The Pharaoh And The Priest Part 25

"I have trouble."

"Tell me what it is. Grief is like a treasure given to be guarded. As long as we guard it ourselves even sleep flees away, and we find relief only when we put some one else to watch for us."

Rameses embraced Sarah, and seated her on the bench at his side.

"When an earth-tiller," said he, smiling, "is unable to bring in all his crops from the field before the overflow, his wife helps him. She helps him to milk cows too, she takes out food to the field for him, she washes the man on his return from labor. Hence the belief has come that woman can lighten man's troubles."

"Dost thou not believe this, lord?"

"The cares of a prince," answered Rameses, "cannot be lightened by a woman, even by one as wise and powerful as my mother."

"In G.o.d's name, what are thy troubles? Tell me," insisted Sarah, drawing up to the shoulder of Prince Rameses. "According to our traditions, Adam left Paradise for Eve; and he was surely the greatest king in the most beautiful kingdom."

The prince became thoughtful.

"Our sages also teach," said he, "that man has often abandoned dignities for woman, but it has not been heard that any man ever achieved something great through a woman; unless he was a leader to whom a pharaoh gave his daughter, with a great dowry and high office.

But a woman cannot help a man to reach a higher place or even help him out of troubles."

"This may be because she does not love as I do," whispered Sarah.

"Thy love for me is wonderful, I know that. Never hast thou asked for gifts, or favored those who do not hesitate to seek success even under the beds of princes' favorites. Thou art milder than a lamb, and as calm as a night on the Nile. Thy kisses are like perfume from the land of Punt, and thy embrace as sweet as the sleep of a wearied laborer.

I have no measure for thy beauty, or words for thy attractions. Thou art a marvel among women; women's lips are rich in trouble and their love is very costly. But with all thy perfection how canst thou ease my troubles? Canst thou cause his holiness to order a great expedition to the East and name me to command it? Canst thou give me the army corps in Memphis, for which I asked, or wilt thou, in the pharaoh's name, make me governor of Lower Egypt? Or canst thou bring all subjects of his holiness to think and feel as I, his most devoted subject?"

Sarah dropped her hands on her knees, and whispered sadly, "True, I cannot do those things--I can do nothing."

"Thou canst do much. Thou canst cheer me," replied Rameses, smiling.

"I know that thou hast learned to dance and sing. Take off those long robes, therefore, which become priestesses guarding fire, and array thyself in transparent muslin, as Phnician dancers do. And so dance and fondle me as they."

Sarah seized his hands and cried with flaming eyes,--

"Hast thou to do with outcasts such as these? Tell me--let me know my wretchedness; send me then to my father, send me to our valley in the desert. Oh, that I had never seen thee in it!"

"Well, well, calm thyself," said the prince, toying with her hair. "I must of course see dancers, if not at feasts, at royal festivals, or during services in temples. But all of them together do not concern me as much as thou alone; moreover, who among them could equal thee? Thy body is like a statue of Isis, cut out of ivory, and each of those dancers has some defect. Some are too thick; others have thin legs or ugly hands; still others have false hair. Who of them is like thee? If thou wert an Egyptian, all our temples would strive to possess thee as the leader of their chorus. What do I say? Wert thou to appear now in Memphis in transparent robes, the priests would be glad if thou wouldst take part in processions."

"It is not permitted us daughters of Judah to wear immodest garments."

"Nor to dance or sing? Why didst thou learn, then?"

"Our women dance, and our virgins sing by themselves for the glory of the Lord, but not for the purpose of sowing fiery seeds of desire in men's hearts. But we sing. Wait, my lord, I will sing to thee."

She rose from the bench and went toward the house. Soon she returned followed by a young girl with black, frightened eyes, who was bearing a harp.

"Who is this maiden?" asked the prince. "But wait I have seen that look somewhere. Ah! when I was here the last time a frightened girl looked from the bushes at me."

"This is Esther, my relative and servant," answered Sarah. "She has lived with me a month now, but she fears thee, lord, so she runs away always. Perhaps she looked at thee sometime from out the bushes."

"Thou mayst go, my child," said the prince to the maiden, who seemed petrified, and when she had hidden behind the bushes, he asked,--

"Is she a Jewess too? And this guard of thy house, who looks at me as a sheep at a crocodile?"

"That is Samuel the son of Esdras; he also is a relative. I took him in place of the black man to whom thou hast given freedom. But hast thou not permitted me to choose my servants?"

"That is true. And so also the overseer of the workmen is a Jew, for he has a yellow complexion and looks with a lowliness which no Egyptian could imitate."

