THE CAT OF BUBASTES.
For several days, upon paying their morning visit to the birds and
other pets in the inclosure in the garden, Chebron and Mysa had
observed an unusual timidity among them. The wildfowl, instead of
advancing to meet them with demonstrations of welcome, remained close
among the reeds, and even the ibis did not respond at once to their
call.
“They must have been alarmed at something,” Chebron said the third
morning. “Some bird of prey must have been swooping down upon them.
See here, there are several feathers scattered about, and some of them
are stained with blood. Look at that pretty drake that was brought to
us by the merchants in trade with the far East. Its mate is missing.
It may be a hawk or some creature of the weasel tribe. At any rate, we
must try to put a stop to it. This is the third morning that we have
noticed the change in the behavior of the birds. Doubtless three of
them have been carried off. Amuba and I will watch to-morrow with our
bows and arrows and see if we cannot put an end to the marauder. If
this goes on we shall lose all our pets.”
Upon the following morning Chebron and Amuba went down to the
inclosure soon after daybreak, and concealing themselves in some
shrubs waited for the appearance of the intruder. The ducks were
splashing about in the pond, evidently forgetful of their fright of
the day before; and as soon as the sun was up the dogs came out of
their house and threw themselves down on a spot where his rays could
fall upon them, while the cats sat and cleaned themselves on a ledge
behind a lattice, for they were only allowed to run about in the
inclosure when some one was there to prevent their interference with
birds.
For an hour there was no sign of an enemy. Then one of the birds gave
a sudden cry of alarm, and there was a sudden flutter as all rushed to
shelter among the reeds; but before the last could get within cover a
dark object shot down from above. There was a frightened cry and a
violent flapping as a large hawk suddenly seized one of the waterfowl
and struck it to the ground. In an instant the watchers rose to their
feet, and as the hawk rose with its prey in its talons they shot their
arrows almost simultaneously. Amuba’s arrow struck the hawk between
the wings, and the creature fell dead still clutching its prey.
Chebron’s arrow was equally well aimed, but it struck a twig which
deflected its course and it flew wide of the mark.
Amuba gave a shout of triumph and leaped out from among the bushes.
But he paused and turned as an exclamation of alarm broke from
Chebron. To his astonishment, he saw a look of horror on his
companion’s face. His bow was still outstretched, and he stood as if
petrified.
“What’s the matter, Chebron?” Amuba exclaimed. “What has happened? Has
a deadly snake bit you? What is it, Chebron?”
“Do you not see?” Chebron said in a low voice.
“I see nothing,” Amuba replied, looking round, and at the same time
putting another arrow into his bowstring ready to repel the attack of
some dangerous creature. “Where is it? I can see nothing.”
“My arrow; it glanced off a twig and entered there; I saw one of the
cats fall. I must have killed it.”
Two years before Amuba would have laughed at the horror which
Chebron’s face expressed at the accident of shooting a cat, but he had
been long enough in Egypt to know how serious were the consequences of
such an act. Better by far that Chebron’s arrow had lodged in the
heart of a man. In that case an explanation of the manner in which the
accident had occurred, a compensation to the relatives of the slain,
and an expiatory offering at one of the temples would have been deemed
sufficient to purge him from the offense; but to kill a cat, even by
accident, was the most unpardonable offense an Egyptian could commit,
and the offender would assuredly be torn to pieces by the mob. Knowing
this, he realized at once the terrible import of Chebron’s words.
For a moment he felt almost as much stunned as Chebron himself, but he
quickly recovered his presence of mind.
“There is only one thing to be done, Chebron; we must dig a hole and
bury it at once. I will run and fetch a hoe.”
Throwing down his bow and arrows he ran to the little shed at the
other end of the garden where the implements were kept, bidding a
careless good-morning to the men who were already at work there. He
soon rejoined Chebron, who had not moved from the spot from which he
had shot the unlucky arrow.
“Do you think this is best, Amuba? Don’t you think I had better go and
tell my father?”
“I do not think so, Chebron. Upon any other matter it would be right
at once to confer with him, but as high priest it would be a fearful
burden to place upon his shoulders. It would be his duty at once to
denounce you; and did he keep it secret, and the matter be ever found
out, it would involve him in our danger. Let us therefore bear the
brunt of it by ourselves.”
