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+The Project Gutenberg EBook Uarda by Georg Ebers, Volume 10.
+#10 in our series by Georg Ebers
+
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+
+Title: Uarda, Volume 10.
+
+Author: Georg Ebers
+
+Release Date: April, 2004  [EBook #5448]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on April 29, 2002]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UARDA BY GEORG EBERS, V10 ***
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
+
+
+
+[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
+file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
+entire meal of them.  D.W.]
+
+
+
+
+
+UARDA
+
+Volume 10.
+
+By Georg Ebers
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+The cloudless vault of heaven spread over the plain of Pelusium, the
+stars were bright, the moon threw her calm light over the thousands of
+tents which shone as white as little hillocks of snow.  All was silent,
+the soldiers and the Egyptians, who had assembled to welcome the king,
+were now all gone to rest.
+
+There had been great rejoicing and jollity in the camp; three enormous
+vats, garlanded with flowers and overflowing with wine, which spilt with
+every movement of the trucks on which they were drawn by thirty oxen,
+were sent up and down the little streets of tents, and as the evening
+closed in tavern-booths were erected in many spots in the camp, at which
+the Regent's servants supplied the soldiers with red and white wine.  The
+tents of the populace were only divided from the pavilion of the Pharaoh
+by the hastily-constructed garden in the midst of which it stood, and the
+hedge which enclosed it.
+
+The tent of the Regent himself was distinguished from all the others by
+its size and magnificence; to the right of it was the encampment of the
+different priestly deputations, to the left that of his suite; among the
+latter were the tents of his friend Katuti, a large one for her own use,
+and some smaller ones for her servants.  Behind Ani's pavilion stood a
+tent, enclosed in a wall or screen of canvas, within which old Hekt was
+lodged; Ani had secretly conveyed her hither on board his own boat.  Only
+Katuti and his confidential servants knew who it was that lay concealed
+in the mysteriously shrouded abode.
+
+While the banquet was proceeding in the great pavilion, the witch was
+sitting in a heap on the sandy earth of her conical canvas dwelling; she
+breathed with difficulty, for a weakness of the heart, against which she
+had long struggled, now oppressed her more frequently and severely; a
+little lamp of clay burned before her, and on her lap crouched a sick and
+ruffled hawk; the creature shivered from time to time, closing the filmy
+lids of his keen eyes, which glowed with a dull fire when Hekt took him
+up in her withered hand, and tried to blow some air into his hooked beak,
+still ever ready to peck and tear her.
+
+At her feet little Scherau lay asleep.  Presently she pushed the child
+with her foot.  "Wake up," she said, as he raised himself still half
+asleep.  "You have young ears--it seemed to me that I heard a woman
+scream in Ani's tent.  Do you hear any thing?"
+
+"Yes, indeed," exclaimed the little one.  "There is a noise like crying,
+and that--that was a scream!  It came from out there, from Nemu's tent."
+
+"Creep through  there," said the witch, "and see what is happening!"
+
+The child obeyed: Hekt turned her attention again to the bird, which no
+longer perched in her lap, but lay on one side, though it still tried to
+use its talons, when she took him up in her hand.
+
+"It is all over with him," muttered the old woman, "and the one I called
+Rameses is sleeker than ever.  It is all folly and yet--and yet! the
+Regent's game is over, and he has lost it.  The creature is stretching
+itself--its head drops--it draws itself up--one more clutch at my dress
+--now it is dead!"
+
+She contemplated the dead hawk in her lap for some minutes, then she took
+it up, flung it into a corner of the tent, and exclaimed:
+
+"Good-bye, King Ani.  The crown is not for you!"  Then she went on: "What
+project has he in hand now, I wonder?  Twenty times he has asked me
+whether the great enterprise will succeed; as if I knew any more than he!
+And Nemu too has hinted all kinds of things, though he would not speak
+out.  Something is going on, and I--and I?  There it comes again."
+
+The old woman pressed her hand to her heart and closed her eyes, her
+features were distorted with pain; she did not perceive Scherau's return,
+she did not hear him call her name, or see that, when she did not answer
+him, he left her again.  For an hour or more she remained unconscious,
+then her senses returned, but she felt as if some ice-cold fluid slowly
+ran through her veins instead of the warm blood.
+
+"If I had kept a hawk for myself too," she muttered, "it would soon
+follow the other one in the corner!  If only Ani keeps his word, and has
+me embalmed!
+
+"But how can he when he too is so near his end.  They will let me rot and
+disappear, and there will be no future for me, no meeting with Assa."
+
+The old woman remained silent for a long time; at last she murmured
+hoarsely with her eyes fixed on the ground:
+
+"Death brings release, if only from the torment of remembrance.  But
+there is a life beyond the grave.  I do not, I will not cease to hope.
+The dead shall all be equally judged, and subject to the inscrutable
+decrees.--Where shall I find him?  Among the blest, or among the damned?
+And I?  It matters not!  The deeper the abyss into which they fling me
+the better.  Can Assa, if he is among the blest, remain in bliss, when he
+sees to what he has brought me?  Oh! they must embalm me--I cannot bear
+to vanish, and rot and evaporate into nothingness!"
+
+While she was still speaking, the dwarf Nemu had come into the tent;
+Scherau, seeing the old woman senseless, had run to tell him that his
+mother was lying on the earth with her eyes shut, and was dying.  The
+witch perceived the little man.
+
+"It is well," she said, "that you have come; I shall be dead before
+sunrise."
+
+"Mother!"  cried the dwarf horrified, "you shall live, and live better
+than you have done till now!  Great things are happening, and for us!"
+
+"I know, I know," said Hekt.  "Go away, Scherau--now, Nemu, whisper in my
+ear what is doing?"  The dwarf felt as if he could not avoid the
+influence of her eye, he went up to her, and said softly--"The pavilion,
+in which the king and his people are sleeping, is constructed of wood;
+straw and pitch are built into the walls, and laid under the boards.  As
+soon as they are gone to rest we shall set the tinder thing on fire.  The
+guards are drunk and sleeping."
+
+"Well thought of," said Hekt.  "Did you plan it?"  "I and my mistress,"
+said the dwarf not without pride.  "You can devise a plot," said the old
+woman, "but you are feeble in the working out.  Is your plan a secret?
+Have you clever assistants?"
+
+"No one knows of it," replied the dwarf, "but Katuti, Paaker, and I; we
+three shall lay the brands to the spots we have fixed upon.  I am going
+to the rooms of Bent-Anat; Katuti, who can go in and out as she pleases,
+will set fire to the stairs, which lead to the upper story, and which
+fall by touching a spring; and Paaker to the king's apartments."
