The Truth and the Temptation
Not that day but on the morrow Kallikrates asked audience of me.
Learning that he was alone, I received him in my private chamber and
bade him be seated. He obeyed, and for awhile I watched him, the light
from the window-place falling upon his golden head and upon his
shining armour, battered with storm and war. For now he was clad in
his soldier's garb, perchance the very same that years ago he had worn
on board the _Hapi_, and thus attired looked like a king of men.
"The lady Amenartas is somewhat sick after all our journeyings," he
said, "I think that the disorder which is common on the coast lands
has fallen upon her, since her face is flushed and her hands are hot.
Therefore she cannot wait upon you, Prophetess. Yet she bids me thank
you for your hospitality, and say that she asks your pardon for any
bitter words she may have spoken yesterday, since these sprang, not
from her heart, but from a fever burning in her blood."
"It is granted. I know this sickness though myself I have been
protected from it, and will send her medicine and with it a skilled
woman to wait upon her. Bid her not to fear; it is seldom dangerous.
Now, my guest Kallikrates, if it pleases you, let me hear your story;
you must have much to tell since we parted in the sanctuary at
Memphis. Then, you will remember, your purpose was to accompany the
holy Noot upon his mission, because you thought it best for reasons of
your own to depart from Memphis for awhile. Yet I think it was in your
mind to go alone, not accompanied by that royal lady who is your
companion."
"This is true, Prophetess," he answered heavily, "nor did I know that
the lady of whom you speak was aboard the _Hapi_ until, to escape
capture at the hands of the Persians, we had fled from the Nile out
toward the open sea."
"I understand, Kallikrates, nor can it be denied that Fate dealt
hardly, or perchance I should say kindly, with you when it caused the
lady Amenartas to embark in error upon the ship _Hapi_, which sailed
down Nile, instead of that of her father, Nectanebes, which set its
course for Thebes and Ethiopia."
"Mock me not, Child of Wisdom. As the lady Amenartas would tell you to
your face, she knew well enough upon what ship she sailed, though I
knew nothing who believed that I had said farewell to her for ever.
Aye, abandoning her hope of royalty and all else, and taking every
risk, she embarked upon the _Hapi_, setting some other woman tricked
out to her likeness to fill her place awhile among the company of
Nectanebes."
"That at least was bold, and I love courage, Kallikrates. Yet--what
was her purpose?"
"Is that a question that you should ask me, Lady, who know well that
great-hearted women will dare much for love?"
"Whether I should ask or not, at least I have the answer to my
question, Kallikrates. Of a truth, you should love and honour one who
for your sake abandoned all to win what she thought more than all,
even at the cost of her own shame and the ruin of your soul."
"I do love and honour her," he answered hoarsely. "When she was still
a child I loved her and because of that love I slew my brother,
believing that on reaching womanhood she had come to favour him,
which, it seems, she did only to draw me closer to her."
"It would appear, Kallikrates, that this lady brings no good fortune
to your race, since first she works the death of one of you, making a
murderer of his own brother, and then of that brother fashions an
apostate to his faith, yea, a traitor accursed of God and man."
"It is so," he said humbly. "Yet she loves me much, so much that
whether I will it or not, I must love her, since if the woman loves
enough what can the man do but follow on the path she leads? Tell me,
Prophetess, you who are wise, had you been a man and sat in my place
there upon the ship _Hapi_, which is a narrow prison, what would you
have done, being a man I say--as I am?"
"Perhaps just what you did, Kallikrates, and therefore have become
accursed, as you are, Kallikrates, seeing that the lady was sweet and
loving, and that man must remain man however great the oaths he has
sworn to goddesses who do not throw their arms about him or kiss him
on the lips."
"Once I thought that a goddess did kiss me on the lips, Oracle of
Isis, and the memory of that kiss is sweet and holy."
"Is it so?" I answered. "Well, since you are no more of our communion,
I may tell you now that in the shrine at Philæ _I_ played the part of
the goddess and gave that ceremonial kiss."
