Nefert observed that while she spoke one of the women was crying. She went up to her, and learned that her husband and her son were both dead, the former in Syria, and the latter after his return to Egypt. “Poor soul!” said Nefert. “Now you will be very careful, that the wounds of others may be healed. I will tell you something more about Isis. She loved her husband Osiris dearly, as you did your dead husband, and I my husband Mena, but he fell a victim to the cunning of Seth, and she could not tell where to find the body that had been carried away, while you can visit your husband in his grave. Then Isis went through the land lamenting, and ah! what was to become of Egypt, which received all its fruitfulness from Osiris. The sacred Nile was dried up, and not a blade of verdure was green on its banks. The Goddess grieved over this beyond words, and one of her tears fell in the bed of the river, and immediately it began to rise. You know, of course, that each inundation arises from a tear of Isis. Thus a widow’s sorrow may bring blessing to millions of human beings.”
The woman had listened to her attentively, and when Nefert ceased speaking she said:
“But I have still three little brats of my son’s to feed, for his wife, who was a washerwoman, was eaten by a crocodile while she was at work. Poor folks must work for themselves, and not for others. If the princess did not pay us, I could not think of the wounds of the soldiers, who do not belong to me. I am no longer strong, and four mouths to fill—”
Nefert was shocked—as she often was in the course of her new duties—and begged Bent-Gnat to raise the wages of the woman.
“Willingly,” said the princess. “How could I beat down such an assistant. Come now with me into the kitchen. I am having some fruit packed for my father and brothers; there must be a box for Mena too.” Nefert followed her royal friend, found them packing in one case the golden dates of the oasis of Amon, and in another the dark dates of Nubia, the king’s favorite sort. “Let me pack them!” cried Nefert; she made the servants empty the box again, and re-arranged the various-colored dates in graceful patterns, with other fruits preserved in sugar.
Bent-Anat looked on, and when she had finished she took her hand. “Whatever your fingers have touched,” she exclaimed, “takes some pretty aspect. Give me that scrap of papyrus; I shall put it in the case, and write upon it:
“ ‘These were packed for king Rameses by his daughter’s clever helpmate, the wife of Mena.’ ”
After the mid-day rest the princess was called away, and Nefert remained for some hours alone with the work-women.
When the sun went down, and the busy crowd were about to leave, Nefert detained them, and said: “The Sun-bark is sinking behind the western hills; come, let us pray together for the king and for those we love in the field. Each of you think of her own: you children of your fathers, you women of your sons, and we wives of our distant husbands, and let us entreat Amon that they may return to us as certainly as the sun, which now leaves us, will rise again to-morrow morning.”
Nefert knelt down, and with her the women and the children.
When they rose, a little girl went up to Nefert, and said, pulling her dress: “Thou madest us kneel here yesterday, and already my mother is better, because I prayed for her.”
“No doubt,” said Nefert, stroking the child’s black hair.
She found Bent-Anat on the terrace meditatively gazing across to the Necropolis, which was fading into darkness before her eyes. She started when she heard the light footsteps of her friend.
“I am disturbing thee,” said Nefert, about to retire.
“No, stay,” said Bent-Anat. “I thank the Gods that I have you, for my heart is sad—pitifully sad.”
“I know where your thoughts were,” said Nefert softly. “Well?” asked the princess.
“With Pentaur.”
“I think of him—always of him,” replied the princess, “and nothing else occupies my heart. I am no longer myself. What I think I ought not to think, what I feel I ought not to feel, and yet, I cannot command it, and I think my heart would bleed to death if I tried to cut out those thoughts and feelings. I have behaved strangely, nay unbecomingly, and now that which is hard to endure is hanging over me, something strange-which will perhaps drive you from me back to your mother.”
“I will share everything with you,” cried Nefert. “What is going to happen? Are you then no longer the daughter of Rameses?”
“I showed myself to the people as a woman of the people,” answered Bent-Anat, “and I must take the consequences. Bek en Chunsu, the high-priest of Amon, has been with me, and I have had a long conversation with him. The worthy man is good to me, I know, and my father ordered me to follow his advice before any one’s. He showed me that I have erred deeply. In a state of uncleanness I went into one of the temples of the Necropolis, and after I had once been into the paraschites’ house and incurred Ameni’s displeasure, I did it a second time. They know over there all that took place at the festival. Now I must undergo purification, either with great solemnity at the hands of Ameni himself, before all the priests and nobles in the House of Seti, or by performing a pilgrimage to the Emerald-Hathor, under whose influence the precious stones are hewn from the rocks, metals dug out, and purified by fire. The Goddess shall purge me from my uncleanness as metal is purged from the dross. At a day’s journey and more from the mines, an abundant stream flows from ‘the holy mountain-Sinai,’ as it is called by the Mentut—and near it stands the sanctuary of the Goddess, in which priests grant purification. The journey is a long one, through the desert, and over the sea; But Bek en Chunsu advises me to venture it. Ameni, he says, is not amiably disposed towards me, because I infringed the ordinance which he values above all others. I must submit to double severity, he says, because the people look first to those of the highest rank; and if I went unpunished for contempt of the sacred institutions there might be imitators among the crowd. He speaks in the name of the Gods, and they measure hearts with an equal measure. The ell-measure is the symbol of the Goddess of Truth. I feel that it is all not unjust; and yet I find it hard to submit to the priest’s decree, for I am the daughter of Rameses!”
“Aye, indeed!” exclaimed Nefert, “and he is himself a God!”
“But he taught me to respect the laws!” interrupted the princess. “I discussed another thing with Bek en Chunsu. You know I rejected the suit of the Regent. He must secretly be much vexed with me. That indeed would not alarm me, but he is the guardian and protector appointed over me by my father, and yet can I turn to him in confidence for counsel, and help? No! I am still a woman, and Rameses’ daughter! Sooner will I travel through a thousand deserts than humiliate my father through his child. By to-morrow I shall have decided; but, indeed, I have already decided to make the journey, hard as it is to leave much that is here. Do not fear, dear! but you are too tender for such a journey, and to such a distance; I might—”
“No, no,” cried Nefert. “I am going, too, if you were going to the four pillars of heaven, at the limits of the earth. You have given me a new life, and the little sprout that is green within me would wither again if I had to return to my mother. Only she or I can be in our house, and I will re-enter it only with Mena.”
“It is settled—I must go,” said the princess. “Oh! if only my father were not so far off, and that I could consult him!”
“Yes! the war, and always the war!” sighed Nefert. “Why do not men rest content with what they have, and prefer the quiet peace, which makes life lovely, to idle fame?”
“Would they be men? should we love them?” cried Bent-Anat eagerly. “Is not the mind of the Gods, too, bent on war? Did you ever see a more sublime sight than Pentaur, on that evening when he brandished the stake he had pulled up, and exposed his life to protect an innocent girl who was in danger?”
“I dared not once look down into the court,” said Nefert. “I was in such an agony of mind. But his loud cry still rings in my ears.”
“So