+
+"Good-good, it may succeed," gasped the old woman.  "But what was the
+scream in your tent?"  The dwarf seemed doubtful about answering; but
+Hekt went on:
+
+"Speak without fear--the dead are sure to be silent."  The dwarf,
+trembling with agitation, shook off his hesitation, and said:
+
+"I have found Uarda, the grandchild of Pinem, who had disappeared, and I
+decoyed her here, for she and no other shall be my wife, if Ani is king,
+and if Katuti makes me rich and free.  She is in the service of the
+Princess Bent-Anat, and sleeps in her anteroom, and she must not be burnt
+with her mistress.  She insisted on going back to the palace, so, as she
+would fly to the fire like a gnat, and I would not have her risk being
+burnt, I tied her up fast."
+
+"Did she not struggle?"  said Hekt.
+
+"Like a mad thing," said the dwarf.  "But the Regent's dumb slave, who
+was ordered by his master to obey me in everything to-day, helped me.
+We tied up her mouth that she might not be heard screaming!"
+
+"Will you leave her alone when you go to do your errand?"
+
+"Her father is with her!"
+
+"Kaschta, the red-beard?"  asked the old woman in surprise.  "And did he
+not break you in pieces like an earthenware pot?"
+
+"He will not stir," said Nemu laughing.  "For when I found him, I made
+him so drunk with Ani's old wine that he lies there like a mummy.  It was
+from him that I learned where Uarda was, and I went to her, and got her
+to come with me by telling her that her father was very ill, and begged
+her to go to see him once more.  She flew after me like a gazelle, and
+when she saw the soldier lying there senseless she threw herself upon
+him, and called for water to cool his head, for he was raving in his
+dreams of rats and mice that had fallen upon him.  As it grew late she
+wanted to return to her mistress, and we were obliged to prevent her.
+How handsome she has grown, mother; you cannot imagine how pretty she
+is."
+
+"Aye, aye!"  said Hekt.  "You will have to keep an eye upon her when she
+is your wife."
+
+"I will treat her like the wife of a noble," said Nemu.  "And pay a real
+lady to guard her.  But by this time Katuti has brought home her
+daughter, Mena's wife; the stars are sinking and--there--that was the
+first signal.  When Katuti whistles the third time we are to go to work.
+Lend me your fire-box, mother."
+
+"Take it," said Hekt.  "I shall never need it again.  It is all over with
+me!  How your hand shakes!  Hold the wood firmly, or you will drop it
+before you have brought the fire."
+
+The dwarf bid the old woman farewell, and she let him kiss her without
+moving.  When he was gone, she listened eagerly for any sound that might
+pierce the silence of the night, her eyes shone with a keen light, and a
+thousand thoughts flew through her restless brain.  When she heard the
+second signal on Katuti's silver whistle, she sat upright and muttered:
+
+"That gallows-bird Paaker, his vain aunt and that villain Ani, are no
+match for Rameses, even when he is asleep.  Ani's hawk is dead; he has
+nothing to hope for from Fortune, and I nothing to hope for from him.
+But if Rameses--if the real king would promise me--then my poor old body
+--Yes, that is the thing, that is what I will do."
+
+She painfully raised herself on her feet with the help of her stick, she
+found a knife and a small flask which she slipped into her dress, and
+then, bent and trembling, with a last effort of her remaining strength
+she dragged herself as far as Nemu's tent.  Here she found Uarda bound
+hand and foot, and Kaschta lying on the ground in a heavy drunken
+slumber.
+
+The girl shrank together in alarm when she saw the old woman, and
+Scherau, who crouched at her side, raised his hands imploringly to the
+witch.
+
+"Take this knife, boy," she said to the little one.  "Cut the ropes the
+poor thing is tied with.  The papyrus cords are strong, saw them with the
+blade."
+
+     [Papyrus was used not only for writing on, but also for ropes.  The
+     bridge of boats on which Xerxes crossed the Hellespont was fastened
+     with cables of papyrus.]
+
+While the boy eagerly followed her instructions with all his little
+might, she rubbed the soldier's temples with an essence which she had in
+the bottle, and poured a few drops of it between his lips.  Kaschta came
+to himself, stretched his limbs, and stared in astonishment at the place
+in which he found himself.  She gave him some water, and desired him to
+drink it, saying, as Uarda shook herself free from the bonds:
+
+"The Gods have predestined you to great things, you white maiden.  Listen
+to what I, old Hekt, am telling you.  The king's life is threatened, his
+and his children's; I purpose to save them, and I ask no reward but this-
+that he should have my body embalmed and interred at Thebes.  Swear to me
+that you will require this of him when you have saved him."
+
+"In God's name what is happening?"  cried Uarda.  "Swear that you will
+provide for my burial," said the old woman.
+
+"I swear it!"  cried the girl.  "But for God's sake--"
+
+"Katuti, Paaker, and Nemu are gone to set fire to the palace when Rameses
+is sleeping, in three places.  Do you hear, Kaschta!  Now hasten, fly
+after the incendiaries, rouse the servants, and try to rescue the king."
+
+"Oh fly, father,"  cried the  girl, and they both rushed away in the
+darkness.
+
+"She is honest and will keep her word," muttered Hekt, and she tried to
+drag herself back to her own tent; but her strength failed her half-way.
+Little Scherau tried to support her, but he was too weak; she sank down
+on the sand, and looked out into the distance.  There she saw the dark
+mass of the palace, from which rose a light that grew broader and
+broader, then clouds of black smoke, then up flew the soaring flame, and
+a swarm of glowing sparks.
+
+"Run into the camp, child," she cried, "cry fire, and wake the sleepers."
+
+Scherau ran off shouting as loud as he could.
+
+The old woman pressed her hand to her side, she muttered: "There it is
+again."
+
+"In the other world--Assa--Assa," and her trembling lips were silent for
+ever.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+Katuti had kept her unfortunate nephew Paaker concealed in one of her
+servants' tents.  He had escaped wounded from the battle at Kadesh, and
+in terrible pain he had succeeded, by the help of an ass which he had
+purchased from a peasant, in reaching by paths known to hardly any one
+but himself, the cave where he had previously left his brother.  Here he
+found his faithful Ethiopian slave, who nursed him till he was strong
+enough to set out on his journey to Egypt.  He reached Pelusium, after
+many privations, disguised as an Ismaelite camel-driver; he left his
+servant, who might have betrayed him, behind in the cave.
+
+Before he was permitted to pass the fortifications, which lay across the
+isthmus which parts the Mediterranean from the Red Sea, and which were
+intended to protect Egypt from the incursions of the nomad tribes of the
+Chasu, he was subjected to a strict interrogatory, and among other
+questions was asked whether he had nowhere met with the traitor Paaker,
+who was minutely described to him.  No one recognized in the shrunken,
+grey-haired, one-eyed camel-driver, the broad-shouldered, muscular and
+thick-legged pioneer.  To disguise himself the more effectually, he
+procured some hair-dye--a cosmetic known in all ages--and blackened
+himself.
