The Pharaoh And The Priest Part 22

The official, seeing that he had the support of the side mainly interested, stepped forth and began, in nasal tones, a second time,--

"Since the sun rises beyond the palace of the pharaoh and sets over the pyramids, various wonders have happened in this country. In the days of the Pharaoh Sememphes marvellous things appeared near the pyramid of Kochom, and a plague fell on Egypt. In the time of Boetus the ground opened near Bubastis and swallowed many people. In the reign of Neferches the waters of the Nile for eleven days were as sweet as honey. Men saw these and many other things of which I know, for I am full of wisdom. But never has it been seen that some unknown man came up out of the water and stopped the collection of rent in the lands of the heir to the throne of Egypt."

"Be silent," shouted Rameses, "and be off out of this place! No one will take thy children," said he to the woman.

"It is easy for me to go away," said the collector, "for I have a swift boat and five rowers. But, worthiness, give me some sign for my lord Dagon."

"Take off thy wig and show him the sign on thy forehead," said Rameses. "And tell Dagon that I will put marks of the same kind all over his body."

"Listen to that blasphemy!" whispered the collector to his men, drawing back toward the bank with low bows.

He sat down in the boat, and when his a.s.sistants had moved off and pushed away some tens of yards, he stretched out his hand and shouted,--

"May gripe seize thy intestines, blasphemer, rebel! From here I will go straight to Prince Rameses and tell him what is happening on his lands."

Then he took his cane and belabored his men because they had not taken part with him.

"So it will be with thee!" cried he to Rameses.

The prince sprang into his boat and in a rage commanded the boatman to pursue the insolent servant of the usurer. But he of the sheepskin wig threw down the cane, took an oar himself, and his men helped him so well that pursuit became impossible.

"Sooner could an owl overtake a lark than we overtake them, my beautiful lord," cried the prince's boatman, laughing. "But who art thou? Thou art not a surveyor, but an officer, maybe even an officer of the guard of his holiness. Thou dost strike right always on the forehead! I know about this; I was five years in the army. I always struck on the forehead or the belly, and I had not the worst time in the world. But if any one struck me, I understood right away that he must be a great person. In our Egypt--may the G.o.ds never leave the land!--it is terribly crowded; town is near town, house is near house, man is near man. Whoso wishes to turn in this throng must strike in the forehead."

"Art thou married?" asked the prince.

"Pfu! when I have a woman and place for a person and a half, I am married; but for the rest of the time I am single. I have been in the army, and I know that a woman is good, though not at all times. She is in the way often."

"Perhaps thou wouldst come to me for service? Who knows, wouldst thou be sorry to work for me?"

"With permission, worthiness, I noticed that thou couldst lead a regiment in spite of thy young face. But I enter the service of no man. I am a free fisherman; my grandfather was, with permission, a shepherd in Lower Egypt, our family comes of the Hyksos people. It is true that dull Egyptian earth-tillers revile us, but I laugh at them.

The earth-tillers and the Hyksos, I say, worthiness, are like an ox and a bull. The earth-tiller may go behind the plough or before it, but the Hyksos will not serve any man, unless in the army of his holiness,--that is warrior life."

The boatman was in the vein and talked continually, but the prince heard no longer. In his soul very painful questions grew louder and louder, for they were new altogether. Were those mounds, then, around which he had been sailing, on his property? A marvellous thing, he knew not at all where his lands were nor what they looked like. So in his name Dagon had imposed new rents on the people, and the active movement on which he had been looking while moving along the sh.o.r.es was the extortion of rents. It was clear that the man whom they had been beating on the sh.o.r.e had nothing to pay with. The children who were crying bitterly in the boat were sold at a drachma per head for a twelvemonth, and that woman who was wading in the water to her waist and weeping was their mother.

"Women are very unquiet," said the prince to himself. "Sarah is the quietest woman; but others love to talk much, to cry and raise an uproar."

He remembered the man who was pacifying his wife's excitement. They had been plunging him into the water and he was not angry; they did nothing to her, and still she made an uproar.

"Women are very unquiet!" repeated he. "Yes, even my mother, who is worthy of honor. What a difference between her and my father! His holiness does not wish to know at all that I left the army for a girl, but the queen likes to occupy herself even with this, that I took into my house a Jewess. Sarah is the quietest of women whom I know; but Tafet cries and makes an uproar for four persons."

Then the prince recalled the words of the man's wife,--that for a month they had not eaten wheat, only seeds and roots of lotus. Lotus and poppy seeds are similar; the roots are poor. He could not eat them for three days in succession. Moreover, the priests who were occupied in medicine advised change of diet. While in school they told him that a man ought to eat flesh with fish, dates with wheat bread, figs with barley. But for a whole month to live on lotus seeds! Well, cows and horses? Cows and horses like hay, but barley straw must be shoved into their throats by force. Surely then earth-workers prefer lotus seeds as food, while wheat or barley cakes, fish and flesh they do not relish. For that matter, the most pious priests, wonder-workers, never touch flesh or fish. Evidently magnates and king's sons need flesh, just as lions and eagles do; but earth-tillers gra.s.s, like an ox.

