Chapter VIII: Part THREE: I Am Not He (1)

I

The days of the floods were approaching.

The black, parched, withered earth, deathlike and terrible was aching under the terrible sun; the waters of the Nile barely covered its slimy bed. Men, animals, and plants were perishing with the heat. Had the heat lasted, everything, it seemed, would have been burnt up as with the fire of a conflagration or of the Sheheb.

But at the exact day, at the exact hour, God's miracle took place: Mother Isis wept over her dead son--the dried-up Nile; her tear--the star Sirius, the forerunner of the sun--fell into it and the ram-headed Khnum unsealed the springs of water.

Frogs croaked joyfully; herons paced about the black mud as though measuring the earth like the wise god Tot, the Measurer; the clerks of the Water Department measured the height of the water from the Waterfalls to the Delta by the marks on the stone walls of the measuring wells, while simple folk did it by the crocodile eggs and ant-heaps: the water never rose above these. Twelve cubits meant the ruin, sixteen cubits the salvation of Egypt.

At that time Merira went to Nut-Amon, Thebes, to see Ptamose who was at death's door and implored him not to delay. But even when Merira had arrived in Thebes he kept putting off the meeting, as though he feared it.

He, too, was ill; he could not sleep at night and in the daytime he wandered about the town, not knowing what to do with himself. A grimace of disgust was constantly upon his face as though he smelt an evil stench. This was one of the curious torments of his illness: he was everywhere pursued by bad smells--of dead rats as in a granary, of bats as in the burials caves, or of rotten fish as on the banks of the Nile where fish is cleaned, salted and dried in the sun. No perfumes were of any use: they only made the stench worse.

Some three days after his arrival he was sitting by the eastern gates of the Apet-Oisit enclosure, among the ruins of the tomb-sanctuary of King Tutmose the Third.

The sun was in the zenith: its rays came down straight almost without casting any shadow. The dreadful light poured down like molten tin. Merira sat in the narrow shadow cast by the crown of the giant pillar that had fallen--the double head of the Heifer-Hather. The shadow at his feet diminished so rapidly that one could almost see it: only a minute before he had been all in the shadow and now the sun was burning his feet. He saw a scorpion running in the dusty grass but he did not stir, he seemed spellbound. There was a dull pain in his left temple, as though a fishbone had pierced the eyeball. He felt rather sick, and there was a taste of death in his mouth.

Black dots like flies, swam about in the air, that quivered with the heat, and turning into transparent glassy maggots melted away. One of them began to grow and became an ancient Sphinx, with the face of Akhnaton; if a man had suffered for a thousand years in hell and then came to earth again he would have a face like that. He slowly swam past and melted away, then came back again, turned thick and heavy and stood on all fours; his hind legs were those of a lion but the front were human arms. He ran along making a hideous clatter with his claws.

As though breaking with a terrible effort invisible bonds on his arms and legs, Merira regained consciousness, got up and walked away.

By the same subterranean passages which Dio had trodden, he descended into the large, low-pitched sepulchral chamber, or sanctuary, supported by low quadrangular columns. A couch stood in the middle; a corpse lay upon it.

The vaulted niche in the wall where once Amon's great Ram had lain on a couch of purple in the brilliant light of sanctuary lamps, was dark and empty: the animal had just died and its body was being embalmed.

Merira told the two priests who were in the room to go out, and, approaching the couch with the dead man upon it, knelt down, bending towards him. The dead man opened his young, living, immortal eyes; his lips whispered with the rustle of dry leaves:

"Is it you, Merira?"

"Yes."

"Blessed be the True, the Only God! I have waited seven years for you, my son, I knew that you would come--that I would not die without seeing you. Why did you tarry so long? Did you think I would not forgive you? I will forgive everything. Well, tell me, are you with him or with me?"

"Oh, if I only knew, if I only knew, father! This is why I have suffered so for seven years--because I don't know on whose side I am. Perhaps I am neither with you nor with him."

"There is no middle course."

"To an honest man there is not, but to a vile one anything is possible. For seven years I have done nothing but deceive myself and others. Don't torment me, father, don't ask me, decide yourself on whose side I am!"

"If I do you will not believe me. Do you remember your oath?"

"What are oaths to me? I have broken them long ago."

"No, you wanted to break them but you could not. You know yourself, there is no room for both of you in the world, it is either you or he. If you don't kill him, you will kill yourself."

"Yes, perhaps I will. Or, first him and then myself.... Can one kill the man one loves, father?"

"Yes. To kill the body in order to save the soul."

"Well, that is how it will be with me, or perhaps it will be different: I will kill him not out of love but out of envy. A beggar envies a rich man, a scoundrel envies a noble one, the dead envy the living. Set killed Osiris, his brother, from envy. And how can I help envying him? He is--and I am not: he is alive and I am dead He kills me, he destroys me for ever and ever!"

"Why have you not come before? What have you been doing with him?"

"What have I been doing? I thought I should get the better of him, deceive him, catch him in my net, but instead...."

He broke off and asked, with a wry smile:

"Was it good, father, that Set killed Osiris?"

