“Help of Jehovah!” murmured a state-prisoner, laden with heavy
chains, five days later, smiling bitterly as, with forty companions in
misfortune, he was led through the gate of victory in Tanis toward the
east.
The mines in the Sinai peninsula, where more convict labor was needed,
were the goal of these unfortunate men.
The prisoner’s smile lingered a short time, then drawing up his muscular
frame, his bearded lips murmured: “Strong and steadfast!” and as if he
desired to transmit the support he had himself found he whispered to the
youth marching at his side: “Courage, Ephraim, courage! Don’t gaze down
at the dust, but upward, whatever may come.”
“Silence in the ranks!” shouted one of the armed Libyan guards, who
accompanied the convicts, to the older prisoner, raising his whip with
a significant gesture. The man thus threatened was Joshua, and his
companion in suffering Ephraim, who had been sentenced to share his
fate.
What this was every child in Egypt knew, for “May I be sent to the
mines!” was one of the most terrible oaths of the common people, and
no prisoner’s lot was half so hard as that of the convicted
state-criminals.
A series of the most terrible humiliations and tortures awaited them.
The vigor of the robust was broken by unmitigated toil; the exhausted
were forced to execute tasks so far beyond their strength that they soon
found the eternal rest for which their tortured souls longed. To be sent
to the mines meant to be doomed to a slow, torturing death; yet life is
so dear to men that it was considered a milder punishment to be dragged
to forced labor in the mines than to be delivered up to the executioner.
Joshua’s encouraging words had little effect upon Ephraim; but when,
a few minutes later, a chariot shaded by an umbrella, passed the
prisoners, a chariot in which a slender woman of aristocratic bearing
stood beside a matron behind the driver, he turned with a hasty movement
and gazed after the equipage with sparkling eyes till it vanished in the
dust of the road.
The younger woman had been closely veiled, but Ephraim thought he
recognized her for whose sake he had gone to his ruin, and whose
lightest sign he would still have obeyed.
And he was right; the lady in the chariot was Kasana, the daughter of
Hornecht, captain of the archers, and the matron was her nurse.
At a little temple by the road-side, where, in the midst of a grove of
Nile acacias, a well was maintained for travellers, she bade the matron
wait for her and, springing lightly from the chariot which had left
the prisoners some distance behind, she began to pace up and down with
drooping head in the shadow of the trees, until the whirling clouds of
dust announced the approach of the convicts.
Taking from her robe the gold rings she had ready for this purpose, she
went to the man who was riding at its head on an ass and who led the
mournful procession. While she was talking with him and pointing to
Joshua, the guard cast a sly glance at the rings which had been slipped
into his hand, and seeing a welcome yellow glitter when his modesty had
expected only silver, his features instantly assumed an expression of
obliging good-will.
True, his face darkened at Kasana’s request, but another promise from
the young widow brightened it again, and he now turned eagerly to his
subordinates, exclaiming: “To the well with the moles, men! Let them
drink. They must be fresh and healthy under the ground!”
Then riding up to the prisoners, he shouted to Joshua:
“You once commanded many soldiers, and look more stiff-necked now than
beseems you and me. Watch the others, guards, I have a word or two to
say to this man alone.”
He clapped his hands as if he were driving hens out of a garden,
and while the prisoners took pails and with the guards, enjoyed the
refreshing drink, their leader drew Joshua and Ephraim away from the
road--they could not be separated on account of the chain which bound
their ancles together.
The little temple soon hid them from the eyes of the others, and the
warder sat down on a step some distance off, first showing the two
Hebrews, with a gesture whose meaning was easily understood, the heavy
spear he carried in his hand and the hounds which lay at his feet.
He kept his eyes open, too, during the conversation that followed. They
could say whatever they chose; he knew the duties of his office and
though, for the sake of good money he could wink at a farewell, for
twenty years, though there had been many attempts to escape, not one
of his moles--a name he was fond of giving to the future miners--had
succeeded in eluding his watchfulness.
Yonder fair lady doubtless loved the stately man who, he had been told,
was formerly a chief in the army. But he had already numbered among his
“moles,” personages even more distinguished, and if the veiled woman
managed to slip files or gold into the prisoner’s hands, he would not
object, for that very evening the persons of both would be thoroughly
searched, even the youth’s black locks, which would not have remained
unshorn, had not everything been in confusion prior to the departure of
the convicts, which took place just before the march of Pharaoh’s army.