“I dare not go in,” Chebron said in awestruck tones. “It is too
terrible.”
“Oh, I will manage that,” Amuba said lightly. “You know to me a cat is
a cat and nothing more, and I would just as soon bury one as that
rascally hawk which has been the cause of all this mischief.”
So saying he crossed the open space, and entering a thick bush beyond
the cat house, dug a deep hole; then he went into the house. Although
having no belief whatever in the sacredness of one animal more than
another, he had yet been long enough among the Egyptians to feel a
sensation akin to awe as he entered and saw lying upon the ground the
largest of the cats pierced through by Chebron’s arrow.
Drawing out the shaft he lifted the animal, and putting it under his
garment went out again, and entering the bushes buried it in the hole
he had dug. He leveled the soil carefully over it, and scattered a few
dead leaves on the top.
“There, no one would notice that,” he said to himself when he had
finished; “but it’s awfully unlucky it’s that cat of all others.”
Then he went in, carefully erased the marks of blood upon the floor,
and brought out the shaft, took it down to the pond and carefully
washed the blood from it, and then returned to Chebron.
“Is it--” the latter asked as he approached. He did not say more, but
Amuba understood him.
“I am sorry to say it is,” he replied. “It is horribly unlucky, for
one of the others might not have been missed. There is no hoping that
now.”
Chebron seemed paralyzed at the news.
“Come, Chebron,” Amuba said, “it will not do to give way to fear; we
must brave it out. I will leave the door of the cat house open, and
when it is missed it will be thought that it has escaped and wandered
away. At any rate, there is no reason why suspicion should fall upon
us if we do but put a bold face upon the matter; but we must not let
our looks betray us. If the worst comes to the worst and we find that
suspicions are entertained, we must get out of the way. But there will
be plenty of time to think of that; all that you have got to do now is
to try and look as if nothing had happened.”
“But how can I?” Chebron said in broken tones. “To you, as you say, it
is only a cat; to me it is a creature sacred above all others that I
have slain. It is ten thousand times worse than if I had killed a
man.”
“A cat is a cat,” Amuba repeated. “I can understand what you feel
about it, though to my mind it is ridiculous. There are thousands of
cats in Thebes; let them choose another one for the temple. But I
grant the danger of what has happened, and I know that if it is found
out there is no hope for us.”
“You had nothing to do with it,” Chebron said; “there is no reason why
you should take all this risk with me.”
“We were both in the matter, Chebron, and that twig might just as well
have turned my arrow from its course as yours. We went to kill a hawk
together and we have shot a cat, and it is a terrible business, there
is no doubt; and it makes no difference whatever whether I think the
cat was only a cat if the people of Thebes considered it is a god. If
it is found out it is certain death, and we shall need all our wits to
save our lives; but unless you pluck up courage and look a little more
like yourself, we may as well go at once and say what has happened
and take the consequences. Only if you don’t value your life I do
mine; so if you mean to let your looks betray us, say so, and stop
here for a few hours till I get a good start.”
“I will tell my father,” Chebron said suddenly, “and abide by what he
says. If he thinks it his duty to denounce me, so be it; in that case
you will run no risk.”
“But I don’t mind running the risk, Chebron; I am quite ready to share
the peril with you.”
“No; I will tell my father,” Chebron repeated, “and abide by what he
says. I am sure I can never face this out by myself, and that my looks
will betray us. I have committed the most terrible crime an Egyptian
can commit, and I dare not keep such a secret to myself.”
“Very well, Chebron, I will not try to dissuade you, and I will go and
see Jethro. Of course to him as to me the shooting of a cat is a
matter not worth a second thought; but he will understand the
consequences, and if we fly will accompany us. You do not mind my
speaking to him? You could trust your life to him as to me.”
Chebron nodded, and moved away toward the house.
“For pity sake, Chebron!” Amuba exclaimed, “do not walk like that. If
the men at work get sight of you they cannot but see that something
strange has happened, and it will be recalled against you when the
creature is missed.”
Chebron made an effort to walk with his usual gait. Amuba stood
watching him for a minute, and then turned away with a gesture of
impatience.
