The old woman, as if startled into wakefulness by the voice of her mistress, slowly uncoiled her spider-like limbs, rose to her feet, rubbed several times her brown eyelids with the back of her left hand, yellower than that of a mummy, and said with a well a.s.sumed air of astonishment: "Is she not there?"
"No," replied Ra"hel; "and did I not yet see her place hollowed out on the bed by the side of my own, and hanging on that peg the gown which she threw off, I could believe that the strange events of the past night were but an illusion and a dream."
Though she was perfectly well aware of the manner of Tahoser"s disappearance, Thamar raised a piece of the drapery stretched in the corner of the room, as if the Egyptian might have been concealed behind it. She opened the door of the hut and standing on the threshold minutely explored the neighbourhood with her glance; then turning towards the interior, she signed negatively to her mistress.
"It is strange," said Ra"hel, thoughtfully.
"Mistress," said the old woman, drawing near the Israelite, with a gentle, petting tone, "you know that I disliked the foreign woman."
"You dislike every one, Thamar," replied Ra"hel, smiling.
"Except you, mistress," answered the old woman, placing to her lips one of the young woman"s hands.
"I know it. You are devoted to me."
"I never had any children, and sometimes I fancy that I am your mother."
"Good Thamar," said Ra"hel, moved.
"Was I wrong," continued Thamar, "to consider her appearance so strange?
Her disappearance explains it. She said she was Tahoser, the daughter of Petamounoph. She was nothing but a fiend which took that form to seduce and tempt a child of Israel. Did you see how troubled she was when Poeri spoke against the idols of wood, stone, and metal, and how difficult it was for her to say, "I will try to believe in your G.o.d"? It seemed as though the words burnt her lips like hot coals."
"The tears which fell upon my breast were genuine tears,--a woman"s tears," said Ra"hel.
"Crocodiles weep when they want, and hyenas laugh to attract their prey," continued the old woman. "The evil spirits which prowl at night in the stones and ruins know many a trick and play every part."
"So, according to you, poor Tahoser was nothing but a phantom raised up by h.e.l.l?"
"Unquestionably," replied Thamar. "Is it likely that the daughter of the priest Petamounoph would have fallen in love with Poeri and preferred him to the Pharaoh, who, it is said, loves her?"
Ra"hel, who did not admit that any one in the world was superior to Poeri, did not think this unlikely.
"If she loved him as much as she said she did, why did she run off when, with your consent, he accepted her as his second wife? It was the condition that she must renounce the false G.o.ds and adore Jehovah which put to flight that devil in disguise."
"In any case, that devil had a very sweet voice and very tender eyes."
At bottom Ra"hel was perhaps not greatly dissatisfied with the disappearance of Tahoser; she thus kept wholly to herself the heart which she had been willing to share, and yet she had the merit of the sacrifice she had made.
Under pretext of going to the market, Thamar went out and started for the King"s palace, her cupidity not having allowed her to forget his promise. She had provided herself with a great bag of coa.r.s.e cloth which she proposed to fill with gold.
When she appeared at the palace gate the soldiers did not beat her as they had done the first day. She enjoyed the king"s favour, and the officer of the guard made her enter at once. Timopht brought her to the Pharaoh.
When he perceived the vile old hag crawling towards his throne like a crushed insect, the King remembered his promise and gave orders to open one of the granite chambers of the treasury, and to allow her to take as much gold as she could carry away. Timopht, whom Pharaoh trusted, and who knew the secret of the lock, opened the stone gate.
The vast ma.s.s of gold sparkled in the sunbeams, but the brilliancy of the metal was no brighter than the glance of the old woman. Her eyes turned yellow and flashed strangely. After a few moments of dazzled contemplation, she pulled up the sleeves of her patched tunic and bared her withered arms, on which the muscles stood out like cords, and which were deeply wrinkled above the elbow; then she opened and closed her curved fingers, like the talons of a griffin, and sprang at the ma.s.s of golden bars with fierce and b.e.s.t.i.a.l avidity. She plunged her arms amid the ingots, moved them, stirred them round, rolled them over, threw them up; her lips trembled, her nostrils swelled, and down her spine ran convulsive tremors. Intoxicated, mad, shaken by trepidation and spasmodic laughter, she cast handfuls of gold into her bag, saying, "More! more! more!" so that soon it was full up to the mouth.
