The Yoke Part 60

The night fell and the dawn came again and again, but holy Hapi was denied. Hour by hour the fuming lamp was set before the entrance, the door was put a little aside, that the entering air might be purified for those within. When the aromatic was exhausted, Rachel sought for the root once more, among the herbs at the river-bank; for the atmosphere, unsweetened, was beyond endurance.

Never a boat appeared on the water, nor was any human being seen abroad. Egypt retired to her darkest corner and shuddered.

But after the seven days were fulfilled, the horror on the waters was gone. It went as miasma is dispelled by the sun and wind--as pestilence is killed by the frost--unseen, unprotesting. The lifting of the plague was as awesome as its coming, but it was not horrible.

That was the only difference. Egypt rejoiced, but she trembled nevertheless and went about timidly.

The Israelite and the Egyptian carried the punt, the boat of Khafra and Sigur, and launched it on the clean waters. Then they prepared themselves and Deborah and Anubis for a journey, and ere they departed, Masanath, at Rachel's bidding, wrote with a soft soapstone upon the rock over the portal of the tomb, the whereabouts of its whilom dwellers:

"Her, whom thou seekest, thou wilt find at the mansion of Har-hat in the city."

At sunset, Rachel, all unsuspecting, was sheltered in the house of her enemy.

Masanath's servants had sought for her, frantically and without system or method. Pepi and Nari had been saved by the G.o.ds. They did not know where she had gone, and nothing human or divine could have driven them over the Nile to search for her in the Arabian hills. And for that reason likewise, they did not notify Har-hat of his daughter's loss. The messenger would have had to cross the smitten river. They intended to send for the fan-bearer, but they waited for the plague to lift. When it was gone, Masanath returned to them.

CHAPTER x.x.x

"HE HARDENED HIS HEART"

The Nile rose and fell and the seasons s.h.i.+fted until eight months had pa.s.sed. The period was inconsiderable, but its events had never been equaled in a like s.p.a.ce, or a generation, or a whole dynasty, or in all the history of Egypt.

When the ancient Hebrew shepherd from Midian first demanded audience with Meneptah, Egypt was autocrat of the earth and mistress of the seas. Her name was Glory and Perpetual Life and her substance was all the fullness of the earth and the treasures thereof. But eight months after the Hebrew shepherd had gone forth from that first audience, how had the mighty fallen! She was stripped of her groves and desolated in her wheat-fields; her gardens were naked, her vineyards were barren, and the vultures grew fat on the dead in her pastures. About the thrice-fortified walls of her cities her gaunt husbandmen were camped, pensioners upon the granaries of the king. Her commerce had stagnated because she had no goods to barter; her society ceased to revel, for her people were called upon to preserve themselves. Her arts were forgotten; only religion held its own and that from very fear. Egypt was on her knees, but the G.o.ds were aghast and helpless in the face of the hideous power of the unsubstantial, unimaged G.o.d of Israel.

Never had a monarch been forced to meet such conditions, but in all the mighty line of Pharaohs no feebler king than Meneptah could have faced them. In treating with the issue he had fretted and fumed, promised and retracted, temporized with the Hebrew mystic or stormed at him, hesitated and resolved, and reconsidered and deferred while his realm descended into the depths of ruin and despair.

It would seem that the dire misfortunes would have pressed the timid monarch into immediate submission. But a glance at conditions may explain the cause of his obduracy.

At this period in theological chronology, human attributes for the first time were eliminated from the character of a G.o.d. Moses depicted the first purely divine deity. Omnipotence was ascribed to the G.o.ds, but Pantheism being full of paradoxes, the G.o.ds were not omnipotent.

Loud as were the panegyrics of the devout, the devout recognized the limitations of their divinities. None had ever dreamed of a deity that was actually omnipotent, actually infinite. Meneptah measured the G.o.d of Israel by his own G.o.ds. Furthermore, the miracles did not amaze him as they appalled Egypt. He was exceedingly superst.i.tious; in his eye the most ordinary natural phenomenon was a demonstration of the occult.

No matter that the advanced science of his time explained rainfall, unusual heat or cold, over-fruitful or unproductive years, pestilence and sudden death, eclipses, comets and meteors,--he believed them to be the direct results of sorcery. Calamitous as the effects may have been upon other people, he had ever escaped harm from these sources. It was not strange that in time he ceased to fear miracles, and the demonstrations of Moses were not so terrifying, inasmuch as they did not greatly affect him.

His horses died, but Arabia was near to replenish his stables; the pests annoyed him, but his servants fended them from him; the blains troubled him, but his court physicians were able and gave him relief; the thunders frightened him, but his fright pa.s.sed with the storm.

Whenever the sendings became unendurable he had but to yield to gain a respite, and then he forgot the experience in a day. Meanwhile he ate, slept and walked in the same luxury he had known in happier years.

Therefore, Meneptah neither realized his peril nor was personally much aggrieved by the troublous times.

