Two months had past since Bent-Anat’s departure from Thebes, and the
imprisonment of Pentaur. Ant-Baba is the name of the valley, in the
western half of the peninsula of Sinai,
[I have described in detail the peninsula of Sinai, its history, and
the sacred places on it, in my book “Durch Gosen zum Sinai,”
published in 1872. In depicting this scenery in the present
romance, I have endeavored to reproduce the reality as closely as
possible. He who has wandered through this wonderful mountain
wilderness can never forget it. The valley now called “Laba,” bore
the same name in the time of the Pharaohs.]
through which a long procession of human beings, and of beasts of
burden, wended their way.
It was winter, and yet the mid-day sun sent down glowing rays, which
were reflected from the naked rocks. In front of the caravan marched a
company of Libyan soldiers, and another brought up the rear. Each man
was armed with a dagger and battle-axe, a shield and a lance, and
was ready to use his weapons; for those whom they were escorting were
prisoners from the emerald-mines, who had been convoyed to the shores of
the Red Sea to carry thither the produce of the mines, and had received,
as a return-load, provisions which had arrived from Egypt, and which
were to be carried to the storehouses of the mountain mines. Bent and
panting, they made their way along. Each prisoner had a copper chain
riveted round his ankles, and torn rags hanging round their loins, were
the only clothing of these unhappy beings, who, gasping under the weight
of the sacks they had to carry, kept their staring eyes fixed on the
ground. If one of them threatened to sink altogether under his burden,
he was refreshed by the whip of one of the horsemen, who accompanied the
caravan. Many a one found it hard to choose whether he could best endure
the suffering of mere endurance, or the torture of the lash.
No one spoke a word, neither the prisoners nor their guards; and even
those who were flogged did not cry out, for their powers were exhausted,
and in the souls of their drivers there was no more impulse of pity
than there was a green herb on the rocks by the way. This melancholy
procession moved silently onwards, like a procession of phantoms, and
the ear was only made aware of it when now and then a low groan broke
from one of the victims.
The sandy path, trodden by their naked feet, gave no sound, the
mountains seemed to withhold their shade, the light of clay was a
torment--every thing far and near seemed inimical to the living. Not a
plant, not a creeping thing, showed itself against the weird forms
of the barren grey and brown rocks, and no soaring bird tempted the
oppressed wretches to raise their eyes to heaven.
In the noontide heat of the previous day they had started with their
loads from the harbor-creek. For two hours they had followed the shore
of the glistening, blue-green sea,
[The Red Sea--in Hebrew and Coptic the reedy sea--is of a lovely
blue green color. According to the Ancients it was named red either
from its red banks or from the Erythraeans, who were called the red
people. On an early inscription it is called “the water of the Red
country.” See “Durch Gosen zum Sinai.”]
then they had climbed a rocky shoulder and crossed a small plateau. They
had paused for their night’s rest in the gorge which led to the mines;
the guides and soldiers lighted fires, grouped themselves round them,
and lay down to sleep under the shelter of a cleft in the rocks; the
prisoners stretched themselves on the earth in the middle of the
valley without any shelter, and shivering with the cold which suddenly
succeeded the glowing heat of the day. The benumbed wretches now looked
forward to the crushing misery of the morning’s labor as eagerly as, a
few hours since, they had longed for the night, and for rest.
Lentil-broth and hard bread in abundance, but a very small quantity of
water was given to them before they started; then they set out through
the gorge, which grew hotter and hotter, and through ravines where they
could pass only one by one. Every now and then it seemed as if the
path came to an end, but each time it found an outlet, and went on--as
endless as the torment of the wayfarers.
Mighty walls of rock composed the view, looking as if they were formed
of angular masses of hewn stone piled up in rows; and of all the
miners one, and one only, had eyes for these curious structures of the
ever-various hand of Nature.