+
+     [In my papyrus there are several recipes for the preparation of
+     hair-dye; one is ascribed to the Lady Schesch, the mother of Teta,
+     wife of the first king of Egypt.  The earliest of all the recipes
+     preserved to us is a prescription for dyeing the hair.]
+
+Katuti had arrived at Pelusium with Ani some time before, to superintend
+the construction of the royal pavilion.  He ventured to approach her
+disguised as a negro beggar, with a palm-branch in his hand.  She gave
+him some money and questioned him concerning his native country, for she
+made it her business to secure the favor even of the meanest; but though
+she appeared to take an interest in his answers, she did not recognize
+him; now for the first time he felt secure, and the next day he went up
+to her again, and told her who he was.
+
+The widow was not unmoved by the frightful alteration in her nephew, and
+although she knew that even Ani had decreed that any intercourse with the
+traitor was to be punished by death, she took him at once into her
+service, for she had never had greater need than now to employ the
+desperate enemy of the king and of her son-in-law.
+
+The mutilated, despised, and hunted man kept himself far from the other
+servants, regarding the meaner folk with undiminished scorn.  He thought
+seldom, and only vaguely of Katuti's daughter, for love had quite given
+place to hatred, and only one thing now seemed to him worth living for--
+the hope of working with others to cause his enemies' downfall, and of
+being the instrument of their death; so he offered himself to the widow
+a willing and welcome tool, and the dull flash in his uninjured eye when
+she set him the task of setting fire to the king's apartments, showed her
+that in the Mohar she had found an ally she might depend on to the
+uttermost.
+
+Paaker had carefully examined the scene of his exploit before the king's
+arrival.  Under the windows of the king's rooms, at least forty feet from
+the ground, was a narrow parapet resting on the ends of the beams which
+supported the rafters on which lay the floor of the upper story in which
+the king slept.  These rafters had been smeared with pitch, and straw had
+been laid between them, and the pioneer would have known how to find the
+opening where he was to put in the brand even if he had been blind of
+both eyes.
+
+When Katuti first sounded her whistle he slunk to his post; he was
+challenged by no watchman, for the few guards who had been placed in the
+immediate vicinity of the pavilion, had all gone to sleep under the
+influence of the Regent's wine.  Paaker climbed up to about the height of
+two men from the ground by the help of the ornamental carving on the
+outside wall of the palace; there a rope ladder was attached, he
+clambered up this, and soon stood on the parapet, above which were the
+windows of the king's rooms, and below which the fire was to be laid.
+
+Rameses' room was brightly illuminated.  Paaker could see into it without
+being seen, and could bear every word that was spoken within.  The king
+was sitting in an arm-chair, and looked thoughtfully at the ground;
+before him stood the Regent, and Mena stood by his couch, holding in his
+hand the king's sleeping-robe.
+
+Presently Rameses raised his head, and said, as he offered his hand with
+frank affection to Ani:
+
+"Let me bring this glorious day to a worthy end, cousin.  I have found
+you my true and faithful friend, and I had been in danger of believing
+those over-anxious counsellors who spoke evil of you.  I am never prone
+to distrust, but a number of things occurred together that clouded my
+judgment, and I did you injustice.  I am sorry, sincerely sorry; nor am I
+ashamed to apologize to you for having for an instant doubted your good
+intentions.  You are my good friend--and I will prove to you that I am
+yours.  There is my hand-take it; and all Egypt shall know that Rameses
+trusts no man more implicitly than his Regent Ani.  I will ask you to
+undertake to be my guard of honor to-night--we will share this room.
+I sleep here; when I lie down on my couch take your place on the divan
+yonder."  Ani had taken Rameses' offered hand, but now he turned pale as
+he looked down.  Paaker could see straight into his face, and it was not
+without difficulty that he suppressed a scornful laugh.
+
+Rameses did not observe the Regent's dismay, for he had signed to Mena to
+come closer to him.
+
+"Before I sleep," said the king, "I will bring matters to an end with you
+too.  You have put your wife's constancy to a severe test, and she has
+trusted you with a childlike simplicity that is often wiser than the
+arguments of sages, because she loved you honestly, and is herself
+incapable of guile.  I promised you that I would grant you a wish if your
+faith in her was justified.  Now tell me what is your will?"
+
+Mena fell on his knees, and covered the king's robe with kisses.
+
+"Pardon!"  he exclaimed.  "Nothing but pardon.  My crime was a heavy one,
+I know; but I was driven to it by scorn and fury--it was as if I saw the
+dishonoring hand of Paaker stretched out to seize my innocent wife, who,
+as I now know, loathes him as a toad--"
+
+"What was that?"  exclaimed the king.  "I thought I heard a groan
+outside."
+
+He went up to the window and looked out, but he did not see the pioneer,
+who watched every motion of the king, and who, as soon as he perceived
+that his involuntary sigh of anguish had been heard, stretched himself
+close under the balustrade.  Mena had not risen from his knees when the
+king once more turned to him.
+
+"Pardon me," he said again.  "Let me be near thee again as before, and
+drive thy chariot.  I live only through thee, I am of no worth but
+through thee, and by thy favor, my king, my lord, my father!"
+
+Rameses signed to his favorite to rise.  "Your request was granted," said
+he, "before you made it.  I am still in your debt on your fair wife's
+account.  Thank Nefert--not me, and let us give thanks to the Immortals
+this day with especial fervor.  What has it not brought forth for us!  It
+has restored to me you two friends, whom I regarded as lost to me, and
+has given me in Pentaur another son."
+
+A low whistle sounded through the night air; it was Katuti's last signal.
+
+Paaker blew up the tinder, laid it in the bole under the parapet, and
+then, unmindful of his own danger, raised himself to listen for any
+further words.
+
+"I entreat thee," said the Regent, approaching Rameses, "to excuse me.
+I fully appreciate thy favors, but the labors of the last few days have
+been too much for me; I can hardly stand on my feet, and the guard of
+honor--"
+
+"Mena will watch," said the king.  "Sleep in all security, cousin.  I
+will have it known to all men that I have put away from me all distrust
+of you.  Give the my night-robe, Mena.  Nay-one thing more I must tell
+you.  Youth smiles on the young, Ani.  Bent-Anat has chosen a worthy
+husband, my preserver, the poet Pentaur.  He was said to be a man of
+humble origin, the son of a gardener of the House of Seti; and now what
+do I learn through Ameni?  He is the true son of the dead Mohar, and the
+foul traitor Paaker is the gardener's son.  A witch in the Necropolis
+changed the children.  That is the best news of all that has reached me
+on this propitious day, for the Mohar's widow, the noble Setchem, has
+been brought here, and I should have been obliged to choose between two
+sentences on her as the mother of the villain who has escaped us.  Either
+I must have sent her to the quarries, or have had her beheaded before all
+the people--In the name of the Gods, what is that?"
