The hymn of praise had died away, but though the storm had long since
raged itself into calmness, the morning sky, which had been beautiful
in the rosy flush of dawn, was again veiled by grey mists, and a strong
wind still blew from the southwest, lashing the sea and shaking and
swaying the tops of the palm-trees beside the springs.
The rescued people had paid due honor to the Most High, even the most
indifferent and rebellious had joined in Miriam’s song of praise;
yet, when the ranks of the dancers approached the sea, many left the
procession to hurry to the shore, which presented many attractions.
Hundreds had now gathered on the strand, where the waves, like generous
robbers, washed ashore the booty they had seized during the night.
Even the women did not allow the wind to keep them back; for the two
strongest impulses of the human heart, avarice and the longing for
vengeance, drew them to the beach.
Some new object of desire appeared every moment; here lay the corpse of
a warrior, yonder his shattered chariot. If the latter had belonged to a
man of rank, its gold or silver ornaments were torn off, while the short
sword or battle-axe was drawn from the girdle of the lifeless owner,
and men and women of low degree, male and female slaves belonging to the
Hebrews and foreigners, robbed the corpses of the clasps and circlets of
the precious metal, or twisted the rings from the swollen fingers of the
drowned.
The ravens which had followed the wandering tribes and vanished during
the storm, again appeared and, croaking, struggled against the wind to
maintain their places above the prey whose scent had attracted them.
But the dregs of the fugitive hordes were still more greedy than they,
and wherever the sea washed a costly ornament ashore, there were fierce
outcries and angry quarrelling. The leaders kept aloof; the people, they
thought, had a right to this booty, and whenever one of them undertook
to control their rude greed, he received no obedience.
The pass to which the Egyptians had brought them within the last few
hours had been so terrible, that even the better natures among the
Hebrews did not think of curbing the thirst for vengeance. Even
grey-bearded men of dignified bearing, and wives and mothers whose looks
augured gentle hearts thrust back the few hapless foes who had succeeded
in reaching the land on the ruins of the war-chariots or baggage-wagons.
With shepherds’ crooks and travelling staves, knives and axes, stones
and insults they forced their hands from the floating wood, and the few
who nevertheless reached the land were flung by the furious mob into the
sea which had taken pity on them in vain.
Their wrath was so great, and vengeance so sacred a duty, that no
one thought of the respect, the pity, the consideration, which are
misfortune’s due, and not a word was uttered to appeal to generosity
or compassion or even to remind the people of the profit which might be
derived from holding the rescued soldiers as prisoners of war.
“Death to our mortal foes! Destruction to them! Down with them! Feed the
fishes with them! You drove us into the sea with our children, now try
the salt waves yourselves!”
Such were the shouts that rose everywhere, and which no one opposed, not
even Miriam and Ephraim, who had also gone down to the shore to witness
the scene it presented.
The maiden had become the wife of Hur, but her new condition had made
little change in her nature and conduct. The fate of her people and
the intercourse with God, whose prophetess she felt herself to be, were
still her highest aims. Now that all for which she had hoped and prayed
was fulfilled; now that at the first great triumph of her efforts she
had expressed the feelings of the faithful in her song, she felt as
if she were the leader of the grateful multitude at whose head she had
marched singing and as if she had attained the goal of her life.
Ephraim had reminded her of Hosea and, while talking with him about the
prisoner, she moved on as proudly as a queen, answering the greetings
of the throng with majestic dignity. Her eyes sparkled with joy, and her
features wore an expression of compassion only at brief intervals, when
the youth spoke of the greatest sufferings which he had borne with his
uncle. She doubtless still remembered the man she had loved, but he was
no longer necessary to the lofty goal of her aspirations.
Ephraim had just spoken of the beautiful Egyptian, who had loved Hosea
and at whose intercession the prisoner’s chains had been removed, when
loud outcries were heard at a part of the strand where many of the
people had gathered. Shouts of joy mingled with yells of fury; and
awakened the conjecture that the sea had washed some specially valuable
prize ashore.
Curiosity drew both to the spot, and as Miriam’s stately bearing made
the throng move respectfully aside, they soon saw the mournful contents
of a large travelling-chariot, which had lost its wheels. The linen
canopy which had protected it was torn away, and on the floor lay two
elderly Egyptian women; a third, who was much younger, leaned against
the back of the vehicle thus strangely transformed into a boat. Her
companions lay dead in the water which had covered its floor, and
several Hebrew women were in the act of tearing the costly gold
ornaments from the neck and arms of one of the corpses. Some chance
had preserved this young woman’s life, and she was now giving her rich
jewels to the Israelites. Her pale lips and slender, half-frozen hands
trembled as she did so, and in low, musical tones she promised the
robbers to yield them all she possessed and pay a large ransom, if
they would spare her. She was so young, and she had shown kindness to a
Hebrew surely they might listen to her.