Now he stared at me, reddening, then muttered,
"Always I guessed it who could not quite believe that a goddess would
kiss so sweetly," and again he started like one who would ask a
question that his lips do not dare to frame.
I remained silent, watching him, till presently he broke out,
"You tell me that I am accursed, Priestess. Tell me also why Isis is
so wrath with me?"
"Did you not swear yourself to her alone and break your oath,
Kallikrates? Do you not know that if women can be jealous, goddesses
who are set far above them can be more greatly so of those who are
bound to them in the mystic marriage? Have you not heard that to turn
from them to a daughter of man is to offer them the most terrible of
insults?"
"Isis herself was wed to Osiris, Prophetess, and I have heard of
priests and priestesses who served her who were also wed."
"Perchance, Kallikrates, after absolution given by one upon whom
authority is conferred to strain vows for some high end. But who gave
you authority to marry, you, who indeed are not married but only a
woman's lover? Did you mayhap seek it from the holy Noot upon the ship
_Hapi_?"
"Nay," he answered, "that thought never came to me. Or if it came I
believed that he would but heap curses upon me, or mayhap call down
the vengeance of Isis upon another. You have heard, Prophetess, of
what fate sometimes awaits those who tempt the feet of priests or
priestesses from the strait path of their vows."
"Aye, Kallikrates, they die by fire, or they starve, or they perish
shut up in some narrow, airless hole; each worship works its own
vengeance for that unmeasured crime. Yet you were foolish not to make
your prayer of Noot, by whom alone it could be granted, since who
knows what he would have answered."
"Is it too late?" he asked eagerly. "For every sin there is
forgiveness, why not for mine? Only who could grant it; since now I
know not where to look for Noot, if indeed he lives."
"For every sin there is forgiveness, Kallikrates, but only at a price.
First the sin itself must be laid upon the altar as a sacrifice. For
dead sins there may be forgiveness; for those that live and are
continued there is none, but only stripe added to stripe and remorse
piled upon remorse. As for Noot it chances that he does live and not
so far away. Would you lay your case before him and hear his
judgment?"
"I do not know," he answered slowly. "Hearken, Child of Wisdom. I am
in a strange strait. I love this lady with my body and am bound to
her, but it is not so with my spirit. Our souls, I think, are far
apart. Oh! bear me witness that my heart is set on higher things; it
would sail into far seas unvisited of man, but always there is this
anchor of the flesh chaining it to its native shore. Amenartas does
not think thus, she loves to lie bound in life's pleasant harbour, or
to wander to its green banks, wafted thither by the fitful breath of
common things, there to deck her brow with the wreaths of passion.
"'Let Heaven be!' she says, 'here is the happy earth beneath our feet,
and round us murmur the waters of delight and I am very beautiful and
I love you well. If there be gods and they are vengeful, at least
their hour is not yet. This moment is ours to enjoy and to our lips it
holds a glorious cup. If all the wine be drunk and the cup is
shattered, at least there will remain with us their memories. What are
these gods whom you seek so madly? What do they give to man save many
curses--deaths and separations, sicknesses and sorrows, adding to
these promises of woe to follow when they have worked their worst on
earth? Are there any gods save those that man fashions from his own
terrors? man who will not be content with Nature's food, but needs
must sour it with an alien poison, and even when the sun shines round
him, shivers in some cold shadow that superstition casts upon his
heart.'
"Thus she reasons, and such ever were her arguments."
"Tell me, Kallikrates, has any child been born to you?"
"Aye, one, a very lovely child; he died of hardships that caused his
mother's milk to fail."
"And when the royal Amenartas looked upon him dead, did she still
reason in this fashion, saying that there are no gods and for man
there is no hope beyond the grave?"
"Not altogether, since she cursed the gods, and who curse that in
which they do not believe? Also I remember that she wept and prayed
those gods to give him back to her while his little heart still beat,
and like a moth new-crept from its chrysalis, he yet hung to the edge
of the world, drying his soul's crinkled wings in the dawning lights
of Heaven. But afterward she forgot and made sacrifice to her familiar
Spirit, asking it to send her another child, which prayer she tells me
is in the way of fulfilment."