"Why do you ask? You know yourself: they, the blind puppies, think it was not good. Osiris is life and Set is death for men, but for us, the wise ones, this is not so. The Tormented one torments, the Slain one slays, the Destroyed one destroys the world. Osiris-Amenti is the eternal West, the sun of the dead, the end of the world: he will rise over the world and the sun of the living will be extinguished; the god with an unbeating heart will conquer the world and the heart of the world will cease to beat. He is merciful and he ensnares the world with his mercy as a bird-catcher ensnares a bird. He says 'everlasting life' and, behold, there is everlasting death. Set and Osiris have been struggling since the beginning of the world, but the world does not yet know which of the two shall conquer."

"You speak almost exactly as he does, father! the tiniest hairbreadth divides you from him...."

"Yes, there is only a hairbreadth difference between truth and falsehood. Do you know the secret? The first Osiris has been, the second is to come; this man is but a shadow cast by Him; this one has spoken but the One to come will act."

"What will He do?"

"Destroy the world."

"Or perhaps the world will perish for His sake and be happy in doing so?"

"And will you be happy, too?"

"Perhaps I, also."

"Do you love Him, then?"

"I do. How can one help loving Him? He is more beautiful than all the sons of man. The devil knew well how to tempt man. I love His shadow, too, King Akhnaton; I love and hate him at the same time. And he knows it--he knows I want to kill him...."

Without speaking Ptamose took a ring off his finger and put it on Merira's.

King Tutmose the Third, King Akhnaton's great-great-grandfather, gave this ring to Hatuseneb, the high priest of Amon. A tiny cup of poison was concealed under the fiery yellow carbuncle--'Amon's eye.' On his deathbed the king commanded that if any king of Egypt were false to Amon he was to be killed with that poison.

"My spirit be upon you, my son, and the Spirit of the Secret One!" Ptamose said, laying his hands on Merira's head. "Henceforth, you, Merira, son of Nehtaneb, are the High Priest of Amon. Woe to thy enemies, O Lord! Their dwelling-place is in darkness but the rest of the earth in thy light: the sun of them that hate thee is darkened, the sun of them that love thee is rising!"

He ceased speaking, closed his eyes, and for a few minutes lay without moving. Suddenly a faint tremor passed over his body. He heaved a deep, deep sigh; his chest rose, then sank and did not rise again. But there was no change in his face.

Merira watched him for some time, unable to tell whether he were alive or dead. He took his hand--it was cold; he felt his heart--it did not beat.

He called the priests and said:

"The great seer--Urma, the prophet of all the gods of the south and the north, the high priest of Amon, Ptamose, has ascended to the gods!"

II

Now we have begun, we must finish; it is no use crying over sour milk, as an intelligent girl said once, having done something that could not be put right," said Ay, a court dignitary, and everyone laughed.

"How soon will the decree for destroying the gods be published?" Tuta asked.

"In ten days or so," Parennofer, the Keeper of the King's Seal, replied.

"Couldn't we hurry it? It will be the beginning, you know...." Tuta said.

"It may be the beginning of such things that nothing will be left of us," muttered Ahmes, the superintendent of the king's household.

"What is it you are afraid of?" Tuta asked.

"Oh, anything! It's no joke going against the gods...."

"Well, the gods can fend for themselves, but we must think of our own skins. In this accursed hole, Aton's province, we are like mice in a trap--there is no way of escape. They will slaughter us like sheep when the levelling begins."

"What levelling?"

"Don't you know? The king thinks of nothing but making the rich and the poor equal. But what if the mob does rise up in earnest?"

"No, I am not particularly afraid of the mob," Ahmes replied. "The mob may very likely be on our side, but our own sort, the officials, will cut off our noses in a trice."

"'Better have a head without a nose than a nose without a head,' as a smart fellow said who had had his nose cut off," Ay said, and everyone laughed again.

"And what are we to do with Saakera?" Parennofer asked.

"Nothing at all; his Ethiopian woman will deal with him," Ay answered.

Saakera, the heir-apparent, had three hundred and sixty-five wives, according to the number of days in the year, one more beautiful than the other, but he was said to prefer to them all an old, hideous and bad-tempered Ethiopian who, so the rumour ran, used to box his ears and do what she liked with him.

"One can't trust anyone," Ahmes concluded, looking round at them all suspiciously. "Do you remember the words of King Amenemhet? 'Do not trust your brother, do not commune with your friend, for in the day of fear no one will stand by you. I gave alms to the poor and bread to the hungry; but he who ate my bread lifted his heel against me.' And someone else, too, has said rather cleverly 'where there are six conspirators, there is one traitor.'"

They all looked at one another in silence: there were more than six of them.

They were on the top floor of Tuta's summer-house, which had just been built but was not yet inhabited; no one could disturb them there: the garden surrounding it was under water during the flooding of the Nile, so that the house had to be approached by boat.

On meeting each guest, Tuta led him to the washing-stand, then showed him to a seat on the wide and low couch that ran the whole length of the room and was covered with carpets, offered him the fragrant cup for the head and moved towards him the stand with cooling drinks in Tintyrian vessels of porous clay.

The night was dark and hot, a hot wind smelling of water, river mud and fish, blew in sudden gusts; it set up its mournful song, that sounded like a wolf's howl or a child's cry, somewhere very far-off--at the end of the world, it seemed--then drew nearer and nearer and suddenly came in a fearful gust, whistling, squealing, roaring and moaning furiously, and stopped as suddenly; all that could be heard was the splash of water against the walls of the house and the rustle of palm leaves like a whisper behind the windows.

