Jabez stared at her.
"I thought that you loved this Egyptian, who indeed is worthy of any woman"s love," he muttered into his beard.
"Perhaps it is because I love him that I wish to die. I have given him all I have to give; there is nothing left of my poor treasure except what will bring trouble and misfortune on his head. Therefore the greater the love--and it is more great than all those pyramids ma.s.sed to one--the greater the need that it should be buried for a while. Do you understand?"
He shook his head.
"I understand only that you are a very strange woman, different from any other that I have known."
"My child, who was slain with the rest, was all the world to me, and I would be where he is. Do you understand now?"
"You would leave your life, in which, being young, you may have more children, to lie in a tomb with your dead son?" he asked slowly, like one astonished.
"I only care for life while it can serve him whom I love, and if a day comes when he sits upon the throne how will a daughter of the hated Israelites serve him then? Also I do not wish for more children. Living or dead, he that is gone owns all my heart; there is no room in it for others. That love at least is pure and perfect, and having been embalmed by death, can never change. Moreover, it is not in a tomb that I shall lie with him, or so I believe. The faith of these Egyptians which we despise tells of a life eternal in the heavens, and thither I would go to seek that which is lost, and to wait that which is left behind awhile."
"Ah!" said Jabez. "For my part I do not trouble myself with these problems, who find in a life temporal on the earth enough to fill my thoughts and hands. Yet, Merapi, you are a rebel, and whether in heaven or on earth, how are rebels received by the king against whom they have rebelled?"
"You say I am rebel," she said, turning on him with flashing eyes. "Why?
Because I would not dishonour myself by marrying a man I hate, one also who is a murderer, and because while I live I will not desert a man whom I love to return to those who have done me naught but evil. Did G.o.d then make women to be sold like cattle of the field for the pleasure and the profit of him who can pay the highest?"
"It seems so," said Jabez, spreading out his hands.
"It seems that you think so, who fashion G.o.d as you would wish him to be, but for my part I do not believe it, and if I did, I should seek another king. My uncle, I appeal from the priest and the elder to That which made both them and me, and by Its judgment I will stand or fall."
"Always a very dangerous thing to do," reflected Jabez aloud, "since the priest is apt to take the law into his own hands before the cause can be pleaded elsewhere. Still, who am I that I should set up my reasonings against one who can grind Amon to powder in his own sanctuary, and who therefore may have warrant for all she thinks and does?"
Merapi stamped her foot.
"You know well it was you who brought me the command to dare the G.o.d Amon in his temple. It was not I----" she began.
"I do know," replied Jabez waving his hand. "I know also that is what every wizard says, whatever his nation or his G.o.ds, and what no one ever believes. Thus because, having faith, you obeyed the command and through you Amon was smitten, among both the Israelites and the Egyptians you are held to be the greatest sorceress that has looked upon the Nile, and that is a dangerous repute, my niece."
"One to which I lay no claim, and never sought."
"Just so, but which all the same has come to you. Well, knowing as without doubt you do all that will soon befall in Egypt, and having been warned, if you needed warning, of the danger with which you yourself are threatened, you still refuse to obey this second command which it is my duty to deliver to you?"
"I refuse."
"Then on your own head be it, and farewell. Oh! I would add that there is a certain property in cattle, and the fruit of lands which descends to you from your father. In the event of your death----"
"Take it all, uncle, and may it prosper you. Farewell."
"A great woman, friend Ana, and a beautiful," said the old Hebrew, after he had watched her go. "I grieve that I shall never see her again, and, indeed, that no one will see her for very long; for, remember, she is my niece of whom I am fond. Now I too must be going, having completed my errand. All good fortune to you, Ana. You are no longer a soldier, are you? No? Believe me, it is as well, as you will learn. My homage to the Prince. Think of me at times, when you grow old, and not unkindly, seeing that I have served you as best I could, and your master also, who I hope will soon find again that which he lost awhile ago."
"Her Highness, Princess Userti," I suggested.
"The Princess Userti among other things, Ana. Tell the Prince, if he should deem them costly, that those horses which I sold him are really of the finest Syrian blood, and of a strain that my family has owned for generations. If you should chance to have any friend whose welfare you desire, let him not go into the desert soldiering during the next few moons, especially if Pharaoh be in command. Nay, I know nothing, but it is a season of great storm. Farewell, friend Ana, and again farewell."
"Now what did he mean by that?" thought I to myself, as I departed to make my report to Seti. But no answer to the question rose in my mind.
Very soon I began to understand. It appeared that at length the Israelites were leaving Egypt, a vast horde of them, and with them tens of thousands of Arabs of various tribes who worshipped their G.o.d and were, some of them, descended from the people of the Hyksos, the shepherds who once ruled in Egypt. That this was true was proved to us by the tidings which reached us that all the Hebrew women who dwelt in Memphis, even those of them who were married to Egyptians, had departed from the city, leaving behind them their men and sometimes their children. Indeed, before these went, certain of them who had been friends visited Merapi, and asked her if she were not coming also. She shook her head as she replied:
"Why do you go? Are you so fond of journeyings in the desert that for the sake of them you are ready never again to look upon the men you love and the children of your bodies?"
"No, Lady," they answered, weeping. "We are happy here in white-walled Memphis and here, listening to the murmur of the Nile, we would grow old and die, rather than strive to keep house in some desert tent with a stranger or alone. Yet fear drives us hence."
"Fear of what?"
