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THE PHARAOH
AND THE PRIEST
_AN HISTORICAL NOVEL OF
ANCIENT EGYPT_
FROM THE
ORIGINAL POLISH OF ALEXANDER GLOVATSKI
BY
JEREMIAH CURTIN
TRANSLATOR OF "WITH FIRE AND SWORD," "THE DELUGE,"
"QUO VADIS," ETC.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
BOSTON · LITTLE, BROWN
AND COMPANY · 1902
_Copyright, 1902_,
By Jeremiah Curtin.
_All rights reserved._
Published September, 1902.
UNIVERSITY PRESS · JOHN WILSON
AND SON · CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.
[Illustration: Alexander Glovatski]
[Illustration: Jeremiah Curtin at the Statue of Rameses the Great
in the Temple of Luxor]
PREFATORY REMARKS
The position of Ancient Egypt was unique, not in one, but in every
sense. To begin at the very foundation of life in that country, we
find that the soil was unlike any other on earth in its origin. Every
acre of fruitful land between the first cataract and the sea had been
brought from Inner Africa, and each year additions were made to it.
Out of this mud, borne down thousands of miles from the great fertile
uplands of Abyssinia by rivers, grew everything needed to feed and
clothe man and nourish animals. Out of it also was made the brick from
which walls, houses, and buildings of various uses and kinds were
constructed. Though this soil of the country was rich, it could be
utilized only by the unceasing co-ordinate efforts of a whole
population constrained and directed. To direct and constrain was the
task of the priests and the pharaohs.
Never have men worked in company so long and successfully at tilling
the earth as the Egyptians, and never has the return been so
continuous and abundant from land as in their case.
The Nile valley furnished grain to all markets accessible by water;
hence Rome, Greece, and Judæa ate the bread of Egypt. On this national
tillage was founded the greatness of the country, for from it came the
means to execute other works, and in it began that toil, training, and
skill indispensable in rearing the monuments and doing those things
which have made Egypt famous forever, and preserved to us a knowledge
of the language, religion, modes of living, and history of that
wonderful people who held the Nile valley. No civilized person who has
looked on the pyramid of Ghizeh, the temple of Karnak, and the tombs
of the pharaohs in the Theban region, can ever forget them. But in
those monuments are preserved things of far greater import than they
themselves are. In the tombs and temples of Egypt we see on stone and
papyrus how that immense work of making speech visible was
accomplished, that task of presenting language to the eye instead of
the ear, and preserving the spoken word so as to give it to eye or ear
afterwards. In other terms, we have the history of writing from its
earliest beginnings to the point at which we connect it with the
system used now by all civilized nations excepting the Chinese. In
those monuments are preserved the history of religion in Egypt, not
from the beginning of human endeavor to explain first what the world
is and then what we ourselves are and what we and the world mean
together, but from a time far beyond any recorded by man in other
places.
Egyptians had the genius which turned a narrow strip of Abyssinian mud
and a triangular patch of swamp at the end of it into the most
fruitful land of antiquity. They had also that genius which impels man
to look out over the horizon around him, see more than the material
problems of life, and gaze into the beyond, gaze intently and never
cease gazing till he finds what his mind seeks. It was the possession
of these two kinds of genius and the union of the two which made the
position of Egypt in history unique and unapproachable.
The greatness of Egypt lay primarily in her ideas, and was achieved
through a perfect control over labor by intellect. While this control
was exerted even approximately in accordance with the nation's
historical calling, it was effectual and also unchallenged. But when
the exercise of power, with the blandishments and physical pleasures
which always attend it, had become dearer to the priesthood and to
pharaohs than aught else on earth or in their ideals, then began the
epoch of Egypt's final doom: foreign bondage and national ruin.
The action presented in the volume before us relates to those days
when the guiding intellect of Egypt became irrevocably dual, and when
between the two parts of it, the priests and the pharaohs, opposition
appeared so clearly defined and incurable that the ruin of both sides
was evident in the future.
The ruin of a pharaoh and the fall of his dynasty, with the rise of a
self-chosen sovereign and a new line of rulers, are the double
consummation in this novel. The book ends with that climax, but the
fall of the new priestly rulers is a matter of history, as is the
destruction wrought on Egypt by tyrants from Assyria and Persia. The
native pharaohs lost power through the priesthood, whose real interest
it was to support them; but fate found the priests later on, and
pronounced on them also the doom of extinction.
* * * * *
Alexander Glovatski was born in 1847 in Mashov, a village of the
Government of Lublin. He finished his preliminary studies in the
Lublin Gymnasium, and was graduated from the University of Warsaw. He
took part in the uprising of 1863, but was captured, and liberated
after some months' detention. As a student he showed notable power,
and was exceptionally attracted by mathematics and science, to which
he gives much attention yet, though occupied mainly in literature.