This one had broader shoulders than his companions, and his burden
Weighed on him comparatively lightly. “In this solitude,” thought he,
“which repels man, and forbids his passing his life here, the Chnemu,
the laborers who form the world, have spared themselves the trouble of
filling up the seams, and rounding off the corners. How is it that Man
should have dedicated this hideous land--in which even the human heart
seems to be hardened against all pity--to the merciful Hathor? Perhaps
because it so sorely stands in need of the joy and peace which the
loving goddess alone can bestow.”
“Keep the line, Huni!” shouted a driver.
The man thus addressed, closed up to the next man, the panting leech
Nebsecht. We know the other stronger prisoner. It is Pentaur, who had
been entered as Huni on the lists of mine-laborers, and was called by
that name. The file moved on; at every step the ascent grew more rugged.
Red and black fragments of stone, broken as small as if by the hand of
man, lay in great heaps, or strewed the path which led up the almost
perpendicular cliff by imperceptible degrees. Here another gorge opened
before them, and this time there seemed to be no outlet.
“Load the asses less!” cried the captain of the escort to the prisoners.
Then he turned to the soldiers, and ordered them, when the beasts were
eased, to put the extra burthens on the men. Putting forth their
utmost strength, the overloaded men labored up the steep and hardly
distinguishable mountain path.
The man in front of Pentaur, a lean old man, when half way up the
hill-side, fell in a heap under his load, and a driver, who in a narrow
defile could not reach the bearers, threw a stone at him to urge him to
a renewed effort.
The old man cried out at the blow, and at the cry--the paraschites
stricken down with stones--his own struggle with the mob--and the
appearance of Bent Anat flashed into Pentaur’s memory. Pity and a sense
of his own healthy vigor prompted him to energy; he hastily snatched the
sack from the shoulders of the old man, threw it over his own, helped up
the fallen wretch, and finally men and beasts succeeded in mounting the
rocky wall.
The pulses throbbed in Pentaur’s temples, and he shuddered with horror,
as he looked down from the height of the pass into the abyss below, and
round upon the countless pinnacles and peaks, cliffs and precipices,
in many-colored rocks-white and grey, sulphurous yellow, blood-red and
ominous black. He recalled the sacred lake of Muth in Thebes, round
which sat a hundred statues of the lion-headed Goddess in black basalt,
each on a pedestal; and the rocky peaks, which surrounded the valley
at his feet, seemed to put on a semblance of life and to move and
open their yawning jaws; through the wild rush of blood in his ears he
fancied he heard them roar, and the load beyond his strength which he
carried gave him a sensation as though their clutch was on his breast.
Nevertheless he reached the goal.
The other prisoners flung their loads from their shoulders, and threw
themselves down to rest. Mechanically he did the same: his pulses beat
more calmly, by degrees the visions faded from his senses, he saw and
heard once more, and his brain recovered its balance. The old man and
Nebsecht were lying beside him.
His grey-haired companion rubbed the swollen veins in his neck, and
called down all the blessings of the Gods upon his head; but the captain
of the caravan cut him short, exclaiming:
“You have strength for three, Huni; farther on, we will load you more
heavily.”
“How much the kindly Gods care for our prayers for the blessing of
others!” exclaimed Nebsecht. “How well they know how to reward a good
action!”
“I am rewarded enough,” said Pentaur, looking kindly at the old man.
“But you, you everlasting scoffer--you look pale. How do you feel?”
“As if I were one of those donkeys there,” replied the naturalist. “My
knees shake like theirs, and I think and I wish neither more nor less
than they do; that is to say--I would we were in our stalls.”
“If you can think,” said Pentaur smiling, “you are not so very bad.”
“I had a good thought just now, when you were staring up into the sky.
The intellect, say the priestly sages, is a vivifying breath of the
eternal spirit, and our soul is the mould or core for the mass of matter
which we call a human being. I sought the spirit at first in the heart,
then in the brain; but now I know that it resides in the arms and legs,
for when I have strained them I find thought is impossible. I am too
tired to enter on further evidence, but for the future I shall treat my
legs with the utmost consideration.”
