THE NIGHT OF FEAR
Then came the hail, and some months after the hail the locusts, and
Egypt went mad with woe and terror. It was known to us, for with Ki and
Bakenkhonsu in the palace we knew everything, that the Hebrew prophets
had promised this hail because Pharaoh would not listen to them.
Therefore Seti caused it to be put about through all the land that the
Egyptians should shelter their cattle, or such as were left to them, at
the first sign of storm. But Pharaoh heard of it and issued a
proclamation that this was not to be done, inasmuch as it would be an
insult to the gods of Egypt. Still many did so and these saved their
cattle. It was strange to see that wall of jagged ice stretching from
earth to heaven and destroying all upon which it fell. The tall
date-palms were stripped even of their bark; the soil was churned up;
men and beasts if caught abroad were slain or shattered.
I stood at the gate and watched it. There, not a yard away, fell the
white hail, turning the world to wreck, while here within the gate
there was not a single stone. Merapi watched also, and presently came
Ki as well, and with him Bakenkhonsu, who for once had never seen
anything like this in all his long life. But Ki watched Merapi more
than he did the hail, for I saw him searching out her very soul with
those merciless eyes of his.
“Lady,” he said at length, “tell your servant, I beseech you,
how you do this thing?” and he pointed first to the trees and flowers
within the gate and then to the wreck without.
At first I thought that she had not heard him because of the roar of the
hail, for she stepped forward and opened the side wicket to admit a
poor jackal that was scratching at the bars. Still this was not so, for
presently she turned and said:
“Does the Kherheb, the greatest magician in Egypt, ask an unlearned
woman to teach him of marvels? Well, Ki, I cannot, because I neither do
it nor know how it is done.”
Bakenkhonsu laughed, and Ki’s painted smile grew as it were brighter
than before.
“That is not what they say in the land of Goshen, Lady,” he
answered, “and not what the Hebrew women say here in Memphis. Nor is
it what the priests of Amon say. These declare that you have more magic
than all the sorcerers of the Nile. Here is the proof of it,” and he
pointed to the ruin without and the peace within, adding, “Lady, if
you can protect your own home, why cannot you protect the innocent
people of Egypt?”
“Because I cannot,” she answered angrily. “If ever I had such
power it is gone from me, who am now the mother of an Egyptian’s
child. But I have none. There in the temple of Amon some Strength
worked through me, that is all, which never will visit me again because
of my sin.”
“What sin, Lady?”
“The sin of taking the Prince Seti to lord. Now, if any god spoke
through me it would be one of those of the Egyptians, since He of
Israel has cast me out.”
Ki started as though some new thought had come to him, and at this
moment she turned and went away.
“Would that she were high-priestess of Isis that she might work for us
and not against us,” he said.
Bakenkhonsu shook his head.
“Let that be,” he answered. “Be sure that never will an
Israelitish woman offer sacrifice to what she would call the abomination
of the Egyptians.”
“If she will not sacrifice to save the people, let her be careful lest
the people sacrifice her to save themselves,” said Ki in a cold voice.
Then he too went away.
“I think that if ever that hour comes, then Ki will have his share in
it,” laughed Bakenkhonsu. “What is the good of a shepherd who
shelters here in comfort, while outside the sheep are dying, eh, Ana?”
It was after the plague of locusts, which ate all there was left to eat
in Egypt, so that the poor folk who had done no wrong and had naught to
say to the dealings of Pharaoh with the Israelites starved by the
thousand, and during that of the great darkness, that Laban came. Now
this darkness lay upon the land like a thick cloud for three whole days
and nights. Nevertheless, though the shadows were deep, there was no
true darkness over the house of Seti at Memphis, which stood in a
funnel of grey light stretching from earth to sky.
Now the terror was increased tenfold, and it seemed to me that all the
hundreds of thousands of Memphis were gathered outside our walls, so
that they might look upon the light, such as it was, if they could do
no more. Seti would have admitted as many as the place would hold, but
Ki bade him not, saying, that if he did so the darkness would flow in
with them. Only Merapi did admit some of the Israelitish women who were
married to Egyptians in the city, though for her pains they only cursed
her as a witch. For now most of the inhabitants of Memphis were certain
that it was Merapi who, keeping herself safe, had brought these woes
upon them because she was a worshipper of an alien god.