"That," answered Sarah, "is Ezechiel, the son of Reuben, a relative of my father. Does he not please thee, my lord? These are all thy very faithful servants."

"Does he please me," said the prince, dissatisfied, drumming with his fingers on the bench. "He is not here to please me, but to guard thy property. For that matter, these people do not concern me. Sing, Sarah."

Sarah knelt on the gra.s.s at the prince's feet, and playing a few notes as accompaniment, began,--

"Where is he who has no care? Who is he who in lying down to slumber has the right to say: This is a day that I have spent without sorrow?

Where is the man who lying down for the grave, can say: My life has pa.s.sed without pain, without fear, like a calm evening on the Jordan.

"But how many are there who moisten their bread with tears daily, and whose houses are filled with sighing.

"A wail is man's earliest speech on this earth, and a groan his farewell to it. Full of suffering does he come into life, full of sorrow does he go to his resting-place, and no one asks him where he would like to be.

"Where is that offspring of man who has not tasted the bitterness of being? Is it the child which death has s.n.a.t.c.hed from its mother, or is it the babe whose mother's breast was drained by hunger ere the little one could place lips to it?

"Where is the man who is sure of his fate, the man who can look with unfailing eye at the morrow? Does he who toils on the field know that rain is not under his power, and that not he shows its way to the locust swarm? Does the merchant who gives his wealth to the winds, which come he knows not whence, and his life to the waves on that abyss which swallows all, and returns nothing?

"Where is the man without dread in his spirit? Is it the hunter who chases the nimble deer and on the road meets a lion which mocks at his arrows? Is it the warrior who goes forth to gain glory with toiling, and meets a forest of sharp lances and bronze swords which are thirsting for his life blood? Is it the great king who under his purple puts on heavy armor, who spies out with sleepless eye the treachery of overpowering neighbors, and seizes with his ear the rustle of the curtain lest treason overturn him in his own tent?

"For this reason men's hearts in all places and at all times are overflowing with sadness. In the desert the lion and the scorpion are his danger, in the cave lurks the dragon, among flowers the poisonous serpent. In the sunshine a greedy neighbor is thinking how to decrease his land, in the night the active thief is breaking through the door to his granary. In childhood he is incompetent, in old age stripped of strength. When full of power, he is surrounded by perils, as a whale is surrounded by abysses of water.

"Therefore, O Lord, my Creator, to Thee the tortured human soul turns itself. Thou hast brought it into a world full of ambushes, Thou hast grafted into it the terror of extinction. Thou hast barred before it all roads of peace, save the one road which leads to Thee. And as a child which cannot walk grasps its mother's skirt lest it fall, so wretched man stretches forth his hands toward Thy tenderness, and struggles out of uncertainty."

Sarah was silent; the prince fell into meditation, and then said,--

"Ye Jews are a gloomy nation. If men in Egypt believed as thy song teaches, no one would laugh on the banks of the Nile. The wealthy would hide in underground temples through terror, and the people, instead of working, would flee to caves, look out and wait for mercy which would never come to them.

"Our world is different: in it a man may have everything, but he himself must do everything. Our G.o.ds help no idleness. They come to the earth only when a hero dares a deed which is superhuman and when he exhausts every power present. Such was the case with Rameses the Great when he rushed among two thousand five hundred hostile chariots, each of which carried three warriors. Only then did Amon the eternal father reach his hand down and end the battle with victory. But if instead of fighting he had waited for the aid of your G.o.d, long ago would the Egyptians have been moving along the Nile, each of them bearing a brick and a bucket, while the vile Hitt.i.tes would be masters going around with clubs and papyruses.

"Therefore, Sarah, thy charms will scatter my sorrows sooner than thy song. If I had acted as your Jewish song teaches, and waited for divine a.s.sistance, wine would have flowed away from my lips, and women would have fled from my household.

"Above all, I could not be the pharaoh's heir any more than my brothers, one of whom does not leave his room without leaning on two slaves, while the other climbs along tree trunks."

CHAPTER XV

The next day Rameses sent his black men with commands to Memphis, and about midday came a great boat toward Sarah's house from the direction of the city. The boat was filled with Greek soldiers in lofty helmets and gleaming breastplates.

At command sixteen men armed with shields and short darts landed and stood in two ranks. They were ready to march to the house, when a second messenger from the prince detained them. He commanded the soldiers to remain at the sh.o.r.e, and summoned only their leader, Patrokles.

They halted and stood without movement, like two rows of columns covered with glittering armor. After the messenger went Patrokles in a helmet with plumes, wearing a purple tunic over which he had gilded armor ornamented on the breast with the picture of a woman's head bristling with serpents instead of hair.