The Ancient Allan

CHAPTER I.
AN OLD FRIEND

Now I, Allan Quatermain, come to the weirdest (with one or two exceptions
perhaps) of all the experiences which it has amused me to employ my idle hours
in recording here in a strange land, for after all England is strange to me. I
grow elderly. I have, as I suppose, passed the period of enterprise and
adventure and I should be well satisfied with the lot that Fate has given to my
unworthy self.

To begin with, I am still alive and in health when by all the rules I should
have been dead many times over. I suppose I ought to be thankful for that but,
before expressing an opinion on the point, I should have to be quite sure
whether it is better to be alive or dead. The religious plump for the latter,
though I have never observed that the religious are more eager to die than the
rest of us poor mortals.

For instance, if they are told that their holy hearts are wrong, they spend
time and much money in rushing to a place called Nauheim in Germany, to put
them right by means of water-drinking, thereby shortening their hours of
heavenly bliss and depriving their heirs of a certain amount of cash. The same
thing applies to Buxton in my own neighbourhood and gout, especially when it
threatens the stomach or the throat. Even archbishops will do these things, to
say nothing of such small fry as deans, or stout and prominent lay figures of
the Church.

From common sinners like myself such conduct might be expected, but in the case
of those who are obviously poised on the topmost rungs of the Jacobean—I
mean, the heavenly—ladder, it is legitimate to inquire why they show such
reluctance in jumping off. As a matter of fact the only persons that,
individually, I have seen quite willing to die, except now and again to save
somebody else whom they were so foolish as to care for more than they did for
themselves, have been not those “upon whom the light has shined” to
quote an earnest paper I chanced to read this morning, but, to quote again,
“the sinful heathen wandering in their native blackness,” by which
I understand the writer to refer to their moral state and not to their sable
skins wherein for the most part they are also condemned to wander, that is if
they happen to have been born south of a certain degree of latitude.

To come to facts, the staff of Faith which each must shape for himself, is
often hewn from unsuitable kinds of wood, yes, even by the very best among us.
Willow, for instance, is pretty and easy to cut, but try to support yourself
with it on the edge of a precipice and see where you are. Then of a truth you
will long for ironbark, or even homely oak. I might carry my parable further,
some allusions to the proper material of which to fashion the helmet of
Salvation suggest themselves to me for example, but I won’t.

The truth is that we fear to die because all the religions are full of
uncomfortable hints as to what may happen to us afterwards as a reward for our
deviations from their laws and we half believe in something, whereas often the
savage, not being troubled with religion, fears less, because he half believes
in nothing. For very few inhabitants of this earth can attain either to
complete belief or to its absolute opposite. They can seldom lay their hands
upon their hearts, and say they know that they will live for ever, or
sleep for ever; there remains in the case of most honest men an element of
doubt in either hypothesis.

That is what makes this story of mine so interesting, at any rate to me, since
it does seem to suggest that whether or no I have a future, as personally I
hold to be the case and not altogether without evidence, certainly I have had a
past, though, so far as I know, in this world only; a fact, if it be a fact,
from which can be deduced all kinds of arguments according to the taste of the
reasoner.

And now for my experience, which it is only fair to add, may after all have
been no more than a long and connected dream. Yet how was I to dream of lands,
events and people whereof I have only the vaguest knowledge, or none at all,
unless indeed, as some say, being a part of this world, we have hidden away
somewhere in ourselves an acquaintance with everything that has ever happened
in the world. However, it does not much matter and it is useless to discuss
that which we cannot prove.

Here at any rate is the story.

In a book or a record which I have written down and put away with others under
the title of “The Ivory Child,” I have told the tale of a certain
expedition I made in company with Lord Ragnall. Its object was to search for
his wife who was stolen away while travelling in Egypt in a state of mental
incapacity resulting from shock caused by the loss of her child under tragic
and terrible circumstances. The thieves were the priests of a certain bastard
Arab tribe who, on account of a birthmark shaped like the young moon which was
visible above her breast, believed her to be the priestess or oracle of their
worship. This worship evidently had its origin in Ancient Egypt since, although
they did not seem to know it, the priestess was nothing less than a
personification of the great goddess Isis, and the Ivory Child, their fetish,
was a statue of the infant Horus, the fabled son of Isis and Osiris whom the
Egyptians looked upon as the overcomer of Set or the Devil, the murderer of
Osiris before his resurrection and ascent to Heaven to be the god of the dead.

I need not set down afresh all that happened to us on this remarkable
adventure. Suffice it to say that in the end we recovered the lady and that her
mind was restored to her. Before she left the Kendah country, however, the
priesthood presented her with two ancient rolls of papyrus, also with a
quantity of a certain herb, not unlike tobacco in appearance, which by the
Kendah was called Taduki. Once, before we took our great homeward
journey across the desert, Lady Ragnall and I had a curious conversation about
this herb whereof the property is to cause the person who inhales its fumes to
become clairvoyant, or to dream dreams, whichever the truth may be. It was used
for this purpose in the mystical ceremonies of the Kendah religion when under
its influence the priestess or oracle of the Ivory Child was wont to announce
divine revelations. During her tenure of this office Lady Ragnall was
frequently subjected to the spell of the Taduki vapour, and said strange
things, some of which I heard with my own ears. Also myself once I experienced
its effects and saw a curious vision, whereof many of the particulars were
afterwards translated into facts.

Now the conversation which I have mentioned was shortly to the effect, that
she, Lady Ragnall, believed a time would come when she or I or both of us, were
destined to imbibe these Taduki fumes and see wonderful pictures of some
past or future existence in which we were both concerned. This knowledge, she
declared, had come to her while she was officiating in an apparently mindless
condition as the priestess of the Kendah god called the Ivory Child.

At the time I did not think it wise to pursue so exciting a subject with a
woman whose mind had been recently unbalanced, and afterwards in the stress of
new experiences, I forgot all about the matter, or at any rate only thought of
it very rarely.

Once, however, it did recur to me with some force. Shortly after I came to
England to spend my remaining days far from the temptations of adventure, I was
beguiled into becoming a steward of a Charity dinner and, what was worse, into
attending the said dinner. Although its objects were admirable, it proved one
of the most dreadful functions in which I was ever called upon to share. There
was a vast number of people, some of them highly distinguished, who had come to
support the Charity or to show off their Orders, I don’t know which, and
others like myself, not at all distinguished, just common subscribers, who had
no Orders and stood about the crowded room like waiters looking for a job.

At the dinner, which was very bad, I sat at a table so remote that I could hear
but little of the interminable speeches, which was perhaps fortunate for me. In
these circumstances I drifted into conversation with my neighbour, a queer,
wizened, black-bearded man who somehow or other had found out that I was
acquainted with the wilder parts of Africa. He proved to be a wealthy scientist
whose passion it was to study the properties of herbs, especially of such as
grow in the interior of South America where he had been travelling for some
years.

Presently he mentioned a root named Yagé, known to the Indians which, when
pounded up into a paste and taken in the form of pills, had the effect of
enabling the patient to see events that were passing at a distance. Indeed he
alleged that a vision thus produced had caused him to return home, since in it
he saw that some relative of his, I think a twin-sister, was dangerously ill.
In fact, however, he might as well have stayed away, as he only arrived in
London on the day after her funeral.

As I saw that he was really interested in the subject and observed that he was
a very temperate man who did not seem to be romancing, I told him something of
my experiences with Taduki, to which he listened with a kind of rapt but
suppressed excitement. When I affected disbelief in the whole business, he
differed from me almost rudely, asking why I rejected phenomena simply because
I was too dense to understand them. I answered perhaps because such phenomena
were inconvenient and upset one’s ideas. To this he replied that all
progress involved the upsetting of existent ideas. Moreover he implored me, if
the chance should ever come my way, to pursue experiments with Taduki
fumes and let him know the results.

Here our conversation came to an end for suddenly a band that was braying near
by, struck up “God save the Queen,” and we hastily exchanged cards
and parted. I only mention it because, had it not occurred, I think it probable
that I should never have been in a position to write this history.

The remarks of my acquaintance remained in my mind and influenced it so much
that when the occasion came, I did as a kind of duty what, however much I was
pressed, I am almost sure I should never have done for any other reason, just
because I thought that I ought to take an opportunity of trying to discover
what was the truth of the matter. As it chanced it was quick in coming.

Here I should explain that I attended the dinner of which I have spoken not
very long after a very lengthy absence from England, whither I had come to live
when King Solomon’s Mines had made me rich. Therefore it happened that
between the conclusion of my Kendah adventure some years before and this time I
saw nothing and heard little of Lord and Lady Ragnall. Once a rumour did reach
me, however, I think through Sir Henry Curtis or Captain Good, that the former
had died as a result of an accident. What the accident was my informant did not
know and as I was just starting on a far journey at the time, I had no
opportunity of making inquiries. My talk with the botanical scientist
determined me to do so; indeed a few days later I discovered from a book of
reference that Lord Ragnall was dead, leaving no heir; also that his wife
survived him.

I was working myself up to write to her when one morning the postman brought me
here at the Grange a letter which had “Ragnall Castle” printed on
the flap of the envelope. I did not know the writing which was very clear and
firm, for as it chanced, to the best of my recollection, I had never seen that
of Lady Ragnall. Here is a copy of the letter it contained:

“MY DEAR MR.
QUATERMAIN,—Very strangely I have just seen at a meeting
of the Horticultural Society, a gentleman who declares that a few days ago he
sat next to you at some public dinner. Indeed I do not think there can be any
doubt for he showed me your card which he had in his purse with a Yorkshire
address upon it.

“A dispute had arisen as to whether a certain variety of Crinum lily was
first found in Africa, or Southern America. This gentleman, an authority upon
South American flora, made a speech saying that he had never met with it there,
but that an acquaintance of his, Mr. Quatermain, to whom he had spoken on the
subject, said that he had seen something of the sort in the interior of
Africa.” (This was quite true for I remembered the incident.) “At
the tea which followed the meeting I spoke to this gentleman whose name I never
caught, and to my astonishment learnt that he must have been referring to you
whom I believed to be dead, for so we were told a long time ago. This seemed
certain, for in addition to the evidence of the name, he described your
personal appearance and told me that you had come to live in England.

“My dear friend, I can assure you it is long since I heard anything which
rejoiced me so much. Oh! as I write all the past comes back, flowing in upon me
like a pent-up flood of water, but I trust that of this I shall soon have an
opportunity of talking to you. So let it be for a while.

“Alas! my friend, since we parted on the shores of the Red Sea, tragedy
has pursued me. As you will know, for both my husband and I wrote to you,
although you did not answer the letters” (I never received them),
“we reached England safely and took up our old life again, though to tell
you the truth, after my African experiences things could never be quite the
same to me, or for the matter of that to George either. To a great extent he
changed his pursuits and certain political ambitions which he once cherished,
seemed no longer to appeal to him. He became a student of past history and
especially of Egyptology, which under all the circumstances you may think
strange, as I did. However it suited me well enough, since I also have tastes
that way. So we worked together and I can now read hieroglyphics as well as
most people. One year he said that he would like to go to Egypt again, if I
were not afraid. I answered that it had not been a very lucky place for us, but
that personally I was not in the least afraid and longed to return there. For
as you know, I have, or think I have, ties with Egypt and indeed with all
Africa. Well, we went and had a very happy time, although I was always
expecting to see old Harût come round the corner.

“After this it became a custom with us who, since George practically gave
up shooting and attending the House of Lords, had nothing to keep us in
England, to winter in Egypt. We did this for five years in succession, living
in a bungalow which we built at a place in the desert, not far from the banks
of the Nile, about half way between Luxor which was the ancient Thebes, and
Assouan. George took a great fancy to this spot when first he saw it, and so in
truth did I, for, like Memphis, it attracted me so much that I used to laugh
and say I believed that once I had something to do with it.

“Now near to our villa that we called ‘Ragnall’ after this
house, are the remains of a temple which were almost buried in the sand. This
temple George obtained permission to excavate. It proved to be a long and
costly business, but as he did not mind spending the money, that was no
obstacle. For four winters we worked at it, employing several hundred men. As
we went on we discovered that although not one of the largest, the temple,
owing to its having been buried by the sand during, or shortly after the Roman
epoch, remained much more perfect than we had expected, because the early
Christians had never got at it with their chisels and hammers. Before long I
hope to show you pictures and photographs of the various courts, etc., so I
will not attempt to describe them now.

“It is a temple to Isis—built, or rather rebuilt over the remains
of an older temple on a site that seems to have been called Amada, at any rate
in the later days, and so named after a city in Nubia, apparently by one of the
Amen-hetep Pharaohs who had conquered it. Its style is beautiful, being of the
best period of the Egyptian Renaissance under the last native dynasties.

“At the beginning of the fifth winter, at length we approached the
sanctuary, a difficult business because of the retaining walls that had to be
built to keep the sand from flowing down as fast as it was removed, and the
great quantities of stuff that must be carried off by the tramway. In so doing
we came upon a shallow grave which appeared to have been hastily filled in and
roughly covered over with paving stones like the rest of the court, as though
to conceal its existence. In this grave lay the skeleton of a large man,
together with the rusted blade of an iron sword and some fragments of armour.
Evidently he had never been mummified, for there were no wrappings, canopic
jars, ushapti figures or funeral offerings. The state of the bones
showed us why, for the right forearm was cut through and the skull smashed in;
also an iron arrow-head lay among the ribs. The man had been buried hurriedly
after a battle in which he had met his death. Searching in the dust beneath the
bones we found a gold ring still on one of the fingers. On its bezel was
engraved the cartouche of ‘Peroa, beloved of Ra.’ Now Peroa
probably means Pharaoh and perhaps he was Khabasha who revolted against the
Persians and ruled for a year or two, after which he is supposed to have been
defeated and killed, though of his end and place of burial there is no record.
Whether these were the remnants of Khabasha himself, or of one of his high
ministers or generals who wore the King’s cartouche upon his ring in
token of his office, of course I cannot say.

“When George had read the cartouche he handed me the ring which I slipped
upon the first finger of my left hand, where I still wear it. Then leaving the
grave open for further examination, we went on with the work, for we were
greatly excited. At length, this was towards evening, we had cleared enough of
the sanctuary, which was small, to uncover the shrine that, if not a monolith,
was made of four pieces of granite so wonderfully put together that one could
not see the joints. On the curved architrave as I think it is called, was
carved the symbol of a winged disc, and beneath in hieroglyphics as fresh as
though they had only been cut yesterday, an inscription to the effect that
Peroa, Royal Son of the Sun, gave this shrine as an ‘excellent eternal
work,’ together with the statues of the Holy Mother and the Holy Child to
the ‘emanations of the great Goddess Isis and the god Horus,’
Amada, Royal Lady, being votaress or high-priestess.

“We only read the hieroglyphics very hurriedly, being anxious to see what
was within the shrine that, the cedar door having rotted away, was filled with
fine, drifted sand. Basketful by basketful we got it out and then, my friend,
there appeared the most beautiful life-sized statue of Isis carved in alabaster
that ever I have seen. She was seated on a throne-like chair and wore the
vulture cap on which traces of colour remained. Her arms were held forward as
though to support a child, which perhaps she was suckling as one of the breasts
was bare. But if so, the child had gone. The execution of the statue was
exquisite and its tender and mystic face extraordinarily beautiful, so
life-like also that I think it must have been copied from a living model. Oh!
my friend, when I looked upon it, which we did by the light of the candles, for
the sun was sinking and shadows gathered in that excavated hole, I
felt—never mind what I felt—perhaps you can guess who know
my history.

“While we stared and stared, I longing to go upon my knees, I knew not
why, suddenly I felt a faint trembling of the ground. At the same moment, the
head overseer of the works, a man called Achmet, rushed up to us, shouting
out—‘Back! Back! The wall has burst. The sand runs!’

“He seized me by the arm and dragged me away beside of and behind the
grave, George turning to follow. Next instant I saw a kind of wave of sand, on
the crest of which appeared the stones of the wall, curl over and break. It
struck the shrine, overturned and shattered it, which makes me think it was
made of four pieces, and shattered also the alabaster statue within, for I saw
its head strike George upon the back and throw him forward. He reeled and fell
into the open grave which in another moment was filled and covered with the
débris that seemed to grip me to my middle in its flow. After this I remembered
nothing more until hours later I found myself lying in our house.

“Achmet and his Egyptians had done nothing; indeed none of them could be
persuaded to approach the place till the sun rose because, as they said, the
old gods of the land whom they looked upon as devils, were angry at being
disturbed and would kill them as they had killed the Bey, meaning George. Then,
distracted as I was, I went myself for there was no other European there, to
find that the whole site of the sanctuary was buried beneath hundreds of tons
of sand, that, beginning at the gap in the broken wall, had flowed from every
side. Indeed it would have taken weeks to dig it out, since to sink a shaft was
impracticable and so dangerous that the local officials refused to allow it to
be attempted. The end of it was that an English bishop came up from Cairo and
consecrated the ground by special arrangement with the Government, which of
course makes it impossible that this part of the temple should be further
disturbed. After this he read the Burial Service over my dear husband.

“So there is the end of a very terrible story which I have written down
because I do not wish to have to talk about it more than is necessary when we
meet. For, dear Mr. Quatermain, we shall meet, as I always knew that we
should—yes, even after I heard that you were dead. You will remember that
I told you so years ago in Kendah Land and that it would happen after a great
change in my life, though what that change might be I could not say....”

This is the end of the letter except for certain suggested dates for the visit
which she took for granted I should make to Ragnall.

CHAPTER II.
RAGNALL CASTLE

When I had finished reading this amazing document I lit my pipe and set to work
to think it over. The hypothetical inquirer might ask why I thought it amazing.
There was nothing odd in a dilettante Englishman of highly cultivated mind
taking to Egyptology and, being, as it chanced, one of the richest men in the
kingdom, spending a fraction of his wealth in excavating temples. Nor was it
strange that he should have happened to die by accident when engaged in that
pursuit, which I can imagine to be very fascinating in the delightful winter
climate of Egypt. He was not the first person to be buried by a fall of sand.
Why, only a little while ago the same fate overtook a nursery-governess and the
child in her charge who were trying to dig out a martin’s nest in a pit
in this very parish. Their operations brought down a huge mass of the
overhanging bank beneath which the sand-vein had been hollowed by workmen who
deserted the pit when they saw that it had become unsafe. Next day I and my
gardeners helped to recover their bodies, for their whereabouts was not
discovered until the following morning, and a sad business it was.

Yet, taken in conjunction with the history of this couple, the whole Ragnall
affair was very strange. When but a child Lady Ragnall, then the Hon. Miss
Holmes, had been identified by the priests of a remote African tribe as the
oracle of their peculiar faith, which we afterwards proved to be derived from
old Egypt, in short the worship of Isis and Horus. Subsequently they tried to
steal her away and through the accident of my intervention, failed. Later on,
after her marriage when shock had deprived her of her mind, these priests
renewed the attempt, this time in Egypt, and succeeded. In the end we rescued
her in Central Africa, where she was playing the part of the Mother-goddess
Isis and even wearing her ancient robes. Next she and her husband came home
with their minds turned towards a branch of study that took them back to Egypt.
Here they devote themselves to unearthing a temple and find out that among all
the gods of Egypt, who seem to have been extremely numerous, it was dedicated
to Isis and Horus, the very divinities with whom they recently they had been so
intimately concerned if in traditional and degenerate forms.

Moreover that was not the finish of it. They come to the sanctuary. They
discover the statue of the goddess with the child gone, as their child was
gone. A disaster occurs and both destroys and buries Ragnall so effectually
that nothing of him is ever seen again: he just vanishes into another
man’s grave and remains there.

A common sort of catastrophe enough, it is true, though people of superstitious
mind might have thought that it looked as though the goddess, or whatever force
was behind the goddess, was working vengeance on the man who desecrated her
ancient shrine. And, by the way, though I cannot remember whether or no I
mentioned it in “The Ivory Child,” I recall that the old priest of
the Kendah, Harût, once told me he was sure Ragnall would meet with a violent
death. This seemed likely enough in that country under our circumstances there,
still I asked him why. He answered,

“Because he has laid hands on that which is holy and not meant for
man,” and he looked at Lady Ragnall.

I remarked that all women were holy, whereon he replied that he did not think
so and changed the subject.

Well, Ragnall, who had married the lady who once served as the last priestess
of Isis upon earth, was killed, whereas she, the priestess, was almost
miraculously preserved from harm. And—oh! the whole story was deuced odd
and that is all. Poor Ragnall! He was a great English gentleman and one whom
when first I knew him, I held to be the most fortunate person I ever met,
endowed as he was with every advantage of mind, body and estate. Yet in the end
this did not prove to be the case. Well, while he lived he was a good friend
and a good fellow and none can hope for a better epitaph in a world where all
things are soon forgotten.

And now, what was I to do? To tell the truth I did not altogether desire to
reopen this chapter in past history, or to have to listen to painful
reminiscences from the lips of a bereaved woman. Moreover, beautiful as she had
been, for doubtless she was passée now, and charming as of course she
remained—I do not think I ever knew anyone who was quite so
charming—there was something about Lady Ragnall which alarmed me. She did
not resemble any other woman. Of course no woman is ever quite like another,
but in her case the separateness, if I may so call it, was very marked. It was
as though she had walked out of a different age, or even world, and been but
superficially clothed with the attributes of our own. I felt that from the
first moment I set eyes upon her and while reading her letter the sensation
returned with added force.

Also for me she had a peculiar attraction and not one of the ordinary kind. It
is curious to find oneself strangely intimate with a person of whom after all
one does not know much, just as if one really knew a great deal that was shut
off by a thin but quite impassable door. If so, I did not want to open that
door for who could tell what might be on the other side of it? And intimate
conversations with a lady in whose company one has shared very strange
experiences, not infrequently lead to the opening of every kind of door.

Further I had made up my mind some time ago to have no more friendships with
women who are so full of surprises, but to live out the rest of my life in a
kind of monastery of men who have few surprises, being creatures whose thoughts
are nearly always open and whose actions can always be foretold.

Lastly there was that Taduki business. Well, there at any rate I was
clear and decided. No earthly power would induce me to have anything more to do
with Taduki smoke. Of course I remembered that Lady Ragnall once told me
kindly but firmly that I would if she wished. But that was just where she made
a mistake. For the rest it seemed unkind to refuse her invitation now when she
was in trouble, especially as I had once promised that if ever I could be of
help, she had only to command me. No, I must go. But if that
word—Taduki—were so much as mentioned I would leave again in
a hurry. Moreover it would not be, for doubtless she had forgotten all about
the stuff by now, even if it were not lost.

The end of it was that as I did not wish to write a long letter entering into
all that Lady Ragnall had told me, I sent her a telegram, saying that if
convenient to her, I would arrive at the Castle on the following Saturday
evening and adding that I must be back here on the Tuesday afternoon, as I had
guests coming to stay with me on that day. This was perfectly true as the
season was mid-November and I was to begin shooting my coverts on the Wednesday
morning, a function that once fixed, cannot be postponed.

In due course an answer arrived—“Delighted, but hoped that you
would have been able to stay longer.”

Behold me then about six o’clock on the said Saturday evening being once
more whirled by a splendid pair of horses through the gateway arch of Ragnall
Castle. The carriage stopped beneath the portico, the great doors flew open
revealing the glow of the hall fire and lights within, the footman sprang down
from the box and two other footmen descended the steps to assist me and my
belongings out of the carriage. These, I remember, consisted of a handbag with
my dress clothes and a yellow-backed novel.

So one of them took the handbag and the other had to content himself with the
novel, which made me wish I had brought a portmanteau as well, if only for the
look of the thing. The pair thus burdened, escorted me up the steps and
delivered me over to the butler who scanned me with a critical eye. I scanned
him also and perceived that he was a very fine specimen of his class. Indeed
his stately presence so overcame me that I remarked nervously, as he helped me
off with my coat, that when last I was here another had filled his office.

“Indeed, Sir,” he said, “and what was his name, Sir?”

“Savage,” I replied.

“And where might he be now, Sir?”

“Inside a snake!” I answered. “At least he was inside a snake
but now I hope he is waiting upon his master in Heaven.”

The man recoiled a little, pulling off my coat with a jerk. Then he coughed,
rubbed his bald head, stared and recovering himself with an effort, said,

“Indeed, Sir! I only came to this place after the death of his late
lordship, when her ladyship changed all the household. Alfred, show this
gentleman up to her ladyship’s boudoir, and William, take
his—baggage—to the blue room. Her ladyship wishes to see you at
once, Sir, before the others come.”

So I went up the big staircase to a part of the Castle that I did not remember,
wondering who “the others” might be. Almost could I have sworn that
the shade of Savage accompanied me up those stairs; I could feel him at my
side.

Presently a door was thrown open and I was ushered into a room somewhat dimly
lit and full of the scent of flowers. By the fire near a tea-table, stood a
lady clad in some dark dress with the light glinting on her rich-hued hair. She
turned and I saw that she still wore the necklace of red stones, and beneath it
on her breast a single red flower. For this was Lady Ragnall; about that there
was no doubt at all, so little doubt indeed that I was amazed. I had expected
to see a stout, elderly woman whom I should only know by the colour of her eyes
and her voice, and perhaps certain tricks of manner. But, this was the mischief
of it, I could not perceive any change, at any rate in that light. She was just
the same! Perhaps a little fuller in figure, which was an advantage; perhaps a
little more considered in her movements, perhaps a little taller or at any rate
more stately, and that was all.

These things I learned in a flash. Then with a murmured “Mr. Quatermain,
my Lady,” the footman closed the door and she saw me.

Moving quickly towards me with both her hands outstretched, she exclaimed in
that honey-soft voice of hers,

“Oh! my dear friend——” stopped and added, “Why,
you haven’t changed a bit.”

“Fossils wear well,” I replied, “but that is just what I was
thinking of you.”

“Then it is very rude of you to call me a fossil when I am only
approaching that stage. Oh! I am glad to see you. I am glad!” and
she gave me both the outstretched hands.

Upon my word I felt inclined to kiss her and have wondered ever since if she
would have been very angry. I am not certain that she did not divine the
inclination. At any rate after a little pause she dropped my hands and laughed.
Then she said,

“I must tell you at once. A most terrible catastrophe has
happened——”

Instantly it occurred to me that she had forgotten having informed me by letter
of all the details of her husband’s death. Such things chance to people
who have once lost their memory. So I tried to look as sympathetic as I felt,
sighed and waited.

“It’s not so bad as all that,” she said with a little shake
of her head, reading my thought as she always had the power to do from the
first moment we met. “We can talk about that afterwards.
It’s only that I hoped we were going to have a quiet two days, and now
the Atterby-Smiths are coming, yes, in half an hour. Five of them!”

“The Atterby-Smiths!” I exclaimed, for somehow I too felt
disappointed. “Who are the Atterby-Smiths?”

“Cousins of George’s, his nearest relatives. They think he ought to
have left them everything. But he didn’t, because he could never bear the
sight of them. You see his property was unentailed and he left it all to me.
Now the entire family is advancing to suggest that I should leave it to them,
as perhaps I might have done if they had not chosen to come just now.”

“Why didn’t you put them off?” I asked.

“Because I couldn’t,” she answered with a little stamp of her
foot, “otherwise do you suppose they would have been here? They were far
too clever. They telegraphed after lunch giving the train by which they were to
arrive, but no address save Charing Cross. I thought of moving up to the
Berkeley Square house, but it was impossible in the time, also I didn’t
know how to catch you. Oh! it’s most vexatious.”

“Perhaps they are very nice,” I suggested feebly.

“Nice! Wait till you have seen them. Besides if they had been angels I
did not want them just now. But how selfish I am! Come and have some tea. And
you can stop longer, that is if you live through the Atterby-Smiths who are
worse than both the Kendah tribes put together. Indeed I wish old Harût were
coming instead. I should like to see Harût again, wouldn’t you?”
and suddenly the mystical look I knew so well, gathered on her face.

“Yes, perhaps I should,” I replied doubtfully. “But I must
leave by the first train on Tuesday morning; it goes at eight o’clock. I
looked it up.”

“Then the Atterby-Smiths leave on Monday if I have to turn them out of
the house. So we shall get one evening clear at any rate. Stop a minute,”
and she rang the bell.

The footman appeared as suddenly as though he had been listening at the door.

“Alfred,” she said, “tell Moxley” (he, I discovered,
was the butler) “that when Mr. and Mrs. Atterby-Smith, the two Misses
Atterby-Smith and the young Mr. Atterby-Smith arrive, they are to be shown to
their rooms. Tell the cook also to put off dinner till half-past eight, and if
Mr. and Mrs. Scroope arrive earlier, tell Moxley to tell them that I am sorry
to be a little late, but that I was delayed by some parish business. Now do you
understand?”

“Yes, my Lady,” said Alfred and vanished.

“He doesn’t understand in the least,” remarked Lady Ragnall,
“but so long as he doesn’t show the Atterby-Smiths up here, in
which case he can go away with them on Monday, I don’t care. It will all
work out somehow. Now sit down by the fire and let’s talk. We’ve
got nearly an hour and twenty minutes and you can smoke if you like. I learnt
to in Egypt,” and she took a cigarette from the mantelpiece and lit it.

That hour and twenty minutes went like a flash, for we had so much to say to
each other that we never even got to the things we wanted to say. For instance,
I began to tell her about King Solomon’s Mines, which was a long story;
and she to tell me what happened after we parted on the shores of the Red Sea.
At least the first hour and a quarter went, when suddenly the door opened and
Alfred in a somewhat frightened voice announced—“Mr. and Mrs.
Atterby-Smith, the Misses Atterby-Smith and Mr. Atterby-Smith junior.”

Then he caught sight of his mistress’s eye and fled.

I looked and felt inclined to do likewise if only there had been another door.
But there wasn’t and that which existed was quite full. In the forefront
came A.-S. senior, like a bull leading the herd. Indeed his appearance was
bull-like as my eye, travelling from the expanse of white shirt-front (they
were all dressed for dinner) to his red and massive countenance surmounted by
two horn-like tufts of carroty hair, informed me at a glance. Followed Mrs.
A.-S., the British matron incarnate. Literally there seemed to be acres of her;
black silk below and white skin above on which set in filigree floated big
green stones, like islands in an ocean. Her countenance too, though stupid was
very stern and frightened me. Followed the progeny of this formidable pair.
They were tall and thin, also red haired. The girls, whose age I could not
guess in the least, were exactly like each other, which was not strange as
afterwards I discovered that they were twins. They had pale blue eyes and
somehow reminded me of fish. Both of them were dressed in green and wore topaz
necklaces. The young man who seemed to be about one or two and twenty, had also
pale blue eyes, in one of which he wore an eye-glass, but his hair was sandy as
though it had been bleached, parted in the middle and oiled down flat.

