THE NIGHT OF DREAD
The feast dragged slowly on, for Fear was of the company. The men and
women were silent, and when they drank, it was as if one had poured a
little oil on a dying fire. Life flamed up in them for a moment, their
laughter came like the crackling of thorns, and then they were silent
again. Meanwhile the Wanderer drank little, waiting to see what should
come. But the Queen was watching him whom already her heart desired,
and she only of all the company had pleasure in this banquet. Suddenly
a side-door opened behind the daïs, there was a stir in the hall, each
guest turning his head fearfully, for all expected some evil tidings.
But it was only the entrance of those who bear about in the feasts of
Egypt an effigy of the Dead, the likeness of a mummy carved in wood,
and who cry: “Drink, O King, and be glad, thou shalt soon be even as
he! Drink, and be glad.” The stiff, swathed figure, with its folded
hands and gilded face, was brought before the Pharaoh, and Meneptah,
who had sat long in sullen brooding silence, started when he looked on
it. Then he broke into an angry laugh.
“We have little need of thee to-night,” he cried, as he saluted the
symbol of Osiris. “Death is near enough, we want not thy silent
preaching. Death, Death is near!”
He fell back in his gilded chair, and let the cup drop from his hand,
gnawing at his beard.
“Art thou a man?” spoke Meriamun, in a low clear voice; “are you men,
and yet afraid of what comes to all? Is it only to-night that we first
hear the name of Death? Remember the great Men-kau-ra, remember the old
Pharaoh who built the Pyramid of Hir. He was just and kind, and he
feared the Gods, and for his reward they showed him Death, coming on
him in six short years. Did he scowl and tremble, like all of you
to-night, who are scared by the threats of slaves? Nay, he outwitted
the Gods, he made night into day, he lived out twice his years, with
revel and love and wine in the lamp-lit groves of persea trees. Come,
my guests, let us be merry, if it be but for an hour. Drink, and be
brave!”
“For once thou speakest well,” said the King. “Drink and forget; the
Gods who give Death give wine,” and his angry eyes ranged through the
hall, to seek some occasion of mirth and scorn.
“Thou Wanderer!” he said, suddenly. “Thou drinkest not: I have watched
thee as the cups go round; what, man, thou comest from the North, the
sun of thy pale land has not heat enough to foster the vine. Thou
seemest cold, and a drinker of water; why wilt thou be cold before
thine hour? Come, pledge me in the red wine of Khem. Bring forth the
cup of Pasht!” he cried to them who waited, “bring forth the cup of
Pasht, the King drinks!”
Then the chief butler of Pharaoh went to the treasure-house, and came
again, bearing a huge golden cup, fashioned in the form of a lion’s
head, and holding twelve measures of wine. It was an ancient cup,
sacred to Pasht, and a gift of the Rutennu to Thothmes, the greatest of
that name.
“Fill it full of unmixed wine!” cried the King. “Dost thou grow pale at
the sight of the cup, thou Wanderer from the North? I pledge thee,
pledge thou me!”
“Nay, King,” said the Wanderer, “I have tasted wine of Ismarus before
to-day, and I have drunk with a wild host, the one-eyed Man Eater!” For
his heart was angered by the King, and he forgot his wisdom, but the
Queen marked the saying.
“Then pledge me in the cup of Pasht!” quoth the King.
“I pray thee, pardon me,” said the Wanderer, “for wine makes wise men
foolish and strong men weak, and to-night methinks we shall need our
wits and our strength.”
“Craven!” cried the King, “give me the bowl. I drink to thy better
courage, Wanderer,” and lifting the great golden cup, he stood up and
drank it, and then dropped staggering into his chair, his head fallen
on his breast.
“I may not refuse a King’s challenge, though it is ill to contend with
our hosts,” said the Wanderer, turning somewhat pale, for he was in
anger. “Give me the bowl!”
He took the cup, and held it high; then pouring a little forth to his
Gods, he said, in a clear voice, for he was stirred to anger beyond his
wont:
“_I drink to the Strange Hathor!_”
He spoke, and drained the mighty cup, and set it down on the board, and
even as he laid down the cup, and as the Queen looked at him with eyes
of wrath, there came from the bow beside his seat a faint shrill sound,
a ringing and a singing of the bow, a noise of running strings and a
sound as of rushing arrows.
The warrior heard it, and his eyes burned with the light of battle, for
he knew well that the swift shafts should soon fly to the hearts of the
doomed. Pharaoh awoke and heard it, and heard it the Lady Meriamun the
Queen, and she looked on the Wanderer astonished, and looked on the bow
that sang.
