"If this be so," thought the prince, as the idea flashed on him, "I will make the order which shall please me."

At that moment Ramses remembered two people, the liberated black who without waiting for command had been ready to die for him, and that unknown priest.

"If I had more like them, my will would have meaning in Egypt and beyond it," said he to himself, and he felt an inextinguishable desire to find that priest.

"He is, in all likelihood, the man who restrained the crowd from attacking my house. On the one hand he knows law to perfection, on the other he knows how to manage multitudes."

"A man beyond price! I must have him."

From that time Ramses, in a small boat managed by one oarsman, began to visit the cottages in the neighborhood of his villa. Dressed in a tunic and a great wig, in his hand a staff on which a measure was cut out, the prince looked like an engineer studying the Nile and its overflows.

Earth-tillers gave him willingly all explanations concerning changes in the form of land because of inundations, and at the same time they begged that the government might think out some easier way of raising water than by sweeps and buckets. They told too of the attack on the house of Prince Ramses, and said that they knew not who threw the stones. Finally they mentioned the priest who had sent the crowd away so successfully; but who he was they knew not.

"There is," said one man, "a priest in our neighborhood who cures sore eyes; there is one who heals wounds and sets broken arms and legs. There are some priests who teach reading and writing; there is one who plays on a double flute, and plays even beautifully. But that one who was in the garden of the heir is not among them, and they know nothing of him. Surely he must be the god Num, or some spirit watching over the prince, may he live through eternity and always have appetite!"

"Maybe it is really some spirit," thought Ramses.

In Egypt good or evil spirits always came more easily than rain.

The water of the Nile from being ruddy became brownish, and in August, the month of Hator, it reached one half its height. The sluices were opened on the banks of the river, and the water began to fill the canals quickly, and also the gigantic artificial lake, Moeris, in the province Fayum, celebrated for the beauty of its roses. Lower Egypt looked like an arm of the sea thickly dotted with hills on which were houses and gardens. Communication by land ceased altogether, and such a multitude of boats circled around on the water boats white, yellow, red, dark that they seemed like leaves in autumn. On the highest points of land people had finished harvesting the peculiar cotton of the country, and for the second time had cut clover and begun to gather in olives and tamarinds.

On a certain day, while sailing along over inundated lands, the prince saw an unusual movement. On one of the temporary mounds was heard among the trees the loud cry of a woman.

"Surely some one is dead," thought Ramses.

From a second mound were sailing away in small boats supplies of wheat and some cattle, while people standing at buildings on the land threatened and abused people in the boats.

"Some quarrel among neighbors," said the prince to himself.

In remoter places there was quiet, and people instead of working or singing were sitting on the ground in silence.

"They must have finished work and are resting."

But from a third mound a boat moved away with a number of crying children, while a woman wading in the water to her waist shook her fist and threatened.

"They are taking children to school," thought Ramses.

These happenings began to interest him.

On a fourth mound he heard a fresh cry. He shaded his eyes and saw a man lying on the ground; a negro was beating him.

"What is happening there?" asked Ramses of the boatman.

"Does not my lord see that they are beating a wretched earth-tiller?" answered the boatman, smiling. "He must have done something, so pain is traveling through his bones."

"But who art thou?"

"I?" replied the boatman, proudly. "I am a free fisherman. If I give a certain share of my catch to his holiness, I may sail the Nile from the sea to the cataract. A fisherman is like a fish or a wild goose; but an earth-tiller is like a tree which nourishes lords with its fruit and can never escape but only squeaks when overseers spoil the bark on it."

"Oho! ho! but look there!" cried the fisherman, pleased again. "Hei! father, don't drink up all the water, or there will be a bad harvest."

This humorous exclamation referred to a group of persons who were displaying a very original activity. A number of naked laborers were holding a man by the legs and plunging him head first in the water to his neck, to his breast, and at last to his waist. Near them stood an overseer with a cane; he wore a stained tunic and a wig made of sheepskin.

A little farther on some men held a woman by the arms, while she screamed in a voice which was heaven-piercing.

Beating with a stick was as general in the happy kingdom of the pharaoh as eating and sleeping. They beat children and grown people, earth- tillers, artisans, warriors, officers, and officials. All living persons were caned save only priests and the highest officials there was no one to cane them. Hence the prince looked calmly enough on an earth-worker beaten with a cane; but to plunge a man into water roused his attention.

"Ho! ho!" laughed the boatman, meanwhile, "but are they giving him drink! He will grow so thick that his wife must lengthen his belt for him."

The prince commanded to row to the mound. Meanwhile they had taken the man from the river, let him cough out water, and seized him a second time by the legs, in spite of the unearthly screams of his wife, who fell to biting the men who had seized her.

"Stop!" cried Ramses to those who were dragging the earth-tiller.

"Do your duty!" cried he of the sheepskin wig, in nasal tones. "Who art thou, insolent, who darest."

At that moment the prince gave him a blow on the forehead with his cane, which luckily was light. Still the owner of the stained tunic dropped to the earth, and feeling his wig and head, looked with misty eyes at the attacker.

"I divine," said he in a natural voice, "that I have the honor to converse with a notable person. May good humor always accompany thee, lord, and bile never spread through thy bones."

"What art Thou doing to this man?" interrupted Ramses.

"Thou inquirest," returned the man, speaking again in nasal tones, "like a foreigner unacquainted with the customs of the country and the people, to whom he speaks too freely. Know, then, that I am the collector of his worthiness Dagon, the first banker in Memphis. And if Thou hast not grown pale yet, know that the worthy Dagon is the agent and the friend of the erpatr, may he live through eternity! and that Thou hast committed violence on the lands of Prince Ramses; to this my people will testify."

"Then know this," interrupted the prince; but he stopped suddenly. "By what right art Thou torturing in this way one of the prince's earth- tillers?"

"Because he will not pay his rent, and the treasury of the heir is in need of it."

The servants of the official, in view of the catastrophe which had come on their master, dropped their victim and stood as helpless as the members of a body from which its head has been severed. The liberated man began to spit again and shake the water out of his ears, but his wife rushed up to the rescuer.

"Whoever Thou art," groaned she, clasping her hands before Ramses, "a god, or even a messenger of the pharaoh, listen to the tale of our sufferings. We are earth-tillers of the heir to the throne, may he live through eternity! and we have paid all our dues: in millet, in wheat, in flowers, and in skins of cattle. But in the last ten days this man here has come and commands us again to give seven measures of wheat to him. 'By what right?' asks my husband; 'the rents are paid, all of them.' But he throws my husband on the ground, stamps, and says, 'By this right, that the worthy Dagon has commanded.' 'Whence shall I get wheat,' asks my husband, 'when we have none and for a month past we have eaten only seeds, or roots of lotus, which are harder and harder to get, for great lords like to amuse themselves with flowers of the lotus?'"

She lost breath and fell to weeping. The prince waited patiently till she calmed herself, but the man who had been plunged into the water grumbled.

"This woman will bring misfortune with her talk. I have said that I do not like to see women meddle."

Meanwhile the official, pushing up to the boatman, asked in an undertone, indicating Ramses,

"Who is this?"

"Ah, may thy tongue wither!" answered the boatman. "Dost Thou not see that he must be a great lord: he pays well and strikes heavily."

"I saw at once," answered the official, "that he must be some great person. My youth passed at feasts with noted persons."

"Aha! the sauces have stuck to thy dress after those feasts," blurted out the boatman.

The woman, after crying, continued,

"Today this scribe came with his people, and said to my husband, 'If Thou hast not money, give thy two sons. The worthy Dagon will not only forgive thee the rent, but will pay thee a drachma a year for each boy.'"

"Woe to me because of thee!" roared the half-drowned husband; "Thou wilt destroy us all with thy babbling. Do not listen to her," continued he, turning to Ramses. "As a cow thinks that she frightens off flies with her tail, so it seems to a woman that she can drive away collectors with her tongue; and neither cow nor woman knows that she is stupid."

"Thou art stupid!" said the woman. "Sun-like lord with the form of a pharaoh."

"I call to witness that this woman blasphemes," said the official to his people in a low voice.

"Odorous flower, whose voice is like a flute, listen to me!" implored the woman of Ramses. "Then my husband answered this official, 'I would rather lose two bulls, if I had them, than give my boys away, though Thou wert to give me four drachmas; for when a boy leaves home for service no one ever sees him after that.'."

"Would that I were choked! would that fish were eating my body in the bottom of the Nile!" groaned the earth-tiller. "Thou wilt destroy all our house with thy complaints, woman."