It was a touching entreaty, but so often interrupted by threats and
curses that only a few could hear it. Just as Ephraim and Miriam reached
the shore she shrieked aloud--a rude hand had torn the gold serpent from
her ear.
The cry pierced the youth’s heart like a dagger-thrust and his cheeks
paled, for he recognized Kasana. The bodies beside her were those of her
nurse and the wife of the chief priest Bai.
Scarcely able to control himself, Ephraim thrust aside the men who
separated him from the object of the moment’s assault, sprang on the
sand-hill at whose foot the chariot had rested, and shouted with glowing
cheeks in wild excitement:
“Back! Woe to any one who touches her!”
But a Hebrew woman, the wife of a brickmaker whose child had died in
terrible convulsions during the passage through the sea, had already
snatched the dagger from her girdle, and with the jeering cry “This for
my little Ruth, you jade!” dealt her a blow in the back. Then she raised
the tiny blood-stained weapon for a second stroke; but ere she could
give her enemy another thrust, Ephraim flung himself between her and
her victim and wrenched the dagger from her grasp. Then planting himself
before the wounded girl, he swung the blade aloft exclaiming in loud,
threatening tones:
“Whoever touches her, you robbers and murderers, shall mingle his blood
with this woman’s.” Then he flung himself beside Kasana’s bleeding form,
and finding that she had lost consciousness, raised her in his arms and
carried her to Miriam.
The astonished plunderers speechlessly made way for a few minutes, but
ere he reached the prophetess shouts of: “Vengeance! Vengeance!” were
heard in all directions. “We found the woman: the booty belongs to
us alone!--How dares the insolent Ephraimite call us robbers and
murderers?--Wherever Egyptian blood can be spilled, it must flow!--At
him!--Snatch the girl from him!”
The youth paid no heed to these outbursts of wrath until he had laid
Kasana’s head in the lap of Miriam, who had seated herself on the
nearest sand-hill, and as the angry throng, the women in front of the
men, pressed upon him, he again waved his dagger, crying: “Back--I
command you. Let all of the blood of Ephraim and Judah rally around me
and Miriam, the wife of their chief! That’s right, brothers, and woe
betide any hand that touches her. Do you shriek for vengeance? Has it
not been yours through yonder monster who murdered the poor defenceless
one? Do you want your victim’s jewels? Well, well; they belong to you,
and I will give you mine to boot, if you will leave the wife of Hur to
care for this dying girl!”
With these words he bent over Kasana, took off the clasps and rings
she still wore, and gave them to the greedy hands outstretched to
seize them. Lastly he stripped the broad gold circlet from his arm, and
holding it aloft exclaimed:
“Here is the promised payment. If you will depart quietly and leave this
woman to Miriam, I will give you the gold, and you can divide it among
you. If you thirst for more blood, come on; but I will keep the armlet.”
These words did not fail to produce their effect. The furious women
looked at the heavy broad gold armlet, then at the handsome youth, and
the men of Judah and Ephraim who had gathered around him, and finally
glanced enquiringly into one another’s faces. At last the wife of a
foreign trader cried:
“Let him give us the gold, and we’ll leave the handsome young chief his
bleeding sweetheart.”
To this decision the others agreed, and though the brickmaker’s
infuriated wife, who thought as the avenger of her child she had done
an act pleasing in the sight of God, and was upbraided for it as a
murderess, reviled the youth with frantic gestures, she was dragged away
by the crowd to the shore where they hoped to find more booty.
During this threatening transaction, Miriam had fearlessly examined
Kasana’s wound and bound it up with skilful hands, The dagger which
Prince Siptah had jestingly given the beautiful lady of his love, that
she might not go to war defenceless, had inflicted a deep wound under
the shoulder, and the blood had flowed so abundantly that the feeble
spark of life threatened to die out at any moment.
But she still lived, and in this condition was borne to the tent of Nun,
which was the nearest within reach.
The old chief had just been supplying weapons to the shepherds and
youths whom Ephraim had summoned to go to the relief of the imprisoned
Hosea, and had promised to join them, when the mournful procession
approached.
As Kasana loved the handsome old man, the latter had for many years kept
a place in his heart for Captain Homecht’s pretty daughter.
She had never met him without gladdening him by a greeting which he
always returned with kind words, such as: “The Lord bless you, child!”
or: “It is a delightful hour when an old man meets so fair a creature.”
