There was a King in Egypt Part 14

"I'd rather you didn't--at least, I would rather the other workmen didn't know he had spoken to you. I don't like them to imagine that we believe in such things."

"Very well," Meg said. "I see what you mean."

"You are never wise to let the natives lose their respect for your disdain of spooks and superst.i.tions. I never scoff at their fears and beliefs in every sort of imaginable supernatural power, but I like them to think that my religion places me above such terrors. We pray to our Christian G.o.d to protect us according to His will; they say five prayers to Allah daily, the one and only G.o.d, and at the same time at every hour of the day they perform countless acts and ceremonies to propitiate malign spirits and powers. They are a curious people--the best of them are very devout, but some of the most devout are not the best by any means."

"Do you mind if Michael sees the fortune-teller? It would be so interesting."

"He knows Abdul." Freddy looked at Mike. "It's different to letting one of our womenkind meddle in such things."

"Did the ancients believe in dreams?" Margaret said. Michael's eyes had spoken; he had seen the man.

"Don't you remember Joseph's dream?"

"Oh, of course!" Margaret said. "But Joseph seems a modern in this valley."

"The ancients looked upon dreams as 'revelations' from a world quite as real as that which we see about us when we are awake. They were sent by the G.o.ds and, according to the texts in the tombs, much desired."

Margaret's and Michael's eyes met. Her dream which had brought them together again had undoubtedly been sent by G.o.d.

There was an industrious silence for a little time, then Margaret asked, "Have you ever come across any traces of Akhnaton's religion in the tombs in this valley?"

An amused smile hovered round Freddy's mouth. It was obvious that Margaret had caught something of Mike's enthusiasm for the heretic Pharaoh.

"No, nothing of his religion," he said. "It is too far from his scene of action; his influence was almost local--it was a personal influence and died at his death. He was a man born before his time; the world was not ready for his doctrines--they were far above the people's heads."

"How do we know?" Mike said eagerly. "Surely G.o.d knows best when to send His messengers, when to reveal Himself?"

"Anyhow," Freddy said, "you know that when he died his teachings died too. The people who had professed his beliefs returned to their old G.o.ds. The one and only trace of Akhnaton's influence here is in his mother's tomb, where every sign of Aton worship has been chopped off the wall, every trace of his symbols obliterated. Akhnaton had no doubt introduced them into his mother's tomb; she had shared his beliefs, which had not, of course, become extreme at the time of her death."

"Truth never dies," Mike said. "His beautiful city was abandoned, his temples neglected and overthrown, his people again became the victims of the money-making, political priesthood of Amon-Ra. But who can say that the spirit of Akhnaton is dead to-day? Who can tell that the seed of his mission bore no fruit? Thought never dies."

"As you like. Anyhow, even before he was buried--embalming was a lengthy process--his religion as a state religion, as anything at all of any influence, or as a power in the land, was doomed."

"You don't admire him as Mike does," Margaret said. "He seems to have been almost as perfect as a human being could be--the first living being to realize the divinity of G.o.d."

"As a religious _devoue_, he was, as you say, almost a saint. He spent his life throwing pearls before swine--you might as well try to make a charity-school cla.s.s see the beauty of Virgil in the original--and letting his kingdom go to rack and ruin."

"Oh," Margaret said, "you didn't tell me that." Her eyes searched Mike's. "Did he let Egypt go to pieces?"

"He was anti-war, as I am," Mike said, "as all lovers of G.o.d and of mankind ought to be. He was perhaps foolish in his belief that if the world could be converted to the great religion of Aton, which meant perfect love for everything that G.o.d had created and absolute reverence for everything because He created it, then there would be no wars. If G.o.d is love and we believe in G.o.d, how can we kill each other?

Akhnaton's idea of the duty of a king was the improvement of mankind.

He tried to give men a new understanding of life and of G.o.d. The moral welfare of the human race was more to him than the aggrandizement of its emperors."