"Of the Egyptians who, when they come to understand all that they have suffered at our hands in return for the wealth and shelter which they have given us for many generations, whereby we have grown from a handful into a great people, will certainly kill any Israelite whom they find left among them. Also we fear the curses of our priests who bid us to depart."
"Then _I_ should fear these things also," said Merapi.
"Not so, Lady, seeing that being the only beloved of the Prince of Egypt who, rumour tells us, will soon be Pharaoh of Egypt, by him you will be protected from the anger of the Egyptians. And being, as we all know well, the greatest sorceress in the world, the overthrower of Amon-Ra the mighty, and one who by sacrificing her child was able to ward away every plague from the household where she dwelt, you have naught to fear from priests and their magic."
Then Merapi sprang up, bidding them to leave her to her fate and to be gone to their own, which they did hastily enough, fearing lest she should cast some spell upon them. So it came about that presently the fair Moon of Israel and certain children of mixed blood were all of the Hebrew race that were left in Egypt. Then, notwithstanding the miseries and misfortunes that during the past few years by terror, death, and famine had reduced them to perhaps one half of their number, the people of Egypt rejoiced with a great joy.
In every temple of every G.o.d processions were held and offerings made by those who had anything left to offer, while the statues of the G.o.ds were dressed in fine new garments and hung about with garlandings of flowers.
Moreover, on the Nile and on the sacred lakes boats floated to and fro, adorned with lanterns as at the feast of the Rising of Osiris. As t.i.tular high-priest of Amon, an office of which he could not be deprived while he lived, Prince Seti attended these demonstrations, which indeed he must do, in the great temple of Memphis, whither I accompanied him.
When the ceremonies were over he led the procession through the ma.s.ses of the worshippers, clad in his splendid sacerdotal robes, whereon every throat of the thousands present there greeted him in a shout of thunder as "Pharaoh!" or at least as Pharaoh"s heir.
When at length the shouting died, he turned upon them and said:
"Friends, if you would send me to be of the company that sits at the table of Osiris and not at Pharaoh"s feasts, you will repeat this foolish greeting, whereof our Lord Amenmeses will hear with little joy."
In the silence that followed a voice called out:
"Have no fear, O Prince, while the Hebrew witch sleeps night by night upon your bosom. She who could smite Egypt with so many plagues can certainly shelter you from harm;" whereon the roars of acclamation went up again.
It was on the following day that Bakenkhonsu the aged returned with more tidings from Tanis, where he had been upon a visit. It seemed that a great council had been held there in the largest hall of one of the largest temples. At this council, which was open to all the people, Amenmeses had given report on the matter of the Israelites who, he stated, were departing in their thousands. Also offerings were made to appease the angry G.o.ds of Egypt. When the ceremony was finished, but before the company broke up in a heavy mood, her Highness the Princess Userti rose in her place, and addressed Pharaoh:
"By the spirits of our fathers," she cried, "and more especially by that of the good G.o.d Meneptah, my begetter, I ask of you, Pharaoh, and I ask of you, O people, whether the affront that has been put upon us by these Hebrew slaves and their magicians is one that the proud land of Egypt should be called upon to bear? Our G.o.ds have been smitten and defied; woes great and terrible, such as history tells not of, have fallen upon us through magic; tens of thousands, from the first-born child of Pharaoh down, have perished in a single night. And now these Hebrews, who have murdered them by sorcery, for they are sorcerers all, men and women together, especially one of them who sits at Memphis, of whom I will not speak because she has wrought me private harm, by the decree of Pharaoh are to be suffered to leave the land. More, they are to take with them all their cattle, all their threshed corn, all the treasure they have h.o.a.rded for generations, and all the ornaments of price and wealth that they have wrung by terror from our own people, borrowing that which they never purpose to return. Therefore I, the Royal Princess of Egypt, would ask of Pharaoh, is this the decree of Pharaoh?"
"Now," said Bakenkhonsu, "Pharaoh sat with hanging head upon his throne and made no answer."
"Pharaoh does not speak," went on Userti. "Then I ask, is this the decree of the Council of Pharaoh and of the people of Egypt? There is still a great army in Egypt, hundreds of chariots and thousands of footmen. Is this army to sit still while these slaves depart into the desert there to rouse our enemies of Syria against us and return with them to butcher us?"
"At these words," continued Bakenkhonsu, "from all that mult.i.tude there went up a shout of "No.""
"The people say No. What saith Pharaoh?" cried Userti.
There followed a silence, till suddenly Amenmeses rose and spoke:
"Have it as you will, Princess, and on your head and the heads of all these whom you have stirred up let the evil fall if evil comes, though I think it is your husband, the Prince Seti, who should stand where you stand and put up this prayer in your place."
"My husband, the Prince Seti, is tied to Memphis by a rope of witch"s hair, or so they tell me," she sneered, while the people murmured in a.s.sent.
"I know not," went on Amenmeses, "but this I know that always the Prince would have let these Hebrews go from among us, and at times, as sorrow followed sorrow, I have thought that he was right. Truly more than once I also would have let them go, but ever some Strength, I know not what, descended on my heart, turning it to stone, and wrung from me words that I did not desire to utter. Even now I would let them go, but all of you are against me, and, perchance, if I withstand you, I shall pay for it with my life and throne. Captains, command that my armies be made ready, and let them a.s.semble here at Tanis that I myself may lead them after the people of Israel and share their dangers."