“Chebron is clever and learned in many things, and I do not think that
he lacks courage; but these Egyptians seem to have no iron in their
composition when a pinch comes. Chebron walks as if all his bones had
turned to jelly. Of course he is in a horrible scrape; still, if he
would but face it out with sense and pluck it would be easier for us
all. However, I do not think that it is more the idea that he has
committed an act of horrible sacrilege than the fear of death that
weighs him down. If it were not so serious a matter one could almost
laugh at any one being crushed to the earth because he had
accidentally killed a cat.”
Upon entering the house Chebron made his way to the room where his
father was engaged in study. Dropping the heavy curtains over the door
behind him he advanced a few paces, then fell on his knees, and
touched the ground with his forehead.
“Chebron!” Ameres exclaimed, laying down the roll of papyrus on which
he was engaged and rising to his feet. “What is it, my son? Why do you
thus kneel before me in an attitude of supplication? Rise and tell me
what has happened.”
Chebron raised his head, but still continued on his knees. Ameres was
startled at the expression of his son’s face. The look of health and
life had gone from it, the color beneath the bronze skin had faded
away, drops of perspiration stood on his forehead, his lips were
parched and drawn.
“What is it, my son?” Ameres repeated, now thoroughly alarmed.
“I have forfeited my life, father! Worse, I have offended the gods
beyond forgiveness! This morning I went with Amuba with our bows and
arrows to shoot a hawk which has for some time been slaying the
waterfowl. It came down and we shot together. Amuba killed the hawk,
but my arrow struck a tree and flew wide of the mark, and entering the
cats’ house killed Paucis, who was chosen only two days to take the
place of the sacred cat in the temple of Bubastes.”
An exclamation of horror broke from the high priest, and he recoiled a
pace from his son.
“Unhappy boy,” he said, “your life is indeed forfeited. The king
himself could not save his son from the fury of the populace had he
perpetrated such a deed.”
“It is not my life I am thinking of, father,” Chebron said, “but first
of the horrible sacrilege, and then that I alone cannot bear the
consequences, but that some of these must fall upon you and my mother
and sister; for even to be related to one who has committed such a
crime is a terrible disgrace.”
Ameres walked up and down the room several times before he spoke.
“As to our share of the consequences, Chebron, we must bear it as best
we can,” he said at last in a calmer tone than he had before used; “it
is of you we must first think. It is a terrible affair; and yet, as
you say, it was but an accident, and you are guiltless of any
intentional sacrilege. But that plea will be as nothing. Death is the
punishment for slaying a cat; and the one you have slain having been
chosen to succeed the cat of Bubastes is of all others the one most
sacred. The question is, What is to be done? You must fly and that
instantly, though I fear that flight will be vain; for as soon as the
news is known it will spread from one end of Egypt to the other, and
every man’s hand will be against you, and even by this time the
discovery may have been made.”
“That will hardly be, father; for Amuba has buried the cat among the
bushes, and has left the door of the house open so that it may be
supposed for a time that it has wandered away. He proposed to me to
fly with him at once; for he declares that he is determined to share
my fate since we were both concerned in the attempt to kill the hawk.
But in that of course he is wrong; for it is I, not he, who has done
this thing.”
“Amuba has done rightly,” Ameres said. “We have at least time to
reflect.”
“But I do not want to fly, father. Of what good will life be to me
with this awful sin upon my head? I wonder that you suffer me to
remain a moment in your presence--that you do not cast me out as a
wretch who has mortally offended the gods.”
Ameres waved his hand impatiently.
“That is not troubling me now, Chebron. I do not view things in the
same way as most men, and should it be that you have to fly for your
life I will tell you more; suffice for you that I do not blame you,
still less regard you with horror. The great thing for us to think of
at present is as to the best steps to be taken. Were you to fly now
you might get several days’ start, and might even get out of the
country before an alarm was spread; but upon the other hand, your
disappearance would at once be connected with that of the cat as soon
as it became known that she is missing, whereas if you stay here
quietly it is possible that no one will connect you in any way with
the fact that the cat is gone.
“That something has happened to it will speedily be guessed, for a cat
does not stray away far from the place where it has been bred up;
besides, a cat of such a size and appearance is remarkable, and were
it anywhere in the neighborhood it would speedily be noticed. But now
go and join Amuba in your room, and remain there for the morning as
usual. I will give orders that your instructor be told that you will
not want him to-day, as you are not well. I will see you presently
when I have thought the matter fully out and determined what had best
be done. Keep up a brave heart, my boy; the danger may yet pass over.”