The official, seeing that he had the support of the side mainly interested, stepped forth and began, in nasal tones, a second time,

"Since the sun rises beyond the palace of the pharaoh and sets over the pyramids, various wonders have happened in this country. In the days of the Pharaoh Sememphes marvelous things appeared near the pyramid of Kochom, and a plague fell on Egypt. In the time of Boetus the ground opened near Bubastis and swallowed many people. In the reign of Neferches the waters of the Nile for eleven days were as sweet as honey. Men saw these and many other things of which I know, for I am full of wisdom. But never has it been seen that some unknown man came up out of the water and stopped the collection of rent in the lands of the heir to the throne of Egypt."

"Be silent," shouted Ramses, "and be off out of this place! No one will take thy children," said he to the woman.

"It is easy for me to go away," said the collector, "for I have a swift boat and five rowers. But, worthiness, give me some sign for my lord Dagon."

"Take off thy wig and show him the sign on thy forehead," said Ramses. "And tell Dagon that I will put marks of the same kind all over his body."

"Listen to that blasphemy!" whispered the collector to his men, drawing back toward the bank with low bows.

He sat down in the boat, and when his assistants had moved off and pushed away some tens of yards, he stretched out his hand and shouted,

"May gripe seize thy intestines, blasphemer, rebel! From here I will go straight to Prince Ramses and tell him what is happening on his lands."

Then he took his cane and belabored his men because they had not taken part with him.

"So it will be with thee!" cried he to Ramses.

The prince sprang into his boat and in a rage commanded the boatman to pursue the insolent servant of the usurer. But he of the sheepskin wig threw down the cane, took an oar himself, and his men helped him so well that pursuit became impossible.

"Sooner could an owl overtake a lark than we overtake them, my beautiful lord," cried the prince's boatman, laughing. "But who art thou? Thou art not a surveyor, but an officer, maybe even an officer of the guard of his holiness. Thou dost strike right always on the forehead! I know about this; I was five years in the army. I always struck on the forehead or the belly, and I had not the worst time in the world. But if any one struck me, I understood right away that he must be a great person. In our Egypt may the gods never leave the land! it is terribly crowded; town is near town, house is near house, man is near man. Whoso wishes to turn in this throng must strike in the forehead."

"Art Thou married?" asked the prince.

"Pfu! when I have a woman and place for a person and a half, I am married; but for the rest of the time I am single. I have been in the army, and I know that a woman is good, though not at all times. She is in the way often."

"Perhaps Thou wouldst come to me for service? Who knows, wouldst Thou be sorry to work for me?"

"With permission, worthiness, I noticed that Thou couldst lead a regiment in spite of thy young face. But I enter the service of no man. I am a free fisherman; my grandfather was, with permission, a shepherd in Lower Egypt, our family comes of the Hyksos people. It is true that dull Egyptian earth-tillers revile us, but I laugh at them. The earth- tillers and the Hyksos, I say, worthiness, are like an ox and a bull. The earth-tiller may go behind the plough or before it, but the Hyksos will not serve any man, unless in the army of his holiness, that is warrior life."

The boatman was in the vein and talked continually, but the prince heard no longer. In his soul very painful questions grew louder and louder, for they were new altogether. Were those mounds, then, around which he had been sailing, on his property? A marvelous thing, he knew not at all where his lands were nor what they looked like. So in his name Dagon had imposed new rents on the people, and the active movement on which he had been looking while moving along the shores was the extortion of rents. It was clear that the man whom they had been beating on the shore had nothing to pay with. The children who were crying bitterly in the boat were sold at a drachma per head for a twelvemonth, and that woman who was wading in the water to her waist and weeping was their mother.

"Women are very unquiet," said the prince to himself. "Sarah is the quietest woman; but others love to talk much, to cry and raise an uproar."

He remembered the man who was pacifying his wife's excitement. They had been plunging him into the water and he was not angry; they did nothing to her, and still she made an uproar.

"Women are very unquiet!" repeated be. "Yes, even my mother, who is worthy of honor. What a difference between her and my father! His holiness does not wish to know at all that I left the army for a girl, but the queen likes to occupy herself even with this, that I took into my house a Jewess. Sarah is the quietest of women whom I know; but Tafet cries and makes an uproar for four persons."

Then the prince recalled the words of the man's wife, that for a month they had not eaten wheat, only seeds and roots of lotus. Lotus and poppy seeds are similar; the roots are poor. He could not eat them for three days in succession. Moreover, the priests who were occupied in medicine advised change of diet. While in school they told him that a man ought to eat flesh with fish, dates with wheat bread, figs with barley. But for a whole month to live on lotus seeds! Well, cows and horses? Cows and horses like hay, but barley straw must be shoved into their throats by force. Surely then earth-workers prefer lotus seeds as food, while wheat or barley cakes, fish and flesh they do not relish. For that matter, the most pious priests, wonderworkers, never touch flesh or fish. Evidently magnates and king's sons need flesh, just as lions and eagles do; but earth-tillers grass, like an ox.

"Only that plunging into the water to pay rent. Ei! but didn't he once in bathing with his comrades put them under water, and even dive himself? What laughing they had in those days! Diving was fun. And as to beating with a cane, how many times had they beaten him in school? It is painful, but evidently not for every creature. A beaten dog howls and bites; a beaten ox does not even look around. So beating may pain a great lord, but a common man cries only so as to cry when the chance comes. Not all cry; soldiers and officers sing while belabored."

But these wise reflections could not drown the small but annoying disquiet in the heart of Ramses. So his tenant Dagon had imposed an unjust rent which the tenants could not pay!

At this moment the prince was not concerned about the tenants, but his mother. His mother must know of this Phoenician management. What would she say about it to her son? How she would look at him! How sneeringly she would laugh! And she would not be a woman if she did not speak to him as follows: "I told thee, Ramses, that Phoenicians would desolate thy property."

"If those traitorous priests," thought the prince, "would give me twenty talents today, I would drive out that Dagon in the morning, my tenants would not be plunged under water, would not suffer blows, and my mother would not jeer at me. A tenth, a hundredth part of that wealth which is lying in the temples and feeding the greedy eyes of those bare heads would make me independent for years of Phoenicians."

Just then an idea which was strange enough flashed up in the soul of Ramses, that between priests and earth-tillers there existed a certain opposition.

"Through Herhor," thought he, "that man hanged himself on the edge of the desert. To maintain priests and temples about two million Egyptian men toil grievously. If the property of the priests belonged to the pharaoh's treasury, I should not have to borrow fifteen talents and my people would not be oppressed so terribly. There is the source of misfortunes for Egypt and of weakness for its pharaohs!"

The prince felt that a wrong was done the people; therefore he experienced no small solace in discovering that priests were the authors of this evil. It did not occur to him that his judgment might be unjust and faulty. Besides, he did not judge, he was only indignant. The anger of a man never turns against himself, just as a hungry panther never eats its own body; it twirls its tail and moves its ears while looking for a victim.



CHAPTER XIII

The expedition of the heir to the throne, undertaken with the object of discovering the priest who had saved Sarah and had given him legal advice, had a result that was unexpected.

The priest was not discovered, but among Egyptian earth-tillers legends began to circulate which concerned Ramses.

Some mysterious man sailed about from village to village and told the people that the heir to the throne freed the men who were in danger of condemnation to the quarries for attacking his dwelling. Besides, he had beaten down an official who was extorting unjust rent from tenants. Finally, the unknown person added that Prince Ramses was under the special guardianship of Amon, who was his father.

Simple people listened to these tidings eagerly, first, because they agreed with facts, second, because the man who told the story was himself like a spirit it was not known whence he came nor whither he had vanished.

Prince Ramses made no mention whatever of his tenants to Dagon; he did not even summon him. He felt ashamed in presence of the Phoenician from whom he had taken money and might require money yet more than one time.

But a few days after the adventure with Dagon's scribe the banker came himself to the heir, holding in his hand some covered object.

On entering the prince's chamber he bent down, untied a white kerchief, and drew forth from it a very beautiful gold goblet; the goblet was set with stones of various colors, and covered with carving in relief which on the lower part represented the gathering and pressing out of grapes and on the cup part a feast.

"Accept this goblet, worthy lord, from thy slave," said the banker, "and use it for a hundred, a thousand years, to the end of ages."

The prince understood what the Phoenician wanted; so, without touching the golden gift, he said with a stern expression,

"Dost Thou see, Dagon, that purple reflection inside the goblet?"

"I do, indeed," replied the banker; "why should I not see that which shows the goblet to be the purest gold?"

"But I declare that to be the blood of children seized away from their parents," said the heir, angrily.

And he turned and went to an interior chamber.

"O Astoreth!" groaned the Phoenician.

His lips grew blue, and his hands trembled so that he was hardly able to wrap up the goblet.