Many years before--she had then worn the curls of childhood--he had even
sent her a lamb, whose snowy fleece was specially silky, after having
bartered the corn from her father’s lands for cattle of his most famous
breed--and what his son had told him of Kasana had been well fitted to
increase his regard for her.
He beheld in the archer’s daughter the most charming young girl in Tanis
and, had she been the child of Hebrew parents, he would have rejoiced to
wed her to his son.
To find his darling in such a state caused the old man grief so profound
that bright tears ran down upon his snowy beard and his voice trembled
as, while greeting her, he saw the blood-stained bandage on her
shoulder.
After she had been laid on his couch, and Nun had placed his own chest
of medicines at the disposal of the skilful prophetess, Miriam asked the
men to leave her alone with the suffering Egyptian, and when she
again called them into the tent she had revived the strength of
the severely-wounded girl with cordials, and bandaged the hurt more
carefully than had been possible before.
Kasana, cleansed from the blood-stains and with her hair neatly
arranged, lay beneath the fresh linen coverings like a sleeping child
just on the verge of maidenhood.
She was still breathing, but the color had not returned to cheeks or
lips, and she did not open her eyes until she had drunk the cordial
Miriam mixed for her a second time.
The old man and his grandson stood at the foot of her couch, and each
would fain have asked the other why he could not restrain his tears
whenever he looked at this stranger’s face.
The certainty that Kasana was wicked and faithless, which had so
unexpectedly forced itself upon Ephraim, had suddenly turned his
heart from her and startled him back into the right path which he had
abandoned. Yet what he had heard in her tent had remained a profound
secret, and as he told his grandfather and Miriam that she had
compassionately interceded for the prisoners, and both had desired to
hear more of her, he had felt like a father who had witnessed the crime
of a beloved son, and no word of the abominable things he had heard had
escaped his lips.
Now he rejoiced that he had kept silence; for whatever he might have
seen and heard, this fair creature certainly was capable of no base
deed.
To the old man she had never ceased to be the lovely child whom he had
known, the apple of his eye and the joy of his heart. So he gazed with
tender anxiety at the features convulsed by pain and, when she at last
opened her eyes, smiled at her with paternal affection. Her glance
showed that she instantly recognized both him and Ephraim, but weakness
baffled her attempt to nod to them. Yet her expressive face revealed
surprise and joy, and when Miriam had given her the cordial a third time
and bathed her brow with a powerful essence, her large eyes wandered
from face to face and, noticing the troubled looks of the men, she
managed to whisper:
“The wound aches--and death--must I die?” One looked enquiringly at
another, and the men would gladly have concealed the terrible truth; but
she went on:
“Oh, let me know. Ah, I pray you, tell me the truth!”
Miriam, who was kneeling beside her, found courage to answer:
“Yes, you poor young creature, the wound is deep, but whatever my skill
can accomplish shall be done to preserve your life as long as possible.”
The words sounded kind and full of compassion, yet the deep voice of the
prophetess seemed to hurt Kasana; for her lips quivered painfully while
Miriam was speaking, and when she ceased, her eyes closed and one large
tear after another ran down her cheeks. Deep, anxious silence reigned
around her until she again raised her lashes and, fixing her eyes
wearily on Miriam, asked softly, as if perplexed by some strange
spectacle:
“You are a woman, and yet practise the art of the leech.”
“My God has commanded me to care for the suffering ones of our people,”
replied the other.
The dying girl’s eyes began to glitter with a restless light, and she
gasped in louder tones, nay with a firmness that surprised the others:
“You are Miriam, the woman who sent for Hosea.” And when the other
answered promptly and proudly: “It is as you say!” Kasana continued:
“And you possess striking, imperious beauty, and much influence. He
obeyed your summons, and you--you consented to wed another?”
Again the prophetess answered, this time with gloomy earnestness: “It is
as you say.”
The dying girl closed her eyes once more, and a strange proud smile
hovered around her lips. But it soon vanished and a great and painful
restlessness seized upon her. The fingers of her little hands, her lips,
nay, even her eyelids moved perpetually, and her smooth, narrow forehead
contracted as if some great thought occupied her mind.
At last the ideas that troubled her found utterance and, as if roused
from her repose, she exclaimed in terrified accents:
“You are Ephraim, who seemed like his son, and the old man is Nun, his
dear father. There you stand and will live on.... But I--I... Oh, it is
so hard to leave the light.... Anubis will lead me before the judgment
seat of Osiris. My heart will be weighed, and then....”