Chebron retired overwhelmed with surprise at the kindness with which
his father had spoken to him, when he had expected that he would be so
filled with horror at the terrible act of sacrilege that he would not
have suffered him to remain in the house for a moment after the tale
was told. And yet he had seemed to think chiefly of the danger to his
life, and to be but little affected by what to Chebron himself was by
far the most terrible part of the affair--the religious aspect of the
deed. On entering the room where he pursued his studies he found
Jethro as well as Amuba there.
“I am sorry for you, young master,” Jethro said as he entered. “Of
course to me the idea of any fuss being made over the accidental
killing of a cat is ridiculous; but I know how you view it, and the
danger in which it has placed you. I only came in here with Amuba to
say that you can rely upon me, and that if you decide on flight I am
ready at once to accompany you.”
“Thanks, Jethro,” Chebron replied. “Should I fly it will indeed be a
comfort to have you with me as well as Amuba, who has already promised
to go with me; but at present nothing is determined. I have seen my
father and told him everything, and he will decide for me.”
“Then he will not denounce you,” Amuba said. “I thought that he would
not.”
“No; and he has spoken so kindly that I am amazed. It did not seem
possible to me that an Egyptian would have heard of such a dreadful
occurrence without feeling horror and destation of the person who did
it, even were he his own son. Still more would one expect it from a
man who, like my father, is a high priest to the gods.”
“Your father is a wise as well as a learned man,” Jethro said: “and
he knows that the gods cannot be altogether offended at an affair for
which fate and not the slayer is responsible. The real slayer of the
cat is the twig which turned the arrow, and I do not see that you are
any more to blame, or anything like so much to blame, as is the hawk
at whom you shot.”
This, however, was no consolation to Chebron, who threw himself down
on a couch in a state of complete prostration. It seemed to him that
even could this terrible thing be hidden he must denounce himself and
bear the penalty. How could he exist with the knowledge that he was
under the ban of the gods? His life would be a curse rather than a
gift under such circumstances. Physically, Chebron was not a coward,
but he had not the toughness of mental fibre which enables some men to
bear almost unmoved misfortunes which would crush others to the
ground. As to the comforting assurances of Amuba and Jethro, they
failed to give him the slightest consolation. He loved Amuba as a
brother, and in all other matters his opinion would have weighed
greatly with him; but Amuba knew nothing of the gods of Egypt, and
could not feel in the slightest the terrible nature of the act of
sacrilege, and therefore on this point his opinion could have no
weight.
“Jethro,” Amuba said, “you told me you were going to escort Mysa one
day or other to the very top of the hills, in order that she could
thence look down upon the whole city. Put it into her head to go this
morning, or at least persuade her to go into the city. If she goes
into the garden she will at once notice that the cat is lost; whereas
if you can keep her away for the day it will give us so much more
time.”
“But if Ameres decides that you had best fly, I might on my return
find that you have both gone.”
“Should he do so, Jethro, he will tell you the route we have taken,
and arrange for some point at which you can join us. He would
certainly wish you to go with us, for he would know that your
experience and strong arm would be above all things needful.”
“Then I will go at once,” Jethro agreed. “There are two or three
excursions she has been wanting to make, and I think I can promise
that she shall go on one of them to-day. If she says anything about
wanting to go to see her pets before starting, I can say that you have
both been there this morning and seen after them.”
“I do not mean to fly,” Chebron said, starting up, “unless it be that
my father commands me to do so. Rather a thousand worlds I stay here
and meet my fate!”
Jethro would have spoken, but Amuba signed to him to go at once, and
crossing the room took Chebron’s hand. It was hot and feverish, and
there was a patch of color in his cheek.
“Do not let us talk about it, Chebron,” he said. “You have put the
matter in your father’s hands, and you may be sure that he will decide
wisely; therefore the burden is off your shoulders for the present.
You could have no better counselor in all Egypt, and the fact that he
holds so high and sacred an office will add to the weight of his
words. If he believes that your crime against the gods is so great
that you have no hope of happiness in life, he will tell you so; if he
considers that, as it seems to me, the gods cannot resent an accident
as they might do a crime against them done willfully, and that you may
hope by a life of piety to win their forgiveness, then he will bid you
fly.
