I have gained a powerful one."
"A God or an army?"  asked Ani.

"Something between the two," she replied.  "Paaker, the king's chief
pioneer, has joined us;" and she briefly related to Ani the history of
her nephew's love and hatred.

Ani listened in silence; then he said with an expression of much disquiet
and anxiety:

"This man is a follower of Rameses, and must shortly return to him.  Many
may guess at our projects, but every additional person who knows them may
be come a traitor.  You are urging me, forcing me, forward too soon.  A
thousand well-prepared enemies are less dangerous than one untrustworthy
ally--"

"Paaker is secured to us," replied Katuti positively.  "Who will answer
for him?"  asked Ani.

"His life shall be in your hand," replied Katuti gravely.  "My shrewd
little dwarf Nemu knows that he has committed some secret crime, which
the law punishes by death."

The Regent's countenance cleared.

That alters the matter," he said with satisfaction.  "Has he committed a
murder?"

"No," said Katuti, "but Nemu has sworn to reveal to you alone all that he
knows.  He is wholly devoted to us."

"Well and good," said Ani thoughtfully, but he too is imprudent--much too
imprudent.  You are like a rider, who to win a wager urges his horse to
leap over spears.  If he falls on the points, it is he that suffers; you
let him lie there, and go on your way."

"Or are impaled at the same time as the noble horse," said Katuti
gravely.  "You have more to win, and at the same time more to lose than
we; but the meanest clings to life; and I must tell you, Ani, that I work
for you, not to win any thing through your success, but because you are
as dear to me as a brother, and because I see in you the embodiment of my
father's claims which have been trampled on."

Ani gave her his hand and asked:

"Did you also as my friend speak to Bent-Anat?  Do I interpret your
silence rightly?"

Katuti sadly shook her head; but Ani went on: "Yesterday that would have
decided me to give her up; but to-day my courage has risen, and if the
Hathors be my friends I may yet win her."

With these words he went in advance of the widow into the hall, where
Paaker was still walking uneasily up and down.

The pioneer bowed low before the Regent, who returned the greeting with a
half-haughty, half-familiar wave of the hand, and when he had seated
himself in an arm-chair politely addressed Paaker as the son of a friend,
and a relation of his family.

"All the world," he said, "speaks of your reckless courage.  Men like you
are rare; I have none such attached to me.  I wish you stood nearer to
me; but Rameses will not part with you, although--although--In point of
fact your office has two aspects; it requires the daring of a soldier,
and the dexterity of a scribe.  No one denies that you have the first,
but the second--the sword and the reed-pen are very different weapons,
one requires supple fingers, the other a sturdy fist.  The king used to
complain of your reports--is be better satisfied with them now?"

"I hope so," replied the Mohar; "my brother Horus is a practised writer,
and accompanies me in my journeys."

"That is well," said Ani.  "If I had the management of affairs I should
treble your staff, and give you four--five--six scribes under you, who
should be entirely at your command, and to whom you could give the
materials for the reports to be sent out.  Your office demands that you
should be both brave and circumspect; these characteristics are rarely
united; but there are scriveners by hundreds in the temples."

"So it seems to me," said Paaker.

Ani looked down meditatively, and continued--Rameses is fond of comparing
you with your father.  That is unfair, for he--who is now with the
justified--was without an equal; at once the bravest of heroes and the
most skilful of scribes.  You are judged unjustly; and it grieves me all
the more that you belong, through your mother, to my poor but royal
house.  We will see whether I cannot succeed in putting you in the right
place.  For the present you are required in Syria almost as soon as you
have got home.  You have shown that you are a man who does not fear
death, and who can render good service, and you might now enjoy your
wealth in peace with your wife."

"I am alone," said Paaker.

"Then, if you come home again, let Katuti seek you out the prettiest wife
in Egypt," said the Regent smiling.  "She sees herself every day in her
mirror, and must be a connoisseur in the charms of women."

Ani rose with these words, bowed to Paaker with studied friendliness,
gave his hand to Katuti, and said as he left the hall:

"Send me to-day the--the handkerchief--by the dwarf Nemu."

When he was already in the garden, he turned once more and said to Paaker

"Some friends are supping with me to-day; pray let me see you too."