For a moment there was a silence which I felt to be dreadful. Then in a big,
pompous voice A.-S. père said,

“How do you do, my dear Luna? As I ascertained from the footman that you
had not yet gone to dress, I insisted upon his leading us here for a little
private conversation after we have been parted for so many years. We wished to
offer you our condolences in person on your and our still recent loss.”

“Thank you,” said Lady Ragnall, “but I think we have
corresponded on the subject which is painful to me.”

“I fear that we are interrupting a smoking party, Thomas,” said
Mrs. A.-S. in a cold voice, sniffing at the air for all the world like a
suspicious animal, whereon the five of them stared at Lady Ragnall’s
cigarette which she held between her fingers.

“Yes,” said Lady Ragnall. “Won’t you have one? Mr.
Quatermain, hand Mrs. Smith the box, please.”

I obeyed automatically, proffering it to the lady who nearly withered me with a
glance, and then to each to each in turn. To my relief the young man took one.

“Archibald,” said his mother, “you are surely not going to
make your sisters’ dresses smell of tobacco just before dinner.”

Archibald sniggered and replied,

“A little more smoke will not make any difference in this room,
Ma.”

“That is true, darling,” said Mrs. A.-S. and was straightway seized
with a fit of asthma.

After this I am sure I don’t know what happened, for muttering something
about its being time to dress, I rushed from the room and wandered about until
I could find someone to conduct me to my own where I lingered until I heard the
dinner-bell ring. But even this retreat was not without disaster, for in my
hurry I trod upon one of the young lady’s dresses; I don’t know
whether it was Dolly’s or Polly’s (they were named Dolly and Polly)
and heard a dreadful crack about her middle as though she were breaking in two.
Thereon Archibald giggled again and Dolly and Polly remarked with one
voice—they always spoke together,

“Oh! clumsy!”

To complete my misfortunes I missed my way going downstairs and strayed to and
fro like a lost lamb until I found myself confronted by a green baize door
which reminded me of something. I stood staring at it till suddenly a vision
arose before me of myself following a bell wire through that very door in the
darkness of the night when in search for the late Mr. Savage upon a certain
urgent occasion. Yes, there could be no doubt about it, for look! there was the
wire, and strange it seemed to me that I should live to behold it again.
Curiosity led me to push the door open just to ascertain if my memory served me
aright about the exact locality of the room. Next moment I regretted it for I
fell straight into the arms of either Polly or Dolly.

“Oh!” said she, “I’ve just been sewn up.”

I reflected that this was my case also in another sense, but asked feebly if
she knew the way downstairs.

She didn’t; neither of us did, till at length we met Mrs. Smith coming to
look for her.

If I had been a burglar she could not have regarded me with graver suspicions.
But at any rate she knew the way downstairs. And there to my joy I found
my old friend Scroope and his wife, both of them grown stout and elderly, but
as jolly as ever, after which the Smith family ceased to trouble me.

Also there was the rector of the parish, Dr. Jeffreys and an absurdly young
wife whom he had recently married, a fluffy-headed little thing with round eyes
and a cheerful, perky manner. The two of them together looked exactly like a
turkey-cock and a chicken. I remembered him well enough and to my astonishment
he remembered me, perhaps because Lady Ragnall, when she had hastily invited
him to meet the Smith family, mentioned that I was coming. Lastly there was the
curate, a dark, young man who seemed to be always brooding over the secrets of
time and eternity, though perhaps he was only thinking about his dinner or the
next day’s services.

Well, there we stood in that well-remembered drawing-room in which first I had
made the acquaintance of Harût and Marût; also of the beautiful Miss Holmes as
Lady Ragnall was then called. The Scroopes, the Jeffreys and I gathered in one
group and the Atterby-Smiths in another like a force about to attack, while
between the two, brooding and indeterminate, stood the curate, a neutral
observer.

Presently Lady Ragnall arrived, apologizing for being late. For some reason
best known to herself she had chosen to dress as though for a great party. I
believe it was out of mischief and in order to show Mrs. Atterby-Smith some of
the diamonds she was firmly determined that family should never inherit. At any
rate there she stood glittering and lovely, and smiled upon us.

Then came dinner and once more I marched to the great hall in her company; Dr.
Jeffreys got Mrs. Smith; Papa Smith got Mrs. Jeffreys who looked like a Grecian
maiden walking into dinner with the Minotaur; Scroope got one of the Miss
Smiths, she who wore a pink bow, the gloomy curate got the other with a blue
bow, and Archibald got Mrs. Scroope who departed making faces at us over his
shoulder.

“You look very grand and nice,” I said to Lady Ragnall as we
followed the others at a discreet distance.

“I am glad,” she answered, “as to the nice, I mean. As for
the grand, that dreadful woman is always writing to me about the Ragnall
diamonds, so I thought that she should see some of them for the first and last
time. Do you know I haven’t worn these things since George and I went to
Court together, and I daresay shall never wear them again, for there is only
one ornament I care for and I have got that on under my dress.”

I stared and her and with a laugh said that she was very mischievous.

“I suppose so,” she replied, “but I detest those people who
are pompous and rude and have spoiled my party. Do you know I had half a mind
to come down in the dress that I wore as Isis in Kendah Land. I have got it
upstairs and you shall see me in it before you go, for old time’s sake.
Only it occurred to me that they might think me mad, so I didn’t. Dr.
Jeffreys, will you say grace, please?”

Well, it was a most agreeable dinner so far as I was concerned, for I sat
between my hostess and Mrs. Scroope and the rest were too far off for
conversation. Moreover as Archibald developed an unexpected quantity of small
talk, and Scroope on the other side amused himself by filling pink-bow Miss
Smith’s innocent mind with preposterous stories about Africa, as had
happened to me once before at this table, Lady Ragnall and I were practically
left undisturbed.

“Isn’t it strange that we should find ourselves sitting here again
after all these years, except that you are in my poor mother’s place? Oh!
when that scientific gentleman convinced me the other day that you whom I had
heard were dead, were not only alive and well but actually in England, really I
could have embraced him.”

I thought of an answer but did not make it, though as usual she read my mind
for I saw her smile.

“The truth is,” she went on, “I am an only child and really
have no friends, though of course being—well, you know,” and she
glanced at the jewels on her breast, “I have plenty of
acquaintances.”

“And suitors,” I suggested.

“Yes,” she replied blushing, “as many as Penelope, not one of
whom cares twopence about me any more than I care for them. The truth is, Mr.
Quatermain, that nobody and nothing interest me, except a spot in the
churchyard yonder and another amid ruins in Egypt.”

“You have had sad bereavements,” I said looking the other way.

“Very sad and they have left life empty. Still I should not complain for
I have had my share of good. Also it isn’t true to say that nothing
interests me. Egypt interests me, though after what has happened I do not feel
as though I could return there. All Africa interests me and,” she added
dropping her voice, “I can say it because I know you will not
misunderstand, you interest me, as you have always done since the first moment
I saw you.”

“I!” I exclaimed, staring at my own reflection in a silver
plate which made me look—well, more unattractive than usual.
“It’s very kind of you to say so, but I can’t understand why
I should. You have seen very little of me, Lady Ragnall, except in that long
journey across the desert when we did not talk much, since you were otherwise
engaged.”

“I know. That’s the odd part of it, for I feel as though I had seen
you for years and years and knew everything about you that one human being can
know of another. Of course, too, I do know a good lot of your life through
George and Harût.”

“Harût was a great liar,” I said uneasily.

“Was he? I always thought him painfully truthful, though how he got at
the truth I do not know. Anyhow,” she added with meaning,
“don’t suppose I think the worse of you because others have thought
so well. Women who seem to be all different, generally, I notice, have this in
common. If one or two of them like a man, the rest like him also because
something in him appeals to the universal feminine instinct, and the same
applies to their dislike. Now men, I think, are different in that
respect.”

“Perhaps because they are more catholic and charitable,” I
suggested, “or perhaps because they like those who like them.”

She laughed in her charming way, and said,

“However these remarks do not apply to you and me, for as I think I told
you once before in that cedar wood in Kendah Land where you feared lest I
should catch a chill, or become—odd again, it is another you with whom
something in me seems to be so intimate.”

“That’s fortunate for your sake,” I muttered, still staring
at and pointing to the silver plate.

Again she laughed. “Do you remember the Taduki herb?” she
asked. “I have plenty of it safe upstairs, and not long ago I took a
whiff of it, only a whiff because you know it had to be saved.”

“And what did you see?”

“Never mind. The question is what shall we both see?”

“Nothing,” I said firmly. “No earthly power will make me
breathe that unholy drug again.”

“Except me,” she murmured with sweet decision. “No,
don’t think about leaving the house. You can’t, there are no Sunday
trains. Besides you won’t if I ask you not.”

“‘In vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird,’”
I replied, firm as a mountain.

“Is it? Then why are so many caught?”

At that moment the Bull of Bashan—I mean Smith, began to bellow something
at his hostess from the other end of the table and our conversation came to an
end.

“I say, old chap,” whispered Scroope in my ear when we stood up to
see the ladies out. “I suppose you are thinking of marrying again. Well,
you might do worse,” and he glanced at the glittering form of Lady
Ragnall vanishing through the doorway behind her guests.

“Shut up, you idiot!” I replied indignantly.

“Why?” he asked with innocence. “Marriage is an honourable
estate, especially when there is lots of the latter. I remember saying
something of the sort to you years ago and at this table, when as it happened
you also took in her ladyship. Only there was George in the wind then; now it
has carried him away.”

Without deigning any reply I seized my glass and went to sit down between the
canon and the Bull of Bashan.

CHAPTER III.
ALLAN GIVES HIS WORD

Mr. Atterby-Smith proved on acquaintance to be even worse than unfond fancy
painted him. He was a gentleman in a way and of good family whereof the real
name was Atterby, the Smith having been added to secure a moderate fortune left
to him on that condition. His connection with Lord Ragnall was not close and
through the mother’s side. For the rest he lived in some south-coast
watering-place and fancied himself a sportsman because he had on various
occasions hired a Scottish moor or deer forest. Evidently he had never done
anything nor earned a shilling during all his life and was bringing his family
up to follow in his useless footsteps. The chief note of his character was that
intolerable vanity which so often marks men who have nothing whatsoever about
which to be vain. Also he had a great idea of his rights and what was due to
him, which he appeared to consider included, upon what ground I could not in
the least understand, the reversal of all the Ragnall properties and wealth. I
do not think I need say any more about him, except that he bored me to
extinction, especially after his fourth glass of port.

Perhaps, however, the son was worse, for he asked questions without number and
when at last I was reduced to silence, lectured me about shooting. Yes, this
callow youth who was at Sandhurst, instructed me, Allan Quatermain, how to kill
elephants, he who had never seen an elephant except when he fed it with buns at
the Zoo. At last Mr. Smith, who to Scroope’s great amusement had taken
the end of the table and assumed the position of host, gave the signal to move
and we adjourned to the drawing-room.

I don’t know what had happened but there we found the atmosphere
distinctly stormy. The ample Mrs. Smith sat in a chair fanning herself, which
caused the barbaric ornaments she wore to clank upon her fat arm. Upon either
side of her, pale and indeterminate, stood Polly and Dolly each pretending to
read a book. Somehow the three of them reminded me of a coat-of-arms seen in a
nightmare, British Matron sejant with Modesty and Virtue as supporters.
Opposite, on the other side of the fire and evidently very angry, stood Lady
Ragnall, regardant.

“Do I understand you to say, Luna,” I heard Mrs. A.-S. ask in
resonant tones as I entered the room, “that you actually played the part
of a heathen goddess among these savages, clad in a transparent
bed-robe?”

“Yes, Mrs. Atterby-Smith,” replied Lady Ragnall, “and a
nightcap of feathers. I will put it on for you if you won’t be shocked.
Or perhaps one of your daughters——”

“Oh!” said both the young ladies together, “please be quiet.
Here come the gentlemen.”

After this there was a heavy silence broken only by the stifled giggles in the
background of Mrs. Scroope and the canon’s fluffy-headed wife, who to do
her justice had some fun in her. Thank goodness the evening, or rather that
part of it did not last long, since presently Mrs. Atterby-Smith, after
studying me for a long while with a cold eye, rose majestically and swept off
to bed followed by her offspring.

Afterwards I ascertained from Mrs. Scroope that Lady Ragnall had been amusing
herself by taking away my character in every possible manner for the benefit of
her connections, who were left with a general impression that I was the chief
of a native tribe somewhere in Central Africa where I dwelt in light attire
surrounded by the usual accessories. No wonder, therefore, that Mrs. A.-S.
thought it best to remove her “Twin Pets,” as she called them, out
of my ravening reach.

Then the Scroopes went away, having arranged for me to lunch with them on the
morrow, an invitation that I hastily accepted, though I heard Lady Ragnall
mutter—“Mean!” beneath her breath. With them departed the
canon and his wife and the curate, being, as they said, “early birds with
duties to perform.” After this Lady Ragnall paid me out by going to bed,
having instructed Moxley to show us to the smoking room, “where,”
she whispered as she said good night, “I hope you will enjoy
yourself.”

Over the rest of the night I draw a veil. For a solid hour and three-quarters
did I sit in that room between this dreadful pair, being alternately questioned
and lectured. At length I could stand it no longer and while pretending to help
myself to whiskey and soda, slipped through the door and fled upstairs.

I arrived late to breakfast purposely and found that I was wise, for Lady
Ragnall was absent upstairs, recovering from “a headache.” Mr.
A.-Smith was also suffering from a headache downstairs, the result of
champagne, port and whisky mixed, and all his family seemed to have pains in
their tempers. Having ascertained that they were going to the church in the
park, I departed to one two miles away and thence walked straight on to the
Scroopes’ where I had a very pleasant time, remaining till five in the
afternoon. I returned to tea at the Castle where I found Lady Ragnall so cross
that I went to church again, to the six o’clock service this time, only
getting back in time to dress for dinner. Here I was paid out for I had to take
in Mrs. Atterby-Smith. Oh! what a meal was that. We sat for the most part in
solemn silence broken only by requests to pass the salt. I observed with
satisfaction, however, that things were growing lively at the other end of the
table where A.-Smith père was drinking a good deal too much wine. At
last I heard him say,

“We had hoped to spend a few days with you, my dear Luna. But as you tell
us that your engagements make this impossible”—and he paused to
drink some port, whereon Lady Ragnall remarked inconsequently,

“I assure you the ten o’clock train is far the best and I have
ordered the carriage at half-past nine, which is not very early.”

“As your engagements make this impossible,” he repeated, “we
would ask for the opportunity of a little family conclave with you
to-night.”

Here all of them turned and glowered at me.

“Certainly,” said Lady Ragnall, “‘the sooner ‘tis
over the sooner to sleep.’ Mr. Quatermain, I am sure, will excuse us,
will you not? I have had the museum lit up for you, Mr. Quatermain. You may
find some Egyptian things there that will interest you.”

“Oh, with pleasure!” I murmured, and fled away.

I spent a very instructive two hours in the museum, studying various Egyptian
antiquities including a couple of mummies which rather terrified me. They
looked so very corpse-like standing there in their wrappings. One was that of a
lady who was a “Singer of Amen,” I remember. I wondered where she
was singing now and what song. Presently I came to a glass case which riveted
my attention, for above it was a label bearing the following words: “Two
Papyri given to Lady Ragnall by the priests of the Kendah Tribe in
Africa.” Within were the papyri unrolled and beneath each of the
documents, its translation, so far as they could be translated for they were
somewhat broken. No. 1, which was dated, “In the first year of
Peroa,” appeared to be the official appointment of the Royal Lady Amada,
to be the prophetess to the temple of Isis and Horus the Child, which was also
called Amada, and situated on the east bank of the Nile above Thebes. Evidently
this was the same temple of which Lady Ragnall had written to me in her letter,
where her husband had met his death by accident, a coincidence which made me
start when I remembered how and where the document had come into her hands and
what kind of office she filled at the time.

The second papyrus, or rather its translation, contained a most comprehensive
curse upon any man who ventured to interfere with the personal sanctity of this
same Royal Lady of Amada, who, apparently in virtue of her office, was doomed
to perpetual celibacy like the vestal virgins. I do not remember all the terms
of the curse, but I know that it invoked the vengeance of Isis the Mother, Lady
of the Moon, and Horus the Child upon anyone who should dare such a
desecration, and in so many words doomed him to death by violence “far
from his own country where first he had looked on Ra,” (i.e. the sun) and
also to certain spiritual sufferings afterwards.

The document gave me the idea that it was composed in troubled days to protect
that particularly sacred person, the Prophetess of Isis whose cult, as I have
since learned, was rising in Egypt at the time, from threatened danger, perhaps
at the hands of some foreign man. It occurred to me even that this Princess,
for evidently she was a descendant of kings, had been appointed to a most
sacred office for that very purpose. Men who shrink from little will often fear
to incur the direct curse of widely venerated gods in order to obtain their
desires, even if they be not their own gods. Such were my conclusions about
this curious and ancient writing which I regret I cannot give in full as I
neglected to copy it at the time.

I may add that it seemed extremely strange to me that it and the other which
dealt with a particular temple in Egypt should have passed into Lady
Ragnall’s hands over two thousand years later in a distant part of
Africa, and that subsequently her husband should have been killed in her
presence whilst excavating the very temple to which they referred, whence too
in all probability they were taken. Moreover, oddly enough Lady Ragnall had
herself for a while filled the rôle of Isis in a shrine whereof these two
papyri had been part of the sacred appurtenances for unknown ages, and one of
her official titles there was Prophetess and Lady of the Moon, whose symbol she
wore upon her breast.

Although I have always recognized that there are a great many more things in
the world than are dreamt of in our philosophy, I say with truth and confidence
that I am not a superstitious man. Yet I confess that these papers and the
circumstances connected with them, made me feel afraid.

Also they made me wish that I had not come to Ragnall Castle.

Well, the Atterby-Smiths had so far effectually put a stop to any talk of such
matters and even if Lady Ragnall should succeed in getting rid of them by that
morning train, as to which I was doubtful, there remained but a single day of
my visit during which it ought not to be hard to stave off the subject. Thus I
reflected, standing face to face with those mummies, till presently I observed
that the Singer of Amen who wore a staring, gold mask, seemed to be watching me
with her oblong painted eyes. To my fancy a sardonic smile gathered in them and
spread to the mouth.

“That’s what you think,” this smile seemed to say,
“as once before you thought that Fate could be escaped. Wait and see, my
friend. Wait and see!”

“Not in this room any way,” I remarked aloud, and departed in a
hurry down the passage which led to the main staircase.

Before I reached its end a remarkable sight caused me to halt in the shadow.
The Atterby-Smith family were going to bed en bloc. They marched in
single file up the great stair, each of them carrying a hand candle. Papa led
and young Hopeful brought up the rear. Their countenances were full of war,
even the twins looked like angry lambs, but something written on them informed
me that they had suffered defeat recent and grievous. So they vanished up the
stairway and out of my ken for ever.

When they had gone I started again and ran straight into Lady Ragnall. If her
guests had been angry, it was clear that she was furious, almost weeping
with rage, indeed. Moreover, she turned and rent me.

“You are a wretch,” she said, “to run away and leave me all
day long with those horrible people. Well, they will never come here again, for
I have told them that if they do the servants have orders to shut the door in
their faces.”

Not knowing what to say I remarked that I had spent a most instructive evening
in the museum, which seemed to make her angrier than ever. At any rate she
whisked off without even saying “good night” and left me standing
there. Afterwards I learned that the A.-S.‘s had calmly informed Lady
Ragnall that she had stolen their property and demanded that “as an act
of justice” she should make a will leaving everything she possessed to
them, and meanwhile furnish them with an allowance of £4,000 a year. What I did
not learn were the exact terms of her answer.

Next morning Alfred, when he called me, brought me a note from his mistress
which I fully expected would contain a request that I should depart by the same
train as her other guests. Its real contents, however, were very different.

“MY DEAR FRIEND,” it ran, “I am
so ashamed of myself and so sorry for my rudeness last night, for which I
deeply apologise. If you knew all that I had gone through at the hands of those
dreadful mendicants, you would forgive me.—L.R.”

“P.S.—I have ordered breakfast at 10. Don’t go down much
before, for your own sake.”

Somewhat relieved in my mind, for I thought she was really angry with me, not
altogether without cause, I rose, dressed and set to work to write some
letters. While I was doing so I heard the wheels of a carriage beneath and
opening my window, saw the Atterby-Smith family in the act of departing in the
Castle bus. Smith himself seemed to be still enraged, but the others looked
depressed. Indeed I heard the wife of his bosom say to him,

“Calm yourself, my dear. Remember that Providence knows what is best for
us and that beggars on horseback are always unjust and ungrateful.”

To which her spouse replied,

“Hold your infernal tongue, will you,” and then began to rate the
servants about the luggage.

Well, off they went. Glaring through the door of the bus, Mr. Smith caught
sight of me leaning out of the window, seeing which I waved my hand to him in
adieu. His only reply to this courtesy was to shake his fist, though whether at
me or at the Castle and its inhabitants in general, I neither know nor care.

When I was quite sure that they had gone and were not coming back again to find
something they had forgotten, I went downstairs and surprised a conclave
between the butler, Moxley, and his satellites, reinforced by Lady
Ragnall’s maid and two other female servants.

“Gratuities!” Moxley was exclaiming, which I thought a fine word
for tips, “not a smell of them! His gratuities were—‘Damn
your eyes, you fat bottle-washer,’ being his name for butler. My
eyes, mind you, Ann, not Alfred’s or William’s, and that because he
had tumbled over his own rugs. Gentleman! Why, I name him a hog with his
litter.”

“Hogs don’t have litters, Mr. Moxley,” observed Ann smartly.

“Well, young woman, if there weren’t no hogs, there’d be no
litters, so there! However, he won’t root about in this castle no more,
for I happened to catch a word or two of what passed between him and her
Ladyship last night. He said straight out that she was making love to that
little Mr. Quatermain who wanted her money, and probably not for the first time
as they had forgathered in Africa. A gentleman, mind you, Ann, who although
peculiar, I like, and who, the keeper Charles tells me, is the best shot in the
whole world.”

“And what did she say to that?” asked Ann.

“What did she say? What didn’t she say, that’s the question.
It was just as though all the furniture in the room got up and went for them
Smiths. Well, having heard enough, and more than I wanted, I stepped off with
the tray and next minute out they all come and grab the bedroom candlesticks.
That’s all and there’s her Ladyship’s bell. Alfred,
don’t stand gaping there but go and light the hot-plates.”

So they melted away and I descended from the landing, indignant but laughing.
No wonder that Lady Ragnall lost her temper!

Ten minutes later she arrived in the dining-room, waving a lighted ribbon that
disseminated perfume.

“What on earth are you doing?” I asked.

“Fumigating the house,” she said. “It is unnecessary as I
don’t think they were infectious, but the ceremony has a moral
significance—like incense. Anyway it relieves my feelings.”

Then she laughed and threw the remains of the ribbon into the fire, adding,

“If you say a word about those people I’ll leave the room.”

I think we had one of the jolliest breakfasts I ever remember. To begin with we
were both hungry since our miseries of the night before had prevented us from
eating any dinner. Indeed she swore that she had scarcely tasted food since
Saturday. Then we had such a lot to talk about. With short intervals we talked
all that day, either in the house or while walking through the gardens and
grounds. Passing through the latter I came to the spot on the back drive where
once I had saved her from being abducted by Harût and Marût, and as I
recognized it, uttered an exclamation. She asked me why and the end of it was
that I told her all that story which to this moment she had never heard, for
Ragnall had thought well to keep it from her.

She listened intently, then said,

“So I owe you more than I knew. Yet, I’m not sure, for you see I
was abducted after all. Also if I had been taken there, probably George would
never have married me or seen me again, and that might have been better for
him.”

“Why?” I asked. “You were all the world to him.”

“Is any woman ever all the world to a man, Mr. Quatermain?”

I hesitated, expecting some attack.

“Don’t answer,” she went on, “it would be too long and
you wouldn’t convince me who have been in the East. However, he was all
the world to me. Therefore his welfare was what I wished and wish, and I think
he would have had more of it if he had never married me.”

“Why?” I asked again.

“Because I brought him no good luck, did I? I needn’t go through
all the story as you know it. And in the end it was through me that he was
killed in Egypt.”

“Or through the goddess Isis,” I broke in rather nervously.

“Yes, the goddess Isis, a part I have played in my time, or something
like it. And he was killed in the temple of the goddess Isis. And those papyri
of which you read the translations in the museum, which were given to me in
Kendah Land, seem to have come from that same temple. And—how about the
Ivory Child? Isis in the temple evidently held a child in her arms, but when we
found her it had gone. Supposing this child was the same as that of which I was
guardian! It might have been, since the papyri came from that temple. What do
you think?”

“I don’t think anything,” I answered, “except that it
is all very odd. I don’t even understand what Isis and the child Horus
represent. They were not mere images either in Egypt or Kendah Land. There must
be an idea behind them somewhere.”

“Oh! there was. Isis was the universal Mother, Nature herself with all
the powers, seen and unseen, that are hidden in Nature; Love personified also,
although not actually the queen of Love like Hathor, her sister goddess. The
Horus child, whom the old Egyptians called Heru-Hennu, signified eternal
regeneration, eternal youth, eternal strength and beauty. Also he was the
Avenger who overthrew Set, the Prince of Darkness, and thus in a way opened the
Door of Life to men.”

“It seems to me that all religions have much in common,” I said.

“Yes, a great deal. It was easy for the old Egyptians to become
Christian, since for many of them it only meant worshipping Isis and Horus
under new and holier names. But come in, it grows cold.”

We had tea in Lady Ragnall’s boudoir and after it had been taken away our
conversation died. She sat there on the other side of the fire with a cigarette
between her lips, looking at me through the perfumed smoke till I began to grow
uncomfortable and to feel that a crisis of some sort was at hand. This proved
perfectly correct, for it was. Presently she said,

“We took a long journey once together, Mr. Quatermain, did we not?”

“Undoubtedly,” I answered, and began to talk of it until she cut me
short with a wave of her hand, and went on,

“Well, we are going to take a longer one together after dinner
to-night.”

“What! Where! How!” I exclaimed much alarmed.

“I don’t know where, but as for how—look in that box,”
and she pointed to a little carved Eastern chest made of rose or sandal wood,
that stood upon a table between us.

With a groan I rose and opened it. Inside was another box made of silver. This
I opened also and perceived that within lay bundles of dried leaves that looked
like tobacco, from which floated an enervating and well-remembered scent that
clouded my brain for a moment. Then I shut down the lids and returned to my
seat.

“Taduki,” I murmured.

“Yes, Taduki, and I believe in perfect order with all its virtue
intact.”

“Virtue!” I exclaimed. “I don’t think there is any
virtue about that hateful and magical herb which I believe grew in the
devil’s garden. Moreover, Lady Ragnall, although there are few things in
the world that I would refuse you, I tell you at once that nothing will induce
me to have anything more to do with it.”

She laughed softly and asked why not.

“Because I find life so full of perplexities and memories that I have no
wish to make acquaintance with any more, such as I am sure lie hid by the
thousand in that box.”

“If so, don’t you think that they might clear up some of those
which surround you to-day?”

“No, for in such things there is no finality, since whatever one saw
would also require explanation.”

“Don’t let us argue,” she replied. “It is tiring and I
daresay we shall need all our strength to-night.”

I looked at her speechless. Why could she not take No for an answer? As usual
she read my thought and replied to it.

“Why did not Adam refuse the apple that Eve offered him?” she
inquired musingly. “Or rather why did he eat it after many refusals and
learn the secret of good and evil, to the great gain of the world which
thenceforward became acquainted with the dignity of labour?”

“Because the woman tempted him,” I snapped.

“Quite so. It has always been her business in life and always will be.
Well, I am tempting you now, and not in vain.”

“Do you remember who was tempting the woman?”

“Certainly. Also that he was a good school-master since he caused the
thirst for knowledge to overcome fear and thus laid the foundation-stone of all
human progress. That allegory may be read two ways, as one of a rise from
ignorance instead of a fall from innocence.”

“You are too clever for me with your perverted notions. Also, you said we
were not to argue. I have therefore only to repeat that I will not eat your
apple, or rather, breathe your Taduki.”

“Adam over again,” she replied, shaking her head. “The same
old beginning and the same old end, because you see at last you will do exactly
what Adam did.”

Here she rose and standing over me, looked me straight in the eyes with the
curious result that all my will power seemed to evaporate. Then she sat down
again, laughing softly, and remarked as though to herself,

“Who would have thought that Allan Quatermain was a moral coward!”

“Coward,” I repeated. “Coward!”

“Yes, that’s the right word. At least you were a minute ago. Now
courage has come back to you. Why, it’s almost time to dress for dinner,
but before you go, listen. I have some power over you, my friend, as you have
some power over me, for I tell you frankly if you wished me very much to do
anything, I should have to do it; and the same applies conversely. Now,
to-night we are, as I believe, going to open a great gate and to see wonderful
things, glorious things that will thrill us for the rest of our lives, and
perhaps suggest to us what is coming after death. You will not fail me, will
you?” she continued in a pleading voice. “If you do I must try
alone since no one else will serve, and then I know—how I cannot
say—that I shall be exposed to great danger. Yes, I think that I shall
lose my mind once more and never find it again this side the grave. You would
not have that happen to me, would you, just because you shrink from digging up
old memories?”

“Of course not,” I stammered. “I should never forgive
myself.”

“Yes, of course not. There was really no need for me to ask you. Then you
promise you will do all I wish?” and once more she looked at me, adding,
“Don’t be ashamed, for you remember that I have been in touch with
hidden things and am not quite as other women are. You will recollect I told
you that which I have never breathed to any other living soul, years ago on
that night when first we met.”

“I promise,” I answered and was about to add something, I forget
what, when she cut me short, saying,

“That’s enough, for I know your word is rather better than your
bond. Now dress as quickly as you can or the dinner will be spoiled.”

CHAPTER IV.
THROUGH THE GATES

Short as was the time at my disposal before the dinner-gong sounded, it proved
ample for reflection. With every article of attire that I discarded went some
of that boudoir glamour till its last traces vanished with my walking-boots. I
was fallen indeed. I who had come to this place so full of virtuous
resolutions, could now only reflect upon the true and universal meaning of our
daily prayer that we might be kept from temptation. And yet what had tempted
me? For my life’s sake I could not say. The desire to please a most
charming woman and to keep her from making solitary experiments of a dangerous
nature, I suppose, though whether they should be less dangerous carried out
jointly remained to be seen. Certainly it was not any wish to eat of her
proffered apple of Knowledge, for already I knew a great deal more than I cared
for about things in general. Oh! the truth was that woman is the mightiest
force in the world, at any rate where the majority of us poor men is concerned.
She commanded and I must obey.

