During his reign, Pharaoh Amenhotep, the Magnificent, had set aside or infringed upon many an established precedent or custom. It almost seemed as if he had thus sought to prove to his subjects his utter infatuation for Thi, the Syrian, his second wife.
For the late Pharaoh had done nothing without Thi’s cooperation. Though of common extraction, her name and titles had appeared upon all state documents beside his own. This was at once a new and a radical innovation.
Amenhotep’s infatuation for the beautiful Thi had produced, among many other marvels, a vast pleasure lake, an artificial body of water, which now stretched its placid reaches on three sides of the villa-palace of the former monarch. This villa was now occupied by Thi and the new Pharaoh, her son.
About the banks of the broad lake waved feathery acacia, sweet scented mimosa, marsh flowers, and tall papyrus plants. Upon its pellucid waters rested white and blue lotus flowers. Great cranes, pink and white flamingos and pure white ibises pecked leisurely among the lily pads or spread their wings to dry in the rays of the late afternoon sun.
A sheltered landing-stage opened on a causeway whose granite flagging led up to the door of the palace, the Per-aoh or “Great House” as both the palace and its august master were called. To the left of this causeway stood a small building set apart by the art-loving Pharaoh for experiments in glass and fayence. To the right lay the series of rooms reserved to Auta, the Royal Sculptor, and his pupils. Counted among the latter were the then reigning Pharaoh, Akhten-aton, and Noferith, his wife.
Akhten-aton has a great admiration for his valiant ancestor Thothmes, third of the name. He counted among his most prized possessions a gold goblet said to have been designed and fashioned by the hand of that gifted Pharaoh.
All Egyptians knew how well the hand of the great “Conqueror of Asia” had wielded the curved sword of Amen, and with what marvelous results alike for the enrichment of Egypt and for the prestige of her name. Few had ever guessed that Thothmes’ rare moments of relaxation had been spent in the studio of his Chief Goldsmith.
To-day, Akhten-noferu, the “pleasure barge” of the Queen, was drawn up beside the landing-stage in anticipation of Thi’s arrival.
Less than a hundred cubits in length, its cedar beams were covered throughout with thin plates of pure gold. Its linen sail was ornamented with squares of blue and red. The blades of the light cedar oars were tipped with silver; the two great steering-oars were entirely sheathed in the same bright metal. A portrait head of the late Pharaoh was carved upon the handle of each of the steering-oars. Two elongated eyes at the prow of the barge were inlaid with alabaster and deep Babylonian lazuli. The name of the vessel appeared inlaid in pale green emerald from Suan in the south. In the after part of the vessel a low dais was covered with red and blue checkered tapestry, to match the great sail.
With half-suppressed giggles of excitement and whispered jests, the “sailors” now appeared. Noisily trooping down the causeway they took their places at the oar benches, as their leader indicated. Their leader, Princess Sesen, was as amusingly disguised as her “sailors,” the handmaidens of the Queen-Mother herself.
Queen Thi now appeared. As her short figure passed from the dark shadows of the passage into the glare of day, two ebony black Nubians dropped in an arch above her large and profusely curled wig, a pair of ostrich-feather sunshades dyed in brilliant tones of red and blue. The servants fell prostrate at sight of her and so remained, muttering wishes for “long life and health,” until she was safely seated upon her gilded cedar chair, and a cushion placed at her feet by little Ata, youngest of her maidens.
At her approach the “sailors” had been silenced by a warning gesture from the Princess.
Suddenly the momentary decorum of these little maids was interrupted by a wailing cry from one of their number, who, without apparent reason, burst into a violent fit of weeping.
For a few moments she was unable to explain the reason of her distress. But finally, her sisters gathered that her turquoise pendant had slipped from her neck and fallen into the water. This pendant, a gift from the Princess herself, the tearful little maiden vowed she must have. She could not row, she would not row, until it was found.
After much delay her fears were somewhat allayed by the Chief Eunuch, who promised to send for Enana, the Magician. Enana’s incantations would soon bring to the surface her missing jewel. He promised that she would find it awaiting her when the barge returned to the landing-stage. Thus, in part reassured, little Thutu dried her eyes and again bent over her oar in anticipation of the signal to start.
A trumpeter in the prow blew a shrill note upon his long instrument (a new importation from Syria), a group of singing women from the temple of Sekhmet burst into song; Rahotep, the Chief Eunuch, clapped his fat hands; the ropes were cast off, and the forty maidens dipped their light cedar oars in the placid waters. The barge “Beauties of the Sun Disc” drew out slowly into the dancing waters of the lake.
Seated in the shadow of the great checkered sail, Queen Thi smiled her appreciation of the novel surprise which her maidens had prepared for her. As the vessel drew out through the nodding lotus flowers Kema’s flute made soft music which seemed to mingle with the pearling ripples of the waters. Kema, it seems, played the flute so well that the cranes and water-fowl often lit upon the sides of the barge to hear him.
Queen Thi was not aware that novel entertainments such as this had been customary with the Egyptian court from days immemorial. She was now to hear of just such a method of distraction as had been practiced under the great Egyptian monarch Senefru, who had lived, died and been laid to rest, high up in his colossal pyramid, some twenty centuries before her time.
For Sianekh, the story-teller, suddenly appeared and seated herself upon the deck in front of the Queen’s chair. As was her custom, she neglected both the prostration and the formulæ of greeting. Sianekh was a privileged character at Court, a favorite with the late King, both on account of her inexhaustible fund of stories and because of the fact that Pepi, her husband, had lost his life while defending his royal master from the attack of a wounded lion.
Yes! Thi’s obese and indolent husband, the late Pharaoh, had once been inordinately fond of lion-hunting. One hundred and two lions he had killed with his own arrows. One had gone down upon the very expedition so fatal to his chariot-driver, Pepi. But it was the last animal of that great hunt which had sent Sianekh’s husband to the Valley of Shadows. Pharaoh never forgot Pepi’s sacrifice. Pepi’s tomb never lacked its offerings of beer, wine and milk, flesh and fowl or of fresh white linens for the rewrapping of his mummy.
Sianekh, the story-teller, slipped from the sleeve of her loose white mantle a small ebony wand tipped with electrum.
Without preamble she commenced a tale of King Senefru’s days, a tale of the epoch of those gods of old, the pyramid-builders.
In her monotonous singsong she told how the good king, tired with the cares of state and oppressed by the great heat of noonday, sought a cool spot in which to rest, and found it not. How his son flew upstream in the fleetest royal barge in search of a famous magician. How he found him fishing in the Nile without a hook, and finally persuaded him to come to his father’s court.
She told of the wonders performed there by the aged seer. Of wine turned to honey. Of bees which went into a little hive only to emerge as brilliantly colored birds resembling those of distant Punt. Of the goose’s head which he restored to its body so that it sprang once more to its feet and rushed cackling and hissing from their midst.