A couple of days later Dagon sailed down with his goblet to Sarah's house. He was arrayed in robes interwoven with gold; in his thick beard were glass globulets from which issued perfumes, and he had fastened two plumes to his head.

"Beautiful Sarah," began he, "may Jehovah pour on thy family as many blessings as there are waters in the Nile at present! We Phoenicians and ye Jews are brethren and neighbors. I am inflamed with such ardor of love for thee that didst Thou not belong to our most worthy lord I would give Gideon ten talents for thee, and would take thee for my lawful wife. So enamored am I."

"May God preserve me," answered Sarah, "from wanting another lord beyond the one who is mine at this moment. But whence, worthy Dagon, did the desire come to thee today of visiting our lord's servant?"

"I will tell thee the truth, as if Thou wert Tamara, my wife, who, a real daughter of Sidon, though she brought me a large dowry, is old now and not worthy to take off thy sandals."

"In the honey flowing from thy lips there is much wormwood," put in Sarah.

"Let the honey," replied Dagon, sitting down, "be for thee and let the wormwood poison my heart. Our lord Prince Ramses may he live through eternity! has the mouth of a lion and the keenness of a vulture. He has seen fit to rent his estate to me. This has filled my stomach with delight; but he does not trust me, so I lay awake whole nights from anxiety, I only sigh and cover my bed with tears, in which bed would that Thou wert resting with me, O Sarah, instead of my wife Tamara, who cannot rouse desire in me any longer."

"That is not what Thou wishest to say," interrupted the blushing Sarah.

"I know not what I wish to say, since I have looked on thee, and since our lord, examining my activity on his estates, struck with a cane and took health from my scribe who was collecting dues there from tenants. And these dues were not for me. Sarah, but for our lord. It is not I who will eat the figs and wheaten bread from those lands, but Thou and our lord. I have given money to our lord and jewels to thee. Why then should the low Egyptian rabble impoverish our lord and thee, Sarah? To show how greatly Thou rousest my desire and that from these estates I wish nothing but reserve all for thee and our lord, I give this goblet of pure gold set with jewels and covered with carving at which the gods themselves would be astonished."

Then Dagon drew forth from the cloth the goblet refused by Prince Ramses.

"I do not even wish that Thou shouldst have the goblet in the house and give the prince to drink from it. Give this goblet of pure gold to Gideon, whom I love as my own brother. And thou, Sarah, tell thy father these words: 'Thy twin brother Dagon, the unfortunate tenant on the lands of Prince Ramses, is ruined. Drink then, my father, from this goblet, think of thy twin brother, and beg Jehovah that our lord, Prince Ramses, may not beat his scribes, and bring to revolt tenants who even now have no wish to pay tribute? And know this, Sarah, that if Thou wouldst admit me to confidence I would give thee two talents, and thy father one talent, and, besides, I should be ashamed of giving thee so little, for Thou deservest that the pharaoh himself should fondle thee, and the heir of the throne, and the worthy minister Herhor, and the most valiant Nitager, and the richest bankers of the Phoenicians. There is such a taste in thee that I grow faint when I gaze at thee, and when I see thee not, I close my eyes and lick my lips. Thou art sweeter than figs, more fragrant than roses. I would give thee five talents. Take this goblet, Sarah."

Sarah drew back with drooping eyes.

"I will not take the goblet," answered she; "my lord forbade me to take gifts from any one."

Dagon was astonished, and looked with widely opened eyes at her.

"Then it must be that Thou knowest not, Sarah, the value of this goblet. But I give it to thy father, who is my brother."

"I cannot take it," whispered Sarah.

"Oh!" cried Dagon. "Then thou, Sarah, wilt pay me for this goblet in another way, without speaking to thy lord. But a woman as beautiful as Thou must have gold and jewels, and should have her own banker to bring her money when she pleases, not alone when her lord likes."

"I cannot!" whispered Sarah, without concealing her repulsion for the banker.

The Phoenician changed his tone in the twinkle of an eye, and said laughing,

"Very good, Sarah! I only wished to convince myself that Thou art faithful to our lord. I see that Thou art faithful, though foolish, as people say."

"What?" burst out Sarah, rushing at Dagon with clinched fist.

"Ha! ha!" laughed the Phoenician. "What a pity that our lord could not hear and see thee this moment! But I will tell him, when he is in good humor, that Thou art not only as faithful as a dog to him, but even that Thou wouldst not accept a gold goblet because he has not permitted thee to take presents. And this goblet, believe me, Sarah, has tempted more than one woman, and women who were not of small importance."

Dagon sat awhile admiring the virtue and obedience of Sarah; at last he took farewell of her with much feeling, sat down in his tented boat, and sailed away toward Memphis. When the boat had pushed off from the country house, the smile vanished from the banker's face, and an expression of anger came out thereon. When Sarah's house was hidden behind the trees, Dagon stood up and raised his hands.

"O Baal of Sidon, O Astoreth!" said he, "avenge my insult on this cursed daughter of a Jew. Let her treacherous beauty perish as a drop of rain in the desert! May disease devour her body, and madness bind her soul! May her lord hunt her out of his house like a mangy swine! And as today she pushed my goblet aside, may the hour come when people will push her withered hand aside, when in thirst she begs them for a cup of dirty water."

Then he spat and muttered words with hidden and dreadful meaning; a black cloud covered the sun for a while, and the water near the side of the boat began to grow muddy and rise in a mighty wave. When he finished, the sun had grown bright again; but the river was disturbed, as if a new inundation were moving it.

Dagon's rowers were frightened, and ceased their singing; but separated from their master by the side of the boat, they could not see his ceremonies.

Thenceforth the Phoenician did not appear before Prince Ramses. But on a certain day when the prince came to his residence, he found in his bedchamber a beautiful Phoenician dancer, sixteen years of age, whose entire dress was a golden circlet on her head, and a shawl, as delicate as spider webs, thrown across her shoulders.

"Who art thou?" asked the prince.

"I am a priestess, and thy servant; the lord Dagon has sent me to frighten away thy auger against him."

"How wilt Thou do that?"

"Oh, in this way sit down there," said she, seating him in an armchair. "I will stand on tiptoe, so as to grow taller than thy anger, and with this shawl, which is sacred, I will drive evil spirits from thee. A kish! a kish!" whispered she, dancing in a circle. "Ramses, let my hands remove gloom from thy hair, let my kisses bring back to thy eyes their bright glances. Let the beating of my heart fill thy ears with music, lord of Egypt. A kish! a kish! he is not yours, but mine. Love demands such silence that in its presence even anger must grow still."

While dancing, she played with the prince's hair, put her arms around his neck, kissed him on the eyes. At last she sat down wearied at his feet, and, resting her head on his knees, turned her face toward him quickly, panting with parted lips.

"Thou art no longer angry with thy servant Dagon?" whispered she, stroking his face.

Ramses wished to kiss her on the lips, but she sprang away from his knees, crying,

"Oh, that is not possible!"

"Why so?"

"I am a virgin and priestess of the great goddess Astoreth. Thou wouldst have to love my guardian goddess greatly, and honor her before Thou couldst kiss me."

"But is it permitted thee?"

"All things are permitted me, for I am a priestess, and have sworn to preserve my virginity."

"Why hast Thou come hither, then?"

"To drive out thy anger. I have done so, I depart. Be well and kind always," added she, with a piercing glance.

"Where dost Thou dwell? What is thy name?" asked Ramses.

"My name is Fondling, and I dwell Ei, why should I tell? Thou wilt not come soon to me."

She waved her hand and vanished. The prince, as if stunned, did not move from his chair. When after a while he looked through the window, he saw a rich litter which four Nubians bore toward the Nile swiftly.

Ramses was not sorry for the departing woman; she astonished, but did not attract him.

"Sarah is calmer," thought he, "and more beautiful. Moreover, it seems to me that that Phoenician must be cold, and her fondlings are studied."

But from that time the prince ceased to be angry at Dagon, all the more since on a day when he was at Sarah's earth-tillers came to him, and thanking him for protection declared that the Phoenician forced them to pay new rents no longer.

That was the case close to Memphis, but on other lands the prince's tenants made good Dagon's losses.



CHAPTER XIV

In the month of Choeak (from the middle of September to the middle of October), the waters of the Nile were highest, and began to fall slightly. In the gardens people gathered tamarinds, dates, olives; and trees blossomed a second time.

At this juncture his holiness Ramses XII left his sun-bright palace in Memphis, and with a grand suite on some tens of stately barges sailed to Thebes, to thank the gods there for the bounteous inundation, and also to place offerings oil the tombs of his eternally living ancestors.

The most worthy ruler took farewell of his heir very graciously; but the direction of state affairs during his absence he left with Herhor.

