The Cat of Bubastes: A Tale of Ancient Egypt

Then he went in, carefully erased the marks of blood upon the floor, and brought out the shaft, took it down to the pond and carefully washed the blood from it, and then returned to Chebron.

“Is it – ” the latter asked as he approached. He did not say more, but Amuba understood him.

“I am sorry to say it is,” he replied. “It is horribly unlucky, for one of the others might not have been missed. There is no hoping that now.”

Chebron seemed paralyzed at the news.

“Come, Chebron,” Amuba said, “it will not do to give way to fear; we must brave it out. I will leave the door of the cat house open, and when it is missed it will be thought that it has escaped and wandered away. At any rate, there is no reason why suspicion should fall upon us if we do but put a bold face upon the matter; but we must not let our looks betray us. If the worst comes to the worst and we find that suspicions are entertained, we must get out of the way. But there will be plenty of time to think of that; all that you have got to do now is to try and look as if nothing had happened.”

“But how can I?” Chebron said in broken tones. “To you, as you say, it is only a cat; to me it is a creature sacred above all others that I have slain. It is ten thousand times worse than if I had killed a man.”

“A cat is a cat,” Amuba repeated. “I can understand what you feel about it, though to my mind it is ridiculous. There are thousands of cats in Thebes; let them choose another one for the temple. But I grant the danger of what has happened, and I know that if it is found out there is no hope for us.”

“You had nothing to do with it,” Chebron said; “there is no reason why you should take all this risk with me.”

“We were both in the matter, Chebron, and that twig might just as well have turned my arrow from its course as yours. We went to kill a hawk together and we have shot a cat, and it is a terrible business, there is no doubt; and it makes no difference whatever whether I think the cat was only a cat if the people of Thebes considered it is a god. If it is found out it is certain death, and we shall need all our wits to save our lives; but unless you pluck up courage and look a little more like yourself, we may as well go at once and say what has happened and take the consequences. Only if you don’t value your life I do mine; so if you mean to let your looks betray us, say so, and stop here for a few hours till I get a good start.”

“I will tell my father,” Chebron said suddenly, “and abide by what he says. If he thinks it his duty to denounce me, so be it; in that case you will run no risk.”

“But I don’t mind running the risk, Chebron; I am quite ready to share the peril with you.”

“No; I will tell my father,” Chebron repeated, “and abide by what he says. I am sure I can never face this out by myself, and that my looks will betray us. I have committed the most terrible crime an Egyptian can commit, and I dare not keep such a secret to myself.”

“Very well, Chebron, I will not try to dissuade you, and I will go and see Jethro. Of course to him as to me the shooting of a cat is a matter not worth a second thought; but he will understand the consequences, and if we fly will accompany us. You do not mind my speaking to him? You could trust your life to him as to me.”

Chebron nodded, and moved away toward the house.

“For pity sake, Chebron!” Amuba exclaimed, “do not walk like that. If the men at work get sight of you they cannot but see that something strange has happened, and it will be recalled against you when the creature is missed.”

Chebron made an effort to walk with his usual gait. Amuba stood watching him for a minute, and then turned away with a gesture of impatience.

“Chebron is clever and learned in many things, and I do not think that he lacks courage; but these Egyptians seem to have no iron in their composition when a pinch comes. Chebron walks as if all his bones had turned to jelly. Of course he is in a horrible scrape; still, if he would but face it out with sense and pluck it would be easier for us all. However, I do not think that it is more the idea that he has committed an act of horrible sacrilege than the fear of death that weighs him down. If it were not so serious a matter one could almost laugh at any one being crushed to the earth because he had accidentally killed a cat.”

Upon entering the house Chebron made his way to the room where his father was engaged in study. Dropping the heavy curtains over the door behind him he advanced a few paces, then fell on his knees, and touched the ground with his forehead.

“Chebron!” Ameres exclaimed, laying down the roll of papyrus on which he was engaged and rising to his feet. “What is it, my son? Why do you thus kneel before me in an attitude of supplication? Rise and tell me what has happened.”

Chebron raised his head, but still continued on his knees. Ameres was startled at the expression of his son’s face. The look of health and life had gone from it, the color beneath the bronze skin had faded away, drops of perspiration stood on his forehead, his lips were parched and drawn.