Finally she told of Senefru’s pleasure-barge, of the little maidens who rowed it and of one of their number who dropped her pendant into the water, even as had Thutu, and of the magician of old who parted the waters and descended dryshod to the finding of the pendant.
“But see, O Queen. Enough of the doings of the ancients. There is the tablet to the faithful Nakht, a hero of our own day and generation.” Sianekh pointed to a tall shaft which rose high above the bank. “That tall shaft marks the stake where Nakht met his death. The story goes that Isis, only daughter of the Vizier Rames, made an appointment to meet the son of Nakht at this spot. Yonder inlet was filled to overflowing with the waters of the inundation. But Nakht, son of Nakht, rather than abandon his tryst, let the swirling waters of the inundation flow over his devoted head. Isis threw herself into the waters with him. To this date lovers hang garlands about the shaft and breathe a prayer to Hathor for sons and daughters like Nakht and Isis.”
As Sianekh rose to her feet the Queen thanked her and presented her with a pair of gold earrings which she unfastened from her own ears, an unheard of honor, and one which even the story-teller appreciated.
The Eunuchs showed their approbation by loud cries of affected astonishment, for the stories were not new to them. But the little maidens, who had rested on their oars during the recital, showed their keen delight in the tales by frequent “oh’s” and “ah’s” of astonishment and approval scattered throughout the telling.
On the barge the hours slipped by unnoted. To Yakab the Chancellor, who now anxiously awaited the return of the Queen, each minute seemed an hour.
Yakab had hurried off to acquaint the Queen of Bhanar’s plight, and to beg her to come to the assistance of one of her unfortunate country-women.
Hour after hour Yakab was compelled to sit beneath the striped awning which fronted the palace door. Hour after hour he pretended to listen to the doorkeeper’s account of his exploits amidst the Nubian goldfields, in the arid Turquoise Country, among the hills of Mitanni or beyond the Great Bend of the Euphrates.
Pentaur, the Doorkeeper, had served three successive Pharaohs. Already was he popularly supposed to have exceeded the one hundred and ten years customarily prayed for by all pious Egyptians. Yet, Pentaur seemed to have the key to some mysterious hekau-charm, which kept his well-worn teeth in his head, his deep-set eyes clear and his head erect. Though Pentaur walked with a jackal-headed cane, it was from choice, and not necessity.
Like all men, Pentaur had his failings. Next to the somewhat colored recital of his own travels and successes, Pentaur loved to recount the exploits, narrow escapes and journeyings of his famous ancestor and namesake, Pentaur, companion and histographer of that greatest of all Pharaohs, Thothmes the Great. As he listened, perforce, to this garrulous descendant of Pentaur, Yakab wondered if it had indeed been the fiery Thothmes who had crushed Nubia and the whole of Asia, or whether the first Pentaur had not in point of fact been the true instrument of Pharaoh’s worldwide successes.
Yet, much of what the Doorkeeper said of his ancestor was true. Was not Pentaur the Historian’s account of Pharaoh’s exploits written in good hieroglyphic and graphically pictured upon the walls of Amen’s temple nearby? Indeed, Pentaur, the Doorkeeper, had good cause for his pride of ancestry.
The weary Yakab was on the point of relinquishing his long vigil when the notes of a trumpet announced the return of the royal barge. Soon after Pentaur sent in Yakab’s crumpled note to the Queen-Mother’s apartment.
Once the acknowledgment was in his hands, Yakab picked up his long staff and rose to depart. As his gaunt form passed beneath the outer pylon, Pentaur motioned him back to the ebony stool. Pentaur considered Yakab an excellent conversationalist, for the reason, perhaps, that Pentaur’s flow of anecdote had not once been interrupted.
But Yakab smilingly shook his head. He could not resist following up his heart-felt expressions of farewell with a sarcastic prayer for the repose of the souls of Pentaur’s ancestry, as far as he could recall it, commencing with Den, one of the valiant “Followers of Horus” of the days of the gods.
Yakab feared that he had failed a member of his race. He had been too late. Yakab loved riches; Yakab loved power. But, above all else, Yakab loved his home, his family, his people. And was not Bhanar one of his people?
That night Yakab could not sleep.
Baltu the Phoenician left his bales of merchandise and returned to the side of the trembling Bhanar. Erdu, his steersman could count the bales as well as he. As each tenth bale passed over the vessel’s side, Erdu sang out the tally. He checked it with a mark upon a piece of potsherd which he held in his hand.
Misunderstanding the signs of excitement which appeared in the face of the trembling Bhanar, following Renny’s signal, the Phoenician merchant sought to interest her in the sights about her. In a few moments she would be off his hands forever. She must not be allowed to break down at this juncture.
In a voice which he sought to make sympathetic Baltu pointed out the wonders of the Western Bank.
He named the builders of the various temples, shrines and gold-capped obelisks; the owners of the more important villas whose gardens lined the river bank. He even attempted to give some chronological sequence to the intricate maze of rock-hewn tombs which rose, vast and imposing, from the edge of the Theban Plain to a point high up beneath the crumbling cliffs of the western hills.
Yet, Bhanar found little of interest in her surroundings. Her eyes dwelt fearfully upon the treeless hills, upon the mud-walled villages and gloomy temples. She noted that each and all of the Theban temples were guarded from the eyes of mortals by high and forbidding walls of solid masonry.
How different was this to the hospitality of her own little temple, whose snowy colonnades were open to every passerby; its great wooden doors thrown open from sunrise to sunset! Again, in contradistinction to these sun-baked hills her native village nestled in an olive grove, its encircling hills were green with pastures and crowned with thickly growing trees. At this very season its fields were yellow with the fragrant Syrian crocus. Over all was a sky blue as a turquoise, an atmosphere pure and limpid. How different from the blazing heat of Egypt and that great throbbing cauldron of molten brass which the Egyptians called their sky!
Presently she would be swallowed up in one of those forbidding temples, palaces or villas! She thought that the well of her tears had dried, yet now the tears sprang hot and blinding to her eyes.
Fearing that she might ruin his chances if she lost that soft rose coloring he so prized, to divert her Baltu led her to the cabin door and bade her robe herself to go ashore. Baltu took from his long fringed gown two small gold-capped jars of obsidian and placed them in her hands: “Descend to thy cabin, my Rose-bud. Bid Darman let down that glossy hair of thine. Let her sprinkle a little of this perfumed oil and gold dust upon it. The oil is more precious than the gold. Let her not waste a drop. Now haste thee, my Syrian Crocus! We go ashore immediately.”
Soon Bhanar was arrayed in a cream-colored robe, a golden girdle encircled her slender waist, a diadem gleamed in her perfumed hair.
Darman stood back to admire the effect of her ministrations. Darman, like Bhanar, snatched from some distant village, was short, fat and continually sniffling or weeping outright. She had often assured Bhanar, as indeed she had assured other unfortunates whom it had been her lot to serve in a like capacity, that the love and devotion which she bore her, alone prevented her from throwing herself overboard.