Glovatski's published works are in seventeen volumes. These books,
with the exception of "The Pharaoh and the Priest," are devoted to
modern characters, situations, and questions. His types are mainly
from Polish life. Very few of his characters are German or Russian; of
Polish types some are Jewish.
Alexander Glovatski is a true man of letters, a real philosopher,
retiring, industrious, and modest. He spends all his winters in
Warsaw, and lives every summer in the country. He permits neither
society nor coteries, nor interests of any sort, to snatch away time
from him, or influence his convictions. He goes about as he chooses,
whenever he likes and wherever it suits him. When ready to work he
sits down in his own house, and tells the world carefully and with
kindness, though not without irony, what he sees in it. What he sees
is exhibited in the seventeen volumes, which contain great and vivid
pictures of life at the end of the recent century. Men and women of
various beliefs, occupations, and values, are shown there.
Glovatski is entirely unknown to Americans. This book will present
him.
Excepting the view in the temple of Luxor the illustrations given in
this volume are from photographs taken by me in 1899, while I was
travelling in Egypt.
The title of this volume has been changed from "The Pharaoh" to "The
Pharaoh and the Priest," at the wish of the author.
JEREMIAH CURTIN.
Bristol, Vermont, U. S. A.,
_July 28, 1902_.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Alexander Glovatski _Frontispiece_
Jeremiah Curtin at the Statue of Rameses the
Great in the Temple of Luxor _Page_ v
Step Pyramid " 135
Village of Bedreshen on the site of Memphis " 143
Pyramid of Cheops " 470
The Great Sphinx " 475
Statue of the Pharaoh Tutankhamen " 545
General View of the Ruins of Karnak " 582
Tomb of a Pharaoh in the Libyan Hills " 592
Avenue of Sphinxes from the Temple of Karnak to the Nile " 617
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER I 6
CHAPTER II 17
CHAPTER III 21
CHAPTER IV 27
CHAPTER V 36
CHAPTER VI 43
CHAPTER VII 51
CHAPTER VIII 56
CHAPTER IX 62
CHAPTER X 68
CHAPTER XI 74
CHAPTER XII 82
CHAPTER XIII 93
CHAPTER XIV 99
CHAPTER XV 110
CHAPTER XVI 116
CHAPTER XVII 123
CHAPTER XVIII 131
CHAPTER XIX 143
CHAPTER XX 153
CHAPTER XXI 165
CHAPTER XXII 175
CHAPTER XXIII 181
CHAPTER XXIV 187
CHAPTER XXV 200
CHAPTER XXVI 212
CHAPTER XXVII 220
CHAPTER XXVIII 231
CHAPTER XXIX 243
CHAPTER XXX 250
CHAPTER XXXI 259
CHAPTER XXXII 272
CHAPTER XXXIII 282
CHAPTER XXXIV 292
CHAPTER XXXV 305
CHAPTER XXXVI 317
CHAPTER XXXVII 326
CHAPTER XXXVIII 337
CHAPTER XXXIX 348
CHAPTER XL 359
CHAPTER XLI 372
CHAPTER XLII 391
CHAPTER XLIII 398
CHAPTER XLIV 413
CHAPTER XLV 428
CHAPTER XLVI 437
CHAPTER XLVII 445
CHAPTER XLVIII 453
CHAPTER XLIX 467
CHAPTER L 478
CHAPTER LI 485
CHAPTER LII 493
CHAPTER LIII 503
CHAPTER LIV 515
CHAPTER LV 524
CHAPTER LVI 546
CHAPTER LVII 559
CHAPTER LVIII 577
CHAPTER LIX 592
CHAPTER LX 600
CHAPTER LXI 612
CHAPTER LXII 632
CHAPTER LXIII 644
CHAPTER LXIV 657
CHAPTER LXV 665
CHAPTER LXVI 684
CHAPTER LXVII 693
THE PHARAOH AND THE PRIEST
INTRODUCTION
In the northeastern corner of Africa lies Egypt, that land of most
ancient civilization. Three, four, and even five thousand years ago,
when the savages of Central Europe wore untanned skins for clothing
and were cave-dwellers, Egypt had a high social organization,
agriculture, crafts, and literature. Above all, it carried out
engineering works and reared immense buildings, the remnants of which
rouse admiration in specialists of our day.
