“And the princess?” asked the priest.
“She acted, as she always does, on her own judgment,” replied the master of the ceremonies.
“And that always hits on the right course,” cried the wife of Mena.
“Would to God it were so!” said the princess in a subdued voice. Then she continued, addressing the priest, “Thou knowest the will of the Gods and the hearts of men, holy father, and I myself know that I give alms willingly and help the poor even when there is none to plead for them but their poverty. But after what has occurred here, and to these unhappy people, it is I who come as a suppliant.”
“Thou?” said the chamberlain.
“I,” answered the princess with decision. The priest who up to this moment had remained a silent witness of the scene raised his right hand as in blessing and spoke.
“Thou hast done well. The Hathors fashioned thy heart and the Lady of Truth guides it. Thou hast broken in on our night-prayers to request us to send a doctor to the injured girl?”
[Hathor was Isis under a substantial form. She is the goddess of
the pure, light heaven, and bears the Sun-disk between cow-horns on
a cow’s head or on a human head with cow’s ears. She was named the
Fair, and all the pure joys of life are in her gift. Later she was
regarded as a Muse who beautifies life with enjoyment, love, song,
and the dance. She appears as a good fairy by the cradle of
children and decides their lot in life. She bears many names: and
several, generally seven, Hathors were represented, who personified
the attributes and influence of the goddess.]
“Thou hast said.”
“I will ask the high-priest to send the best leech for outward wounds immediately to the child. But where is the house of the paraschites Pinem? I do not know it.”
“Northwards from the terrace of Hatasu—[A great queen of the 18th dynasty and guardian of two Pharaohs]—close to—; but I will charge one of my attendants to conduct the leech. Besides, I want to know early in the morning how the child is doing.—Paaker.”
The rough visitor, whom we already know, thus called upon, bowed to the earth, his arms hanging by his sides, and asked:
“What dost thou command?”
“I appoint you guide to the physician,” said the princess. “It will be easy to the king’s pioneer to find the little half-hidden house again—
[The title here rendered pioneer was that of an officer whose duties
were those at once of a scout and of a Quarter-Master General. In
unknown and comparatively savage countries it was an onerous post.
—Translator.]
besides, you share my guilt, for,” she added, turning to the priest, “I confess that the misfortune happened because I would try with my horses to overtake Paaker’s Syrian racers, which he declared to be swifter than the Egyptian horses. It was a mad race.”
“And Amon be praised that it ended as it did,” exclaimed the master of the ceremonies. “Packer’s chariot lies dashed in pieces in the valley, and his best horse is badly hurt.”
“He will see to him when he has taken the physician to the house of the paraschites,” said the princess. “Dost thou know, Penbesa—thou anxious guardian of a thoughtless girl—that to-day for the first time I am glad that my father is at the war in distant Satiland?”—[Asia].
“He would not have welcomed us kindly!” said the master of the ceremonies, laughing.
“But the leech, the leech!” cried Bent-Anat. “Packer, it is settled then. You will conduct him, and bring us to-morrow morning news of the wounded girl.”
Paaker bowed; the princess bowed her head; the priest and his companions, who meanwhile had come out of the temple and joined him, raised their hands in blessing, and the belated procession moved towards the Nile.
Paaker remained alone with his two slaves; the commission with which the princess had charged him greatly displeased him. So long as the moonlight enabled him to distinguish the litter of Mena’s wife, he gazed after it; then he endeavored to recollect the position of the hut of the paraschites. The captain of the watch still stood with the guard at the gate of the temple.
“Do you know the dwelling of Pinem the paraschites?” asked Paaker.
“What do you want with him?”
“That is no concern of yours,” retorted Paaker.
“Lout!” exclaimed the captain, “left face and forwards, my men.”
“Halt!” cried Paaker in a rage. “I am the king’s chief pioneer.”
“Then you will all the more easily find the way back by which you came. March.”
The words were followed by a peal of many-voiced laughter: the re-echoing insult so confounded Paaker that he dropped his whip on the ground. The slave, whom a short time since he had struck with it, humbly picked it up and then followed his lord into the fore court of the temple. Both attributed the titter, which they still could hear without being able to detect its origin, to wandering spirits. But the mocking tones had been heard too by the old gate-keeper, and the laughers were better known to him than to the king’s pioneer; he strode with heavy steps to the door of the temple through the black shadow of the pylon, and striking blindly before him called out—
“Ah! you good-for-nothing brood of Seth.”
[The Typhon of the Greeks. The enemy of Osiris, of truth, good
and purity. Discord and strife in nature. Horns who fights against
him for his father Osiris, can throw him and stun him, but never
annihilate him.]
“You gallows-birds and brood of hell—I am coming.”
The giggling ceased; a few youthful figures appeared in the moonlight, the old man pursued them panting, and, after a short chase, a troop of youths fled back through the temple gate.
The door-keeper had succeeded in catching one miscreant, a boy of thirteen, and held him so tight by the ear that his pretty head seemed to have grown in a horizontal direction from his shoulders.
“I will take you before the school-master, you plague-of-locusts, you swarm of bats!” cried the old man out of breath. But the dozen of school-boys, who had availed themselves of the opportunity to break out of bounds, gathered coaxing round him, with words of repentance, though every eye sparkled with delight at the fun they had had, and of which no one could deprive them; and when the biggest of them took the old man’s chin, and promised to give him the wine which his mother was to send him next day for the week’s use, the porter let go his prisoner—who tried to rub the pain out of his burning ear—and cried out in harsher tones than before:
“You will pay me, will you, to let you off! Do you think I will let your tricks pass? You little know this old man. I will complain to the Gods, not to the school-master; and as for your wine, youngster, I will offer it as a libation, that heaven may forgive you.”
CHAPTER II.
The temple where, in the fore-court, Paaker was waiting, and where the priest had