In the present case it may well have been the truth, for Darman had conceived an utter infatuation for the beautiful Syrian. On the contrary, Darman loathed her loud-voiced master, though her abject fear of him was cause for jest with the whole crew, including Baltu himself.
In spite of her threats to do away with herself Darman had now spent six years upon the Tyrian’s vessel. During this time she had prepared hundreds of timorous maidens for their first, and last, appearance upon the slave-traders’ dais. When the owner grew tired of his new plaything, like the playthings of infancy, it disappeared. No one knew whither, no one cared.
Bhanar reappeared on deck to find Baltu in the act of teasing the unfortunate youth, who now lay prostrate at his feet in an agony of fear and apprehension.
“Up! Dry those woman’s tears, Page of Pharaoh! Dost wish a tombkeeper to purchase thee? Queen Ataho’s page servitor to a mummy! Pull thyself together, boy! Otherwise”—Baltu closed his eyes, folded his hands across his chest and assumed the rigid pose of a mummy.
As his eyes opened he caught sight of the advancing Bhanar: “Astar’s doves! Did I not tell thee Darman, ‘A robe of cream, transparent, bordered with green and gold, dainty sandals of pink and gold, a simple gold diadem and the hair parted in the center—so!’ Seen through such Syrian byssus that rosy form proclaims thee Astar’s daughter. Ah, Nebamon, what a treat for thine eyes!”
Hardly waiting for the unfortunate Hittite youth to gather himself together, Baltu, trembling with excitement and cupidity, led his two victims to the long cedar gangplank. Once on shore he pushed aside the sweating carriers, and pulling along his two charges with him, started off down the street.
Presently they passed the common slaver’s block. Two brilliantly painted booths were at the moment in use. Upon one stood a stolid Nubian woman and two weeping children; upon the other a troop of half-starved Amu, whom the priests of Karnak, their original owners, were now selling.
Baltu’s great fist thundered at the door of the last house southward along the waterfront. He slid back the bolt and threw open the door, waving his two charges into a narrow corridor. In a stentorian voice he shouted a command or greeting to the unseen inhabitants of the dwelling and stalked off down the corridor, and then up a short flight of stairs to a room in the harem or second story.
This room turned a blank wall to the river front—as indeed did all three stories of the house—but it overlooked a broad and well-kept garden. Its painted cedar door gave upon an awning-covered balcony which immediately overlooked the customary lotus-pool. A giant sycamore spread its shady branches far and wide above the flower-dotted water.
In the shade of this aged tree Baltu’s Egyptian wife, an enormously fat but strikingly handsome Theban, was taking a short walk supported on the arms of two Nubian women. Her pet gosling rested upon her capacious bosom.
At the sudden appearance of their lord and master the latter dropped Bentamen’s arms and commenced dancing, clapping their hands, and sending out upon the quiet morning air the shrill “welcome cry” of their race, in which the beaming Bentamen, Baltu’s spouse, attempted to join. Tears of joy the while dropped in a shower upon the head of her devoted pet.
However, Baltu had no time for greetings. In response to his directions Bentamen, supported by her maids, waddled slowly toward a little kiosk in the rear of the garden, a summer house almost buried in a circle of ragged date and dôm palm. Though in his rough way, Baltu devotedly loved his fat wife, business always consigned her to second place in her lord’s heart.
During this little scene Bhanar had had time to gaze about her. The room in which they stood was decorated with painted designs of hunting scenes, boomerang-hunting amidst the marshes, a common pastime with the wealthier Egyptians. The ceiling decoration consisted of a painted band of spiral grape vines, whose dainty tendrils met and intertwined immediately above her head.
In one corner the artist had introduced a cat crouching to spring upon an unsuspecting field mouse. The latter was busily engaged in eating its way into a fat bunch of luscious purple grapes.
Puns being the Egyptian’s stock in trade, his common form of wit, the artist had scrawled in minute hieroglyphics below: “Oh, guest, whosoever thou art, what do you think of this for a vignette?”
Bhanar, it is true, could not read the inscription, but she could appreciate the charm of the little apartment, its brilliant frescoes and its floors powdered with finest white sand, gold dust, lapis lazuli and turquoise.
A scent as of some sweet pungent incense floated in the air. Scented woods from the Incense Country had been stocked in the center of the little brazier which glowed fitfully at the edge of a low dais hung with richly embroidered linen.
This dais stood well back against the eastern wall of the room. Upon it stood a light wicker-work couch, its head and back of ebony, its four high feet of ivory carved to represent panther’s claws.
Clapping his hands, Baltu gave certain sharp directions to an obsequious Nubian, who appeared as if by magic at his summons. Thereafter Baltu smiled, stroked his long beard and, taking a small bottle of wine from a niche in the wall, shook a few drops into the brazier. He muttered a prayer to Bar, Baal and Isis as he poured out the wine. Could his two hearers have understood his words, they would have heard the old slaver bribe his gods, foreign and Egyptian alike, with promises of rich libations, of oxen and geese, should his bait be taken at the figure he had fixed.
Baltu in this, did but follow the lead of Pharaoh himself, though Pharaoh, god incarnate, had he but paused to consider it, did but seek to bribe himself, in the person of his celestial counterpart.
Word soon spread through the mart that Baltu the Phoenician was selling, and Baltu was known as a merchant who sold nothing but the best and rarest, whether that best consisted of spices, perfumes, wines, jewels, Babylonian glass or slaves.
Baltu the Phoenician lifted a jeweled hand: “Listen, Thebans! Four months have passed since I have gazed upon the Queen of Cities, Thebes the Glorious! During these four months I have visited Meggido, Charchemish, Tyre and Askelon. My last voyage hither brought ye true lazuli of Babylon, and precious incense from the Incense Land, the waterless land of the East!
“This time we bring ye amethysts and turquoise for your beads and bangles, malachite for the healing of your eyes, incense for your nostrils, precious oils for your anointing, or to mix with those ceremonial cones that custom bids ye place upon your graceful wigs, also”—suddenly his eyes catch the sight of the one man above all others he wished to see. He broke off and addressed the newcomer directly. “For thee, my lord Nebamon, a rose; nay, a human rose, softly pink as a rose of Naharin! Step up, great lord, see for thyself!” With a quick movement Baltu unloosed the gold girdle that supported the heavy robe so gracefully draped about the shrinking Bhanar.
“A rose indeed, Nebamon? Do my lord’s lists boast a form more perfect, a skin more lustrous, hair so long, so like the ruddy gold of Nubia? Should not this damsel, this daughter of a long line of kings, be added to the royal lists? Were the great noble Menna, son of Menna, here now, would he not straightway buy the maiden? Never shall I be content until I see thee take from thy finger the seal that adds this wondrous creature to thy villa yonder.”
Nebamon, typical eunuch and slave-dealer, handsome of face, obese to such an extent that the skin of his torso lay over his jeweled girdle in thick folds, Nebamon nodded his head as his great velvet eyes slowly appraised the many charms of the crouching maiden.