It did not occur to him that all the people of his realm were not sheltered against the plagues by wealth and many servants. He could not understand why Egypt should be restive under the same afflictions that he had borne with fort.i.tude. Summoning all evidence from his point of view, he was able to present to himself a case of personal persecution and ill-use. The Hebrews belonged to him, and because he held them their G.o.d afflicted Egypt. Egypt complained and would have him sacrifice his private property, his slaves, for its sake. To the peevish king the demand was unreasonable. Yet he was not extraordinary in his behavior. Unselfishness was not an attribute of ancient kings.

Meneptah was a man that wished to be swayed. He craved approbation and was helpless without an abettor. His puny ideas had to be championed by another before they became fixed convictions. After the plague of locusts, the Hebrew question reached serious proportions. Har-hat had estranged most of the ministers, and in his strait Meneptah felt vaguely and for the first time that he needed the acquiescence of others in addition to the fan-bearer's ready concord.

One early morning, in a corridor leading from the entrance, he met Hotep. A sudden impulse urged him to consult his scribe.

"Where hast thou been?" he asked, noticing Hotep's street dress.

"To the temple, O Son of Ptah."

"What hast thou to ask of the G.o.ds that thy king can not give thee?"

Hotep hesitated, and the color rushed into his cheeks. The Hathors tortured him with an opportunity he dared not seize. How could he ask for Masanath?

"I went to pray for that which all Egyptians crave at this hour--the succor of Egypt," he said, instead.

Meneptah signed his scribe to follow him to a seat near by.

"Why may I not require of thee the services of a higher minister?" he began, after he had seated himself. "Never hast thou failed me, and I can not say so much of the great n.o.bles above thee. Serve me well in this, Hotep, and thou mayest take the place of some one of these."

"Let me but serve thee," the scribe returned placidly; "that is reward in itself."

"Thou knowest," the king began, plunging into the heart of the question, "that I yielded to these ravening wolves, Mesu and Aaron. I have consented to release the Israelites. But other thought hath come to me in the night. Thou knowest that no evil hath befallen the land of Goshen. Har-hat explaineth this strange thing by the location of the strip. The Nile toucheth it not and rains fall there. Furthermore the winds blow differently in that district, and withal the hand of Rannu of the harvests hath sheltered it. It may be, but to me it seemeth that the Hebrew sorcerer hath cast a protecting spell over the spot. But whatever the cause, the race of churls and their riches have escaped misfortune. Thinkest thou not, good Hotep, that, if they must go, we may by right require their flocks of them to replenish the pastures of Egypt?"

Surely the Hathors were exploiting themselves this day. Another opportunity for good and what would come of it? Hotep knew the man with whom he dealt. Still it were a sin to slight even an unprofitable chance that seemed to offer alleviation for Egypt. He would proceed cautiously and do his best.

"Be the little lamp trimmed never so brightly, O Son of Ptah, it may not help the sun. Thou art monarch, I am thy slave. How can I mold thee, my King?"

"Others have swayed me, thou modest man."

"In that hour when thou wast swayed, O Meneptah, another than thyself ruled over Egypt."

Meneptah looked in amazement at his scribe. He had never considered the influence of Har-hat in that light, but, by the G.o.ds, it seemed strangely correct. He straightened himself.

"Be thou a.s.sured, Hotep, that I weigh right well whatever counsel mine advisers offer me before I indorse it."

Hotep bowed. "That I know. And for that reason do I hesitate to give thee my little thoughts. It would hurt the man in me to see them thrust aside."

"Thou evadest," Meneptah contended smiling.

"Wherefore?"

"Because, O King, I should advise against thine inclinations."

"Wherefore?" Meneptah demanded again, this time with some asperity.

"We hold the Hebrews," was the undisturbed reply; "through destruction and plague we have held them. They boast the calamities as sendings from their G.o.d. Egypt's afflictions multiply; every resort hath failed us. One is left--to free the slaves and test their boast."

Meneptah's face had grown deprecatory.

"Dost thou espouse the cause of thy nation's enemy?" he asked.

"I espouse the cause of the oppressed, and which, now, is more oppressed--Egypt or the Hebrew?"

This was different sort of persuasion from that which the king had heard since Har-hat took up the fan. The scribe was compelling him by reason; the man's personality was not entering at all into the argument. Meneptah's high brows knitted. He felt his feeble resolution filter away; his inclination to hold the Hebrews stayed with him, but the power to withstand Hotep's strong argument was not in him.

"What wouldst thou have me do?" he asked querulously.

"I am but a mouthpiece for thy realm; I counsel not for myself. The strait of Egypt demands that thou set the Hebrew free, yield his goods and his children to him, and be rid of him and his plagues for ever."

Hotep spoke as if he were reciting a law from the books of the great G.o.d Toth. His tone did not invite further contention. He had read the king his duty, and it behooved the king to obey. A silence ensued, and by the signs growing on Meneptah's face, Hotep predicted acquiescence.