"I've no patience with all that," Freddy said. "He inherited a magnificent kingdom; he let it dwindle almost to ruin. If you could read some of the letters of h.o.r.emheb, the commander-in-chief of his army, begging him to send reinforcements to Syria, imploring him to realize the danger that menaced Asia, you would feel as impatient as I do with his mission work at Tel-el-Amarna, his cult of flowers and his new-fangled art."

"A man can't go against his own conscience. He didn't approve of war.

It's an interesting fact that the only one of the old G.o.ds he recognized was Mait--he built a fine new temple to the G.o.ddess of truth at Tel-el-Amarna. He carried his enthusiasm too far," Mike said, "I grant that, but from his point of view these things were of little account. If he could have turned the heart of Egypt from the worship of false G.o.ds, if he could have imparted unto the minds of men the wonder and the love of G.o.d, all else, he thought, would follow after."

"A fanatic!" Freddy said.

"So were all saints."

"'For what shall it profit a man,'" Meg said, "'if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?'" Her voice was significant. "In his day, Christ was as great a fanatic, if you like to look at things from that point of view. Fancy fasting forty days and forty nights in the wilderness, calling upon men to leave their work and follow him, preaching against the rich! How you would have scoffed at him!"

"If Akhnaton hadn't been a king, if he had merely been a prophet and a teacher, he'd have been all right. But just you listen, Meg," Freddy said, "while I read you what a modern writer says about him, and he is an intense admirer of the character of Akhnaton. This is how he describes what the messengers must have felt when they hurried back to Egypt to the new capital of the fanatical king at Tel-el-Amarna, bearing entreaties from the commander-in-chief of the army in Syria to send reinforcements to help to deliver his distant kingdom from the oppression of her enemies." Freddy found the book and opened it.

"Here it is--listen to this: 'The messengers have arrived at the City of the Horizon,' as Akhnaton called his new capital, 'Their hearts are full of the agony of Syria. From the beleaguered cities which they had so lately left, there came to them the bitter cry for succour, and it was not possible to drown that cry in words of peace, nor in the jangle of the septrum or the warbling of pipes. Who, thought the waiting messengers, could resist that piteous call? The city weeps and her tears are flowing. Who could sit idle in the City of the Horizon, when the proud empire, won with the blood of the n.o.blest soldiers of the great Thothmes, was breaking up before their eyes? What mattered all the philosophies in the world, and all the G.o.ds in heaven, when Egypt's great dominions were being wrested from her? The splendid Lebanon, the white kingdoms of the sea, Askalon and Ashdod, Tyre and Sidon, Simgra and Byblos, the hills of Jerusalem, Kadesh and the great Orontes, the fair Jordan, Turip, Aleppo and distant Euphrates . . . what counted a creed against these? G.o.d, the Truth? The only G.o.d was He of the Battles, who had led Egypt into Syria; the only truth the doctrine of the sword, which had held her there for so many years.'"

Freddy turned over the leaves of the book which he had been reading from, and began again quoting from Weigall's _Life of Akhnaton_.

"'Love! One stands amazed at the reckless idealism, the beautiful folly of this Pharaoh who, in an age of turbulence, preached a religion of peace to seething Syria. Three thousand years later mankind is still blindly striving after these same ideals in vain.'"

"How pathetic!" Margaret said. "And yet . . ." she hesitated, ". . .

the G.o.d of Battles . . . Akhnaton's was the G.o.d of Love, the G.o.d of everlasting Mercy."

"What right had Egypt ever to go into Syria?" Mike said. "It sounds fine and one can grow enthusiastic over these beautiful old names and visualize a million greatnesses that Akhnaton was resigning, but what right had Egypt in Syria? The right of might, the right of the stronger against the weaker--Prussia's might against Poland, Spain's might against Flanders, any large country's might against a weaker, the right of armies, the right of the greed of monarchs! Akhnaton believed in G.o.d, and to his thinking war could not go hand-in-hand with a love for all that G.o.d had created."

"Get out, Mike!" Freddy said. "You'll get on to Ireland next--I know him, Meg!"

