The Plot and the Voice
The weary years went by. Ochus returned to Persia, bearing his
spoils with him and leaving one Sabaco, a brutal fellow, to rule Egypt
and wring tribute from her.
All this while I, Ayesha, sat alone, quite alone, in the temple of
Isis at Memphis whose walls I never left, for the command of Ochus was
obeyed and whatever happened to those of other gods, the shrine of
Isis was left inviolate. Here, then, surrounded by a dwindling company
of priests and priestesses, I remained, as Noot, my Master, had
commanded me to do, awaiting a word that never came, and carrying on
the ceremonies of the temple in such humble fashion as our poverty
allowed.
What did I through all that slow and heavy time? I dreamed, I communed
with Heaven above, I studied the ancient lore of Egypt and of other
lands, growing ever wiser and as full of knowledge as a new-filled jar
with perfume or with wine. Yet of what use was this knowledge to me?
As it seemed, of none. Yet it was not so, since my heart fed on it
like a bee upon its winter store of honey, and without it I should
have died, as the bee must die. Moreover, now I understand that this
space of waiting was a preparation for those long centuries which
afterward I was doomed to pass in the tombs of Kôr. It was a training
and a discipline of the soul.
Thus forgotten of the world I brooded and endured, I who had thought
to rule the world.
So moon added itself to moon, and, still filled with a divine
patience, I abode within those temple walls till the appointed hour,
which I knew would dawn at last. Of Nectanebes I heard nothing; he had
vanished away--I doubted not to the doom which I had foreseen. Of
Amenartas, his daughter, I heard nothing, she also had vanished away,
as I supposed with him. Of Kallikrates, the soldier priest, I heard
nothing. Doubtless he was dead and that beauty of his had turned to
evil-odoured dust as my own must do, a thought from which I shrank.
Much I wondered why this man alone upon the earth should have stirred
my soul and awakened the longings of my woman's flesh. I knew not,
unless it was agreed that when the gates were passed I should meet him
in a world that lies beyond, if such there were. For from the
beginning I was sure that it had been laid upon me to lift up his
spirit to the level of my own, perchance because in some far-off star
or state I had sinned against it and him and dragged them down.
Indeed is not this the common lot of the great, that with toil and
tears and bitter disappointment they must strive to draw the spirits
of others to that high peak upon which themselves they stand? And
amongst all the sins of our vile condition, is there one blacker than
to cast back some soul that struggles toward the pure and good into
the seething depths of ill?
Thus in those days I thought of that lost Kallikrates whose lips alone
had touched my own. I thought, too, with a sad wonderment, how strange
it was that I to whose feet men had crept by scores, I the most
beautiful of women and the most learned, had been rejected, or at the
least turned from by this man, the favourer of another, who although
she was fair and bold of heart, still shone with a smaller light, as
does the pale moon when compared with the glory of the sun.
Indeed, now that all was over and done, as I believed, and that nought
remained of these fires of folly save a pinch of burnt-out ash, I
smiled to myself as I remembered them. Yet to tell truth, I smiled
sadly, who here alone at the dear feast of love which, to a woman,
means more than all other feasts, had been served with the cups of
defeat and shame by the grinning varlet, Destiny. Yet I was well
served, for what had I, Wisdom's Daughter, the vowed to eternal glory,
to do with such matters of our common flesh?
Oh! I was glad to have done with the gray-eyed Kallikrates, who could
wield a sword so manly-well in battle, and yet, when remorse took hold
of him, could pray with the best of priests. Now at least once more I
was the mistress of my own soul with leisure to shape it to the
likeness of the gods and, in those days of holy contemplation, truly
its wings beat against their bars, struggling to be free. Would that
they had burst them, but Fate had built that cage too strong.
At length news came to me, for Isis still had eyes and ears in Egypt
and all that these saw or heard I learned, news that Ochus, grown
timid or weary in his Persian palace, had determined once more to
drink the waters of the Nile, or perchance to check the accounts of
his satrap Sabaco whose sum of tribute had fallen off of late.
So he came with all his Eastern pomp and at last took up his abode in
the palace of Memphis within two bowshots of the temple where I dwelt.