The watcher could not hear the whispered words exchanged between the
degraded chief and the lady, but her humble manner and bearing led him
to suppose that it was she who had brought the proud warrior to his
ruin. Ah, these women! And the fettered youth! The looks he fixed upon
the slender figure were ardent enough to scorch her veil. But patience!
Mighty Father Amon! His moles were going to a school where people
learned modesty!
Now the lady had removed her veil. She was a beautiful woman! It must be
hard to part from such a sweetheart. And now she was weeping.
The rude warder’s heart grew as soft as his office permitted; but he
would fain have raised his scourge against the older prisoner; for was
it not a shame to have such a sweetheart and stand there like a stone?
At first the wretch did not even hold out his hand to the woman who
evidently loved him, while he, the watcher, would gladly have witnessed
both a kiss and an embrace.
Or was this beauty the prisoner’s wife who had betrayed him? No, no!
How kindly he was now gazing at her. That was the manner of a father
speaking to his child; but his mole was probably too young to have such
a daughter. A mystery! But he felt no anxiety concerning its solution;
during the march he had the power to make the most reserved convict an
open book.
Yet not only the rude gaoler, but anyone would have marvelled what had
brought this beautiful, aristocratic woman, in the grey light of dawn,
out on the highway to meet the hapless man loaded with chains.
In sooth, nothing would have induced Kasana to take this step save the
torturing dread of being scorned and execrated as a base traitress by
the man whom she loved. A terrible destiny awaited him, and her
vivid imagination had shown her Joshua in the mines, languishing,
disheartened, drooping, dying, always with a curse upon her on his lips.
On the evening of, the day Ephraim bad been brought to the house,
shivering with the chill caused by burning fever, and half stifled with
the dust of the road, her father lead told her that in the youthful
Hebrew they possessed a hostage to compel Hosea to return to Tanis and
submit to the wishes of the prophet Bai, with whom she knew her father
was leagued in a secret conspiracy. He also confided to her that not
only great distinction and high offices, but a marriage with herself had
been arranged to bind Hosea to the Egyptians and to a cause from which
the chief of the archers expected the greatest blessings for himself,
his house, and his whole country.
These tidings had filled her heart with joyous hope of a long desired
happiness, and she confessed it to the prisoner with drooping head amid
floods of tears, by the little wayside temple; for he was now forever
lost to her, and though he did not return the love she had lavished on
him from his childhood, he must not hate and condemn her without having
heard her story.
Joshua listened willingly and assured her that nothing would lighten
his heart more than to have her clear herself from the charge of having
consigned him and the youth at his side to their most terrible fate.
Kasana sobbed aloud and was forced to struggle hard for composure ere
she succeeded in telling her tale with some degree of calmness.
Shortly after Hosea’s departure the chief-priest died and, on the same
day Bai, the second prophet, became his successor. Many changes now
took place, and the most powerful man in the kingdom filled Pharaoh with
hatred of the Hebrews and their leader, Mesu, whom he and the queen
had hitherto protected and feared. He had even persuaded the monarch to
pursue the fugitives, and an army had been instantly summoned to compel
their return. Kasana had feared that Hosea could not be induced to fight
against the men of his own blood, and that he must feel incensed at
being sent to make treaties which the Egyptians began to violate even
before they knew whether their offers had been accepted.
When he returned--as he knew only too well--Pharaoh had had him watched
like a prisoner and would not suffer him to leave his presence until
he had sworn to again lead his troops and be a faithful servant to the
king. Bai, the new chief priest, however, had not forgotten that Hosea
had saved his life and showed himself well disposed and grateful to him;
she knew also that he hoped to involve him in a secret enterprise, with
which her father, too, was associated. It was Bai who had prevailed upon
Pharaoh, if Hosea would renew his oath of fealty, to absolve him
from fighting against his own race, put him in command of the foreign
mercenaries and raise him to the rank of a “friend of the king.” All
these events, of course, were familiar to him; for the new chief priest
had himself set before him the tempting dishes which, with such strong,
manly defiance, he had thrust aside.
Her father had also sided with him, and for the first time ceased to
reproach him with his origin.
But, on the third day after Hosea’s return, Hornecht had gone to talk
with him and since then everything had changed for the worse. He must be
best aware what had caused the man of whom she, his daughter, must think
no evil, to be changed from a friend to a mortal foe.