“Quarrelling again you two? On again, men!” cried the driver.
The weary wretches rose slowly, the beasts were loaded, and on went the
pitiable procession, so as to reach the mines before sunset.
The destination of the travellers was a wide valley, closed in by two
high and rocky mountain-slopes; it was called Ta Mafka by the Egyptians,
Dophka by the Hebrews. The southern cliff-wall consisted of dark
granite, the northern of red sandstone; in a distant branch of the
valley lay the mines in which copper was found. In the midst of the
valley rose a hill, surrounded by a wall, and crowned with small stone
houses, for the guard, the officers, and the overseers. According to the
old regulations, they were without roofs, but as many deaths and much
sickness had occurred among the workmen in consequence of the cold
nights, they had been slightly sheltered with palm-branches brought from
the oasis of the Alnalckites, at no great distance.
On the uttermost peak of the hill, where it was most exposed to the
wind, were the smelting furnaces, and a manufactory where a peculiar
green glass was prepared, which was brought into the market under the
name of Mafkat, that is to say, emerald. The genuine precious stone was
found farther to the south, on the western shore of the Red Sea, and was
highly prized in Egypt.
Our friends had already for more than a month belonged to the
mining-community of the Mafkat valley, and Pentaur had never learned
how it was that he had been brought hither with his companion Nebsecht,
instead of going to the sandstone quarries of Chennu.
That Uarda’s father had effected this change was beyond a doubt, and the
poet trusted the rough but honest soldier who still kept near him, and
gave him credit for the best intentions, although he had only spoken to
him once since their departure from Thebes.
That was the first night, when he had come up to Pentaur, and whispered:
“I am looking after you. You will find the physician Nebsecht here; but
treat each other as enemies rather than as friends, if you do not wish
to be parted.”
Pentaur had communicated the soldier’s advice to Nebsecht, and he had
followed it in his own way.
It afforded him a secret pleasure to see how Pentaur’s life contradicted
the belief in a just and beneficent ordering of the destinies of men;
and the more he and the poet were oppressed, the more bitter was the
irony, often amounting to extravagance, with which the mocking sceptic
attacked him.
He loved Pentaur, for the poet had in his keeping the key which alone
could give admission to the beautiful world which lay locked up in his
own soul; but yet it was easy to him, if he thought they were observed,
to play his part, and to overwhelm Pentaur with words which, to the
drivers, were devoid of meaning, and which made them laugh by the
strange blundering fashion in which he stammered them out.
“A belabored husk of the divine self-consciousness.” “An advocate of
righteousness hit on the mouth.” “A juggler who makes as much of this
worst of all possible worlds as if it were the best.” “An admirer of the
lovely color of his blue bruises.” These and other terms of invective,
intelligible only to himself and his butt, he could always pour out in
new combinations, exciting Pentaur to sharp and often witty rejoinders,
equally unintelligible to the uninitiated.
Frequently their sparring took the form of a serious discussion, which
served a double purpose; first their minds, accustomed to serious
thought, found exercise in spite of the murderous pressure of the burden
of forced labor, and secondly, they were supposed really to be enemies.
They slept in the same court-yard, and contrived, now and then, to
exchange a few words in secret; but by day Nebsecht worked in the
turquoise-diggings, and Pentaur in the mines, for the careful chipping
out of the precious stones from their stony matrix was the work best
suited to the slight physician, while Pentaur’s giant-strength was
fitted for hewing the ore out of the hard rock. The drivers often looked
in surprise at his powerful strokes, as he flung his pick against the
stone.
The stupendous images that in such moments of wild energy rose before
the poet’s soul, the fearful or enchanting tones that rang in his
spirit’s ear-none could guess at.
