BACK TO THE PAST
The City of a Hundred Kings, vast and sombre, stretched away into the
dim, soft distance of the moonlit night to right and left and far behind
him. In front lay the broad, smooth, silver-gleaming Nile, then
approaching its full flood-time, and looking like a wide, shining road
out of the shadows through the light and into the shadows again--symbol
of the visible present coming invisibly out of the domains of the past,
and fading away into the still more hazy domain of the unknown future.
Symbol, too, in its countless ripples under the fresh north wind, of the
generations of Man drifting endlessly down the Stream of Time.
He was standing in the dark shadows of a huge pylon at one end of the
broad white terrace of the palace of Pepi in Memphis--he, Ma-Rim[=o]n,
Priest of Amen-Ra and Initiate of the Higher Mysteries.
Nitocris was standing beside him with her hands clasped behind her and
her head slightly thrown back, and as she gazed out over the river the
moonlight fell full on the white loveliness of her face and into the
dark depths of her eyes, where it seemed to lose itself in the dusk that
lay deep down in them, a dusk like the shadow of a soul in sorrow.
He looked upon her face, and saw in it a beauty and a mystery deeper
even than the beauty and the mystery of the Egyptian night as it was in
those old days--the face of a fair woman, a riddle of the gods which men
might go mad in seeking to read aright, and yet never learn the true
meaning of it.
The silence between them had been long and yet so solemn in its wordless
meaning that he had not dared to break it. Then at length she spoke,
moving only her lips, her body still motionless and her eyes still
gazing at the stars, or into the depths beyond them.
"Can it be true, Ma-Rim[=o]n? Can the gods indeed have permitted such a
thing to be? Can the All-Father have given His Chief Minister to be the
instrument of such a foul crime and monstrous impiety as this?"
And he replied, slowly and sadly:
"Yes, it is true, Nitocris, true that thou art now Queen in the land by
the will of the great Rameses; and true also it is that the shade of
Nefer is now waiting in the halls of Amenti till his murderers shall be
sent by the hand of a just vengeance into the presence of the Divine
Assessors."
"Ah yes, vengeance," she replied, turning towards him with a gasp in her
voice, "that must come; but whose hand shall cast the spear or draw the
bow? We claim kinship with the gods, but we are not the gods, and what
mortal hand could avenge a crime like this?"
"A woman's hand is soft and a woman's lips are sweet, yet what so cruel
or so merciless in all the world as a woman? As there is nothing liker
Heaven than a woman's love, so there is nothing liker Hell than a
woman's hate. So saith the Ancient Wisdom, O Nitocris; and therefore, as
thou hast loved Nefer the Prince, so shalt thou also hate Menkau-Ra and
Anemen-Ha, his murderers and the destroyers of his promised happiness."
She shivered as he spoke, not with cold, for the breath of that perfect
night was well nigh as soft as her touch and as warm as her own breath.
She turned swiftly and laid her hand on his shoulder. Her touch was as
light as the falling of the rose-leaves in the gardens of Sais, yet he
trembled under it, and his face, which had been as pale as her own
before, flushed darkly red as she looked into his eyes.
"You--yes, you, Ma-Rim[=o]n, you too love me, do you not--truly? The
stars are the eyes of the gods: they are looking on you. Tell me, do you
love me? Does your blood throb in your veins when I touch you? Does your
heart beat quicker when you come near me? Are your ears keener for my
voice than for that of any other woman--tell me?"
His hands went up and clasped hers as they lay on his shoulders. He took
her right hand and pressed it to his heart, and laid her left hand on
his cheek. Then he let them fall. He stepped back, bowed his head, and
said:
"The Queen is answered!"
"Not the Queen, but the woman, Ma-Rim[=o]n, and as a woman loves to be
answered. And now the woman shall speak. Nefer is dead, yet is not Nefer
re-incarnated in another form, another man of another build, but yet
Nefer that was--and is beside me now?"
She whispered these words very softly and very distinctly, and as the
words came rippling out from between her half-smiling lips, she took
half a pace forward and looked up into his face.
"Not dead--Nefer--I!" he exclaimed, starting back. "Have not the
Paraschites done their work on his body? Is not his mummy even now
resting in the City of the Dead? How can it be? Surely, Nitocris, thou
art dreaming."
"And hast thou, a priest and sage, standing on the threshold of the Holy
Mysteries, hast thou not learned the law which tells thee how, with the
permission of the Divine Assessors, the souls of the dead may come back
from the halls of Amenti to do their bidding in other mortal shapes? And
what if they should have ordained that his soul should have thus
returned?
"Thou, who art so like him that while he was yet alive mortal eyes could
scarce distinguish the one from the other. May it not be that the gods,
who foresee all things, made thee in the same image, perchance to this
very end?"
