stroke of oars responded to the call, and Paaker called out to his boatmen:
“Bring the boat up here! these people can wait!” The pioneer’s boat was larger and better manned than that of the princess.
“Jump into the boat!” cried Rameri.
Bent-Anat went forward without speaking, for she did not wish to make herself known again for the sake of the people, and for Nefert’s; but Paaker put himself in her way.
“Did I not tell you that you common people must wait till we are gone. Push these people’s boat out into the stream, you men.”
Bent-Anat felt her blood chill, for a loud squabble at once began on the landing-steps.
Rameri’s voice sounded louder than all the rest; but the pioneer exclaimed:
“The low brutes dare to resist? I will teach them manners! Here, Descher, look after the woman and these boys!”
At his call his great red hound barked and sprang forward, which, as it had belonged to his father, always accompanied him when he went with his mother to visit the ancestral tomb. Nefert shrieked with fright, but the dog at once knew her, and crouched against her with whines of recognition.
Paaker, who had gone down to his boat, turned round in astonishment, and saw his dog fawning at the feet of a boy whom he could not possibly recognize as Nefert; he sprang back, and cried out:
“I will teach you, you young scoundrel, to spoil my dog with spells—or poison!”
He raised his whip, and struck it across the shoulders of Nefert, who, with one scream of terror and anguish, fell to the ground.
The lash of the whip only whistled close by the cheek of the poor fainting woman, for Bent-Anat had seized Paaker’s arm with all her might.
Rage, disgust, and scorn stopped her utterance; but Rameri had heard Nefert’s shriek, and in two steps stood by the women.
“Cowardly scoundrel!” he cried, and lifted the oar in his hand. Paaker evaded the blow, and called to the dog with a peculiar hiss:
“Pull him down, Descher.”
The hound flew at the prince; but Rameri, who from his childhood, had been his father’s companion in many hunts and field sports, gave the furious brute such a mighty blow on the muzzle that he rolled over with a snort.
Paaker believed that he possessed in the whole world no more faithful friend than this dog, his companion on all his marches across desert tracts or through the enemy’s country, and when he saw him writhing on the ground his rage knew no bounds, and he flew at the youngster with his whip; but Rameri—madly excited by all the events of the night, full of the warlike spirit of his fathers, worked up to the highest pitch by the insults to the two ladies, and seeing that he was their only protector—suddenly felt himself endowed with the strength of a man; he dealt the pioneer such a heavy blow on the left hand, that he dropped his whip, and now seized the dagger in his girdle with his right.
Bent-Anat threw herself between the man and the stripling, who was hardly more than a boy, once more declared her name, and this time her brother’s also, and commanded Paaker to make peace among the boatmen. Then she led Nefert, who remained unrecognized, into the boat, entered it herself with her companions, and shortly after landed at the palace, while Paaker’s mother, for whom he had called his boat, had yet a long time to wait before it could start. Setchem had seen the struggle from her litter at the top of the landing steps, but without understanding its origin, and without recognizing the chief actors.
The dog was dead. Paaker’s hand was very painful, and fresh rage was seething in his soul.
“That brood of Rameses!” he muttered. “Adventurers! They shall learn to know me. Mena and Rameses are closely connected—I will sacrifice them both.”
CHAPTER XXIX
At last the pioneer’s boat got off with his mother and the body of the dog, which he intended to send to be embalmed at Kynopolis, the city in which the dog was held sacred above all animals;
[Kynopolis, or in old Egyptian Saka, is now Samalut; Anubis was the chief divinity worshipped there. Plutarch relates a quarrel between the inhabitants of this city, and the neighboring one of Oxyrynchos, where the fish called Oxyrynchos was worshipped. It began because the Kynopolitans eat the fish, and in revenge the Oxyrynchites caught and killed dogs, and consumed them in sacrifices. Juvenal relates a similar story of the Ombites—perhaps Koptites—and Pentyrites in the 15th Satire.]