Ramses felt this proof of want of confidence so greatly that for three days he took no food and did not leave his villa; he only wept. Later he ceased to shave, and transferred himself to Sarah's house, so as not to meet Herhor or annoy his own mother, whom he considered the cause of his failures.

On the following day Tutmosis visited him in this retreat, bringing two boats filled with musicians and dancers, and a third containing baskets of food and flowers, with pitchers of wine. But the prince commanded the musicians and dancers to depart, and taking Tutmosis to the garden, he said,

"Of course my mother may she live through eternity! sent thee to separate me from the Jewess? Tell her worthiness that were Herhor to become not merely viceroy, but the son of my father, I should do that which pleases me. I know how to do it. Today they wish to deprive me of Sarah, and to-morrow they would take my power from me; I will show them that I shall not renounce anything."

The prince was irritated. Tutmosis shrugged his shoulders, and remarked finally,

"As a whirlwind sweeps a bird into a desert, so does anger cast a man on the shores of injustice. How canst Thou wonder if the priests are displeased because the heir to the throne has connected his life with a woman of another country and a strange religion? Sarah does not please them, especially since Thou hast her alone. Hadst Thou a number of various women, like all noble youths, they would not mind the Jewess. But have they done her harm? No. On the contrary, even some priest defended her against a raging crowd which it pleased thee to liberate from imprisonment."

"But my mother?"

Tutmosis laughed.

"Thy worthy mother loves thee as her own eyes and heart. Of course Sarah does not please her, either, but dost Thou know what her worthiness said once to me? This, that I should entice Sarah from thee. What a jest on her part! To this I answered with a second jest: 'Ramses has given me a brace of hunting dogs and two Syrian horses because he has grown tired of them; perhaps some day he will give me his mistress too, of course I shall have to take her with other things.'."

"Do not think of it. I would not give Sarah to any man, were it only for this, because of her my father has not appointed me viceroy."

Tutmosis shook his head.

"Thou art greatly mistaken," answered he, "so much mistaken that I am terrified. Dost Thou not really understand the causes of the disfavor? Every enlightened Egyptian knows them."

"I know nothing."

"So much the worse," said the anxious Tutmosis. "Thou dost not know, then, that warriors, since the maneuvers, especially Greek warriors, drink thy health in every dramshop."

"They got money to do so."

"True; but not to cry out, with all the voice that is in them, that when Thou shalt succeed to his holiness may he live through eternity! Thou wilt begin a great war, after which there will be changes in Egypt."

"What changes? And who is the man who during the life of the pharaoh may dare to speak of the plans of his successor?"

Now the prince grew gloomy.

"That is one thing, but I will tell thee another," said, Tutmosis, "for misfortunes, like hyenas, never come singly. Dost Thou know that the lowest people sing songs about thee, sing how Thou didst free the attackers from prison, and what is worse, they repeat again, that, when Thou shalt succeed his holiness, rents will be abolished. It must be added that when common people speak of injustice and rents, disturbances follow; and either a foreign enemy attacks our weakened state, or Egypt is divided into as many parts as there are nomarchs. Finally, judge for thyself, is it proper that any man's name should be mentioned oftener than the pharaoh's, and that any man should stand between the people and our lord? If Thou permit, I will tell how priests look on this matter."

"Of course, speak."

"Well, a very wise priest who from the summit of the temple of Amon examines celestial movements, has thought out this statement: 'The pharaoh is the sun, the heir to the throne the moon. When the moon follows the god of light from afar, we have brightness in the daytime and clearness at night. When the moon wishes to be too near the sun, it disappears itself and the nights are dark. But if the moon stands before the sun there is an eclipse, and in the world great terror '."

"And all this babble," interrupted Ramses, "goes to the ears of his holiness. Misfortune on my head! Would that I had never been the son of a pharaoh!"

"The pharaoh, as a god upon earth, knows everything; but he is too mighty to care for the drunken shouts of soldiers or the whispers of earth tillers. He understands that every Egyptian would die for him, and Thou first of all."

"Thou hast spoken truth!" answered the anxious prince. "But in all this I see new vileness and deceit of the priests," added he, rousing himself. "It is I, then, who hide the majesty of our lord, because I free the innocent from prison, or do not let my tenant torture earth- workers with unjust tribute. But when his worthiness Herhor manages the army, appoints leaders, negotiates with foreign princes, and directs my father to spend his time in prayers."

Tutmosis covered his ears, and, stamping, cried, "Be silent! be silent! every word of thine is blasphemy. His holiness alone directs the state, and whatever is done on earth proceeds from his will. Herhor is a servant of the pharaoh and does what his lord enjoins on him. If Thou wilt convince thyself oh, that my words be not ill understood."

The prince grew so gloomy that Tutmosis broke off the conversation and took farewell of his friend at the earliest. When he sat down in his boat, which was furnished with a baldachin and curtains, he drew a deep breath and draining a large goblet of wine, thought,

"Brr! I thank the gods for not giving me such a character as that which Ramses has. He is a most unhappy man in the happiest conditions. He might have the most beautiful women in Memphis, but he sticks to one to annoy his mother. Meanwhile it is not his mother that he annoys, but all the virtuous virgins and faithful wives who are withering from sadness that the heir to the throne, and moreover a youth of great comeliness, does not snatch from them virtue or force them to unfaithfulness. He might not only drink but even swim in the best wine; meanwhile he prefers the wretched camp beer, and bread rubbed with garlic. Whence came these low inclinations? I cannot imagine. Or was it that the worthy Nikotris in her critical period looked at workmen while they were eating?

"He might do nothing from daylight till darkness. If he wished, the most famous lords, with their wives, sisters, and daughters, would serve food to him. He not only stretches forth his own hands to take food, but, to the torment of our noble youths, he washes himself, dresses himself, and his barber spends whole days in snaring birds and thus wastes his abilities.

"O Ramses, Ramses!" sighed the exquisite. "Is it possible that fashion should be developed in the time of such a prince? We wear the same aprons from one year to another, and we retain wigs, only thanks to court dignitaries, for Ramses will not wear any wig. This is a great offence to the whole order of nobles. And all brought about by cursed politics, brr! Oh, how happy I am that I need not divine what they are thinking of in Tyre or Nineveh; break my head over wages for the army; calculate how many people have been added to Egypt or taken from it, and what rents must be collected. It is a terrible thing to say to one's self, 'My tenant does not pay what I need and expend, but what the increase of the Nile permits.'."

Thus meditated the exquisite Tutmosis, while he strengthened his anxious soul with golden wine. Before the boat had sailed up to Memphis, heavy sleep had mastered him in such wise that his slaves had to carry their lord to the litter.

After the departure of Tutmosis, which resembled a flight, the heir fell to thinking deeply; he even felt fear.

Ramses was a skeptic. As a pupil of the priests, and a member of the highest aristocracy, he knew that when certain priests had fasted many months and mortified their senses they summoned spirits, while others spoke of spirits as a fancy, a deception. He had seen, too, that Apis, the sacred bull before which all Egypt fell prostrate, received at times heavy blows of a cane from inferior priests, who gave the beast food and brought cows to him.

He understood, finally, that his father, Ramses XII, who for the common crowd was a god who lived through eternity, and the all-commanding lord of this world, was really just such a person as others, only a little more weakly than ordinary old men, and very much limited in power by the priestly order.

The prince saw all this, and jeered in his soul and even la public at many things. But all his infidelity fell before the actual truth, that no one was permitted to trifle with the titles of the pharaoh.

Ramses knew the history of his country, and he remembered that in Egypt many things were forgiven the mighty. A great lord might ruin a canal, kill a man in secret, revile the gods privately, take presents from ambassadors of foreign states, but two sins were not forgiven, the betrayal of priestly secrets, and treason to the pharaoh. A man who committed one or the other disappeared, sometimes after a year, from among his friends and servants. But where he had been put or what had been done with him, no one even dared to mention.

Ramses felt that he was on an incline of this sort from the time that the army and the people began to mention his name and speak of certain plans of his, changes in the state, future wars. Thinking of this, the prince felt as if a nameless crowd of rebels and unfortunates were pushing him violently to the point of the highest obelisk, from which he must tumble down and be crushed into jelly.

Later on, when, after the longest life of his father possible, he became pharaoh, he would have the right and the means to accomplish many deeds of which no one in Egypt could even think without terror. But today he must in truth have a care, lest they declare him a traitor and a rebel against the fundamental laws of Egypt. In that state there was one visible ruler, the pharaoh. He governed, he desired, he thought for all, and woe to the man who dared to doubt audibly the all-might of the sovereign, or mention plans of his own, or even changes in general.