“The minstrel’s tale was true! This is none other but the Bow of
Odysseus, the sacker of cities,” said Meriamun. “Hearken thou,
Eperitus, thy great bow sings aloud. How comes it that thy bow sings?”
“For this cause, Queen,” said the Wanderer; “because birds gather on
the Bridge of War. Soon shall shafts be flying and ghosts go down to
doom. Summon thy Guards, I bid thee, for foes are near.”
Terror conquered the drunkenness of Pharaoh; he bade the Guards who
stood behind his chair summon all their company. They went forth, and a
great hush fell again upon the Hall of Banquets and upon those who sat
at meat therein. The silence grew deadly still, like air before the
thunder, and men’s hearts sank within them, and turned to water in
their breasts. Only Odysseus wondered and thought on the battle to be,
though whence the foe might come he knew not, and Meriamun sat erect in
her ivory chair and looked down the glorious hall.
Deeper grew the silence and deeper yet, and more and more the cloud of
fear gathered in the hearts of men. Then suddenly through all the hall
there was a rush like the rush of mighty wings. The deep foundations of
the Palace rocked, and to the sight of men the roof above seemed to
burst asunder, and lo! above them, against the distance of the sky,
there swept a shape of Fear, and the stars shone through its raiment.
Then the roof closed in again, and for a moment’s space once more there
was silence, whilst men looked with white faces, each on each, and even
the stout heart of the Wanderer stood still.
Then suddenly all down the hall, from this place and from that, men
rose up and with one great cry fell down dead, this one across the
board, and that one across the floor. The Wanderer grasped his bow and
counted. From among those who sat at meat twenty and one had fallen
dead. Yet those who lived sat gazing emptily, for so stricken with fear
were they that scarce did each one know if it was he himself who lay
dead or his brother who had sat by his side.
But Meriamun looked down the hall with cold eyes, for she feared
neither Death nor Life, nor God nor man.
And while she looked and while the Wanderer counted, there rose a faint
murmuring sound from the city without, a sound that grew and grew, the
thunder of myriad feet that run before the death of kings. Then the
doors burst asunder and a woman sped through them in her night robes,
and in her arms she bore the naked body of a boy.
“Pharaoh!” she cried, “Pharaoh, and thou, O Queen, look upon thy
son—thy firstborn son—dead is thy son, O Pharaoh! Dead is thy son, O
Queen! In my arms he died suddenly as I lulled him to his rest,” and
she laid the body of the child down on the board among the vessels of
gold, among the garlands of lotus flowers and the beakers of rose-red
wine.
Then Pharaoh rose and rent his purple robes and wept aloud. Meriamun
rose too, and lifting the body of her son clasped it to her breast, and
her eyes were terrible with wrath and grief, but she wept not.
“See now the curse that this evil woman, this False Hathor, hath
brought upon us,” she said.
But the very guests sprang up crying, “It is not the Hathor whom we
worship, it is not the Holy Hathor, it is the Gods of those dark Apura
whom thou, O Queen, wilt not let go. On thy head and the head of
Pharaoh be it,” and even as they cried the murmur without grew to a
shriek of woe, a shriek so wild and terrible that the Palace walls
rang. Again that shriek rose, and yet a third time, never was such a
cry heard in Egypt. And now for the first time in all his days the face
of the Wanderer grew white with fear, and in fear of heart he prayed
for succour to his Goddess—to Aphrodite, the daughter of Dione.
Again the doors behind them burst open and the Guards flocked in—mighty
men of many foreign lands; but now their faces were wan, their eyes
stared wide, and their jaws hung down. But at the sound of the clanging
of their harness the strength of the Wanderer came back to him again,
for the Gods and their vengeance he feared, but not the sword of man.
And now once more the bow sang aloud. He grasped it, he bent it with
his mighty knee, and strung it, crying:
“Awake, Pharaoh, awake! Foes draw on. Say, be these all the men?”
Then the Captain answered, “These be all of the Guard who are left
living in the Palace. The rest are stark, smitten by the angry Gods.”
Now as the Captain spake, one came running up the hall, heeding neither
the dead nor the living. It was the old priest Rei, the Commander of
the Legion of Amen, who had been the Wanderer’s guide, and his looks
were wild with fear.
“Hearken, Pharaoh!” he cried, “thy people lie dead by thousands in the
streets—the houses are full of dead. In the Temples of Ptah and Amen
many of the priests have fallen dead also.”
“Hast thou more to tell, old man?” cried the Queen.