+
+They heard a loud cry in a man's voice, and at the same instant a noise
+as if some heavy mass had fallen to the ground from a great height.
+Rameses and Mena hastened to the window, but started back, for they were
+met by a cloud of smoke.
+
+"Call the watch!"  cried the king.
+
+"Go, you," exclaimed Mena to Ani.  "I will not leave the king again in
+danger."
+
+Ani fled away like an escaped prisoner, but he could not get far, for,
+before he could descend the stairs to the lower story, they fell in
+before his very eyes; Katuti, after she had set fire to the interior of
+the palace, had made them fall by one blow of a hammer.  Ani saw her robe
+as she herself fled, clenched his fist with rage as he shouted her name,
+and then, not knowing what he did, rushed headlong through the corridor
+into which the different royal apartments opened.
+
+The fearful crash of the falling stairs brought the King and Mena also
+out of the sleeping-room.
+
+"There lie the stairs! that is serious!"  said the king cooly; then he
+went back into his room, and looked out of a window to estimate the
+danger.  Bright flames were already bursting from the northern end of the
+palace, and gave the grey dawn the brightness of day; the southern wing
+or the pavilion was not yet on fire.  Mena observed the parapet from
+which Paaker had fallen to the ground, tested its strength, and found it
+firm enough to bear several persons.  He looked round, particularly at
+the wing not yet gained by the flames, and exclaimed in a loud voice:
+
+"The fire is intentional! it is done on purpose.  See there!  a man is
+squatting down and pushing a brand into the woodwork."
+
+He leaped back into the room, which was now filling with smoke, snatched
+the king's bow and quiver, which he himself had hung up at the bed-head,
+took careful aim, and with one cry the incendiary fell dead.
+
+A few hours later the dwarf Nemu was found with the charioteer's arrow
+through his heart.  After setting fire to Bent-Anat's rooms, he had
+determined to lay a brand to the wing of the palace where, with the other
+princes, Uarda's friend Rameri was sleeping.
+
+Mena had again leaped out of window, and was estimating the height of the
+leap to the ground; the Pharaoh's room was getting more and more filled
+with smoke, and flames began to break through the seams of the boards.
+Outside the palace as well as within every one was waking up to terror
+and excitement.
+
+"Fire!  fire!  an incendiary!  Help!  Save the king!"  cried Kaschta, who
+rushed on, followed by a crowd of guards whom he had roused; Uarda had
+flown to call Bent-Anat, as she knew the way to her room.  The king had
+got on to the parapet outside the window with Mena, and was calling to
+the soldiers.
+
+"Half of you get into the house, and first save the princess; the other
+half keep the fire from catching the south wing.  I will try to get
+there."
+
+But Nemu's brand had been effectual, the flames flared up, and the
+soldiers strained every nerve to conquer them.  Their cries mingled with
+the crackling and snapping of the dry wood, and the roar of the flames,
+with the trumpet calls of the awakening troops, and the beating of drums.
+The young princes appeared at a window; they had tied their clothes
+together to form a rope, and one by one escaped down it.
+
+Rameses called to them with words of encouragement, but he himself was
+unable to take any means of escape, for though the parapet on which he
+stood was tolerably wide, and ran round the whole of the building, at
+about every six feet it was broken by spaces of about ten paces.  The
+fire was spreading and growing, and glowing sparks flew round him and his
+companion like chaff from the winnowing fan.
+
+"Bring some straw and make a heap below!"  shouted Rameses, above the
+roar of the conflagration.  "There is no escape but by a leap down."
+
+The flames rushed out of the windows of the king's room; it was
+impossible to return to it, but neither the king nor Mena lost his self-
+possession.  When Mena saw the twelve princes descending to the ground,
+he shouted through his hands, using them as a speaking trumpet, and
+called to Rameri, who was about to slip down the rope they had contrived,
+the last of them all.
+
+"Pull up the rope, and keep it from injury till I come."
+
+Rameri obeyed the order, and before Rameses could interfere, Mena had
+sprung across the space which divided one piece of the balustrade from
+another.  The king's blood ran cold as Mena, a second time, ventured the
+frightful leap; one false step, and he must meet with the same fearful
+death as his enemy Paaker.
+
+While the bystanders watched him in breathless silence--while the
+crackling of the wood, the roar of the flames, and the dull thump of
+falling timber mingled with the distant chant of a procession of priests
+who were now approaching the burning pile, Nefert roused by little
+Scherau knelt on the bare ground in fervent and passionate prayer to the
+saving Gods.  She watched every movement of her husband, and she bit her
+lips till they bled not to cry out.  She felt that he was acting bravely
+and nobly, and that he was lost if even for an instant his attention were
+distracted from his perilous footing.  Now he had reached Rameri, and
+bound one end of the rope made out of cloaks and handkerchiefs, round his
+body; then he gave the other end to Rameri, who held fast to the window-
+sill, and prepared once more to spring.  Nefert saw him ready to leap,
+she pressed her hands upon her lips to repress a scream, she shut her
+eyes, and when she opened them again he had accomplished the first leap,
+and at the second the Gods preserved him from falling; at the third the
+king held out his hand to him, and saved him from a fall.  Then Rameses
+helped him to unfasten the rope from round his waist to fasten it to the
+end of a beam.
+
+Rameri now loosened the other end, and followed Mena's example; he too,
+practised in athletic exercises in the school of the House of Seti,
+succeeded in accomplishing the three tremendous leaps, and soon the king
+stood in safety on the ground.  Rameri followed him, and then Mena, whose
+faithful wife went to meet him, and wiped the sweat from his throbbing
+temples.
+
+Rameses hurried to the north wing, where Bent-Anat had her apartments; he
+found her safe indeed, but wringing her hands, for her young favorite
+Uarda had disappeared in the flames after she had roused her and saved
+her with her father's assistance.  Kaschta ran up and down in front of
+the burning pavilion, tearing his hair; now calling his child in tones of
+anguish, now holding his breath to listen for an answer.  To rush at
+random into the immense-burning building would have been madness.  The
+king observed the unhappy man, and set him to lead the soldiers, whom he
+had commanded to hew down the wall of Bent-Anat's rooms, so as to rescue
+the girl who might be within.  Kaschta seized an axe, and raised it to
+strike.
+
+But he thought that he heard blows from within against one of the
+shutters of the ground-floor, which by Katuti's orders had been securely
+closed; he followed the sound--he was not mistaken, the knocking could be
+distinctly heard.
