“Shall I forget that thou hast trusted me, or am I permitted to consider further as to thy son’s safety?” Katuti stood for a moment undecided, then she said:
“You were clever enough to find what I carelessly dropped; perhaps some God may show you what I ought to do. Now leave me.”
“Wilt thou want me early to-morrow?”
“No.”
“Then I will go to the Necropolis, and offer a sacrifice.”
“Go!” said Katuti, and went towards the house with the fatal letter in her hand.
Nemu stayed behind alone; he looked thoughtfully at the ground, murmuring to himself.
“She must not lose her honor; not at present, or indeed all will be lost. What is this honor? We all come into the world without it, and most of us go to the grave without knowing it, and very good folks notwithstanding. Only a few who are rich and idle weave it in with the homely stuff of their souls, as the Kuschites do their hair with grease and oils, till it forms a cap of which, though it disfigures them, they are so proud that they would rather have their ears cut off than the monstrous thing. I see, I see—but before I open my mouth I will go to my mother. She knows more than twenty prophets.”
CHAPTER XII.
Before the sun had risen the next morning, Nemu got himself ferried over the Nile, with the small white ass which Mena’s deceased father had given him many years before. He availed himself of the cool hour which precedes the rising of the sun for his ride through the Necropolis.
Well acquainted as he was with every stock and stone, he avoided the high roads which led to the goal of his expedition, and trotted towards the hill which divides the valley of the royal tombs from the plain of the Nile.
Before him opened a noble amphitheatre of lofty lime-stone peaks, the background of the stately terrace-temple which the proud ancestress of two kings of the fallen family, the great Hatasu, had erected to their memory, and to the Goddess Hathor.
Nemu left the sanctuary to his left, and rode up the steep hill-path which was the nearest way from the plain to the valley of the tombs.
Below him lay a bird’s eye view of the terrace-building of Hatasu, and before him, still slumbering in cool dawn, was the Necropolis with its houses and temples and colossal statues, the broad Nile glistening with white sails under the morning mist; and, in the distant east, rosy with the coming sun, stood Thebes and her gigantic temples.
But the dwarf saw nothing of the glorious panorama that lay at his feet; absorbed in thought, and stooping over the neck of his ass, he let the panting beast climb and rest at its pleasure.
When he had reached half the height of the hill, he perceived the sound of footsteps coming nearer and nearer to him.
The vigorous walker had soon reached him, and bid him good morning, which he civilly returned.
The hill-path was narrow, and when Nemu observed that the man who followed him was a priest, he drew up his donkey on a level spot, and said reverently:
“Pass on, holy father; for thy two feet carry thee quicker than my four.”
“A sufferer needs my help,” replied the leech Nebsecht, Pentaur’s friend, whom we have already seen in the House of Seti, and by the bed of the paraschites’ daughter; and he hastened on so as to gain on the slow pace of the rider.
Then rose the glowing disk of the sun above the eastern horizon, and from the sanctuaries below the travellers rose up the pious many-voiced chant of praise.
Nemu slipped off his ass, and assumed an attitude of prayer; the priest did the same; but while the dwarf devoutly fixed his eyes on the new birth of the Sun-God from the eastern range, the priest’s eyes wandered to the earth, and his raised hand fell to pick up a rare fossil shell which lay on the path.
In a few minutes Nebsecht rose, and Nemu followed him.
“It is a fine morning,” said the dwarf; “the holy fathers down there seem more cheerful to-day than usual.”
The surgeon laughed assent. “Do you belong to the Necropolis?” he said. “Who here keeps dwarfs?”
“No one,” answered the little man. “But I will ask thee a question. Who that lives here behind the hill is of so much importance, that a leech from the House of Seti sacrifices his night’s rest for him?”
“The one I visit is mean, but the suffering is great,” answered Nebsecht.
Nemu looked at him with admiration, and muttered, “That is noble, that is——” but he did not finish his speech; he struck his brow and exclaimed, “You are going, by the desire of the Princess Bent-Anat, to the child of the paraschites that was run over. I guessed as much. The food must have an excellent after-taste, if a gentleman rises so early to eat it. How is the poor child doing?”
There was so much warmth in these last words that Nebsecht, who had thought the dwarf’s reproach uncalled for, answered in a friendly tone:
“Not so badly; she may be saved.”
“The Gods be praised!” exclaimed Nemu, while the priest passed on.
Nebsecht went up and down the hillside at a redoubled pace, and had long taken his place by the couch of the wounded Uarda in the hovel of the paraschites, when Nemu drew near to the abode of his Mother Hekt, from whom Paaker had received the philter.
The old woman sat before the door of her cave. Near her lay a board, fitted with cross pieces, between which a little boy was stretched in such a way that they touched his head and his feet.
Hekt understood the art of making dwarfs; playthings in human form were well paid for, and the child on the rack, with his pretty little face, promised to be a valuable article.
As soon as the sorceress saw some one approaching, she stooped over the child, took him up board and all in her arms, and carried him into the cave. Then she said sternly:
“If you move, little one, I will flog you. Now let me tie you.”
“Don’t tie me,” said the child, “I will be good and lie still.”
“Stretch yourself out,” ordered the old woman, and tied the child with a rope to the board. “If you are quiet, I’ll give you a honey-cake by-and-bye, and let you play with the young chickens.”
The child was quiet, and a soft smile of delight and hope sparkled in his pretty eyes. His little hand caught the dress of the old woman, and with the sweetest coaxing tone, which God bestows on the innocent voices of children, he said:
“I will be as still as a mouse, and no one shall know that I am here; but if you give me the honeycake you will untie me for a little, and let me go to Uarda.”
“She is ill!—what do you want there?”
“I would take her the cake,” said the child, and his eyes glistened with tears.
The old woman touched the child’s chin with her finger, and some mysterious power prompted her to bend over him to kiss him. But before her lips had touched his face she turned away, and said, in a hard tone:
“Lie still! by and bye we will see.” Then she stooped, and threw a brown sack over the child. She went back into the open air, greeted Nemu, entertained him with milk, bread and honey, gave him news of the girl who had been run over, for he seemed to take her misfortune very much to heart, and finally asked:
“What brings you here? The Nile was still narrow when you last found your way to me, and now it has been falling some time.63
Are you sent by your mistress, or do you want my help? All the world