She had looked enquiringly at him as she spoke, and he did not refuse to
answer--Hornecht had told him that he would be a welcome son-in-law.
“And you?” asked Kasana, gazing anxiously into his face.
“I,” replied the prisoner, “was forced to say that though you had been
dear and precious to me from your childhood, many causes forbade me to
unite a woman’s fate to mine.”
Kasana’s eyes flashed, and she exclaimed:
“Because you love another, a woman of your own people, the one who sent
Ephraim to you!”
But Joshua shook his head and answered pleasantly:
“You are wrong, Kasana! She of whom you speak is the wife of another.”
“Then,” cried the young widow with fresh animation, gazing at him
with loving entreaty, “why were you compelled to rebuff my father so
harshly?”
“That was far from my intention, dear child,” he replied warmly, laying
his hand on her head. “I thought of you with all the tenderness of which
my nature is capable. If I could not fulfil his wish, it was because
grave necessity forbids me to yearn for the peaceful happiness by my own
hearth-stone for which others strive. Had they given me my liberty, my
life would have been one of restlessness and conflict.”
“Yet how many bear sword and shield,” replied Kasana, “and still, on
their return, rejoice in the love of their wives and the dear ones
sheltered beneath their roof.”
“True, true,” he answered gravely; “but special duties, unknown to the
Egyptians, summon me. I am a son of my people.”
“And you intend to serve them?” asked Kasana. “Oh, I understand you.
Yet.... why then did you return to Tanis? Why did you put yourself into
Pharaoh’s power?”
“Because a sacred oath compelled me, poor child,” he answered kindly.
“An oath,” she cried, “which places death and imprisonment between you
and those whom you love and still desire to serve. Oh, would that
you had never returned to this abode of injustice, treachery, and
ingratitude! To how many hearts this vow will bring grief and tears! But
what do you men care for the suffering you inflict on others? You have
spoiled all the pleasure of life for my hapless self, and among your own
people dwells a noble father whose only son you are. How often I have
seen the dear old man, the stately figure with sparkling eyes and
snow-white hair. So would you look when you, too, had reached a ripe
old age, as I said to myself, when I met him at the harbor, or in the
fore-court of the palace, directing the shepherds who were driving the
cattle and fleecy sheep to the tax-receiver’s table. And now his son’s
obstinacy must embitter every day of his old age.”
“Now,” replied Joshua, “he has a son who is going, laden with chains, to
endure a life of misery, but who can hold his head higher than those who
betrayed him. They, and Pharaoh at their head, have forgotten that he
has shed his heart’s blood for them on many a battlefield, and kept
faith with the king at every peril. Menephtah, his vice-roy and chief,
whose life I saved, and many who formerly called me friend, have
abandoned and hurled me and this guiltless boy into wretchedness, but
those who have done this, woman, who have committed this crime, may they
all....”
“Do not curse them!” interrupted Kasana with glowing cheeks.
But Joshua, unheeding her entreaty, exclaimed “Should I be a man, if I
forgot vengeance?”
The young widow clung anxiously to his arm, gasping in beseeching
accents:
“How could you forgive him? Only you must not curse him; for my father
became your foe through love for me. You know his hot blood, which so
easily carries him to extremes, despite his years. He concealed from
me what he regarded as an insult; for he saw many woo me, and I am his
greatest treasure. Pharaoh can pardon rebels more easily than my
father can forgive the man who disdained his jewel. He behaved like one
possessed when he returned. Every word he uttered was an invective. He
could not endure to stay at home and raged just as furiously elsewhere.
But no doubt he would have calmed himself at last, as he so often did
before, had not some one who desired to pour oil on the flames met him
in the fore-court of the palace. I learned all this from Bai’s wife;
for she, too, repents what she did to injure you; her husband used every
effort to save you. She, who is as brave as any man, was ready to aid
him and open the door of your prison; for she has not forgotten that you
saved her husband’s life in Libya. Ephraim’s chains were to fall with
yours, and everything was ready to aid your flight.”
“I know it,” Hosea interrupted gloomily, “and I will thank the God of
my fathers if those were wrong from whom I heard that you are to blame,
Kasana, for having our dungeon door locked more firmly.”