Egypt is that rich ravine between the Libyan sands and the Arabian
desert. Its depth is several hundred metres, its length six hundred
and fifty miles, its average width barely five. On the west the gently
sloping but naked Libyan hills, on the east the steep and broken
cliffs of Arabia form the sides of a corridor on the bottom of which
flows the river Nile.
With the course of the river northward the walls of the corridor
decrease in height, while a hundred and twenty-five miles from the sea
they expand on a sudden, and the river, instead of flowing through a
narrow passage, spreads in various arms over a broad level plain which
is shaped like a triangle. This triangle, called the Delta of the
Nile, has for its base the shore of the Mediterranean; at its apex,
where the river issues from the corridor, stands the city of Cairo,
and near by are the ruins of Memphis, the ancient capital.
Could a man rise one hundred miles in the air and gaze thence upon
Egypt, he would see the strange outlines of that country and the
peculiar changes in its color. From that elevation, on the background
of white and orange colored sands, Egypt would look like a serpent
pushing with energetic twists through a desert to the sea, in which
it has dipped already its triangular head, which has two eyes,--the
left Alexandria, the right Damietta.
In October, when the Nile inundates Egypt, that long serpent would be
blue, like water. In February, when spring vegetation takes the place
of the decreasing river, the serpent would be green, with a blue line
along its body and a multitude of blue veins on its head; these are
canals which cut through the Delta. In March the blue line would be
narrower, and the body of the serpent, because of ripening grain,
would seem golden. Finally, in the first days of June the line of the
Nile would be very narrow and the serpent's body gray from dust and
drought. The chief climatic feature in Egypt is heat. During January
it is 57° above zero, in July 99½°; sometimes the heat reaches 149°
which answers to the temperature of a Roman bath. Moreover, in the
neighborhood of the Mediterranean, on the Delta, rain falls barely ten
times a year; in Upper Egypt it falls once during ten years.
In these conditions Egypt, instead of being the cradle of
civilization, would have been a desert ravine like one of those which
compose the Sahara, if the waters of the sacred Nile had not brought
life to it annually. From the last days of June till the end of
September the Nile swells and inundates almost all Egypt; from the end
of October to the last days in May the year following it falls and
exposes gradually lower and lower platforms of land. The waters of the
river are so permeated with mineral and organic matter that their
color becomes brownish; hence, as the waters decrease, on inundated
lands is deposited fruitful mud which takes the place of the best
fertilizer. Owing to this mud and to heat, Egyptian earth-tillers,
fenced in between deserts, have three harvests yearly and from one
grain of seed receive back about three hundred.
Egypt, however, is not a flat plain, but a rolling country; some
portions of its land drink the blessed waters during two or three
months only; others do not see it every year, as the overflow does not
reach certain points annually. Besides, seasons of scant water occur,
and then a part of Egypt fails to receive the enriching deposit.
Finally, because of heat the earth dries up quickly, and then man has
to irrigate out of vessels.
In view of all these conditions people inhabiting the Nile valley had
to perish if they were weak, or regulate the water if they had genius.
The ancient Egyptians had genius, hence they created civilization.
Six thousand years ago they observed that the Nile rose when the sun
appeared under Sirius, and began to fall when it neared the
constellation Libra. This impelled them to make astronomical
observations and to measure time.
To preserve water for the whole year, they dug throughout their
country a network of canals many thousand miles in length. To guard
against excessive waste of water, they built mighty dams and dug
reservoirs, among which the artificial lake Moeris occupied three
hundred square kilometres of surface and was fifty-four metres deep.
Finally, along the Nile and the canals they set up a multitude of
simple but practical hydraulic works; through the aid of these they
raised water and poured it out upon the fields; these machines were
placed one or two stories higher than the water. To complete all,
there was need to clear the choked canals yearly, repair the dams and
build lofty roads for the army, which had to march at all seasons.
These gigantic works demanded knowledge of astronomy, geometry,
mechanics, and architecture, besides a perfect organization. Whether
the task was the strengthening of dams or the clearing of canals, it
had to be done and finished within a certain period over a great area.
Hence arose the need of forming an army of laborers, tens of thousands
in number, acting with a definite purpose and under uniform
direction,--an army which demanded many provisions, much means, and
great auxiliary forces.
Egypt established such an army of laborers, and to them were due works
renowned during ages. It seems that Egyptian priests or sages created
this army and then drew out plans for it, while the kings, or
pharaohs, commanded. In consequence of this the Egyptians in the days
of their greatness formed as it were one person, in which the priestly
order performed the rôle of mind, the pharaoh was the will, the people
formed the body, and obedience gave cohesion.