Usually his excited fancy showed him the form of Bent-Anat, surrounded
by a host of men--and these he seemed to fell to the earth, one-by-one,
as-he hewed the rock. Often in the middle of his work he would stop,
throw down his pick-axe, and spread out his arms--but only to drop them
with a deep groan, and wipe the sweat from his brow.
The overseers did not know what to think of this powerful youth, who
often was as gentle as a child, and then seemed possessed of that demon
to which so many of the convicts fell victims. He had indeed become a
riddle to himself; for how was it that he--the gardener’s son, brought
up in the peaceful temple of Seti--ever since that night by the house
of the paraschites had had such a perpetual craving for conflict and
struggle?
The weary gangs were gone to rest; a bright fire still blazed in front
of the house of the superintendent of the mines, and round it squatted
in a circle the overseers and the subalterns of the troops.
“Put the wine-jar round again,” said the captain, “for we must hold
grave council. Yesterday I had orders from the Regent to send half the
guard to Pelusium. He requires soldiers, but we are so few in number
that if the convicts knew it they might make short work of us, even
without arms. There are stones enough hereabouts, and by day they have
their hammer and chisel. Things are worst among the Hebrews in the
copper-mines; they are a refractory crew that must be held tight. You
know me well, fear is unknown to me--but I feel great anxiety. The last
fuel is now burning in this fire, and the smelting furnaces and the
glass-foundry must not stand idle. Tomorrow we must send men to Raphidim
[The oasis at the foot of Horeb, where the Jews under Joshua’s
command conquered the Amalekites, while Aaron and Hur held up Moses’
arms. Exodus 17, 8.]
to obtain charcoal from the Amalekites. They owe us a hundred loads
still. Load the prisoners with some copper, to make them tired and the
natives civil. What can we do to procure what we want, and yet not to
weaken the forces here too much?”
Various opinions were given, and at last it was settled that a small
division, guarded by a few soldiers, should be sent out every day to
supply only the daily need for charcoal.
It was suggested that the most dangerous of the convicts should be
fettered together in pairs to perform their duties.
The superintendent was of opinion that two strong men fettered together
would be more to be feared if only they acted in concert.
“Then chain a strong one to a weak one,” said the chief accountant of
the mines, whom the Egyptians called the ‘scribe of the metals.’ “And
fetter those together who are enemies.”
“The colossal Huni, for instance, to that puny spat row, the stuttering
Nebsecht,” said a subaltern.
“I was thinking of that very couple,” said the accountant laughing.
Three other couples were selected, at first with some laughter, but
finally with serious consideration, and Uarda’s father was sent with the
drivers as an escort.
On the following morning Pentaur and Nebsecht were fettered together
with a copper chain, and when the sun was at its height four pairs of
prisoners, heavily loaded with copper, set out for the Oasis of the
Amalekites, accompanied by six soldiers and the son of the paraschites,
to fetch fuel for the smelting furnaces.
They rested near the town of Alus, and then went forward again between
bare walls of greyish-green and red porphyry. These cliffs rose higher
and higher, but from time to time, above the lower range, they could see
the rugged summit of some giant of the range, though, bowed under their
heavy loads, they paid small heed to it.
The sun was near setting when they reached the little sanctuary of the
‘Emerald-Hathor.’
A few grey and black birds here flew towards them, and Pentaur gazed at
them with delight.
How long he had missed the sight of a bird, and the sound of their chirp
and song! Nebsecht said: “There are some birds--we must be near water.”
And there stood the first palm-tree!
Now the murmur of the brook was perceptible, and its tiny sound touched
the thirsty souls of the travellers as rain falls on dry grass.
On the left bank of the stream an encampment of Egyptian soldiers formed
a large semicircle, enclosing three large tents made of costly material
striped with blue and white, and woven with gold thread. Nothing was to
be seen of the inhabitants of these tents, but when the prisoners
had passed them, and the drivers were exchanging greetings with the
out-posts, a girl, in the long robe of an Egyptian, came towards them,
and looked at them.