“Thy price, Baltu? And mark thee well! Should she turn out the shrew that fair-skinned Hittite Gadiya proved to be, she shall be returned, or never again will Baltu’s galley pass the northern frontier into Egypt! May the Hound eat her, she is still upon my hands, and like to be!”
“Great lord! Could I know the Hittite for a shrew. Remember, more than three months I had her on my book. With me, as with Darman, she was a very dove, as soft and cooing as the sacred doves of Hathor’s temple yonder! Nay, have done with Gadiya; we will speak of her anon. Thou wouldst know the price of Bhanar the Beautiful, of Bhanar—a daughter of Kings? There are perhaps four whose names allow the purchase of the maid, and these be Pharaoh himself, Rames, your good Vizier, Menna, the King’s Overseer, and, perhaps, thyself! One thousand gold uten and five hundred bags of northern wheat will buy the maid, Nebamon! Make up thy mind, and quickly. Yonder I see approaching the carrying chair of thy most dreaded rival, Menna, son of Menna. What says my lord Nebamon?”
“Five hundred uten, Baltu; all I have is thine for the maid!” The handsome noble shot a hasty glance in the direction of the oncoming chair of Menna, the King’s Overseer. It was plainly visible to all present, as it swung up the garden path, two outrunners with slaves going before, a foreign conceit which Menna had imported from Naharin.
Nebamon drew from his jeweled girdle his writing set. He affected to write out a memorandum.
“One thousand uten and five hundred bags of wheat will buy the maid, Nebamon, nothing less.”
Arriving just in time to hear the repetition of the price Menna descended from his chair, crossed the room and stood before the shrinking Bhanar. Menna never haggled. He bought outright or he signaled his bearers and was borne away without a word.
On this occasion Menna took a hasty look at Bhanar, turned to Baltu and cried: “Done, the girl is mine!”
With a scowl upon his handsome face Nebamon haughtily withdrew, followed by a half score of excited Theban nobles and the usual group of hangers on, those “flies on meat” who customarily attached themselves to the more reckless nobles of the resident city.
Within the hour the delighted Bhanar found herself attached as maid to the person of the Princess Sesen, attendant of Noferith, the young Queen. All her fears in this direction were instantly dispelled when the Princess advised her of her simple duties in Syrian as pure as her own. From that hour Bhanar adored the very ground her beautiful mistress walked on. From that day Bhanar became the very shadow of the little Princess.
The secret of Bhanar’s present good fortune was due to the fact that Menna, son of Menna, loved the Princess Sesen. Menna felt that such a gift as that of the beautiful slave-girl would go far to impress the haughty little maiden with the sincerity of his suit. Possibly this lavish expenditure would touch her hard little heart.
The price was indeed a high one, even for a Royal Overseer. But it was the first time in all Menna’s thirty-odd years that a woman had not smiled upon his suit.
Stranger still, perhaps, for the first time, Menna truly loved a woman. True, Menna’s love by now was closely akin to madness, since the little maid continually frowned upon his suit. The youthful general, Ramses, he knew, was ever in her thoughts.
Yet, Menna never despaired. In earlier years he had often been on the point of relinquishing some tirelessly pursued quarry, of a similarly serenely unruffled type, when lo, the pomegranate had suddenly fallen into his hands.
But what of Renny, Bhanar’s would-be rescuer? Returning overjoyed from his visit to Yakab, the Chancellor, Renny had reached the acacia grove fronting Thethi’s Tavern when something suddenly descended upon his head and the last thing he remembered was a stunning blow and then—oblivion.
Could Renny the Syrian but have had some slight premonition of what next would happen to his poor unconscious body, he would certainly have rubbed that small green crocodile pendant at his neck, the gift of an Egyptian friend, and uttered the formula which drives that voracious creature from its prey.
But Renny was a Syrian. He wore that little green charm merely to please his friend. Renny put no trust in feathers of ibis or blood of lizard; he smiled at charms and magic incantations. Renny’s own simple religion was a religion of love, not of fear.
Yet, who knows, perhaps the little charm was to assist him, and this in spite of himself.
We have already alluded to the violent sandstorm which had raged over Thebes. As Kham-hat had truthfully said, such a storm had not been known since that memorable day when Thi the Beautiful, had been brought up-river to Egypt’s capital, there to become the favorite wife of the late Pharaoh.
The storm had been especially severe in the immediate vicinity of the capital, or so at least, it had seemed to the disgusted Thebans. Their loud complaints as to the hideous damage done were not unduly emphasized, since the baleful effects of this storm, both in and about the resident city, were apparent on every hand.
Many of the famous palms and giant sycamores in Pharaoh’s palace garden had been uprooted or despoiled of their finest branches. Many of the Abyssinian trees and Lebanus cedars, that lined the causeway leading to Hatshepsut’s ivory-toned chapel, now lay prone across its well-paved incline, or, loosened at the roots, hung shriveled, torn and dejected, far out across its brightly painted parapets.
Dust, a foot or more in depth, had drifted against the gates of the villas, many of which seemed as if they might rather have opened upon some gloomy mortuary-garden than upon the dainty gardens of exalted nobles, with their wealth of tamarisks, acacias, myrrh, sandalwood and stately Lebanus cedars.
Not a sign of life was visible along the sloping walls of the city, not a living thing stirred in its dark and narrow streets. Covered by the same gray pall of dust, Thebes had seemingly united herself with her immense burial-ground to the westward. Thebes appeared to have become one vast city of the dead!
A swirl of the fine impalpable Egyptian dust rose into the shimmering air, a whirling and ever-widening cone—part sand, part river-silt, part human ashes. Yes, throughout the Nile Valley, an Egyptian might be said to breathe the very ashes of his ancestors.
Suddenly the sun leaped above the Eastern Hills. The city awoke. Smoke rose upon the heavy morning air and drifted slowly, like a blue-gray streamer, up the curving shores of the Theban Valley.
Kathi, the embalmer, on his way to the landing stage leading to the Temple of Karnak, paused to watch the maneuvers of the war-vessels, as they sought their berths along the western bank.
At this moment, one vessel’s huge square sail, a picturesque checker-board of green and white, flapped madly, as its head flew up suddenly in the wind. It seemed that Duādmochef, the Wind-god, was not to be cheated out of a few parting puffs from his lusty lungs!
The look-out-man, standing in the prow, pole in hand, shouted a hasty warning to the captain aft, but, before his raucous order could be understood, the heavy boat had buried its nose, with the ghastly trophies it bore, deep in a hidden sand-bar. For a time it seemed that the stiffly swaying forms of the wretched foreign chieftains lashed to the prow would break the thongs which held them in place. It availed nothing that Ranuf, the captain, cursed the look-out-man, his father and his forebears since Egypt emerged from the primordial Nu! And the unhappy Ameni suffered the irate captain’s curses in silence, as it was the sixth mishap of the kind since leaving the sandstone quays of Enet, sacred to the Goddess Hathor.