In this way nature, striving in Egypt for a work great, continuous,
and ordered, created the skeleton of a social organism for that
country as follows: the people labored, the pharaoh commanded, the
priests made the plans. While these three elements worked unitedly
toward the objects indicated by nature, society had strength to
flourish and complete immortal labors.
The mild, gladsome, and by no means warlike Egyptians were divided
into two classes,--earth-tillers and artisans. Among earth-tillers
there must have been owners of small bits of land, but generally
earth-tillers were tenants on lands belonging to the pharaohs, the
priests, and the aristocracy. The artisans, the people who made
clothing, furniture, vessels, and tools, were independent; those who
worked at great edifices formed, as it were, an army.
Each of those specialties, and particularly architecture, demanded
power of hauling and moving; some men had to draw water all day from
canals, or transport stones from the quarries to where they were
needed. These, the most arduous mechanical occupations, and above all
work in the quarries were carried on by criminals condemned by the
courts, or by prisoners seized in battle.
The genuine Egyptians had a bronze-colored skin, of which they were
very proud, despising the black Ethiopian, the yellow Semite, and the
white European. This color of skin, which enabled them to distinguish
their own people from strangers, helped to keep up the nation's unity
more strictly than religion, which a man may accept, or language,
which he may appropriate.
But in time, when the edifice of the state began to weaken, foreign
elements appeared in growing numbers. They lessened cohesion, they
split apart society, they flooded Egypt and absorbed the original
inhabitants.
The pharaohs governed the state by the help of a standing army and a
militia or police, also by a multitude of officials, from whom was
formed by degrees an aristocracy of family. By his office the pharaoh
was lawgiver, supreme king, highest judge, chief priest; he was the
son of a god, a god himself even. He accepted divine honors, not only
from officials and the people, but sometimes he raised altars to his
own person, and burnt incense before images of himself.
At the side of the pharaoh and very often above him were priests, an
order of sages who directed the destinies of the country.
In our day it is almost impossible to imagine the extraordinary rôle
which the priests played in Egypt. They were instructors of rising
generations, also soothsayers, hence the advisers of mature people,
judges of the dead, to whom their will and their knowledge guaranteed
immortality. They not only performed the minute ceremonies of religion
for the gods and the pharaohs, but they healed the sick as physicians,
they influenced the course of public works as engineers, and also
politics as astrologers, but above all they knew their own country and
its neighbors.
In Egyptian history the first place is occupied by the relations which
existed between the priests and the pharaohs. Most frequently the
pharaoh laid rich offerings before the gods and built temples. Then he
lived long, and his name, with his images cut out on monuments, passed
from generation to generation, full of glory. But many pharaohs
reigned for a short period only, and of some not merely the deeds, but
the names disappeared from record. A couple of times it happened that
a dynasty fell, and straightway the cap of the pharaohs, encircled
with a serpent, was taken by a priest.
Egypt continued to develop while a people of one composition,
energetic kings, and wise priests co-operated for the common weal. But
a time came when the people, in consequence of wars, decreased in
number and lost their strength through oppression and extortion; the
intrusion of foreign elements at this period undermined Egyptian race
unity. And when the energy of pharaohs and the wisdom of priests sank
in the flood of Asiatic luxury, and these two powers began to struggle
with each other for undivided authority to plunder the toiling people,
then Egypt fell under foreign control, and the light of civilized
life, which had burnt on the Nile for millenniums, was extinguished.
The following narrative relates to the eleventh century before Christ,
when the twentieth dynasty fell, and after the offspring of the sun,
the eternally living Rameses XIII., San-Amen-Herhor, the high priest
of Amon and ever-living offspring of the sun, forced his way to the
throne and adorned his head with the ureus.
CHAPTER I
In the thirty-third year of the happy reign of Rameses XII., Egypt
celebrated two festivals which filled all its faithful inhabitants
with pride and delight.
In the month of Mechir--that is, during January--the god Khonsu
returned to Thebes covered with costly gifts. For three years and nine
months he had travelled in the country of Buchten, where he restored
health to the king's daughter, Bentres, and expelled an evil spirit
not only from the royal family, but even from the fortress.
So in the month Farmuti (February) Mer-Amen-Rameses XII., the lord
of Upper and Lower Egypt, the ruler of Phoenicia and nine nations,
after consultation with the gods to whom he was equal, named as
erpatr, or heir to the throne, his son, aged twenty years,
Cham-Sem-Merer-Amen-Rameses.