During one of these quiet intervals the door opened noiselessly and a huge black cat, half-panther, walked in like a shadow. Going up to Tuta it began rubbing itself against his legs, purring loudly. He got up to shut the door when Merira came in.

Tuta ran forward to meet him and was going to bow down to the ground before the high priest of Amon; but Merira embraced him and kissed him on the mouth. Tuta offered him the seat of honour, but Merira sat down on the floor beside him, slowly looked at them all and said, with a quiet smile:

"Go on, gentlemen, I listen."

"It is for you to speak, father; it shall be as you say," Tuta replied.

"No, decide for yourselves. Do all know what we have met for?"

"Yes."

"Well, then there is nothing more to say."

"It is no use crying over sour milk," Ay repeated, adding, after a pause, "It is better that one man should die for all than that the whole people should perish."

"Who will give him the cup?" Merira asked.

"Three people can give it him in virtue of our office, you, I or Tuta," Ay answered. "Hadn't we better draw lots?"

The cat looking at the narrow stone-trellised chink-like window, right under the ceiling, was mewing savagely. Suddenly it made a huge leap across the room like a real panther, jumped up to the window, and holding on to the stone bars with its claws, thrust its head against it and tried to put its paw through, but could not: the trellis was too close. Mewing still more furiously and plaintively it jumped to the floor and rushed about the room, its black body smooth and slippery like a snake.

"What's the matter with the cat?" Merira asked. "Has it gone mad? See the way it bares its teeth! And its eyes glow like candles. Ugh, the devil! Fancy keeping a reptile like that in the house. Take care Tuta--it will go for your throat one day when you are asleep!"

"I expect it smells someone," said Ay, looking at the window.

"But who can be there? There is water all round--no one could get through. A bird or a monkey perhaps," said Tuta.

The wind that had just been roaring stopped again suddenly and everything was so still that one could hear the water splashing against the walls of the house and the palm leaves rustling.

"Perhaps it's they?" Parennofer whispered, turning pale.

"Who?" Tuta asked.

"The restless. It's not for nothing they desecrate the tombs nowadays. They say there are a lot of evil spirits going about at night."

"Oh please, please don't talk about it!" Tuta implored, his stomach beginning to ache with fear.

"Drive it away, I beg you," Merira cried, with disgust.

Tuta seized the cat by the collar and tried to drag it out of the room. But it would not go and he was scarcely able to master it; at last, however he succeeded, and bolted the door behind it. But the cat went on scratching and mewing outside the room.

"Let me see, what were we talking about?" Merira began again.

"About casting lots," Tuta reminded him.

"Yes. I don't know how it strikes you, gentlemen, but it seems to me that it is unworthy of intelligent men to be the slaves of chance. Let us decide freely. Ay, do you want to give the poison? No? Tuta? Nor you either? Very well, then I will."

In the depths of the room there was an altar of bronze with a folding wooden image of King Akhnaton sacrificing to the Sun god. Merira went up to it, took the image and hit it against the corner of the bronze altar so violently that it broke in two.

"Woe to thy enemies, O Lord! Their dwelling place is in darkness and the rest of the earth in thy light; the sun of them that hate thee is darkened and the sun of them that love thee is rising. Death to Akhnaton Uaenra, the apostate!"

All repeated, joining hands over the altar:

"Death to the apostate!"

Merira led Tuta by the hand to the armchair and making him sit in it, said:

"The high priest of God on high, Amon-Ra, the king over all other gods, the prophet of all the gods of the south and the north, the great seer of the sky, Urma Ptamose, commanded me, on his death-bed, to elect king of all the earth Tutankhamon, the son of King Nebmaar Amenhotep, the son of Horus. Do you all agree, men and brethren?"

"We agree. Long live Tutankhamon, King of Egypt!"

Neferhepera, the master of the king's wardrobe, gave Merira a golden serpent of the Sun, Uta.

"By the power given me of God, I crown thee King of Egypt," Merira said, placing it on Tuta's head.

"Long live the King!" they all cried, prostrating themselves.

Merira's face was suddenly distorted.

"The cat again!" he whispered, looking into a dark corner of the room.

"The cat? Where?" Tuta asked, looking quickly about him.

"There, in the corner, do you see?"

"There is nothing there."

"No, there is not. I must have fancied it."

He moved his hand across his face and smiled.

"Zahi, Heheki--they are winged panthers, with a falcon's head, a human face on the back, a budding lotos instead of a tail and a belly covered with sharp teats like the teeth of a saw. They say there are a lot of these unclean creatures prowling about at night.... But perhaps they don't exist? Old women's tales .... Heheki, heheki," he laughed suddenly, with a laugh so dreadful that Tuta felt a shiver running down his back.

"There, there, again, look! But this time it is not a cat--it is he, Uaenra! Do you see what a face he has--worn out, old, eternal. If a man had suffered for a thousand years in hell and then came back again, he would have a face like that ... he looks at me and laughs--he knows I want to kill him but he thinks I won't dare.... But wait a bit, I'll show you!"

He staggered and almost fell. They all rushed to him and would have bled him, but he had already recovered. His face was almost calm; only the corners of his mouth quivered and his lips were twisted into a smile.

All of a sudden there was a frantic squealing and howling outside the window; the leaves rustled and something fell into the water with a heavy splash.

They all ran to the ground floor hall which gave on to the garden and saw the cat floating on the water with its belly ripped open.