The pioneer bowed; he dimly perceived that he was entangled in invisible
toils.  Up to the present moment he had been proud of his devotion to his
calling, of his duties as Mohar; and now he had discovered that the king,
whose chain of honor hung round his neck, undervalued him, and perhaps
only suffered him to fill his arduous and dangerous post for the sake of
his father, while he, notwithstanding the temptations offered him in
Thebes by his wealth, had accepted it willingly and disinterestedly.
He knew that his skill with the pen was small, but that was no reason why
he should be despised; often had he wished that he could reconstitute his
office exactly as Ani had suggested, but his petition to be allowed a
secretary had been rejected by Rameses.  What he spied out, he was told
was to be kept secret, and no one could be responsible for the secrecy of
another.

As his brother Horus grew up, he had followed him as his obedient
assistant, even after he had married a wife, who, with her child,
remained in Thebes under the care of Setchem.

He was now filling Paaker's place in Syria during his absence; badly
enough, as the pioneer thought, and yet not without credit; for the
fellow knew how to write smooth words with a graceful pen.

Paaker, accustomed to solitude, became absorbed in thought, forgetting
everything that surrounded him; even the widow herself, who had sunk on
to a couch, and was observing him in silence.

He gazed into vacancy, while a crowd of sensations rushed confusedly
through his brain.  He thought himself cruelly ill-used, and he felt too
that it was incumbent on him to become the instrument of a terrible fate
to some other person.  All was dim 'and chaotic in his mind, his love
merged in his hatred; only one thing was clear and unclouded by doubt,
and that was his strong conviction that Nefert would be his.

The Gods indeed were in deep disgrace with him.  How much he had expended
upon them--and with what a grudging hand they had rewarded him; he knew
of but one indemnification for his wasted life, and in that he believed
so firmly that he counted on it as if it were capital which he had
invested in sound securities.  But at this moment his resentful feelings
embittered the sweet dream of hope, and he strove in vain for calmness
and clear-sightedness; when such cross-roads as these met, no amulet, no
divining rod could guide him; here he must think for himself, and beat
his own road before he could walk in it; and yet he could think out no
plan, and arrive at no decision.

He grasped his burning forehead in his hands, and started from his
brooding reverie, to remember where he was, to recall his conversation
with the mother of the woman he loved, and her saying that she was
capable of guiding men.

"She perhaps may be able to think for me," he muttered to himself.
"Action suits me better."

He slowly went up to her and said:

"So it is settled then--we are confederates."

"Against Rameses, and for Ani," she replied, giving him her slender hand.

"In a few days I start for Syria, meanwhile you can make up your mind
what commissions you have to give me.  The money for your son shall be
conveyed to you to-day before sunset.  May I not pay my respects to
Nefert?"

"Not now, she is praying in the temple."

"But to-morrow?"

"Willingly, my dear friend.  She will be delighted to see you, and to
thank you."

"Farewell, Katuti."

"Call me mother," said the widow, and she waved her veil to him as a last
farewell.




CHAPTER XIX.

As soon as Paaker had disappeared behind the shrubs, Katuti struck a
little sheet of metal, a slave appeared, and Katuti asked her whether
Nefert had returned from the temple.

"Her litter is just now at the side gate," was the answer.

"I await her here," said the widow.  The slave went away, and a few
minutes later Nefert entered the hall.

"You want me?"  she said; and after kissing her mother she sank upon her
couch.  "I am tired," she exclaimed, "Nemu, take a fan and keep the
flies off me."

The dwarf sat down on a cushion by her couch, and began to wave the semi-
circular fan of ostrich-feathers; but Katuti put him aside and said:

"You can leave us for the present; we want to speak to each other in
private."

The dwarf shrugged his shoulders and got up, but Nefert looked at her
mother with an irresistible appeal.

"Let him stay," she said, as pathetically as if her whole happiness
depended upon it.  "The flies torment me so, and Nemu always holds his
tongue."

She patted the dwarf's big head as if he were a lap-dog, and called the
white cat, which with a graceful leap sprang on to her shoulder and stood
there with its back arched, to be stroked by her slender fingers.

Nemu looked enquiringly at his mistress, but Katuti turned to her
daughter, and said in a warning voice:

"I have very serious things to discuss with you."