This choice delighted the pious priests, the worthy nomarchs, the
valiant army, the faithful people, and every creature living in Egypt,
because the older sons of the pharaoh, who were born of a Hittite
princess, had been visited by an evil spirit through enchantments
which no one had the power to investigate. One son of twenty-seven
years was unable to walk after reaching maturity; the second opened
his veins and died; the third, through poisoned wine, which he would
not cease drinking, fell into madness, and believing himself a monkey,
passed whole days among tree branches.
But the fourth son, Rameses, born of Queen Nikotris, daughter of the
priest Amenhôtep, was as strong as the bull Apis, as brave as a lion,
and as wise as the priests. From childhood he surrounded himself with
warriors, and while still a common prince, used to say,--
"If the gods, instead of making me the youngest son of his holiness,
had made me a pharaoh, like Rameses the Great, I would conquer nine
nations, of which people in Egypt have never heard mention; I would
build a temple larger than all Thebes, and rear for myself a pyramid
near which the tomb of Cheops would be like a rosebush at the side of
a full-grown palm-tree."
On receiving the much desired title of heir, the young prince begged
his father to be gracious and appoint him to command the army corps of
Memphis. To this his holiness, Rameses XII., after consultation with
the gods, to whom he was equal, answered that he would do so in case
the heir could give proof that he had skill to direct a mass of troops
arrayed for battle.
A council was called under the presidency of the minister of war,
San-Amen-Herhor, high priest of the great sanctuary of Amon in Thebes.
The council decided in this way: "The heir to the throne, in the
middle of the month Mesore, will take ten regiments, disposed along
the line which connects Memphis with the city of Pi-Uto, situated on
the Bay of Sebenico.
"With this corps of ten thousand men prepared for battle, provided
with a camp and with military engines, the heir will betake himself
eastward along the highroad from Memphis toward Hittite regions, which
road lies on the boundary between the land of Goshen and the
wilderness. At this time General Nitager, commander of the army which
guards the gates of Egypt from attacks of Asiatic people, will move
from the Bitter Lakes against the heir, Prince Rameses.
"Both armies, the Asiatic and the Western, are to meet near Pi-Bailos,
but in the wilderness, so that industrious husbandmen in the land of
Goshen be not hindered in their labors.
"The heir will be victorious if he does not let himself be surprised
by Nitager, that is, if he concentrates all his forces and succeeds in
putting them in order of battle to meet the enemy.
"His worthiness Herhor, the minister of war, will be present in the
camp of Prince Rameses, and will report to the pharaoh."
Two ways of communication formed the boundary between the land of
Goshen and the desert. One was the transport canal from Memphis to
Lake Timrah; the other was the highroad. The canal was in the land of
Goshen, the highroad in the desert which both ways bounded with a half
circle.
The canal was visible from almost every point upon the highroad.
Whatever artificial boundaries might be, these neighboring regions
differed in all regards. The land of Goshen, though a rolling country,
seemed a plain; the desert was composed of limestone hills and sandy
valleys. The land of Goshen seemed a gigantic chessboard the green and
yellow squares of which were indicated by the color of grain and by
palms growing on their boundaries; but on the ruddy sand of the desert
and its white hills a patch of green or a clump of trees and bushes
seemed like a lost traveller.
On the fertile land of Goshen from each hill shot up a dark grove of
acacias, sycamores, and tamarinds which from a distance looked like
our lime-trees; among these were concealed villas with rows of short
columns, or the yellow mud huts of earth-tillers. Sometimes near the
grove was a white village with flat-roofed houses, or above the trees
rose the pyramidal gates of a temple, like double cliffs, many-colored
with strange characters. From the desert beyond the first row of
hills, which were a little green, stared naked elevations covered with
blocks of stone. It seemed as if the western region, sated with excess
of life, hurled with regal generosity to the other side flowers and
vegetables, but the desert in eternal hunger devoured them in the
following year and turned them into ashes.
The stunted vegetation, exiled to cliffs and sands, clung to the lower
places until, by means of ditches made in the sides of the raised
highroad, men conducted water from the canals to it. In fact, hidden
oases between naked hills along that highway drank in the divine
water. In these oases grew wheat, barley, grapes, palms, and
tamarinds. The whole of such an oasis was sometimes occupied by one
family, which when it met another like itself at the market in
Pi-Bailos might not even know that they were neighbors in the desert.
On the fifteenth of Mesore the concentration of troops was almost
finished. The regiments of Prince Rameses, which were to meet the
Asiatic forces of Nitager, had assembled on the road above the city of
Pi-Bailos with their camp and with some military engines.