+
+With all his might he struck the edge of the axe between the shutter and
+the wall, and a stream of smoke poured out of the new outlet, and before
+him, enveloped in its black clouds, stood a staggering man who held Uarda
+in his arms.  Kaschta sprang forward into the midst of the smoke and
+sparks, and snatched his daughter from the arms of her preserver, who
+fell half smothered on his knees.  He rushed out into the air with his
+light and precious burden, and as he pressed his lips to her closed
+eyelids his eyes were wet, and there rose up before him the image of the
+woman who bore her, the wife that had stood as the solitary green palm-
+tree in the desert waste of his life.  But only for a few seconds-Bent-
+Anat herself took Uarda into her care, and he hastened back to the
+burning house.
+
+He had recognized his daughter's preserver; it was the physician
+Nebsecht, who had not quitted the princess since their meeting on Sinai,
+and had found a place among her suite as her personal physician.
+
+The fresh air had rushed into the room through the opening of the
+shutter, the broad flames streamed out of the window, but still Nebsecht
+was alive, for his groans could be heard through the smoke.  Once more
+Kaschta rushed towards the window, the bystanders could see that the
+ceiling of the room was about to fail, and called out to warn him, but he
+was already astride the sill.
+
+"I signed myself his slave with my blood," he cried, "Twice he has saved
+my child, and now I will pay my debt," and he disappeared into the
+burning room.
+
+He soon reappeared with Nebsecht in his arms, whose robe was already
+scorched by the flames.  He could be seen approaching the window with his
+heavy burden; a hundred soldiers, and with them Pentaur, pressed forward
+to help him, and took the senseless leech out of the arms of the soldier,
+who lifted him over the window sill.
+
+Kaschta was on the point of following him, but before he could swing
+himself over, the beams above gave way and fell, burying the brave son of
+the paraschites.
+
+Pentaur had his insensible friend carried to his tent, and helped the
+physicians to bind up his burns.  When the cry of fire had been first
+raised, Pentaur was sitting in earnest conversation with the high-priest;
+he had learned that he was not the son of a gardener, but a descendant of
+one of the noblest families in the land.  The foundations of life seemed
+to be subverted under his feet, Ameni's revelation lifted him out of the
+dust and set him on the marble floor of a palace; and yet Pentaur was
+neither excessively surprised nor inordinately rejoiced; he was so well
+used to find his joys and sufferings depend on the man within him, and
+not on the circumstances without.
+
+As soon as he heard the cry of fire, he hastened to the burning pavilion,
+and when he saw the king's danger, he set himself at the head of a number
+of soldiers who had hurried up from the camp, intending to venture an
+attempt to save Rameses from the inside of the house.  Among those who
+followed him in this hopeless effort was Katuti's reckless son, who had
+distinguished himself by his valor before Kadesh, and who hailed this
+opportunity of again proving his courage.  Falling walls choked up the
+way in front of these brave adventurers; but it was not till several had
+fallen choked or struck down by burning logs, that they made up their
+minds to retire--one of the first that was killed was Katuti's son,
+Nefert's brother.
+
+Uarda had been carried into the nearest tent.  Her pretty head lay in
+Bent-Anat's lap, and Nefert tried to restore her to animation by rubbing
+her temples with strong essences.  Presently the girl's lips moved: with
+returning consciousness all she had seen and suffered during the last
+hour or two recurred to her mind; she felt herself rushing through the
+camp with her father, hurrying through the corridor to the princess's
+rooms, while he broke in the doors closed by Katuti's orders; she saw
+Bent-Anat as she roused her, and conducted her to safety; she remembered
+her horror when, just as she reached the door, she discovered that she
+had left in her chest her jewel, the only relic of her lost mother, and
+her rapid return which was observed by no one but by the leech Nebsecht.
+
+Again she seemed to live through the anguish she had felt till she once
+more had the trinket safe in her bosom, the horror that fell upon her
+when she found her escape impeded by smoke and flames, and the weakness
+which overcame her; and she felt as if the strange white-robed priest
+once more raised her in his arms.  She remembered the tenderness of his
+eyes as he looked into hers, and she smiled half gratefully but half
+displeased at the tender kiss which had been pressed on her lips before
+she found herself in her father's strong arms.
+
+"How sweet she is!"  said Bent-Anat.  "I believe poor Nebsecht is right
+in saying that her mother was the daughter of some great man among the
+foreign people.  Look what pretty little hands and feet, and her skin is
+as clear as Phoenician glass."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+While the friends were occupied in restoring Uarda to animation, and in
+taking affectionate care of her, Katuti was walking restlessly backwards
+and forwards in her tent.
+
+Soon after she had slipped out for the purpose of setting fire to the
+palace, Scherau's cry had waked up Nefert, and Katuti found her
+daughter's bed empty when, with blackened hands and limbs trembling with
+agitation, she came back from her criminal task.
+
+Now she waited in vain for Nemu and Paaker.
+
+Her steward, whom she sent on repeated messages of enquiry whether the
+Regent had returned, constantly brought back a negative answer, and added
+the information that he had found the body of old Hekt lying on the open
+ground.  The widow's heart sank with fear; she was full of dark
+forebodings while she listened to the shouts of the people engaged in
+putting out the fire, the roll of drums, and the trumpets of the soldiers
+calling each other to the help of the king.
+
+To these sounds now was added the dull crash of falling timbers and
+walls.
+
+A faint smile played upon her thin lips, and she thought to herself:
+"There--that perhaps fell on the king, and my precious son-in-law, who
+does not deserve such a fate--if we had not fallen into disgrace, and if
+since the occurrences before Kadesh he did not cling to his indulgent
+lord as a calf follows a cow."
+
+She gathered fresh courage, and fancied she could hear the voice of
+Ethiopian troops hailing the Regent as king--could see Ani decorated
+with the crown of Upper and Lower Egypt, seated on Rameses' throne, and
+herself by his side in rich though unpretending splendor.  She pictured
+herself with her son and daughter as enjoying Mena's estate, freed from
+debt and increased by Ani's generosity, and then a new, intoxicating hope
+came into her mind.  Perhaps already at this moment her daughter was a
+widow, and why should she not be so fortunate as to induce Ani to select
+her child, the prettiest woman in Thebes, for his wife?  Then she, the
+mother of the queen, would be indeed unimpeachable, and all-powerful.
+She had long since come to regard the pioneer as a tool to be cast aside,
+nay soon to be utterly destroyed; his wealth might probably at some
+future time be bestowed upon her son, who had distinguished himself at
+Kadesh, and whom Ani must before long promote to be his charioteer or the
+commander of the chariot warriors.
+
+Flattered by these fancies, she forgot every care as she walked faster
+and faster to and fro in her tent.  Suddenly the steward, whom she had
+this time sent to the very scene of the fire, rushed into the tent, and
+with every token of terror broke to her the news that the king and his
+charioteer were hanging in mid air on a narrow wooden parapet, and that
+unless some miracle happened they must inevitably be killed.  It was said
+that incendiaries had occasioned the fire, and he, the steward, had
+hastened forward to prepare her for evil news as the mangled body of the
+pioneer, which had been identified by the ring on his finger, and the
+poor little corpse of Nemu, pierced through by an arrow, had been carried
+past him.