Paaker himself returned to the House of Seti, where, in the night which closed the feast day, there was always a grand banquet for the superior priests of the Necropolis and of the temples of eastern Thebes, for the representatives of other foundations, and for select dignitaries of the state.
His father had never failed to attend this entertainment when he was in Thebes, but he himself had to-day for the first time received the much-coveted honor of an invitation, which—Ameni told him when he gave it—he entirely owed to the Regent.
His mother had tied up his hand, which Rameri had severely hurt; it was extremely painful, but he would not have missed the banquet at any cost, although he felt some alarm of the solemn ceremony. His family was as old as any in Egypt, his blood purer than the king’s, and nevertheless he never felt thoroughly at home in the company of superior people. He was no priest, although a scribe; he was a warrior, and yet he did not rank with royal heroes.
He had been brought up to a strict fulfilment of his duty, and he devoted himself zealously to his calling; but his habits of life were widely different from those of the society in which he had been brought up—a society of which his handsome, brave, and magnanimous father had been a chief ornament. He did not cling covetously to his inherited wealth, and the noble attribute of liberality was not strange to him, but the coarseness of his nature showed itself most when he was most lavish, for he was never tired of exacting gratitude from those whom he had attached to him by his gifts, and he thought he had earned the right by his liberality to meet the recipient with roughness or arrogance, according to his humor. Thus it happened that his best actions procured him not friends but enemies.
Paaker’s was, in fact, an ignoble, that is to say, a selfish nature; to shorten his road he trod down flowers as readily as he marched over the sand of the desert. This characteristic marked him in all things, even in his outward demeanor; in the sound of his voice, in his broad features, in the swaggering gait of his stumpy figure.
In camp he could conduct himself as he pleased; but this was not permissible in the society of his equals in rank; for this reason, and because those faculties of quick remark and repartee, which distinguished them, had been denied to him, he felt uneasy and out of his element when he mixed with them, and he would hardly have accepted Ameni’s invitation, if it had not so greatly flattered his vanity.
It was already late; but the banquet did not begin till midnight, for the guests, before it began, assisted at the play which was performed by lamp and torch-light on the sacred lake in the south of the Necropolis, and which represented the history of Isis and Osiris.
When he entered the decorated hall in which the tables were prepared, he found all the guests assembled. The Regent Ani was present, and sat on Ameni’s right at the top of the centre high-table at which several places were unoccupied; for the prophets and the initiated of the temple of Amon had excused themselves from being present. They were faithful to Rameses and his house; their grey-haired Superior disapproved of Ameni’s severity towards the prince and princess, and they regarded the miracle of the sacred heart as a malicious trick of the chiefs of the Necropolis against the great temple of the capital for which Rameses had always shown a preference.
The pioneer went up to the table, where sat the general of the troops that had just returned victorious from Ethiopia, and several other officers of high rank, There was a place vacant next to the general. Paaker fixed his eyes upon this, but when he observed that the officer signed to the one next to him to come a little nearer, the pioneer imagined that each would endeavor to avoid having him for his neighbor, and with an angry glance he turned his back on the table where the warriors sat.
The Mohar was not, in fact, a welcome boon-companion. “The wine turns sour when that churl looks at it,” said the general.
The eyes of all the guests turned on Paaker, who looked round for a seat, and when no one beckoned him to one he felt his blood begin to boil. He would have liked to leave the banqueting hall at once with a swingeing curse. He had indeed turned towards the door, when the Regent, who had exchanged a few whispered words with Ameni, called to him, requested him to take the place that had been reserved for him, and pointed to the seat by his side, which had in fact been intended for the high-priest of the temple of Amon.
Paaker bowed low, and took the place of honor, hardly daring to look round the table, lest he should encounter looks of surprise or of mockery. And yet he had pictured to himself his grandfather Assa, and his father, as somewhere near this place of honor, which had actually often enough been given up to them. And was he not their descendant and heir? Was not his mother Setchem of royal race? Was not the temple of Seti more indebted to him than to any one?