As Ranuf hurled at the bent head of his look-out-man a last fearful hekau, a potent spell intended to consign the soul of his discomfited assistant to the voracious maw of Osiris’s hound, he noticed a dark patch floating upon the water below. A white face gazed up into his:
“Abdi, quick! A drowning man; a countryman of thine; if I mistake not.”
The Syrian addressed strode quickly to the captain’s side, took one look at the slowly drifting body and, casting aside his sandals and loin-cloth, disappeared headlong into the river. Cautiously the captain extended a long pole in the direction of the swimming sailor. In another moment, Abdi was drawn safely to the deck, and, with him, the apparently lifeless figure of the man he had attempted to save.
Abdi rose to his feet, seemingly none the worse for his adventure. He clasped the captain’s hand: “Adon! I thought a devil had me by the heels! Truly the eddies hereabouts have a deadly grip! Dost know the lad? A fellow countryman by those blue eyes of his! See, they open! Breath of Adon, ’tis an ugly crack he hath! Cut the thongs that bind him! Verily, ’tis dangerous work to meddle with Syrians, as they who planned this treacherous attack will find, should Thi get wind of it! Thou knowest in such a case, even the ‘tried, judged, found his bitter doom!’ is omitted from the records, since ‘thus we save the government’s ink,’ says that wag Thethi!”
The captain bent over the still motionless form of the unknown. He tried to recall the face but failed.
At this moment the Syrian presented a most woeful appearance. The long, slim form lay inert; the eyes from time to time opened and closed wearily. Blood still trickled slowly from a slight cut along one side of his forehead.
By now he was surrounded by half a score of curious, yet sympathetic sailors. One bound up his wound, another provided him with a striped headcloth, another placed a dry robe about his shoulders.
As he once more fluttered back to consciousness, a sailor addressed him in the Egyptian tongue:
“Stranger, how comest thou in such a strait? Verily had it not been for that patch of reeds, the crocodiles that swarm about the temple quay had sighted thy bobbing form, or the gripping whirlpools around the Southern Bend had drawn thee to the river’s slimiest depths? Breath of Sebek! Thy pendant did indeed protect thee!”
The question was understood, as was evident from the color that rushed to the pale face, and the intelligence that lit up the bright blue eyes.
No doubt the question recalled to the Syrian’s brain the memory of the attack which had so nearly cost him his life. He struggled to his feet. A draught of wine, and, in a few moments, he seemed little the worse for his experience.
“Friends, ’tis a tale of jealousy. I am named Renny, a Syrian, a sculptor attached to the house of the Lord Menna, son of Menna, Overseer of Pharaoh (health to him). I know not who hath planned this murderous attack upon me. No enemies have I to my knowledge.”
He turned to Abdi: “Fellow countryman, I thank thee that thou dids’t so opportunely go to my rescue. May this bar requite thee!” Renny slipped from his arm a broad band of gold and handed it to Abdi.
Whether the excitement of the rescue and rush of all hands to the side had had anything to do with it or not no one could say, but at this moment the clumsy barge suddenly yielded itself to the renewed efforts of the chanting polers, and swung around into mid-stream.
As it drew alongside the western landing-stage, Renny leaped ashore. With a wave of the hand to his rescuers, he abruptly disappeared among the bales of hides and serried ranks of great empty water jars, which were piled up high along the shore, awaiting shipment to the north.
Renny had seen a company of Royal Guardsmen drawn up before the colonnaded portico of the royal landing-stage.
He had nothing to fear from the soldiers. These, he well knew, waited to escort the victorious General Ramses into Pharaoh’s presence.
Yet, at their head, idly swinging a jeweled scarab which hung upon a long gold chain, stood Bar, a spy in the service of Menna, the King’s Overseer, Renny’s powerful patron.
Renny had his reasons for seeking to avoid the Prince’s servant at this juncture. He could not shake off the feeling that Bar, the spy, was concerned, in some way, with the attack that had so nearly cost him his life.
In chariots or carrying-chairs members of the Court were hurrying to the Palace, to assist at the feast planned to honor, at one and the same time, Belur, the newly arrived Hittite Ambassador, and the victorious Egyptian general, Ramses, but now returned from Nubia.
According to precedent Ramses would present himself before Pharaoh and the Court in order to receive the customary favors bestowed upon a victorious Egyptian leader, those “favors which the King bestows” and “the gold order of valor.”
Throughout the long day the excitable Theban populace had yelled itself hoarse, as one after another the war-barges swung around the great bend of the river, south of Thebes.
Each boat was marked by its standard-of-cognizance, and no sooner was its mooring-stake driven into the bank than a yelling, gesticulating and joyfully-weeping hoard of relatives and friends of the crew burst upon its decks.
From that moment, all signs of discipline utterly vanished. Men, women and children entered upon one of those inevitable carouses which, in Egypt, ever followed such a home-coming.
Everyone was coming up to Thebes in order to witness the great celebration in honor of victory. It being festival time even the indigent passengers at the western bank were to-day allowed to work their way across the river by bailing the leaky ferryboats.
Thi, the Queen-Mother, in company with the weak but pretty young queen, left the Women’s Apartments early, on her way to the Banquet-hall. As she passed the various courts and columned porticos the watchful eunuchs, guards and servants, hurled themselves prostrate at sight of her. On knees and elbows they groveled, prayers for “health” and “long life” upon their trembling lips.
To the dreaded Thi, as to Pharaoh himself, honors were rendered as to the gods.
And she whom Egypt feared, and Enana the Magician dared; she who had been called by her friends Thi the Beautiful, by her enemies Thi the Foreigner, Thi the Commoner, how shall we best describe her?
The Queen-Mother’s head was small, her low forehead slightly retreated. Her nose was of the delicate Syrian type, the tip somewhat rounded, the nostrils well opened. From beneath artificially prolonged eyebrows, eyebrows shaved close and lightly penciled with black antimony paste, glowed two large and lustrous eyes. Thi’s lips were full, but well-cut. Cruelty showed in the drooping corners.
At this moment Thi was clad in one of the richest costumes of the extravagant New Empire, a pale-green robe minutely plaited and studded at intervals with lotus-flowers in beaten gold. Gold plumes, which rose above a gem-encrusted headdress of vulture form, seemed to give height and dignity to one who was in reality a short and slender woman.
About the great Queen’s throat, wrist and ankles were broad bands of alternate gold bars and minute cylinders of beryl and amethyst. The names of Aton, the Syrian sun-god, stamped in rich blue fayence, hung from a long chain well down upon her high bosom.
Though now no longer in the dazzling beauty of her youth, Thi still possessed many a charm of face and form. Yet, had she been devoid of such, her voice had served to win for her the great and powerful empire that was hers. At the sound of it, one knew at once why in Akhmin, where first her parents had settled, men had called her Nightingale; why, at a later date, poets and singers of the Theban court had vied with one another to do her honor.
No mere doll-faced beauty had caused the former monarch to set aside Queen Hanit, an exalted lady of the line of Egypt’s royal house and a lineal descendant of Ra the sun-god, yes, and to cause the death of the unhappy Prince Wazmes whom she had borne him.