"No, the riddle is too deep for me, even as that other riddle which I
read in thy eyes, O Queen!"
"Let thy love help thee to read it, then!" she replied, coming to him
and putting her hands on his shoulders again. "Tell me now, Ma-Rim[=o]n,
what wouldst thou do if thy soul were now waiting in the land of Aalu
and the soul of Nefer was listening to me with thine ears, and looking
at me with thine eyes?"
"And if thou----"
"Yes, and if I too believed that this were so?"
He saw the sweet, red, smiling lips coming nearer to him, and felt the
soft breath on his bare throat. He saw the deep eyes melting into
tenderness as the moonlight shone upon them, and in the pale olive
cheeks a faint flush swiftly deepened.
"Nefer or Ma-Rim[=o]n, I am mortal," he said, swiftly catching her
wrists and drawing her towards him. "I am flesh and blood. I am man, and
thou art woman--and I love thee! I love thee! Ah, how sweet thy kisses
are! Now let the gods bless or curse, for never could they take away
what thou hast given--and for it I will give thee all. All that has
been, and is, and might have been! Priest and sage, Initiate of the
Mysteries, what are they to me now! O Nitocris, my queen and my love!
Sooner would I live through one year of bliss with thee than an
eternity in the Peace of the Gods itself!"
The words of blasphemy came hot and fast between his kisses, and she
heard them unresisting in his arms, giving him back kiss for kiss, and
looking into his eyes under the dark lashes which half-hid hers; and so
Ma-Rim[=o]n, the youthful Initiate of the Holy Mysteries, became in that
moment a man, and so he began to learn the long lesson which teaches to
what heights and depths a woman who has loved and hated can rise and
fall for the sake of her love and her hate.
"And now, my Nefer," she went on, throwing her clinging arms round his
neck again, "now, good-night! Go and dream of me as I will dream of
thee, and remember that, though mortals may plan, the gods decide. We
may try to paint the picture, but the outline is drawn by their hands
and may not be changed by ours. But, so far as this matter is concerned,
I swear by the Veil of Isis, by these sacred kisses of ours, and by the
Uraeus Crown of the Three Kingdoms, that, rather than be sold as a
priceless chattel to grace the triumph of Menkau-Ra, I will give myself,
as others did in the old days, to be the bride of Father Nile. Remember
that, and remember, too, that, whatever the outward seeming of things
may be, I am thine and thou art mine, as it was, and is, and shall be,
until the Peace of all Things shall come."
* * * * *
Then the dream-vision changed from moonlight to sunlight, from night to
morning; for it was the dawn of the day that was to see, as all men
believed, the gorgeous ceremony of the nuptials of the daughter of
Rameses with Menkau-Ra, the Mohar, chief of the House of War and
mightiest of all the warriors of the Land of Khem, now that Rameses had
passed from the black banks of the Nile to the shores of Amenti, and his
mummy was waiting the summons of the High Gods which should recall it to
life in the fulness of time and the dawn of the Everlasting Peace.
Never had even the Land of Khem seen a fairer dawn. The East shone in
silver, blushed into amethyst, and flamed in gold as the Restorer of all
things rose bright and glorious in sudden splendour over the City of the
White Wall. Standing on the flat roof of the temple of Ptah, he looked
about him in the first flush of this morning which had just dawned, big
with fate, not only for him and his beloved, but also for the Land of
Khem, and perchance for the world.
The great river was spreading its annual blessings over the land. The
waters were broadening out into wide shining sheets, and the slow, soft
music of their rippling was stealing along the great water-walls of the
temples and palaces which formed the river-front of Memphis. Only a week
ago the victorious armies of Khem had brought their spoils and their
prisoners across the eastern frontier. There had been fruit, bread, and
flesh, and wine for the poor, and banquets of royal lavishness for
those who could claim right of entry into the sacred circle which
enclosed the Throne, the Temple, and the camp of the victorious warrior.
For days he had heard the name of Menkau-Ra the Conqueror shouted up to
the heavens by the crowds that had thronged the streets and the
market-places, and, mingled with it, he had also heard the name of the
girl-queen whose arms had been about his neck, and whose lips he had
kissed the night before, and he knew that even now the people were
asking why the Conqueror should not wed the daughter of Rameses, and
become the father of a line of even greater and yet mightier Pharaohs.
He had heard their cries calmly and without anger, for he knew that that
one stolen hour of sweet intercourse with her meant much more than the
Conqueror himself could win--something that could not be taken by force,
or even through the will of the dead king. Her soul was his, and he knew
well that the man to whom she had not given her soul would never be
permitted to lay a loving hand on her body.