+
+Katuti was silent for a moment.
+
+"And the king's sons?"  she asked with an anxious sigh.
+
+"The Gods be praised," replied the steward, "they succeeded in letting
+themselves down to the ground by a rope made of their garments knotted
+together, and some were already safe when I came away."
+
+Katuti's face clouded darkly; once more she sent forth her messenger.
+The minutes of his absence seemed like days; her bosom heaved in stormy
+agitation, then for a moment she controlled herself, and again her heart
+seemed to cease beating--she closed her eyes as if her anguish of anxiety
+was too much for her strength.  At last, long after sunrise, the steward
+reappeared.
+
+Pale, trembling, hardly able to control his voice, he threw himself on
+the ground at her feet crying out:
+
+"Alas! this night! prepare for the worst, mistress!  May Isis comfort
+thee, who saw thy son fall in the service of his king and father!  May
+Amon, the great God of Thebes, give thee strength!  Our pride, our hope,
+thy son is slain, killed by a falling beam."
+
+Pale and still as if frozen, Katuti shed not a tear; for a minute she did
+not speak, then she asked in a dull tone:
+
+"And Rameses?"
+
+"The Gods be praised!"  answered the servant, "he is safe-rescued by
+Mena!"
+
+"And Ani?"
+
+"Burnt!--they found his body disfigured out of all recognition; they knew
+him again by the jewels he wore at the banquet."
+
+Katuti gazed into vacancy, and the steward started back as from a mad
+woman when, instead of bursting into tears, she clenched her small
+jewelled hands, shook her fists in the air, and broke into loud, wild
+laughter; then, startled at the sound of her own voice, she suddenly
+became silent and fixed her eyes vacantly on the ground.  She neither saw
+nor heard that the captain of the watch, who was called "the eyes and
+ears of the king," had come in through the door of her tent followed by
+several officers and a scribe; he came up to her, and called her by her
+name.  Not till the steward timidly touched her did she collect her
+senses like one suddenly roused from deep sleep.
+
+"What are you doing in my tent?"  she asked the officer, drawing herself
+up haughtily.
+
+"In the name of the chief judge of Thebes," said the captain of the watch
+solemnly.  "I arrest you, and hail you before the high court of justice,
+to defend yourself against the grave and capital charges of high treason,
+attempted regicide, and incendiarism."
+
+"I am ready," said the widow, and a scornful smile curled her lips.  Then
+with her usual dignity she pointed to a seat and said:
+
+"Be seated while I dress."
+
+The officer bowed, but remained standing at the door of the tent while
+she arranged her black hair, set her diadem on her brow, opened her
+little ointment chest, and took from it a small phial of the rapid poison
+strychnine, which some months before she had procured through Nemu from
+the old witch Hekt.
+
+"My mirror!"  she called to a maid servant, who squatted in a corner of
+the tent.  She held the metal mirror so as to conceal her face from the
+captain of the watch, put the little flask to her lips and emptied it at
+one mouthful.  The mirror fell from her hand, she staggered, a deadly
+convulsion seized her--the officer rushed forward, and while she fixed
+her dying look upon him she said:
+
+"My game is lost, but Ameni--tell Ameni that he will not win either."
+
+She fell forward, murmured Nefert's name, struggled convulsively and was
+dead.
+
+When the draught of happiness which the Gods prepare for some few men,
+seems to flow clearest and purest, Fate rarely fails to infuse into it
+some drop of bitterness.  And yet we should not therefore disdain it, for
+it is that very drop of bitterness which warns us to drink of the joys of
+life thankfully, and in moderation.
+
+The perfect happiness of Mena and Nefert was troubled by the fearful
+death of Katuti, but both felt as if they now for the first time knew the
+full strength of their love for each other.  Mena had to make up to his
+wife for the loss of mother and brother, and Nefert to restore to her
+husband much that he had been robbed of by her relatives, and they felt
+that they had met again not merely for pleasure but to be to each other
+a support and a consolation.
+
+Rameses quitted the scene of the fire full of gratitude to the Gods who
+had shown such grace to him and his.  He ordered numberless steers to be
+sacrificed, and thanksgiving festivals to be held throughout the land;
+but he was cut to the heart by the betrayal to which he had fallen a
+victim.  He longed--as he always did in moments when the balance of his
+mind had been disturbed--for an hour of solitude, and retired to the tent
+which had been hastily erected for him.  He could not bear to enter the
+splendid pavilion which had been Ani's; it seemed to him infested with
+the leprosy of falsehood and treason.
+
+For an hour he remained alone, and weighed the worst he had suffered at
+the hands of men against that which was good and cheering, and he found
+that the good far outweighed the evil.  He vividly realized the magnitude
+of his debt of gratitude, not to the Immortals only, but also to his
+earthly friends, as he recalled every moment of this morning's
+experience.
+
+"Gratitude," he said to himself, "was impressed on you by your mother;
+you yourself have taught your children to be grateful.  Piety is
+gratitude to the Gods, and he only is really generous who does not forget
+the gratitude he owes to men."
+
+He had thrown off all bitterness of feeling when he sent for Bent-Anat
+and Pentaur to be brought to his tent.  He made his daughter relate at
+full length how the poet had won her love, and though he frequently
+interrupted her with blame as well as praise, his heart was full of
+fatherly joy when he laid his darling's hand in that of the poet.
+
+Bent-Anat laid her head in full content on the breast of the noble Assa's
+grandson, but she would have clung not less fondly to Pentaur the
+gardener's son.
+
+"Now you are one of my own children," said Rameses; and he desired the
+poet to remain with him while he commanded the heralds, ambassadors, and
+interpreters to bring to him the Asiatic princes, who were detained in
+their own tents on the farther side of the Nile, that he might conclude
+with them such a treaty of peace as might continue valid for generations
+to come.  Before they arrived, the young princes came to their father's
+tent, and learned from his own lips the noble birth of Pentaur, and that
+they owed it to their sister that in him they saw another brother; they
+welcomed him with sincere affection, and all, especially Rameri, warmly
+congratulated the handsome and worthy couple.
+
+The king then called Rameri forward from among his brothers, and thanked
+him before them all for his brave conduct during the fire.  He had
+already been invested with the robe of manhood after the battle of
+Kadesh; he was now appointed to the command of a legion of chariot-
+warriors, and the order of the lion to wear round his neck was bestowed
+on him for his bravery.  The prince knelt, and thanked his father; but
+Rameses took the curly head in his hands and said:
+
+"You have won praise and reward by your splendid deeds from the father
+whom you have saved and filled with pride.  But the king watches over the
+laws, and guides the destiny cf this land, the king must blame you, nay
+perhaps punish you.  You could not yield to the discipline of school,
+where we all must learn to obey if we would afterwards exercise our
+authority with moderation, and without any orders you left Egypt and
+joined the army.  You showed the courage and strength of a man, but the
+folly of a boy in all that regards prudence and foresight--things harder
+to learn for the son of a race of heroes than mere hitting and slashing
+at random; you, without experience, measured yourself against masters of
+the art of war, and what was the consequence?  Twice you fell a prisoner
+into the hands of the enemy, and I had to ransom you.