Here she shuddered and opened and closed her trembling hands; but she
soon regained her composure and began to speak again. Miriam, however,
sternly forbade this, because it would hasten her death.
Then the sufferer, summoning all her strength, exclaimed hastily, as
loudly as her voice would permit, after measuring the prophetess’
tall figure with a long glance: “You wish to prevent me from doing my
duty--you?”
There had been a slight touch of mockery in the question; but Kasana
doubtless felt that it was necessary to spare her strength; for she
continued far more quietly, as though talking to herself:
“I cannot die so, I cannot! How it happened; why I sacrificed all,
all.... I must atone for it; I will not complain, if he only learns how
it came to pass. Oh, Nun, dear old Nun, who gave me the lamb when I was
a little thing--I loved it so dearly--and you, Ephraim, my dear boy, I
will tell you everything.”
Here a painful fit of coughing interrupted her; but as soon as she
recovered her breath, she turned to Miriam, and called in a tone which
so plainly expressed bitter dislike, that it would have surprised any
one who knew her kindly nature:
“But you, yonder,--you tall woman with the deep voice who are a
physician, you lured him from Tanis, from his soldiers and from me. He,
he obeyed your summons. And you... you became another’s wife; probably
after his arrival... yes! For when Ephraim summoned him, he called you
a maiden... I don’t know whether this caused him, Hosea, pain....
But there is one thing I do know, and that is that I want to confess
something and must do so, ere it is too late.... And no one must hear it
save those who love him, and I--do you hear--I love him, love him better
than aught else on earth! But you? You have a husband, and a God whose
commands you eagerly obey--you say so yourself. What can Hosea be to
you? So I beseech you to leave us. I have met few who repelled me, but
you--your voice, your eyes--they pierce me to the heart--and if you were
near I could not speak as I must.... and oh, talking hurts me so! But
before you go--you are a leech--let me know this one thing--I have many
messages to leave for him ere I die.... Will it kill me to talk?”
Again the prophetess found no other words in answer except the brief:
“It is as you say,” and this time they sounded harsh and ominous.
While wavering between the duty which, as a physician, she owed the
sufferer and the impulse not to refuse the request of a dying woman,
she read in old Nun’s eyes an entreaty to obey Kasana’s wish, and with
drooping head left the tent. But the bitter words of the hapless girl
pursued her and spoiled the day which had begun so gloriously and also
many a later hour; nay, to her life’s end she could not understand why,
in the presence of this poor, dying woman, she had been overpowered by
the feeling that she was her inferior and must take a secondary place.
As soon as Kasana was left alone with Nun and Ephraim, and the latter
had flung himself on his knees beside her couch, while the old man
kissed her brow, and bowed his white head to listen to her low words,
she began:
“I feel better now. That tall woman... those gloomy brows that meet in
the middle... those nightblack eyes... they glow with so fierce a fire,
yet are so cold.... That woman... did Hosea love her, father? Tell me; I
am not asking from idle curiosity!”
“He honored her,” replied the old man in a troubled tone, “as did our
whole nation; for she has a lofty spirit, and our God suffers her
to hear His voice; but you, my darling, have been dear to him from
childhood, I know.”
A slight tremor shook the dying girl. She closed her eyes for a short
time and a sunny smile hovered around her lips.
She lay in this attitude so long that Nun feared death had claimed her
and, holding the medicine in his hand, listened to hear her breathing.
Kasana did not seem to notice it; but when she finally opened her eyes,
she held out her hand for the cordial, drank it, and then began again:
“It seemed just as if I had seen him, Hosea. He wore the panoply of war
just as he did the first time he took me into his arms. I was a little
thing and felt afraid of him, he looked so grave, and my nurse had told
me that he had slain a great many of our foes. Yet I was glad when he
came and grieved when he went away. So the years passed, and love grew
with my growth. My young heart was so full of him, so full.... Even when
they forced me to wed another, and after I had become a widow.”
The last words had been scarcely audible, and she rested some time ere
she continued:
“Hosea knows all this, except how anxious I was when he was in the
field, and how I longed for him ere he returned. At last, at last he
came home, and how I rejoiced! But he, Hosea...? That woman--Ephraim
told me so--that tall, arrogant woman summoned him to Pithom. But he
returned, and then.... Oh, Nun, your son... that was the hardest thing!
... He refused my hand, which my father offered.... And how that hurt
me!... I can say no more!... Give me the drink!”
