“I don’t know much about its being so blessed,” muttered the old man.
“You frighten me, father Hib. What has happened then?”
“Happened! Things have come to a pretty pass there, and you’ll hear of it soon enough. Do you think I should have left house and grandchildren at my age,—going on for eighty,—like any Greek or Phoenician vagabond, and come out among these godless foreigners (the gods blast and destroy them!), if I could possibly have staid on in Egypt?”
“But tell me what it’s all about.”
“Some other time, some other time. Now you must take me to your own house, and I won’t stir out of it as long as we are in this land of Typhon.”
The old man said this with so much emphasis, that Nebenchiari could not help smiling and saying: “Have they treated you so very badly then, old man?”
“Pestilence and Khamsin!” blustered the old man.
[The south-west wind, which does so much injury to the crops in the
Nile valley. It is known to us as the Simoom, the wind so perilous
to travellers in the desert.]
“There’s not a more good-for-nothing Typhon’s brood on the face of the earth than these Persians. I only wonder they’re not all red-haired and leprous. Ah, child, two whole days I have been in this hell already, and all that time I was obliged to live among these blasphemers. They said no one could see you; you were never allowed to leave Nitetis’ sick-bed. Poor child! I always said this marriage with a foreigner would come to no good, and it serves Amasis right if his children give him trouble. His conduct to you alone deserves that.”
“For shame, old man!”
“Nonsense, one must speak one’s mind sometimes. I hate a king, who comes from nobody knows where. Why, when he was a poor boy he used to steal your father’s nuts, and wrench the name-plates off the house-doors. I saw he was a good-for-nothing fellow then. It’s a shame that such people should be allowed to....”
“Gently, gently, old man. We are not all made of the same stuff, and if there was such a little difference between you and Amasis as boys, it, is your own fault that, now you are old men, he has outstripped you so far.
“My father and grandfather were both servants in the temple, and of course I followed in their footsteps.”
“Quite right; it is the law of caste, and by that rule, Amasis ought never to have become anything higher than a poor army-captain at most.”
“It is not every one who’s got such an easy conscience as this upstart fellow.”
“There you are again! For shame, Hib! As long as I can remember, and that is nearly half a century, every other word with you has been an abusive one. When I was a child your ill-temper was vented on me, and now the king has the benefit of it.”
“Serves him right! All, if you only knew all! It’s now seven months since ...”
“I can’t stop to listen to you now. At the rising of the seven stars I will send a slave to take you to my rooms. Till then you must stay in your present lodging, for I must go to my patient.”
“You must?—Very well,—then go and leave poor old Hib here to die. I can’t possibly live another hour among these creatures.”
“What would you have me do then?”
“Let me live with you as long as we are in Persia.”
“Have they treated you so very roughly?”
“I should think they had indeed. It is loathsome to think of. They forced me to eat out of the same pot with them and cut my bread with the same knife. An infamous Persian, who had lived many years in Egypt, and travelled here with us, had given them a list of all the things and actions, which we consider unclean. They took away my knife when I was going to shave myself. A good-for-nothing wench kissed me on the forehead, before I could prevent it. There, you needn’t laugh; it will be a month at least before I can get purified from all these pollutions. I took an emetic, and when that at last began to take effect, they all mocked and sneered at me. But that was not all. A cursed cook-boy nearly beat a sacred kitten to death before my very eyes. Then an ointment-mixer, who had heard that I was your servant, made that godless Bubares ask me whether I could cure diseases of the eye too. I said yes, because you know in sixty years it’s rather hard if one can’t pick up something from one’s master. Bubares was interpreter between us, and the shameful fellow told him to say that he was very much disturbed about a dreadful disease in his eyes. I asked what it was, and received for answer that he could not tell one thing from another in the dark!”
“You should have told him that the best remedy for that was to light a candle.”
“Oh, I hate the rascals! Another hour among them will be the death of me!”
“I am sure you behaved oddly enough among these foreigners,” said Nebenchiari smiling, “you must have made them laugh at you, for the Persians are generally very polite, well-behaved people. Try them again, only once. I shall be very glad to take you in this evening, but I can’t possibly do it before.”
“It is as I thought! He’s altered too, like everybody else! Osiris is dead and Seth rules the world again.”
“Farewell! When the seven stars rise, our old Ethiopian slave, Nebununf, will wait for you here.”
“Nebununf, that old rogue? I never want to see him again.”
“Yes, the very same.”
“Him—well it’s a good thing, when people stay as they were. To be sure I know some people who can’t say so much of themselves, and who instead of minding their own business, pretend to heal inward diseases, and when a faithful old servant...”
“Hold your tongue, and wait patiently till evening.” These last words were spoken seriously, and produced the desired impression. The old man made another obeisance, and before his master left him, said: “I came here under the protection of Phanes, the former commander of the Greek mercenaries. He wishes very much to speak with you.”
“That is his concern. He can come to me.”
“You never leave that sick girl, whose eyes are as sound as...”
“Hib!”
“For all I care she may have a cataract in both. May Phanes come to you this evening?”
“I wished to be alone with you.”
“So did I; but the Greek seems to be in a great hurry, and he knows nearly everything that I have to tell you.”
“Have you been gossiping then?”
“No—not exactly—but...”
“I always thought you were a man to be trusted.”
“So I was. But this Greek knows already a great deal of what I know, and the rest...”
“Well?”
“The rest he got out of me, I hardly know how myself. If I did not wear this amulet against an evil eye, I should have been obliged...”
“Yes, yes, I know the Athenian—I can forgive you. I should like him to come with you this evening. But I see the sun is already high in the heavens. I have no time to lose. Tell me in a few words what has happened.”
“I thought this evening...”
“No, I must have at least a general idea of what has happened before I see the Athenian. Be brief.”
“You have been robbed!”
“Is that all?”
“Is not that enough?”
“Answer me. Is that all?”
“Yes!”