The Pharaoh And The Priest Part 44

"Sacred words! They should be written on monuments," said some among the guests. "Rebellion takes people from their labor and grieves the heart of his holiness. It is not proper that laborers should be unpaid for two months in succession."

The prince looked with contempt on those courtiers, changeable as clouds; he turned then to the nomarch.

"I give thee," said he, threateningly, "this punished man. I am certain that a hair of his head will not fall from him. To-morrow morning I wish to see the regiment to which he belongs and learn whether he speaks truth or falsehood."

After these words Rameses went out, leaving the nomarch and the guests in vexation.

Next morning the prince, while dressing with the aid of Tutmosis, asked him,--

"Have the laborers come?"

"They have, lord; they have been waiting for thy commands since daybreak."

"And is that man Bakura among them?"

Tutmosis made a wry face and answered,--

"A marvellous thing has happened. The worthy Sofra gave command to shut the fellow up in an empty cellar of the palace. Well, the disorderly rascal, a very strong man, broke the door to another place where there is wine; he overturned a number of pots of very costly wine, and got so drunk that--"

"That what?" asked the prince.

"That he perished."

The prince sprang up from his chair.

"And dost thou believe that he drank himself to death?"

"I must believe, for I have no proof that they killed him."

"But if I look for proof?" burst out the prince.

He ran through the room, and snorted like an angry lion. When he was somewhat quieted, Tutmosis added,--

"Seek not for proof where it is not to be discovered, for thou wilt not find even witnesses. If any man strangled that laborer at command of the nomarch, he will not confess; the laborer himself is dead, and will not say anything; besides, what would his complaint against the nomarch amount to? In these conditions no court would begin to investigate."

"But if I command?" asked the viceroy.

"In that case they will investigate and prove the innocence of Sofra.

Then thou wilt be put to shame, and all the nomarchs with their relatives and servants will become thy enemies."

The prince stood in the middle of the chamber and pondered.

"Finally," said Tutmosis, "everything seems to show this, that the unfortunate Bakura was a drunkard or a maniac, and, above all, a man of foreign blood. If a genuine Egyptian in his senses were to go without pay for a year, and be clubbed twice as much as this man, would he dare to break into the palace of the nomarch and appeal to thee with such an outcry?"

Rameses bent his head, and seeing that there were n.o.bles in the next chamber, he said in a voice somewhat lowered,--

"Knowest thou, Tutmosis, since I set out on this journey Egypt begins to appear somehow strange to me? At times I ask my own self if I am not in some foreign region. Then again my heart is disturbed, as if I had a curtain before me, behind which all kinds of villany are practised, but which I myself cannot see with my own eyes."

"Then do not look at them; for if thou do, it will seem at last to thee that we should all be sent to the quarries," said Tutmosis, smiling. "Remember that the nomarchs and officials are the shepherds of thy flock. If one of them takes a measure of milk for himself, or kills a little sheep, of course thou wilt not kill him or drive the man away. Thou hast many sheep, and it is not easy to find shepherds."

The viceroy, now dressed, pa.s.sed into the hall of waiting, where his suite stood a.s.sembled,--priests, officers, and officials. Then he left the palace with them, and went to the outer courtyard.

That was a broad s.p.a.ce, planted with acacias, under the shade of which the laborers were waiting for the viceroy. At the sound of a trumpet the whole crowd sprang up, and stood in five ranks before him.

Rameses, attended by a glittering retinue of dignitaries, halted suddenly, wis.h.i.+ng, first of all, to look at the regiment from a distance. The men were naked, each with a white cap on his head, and girt about the hips with stuff like that of which the cap was made. In the ranks Rameses could distinguish easily the brown Egyptian, the negro, the yellow Asiatic, the white inhabitants of Libya, and also the Mediterranean islands.

In the first rank stood workers with pickaxes, in the second those with mattocks, in the third those with shovels. The fourth rank was composed of carriers, of whom each had a pole and two buckets; the fifth was also of carriers, but with large boxes borne by two men.

These last carried earth freshly dug.

In front of the ranks, some yards distant, stood the overseers; each held a long stick in his hand, and either a large wooden circle or a square measure.

When the prince approached them, they cried in a chorus,--

"Live thou through eternity!" and kneeling, they struck the earth with their foreheads. The heir commanded them to rise, and surveyed them again with attention.

They were healthy, strong persons, not looking in the least like men who had lived two months on begging.

Sofra with his retinue approached the prince. But Rameses, feigning not to see him, turned to one of the overseers,--

"Are ye earth-tillers from Sochem?" inquired he.

The overseer fell at full length with his face to the earth.

The prince shrugged his shoulders, and called out to the laborers,--

"Are ye from Sochem?"

"We are earth-workers from Sochem," answered they, in chorus.

"Have ye received pay?"

"We have received pay; we are sated and happy servants of his holiness," answered the chorus, giving out each word with emphasis.

"Turn around!" commanded the prince.

They turned. It is true that each had frequent and deep scars from the club, but no fresh stripes on their bodies.

"They are deceiving me," thought the heir.

He commanded the laborers to go to their barracks, and, without greeting the nomarch or taking leave of him, he returned to the palace.

"Wilt thou, too, tell me," said he to Tutmosis on the road, "that those men are laborers from Sochem?"

"But they say that they are, they themselves give answer," replied the courtier.

Rameses gave command to bring his horse, and he rode to the army encamped beyond the city. He reviewed the regiments all day. About noon, on the field of exercise, appeared, at command of the nomarch, some tens of carriers with food and wine, tents and furniture. But the prince sent them back to Atribis; and when the hour came for army food, he commanded to serve that to him; so he ate dried meat with oat cakes.

These were the mercenary regiments of Libya. When the prince ordered them to lay aside arms in the evening, and took farewell of the men, it seemed as though the soldiers and officers had yielded to madness.

Shouting "May he live through eternity!" they kissed his hands and feet, made a litter of their spears and mantles, and bore him to the city, disputing on the way with one another for the honor of carrying the heir on their shoulders.