A servant laid a garland of flowers round his shoulders, and another handed him wine and food. Then he raised his eyes, and met the bright and sparkling glance of Gagabu; he looked quickly down again at the table.
Then the Regent spoke to him, and turning to the other guests mentioned that Paaker was on the point of starting next day for Syria, and resuming his arduous labors as Mohar. It seemed to Paaker that the Regent was excusing himself for having given him so high a place of honor.
Presently Ani raised his wine-cup, and drank to the happy issue of his reconnoitring-expedition, and a victorious conclusion to every struggle in which the Mohar might engage. The high-priest then pledged him, and thanked him emphatically in the name of the brethren of the temple, for the noble tract of arable land which he had that morning given them as a votive offering. A murmur of approbation ran round the tables, and Paaker’s timidity began to diminish.
He had kept the wrappings that his mother had applied round his still aching hand.
“Are you wounded?” asked the Regent.
“Nothing of importance,” answered the pioneer. “I was helping my mother into the boat, and it happened—”
“It happened,” interrupted an old school-fellow of the Mohar’s, who himself held a high appointment as officer of the city-watch of Thebes—“It happened that an oar or a stake fell on his fingers.”
“Is it possible!” cried the Regent.
“And quite a youngster laid hands on him,” continued the officer. “My people told me every detail. First the boy killed his dog—”
“That noble Descher?” asked the master of the hunt in a tone of regret. “Your father was often by my side with that dog at a boar-hunt.”
Paaker bowed his head; but the officer of the watch, secure in his position and dignity, and taking no notice of the glow of anger which flushed Paaker’s face, began again:
“When the hound lay on the ground, the foolhardy boy struck your dagger out of your hand.”
“And did this squabble lead to any disturbance?” asked Ameni earnestly.
“No,” replied the officer. “The feast has passed off to-day with unusual quiet. If the unlucky interruption to the procession by that crazy paraschites had not occurred, we should have nothing but praise for the populace. Besides the fighting priest, whom we have handed over to you, only a few thieves have been apprehended, and they belong exclusively to the caste,
[According to Diodorous (I. 80) there was a cast of thieves in Thebes. All citizens were obliged to enter their names in a register, and state where they lived, and the thieves did the same. The names were enrolled by the “chief of the thieves,” and all stolen goods had to be given up to him. The person robbed had to give a written description of the object he had lost, and a declaration as to when and where he had lost it. The stolen property was then easily recovered, and restored to the owner on the payment of one fourth of its value, which was given to the thief. A similar state of things existed at Cairo within a comparatively short time.]
so we simply take their booty from them, and let them go. But say, Paaker, what devil of amiability took possession of you down by the river, that you let the rascal escape unpunished.”
“Did you do that?” exclaimed Gagabu. “Revenge is usually your—”
Ameni threw so warning a glance at the old man, that he suddenly broke off, and then asked the pioneer: “How did the struggle begin, and who was the fellow?”
“Some insolent people,” said Paaker, “wanted to push in front of the boat that was waiting for my mother, and I asserted my rights. The rascal fell upon me, and killed my dog and—by my Osirian father!—the crocodiles would long since have eaten him if a woman had not come between us, and made herself known to me as Bent-Anat, the daughter of Rameses. It was she herself, and the rascal was the young prince Rameri, who was yesterday forbidden this temple.”
“Oho!” cried the old master of the hunt. “Oho! my lord! Is this the way to speak of the children of the king?”
Others of the company who were attached to Pharaoh’s family expressed their indignation; but Ameni whispered to Paaker—“Say no more!” then he continued aloud:
“You never were careful in weighing your words, my friend, and now, as it seems to me, you are speaking in the heat of fever. Come here, Gagabu, and examine Paaker’s wound, which is no disgrace to him—for it was inflicted by a prince.”
The old man loosened the bandage from the pioneer’s swollen hand.
“That was a bad blow,” he exclaimed; “three fingers are broken, and—do you see?—the emerald too in your signet ring.”