I grew desperate and wondered if I could escape. Perhaps I might slip out of
the back door and run for it, without my great coat or hat although the night
was so cold and I should probably be taken up as a lunatic. No, it was
impossible for I had forged a chain that might not be broken. I had passed my
word of honour. Well, I was in for it and after all what was there of which I
need be afraid that I should tremble and shrink back as though I were about to
run away with somebody’s wife, or rather to be run away with quite
contrary to my own inclination? Nothing at all. A mere nonsensical ordeal much
less serious than a visit to the dentist.

Probably that stuff had lost its strength by now—that is, unless it had
grown more powerful by keeping, as is the case with certain sorts of
explosives. And if it had not, the worst to be expected was a silly dream,
followed perhaps by headache. That is, unless I did not chance to wake up again
at all in this world, which was a most unpleasant possibility. Another thing,
suppose I woke and she didn’t! What should I say then? Of a certainty I
should find myself in the dock. Yes, and there were further dreadful
eventualities, quite conceivable, every one of them, the very thought of which
plunged me into a cold perspiration and made me feel so weak that I was obliged
to sit down.

Then I heard the gong; to me it sounded like the execution bell to a prisoner
under sentence of death. I crept downstairs feebly and found Lady Ragnall
waiting for me in the drawing-room, clothed with gaiety as with a garment. I
remember that it made me most indignant that she could be so happy in such
circumstances, but I said nothing. She looked me up and down and remarked,

“Really from your appearance you might have seen the Ragnall ghost, or be
going to be married against your will, or—I don’t know what. Also
you have forgotten to fasten your tie.”

I looked in the glass. It was true, for there hung the ends down my shirt
front. Then I struggled with the wretched thing until at last she had to help
me, which she did laughing softly. Somehow her touch gave me confidence again
and enabled me to say quite boldly that I only wanted my dinner.

“Yes,” she replied, “but you are not to eat much and you must
only drink water. The priestesses in Kendah Land told me that this was
necessary before taking Taduki in its strongest form, as we are going to
do to-night. You know the prophet Harût only gave us the merest whiff in this
room years ago.”

I groaned and she laughed again.

That dinner with nothing to drink, although to avoid suspicion I let Moxley
fill my glass once or twice, and little to eat for my appetite had vanished,
went by like a bad dream. I recall no more about it until I heard Lady Ragnall
tell Moxley to see that there was a good fire in the museum where we were going
to study that night and must not be disturbed.

Another minute and I was automatically opening the door for her. As she passed
she paused to do something to her dress and whispered,

“Come in a quarter of an hour. Mind—no port which clouds the
intellect.”

“I have none left to cloud,” I remarked after her.

Then I went back and sat by the fire feeling most miserable and staring at the
decanters, for never in my life do I remember wanting a bottle of wine more.
The big clock ticked and ticked and at last chimed the quarter, jarring on my
nerves in that great lonely banqueting hall. Then I rose and crept upstairs
like an evil-doer and it seemed to me that the servants in the hall looked on
me with suspicion, as well they might.

I reached the museum and found it brilliantly lit, but empty except for the
cheerful company of the two mummies who also appeared to regard me with
gleaming but doubtful eyes. So I sat down there in front of the fire, not even
daring to smoke lest tobacco should complicate Taduki.

Presently I heard a low sound of laughter, looked up and nearly fell backwards,
that is, metaphorically, for the chair prevented such a physical collapse.

It was not wonderful since before me, like a bride of ancient days adorned for
her husband, stood the goddess Isis—white robes, feathered headdress,
ancient bracelets, gold-studded sandals on bare feet, scented hair, ruby
necklace and all the rest. I stared, then there burst from me words which were
the last I meant to say,

“Great Heavens! how beautiful you are.”

“Am I?” she asked. “I am glad,” and she glided across
the room and locked the door.

“Now,” she said, returning, “we had better get to business,
that is unless you would like to worship the goddess Isis a little first, to
bring yourself into a proper frame of mind, you know.”

“No,” I replied, my dignity returning to me. “I do not wish
to worship any goddess, especially when she isn’t a goddess. It was not a
part of the bargain.”

“Quite so,” she said, nodding, “but who knows what you will
be worshipping before an hour is over? Oh! forgive me for laughing at you, but
I can’t help it. You are so evidently frightened.”

“Who wouldn’t be frightened?” I answered, looking with gloomy
apprehension at the sandal-wood box which had appeared upon a case full of
scarabs. “Look here, Lady Ragnall,” I added, “why can’t
you leave all this unholy business alone and let us spend a pleasant evening
talking, now that those Smith people have gone? I have lots of stories about my
African adventures which would interest you.”

“Because I want to hear my own African adventures, and perhaps yours too,
which I am sure will interest me a great deal more,” she exclaimed
earnestly. “You think it is all foolishness, but it is not. Those Kendah
priestesses told me much when I seemed to be out of my mind. For a long time I
did not remember what they said, but of late years, especially since George and
I began to excavate that temple, plenty has come back to me bit by bit,
fragments, you know, that make me desire to learn the rest as I never desired
anything else on earth. And the worst of it has always been that from the
beginning I have known—and know—that this can only happen with you
and through you, why I cannot say, or have forgotten. That’s what sent me
nearly wild with joy when I heard that you were not only alive, but in this
country. You won’t disappoint me, will you? There is nothing I can offer
you which would have any value for you, so I can only beg you not to disappoint
me—well, because I am your friend.”

I turned away my head, hesitating, and when I looked up again I saw that her
beautiful eyes were full of tears. Naturally that settled the matter, so I only
said,

“Let us get on with the affair. What am I to do? Stop a bit. I may as
well provide against eventualities,” and going to a table I took a sheet
of notepaper and wrote:

“Lady Ragnall and I, Allan Quatermain, are about to make an experiment
with an herb which we discovered some years ago in Africa. If by any chance
this should result in accident to either or both of us, the Coroner is
requested to understand that it is not a case of murder or of suicide, but
merely of unfortunate scientific research.”

This I dated, adding the hour, 9.47 P.M., and signed, requesting her to do the
same.

She obeyed with a smile, saying it was strange that one who had lived a life of
such constant danger as myself, should be so afraid to die.

“Look here, young lady,” I replied with irritation,
“doesn’t it occur to you that I may be afraid lest
you should die—and I be hanged for it,” I added by an
afterthought.

“Oh! I see,” she answered, “that is really very nice of you.
But, of course, you would think like that; it is your nature.”

“Yes,” I replied. “Nature, not merit.”

She went to a cupboard which formed the bottom of one of the mahogany museum
cases, and extracted from it first of all a bowl of ancient appearance made of
some black stone with projecting knobs for handles that were carved with the
heads of women wearing ceremonial wigs; and next a low tripod of ebony or some
other black wood. I looked at these articles and recognized them. They had
stood in front of the sanctuary in the temple in Kendah Land, and over them I
had once seen this very woman dressed as she was to-night, bend her head in the
magic smoke before she had uttered the prophecy of the passing of the Kendah
god.

“So you brought these away too,” I said.

“Yes,” she replied with solemnity, “that they might be ready
at the appointed hour when we needed them.”

Then she spoke no more for a while, but busied herself with certain rather
eerie preparations. First she set the tripod and its bowl in an open space
which I was glad to note was at some distance from the fire, since if either of
us fell into that who would there be to take us off before cremation ensued?
Then she drew up a curved settee with a back and arms, a comfortable-looking
article having a seat that sloped backwards like those in clubs, and motioned
to me to sit down. This I did with much the same sensations that are evoked by
taking one’s place upon an operation-table.

Next she brought that accursed Taduki box, I mean the inner silver one,
the contents of which I heartily wished I had thrown upon the fire, and set it
down, open, near the tripod. Lastly she lifted some glowing embers of wood from
the grate with tongs, and dropped them into the stone bowl.

“I think that’s all. Now for the great adventure,” she said
in a voice that was at once rapt and dreamy.

“What am I to do?” I asked feebly.

“That is quite simple,” she replied, as she sat herself down beside
me well within reach of the Taduki box, the brazier being between us
with its tripod stand pressed against the edge of the couch, and in its curve,
so that we were really upon each side of it. “When the smoke begins to
rise thickly you have only to bend your head a little forward, with your
shoulders still resting against the settee, and inhale until you find your
senses leaving you, though I don’t know that this is necessary for the
stuff is subtle. Then throw your head back, go to sleep and dream.”

“What am I to dream about?” I inquired in a vacuous way, for my
senses were leaving me already.

“You will dream, I think, of past events in which both of us played a
part, at least I hope so. I dreamt of them before in Kendah Land, but then I
was not myself, and for the most part they are forgotten. Moreover, I learned
that we can only see them all when we are together. Now speak no more.”

This command, by the way, at once produced in me an intense desire for
prolonged conversation. It was not to be gratified, however, for at that moment
she stood up again facing the tripod and me, and began to sing in a rich and
thrilling voice. What she sang I do not know for I could not understand the
language, but I presume it was some ancient chant that she learned in Kendah
Land. At any rate, there she stood, a lovely and inspired priestess clad in her
sacerdotal robes, and sang, waving her arms and fixing her eyes upon mine.
Presently she bent down, took a little of the Taduki weed and with words
of incantation, dropped it upon the embers in the bowl. Twice she did this,
then sat herself upon the couch and waited.

A clear flame sprang up and burned for thirty seconds or so, I suppose while it
consumed the volatile oils in the weed. Then it died down and smoke began to
come, white, rich and billowy, with a very pleasant odour resembling that of
hot-house flowers. It spread out between us like a fan, and though its veil I
heard her say,

“The gates are wide. Enter!”

I knew what she meant well enough, and though for a moment I thought of
cheating, there is no other word for it, knew also that she had detected the
thought and was scorning me in her mind. At any rate I felt that I must obey
and thrust my head forward into the smoke, as a green ham is thrust into a
chimney. The warm vapour struck against my face like fog, or rather steam, but
without causing me to choke or my eyes to smart. I drew it down my throat with
a deep inhalation—once, twice, thrice, then as my brain began to swim,
threw myself back as I had been instructed to do. A deep and happy drowsiness
stole over me, and the last thing I remember was hearing the clock strike the
first two strokes of the hour of ten. The third stroke I heard also, but it
sounded like to that of the richest-throated bell that ever boomed in all the
world. I remember becoming aware that it was the signal for the rolling up of
some vast proscenium, revealing behind it a stage that was the
world—nothing less.

What did I see? What did I see? Let me try to recall and record.

First of all something chaotic. Great rushes of vapour driven by mighty winds;
great seas, for the most part calm. Then upheavals and volcanoes spouting fire.
Then tropic scenes of infinite luxuriance. Terrific reptiles feeding on the
brinks of marshes, and huge elephant-like animals moving between palms beyond.
Then, in a glade, rough huts and about them a jabbering crowd of creatures that
were only half human, for sometimes they stood upright and sometimes ran on
their hands and feet. Also they were almost covered with hair which was all
they had in the way of clothes, and at the moment that I met them, were
terribly frightened by the appearance of a huge mammoth, if that is the right
name for it, which walked into the glade and looked at us. At any rate it was a
beast of the elephant tribe which I judged to be nearly twenty feet high, with
enormous curving tusks.

The point of the vision was that I recognized myself among those hairy
jabberers, not by anything outward and visible, but by something inward and
spiritual. Moreover, I was being urged by a female of the race, I can scarcely
call her a woman, to justify my existence by tackling the mammoth in her
particular interest, or to give her up to someone who would. In the end I
tackled it, rushing forward with a weapon, I think it was a sharp stone tied to
a stick, though how I could expect to hurt a beast twenty feet high with such a
thing is more than I can understand, unless perhaps the stone was poisoned.

At any rate the end was sudden. I threw the stone, whereat a great trunk shot
out from between the tusks and caught me. Round and round I went in the air,
reflecting as I did so, for I suppose at the time my normal consciousness had
not quite left me, that this was my first encounter with the elephant Jana,
also that it was very foolish to try to oblige a female regardless of personal
risk....

All became dark, as no doubt it would have done, but presently, that is after a
lapse of a great many thousands of years, or so it appeared to me, light grew
again. This time I was a black man living in something not unlike a Kaffir
kraal on the top of a hill.

There was shouting below and enemies attacked us; a woman rushed out of a hut
and gave me a spear and a shield, the latter made of wood with white spots on
it, and pointed to the path of duty which ran down the hill. I followed in
company with others, though without enthusiasm, and presently met a roaring
giant of a man at the bottom. I stuck my spear into him and he stuck his into
me, through the stomach, which hurt me most abominably. After this I retired up
the hill where the woman pulled the spear out and gave it to another man. I
remember no more.

Then followed a whole maze of visions, but really I cannot disentangle them.
Nor is it worth while doing so since after all they were only of the nature of
an overture, jumbled incidents of former lives, real or imaginary, or so I
suppose, having to do, all of them, with elementary things, such as hunger and
wounds and women and death.

At length these broken fragments of the past were swept away out of my
consciousness and I found myself face to face with something connected and
tangible, not too remote or unfamiliar for understanding. It was the beginning
of the real story.

I, please remember always that I knew it was I, Allan, and no one else, that
is, the same personality or whatever it may be which makes each man different
from any other man, saw myself in a chariot drawn by two horses with arched
necks and driven by a charioteer who sat on a little seat in front. It was a
highly ornamented, springless vehicle of wood and gilded, something like a
packing-case with a pole, or as we should call it in South Africa, a
disselboom, to which the horses were harnessed. In this cart I stood arrayed in
flowing robes fastened round my middle by a studded belt, with strips of
coloured cloth wound round my legs and sandals on my feet. To my mind the
general effect of the attire was distinctly feminine and I did not like it at
all.

I was glad to observe, however, that the I of those days was anything but
feminine. Indeed I could never have believed that once I was so good-looking,
even over two thousand years ago. I was not very tall but extremely stalwart,
burly almost, with an arm that as I could observe, since it projected from the
sleeve of my lady’s gown, would have done no discredit to a
prize-fighter, and a chest like a bull.

The face also I admired very much. The brow was broad; the black eyes were full
and proud-looking, the features somewhat massive but well-cut and highly
intelligent; the mouth firm and shapely, with lips that were perhaps a trifle
too thick; the hair—well, there was rather a failure in the hair, at
least according to modern ideas, for it curled so beautifully as to suggest
that one of my ancestors might have fallen in love with a person of negroid
origin. However there was lots of it, hanging down almost to the shoulders and
bound about the brow by a very neat fillet of blue cloth with silver studs. The
colour of my skin, I was glad to note, was by no means black, only a light and
pleasing brown such as might have been produced by sunburn. My age, I might
add, was anywhere between five and twenty and five and thirty, perhaps nearer
the latter than the former, at any rate, the very prime of life.

For the rest, I held in my left hand a very stout, long bow of black wood which
seemed to have seen much service, with a string of what looked like catgut, on
which was set a broad-feathered, barbed arrow. This I kept in place with the
fingers of my right hand, on one of which I observed a handsome gold ring with
strange characters carved upon the bezel.

Now for the charioteer.

He was black as night, black as a Sunday hat, with yellow rolling eyes set in a
countenance of extraordinary ugliness and I may add, extraordinary humour. His
big, wide mouth with thick lips ran up the left side of his face towards an ear
that was also big and projecting. His hair, that had a feather stuck in it, was
real nigger wool covering a skull like a cannon ball and I should imagine as
hard. This head, by the way, was set plumb upon the shoulders, as though it had
been driven down between them by a pile hammer. They were very broad shoulders
suggesting enormous strength, but the gaily-clad body beneath, which was
supported by two bowed legs and large, flat feet, was that of a dwarf who by
the proportions of his limbs Nature first intended for a giant; yes, an
Ethiopian dwarf.

Looking through this remarkable exterior, as it were, I recognized that inside
of it was the soul, or animating principle, of—whom do you think? None
other than my beloved old servant and companion, the Hottentot Hans whose loss
I had mourned for years! Hans himself who died for me, slaying the great
elephant, Jana, in Kendah Land, the elephant I could not hit, and thereby
saving my life. Oh! although I had been obliged to go back to the days of I
knew not what ancient empire to do so in my trance, or whatever it was, I could
have wept with joy at finding him again, especially as I knew by instinct that
as he loved the Allan Quatermain of to-day, so he loved this Egyptian in a
wheeled packing-case, for I may as well say at once that such was my
nationality in the dream.

Now I looked about me and perceived that my chariot was the second of a
cavalcade. Immediately in front of it was one infinitely more gorgeous in which
stood a person who even if I had not known it, I should have guessed to be a
king, and who, as a matter of fact, was none other than the King of kings, at
that time the absolute master of most of the known world, though what his name
may have been, I have no notion. He wore a long flowing robe of purple silk
embroidered with gold and bound in at the waist by a jewelled girdle from which
hung the private, sacred seal; the little “White Seal” that, as I
learned afterwards, was famous throughout the earth.

On his head was a stiff cloth cap, also purple in colour, round which was
fastened a fillet of light blue stuff spotted with white. The best idea that I
can give of its general appearance is to liken it to a tall hat of fashionable
shape, without a brim, slightly squashed in so that it bulged at the top, and
surrounded by a rather sporting necktie. Really, however, it was the
kitaris or headdress of these monarchs worn by them alone. If anyone
else had put on that hat, even by mistake in the dark, well, his head would
have come off with it, that is all.

This king held a bow in his hand with an arrow set upon its string, just as I
did, for we were out hunting, and as I shall have to narrate presently, lions
are no respecters of persons. By his side, leaning against the back of the
chariot, was a tall, sharp-pointed wand of cedar wood with a knob of some green
precious stone, probably an emerald, fashioned to the likeness of an apple.
This was the royal sceptre. Immediately behind the chariot walked several great
nobles. One of them carried a golden footstool, another a parasol, furled at
the moment; another a spare bow and a quiver of arrows, and another a jewelled
fly-whisk made of palm fibre.

The king, I should add, was young, handsome with a curled beard and clear-cut,
high-bred looking features; his face, however, was bad, cruel and stamped with
an air of weariness, or rather, satiety, which was emphasized by the black
circles beneath his fine dark eyes. Moreover pride seemed to emanate from him
and yet there was something in his bearing and glances which suggested fear. He
was a god who knows that he is mortal and is therefore afraid lest at any
moment he may be called upon to lose his godship in his mortality.

Not that he dreaded the perils of the chase; he was too much of a man for that.
But how could he tell lest among all that crowd of crawling nobles, there was
not one who had a dagger ready for his back, or a phial of poison to mix with
his wine or water? He with all the world in the hollow of his hand, was filled
with secret terrors which as I learned since first I seemed to see him thus,
fulfilled themselves at the appointed time. For this man of blood was destined
to die in blood, though not by murder.

The cavalcade halted. Presently a fat eunuch glittering in his gold-wrought
garments like some bronzed beetle in the sunlight, came waddling back towards
me. He was odious and I knew that we hated each other.

“Greeting, Egyptian,” he said, mopping his brow with his sleeve for
the sun was hot. “An honour for you! A great honour! The King of kings
commands your presence. Yes, he would speak with you with his own lips, and
with that abortion of a servant of yours also. Come! Come swiftly!”

“Swift as an arrow, Houman,” I answered laughing, “seeing
that for three moons I, like an arrow, have rested upon the string and flown no
nearer to his Majesty.”

“Three moons!” screeched the eunuch. “Why, many wait three
years and many go to the grave still waiting; bigger men than you, Egyptian,
though I hear you do claim to be of royal blood yonder on the Nile. But talk
not of arrows flying towards the most High, for surely it is ill-omened and
might earn you another honour, that of the string,” and he made a motion
suggestive of a cord encircling his throat. “Man, leave your bow behind!
Would you appear before the King armed? Yes, and your dagger also.”

“Perchance a lion might appear before the King and he does not leave his
claws and teeth behind,” I answered drily as I divested myself of my
weapons.

Then we started, the three of us, leaving the chariot in charge of a soldier.

“Draw your sleeves over your hands,” said the eunuch. “None
must appear before the King showing his hands, and, dwarf, since you have no
sleeves, thrust yours into your robe.”

“What am I to do with my feet?” he answered in a thick, guttural
voice. “Will it offend the King of kings to see my feet, most noble
eunuch?”

“Certainly, certainly,” answered Houman, “since they are ugly
enough to offend even me. Hide them as much as possible. Now we are near, down
on your faces and crawl forward slowly on your knees and elbows, as I do. Down,
I say!”

So down I went, though with anger in my heart, for be it remembered that I, the
modern Allan Quatermain, knew every thought and feeling that passed through the
mind of my prototype.

It was as though I were a spectator at a play, with this difference. I could
read the motives and reflections of this former ego as well as observe
his actions. Also I could rejoice when he rejoiced, weep when he wept and
generally feel all that he felt, though at the same time I retained the power
of studying him from my own modern standpoint and with my own existing
intelligence. Being two we still were one, or being one we still were two,
whichever way you like to put it. Lastly I lacked these powers with reference
to the other actors in the piece. Of these I knew just as much, or as little as
my former self knew, that is if he ever really existed. There was nothing
unnatural in my faculties where they were concerned. I had no insight into
their souls any more than I have into those of the people about me to-day. Now
I hope that I have made clear my somewhat uncommon position with reference to
these pages from the Book of the Past.

Well, preceded by the eunuch and followed by the dwarf, I crawled though the
sand in which grew some thorny plants that pricked my knees and fingers,
towards the person of the Monarch of the World. He had descended from his
chariot by help of a footstool, and was engaged in drinking from a golden cup,
while his attendants stood around in various attitudes of adoration, he who had
handed him the cup being upon his knees. Presently he looked up and saw us.

“Who are these?” he asked in a high voice that yet was not
unmusical, “and why do you bring them into my presence?”

“May it please the King,” answered our guide, knocking his head
upon the ground in a very agony of humiliation, “may it please the
King——”

“It would please me better, dog, if you answered my question. Who are
they?”

“May it please the King, this is the Egyptian hunter and noble,
Shabaka.”

“I hear,” said his Majesty with a gleam of interest in his tired
eyes, “and what does this Egyptian here?”

“May it please the King, the King bade me bring him to the presence, but
now when the chariots halted.”

“I forgot; you are forgiven. But who is that with him? Is it a man or an
ape?”

Here I screwed my head round and saw that my slave in his efforts to obey the
eunuch’s instructions and hide his feet, had made himself into a kind of
ball, much as a hedgehog does, except that his big head appeared in front of
the ball.

“O King, that I understand is the Egyptian’s servant and
charioteer.”

Again he looked interested, and exclaimed,

“Is it so? Then Egypt must be a stranger country than I thought if such
ape-men live there. Stand up, Egyptian, and bid your ape stand up also, for I
cannot hear men who speak with their mouths in the dust.”

So I rose and saluted by lifting both my hands and bowing as I had observed
others do, trying, however, to keep them covered by my sleeves. The King looked
me up and down, then said briefly,

“Set out your name and the business that brought you to my city.”

“May the King live for ever,” I replied. “As this lord
said,” and I pointed to the eunuch——

“He is not a lord but a dog,” interrupted the Monarch, “who
wears the robe of women. But continue.”

“As this dog who wears the robe of women said”—here the King
laughed, but the eunuch, Houman, turned green with rage and glowered at
me—“my name is Shabaka. I am a descendant of the Ethiopian king of
Egypt of that same name.”

“It seems from all I hear that there are too many descendants of kings in
Egypt. When I visit that land which perhaps soon I must do with an army at my
back,” here he stared at me coldly, “it may be well to lessen their
number. There is a certain Peroa for instance.”

He paused, but I made no answer, since Peroa was my father’s cousin and
of the fallen Royal House; also the protector of my youth.

“Well, Shabaka,” he went on, “in Persia royal blood is common
also, though some of us think it looks best when it is shed. What else are
you?”

“A slayer of royal beasts, O King of kings, a hunter of lions and of
elephants,” (this statement interested me, Allan Quatermain, intensely,
showing me as it did that our tastes are very persistent); “also when I
am at home, a breeder of cattle and a grower of grain.”

“Good trades, all of them, Shabaka. But why came you here?”

“Idernes the satrap of Egypt, servant of the King of kings, sought for
one who would travel to the East because the King of kings desired to hear of
the hunting of lions in the lands that lie to the south of Egypt towards the
beginnings of the great river. Then I, who desired to see new countries, said,
‘Here am I. Send me.’ So I came and for three moons have dwelt in
the royal city, but till this hour have scarcely so much as seen the face of
the great King, although by many messengers I have announced my presence,
showing them the letters of Idernes giving me safe-conduct. Therefore I propose
to-morrow or the next day to return to Egypt.”

The King said a word and a scribe appeared whom he commanded to take note of my
words and let the matter be inquired of, since some should suffer for this
neglect, a saying at which I saw Houman and certain of the nobles turn pale and
whisper to each other.

“Now I remember,” he exclaimed, “that I did desire Idernes to
send me an Egyptian hunter. Well, you are here and we are about to hunt the
lion of which there are many in yonder reeds, hungry and fierce beasts, since
for three days they have been herded in so that they can kill no food. How many
lions have you slain, Shabaka?”

“Fifty and three in all, O King, not counting the cubs.”

He stared at me, answering with a sneer,

“You Egyptians have large mouths. I have always heard it of you. Well,
to-day we will see whether you can kill a fifty-fourth. In an hour when the sun
begins to sink, the hounds will be loosed in yonder reeds and since the water
is behind them, the lions will come out, and then we shall see.”

Now I saw that the King thought me to be a liar and the blood rose to my head.

“Why wait till the sun begins to sink, O King of kings?” I said.
“Why not enter the reeds, as is our fashion in the Land of Kush, and
rouse the lions from sleep in their own lair?”

Now the King laughed outright and called in a loud voice to his courtiers,

“Do ye hear this boasting Egyptian, who talks of entering the reeds and
facing the lions in their lair, a thing that no man dare do where none can see
to shoot? What say ye now? Shall we ask him to prove his words?”

Some great lord stepped forward, one who was a hunter though he looked little
like it, for the scent on his hair reached me from four paces away and there
was paint upon his face.

“Yes, O King,” he said in a mincing voice, “let him enter and
kill a lion. But if he fail, then let a lion kill him. There are some hungry in
the palace den and it is not fit that the King’s ears should be filled
with empty words by foreigners from Egypt.”

“So be it,” said the King. “Egyptian, you have brought it on
your own head. Prove that you can do what you say and I will give you great
honour. Fail, and to the lions with him who lies of lions. Still,” he
added, “it is not right that you should go alone. Choose therefore one of
these lords to keep you company; he who would put you to the test, if you
will.”

Now I looked at the scented noble who turned pale beneath his paint. Then I
looked at the fat eunuch, Houman, who opened his mouth and gasped like a fish,
and when I had looked, I shook my head and said as though to myself,

“Not so, no woman and no eunuch shall be my companion on this
quest,” whereat the King and all the rest laughed out loud. “The
dwarf and I will go alone.”

“The dwarf!” said the King. “Can he hunt lions also?”

“No, O King, but perchance he can smell them, for otherwise how shall I
find them in that thicket within an hour?”

“Perchance they can smell him. How is the ape-man named?” asked the
King.

“Bes, O King, after the god of the Egyptians whom he resembles.”

“Dare you accompany your master on this hunt, O Bes?” inquired the
King.

Then Bes looked up, rolling his yellow eyes, and answered in his thick and
guttural voice,

“I am my master’s slave and dare I refuse to accompany him? If I
did he might kill me, as the King of kings kills his slaves. It is better to
die with honour by the teeth of a lion, than with dishonour beneath the whip of
a master. So at least we think in Ethiopia.”

“Well spoken, dwarf Bes!” exclaimed the King. “So would I
have all men think throughout the East. Let the words of this Ethiop be written
down and copies of them sent to the satraps of all the provinces that they may
be read to the peoples of the earth. I the King have decreed it.”

CHAPTER V.
THE WAGER

While the scribes were at their work I bowed before the King and prayed his
leave that I and the dwarf Bes might get to ours.

“Go,” he said, “and return here within an hour. If you do not
return tidings of your death shall be sent to the satrap of Egypt to be told to
your wives.”

“I thank the King, but it is needless, for I have no wives, which are ill
company for a hunter.”

“Strange,” he said, “since many women would be glad to name
such a man their husband, at least here among us Easterns.”

Walking backwards and bowing as we went, Bes and I returned to our chariot.
There we stripped off our outer garments till Bes was naked save for his
waistcloth and I was clad only in a jerkin. Then I took my bow, my arrows and
my knife, and Bes took two spears, one light for throwing and the other short,
broad and heavy for stabbing. Thus armed we passed back before the Easterns who
stared at us, and advanced to the edge of the thicket of tall reeds that was
full of lions.

Here Bes took dust and threw it into the air that we might learn from which
quarter the light wind blew.

“We will go against the breeze, Lord,” he said, “that I may
smell the lions before they smell us.”

I nodded, and answered,

“Hearken, Bes. Well may it be that we kill no lions in this place where
it is hard to shoot. Yet I would not return to be thrown to wild beasts by
yonder evil king. Therefore if we fail in this or in any other way, do you kill
me, if you still live.”

He rolled his eyes and grinned.

“Not so, Master. Then we will win through the reeds and lie hid in their
edge till darkness comes, for in them those half-men will never dare to seek
for us. Afterwards we will swim the water and disguise ourselves as jugglers
and try to reach the coast, and so back to Egypt, having learned much. Never
stretch out your hand to Death till he stretches out his to you, which he will
do soon enough, Master.”

Again I nodded and said,

“And if a lion should kill me, Bes, what then?”

“Then, Master, I will kill that lion if I can and go report the matter to
the King.”

“And if he should wish to throw you to the beasts, Bes, what then?”

“Then, first I will drag him down to the greatest of all beasts, he who
waits to devour evil-doers in the Under-world, be they kings or slaves,”
and he stretched out his long arms and made a motion as of clutching a man by
the throat. “Oh! have no fear, Master, I can break him like a stick, and
afterwards we will talk the matter over among the dead, for I shall swallow my
tongue and die also. It is a good trick, Master, which I wish you would
learn.”

Then he took my hand and kissed it and we entered the reeds, I, who was a
hunter, feeling more happy than I had done since we set foot in the East.