Timopht, amused at the sight, let her have her way, not dreaming that such a skinny spectre could move so enormous a weight. But Thamar bound the mouth of her sack with a cord, and to the great surprise of the Egyptian, lifted it on her back. Avarice lent to that broken-down frame unexpected strength of muscles; all the nerves and fibres of the arms, the neck, the shoulders, strained to breaking, bore up under a ma.s.s of metal which would have made the most robust Nahasi porter bow down. Her brows bent, like those of an ox when the ploughshare strikes a stone, Thamar staggered out of the palace, knocking up against the walls, walking almost on all-fours, for every now and then she put her hands out to save herself from being crushed under her burden. But at last she got out, and the load of gold was her legitimate property. Breathless, exhausted, covered with sweat, her back bruised and her fingers cut, she sat down at the palace gate upon her beloved sack, and never did any seat appear to her so soft. After a short time, she perceived a couple of Israelites, pa.s.sing by with a litter on which they had been bearing a burden. She called them, and promising them a handsome reward, induced them to take up the sack and to follow her. The Israelites, preceded by Thamar, went down the streets of Thebes, reached the waste places studded with mud huts and placed the sack in one of them. Thamar paid them grumblingly the promised reward.
Meanwhile Tahoser had been installed in a splendid apartment, a regal apartment as beautiful as that of the Pharaoh. Elegant pillars with lotus capitals upbore the starry roof, framed in by a cornice of blue palm-branches painted upon a golden background. Panels of a tender lilac-colour with green lines ending in flower buds showed symmetrically on the walls; fine matting covered the stone slabs of the flooring; sofas, inlaid with plates of metal alternating with enamels, and covered with black stuffs adorned with red circles, armchairs with lions" feet, with cushions that fell over the back, stools formed of swans" necks interlaced, piles of purple leather cushions filled with thistle-down, seats which could hold two persons, tables of costly woods supported by statues of Asiatic captives,--formed the furniture of the room.
On richly carved pedestals rested tall porcelain vases and great golden bowls, the workmanship of which was even more precious than the material. One of them with a slender base, was supported by two horses"
heads with fringed hoods and harness. The handles were formed of two lotus stalks gracefully falling over two rose ornaments; on the cover were ibises with erect ears and sharp horns, and on the body of the vase were represented gazelles flying from the dogs amid stalks of papyrus.
Another, no less curious, had for cover a monstrous Typhon head, adorned with palms and grimacing between two vipers. The sides were ornamented with leaves and denticulated bands.
One of the bowls, supported by two figures wearing mitres and dressed in robes with broad borders, with one hand upbearing the handle and with the other the foot, amazed by its huge size and the perfection and finish of the ornamentation. The other, smaller and more perfect in shape perhaps, spread out gracefully; the slender and supple bodies of jackals whose paws rested upon the edge as if the animals sought to drink, formed the handles. Metal mirrors, framed with deformed faces, as though to give the beauty who looked into them the pleasure of contrast, coffers of cedar or sycamore wood painted and ornamented, caskets of enamelled ware, flagons of alabaster, onyx, and gla.s.s, boxes of perfumes,--all these testified to the magnificence that the Pharaoh lavished upon Tahoser. The precious objects contained in that room were well worth a kingdom"s ransom.
Seated upon an ivory seat, Tahoser looked at the stuffs and gems shown her by nude maidens, who scattered around the wealth contained in the coffers. Tahoser had just emerged from the bath, and the aromatic oils with which she had been rubbed, still further softened her delicate, satin-like skin; her flesh was almost translucent. She was of superhuman beauty, and when she gazed upon the burnished metal mirror, with her eyes brightened with antimony, she could not help smiling upon her reflection. A full gauze robe enveloped her fair form without veiling it. For sole ornament she wore a necklace composed of lapis-lazuli hearts surmounted by crosses, hanging from a string of gold and pearls.