Thi’s face and form had been enough to set kings and princes warring. Yet, to those prized gifts of Hathor, Beauty’s Goddess, had Ptah of Memphis added the voice of a ten-stringed lute, and Khnum, Fashioner of Mankind, an intellect that had quickly won to her by far the greater number of the nobles of the court.
Thus had Thi, a foreigner, a woman sprung, by descent at least, from common Syrian stock, usurped the rightful place of the great Queen Hanit, descendant of kings and a king’s wife.
At the foot of a short flight of steps leading to the festival hall, Thi and Menna met. They exchanged the customary string of effusive greetings and honorifics.
As the Queen-Mother swept on she found her way blocked by the crooked form of Enana. The wizened old Magician stood leaning upon his jackal-headed staff immediately in the center of the narrow passage.
Enana’s sole garment consisted of a long kilt or tunic fastened at the waist by a jeweled belt, and faced in front with squares of fine gold. This was an affectation of a fashion long since forgotten.
At Thi’s cold greeting the puckered and heavily-lined face of this animated mummy trembled with what might equally well have answered for a smile or a grimace. Yet, beneath his shaven eyebrows, his half-veiled eyes glittered ominously, as they lifted for a second to those of the frowning queen. Enana ignored her greeting.
Involuntarily Thi shuddered, yet inwardly cursed herself for a fool. It was only Enana, a fellow who lived, nay, had lived for centuries, ’twas said, upon the credulity and superstition of the Thebans!
Thi swept past him and out upon the balcony overlooking the long hall. There she found Noferith, her son’s wife, the Princess Sesen, and others of the maids of honor, awaiting her.
As Thi seated herself, Menna passed below her balcony. He bowed to the two queens, yet his eyes sought those of the Princess Sesen.
Menna, the King’s Overseer, had again yielded himself to the spell of a pair of lustrous eyes and dimpled cheeks. He loved the little Princess, as he had never loved before.
For the past few weeks, Menna had wooed the Princess assiduously. Thi, the Queen-Mother, for reasons of her own, had sought to aid him in his suit.
All in vain.
The little Princess would have none of him. Thi knew well, as in fact did Menna, that Sesen’s heart was filled with thoughts of Ramses, with hopes of his speedy return. Menna’s servant, Bar, called by many “Menna’s shadow,” as lean and hungry looking as a neglected ka, sought to convince his master that her indifference was due to a present lover, some favorite among the courtiers. Menna knew better, yet affected to believe him. Meanwhile, unused to failure in such enterprises, he continued to besiege the Princess with well-turned couplets, rich and ever-varied presents, and courtly flatteries.
At this moment, his restless black eyes sought to attract those of the all-unconscious object of his affections. His glance dwelt with delight upon her spotless white gala robes. He noted the graceful wig confined by a rose-colored fillet from which drooped fragrant white lotus-flowers; the huge circular gold earrings, and the flashing pectoral ornament—a glitter of jeweled inlays—which rose and fell at every breath.
Sesen’s cheeks and lips were artificially reddened, her eyebrows shaved and lightly penciled with kohl, like those of the Queen and Queen-Mother. Yet, unlike them, her tongue was silent, her smiles had vanished. Sesen’s somber eyes evinced little interest in the bustle and joyful preparations about her. Twice did Noferith the Queen touch her with the dainty little scent-tube she carried, in an effort to recall her to her laughter-loving self.
Finally, after the sweet-scented lotus which each lady carried had been changed but once, the Princess Sesen rose, pleading faintness. The sympathetic Queen whom she served, allowed her to retire without exacting the formal prostration.
At her withdrawal Menna’s disappointment was intense. He sank back deep into his painted cedar chair. For Menna the feast was at an end.
But not for the noisy revelers about him. Even the haughty members of the Hittite ambassador’s suite forgot for a moment their lofty attitude of detachment.
For the corpulent Mentu, son of the Vizier Kena, had whetted the appetites of these Asiatics. Through the somewhat hesitating medium of a sibilant Canaanitic dialect, the garrulous Mentu had somehow managed to make them understand that the entire kitchen forces of the governor of Thinis and of Hotepra, Prince of On, had been brought upstream to assist the royal cooks.
“Indeed,” said Mentu, “though whirling sandstorms bury us; though drought and pestilence stalk the blistered banks of Hapi, yet shall we enjoy the choicest viands, the rarest wines,” he clicked his purple tongue; “wines whose seals have stood intact since good King Ahmes’ time! But, wait until thou seest Nōfert-āri! Breath of Ra! Then shalt thou say, ‘Baal forgive me! Our country is afar off! Between us lies the raging sea! Egypt is a land of pleasure and delight! Here let us tarry!’”
And so it proved. For marvel followed marvel with almost bewildering rapidity.
A dish that won the plaudits of all was an enormous platter of Syrian craftsmanship. Upon this gold dish, in the midst of gold reeds and papyrus, swam ducks, plover, and other aquatic birds. In a miniature skiff, a diminutive Egyptian boatman propelled his silver craft over perfumed water. An Egyptian noble, standing upright in the bow, aimed a jeweled throw-stick at a flock of egrets which, with wings outspread, quivered upon gold wires high above a thicket of feathery papyrus.
The realistic little figures were of pastry, the birds cooked with all their feathers on!
Dishes of this sort were countless in number, the design of the last more astonishing than that of the first, since each jealous cook had sought to outshine his rival, both in originality of design and richness of material.
But now, at a signal from Pennūt the Usher, Pharaoh rose from the throne and advanced to the edge of the dais. To his feet the Usher led the youthful Ramses.
And there, to the accompaniment of a deepening roar of applause from the onlookers, Pharaoh slipped about his victorious general’s neck that coveted distinction of the Egyptian military, the necklace of gold lions and flies.
In a brief lull the words of Pharaoh echoed through the resplendent hall:
“Welcome, thrice welcome, Ramses! Let the praises of thy lord expand thy heart! Mei has recounted the story of thy skill and energy in the conducting of this most bitterly fought campaign. Where now are the chieftains of Nubia? They have been ground down as the seed of the date beneath the crusher, as eye-paint upon the palette. Yea, they have become as grain which the mill has crushed! Now are the chieftains of Wawat forced to sulk in the caves of the hyena. As a fly hast thou worried them, as a lion hast thou destroyed them! We place these precious orders about thy throat. From this day thy renown is fragrant as the perfume of the Incense Country. Arise! Take thy place beside us as ‘Fan-bearer-on-the-right-of-Pharaoh, thy Lord!’”
At his elevation to this coveted position, renewed applause seemed to shake the painted roof.
Friends pressed forward to kiss the jeweled chains and ornaments that had but now left the hand of the god-king. Some hurled themselves prostrate before these rewards which only Pharaohs might bestow.