“He is learned in the deepest of the mysteries of your religion, and
will view matters in a different light to that in which they are
looked at by the ignorant rabble. At any rate, as the matter is in
his hands, it is useless for you to excite yourself. As far as
personal danger goes, I am willing to share it with you, to take half
the fault of this unfortunate accident, and to avow that as we were
engaged together in the act that led to it we are equally culpable of
the crime.
“Unfortunately, I cannot share your greater trouble--your feeling of
horror at what you regard as sacrilege; for we Rebu hold the life of
one animal no more sacred than the life of another, and have no more
hesitation in shooting a cat than a deer. Surely your gods cannot be
so powerful in Egypt and impotent elsewhere; and yet if they are as
powerful, how is it that their vengeance has not fallen upon other
peoples who slay without hesitation the animals so dear to them?”
“That is what I have often wondered,” Chebron said, falling readily
into the snare, for he and Amuba had had many conversations on such
subjects, and points were constantly presenting themselves which he
was unable to solve.
An hour later, when a servant entered and told Chebron and Amuba that
Ameres wished to speak to them, the former had recovered to some
extent from the nervous excitement under which he had first suffered.
The two lads bowed respectfully to the high priest, and then standing
submissively before him waited for him to address them.
“I have sent for you both,” he said after a pause, “because it seems
to me that although Amuba was not himself concerned in this sad
business, it is probable that as he was engaged with you at the time
the popular fury might not nicely discriminate between you.” He paused
as if expecting a reply, and Amuba said quietly:
“That is what I have been saying to Chebron, my lord. I consider
myself fully as guilty as he is. It was a mere accident that his arrow
and not mine was turned aside from the mark we aimed at, and I am
ready to share his lot, whether you decide that the truth shall be
published at once, or whether we should attempt to fly.” Ameres bowed
his head gravely, and then looked at his son.
“I, father, although I am ready to yield my wishes to your will, and
to obey you in this as in all other matters, would beseech you to
allow me to denounce myself and to bear my fate. I feel that I would
infinitely rather die than live with this terrible weight and guilt
upon my head.”
“I expected as much of you, Chebron, and applaud your decision,”
Ameres said gravely.
Chebron’s face brightened, while that of Amuba fell. Ameres, after a
pause, went on:
“Did I think as you do, Chebron, that the accidental killing of a cat
is a deadly offense against the gods, I should say denounce yourself
at once, but I do not so consider it.”
Chebron gazed at his father as if he could scarce credit his sense of
hearing, while even Amuba looked surprised.
“You have frequently asked me questions, Chebron, which I have either
turned aside or refused to answer. It was, indeed, from seeing that
you had inherited from me the spirit of inquiry that I deemed it best
that you should not ascend to the highest order of the priesthood; for
if so, the knowledge you would acquire would render you, as it has
rendered me, dissatisfied with the state of things around you. Had it
not been for this most unfortunate accident I should never have spoken
to you further on the subject, but as it is I feel that it is my duty
to tell you more.
“I have had a hard struggle with myself, and have, since you left me,
thought over from every point of view what I ought to do. On the one
hand, I should have to tell you things known only to an inner circle,
things which were it known I had whispered to any one my life would be
forfeited. On the other hand, if I keep silent I should doom you to a
life of misery. I have resolved to take the former alternative. I may
first tell you what you do not know, that I have long been viewed with
suspicion by those of the higher priesthood who know my views, which
are that the knowledge we possess should not be confined to ourselves,
but should be disseminated, at least among that class of educated
Egyptians capable of appreciating it.
“What I am about to tell you is not, as a whole, fully understood
perhaps by any. It is the outcome of my own reflections, founded upon
the light thrown upon things by the knowledge I have gained. You asked
me one day, Chebron, how we knew about the gods--how they first
revealed themselves, seeing that they are not things that belong to
the world? I replied to you at the time that these things are
mysteries--a convenient answer with which we close the mouths of
questioners.
“Listen now and I will tell you how religion first began upon earth,
not only in Egypt, but in all lands. Man felt his own powerlessness.