"So Amenartas practices magic like her father Nectanebes?"
"Aye, Lady, and it would seem not without avail, though of this matter
of dealing with dæmons I neither know nor want to know anything. I
think it comes to her with her Egyptian blood, also that the Pharaoh
taught her these arts in her childhood, and what is learnt then is
never quite forgotten. At least I know that when we have been in
trouble or in danger during our long wanderings, with secret rites
upon which I do not pry, she calls upon some Familiar and that
thereafter, in this way or in that, our pathway has been straightened.
Indeed she did this just before Philo found us starving."
"As the path of your babe was straightened from this world to the
next, Kallikrates; as the devious path of Pharaoh Nectanebes was
straightened to a road which led from the throne of Egypt--but pray
the lady Amenartas to ask of her dæmon whither it led, since here my
wisdom fails me and I am not sure. Well, we have spoken long and so
stands the case, one that might puzzle Thoth himself. Is it your
pleasure, Kallikrates, to visit the divine Noot and take his counsel
upon all these matters? I think that he alone upon the earth can give
you guidance in them. Yet do as you will."
Kallikrates thought a while brooding, then he answered,
"Yes, it is my pleasure. When Amenartas is recovered of her sickness,
we will go."
"The holy Noot is very ancient and the royal Amenartas may be sick for
a long while. Therefore might it be wise to go at once, Kallikrates."
"Nay, Prophetess, I cannot. Amenartas has strange fancies and will not
be left alone; she thinks that she may be poisoned; indeed that
already she has tasted poison."
"Then let her make richer sacrifices to her dæmon and pray him to
protect her. Certainly they will not be without avail since I can
swear that here in Kôr no poison shall pass her lips, nor any harm
come to her--save perchance from those gods whom she denies. Farewell,
Kallikrates."
He bowed to me humbly and turned to go, then after a step or two came
back and said,
"The gods! The gods! who for you and me in their sum are one god,
Isis, Queen of Heaven. Tell me now, I pray you that are named Wisdom's
Daughter, who and what is Isis?"
I thought a while since the question was a great one, a problem that
as yet I had never tried to solve in words. Then I answered,
"By my soul I do not know. East and west and north and south, men in
their millions worship this god or that. Yet is there one among them
who save in dreams or ecstasies has ever seen his god, or if he tries
to fashion him out before his mortal eyes, can do more than carve some
effigy of wood or stone?"
Then I pointed to the veiled statue of Truth behind me, saying,
"Lo! there is Isis, a beauteous thing with a hidden face ruling o'er
the world. She is one of Divinity's thousand forms. Aye, she is its
essence, frozen to the shape we know in this world's icy air, and
having a countenance chiselled differently from age to age by the
changeful thought of man. She lives in every soul, yet in no two souls
is she the same. She is not, yet eternally she is. Invisible,
intangible; ever pursued and ever fleeing; never seen and never
handled, yet she answers prayer and her throne is not in the high
heavens but in the heart of every creature that draws the breath of
life. One day we shall behold her and not know her. Yet she will know
us. Such is Isis: formless, yet in every form; dead, yet living in all
that breathes; a priest-bred phantasy, yet the one great truth."
"If Isis be thus, what of the world's other gods?"
"They all are Isis and Isis is them all. The thousand gods men worship
are but one god wearing many faces. Or rather they are two gods, the
god of good and the god of evil; Horus and Typhon who war continually
for the souls of things created by that Divine, unseen, unknown yet
eternally existent, who reigns beyond the stars alone in fearful glory
and from his nameless habitation looks down both on gods and men, the
puppets of his hands; on the rolling worlds that bear them, on the
seas of space between and on the infusing spirit whose operation is
the breath of life. So it was in the beginning, is now and shall be
eternally. At least, Kallikrates, thus I have been taught by the
wisdom of Noot my Master, and following his path, thus my searching
soul has learned. Again farewell."