The heir himself directed all the movements. He had organized two
parties of scouts. Of these the first had to watch the enemy, the
other to guard its own army from attack, which was possible in a hilly
region with many ravines. Rameses, in the course of a week, rode
around and examined all the regiments, marching by various roads,
looking carefully to see if the soldiers had good weapons and warm
mantles for the night hours, if in the camps there was dried bread in
sufficiency as well as meat and dried fish. He commanded, besides,
that the wives, children, and slaves of warriors marching to the
eastern boundary should be conveyed by canal; this diminished the
number of chariots and eased the movements of the army.
The oldest generals admired the zeal, knowledge, and caution of the
heir, and, above all, his simplicity and love of labor. His court,
which was numerous, his splendid tent, chariots, and litters were left
in the capital, and, dressed as a simple officer, he hurried from
regiment to regiment on horseback, in Assyrian fashion, attended by
two adjutants.
Thanks to this concentration, the corps itself went forward very
swiftly, and the army was near Pi-Bailos at the time appointed.
It was different with the prince's staff, and the Greek regiment
accompanying it, and with some who moved military engines.
The staff, collected in Memphis, had the shortest road to travel;
hence it moved latest, bringing an immense camp with it. Nearly every
officer, and they were young lords of great families, had a litter
with four negroes, a two-wheeled military chariot, a rich tent, and a
multitude of boxes with food and clothing, also jars full of beer and
wine. Besides, a numerous troop of singers and dancers, with music,
had betaken themselves to journey behind the officers; each woman
must, in the manner of a great lady, have a car drawn by one or two
pair of oxen, and must have also a litter.
When this throng poured out of Memphis, it occupied more space on the
highway than the army of Prince Rameses. The march was so slow that
the military engines which were left at the rear moved twenty-four
hours later than was ordered. To complete every evil the female
dancers and singers, on seeing the desert not at all dreadful in that
place, were terrified and fell to weeping. To calm these women it was
necessary to hasten with the night camp, pitch tents, arrange a
spectacle, and a feast afterward.
The night amusement in the cool, under the starry sky, with wild
nature for a background, pleased dancers and singers exceedingly; they
declared that they would travel thenceforth only through the desert.
Meanwhile Prince Rameses sent an order to turn all women back to
Memphis at the earliest and urge the march forward.
His dignity Herhor, minister of war, was with the staff, but only as a
spectator. He had not brought singers himself, but he made no remarks
to officers. He gave command to carry his litter at the head of the
column, and accommodating himself to its movements, advanced or rested
under the immense fan with which his adjutant shaded him.
Herhor was a man of forty and some years of age, strongly built,
concentrated in character. He spoke rarely, and looked at people as
rarely from under his drooping eyelids. He went with arms and legs
bare, like every Egyptian, his breast exposed; he had sandals on his
feet, a short skirt about his hips, an apron with blue and white
stripes. As a priest, he shaved his beard and hair and wore a panther
skin hanging from his left shoulder. As a soldier, he covered his head
with a small helmet of the guard; from under this helmet hung a
kerchief, also in blue and white stripes; this reached his shoulders.
Around his neck was a triple gold chain, and under his left arm a
short sword in a costly scabbard. His litter, borne by six black
slaves, was attended always by three persons: one carried his fan,
another the mace of the minister, and the third a box for papyrus.
This third man was Pentuer, a priest, and the secretary of Herhor. He
was a lean ascetic who in the greatest heat never covered his shaven
head. He came of the people, but in spite of low birth he occupied a
high position in the state; this was due to exceptional abilities.
Though the minister with his officials preceded the staff and held
himself apart from its movements, it could not be said that he was
unconscious of what was happening behind him. Every hour, at times
every half hour, some one approached Herhor's litter,--now a priest of
lower rank, an ordinary "servant of the gods," a marauding soldier, a
freedman, or a slave, who, passing as it were indifferently the silent
retinue of the minister, threw out a word. That word Pentuer recorded
sometimes, but more frequently he remembered it, for his memory was
amazing.
No one in the noisy throng of the staff paid attention to these
details. The officers, sons of great lords, were too much occupied by
running, by noisy conversation, or by singing, to notice who
approached the minister; all the more since a multitude of people were
pushing along the highway.
On the sixteenth of Mesore the staff of Prince Rameses, together with
his dignity the minister, passed the night under the open sky at the
distance of five miles from the regiments which were arranged in
battle order across the highway beyond the city of Pi-Bailos.
In that early morning which precedes our six o'clock, the hills grew
violet, and from behind them came forth the sun. A rosy light flowed
over the land of Goshen. Villages, temples, palaces of magnates, and
huts of earth-tillers looked like sparks and flames which flashed up
in one moment from the midst of green spaces. Soon the western horizon
was flooded with a golden hue, and the green land of Goshen seemed
melting into gold, and the numberless canals seemed filled with molten
silver. But the desert hills grew still more marked with violet, and
cast long shadows on the sands, and darkness on the plant world.