"Ah yes, there he comes, I suppose," he went on, still talking aloud to
himself, as a shrill musical peal of silver trumpets broke out from the
direction of the barracks to the north of the palace. "Alas! were I but
truly Nefer! That golden-crowned murderer--for sure I am that he killed
him--he would not now be making ready for his triumph at the head of
his victorious troops through the streets and squares of Memphis. If
that were so, how glad a day this would be for Egypt and for us!"
But, as the Divine Assessors willed it, there was no triumph that day in
Memphis. The sun had hardly risen to a level with the topmost wall of
the Rameseum before messengers were sent out from the palace bearing the
tidings that Nitocris the Queen had been stricken with a sudden malady,
and that all festivities were to be deferred till the next day at the
earliest.
That night, when the moon was sinking low down in the west towards the
dark hills of the Libyan Desert, and the Isis Star was glowing palely
like an expiring lamp hung high above the brightening eastern
earth-line, he saw her muffled form gliding ghost-like towards him as he
stood waiting for her on the terrace. She was clad like the meanest of
her serving-maids, just as a common slave-wench who had stolen out to
meet a lover of her own sort might have been. When she came within a
pace of him, he held his arms out. She put hers out too, and for a
moment they looked in silence into each other's eyes, and then she,
seeing that the kiss which she expected did not come, parted her lips
and said smilingly:
"You need not fear to kiss them, dearest, they have not yet been
polluted by the lips of Menkau-Ra, although all the city has been
hailing him as the betrothed of Nitocris."
Then he smiled too, and their lips met in such a long, silent kiss as
only lovers give and take.
"Thy words are almost as sweet as thy kisses are, O Nitocris!" he said,
"for I would sooner see thee--yes, I would sooner see thee in the hands
of the Paraschites--this lovely body of thine dead--knowing that thy
soul was waiting for mine on the shores of Amenti, than I would know
that those sweet lips had been defiled by the touch of such as he; and
yet surely thou hast spoken with him. Did he not claim the fulfilment of
the promise of the great king?"
"Ah yes," she replied softly, as she slipped out of his arms, "but it is
one thing to claim and another to get. Yes, I have spoken with him. I
have promised all, and given nothing. I have not even yielded my hand to
his lips, for I told him in answer to all the entreaties of his
love--and of a truth I tell thee that he loves me very dearly, for that
great, strong frame of his shook like a bulrush in the wind under the
breath of my lightest words--that, until the last vows had made us man
and wife, I would be his queen and he should be my subject and my slave,
even as he was of the great Rameses; and with this he was fain to be
content, thinking, no doubt, how soon he would be my lord and master,
and I his--his queen and plaything, bound by the law that may not be
broken, to submit to every varying whim and humour of his passion."
"Thy master, Nitocris! Thine! Such shame could never be. Rather would
the High Gods permit Death to be the Master of Life, or Night to be Lord
of Day. Is there no other way?"
"Yes, there is another way, and only one to save me, Nefer--if truly the
soul of my beloved is looking out of thine eyes into mine," she
whispered, coming close to him and laying her hands lightly upon his
shoulders, "there is another way, but it is the way that leads through
the mystery of the things that are into the deeper mystery of the things
that are to be--the way of death and vengeance. Tell me, my beloved,
hast thou the courage to tread it with me?"
The lovely face, the pleading lips, the searching eyes were close to
his. He could feel the soft contact of her body, even her fluttering
heartbeats answering his. It was the moment of the supreme test, the
parting of the ways--to the heights whose pinnacles reach to the heaven
of Perfect Knowledge, or to the abysses whose lowest depths are the roof
of hell; for there is but one heaven and one hell, and their names are
Knowledge and Ignorance.
There lay the fulfilment of his vows, the renunciation of the lower life
with all its potent witcheries of the senses, with all its exquisite
delights and glittering prizes, fame and honours, power and wealth,
and, dearest of all, the love of woman.
Here, clasped in his arms, stood Nitocris, her hands still resting
lightly on his shoulders, her head lying on his breast, her eyes
upturned, the star-beams swimming in their luminous depths.
"Nefer, beloved, answer me!"
The stars grew dim, and the solid floor of the terrace shook under his
feet. He bent his head and laid his lips upon hers.
"Thou art answered, O Nitocris--even unto death and the life beyond!"
Her lips returned his kisses--kisses that were curses--and then for many
minutes they conversed in hurried whispers. At last she slipped out of
his arms and left him, his lips burning from the clinging touch of hers,
and his heart cold with a fear that was greater than the fear of death.
He clasped his hands to his temples and looked up at the coldly shining
Isis Star, and through the silence there came to his soul in the speech
that is never heard by the ears of flesh the fateful words:
"Once only is it given to mortals to look into the eyes of Isis. He who
looks and turns his gaze aside has found and lost."