"Indeed?"  said her daughter, "but I cannot be stung by the flies all the
same.  Of course, if you wish it--"

"Nemu may stay then," said Katuti, and her voice had the tone of that of
a nurse who gives way to a naughty child.  "Besides, he knows what I have
to talk about."

"There now!"  said Nefert, kissing the head of the white cat, and she
gave the fan back to the dwarf.

The widow looked at her daughter with sincere compassion, she went up to
her and looked for the thousandth time in admiration at her pretty face.

"Poor child," she sighed, "how willingly I would spare you the frightful
news which sooner or later you must hear--must bear.  Leave off your
foolish play with the cat, I have things of the most hideous gravity to
tell you."

"Speak on," replied Nefert.  "To-day I cannot fear the worst.  Mena's
star, the haruspex told me, stands under the sign of happiness, and I
enquired of the oracle in the temple of Besa, and heard that my husband
is prospering.  I have prayed in the temple till I am quite content.
Only speak!--I know my brother's letter from the camp had no good news in
it; the evening before last I saw you had been crying, and yesterday you
did not look well; even the pomegranate flowers in your hair did not suit
you."

"Your brother," sighed Katuti, "has occasioned me great trouble, and we
might through him have suffered deep dishonor--"

"We-dishonor?"  exclaimed Nefert, and she nervously clutched at the cat.

"Your brother lost enormous sums at play; to recover them he pledged the
mummy of your father--"

"Horrible!"  cried  Nefert.  "We must appeal at once to the king;--I will
write to him myself; for Mena's sake he will hear me.  Rameses is great
and noble, and will not let a house that is faithfully devoted to him
fall into disgrace through the reckless folly of a boy.  Certainly I will
write to him."

She said this in a voice of most childlike confidence, and desired Nemu
to wave the fan more gently, as if this concern were settled.

In Katuti's heart surprise and indignation at the unnatural indifference
of her daughter were struggling together; but she withheld all blame, and
said carelessly:

"We are already released, for my nephew Paaker, as soon as he heard what
threatened us, offered me his help; freely and unprompted, from pure
goodness of heart and attachment."

"How good of Paaker!"  cried Nefert.  "He was so fond of me, and you
know, mother, I always stood up for him.  No doubt it was for my sake
that he behaved so generously!"

The young wife laughed, and pulling the cat's face close to her own, held
her nose to its cool little nose, stared into its green eyes, and said,
imitating childish talk:

"There now, pussy--how kind people are to your little mistress."

Katuti was vexed daughter's childish impulses.

"It seems to me," she said, "that you might leave off playing and
trifling when I am talking of such serious matters.  I have long since
observed that the fate of the house to which your father and mother
belong is a matter of perfect indifference to you; and yet you would have
to seek shelter and protection under its roof if your husband--"

"Well, mother?"  asked Nefert breathing more quickly.

As soon as Katuti perceived her daughter's agitation she regretted that
she had not more gently led up to the news she had to break to her; for
she loved her daughter, and knew that it would give her keen pain.

So she went on more sympathetically:

"You boasted in joke that people are good to you, and it is true; you win
hearts by your mere being--by only being what you are.  And Mena too
loved you tenderly; but 'absence,' says the proverb, 'is the one real
enemy,' and Mena--"

"What has Mena done?"  Once more Nefert interrupted her mother, and her
nostrils quivered.

"Mena," said Katuti, decidedly, "has violated the truth and esteem which
he owes you--he has trodden them under foot, and--"

"Mena?"  exclaimed the young wife with flashing eyes; she flung the cat
on the floor, and sprang from her couch.

"Yes--Mena," said Katuti firmly.  "Your brother writes that he would have
neither silver nor gold for his spoil, but took the fair daughter of the
prince of the Danaids into his tent.  The ignoble wretch!"

"Ignoble wretch!"  cried Nefert, and two or three times she repeated her
mother's last words.  Katuti drew back in horror, for her gentle, docile,
childlike daughter stood before her absolutely transfigured beyond all
recognition.

She looked like a beautiful demon of revenge; her eyes sparkled, her
breath came quickly, her limbs quivered, and with extraordinary strength
and rapidity she seized the dwarf by the hand, led him to the door of one
of the rooms which opened out of the hall, threw it open, pushed the
little man over the threshold, and closed it sharply upon him; then with
white lips she came up to her mother.