The King shot a covert glance in the direction of the Balcony reserved for the royal harem. The Queen-Mother shook her jeweled menat in company with the other ladies. Yet, in Thi’s case, the action represented far more than mere applause or acclamation.
The tactful Belur, Prince of the Hittites, in turn, rose and added a few well chosen words of praise for a difficult task so promptly and bloodlessly accomplished.
Pharaoh, watching him from beneath his richly painted canopy, doubted the sincerity of the smile that played about the handsome lips of the Hittite. Again he resolved in his mind the probable cause of the Hittite’s inopportune visit.
A space was cleared in the center of the hall. The tables, still groaning under the burden of their barely glanced at dainties, disappeared as if by magic. The well-woven mats and glossy panther-skins were lifted from the stucco floor, and out upon the space so made sprang a troupe of lotus-wreathed girls, naked save for the beaded cincture of maidenhood which encircled their slender hips.
Scattering Syrian crocuses and the pure white petals of the lotus, these coffee-colored little maids, the very embodiment of childish grace, pelted one another with the perfumed shower until their little ankles were well-nigh hidden.
As if this had been a signal, the bright blue warbonnet of Pharaoh was lifted from his head; an Asiatic slave-boy bathed the royal fingers and Pharaoh, with a nervous twitch to his long, thin features, leaned back wearily against the embroidered cushions placed at his back by the attentive Dedu.
The last scene of what had proved a veritable feast of marvels was about to commence.
The sudden entrance of the merry little children had been the prelude to “the King’s dance.”
This dance was a far different performance from that series of posturing and tumbling commonly provided by the acrobats of old.
And it was thought that “the King’s dance” could only be performed by Nōfert-āri, claimed as daughter by the blind Tutīya, though known to the irreverent youth of Thebes as the child of Hathor, of the Goddess of Beauty, sprung from the head of Ra.
At one end of the flowery carpet left by the little children knelt three heavily-cloaked women. Behind them squatted eight shaven-headed harpers, clutching to their naked breasts the gilded frames of their ten-stringed instruments. Back of these again were flute-players, players on the hand drum, players on the ivory castanets, and a group of men and women whose duty it was to mark the syncopated time by clapping their hands, agitating menats of jeweled beads, or shaking sistra of silver or gold.
Suddenly, like the blood-curdling cry of a savage desert-dweller, the high-pitched call of Tutīya thrilled the heated frames of the expectant onlookers.
Instantly the harpers, in a soft and minor key, commenced an air at once slow in measure, plaintive and sad, an air that sounded distant amid the confused murmur of a thousand voices, the clatter of dishes and the distant tap-tap of the butlers’ hurrying sandals.
The shrill cry of Tutīya had brought two of the three women to their feet. Dropping the cloaks that had enveloped them, they took their places at some distance in front of the third figure.
Turning toward the royal dais the two dancers sank down in a slowly executed courtesy, until the nodding lotus-flowers that wreathed their curling wigs swept the flower-strewn floor below him.
Then, in answer to Pharaoh’s scarcely perceptible acknowledgment, slowly they rose upon their slender feet and, with a “life and health, lords” placed themselves once more beside the still motionless central figure.
All eyes were centered upon this well-cloaked figure. It, too, now rose.
Was it motionless? It called to mind the birth of some glorious butterfly or moth. The undulating movement that one sees in the soon to be discarded shell best described the bursting of Nōfert-āri upon the delighted vision of her audience as, shivering with the peculiar motion seen but in those creatures of a day, she suddenly dropped the dull-brown cloak that enveloped her, and appeared fresh and smiling to their view.
In the dancer Nōfert-āri we see a slim, though willowy form, a form and countenance that represented the very arch-type of all that an Egyptian held beautiful in women. A pair of sparkling eyes, elongated, obliquely set, gleamed in frames of blue-black antimony, which served to accentuate the striking whiteness in which swam their fathomless pupils.
On Nōfert-āri’s head was set a dark brown wig which, covered thickly as it was with a myriad little knots and curls, dropped in well-regulated layers until it grazed the tips of her thin and high-set shoulders. This dainty perruque, fringing with its line of dancing curls a forehead that rivaled polished jasper, and touching as it did at every move and gesture the outer pencilings of her shaven and thickly kohl-stained eyebrows, seemed to soften the rather prominent cheekbones and perhaps too pointed chin. The quiver of her wide though delicate nostrils, bespoke a passionate nature, which the faintest of dimples and the ivory flash of small though regular teeth, did their best to contradict. The dancer’s full round throat, her arms, wrists, and well-formed bust, were ablaze with jewels, amid which pale green beryl, dew-like crystal, rose carnelian, gold, electrum and silver, gleamed in opulent splendor, as her bosom rose and fell.
As she stood, a pale blue lotus drooping above each hidden ear, a jeweled menat in one hand, her coffee-colored and well oiled skin agleam with the reflected light of innumerable prismatic colors, she seemed less an animated human form than a figure carved, by Ptah the god of sculptors himself, from a block of glowing opal.
With her first perceptible motions the music rose to the major key. The time-beaters accentuated the broken rhythm more and more, while Tutīya, her heavy though sightless eyes glowing in their painted depths—she too had once been hailed a Theban favorite—burst ever and anon into the “Nubian cry,” that blood-stirring cry which acted as an incentive to her now posturing daughter.
In the center of the flowery carpet stood Nōfert-āri, languidly shaking her jeweled menat. Slowly she turned upon herself, the muscles of her lithe little body seeming to quiver in measure with the vibrant thrumming of the many stringed harps.
When again she faced the Egyptian monarch’s dais, unlike the impassive gaze of Pharaoh, her features seemed to have become transformed. The “King’s dance,” into which she now threw all her fascination, all her mesmeric charm and unrivaled ability, portrayed by movement of the body and gesture alone the meeting and stolen tryst of a pair of lovers.
At first she affected the love-smitten beauty, a coy beauty, mindful of her many charms.
Suddenly with a start, a pigeon-like coo of delight, she appeared to throw herself into her lover’s arms.
Again, with all the abandon of an artless coquetry, she stretched out her long arms and supple fingered hands as if to push him from her.
Finally, with one or two graceful little steps, accompanied by an arch glance over her shoulder, Nōfert-āri advanced to the very edge of the royal dais and commenced that portion of the dance for which she was so famed.
Into this every muscle of her supple body was forced to move in unison or singly as she willed. Her lustrous eyes gleamed beneath their darkened eyebrows, her expanded nostrils quivered, her full vermilioned lips were parted, the very veins in her forehead throbbed in measure with the refrain. As her supple arms, wrists, and hands played about her body with a wavelike—an indescribable motion—her jeweled bust and firm, yet flexible hips, swayed to the spasmodic movements natural to the dance.
The music ever increased in volume and, as if to add contrast to the grace and beauty of the peerless dancer, a hideous naked pigmy, beating a tiny onoga-skin drum, leaped out upon the floor beside her, and grotesquely imitated her every move and gesture.