The Pharaoh appeared on the threshold of the hall. A golden asp bound his thick hair, and a calasiris, the folds of which, brought forward, formed a point, enclosed his body from the belt to the knees; a single necklace encircled his unconquered, muscular neck.
On perceiving the King, Tahoser rose from her seat to prostrate herself, but the Pharaoh came to her, raised her up, and made her sit down.
"Do not thus humble yourself, Tahoser," he said in a gentle voice. "I will you to be my equal. I am weary of being alone in the universe.
Although I am almighty and possess you, I shall wait until you love me as if I were but a man. Put away all fear; be a woman with a woman"s will, sympathies, antipathies, and caprices. I have never seen one. But if your heart at last speaks in my favour, hold out to me, when I enter your room, in order that I may know it, the lotus flower out of your hair."
Though he strove to prevent it, Tahoser threw herself at the knees of the Pharaoh and let fall a tear upon his bare feet.
"Why is my soul Poeri"s?" she said to herself as she resumed her place upon the ivory seat.
Timopht, putting one hand on the ground and the other on his head, entered the room.
"O King," he said, "a mysterious personage seeks to speak to you. His gray beard falls down to his waist, shining horns emerge from his bare brow, and his eyes shine like fire. An unknown power precedes him, for all the guards fall back and all the gates open before him. What he says must be done, and I have come to you in the midst of your pleasures, even were death to be the punishment of my audacity."
"What is his name?" said the King.
"Mosche," replied Timopht.
XV
The King pa.s.sed into another hall to receive Mosche, and sat down on a throne, the arms of which were formed of lions, hung a broad pectoral ornament on his breast, and a.s.sumed a pose of supreme indifference.
Mosche appeared, accompanied by another Hebrew, called Aharon. August though the Pharaoh was, as he sat on his golden throne, surrounded by his officers and his fan-bearers, within that high hall with its huge columns, against that background of paintings which depicted the deeds of his ancestors or his own, Mosche was no less imposing. In him the majesty of age equalled the majesty of sovereignty. Although he was seventy years old, he seemed endowed with manly vigour, and nothing in him showed decadence into senility. The wrinkles on his brow and his cheeks, like the marks of the chisel on the granite, made him venerable without telling his age. His brown and wrinkled neck was joined to his powerful shoulders by gaunt but still powerful muscles, and a network of sinewy veins showed upon his hands, which did not tremble as old men"s hands generally do. A soul more energetic than a human soul vivified his body, and on his face shone in the shadow a strange light. It seemed like the reflection of an invisible sun.
Without prostrating himself, as was the custom when men approached the King, Mosche drew near the throne of the Pharaoh and said to him: "Thus saith the Lord G.o.d of Israel: "Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness.""
The Pharaoh replied, "Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go."
Without being intimidated by the King"s words, the tall old man replied unhesitatingly, for the stuttering which had formerly affected him had disappeared,--
"The G.o.d of the Hebrews hath met with us. Let us go, we pray thee, three days" journey into the desert, and sacrifice unto the Lord our G.o.d; lest he fall upon us with pestilence, or with the sword."
Aharon confirmed by a nod the demand of Mosche.
"Wherefore do ye, Mosche and Aharon, let the people from their works?"
replied the Pharaoh. "Happily for you I am to-day in a clement humour, for I might have had you beaten with rods, had your tongues and ears cut off, or thrown you living to the crocodiles. Know, for I tell you so, there is no other G.o.d than Ammon Ra, the supreme and primeval being, at once male and female; who is his own father and his own mother, whose husband he is also; from whom come all the other G.o.ds which unite heaven to earth and which are but forms of those two obscure principles. The wise know it, and the priests, who have long studied mysteries in the colleges and in the temples consecrated to his diverse representations.