+
+"The king of the Danaids gave you up in exchange for his daughter, and he
+rejoices long since in the restoration of his child; but we, in losing
+her, lost the most powerful means of coercing the seafaring nations of
+the islands and northern coasts of the great sea who are constantly
+increasing in might and daring, and so diminished our chances of securing
+a solid and abiding peace.
+
+"Thus--through the careless wilfulness of a boy, the great work is
+endangered which I had hoped to have achieved.  It grieves me
+particularly to humiliate your spirit to-day, when I have had so much
+reason to encourage you with praise.  Nor will I punish you, only
+warn you and teach you.  The mechanism of the state is like the working
+of the cogged wheels which move the water-works on the shore of the Nile-
+if one tooth is missing the whole comes to a stand-still however strong
+the beasts that labor to turn it.  Each of you--bear this in mind--is a
+main-wheel in the great machine of the state, and can serve an end only
+by acting unresistingly in obedience to the motive power.  Now rise!  we
+may perhaps succeed in obtaining good security from the Asiatic king,
+though we have lost our hostage."
+
+Heralds at this moment marched into the tent, and announced that the
+representative of the Cheta king and the allied princes were in
+attendance in the council tent; Rameses put on the crown of Upper and
+Lower Egypt and all his royal adornments; the chamberlain who carried the
+insignia of his power, and his head scribe with his decoration of plumes
+marched before him, while his sons, the commanders in chief, and the
+interpreters followed him.  Rameses took his seat on his throne with
+great dignity, and the sternest gravity marked his demeanor while he
+received the homage of the conquered and fettered kings.
+
+The Asiatics kissed the earth at his feet, only the king of the Danaids
+did no more than bow before him.  Rameses looked wrathfully at him, and
+ordered the interpreter to ask him whether he considered himself
+conquered or no, and the answer was given that he had not come before the
+Pharaoh as a prisoner, and that the obeisance which Rameses required of
+him was regarded as a degradation according to the customs of his free-
+born people, who prostrated them selves only before the Gods.  He hoped
+to become an ally of the king of Egypt, and he asked would he desire to
+call a degraded man his friend?
+
+Rameses measured the proud and noble figure before him with a glance, and
+said severely:
+
+"I am prepared to treat for peace only with such of my enemies as are
+willing to bow to the double crown that I wear.  If you persist in your
+refusal, you and your people will have no part in the favorable
+conditions that I am prepared to grant to these, your allies."
+
+The captive prince preserved his dignified demeanor, which was
+nevertheless free from insolence, when these words of the king were
+interpreted to him, and replied that he had come intending to procure
+peace at any cost, but that he never could nor would grovel in the dust
+at any man's feet nor before any crown.  He would depart on the following
+day; one favor, however, he requested in his daughter's name and his own
+--and he had heard that the Egyptians respected women.  The king knew,
+of course, that his charioteer Mena had treated his daughter, not as a
+prisoner but as a sister, and Praxilla now felt a wish, which he himself
+shared, to bid farewell to the noble Mena, and his wife, and to thank him
+for his magnanimous generosity.  Would Rameses permit him once more to
+cross the Nile before his departure, and with his daughter to visit Mena
+in his tent.
+
+Rameses granted his prayer: the prince left the tent, and the
+negotiations began.
+
+In a few hours they were brought to a close, for the Asiatic and Egyptian
+scribes had agreed, in the course of the long march southwards, on the
+stipulations to be signed; the treaty itself was to be drawn up after the
+articles had been carefully considered, and to be signed in the city of
+Rameses called Tanis--or, by the numerous settlers in its neighborhood,
+Zoan.  The Asiatic princes were to dine as guests with the king; but they
+sat at a separate table, as the Egyptians would have been defiled by
+sitting at the same table with strangers.
+
+Rameses was not perfectly satisfied.  If the Danaids went away without
+concluding a treaty with him, it was to be expected that the peace which
+he was so earnestly striving for would before long be again disturbed;
+and he nevertheless felt that, out of regard for the other conquered
+princes, he could not forego any jot of the humiliation which he had
+required of their king, and which he believed to be due to himself--
+though he bad been greatly impressed by his dignified manliness and
+by the bravery of the troops that had followed him into the field.
+
+The sun was sinking when Mena, who that day had leave of absence from the
+king, came in great excitement up to the table where the princes were
+sitting and craved the king's permission to make an important
+communication.  Rameses signed consent; the charioteer went close up to
+him, and they held a short but eager conversation in a low voice.
+
+Presently the king stood up and said, speaking to his daughter:
+
+"This day which began so horribly will end joyfully.  The fair child who
+saved you to-day, but who so nearly fell a victim to the flames, is of
+noble origin."
+
+"She cones of a royal house," said Rameri, disrespectfully interrupting
+his father.  Rameses looked at him reprovingly.  "My sons are silent," he
+said, "till I ask them to speak."
+
+The prince colored and looked down; the king signed to Bent-Anat and
+Pentaur, begged his guests to excuse him for a short time, and was about
+to leave the tent; but Bent-Anat went up to him, and whispered a few
+words to him with reference to her brother.  Not in vain: the king
+paused, and reflected for a few moments; then he looked at Rameri, who
+stood abashed, and as if rooted to the spot where he stood.  The king
+called his name, and beckoned him to follow him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV.
+
+Rameri had rushed off to summon the physicians, while Bent-Anat was
+endeavoring to restore the rescued Uarda to consciousness, and he
+followed them into his sister's tent.  He gazed with tender anxiety into
+the face of the half suffocated girl, who, though uninjured, still
+remained unconscious, and took her hand to press his lips to her slender
+fingers, but Bent-Anat pushed him gently away; then in low tones that
+trembled with emotion he implored her not to send him away, and told her
+how dear the girl whose life he had saved in the fight in the Necropolis
+had become to him--how, since his departure for Syria, he had never
+ceased to think of her night and day, and that he desired to make her his
+wife.
+
+Bent-Anat was startled; she reminded her brother of the stain that lay on
+the child of the paraschites and through which she herself had suffered
+so much; but Rameri answered eagerly:
+
+"In Egypt rank and birth are derived through the mother and Kaschta's
+dead wife--"
+
+"I know," interrupted Bent-Anat.  "Nebsecht has already told us that she
+was a dumb woman, a prisoner of war, and I myself believe that she was of
+no mean house, for Uarda is nobly formed in face and figure."