“The tale has not all been told, O Queen. The soldiers are mad with
fear and with the sight of death, and slay their captains; barely have
I escaped from those in my command of the Legion of Amen. For they
swear that this death has been brought upon the land because the
Pharaoh will not let the Apura go. Hither, then, they come to slay the
Pharaoh, and thee also, O Queen, and with them come many thousands of
people, catching up such arms as lie to their hands.”
Now Pharaoh sank down groaning, but the Queen spake to the Wanderer:
“Anon thy weapon sang of war, Eperitus; now war is at the gates.”
“Little I fear the rush of battle and the blows men deal in anger,
Lady,” he made answer, “though a man may fear the Gods without shame.
Ho, Guards! close up, close up round me! Look not so pale-faced now
death from the Gods is done with, and we have but to fear the sword of
men.”
So great was his mien and so glorious his face as he cried thus, and
one by one drew his long arrows forth and laid them on the board, that
the trembling Guards took heart, and to the number of fifty and one
ranged themselves on the edge of the daïs in a double line. Then they
also made ready their bows and loosened the arrows in their quivers.
Now from without there came a roar of men, and anon, while those of the
house of Pharaoh, and of the guests and nobles, who sat at the feast
and yet lived, fled behind the soldiers, the brazen doors were burst in
with mighty blows, and through them a great armed multitude surged
along the hall. There came soldiers broken from their ranks. There came
the embalmers of the Dead; their hands were overfull of work to-night,
but they left their work undone; Death had smitten some even of these,
and their fellows did not shrink back from them now. There came the
smith, black from the forge, and the scribe bowed with endless writing;
and the dyer with his purple hands, and the fisher from the stream; and
the stunted weaver from the loom, and the leper from the Temple gates.
They were mad with lust of life, a starveling life that the King had
taxed, when he let not the Apura go. They were mad with fear of death;
their women followed them with dead children in their arms. They smote
down the golden furnishings, they tore the silken hangings, they cast
the empty cups of the feast at the faces of trembling ladies, and cried
aloud for the blood of the King.
“Where is Pharaoh?” they yelled, “show us Pharaoh and the Queen
Meriamun, that we may slay them. Dead are our first born, they lie in
heaps as the fish lay when Sihor ran red with blood. Dead are they
because of the curse that has been brought upon us by the prophets of
the Apura, whom Pharaoh, and Pharaoh’s Queen, yet hold in Khem.”
Now as they cried they saw Pharaoh Meneptah cowering behind the double
line of Guards, and they saw the Queen Meriamun who cowered not, but
stood silent above the din. Then she thrust her way through the Guards,
and yet holding the body of the child to her breast, she stood before
them with eyes that flashed more brightly than the uraeus crown upon
her brow.
“Back!” she cried, “back! It is not Pharaoh, it is not I, who have
brought this death upon you. For we too have death here!” and she held
up the body of her dead son. “It is that False Hathor whom ye worship,
that Witch of many a voice and many a face who turns your hearts faint
with love. For her sake ye endure these woes, on her head is all this
death. Go, tear her temple stone from stone, and rend her beauty limb
from limb and be avenged and free the land from curses.”
A moment the people stood and hearkened, muttering as stands the lion
that is about to spring, while those who pressed without cried:
“Forward! Forward! Slay them! Slay them!” Then as with one voice they
screamed:
“The Hathor we love, but you we hate, for ye have brought these woes
upon us, and ye shall die.”
They cried, they brawled, they cast footstools and stones at the
Guards, and then a certain tall man among them drew a bow. Straight at
the Queen’s fair breast he aimed his arrow, and swift and true it sped
towards her. She saw the light gleam upon its shining barb, and then
she did what no woman but Meriamun would have done, no, not to save
herself from death—she held out the naked body of her son as a warrior
holds a shield. The arrow struck through and through it, piercing the
tender flesh, aye, and pricked her breast beyond, so that she let the
dead boy fall.
The Wanderer saw it and wondered at the horror of the deed, for he had
seen no such deed in all his days. Then shouting aloud the terrible
war-cry of the Achæans he leapt upon the board before him, and as he
leapt his golden armour clanged.
Glancing around, he fixed an arrow to the string and drew to his ear
that great bow which none but he might so much as bend. Then as he
loosed, the string sang like a swallow, and the shaft screamed through
the air. Down the glorious hall it sped, and full on the breast of him
who had lifted bow against the Queen the bitter arrow struck, nor might
his harness avail to stay it. Through the body of him it passed and
with blood-red feathers flew on, and smote another who stood behind him
so that his knees also were loosened, and together they fell dead upon
the floor.