Her cheeks had flushed crimson during these painful confessions, and
when the experienced old man perceived how rapidly the excitement under
which she was laboring hastened the approach of death, he begged her to
keep silence; but she insisted upon profiting by the time still allowed
her, and though the sharp pain with which a short cough tortured her
forced her to press her hand upon her breast, she continued:
“Then hate came; but it did not last long--and never did I love him more
ardently than when I drove after the poor convict--you remember, my boy.
Then began the horrible, wicked, evil time... of which I must tell him
that he may not despise me, if he hears about it. I never had a
mother, and there was no one to warn me.... Where shall I begin? Prince
Siptah--you know him, father--that wicked man will soon rule over my
country. My father is in a conspiracy with him... merciful gods, I can
say no more!”
Terror and despair convulsed her features as she uttered these words;
but Ephraim interrupted her and, with tearful eyes and faltering voice,
confessed that he knew all. Then he repeated what he had heard while
listening outside of her tent, and her glance confirmed the tale.
When he finally spoke of the wife of the viceroy and chief-priest Bai,
whose body had been borne to the shore with her, Kasana interrupted him
with the low exclamation:
“She planned it all. Her husband was to be the greatest man in the
country and rule even Pharaoh; for Siptah is not the son of a king.”
“And,” the old man interrupted, to quiet her and help her tell what she
desired to say, “as Bai raised, he can overthrow him. He will become,
even more certainly than the dethroned monarch, the tool of the man who
made him king. But I know Aarsu the Syrian, and if I see aright, the
time will come when he will himself strive, in distracted Egypt, rent by
internal disturbances, for the power which, through his mercenaries, he
aided others to grasp. But child, what induced you to follow the army
and this shameful profligate?”
The dying girl’s eyes sparkled, for the question brought her directly to
what she desired to tell, and she answered as loudly and quickly as her
weakness permitted:
“I did it for your son’s sake, for love of him, to liberate Hosea. The
evening before I had steadily and firmly refused the wife of Bai. But
when I saw your son at the well and he, Hosea.... Oh, at last he was
so affectionate and kissed me so kindly... and then--then.... My poor
heart! I saw him, the best of men, perishing amid contumely and disease.
“And when he passed with chains one thought darted through my mind....”
“You determined, you dear, foolish, misguided child,” cried the old man,
“to win the heart of the future king in order, through him, to release
my son, your friend?”
The dying girl again smiled assent and softly exclaimed:
“Yes, yes, I did it for that, for that alone. And the prince was so
abhorrent to me. And the shame, the disgrace--oh, how terrible it was!”
“And you incurred it for my son’s sake,” the old man interrupted,
raising her hand, wet with his tears, to his lips; but she fixed her
eyes on Ephraim, sobbing softly:
“I thought of him too. He is so young, and it is so horrible in the
mines.”
She shuddered again as she spoke; but the youth covered her burning
hand with kisses, while she gazed affectionately at him and the old man,
adding in faltering accents:
“Oh, all is well now, and if the gods grant him freedom....”
Here Ephraim interrupted her to exclaim in fiery tones:
“We are going to the mines this very day. I and my comrades, and my
grandfather with us, will put his guards to flight.”
“And he shall hear from my lips,” Nun added, “how faithfully Kasana
loved him, and that his life will be too short to thank her for such a
sacrifice.”
His voice failed him--but every trace of suffering had vanished from the
countenance of the dying girl, and for a long time she gazed heavenward
silently with a happy look. By degrees, however, her smooth brow
contracted in an anxious frown, and she gasped in low tones:
“Well, all is well... only one thing... my body... unembalmed ...
without the sacred amulets....”
But the old man answered:
“As soon as you have closed your eyes, I will give it, carefully
wrapped, to the Phoenician captain now tarrying here, that he may
deliver it to your father.”
Kasana tried to turn her head toward him to thank him with a loving
glance, but she suddenly pressed both hands on her breast, crimson
blood welled from her lips, her cheeks varied from livid white to fiery
scarlet and, after a brief, painful convulsion, she sank back.
Death laid his hand on the loving heart, and her features gained the
expression of a child whose mother has forgiven its fault and clasped it
to her heart ere it fell asleep.
The old man, weeping, closed the dead girl’s eyes. Ephraim, deeply
moved, kissed the closed lids, and after a short silence Nun said:
“I do not like to enquire about our fate beyond the grave, which Moses
himself does not know; but whoever has lived so that his or her memory
is tenderly cherished in the souls of loved ones, has, I think, done the
utmost possible to secure a future existence. We will remember this
dead girl in our most sacred hours. Let us do for her corpse what we
promised, and then set forth to show the man for whom Kasana sacrificed
what she most valued that we do not love him less than this Egyptian
woman.”