“What is it, my son?” Ameres repeated, now thoroughly alarmed.

“I have forfeited my life, father! Worse, I have offended the gods beyond forgiveness! This morning I went with Amuba with our bows and arrows to shoot a hawk which has for some time been slaying the waterfowl. It came down and we shot together. Amuba killed the hawk, but my arrow struck a tree and flew wide of the mark, and entering the cats’ house killed Paucis, who was chosen only two days to take the place of the sacred cat in the temple of Bubastes.”

An exclamation of horror broke from the high priest, and he recoiled a pace from his son.

“Unhappy boy,” he said, “your life is indeed forfeited. The king himself could not save his son from the fury of the populace had he perpetrated such a deed.”

“It is not my life I am thinking of, father,” Chebron said, “but first of the horrible sacrilege, and then that I alone cannot bear the consequences, but that some of these must fall upon you and my mother and sister; for even to be related to one who has committed such a crime is a terrible disgrace.”

Ameres walked up and down the room several times before he spoke.

“As to our share of the consequences, Chebron, we must bear it as best we can,” he said at last in a calmer tone than he had before used; “it is of you we must first think. It is a terrible affair; and yet, as you say, it was but an accident, and you are guiltless of any intentional sacrilege. But that plea will be as nothing. Death is the punishment for slaying a cat; and the one you have slain having been chosen to succeed the cat of Bubastes is of all others the one most sacred. The question is, What is to be done? You must fly and that instantly, though I fear that flight will be vain; for as soon as the news is known it will spread from one end of Egypt to the other, and every man’s hand will be against you, and even by this time the discovery may have been made.”

“That will hardly be, father; for Amuba has buried the cat among the bushes, and has left the door of the house open so that it may be supposed for a time that it has wandered away. He proposed to me to fly with him at once; for he declares that he is determined to share my fate since we were both concerned in the attempt to kill the hawk. But in that of course he is wrong; for it is I, not he, who has done this thing.”

“Amuba has done rightly,” Ameres said. “We have at least time to reflect.”

“But I do not want to fly, father. Of what good will life be to me with this awful sin upon my head? I wonder that you suffer me to remain a moment in your presence – that you do not cast me out as a wretch who has mortally offended the gods.”

Ameres waved his hand impatiently.

“That is not troubling me now, Chebron. I do not view things in the same way as most men, and should it be that you have to fly for your life I will tell you more; suffice for you that I do not blame you, still less regard you with horror. The great thing for us to think of at present is as to the best steps to be taken. Were you to fly now you might get several days’ start, and might even get out of the country before an alarm was spread; but upon the other hand, your disappearance would at once be connected with that of the cat as soon as it became known that she is missing, whereas if you stay here quietly it is possible that no one will connect you in any way with the fact that the cat is gone.

“That something has happened to it will speedily be guessed, for a cat does not stray away far from the place where it has been bred up; besides, a cat of such a size and appearance is remarkable, and were it anywhere in the neighborhood it would speedily be noticed. But now go and join Amuba in your room, and remain there for the morning as usual. I will give orders that your instructor be told that you will not want him to-day, as you are not well. I will see you presently when I have thought the matter fully out and determined what had best be done. Keep up a brave heart, my boy; the danger may yet pass over.”

Chebron retired overwhelmed with surprise at the kindness with which his father had spoken to him, when he had expected that he would be so filled with horror at the terrible act of sacrilege that he would not have suffered him to remain in the house for a moment after the tale was told. And yet he had seemed to think chiefly of the danger to his life, and to be but little affected by what to Chebron himself was by far the most terrible part of the affair – the religious aspect of the deed. On entering the room where he pursued his studies he found Jethro as well as Amuba there.

“I am sorry for you, young master,” Jethro said as he entered. “Of course to me the idea of any fuss being made over the accidental killing of a cat is ridiculous; but I know how you view it, and the danger in which it has placed you. I only came in here with Amuba to say that you can rely upon me, and that if you decide on flight I am ready at once to accompany you.”