Pentaur started as if he had seen a ghost; but Nebsecht gave expression
to his astonishment in a loud cry.
At the same instant a driver laid his whip across their shoulders, and
cried laughing:
“You may hit each other as hard as you like with words, but not with
your hands.”
Then he turned to his companions, and said: “Did you see the pretty girl
there, in front of the tent?”
“It is nothing to us!” answered the man he addressed. “She belongs to
the princess’s train. She has been three weeks here on a visit to the
holy shrine of Hathor.”
“She must have committed some heavy sin,” replied the other. “If she
were one of us, she would have been set to sift sand in the diggings,
or grind colors, and not be living here in a gilt tent. Where is our
red-beard?”
Uarda’s father had lingered a little behind the party, for the girl had
signed to him, and exchanged a few words with him.
“Have you still an eye for the fair ones?” asked the youngest of the
drivers when he rejoined the gang.
“She is a waiting maid of the princess,” replied the soldier not without
embarrassment. “To-morrow morning we are to carry a letter from her to
the scribe of the mines, and if we encamp in the neighborhood she will
send us some wine for carrying it.”
“The old red-beard scents wine as a fox scents a goose. Let us encamp
here; one never knows what may be picked up among the Mentu, and the
superintendent said we were to encamp outside the oasis. Put down your
sacks, men! Here there is fresh water, and perhaps a few dates and sweet
Manna for you to eat with it.
[“Man” is the name still given by the Bedouins of Sinai to the sweet
gum which exudes from the Tamarix mannifera. It is the result of
the puncture of an insect, and occurs chiefly in May. By many it is
supposed to be the Manna of the Bible.]
But keep the peace, you two quarrelsome fellows--Huni and Nebsecht.”
Bent-Anat’s journey to the Emerald-Hathor was long since ended. As far
as Keft she had sailed down the Nile with her escort, from thence she
had crossed the desert by easy marches, and she had been obliged to wait
a full week in the port on the Red Sea, which was chiefly inhabited
by Phoenicians, for a ship which had finally brought her to the little
seaport of Pharan. From Pharan she had crossed the mountains to the
oasis, where the sanctuary she was to visit stood on the northern side.
The old priests, who conducted the service of the Goddess, had received
the daughter of Rameses with respect, and undertook to restore her to
cleanness by degrees with the help of the water from the mountain-stream
which watered the palm-grove of the Amalekites, of incense-burning, of
pious sentences, and of a hundred other ceremonies. At last the Goddess
declared herself satisfied, and Bent-Anat wished to start for the north
and join her father, but the commander of the escort, a grey-headed
Ethiopian field officer--who had been promoted to a high grade by
Ani--explained to the Chamberlain that he had orders to detain the
princess in the oasis until her departure was authorized by the Regent
himself.
Bent-Anat now hoped for the support of her father, for her brother
Rameri, if no accident had occurred to him, might arrive any day. But in
vain.
The position of the ladies was particularly unpleasant, for they felt
that they had been caught in a trap, and were in fact prisoners. In
addition to this their Ethiopian escort had quarrelled with the
natives of the oasis, and every day skirmishes took place under their
eyes--indeed lately one of these fights had ended in bloodshed.
Bent-Anat was sick at heart. The two strong pinions of her soul, which
had always borne her so high above other women--her princely pride and
her bright frankness--seemed quite broken; she felt that she had loved
once, never to love again, and that she, who had sought none of her
happiness in dreams, but all in work, had bestowed the best half of her
identity on a vision. Pentaur’s image took a more and more vivid, and at
the same time nobler and loftier, aspect in her mind; but he himself had
died for her, for only once had a letter reached them from Egypt, and
that was from Katuti to Nefert. After telling her that late intelligence
established the statement that her husband had taken a prince’s
daughter, who had been made prisoner, to his tent as his share of the
booty, she added the information that the poet Pentaur, who had been
condemned to forced labor, had not reached the mountain mines, but, as
was supposed, had perished on the road.
