The Pharaoh And The Priest Part 121

It is true that in the palace of the pharaoh secret listening was common. Rameses had thought, however, that his cabinet was safe, and that the insolence of priests had stopped at the threshold of the supreme ruler.

"But if that was a spirit?"

He did not wish to sup, but betook himself to rest. It seemed to him that he could not sleep; but weariness won the victory over irritation.

In a few hours bells and a light woke him. It was midnight and the astrologer priest came to make a report on the position of the heavenly bodies. The pharaoh heard the report, and said at the end of it,--

"Couldst thou, revered prophet, make thy report to the worthy Sem hereafter? He is my subst.i.tute in matters touching religion."

The astrologer wondered greatly at the indifference of his lord to affairs of the heavens.

"Art thou pleased, holiness," inquired he, "to refuse those indications which the stars give to rulers?"

"Do they give them?" asked the pharaoh. "Tell what they promise me."

Clearly the astrologer had looked for the question, so he answered directly,--

"The horizon is darkened for the moment. The lord of light has not come yet to the road of truth which leads to knowledge of the divine will. But sooner or later he will find both long life and a happy reign filled with glory."

"Aha! I thank thee, holy man. And as soon as I know what to seek I will accommodate myself to the indication. But again I beg thee to communicate henceforth with the holy Sem. He is my subst.i.tute, but shouldst thou read anything in the stars thou wilt tell me of it in the morning."

The priest left the bedchamber shaking his head.

"They have roused me from sleep!" said Rameses, dissatisfied.

"An hour ago Queen Nikotris, most greatly to be revered, commanded me, holiness, to ask of thee an interview," said an adjutant, suddenly.

"Now? At midnight?" asked the pharaoh.

"Her exact words were that at midnight thou wouldst wake, holiness."

The pharaoh meditated, then answered the adjutant that he would wait for the queen in the golden hall. He thought that there no one could overhear them.

Rameses threw a mantle over his shoulders, put on sandals unfastened and commanded to light the golden hall brightly. Then he went out, directing the servants not to go with him.

He found Nikotris in the hall; she was wearing coa.r.s.e linen garments in sign that she was mourning. When she saw the pharaoh she wished to drop on her knees, but her son raised the queen and embraced her.

"Has something important happened, mother, that thou art working at this hour?" inquired Rameses.

"I was not asleep--I was praying," replied the queen. "O my son, thou hast divined wisely that the affair is important. I have heard the sacred voice of thy father."

"Indeed!" said the pharaoh, feeling that anger was filling him.

"Thy ever-living father," continued the queen, "told me, full of sadness, that thou wert entering on a way of error. Thou refusest with contempt the ordination of high priest, and treatest badly the servants of divinity."

"'Who will remain with Rameses,' said thy father, 'if he angers the G.o.ds and the priests desert him? Tell him--tell him,' repeated the revered shade, 'that in this way he will ruin Egypt, himself, and the dynasty.'"

"Oho!" said the pharaoh, "then they threaten me thus from the first day of my reign. My mother, a dog barks loudest when he is afraid; so threats are of evil omen, but only for the priesthood."

"But thy father said this," repeated the anxious lady.

"My immortal father and my holy grandfather," said the pharaoh, "being pure spirits know my heart, and see the woful condition of Egypt. But since my heart wishes to raise the state by stopping abuses they would not prevent me from carrying out my measures."

"Then dost thou not believe that the spirit of thy father gives thee counsel?" asked the queen, with rising terror.

"I know not. But I have the right to suppose that those voices of spirits, which are heard in various corners of our palace, are some trick of the priesthood. Only priests can fear me, never the G.o.ds, and spirits. Therefore it is not spirits which are frightening us, mother."

The queen fell to thinking; it was clear that her son's words impressed her. She had seen many miracles in her life and some of them had seemed to her suspicious.

"In that case," said she, with a sigh, "thou art not cautious, my son.

This afternoon Herhor visited me; he was very much dissatisfied with the audience. He said that it was thy wish to remove the priests from thy court."

"But of what use are priests to me? Are they to cause great outgo in my kitchen and cellar? Or, perhaps, to hear what I say, and see what I do?"

"The whole country will revolt," interrupted the queen, "if the priests declare that thou art an unbeliever."

"The country is in revolt now. But the priests are the cause of it,"

replied the pharaoh. "And touching the devotion of the Egyptian people I begin to have another idea. If thou knew, mother, how many lawsuits there are in Lower Egypt for insults to the G.o.ds, and in Upper Egypt for robbing the dead, thou wouldst be convinced that for our people the cause of the priests has ceased to be holy."

"This is through the influence of foreigners, especially Phnicians, who are flooding Egypt," cried the lady.

"All one through whose influence; enough that Egypt no longer considers either statues or priests as superhuman. And wert thou, mother, to hear the n.o.bility, the officers, the warriors talk, thou wouldst understand that the time has come to put the power of the pharaoh in the place of priestly power, unless all power is to fall in this country."

"Egypt is thine," sighed the queen. "Thy wisdom is uncommon, so do as may please thee. But act thou with caution--oh, with caution! A scorpion even when killed may still wound an unwary conqueror."

They embraced and the pharaoh returned to his bedchamber. But, in truth, he could not sleep that time.

He understood clearly that between him and the priesthood a struggle had begun, or rather something repulsive which did not even deserve the name struggle, and which at the first moment he, the leader, could not manage. For where was the enemy? Against whom was his faithful army to show itself? Was it against the priests who fell on their faces before him? Or against the stars which said that the pharaoh had not entered yet on the true way? What and whom was he to vanquish? Was it, perhaps, those voices of spirits which were raised amid darkness?

Or was it his own mother, who begged him in terror not to dismiss priests from state offices?

The pharaoh writhed on his bed while feeling his helplessness.

Suddenly the thought came to him: "What care I for an enemy which yields like mud in a hand grasp? Let them talk in empty halls, let them be angry at my G.o.dlessness. I will issue orders, and whoso will not carry them out is my enemy; against him I will turn courts, police, and warriors."

CHAPTER LIII

So in the month Hator, after thirty-four years of rule, died the Pharaoh Mer-Amen-Rameses XII., the ruler of two worlds, the lord of eternity, the giver of life and every happiness.

He died because he felt that his body was growing weak and useless. He died because he was yearning for his eternal home and he wished to confide the cares of earthly rule to hands that were more youthful.

Finally he died because he wished to die, for such was his will. His divine spirit flew away, like a falcon which, circling for a time above the earth, vanishes at last in blue expanses.

As his life had been the sojourn of an immortal in the region of evanescence, his death was merely one among moments in the existence of the superhuman.

Rameses XII. woke about sunrise; leaning on two prophets, surrounded by a chorus of priests, he went to the chapel of Osiris. There, as usual, he resurrected the divinity, washed and dressed it, made offerings, and raised his hands in prayer. Meanwhile the priests sang:

_Chorus I._ "Honor to thee who raisest thyself on the horizon and coursest across the sky."