Yet the quest was desperate for the reeds were tall and often I could not see
more than a bow’s length in front of me. Presently, however, we found a
path made perchance by game coming down to drink, or by crocodiles coming up to
sleep, and followed it, I with an arrow on my string and Bes with the throwing
spear in his right hand and the stabbing spear in his left, half a pace ahead
of me. On we crept, Bes drawing in the air through his great nostrils as a
hound might do, till suddenly he stopped and sniffed towards the north.

“I smell lion near,” he whispered, searching among the reed stems
with his eyes. “I see lion,” he whispered again, and pointed, but I
could see nothing save the stems of the reeds.

“Rouse him,” I whispered back, “and I will shoot as he
bounds.”

Then Bes poised the spear, shook it till it quivered, and threw. There was a
roar and a lioness appeared with the spear fast in her flank. I loosed the
arrow but it cut into the thick reeds and stuck there.

“Forward!” whispered Bes, “for where woman is, there look for
man. The lion will be near.”

We crept on, Bes stopping to cut the arrow from a reed and set it back in the
quiver, for it was a good arrow made by himself. But now he shifted the broad
spear to his right hand and in his left held his knife. We heard the wounded
lioness roar not far away.

“She calls her man to help her,” whispered Bes, and as the words
left his lips the reeds down wind began to sway, for we were smelt.

They swayed, they parted and, half seen, half hid between their stems, appeared
the head of a great, black-maned lion. I drew the string and shot, this time
not in vain, for I heard the arrow thud upon his hide. Then before I could set
another he was on us, reared upon his hind legs and roaring. As I drew my
dagger he struck at me, but I bent down and his paw went over my head. Then his
weight came against me and I fell beneath him, stabbing him in the belly as I
fell. I saw his mighty jaws open to crush my head. Then they shut again and
through them burst a whine like that of a hurt dog.

Bes had driven his spear into the lion’s breast, so deep that the point
of it came out through the back. Still he was not dead, only now it was Bes he
sought. The dwarf ran at him as he reared up again, and casting his great arms
about the brute’s body, wrestled with him as man with man.

Then it was, for the first time I think, that I learned all the
Ethiopian’s strength. For he, a dwarf, threw that lion on its back and
thrusting his big head beneath the jaws, struggled with it madly. I was up, the
knife still in my hand, and oh! I too was strong. Into the throat I drove it,
dragging it this way and that, and lo! the lion moaned and died and his blood
gushed out over both of us. Then Bes sat up and laughed, and I too laughed,
since neither of us had more than scratches and we had done what men could
scarcely do.

“Do you remember, Master,” said Bes when he had finished laughing,
as he wiped his brow with some damp moss, “how, once far away up the Nile
you charged a mad elephant with a spear and saved me who had fallen, from being
trampled to death?”

I, Shabaka, answered that I did. (And I, Allan Quatermain, observing all these
things in my psychic trance in the museum of Ragnall Castle, reflected that I
also remembered how a certain Hans had saved me from a certain mad elephant, to
wit, Jana, not so long before, which just shows how things come round.)

“Yes,” went on Bes, “you saved me from that elephant, though
it seemed death to you. And, Master, I will tell you something now. That very
morning I had tried to poison you, only you would not wait to eat because the
elephants were near.”

“Did you?” I asked idly. “Why?”

“Because two years before you captured me in battle with some of my
people, and as I was misshapen, or for pity’s sake, spared my life and
made me your slave. Well, I who had been a chief, a very great chief, Master,
did not wish to remain a slave and did wish to avenge my people’s blood.
Therefore I tried to poison you, and that very day you saved my life, offering
for it your own.”

“I think it was because I wanted the tusks of the elephant, Bes.”

“Perhaps, Master, only you will remember that this elephant was a young
cow and had no tusks worth anything. Still had it carried tusks, it might have
been so, since one white tusk is worth many black dwarfs. Well, to-day I have
paid you back. I say it lest you should forget that had it not been for me,
that lion would have eaten you.”

“Yes, Bes, you have paid me back and I thank you.”

“Master, hitherto I always thought you one who worshipped Maat, goddess
of Truth. Now I see that you worship the god of Lies, whoever he may be, that
god who dwells in the breasts of women and most men, but has no name. For,
Master, it was you who saved me from the lion and not I you,
since you cut its throat at the last. So that debt of mine is still to pay and
by the great Grasshopper which we worship in my country, who is much better
than all the gods of the Egyptians put together, I swear that I will pay it
soon, or mayhap ten thousand years hence. At the last it shall be paid.”

“Why do you worship a grasshopper and why is he better than the gods of
the Egyptians?” I asked carelessly, for I was tired and his talk amused
me while we rested.

“We worship the Grasshopper, Master, because he jumps with men’s
spirits from one life to another, or from this world to the next, yes, right
through the blue sky. And he is better than your Egyptian gods because they
leave you to find your own way there, and then eat you alive, that is if you
have tried to poison people, as of course we have all done. But, Master, we are
fresh again now, so let us be going, for the hour will soon be finished. Also
when she has eaten the spear handle, that lioness may return.”

“Yes,” I said; “let us go and report to the King of kings
that we have killed a lion.”

“Master, it is not enough. Even common kings believe little that they do
not see, wherefore it is certain that a King of kings will believe nothing and
still more certain that he will not come here to look. So as we cannot carry
the lion, we must take a bit of it,” and straightway he cut off the end
of the brute’s tail.

Following the crocodile path, presently we reached the edge of the reeds
opposite to the camp where the King now sat in state beneath a purple pavilion
that had been reared, eating a meal, with his courtiers standing at a distance
and looking very hungry.

Out of the reeds bounded Bes, naked and bloody, waving the lion’s tail
and singing some wild Ethiopian chant, while I, also bloody and half naked, for
the lion’s claws had torn my jerkin off me, followed with bow unstrung.

The King looked up and saw us.

“What! Do you live, Egyptian?” he asked. “Of a surety I
thought that by now you would be dead.”

“It was the lion that died, O King,” I answered, pointing to Bes
who, having ceased from his song, was jumping about carrying the beast’s
tail in his mouth as a dog carries a bone.

“It seems that this Egyptian has killed a lion,” said the King to
one of his lords, him of the painted face and scented hair.

“May it please the King,” he answered, bowing, “a tail is not
the whole beast and may have been taken thither, or cut from a lion lying dead
already. The King knows that the Egyptians are great liars.”

So he spoke because he was jealous of the deed.

“These men look as though they had met a live one, not one that is
dead,” said the King, scanning our blood-stained shapes. “Still, as
you doubt it, you will wish to put the matter to the proof. Therefore, Cousin,
take six men with you, enter the reeds and search. In that soft ground it will
be easy to follow their footmarks.”

“It is dangerous, O King,” began the prince, for such he was, no
less.

“And therefore the task will be the more to your taste, Cousin. Go now,
and be swift.”

So six hunters were called and the prince went, cursing me beneath his breath
as he passed us. For he was terribly afraid, and with reason. Suddenly Bes
ceased from his antics and prostrating himself, cried,

“A boon, O King. This noble lord throws doubt upon my master’s
word. Suffer that I may lead him to where the lion lies dead, since otherwise
wandering in those reeds the great King’s cousin might come to harm and
the great King be grieved.”

“I have many cousins,” said the King. “Still go if you wish,
Dwarf.”

So Bes ran after the prince and catching him up, tapped him on the shoulder
with the lion’s tail to point out the way. Then they vanished into the
reeds and I went to the chariot to wash off the blood from my body and clothes.
As I fastened my robe I heard a sound of roaring, then one scream, after which
all grew still. Now I drew near to the reeds and stood between them and the
King’s camp.

Presently on their edge appeared Bes dancing and singing as before, but this
time he held a lion’s tail in either hand. After him came the six hunters
dragging between them the body of the lion we had killed. They staggered with
it towards the King, and I followed.

“I see the dwarf,” he said. “I see the dead lion and I see
the hunters. But where is my cousin? Make report, O Bes.”

“O King of kings,” replied Bes, “the mighty prince your
cousin lies flat yonder beneath the body of that lion’s wife. She sprang
upon him and killed him, and I sprang upon her and killed her with my spear.
Here is her tail, O King of kings.”

“Is this true?” he asked of the hunters.

“It is true, O King,” answered their captain. “The lioness,
which was wounded, leapt upon the prince, choosing him although he was behind
us all. Then this dwarf leapt upon the lioness, being behind the prince and
nearest to him, and drove his spear through her shoulders to her heart. So we
brought the first lion as the King commanded us, since we could carry no
more.”

The face of the King grew red with rage.

“Seven of my people and one black dwarf!” he exclaimed. “Yet
the lioness kills my cousin and the dwarf kills the lioness. Such is the tale
that will go to Egypt concerning the hunters of the King of the world. Seize
those men, Guards, and let them be fed to the wild beasts in the palace
dens.”

At once the unfortunates were seized and led away. Then the King called Bes to
him, and taking the gold chain he wore about his neck, threw it over his head,
thereby, though I knew nothing of it at the time, conferring upon him some
noble rank. Next he called to me and said,

“It would seem that you are skilled in the use of the bow and in the
hunting of lions, Egyptian. Therefore I will honour you, for this afternoon
your chariot shall drive with my chariot, and we will hunt side by side.
Moreover, I will lay you a wager as to which of us will kill the most lions,
for know, Shabaka, that I also am skilled in the use of the bow, more skilled
than any among the millions of my subjects.”

“Then, O King, it is of little use for me to match myself against you,
seeing that I have met men who can shoot better than I do, or, since in the
East all must speak nothing but the truth, not being liars as the dead prince
said we Egyptians are, one man.”

“Who was that man, Shabaka?”

“The Prince Peroa, O King.”

The King frowned as though the name displeased him, then answered,

“Am I not greater than this Peroa and cannot I therefore shoot
better?”

“Doubtless, O King of kings, and therefore how can I who shoot worse than
Peroa, match myself against you?”

“For which reason I will give you odds, Shabaka. Behold this rope of
rose-hued pearls I wear. They are unequalled in the whole world, for twenty
years the merchants sought them in the days of my father; half of them would
buy a satrapy. I wager them”—here the listening nobles gasped and
the fat eunuch, Houman, held up his hands in horror.

“Against what, O King?”

“Your slave Bes, to whom I have taken a fancy.”

Now I trembled and Bes rolled his yellow eyes.

“Your pardon, O King of kings,” I said, “but it is not
enough. I am a hunter and to such, priceless pearls are of little use. But to
me that dwarf is of much use in my hunting.”

“So be it, Shabaka, then I will add to the wager. If you win, together
with the pearls I will give you the dwarf’s weight in solid gold.”

“The King is bountiful,” I answered, “but it is not enough,
for even if I win against one who can shoot better than Peroa, which is
impossible, what should I do with so much gold? Surely for the sake of it I
should be murdered or ever I saw the coasts of Egypt.”

“What shall I add then?” asked the King. “The most beauteous
maiden in the House of Women?”

I shook my head. “Not so, O King, for then I must marry who would remain
single.”

“There is no need, you might sell her to your friend, Peroa. A
satrapy?”

“Not so, O King, for then I must govern it, which would keep me from my
hunting, until it pleased the King to take my head.”

“By the name of the holy ones I worship what then do you ask added to the
pearls and the pure gold?”

Now I tried to bethink me of something that the King could not grant, since I
had no wish for this match which my heart warned me would end in trouble. As no
thought came to me I looked at Bes and saw that he was rolling his eyes towards
the six doomed hunters who were being led away, also in pretence of driving off
a fly, pointing to them with one of the lion tails. Then I remembered that a
decree once uttered by the King of the East could not be altered, and saw a
road of escape.

“O King,” I said, “together with the pearls and the gold I
ask that the lives of those six hunters be added to the wager, to be spared if
by chance I should win.”

“Why?” asked the King amazed.

“Because they are brave men, O King, and I would not see the bones of
such cracked by tame beasts in a cage.”

“Is my judgment registered?” asked the King.

“Not yet, O King,” answered the head scribe.

“Then it has no weight and can be suspended without the breaking of the
law. Shabaka, thus stands our wager. If I kill more lions than you do this day,
or, should but two be slain, I kill the first, or should none be slain, I plant
more arrows in their bodies, I take your slave, Bes the dwarf, to be my slave.
But should you have the better of me in any of these ways, then I give to you
this girdle of rose pearls and the weight of the dwarf Bes in gold and the six
hunters free of harm, to do with what you will. Let it be recorded, and to the
hunt.”

Soon Bes and I were in our chariot which by command took place in line with
that of the King, but at a distance of some thirty steps. Bending over the
dwarf who drove, I spoke with him, saying,

“Our luck is ill to-day, Bes, seeing that before the end of it we may
well be parted.”

“Not so, Master, our luck is good to-day seeing that before the end of it
you will be the richer by the finest pearls in the whole world, by my weight in
pure gold (and Master, I am twice as heavy as the king thought and will stuff
myself with twenty pounds of meat before the weighing, if I have the chance, or
at least with water, though in this hot place that will not last for long), and
by six picked huntsmen, brave men as you thought, who will serve to escort us
and our treasure to the coast.”

“First I must win the match, Bes.”

“Which you could do with one eye blinded, Master, and a sore finger.
Kings think that they can shoot because all the worms that crawl about them and
are named men, dare not show themselves their betters. Oh! I have heard tales
in yonder city. There have been days when this Lord of the world has missed six
lions with as many arrows, and they seated smiling in his face, being but tamed
brutes brought from far in cages of wood, yes, smiling like cats in the sun.
Look you, Master, he drinks too much wine and sits up too late in his
Women’s house—there are three hundred of them there,
Master—to shoot as you and I can. If you doubt it, look at his eyes and
hands. Oh! the pearls and the gold and the men are yours, and that painted
prince who mocked us is where he ought to be—dead in the mud.

“Did I tell you how I managed that, Master? As you know better than I do,
lions hate those that have on them the smell of their own blood. Therefore,
while I pointed out the way to him, I touched the painted prince with the
bleeding tail of that which we killed, pretending that it was by chance, for
which he cursed me, as well he might. So when we came to the dead lion and, as
I had expected, met there the lioness you had wounded, she charged through the
hunters at him who smelt of her husband, and bit his head off.”

“But, Bes, you smelt of him also, and worse.”

“Yes, Master, but that painted cousin of the King came first. I kept well
behind him, pretending to be afraid,” and he chuckled quietly, adding,
“I expect that he is now telling an angry tale about me to Osiris, or to
the Grasshopper that takes him there, as it may happen.”

“These Easterns worship neither Osiris, nor your Grasshopper, Bes, but a
flame of fire.”

“Then he is telling the tale to the fire, and I hope that it will get
tired and burn him.”

So we talked merrily enough because we had done great deeds and thought that we
had outwitted the Easterns and the King, not knowing all their craft. For none
had told us that that man who hunted with the King and yet dared to draw arrow
upon the quarry before the King should be put to death as one who had done
insult to his Majesty. This that royal fox remembered and therefore was sure
that he would win the wager.

Now the chariots turned and passing down a path came to an open space that was
cleared of reeds. Here they halted, that of the King and my own side by side
with ten paces between them, and those of the court behind. Meanwhile huntsmen
with dogs entered the great brake far away to the right and left of us, also in
front, so that the lions might be driven backwards and forwards across the open
space.

Soon we heard the hounds baying on all sides. Then Bes made a sucking noise
with his great lips and pointed to the edge of the reeds in front of us some
sixty paces away. Looking, I saw a yellow shape creeping along between their
dark stems, and although the shot was far, forgetting all things save I was a
hunter and there was my game, I drew the arrow to my ear, aimed and loosed,
making allowance for its fall and for the wind.

Oh! that shot was good. It struck the lion in the body and pierced him through.
Out he came, roaring, rolling, and tearing at the ground. But by now I had
another arrow on the string, and although the King lifted his bow, I loosed
first. Again it struck, this time in the throat, and that lion groaned and
died.

The King looked at me angrily, and from the court behind rose a murmur of
wonder mingled with wrath, wonder at my marksmanship, and wrath because I had
dared to shoot before the King.

“The wager looks well for us,” muttered Bes, but I bade him be
silent, for more lions were stirring.

Now one leapt across the open space, passing in front of the King and within
thirty paces of us. He shot and missed it, sending his shaft two spans above
its back. Then I shot and drove the arrow through it just where the head joins
the neck, cutting the spine, so that it died at once.

Again that murmur went up and the King struck the charioteer on the head with
his clenched fist, crying out that he had suffered the horses to move and
should be scourged for causing his hand to shake.

This charioteer, although he was a lord—since in the East men of high
rank waited on the King like slaves and even clipped his nails and
beard—craved pardon humbly, admitting his fault.

“It is a lie,” whispered Bes. “The horses never stirred. How
could they with those grooms holding their heads? Nevertheless, Master, the
pearls are as good as round your neck.”

“Silence,” I answered. “As we have heard, in the East all men
speak the truth; it is only Egyptians who lie. Also in the East men’s
necks are encircled with bowstrings as well as pearls, and ears are
long.”

The hounds continued to bay, drawing nearer to us. A lioness bounded out of the
reeds, ran towards the King’s chariot and as though amazed, sat down like
a dog, so near that a man might have hit it with a stone. The King shot short,
striking it in the fore-paw only, whereon it shook out the arrow and rushed
back into the reeds, while the court behind cried,

“May the King live for ever! The beast is dead.”

“We shall see if it is dead presently,” said Bes, and I nodded.

Another lion appeared to the right of the King. Again he shot and missed it,
whereon he began to curse and to swear in his own royal oaths, and the
charioteer trembled. Then came the end.

One of the hounds drew quite close and roused the lioness that had been pricked
in the foot. She turned and killed it with a blow of her paw, then, being mad,
charged straight at the King’s chariot. The horses reared, lifting the
grooms off their feet. The King shot wildly and fell backwards out of the
chariot, as even Kings of the world must do when they have nothing left to
stand on. The lioness saw that he was down and leapt at him, straight over the
chariot. As she leapt I shot at her in the air and pierced her through the
loins, paralysing her, so that although she fell down near the King, she could
not come at him to kill him.

I sprang from my chariot, but before I could reach the lioness hunters had run
up with spears and stabbed her, which was easy as she could not move.

The King rose from the ground, for he was unharmed, and said in a loud voice,

“Had not that shaft of mine gone home, I think that the East would have
bowed to another lord to-night.”

Now, forgetting that I was speaking to the King of the earth, forgetting the
wager and all besides, I exclaimed,

“Nay, your shaft missed; mine went home,” whereon one of the
courtiers cried,

“This Egyptian is a liar, and calls the King one!”

“A liar?” I said astonished. “Look at the arrow and see from
whose quiver it came,” and I drew one from my own of the Egyptian make
and marked with my mark.

Then a tumult broke out, all the courtiers and eunuchs talking at once, yet all
bowing to the mud-stained person of the King, like ears of wheat to a tree in a
storm. Not wishing to urge my claims further, for my part I returned to the
chariot and the hunting being done, as I supposed, unstrung my bow which I
prized above all things, and set it in its case.

While I was thus employed the eunuch Houman approached me with a sickly smile,
saying,

“The King commands your presence, Egyptian, that you may receive your
reward.”

I nodded, saying that I would come, and he returned.

“Bes,” I said when he was out of hearing, “my heart sinks. I
do not trust that King who I think means mischief.”

“So do I, Master. Oh! we have been great fools. When a god and a man
climb a tree together, the man should allow the god to come first to the top,
and thence tell the world that he is a god.”

“Yes,” I answered, “but who ever sees Wisdom until she is
flying away? Now perhaps, the god being the stronger, will cast down the
man.”

Then both together we advanced towards the King, leaving the chariot in charge
of soldiers. He was seated on a gilded chair which served him as a throne, and
behind him were his officers, eunuchs and attendants, though not all of them,
since at a little distance some of them were engaged in beating the lord who
had served as his charioteer upon the feet with rods. We prostrated ourselves
before him and waited till he spoke. At length he said,

“Shabaka the Egyptian, we made a wager with you, of which you will
remember the terms. It seems that you have won the wager, since you slew two
lions, whereas we, the King, slew but one, that which leapt upon us in the
chariot.”

Here Bes groaned at my side and I looked up.

“Fear nothing,” he went on, “it shall be paid.” Here he
snatched off the girdle of priceless, rose-hued pearls and threw it in my face.

“At the palace too,” he went on, “the dwarf shall be set in
the scales and his full weight in pure gold shall be given to you. Moreover,
the lives of the six hunters are yours, and with them the men
themselves.”

“May the King live for ever!” I exclaimed, feeling that I must say
something.

“I hope so,” he answered cruelly, “but, Egyptian, you shall
not, who have broken the laws of the land.”

“In what way, O King?” I asked.

“By shooting at the lions before the King had time to draw his bow, and
by telling the King that he lied to his face, for both of which things the
punishment is death.”

Now my heart swelled till I thought it would burst with rage. Then of a sudden,
a certain spirit entered into me and I rose to my feet and said,

“O King, you have declared that I must die and as this is so, I will
kneel to you no more who soon shall sup at the table of Osiris, and there be
far greater than any king, going before him with clean hands. Is it not your
law that he who is condemned to die has first the right to set out his case for
the honour of his name?”

“It is,” said the King, I think because he was curious to hear what
I had to say. “Speak on.”

“O King, although my blood is as high as your own, of that I say nothing,
for at the wish of your satrap I came to the East from Egypt as a hunter, to
show you how we of Egypt kill lions and other beasts. For three months I have
waited in the royal city seeking admission to the presence of the King, and in
vain. At length I was bidden to this hunt when I was about to depart to my own
land, and being taunted by your servants, entered the reeds with my slave, and
there slew a lion. Then it pleased you to thrust a wager upon me which I did
not wish to take, as to which of us would shoot the most lions; a wager as I
now understand you did not mean that I should win, whatever might be my skill,
since you thought I knew that I must shoot at nothing till you had first shot
and killed the beasts or scared them away.

“So I matched myself against you, as hunter against hunter, for in the
field, as before the gods, all are equal, not as a slave against a king who is
determined to avenge defeat by death. We were posted and the lions came. I shot
at those which appeared opposite to me, or upon my side, leaving those that
appeared opposite to you, or on your side unshot at, as is the custom of
hunters. My skill, or my fortune, was better than yours and I killed, whereas
you missed or only wounded. In the end a lioness sprang at you and I shot it
lest it should kill you; as could easily be proved by the arrow in its body.
Now you say that I must die because I have broken some laws of yours which men
should be ashamed to make, and to save your honour, pay me what I have won,
knowing that pearls and gold and slaves are of no value to a dying man and can
be taken back again. That is all the story.

“Yet I would add one word. You Easterns have two sayings which you teach
to your children; that they should learn to shoot with the bow, and to tell the
truth. O King, they are my last lessons to you. Learn to shoot with the
bow—which you cannot do, and to tell the truth which you have not done.
Now I have spoken and am ready to die and I thank you for the patience with
which you have heard my words, that, as the King does not live for ever,
I hope one day to repeat to you more fully beyond the grave.”

Now at this bold speech of mine all those nobles and attendants gasped, for
never had they heard such words addressed to his Majesty. The King turned red
as though with shame, but made no answer, only he asked of those about him.

“What fate for this man?”

“Death, O King!” they cried with one voice.

“What death?” he asked again.

Then his Councillors consulted together and one of them answered,

“The slowest known to our law, death by the boat.”

Hearing this and not knowing what was meant, it came into my mind that I was to
be turned adrift in a boat and there left to starve.

“Behold the reward of good hunting!” I mocked in my rage. “O
King, because of this deed of shame I call upon you the curse of all the gods
of all the peoples. Henceforth may your sleep be ever haunted by evil dreams of
what shall follow the last sleep, and in the end may you also die in
blood.”

The King opened his mouth as though to answer, but from it came nothing but a
low cry of fear. Then guards rushed up and seized me.

CHAPTER VI.
THE DOOM OF THE BOAT

The guards led me to my chariot and thrust me into it, and with me Bes. I asked
them if they would murder him also, to which the eunuch, Houman, answered No,
since he had committed no crime, but that he must go with me to be weighed.
Then soldiers took the horses by the bridles and led them, while others, having
first snatched away my bow and all our other weapons, surrounded the chariot
lest we should escape. So Bes and I were able to talk together in a Libyan
tongue that none of them understood, even if they heard our words.

“Your life is spared,” I said to him, “that the King may take
you as a slave.”

“Then he will take an ill slave, Master, since I swear by the Grasshopper
that within a moon I will find means to kill him, and afterwards come to join
you in a land where men hunt fair.”

I smiled and Bes went on,

“Now I wish I had time to teach you that trick of swallowing your own
tongue, since perhaps you will need it in this boat of which they talk.”

“Did you not say to me an hour or two ago, Bes, that we are fools to
stretch out our hands to Death until he stretches out his to us? I will not die
until I must—now.”

“Why ‘now,’ Master, seeing that only this afternoon you bade
me kill you rather than let you be thrown to the wild beasts?” he asked
peering at me curiously.

“Do you remember the old hermit, the holy Tanofir, who dwells in a cell
over the sepulchre of the Apis bulls in the burial ground of the desert near to
Memphis, Bes?”

“The magician and prophet who is the brother of your grandfather, Master,
and the son of a king; he who brought you up before he became a hermit? Yes, I
know him well, though I have seldom been very near to him because his eyes
frighten me, as they frightened Cambyses the Persian when Tanofir cursed him
and foretold his doom after he had stabbed the holy Apis, saying that by a
wound from that same sword in his own body he should die himself, which thing
came to pass. As they have frightened many another man also.”

“Well, Bes, when yonder king told me that I must die, fear filled me who
did not wish to die thus, and after the fear came a blackness in my mind. Then
of a sudden in that blackness I saw a picture of Tanofir, my great uncle,
seated in a sepulchre looking towards the East. Moreover I heard him speak, and
to me, saying, ‘Shabaka, my foster-son, fear nothing. You are in great
danger but it will pass. Speak to the great King all that rises in your heart,
for the gods of Vengeance make use of your tongue and whatever you prophesy to
him shall be fulfilled.’ So I spoke the words you heard and I feared
nothing.”

“Is it so, Master? Then I think that the holy Tanofir must have entered
my heart also. Know that I was minded to leap upon that king and break his
neck, so that all three of us might end together. But of a sudden something
seemed to tell me to leave him alone and let things go as they are fated. But
how can the holy Tanofir who grows blind with age, see so far?”

“I do not know, Bes, save that he is not as are other men, for in him is
gathered all the ancient wisdom of Egypt. Moreover he lives with the gods while
still upon earth, and like the gods can send his Ka, as we Egyptians
call the spirit, or invisible self which companions all from the cradle to the
grave and afterwards, whither he will. So doubtless to-day he sent it hither to
me whom he loves more than anything on earth. Also I remember that before I
entered on this journey he told me that I should return safe and sound.
Therefore, Bes, I say I fear nothing.”

“Nor do I, Master. Yet if you see me do strange things, or hear me speak
strange words, take no note of them, since I shall be but playing a part as I
think wisest.”

After this we talked of that day’s adventure with the lions, and of
others that we had shared together, laughing merrily all the while, till the
soldiers stared at us as though we were mad. Also the fat eunuch, Houman, who
was mounted on an ass, rode up and said,

“What, Egyptian who dared to twist the beard of the Great King, you
laugh, do you? Well, you will sing a different song in the boat to that which
you sing in the chariot. Think of my words on the eighth day from this.”

“I will think of them, Eunuch,” I answered, looking at him fiercely
in the eyes, “but who knows what kind of a song you will be singing
before the eighth day from this?”

“What I do is done under the authority of the ancient and holy Seal of
Seals,” he answered in a quavering voice, touching the little cylinder of
white shell which I had noted upon the person of the King, but that now hung
from a gold chain about the eunuch’s neck.

Then he made the sign which Easterns use to avert evil and rode off again,
looking very frightened.

So we came to the royal city and went up to a wonderful palace. Here we were
taken from the chariot and led into a room where food and drink in plenty were
given to me as though I were an honoured guest, which caused me to wonder. Bes
also, seated on the ground at a distance, ate and drank, for his own reasons
filling himself to the throat as though he were a wineskin, until the serving
slaves mocked at him for a glutton.

When we had finished eating, slaves appeared bearing a wooden framework from
which hung a great pair of scales. Also there appeared officers of the
King’s Treasury, carrying leather bags which they opened, breaking the
seals to show that the contents were pure gold coin. They set a number of these
bags on one of the scales, and then ordered Bes to seat himself in the other.
So much heavier did he prove than they expected him to be, that they were
obliged to send back to the Treasury to fetch more bags of gold, for although
Bes was so short in height, his weight was that of a large man. One of the
treasurers grumbled, saying he should have been weighed before he had eaten and
drunk. But the officer to whom he spoke grinned and answered that it mattered
little, since the King was heir to criminals and that these bags would soon
return to the Treasury, only they would need washing first, a remark that made
me wonder.

At length, when the scales were even, the six hunters whose lives I had won and
who had been given to me as slaves, were brought in and ordered to shoulder the
bags of gold. I too was seized and my hands were bound behind me. Then I was
led out in charge of the eunuch Houman, who informed me with a leer that it
would be his duty to attend to my comfort till the end. With him were four
black men all dressed in the same way. These, he said, were the executioners.
Lastly came Bes watched by three of the king’s guards armed with spears,
lest he should attempt to rescue me or to do anyone a mischief.

Now my heart began to sink and I asked Houman what was to happen to me.

“This, O Egyptian slayer of lions. You will be laid upon a bed in a
little boat upon the river and another boat will be placed over you, for these
boats are called the Twins, Egyptian, in such a fashion that your head and your
hands will project at one end and your feet at the other. There you will be
left, comfortable as a baby in its cradle, and twice every day the best of food
and drink will be brought to you. Should your appetite fail, moreover, it will
be my duty to revive it by pricking your eyes with the point of a knife until
it returns. Also after each meal I shall wash your face, your hands and your
feet with milk and honey, lest the flies that buzz about them should suffer
hunger, and to preserve your skin from burning by the sun. Thus slowly you will
grow weaker and at length fall asleep. The last one who went into the
boat—he, unlucky man, had by accident wandered into the court of the
House of Women and seen some of the ladies there unveiled—only lived for
twelve days, but you, being so strong, may hope to last for eighteen. Is there
anything more that I can tell you? If so, ask it quickly for we draw near to
the river.”

Now when I heard this and understood all the horror of my fate, I forgot the
vision of my great uncle, the holy Tanofir, and his comfortable prophecies, and
my heart failed me altogether, so that I stood stock still.

“What, Lion-hunter and Bearder of kings, do you think it is too early to
go to bed?” mocked this devilish eunuch. “On with you!” and
he began to beat me about the face with the handle of his fly-whisk.