"It's a bad business," Ay said.

"Why!" Merira asked.

"Someone has been eavesdropping."

"What of it?"

"What of it? Why, he will tell the king."

"Let him. I know the king better than you do: he might hear with his own ears, see with his own eyes and yet not believe. He would hand the spy over to us."

"Hadn't we better put it off," Tuta began timidly; the fright had given him such a stomach-ache that he could hardly stand and could not spare a thought even for his beloved Ruru.

"Let's put it off! Let us!" everyone said.

"Cowards, scoundrels, traitors!" Merira cried in a fury. "If you put it off, I will inform against you!"

"But we are thinking of you, Merira," Ay said. "You are ill, you ought to look after yourself...."

"Here is my medicine!" Merira cried, pointing to the poison ring that glittered on his finger. "It shall be as we decided: all will be over in three days' time!"

III

Do not judge me, O Lord, for my many sins! I am a man with no understanding of myself," Merira whispered.

"What are you whispering?" Dio asked.

"Nothing."

He stood at the prow of the boat with a double-edged harpoon in his hands and she sat at the helm, rowing with a short oar, or pushing off in shallow places with a long pole. The flat-bottomed boat for two, made of long stems of papyrus, tied together and covered with coal tar, was so unstable that one could hardly move in it without risk of upsetting it. Merira wore the ancient hunting dress: a two-lobed apron--_shenti_ of white linen, a broad necklace of turquoise and carnelian beads, a small beard of black horsehair and a 'tiled' closely curled wig; all the rest of the body was naked. In such dress the dead, after the resurrection, hunted in the blessed fields of Ialu in the papyrus thickets of the heavenly Nile.

The milky-white sky of the early morning was changing to blue, as innocent as the smile of a child asleep. The waters of the Nile were still as a pond; the morning breath was so gentle that the mirror-like surface of the river was not yet broken with ripples, though boats with full sails were already flitting upon it like birds. The rafts of pines and cedars from Lebanon slowly floated along. Men, tiny as ants, dragged by a rope a huge barge with a granite obelisk, singing a mournful song; it made the stillness seem more still and the expanse of the river more limitless. The white houses of the City of the Sun, scattered about like dice in the narrow green strip of palm groves, were disappearing in the distance.

"What is the matter with you?" Dio asked Merira. "Happy? in good spirits? No, that's not it.... I have never seen you like this."

"I had a good night," Merira answered. "I slept for quite six hours on end."

He took a deep, eager breath. He was glad when he felt the smell of bats and not of dead rats or rotten fish; and to-day--what joy! he smelt nothing but morning freshness.

"And everything is good," he said, still more joyfully. "See how high the water is! Isn't it fine?"

"Very fine," she agreed.

"Just think, sixteen and a half cubits! The water hasn't risen so high for the last ten years!" Merira went on. "The country is saved if the rebels in the south do not destroy the canals. Look, a little ass in the field doesn't dare to put its foot in the ditch--ah, now he has done it, clever creature--and men are more stupid than asses!"

He added, after a pause:

"I had a good dream the other night...."

"What was it?"

"It was about you. I dreamt we were children together walking in a lovely garden, better than Maru-Aton--a real paradise--and you were saying something very nice to me. I woke up and thought 'I will do what she told me.'"

"And what did I say?"

He shook his head and said nothing.

"Again something you can't tell?"

"No."

He turned away to hide from her the tears that came into his eyes:

"Don't judge me, O Lord, for my many sins! I am a man with no understanding of myself," he whispered again.

He suddenly struck the water with his harpoon so violently that he nearly upset the boat. Dio cried out. When he pulled the harpoon out of the water a fish was struggling on each side of it: an _in_, with a rectangular, wing-like fin on its back, glittering like ruby, sapphire and gold, and a _ha_ with the monstrous head of an anteater, consecrated to the god Set. He threw both fishes at her feet and she admired the way they struggled, dying.

"Why do you say you have never seen me like this?" he asked.

"I don't know. You always jeer, and to-day you look as though you were going to smile. Quite like...."

"Like whom?"

She stopped suddenly and looked down; she wanted to say 'quite like Tamu,' but suddenly she felt frightened and sorry--sorry for this one as for the other.

"Also something you can't tell?" he asked, smiling.

"No, I can't."

"There, there, look!" he pointed to something that lay on the sand-bank and seemed exactly like a greenish-black, slimy log.

"What is it?"

"A crocodile. It hid in the sand for the night and now it has crawled out and will warm itself in the sun; and at midday, when the north wind blows, it will open its mouth towards it to get cool. An intelligent beast. But an ibis's feather paralyzes it and then one can do anything with it..."

He spoke about indifferent things on purpose to hide his emotion, but went on smiling exactly like Tamu.

The boat cut into a dense mass of papyrus plants. Their umbrella-like tops quivered as though alive, the stems rustled and bent over the boat like two high green walls. The yellow ambaki flowers smelt of bitter almond and warm water and the pink lotoses, _nekhebs_, of sweet aniseed. Blue dragonflies whirred unceasingly over the floating leaves. An ichneumon, a sharp-faced little creature with whiskers, something between a cat and a rat, was stealing up the entangled papyrus-stems, and the bird-mother fluttering over her nest desperately flapped her wings to drive the robber away. Suddenly in the far distance there was a loud trumpet-call: it was a hippopotamus, roaring as it spouted water from its nostrils like a whale.