Plans were made in one place alone, in that hall where the pharaoh listened to advice from his aiding council, and expressed to it his own opinions. No changes could come save from that place. There burned the only visible lamp of political wisdom, the light of which illuminated Egypt. But touching that light, it was safer to be silent.

All these considerations flew through the prince's head with the swiftness of a whirlwind while he was sitting on the stone bench under the chestnut-tree in Sarah's garden, and looking at the landscape there around him.

The water of the Nile had fallen a little, and had begun to grow as transparent as a crystal. But the whole country looked yet like an arm of the sea thickly dotted with islands on which rose buildings, gardens, and orchards, while here and there groups of great trees served as ornament.

Around all these islands were well-sweeps, with buckets by which bronze-hued naked men with dirty breech clouts raised water from the Nile and poured it into higher reservoirs. One such place was in the prince's mind especially. That was a steep eminence on the side of which three men were working at three well-sweeps. One poured water from the river into the lowest well; another drew from the lowest and raised water two yards higher to a middle place; the third raised water from the middle to the highest place. There some people, also naked, drew water in buckets, and irrigated beds of vegetables, or watered trees from sprinkling-pots.

The movement of the sweeps going down and rising, the turn of the buckets, the gushing of the pots was so rhythmic that the men who caused it might be thought automatons. No one of them spoke to his neighbor, no man changed place or looked about him; he merely bent and rose in one single method from daylight until evening, from one month to another, and doubtless he had worked thus from childhood and would so work till death took him.

"And creatures such as these," thought the prince, as he looked at their toil, "desire me to realize their imaginings. What change in the state can they wish? Is it that he who draws from the lowest well should go to the highest, or instead of pouring from a bucket should sprinkle trees with a watering pot?"

Anger rose to his head, and humiliation crushed him because he, the heir to the throne, thanks to the fables of creatures like those who nodded all their lives over wells of dirty water, was not now the vice- pharaoh.

At that moment he heard a low rustle among the trees, and delicate hands rested on his shoulder.

"Well, Sarah?" asked the prince, without turning his head.

"Thou art sad, my lord. Moses was not so delighted at sight of the promised land as I was at those words of thine:

"I am coming to live with thee. But Thou art a day and a night here, and I have not seen thy smile yet. Thou dost not even speak to me, but goest about in gloom, and at night Thou dost not fondle me, but only sighest."

"I have trouble."

"Tell me what it is. Grief is like a treasure given to be guarded. As long as we guard it ourselves even sleep flees away, and we find relief only when we put some one else to watch for us."

Ramses embraced Sarah, and seated her on the bench at his side.

"When an earth-tiller," said he, smiling, "is unable to bring in all his crops from the field before the overflow, his wife helps him. She helps him to milk cows too, she takes out food to the field for him, she washes the man on his return from labor. Hence the belief has come that woman can lighten man's troubles."

"Dost Thou not believe this, lord?"

"The cares of a prince," answered Ramses, "cannot be lightened by a woman, even by one as wise and powerful as my mother."

"In God's name, what are thy troubles? Tell me," insisted Sarah, drawing up to the shoulder of Prince Ramses. "According to our traditions, Adam left Paradise for Eve; and he was surely the greatest king in the most beautiful kingdom."

The prince became thoughtful.

"Our sages also teach," said he, "that man has often abandoned dignities for woman, but it has not been heard that any man ever achieved something great through a woman; unless he was a leader to whom a pharaoh gave his daughter, with a great dowry and high office. But a woman cannot help a man to reach a higher place or even help him out of troubles."

"This may be because she does not love as I do," whispered Sarah.

"Thy love for me is wonderful, I know that. Never hast Thou asked for gifts, or favored those who do not hesitate to seek success even under the beds of princes' favorites. Thou art milder than a lamb, and as calm as a night on the Nile. Thy kisses are like perfume from the land of Punt, and thy embrace as sweet as the sleep of a wearied laborer. I have no measure for thy beauty, or words for thy attractions. Thou art a marvel among women; women's lips are rich in trouble and their love is very costly. But with all thy perfection how canst Thou ease my troubles? Canst Thou cause his holiness to order a great expedition to the East and name me to command it? Canst Thou give me the army corps in Memphis, for which I asked, or wilt thou, in the pharaoh's name, make me governor of Lower Egypt? Or canst Thou bring all subjects of his holiness to think and feel as I, his most devoted subject?" Sarah dropped her hands on her knees, and whispered sadly, "True, I cannot do those things I can do nothing."

"Thou canst do much. Thou canst cheer me," replied Ramses, smiling. "I know that Thou hast learned to dance and sing. Take off those long robes, therefore, which become priestesses guarding fire, and array thyself in transparent muslin, as Phoenician dancers do. And so dance and fondle me as they."

Sarah seized his hands and cried with flaming eyes,

"Hast Thou to do with outcasts such as these? Tell me let me know my wretchedness; send me then to my father, send me to our valley in the desert. Oh, that I had never seen thee in it!"

"Well, well, calm thyself," said the prince, toying with her hair. "I must of course see dancers, if not at feasts, at royal festivals, or during services in temples. But all of them together do not concern me as much as Thou alone; moreover, who among them could equal thee? Thy body is like a statue of Isis, cut out of ivory, and each of those dancers has some defect. Some are too thick; others have thin legs or ugly hands; still others have false hair. Who of them is like thee? If Thou wert an Egyptian, all our temples would strive to possess thee as the leader of their chorus. What do I say? Wert Thou to appear now in Memphis in transparent robes, the priests would be glad if Thou wouldst take part in processions."

"It is not permitted us daughters of Judah to wear immodest garments."

"Nor to dance or sing? Why didst Thou learn, then?"

"Our women dance, and our virgins sing by themselves for the glory of the Lord, but not for the purpose of sowing fiery seeds of desire in men's hearts. But we sing. Wait, my lord, I will sing to thee."

She rose from the bench and went toward the house. Soon she returned followed by a young girl with black, frightened eyes, who was bearing a harp.

"Who is this maiden?" asked the prince. "But wait I have seen that look somewhere. Ah! when I was here the last time a frightened girl looked from the bushes at me.'"

"This is Esther, my relative and servant," answered Sarah. "She has lived with me a mouth now, but she fears thee, lord, so she runs away always. Perhaps she looked at thee sometime from out the bushes."

"Thou mayst go, my child," said the prince to the maiden, who seemed petrified, and when she had hidden behind the bushes, he asked,

"Is she a Jewess too? And this guard of thy house, who looks at me as a sheep at a crocodile?"

"That is Samuel the son of Esdras; he also is a relative. I took him in place of the black man to whom Thou hast given freedom. But hast Thou not permitted me to choose my servants?"

"That is true. And so also the overseer of the workmen is a Jew, for he has a yellow complexion and looks with a lowliness which no Egyptian could imitate."

"That," answered Sarah, "is Ezechiel, the son of Reuben, a relative of my father. Does he not please thee, my lord? These are all thy very faithful servants."

"Does he please me," said the prince, dissatisfied, drumming with his fingers on the bench. "He is not here to please me, but to guard thy property. For that matter, these people do not concern me. Sing, Sarah."

Sarah knelt on the grass at the prince's feet, and playing a few notes as accompaniment, began,

"Where is he who has no care? Who is he who in lying down to slumber has the right to say: This is a day that I have spent without sorrow? Where is the man who lying down for the grave, can say: My life has passed without pain, without fear, like a calm evening on the Jordan.

"But how many are there who moisten their bread with tears daily, and whose houses are filled with sighing.

"A wail is man's earliest speech on this earth, and a groan his farewell to it. Full of suffering does he come into life, full of sorrow does he go to his resting-place, and no one asks him where he would like to be.

"Where is that offspring of man who has not tasted the bitterness of being? Is it the child which death has snatched from its mother, or is it the babe whose mother's breast was drained by hunger ere the little one could place lips to it?

"Where is the man who is sure of his fate, the man who can look with unfailing eye at the morrow? Does he who toils on the field know that rain is not under his power, and that not he shows its way to the locust swarm? Does the merchant who gives his wealth to the winds, which come he knows not whence, and his life to the waves on that abyss which swallows all, and returns nothing?

"Where is the man without dread in his spirit? Is it the hunter who chases the nimble deer and on the road meets a lion which mocks at his arrows? Is it the warrior who goes forth to gain glory with toiling, and meets a forest of sharp lances and bronze swords which are thirsting for his life blood? Is it the great king who under his purple puts on heavy armor, who spies out with sleepless eye the treachery of overpowering neighbors, and seizes with his ear the rustle of the curtain lest treason overturn him in his own tent?