“Thanks, Jethro,” Chebron replied. “Should I fly it will indeed be a comfort to have you with me as well as Amuba, who has already promised to go with me; but at present nothing is determined. I have seen my father and told him everything, and he will decide for me.”

“Then he will not denounce you,” Amuba said. “I thought that he would not.”

“No; and he has spoken so kindly that I am amazed. It did not seem possible to me that an Egyptian would have heard of such a dreadful occurrence without feeling horror and destation of the person who did it, even were he his own son. Still more would one expect it from a man who, like my father, is a high priest to the gods.”

“Your father is a wise as well as a learned man,” Jethro said: “and he knows that the gods cannot be altogether offended at an affair for which fate and not the slayer is responsible. The real slayer of the cat is the twig which turned the arrow, and I do not see that you are any more to blame, or anything like so much to blame, as is the hawk at whom you shot.”

This, however, was no consolation to Chebron, who threw himself down on a couch in a state of complete prostration. It seemed to him that even could this terrible thing be hidden he must denounce himself and bear the penalty. How could he exist with the knowledge that he was under the ban of the gods? His life would be a curse rather than a gift under such circumstances. Physically, Chebron was not a coward, but he had not the toughness of mental fibre which enables some men to bear almost unmoved misfortunes which would crush others to the ground. As to the comforting assurances of Amuba and Jethro, they failed to give him the slightest consolation. He loved Amuba as a brother, and in all other matters his opinion would have weighed greatly with him; but Amuba knew nothing of the gods of Egypt, and could not feel in the slightest the terrible nature of the act of sacrilege, and therefore on this point his opinion could have no weight.

“Jethro,” Amuba said, “you told me you were going to escort Mysa one day or other to the very top of the hills, in order that she could thence look down upon the whole city. Put it into her head to go this morning, or at least persuade her to go into the city. If she goes into the garden she will at once notice that the cat is lost; whereas if you can keep her away for the day it will give us so much more time.”

“But if Ameres decides that you had best fly, I might on my return find that you have both gone.”

“Should he do so, Jethro, he will tell you the route we have taken, and arrange for some point at which you can join us. He would certainly wish you to go with us, for he would know that your experience and strong arm would be above all things needful.”

“Then I will go at once,” Jethro agreed. “There are two or three excursions she has been wanting to make, and I think I can promise that she shall go on one of them to-day. If she says anything about wanting to go to see her pets before starting, I can say that you have both been there this morning and seen after them.”

“I do not mean to fly,” Chebron said, starting up, “unless it be that my father commands me to do so. Rather a thousand worlds I stay here and meet my fate!”

Jethro would have spoken, but Amuba signed to him to go at once, and crossing the room took Chebron’s hand. It was hot and feverish, and there was a patch of color in his cheek.

“Do not let us talk about it, Chebron,” he said. “You have put the matter in your father’s hands, and you may be sure that he will decide wisely; therefore the burden is off your shoulders for the present. You could have no better counselor in all Egypt, and the fact that he holds so high and sacred an office will add to the weight of his words. If he believes that your crime against the gods is so great that you have no hope of happiness in life, he will tell you so; if he considers that, as it seems to me, the gods cannot resent an accident as they might do a crime against them done willfully, and that you may hope by a life of piety to win their forgiveness, then he will bid you fly.

“He is learned in the deepest of the mysteries of your religion, and will view matters in a different light to that in which they are looked at by the ignorant rabble. At any rate, as the matter is in his hands, it is useless for you to excite yourself. As far as personal danger goes, I am willing to share it with you, to take half the fault of this unfortunate accident, and to avow that as we were engaged together in the act that led to it we are equally culpable of the crime.

“Unfortunately, I cannot share your greater trouble – your feeling of horror at what you regard as sacrilege; for we Rebu hold the life of one animal no more sacred than the life of another, and have no more hesitation in shooting a cat than a deer. Surely your gods cannot be so powerful in Egypt and impotent elsewhere; and yet if they are as powerful, how is it that their vengeance has not fallen upon other peoples who slay without hesitation the animals so dear to them?”

“That is what I have often wondered,” Chebron said, falling readily into the snare, for he and Amuba had had many conversations on such subjects, and points were constantly presenting themselves which he was unable to solve.