He looked at me muttering,
"Child of Isis, oh! well-named Child of Isis, and Wisdom's Daughter!"
and there was awe in his eyes and voice.
Now as ever he is afraid of me, I thought to myself, and how can a man
come to love that of which he is afraid, since love and fear are
opposites and there is no bridge between them. Oh! why did I speak to
him of these high things which as yet his spirit can scarce weigh or
understand? Perhaps because I am so lonely and having naught into
which I can pour my mind, no vase of gold and alabaster, my deep
o'erflowing thought must fill the first coarse cup of clay that chance
offers to my hand, like to the storing of priceless wine in some tarry
bottle which it will burst.
Surely I should learn a lesson from yonder Amenartas who knows well
how to deal with such a one as he; one who still stands at thought's
beginnings, looking dismayed at the steep upward path studded with
sharp stones, wreathed in cruel thorns, strewn with quicksands and
with pitfalls, and bordered by precipices from whose gulfs there is no
return, that path which his feet long to tread yet dare not, lacking
any guide.
She leads him by a different road, the road of mortal passion, bidding
him to cease from staring at the stars; bidding him weave crowns of
its heavy-scented flowers to set upon her brow and his. She prattles
to him of daily doings, of the joy of yesterday and the promise of
to-morrow, aye, even of the food he eats. And all the time she twists
the spells her father taught her to strong ropes of charm, purposing
by these to tie him to her everlastingly. Aye, like a gilded spider,
that black-browed, bounteous-breasted witch meshes him in her magic
web, binding him fast and yet more fast, till at length he lies there
staring at her stirless as a mummy in its wrappings.
Thus I mused, clothing my musings finely yet knowing in my heart that
what prompted them was the vilest of all causes and the most common,
naught indeed but the jealousy of one woman of another. For now I knew
the truth, it could no more be hidden, no longer could I blind my
eyes, for it had come home to me while he told me his sad story. I
loved this man; yes, and had always loved him since first I looked
upon him far away at Philæ, or certainly since, veiled in the
wrappings of the goddess, I had yielded to Nature's promptings and
kissed him upon the lips.
Oh! I had beaten down that truth, I had buried it deep, but now it
arose like a ghost from the grave and frightened me with its stern,
immortal eyes. I loved this man and must always love him and no other,
and he--he feared yet adored me, as some high spirit is adored at its
appearing--but love me he did not who was set so far above him.
Yes, I was jealous, if the great can be truly jealous of that which is
small, for though we were wide apart as continent from continent, yet
we both were women desirous of one man. With my spirit I was not
jealous, for that I knew must conquer in the end, being so strong, so
armoured against all the shafts of mortal change. Yet with my flesh I
was jealous. He told me Amenartas had borne a son to him; that she
hoped to bear another son, and--I too yearned to be the mother of his
son. For is it not true that by a fixed unchanging law, whereas the
man loves the woman for herself, the woman loves the man most of all
because he may become the father of her child, and thus by the marvel
of creation, even in the dust preserve her from perpetual death?
So, so, let me think. I loved this man and would take him for myself
and would lift him up and would make him my equal, if that could ever
be, and would teach him glorious things, and would show him the secret
light that burned within my heart, and would guide him onward by the
rays of my own peculiar star. How could it be brought about? Yonder
woman, wrapped round with the twice-dipped Tyrian purple of kings,
which purple, be it admitted, she wore well although now she lacked a
throne whereon to drape it, thought in her folly that I had poisoned
or would poison her. Yes, she knew Ayesha so little that she believed
that like a Persian eunuch she would stoop to call deadly venom to her
aid and thereby rid her of a rival. Never! If I could not win by my
own strength in a fair fight for favour, then let me fail, who
deserved defeat. Were her life so utterly in my hands that I could
destroy it with a wish, that wish would never form itself within my
mind, and certainly never shape itself to deeds.
What then could be done? She was right. I began to grow old; Time's
acid was gnawing at me so that my beauty was no more what it had been.