"For this reason men's hearts in all places and at all times are overflowing with sadness. In the desert the lion and the scorpion are his danger, in the cave lurks the dragon, among flowers the poisonous serpent. In the sunshine a greedy neighbor is thinking how to decrease his land, in the night the active thief is breaking through the door to his granary. In childhood he is incompetent, in old age stripped of strength. When full of power, he is surrounded by perils, as a whale is surrounded by abysses of water.

"Therefore, O Lord, my Creator, to Thee the tortured human soul turns itself. Thou hast brought it into a world full of ambushes, Thou hast grafted into it the terror of extinction. Thou hast barred before it all roads of peace, save the one road which leads to Thee. And as a child which cannot walk grasps its mother's skirt lest it fall, so wretched man stretches forth his hands toward Thy tenderness, and struggles out of uncertainty."

Sarah was silent; the prince fell into meditation, and then said,

"Ye Jews are a gloomy nation. If men in Egypt believed as thy song teaches, no one would laugh on the banks of the Nile. The wealthy would hide in underground temples through terror, and the people, instead of working, would flee to caves, look out and wait for mercy which would never come to them.

"Our world is different: in it a man may have everything, but he himself must do everything. Our gods help no idleness. They come to the earth only when a hero dares a deed which is superhuman and when he exhausts every power present. Such was the case with Ramses the Great when he rushed among two thousand five hundred hostile chariots, each of which carried three warriors. Only then did Amon the eternal father reach his hand down and end the battle with victory. But if instead of fighting he had waited for the aid of your God, long ago would the Egyptians have been moving along the Nile, each of them bearing a brick and a bucket, while the vile Hittites would be masters going around with clubs and papyruses.

"Therefore, Sarah, thy charms will scatter my sorrows sooner than thy song. If I had acted as your Jewish song teaches, and waited for divine assistance, wine would have flowed away from my lips, and women would have fled from my household.

"Above all, I could not be the pharaoh's heir any more than my brothers, one of whom does not leave his room without leaning on two slaves, while the other climbs along tree trunks."



CHAPTER XV

THE next day Ramses sent his black men with commands to Memphis, and about midday came a great boat toward Sarah's house from the direction of the city. The boat was filled with Greek soldiers in lofty helmets and gleaming breastplates.

At command sixteen men armed with shields and short darts landed and stood in two ranks. They were ready to march to the house, when a second messenger from the prince detained them. He commanded the soldiers to remain at the shore, and summoned only their leader, Patrokles.

They halted and stood without movement, like two rows of columns covered with glittering armor. After the messenger went, Patrokles in a helmet with plumes, wearing a purple tunic over which he had gilded armor ornamented on the breast with the picture of a woman's head bristling with serpents instead of hair.

The prince received the famous general at the garden gate. He did not smile as usual, did not even answer the low bow of Patrokles, but said coldly,

"Worthiness, tell the Greek warriors that I will not review them until their lord, his holiness, appoints me leader a second time. They have lost that honor by uttering in dramshops shouts worthy of drunkards. These shouts offend me. I call attention also to this, worthiness, that the Greek regiments do not show sufficient discipline. In public places the soldiers of this corps discuss politics and a certain possible war. This looks like treason to the state. Only the pharaoh and members of his supreme council may speak of such matters. But we, soldiers and servants of our lord, whatever position we occupy, may only execute the commands of our most gracious ruler, and be silent at all times. I beg thee to communicate these considerations to my regiments, and I wish all success to thee, worthiness."

"It will be as commanded, worthiness," answered the Greek.

He turned on his heel, and standing erect moved with a rattle toward the boat. He knew about these discussions of the soldiers in the dramshops, and understood straightway that something disagreeable had happened to the heir, whom the troops worshipped. Therefore, when he had reached the handful of armed men on the bank, he assumed a very angry mien, and, waving his hands with rage, cried,

"Valiant Greek soldiers! mangy dogs, may the leprosy consume you! If, from this time on, any Greek mentions the name of the heir to the throne in a dramshop, I will break a pitcher on his head, cram the pieces down his throat, and then drive him out of the regiment! One and another of you will herd swine for Egyptian earth-workers, and hens will lay eggs in your helmets. Such is the fate waiting for stupid soldiers who know not how to keep their tongues quiet. And now to the left! to the rear! turn! and march to the boat, may the plague strike you! A soldier of his holiness should drink first of all to the health of the pharaoh and the prosperity of the worthy minister of war, Herhor, may they live through eternity!"

"May they live through eternity!" repeated the soldiers.

All took their places in the boat, looking gloomy. But when near Memphis Patrokles smoothed out his wrinkled forehead and commanded them to sing the song of that priest's daughter who so loved soldiers that she put a doll in her bed and passed the whole night in the booth of the sentries. Keeping time to this song, they always marched best, and moved the oars with most nimbleness.

In the evening another boat approached Sarah's dwelling, out of which came the chief steward of the prince's property.

Ramses received this official at the garden gate also. Perhaps he did this through sternness, or perhaps not to constrain the man to enter the house of his mistress and a Jewess.

"I wished," said the heir, "to see thee and to say that among my people certain improper conversations circulate concerning decrease of rent, or something of that kind. I wish those people to know that I will not decrease rents. But should any man in spite of warnings persist in his folly and talk about rents, he will receive blows of canes."

"Perhaps it would be better if he paid a fine, an uten or a drachma, whatever is commanded, worthiness," said the chief steward.

"Yes; but the worst offender might be beaten."

"I make bold to offer a remark, worthiness," said the steward in a low tone, inclining continually, "that the earth-workers, roused by some unknown person, really did talk for a time about decrease of rent. But some days ago they ceased on a sudden."

"In that case we might withhold the blows of canes," said Ramses.

"Unless as preventive means," put in the steward.

"Would it not be too bad to spoil the canes?"

"We shall never lack articles of that sort."

"But with moderation in every case. I do not wish it to go to his holiness that I torture men without need. For rebellious conversation we must beat and take fines in money, but when there is no cause for punishment we may be magnanimous."

"I understand," answered the steward, looking into the eyes of Ramses.

"Let them cry out as much as they like if they do not whisper blasphemy."

These talks with Patrokles and the steward were reported throughout Egypt.

After the steward's departure, the prince yawned and looking around with a tired glance, he said to himself,

"I have done all I could, but now, if I can, I will do nothing."

At that moment, from the direction of the outhouses, low groans and the sound of frequent blows reached the prince. Ramses turned his head, and saw that the overseer of the workmen, Ezekiel, son of Reuben, was beating some subordinate with a cane, pacifying him meanwhile,

"Be quiet! be silent, low beast!"

The beaten workman, lying on the ground, closed his mouth with his hand so as not to cry.

At first the prince rushed like a panther toward the outhouses. Suddenly he halted.

"What am I to do?" whispered he. "This is Sarah's place, and the Jew is her relative."

He bit his lips, and disappeared among the trees, the more readily since the flogging was finished.

"Is this the management of the humble Jews?" thought Ramses. "Is this the way? That man looks at me as a frightened dog might, but he beats the workmen. Are the Hebrews all like him?"

And for the first time the thought was roused in the prince's soul, that under the guise of kindness Sarah, too, might conceal falsehood.

Certain changes had indeed taken place in Sarah; above all, moral changes.

From the moment when she met Ramses in the valley of the desert he had pleased her, but that feeling grew silent immediately beneath the influence of the stunning news that the shapely youth was a son of the pharaoh and heir to the throne of Egypt. When Tutmosis bargained with Gideon to take her to the prince's house, Sarah fell into a state of bewilderment.

She would not renounce Ramses for any treasure, nor at the cost of life, but one could not say that she loved him at that time. Love demands freedom and time to give forth its most beautiful blossoms; neither freedom nor time had been left to her. She made the acquaintance of the prince on a certain day; the following day they took her away almost without consulting her wishes, and bore her to that villa opposite Memphis. In a couple of days she became the prince's favorite, astonished, frightened, not understanding what had taken place with her.

Moreover, before she could make herself used to the new impressions, the Jewess was disturbed by ill-will from surrounding people; then the visit of unknown ladies; finally, that attack on the villa.

Then, because Ramses took her part and wished to rush on the rioters, she was still more terrified. She lost presence of mind at the thought that she was in the hands of a man of such power and so violent, who, if it suited him, had the right to shed blood, to slay people.

Sarah fell into despair for the moment: it seemed to her that she would go mad. She heard the terrible commands of the prince who summoned the servants to arms. But at that very moment a slight thing took place, one little word was heard which sobered Sarah, and gave a new turn to her feelings.

The prince, thinking that she was wounded, drew the bandage from her head; but when he saw the bruise, he cried,

"That is only a blue spot! How that blue spot changes the face!"