Paaker looked down at his aching fingers, and uttered a sigh of rehef, for it was not the oracular ring with the name of Thotmes III., but the valuable one given to his father by the reigning king that had been crushed. Only a few solitary fragments of the splintered stone remained in the setting; the king’s name had fallen to pieces, and disappeared. Paaker’s bloodless lips moved silently, and an inner voice cried out to him: “The Gods point out the way! The name is gone, the bearer of the name must follow.”
“It is a pity about the ring,” said Gagabu. “And if the hand is not to follow it—luckily it is your left hand—leave off drinking, let yourself be taken to Nebsecht the surgeon, and get him to set the joints neatly, and bind them up.”
Paaker rose, and went away after Ameni had appointed to meet him on the following day at the Temple of Seti, and the Regent at the palace.
When the door had closed behind him, the treasurer of the temple said:
“This has been a bad day for the Mohar, and perhaps it will teach him that here in Thebes he cannot swagger as he does in the field. Another adventure occurred to him to-day; would you like to hear it?”
“Yes; tell it!” cried the guests.
“You all knew old Seni,” began the treasurer. “He was a rich man, but he gave away all his goods to the poor, after his seven blooming sons, one after another, had died in the war, or of illness. He only kept a small house with a little garden, and said that as the Gods had taken his children to themselves in the other world he would take pity on the forlorn in this. ‘Feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked’ says the law; and now that Seni has nothing more to give away, he goes through the city, as you know, hungry and thirsty himself, and scarcely clothed, and begging for his adopted children, the poor. We have all given to him, for we all know for whom he humbles himself, and holds out his hand. To-day he went round with his little bag, and begged, with his kind good eyes, for alms. Paaker has given us a good piece of arable land, and thinks, perhaps with reason, that he has done his part. When Seni addressed him, he told him to go; but the old man did not give up asking him, he followed him persistently to the grave of his father, and a great many people with him. Then the pioneer pushed him angrily back, and when at last the beggar clutched his garment, he raised his whip, and struck him two or three times, crying out: ‘There-that is your portion!’ The good old man bore it quite patiently, while he untied the bag, and said with tears in his eyes: ‘My portion—yes—but not the portion of the poor!’
“I was standing near, and I saw how Paaker hastily withdrew into the tomb, and how his mother Setchem threw her full purse to Seni. Others followed her example, and the old man never had a richer harvest. The poor may thank the Mohar! A crowd of people collected in front of the tomb, and he would have fared badly if it had not been for the police guard who drove them away.”
During this narrative, which was heard with much approval—for no one is more secure of his result than he who can tell of the downfall of a man who is disliked for his arrogance—the Regent and the high-priest had been eagerly whispering to each other.
“There can be no doubt,” said Ameni, “that Bent-Anat did actually come to the festival.”
“And had also dealings with the priest whom you so warmly defend,” whispered the other.
“Pentaur shall be questioned this very night,” returned the high-priest. “The dishes will soon be taken away, and the drinking will begin. Let us go and hear what the poet says.”
“But there are now no witnesses,” replied Ani.
“We do not need them,” said Ameni. “He is incapable of a lie.”
“Let us go then,” said the Regent smiling, “for I am really curious about this white negro, and how he will come to terms with the truth. You have forgotten that there is a woman in the case.”
“That there always is!” answered Ameni; he called Gagabu to him, gave him his seat, begged him to keep up the flow of cheerful conversation, to encourage the guests to drink, and to interrupt all talk of the king, the state, or the war.
“You know,” he concluded, “that we are not by ourselves this evening. Wine has, before this, betrayed everything! Remember this—the mother of foresight looks backwards!”
Ani clapped his hand on the old man’s shoulder. “There will be a space cleared to-night in your winelofts. It is said of you that you cannot bear to see either a full glass or an empty one; to-night give your aversion to both free play. And when you think it is the right moment, give a sign to my steward, who is sitting there in the corner. He has a few jars of the best liquor from Byblos, that he brought over with him, and he will bring it to you. I will come in again and bid you good-night.” Ameni was accustomed to leave the hall at the beginning of the drinking.