“If she who is the love of Egypt’s heir would but sacrifice to
Egypt’s gods, these horrors would pass from us,” said they, having,
as I think, learned their lesson from the lips of Ki. Or perhaps the
emissaries of Userti had taught them.
Once more we stood by the gate watching the people flitting to and fro
in the gloom without, for this sight fascinated Merapi, as a snake
fascinates a bird. Then it was that Laban appeared. I knew his hooked
nose and hawk-like eyes at once, and she knew him also.
“Come away with me, Moon of Israel,” he cried, “and all shall
yet be forgiven you. But if you will not come, then fearful things shall
overtake you.”
She stood staring at him, answering never a word, and just then the
Prince Seti reached us and saw him.
“Take that man,” he commanded, flushing with anger, and guards
sprang into the darkness to do his bidding. But Laban was gone.
On the second day of the darkness the tumult was great, on the third it
was terrible. A crowd thrust the guard aside, broke down the gates and
burst into the palace, humbly demanding that the lady Merapi would come
to pray for them, yet showing by their mien that if she would not come
they meant to take her.
“What is to be done?” asked Seti of Ki and Bakenkhonsu.
“That is for the Prince to judge,” said Ki, “though I do not
see how it can harm the lady Merapi to pray for us in the open square of
Memphis.”
“Let her go,” said Bakenkhonsu, “lest presently we should all
go further than we would.”
“I do not wish to go,” cried Merapi, “not knowing for whom I
am to pray or how.”
“Be it as you will, Lady,” said Seti in his grave and gentle voice.
“Only, hearken to the roar of the mob. If you refuse, I think that
very soon every one of us will have reached a land where perhaps it is
not needful to pray at all,” and he looked at the infant in her arms.
“I will go,” she said.
She went forth carrying the child and I walked behind her. So did the
Prince, but in that darkness he was cut off by a rush of thousands of
folk and I saw him no more till all was over. Bakenkhonsu was with me
leaning on my arm, but Ki had gone on before us, for his own ends as I
think. A huge mob moved through the dense darkness, in which here and
there lights floated like lamps upon a quiet sea. I did not know where
we were going until the light of one of these lamps shone upon the
knees of the colossal statue of the great Rameses, revealing his
cartouche. Then I knew that we were near the gateway of the vast temple
of Memphis, the largest perhaps in the whole world.
We went on through court after pillared court, priests leading us by the
hand, till we came to a shrine commanding the biggest court of all,
which was packed with men and women. It was that of Isis, who held at
her breast the infant Horus.
“O friend Ana,” cried Merapi, “give help. They are dressing
me in strange garments.”
I tried to get near to her but was thrust back, a voice, which I thought
to be that of Ki, saying:
“On your life, fool!”
Presently a lamp was held up, and by the light of it I saw Merapi seated
in a chair dressed like a goddess, in the sacerdotal robes of Isis and
wearing the vulture cap headdress—beautiful exceedingly. In her arms
was the child dressed as the infant Horus.
“Pray for us, Mother Isis,” cried thousands of voices, “that
the curse of blackness may be removed.”
Then she prayed, saying:
“O my God, take away this curse of blackness from these innocent
people,” and all of those present, repeated her prayer.
At that moment the sky began to lighten and in less than half an hour
the sun shone out. When Merapi saw how she and the child were arrayed
she screamed aloud and tore off her jewelled trappings, crying:
“Woe! Woe! Woe! Great woe upon the people of Egypt!”
But in their joy at the new found light few hearkened to her who they
were sure had brought back the sun. Again Laban appeared for a moment.
“Witch! Traitress!” he cried. “You have worn the robes of
Isis and worshipped in the temple of the gods of the Egyptians. The
curse of the God of Israel be on you and that which is born of you.”
I sprang at him but he was gone. Then we bore Merapi home swooning.
So this trouble passed by, but from that time forward Merapi would not
suffer her son to be taken out of her sight.
“Why do you make so much of him, Lady?” I asked one day.
“Because I would love him well while he is here, Friend,” she
answered, “but of this say nothing to his father.”
A while went by and we heard that still Pharaoh would not let the
Israelites go. Then the Prince Seti sent Bakenkhonsu and myself to
Tanis to see Pharaoh and to say to him:
“I seek nothing for myself and I forget those evils which you would
have worked on me through jealousy. But I say unto you that if you will
not let these strangers go great and terrible things shall befall you
and all Egypt. Therefore, hear my prayer and let them go.”