Nefert still held to her immovable belief that her husband was faithful
to his love for her, and the magic charm of a nature made beautiful by
its perfect mastery over a deep and pure passion made itself felt in
these sad and heavy days.
It seemed as though she had changed parts with Bent-Anat. Always
hopeful, every day she foretold help from the king for the next; in
truth she was ready to believe that, when Mena learned from Rameri that
she was with the princess, he himself would come to fetch them if his
duties allowed it. In her hours of most lively expectation she could go
so far as to picture how the party in the tents would be divided, and
who would bear Bent-Anat company if Mena took her with him to his camp,
on what spot of the oasis it would be best to pitch it, and much more in
the same vein.
Uarda could very well take her place with Bent-Anat, for the child
had developed and improved on the journey. The rich clothes which the
princess had given her became her as if she had never worn any others;
she could obey discreetly, disappear at the right moment, and, when she
was invited, chatter delightfully. Her laugh was silvery, and nothing
consoled Bent-Anat so much as to hear it.
Her songs too pleased the two friends, though the few that she knew were
grave and sorrowful. She had learned them by listening to old Hekt, who
often used to play on a lute in the dusk, and who, when she perceived
that Uarda caught the melodies, had pointed out her faults, and given
her advice.
“She may some day come into my hands,” thought the witch, “and the
better she sings, the better she will be paid.”
Bent-Anat too tried to teach Uarda, but learning to read was not easy to
the girl, however much pains she might take. Nevertheless, the princess
would not give up the spelling, for here, at the foot of the immense
sacred mountain at whose summit she gazed with mixed horror and longing,
she was condemned to inactivity, which weighed the more heavily on her
in proportion as those feelings had to be kept to herself which she
longed to escape from in work. Uarda knew the origin of her mistress’s
deep grief, and revered her for it, as if it were something sacred.
Often she would speak of Pentaur and of his father, and always in such a
manner that the princess could not guess that she knew of their love.
When the prisoners were passing Bent-Anat’s tent, she was sitting within
with Nefert, and talking, as had become habitual in the hours of dusk,
of her father, of Mena, Rameri, and Pentaur.
“He is still alive,” asserted Nefert. “My mother, you see, says that no
one knows with certainty what became of him. If he escaped, he beyond
a doubt tried to reach the king’s camp, and when we get there you will
find him with your father.”
The princess looked sadly at the ground. Nefert looked affectionately at
her, and asked:
“Are you thinking of the difference in rank which parts you from the man
you have chosen?”
“The man to whom I offer my hand, I put in the rank of a prince,” said
Bent-Anat. “But if I could set Pentaur on a throne, as master of the
world, he would still be greater and better than I.”
“But your father?” asked Nefert doubtfully.
“He is my friend, he will listen to me and understand me. He shall know
everything when I see him; I know his noble and loving heart.”
Both were silent for some time; then Bent-Anat spoke:
“Pray have lights brought, I want to finish my weaving.”
Nefert rose, went to the door of the tent, and there met Uarda; she
seized Nefert’s hand, and silently drew her out into the air.
“What is the matter, child? you are trembling,” Nefert exclaimed.
“My father is here,” answered Uarda hastily. “He is escorting some
prisoners from the mines of Mafkat. Among them there are two chained
together, and one of them--do not be startled--one of them is the poet
Pentaur. Stop, for God’s sake, stop, and hear me. Twice before I have
seen my father when he has been here with convicts. To-day we must
rescue Pentaur; but the princess must know nothing of it, for if my plan
fails--”
“Child! girl!” interrupted Nefert eagerly. “How can I help you?”