"Only that plunging into the water to pay rent. Ei! but didn't he once in bathing with his comrades put them under water, and even dive himself? What laughing they had in those days! Diving was fun. And as to beating with a cane, how many times had they beaten him in school?

It is painful, but evidently not for every creature. A beaten dog howls and bites; a beaten ox does not even look around. So beating may pain a great lord, but a common man cries only so as to cry when the chance comes. Not all cry; soldiers and officers sing while belabored."

But these wise reflections could not drown the small but annoying disquiet in the heart of Rameses. So his tenant Dagon had imposed an unjust rent which the tenants could not pay!

At this moment the prince was not concerned about the tenants, but his mother. His mother must know of this Phnician management. What would she say about it to her son? How she would look at him! How sneeringly she would laugh! And she would not be a woman if she did not speak to him as follows: "I told thee, Rameses, that Phnicians would desolate thy property."

"If those traitorous priests," thought the prince, "would give me twenty talents to-day, I would drive out that Dagon in the morning, my tenants would not be plunged under water, would not suffer blows, and my mother would not jeer at me. A tenth, a hundredth part of that wealth which is lying in the temples and feeding the greedy eyes of those bare heads would make me independent for years of Phnicians."

Just then an idea which was strange enough flashed up in the soul of Rameses,--that between priests and earth-tillers there existed a certain opposition.

"Through Herhor," thought he, "that man hanged himself on the edge of the desert. To maintain priests and temples about two million Egyptian men toil grievously. If the property of the priests belonged to the pharaoh's treasury, I should not have to borrow fifteen talents and my people would not be oppressed so terribly. There is the source of misfortunes for Egypt and of weakness for its pharaohs!"

The prince felt that a wrong was done the people; therefore he experienced no small solace in discovering that priests were the authors of this evil. It did not occur to him that his judgment might be unjust and faulty. Besides, he did not judge, he was only indignant. The anger of a man never turns against himself,--just as a hungry panther never eats its own body; it twirls its tail and moves its ears while looking for a victim.

CHAPTER XIII

The expedition of the heir to the throne, undertaken with the object of discovering the priest who had saved Sarah and had given him legal advice, had a result that was unexpected.

The priest was not discovered, but among Egyptian earth-tillers legends began to circulate which concerned Rameses.

Some mysterious man sailed about from village to village and told the people that the heir to the throne freed the men who were in danger of condemnation to the quarries for attacking his dwelling. Besides, he had beaten down an official who was extorting unjust rent from tenants. Finally, the unknown person added that Prince Rameses was under the special guardianship of Amon, who was his father.

Simple people listened to these tidings eagerly, first, because they agreed with facts, second, because the man who told the story was himself like a spirit--it was not known whence he came nor whither he had vanished.

Prince Rameses made no mention whatever of his tenants to Dagon; he did not even summon him. He felt ashamed in presence of the Phnician from whom he had taken money and might require money yet more than one time.

But a few days after the adventure with Dagon's scribe the banker came himself to the heir, holding in his hand some covered object.

On entering the prince's chamber he bent down, untied a white kerchief, and drew forth from it a very beautiful gold goblet; the goblet was set with stones of various colors, and covered with carving in relief which on the lower part represented the gathering and pressing out of grapes and on the cup part a feast.

"Accept this goblet, worthy lord, from thy slave," said the banker, "and use it for a hundred, a thousand years, to the end of ages."

The prince understood what the Phnician wanted; so, without touching the golden gift, he said with a stern expression,--

"Dost thou see, Dagon, that purple reflection inside the goblet?"

"I do, indeed," replied the banker; "why should I not see that which shows the goblet to be the purest gold?"

"But I declare that to be the blood of children seized away from their parents," said the heir, angrily.

And he turned and went to an interior chamber.

"O Astoreth!" groaned the Phnician.

His lips grew blue, and his hands trembled so that he was hardly able to wrap up the goblet.

A couple of days later Dagon sailed down with his goblet to Sarah's house. He was arrayed in robes interwoven with gold; in his thick beard were gla.s.s globulets from which issued perfumes, and he had fastened two plumes to his head.

"Beautiful Sarah," began he, "may Jehovah pour on thy family as many blessings as there are waters in the Nile at present! We Phnicians and ye Jews are brethren and neighbors. I am inflamed with such ardor of love for thee that didst thou not belong to our most worthy lord I would give Gideon ten talents for thee, and would take thee for my lawful wife. So enamored am I."

"May G.o.d preserve me," answered Sarah, "from wanting another lord beyond the one who is mine at this moment. But whence, worthy Dagon, did the desire come to thee to-day of visiting our lord's servant?"