Now while the people stared and wondered, again the bowstring sang like
a swallow, again the arrow screamed in its flight, and he who stood
before it got his death, for the shield he bore was pinned to his
breast.
Then wonder turned to rage; the multitude rolled forward, and from
either side the air grew dark with arrows. For the Guards at the sight
of the shooting of the Wanderer found heart and fought well and
manfully. Boldly also the slayers came on, and behind them pressed many
a hundred men. The Wanderer’s golden helm flashed steadily, a beacon in
the storm. Black smoke burst out in the hall, the hangings flamed and
tossed in a wind from the open door. The lights were struck from the
hands of the golden images, arrows stood thick in the tables and the
rafters, a spear pierced through the golden cup of Pasht. But out of
the darkness and smoke and dust, and the cry of battle, and through the
rushing of the rain of spears, sang the swallow string of the black bow
of Eurytus, and the long shafts shrieked as they sped on them who were
ripe to die. In vain did the arrows of the slayers smite upon that
golden harness. They were but as hail upon the temple roofs, but as
driving snow upon the wild stag’s horns. They struck, they rattled, and
down they dropped like snow, or bounded back and lay upon the board.
The swallow string sang, the black bow twanged, and the bitter arrows
shrieked as they flew.
Now the Wanderer’s shafts were spent, and he judged that their case was
desperate. For out of the doors of the hall that were behind them, and
from the chambers of the women, armed men burst in also, taking them on
the flank and rear. But the Wanderer was old in war, and without a
match in all its ways. The Captain of the Guard was slain with a spear
stroke, and the Wanderer took his place, calling to the men, such of
them as were left alive, to form a circle on the daïs, and within the
circle he set those of the house of Pharaoh and the women who were at
the feast. And to Pharaoh he cast a slain man’s sword, bidding him
strike for life and throne if he never struck before; but the heart was
out of Pharaoh because of the death of his son, and the wine about his
wits, and the terrors he had seen. Then Meriamun the Queen snatched the
sword from his trembling hand and stood holding it to guard her life.
For she disdained to crouch upon the ground as did the other women, but
stood upright behind the Wanderer, and heeded not the spears and arrows
that dealt death on every hand. But Pharaoh stood, his face buried in
his hands.
Now the slayers came on, shouting and clambering upon the daïs. Then
the Wanderer rushed on them with sword drawn, and shield on high, and
so swift he smote that men might not guard, for they saw, as it were,
three blades aloft at once, and the silver-hafted sword bit deep, the
gift of Phæacian Euryalus long ago. The Guards also smote and thrust;
it was for their lives they fought, and back rolled the tide of foes,
leaving a swathe of dead. So a second time they came on, and a second
time were rolled back.
Now of the defenders few were left unhurt, and their strength was
well-nigh spent. But the Wanderer cheered them with great words, though
his heart grew fearful for the end; and Meriamun the Queen also bade
them to be of good courage, and if need were, to die like men. Then
once again the wave of War rolled in upon them, and the strife grew
fierce and desperate. The iron hedge of spears was well-nigh broken,
and now the Wanderer, doing such deeds as had not been known in Khem,
stood alone between Meriamun the Queen and the swords that thirsted for
her life and the life of Pharaoh. Then of a sudden, from far down the
great hall of banquets, there came a loud cry that shrilled above the
clash of swords, the groans of men, and all the din of battle.
“_Pharaoh! Pharaoh! Pharaoh!_” rose a voice. “Now wilt thou let the
people go?”
Then he who smote stayed his hand and he who guarded dropped his
shield. The battle ceased and all turned to look. There at the end of
the hall, among the dead and dying, there stood the two ancient men of
the Apura, and in their hands were cedar rods.
“It is the Wizards—the Wizards of the Apura,” men cried, and shrunk
this way and that, thinking no more on war.
The ancient men drew nigh. They took no heed of the dying or the dead:
on they walked, through blood and wine and fallen tables and scattered
arms, till they stood before the Pharaoh.
“_Pharaoh! Pharaoh! Pharaoh!_” they cried again. “Dead are the
first-born of Khem at the hand of Jahveh. Wilt thou let the people go?”
Then Pharaoh lifted his face and cried:
“Get you gone—you and all that is yours. Get you gone swiftly, and let
Khem see your face no more.”
The people heard, and the living left the hall, and silence fell on the
city, and on the dead who died of the sword, and the dead who died of
the pestilence. Silence fell, and sleep, and the Gods’ best
gift—forgetfulness.