“Order the steward to give the drivers of the gang a skin of wine in the
name of the princess, and out of Bent-Anat’s case of medicines take the
phial which contains the sleeping draught, which, in spite of your wish,
she will not take. I will wait here, and I know how to use it.”
Nefert immediately found the steward, and ordered him to follow Uarda
with a skin of wine. Then she went back to the princess’s tent, and
opened the medicine case.
[A medicine case, belonging to a more ancient period than the reign
of Rameses, is preserved in the Berlin Museum.]
“What do you want?” asked Bent-Anat.
“A remedy for palpitation,” replied Nefert; she quietly took the flask
she needed, and in a few minutes put it into Uarda’s hand.
The girl asked the steward to open the wine-skin, and let her taste the
liquor. While she pretended to drink it, she poured the whole contents
of the phial into the wine, and then let Bent-Anat’s bountiful present
be carried to the thirsty drivers.
She herself went towards the kitchen tent, and found a young Amalekite
sitting on the ground with the princess’s servants. He sprang up as soon
as he saw the damsel.
“I have brought four fine partridges,”
[A brook springs on the peak called by the Sinaitic monks Mr. St.
Katherine, which is called the partridge’s spring, and of which many
legends are told. For instance, God created it for the partridges
which accompanied the angels who carried St. Katharine of Alexandria
to her tomb on Sinai.]
he said, “which I snared myself, and I have brought this turquoise for
you--my brother found it in a rock. This stone brings good luck, and is
good for the eyes; it gives victory over our enemies, and keeps away bad
dreams.”
“Thank you!” said Uarda, and taking the boy’s hand, as he gave her the
sky-blue stone, she led him forward into the dusk.
“Listen, Salich” she said softly, as soon as she thought they were far
enough from the others. “You are a good boy, and the maids told me that
you said I was a star that had come down from the sky to become a woman.
No one says such a thing as that of any one they do not like very
much; and I know you like me, for you show me that you do every day by
bringing me flowers, when you carry the game that your father gets to
the steward. Tell me, will you do me and the princess too a very great
service? Yes?--and willingly? Yes? I knew you would! Now listen. A
friend of the great lady Bent-Anat, who will come here to-night, must
be hidden for a day, perhaps several days, from his pursuers. Can he,
or rather can they, for there will probably be two, find shelter and
protection in your father’s house, which lies high up there on the
sacred mountain?”
“Whoever I take to my father,” said the boy, “will be made welcome;
and we defend our guests first, and then ourselves. Where are the
strangers?”
“They will arrive in a few hours. Will you wait here till the moon is
well up?”
“Till the last of all the thousand moons that vanish behind the hills is
set.”
“Well then, wait on the other side of the stream, and conduct the man to
your house, who repeats my name three times. You know my name?”
“I call you Silver-star, but the others call you Uarda.”
“Lead the strangers to your hut, and, if they are received there by your
father, come back and tell me. I will watch for you here at the door of
the tent. I am poor, alas! and cannot reward you, but the princess will
thank your father as a princess should. Be watchful, Salich!”
The girl vanished, and went to the drivers of the gang of prisoners,
wished them a merry and pleasant evening, and then hastened back to
Bent-Anat, who anxiously stroked her abundant hair, and asked her why
she was so pale.
“Lie down,” said the princess kindly, “you are feverish. Only look,
Nefert, I can see the blood coursing through the blue veins in her
forehead.”
Meanwhile the drivers drank, praised the royal wine, and the lucky
day on which they drank it; and when Uarda’s father suggested that the
prisoners too should have a mouthful one of his fellow soldiers cried:
“Aye, let the poor beasts be jolly too for once.”
The red-beard filled a large beaker, and offered it first to a forger
and his fettered companion, then he approached Pentaur, and whispered:
“Do not drink any-keep awake!”
As he was going to warn the physician too, one of his companions came
between them, and offering his tankard to Nebsecht said:
“Here mumbler, drink; see him pull! His stuttering mouth is spry enough
for drinking!”