Now Bakenkhonsu and I came before Pharaoh and we saw that he was greatly
aged, for his hair had gone grey about his temples and the flesh hung
in bags beneath his eyes. Also not for one minute could he stay still.
“Is your lord, and are you also of the servants of this Hebrew prophet
whom the Egyptians worship as a god because he has done them so much
ill?” he asked. “It may well be so, since I hear that my cousin
Seti keeps an Israelitish witch in his house, who wards off from him all
the plagues that have smitten the rest of Egypt, and that to him has
fled also Ki the Kherheb, my magician. Moreover, I hear that in payment
for these wizardries he has been promised the throne of Egypt by many
fickle and fearful ones among my people. Let him be careful lest I lift
him up higher than he hopes, who already have enough traitors in this
land; and you two with him.”
Now I said nothing, who saw that the man was mad, but Bakenkhonsu
laughed out loud and answered:
“O Pharaoh, I know little, but I know this although I be old, namely,
that after men have ceased to speak your name I shall still hold
converse with the wearer of the Double Crown in Egypt. Now will you let
these Hebrews go, or will you bring death upon Egypt?”
Pharaoh glared at him and answered, “I will not let them go.”
“Why not, Pharaoh? Tell me, for I am curious.”
“Because I cannot,” he answered with a groan. “Because
something stronger than myself forces me to deny their prayer.
Begone!”
So we went, and this was the last time that I looked upon Amenmeses at
Tanis.
As we left the chamber I saw the Hebrew prophet entering the presence.
Afterwards a rumour reached us that he had threatened to kill all the
people in Egypt, but that still Pharaoh would not let the Israelites
depart. Indeed, it was said that he had told the prophet that if he
appeared before him any more he should be put to death.
Now we journeyed back to Memphis with all these tidings and made report
to Seti. When Merapi heard them she went half mad, weeping and wringing
her hands. I asked her what she feared. She answered death, which was
near to all of us. I said:
“If so, there are worse things, Lady.”
“For you mayhap who are faithful and good in your own fashion, but not
for me. Do you not understand, friend Ana, that I am one who has broken
the law of the God I was taught to worship?”
“And which of us is there who has not broken the law of the god we
were taught to worship, Lady? If in truth you have done anything of the
sort by flying from a murderous villain to one who loves you well,
which I do not believe, surely there is forgiveness for such sins as
this.”
“Aye, perhaps, but, alas! the thing is blacker far. Have you forgotten
what I did? Dressed in the robes of Isis I worshipped in the temple of
Isis with my boy playing the part of Horus on my bosom. It is a crime
that can never be forgiven to a Hebrew woman, Ana, for my God is a
jealous God. Yet it is true that Ki tricked me.”
“If he had not, Lady, I think there would have been none of us left to
trick, seeing that the people were crazed with the dread of the darkness
and believed that it could be lifted by you alone, as indeed
happened,” I added somewhat doubtfully.
“More of Ki’s tricks! Oh! do you not understand that the lifting of
the darkness at that moment was Ki’s work, because he wished the
people to believe that I am indeed a sorceress.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I do not know. Perhaps that one day he may find a victim to bind to
the altar in his place. At least I know well that it is I who must pay
the price, I and my flesh and blood, whatever Ki may promise,” and
she looked at the sleeping child.
“Do not be afraid, Lady,” I said. “Ki has left the palace and
you will see him no more.”
“Yes, because the Prince was angry with him about the trick in the
temple of Isis. Therefore suddenly he went, or pretended to go, for how
can one tell where such a man may really be? But he will come back
again. Bethink you, Ki was the greatest magician in Egypt; even old
Bakenkhonsu can remember none like to him. Then he matches himself
against the prophets of my people and fails.”
“But did he fail, Lady? What they did he did, sending among the
Israelites the plagues that your prophets had sent among us.”
“Yes, some of them, but he was outpaced, or feared to be outpaced at
last. Is Ki a man to forget that? And if Ki chances really to believe
that I am his adversary and his master at this black work, as because
of what happened in the temple of Amon thousands believe to-day, will
he not mete me my own measure soon or late? Oh! I fear Ki, Ana, and I
fear the people of Egypt, and were it not for my lord beloved, I would
flee away into the wilderness with my son, and get me out of this
haunted land! Hush! he wakes.”
