The Pharaoh And The Priest Part 9

This edifice stood on an elevation in a park outside the city.

Peculiar trees grew there: baobabs from the south; pines, oaks, and cedars from the north. Thanks to the art of gardeners, these trees lived some tens of years and reached a considerable height.

The shady alley led to a gate which was as high as a house of three stories. From each side of the gate rose a solid building like a tower in the form of a truncated pyramid, forty yards in width with the height of five stories. In the night they seemed like two immense tents made of sandstone. These peculiar buildings had on the ground and the upper stories square windows, and the roofs were flat. From the top of one of these pyramids without apex, a watch looked at the country; from the other the priest on duty observed the stars.

At the right and left of these towers, called pylons, extended walls, or rather long structures of one story, with narrow windows and flat roofs, on which sentries paced back and forth. On both sides of the main gate were two sitting statues fifteen feet in height. In front of these statues moved other sentries.

When the prince, with a number of hors.e.m.e.n, approached the palace, the sentry knew him in spite of the darkness. Soon an official of the court ran out of the pylon. He was clothed in a white skirt and dark mantle, and wore a wig as large as a headdress.

"Is the palace closed already?" inquired the prince.

"Thou art speaking truth, worthy lord," said the official. "His holiness is preparing the G.o.d for sleep."

"What will he do after that?"

"He will be pleased to receive the war minister, Herhor."

"Well, and later?"

"Later his holiness will look at the ballet in the great hall, then he will bathe and recite evening prayers."

"Has he not commanded to receive me?" inquired Rameses.

"To-morrow morning after the military council."

"What are the queens doing?"

"The first queen is praying in the chamber of her dead son, and thy worthy mother is receiving the Phnician amba.s.sador, who has brought her gifts from the women of Tyre."

"Did he bring maidens?"

"A number of them. Each has on her person treasures to the value of ten talents."

"Who is moving about down there with torches?" asked the prince, pointing to the lower park.

"They are taking thy brother, worthiness, from a tree where he has been sitting since midday."

"Is he unwilling to come down?"

"He will come down now, for the first queen's jester has gone for him, and has promised to take him to the inn where dissectors are drinking."

"And hast thou heard anything of the manuvres of to-day?"

"They say that the staff was cut off from the corps."

"And what more?"

The official hesitated.

"Tell what thou hast heard."

"We heard, moreover, that because of this five hundred blows of a stick were given to a certain officer at thy command, worthiness."

"It is all a lie!" said one of the adjutants of the heir in an undertone.

"The soldiers, too, say among themselves that it must be a lie,"

returned the official, with growing confidence.

Rameses turned his horse and rode to the lower part of the park where his small palace was situated. It had a ground and an upper story and was built of wood. Its form was that of an immense hexagon with two porticos, an upper and a lower one which surrounded the building and rested on a mult.i.tude of pillars. Lamps were burning in the interior; hence it was possible to see that the walls were formed of planks perforated like lace, and that these walls were protected from the wind by curtains of various colors. The roof of the building was flat, surrounded by a bal.u.s.trade; on this roof stood a number of tents.

Greeted heartily by half-naked servitors, some of whom ran out with torches, while others prostrated themselves before him, the heir entered his residence. On the ground floor he removed his dusty dress, bathed in a stone basin, and put on a kind of great sheet which he fastened at the neck and bound round his waist with a cord for a girdle. On the first floor he ate a supper consisting of a wheaten cake, dates, and a gla.s.s of light beer. Then he went to the terrace of the building, and lying on a couch covered with a lion skin, commanded the servants to withdraw and to bring up Tutmosis the moment he appeared there.

About midnight a litter stopped before the residence, and out of it stepped the adjutant. When he walked along the terrace heavily yawning as he went, the prince sprang up from the couch and cried,--

"Art thou here? Well, what?"

"Then art thou not sleeping yet?" replied Tutmosis. "O G.o.ds, after so many days of torture! I think that I should sleep until sunrise."

"What of Sarah?"

"She will be here the day after to-morrow, or thou wilt be with her in the house beyond the river."

"Only after to-morrow!"

"Only? I beg thee, Rameses, to sleep. Thou hast taken too much bad blood to thy heart, fire will strike to thy head."

"What about her father?"

"He is honorable and wise. They call him Gideon. When I told him that thou hadst the wish to take his daughter, he fell on the ground and tore his hair. Of course I waited till this outburst of fatherly suffering was over; I ate a little, drank some wine, and at last proceeded to bargaining. The weeping Gideon swore first of all that he would rather see his daughter dead than the mistress of any man. Then I told him that near Memphis, on the Nile, he would receive land which gives two talents of yearly income and pays no taxes. He was indignant. Then I stated that he might receive another talent yearly in gold and silver. He sighed and declared that his daughter had spent three years at school in Pi-Bailos; I added another talent. Then Gideon, still disconsolate, remembered that he would lose his very good position of manager for the lord Sesofris. I told him that he need not lose that place, and added ten milch cows from thy stables.

His forehead cleared somewhat; then he confessed to me, as a profound secret, that a certain very great lord, Chaires, who bears the fan of the nomarch of Memphis, was turning attention toward Sarah. I promised then to add a young bull, a medium chain of gold, and a large bracelet. In this way thy Sarah will cost thee land, two talents yearly in money, ten cows, a young bull, a chain and a gold bracelet, immediately. These thou wilt give to her father, the honest Gideon; to her thou wilt give whatever pleases thee."

"What did Sarah say to this?"

"While we were bargaining she walked among the trees. When we had finished the matter and settled it by drinking good Hebrew wine, she told her father--dost thou know what?--that if he had not given her to thee, she would have gone up the cliff and thrown herself down head foremost. Now thou mayst sleep quietly, I think," ended Tutmosis.

"I doubt it," answered Rameses, leaning on the bal.u.s.trade and looking into the emptiest side of the park. "Dost thou know that on the way back we found a man hanging from a tree?"

"Oh! that is worse than the scarabs!"

"He hanged himself from despair because the warriors filled the ca.n.a.l which he had been digging for ten years in the desert."

"Well, that man is sleeping now quietly. So it is time for us."

"That man was wronged," said the prince. "I must find his children, ransom them, and rent a bit of land to them."

"But thou must do this with great secrecy," remarked Tutmosis, "or all slaves will begin to hang themselves, and no Phnician will lend us, their lords, a copper uten."

"Jest not. Hadst thou seen that man's face, sleep would be absent to-night from thy eyes as it is from mine."

Meanwhile from below, among the bushes, was heard a voice, not over-powerful, but clear,--