Then my manhood came back to me.

“When did the King tell you to touch me, you fatted swine?” I
roared, and turning, since I could not reach him with my bound hands, kicked
him in the body with all my strength, so that he fell down, writhing and
screaming with agony. Indeed, had not the executioners leapt upon me, I would
have trampled the life out of him where he lay. But they held me fast and
presently, after he had been sick, Houman recovered enough to come forward
leaning on the shoulders of two guards. Only now he mocked me no more.

We reached a quay just as the sun was setting. There in charge of a one-eyed
black slave, a little square-ended boat floated at the river’s edge,
while on the quay itself lay a similar but somewhat shorter boat, bottom
uppermost. Now the hunters whom I had won in the wager, with many glances of
compassion, for they were brave men and knew that it was I who had saved their
lives, placed the bags of gold in the bottom of the floating boat, and on the
top of these a mattress stuffed with straw. Then the girdle of rose-hued pearls
was made fast about my middle, my hands were untied, I was seized by the
executioners and laid on my back on the mattress, and my wrists and ankles were
fixed by cords to iron rings that were screwed to the thwarts of the boat.
After this the other, shorter boat was laid over me in such a manner that it
did not touch me, leaving my head, my hands and my feet exposed as the eunuch
had said.

While this wicked work was going forward Bes sat on the quay, watching, till
presently, after I had been made fast and covered up, he burst into shouts of
laughter, clapped his hands and began to dance about as though with joy, till
the eunuch, who had now recovered somewhat from my kick, grew curious and asked
him why he behaved thus.

“O noble Eunuch,” he answered, “once I was free and that man
made me a slave, so that for many years I have been obliged to toil for him
whom I hate. Moreover, often he has beaten me and starved me, which was why you
saw me eat so much not long ago, and threatened to kill me, and now at last I
have my revenge upon him who is about to die miserably. That is why I laugh and
sing and dance and clap my hands, O most noble Eunuch, I who shall become the
follower and servant of the glorious King of all the earth, and perhaps your
friend, too, O Eunuch of eunuchs, whose sacred person my brutal master dared to
kick.”

“I understand,” said Houman smiling, though with a twisted face,
“and will make report of all you say to the King, and ask him to grant
that you shall sometimes prick this Egyptian in the eye. Now go spit in his
face and tell him what you think of him.”

So Bes waded into the water which was quite shallow here, and spat into my
face, or pretended to, while amid a torrent of vile language, he interpolated
certain words in the Libyan tongue, which meant,

“O my most beloved father, mother, and other relatives, have no fear.
Though things look very black, remember the vision of the holy Tanofir, who
doubtless allows these things to happen to you to try your faith by direct
order of the gods. Be sure that I will not leave you to perish, or if there
should be no escape, that I will find a way to put you out of your misery and
to avenge you. Yes, yes, I will yet see that accursed swine, Houman, take your
place in this boat. Now I go to the Court to which it seems that this gold
chain gives me a right of entry, or so the eunuch says, but soon I will be back
again.”

Then followed another stream of most horrible abuse and more spitting, after
which he waded back to land and embraced Houman, calling him his best friend.

They went, leaving me alone in the boat save for the guard upon the quay who,
now that darkness had come, soon grew silent. It was lonely, very lonely, lying
there staring at the empty sky with only the stinging gnats for company, and
soon my limbs began to ache. I thought of the poor wretches who had suffered in
this same boat and wondered if their lot would be my lot.

Bes was faithful and clever, but what could a single dwarf do among all these
black-hearted fiends? And if he could do nothing, oh! if he could do nothing!

The seconds seemed minutes, the minutes seemed hours, and the hours seemed
years. What then would the days be, passed in torture and agony while waiting
for a filthy death? Where now were the gods I had worshipped and—was
there any god? Or was man but a self-deceiver who created gods instead of the
gods creating him, because he did not love to think of an eternal blackness in
which he would soon be swallowed up and lost? Well, at least that would mean
sleep, and sleep is better than torment of mind or body.

It came to me, I think, who was so weary. At any rate I opened my eyes to see
that the low moon had vanished and that some of the stars which I knew as a
hunter who had often steered his way by them, had moved a little. While I was
wondering idly why they moved, I heard the tramp of soldiers on the quay and
the voice of an officer giving a command. Then I felt the boat being drawn in
by the cord with which it was attached to the quay. Next the other boat that
lay over me was lifted off, the ropes that bound me were undone and I was set
upon my feet, for already I was so stiff that I could scarcely stand. A voice
which I recognised as that of the eunuch Houman, addressed me in respectful
tones, which made me think I must be dreaming.

“Noble Shabaka,” said the voice, “the Great King commands
your presence at his feast.”

“Is it so?” I answered in my dream. “Then my absence from
their feast will vex the gnats of the river,” a saying at which Houman
and others with him laughed obsequiously.

Next I heard the bags of gold being removed from the boat, after which we
walked away, guards supporting me by either elbow until I found my strength
again, and Houman following just behind, perhaps because he feared my foot if
he went in front.

“What has chanced, Eunuch,” I asked presently, “that I am
disturbed from the bed where I was sleeping so well?”

“I do not know, Lord,” he answered. “I only know that the
King of kings has suddenly commanded that you should be brought before him as a
guest clothed in a robe of honour, even if to do so, you must be awakened from
your rest, yes, to his own royal table, for he holds a feast this night.
Lord,” he went on in a whining voice, “if perchance fortune should
have changed her face to you, I pray you bear no malice to those who, when she
frowned, were forced, yes, under the private Seal of Seals, against their will
to carry out the commands of the King. Be just, O Lord Shabaka.”

“Say no more. I will try to be just,” I answered. “But what
is justice in the East? I only know of it in Egypt.”

Now we reached one of the doors of the palace and I was taken to a chamber
where slaves who were waiting, washed and anointed me with scents, after which
they clad me in a beautiful robe of silk, setting the girdle of rose-hued
pearls about me.

When they had finished, preceded by Houman I was led to a great pillared hall
closed in with silk hangings, where many feasted. Through them I went to a dais
at the head of the hall where between half-drawn curtains surrounded by
cup-bearers and other officers, the King sat in all his glory upon a cushioned
golden throne. He had a glittering wine-cup in his hand and at a glance I saw
that he was drunk, as it is the fashion for these Easterns to be at their great
feasts, for he looked happy and human which he did not do when he was sober. Or
perchance, as sometimes I thought afterwards, he only pretended to be drunk.
Also I saw something else, namely, Bes, wondrously attired with the gold chain
about his neck and wearing a red headdress. He was seated on the carpet before
the throne, and saying things that made the King laugh and even caused the
grave officers behind to smile.

I came to the dais and at a little sign from Bes who yet did not seem to see
me, such a sign as he often made when he caught sight of game before I did, I
prostrated myself. The King looked at me, then asked,

“Who is this?” adding, “Oh, I remember, the Egyptian whose
arrows do not miss, the wonderful hunter whom Idernes sent to me from Memphis,
which I hope to visit ere long. We quarrelled, did we not, Egyptian, something
about a lion?”

“Not so, King,” I answered. “The King was angry and with
justice, because I could not kill a lion before it frightened his
horses.”

This I said because my hours in the boat had made me humble, also because the
words came to my lips.

“Yes, yes, something like that, or at least you lie well. Whatever it may
have been, it is done with now, a mere hunters’ difference,” and
taking from his side his long sceptre that was headed with the great emerald,
he stretched it out for me to touch in token of pardon.

Then I knew that I was safe for he to whom the King has extended his sceptre is
forgiven all crimes, yes, even if he had attempted the royal life. The Court
knew it also, for every man who saw bowed towards me, yes, even the officers
behind the King. One of the cup-bearers too brought me a goblet of the
King’s own wine, which I drank thankfully, calling down health on the
King.

“That was a wonderful shot of yours, Egyptian,” he said,
“when you sent an arrow through the lioness that dared to attack my
Majesty. Yes, the King owes his life to you and he is grateful as you shall
learn. This slave of yours,” and he pointed to Bes in his gaudy attire,
“has brought the whole matter to my mind whence it had fallen, and,
Shabaka,” here he hiccupped, “you may have noted how differently
things look to the naked eye and when seen through a wine goblet. He has told
me a wonderful story—what was the story, Dwarf?”

“May it please the great King,” answered Bes, rolling his big eyes,
“only a little tale of another king of my own country whom I used to
think great until I came to the East and learned what kings could be. That king
had a servant with whom he used to hunt, indeed he was my own father. One day
they were out together seeking a certain elephant whose tusks were bigger than
those of any other. Then the elephant charged the king and my father, at the
risk of his life, killed it and claimed the tusks, as is the custom among the
Ethiopians. But the king who greatly desired those tusks, caused my father to
be poisoned that he might take them as his heir. Only before he died, my
father, who could talk the elephant language, told all the other elephants of
this wickedness, at which they were very angry, because they knew well that
from the beginning of time their tusks have belonged to him who killed them,
and the elephants are a people who do not like ancient laws to be altered. So
the elephants made a league together and when the king next went out hunting,
taking heed of nothing else they rushed at the king and tore him into pieces no
bigger than a finger, and then killed the prince his son, who was behind him.
That is the tale of the elephants who love Law, O King.”

“Yes, yes,” said his Majesty, waking up from a little doze,
“but what became of the great tusks? I should like to have them.”

“I inherited them as my father’s son, O King, and gave them to my
master, who doubtless will send them to you when he gets back to Egypt.”

“A strange tale,” said the King. “A very strange tale which
seems to remind me of something that happened not long ago. What was it? Well,
it does not matter. Egyptian, do you seek any reward for that shot of yours at
the lioness? If so, it shall be given to you. Have you a grudge against anyone,
for instance?”

“O King,” I answered, “I do seek justice against a certain
man. This evening I was led to the bank of the river in charge of the eunuch
Houman, who desired to take me for a row in a boat. On the road, for no offence
he struck me on the head with the handle of his fly-whip. See, here are the
marks of it, O King. Unless the King commanded him to strike me which I do not
remember, I seek justice against this eunuch.”

Now the King grew very angry and cried,

“What! Did the dog dare to strike a freeborn noble Egyptian?”

Here Houman threw himself upon his face in terror and began to babble out I
know not what about the punishment of the boat, which was unlucky for him, for
it put the matter into the King’s mind.

“The boat!” he cried. “Ah! yes, the boat; being so fat you
will fit it well, Eunuch. To the boat with him, and before he enters it a
hundred blows upon the feet with the rods,” and he pointed at him with
his sceptre.

Then guards sprang upon Houman and dragged him away. As he went he clutched at
Bes, but hissing something into his ear, the dwarf bit him through the hand
till he let go. So Houman departed and the King’s guests laughed at the
sight, for he had worked mischief to many.

When he had gone the King stared at me and asked,

“But why did I disturb you from your sleep, Egyptian? Oh! I remember.
This dwarf says that he has seen the fairest woman in the whole world, and the
most learned, some lady of Egypt, but that he does not know her name, that you
alone know her name. I disturbed you that you might tell it to me but if you
have forgotten it, you can go back to your bed and rest there till it returns
to you. There are plenty of boats in the river, Egyptian.”

“The fairest and most learned woman in the world?” I said
astonished. “Who can that be, unless he means the lady Amada?” and
I paused, wishing I had bitten out my tongue before I spoke, for I smelt a
trap.

“Yes, Master,” said Bes in a clear voice. “That was the name,
the lady Amada.”

“Who is this lady Amada?” asked the King, seeming to grow suddenly
sober. “And what is she like?”

“I can tell you that, O King,” said Bes. “She is like a
willow shaken in the wind for slenderness and grace. She has eyes like those of
a buck at gaze; she has lips like rosebuds; she has hair black as the night and
soft as silk, the odour of which floats round her like that of flowers. She has
a voice that whispers like the evening wind, and yet is rich as honey. Oh! she
is beautiful as a goddess and when men see her their hearts melt like wax in
the sun and for a long while they can look upon no other woman, not till the
next day indeed if they meet her in the evening,” and Bes smacked his
thick lips and gazed upwards.

“By the holy Fire,” laughed the King, “I feel my heart
melting already. Say, Shabaka, what do you know of this Amada? Is she married
or a maiden?”

Now I answered because I must, for after all that boat was not far away, nor
did I dare to lie.

“She is married, O King of kings, to the goddess Isis whom she loves
alone.”

“A woman married to a woman, or rather to the Queen of women,” he
answered laughing, “well, that matters little.”

“Nay, O King, it matters much since she is under the protection of Isis
and inviolate.”

“That remains to be seen, Shabaka. I think that I would dare the wrath of
every false goddess in heaven to win such a prize. Learned also, you say,
Shabaka.”

“Aye, O King, full of learning to the finger tips, a prophetess also, one
in whom the divine fire burns like a lamp in a vase of alabaster, one to whom
visions come and who can read the future and the past.”

“Still better,” said the King. “One, then, who would be a
fitting consort for the King of kings, who wearies of fat, round-eyed,
sweetmeat-sucking fools whereof there are hundreds yonder,” and he
pointed towards the House of Women. “Who is this maid’s
father?”

“He is dead but she is the niece of the Prince Peroa, and by birth the
Royal Lady of Egypt, O King.”

“Good, then she is well born also. Hearken, O Shabaka, to-morrow you
start back to Egypt, bearing letters from me to my vassal Peroa, and to my
Satrap Idernes, bidding Peroa to hand over this lady Amada to Idernes and
bidding Idernes to send her to the East with all honour and without delay, that
she may enter my household as one of my wives.”

Now I was filled with rage and horror, and about to refuse this mission when
Bes broke in swiftly,

“Will the King of kings be pleased to give command as to my
master’s safe and honourable escort to Egypt?”

“It is commanded with all things necessary for Shabaka the Egyptian and
the dwarf his servant, with the gold and gems and slaves he won from me in a
wager, and everything else that is his. Let it be recorded.”

Scribes sprang forward and wrote the King’s words down, while like one in
a dream I thought to myself that they could not now be altered. The King
watched them sleepily for a while, then seemed to wake up and grow clear-minded
again. At least he said to me,

“Fortune has shown you smiles and frowns to-day, Egyptian, and the smiles
last. Yet remember that she has teeth behind her lips wherewith to tear out the
throat of the faithless. Man, if you play me false or fail in your mission, be
sure that you shall die and in such a fashion that will make you think of
yonder boat as a pleasant bed, and with you this woman Amada and her uncle
Peroa, and all your kin and hers; yes,” he added with a burst of
shrewdness, “and even that abortion of a dwarf to whom I have listened
because he amused me, but who perhaps is more cunning than he seems.”

“O King of kings,” I said, “I will not be false.” But I
did not add to whom I would be true.

“Good. Ere long I shall visit Egypt, as I have told you, and there I
shall pass judgment on you and others. Till then, farewell. Fear nothing, for
you have my safe-conduct. Begone, both of you, for you weary me. But first
drink and keep the cup, and in exchange, give me that bow of yours which shoots
so far and straight.”

“It is the King’s,” I answered as I pledged him in the
golden, jewelled cup which a butler had handed to me.

Then the curtain fell in front of the throne and chamberlains came forward to
lead me and Bes back to our lodging, one of whom took the cup and bore it in
front of us. Down the hall we went between the feasting nobles who all bowed to
one to whom the Great King had shown favour, and so out of the palace through
the quiet night back to the house where I had dwelt while waiting audience of
the King. Here the chamberlains bade me farewell, giving the cup to Bes to
carry, and saying that on the morrow early my gold should be brought to me
together with all that was needed for my journey, also one who would receive
the bow I had promised to the King, which had already been returned to my
lodgings with everything that was ours. Then they bowed and went.

We entered the house, climbing a stair to an upper chamber. Here Bes barred the
door and the shutters, making sure that none could see or hear us.

Then he turned, threw his arms about me, kissed my hand and burst into tears.

CHAPTER VII.
BES STEALS THE SIGNET

“Oh! my Master,” gulped Bes, “I weep because I am tired, so
take no notice. The day was long and during it twice at least there has been
but the twinkling of an eyelid, but the thickness of a finger nail, but the
weight of a hair between you and death.”

“Yes,” I said, “and you were the eyelid, the finger nail and
the hair.”

“No, Master, not I, but something beyond me. The tool carves the statue
and the hand holds the tool but the spirit guides the hand. Not once only since
the sun rose has my mind been empty as a drum. Then something struck on it,
perhaps the holy Tanofir, perhaps another, and it knew what note to sound. So
it was when I cursed you in the boat. So it was when I walked back with the
eunuch, meaning to kill him on the road, and then remembered that the death of
one vile eunuch would not help you at all, whereas alive he could bring me to
the presence of the King, if I paid him, as I did out of the gold in your purse
which I carried. Moreover he earned his hire, for when the King grew dull, wine
not yet having taken a hold on him, it was he who brought me to his mind as one
who might amuse him, being so ugly and different from others, if only for a few
minutes, after the women dancers had failed to do so.”

“And what happened then, Bes?”

“Then I was fetched and did my juggling tricks with that snake I caught
and tamed, which is in my pouch now. You should not hate it any more, Master,
for it played your game well. After this the King began to talk to me and I saw
that his mind was ill at ease about you whom he knew that he had wronged. So I
told him that story of an elephant that my father killed to save a
king—it grew up in my mind like a toadstool in the night, Master, did
this story of an ungrateful king and what befell him. Then the King became
still more unquiet in his heart about you and asked the eunuch, Houman, where
you were, to which he answered that by his order you were sleeping in a boat
and might not be disturbed. So that arrow of mine missed its mark because the
King did not like to eat his own words and cause you to be brought from out the
boat, whither he had sent you. Now when everything seemed lost, some god, or
perhaps the holy Tanofir who is ever present with me to see that I have not
forgotten him, put it into the King’s mouth to begin to talk about women
and to ask me if I had ever seen any fairer than those dancers whom I met going
out as I came in. I answered that I had not noticed them much because they were
so ugly, as indeed all women had seemed to me since once upon the banks of Nile
I had looked upon one who was as Hathor herself for beauty. The King asked me
who this might be and I answered that I did not know since I had never dared to
ask the name of one whom even my master held to be as a goddess, although as
boy and girl they had been brought up together.

“Then the King saw his opportunity to ease his conscience and inquired of
an old councillor if there were not a law which gave the king power to alter
his decree if thereby he could satisfy his soul and acquire knowledge. The
councillor answered that there was such a law and began to give examples of its
working, till the King cut him short and said that by virtue of it he commanded
that you should be brought out of your bed in the boat and led before him to
answer a question.

“So you were sent for, Master, but I did not go with the messengers,
fearing lest if I did the King would forget all about the matter before you
came. Therefore I stayed and amused him with tales of hunting, till I could not
think of any more, for you were long in coming. Indeed I began to fear lest he
should declare the feast at an end. But at the last, just as he was yawning and
spoke to one of his councillors, bidding him send to the House of Women that
they might make ready to receive him there, you came, and the rest you
know.”

Now I looked at Bes and said,

“May the blessing of all the gods of all the lands be on your head, since
had it not been for you I should now lie in torment in that boat. Hearken,
friend: If ever we reach Egypt again, you will set foot on it, not as a slave
but as a free man. You will be rich also, Bes, that is, if we can take the gold
I won with us, since half of it is yours.”

Bes squatted down upon the floor and looked up at me with a strange smile on
his ugly face.

“You have given me three things, Master,” he said. “Gold,
which I do not want at present; freedom, which I do not want at present and
mayhap, never shall while you live and love me; and the title of friend. This I
do want, though why I should care to hear it from your lips I am not sure,
seeing that for a long while I have known that it was spoken in your heart.
Since you have said it, however, I will tell you something which hitherto I
have hid even from you. I have a right to that name, for if your blood is high,
O Shabaka, so is mine. Know that this poor dwarf whom you took captive and
saved long years ago was more than the petty chief which he declared himself to
be. He was and is by right the King of the Ethiopians and that throne with all
its wealth and power he could claim to-morrow if he would.”

“The King of the Ethiopians!” I said. “Oh! friend Bes, I pray
you to remember that we no longer stand in yonder court lying for our
lives.”

“I speak no lie, O Shabaka, I before you am King of the Ethiopians.
Moreover, I laid that kingship down of my own will and should I so desire, can
take it up again when I will, since the Ethiopians are faithful to their
kings.”

“Why?” I asked, astonished.

“Master, for so I will still call you who am not yet upon the land of
Egypt where you have promised me freedom, do you remember anything strange
about the people of that tribe from among whom you and the Egyptian soldiers
captured me by surprise, because they wished to drive you and your following
from their country?”

Now I thought and answered,

“Yes, one thing. I saw no women in their camp, nor any sign of children.
This I know because I gave orders that such were to be spared and it was
reported to me that there were none, so I supposed that they had fled
away.”

“There were none to fly, Master. That tribe was a brotherhood which had
abjured women. Look on me now. I am misshapen, hideous, am I not? Born thus, it
is said, because before my birth my mother was frightened by a dwarf. Yet the
law of the Ethiopians is that their kings must marry within a year of their
crowning. Therefore I chose a woman to be the queen whom I had long desired in
secret. She scorned me, vowing that not for all the thrones of all the world
would she be mated to a monster, and that if it were done by force she would
kill herself, a saying that went abroad throughout the land. I said that she
had spoken well and sent her in safety from the country, after which I too laid
down my crown and departed with some who loved me, to form a brotherhood of
women-haters further down the Nile, beyond the borders of Ethiopia. There the
Egyptian force of which you were in command, attacked us unprepared, and you
made me your slave. That is all.”

“But why did you do this, Bes, seeing that maidens are many and all would
not have thought thus?”

“Because I wished for that one only, Master; also I feared lest I should
become the father of a breed of twisted dwarfs. So I who was a king am now a
slave, and yet, who knows which way the Grasshopper will jump? One day from a
slave I may again grow into a king. And now let us seek that wherein kings are
as slaves and slaves as kings—sleep.”

So we lay down and slept, I thanking the gods that my bed was not yonder in the
boat upon the great river.

When I woke refreshed, though after all I had gone through on the yesterday my
brain still swam a little, the light was pouring through the carved work of the
shuttered windows. By it I saw Bes seated on the floor engaged in doing
something to his bow, which, as I have said, had been restored to us with our
other weapons, and asked him sleepily what it was.

“Master,” he said, “yonder King demanded your bow and
therefore a bow must be sent to him. But there is no need for it to be that
with which you shot the lions, which, too, you value above anything you have,
seeing that it came down to you from your forefather who was a Pharaoh of
Egypt, and has been your companion from boyhood ever since you were strong
enough to draw it. As you may remember I copied that bow out of a somewhat
lighter wood, which I could bend with ease, and it is the copy that we will
give to the King. Only first I must set your string upon it, for that may have
been noted; also make one or two marks that are on your bow which I am
finishing now, having begun the task with the dawn.”

“You are clever,” I said laughing, “and I am glad. The holy
Tanofir, looking on my bow, once had a vision. It was that an arrow loosed from
it would drink the blood of a great king and save Egypt. But what king and
when, he did not see.”

The dwarf nodded and answered,

“I have heard that tale and so have others. Therefore I play this trick
since it is better that yonder palace dweller should get the arrow than the
bow. There, it is finished to the last scratch, and none, save you and I, would
know them apart. Till we are clear of this cursed land your bow is mine,
Master, and you must find you another of the Eastern make.”

“Master,” I repeated after him. “Say, Bes, did I dream or did
you in truth tell me last night that you are by birth and right the king of a
great country?”

“I told you that, Master and it is true, no dream, since joy and
suffering mixed unseal the lips and from them comes that at times which the
heart would hide. Now I ask a favour of you, that you will speak no more of
this matter either to me or to any other, man or woman, unless I should speak
of it first. Let it be as though it were indeed a dream.”

“It is granted,” I said as I rose and clothed myself, not in my own
garments which had been taken from me in the palace, but in the splendid silken
robes that had been set upon me after I was loosed from the boat. When this was
done and I had washed and combed my long, curling hair, we descended to a lower
chamber and called for the woman of the house to bring us food, of which I ate
heartily. As we finished our meal we heard shouts in the street outside of,
“Make way for the servants of the King!” and looking through the
window-place, saw a great cavalcade approaching, headed by two princes on
horseback.

“Now I pray that yonder Tyrant has not changed his mind and that these do
not come to take me back to the boat,” I said in a low voice.

“Have no fear, Master,” answered Bes, “seeing that you have
touched his sceptre and drunk from his cup which he gave to you. After these
things no harm can happen to you in any land he rules. Therefore be at ease and
deal with these fellows proudly.”

A minute later two princes entered followed by slaves who bore many things,
among them those hide bags filled with gold that had been set beneath me in the
boat. The elder of them bowed, greeting me with the title of
“Lord,” and I bowed back to him. Then he handed me certain rolls
tied up with silk and sealed, which he said I was to deliver as the King had
commanded to the King’s Satrap in Egypt, and to the Prince Peroa. Also he
gave me other letters addressed to the King’s servants on the road and
written on tablets of clay in a writing I could not read, with all of which I
touched my forehead in the Eastern fashion.

After this he told me that by noon all would be ready for my journey which I
should make with the rank of the King’s Envoy, duly provisioned and
escorted by his servants, with liberty to use the royal horses from post to
post. Then he ordered the slaves to bring in the gifts which the King sent to
me, and these were many, including even suits of flexible armour that would
turn any sword-thrust or arrow.

I thanked him, saying that I would be ready to start by noon, and asked whether
the King wished to see me before I rode. He replied that he had so wished, but
that as he was suffering in his head from the effects of the sun, he could not.
He bade me, however, remember all that he had said to me and to be sure that
the beauteous lady Amada, of whom I had spoken, was sent to him without delay.
In that case my reward should be great; but if I failed to fulfil his commands,
then his wrath would be greater and I should perish miserably as he had
promised.

I bowed and made no answer, after which he and his companions opened the bags
of gold to show me that it was there, offering to weigh it again against my
servant, the dwarf, so that I could see that nothing had been taken away.

I replied that the King’s word was truer than any scale, whereon the bags
were tied up again and sealed. Then I produced the bow, or rather its
counterfeit, and having shown it to the princes, wrapped it and six of my own
arrows in a linen cloth, to be taken to the King, with a message that though
hard to draw it was the deadliest weapon in the world. The elder of them took
it, bowed and bade me farewell, saying that perhaps we should meet again ere
long in Egypt, if my gods gave me a safe journey. So we parted and I was glad
to see the last of them.

Scarcely had they gone when the six hunters whom I had won in the wager and
thereby saved from death, entered the chamber and fell upon their knees before
me, asking for orders as to making ready my gear for the journey. I inquired of
them if they were coming also, to which their spokesman replied that they were
my slaves to do what I commanded.

“Do you desire to come?” I inquired.

“O Lord Shabaka,” answered their spokesman, “we do, though
some of us must leave wives and children behind us.”

“Why?” I asked.

“For two reasons, Lord. Here we are men disgraced, though through no
fault of our own and if you were to leave us in this land, soon the anger of
the King would find us out and we should lose not only our wives and children,
but with them our lives. Whereas in another land we may get other wives and
more children, but never shall we get another life. Therefore we would leave
those dear ones to our friends, knowing that soon the women will forget and
find other husbands, and that the children will grow up to whatever fate is
appointed them, thinking of us, their fathers, as dead. Secondly we are hunters
by trade, and we have seen that you are a great hunter, one whom we shall
always be proud to serve in the chase or in war, one, too, who went out of his
path to save our lives, because he saw that we had been unjustly doomed to a
cruel death. Therefore we desire nothing better than to be your slaves, hoping
that perchance we may earn our liberty from you in days to come by our good
service.”

“Is that the wish of all of you?” I asked.

Speaking one by one, they said that it was, though tears rose in the eyes of
some of them who were married at the thought of parting from their women and
their little ones, who, it seemed might not be brought with them because they
were the people of the King and had not been named in the bet. Moreover, horses
could not be found for so many, nor could they travel fast.

“Come then,” I said, “and know that while you are faithful to
me, I will be good to you, men of my own trade, and perhaps in the end set you
free in a land where brave fellows are not given to be torn to pieces by wild
beasts at the word of any king. But if you fail me or betray me, then either I
will kill you, or sell you to those who deal in slaves, to work at the oar, or
in the mines till you die.”

“Henceforth we have no lord but you, O Shabaka,” they said, and one
after another took my hand and pressed it to their foreheads, vowing to be true
to me in all things while we lived.

So I bade them begone to bid farewell to those they loved and return again
within half an hour of noon, never expecting, to tell the truth, that they
would come. Indeed I did this to give them the opportunity of escaping if they
saw fit, and hiding themselves where they would. But as I have often noted, the
trade of hunting breeds honesty in the blood and at the hour appointed all of
these men appeared, one of them with a woman who carried a child in her arms,
clinging to him and weeping bitterly. When her veil slipped aside I saw that
she was young and very fair to look on.

So at noon we left the city of the Great King in the charge of two of his
officers who brought me his thanks for the bow I had sent him, which he said he
should treasure above everything he possessed, a saying at which Bes rolled his
yellow eyes and grinned. We were mounted on splendid stallions from the royal
stables and clad in the shirts of mail that had been presented to us, though
when we were clear of the city we took these off because of the heat, also
because that which Bes wore chafed him, being too long for his squat shape. Our
goods together with the bags of gold were laden on sumpter horses which were
led by my six hunter slaves. Four picked soldiers brought up the rear, mighty
men from the King’s own bodyguard, and two of the royal postmen who
served us as guides. Also there were cooks and grooms with spare horses.

Thus we started in state and a great crowd watched us go. Our road ran by the
river which we must cross in barges lower down, so that in a few minutes we
came to that quay whither I had been led on the previous night to die. Yes,
there were the watching guards, and there floated the hateful double boat, at
the prow of which appeared the tortured face of the eunuch Houman, who rolled
his head from side to side to rid himself of the torment of the flies. He
caught sight of us and began to scream for pity and forgiveness, whereat Bes
smiled. The officers halted our cavalcade and one of them approaching me said,

“It is the King’s command, O Lord Shabaka, that you should look
upon this villain who traduced you to the King and afterwards dared to strike
you. If you will, enter the water and blind him, that your face may be the last
thing he sees before he passes into darkness.”

I shook my head, but Bes into whose mind some thought had come, whispered to
me,

“I wish to speak with yonder eunuch, so give me leave and fear nothing. I
will do him no hurt, only good, if I find the chance.”

Then I said to the officer,

“It is not for great lords to avenge themselves upon the fallen. Yet my
slave here was also wronged and would say a word to yonder Houman.”

“So be it,” said the officer, “only let him be careful not to
hurt him too sorely, lest he should die before the time and escape his
punishment.”