The people received him with rejoicings; it was pitiful to see them
decking themselves and the streets with flowers, spreading branches of
palm for him to tread on, and flying banners from the lofty tops of
the fire-scorched pylons--slaves welcoming their torturer and tyrant
and grinning to hide the terror in their hearts. He came, and there
was festival throughout the great town as though Osiris had returned
to earth, companied by all the lesser gods.
Only in the temple of Isis there was none. No palm leaves decked its
stark and ancient walls, no bonfires burned within its courts, and no
lanterns hung in its window-places. Not thus would I, Ayesha, bow the
knee to Baal or sacrifice to Moloch, though it is true that some of my
servants looked askance when I forbade it and asked who would protect
us from the wrath of the King of kings because of this neglect of his
command.
"The goddess will protect us," I answered, "or if she does not, I
will," and sent them to their tasks.
On the second night after the coming of Ochus, Bagoas waited on me and
I commanded that he should enter, but alone. So his Eastern rabble of
gorgeous servitors was turned back from the gates and he came in
unattended, splendid in gold-embroidered silk and jewels. Where he had
left me, there I received him, seated veiled in the chair of state
before the alabaster statue of the goddess, at the entrance to the
outer sanctuary that overlooked the great hall.
"Hail! Bagoas," I said, "how goes it with you? Has that amulet of
power which I gave to you protected you from harm?"
"Prophetess," he answered, bowing, "it has protected me. It has lifted
me up so that now, save for the King of kings, my master most august,"
he added with a sneer in every word, "I am now the greatest one in the
whole world. I give life, I decree death. I lift up, I cast down;
satraps and councillors crawl about my feet; generals beg my favour;
gold is showered upon me. Yea, I might build my house of gold. There
is nought left for me to desire beneath the sun."
"Except certain things to which, thanks to the cruelty of the King of
kings, or those who went before him, you cannot attain? For example,
children to inherit all this glory and all this gold, Bagoas, although
you live among so many of those who might be mothers."
He heard, and his face, that I noted had grown thinner and more fierce
since last I saw him, became like to that of the devil.
"Prophetess," he hissed, "surely you are one who knows how to pour
acid into an open wound."
"That thereby it may be cleansed, Bagoas."
"Yet your words are true," he went on, unheeding. "All this splendour,
all this wealth and power I would give, and gladly, to be as my
fathers were before me, gently bred but humbly owners of a patch of
land between Thebes and Philæ. There they sat for a score of
generations with their women and their children. But where, thanks to
the Persians, are _my_ women and _my_ children? In the western cliff
yonder there is a sepulchre. In the chapel of that sepulchre above the
coffins of those who lie beneath is an image of him who dug it. He
lived some fourteen hundred years ago in the days of Aahmes, he who
won back Egypt from the Hyksos kings, the invaders who held it as the
Persians do to-day. For he was one of the captains of the troops of
Aahmes who, when he conquered, gave him that patch of land in guerdon
for his service."
Here Bagoas paused like to one overwhelmed by unhappy memories, then
continued,
"From age to age, Prophetess, it has been the custom for the children
of the children of this soldier upon a certain day to make offerings
to that statue, wherein, as we hold, dwells the _Ka_ of him whose face
and form it pictures; to set a golden crown, that of Osiris, upon its
head, to wind a golden chain about its neck; to give it food, to give
it flowers. Such is the sacred duty, from generation to generation, of
the descendants of that captain who served Aahmes and helped to free
Egypt from the barbarian foe. Myself I have fulfilled that duty, aye,
when Ochus the Destroyer first came to Memphis, I travelled up Nile
and placed the crown upon the head and wound the chain about the neck,
and offered the flowers and the food. But, Prophetess, of this blood I
am the last, for because of my beauty as a child the Persian seized me
and made of me a dry tree, so that never again will there be one to
make offering in the tomb of my forefather, the captain of Aahmes, or
to read the story of his deeds that fourteen hundred years ago, while
yet living, he caused to be recorded upon his funeral tablet."
I heard and laughed.