"I agree with him in a way," Meg said. "To give people the love of G.o.d and the proper sense of beauty, the enjoyment of all that G.o.d has made for their good, in the best way, which was surely the way of Akhnaton, seems better than spending the kingdom's wealth and brains in maintaining armies to kill human beings and invade new territories."

"The great question," Freddy said, "is nationality. If you don't care who wipes you out, or to what country or king you belong, well and good, live the idealized life. Someone will think quite differently and gobble you up. If Akhnaton hadn't died, there would soon have been no Egypt, no Egyptian peoples."

"They'd have been quite as happy," Mike said, "for in those days the kings actually owned their empires, they were their own property to do what they liked with. The people fought for their King, not for their country. An absolute monarch was an absolute monarch, the kingdom was his to do as he liked with."

"How was it saved? Was it ever as great again?" Meg asked.

"It was saved by his son dying almost directly after he did and h.o.r.emheb, the great commander-in-chief, at last got his way. He persuaded the reigning Pharaoh, who had married Akhnaton's daughter, to himself lead an expedition and go into Asia. After that Pharaoh's death, and the death of the next one, Ay, Akhnaton's father-in-law, who reigned for a short time--and who, to do him justice, tried to remain faithful to Akhnaton's ideal Aton worship--the great warrior and commander-in-chief, h.o.r.emheb, was raised to the throne. He brought Egypt back to its old conditions. Do you care to hear what Weigall says about him?--how completely he wiped out the 'idealism of the dreamer'?" Freddy found the pa.s.sage he wanted. "'The neglected shrines of the old G.o.ds once more echoed with the chants of the priests through the whole land of Egypt . . . he fashioned a hundred images. . . . He established for them daily offerings every day. All the vessels of their temples were wrought of silver and gold. He equipped them with priests and with ritual priests, and with the choicest of the army. He transferred to them lands and cattle, supplied with all necessary equipment. By these gifts to the neglected G.o.ds, h.o.r.emheb was striving to bring Egypt back to its natural condition and with a strong hand he was guiding the country from chaos to order, from fantastic Utopia to the solid Egypt of the past. He was, in fact, the preacher of sanity, the chief apostle of the Normal.'"

"It was in his reign," Michael said, "that Akhnaton's fair city at Tel-el-Amarna was utterly abandoned; his beautiful decorations, which were intended to ill.u.s.trate to the people the beauty of G.o.d in Nature, were ruthlessly destroyed. His body, which had been laid in the far-away cliffs behind his city, was removed and placed in his mother Queen Thi's tomb in this valley."

"What a tragic life!" Margaret said. She was thinking of the sad face as she had seen it in her vision. Did any one understand him? Freddy evidently understood h.o.r.emheb, the apostle of the Normal, who scorned the fantastic Utopia of Akhnaton, much better.

"He was very much beloved and probably as much understood by a few as most pioneers have been. It was in his father-in-law's tomb that his beautiful hymn was discovered, for he was one of his devoted followers in Akhnaton's lifetime."

Margaret smiled. "The beautiful hymn you said to me that morning at dawn, Mike?"

"The same," Michael said. "I have often thought of it in connection with St. Francis' Canticle to the Sun."

"It is difficult," Margaret said, "to know how far wars and empire-building, and everything that makes for worldly-ambition and encourages the vanity of monarchs, are compatible with the true meaning of the words 'G.o.d is Love,' with the true conception of Christ's doctrines."

"Which were Akhnaton's," Michael said. "He did all in his power to raise the morals of his people. He was the first king to recognize the higher rights of women, to insist on the reverence of womanhood. He brought his queen forward on every public occasion, and that had never been heard of before. He tried to introduce a new ideal of home-life.

He was a model father and husband. He thought of nothing but the moral welfare of his people and of their happiness. He was willing to lose his kingdom for the saving of their souls."

"And yet he was a bad king?" Margaret said.

"He had none of the qualities of a ruler or an empire-builder," Freddy said.

"d.a.m.n empire-building!" Mike said. "If people would only stick to their own natural territory and not go straying into other peoples!"