At these words Sarah forgot pain and fear. New alarm seized her: so she had changed to such a degree that it astonished the prince, but he was only astonished.

The blue spot disappeared in a couple of days, but feelings unknown up to that time remained in Sarah's soul and increased there. She began to be jealous of the prince, and to fear that he would reject her.

And still another anxiety tortured the Jewess. She felt herself a servant, a slave in respect to Ramses. She was and wished to be his faithful servant, his devoted slave, as inseparable as his shadow, but at the same time she desired that he, at least when he fondled her, should not treat her as though he were lord and master.

She was his indeed, but he was hers also. Why does he not show, then, that he belonged to her, even in some degree? But with every word and motion he makes her understand that a certain gulf is between them. What kind of gulf? Has she not held him in her embraces? Has he not kissed her lips and bosom?

A certain day the prince came to her with a dog. He stayed only a couple of hours; but during that entire interval the dog lay at his feet in Sarah's place, and when she wished to sit there the dog growled. And the prince laughed and thrust his fingers into the hair of that unclean creature, as he had into her hair. And the dog looked into the prince's eyes just as she had, with this difference, perhaps, that he looked with more confidence.

She could not pacify herself, and she hated the clever beast which was taking a part of the tenderness due to her, paying no attention whatever to her, and bearing itself with an intimacy towards its lord that she did not dare to claim. She would have been unable to have such an indifferent mien, or to look in another direction if the prince's hand had rested on her head.

Not long before this incident the prince mentioned dancers a second time. Then Sarah burst out angrily,

"How did he permit himself to be familiar with those naked, shameless women? And Jehovah looking down from high heaven did not hurl His thunders at those monstrous creatures!"

It is true that Ramses told her that she was dearer than all else to him, but these words did not pacify Sarah; they only produced this effect, that she determined not to think of aught beyond her love.

What would come on the morrow? Never mind. And when at the feet of the prince she sang that hymn about those sufferings which pursue mankind from the cradle to the grave, she described in it the state of her own soul, and her last hope, which was Jehovah.

That day Ramses was with her; hence she had enough, she had all the happiness which life could give. But just there began for Sarah the greatest bitterness.

The prince lived under one roof with her, he walked with her in the garden, and sometimes went out on the Nile in a boat with her. But he was not more accessible by the width of one hair than when he was on the other side of the river, within the limits of the pharaoh's palace.

He was with her, but his mind was in some other place, Sarah could not even divine where. He embraced her, or toyed with her hair, but he looked toward the city, at those immense many-colored pylons of the pharaoh's palace, or at some unknown object.

At times he did not even answer her questions, or he looked at her suddenly as if roused from sleep, or as if he wondered that he saw her there beside him.



CHAPTER XVI

THUS seemed those moments of approach between Sarah and her princely lover, which were rare enough withal. For after he had given those commands to-Patrokles and the steward, Ramses spent the greater part of the day away from the villa, generally in a boat or sailing on the Nile. He caught with a net fish which swam in thousands in the blessed river, or he went into swamps, and hidden among lofty lotus stems brought down with arrows wild birds, which circling in noisy flocks were as numerous as flies are. But even at those times ambitious thoughts did not desert him; so he turned the hunting into a kind of predicting or soothsaying. More than once, when he saw a flock of yellow geese upon the water, he drew his bow and said, "If I hit I shall be like Ramses the Great."

The arrow made a low whistle, and the stricken bird, fluttering its wings, gave out cries so painful that there was a movement in the whole swampy region. Clouds of geese, ducks, and storks rose in the air, and making a great circle above their dying comrade, dropped down to other places.

When there was silence again, the prince pushed his boat farther, with caution guiding himself by the movement of reeds or the broken calls of birds, and when in the green growth he saw a spot of clear water and a new flock, he drew his bow again, and said,

"If I hit I shall be pharaoh; if I miss."

This time the arrow struck the water, and bounding a number of times along its surface, disappeared among lotuses. The excited prince sent more and more arrows, killing birds or only frightening flocks of them. From the villa they knew where he was by the noisy cloud of birds which rose from time to time and circled above the boat in which he was sailing.

When toward evening he returned to the villa wearied, Sarah waited on the threshold with a bronze basin, a pitcher of light wine, and a garland of roses. The prince smiled at her, stroked her face, but looking into her eyes, which were full of tenderness, he thought,

"Would she beat Egyptian people, like her relatives who look frightened all the time? Oh, my mother is right not to trust Jews, though Sarah may be different from others."

Once, returning unexpectedly, he saw in the space before the villa a crowd of naked children playing joyously. All were yellow, and at sight of him they vanished with cries like wild geese from a swampy meadow. Before he reached the terrace they were gone, not a trace was left.

"Who are those little things," asked he, "who rushed away from me?"

"Those are children of my servants," replied Sarah.

"Of Jews?"

"Of my brothers."

"Gods, what a numerous people!" laughed Ramses. "And who is that again?" added he, pointing to a man who looked timidly from beyond the wall.

"That is Aod, son of Barak, my relative. He wants to serve thee, lord. May I take him?"

The prince shrugged his shoulders.

"This is thy place," answered he; "take those who please thee. But if these people increase so, they will soon master Memphis."

"Thou canst not endure my brethren," whispered Sarah, as she dropped to his feet frightened.

The prince looked at her with astonishment.

"I do not even think of them," answered he, proudly.

These little happenings, which fell on Sarah's soul like drops of fire, did not change Ramses with regard to her. He was kind and as fond as he had been, though his eyes turned more frequently to the other bank of the river, and rested on the mighty pylons of his father's palace.

Soon he discovered that others were yearning because he was in a banishment of his own choosing. A certain day from the opposite shore a stately royal barge pushed out into the river; it crossed the Nile from Memphis, and then circled near the prince's villa, so near that Ramses could recognize the persons in it. In fact he recognized beneath the purple baldachin his mother among court ladies, and opposite, on a low stool, the vice-pharaoh, Herhor. They did not look toward the villa, it is true, but the prince divined that they saw him.

"Ha! ha!" thought he. "My worthy mother and his worthiness the minister would be glad to entice me hence before his holiness returns to Memphis."

The mouth Tobi (the end of October and beginning of November) came. The Nile had fallen a distance equaling the stature of a man, and one-half in addition, uncovering daily new strips of black clammy earth. Wherever the water withdrew a narrow plough appeared drawn by two oxen. Behind the plough went a naked ploughman, at the side of he oxen a driver with a short club, and behind him a sower, who, wading to his ankles in earth, carried wheat in an apron, and scattered it almost in handfuls.

The most beautiful season of the year was beginning in Egypt, the winter. Heat did not go beyond 70 Fahrenheit; the earth was covered quickly with emerald green, from out which sprang narcissus and violets. The odor of them came forth oftener and oftener amid the odor of earth and water.

A number of times the barge bearing the worthy lady Nikotris and the vice-pharaoh Herhor appeared near Sarah's dwelling. Each time the prince saw his mother conversing with the minister joyously, and convinced himself that they refrained ostentatiously from looking toward him, as if to show indifference.

"Wait!" whispered he, in anger, "I will show you that life does not annoy me, either."

So when one day, shortly before sunset, the queen's gilded barge appeared with a purple tent having ostrich plumes on each of its four comers, Ramses gave command to prepare a boat for two persons, and told Sarah that he would sail with her.

"O Jehovah!" cried she, clasping her hands. "But thy mother is there, and the viceroy!"

"But in this boat will be the heir to the throne. Take thy harp, Sarah."

"And the harp, too?" cried Sarah. "But if her worthiness were to speak to thee! I should throw myself into the river."

"Be not a child," replied Ramses, laughing. "My mother and his worthiness love songs immensely. Thou mayest even win their favor if Thou sing some splendid song of the Hebrews. Let there be love in it."

"I know no song of that kind," answered Sarah, in whom the prince's words had roused hope of some sort. Her song might please those powerful rulers, and then what?

On the royal barge they saw that the heir to the throne was sitting in a simple boat and rowing.

"Dost Thou see, worthiness," whispered the queen to the minister, "that he is rowing toward us with his Jewess?"

"The heir has borne himself with such correctness toward his warriors and his people, and has shown so much compunction in withdrawing from the limits of the palace, that his mother may forgive small errors," answered Herhor.

"Oh, if he were not sitting in that boat, I would give command to break it!" said the worthy lady.

"For what reason?" asked the minister. "The prince would be no descendant of high priests and pharaohs if he did not break through restraints which the law, alas, puts on him, or perhaps our mistaken customs. He has given proof in every case that in serious junctures he is able to command himself. He is even able to recognize his errors, a rare power and priceless in an heir to the throne of Egypt. The very fact that the prince wishes to rouse our curiosity with his favorite shows that the position in which he finds himself pains him; besides, his reasons are among the noblest."