The guards who stood along that highway could see with the utmost
clearness fields, edged with palms, beyond the canal. Some fields were
green with flax, wheat, clover; others were gilded with ripening
barley of the second growth. Now earth-tillers began to come out to
field labor, from huts concealed among trees; they were naked and
bronze-hued; their whole dress was a short skirt and a cap. Some
turned to canals to clear them of mud, or to draw water. Others
dispersing among the trees gathered grapes and ripe figs. Many naked
children stirred about, and women were busy in white, yellow, or red
shirts which were sleeveless.
There was great movement in that region. In the sky birds of prey
from the desert pursued pigeons and daws in the land of Goshen. Along
the canal squeaking sweeps moved up and down, with buckets of
fertilizing water; fruit-gatherers appeared and disappeared among the
trees, like colored butterflies. But in the desert, on the highway,
swarmed the army and its servants. A division of mounted lancers shot
past. Behind them marched bowmen in caps and petticoats; they had bows
in their hands, quivers on their shoulders, and broadswords at their
right sides. The archers were accompanied by slingers who carried bags
with missiles and were armed with short swords.
A hundred yards behind them advanced two small divisions of footmen,
one division armed with darts, the other with spears. Both carried
rectangular shields; on their breasts they had thick coats, as it were
armor, and on their heads caps with kerchiefs behind to ward off the
sun-rays. The caps and coats had blue and white stripes or yellow and
black stripes, which made those soldiers seem immense hornets.
Behind the advance guard, surrounded by a retinue of mace-bearers,
pushed on the litter of the minister, and behind it, with bronze
helmets and breastplates, the Greek companies, whose measured tread
called to mind blows of heavy hammers. In the rear was heard the
creaking of vehicles, and from the side of the highway slipped along
the bearded Phoenician merchant in his litter borne between two asses.
Above all this rose a cloud of golden dust, and heat also.
Suddenly from the vanguard galloped up a mounted soldier and informed
Herhor that Prince Rameses, the heir to the throne, was approaching.
His worthiness descended from the litter, and at that moment appeared
a mounted party of men who halted and sprang from their horses. One
man of this party and the minister began to approach each other,
halting every few steps and bowing.
"Be greeted, O son of the pharaoh; may he live through eternity!" said
the minister.
"Be greeted and live long, O holy father!" answered Rameses; then he
added,--
"Ye advance as slowly as if your legs were sawn off, while Nitager
will stand before our division in two hours at the latest."
"Thou hast told truth. Thy staff marches very slowly."
"Eunana tells me also," here Rameses indicated an officer standing
behind him who was covered with amulets, "that ye have not sent scouts
to search ravines. But in case of real war an enemy might attack from
that side."
"I am not the leader, I am only a judge," replied the minister,
quietly.
"But what can Patrokles be doing?"
"Patrokles is bringing up the military engines with his Greek
regiment."
"But my relative and adjutant, Tutmosis?"
"He is sleeping yet, I suppose."
Rameses stamped impatiently, and was silent. He was a beautiful youth,
with a face almost feminine, to which anger and sunburn added charm.
He wore a close-fitting coat with blue and white stripes, a kerchief
of the same color behind his helmet, a gold chain around his neck, and
a costly sword beneath his left arm.
"I see," said the prince, "that thou alone, Eunana, art mindful of my
honor."
The officer covered with amulets bent to the earth.
"Tutmosis is indolent," said the heir. "Return to thy place, Eunana.
Let the vanguard at least have a leader."
Then, looking at the suite which now surrounded him as if it had
sprung from under the earth on a sudden, he added,--
"Bring my litter. I am as tired as a quarryman."
"Can the gods grow tired?" whispered Eunana, still standing behind
him.
"Go to thy place!" said Rameses.
"But perhaps thou wilt command me, O image of the moon, to search the
ravines?" asked the officer, in a low voice. "Command, I beg thee, for
wherever I am my heart is chasing after thee to divine thy will and
accomplish it."
"I know that thou art watchful," answered Rameses. "Go now and look
after everything."
"Holy father," said Eunana, turning to the minister, "I commend my
most obedient service to thy worthiness."
Barely had Eunana gone when at the end of the marching column rose a
still greater tumult. They looked for the heir's litter, but it was
gone. Then appeared, making his way through the Greek warriors, a
youth of strange exterior. He wore a muslin tunic, a richly
embroidered apron, and a golden scarf across his shoulder. But he was
distinguished above all by an immense wig with a multitude of tresses,
and an artificial beard like cats' tails.