“Should I be here, if that were so!” cried the beautiful, grieving woman
with impassioned eagerness. “True, resentment did stir within me as
it does in every woman whose lover scorns her; but the misfortune that
befell you speedily transformed resentment into compassion, and fanned
the old flames anew. So surely as I hope for a mild judgment before the
tribunal of the dead, I am innocent and have not ceased to hope for your
liberation. Not until yesterday evening, when all was too late, did I
learn that Bai’s proposal had been futile. The chief priest can do much,
but he will not oppose the man who made himself my father’s ally.”
“You mean Prince Siptah, Pharaoh’s nephew!” cried Joshua in excited
tones. “They intimated to me the scheme they were weaving in his
interest; they wished to put me in the place of the Syrian Aarsu, the
commander of the mercenaries, if I would consent to let them have their
way with my people and desert those of my own blood. But I would rather
die twenty deaths than sully myself with such treachery. Aarsu is better
suited to carry out their dark plans, but he will finally betray them
all. So far as I am concerned, the prince has good reason to hate me.”
Kasana laid her hand upon his lips, pointed anxiously to Ephraim and the
guide, and said gently:
“Spare my father! The prince--what roused his enmity....”
“The profligate seeks to lure you into his snare and has learned that
you favor me,” the warrior broke in. She bent her head with a gesture of
assent, and added blushing:
“That is why Aarsu, whom he has won over to his cause, watches you so
strictly.”
“And the Syrian will keep his eyes sufficiently wide open,” cried
Joshua. “Now let us talk no more of this. I believe you and thank you
warmly for following us hapless mortals. How fondly I used to think,
while serving in the field, of the pretty child, whom I saw blooming
into maidenhood.”
“And you will think of her still with neither wrath nor rancor?”
“Gladly, most gladly.”
The young widow, with passionate emotion, seized the prisoner’s hand to
raise it to her lips, but he withdrew it; and, gazing at him with tears
in her eyes, she said mournfully:
“You deny me the favor a benefactor does not refuse even to a beggar.”
Then, suddenly drawing herself up to her full height, she exclaimed so
loudly that the warder started and glanced at the sun: “But I tell you
the time will come when you will sue for the favor of kissing this hand
in gratitude. For when the messenger arrives bringing to you and to this
youth the liberty for which you have longed, it will be Kasana to whom
you owe it.”
Rapt by the fervor of the wish that animated her, her beautiful face
glowed with a crimson flush. Joshua seized her right hand, exclaiming:
“Ah, if you could attain what your loyal soul desires! How could I
dissuade you from mitigating the great misfortune which overtook this
youth in your house? Yet, as an honest man, I must tell you that I shall
never return to the service of the Egyptians; for, come what may,
I shall in future cleave, body and soul, to those you persecute and
despise, and to whom belonged the mother who bore me.”
Kasana’s graceful head drooped; but directly after she raised it again,
saying:
“No other man is so noble, so truthful, that I have known from my
childhood. If I can find no one among my own nation whom I can honor, I
will remember you, whose every thought is true and lofty, whose nature
is faultless. Put if poor Kasana succeeds in liberating you, do not
scorn her, if you find her worse than when you left her, for however she
may humiliate herself, whatever shame may come upon her....”
“What do you intend?” Hosea anxiously interrupted; but she had no time
to answer; for the captain of the guard had risen and, clapping his
hands, shouted: “Forward, you moles!” and “Step briskly.”
The warrior’s stout heart was overwhelmed with tender sadness and,
obeying a hasty impulse, he kissed the beautiful unhappy woman on the
brow and hair, whispering:
“Leave me in my misery, if our freedom will cost your humiliation. We
shall probably never meet again; for, whatever may happen, my life will
henceforth be nothing but battle and sacrifice. Darkness will shroud us
in deeper and deeper gloom, but however black the night may be, one star
will still shine for this boy and for me--the remembrance of you, my
faithful, beloved child.”
He pointed to Ephraim as he spoke and the youth, as if out of his
senses, pressed his lips on the hand and arm of the sobbing woman.
“Forward!” shouted the leader again, and with a grateful smile helped
the generous lady into the chariot, marvelling at the happy, radiant
gaze with which her tearful eyes followed the convicts.
The horses started, fresh shouts arose, blows from the whips fell on
bare shoulders, now and then a cry of pain rang on the morning air, and
the train of prisoners again moved eastward. The chain on the ancles of
the companions in suffering stirred the dust, which shrouded the little
band like the grief, hate, and fear darkening the soul of each.