"An ignoble wretch did you call him?"  she cried out with a hoarse husky
voice, "an ignoble wretch!  Take back your words, mother, take back your
words, or--"

Katuti turned paler and paler, and said soothingly:

"The words may sound hard, but he has broken faith with you, and openly
dishonored you."

"And shall I believe it?"  said Nefert with a scornful laugh.  "Shall I
believe it, because a scoundrel has written it, who has pawned his
father's body and the honor of big family; because it is told you by that
noble and brave gentleman! why a box on the ears from Mena would be the
death of him.  Look at me, mother, here are my eyes, and if that table
there were Mena's tent, and you were Mena, and you took the fairest woman
living by the hand and led her into it, and these eyes saw it--aye, over
and over again--I would laugh at it--as I laugh at it now; and I should
say, 'Who knows what he may have to give her, or to say to her,' and not
for one instant would I doubt his truth; for your son is false and Mena
is true.  Osiris broke faith with Isis--but Mena may be favored by a
hundred women--he will take none to his tent but me!"

"Keep your belief," said Katuti bitterly, "but leave me mine."

"Yours?"  said Nefert, and her flushed cheeks turned pale again.  "What
do you believe?  You listen to the worst and basest things that can be
said of a man who has overloaded you with benefits!  A wretch, bah!  an
ignoble wretch?  Is that what you call a man who lets you dispose of his
estate as you please!"

"Nefert," cried Katuti angrily, "I will--"

"Do what you will," interrupted her  indignant daughter, "but do not
vilify the generous man who has never hindered you from throwing away his
property on your son's debts and your own ambition.  Since the day before
yesterday I have learned that we are not rich; and I have reflected, and
I have asked myself what has become of our corn and our cattle, of our
sheep and the rents from the farmers.  The wretch's estate was not so
contemptible; but I tell you plainly I should be unworthy to be the wife
of the noble Mena if I allowed any one to vilify his name under his own
roof.  Hold to your belief, by all means, but one of us must quit this
house--you or I."

At these words Nefert broke into passionate sobs, threw herself on her
knees by her couch, hid her face in the cushions, and wept convulsively
and without intermission.

Katuti stood behind her, startled, trembling, and not knowing what to
say.  Was this her gentle, dreamy daughter?  Had ever a daughter dared to
speak thus to her mother?  But was she right or was Nefert?  This
question was the pressing one; she knelt down by the side of the young
wife, put her arm round her, drew her head against her bosom, and
whispered pitifully:

"You cruel, hard-hearted child; forgive your poor, miserable mother, and
do not make the measure of her wretchedness overflow."

Then Nefert rose, kissed her mother's hand, and went silently into her
own room.

Katuti remained alone; she felt as if a dead hand held her heart in its
icy grasp, and she muttered to herself:

"Ani is right--nothing turns to good excepting that from which we expect
the worst."

She held her hand to her head, as if she had heard something too strange
to be believed.  Her heart went after her daughter, but instead of
sympathizing with her she collected all her courage, and deliberately
recalled all the reproaches that Nefert had heaped upon her.  She did not
spare herself a single word, and finally she murmured to herself: "She
can spoil every thing.  For Mena's sake she will sacrifice me and the
whole world; Mena and Rameses are one, and if she discovers what we are
plotting she will betray us without a moment's hesitation.  Hitherto all
has gone on without her seeing it, but to-day something has been unsealed
in her--an eye, a tongue, an ear, which have hitherto been closed.  She
is like a deaf and dumb person, who by a sudden fright is restored to
speech and hearing.  My favorite child will become the spy of my actions,
and my judge."

She gave no utterance to the last words, but she seemed to hear them with
her inmost ear; the voice that could speak to her thus, startled and
frightened her, and solitude was in itself a torture; she called the
dwarf, and desired him to have her litter prepared, as she intended going
to the temple, and visiting the wounded who had been sent home from
Syria.

"And the handkerchief for the Regent?"  asked the little man.

"It was a pretext," said Katuti.  "He wishes to speak to you about the
matter which you know of with regard to Paaker.  What is it?"