Water birds flew about in clouds: sacred herons--_benu_--with two long feathers thrown back over their heads, sacred ibises, bald-headed and white but for a black tail and a black edge on the wings; wild ducks, geese, swans, cranes, spoonbills, plovers, water-hens, hoopoos, peewits, divers, pelicans, cormorants, golden-eyes, lapwings, magpies, snipe, fish-hawks and many others. They were singing, twittering, chirruping, calling, quacking, screeching, whistling, cackling, cawing, droning, clucking.

"Vepvet!" Merira called, and a huge yellow hunting cat, with emerald eyes, that had been sleeping at the bottom of the boat, jumped to him and settled beside him on the bow, pricking up its ears.

He threw a flat, curved tablet made of rhinoceros skin--a weapon of immemorial antiquity. It flew along, struck its aim and describing an arc in the air returned to him and fell at his feet. The cat jumped into the thicket and brought a bird that had been killed. He threw the weapon again, and the cat brought another bird, and soon the boat was so full of game that it began to sink.

They rowed to a little island surrounded on all sides with thick walls of papyrus, three times the height of man, bright green and fresh as in paradise. In days of old, Mother Isis brought up the baby Horus in such a papyrus nest.

They landed. A fisherman's net was stretched out on poles on the shore to dry. There was a bed of reeds under a shelter of dry palm leaves. Dio sat on the bed and Merira on the ground at her feet. The cat ate fish greedily.

"She is as good at scenting prey as Ruru was," Merira said.

"Why 'was'?" Dio asked in surprise.

"Don't you know? The poor creature was killed the other day. Tuta wept over it as though it had been his own daughter and has fallen ill with grief."

"Who killed it?"

"I don't know. It was found dead in the garden. Someone must have climbed a tree and been listening at the window, and the cat smelt him out and rushed at him and he ripped its belly with a knife."

"But who could it have been?"

"Probably some spy of Mahu's."

"Impossible. Mahu knows that Tuta is a faithful servant of the king. Why should he be watched?

"He might well be. All we do at court is to watch one another."

"And you watch me?"

"I do. Do you remember how you spoke about me with the king in the desert? I know everything--I know that you betray me."

He gave her a long, intent look.

"No, Merira," she said quietly. "It is not I who betray you--you do it yourself. You deceive yourself: you want to hate him and you cannot--you love him...."

"I don't know. Perhaps I do love him. But love, too, is sometimes cruel--more cruel than hate. It is said 'love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire; many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.' Do you know this?"

"I do. Is this how you love me, too?"

"What is my love to you? Why do you ask? Do you want to deceive me?"

"No. Even if I wanted to I could not: we know all about each other."

"Do we? There is no getting to the bottom of the soul--it is too deep."

"At the bottom of the soul is love; one who loves knows everything. Are you very unhappy?"

"And are you very sorry for me? It is a bad sign: if a woman pities a man she doesn't love him."

There was a silence. Then he spoke again in a changed voice, without looking at her.

"I have had another dream about you, a bad one. Only I don't know if it was a dream. Perhaps you know what it was--a dream or not?"

She lowered her eyes, feeling that he was looking at her: it was like spiders running over her naked body; she was ashamed and frightened as in that dream.

"No, Dio, I do not love you. To love a woman one must despise her just a little. I might love you when you are asleep or dead--as you were in that dream. You said then 'it is sweet to be weak, sweet to be only a woman.' But you wouldn't say that awake, would you? Why do you lie then? You are a woman after all: moths nest in clothes and slyness in woman. If you had only said to me then 'go away' I would have gone. And I will go now--you have only to tell me...."

She put both her hands on his shoulders and said simply and quietly:

"Listen, my brother, three people have already perished through me; I don't want you to perish too...."

"It wouldn't be through you, don't be afraid; I hated him before you came."

There was a long silence, then she asked, speaking still lower than before:

"What do you hate him for?"

"Don't you know? Surely you don't believe, do you, that King Akhnaton is the One who is to come?

"No. I know he is only His shadow."

"But he does believe it himself."

"No, he doesn't. That was your temptation, your snare, but he is free from it now."

"He is not--he never will be. I tempted him, you say? Why, could I ever have done it without him? I merely said aloud what he thought; I revealed his own secret to him. And do you imagine one can say 'I am He' and then repent? I don't know who has been led into temptation--I by him or he by me. But anyway, there is no greater temptation upon earth than for a man to say 'I am God.' Yes, he is only a shadow of the One to come; this one has said 'I will kindle the flame' and that One will kindle it. But maybe we still have time to put it out...."

"No, you will not put it out. His fire is love! 'Many waters cannot quench love'--you have said so yourself. No, Merira, you will not rise against him!"

"Do you think I am afraid of him?"

"Not of him but of the One behind him."

"Liar, Murderer, Devil is behind him. If He came I would rise against Him, too!"

The green walls parted suddenly and the king's boat appeared. The king stood at the stern with Mahu and was saying something to him, pointing to the island.

"He is looking, he is looking at us!" Merira whispered in terror. "Let us hide!"

They both went into the papyrus thicket. The boat passed them.

"I believe you are right after all, Dio, and I will never rise against him," Merira said, with a quiet laugh, passing his hand over his eyes as though he had just awoken from a fearful dream. "I may rise against myself, but not against him...."

