The Pharaoh And The Priest Part 21

There are some priests who teach reading and writing; there is one who plays on a double flute, and plays even beautifully. But that one who was in the garden of the heir is not among them, and they know nothing of him. Surely he must be the G.o.d Num, or some spirit watching over the prince,--may he live through eternity and always have appet.i.te!"

"Maybe it is really some spirit," thought Rameses.

In Egypt good or evil spirits always came more easily than rain.

The water of the Nile from being ruddy became brownish, and in August, the month of Hator, it reached one half its height. The sluices were opened on the banks of the river, and the water began to fill the ca.n.a.ls quickly, and also the gigantic artificial lake, Moeris, in the province Fayum, celebrated for the beauty of its roses. Lower Egypt looked like an arm of the sea thickly dotted with hills on which were houses and gardens. Communication by land ceased altogether, and such a mult.i.tude of boats circled around on the water--boats white, yellow, red, dark--that they seemed like leaves in autumn. On the highest points of land people had finished harvesting the peculiar cotton of the country, and for the second time had cut clover and begun to gather in olives and tamarinds.

On a certain day, while sailing along over inundated lands, the prince saw an unusual movement. On one of the temporary mounds was heard among the trees the loud cry of a woman.

"Surely some one is dead," thought Rameses.

From a second mound were sailing away in small boats supplies of wheat and some cattle, while people standing at buildings on the land threatened and abused people in the boats.

"Some quarrel among neighbors," said the prince to himself.

In remoter places there was quiet, and people instead of working or singing were sitting on the ground in silence.

"They must have finished work and are resting."

But from a third mound a boat moved away with a number of crying children, while a woman wading in the water to her waist shook her fist and threatened.

"They are taking children to school," thought Rameses.

These happenings began to interest him.

On a fourth mound he heard a fresh cry. He shaded his eyes and saw a man lying on the ground; a negro was beating him.

"What is happening there?" asked Rameses of the boatman.

"Does not my lord see that they are beating a wretched earth-tiller?"

answered the boatman, smiling. "He must have done something, so pain is travelling through his bones."

"But who art thou?"

"I?" replied the boatman, proudly. "I am a free fisherman. If I give a certain share of my catch to his holiness, I may sail the Nile from the sea to the cataract. A fisherman is like a fish or a wild goose; but an earth-tiller is like a tree which nourishes lords with its fruit and can never escape but only squeaks when overseers spoil the bark on it."

"Oho! ho! but look there!" cried the fisherman, pleased again. "Hei!

father, don't drink up all the water, or there will be a bad harvest."

This humorous exclamation referred to a group of persons who were displaying a very original activity. A number of naked laborers were holding a man by the legs and plunging him head first in the water to his neck, to his breast, and at last to his waist. Near them stood an overseer with a cane; he wore a stained tunic and a wig made of sheepskin.

A little farther on some men held a woman by the arms, while she screamed in a voice which was heaven-piercing.

Beating with a stick was as general in the happy kingdom of the pharaoh as eating and sleeping. They beat children and grown people, earth-tillers, artisans, warriors, officers, and officials. All living persons were caned save only priests and the highest officials--there was no one to cane them. Hence the prince looked calmly enough on an earth-worker beaten with a cane; but to plunge a man into water roused his attention.

"Ho! ho!" laughed the boatman, meanwhile, "but are they giving him drink! He will grow so thick that his wife must lengthen his belt for him."

The prince commanded to row to the mound. Meanwhile they had taken the man from the river, let him cough out water, and seized him a second time by the legs, in spite of the unearthly screams of his wife, who fell to biting the men who had seized her.

"Stop!" cried Rameses to those who were dragging the earth-tiller.

"Do your duty!" cried he of the sheepskin wig, in nasal tones. "Who art thou, insolent, who darest--"

At that moment the prince gave him a blow on the forehead with his cane, which luckily was light. Still the owner of the stained tunic dropped to the earth, and feeling his wig and head, looked with misty eyes at the attacker.

"I divine," said he in a natural voice, "that I have the honor to converse with a notable person. May good humor always accompany thee, lord, and bile never spread through thy bones--"

"What art thou doing to this man?" interrupted Rameses.

"Thou inquirest," returned the man, speaking again in nasal tones, "like a foreigner unacquainted with the customs of the country and the people, to whom he speaks too freely. Know, then, that I am the collector of his worthiness Dagon, the first banker in Memphis. And if thou hast not grown pale yet, know that the worthy Dagon is the agent and the friend of the erpatr,--may he live through eternity!--and that thou hast committed violence on the lands of Prince Rameses; to this my people will testify."

"Then know this," interrupted the prince; but he stopped suddenly.

"By what right art thou torturing in this way one of the prince's earth-tillers?"

"Because he will not pay his rent, and the treasury of the heir is in need of it."

The servants of the official, in view of the catastrophe which had come on their master, dropped their victim and stood as helpless as the members of a body from which its head has been severed. The liberated man began to spit again and shake the water out of his ears, but his wife rushed up to the rescuer.

"Whoever thou art," groaned she, clasping her hands before Rameses, "a G.o.d, or even a messenger of the pharaoh, listen to the tale of our sufferings. We are earth-tillers of the heir to the throne,--may he live through eternity!--and we have paid all our dues: in millet, in wheat, in flowers, and in skins of cattle. But in the last ten days this man here has come and commands us again to give seven measures of wheat to him. 'By what right?' asks my husband; 'the rents are paid, all of them.' But he throws my husband on the ground, stamps, and says, 'By this right, that the worthy Dagon has commanded.' 'Whence shall I get wheat,' asks my husband, 'when we have none and for a month past we have eaten only seeds, or roots of lotus, which are harder and harder to get, for great lords like to amuse themselves with flowers of the lotus?'"

She lost breath and fell to weeping. The prince waited patiently till she calmed herself, but the man who had been plunged into the water grumbled.

"This woman will bring misfortune with her talk. I have said that I do not like to see women meddle."

Meanwhile the official, pus.h.i.+ng up to the boatman, asked in an undertone, indicating Rameses,--

"Who is this?"

"Ah, may thy tongue wither!" answered the boatman. "Dost thou not see that he must be a great lord: he pays well and strikes heavily."

"I saw at once," answered the official, "that he must be some great person. My youth pa.s.sed at feasts with noted persons."

"Aha! the sauces have stuck to thy dress after those feasts," blurted out the boatman.

The woman, after crying, continued,--

"To-day this scribe came with his people, and said to my husband, 'If thou hast not money, give thy two sons. The worthy Dagon will not only forgive thee the rent, but will pay thee a drachma a year for each boy.'"

"Woe to me because of thee!" roared the half-drowned husband; "thou wilt destroy us all with thy babbling. Do not listen to her,"

continued he, turning to Rameses. "As a cow thinks that she frightens off flies with her tail, so it seems to a woman that she can drive away collectors with her tongue; and neither cow nor woman knows that she is stupid."

"Thou art stupid!" said the woman. "Sunlike lord with the form of a pharaoh--"

"I call to witness that this woman blasphemes," said the official to his people in a low voice.

"Odorous flower, whose voice is like a flute, listen to me!" implored the woman of Rameses. "Then my husband answered this official, 'I would rather lose two bulls, if I had them, than give my boys away, though thou wert to give me four drachmas; for when a boy leaves home for service no one ever sees him after that.'"

"Would that I were choked! would that fish were eating my body in the bottom of the Nile!" groaned the earth-tiller. "Thou wilt destroy all our house with thy complaints, woman."