Then Bes tucked up his robes and waded into the river, flourishing a great
knife, while seeing him come, Houman began to scream with fear. He reached the
boat and bent over the eunuch, talking to him in a low voice. What he did there
I could not see because his cloak was spread out on either side of the
man’s head. Presently, however, I caught sight of the flash of a knife
and heard yells of agony followed by groans, whereat I called to him to return
and let the fellow be. For when I remembered that his fate was near to being my
own, those sounds made me sick at heart and I grew angry with Bes, though the
cruel Easterns only laughed.

At length he came back grinning and washing the blade of his knife in the
water. I spoke fiercely to him in my own language, and still he grinned on,
making no answer. When we were mounted again and riding away from that horrible
boat with its groaning prisoner, watching Bes whose behaviour and silence I
could not understand, I saw him sweep his hand across his great mouth and
thrust it swiftly into his bosom. After this he spoke readily enough, though in
a low voice lest someone who understood Egyptian should overhear him.

“You are a fool, Master,” he said, “to think that I should
wish to waste time in torturing that fat knave.”

“Then why did you torture him?” I asked.

“Because my god, the Grasshopper, when he fashioned me a dwarf, gave me a
big mouth and good teeth,” he answered, whereon I stared at him, thinking
that he had gone mad.

“Listen, Master. I did not hurt Houman. All I did was to cut his cords
nearly through from the under side, so that when night comes he can break them
and escape, if he has the wit. Now, Master, you may not have noticed, but I
did, that before the King doomed you to death by the boat yesterday, he took a
certain round, white seal, a cylinder with gods and signs cut on it, which hung
by a gold chain from his girdle, and gave it to Houman to be his warrant for
all he did. This seal Houman showed to the Treasurer whereon they produced the
gold that was weighed in the scales against me, and to others when he ordered
the boat to be prepared for you to lie in. Moreover he forgot to return it, for
when he himself was dragged off to the boat by direct command of the King, I
caught sight of the chain beneath his robe. Can you guess the rest?”

“Not quite,” I answered, for I wished to hear the tale in his own
words.

“Well, Master, when I was walking with Houman after he had put you in the
boat, I asked him about this seal. He showed it to me and said that he who bore
it was for the time the king of all the Empire of the East. It seems that there
is but one such seal which has descended from ancient days from king to king,
and that of it every officer, great or small, has an impress in all lands. If
the seal is produced to him, he compares it with the impress and should the two
agree, he obeys the order that is brought as though the King had given it in
person. When we reached the Court doubtless Houman would have returned the
seal, but seeing that the King was, or feigned to be drunk, waited for fear
lest it should be lost, and with it his life. Then he was seized as you saw,
and in his terror forgot all about the seal, as did the King and his
officers.”

“But, surely, Bes, those who took Houman to the boat would have removed
it.”

“Master, even the most clear-sighted do not see well at night. At any
rate my hope was that they had not done so, and that is why I waded out to
prick the eyes of Houman. Moreover, as I had hoped, so it was; there beneath
his robe I saw the chain. Then I spoke to him, saying,

“‘I am come to put out your eyes, as you deserve, seeing how you
have treated my master. Still I will spare you at a price. Give me the
King’s ancient white seal that opens all doors, and I will only make a
pretence of blinding you. Moreover I will cut your cords nearly through, so
that when the night comes you can break them, roll into the river and
escape.’

“‘Take it if you can,’ he said, ‘and use it to injure
or destroy that accursed one.’”

“So you took it, Bes.”

“Yes, Master, but not easily. Remember, it was on a chain about the
man’s neck, and I could not draw it over his head, for, like his hands,
his throat was tied by a cord, as you remember yours was.”

“I remember very well,” I said, “for my throat is still sore
from the rope that ran to the same staples to which my hands were
fastened.”

“Yes, Master, and therefore if I drew the chain off his neck, it would
still have been on the ropes. I thought of trying to cut it with the knife, but
this was not easy because it is thick, and if I had dragged it up on the blade
of the knife it would have been seen, for many eyes were watching me, Master.
Then I took another counsel. While I pretended to be putting out the eyes of
Houman, I bent down and getting the chain between my teeth I bit it through.
One tooth broke—see, but the next finished the business. I ate through
the soft gold, Master, and then sucked up the chain and the round white seal
into my mouth, and that is why I could not answer you just now, because my
cheeks were full of chain. So we have the King’s seal that all the
subject countries know and obey. It may be useful, yonder in Egypt, and at
least the gold is of value.”

“Clever!” I exclaimed, “very clever. But you have forgotten
something, Bes. When that knave escapes, he will tell the whole story and the
King will send after us and kill us who have stolen his royal seal.”

“I don’t think so, Master. First, it is not likely that Houman will
escape. He is very fat and soft and already suffers much. After a day in the
sun also he will be weak. Moreover I do not think that he can swim, for eunuchs
hate the water. So if he gets out of the boat it is probable that he will drown
in the river, since he dare not wade to the quay where the guards will be
waiting. But if he does escape by swimming across the river, he will hide for
his life’s sake and never be seen again, and if by chance he is caught,
he will say that the seal fell into the water when he was taken to the boat, or
that one of the guards had stolen it. What he will not say is that he had
bargained it away with someone who in return, cut his cords, since for that
crime he must die by worse tortures than those of the boat. Lastly we shall
ride so fast that with six hours’ start none will catch us. Or if they do
I can throw away the chain and swallow the seal.”

As Bes said, so it happened. The fate of Houman I never learned, and of the
theft of the seal I heard no more until a proclamation was issued to all the
kingdoms that a new one was in use. But this was not until long afterwards when
it had served my turn and that of Egypt.

CHAPTER VIII.
THE LADY AMADA

Now day by day, hour by hour and minute by minute every detail of that journey
appeared before me, but to set it all down is needless. As I, Allan Quatermain,
write the record of my vision, still I seem to hear the thunder of our
horses’ hoofs while we rushed forward at full gallop over the plains,
over the mountain passes and by the banks of rivers. The speed at which we
travelled was wonderful, for at intervals of about forty miles were post-houses
and at these, whatever might be the hour of day or night, we found fresh horses
from the King’s stud awaiting us. Moreover, the postmasters knew that we
were coming, which astonished me until we discovered that they had been warned
of our arrival by two King’s messengers who travelled ahead of us.

These men, it would seem, although our officers and guides professed ignorance
of the matter, must have left the King’s palace at dawn on the day of our
departure, whereas we did not mount in the city till a little after noon.
Therefore they had six hours good start of us, and what is more, travelled
lighter than we did, having no sumpter beasts with them, and no cooks or
servants. Moreover, always they had the pick of the horses and chose the three
swiftest beasts, leading the third in case one of their own should founder or
meet with accident. Thus it came about that we never caught them up although we
covered quite a hundred miles a day. Only once did I see them, far off upon the
skyline of a mountain range which we had to climb, but by the time we had
reached its crest they were gone.

At length we came to the desert without accident and crossed it, though more
slowly. But even here the King had his posts which were in charge of Arabs who
lived in tents by wells of water, or sometimes where there was none save what
was brought to them. So still we galloped on, parched by the burning sand
beneath and the burning sand above, and reached the borders of Egypt.

Here, upon the very boundary line, the two officers halted the cavalcade saying
that their orders were to return thence and make report to the King. There then
we parted, Bes and I with the six hunters who still chose to cling to me, going
forward and the officers of the King with the guides and servants going back.
The good horses that we rode from the last post they gave to us by the
King’s command, together with the sumpter beasts, since horses broken to
the saddle were hard to come by in Egypt where they were trained to draw
chariots. These we took, sending back my thanks to the King, and started on
once more, Bes leading that beast which bore the gold and the hunters serving
as a guard.

Indeed I was glad to see the last of those Easterns although they had brought
us safely and treated us well, for all the while I was never sure but that they
had some orders to lead us into a trap, or perhaps to make away with us in our
sleep and take back the gold and the priceless, rose-hued pearls, any two of
which were worth it all. But such was not their command nor did they dare to
steal them on their own account, since then, even if they escaped the vengeance
of the King, their wives and all their families would have paid the price.

Now we entered Egypt near the Salt Lakes that are not far from the head of the
Gulf, crossing the canal that the old Pharaohs had dug, which proved easy for
it was silted up. Before we reached it we found some peasant folk labouring in
their gardens and I heard one of them call to another,

“Here come more of the Easterns. What is toward, think you,
neighbour?”

“I do not know,” answered the other, “but when I passed down
the canal this morning, I saw a body of the Great King’s guards gathering
from the fort. Doubtless it is to meet these men of whose coming the other two
who went by fifty hours ago, have warned the officers.”

“Now what does that mean?” I asked of Bes.

“Neither more nor less than we have heard, Master. The two King’s
messengers who have gone ahead of us all the way from the city, have told the
officer of the frontier fort that we are coming, so he has advanced to the ford
to meet us, for what purpose I do not know.”

“Nor do I,” I said, “but I wish we could take another road,
if there were one.”

“There is none, Master, for above and below the canal is full of water
and the banks are too steep for horses to climb. Also we must show no doubt or
fear.”

He thought a while, then added,

“Take the royal seal, Master. It may be useful.”

He gave it to me, and I examined it more closely than I had done before. It was
a cylinder of plain white shell hung on a gold chain, that which Bes had bitten
through, but now mended again by taking out the broken link. On this cylinder
were cut figures; as I think of a priest presenting a noble to a god, over whom
was the crescent of the moon, while behind the god stood a man or demon with a
tall spear. Also between the figures were mystic signs, meaning I know not
what. The workmanship of the carving was grown shallow with time and use for
the cylinder seemed to be very ancient, a sacred thing that had descended from
generation to generation and was threaded through with a bar of silver on which
it turned.

I put the seal which was like no other that I had seen, being the work of an
early and simpler age, round my neck beneath my mail and we went on.

Descending the steep bank of the canal we came to the ford where the sand that
had silted in was covered by not more than a foot of water. As we entered it,
on the top of the further bank appeared a body of about thirty armed and
mounted men, one of whom carried the Great King’s banner, on which I
noted was blazoned the very figures that were cut upon the cylinder. Now it was
too late to retreat, so we rode through the water and met the soldiers. Their
officer advanced, crying,

“In the name of the Great King, greeting, my lord Shabaka!

“In the name of the Great King, greeting!” I answered. “What
would you with Shabaka, Officer of the King?”

“Only to do him honour. The word of the King has reached us and we come
to escort you to the Court of Idernes, the Satrap of the King and Governor of
Egypt who sits at Sais.”

“That is not my road, Officer. I travel to Memphis to deliver the
commands of the King to my cousin, Peroa, the ruler of Egypt under the King.
Afterwards, perchance, I shall visit the high Idernes.”

“To whom our commands are to take you now, my lord Shabaka, not
afterwards,” said the officer sternly, glancing round at his armed
escort.

“I come to give commands, not to receive them, Captain of the
King.”

“Seize Shabaka and his servants,” said the officer briefly, whereon
the soldiers rode forward to surround us.

I waited till they were near at hand. Then suddenly I plunged my hand beneath
my robe and drew out the small, white seal which I held before the eyes of the
officer, saying,

“Who is it that dares to lay a finger upon the holder of the King’s
White Seal? Surely that man is ready for death.”

The officer stared at it, then leapt from his horse and flung himself face
downwards on the ground, crying,

“It is the ancient signet of the Kings of the East, given to their first
forefather by Samas the Sungod, on which hangs the fortunes of the Great House!
Pardon, my lord Shabaka.”

“It is granted,” I answered, “because what you did you did in
ignorance. Now go to the Satrap Idernes and say to him that if he would have
speech with the bearer of the King’s seal which all must obey, he will
find him at Memphis. Farewell,” and with Bes and the six hunters I rode
through the guards, none striving to hinder me.

“That was well done, Master,” said Bes.

“Yes,” I said. “Those two messengers who went ahead of us
brought orders to the frontier guard of Idernes that I should be taken to him
as a prisoner. I do not know why, but I think because things are passing in
Egypt of which we know nothing and the King did not desire that I should see
the Prince Peroa and give him news that I might have gathered. Mayhap we have
been outwitted, Bes, and the business of the lady Amada is but a pretext to
pick a quarrel suddenly before Peroa can strike the first blow.”

“Perhaps, Master, for these Easterns are very crafty. But, Master, what
happens to those who make a false use of the King’s ancient, sacred
signet? I think they have cut the ropes which tie them to earth,” and he
looked upwards to the sky rolling his yellow eyes.

“They must find new ropes, Bes, and quickly, before they are caught.
Hearken. You have sat upon a throne and I can speak out to you. Think you that
my cousin, the Prince Peroa, loves to be the servant of this distant, Eastern
king, he who by right is Pharaoh of Egypt? Peroa must strike or lose his niece
and perchance his life. Forward, that we may warn him.”

“And if he will not strike, Master, knowing the King’s might and
being somewhat slow to move?”

“Then, Bes, I think that you and I had best go hunting far away in those
lands you know, where even the Great King cannot follow us.”

“And where, if only I can find a woman who does not make me ill to look
on, and whom I do not make ill, I too can once more be a king, Master, and the
lord of many thousand brave armed men. I must speak of that matter to the holy
Tanofir.”

“Who doubtless will know what to advise you, Bes; or, if he does not, I
shall.”

For a while we rode on in silence, each thinking his own thoughts. Then Bes
said,

“Master, before so very long we shall reach the Nile, and having with us
gold in plenty can buy boats and hire crews. It comes into my mind that we
should do well for our own safety and comfort to start at once on a hunting
journey far from Egypt; in the land of the Ethiopians, Master. There perchance
I could gather together some of the wise men in whose hands I left the rule of
my kingdom, and submit to them this question of a woman to marry me. The
Ethiopians are a faithful people, Master, and will not reject me because I have
spent some years seeing the world afar, that I might learn how to rule them
better.”

“I have remembered that it cannot be, Bes,” I said.

“Why not, Master?”

“For this reason. You left your country because of a woman? I cannot
leave mine again because of a woman.”

Bes rolled his eyes around as though he thought to see that woman in the
desert. Not discovering her, he stared upwards and there found light.

“Is she perchance named the lady Amada, Master?”

I nodded.

“So. The lady Amada who you told the Great King is the most beautiful one
in the whole world, causing the fire of Love to burn up in his royal heart, and
with it many other things of which we do not know at present.”

“You told him, Bes,” I said angrily.

“I told him of a beautiful one; I did not tell him her name, Master, and
although I never thought of it at the time, perhaps she will be angry with him
who told her name.”

Now fear took hold of me, and Bes saw it in my face.

“Do not be afraid, Master. If there is trouble I will swear that I told
the Great King that lady’s name.”

“Yes, Bes, but how would that fit in with the story, seeing that I was
brought out of the boat for this very purpose?”

“Quite easily, Master, since I will say that you were led from the boat
to confirm my tale. Oh! she will be angry with me, no doubt, but in Egypt even
a dwarf cannot be killed because he has declared a certain lady to be the most
beautiful in the world. But, Master, tell me, when did you learn to love
her?”

“When we were boy and girl, Bes. We used to play together, being cousins,
and I used to hold her hand. Then suddenly she refused to let me hold her hand
any more, and I being quite grown up then, though she was younger, understood
that I had better go away.”

“I should have stopped where I was, Master.”

“No, Bes. She was studying to be a priestess and my great uncle, the holy
Tanofir, told me that I had better go away. So I went down south hunting and
fighting in command of the troops, and met you, Bes.”

“Which perhaps was better for you, Master, than to stop to watch the lady
Amada acquire learning. Still, I wonder whether the holy Tanofir is
always right. You see, Master, he thinks a great deal of priests and
priestesses, and is so very old that he has forgotten all about love and that
without it there never would have been a holy Tanofir.”

“The holy Tanofir thinks of souls, not of bodies, Bes.”

“Yes, Master. Still, oil is of no use without a lamp, or a soul without a
body, at least here underneath the sun, or so we were taught who worship the
Grasshopper. But, Master, when you came back from all your hunting, what
happened then?”

“Then I found, Bes, that the lady Amada, having acquired all the learning
possible, had taken her first vows to Isis, which she said she would not break
for any man on earth although she might have done so without crime. Therefore,
although I was dear to her, as a brother would have been had she had one, and
she swore that she had never even thought of another man, she refused so much
as to think of marrying who dreamed only of the heavenly perfections of the
lady Isis.”

“Ump!” said Bes. “We Ethiopians have Priestesses of the
Grasshopper, or the Grasshopper’s wife, but they do not think of her like
that. I hope that one day something stronger than herself will not cause the
lady Amada to break her vows to the heavenly Isis. Only then, perhaps, it may
be for the sake of another man who did not go off to the East on account of
such fool’s talk. But here is a village and the horses are spent. Let us
stop and eat, as I suppose even the lady Amada does sometimes.”

On the following afternoon we crossed the Nile, and towards sunset entered the
vast and ancient city of Memphis. On its white walls floated the banners of the
Great King which Bes pointed out to me, saying that wherever we went in the
whole world, it seemed that we could never be free from those accursed symbols.

“May I live to spit upon them and cast them into the moat,” I
answered savagely, for as I drew near to Amada they grew ten times more hateful
to me than they had been before.

In truth I was nearer to Amada than I thought, for after we had passed the
enclosure of the temple of Ptah, the most wonderful and the mightiest in the
whole world, we came to the temple of Isis. There near to the pylon gate we met
a procession of her priests and priestesses advancing to offer the evening
sacrifice of song and flowers, clad, all of them, in robes of purest white. It
was a day of festival, so singers went with them. After the singers came a band
of priestesses bearing flowers, in front of whom walked another priestess
shaking a sistrum that made a little tinkling music.

Even at a distance there was something about the tall and slender shape of this
priestess that stirred me. When we came nearer I saw why, for it was Amada
herself. Through the thin veil she wore I could see her dark and tender eyes
set beneath the broad brow that was so full of thought, and the sweet, curved
mouth that was like no other woman’s. Moreover there could be no doubt
since the veil parting above her breast showed the birth-mark for which she was
famous, the mark of the young moon, the sign of Isis.

I sprang from my horse and ran towards her. She looked up and saw me. At first
she frowned, then her face grew wondering, then tender, and I thought that her
red lips shaped my name. Moreover in her confusion she let the sistrum
fall.

I muttered “Amada!” and stepped forward, but priests ran between us
and thrust me away. Next moment she had recovered the sistrum and passed
on with her head bowed. Nor did she lift her eyes to look back.

“Begone, man!” cried a priest, “Begone, whoever you may be.
Because you wear Eastern armour do you think that you can dare the curse of
Isis?”

Then I fell back, the holy image of the goddess passed and the procession
vanished through the pylon gate. I, Shabaka the Egyptian, stood by my horse and
watched it depart. I was happy because the lady Amada was alive, well, and more
beautiful than ever; also because she had shown signs of joy and confusion at
seeing me again. Yet I was unhappy because I met her still filling a holy
office which built a wall between us, also because it seemed to me an evil omen
that I should have been repelled from her by a priest of Isis who talked of the
curse of the goddess. Moreover the sacred statue, I suppose by accident, turned
towards me as it passed and perhaps by the chance of light, seemed to frown
upon me.

Thus I thought as Shabaka hundreds of years before the Christian era, but as
Allan Quatermain the modern man, to whom it was given so marvellously to behold
all these things and who in beholding them, yet never quite lost the sense of
his own identity of to-day, I was amazed. For I knew that this lady Amada was
the same being though clad in different flesh, as that other lady with whom I
had breathed the magical Taduki fumes which had power to rend the
curtain of the past, or, perhaps, only to breed dreams of what it might have
been.

To the outward eye, indeed she was different, as I was different, taller, more
slender, larger-eyed, with longer and slimmer hands than those of any Western
woman, and on the whole even more beautiful and alluring. Moreover that
mysterious look which from time to time I had seen on Lady Ragnall’s
face, was more constant on that of the lady Amada. It brooded in the deep eyes
and settled in a curious smile about the curves of the lips, a smile that was
not altogether human, such a smile as one might wear who had looked on hidden
things and heard voices that spoke beyond the limits of the world.

Somehow neither then nor at any other time during all my dream, could I imagine
this Amada, this daughter of a hundred kings, whose blood might be traced back
through dynasty on dynasty, as nothing but a woman who nurses children upon her
breast. It was as though something of our common nature had been bred out of
her and something of another nature whereof we have no ken, had entered to fill
its place. And yet these two women were the same, that I knew, or at any
rate, much of them was the same, for who can say what part of us we leave
behind as we flit from life to life, to find it again elsewhere in the abysms
of Time and Change? One thing too was quite identical—the birthmark of
the new moon above the breast which the priests of the Kendah had declared was
always the seal that marked their prophetess, the guardian of the Holy Child.

When the procession had quite departed and I could no longer hear the sound of
singing, I remounted and rode on to my house, or rather to that of my mother,
the great lady Tiu, which was situated beneath the wall of the old palace
facing towards the Nile. Indeed my heart was full of this mother of mine whom I
loved and who loved me, for I was her only child, and my father had been long
dead; so long that I could not remember him. Eight months had gone by since I
saw her face and in eight months who knew what might have happened? The thought
made me cold for she, who was aged and not too strong, perhaps had been
gathered to Osiris. Oh! if that were so!

I shook my tired horse to a canter, Bes riding ahead of me to clear a road
through the crowded street in which, at this hour of sundown, all the idlers of
Memphis seemed to have gathered. They stared at me because it was not common to
see men riding in Memphis, and with little love, since from my dress and escort
they took me to be some envoy from their hated master, the Great King of the
East. Some even threatened to bar the way; but we thrust through and presently
turned into a thoroughfare of private houses standing in their own gardens.
Ours was the third of these. At its gate I leapt from my horse, pushed open the
closed door and hastened in to seek and learn.

I had not far to go for, there in the courtyard, standing at the head of our
modest household and dressed in her festal robes, was my mother, the stately
and white-haired lady Tiu, as one stands who awaits the coming of an honoured
guest. I ran to her and kneeling, kissed her hand, saying,

“My mother! My mother, I have come safe home and greet you.”

“I greet you also, my son,” she answered, bending down and kissing
me on the brow, “who have been in far lands and passed so many dangers. I
greet you and thank the guardian gods who have brought you safe home again.
Rise, my son.”

I rose and kissed her on the face, then looked at the servants who were bowing
their welcome to me, and said,

“How comes it, Lady of the House, that all are gathered here? Did you
await some guest?”

“We awaited you, my son. For an hour have we stood here listening for the
sound of your feet.”

“Me!” I exclaimed. “That is strange, seeing that I have
ridden fast and hard from the East, tarrying only a few minutes, and those
since I entered Memphis, when I met——” and I stopped.

“Met whom, Shabaka?”

“The lady Amada walking in the procession of Isis.”

“Ah! the lady Amada. The mother waits that the son may stop to greet the
lady Amada!”

“But why did you wait, my mother? Who but a spirit or a bird of
the air could have told you that I was coming, seeing that I sent no messenger
before me?”

“You must have done so, Shabaka, since yesterday one came from the holy
Tanofir, our relative who dwells in the desert in the burial-ground of Sekera.
He bore a message from Tanofir to me, telling me to make ready since before
sundown to-night you, my son, would be with me, having escaped great dangers,
accompanied by the dwarf Bes, your servant, and six strange Eastern men. So I
made ready and waited; also I prepared lodging for the six strange men in the
outbuildings behind the house and sent a thank offering to the temple. For
know, my son, I have suffered much fear for you.”

“And not without cause, as you will say when I tell you all,” I
answered laughing. “But how Tanofir knew that I was coming is more than I
can guess. Come, my mother, greet Bes here, for had it not been for him, never
should I have lived to hold your hand again.”

So she greeted him and thanked him, whereon Bes rolled his eyes and muttered
something about the holy Tanofir, after which we entered the house. Thence I
despatched a messenger to the Prince Peroa saying that if it were his pleasure
I would wait on him at once, seeing that I had much to tell him. This done I
bathed and caused my hair and beard to be trimmed and, discarding the Eastern
garments, clothed myself in those of Egypt, and so felt that I was my own man
again. Then I came out refreshed and drank a cup of Syrian wine and the night
having fallen, sat down by my mother in the chamber with a lamp between us,
and, holding her hand, told her something of my story, showing her the sacks of
gold that had come with me safely from the East, and the chain of priceless,
rose-hued pearls that I had won in a wager from the Great King.

Now when she learned how Bes by his wit had saved me from a death of torment in
the boat, my mother clapped her hands to summon a servant and sent for Bes, and
said to him,

“Bes, hitherto I have looked on you as a slave taken by my son, the noble
Shabaka, in one of his far journeys that it pleases him to make to fight and to
hunt. But henceforth I look upon you as a friend and give you a seat at my
table. Moreover it comes into my mind that although so strangely shaped by some
evil god, perhaps you are more than you seem to be.”

Now Bes looked at me to see if I had told my mother anything, and when I shook
my head answered,

“I thank you, O Lady of the House, who have but done my duty to my
master. Still it is true that as a goatskin often holds good wine, so a dwarf
should not always be judged by what can be seen of him.”

Then he went away.

“It seems that we are rich again, Son, who have been somewhat poor of
late years,” said my mother, looking at the bags of gold. “Also,
there are the pearls which doubtless are worth more than the gold. What are you
going to do with them, Shabaka?”

“I thought of offering them as a gift to the lady Amada,” I replied
hesitatingly, “that is unless you——”

“I? No, I am too old for such gems. Yet, Son, it might be well to keep
them for a time, seeing that while they are your own they may give you more
weight in the eyes of the Prince Peroa and others. Whereas if you gave them to
the lady Amada and she took them, perchance it might only be to see them return
to the East, whither you tell me she is summoned by one whose orders may not be
disobeyed.”

Now I turned white with rage and answered,

“While I live, Mother, Amada shall never go to the East to be the woman
of yonder King.”

“While you live, Son. But those who cross the will of a great king, are
apt to die. Also this is a matter which her uncle, the Prince Peroa, must
decide as policy dictates. Now as ever the woman is but a pawn in the game. Oh!
my son,” she went on, “do not pin all your heart to the robe of
this Amada. She is very fair and very learned, but is she one who will love?
Moreover, if so she is a priestess and it would be difficult for her to wed who
is sworn to Isis. Lastly, remember this: If Egypt were free, she would be its
heiress, not her uncle, Peroa. For hers is the true blood, not his. Would he,
therefore, be willing to give her to any man who, according to the ancient
custom, through her would acquire the right to rule?”

“I do not seek to rule, Mother; I only seek to wed Amada whom I
love.”

“Amada whom you love and whose name you, or rather your servant Bes,
which is the same thing since it will be held that he did it by your order,
gave to the King of the East, or so I understand. Here is a pretty tangle,
Shabaka, and rather would I be without all that gold and those priceless pearls
than have the task of its unravelling.”

Before I could answer and explain all the truth to her, the curtain was swung
aside and through it came a messenger from the Prince Peroa, who bade me come
to eat with him at once at the palace, since he must see me this night.

So my mother having set the rope of rose-hued pearls in a double chain about my
neck, I kissed her and went, with Bes who was also bidden. Outside a chariot
was waiting into which we entered.

“Now, Master,” said Bes to me as we drove to the palace, “I
almost wish that we were back in another chariot hunting lions in the
East.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because then, although we had much to fear, there was no woman in the
story. Now the woman has entered it and I think that our real troubles are
about to begin. Oh! to-morrow I go to seek counsel of the holy Tanofir.”

“And I come with you,” I answered, “for I think it will be
needed.”

CHAPTER IX.
THE MESSENGERS

We descended at the great gate of the palace and were led through empty halls
that were no longer used now when there was no king in Egypt, to the wing of
the building in which dwelt the Prince Peroa. Here we were received by a
chamberlain, for the Prince of Egypt still kept some state although it was but
small, and had about him men who bore the old, high-sounding titles of the
“Officers of Pharaoh.”

The chamberlain led me and Bes to an ante-chamber of the banqueting hall and
left us, saying that he would summon the Prince who wished to see me before he
ate. This, however, was not necessary since while he spoke Peroa, who as I
guessed had been waiting for me, entered by another door. He was a
majestic-looking man of middle age, for grey showed in his hair and beard, clad
in white garments with a purple hem and wearing on his brow a golden circlet,
from the front of which rose the uræus in the shape of a hooded snake
that might be worn by those of royal blood alone. His face was full of thought
and his black and piercing eyes looked heavy as though with sleeplessness.
Indeed I could see that he was troubled. His gaze fell upon us and his features
changed to a pleasant smile.

“Greeting, Cousin Shabaka,” he said. “I am glad that you have
returned safe from the East, and burn to hear your tidings. I pray that they
may be good, for never was good news more needed in Egypt.”

“Greeting, Prince,” I answered, bowing my knee. “I and my
servant here are returned safe, but as for our tidings, well, judge of them for
yourself,” and drawing the letter of the Great King from my robe, I
touched my forehead with the roll and handed it to him.

“I see that you have acquired the Eastern customs, Shabaka,” he
said as he took it. “But here in my own house which once was the palace
of our forefathers, the Pharaohs of Egypt, by your leave I will omit them. Amen
be my witness,” he added bitterly, “I cannot bear to lay the letter
of a foreign king against my brow in token of my country’s
vassalage.”

Then he broke the silk of the seals and read, and as he read his face grew
black with rage.

“What!” he cried, casting down the roll and stamping on it.
“What! Does this dog of an Eastern king bid me send my niece, by birth
the Royal Princess of Egypt, to be his toy until he wearies of her? First I
will choke her with my own hands. How comes it, Shabaka, that you care to bring
me such a message? Were I Pharaoh now I think your life would pay the
price.”

“As it would certainly have paid the price, had I not done so. Prince, I
brought the letter because I must. Also a copy of it has gone, I believe, to
Idernes the Satrap at Sais. It is better to face the truth, Prince, and I think
that I may be of more service to you alive than dead. If you do not wish to
send the lady Amada to the King, marry her to someone else, after which he will
seek her no more.”

He looked at me shrewdly and said,

“To whom then? I cannot marry her, being her uncle and already married.
Do you mean to yourself, Shabaka?”

“I have loved the lady Amada from a child, Prince,” I answered
boldly. “Also I have high blood in me and having brought much gold from
the East, am rich again and one accustomed to war.”

“So you have brought gold from the East! How? Well, you can tell me
afterwards. But you fly high. You, a Count of Egypt, wish to marry the Royal
Lady of Egypt, for such she is by birth and rank, which, if ever Egypt were
free again, would give you a title to the throne.”

“I ask no throne, Prince. If there were one to fill I should be content
to leave that to you and your heirs.”