And after a silence he asked:

"You won't tell him what we have been talking about, will you?"

"No, I won't," she replied and glancing at him understood more clearly than she had ever done before:

"He is an enemy."

IV

Saakera was giving a feast. The pillared hall of the palace where the guests were assembled gave on to an open porch and the porch on to the river. The palm-shaped columns, decorated with a scaly design of coloured glass on a golden background, seemed made of precious stones, glittering in the light of candelabra, each of which resembled a burning bush; the yawning abyss of darkness gaped in between. There the rusty sickle of the waning moon shed its dim light on the ragged tops of the Lybian mountains and was reflected as a pillar of dull copper in the black rippled surface of the river, so wide that it was hard to believe it was a river and not the sea.

The night was still, but fresh, as often happens during the overflow. The gentle breeze from the north blew so evenly that the flames of the lamps were all bent to one side.

The blue ceiling, studded with golden stars, looked through the white smoke of incense like a real sky through the clouds.

The guests sat in a semi-circle in the square space that was free from columns: the king was in the middle, on his right sat Saakera, the heir-apparent, with his consort, Meritatona, the king's eldest daughter; then Ramose, Tuta, Ay; on the king's left was the queen, next to her was an empty seat reserved for Merira, who had not yet arrived; then came Mahu, Dio, and others. Members of the royal family and senior dignitaries sat in arm-chairs and on folding chairs, and the lesser ones sat on carpets and mats on the floor.

Within the semi-circle stood a big, round, one-legged table of alabaster. It was covered with loaves of bread shaped like pyramids, cones, balls and sacred animals, dishes of food, covered with fresh leaves to protect the food from flies, and mounds of fruit: gigantic bunches of Lybian grapes, a foot long, the rare fruits of shakarab, spotted like a leopard's skin, and the egg-shaped persae in a four-petalled chalice, golden-coloured and fragrant as flowers. Four wine and beer stands made of trellised woodwork and garlanded with flowers stood round the table.

Nubian girls, dressed in white, transparent linen--'woven air'--or naked but for a narrow girdle just above the navel, served round the cups with food and drink. Meat was cut up into small pieces and eaten with the fingers, which were washed in scented water after every dish. Wine and beer were sucked through reeds.

Fans of ostrich feathers and flykillers of jackals' tails were being waved unceasingly to keep off the night midges, _zezet_.

Each guest wore on his head a tiny cup filled with fragrant ointment, with a lotos stuck through it, so that the flower hung over the forehead. Melting slowly with the warmth of the body and the heat of the room the ointment fell in drops upon the white linen of the dresses, leaving greasy yellow streaks upon it; the greater the number of such streaks the better: it meant the guest had been well looked after. When the cup was empty the girls produced a new one offering the choice between _kemi_, 'the royal ointment,' or _anti_, 'the dew of the gods,' which gave a golden tint to the skin and made the face look 'like the morning star.'

"Where is Merira?" the king asked.

"He has promised to come, but he is not here yet. He is not well. He can't sleep," answered Saakera, the heir apparent, a young man with a beautiful face, fine and mournful like the sickle of the moon turning pale in the morning sky.

"Why don't you cure him, Pentu?" the king asked.

"There is only one certain remedy against sleeplessness, sire," Pentu, the physician, answered.

"What is it?"

"A clear conscience."

"But isn't his conscience clear?"

Pentu made no answer, as though he had not heard, and there was a general silence.

"Why are you eating so little, Tuta?" the host inquired solicitously. "This is your favourite dish, antelope from the salty plains. Isn't it cooked to your liking?"

"Oh, yes, prince, it is excellent; I have eaten much of it."

"He is telling fibs--he hasn't had a bite, I have seen myself," the king laughed. "He is grieving over poor Ruru. Haven't they discovered yet who killed it?"

"No, they haven't," Tuta answered in confusion.

"They will soon discover it, I am on the track," Mahu said, looking intently at Tuta.

Tuta was more dead than alive: he took a piece of meat into his mouth and could not swallow it.

"What's the matter with you, stomach-ache again?" his consort, princess Ankhsenbatona, who sat next to him, asked him in a whisper.

"Yes," he answered with the languid air he always assumed when speaking about his health.

Ankhi knew that his stomach-ache was generally due to fear.

"What has frightened you?"

He said nothing.

"Speak! what is it? Ah, you insufferable creature!" she whispered furiously and pinched his back so viciously that he nearly cried out.

Ay saw Tuta's confusion and wanted to help him, but did not know how.

Ay's wife, the great royal nurse, Ty, was sitting next to him. Enormously stout--a regular toad--with a purplish face covered with warts that had red hair on them, the old lady was wearing a fiery-red wig, a Canaan novelty, and gold-coloured gloves, a Hittite novelty; though there was no need to wear them in a hot country like Egypt, she showed them off on every festive occasion. People thought her half-mad, but she was very cunning and intelligent, and a malicious gossip, especially in love affairs.

Soft-boiled ibis eggs were served. They were not eaten as a rule, for the ibis was a bird sacred to the god Tot. But this time all the company ate some to please the king and show their contempt for the false god.

Ty helped herself to three eggs. It was awkward to eat them with gloved hands and she smeared herself with the yolk which, however, was not very noticeable beside the yellow streaks from the ointment.