Looking at the operations of nature--the course of the heavenly
bodies, the issues of birth and life and death--he concluded, and
rightly, that there was a God over all things, but this God was too
mighty for his imagination to grasp.
“He was everywhere and nowhere, he animated all things, and yet was
nowhere to be found; he gave fertility and he caused famine, he gave
life and he gave death, he gave light and heat, he sent storms and
tempests. He was too infinite and too various for the untutored mind
of the early man to comprehend, and so they tried to approach him
piecemeal. They worshiped him as the sun, the giver of heat and life
and fertility; they worshiped him as a destructive god, they invoked
his aid as a beneficent being, they offered sacrifices to appease his
wrath as a terrible one. And so in time they came to regard all these
attributes of his--all his sides and lights under which they viewed
him--as being distinct and different, and instead of all being the
qualities of one God as being each the quality or attribute of
separate gods.
“So there came to be a god of life and a god of death, one who sends
fertility and one who causes famine. All sorts of inanimate objects
were defined as possessing some fancied attribute either for good or
evil, and the one Almighty God became hidden and lost in the crowd of
minor deities. In some nations the fancies of man went one way, in
another another. The lower the intelligence of the people the lower
their gods. In some countries serpents are sacred, doubtless because
originally they were considered to typify at once the subtleness and
the destructive power of a god. In others trees are worshiped. There
are peoples who make the sun their god. Others the moon. Our
forefathers in Egypt being a wiser people than the savages around
them, worshiped the attributes of gods under many different names.
First, eight great deities were chosen to typify the chief
characteristics of the Mighty One. Chnoumis, or Neuf, typified the
idea of the spirit of God--that spirit which pervades all creation.
Ameura, the intellect of God. Osiris, the goodness of God. Ptah
typified at once the working power and the truthfulness of God. Khem
represents the productive power--the god who presides over the
multiplication of all species: man, beast, fish, and vegetable--and so
with the rest of the great gods and of the minor divinities, which are
reckoned by the score.
“In time certain animals, birds, and other creatures whose qualities
are considered to resemble one or other of the deities are in the
first place regarded as typical of them, then are held as sacred to
them, then in some sort of way become mixed up with the gods and to be
held almost as the gods themselves. This is, I think, the history of
the religions of all countries. The highest intelligences, the men of
education and learning, never quite lose sight of the original truths,
and recognize that the gods represent only the various attributes of
the one Almighty God. The rest of the population lose sight of the
truth, and really worship as gods these various creations, that are
really but types and shadows.
“It is perhaps necessary that it should be so. It is easier for the
grosser and more ignorant classes to worship things that they can see
and understand, to strive to please those whose statues and temples
they behold, to fear to draw upon themselves the vengeance of those
represented to them as destructive powers, than to worship an
inconceivable God, without form or shape, so mighty the imagination
cannot picture him, so beneficent, so all-providing, so equable and
serene that the human mind cannot grasp even a notion of him. Man is
material, and must worship the material in a form in which he thinks
he can comprehend it, and so he creates gods for himself with figures,
likenesses, passions, and feelings like those of the many animals he
sees around him.
“The Israelite maid whom we brought hither, and with whom I have
frequently conversed, tells me that her people before coming to this
land worshiped but one God like unto him of whom I have told you, save
that they belittled him by deeming that he was their own special God,
caring for them above all peoples of the earth; but in all other
respects he corresponded with the Almighty One whom we who have gained
glimpses of the truth which existed ere the Pantheon of Egypt came
into existence, worship in our hearts, and it seems to me as if this
little handful of men who came to Egypt hundreds of years ago were the
only people in the world who kept the worship of the one God clear and
undefiled.”
Chebron and Amuba listened in awestruck silence to the words of the
high priest. Amuba’s face lit up with pleasure and enthusiasm as he
listened to words which seemed to clear away all the doubts and
difficulties that had been in his mind. To Chebron the revelation,
though a joyful one, came as a great shock. His mind, too, had long
been unsatisfied. He had wondered and questioned, but the destruction
at one blow of all the teachings of his youth, of all he had held
sacred, came at first as a terrible shock. Neither spoke when the
priest concluded, and after a pause he resumed.