"Do not ask," replied Nemu, "I ought not to betray it.  By Besa, who
protects us dwarfs, it is better that thou shouldst never know it."

"For to-day I have learned enough that is new to me," retorted Katuti.
"Now go to Ani, and if you are able to throw Paaker entirely into his
power--good--I will give--but what have I to give away?  I will be
grateful to you; and when we have gained our end I will set you free and
make you rich."

Nemu kissed her robe, and said in a low voice: "What is the end?"

"You know what Ani is striving for," answered the widow.  "And I have but
one wish!"

"And that is?"

"To see Paaker in Mena's place."

"Then our wishes are the same," said the dwarf and he left the Hall.

Katuti looked after him and muttered:

"It must be so.  For if every thing remains as it was and Mena comes home
and demands a reckoning--it is not to be thought of!  It must not be!"




ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Ardently they desire that which transcends sense
Every misfortune brings its fellow with it
Medicines work harm as often as good
No good excepting that from which we expect the worst
Obstinacy--which he liked to call firm determination
Only the choice between lying and silence
Patronizing friendliness
Principle of over-estimating the strength of our opponents
Provide yourself with a self-devised ruler
Successes, like misfortunes, never come singly
The beginning of things is not more attractive






UARDA

Volume 5.

By Georg Ebers



CHAPTER XX.

As Nemu, on his way back from his visit to Ani, approached his mistress's
house, he was detained by a boy, who desired him to follow him to the
stranger's quarter.  Seeing him hesitate, the messenger showed him the
ring of his mother Hekt, who had come into the town on business, and
wanted to speak with him.

Nemu was tired, for he was not accustomed to walking; his ass was dead,
and Katuti could not afford to give him another.  Half of Mena's beasts
had been sold, and the remainder barely sufficed for the field-labor.

At the corners of the busiest streets, and on the market-places, stood
boys with asses which they hired out for a small sum;

[In the streets of modern Egyptian towns asses stand saddled for
hire.  On the monuments only foreigners are represented as riding on
asses, but these beasts are mentioned in almost every list of the
possessions of the nobles, even in very early times, and the number
is often considerable.  There is a picture extant of a rich old man
who rides on a seat supported on the backs of two donkeys.  Lepsius,
Denkmaler, part ii. 126.]

but Nemu had parted with his last money for a garment and a new wig, so
that he might appear worthily attired before the Regent.  In former times
his pocket had never been empty, for Mena had thrown him many a ring of
silver, or even of gold, but his restless and ambitious spirit wasted no
regrets on lost luxuries.  He remembered those years of superfluity with
contempt, and as he puffed and panted on his way through the dust, he
felt himself swell with satisfaction.

The Regent had admitted him to a private interview, and the little man
had soon succeeded in riveting his attention; Ani had laughed till the
tears rolled down his cheeks at Nemu's description of Paaker's wild
passion, and he had proved himself in earnest over the dwarf's further
communications, and had met his demands half-way.  Nemu felt like a duck
hatched on dry land, and put for the first time into water; like a bird
hatched in a cage, and that for the first time is allowed to spread its
wings and fly.  He would have swum or have flown willingly to death if
circumstances had not set a limit to his zeal and energy.

Bathed in sweat and coated with dust, he at last reached the gay tent in
the stranger's quarter, where the sorceress Hekt was accustomed to alight
when she came over to Thebes.

He was considering far-reaching projects, dreaming of possibilities,
devising subtle plans--rejecting them as too subtle, and supplying their
place with others more feasible and less dangerous; altogether the little
diplomatist had no mind for the motley tribes which here surrounded him.
He had passed the temple in which the people of Kaft adored their goddess
Astarte, and the sanctuary of Seth, where they sacrificed to Baal,
without letting himself be disturbed by the dancing devotees or the noise
of cymbals and music which issued from their enclosures.  The tents and
slightly-built wooden houses of the dancing girls did not tempt him.
Besides their inhabitants, who in the evening tricked themselves out in
tinsel finery to lure the youth of Thebes into extravagance and folly,
and spent their days in sleeping till sun-down, only the gambling booths
drove a brisk business; and the guard of police had much trouble to
restrain the soldier, who had staked and lost all his prize money, or the
sailor, who thought himself cheated, from such outbreaks of rage and
despair as must end in bloodshed.  Drunken men lay in front of the
taverns, and others were doing their utmost, by repeatedly draining their
beakers, to follow their example.