"Aita! Aita!" she suddenly said in a loud voice, when there was a silence and everyone was occupied with the eggs, and she gave a high-pitched little laugh, curiously out of keeping with her enormous size; it was like the silvery trill of a toad.

Ay looked at her and understood what he had to do. He began telling about the pretty Aita, wife of one of the king's dignitaries who used to deceive her husband so boldly and cleverly under his very nose that everyone knew it except him.

"She had a feed, wiped her mouth and said 'I haven't done any wrong'," Ay concluded.

"What? What?" the king laughed. "She had a feed, wiped her mouth...." he tried to repeat it but could not go on for laughter.

"Wiped her mouth and said 'I haven't done any wrong'," Ay repeated.

"And what is your other saying? 'It is no use crying....'" the king began again and could not finish.

"No use crying over sour milk," Ay said.

Tuta was saved. Ruru was forgotten.

Meanwhile Dio was whispering with Mahu, the chief of the guards.

"And what if he does not come?" she asked.

"He is sure to come," Mahu answered. "How many have you hidden away?"

"Three hundred."

"That will do."

"Hadn't we better tell the king?"

"Heaven forbid! If he learns it, all is lost, he will not believe a word of it. We must catch the scoundrel red-handed.... Ah, there he is!"

Merira came in. Tuta almost fainted.

"Here he is, at last!" said the king, getting up to greet Merira.

He made him sit down next to the queen and began asking him about his health. Merira answered calmly, almost jokingly. But when a Nubian brought him a cup of perfume he sent her away with a grimace of disgust.

The little girls who sang and played the lute, the tambourine, the flute and the cithern sat down in a circle on the floor. Miruit, Pentaur's pupil whom Dio had brought with her from Thebes, stood in the middle. Her dark amber-coloured body could be seen through the flowing folds of the transparent dress. Her face, ugly, charming and dangerous, like the head of a snake, seemed tiny under the mass of the dull black hair powdered with blue.

The girls played and sang:

"Sweet one, you are sweet for love
Fairer than any woman,
Fairer than any girl,
Your hair is blacker than abed berries,
Your teeth are whiter than sunny flint.
Your lips are the bud of a flower,
Your arms are slender branches.
Two flowering crowns,
Your breasts are hardly formed,
Your nipples smell of myrrh."

Miruit was dancing the _dance de venire_. The upper part of the body remained motionless and the lower moved rapidly, although she stood on the same spot. Her head was thrown back, her lips open, her eyes dark and fixed, and the slender waist moved like a serpent's tongue; the belly rose and fell, the narrow, childish hips moved slower and slower as though prolonging the last tremours of passion. If she had really done before everyone the things her dance pictured, it would not have been so innocently shameless.

The women looked down, the men smiled, beating measure with their hands and the girls sang:

"You have captured my heart,
You have captured my heart
By a single look of your eyes.
How tender are your embraces,
How sweet your caresses!
Better than wine is your kiss,
The odour of your sweet body
Is better than any perfume."

When Miruit had finished the dance the choir of the blind men who had sung at the Sun's festival entered the hall. They sat down on the floor and sang to the sounds of the harp:

"One generation replaces another,
The sun rises, the sun sets again,
The nostrils of all breathe the morning air,
Until man goes to his place of rest.
No one can return from there, no one can tell
What awaits us beyond the tomb.
Rejoice then, O mortal, in thy day of life,
Until the day of weeping comes.
I have heard of what befell my forefathers:
The walls of their tombs are destroyed,
Their coffins are empty like coffins of beggars,
Forsaken by everyone on earth.
Their dwelling place knows them no more.
It is as though they had never been:
Rejoice then, mortal, in thy day of life!
Oil thy body with fragrant oil
Make lotos garlands for thy arms
And the breasts of thy sister beloved.
Enjoy the music and the songs
Forget thou all thy sorrows,
Remember nothing but the joy,
Until the day thy boat shall land
Upon the shores of Silence."

The song stopped and the breath of the night blew fresher than before from the black gaps between the pillars; the flames of the lamps bent lower, all on one side, as though someone invisible had come into the room.

"Isn't it a fine song?" Saakera asked.

"No, prince, it isn't," answered Panehesy, the second priest of Aton and the head of the king's spies--a man without age who looked like a eunuch. He was a mild fanatic, 'a holy fool,' in the words of Ay.

"What's wrong with it?"

"It's godless. If it is true, our faith is in vain."

"I would answer you, my friend, but it doesn't behove ignorant men to speak in the presence of the wise."

"Speak, Saakera," the king said. "I like listening to you. You say what many people think, but don't say, and to me even a bitter truth is dearer than a sweet lie."

"Listen then, Panehesy," Saakera began. "Let the son of the Sun who has come down from heaven speak of heavenly things, and I will speak of the earthly. We are all creatures of yesterday and we know nothing, for our days upon earth are like a shadow. The same fate befalls the righteous and the unrighteous, the good and the wicked, the clean and the unclean, him that sacrifices and him that does not sacrifice. A man has no pre-eminence above a beast: all are of the dust and all turn to dust again. I have seen all the works that are done under the sun and believe the dead are happier than the living, and happiest of all is he who was never born!"

"What are we to do then, we who have been born?" Panehesy asked.

"The song gives an answer: rejoice in your day, mortals, but remember that the peace of the god with the unbeating heart is the better portion."