From this time forward until the sword fell there was great dread in
Egypt. None seemed to know exactly what they dreaded, but all thought
that it had to do with death. People went about mournfully looking over
their shoulders as though someone were following them, and at night
they gathered together in knots and talked in whispers. Only the
Hebrews seemed to be glad and happy. Moreover, they were making
preparations for something new and strange. Thus those Israelitish
women who dwelt in Memphis began to sell what property they had and to
borrow of the Egyptians. Especially did they ask for the loan of
jewels, saying that they were about to celebrate a feast and wished to
look fine in the eyes of their countrymen. None refused them what they
asked because all were afraid of them. They even came to the palace and
begged her ornaments from Merapi, although she was a countrywoman of
their own who had showed them much kindness. Yes, and seeing that her
son wore a little gold circlet on his hair, one of them begged that
also, nor did she say her nay. But, as it chanced, the Prince entered,
and seeing the woman with this royal badge in her hand, grew very angry
and forced her to restore it.
“What is the use of crowns without heads to wear them?” she
sneered, and fled away laughing, with all that she had gathered.
After she had heard that saying Merapi grew even sadder and more
distraught than she was before, and from her the trouble crept to Seti.
He too became sad and ill at ease, though when I asked him why he vowed
he did not know, but supposed it was because some new plague drew near.
“Yet,” he added, “as I have made shift to live through nine
of them, I do not know why I should fear a tenth.”
Still he did fear it, so much that he consulted Bakenkhonsu as to
whether there were any means by which the anger of the gods could be
averted.
Bakenkhonsu laughed and said he thought not, since always if the gods
were not angry about one thing they were angry about another. Having
made the world they did nothing but quarrel with it, or with other gods
who had a hand in its fashioning, and of these quarrels men were the
victims.
“Bear your woes, Prince,” he added, “if any come, for ere the
Nile has risen another fifty times at most, whether they have or have
not been, will be the same to you.”
“Then you think that when we go west we die indeed, and that Osiris is
but another name for the sunset, Bakenkhonsu.”
The old Councillor shook his great head, and answered:
“No. If ever you should lose one whom you greatly love, take comfort,
Prince, for I do not think that life ends with death. Death is the nurse
that puts it to sleep, no more, and in the morning it will wake again
to travel through another day with those who have companioned it from
the beginning.”
“Where do all the days lead it to at last, Bakenkhonsu?”
“Ask that of Ki; I do not know.”
“To Set with Ki, I am angered with him,” said the Prince, and went
away.
“Not without reason, I think,” mused Bakenkhonsu, but when I asked
him what he meant, he would not or could not tell me.
So the gloom deepened and the palace, which had been merry in its way,
became sad. None knew what was coming, but all knew that something was
coming and stretched out their hands to strive to protect that which
they loved best from the stroke of the warring gods. In the case of
Seti and Merapi this was their son, now a beautiful little lad who
could run and prattle, one too of a strange health and vigour for a
child of the inbred race of the Ramessids. Never for a minute was this
boy allowed to be out of the sight of one or other of his parents;
indeed I saw little of Seti in those days and all our learned studies
came to nothing, because he was ever concerned with Merapi in playing
nurse to this son of his.
When Userti was told of it, she said in the hearing of a friend of mine:
“Without a doubt that is because he trains his bastard to fill the
throne of Egypt.”
But, alas! all that the little Seti was doomed to fill was a coffin.
It was a still, hot evening, so hot that Merapi had bid the nurse bring
the child’s bed and set it between two pillars of the great portico.
There on the bed he slept, lovely as Horus the divine. She sat by his
side in a chair that had feet shaped like to those of an antelope. Seti
walked up and down the terrace beyond the portico leaning on my
shoulder, and talking by snatches of this or that. Occasionally as he
passed he would stay for a while to make sure by the bright moonlight
that all was well with Merapi and the child, as of late it had become a
habit with him to do. Then without speaking, for fear lest he should
awake the boy, he would smile at Merapi, who sat there brooding, her
head resting on her hand, and pass on.
The night was very still. The palm leaves did not rustle, no jackals
were stirring, and even the shrill-voiced insects had ceased their
cries. Moreover, the great city below was quiet as a home of the dead.