Nothing was yet to be seen of the various musicians, jugglers, fire-
eaters, serpent-charmers, and conjurers, who in the evening displayed
their skill in this part of the town, which at all times had the aspect
of a never ceasing fair.  But these delights, which Nemu had passed a
thousand times, had never had any temptation for him.  Women and gambling
were not to his taste; that which could be had simply for the taking,
without trouble or exertion, offered no charms to his fancy, he had no
fear of the ridicule of the dancing-women, and their associates--indeed,
he occasionally sought them, for he enjoyed a war of words, and he was of
opinion that no one in Thebes could beat him at having the last word.
Other people, indeed, shared this opinion, and not long before Paaker's
steward had said of Nemu:

"Our tongues are cudgels, but the little one's is a dagger."

The destination of the dwarf was a very large and gaudy tent, not in any
way distinguished from a dozen others in its neighborhood.  The opening
which led into it was wide, but at present closed by a hanging of coarse
stuff.

Nemu squeezed himself in between the edge of the tent and the yielding
door, and found himself in an almost circular tent with many angles, and
with its cone-shaped roof supported on a pole by way of a pillar.

Pieces of shabby carpet lay on the dusty soil that was the floor of the
tent, and on these squatted some gaily-clad girls, whom an old woman was
busily engaged in dressing.  She painted the finger and toenails of the
fair ones with orange-colored Hennah, blackened their brows and eye-
lashes with Mestem--[Antimony.]--to give brilliancy to their glance,
painted their cheeks with white and red, and anointed their hair with
scented oil.

It was very hot in the tent, and not one of the girls spoke a word; they
sat perfectly still before the old woman, and did not stir a finger,
excepting now and then to take up one of the porous clay pitchers, which
stood on the ground, for a draught of water, or to put a pill of Kyphi
between their painted lips.

Various musical instruments leaned against the walls of the tent, hand-
drums, pipes and lutes and four tambourines lay on the ground; on the
vellum of one slept a cat, whose graceful kittens played with the bells
in the hoop of another.

An old negro-woman went in and out of the little back-door of the tent,
pursued by flies and gnats, while she cleared away a variety of earthen
dishes with the remains of food--pomegranate-peelings, breadcrumbs, and
garlic-tops--which had been lying on one of the carpets for some hours
since the girls had finished their dinner.

Old Hekt sat apart from the girls on a painted trunk, and she was saying,
as she took a parcel from her wallet:

"Here, take this incense, and burn six seeds of it, and the vermin will
all disappear--" she pointed to the flies that swarmed round the platter
in her hand.  "If you like I will drive away the mice too and draw the
snakes out of their holes better than the priests."

[Recipes for exterminating noxious creatures are found in the
papyrus in my possession.]

"Keep your magic to yourself," said a girl in a husky voice.  "Since you
muttered your words over me, and gave me that drink to make me grow
slight and lissom again, I have been shaken to pieces with a cough at
night, and turn faint when I am dancing."

"But look how slender you have grown," answered Hekt, "and your cough
will soon be well."

"When I am dead," whispered the girl to the old woman.  "I know that most
of us end so."

The witch shrugged her shoulders, and perceiving the dwarf she rose from
her seat.

The girls too noticed the little man, and set up the indescribable cry,
something like the cackle of hens, which is peculiar to Eastern women
when something tickles their fancy.  Nemu was well known to them, for his
mother always stayed in their tent whenever she came to Thebes, and the
gayest of them cried out:

"You are grown, little man, since the last time you were here."

"So are you," said the dwarf sharply; "but only as far as big words are
concerned."

"And you are as wicked as you are small," retorted the girl.

"Then my wickedness is small too," said the dwarf laughing, "for I am
little enough!  Good morning, girls--may Besa help your beauty.  Good
day, mother--you sent for me?"

The old woman nodded; the dwarf perched himself on the chest beside her,
and they began to whisper together.

How dusty and tired you are," said Hekt.  I do believe you have come on
foot in the burning sun."

"My ass is dead," replied Nemu, "and I have no money to hire a steed."