Thus, to a chorus of wild staccato yells from Tutīya and the excited time-beaters, Nōfert-āri, her form seeming to undulate in fierce spasmodic waves from breast to hip, with arms thrown high above her head, fingers clenched and eyes fast closed, sank slowly to the stucco floor.
Presently, as she rose, still trembling, and while the echoes of that clamorous applause still reverberated amid the flaring lotus-capitals, a royal usher hurried to her side, and in the name of Pharaoh, presented her with a blue fayence goblet of lotiform design. Inlaid in green, white and red about the foot was an inscription revealing her euphonious and happily—chosen name, Nōfert-āri, “She who is made of beauty.”
Following the dance, Pharaoh had retired within himself. He had assumed an air of studied abstraction and aloofness.
Yet, Dedu remarked signs of nervousness in the twitching of the jaw. Dedu had been born in the palace, in the self-same year as his exalted master. Dedu might well have been called, as indeed at times he was, his master’s “double,” his other self.
In Pharaoh’s slightly twitching hands and in the covert glances which from time to time he directed toward the haughty leader of the Hittites, Dedu spelled expectancy and, withal, a nameless fear.
Then it was the Hittite, not Enana the Magician, his royal master feared! Dedu knew there had been much speculation as to the true meaning of Belur’s sudden and quite unexpected visit to the Egyptian capital.
So far, oriental courtesy—coupled with the Egyptian’s inherent regard for the rights of hospitality—had forbidden any outward evidences of impatience on the part of Pharaoh or his august Mother.
And Pharaoh did well to distrust the wily Hittite. With the pause that had followed the withdrawal of Nōfert-āri and her assistants, the Asiatic prince rose to his feet, slowly lifting his jeweled hand to command attention. His keen glance swept the heads of the swaying crowd which craned its neck the better to see him and to hear his words.
The Prince of Charchemish bowed to Pharaoh. Slowly he arranged the sash which served to hold in place his fringed robes and the little ivory-handled dagger which rested in its folds.
Silence fell upon the noisy revelers, an ominous silence. It seemed as if Pharaoh’s nervousness had somehow mysteriously communicated itself to the various groups of Egyptian nobles gathered about him.
Belur the Hittite began to speak. He dwelt at length upon the many occasions during which Egyptian ships had brought grain and other food to famine-stricken Asia. He thanked Great Pharaoh for his present hospitality and the courteous consideration which had been shown him since first he landed upon the fertile soil of Egypt. He dwelt upon the power for good exerted by Egypt, not only in Asia, but among the savage tribes of Nubia, as witness the victorious campaign just brought to a close, and which they were at that moment celebrating.
Knowing the might of Pharaoh, lord of Egypt, Rimur, King of Charchemish, his brother, had sent him down into Egypt, that he might effect an alliance with the throne of Egypt, an alliance which he was sure would eventually prove of mutual benefit to Thebes and Charchemish alike.
In token of his fraternal esteem Rimur had sent to Egypt a full shipload of the treasure of his country and of the countries adjacent thereto. Its hold was filled with the gold and silver vessels of Zahi, with swords and daggers cunningly damascened with gold, the work of Megiddan craftsmen. Inlaid corselets were there, jeweled quivers, gauntlets worked with gold and silver threads, and shawls for the ladies of the courts, so finely woven that they might be passed with ease through Pharaoh’s golden signet-ring. To the Queen, the Hittite King had sent a covered carrying-chair, of stamped leather richly gilded; to the august Queen-Mother, a golden goblet from the hands of Ilg of Kadesh; and lastly, to Pharaoh, his kingly brother, three fully equipped chariots, together with nine Syrian horses, swifter than the north-wind, to draw them! In the name of King Rimur, his brother, he asked for the hand of the eldest daughter of Pharaoh his brother, the Princess Aten-merit, in marriage!
During this speech Pharaoh’s nervous fears had gradually given place to astonishment and finally to anger. This new-found arrogance and assurance among the “little people” was an entirely new departure.
As he rose to his feet to reply there was a look upon his face which neither Belur nor his own courtiers had expected to see. Before that look even Belur’s assumed effrontery slowly dissolved.
“Son of Rabatta, it is now less than a year since a Hittite embassy stood within this very hall! Like thee, it came freighted With the rarest and richest products of the Asiatics! If we remember rightly its offerings included one hundred logs of Lebanus cedar, five hundred pounds of Cilician silver, three hundred pounds of the true lapis-lazuli of Babylon, two hundred gold and electrum goblets, with choice silver vases of the workmanship of Zahi! In comparison with this, thy meager offerings seem to prove that Charchemish hath lost its hold upon the Lebanus, upon the Cilician mines, upon the princes of Zahi, of Kadesh and Megiddo? Or perhaps thy brother hath forgotten the circumstances which prompted his father’s princely gift! Not with gifts for favors to be received came Rabatta thy father! Nay, with tribute, with the tribute of a vassal did he come! With tribute exacted through fear of Egypt’s might.
“Take back this message to Rimur thy brother! Thus saith Pharaoh of Egypt: ‘’Tis but a breath of time since Rabatta knelt at Pharaoh’s knee, swearing fealty! Wherefore hath Rimur, his son, failed to do the like?’
“As to thy insolent proposal, when hath a Daughter of the Sun left the land of Egypt at the beck and call of rebel princelings? ’Tis in our mind to hold thee hostage for thy brother’s quick return to reason. Yet, go! And with thee take thy gifts, fit only to dazzle some savage Amu!”
At Pharaoh’s words Belur the Hittite took a step nearer to the royal dais. A covert sneer played about his well-cut lips, though his eyes were hard, his cheek pale. Raising his hand with a gesture almost threatening once again he addressed the trembling monarch:
“Hear me, Pharaoh! One other word my august brother sends to Pharaoh, king of Egypt. The Hittite army is to-day one hundred thousand strong. The princes of Zahi and Naharin, the kings of Kadesh, Gezer and Megiddo, have joined their forces unto his! Of thy Syrian vassals half have left thee! The Khabiri are up! Ribaddi alone stands true to thee and, even he by now doubtless has fed a vulture’s maw.
“Hearken to the words of Rimur, my brother! Thy present state is well known to us! Thy plague-stricken land stands on the brink of a great religious war! In Nubia to the south, as in thy Asiatic possessions to the north, thy vassal-states have risen in revolt against thee! Nay, Pharaoh, heed the words of Rimur my brother, or thy Asiatic possessions are lost to thee! Great Kheta, the combined armies of all the Asiatic principalities, stand at thy very gates ready to devour thee! Thus saith Rimur, Lord of lords, King of kings, Lion that Devoureth Lions!”
Pharaoh’s face was terrible to see. His jaws worked, the veins upon his forehead stood out like knotted ropes, his large eyes flashed with fires of wrath. He quickly raised his golden scepter as if he would have felled the audacious Hittite at his feet. The wand of sard and gold snapped between his clenched fingers.
Controlling himself by a mighty effort Pharaoh pointed to the door and somehow managed to articulate the one word: “Begone!”