“So you say, no doubt honestly. But would the children of Amada say the
same? Would you even say it if you were her husband, and would she say it?
Moreover she is a priestess, sworn not to wed, though perhaps that trouble
might be overcome, if she wishes to wed, which I doubt. Mayhap you might
discover. Well, you are hungry and worn with long travelling. Come, let us eat,
and afterwards you can tell your story. Amada and the others will be glad to
hear it, as I shall. Follow me, Count Shabaka.”

So we went to the lesser banqueting-hall, I filled with joy because I should
see Amada, and yet, much afraid because of that story which I must tell.
Gathered there, waiting for the Prince, we found the Princess his wife, a large
and kindly woman, also his two eldest daughters and his young son, a lad of
about sixteen. Moreover, there were certain officers, while at the tables of
the lower hall sat others of the household, men of smaller rank, and their
wives, since Peroa still maintained some kind of a shadow of the Court of old
Egypt.

The Princess and the others greeted me, and Bes also who had always been a
favourite with them, before he went to take his seat at the lowest table, and I
greeted them, looking all the while for Amada whom I did not see. Presently,
however, as we took our places on the couches, she entered dressed, not as a
priestess, but in the beautiful robes of a great lady of Egypt and wearing on
her head the uræus circlet that signified her royal blood. As it chanced
the only seat left vacant was that next to myself, which she took before she
recognized me, for she was engaged in asking pardon for her lateness of the
Prince and Princess, saying that she had been detained by the ceremonies at the
temple. Seeing suddenly that I was her neighbour, she made as though she would
change her place, then altered her mind and stayed where she was.

“Greeting, Cousin Shabaka,” she said, “though not for the
first time to-day. Oh! my heart was glad when looking up, outside the temple, I
caught sight of you clad in that strange Eastern armour, and knew that you had
returned safe from your long wanderings. Yet afterwards I must do penance for
it by saying two added prayers, since at such a time my thoughts should have
been with the goddess only.”

“Greeting, Cousin Amada,” I answered, “but she must be a
jealous goddess who grudges a thought to a relative—and friend—at
such a time.”

“She is jealous, Shabaka, as being the Queen of women she must be who
demands to reign alone in the hearts of her votaries. But tell me of your
travels in the East and how you came by that rope of wondrous pearls, if indeed
there can be pearls so large and beautiful.”

This at the time I had little chance of doing, however, since the young
Princess on the other side of her began to talk to Amada about some forthcoming
festival, and the Prince’s son next to me who was fond of hunting, to
question me about sport in the East and when, unhappily, I said that I had shot
lions there, gave me no peace for the rest of that feast. Also the Princess
opposite was anxious to learn what food noble people ate in the East, and how
it was cooked and how they sat at table, and what was the furniture of their
rooms and did women attend feasts as in Egypt, and so forth. So it came about
that what between these things and eating and drinking, which, being well-nigh
starved, I was obliged to do, for, save a cup of wine, I had taken nothing in
my mother’s house, I found little chance of talking with the lovely
Amada, although I knew that all the while she was studying me out of the
corners of her large eyes. Or perhaps it was the rose-hued pearls she studied,
I was not sure.

Only one thing did she say to me when there was a little pause while the cup
went round, and she pledged me according to custom and passed it on. It was,

“You look well, Shabaka, though somewhat tired, but sadder than you used,
I think.”

“Perhaps because I have seen things to sadden me, Amada. But you too look
well but somewhat lovelier than you used, I think, if that be possible.”

She smiled and blushed as she replied,

“The Eastern ladies have taught you how to say pretty things. But you
should not waste them upon me who have done with women’s vanities and
have given myself to learning and—religion.”

“Have learning and religion no vanities of their own?” I began,
when suddenly the Prince gave a signal to end the feast.

Thereon all the lower part of the hall went away and the little tables at which
we ate were removed by servants, leaving us only wine-cups in our hands which a
butler filled from time to time, mixing the wine with water. This reminded me
of something, and having asked leave, I beckoned to Bes, who still lingered
near the door, and took from him that splendid, golden goblet which the Great
King had given me, that by my command he had brought wrapped up in linen and
hidden beneath his robe. Having undone the wrappings I bowed and offered it to
the Prince Peroa.

“What is this wondrous thing?” asked the Prince, when all had
finished admiring its workmanship. “Is it a gift that you bring me from
the King of the East, Shabaka?”

“It is a gift from myself, O Prince, if you will be pleased to accept
it,” I answered, adding, “Yet it is true that it comes from the
King of the East, since it was his own drinking-cup that he gave me in exchange
for a certain bow, though not the one he sought, after he had pledged
me.”

“You seem to have found much favour in the eyes of this king, Shabaka,
which is more than most of us Egyptians do,” he exclaimed, then went on
hastily, “Still, I thank you for your splendid gift, and however you came
by it, shall value it much.”

“Perhaps my cousin Shabaka will tell us his story,” broke in Amada,
her eyes still fixed upon the rose-hued pearls, “and of how he came to
win all the beauteous things that dazzle our eyes to-night.”

Now I thought of offering her the pearls, but remembering my mother’s
words, also that the Princess might not like to see another woman bear off such
a prize, did not do so. So I began to tell my story instead, Bes seated on the
ground near to me by the Prince’s wish, that he might tell his.

The tale was long for in it was much that went before the day when I saw myself
in the chariot hunting lions with the King of kings, which I, the modern man
who set down all this vision, now learned for the first time. It told of the
details of my journey to the East, of my coming to the royal city and the rest,
all of which it is needless to repeat. Then I came to the lion hunt, to my
winning of the wager, and all that happened to me; of my being condemned to
death, of the weighing of Bes against the gold, and of how I was laid in the
boat of torment, a story at which I noticed Amada turn pale and tremble.

Here I ceased, saying that Bes knew better than I what had chanced at the Court
while I was pinned in the boat, whereon all present cried out to Bes to take up
the tale. This he did, and much better than I could have done, bringing out
many little things which made the scene appear before them, as Ethiopians have
the art of doing. At last he came to the place in his story where the king
asked him if he had ever seen a woman fairer than the dancers, and went on
thus:

“O Prince, I told the Great King that I had; that there dwelt in Egypt a
lady of royal blood with eyes like stars, with hair like silk and long as an
unbridled horse’s tail, with a shape like to that of a goddess, with
breath like flowers, with skin like milk, with a voice like honey, with
learning like to that of the god Thoth, with wit like a razor’s edge,
with teeth like pearls, with majesty of bearing like to that of the king
himself, with fingers like rosebuds set in pink seashells, with motion like
that of an antelope, with grace like that of a swan floating upon water,
and—I don’t remember the rest, O Prince.”

“Perhaps it is as well,” exclaimed Peroa. “But what did the
King say then?”

“He asked her name, O Prince.”

“And what name did you give to this wondrous lady who surpasses all the
goddesses in loveliness and charm, O dwarf Bes?” inquired Amada much
amused.

“What name, O High-born One? Is it needful to ask? Why, what name could I
give but your own, for is there any other in the world of whom a man whose
heart is filled with truth could speak such things?”

Now hearing this I gasped, but before I could speak Amada leapt up, crying,

“Wretch! You dared to speak my name to this king! Surely you should be
scourged till your bones are bare.”

“And why not, Lady? Would you have had me sit still and hear those fat
trollops of the East exalted above you? Would you have had me so disloyal to
your royal loveliness?”

“You should be scourged,” repeated Amada stamping her foot.
“My Uncle, I pray you cause this knave to be scourged.”

“Nay, nay,” said Peroa moodily. “Poor simple man, he knew no
better and thought only to sing your praises in a far land. Be not angry with
the dwarf, Niece. Had it been Shabaka who gave your name, the thing would be
different. What happened next, Bes?”

“Only this, Prince,” said Bes, looking upwards and rolling his
eyes, as was his fashion when unloading some great lie from his heart.
“The King sent his servants to bring my master from the boat, that he
might inquire of him whether he had always found me truthful. For, Prince,
those Easterns set much store by truth which here in Egypt is worshipped as a
goddess. There they do not worship her because she lives in the heart of every
man, and some women.”

Now all stared at Bes who continued to stare at the ceiling, and I rose to say
something, I know not what, when suddenly the doors opened and through them
appeared heralds, crying,

“Hearken, Peroa, Prince of Egypt by grace of the Great King. A message
from the Great King. Read and obey, O Peroa, Prince of Egypt by grace of the
Great King!”

As they cried thus from between them emerged a man whose long Eastern robes
were stained with the dust of travel. Advancing without salute he drew out a
roll, touched his forehead with it, bowing deeply, and handed it to the prince,
saying,

“Kiss the Word. Read the Word. Obey the Word, O servant of our Master,
the King of kings, beneath whose feet we are all but dust.”

Peroa took the roll, made a semblance of lifting it to his forehead, opened and
read it. As he did so I saw the veins swell upon his neck and his eyes flash,
but he only said,

“O Messenger, to-night I feast, to-morrow an answer shall be given to you
to convey to the Satrap Idernes. My servants will find you food and lodging.
You are dismissed.”

“Let the answer be given early lest you also should be dismissed, O
Peroa,” said the man with insolence.

Then he turned his back upon the prince, as one does on an inferior, and walked
away, accompanied by the herald.

When they were gone and the doors had been shut, Peroa spoke in a voice that
was thick with fury, saying,

“Hearken, all of you, to the words of the writing.”

Then he read it.

“From the King of kings, the Ruler of all the earth, to Peroa, one of his
servants in the Satrapy of Egypt,

    “Deliver over to my servant Idernes without delay, the person of
Amada, a lady of the blood of the old Pharaohs of Egypt, who is your relative
and in your guardianship, that she may be numbered among the women of my
house.”

Now all present looked at each other, while Amada stood as though she had been
frozen into stone. Before she could speak, Peroa went on,

“See how the King seeks a quarrel against me that he may destroy me and
bray Egypt in his mortar, and tan it like a hide to wrap about his feet. Nay,
hold your peace, Amada. Have no fear. You shall not be sent to the East; first
will I kill you with my own hands. But what answer shall we give, for the
matter is urgent and on it hang all our lives? Bethink you, Idernes has a great
force yonder at Sais, and if I refuse outright, he will attack us, which indeed
is what the King means him to do before we can make preparation. Say then,
shall we fight, or shall we fly to Upper Egypt, abandoning Memphis, and there
make our stand?”

Now the Councillors present seemed to find no answer, for they did not know
what to say. But Bes whispered in my ear,

“Remember, Master, that you hold the King’s seal. Let an answer be
sent to Idernes under the White Seal, bidding him wait on you.”

Then I rose and spoke.

“O Peroa,” I said, “as it chances I am the bearer of the
private signet of the Great King, which all men must obey in the north and in
the south, in the east and in the west, wherever the sun shines over the
dominions of the King. Look on it,” and taking the ancient White Seal
from about my neck, I handed it to him.

He looked and the Councillors looked. Then they said almost with one voice,

“It is the White Seal, the very signet of the Great Kings of the
East,” and they bowed before the dreadful thing.

“How you came by this we do not know, Shabaka,” said Peroa.
“That can be inquired of afterwards. Yet in truth it seems to be the old
Signet of signets, that which has come down from father to son for countless
generations, that which the King of kings carries on his person and affixes to
his private orders and to the greatest documents of State, which afterwards can
never be recalled, that of which a copy is emblazoned on his banner.”

“It is,” I answered, “and from the King’s person it
came to me for a while. If any doubt, let the impress be brought, that is
furnished to all the officers throughout the Empire, and let the seal be set in
the impress.”

Now one of the officers rose and went to bring the impress which was in his
keeping, but Peroa continued,

“If this be the true seal, how would you use it, Shabaka, to help us in
our present trouble?”

“Thus, Prince,” I answered. “I would send a command under the
seal to Idernes to wait upon the holder of the seal here in Memphis. He will
suspect a trap and will not come until he has gathered a great army. Then he
will come, but meanwhile, you, Prince, can also collect an army.”

“That needs gold, Shabaka, and I have little. The King of kings takes all
in tribute.”

“I have some, Prince, to the weight of a heavy man, and it is at the
service of Egypt.”

“I thank you, Shabaka. Believe me, such generosity shall not go
unrewarded,” and he glanced at Amada who dropped her eyes. “But if
we can collect the army, what then?”

“Then you can put Memphis into a state of defence. Then too when Idernes
comes I will meet him and, as the bearer of the seal, command him under the
seal to retreat and disperse his army.”

“But if he does, Shabaka, it will only be until he has received fresh
orders from the Great King, whereon he will advance again.”

“No, Prince, he will not advance, or that army either. For when
they are in retreat we will fall on them and destroy them, and declare you, O
Prince, Pharaoh of Egypt, though what will happen afterwards I do not
know.”

When they heard this all gasped. Only Amada whispered,

“Well said!” and Bes clapped his big hands softly in the Ethiopian
fashion.

“A bold counsel,” said Peroa, “and one on which I must have
the night to think. Return here, Shabaka, an hour after sunrise to-morrow, by
which time I can gather all the wisest men in Memphis, and we will discuss this
matter. Ah! here is the impress. Now let the seal be tried.”

A box was brought and opened. In it was a slab of wood on which was an impress
of the King’s seal in wax, surrounded by those of other seals certifying
that it was genuine. Also there was a writing describing the appearance of the
seal. I handed the signet to Peroa who, having compared it with the description
in the writing, fitted it to the impress on the wax.

“It is the same,” he said. “See, all of you.”

They looked and nodded. Then he would have given it back to me but I refused to
take it, saying,

“It is not well that this mighty symbol should hang about the neck of a
private man whence it might be stolen or lost.”

“Or who might be murdered for its sake,” interrupted Peroa.

“Yes, Prince. Therefore take it and hide it in the safest and most secret
place in the palace, and with it these pearls that are too priceless to be
flaunted about the streets of Memphis at night, unless
indeed——” and I turned to look for Amada, but she was gone.

So the seal and the pearls were taken and locked in the box with the impress
and borne away. Nor was I sorry to see the last of them, wisely as it happened.
Then I bade the Prince and his company good night, and presently was driving
homeward with Bes in the chariot.

Our way led us past some large houses once occupied by officers of the Court of
Pharaoh, but now that there was no Court, fallen into ruins. Suddenly from out
of these houses sprang a band of men disguised as common robbers, whose faces
were hidden by cloths with eye-holes cut in them. They seized the horses by the
bridles, and before we could do anything, leapt upon us and held us fast. Then
a tall man speaking with a foreign accent, said,

“Search that officer and the dwarf. Take from them the seal upon a gold
chain and a rope of rose-hued pearls which they have stolen. But do them no
harm.”

So they searched us, the tall man himself helping and, aided by others, holding
Bes who struggled with them, and searched the chariot also, by the light of the
moon, but found nothing. The tall man muttered that I must be the wrong
officer, and at a sign they left us and ran away.

“That was a wise thought of mine, Bes, which caused me to leave certain
ornaments in the palace,” I said. “As it is they have taken
nothing.”

“Yes, Master,” he answered, “though I have taken something
from them,” a saying that I did not understand at the time. “Those
Easterns whom we met by the canal told Idernes about the seal, and he ordered
this to be done. That tall man was one of the messengers who came to-night to
the palace.”

“Then why did they not kill us, Bes?”

“Because murder, especially of one who holds the seal, is an ugly
business, that is easily tracked down, whereas thieves are many in Memphis and
who troubles about them when they have failed? Oh! the Grasshopper, or Amen, or
both, have been with us to-night.”

So I thought although I said nothing, for since we had come off scatheless,
what did it matter? Well, this. It showed me that the signet of the Great King
was indeed to be dreaded and coveted, even here in Egypt. If Idernes could get
it into his possession, what might he not do with it? Cause himself to be
proclaimed Pharaoh perhaps and become the forefather of an independent dynasty.
Why not, when the Empire of the East was taxed with a great war elsewhere? And
if this was so why should not Peroa do the same, he who had behind him all Old
Egypt, maddened with its wrongs and foreign rule?

That same night before I slept, but after Bes and I had hidden away the bags of
gold by burying them beneath the clay floor, I laid the whole matter before my
mother who was a very wise woman. She heard me out, answering little, then
said,

“The business is very dangerous, and of its end I will not speak until I
have heard the counsel of your great-uncle, the holy Tanofir. Still, things
having gone so far, it seems to me that boldness may be the best course, since
the great King has his Grecian wars to deal with, and whatever he may say,
cannot attack Egypt yet awhile. Therefore if Peroa is able to overcome Idernes
and his army he may cause himself to be proclaimed Pharaoh and make Egypt free
if only for a time.”

“Such is my mind, Mother.”

“Not all your mind, Son, I think,” she answered smiling, “for
you think more of the lovely Amada than of these high policies, at any rate
to-night. Well, marry your Amada if you can, though I misdoubt me somewhat of a
woman who is so lost in learning and thinks so much about her soul. At least if
you marry her and Egypt should become free, as it was for thousands of years,
you will be the next heir to the throne as husband of the Great Royal
Lady.”

“How can that be, Mother, seeing that Peroa has a son?”

“A vain youth with no more in him than a child’s rattle. If once
Amada ceases to think about her soul she will begin to think about her throne,
especially if she has children. But all this is far away and for the present I
am glad that neither she nor the thieves have got those pearls, though perhaps
they might be safer here than where they are. And now, my son, go rest for you
need it, and dream of nothing, not even Amada, who for her part will dream of
Isis, if at all. I will wake you before the dawn.”

So I went, being too tired to talk more, and slept like a crocodile in the sun,
till, as it seemed to me, but a few minutes later I saw my mother standing over
me with a lamp, saying that it was time to rise. I rose, unwillingly enough,
but refreshed, washed and dressed myself, by which time the sun had begun to
appear. Then I ate some food and, calling Bes, made ready to start for the
palace.

“My son,” said my mother, the lady Tiu, before we parted,
“while you have been sleeping I have been thinking, as is the way of the
old. Peroa, your cousin, will be glad enough to make use of you, but he does
not love you over much because he is jealous of you and fears lest you should
become his rival in the future. Still he is an honest man and will keep a
bargain which he once has made. Now it seems that above everything on earth you
desire Amada on whom you have set your heart since boyhood, but who has always
played with you and spoken to you with her arm stretched out. Also life is
short and may come to an end any day, as you should know better than most men
who have lived among dangers, and therefore it is well that a man should take
what he desires, even if he finds afterwards that the rose he crushes to his
breast has thorns. For then at least he will have smelt the rose, not only have
looked on and longed to smell it. Therefore, before you hand over your gold,
and place your wit and strength at the service of Peroa, make your bargain with
him; namely, that if thereby you save Amada from the King’s House of
Women and help to set Peroa on the throne, he shall promise her to you free of
any priestly curse, you giving her as dowry the priceless rose-hued pearls that
are worth a kingdom. So you will get your rose till it withers, and if the
thorns prick, do not blame me, and one day you may become a king—or a
slave, Amen knows which.”

Now I laughed and said that I would take her counsel who desired Amada and
nothing else. As for all her talk about thorns, I paid no heed to it, knowing
that she loved me very much and was jealous of Amada who she thought would take
her place with me.

CHAPTER X.
SHABAKA PLIGHTS HIS TROTH

Bes and I went armed to the palace, walking in the middle of the road, but now
that the sun was up we met no more robbers. At the gate a messenger summoned me
alone to the presence of Peroa, who, he said, wished to talk with me before the
sitting of the Council. I went and found him by himself.

“I hear that you were attacked last night,” he said after greeting
me.

I answered that I was and told him the story, adding that it was fortunate I
had left the White Seal and the pearls in safe keeping, since without doubt the
would-be thieves were Easterns who desired to recover them.

“Ah! the pearls,” he said. “One of those who handled them,
who was once a dealer in gems, says that they are without price, unmatched in
the whole world, and that never in all his life has he seen any to equal the
smallest of them.”

I replied that I believed this was so. Then he asked me of the value of the
gold of which I had spoken. I told him and it was a great sum, for gold was
scarce in Egypt. His eyes gleamed for he needed wealth to pay soldiers.

“And all this you are ready to hand over to me, Shabaka?”

Now I bethought me of my mother’s words, and answered,

“Yes, Prince, at a price.”

“What price, Shabaka?”

“The price of the hand of the Royal Lady, Amada, freed from her vows.
Moreover, I will give her the pearls as a marriage dowry and place at your
service my sword and all the knowledge I have gained in the East, swearing to
stand or fall with you.”

“I thought it, Shabaka. Well, in this world nothing is given for nothing
and the offer is a fair one. You are well born, too, as well as myself, and a
brave and clever man. Further, Amada has not taken her final vows and therefore
the high priests can absolve her from her marriage to the goddess, or to her
son Horus, whichever it may be, for I do not understand these mysteries. But,
Shabaka, if Fortune should chance to go with us and I should became the first
Pharaoh of a new dynasty in Egypt, he who was married to the Royal Princess of
the true blood might become a danger to my throne and family.”

“I shall not be that man, Prince, who am content with my own station, and
to be your servant.”

“And my son’s, Shabaka? You know that I have but one lawful
son.”

“And your son’s, Prince.”

“You are honest, Shabaka, and I believe you. But how about your sons, if
you have any, and how about Amada herself? Well, in great businesses something
must be risked, and I need the gold and the rest which I cannot take for
nothing, for you won them by your skill and courage and they are yours. But how
you won the seal you have not told us, nor is there time for you to do so
now.”

He thought a little, walking up and down the chamber, then went on,

“I accept your offer, Shabaka, so far as I can.”

“So far as you can, Prince?”

“Yes; I can give you Amada in marriage and make that marriage easy, but
only if Amada herself consents. The will of a Royal Princess of Egypt of full
age cannot be forced, save by her father if he reigns as Pharaoh, and I am not
her father, but only her guardian. Therefore it stands thus. Are you willing to
fulfil your part of the bargain, save only as regards the pearls, if she does
not marry you, and to take your chance of winning Amada as a man wins a woman,
I on my part promising to do all in my power to help your suit?”

Now it was my turn to think for a moment. What did I risk? The gold and perhaps
the pearls, no more, for in any case I should fight for Peroa against the
Eastern king whom I hated, and through him for Egypt. Well, these came to me by
chance, and if they went by chance what of it? Also I was not one who desired
to wed a woman, however much I worshipped her, if she desired to turn her back
on me. If I could win her in fair love—well. If not, it was my
misfortune, and I wanted her in no other way. Lastly, I had reason to think
that she looked on me more favourably than she had ever done on any other man,
and that if it had not been for what my mother called her soul and its
longings, she would have given herself to me before I journeyed to the East.
Indeed, once she had said as much, and there was something in her eyes last
night which told me that in her heart she loved me, though with what passion at
the time I did not know. So very swiftly I made up my mind and answered,

“I understand and I accept. The gold shall be delivered to you to-day,
Prince. The pearls are already in your keeping to await the end.”

“Good!” he exclaimed. “Then let the matter be reduced to
writing and at once, that afterwards neither of us may have cause to complain
of the other.”

So he sent for his secret scribe and dictated to him, briefly but clearly, the
substance of our bargain, nothing being added, and nothing taken away. This
roll written on papyrus was afterwards copied twice, Peroa taking one copy, I
another, and a third being deposited according to custom, in the library of the
temple of Ptah.

When all was done and Peroa and I had touched each other’s breasts and
given our word in the name of Amen, we went to the hall in which we had dined,
where those whom the Prince had summoned were assembled. Altogether there were
about thirty of them, great citizens of Memphis, or landowners from without who
had been called together in the night. Some of these men were very old and
could remember when Egypt had a Pharaoh of its own before the East set its heel
upon her neck, of noble blood also.

Others were merchants who dealt with all the cities of Egypt; others hereditary
generals, or captains of fleets of ships; others Grecians, officers of
mercenaries who were supposed to be in the pay of the King of kings, but hated
him, as did all the Greeks. Then there were the high priests of Ptah, of Amen,
of Osiris and others who were still the most powerful men in the land, since
there was no village between Thebes and the mouths of the Nile in which they
had not those who were sworn to the service of their gods.

Such was the company representing all that remained or could be gathered there
of the greatness of Egypt the ancient and the fallen.

To these when the doors had been closed and barred and trusty watchmen set to
guard them, Peroa expounded the case in a low and earnest voice. He showed them
that the King of the East sought a new quarrel against Egypt that he might
grind her to powder beneath his heel, and that he did this by demanding the
person of Amada, his own niece and the Royal Lady of Egypt, to be included in
his household like any common woman. If she were refused then he would send a
great army under pretext of taking her, and lay the land waste as far as
Thebes. And if she were granted some new quarrel would be picked and in the
person of the royal Amada all of them be for ever shamed.

Next he showed the seal, telling them that I—who was known to many of
them, at least by repute—had brought it from the East, and repeating to
them the plan that I had proposed upon the previous night. After this he asked
their counsel, saying that before noon he must send an answer to Idernes, the
King’s Satrap at Sais.

Then I was called upon to speak and, in answer to questions, answered frankly
that I had stolen the ancient White Seal from the King’s servant who
carried it as a warrant for the King’s private vengeance on one who had
bested him. How I did not mention. I told them also of the state of the Great
King’s empire and that I had heard that he was about to enter upon a war
with the Greeks which would need all its strength, and that therefore if they
wished to strike for liberty the time was at hand.

Then the talk began and lasted for two hours, each man giving his judgment
according to precedence, some one way and some another. When all had done and
it became clear that there were differences of opinion, some being content to
live on in slavery with what remained to them and others desiring to strike for
freedom, among whom were the high priests who feared lest the Eastern heretics
should utterly destroy their worship, Peroa spoke once more.

“Elders of Egypt,” he said briefly, “certain of you think one
way, and certain another, but of this be sure, such talk as we have held
together cannot be hid. It will come to the ears of spies and through them to
those of the Great King, and then all of us alike are doomed. If you refuse to
stir, this very day I with my family and household and the Royal Lady Amada,
and all who cling to me, fly to Upper Egypt and perhaps beyond it to Ethiopia,
leaving you to deal with the Great King, as you will, or to follow me into
exile. That he will attack us there is no doubt, either over the pretext of
Amada or some other, since Shabaka has heard as much from his own lips. Now
choose.”

Then, after a little whispering together, every man of them voted for
rebellion, though some of them I could see with heavy hearts, and bound
themselves by a great oath to cling together to the last.

The matter being thus settled such a letter was written to Idernes as I had
suggested on the night before, and sealed with the Signet of signets. Of the
yielding up of Amada it said nothing, but commanded Idernes, under the private
White Seal that none dared disobey, to wait upon the Prince Peroa at Memphis
forthwith, and there learn from him, the Holder of the Seal, what was the will
of the Great King. Then the Council was adjourned till one hour after noon, and
most of them departed to send messengers bearing secret word to the various
cities and nomes of Egypt.

Before they went, however, I was directed to wait upon my relative, the holy
Tanofir, whom all acknowledged to be the greatest magician in Egypt, and to ask
of him to seek wisdom and an oracle from his Spirit as to the future and
whether in it we should fare well or ill. This I promised to do.

When most of the Council were gone the messengers of Idernes were summoned, and
came proudly, and with them, or rather before them, Bes for whom I had sent as
he was not present at the Council.

“Master,” he whispered to me, “the tallest of those
messengers is the man who captained the robbers last night. Wait and I will
prove it.”

Peroa gave the roll to the head messenger, bidding him bear it to the Satrap in
answer to the letter which he had delivered to him. The man took it insolently
and thrust it into his robe, as he did so revealing a silver chain that had
been broken and knotted together, and asked whether there were words to bear
besides those written in the roll. Before Peroa could answer Bes sprang up
saying,

“O Prince, a boon, the boon of justice on this man. Last night he and
others with him attacked my master and myself, seeking to rob us, but finding
nothing let us go.”

“You lie, Abortion!” said the Eastern.

“Oh! I lie, do I?” mocked Bes. “Well, let us see,” and
shooting out his long arm, he grasped the chain about the messenger’s
neck and broke it with a jerk. “Look, O Prince,” he said,
“you may have noted last night, when that man entered the hall, that
there hung about his neck this chain to which was tied a silver key.”

“I noted it,” said Peroa.

“Then ask him, O Prince, where is the key now.”

“What is that to you, Dwarf?” broke in the man. “The key is
my mark of office as chief butler to the High Satrap. Must I always bear it for
your pleasure?”

“Not when it has been taken from you, Butler,” answered Bes.
“See, here it is,” and from his sleeve he produced the key hanging
to a piece of the chain. “Listen, O Prince,” he said. “I
struggled with this man and the key was in my left hand though he did not know
it at the time, and with it some of the chain. Compare them and judge. Also his
mask slipped and I saw his face and knew him again.”

Peroa laid the pieces of the chain together and observed the workmanship which
was Eastern and rare. Then he clapped his hands, at which sign armed men of his
household entered from behind him.

“It is the same,” he said. “Butler of Idernes, you are a
common thief.”

The man strove to answer, but could not for the deed was proved against him.

“Then, O Prince,” asked Bes, “what is the punishment of those
thieves who attack passers-by with violence in the streets of Memphis, for such
I demand on him?”

“The cutting off of the right hand and scourging,” answered Peroa,
at which words the butler turned to fly. But Bes leapt on him like an ape upon
a bird, and held him fast.

“Seize that thief,” said Peroa to his servants, “and let him
receive fifty blows with the rods. His hand I spare because he must
travel.”

They laid the man down and the rods having been fetched, gave him the blows
until at the thirtieth he howled for mercy, crying out that it was true and
that it was he who had captained the robbers, words which Peroa caused to be
written down. Then he asked him why he, a messenger from the Satrap, had robbed
in the streets of Memphis, and as he refused to answer, commanded the officer
of justice to lay on. After three more blows the man said,

“O Prince, this was no common robbery for gain. I did what I was
commanded to do, because yonder noble had about him the ancient White Seal of
the Great King which he showed to certain of the Satrap’s servants by the
banks of the canal. That seal is a holy token, O Prince, which, it is said, has
descended for twice a thousand years in the family of the Great King, and as
the Satrap did not know how it had come into the hands of the noble Shabaka, he
ordered me to obtain it if I could.”

“And the pearls too, Butler?”

“Yes, O Prince, since those gems are a great possession with which any
Satrap could buy a larger satrapy.”

“Let him go,” said Peroa, and the man rose, rubbing himself and
weeping in his pain.

“Now, Butler,” he went on, “return to your master with a
grateful heart, since you have been spared much that you deserve. Say to him
that he cannot steal the Signet, but that if he is wise he will obey it, since
otherwise his fate may be worse than yours, and to all his servants say the
same. Foolish man, how can you, or your master, guess what is in the mind of
the Great King, or for what purpose the Signet of signets is here in Egypt?
Beware lest you fall into a pit, all of you together, and let Idernes beware
lest he find himself at the very bottom of that pit.”