"Thank you very much, our kind host, you have given us a treat!" Ay laughed. "Why, I couldn't swallow a morsel to the accompaniment of a song like that!"

"Why not, my friend? Remembrance of sorrow in the midst of joy is like salt in one's food."

"That's all very well, but every condiment should be used in moderation, and this is too much salt."

"No, this is not salt," Pentu the physician said, quietly, as though to himself.

"What is it then?" Ay asked.

"Poison," Pentu answered, quieter still. Mahu glanced at Merira. He sat with his head bent and his eyes half closed, his face as unmoved as that of a man asleep or dead.

"Why don't you speak, sire?" Panehesy cried, turning to the king.

"I don't speak because there is nothing to say: he is right," the king answered.

"Well said, Abby darling!" Princess Meritatona exclaimed, clapping her hands with delight.

Everyone looked at her with surprise.

"What does this mean, sire?" Panehesy faltered.

"It means, my friend, that if there is no God man is worse off than a beast, because a beast does not know its end and a man does."

"But there is God."

"Yes, there is. Everyone says there is, but acts as though there were not. And haven't you read, my son, that we shall have to give a terrible answer for empty words? Pentu, too, is right: there is poison in that song. But poison may be a medicine. There are two endings to the song: one is 'eat, drink and die' and another 'feed the starving, give drink to the thirsty'.... But it is better not to speak of it. God is a spring in the wilderness, sealed for the talkers and open for the silent. Merira is silent and he is right, more right than any of us. Don't be vexed with our chatter, our silent friend, forgive us!"

Merira made no answer, he merely looked at the king and his face remained as unmoved as though he were asleep or dead.

Suddenly there came through the stillness the slow, measured clang of the cymbals on the roof of Aton's temple, as though a huge heart of brass began beating in the night.

All rose from their seats; the king, the queen, the princesses, the heir-apparent and Merira walked to the altar that stood in the depths of the room before a bas-relief of the god Aton.

"Glory be to the unseen god, to the midnight sun!" Merira intoned. "Oh, mighty Falcon, with broad wings, flying through the two skies, hastening in thy sleepless course through the sky underneath the earth, to arise in thy place in the morning, the most secret of secret gods. In thy life the dead come to life again; thou givest their nostrils the breath of life and air to their stifled throats. Thou bringest light to those who are in death; glorifying thee from within their tombs, the dead lift up their hands and those in the earth rejoice!"

When the cymbals sounded Mahu and Dio went into the adjoining room. He walked up to the wall, knocked at it gently and put his ear to it. A knock came from the other side, too. The block of stone in the wall turned round like a swing door, leaving a narrow opening. The palace walls were double and there was a hiding place between them. No one knew of it except the king, Mahu and Ramose.

The Hittite Amazons of the king's bodyguard came out of the open door noiselessly like shadows. The dwarf Iagu jumped out after them, ran up to Mahu and asked in a whisper:

"Where are they?"

"Who?"

"Tuta, Merira."

"Why do you want to know?"

"I won't give them to anyone, I will throttle them with my own hands."

It was Iagu who had killed Ruru: he had climbed the tree by the window, looked into the room, listened to all that the conspirators said and told Mahu.

"You are a fine fellow, Iagu!" said Mahu, patting the dwarf on the head. "Tiny as you are, you have a lion's heart. But there's one thing, my friend: if you want to save the king, you must not touch them, do you hear?"

"I hear," Iagu answered, grinding his teeth.

"Make haste, make haste!" Dio hurried them.

"Don't be afraid, we'll be in time," Mahu said calmly. "You go to the king, and I will wait here. We will run out as soon as you call."

Dio returned to the guest chamber. Both Tuta and Ay had gone. The king stood by the altar, whispering a prayer. Dio placed herself behind him, opposite Merira.

A table with bread, wine and fruit stood near the altar. Merira went to it and began preparing the libation cup.

He then returned to the altar, holding the cup in his hands.

Dio noticed a ring with a carbuncle on his finger; he had not worn it before.

Their eyes met. "Who is to drink the cup?" he read the question in her eyes. "You will see," she read the answer in his.

He approached the king and said:

"King Uaenra, Sun's only Son, light of light, spirit of spirit, flesh of Sun's flesh, accept the cup of life, drink the cup of immortality, thou who overcomest death!"

He held out the cup to the king. But before Akhnaton had had time to take it, Dio snatched it out of Merira's hand and threw it on the floor.

"What are you doing?" the king cried.

"I've poured out the poison," Dio answered and she called:

"Mahu! Mahu!"

The door was flung open, and the Hittite women, led by Mahu, ran into the room. Some surrounded the king, others occupied the porch and mounted guard by the doors, but most of them ran to the next room where a battle with a detachment of Midian mercenaries had started.

"Rebellion! Save the king!" the dignitaries cried, rushing about the room in search of an exit.

Suddenly there was a loud hammering at the door from which the Hittite women had come. Both halves of the door were creaking and shaking under the blows of the axe from the other side. No one had expected an attack from the rear. The Amazons had barely had time to run to the door. A new battle began there.

Arrows and spears whistled in the air. A spear struck the stand with wines, and it fell with a clatter of broken crockery. A candelabrum was overthrown and the mats on the floor caught fire.

"Fire! Fire!" the dignitaries shouted, but they did nothing to put it out.

A Nubian girl seized a carpet and flung it over the flame, extinguishing it at once.