Aye, I grew spare and old, while on her still shone the full glory of
her womanhood. _If I would conquer I must cease from growing old!_
The Fire of Life! Ah! that Fire of Life which gave, it was said, the
gift of undying days and of perfect youth and loveliness such as
Aphrodite herself might envy. Who said so? Noot the Master who knew
all things. Yet Noot had never entered into that fire, therefore how
did he know, unless it were by revelation? At least he had forbidden
me to taste its cup, perhaps because he was sure that it would slay me
whom he desired to be his successor and to establish here a great
kingdom whereof the people should accept Isis as their god.
Still the story might be true, for otherwise why did Noot sit in that
melancholy hermitage watching the pathway to the Fire? There had been
other tales of the same sort told in the world. Thus the old Chaldean
legend spoke of a Tree of Life that grew in a certain garden whence
the parents of mankind were driven lest they should eat of it and
become immortal, which legend was expounded to me more fully by the
Jewish rabbis in Jerusalem, and afterward by Holly the learned man.
Therefore it seemed that there was a Tree of Life, or a Fire of Life,
jealously guarded of the gods lest the children of men should become
their equals. And I, I knew where that Tree grew, or rather where that
Fire burned. Yet Noot forbade it to me, and could I disobey Noot my
Master, Noot the half divine? Well, Noot was very old and near his
end, and when he died, I, by his own appointment, should be the
guardian of the Fire, and may not a guardian taste of that he guards?
The gods decreed otherwise, he said. Mayhap, but what if in this
matter where I had so much to gain, I chose to match myself against
the gods? If the gods give knowledge, can they be wrath with those who
use it? Yet if they are wrath--well, let them be wrath and set their
worst against my best. Sometimes I grew weary of the gods and all the
fantastical decrees which they--or their priests--heaped upon the
heads of the sufferers of this earth. Were not life's curse and
death's doom enough to satisfy their appetites, that they must load
the toilful days between with so much of the lead of misery, denying
this, denying that; strowing the path of men with spikes and crowning
their heads with thorns?
If Noot's tale were true, what then? I should enter the Fire, I should
emerge ever-glorious, beauteous beyond imagining, and ever young,
having left death far behind me. I should need but to wait a while
until Amenartas died, and when she was dead, or having grown weary of
dull life in an ancient place, had departed to seek some other. Nay,
for then in the first case Kallikrates also would be dead or ancient,
and in the second, certainly she would take him with her.
Ah! now I had it; if I entered the Fire and came forth unharmed,
Kallikrates must enter it after me, for then we should be fitly mated,
even if we must wait until a little pinch of the sand of time had run
out from between our fingers. Yet supposing that Amenartas chose to
enter it also, as being so fond of magic and so determined to cling to
that which she had won, perchance she might do, would my case be
bettered? The play would be set upon a larger stage, that is all.
Well, should I not be the Guardian of the Fire and would it not be in
my hand to determine who should taste or who should be denied its
glories? Let that matter decide itself when the hour came, since the
decision would be such as I and not as Amenartas willed.
Here then was my plan. And yet--one thought more. What if the Fire
slew? If so, had I found life so sweet that I should be afraid to die,
as in any case within some few years die I must? Let me take my chance
of death who was ready to fade away into a land where Kallikrates and
Amenartas and all earthly miseries and all baulked desires and
ambitions, and all hopes and fears and sufferings must be forgot. Only
would they be forgot? Perchance there they might be remembered and
pierce the soul eternally with an even keener edge. Noot believed that
we were made of an immortal stuff, and so at heart did I. It must be
risked. What is life but a long risk, and why should we fear to add to
its tremendous count? I at least did not fear.
So all was summed up and balanced. Yet from my reckoning I left out
the largest charge, that which Fate makes against those who play at
dice with the Unknown. The gods may smile at courage and pass a
venture by, but who can tell how blind Fate will avenge the forcing of
his rule decreed and the rape of knowledge from his secret store?
This problem I forgot, I who was doomed to learn its answer.