“O Prince, I will beware,” said the humbled butler, “and
whatever is written over the seal, that I will obey, like many others.”

“You are wise,” answered Peroa; “I pray for his own sake that
the Satrap Idernes may be as wise. Now begone, thanking whatever god you
worship that your life is whole in you and that your right hand remains upon
your wrist.”

So the butler and those with him prostrated themselves before Peroa and bowed
humbly to me and even to Bes because in their hearts now they believed that we
were clothed by the Great King with terrible powers that might destroy them
all, if so we chose. Then they went, the butler limping a little and with no
pride left in him.

“That was good work,” said Peroa to me afterwards when we were
alone, “for now yonder knave is frightened and will frighten his
master.”

“Yes,” I answered, “you played that pipe well, Prince. Still,
there is no time to lose, since before another moon this will all be reported
in the East, whence a new light may arise and perchance a new signet.”

“You say you stole the White Seal?” he asked.

“Nay, Prince, the truth is that Bes bought it—in a certain
fashion—and I used it. Perhaps it is well that you should know no more at
present.”

“Perhaps,” he answered, and we parted, for he had much to do.

That afternoon the Council met again. At it I gave over the gold and by help of
it all was arranged. Within a week ten thousand armed men would be in Memphis
and a hundred ships with their crews upon the Nile; also a great army would be
gathering in Upper Egypt, officered for the most part by Greeks skilled in war.
The Greek cities too at the mouths of the Nile would be ready to revolt, or so
some of their citizens declared, for they hated the Great King bitterly and
longed to cast off his yoke.

For my part, I received the command of the bodyguard of Peroa in which were
many Greeks, and a generalship in the army; while to Bes, at my prayer, was
given the freedom of the land which he accepted with a smile, he who was a king
in his own country.

At length all was finished and I went out into the palace garden to rest myself
before I rode into the desert to see my great uncle, the holy Tanofir. I was
alone, for Bes had gone to bring our horses on which we were to ride, and sat
myself down beneath a palm-tree, thinking of the great adventure on which we
had entered with a merry heart, for I loved adventures.

Next I thought of Amada and was less merry. Then I looked up and lo! she stood
before me, unaccompanied and wearing the dress, not of a priestess, but of an
Egyptian lady with the little circlet of her rank upon her hair. I rose and
bowed to her and we began to walk together beneath the palms, my heart beating
hard within me, for I knew that my hour had come to speak.

Yet it was she who spoke the first, saying,

“I hear that you have been playing a high part, Shabaka, and doing great
things for Egypt.”

“For Egypt and for you who are Egypt,” I answered.

“So I should have been called in the old days, Cousin, because of my
blood and the rank it gives, though now I am but as any other lady of the
land.”

“And so you shall be called in days to come, Amada, if my sword and wit
can win their way.”

“How so, Cousin, seeing that you have promised certain things to my uncle
Peroa and his son?”

“I have promised those things, Amada, and I will abide by my promise; but
the gods are above all, and who knows what they may decree?”

“Yes, Cousin, the gods are above all, and in their hands we will let
these matters rest, provoking them in no manner and least of all by treachery
to our oaths.”

We walked for a little way in silence. Then I spoke.

“Amada, there are more things than thrones in the world.”

“Yes, Cousin, there is that in which all thrones end—death, which
it seems we court.”

“And, Amada, there is that in which all thrones begin—love, which I
court from you.”

“I have known it long,” she said, considering me gravely,
“and been grateful to you who are more to me than any man has been or
ever will be. But, Shabaka, I am a priestess bound to set the holy One I serve
above a mortal.”

“That holy One was wed and bore a child, Amada, who avenged his father,
as I trust that we shall avenge Egypt. Therefore she looks with a kind eye upon
wives and mothers. Also you have not taken your final vows and can be
absolved.”

“Yes,” she said softly.

“Then, Amada, will you give yourself into my keeping?”

“I think so, Shabaka, though it has been in my mind for long, as you know
well, to give myself only to learning and the service of the heavenly Lady. My
heart calls me to you, it is true, day and night it calls, how loudly I will
not tell; yet I would not yield myself to that alone. But Egypt calls me also,
since I have been shown in a dream while I watched in the sanctuary, that you
are the only man who can free her, and I think that this dream came from on
high. Therefore I will give myself, but not yet.”

“Not yet,” I said dismayed. “When?”

“When I have been absolved from my vows, which must be done on the night
of the next new moon, which is twenty-seven days from this. Then, if nothing
comes between us during those twenty-seven days, it shall be announced that the
Royal Lady of Egypt is to wed the noble Shabaka.”

“Twenty-seven days! In such times much may happen in them, Amada. Still,
except death, what can come between us?”

“I know of nothing, Shabaka, whose past is shadowless as the noon.”

“Or I either,” I replied.

Now we were standing in the clear sunlight, but as I said the words a wind
stirred the palm-trees and the shadow from one of them fell full upon me, and
she who was very quick, noted it.

“Some might take that for an omen,” she said with a little laugh,
pointing to the line of the shadow. “Oh! Shabaka, if you have aught to
confess, say it now and I will forgive it. But do not leave me to discover it
afterwards when I may not forgive. Perchance during your journeyings in the
East——”

“Nothing, nothing,” I exclaimed joyfully, who during all that time
had scarcely spoken to a youthful woman.

“I am glad that nothing happened in the East that could separate us,
Shabaka, though in truth my thought was not your own, for there are more things
than women in the world. Only it seems strange to me that you should return to
Egypt laden with such priceless gifts from him who is Egypt’s greatest
enemy.”

“Have I not told you that I put my country before myself? Those gifts
were won fairly in a wager, Amada, whereof you heard the story but last night.
Moreover you know the purpose to which they are to be put,” I replied
indignantly.

“Yes, I know and now I am sure. Be not angry, Shabaka, with her who loves
you truly and hopes ere long to call you husband. But till that day take it not
amiss if I keep somewhat aloof from you, who must break with the past and learn
to face a future of which I did not dream.”

For the rest she stretched out her hand and I kissed it, for while she was
still a priestess her lips she would not suffer me to touch. Another moment and
smiling happily, she had glided away, leaving me alone in the garden.

Then it was for the first time that I bethought me of the warnings of Bes and
remembered that it was I, not he, who had told the Great King the name of the
most beautiful woman in Egypt, although in all innocence. Yes, I remembered,
and felt as if all the shadows on the earth had wrapped me round. I thought of
finding her, but she had gone whither I knew not in that great palace. So I
determined that the next time we were alone I would tell her of the matter,
explaining all, and with this thought I comforted myself who did not know that
until many days were past we should be alone no more.

After this I went home and told my mother all my joy, for in truth there was no
happier man in Egypt. She listened, then answered, smiling a little.

“When your father wished to take me to wife, Shabaka, it was not my hand
that I gave him to kiss, and as you know, I too have the blood of kings in me.
But then I was not a priestess of Isis, so doubtless all is well. Only in
twenty-seven days much may happen, as you said to Amada. Now I wonder why did
she——? Well, no matter, since priestesses are not like other women
who only think of the man they have won and of naught before or after. The
blessing of the gods and mine be on you both, my son,” and she went away
to attend to her household matters.

As we rode to Sekera to find the holy Tanofir I told Bes also, adding that I
had forgotten to reveal that it was I who had spoken Amada’s name to the
king, but that I intended to do so ere long.

Bes rolled his eyes and answered,

“If I were you, Master, as I had forgotten, I should continue to forget,
for what is welcome in one hour is not always welcome in another. Why speak of
the matter at all, which is one hard to explain to a woman, however wise and
royal? I have already said that I spoke the name to the King and that
you were brought from the boat to say whether I was noted for my truthfulness.
Is not that enough?”

While I considered, Bes went on,

“You may remember, Master, that when I told, well—the truth about
this story, the lady Amada asked earnestly that I should be scourged, even to
the bones. Now if you should tell another truth which will make mine dull as
tarnished silver, she will not leave me even my bones, for I shall be proved a
liar, and what will happen to you I am sure I do not know. And, Master, as I am
no longer a slave here in Egypt, to say nothing of what I may be elsewhere, I
have no fancy for scourgings, who may not kiss the hand that smites me as you
can.”

“But, Bes,” I said, “what is, is and may always be learned in
this way or in that.”

“Master, if what is were always learned, I think the world would fall to
pieces, or at least there would be no men left on it. Why should this matter be
learned? It is known to you and me alone, leaving out the Great King who
probably has forgotten as he was drunk at the time. Oh! Master, when you have
neither bow nor spear at hand, it is not wise to kick a sleeping lion in the
stomach, for then he will remember its emptiness and sup off you. Beside, when
first I told you that tale I made a mistake. I did tell the Great King, as I
now remember quite clearly, that the beautiful lady was named Amada, and he
only sent for you to ask if I spoke the truth.”

“Bes,” I exclaimed, “you worshippers of the Grasshopper wear
virtue easily.”

“Easily as an old sandal, Master, or rather not at all, since the
Grasshopper has need of none. For ages they have studied the ways of those who
worship the gods of Egypt, and from them have learned——”

“What?”

“Amongst other things, Master, that woman, being modest, is shocked at
the sight of the naked Truth.”

CHAPTER XI.
THE HOLY TANOFIR

We entered the City of Graves that is called Sekera. In the centre towered
pyramids that hid the bones of ancient and forgotten kings, and everywhere
around upon the desert sands was street upon street of monuments, but save for
a priest or two hurrying to patter his paid office in the funeral chapels of
the departed, never a living man. Bes looked about him and sniffed with his
wide nostrils.

“Is there not death enough in the world, Master,” he asked,
“that the living should wish to proclaim it in this fashion, rolling it
on their tongues like a morsel they are loth to swallow, because it tastes so
good? Oh! what a waste is here. All these have had their day and yet they need
houses and pyramids and painted chambers in which to sleep, whereas if they
believed the faith they practised, they would have been content to give their
bones to feed the earth they fed on, and fill heaven with their souls.”

“Do your people thus, Bes?”

“For the most part, Master. Our dead kings and great ones we enclose in
pillars of crystal, but we do this that they may serve a double purpose. One is
that the pillars may support the roof of their successors, and the other, that
those who inherit their goods may please themselves by reflecting how much
handsomer they are than those who went before them. For no mummy looks really
nice, Master, at least with its wrappings off, and our kings are put naked into
the crystal.”

“And what becomes of the rest, Bes?”

“Their bodies go to the earth or the water and the Grasshopper carries
off their souls to—where, Master?”

“I do not know, Bes.”

“No, Master, no one knows, except the lady Amada and perhaps the holy
Tanofir. Here I think is the entrance to his hole,” and he pulled up his
beast with a jerk at what looked like the doorway of a tomb.

Apparently we were expected, for a tall and proud-looking girl clad in white
and with extraordinarily dark eyes, appeared in the doorway and asked in a soft
voice if we were the noble Shabaka and Bes, his slave.

“I am Shabaka,” I answered, “and this is Bes, who is not my
slave but a free citizen of Egypt.”

The girl contemplated the dwarf with her big eyes, then said,

“And other things, I think.”

“What things?” inquired Bes with interest, as he stared at this
beautiful lady.

“A very brave and clever man and one perhaps who is more than he seems to
be.”

“Who has been telling you about me?” exclaimed Bes anxiously.

“No one, O Bes, at least not that I can remember.”

“Not that you can remember! Then who and what are you who learn things
you know not how?”

“I am named Karema and desert-bred, and my office is that of Cup to the
holy Tanofir.”

“If hermits drink from such a cup I shall turn hermit,” said Bes,
laughing. “But how can a woman be a man’s cup and what kind of a
wine does he drink from her?”

“The wine of wisdom, O Bes,” she replied colouring a little, for
like many Arabs of high blood she was very fair in hue.

“Wine of wisdom,” said Bes. “From such cups most drink the
wine of folly, or sometimes of madness.”

“The holy Tanofir awaits you,” she interrupted, and turning,
entered the doorway.

A little way down the passage was a niche in which stood three lamps ready
lighted. One of these she took and gave the others to us. Then we followed her
down a steep incline of many steps, till at length we found ourselves in a hot
and enormous hall hewn from the living rock and filled with blackness.

“What is this place?” said Bes, who looked frightened, and although
he spoke in a low whisper, our guide overheard him and turning, answered,

“This is the burial place of the Apis bulls. See, here lies the last, not
yet closed in,” and holding up her lamp she revealed a mighty sarcophagus
of black granite set in a niche of the mausoleum.

“So they make mummies of bulls as well as of men,” groaned Bes.
“Oh! what a land. But when I have seen the holy Tanofir it was in a brick
cell beneath the sky.”

“Doubtless that was at night, O Bes,” answered Karema, “for
in such a house he sleeps, spending his days in the Apis tomb, because of all
the evil that is worked beneath the sun.”

“Hump,” said Bes, “I should have thought that more was worked
beneath the moon, but doubtless the holy Tanofir knows better, or being asleep
does not mind.”

Now in front of each of the walled-up niches was a little chapel, and at the
fourth of these whence a light came, the maiden stopped, saying,

“Enter. Here dwells the holy Tanofir. He tended this god during its
life-days in his youth, and now that the god is dead he prays above its
bones.”

“Prays to the bones of a dead bull in the dark! Well, give me a live
grasshopper in the light; he is more cheerful,” muttered Bes.

“O Dwarf,” cried a deep and resounding voice from within the
chapel, “talk no more of things you do not understand. I do not pray to
the bones of a dead bull, as you in your ignorance suppose. I pray to the
spirit whereof this sacred beast was but one of the fleshly symbols, which in
this haunted place you will do well not to offend.”

Then for once I saw Bes grow afraid, for his great jaw dropped and he trembled.

“Master,” he said to me, “when next you visit tombs where
maidens look into your heart and hermits hear your very thoughts, I pray you
leave me behind. The holy Tanofir I love, if from afar, but I like not his
house, or his——” Here he looked at Karema who was regarding
him with a sweet smile over the lamp flame, and added, “There is
something the matter with me, Master; I cannot even lie.”

“Cease from talking follies, O Shabaka and Bes, and enter,” said
the tremendous voice from within.

So we entered and saw a strange sight. Against the back wall of the chapel
which was lit with lamps, stood a life-sized statue of Maat, goddess of Law and
Truth, fashioned of alabaster. On her head was a tall feather, her hair was
covered with a wig, on her neck lay a collar of blue stones; on her arms and
wrists were bracelets of gold. A tight robe draped her body. In her right hand
that hung down by her side, she held the looped Cross of Life, and in her left
which was advanced, a long, lotus-headed sceptre, while her painted eyes stared
fixedly at the darkness. Crouched upon the ground, at the feet of the statue,
scribe fashion, sat my great-uncle Tanofir, a very aged man with sightless eyes
and long hands, so thin that one might see through them against the lamp-flame.
His head was shaven, his beard was long and white; white too was his robe. In
front of him was a low altar, on which stood a shallow silver vessel filled
with pure water, and on either side of it a burning lamp.

We knelt down before him, or rather I knelt, for Bes threw himself flat upon
his face.

“Am I the King of kings whom you have so lately visited, that you should
prostrate yourselves before me?” said Tanofir in his great voice, which,
coming from so frail and aged a man seemed most unnatural. “Or is it to
the goddess of Truth beyond that you bow yourselves? If so, that is well, since
one, if not both of you, greatly needs her pardon and her help. Or is it to the
sleeping god beyond who holds the whole world on his horns? Or is it to the
darkness of this hallowed place which causes you to remember the nearness of
the awaiting tomb?”

“Nay, my Uncle,” I said, “we would greet you, no more, who
are so worthy of our veneration, seeing we believe, both of us, that you saved
us yonder in the East, from that tomb of which you speak, or rather from the
jaws of lions or a cruel death by torments.”

“Perchance I did, I or the gods of which I am the instrument. At least I
remember that I sent you certain messages in answer to a prayer for help that
reached me, here in my darkness. For know that since we parted I have gone
quite blind so that I must use this maiden’s eyes to read what is written
in yonder divining-cup. Well, it makes the darkness of this sepulchre easier to
bear and prepares me for my own. ‘Tis full a hundred and twenty years
since first I looked upon the light, and now the time of sleep draws near. Come
hither, my nephew, and kiss me on the brow, remembering in your strength that a
day will dawn when as I am, so shall you be, if the gods spare you so
long.”

So I kissed him, not without fear, for the old man was unearthly. Then he sent
Karema from the place and bade me tell him my story, which I did. Why he did
this I cannot say, since he seemed to know it already and once or twice
corrected me in certain matters that I had forgotten, for instance as to the
exact words that I had used to the Great King in my rage and as to the fashion
in which I was tied in the boat. When I had done, he said,

“So you gave the name of Amada to the Great King, did you? Well, you
could have done nothing else if you wished to go on living, and therefore
cannot be blamed. Yet before all is finished I think it will bring you into
trouble, Shabaka, since among many gifts, the gods did not give that of reason
to women. If so, bear it, since it is better to have trouble and be alive than
to have none and be dead, that is, for those whose work is still to do in the
world. And you, or rather Bes, stole the White Signet of signets of which,
although it is so simple and ancient, there is not the like for power in the
whole world. That was well done since it will be useful for a while. And now
Peroa has determined to rebel against the King, which also is well done. Oh!
trouble not to tell me of that business for I know all. But what would you
learn of me, Shabaka?”

“I am instructed to learn from you the end of these great matters, my
Uncle.”

“Are you mad, Shabaka, that you should think me a god who can read the
future?”

“Not at all, my Uncle, who know that you can if you will.”

“Call the maiden,” he said.

So Bes went out and brought her in.

“Be seated, Karema, there in front of the altar, and look into my
eyes.”

She obeyed and presently seemed to go to sleep for her head nodded. Then he
said,

“Wake, woman, look into the water in the bowl upon the altar and tell me
what you see.”

She appeared to wake, though I perceived that this was not really so, for she
seemed a different woman with a fixed face that frightened me, and wide and
frozen eyes. She stared into the silver bowl, then spoke in a new voice, as
though some spirit used her tongue.

“I see myself crowned a queen in a land I hate,” she said coldly, a
saying at which I gasped. “I am seated on a throne beside yonder
dwarf,” a saying at which Bes gasped. “Although so hideous, this
dwarf is a great man with a good heart, a cunning mind and the courage of a
lion. Also his blood is royal.”

Here Bes rolled his eyes and smiled, but Tanofir did not seem in the least
astonished, and said,

“Much of this is known to me and the rest can be guessed. Pass on to what
will happen in Egypt, before the spirit leaves you.”

“There will be war in Egypt,” she answered. “I see fightings;
Shabaka and others lead the Egyptians. The Easterns are driven away or slain.
Peroa rules as Pharaoh, I see him on his throne. Shabaka is driven away in his
turn, I see him travelling south with the dwarf and with myself, looking very
sad. Time passes. I see the moons float by; I see messengers reach Shabaka,
sent by Peroa and you O holy Tanofir; they tell of trouble in Egypt. I see
Shabaka and the dwarf coming north at the head of a great army of black men
armed with bows. With them I come rejoicing, for my heart seems to shine. He
reaches a temple on the Nile about which is camped another great army, a
countless army of Easterns under the command of the King of kings. Shabaka and
the dwarf give battle to that army and the fray is desperate. They destroy it,
they drive it into the Nile; the Nile runs red with blood. The Great King
falls, an arrow from the bow of Shabaka is in his heart. He enters the temple,
a conqueror, and there lies Peroa, dying or dead. A veiled priestess is there
before an image, I cannot see her face. Shabaka looks on her. She stretches out
her arms to him, her eyes burn with woman’s love, her breast heaves, and
above the image frowns and threatens. All is done, for Tanofir, Master of
spirits, you die, yonder in the temple on the Nile, and therefore I can see no
more. The power that comes through you, has left me.”

Then once more she became as a woman asleep.

“You have heard, Shabaka and Bes,” said Tanofir quietly and
stroking his long white beard, “and what that maiden seemed to read in
the water you may believe or disbelieve as you will.”

“What do you believe, O holy Tanofir?” I asked.

“The only part of the story whereof I am sure,” he replied, evading
a direct answer, “is that which said that I shall die, and that when I am
dead I shall no longer be able to cause the maiden Karema to see visions. For
the rest I do not know. These things may happen or they may not. But,” he
added with a note of warning in his voice, “whether they happen or not,
my counsel to you both is that you say nothing of them beforehand.”

“What then shall we report to those who bid me seek the oracle of your
wisdom, O Tanofir?”

“You can tell them that my wisdom declared that the omens were mixed with
good and evil, but that time would show the truth. Hush now, the maiden is
about to awake and must not be frightened. Also it is time for me to be led
from this sepulchre to where I sleep, for I think that Ra has set and I am
weary. Oh! Shabaka, why do you seek to peer into the future, which from day to
day will unroll itself as does a scroll? Be content with the present, man, and
take what Fate gives you of good or ill, not seeking to learn what offerings he
hides beneath his robe in the days and the years and the centuries to
come.”

“Yet you have sought to learn those things, O Tanofir, and not in
vain.”

“Aye and what have they made of me? A blind old hermit weighed down with
the weight of years and holding in my fingers but some few threads that with
pain and grief I have plucked from the fringe of Wisdom’s robe. Be warned
by me, Nephew. While you are a man, live the life of a man, and when you become
a spirit, live the life of a spirit. But do not seek to mix the two together
like oil and wine, and thus spoil both. I am glad to learn, O Bes, that you are
going to make a king’s, or a slave’s wife, whichever it may be, of
this maiden, seeing that I love her well and hold this trade unwholesome for
her. She will be better bearing babes than reading visions in a diviner’s
cup, and I will pray the gods that they may not be dwarfs as you are, but take
on the likeness of their mother, who tells me that she is fair. Hush! she
stirs.

“Karema, are you awake? Good. Then lead me from the sepulchre, that I may
make my evening prayer beneath the stars. Go, Shabaka and Bes, you are brave
men, both of you, and I am glad to have the one for nephew and the other for
pupil. My greetings to your mother, Tiu. She is a good woman and a true, one to
whom you will do well to hearken. To the lady Amada also, and bid her study her
beauteous face in a mirror and not be holy overmuch, since too great holiness
often thwarts itself and ends in trouble for the unholy flesh. Still she loves
pearls like other women, does she not, and even the statue of Isis likes to be
adorned. As for you, Bes, though I think that is not your name, do not lie
except when you are obliged, for jugglers who play with too many knives are apt
to cut their fingers. Also give no more evil counsel to your Master on matters
that have to do with woman. Now farewell. Let me hear how fortune favours you
from time to time, Shabaka, for you take part in a great game, such as I loved
in my youth before I became a holy hermit. Oh! if they had listened to me,
things would have been different in Egypt to-day. But it was written otherwise,
and as ever, women were the scribes. Good night, good night, good night! I am
glad that my thought reached you yonder in the East, and taught you what to say
and do. It is well to be wise sometimes, for others’ sake, but not for
our own, oh! not for our own.”

“Master,” said Bes as we ambled homewards beneath the stars,
“the holy Tanofir is a man for thought to feed on, since having climbed
to the topmost peak of holiness, he does not seem to like its cold air and
warns off those who would follow in his footsteps.”

“Then he might have spared himself the pains in your case, Bes, or in my
own for that matter, since we shall never come so high.”

“No, Master, and I am glad to have his leave to stay lower down, since
that hot place of dead bulls is not one which I wish to inhabit in my age,
making use of a maiden to stare into a pot of water, and there read marvels,
which I could invent better for myself after a jug or two of wine. Oh! the holy
Tanofir is quite right. If these things are going to happen let them happen,
for we cannot change them by knowing of them beforehand. Who wishes to know,
Master, if his throat will be cut?”

“Or that he will be married,” I suggested.

“Just so, Master, seeing that such prophecies end in becoming truths
because we make them true, feeling that we must. Thus, now I must marry yonder
Karema if she will marry me for fear lest I should prove the holy Tanofir to be
what he called me—a liar.”

I laughed and then asked Bes if he had taken note of what the seeress said of
our flight south and our return thence with a great army of black men armed
with bows.

“Yes, Master,” he answered gravely, “and I think this army
can be none other than that of the Ethiopians of whom by right I am the King.
This very night I send messengers to tell those who rule in my place that I
still live and am changing my mind on the matter of marriage. Also that if I do
change it I may return to them, the wisest man who ever wore the crown of
Ethiopia, having journeyed all about the world and collected much
knowledge.”

“Perhaps, Bes, those who rule in your place may not wish to give it up to
you. Perhaps they will kill you.”

“Have no fear, Master; as I have told you, the Ethiopians are a faithful
people. Moreover they know that such a deed would bring the curse of the
Grasshopper on them, since then the locusts would appear and eat up all their
land, and when they were starving their enemies would attack them. Lastly they
are a very tall folk and simple-minded and would not wish to miss the chance of
being ruled over by the wisest dwarf in all the world, if only because it would
be something new to them, Master.”

Again I laughed thinking that Bes was jesting according to his fashion. But
when that night, chancing to go round the corner of the house, I came upon him
with a circlet of feathers round his head and his big bow in his hand,
addressing three great black men who knelt before him as though he were a god,
I changed my mind. As I withdrew he caught sight of me and said,

“I pray you, my lord Shabaka, stay one moment.” Then he spoke to
the three men in his own language, translating sentence by sentence to me what
he said to them. Briefly it was this:—

“Say to the Lords and Councillors of the Ancient Kingdom that I, the
Karoon” (for such it seemed was his title) “have a friend named the
lord Shabaka, he whom you see before you, who again and again has saved my
life, nursing me in his arms as a mother nurses her babe, and who is, after me,
the bravest and the wisest man in all the world. Say to them that if indeed I
double myself by marriage and return having fulfilled the law, I will beg this
mighty prince to accompany me, and that if he consents that will be the most
joyful day which the Ethiopians have seen for a thousand years, since he will
teach them wisdom and lead their armies in great and glorious battles. Let the
priests of the Grasshopper pray therefore that he may consent to do so. Now
salute the mighty lord Shabaka who can send one arrow through all three of you
and two more behind, and depart, tarrying not day or night till you reach the
land of Ethiopia. Then when you have delivered the message of Karoon to the
Captains and the Councillors, return, or let others return and seek me out
wherever I may be, bringing of the gold of Ethiopia and other gifts, together
with their answer, seeing that I and the lord Shabaka who have the world
beneath our feet, will not come to a land where we are not welcome.”

So these great men saluted me as though I were the King of kings himself, after
which they rubbed their foreheads in the dust before Bes, said something which
I did not understand, leapt to their feet, crying “Karoon” and
sprang away into the night.

“It is good to have been a slave, Master,” said Bes when they had
gone, “since it teaches one that it is even better to be a king, at least
sometimes.”

Here I may add that during the days which followed Bes was often absent. When I
asked him where he had gone, he would answer, to drink in the wisdom of the
holy Tanofir by help of a certain silver vessel that the maiden Karema held to
his lips. From all of which I gathered that he was wooing the lady who had
called herself the Cup of Tanofir, and wondered how the business went, though
as he said no more I did not ask him.

Indeed I had little time to talk with Bes about such light matters, since
things moved apace in Memphis. Within six days all the great lords left in
Upper Egypt were sworn to the revolt under the leadership of Peroa, and hour by
hour their vassals or hired mercenaries flowed into the city. These it was my
duty to weld into an army, and at this task I toiled without cease, separating
them into regiments and drilling them, also arranging for the arming and
victualling of the boats of war. Then news came that Idernes was advancing from
Sais with a great force of Easterns, all the garrison of Lower Egypt indeed, as
his messengers said, to answer the summons conveyed to him under the private
Seal of seals.

Of Amada during this time I saw little, only meeting her now and again at the
table of Peroa, or elsewhere in public. For the rest it pleased her to keep
away from me. Once or twice I tried to find her alone, only to discover that
she was engaged in the service of the goddess. Once, too, as she left
Peroa’s table, I whispered into her ear that I wished to speak with her.
But she shook her head, saying,

“After the new moon, Shabaka. Then you shall speak with me as much as you
wish.”

Thus it came about that never could I find opportunity to tell her of that
matter of what had happened at the court of the Great King. Still every morning
she sent me some token, flowers or trifling gifts, and once a ring that must
have belonged to her forefathers, since on its bezel was engraved the royal
uræus, together with the signs of long life and health, which ring I
wore hung about my neck but not upon my finger, fearing lest that emblem of
royalty might offend Peroa or some of his House, if they chanced to see it. So
in answer I also sent her flowers and other gifts, and for the rest was content
to wait.

All of which things my mother noted with a smile, saying that the lady Amada
showed a wonderful discretion, such as any man would value in a wife of so much
beauty, which also must be most pleasing to her mistress, the goddess Isis. To
this I answered that I valued it less as a lover than I might do as a husband.
My mother smiled again and spoke of something else.

Thus things went on while the storm-clouds gathered over Egypt.

One night I could not sleep. It was that of the new moon and I knew that during
those hours of darkness, before the solemn conclave of the high priests, with
pomp and ceremony in the sanctuary of the temple, Amada had undergone
absolution of her vows to Isis and been given liberty to wed as other women do.
Indeed my mother, in virtue of her rank as a Singer of Amen, had been present
at the rite, and returning, told me all that happened.

She described how Amada had appeared, clad as a priestess, how she had put up
her prayer to the four high priests seated in state, demanding to be loosed
from her vow “for the sake of her heart and of Egypt.”

Then one of the high priests, he of Amen, I think, as the chief of them all,
had advanced to the statue of the goddess Isis and whispered the prayer to it,
whereon after a pause the goddess nodded thrice in the sight of all present,
thereby signifying her assent. This done the high priest returned and
proclaimed the absolution in the ancient words “for the sake of the
suppliant’s heart and of Egypt” and with it the blessing of the
goddess on her union, adding, however, the formula, “at thy prayer,
daughter and spouse, I, the goddess Isis, cut the rope that binds thee to me on
earth. Yet if thou should’st tie it again, know that it may never more be
severed, for if thou strivest so to do, it shall strangle thee in whatever
shape thou livest on the earth throughout the generations, and with thee the
man thou choosest and those who give thee to him. Thus saith Isis the Queen of
Heaven.”

“What does that mean?” I asked my mother.

“It means, my son, that if, having broken her vows to Isis, a woman
should repeat them and once more enter the service of the goddess, and then for
the second time seek to break them, she and the man for whom she did this thing
would be like flies in a spider’s web, and that not only in this life,
but in any other that may be given to them in the world.”

“It seems that Isis has a long arm,” I said.