"A common tale," I said, "a very common tale in Egypt to-day, the
Egypt of the Persians, as doubtless it was long ago in the Egypt of
the Hyksos. But this ancestor of yours was a man who smote, or helped
to smite, the Hyksos and lived to write his glorious deeds on stone to
be an example to those who came after him. Well, the story is
finished, is it not? Indeed I wonder that the glorious Bagoas, slave
of the Persian, Bagoas with his pomp and pleasures, thinks fit to
waste time upon the tale of a forgotten warrior who in his hour struck
for freedom. What are the flowers and the humble scents which for more
than a thousand years have been offered to the spirit of that warrior,
but now can never be offered again since there are none of his blood
left to bring them, compared to the priceless balms, the jewels and
the gold, that daily are poured upon the feet of Bagoas, the Chief
Eunuch and Counsellor of the King of kings, who, did he know of those
holy ones that sleep in the tomb of the race of Bagoas, doubtless
would drag them out and cause Bagoas, the last of its blood, to fire
them, that he might see a merry blaze? That would be a good sport for
the King of kings, to force the great Bagoas to burn his ancestors and
on their bones to cook a royal meal, as he forced the priests of Ptah
to broil Apis for his feast."
The mighty Bagoas heard and understood me, as I could see well, for at
every word he winced like a high-bred steed beneath the whip.
"Cease," he said hoarsely, "cease! I can bear no more. Why do you rub
sand into my eyes, Prophetess?"
"To clear away their rheum that they may see the better, Bagoas. But
let us be done with the tale of that honourable, long-lost ancestor of
yours to whose spirit no more offerings will be made, and tell me of
the wonders of the great estate of you in whom runs his blood, the
last drops of it, that soon will be sucked up in the sands of Death.
Seal that sepulchre, Bagoas, but first set it in another writing,
graven on a tablet of emerald or gold, telling how he who hallowed it
was by the gods given the glory of being the far forefather of Bagoas,
Chief Eunuch of the King of kings, Ochus, who burned the shrines of
that forefather's gods."
"Cease, cease!" he moaned. "The hour is at hand."
"What hour, Bagoas?"
"The hour of vengeance which I swore to Isis."
"Does the Egyptian worshipper of the Persian holy Fire remember his
vows to Isis? Be plain, Bagoas."
"Hearken, Prophetess. During all these years I have been seeking
opportunity. Now of a sudden I see it to my hand. A thought came to me
whilst you talked of the captain of Aahmes to whom no more of his
blood can make offerings."
"Speak it, then, Bagoas."
"Prophetess, the King of kings is wrath with you, because alone of all
the great places in Memphis, on the temple of Isis no welcoming
banners hang to greet him at his royal coming and because no priest or
priestess of Isis spread flowers before his conquering feet. So wrath
is he that, were it not for his oath, which he fears to break, he
would pull this sanctuary stone from stone, slaughter its priests, and
give its priestesses to the soldiers."
"Is it so?" I asked indifferently.
"Aye, Prophetess. But by that oath you are saved, for ever I keep it
before his mind and warn him of the fate of those who do violence to
the Queen of Heaven. Only this morning I did this while he stood
staring at these unbannered walls and muttered vengeance."
"And what said he then, Bagoas?"
"He laughed and answered that he would do the goddess not violence,
but honour, thus. On the third night from this, the night of full
moon, he will make a great feast in the inner court of this temple. At
that feast the King of kings and his women will sit upon a platform
laid over the coffins of the royalties of Egypt dragged from their
sepulchres, so that its kings and queens may be beneath his feet. This
platform will be supported by the statues of the gods of Egypt which
once they worshipped. In front of it will burn the holy Fire of Persia
and that fire will be fed with the mortal remnants of priests and
priestesses of those Egyptian gods. Ochus the king will be clad in the
robes of Osiris, and at the end of the feast from behind her
consecrated statue, that before which we sit, the goddess herself,
dressed in the robes of Isis and wearing the holy emblems upon her
head, will appear veiled, led by priestesses or by royal Persian
women. _You_ will be that goddess, Prophetess."
"And then?" I asked.
"Then you will be brought up on to the platform and there this new
Osiris will unveil you, embracing you as his wife in welcome before
all that company. This he will do to make a mock of you because he
believes you to be an ancient woman who goes veiled to hide her
baldness and her wrinkles, for so the rumour runs among the Persians."
Now when I, Ayesha, heard these horrible words and my heart understood
the height and depth of the sacrilege which this mad king would dare
and all that it might mean to me, I trembled; yes, the bones seemed to
melt within me so that almost I fell from the throne whereon I sat.