That was Tutmosis, the first exquisite in Memphis, who dressed and
perfumed himself even during marches.
"Be greeted, Rameses!" exclaimed the exquisite, pushing aside officers
quickly. "Imagine thy litter is lost somewhere; thou must sit in mine,
which really is not fit for thee, but it is not the worst."
"Thou hast angered me," answered the prince. "Thou sleepest instead of
watching the army."
The astonished exquisite stopped.
"I sleep?" cried he. "May the man's tongue wither up who invented that
calumny! I, knowing that thou wouldst come, have been ready this hour
past, and am preparing a bath for thee and perfumes."
"While thus engaged, the regiment is without a commander."
"Am I to command a detachment where his worthiness the minister of war
is, and such a leader is present as Patrokles?"
Rameses was silent; meanwhile Tutmosis, approaching him, whispered,--
"In what a plight thou art, O son of the pharaoh! Without a wig, thy
hair and dress full of dust, thy skin black and cracked, like the
earth in summer. The queen, most deserving of honor, would drive me
from the court were she to look at thy wretchedness."
"I am only tired."
"Then take a seat in my litter. In it are fresh garlands of roses,
roast birds, and a jug of wine from Cyprus. I have kept also hidden in
the camp," added he in a lower voice, "Senura."
"Is she here?" asked the prince; and his eyes, glittering a moment
before, were now mist covered.
"Let the army move on," said Tutmosis; "we will wait here for her."
Rameses recovered himself.
"Leave me, tempter! The battle will come in two hours."
"What! a battle?"
"At least the decision as to my leadership."
"Oh, laugh at it!" smiled the exquisite. "I would swear that the
minister of war sent a report of it yesterday, and with it the
petition to give thee the corps of Memphis."
"No matter if he did. To-day I have no thought for anything but the
army."
"In thee this wish for war is dreadful, war during which a man does
not wash for a whole month, so as to die in-- Brr! But if thou couldst
see Senura, only glance at her--"
"For that very reason I shall not glance at her," answered Rameses,
decisively.
At the moment when eight men were bringing from beyond the Greek ranks
the immense litter of Tutmosis for the use of Rameses, a horseman
raced in from the vanguard. He dropped from his horse and ran so
quickly that on his breast the images of the gods or the tablets with
their names rattled loudly. This was Eunana in great excitement.
All turned to him, and this gave him pleasure apparently.
"Erpatr, the loftiest lips," cried Eunana, bending before Rameses.
"When, in accordance with thy divine command, I rode at the head of a
detachment, looking carefully at all things, I noticed on the highroad
two beautiful scarabs. Each of these sacred beetles was rolling an
earth ball toward the sands near the roadside--"
"What of that?" interrupted Rameses.
"Of course," continued Eunana, glancing toward Herhor, "I and my
people, as piety enjoins, rendered homage to the golden symbols of the
sun, and halted. That augury is of such import that no man of us would
make a step forward unless commanded."
"I see that thou art a pious Egyptian, though thou hast the features
of a Hittite," answered the worthy Herhor; and turning to certain
dignitaries standing near, he added,--
"We will not advance farther by the highway, for we might crush the
sacred beetles. Pentuer, can we go around the road by that ravine on
the right?"
"We can," answered the secretary. "That ravine is five miles long,
and comes out again almost in front of Pi-Bailos."
"An immense loss of time!" interrupted Rameses, in anger.
"I would swear that those are not scarabs, but the spirits of my
Phoenician usurers," said Tutmosis the exquisite. "Not being able,
because of their death, to receive money from me, they will force me
now to march through the desert in punishment!"
The suite of the prince awaited the decision with fear; so Rameses
turned to Herhor,--
"What dost thou think of this, holy father?"
"Look at the officers," answered the priest, "and thou wilt understand
that we must go by the ravine."
Now Patrokles, leader of the Greeks, pushed forward and said to the
heir,--
"If the prince permit, my regiment will advance by the highway. My
soldiers have no fear of beetles!"
"Your soldiers have no fear of royal tombs even," added the minister.
"Still it cannot be safe in them since no one has ever returned."
The Greek pushed back to the suite confounded.
"Confess, holy father," hissed the heir, with the greatest anger,
"that such a hindrance would not stop even an ass on his journey."
"True, but no ass will ever be pharaoh," retorted the minister,
calmly.
"In that case thou, O minister, wilt lead the division through the
ravine!" exclaimed Rameses. "I am unacquainted with priestly tactics;
besides, I must rest. Come with me, cousin," said he to Tutmosis; and
he turned toward some naked hills.