"But the Jewess!" whispered the lady, crushing her feather fan between her fingers.

"At present I am quite at rest regarding her," continued Herhor. "She is shapely, but dull; she never thinks of using influence on the prince, nor could she do so. Shut up in a cage which is not over- costly, she takes no gifts, and will not even see any one. In time, perhaps, she might learn to make use of her position even to the extent of decreasing the heir's treasury by some talents. Before that day comes, however, Ramses will be tired of her."

"May the all-knowing Amon speak through thy mouth," said the lady.

"The prince, I am sure of this, has not grown wild over a favorite, as happens often to young lords in Egypt. One keen, intriguing woman may strip a man of property and health, nay, bring him to the hall of judgment. The prince is amused with her as a grown-up man might be amused with a slave girl. And Sarah is pregnant."

"Is that true?" cried the queen. "How dost Thou know?"

"It is not known to his worthiness the heir, or even to Sarah," said Herhor, smiling. "We must know everything. This secret, however, was not difficult to get at. With Sarah is her relative Tafet, an incomparable gossip."

"Have they summoned a physician already?"

"Sarah knows nothing of this, I repeat, but the worthy Tafet, from fear lest the prince might grow indifferent to her foster child, would be glad to twist the neck of this secret. But we do not let her. That will be the prince's child also."

"But if it is a son? Thou knowest that he may make trouble," put in the lady.

"All is foreseen," replied Herhor. "If the child is a daughter, we will give her a dowry and the education proper for young ladies of high station. If a son, he will become a Jew."

"Oh, my grandson, a Jew!"

"Do not take thy heart too soon from him. Our envoys declare that the people of Israel are beginning to desire a king. Before the child matures their desires will ripen, and then we may give them a ruler, and of good blood indeed."

"Thou art like an eagle which takes in East and West at a glance," said the queen, eying the minister with amazement. "I feel that my repulsion for this maiden begins to grow weaker."

"The least drop of the pharaoh's blood should raise itself above nations, like a star above the earth," added Herhor.

At that moment the heir's boat moved at a few tens of paces from the royal barge, and the queen, shielded by her fan, looked at Sarah through its feathers.

"In truth the girl is shapely," whispered Queen Nikotris.

"Thou art saying those words for the second time, worthy lady."

"So Thou hast noted that?" laughed her worthiness.

Herhor dropped his eyes.

In the boat was heard a harp, and Sarah began a hymn, with trembling voice,

"How great is Jehovah, O Israel! how great is Jehovah, thy God."

"A most beautiful voice," whispered the queen.

The high priest listened with attention.

"His days have no beginning," sang Sarah, "and His dwelling has no limit. The eternal heavens change beneath His eye, like a garment which a man puts on his body and then casts away from him. The stars flash up, and are quenched, like sparks from fuel, and the earth is like a brick which a traveler touches once with his foot while going ever farther.

"How great is thy Lord, O Israel! There is no being who can say to Him, 'Do this!' there is no womb which could have given birth to Him. He created the bottomless deeps above which He moves when He wishes. He brings light out of darkness, and from the dust of the earth He creates living things which have voices.

"For Him savage lions are as locusts, the immense elephant He looks on as nothing, before Him the whale is as weak as an infant.

"His tricolored bow divides the heavens into two parts and rests on the ends of the earth plain. Where are the gates which could equal Him in loftiness? Nations are in terror at the thunder of His chariot, and there is naught beneath the sun which could stand His flashing arrows.

"His breath is the north wind at midnight, which freshens trees when withering, His anger is like the chamsin which burns what it touches.

"When He stretches His hands above the waters, they are petrified. He pours the sea into new places, as a woman pours out leaven. He rends the earth as if it were old linen, and clothes in silvery snow the naked tops of mountains.

"In a grain of wheat He hides one hundred other grains, and causes birds to incubate. From the drowsy chrysalis He leads to life a golden butterfly, and makes men's bodies wait in tombs until the day of resurrection."

The rowers, absorbed in the song, raised their oars, and the purple barge dropped slowly down with the sweep of the river. All at once Herhor rose, and commanded,

"Turn now toward Memphis!"

The oars fell; the barge turned where it stood, and raised the water with noise. After it followed Sarah's hymn decreasing gradually,

"He sees the movement of hearts, the silent hidden ways on which pass the innermost thoughts in men's breasts. But no man can gaze into His heart and spy out His purposes.

"Before the gleam of His garments mighty spirits hide their faces. Before His glance the gods of great cities and nations turn aside and shrink like withering leaves.

"He is power, He is life, He is wisdom. He is thy Lord, thy God, O Israel!"

"Why command, worthiness, to turn away our barge?" asked the worthy Nikotris.

"Lady, dost Thou know that hymn?" asked Herhor, in a language understood by priests alone. "That stupid girl is singing in the middle of the Nile a prayer permitted only in the most secret recesses of our temples."

"Is that blasphemy then?"

"There is no priest in the barge except me," replied the minister. "I have not heard the hymn, and if I had I should forget it. Still I am afraid that the gods will lay hands on that girl yet."

"But whence does she know that awful prayer, for Ramses could not have taught it to her?"

"The prince is not to blame. But forget not, lady, that the Jews have taken from our Egypt many such treasures. That is why, among all nations on earth, we consider them alone as sacrilegious."

The queen seized the hand of the high priest.

"But my son will no evil strike him?" whispered she, looking into his eyes.

"I say, worthiness, that no evil will happen to any one. I heard not the hymn, and I know nothing. The prince must be separated from that Jewess."

"But separated mildly; is that not the way?" asked the mother.

"In the mildest way possible and the simplest, but separation is imperative. It seemed to me," continued the high priest, as if to himself, "that I foresaw everything. Everything save an action for blasphemy, which threatens the heir while he is with that strange woman."

Herhor thought awhile, and added,

"Yes, worthy lady! It is possible to laugh at many of our prejudices; still the son of a pharaoh should not be connected with a Jewess."



CHAPTER XVII

SINCE the evening when Sarah sang in the boat, the royal barge had not appeared on the Nile, and Prince Ramses was annoyed in real earnest.

The month Mechir (December) was approaching. The waters decreased, the land extended more widely each day, the grass became higher and thicker, and in the grass flashed up flowers of the most varied hues and of incomparable odor. Like islands in a green sea appeared, in the course of a single day, flowery places, as it were white, azure, yellow, rosy, or many colored carpets from which rose an intoxicating odor. Still the prince was wearied, and even feared something. From the day of his father's departure he had not been in the palace, and no one from the palace had come to him, save Tutmosis, who since the last conversation had vanished like a snake in the grass. "Whether they respected the prince's seclusion, or desired to annoy him, or simply feared to pay him a visit because he had been touched by disfavor, Ramses had no means of knowing.

"My father may exclude me from the throne, as he has my elder brothers," thought the heir sometimes; and sweat came out on his forehead, while his feet became cold.

"What would he do in that case?"

Moreover Sarah was ill, thin, pale, her great eyes sank; at times she complained of faintness which attacked her in the morning.

"Surely some one has bewitched the poor thing," groaned the cunning Tafet, whom the prince could not endure for her chattering and very bad management.

A couple of times, for instance, the heir noticed that in the evening Tafet sent off to Memphis immense baskets with food, linen, even vessels. Next day she complained in heaven-piercing accents that flour, wine, and even vessels were lacking. Since the heir had come to the villa ten times more of various products had been used there than formerly.

"I am certain," thought Ramses, "that that chattering termagant robs me for her Jews, who vanish in the daytime but are prowling around in the night, like rats in the nastiest comers!"

The prince's only amusement in these days was to look at the date harvest. A naked man took his place at the foot of a high palm without side branches, surrounded the trunk and himself with a circular rope which resembled the hoop of a barrel. Then he raised himself on the tree by his heels, his whole body bent backward, but the hoop-like rope held him by squeezing his body to the tree. Next he shoved the flexible hoop up the trunk some inches, raised himself by his heels again, then shoved the rope up. In this way he climbed, exposed meanwhile to the peril of breaking his neck, till he reached the top, where grew a crown of great leaves and dates.

The prince was not alone when he saw these gymnastics; Jewish children also were spectators. At first there was no trace of them. Then among bushes and from beyond the wall curly heads and black gleaming eyes appeared. Afterward, when they saw that the prince did not drive them away, these children came out each from a hiding-place and approached the tree gradually. The most daring among the girls picked up a beautiful date which she brought to Ramses. One of the boys ate the smallest date, and then the children began to eat and to give the prince fruit. At first they brought him the best, then inferior dates, finally some that were spoilt altogether.