Yet gathering up my strength I asked,
"Is this all, Bagoas?"
"Nay. At that feast, Prophetess, I myself as Vizier and the head of
the world under him, must serve Ochus as his cup-bearer. While the
priests of Osiris and the priestesses of Isis sing the ancient chants
of the awakening of Osiris from the tomb and of his reunion with Isis
the Wife Divine, it will be my part to hand the jewelled goblet filled
with the holy wine to Osiris-Ochus, King of Heaven and Earth. From it
he will drink the marriage draught, and having drunk, will pour the
dregs of the goblet upon your feet, or for aught I know will cast them
in your face. Nay, I forgot. First the Persian women of the royal
household will strip the coverings from you that Osiris may see his
long-lost bride and the company may have sport, jeering at her
withered age."
"And if she should prove to remain unwithered, if even she should
chance to be passing fair, what then, Bagoas?"
"Then perchance, Prophetess, it is in the mind of Ochus to add Isis to
the number of his queens, thinking thus to gain the favour of the
Egyptians, if not of their gods. Oh! Prophetess, you are very wise, as
all know, yet once your foot slipped--or rather your hand slipped,
when in bygone days you stretched it out to touch the sceptre of the
King of kings. Ochus has often spoken of the beauty of that hand and
arm, and of how, more than all things, he desired to see the face
above them and the form of which they are a part. Perchance,
Prophetess, that is why he plans all this mummery."
"And if I refuse to act this play, what then, Bagoas?"
"Then since the command is lawful and designed to honour the goddess,
the Great King's oath is at an end. Then the temple of Isis will be
sacked and burned like others, then her priests will be murdered
unless they make offerings to the holy Fire, and her priestesses be
enslaved or find a home in the soldiers' tents or Persian households."
"Bagoas," I said, rising and standing over him, "know that the Curse
of Isis hovers about your head. Show me a path out of this trouble or
you die--not to-morrow or next year, but at once. How, it matters not,
still you die; and for the rest, are the Sidonians the only ones who
can fire their temples and perish in them?"
He cringed before me after the fashion of his unhappy kind, then
answered,
"I waited for such words, Prophetess, and had I not been prepared
against them, never would I have entered these gates alone. Did I not
tell you that at this feast I shall be the King's cup-bearer? Now," he
went on in a whisper, "I add that his own physician, who is in my pay,
will mix the marriage wine, that his life is in the hollow of my hand;
that the guards and captains are my servants; that the great lords are
sworn to me, and that the hour for which I have waited through long
years has come at last. Lady, you are not the only one who desires
vengeance upon Ochus."
"Fine words," I said. "But how know I that they will be fulfilled? In
Egypt Bagoas is called the King's Liar."
"I swear it by Isis, and if I fail you, may the Devourer take my
soul."
"And I, who am her Mouth and Oracle, swear by Isis that if you fail me
I will take your blood. Aye, though I die, a thousand will live on to
avenge me, and the dagger or the shaft of one of them shall reach your
heart at last. Or if they miss their aim then the goddess herself will
smite."
"I know it, Prophetess, and I will not fail. After drinking of that
cup sleep will fall upon the King of kings; yes, the new Osiris will
return to his tomb and sleep sound, but _not in the arms of Isis_."
Then for a while there was silence between us, till at length I
motioned to him to begone.
The night of the feast came and all was prepared. I did not trust
Bagoas and therefore I made a plan, a splendid and terrible plan. I
determined to offer all those feasters, yes, the King of kings with
his women, his generals, his chamberlains, his councillors, and his
company, as one vast sacrifice to the outraged gods of Egypt, and with
them if need were, myself and my servants, to guide them upon the road
to hell.
Beneath that hall of the temple which Ochus had appointed for the
feast was a vast vault for the storage of oil and fuel against times
of want or tumult. This vault, as it chanced, was full to the roof,
since in those troublous days I never knew from moon to moon when the
place might be besieged. Also in it was much prepared papyrus with
many written rolls that for centuries had been hidden there, great
weight of bitumen such as the embalmers use, a stack of coffins
prepared by the living to receive their bodies at the end; and lastly
hundreds of bundles of dried reeds that served to strew the courts.