“You will understand, Chebron, that what I have told you is not in its
entirety held even by the most enlightened, and that the sketch I have
given you of the formation of all religions is, in fact, the idea
which I myself have formed as the result of all I have learned, both
as one initiated in all the learning of the ancient Egyptians and from
my own studies both of our oldest records and the traditions of all
the peoples with whom Egypt has come in contact. But that all our gods
merely represent attributes of the one deity, and have no personal
existence as represented in our temples, is acknowledged more or less
completely by all those most deeply initiated in the mysteries of our
religion.
“When we offer sacrifices we offer them not to the images behind our
altar, but to God the creator, God the preserver, God the fertilizer,
to God the ruler, to God the omnipotent over good and evil. Thus, you
see, there is no mockery in our services, although to us they bear an
inner meaning not understood by others. They worship a personality
endowed with principle; we the principle itself. They see in the
mystic figure the representation of a deity; we see in it the type of
an attribute of a higher deity.
“You may think that in telling you all this I have told you things
which should be told only to those whose privilege it is to have
learned the inner mysteries of their religion; that maybe I am
untrue to my vows. These, lads, are matters for my own conscience.
Personally, I have long been impressed with the conviction that it
were better that the circles of initiates should be very widely
extended, and that all capable by education and intellect of
appreciating the mightiness of the truth should no longer be left in
darkness. I have been overruled, and should never have spoken had not
this accident taken place; but when I see that the whole happiness of
your life is at stake, that should the secret ever be discovered you
will either be put to death despairing and hopeless, or have to fly
and live despairing and hopeless in some foreign country, I have
considered that the balance of duty lay on the side of lightening your
mind by a revelation of what was within my own. And it is not, as I
have told you, so much the outcome of the teaching I have received as
of my own studies and a conviction I have arrived at as to the nature
of God. Thus, then, my son, you can lay aside the horror which you have
felt at the thought that by the accidental slaying of a cat you
offended the gods beyond forgiveness. The cat is but typical of the
qualities attributed to Baste. Baste herself is but typical of one of
the qualities of the One God.”
“Oh, my father!” Chebron exclaimed, throwing himself on his knees
beside Ameres and kissing his hand, “how good you are. What a weight
have you lifted from my mind! What a wonderful future have you opened
to me if I escape the danger that threatens me now! If I have to die I
can do so like one who fears not the future after death. If I live I
shall no longer be oppressed with the doubts and difficulties which
have so long weighed upon me. Though till now you have given me no
glimpse of the great truth, I have at times felt not only that the
answers you gave me failed to satisfy me, but it seemed to me also
that you yourself with all your learning and wisdom were yet unable to
set me right in these matters as you did in all others upon which I
questioned you. My father, you have given me life, and more than
life--you have given me a power over fate. I am ready now to fly,
should you think it best, or to remain here and risk whatever may
happen.”
“I do not think you should fly, Chebron. In the first place, flight
would be an acknowledgment of guilt; in the second, I do not see where
you could fly. To-morrow, at latest, the fact that the creature is
missing will be discovered, and as soon as it was known that you had
gone a hot pursuit would be set up. If you went straight down to the
sea you would probably be overtaken long before you got there; and
even did you reach a port before your pursuers you might have to wait
days before a ship sailed.
“Then, again, did you hide in any secluded neighborhood, you would
surely be found sooner or later, for the news will go from end to end
of Egypt, and it will be everyone’s duty to search for and denounce
you. Messengers will be sent to all countries under Egyptian
government, and even if you passed our frontiers by land or sea your
peril would be as great as it is here. Lastly, did you surmount all
these difficulties and reach some land beyond the sway of Egypt, you
would be an exile for life. Therefore I say that flight is your last
resource, to be undertaken only if a discovery is made; but we may
hope that no evil fortune will lead the searchers to the conclusion
that the cat was killed here.
“When it is missed there will be search high and low in which every
one will join. When the conclusion is at last arrived at that it has
irrecoverably disappeared all sorts of hypotheses will be started to
account for it; some will think that it probably wandered to the hills
and became the prey of hyenas or other wild beasts; some will assert
that it has been killed and hidden away; others that it has made its
way down to the Nile and has been carried off by a crocodile. Thus
there is no reason why suspicion should fall upon you more than upon
others, but you will have to play your part carefully.”