It was as though the presage of some advancing doom scared the world to
silence. For without doubt doom was in the air. All felt it down to the
nurse woman, who cowered close as she dared to the chair of her
mistress, and even in that heat shivered from time to time.
Presently little Seti awoke, and began to prattle about something he had
dreamed.
“What did you dream, my son?” asked his father.
“I dreamed,” he answered in his baby talk, “that a woman,
dressed as Mother was in the temple, took me by the hand and led me into
the air. I looked down, and saw you and Mother with white faces and
crying. I began to cry too, but the woman with the feather cap told me
not as she was taking me to a beautiful big star where Mother would
soon come to find me.”
The Prince and I looked at each other and Merapi feigned to busy herself
with hushing the child to sleep again. It drew towards midnight and
still no one seemed minded to go to rest. Old Bakenkhonsu appeared and
began to say something about the night being very strange and
unrestful, when, suddenly, a little bat that was flitting to and fro
above us fell upon his head and thence to the ground. We looked at it,
and saw that it was dead.
“Strange that the creature should have died thus,” said
Bakenkhonsu, when, behold! another fell to the ground near by. The black
kitten which belonged to Little Seti saw it fall and darted from beside
his bed where it was sleeping. Before ever it reached the bat, the
creature wheeled round, stood upon its hind legs, scratching at the air
about it, then uttered one pitiful cry and fell over dead.
We stared at it, when suddenly far away a dog howled in a very piercing
fashion. Then a cow began to bale as these beasts do when they have lost
their calves. Next, quite close at hand but without the gates, there
arose the ear-curdling cry of a woman in agony, which on the instant
seemed to be echoed from every quarter, till the air was full of
wailing.
“Oh, Seti! Seti!” exclaimed Merapi, in a voice that was rather a
hiss than a whisper, “look at your son!”
We sprang to where the babe lay, and looked. He had awakened and was
staring upward with wide-opened eyes and frozen face. The fear, if such
it were, passed from his features, though still he stared. He rose to
his little feet, always looking upwards. Then a smile came upon his
face, a most beautiful smile; he stretched out his arms, as though to
clasp one who bent down towards him, and fell backwards—quite dead.
Seti stood still as a statue; we all stood still, even Merapi. Then she
bent down, and lifted the body of the boy.
“Now, my lord,” she said, “there has fallen on you that
sorrow which Jabez my uncle warned you would come, if ever you had aught
to do with me. Now the curse of Israel has pierced my heart, and now
our child, as Ki the evil prophesied, has grown too great for
greetings, or even for farewells.”
Thus she spoke in a cold and quiet voice, as one might speak of
something long expected or foreseen, then made her reverence to the
Prince, and departed, bearing the body of the child. Never, I think,
did Merapi seem more beautiful to me than in this, her hour of
bereavement, since now through her woman’s loveliness shone out some
shadow of the soul within. Indeed, such were her eyes and such her
movements that well might it have been a spirit and not a woman who
departed from us with that which had been her son.
Seti leaned on my shoulder looking at the empty bed, and at the scared
nurse who still sat behind, and I felt a tear drop upon my hand. Old
Bakenkhonsu lifted his massive face, and looked at him.
“Grieve not over much, Prince,” he said, “since, ere as many
years as I have lived out have come and gone, this child will be
forgotten and his mother will be forgotten, and even you, O Prince,
will live but as a name that once was great in Egypt. And then, O
Prince, elsewhere the game will begin afresh, and what you have lost
shall be found anew, and the sweeter for it sheltering from the vile
breath of men. Ki’s magic is not all a lie, or if his is, mine holds
some shadow of the truth, and when he said to you yonder in Tanis that
not for nothing were you named ‘Lord of Rebirths,’ he spoke words
that you should find comfortable to-night.”
“I thank you, Councillor,” said Seti, and turning, followed Merapi.
“Now I suppose we shall have more deaths,” I exclaimed, hardly
knowing what I said in my sorrow.
“I think not, Ana,” answered Bakenkhonsu, “since the shield
of Jabez, or of his god, is over us. Always he foretold that trouble
would come to Merapi, and to Seti through Merapi, but that is all.”
I glanced at the kitten.
“It strayed here from the town three days ago, Ana. And the bats also
may have flown from the town. Hark to the wailing. Was ever such a
sound heard before in Egypt?”