What more was needed, save to open the air shafts to the hall above
that the flames might find full play, and to set in the vault one who
could be trusted with a lamp of which the light was hidden, commanded
at a certain signal to cast it among the oil-soaked reeds and fly?
As it chanced such an instrument was to my hand, an old,
fierce-hearted woman in whom ran royal blood, that for hard on seventy
years had served as priestess of this temple.
That very night I summoned the priests and priestesses who remained
and in the sanctuary under the wings of Isis, I told them all: told
them how I purposed to sweep this human dirt of Persians with the red
besom of destruction out of the company of the living over the edge of
the world into the Avenger's everlasting jaws.
This band of the faithful hearkened and bowed their cowled heads. Then
the first of them, an old priest, asked,
"Is it decreed that we must eat fire with these swine? If so, we are
ready."
"Nay," I answered, "the secret passage that runs from the back of the
sanctuary of the ruined temple of Osiris will be unbarred, that
passage by which in the old days the holy effigy of Osiris was brought
at the great festival of the Resurrection to be laid upon the breast
of Isis. By this passage at the first sign of fire, you must flee, as
I will if I may. But if I come not you will know that the goddess has
called me. At the water-steps of the temple of Osiris boats will be
waiting manned by brothers of our faith. In the darkness and the
tumult, those boats will pass down Nile to the secret shrine that is
called _Isis-among-the-Reeds_, where once, the legend tells, the
goddess found the heart of Osiris hidden there by Typhon, the shrine
upon the isle that none dare visit, no, not even the Persians, because
it is guarded by the ghosts of the dead, or by spirits sent from the
Under-world fashioned like flames of fire. Thither fly and there lie
hid until the word of Isis comes to you, as come it will."
Again they bowed their cowled heads in the gloomy sanctuary lit by a
single lamp. Then the old priest said,
"Great is the deed that we shall do, and worthy. Surely the song of it
shall echo through all the courts of Heaven and the gods themselves
shall crown our brows with splendour. Yet ere it is decreed, O
Prophetess inspired, let us seek a sign from the Queen immortal that
such is her command."
"Aye," I answered, "let us seek a sign."
So there in the half darkness we chanted the mystic ritual, hand in
hand before the goddess we chanted it, bowing and swaying, weeping and
praying, demanding that a sign be given to us who were prepared to die
that her splendour might shine forth as a star.
Yet no sign came.
"O Oracle inspired," said the old priest, "it is not enough. Yet in
your heart are locked the unutterable Words, the Words of Power, the
Words of the Opening of the Mouth Divine, that may not be spoken save
at the last extreme. Are not these words known to you, the Oracle
inspired?"
"They are known to me," I answered. "From Noot I had them under the
Seven Oaths when I was ordained prophetess; yea, under the Seven
Curses if those words should be used unworthily, the seven dreadful
curses, deer-footed, snake-headed, lion-maned with red fire, that
shall hunt the betrayer's soul from star to star, till the black vault
of space falls in and buries Time. Kneel now and bow your heads and
stop your ears till they be spoken. Then open your ears and hearken."
They knelt in a double row and I, I the Oracle, clothed in the might
of my Queen, I dared to draw near to her holy effigy gleaming white
above us in the darkness of the shrine. Yes, this I dared, not knowing
what would chance. I took the jewelled _sistrum_ of my office; I laid
it upon the lips of the goddess, I shook it till it chimed before her
face, I clasped her feet and kissed them.
Then I rose and into her ear I whispered the dreadful Words of Power,
which even now, after so many ages, I dare not so much as shape in the
halls of memory. I whispered them and returning to my company of
kneeling worshippers, I motioned to them to unstop their ears and
folding my arms upon my breast, I waited with downcast eyes.
Presently there was a stir in that sanctuary as of beating wings; a
cold air blew upon us; then a voice spoke, the very voice of Noot my
Master, Noot, the holy priest of priests. Said the voice:
"_Fulfil! It is decreed. Fulfil and fear not!_"
"Ye have heard," I said.
"We have heard," they answered.
"Whose voice did ye hear?" I asked.
"The voice of Noot, the holy priest of priests who has gone from us,"
they answered.
"Is it enough?" I asked.
"It is enough," they answered.
Then I departed rejoicing, who knew by this sign that Noot, who spoke
with his human voice, still lived upon the earth, and that through him
it had pleased Heaven to utter its decree.