+
+"And her skin is as fine as the petal of a flower," cried Rameri.  "Her
+voice is like the ring of pure gold, and--Oh!  look, she is moving.
+Uarda, open your eyes, Uarda!  When the sun rises we praise the Gods.
+Open your eyes!  how thankful, how joyful I shall be if those two suns
+only rise again."
+
+Bent-Anat smiled, and drew her brother away from the heavily-breathing
+girl, for a leech came into the tent to say that a warm medicated bath
+had been prepared and was ready for Uarda.  The princess ordered her
+waiting-women to help lift the senseless girl, and was preparing to
+follow her when a message from her father required her presence in his
+tent.  She could guess at the significance of this command, and desired
+Rameri to leave her that she might dress in festal garments; she could
+entrust Uarda to the care of Nefert during her absence.
+
+"She is kind and gentle, and she knows Uarda so well," said the princess,
+"and the necessity of caring for this dear little creature will do her
+good.  Her heart is torn between sorrow for her lost relations, and joy
+at being united again to her love.  My father has given Mena leave of
+absence from his office for several days, and I have excused her from her
+attendance on me, for the time during which we were so necessary to each
+other really came to an end yesterday.  I feel, Rameri, as if we, after
+our escape, were like the sacred phoenix which comes to Heliopolis and
+burns itself to death only to soar again from its ashes young and radiant
+--blessed and blessing!"
+
+When her brother had left her, she threw herself before the image of her
+mother and prayed long and earnestly; she poured an offering of sweet
+perfume on the little altar of the Goddess Hathor, which always
+accompanied her, had herself dressed in happy preparation for meeting her
+father, and--she did not conceal it from herself--Pentaur, then she went
+for a moment to Nefert's tent to beg her to take good care of Uarda, and
+finally obeyed the summons of the king, who, as we know, fulfilled her
+utmost hopes.
+
+As Rameri quitted his sister's tent he saw the watch seize and lead away
+a little boy; the child cried bitterly, and the prince in a moment
+recognized the little sculptor Scherau, who had betrayed the Regent's
+plot to him and to Uarda, and whom he had already fancied he had seen
+about the place.  The guards had driven him away several times from the
+princess's tent, but he had persisted in returning, and this obstinate
+waiting in the neighborhood had aroused the suspicions of an officer; for
+since the fire a thousand rumors of conspiracies and plots against the
+king had been flying about the camp.  Rameri at once freed the little
+prisoner, and heard from him that it was old Hekt who, before her death,
+had sent Kaschta and his daughter to the rescue of the king, that he
+himself had helped to rouse the troops, that now he had no home and
+wished to go to Uarda.
+
+The prince himself led the child to Nefert, and begged her to allow him
+to see Uarda, and to let him stay with her servants till he himself
+returned from his father's tent.
+
+The leeches had treated Uarda with judgment, for under the influence of
+the bath she recovered her senses; when she had been dressed again in
+fresh garments and refreshed by the essences and medicines which they
+gave her to inhale and to drink, she was led back into Nefert's tent,
+where Mena, who had never before seen her, was astonished at her peculiar
+and touching beauty.
+
+"She  is very like my Danaid princess," he said to his wife; "only she is
+younger and much prettier than she."
+
+Little Scherau came in to pay his respects to her, and she was delighted
+to see the boy; still she was sad, and however kindly Nefert spoke to her
+she remained in silent reverie, while from time to time a large tear
+rolled down her cheek.
+
+"You have lost your father!"  said Nefert, trying to comfort her.  "And
+I, my mother and brother both in one day."
+
+"Kaschta was rough but, oh! so kind," replied Uarda.  "He was always so
+fond of me; he was like the fruit of the doom palm; its husk is hard and
+rough, but he who knows how to open it finds the sweet pulp within.  Now
+he is dead, and my grandfather and grandmother are gone before him, and I
+am like the green leaf that I saw floating on the waters when we were
+crossing the sea; anything so forlorn I never saw, abandoned by all it
+belonged to or had ever loved, the sport of a strange element in which
+nothing resembling itself ever grew or ever can grow."
+
+Nefert kissed her forehead.  "You have friends," she said, "who will
+never abandon you."
+
+"I know, I know!"  said Uarda thoughtfully, "and yet I am alone--for the
+first time really alone.  In Thebes I have often looked after the wild
+swans as they passed across the sky; one flies in front, then comes the
+body of the wandering party, and very often, far behind, a solitary
+straggler; and even this last one I do not call lonely, for he can still
+see his brethren in front of him.  But when the hunters have shot down
+all the low-flying loiterers, and the last one has lost sight of the
+flock, and knows that he never again can find them or follow them he is
+indeed to be pitied.  I am as unhappy as the abandoned bird, for I have
+lost sight to-day of all that I belong to, and I am alone, and can never
+find them again."
+
+"You will be welcomed into some more noble house than that to which you
+belong by birth," said Nefert, to comfort her.
+
+Uarda's eyes flashed, and she said proudly, almost defiantly:
+
+"My race is that of my mother, who was a daughter of no mean house; the
+reason I turned back this morning and went into the smoke and fire again
+after I had escaped once into the open air--what I went back for, because
+I felt it was worth dying for, was my mother's legacy, which I had put
+away with my holiday dress when I followed the wretched Nemu to his tent.
+I threw myself into the jaws of death to save the jewel, but certainly
+not because it is made of gold and precious stones--for I do not care to
+be rich, and I want no better fare than a bit of bread and a few dates
+and a cup of water--but because it has a name on it in strange
+characters, and because I believe it will serve to discover the people
+from whom my mother was carried off; and now I have lost the jewel, and
+with it my identity and my hopes and happiness."
+
+Uarda wept aloud; Nefert put her arm around her affectionately.
+
+"Poor child!"  she said, "was your treasure destroyed in the flames?"
+
+"No, no," cried Uarda eagerly.  "I  snatched it out of my chest and held
+it in my hand when Nebsecht took me in his arms, and I still had it in my
+hand when I was lying safe on the ground outside the burning house, and
+Bent-Anat was close to me, and Rameri came up.  I remember seeing him as
+if I were in a dream, and I revived a little, and I felt the jewel in my
+fingers then."
+
+"Then it was dropped on the way to the tent?"  said Nefert.
+
+Uarda nodded; little Scherau, who had been crouching on the floor beside
+her, gave Uarda a loving glance, dimmed with tears, and quietly slipped
+out of the tent.
+
+Time went by in silence; Uarda sat looking at the ground, Nefert and Mena
+held each other's hands, but the thoughts of all three were with the
+dead.  A perfect stillness reigned, and the happiness of the reunited
+couple was darkly overshadowed by their sorrow.  From time to time the
+silence was broken by a trumpet-blast from the royal tent; first when the
+Asiatic princes were introduced into the Council-tent, then when the
+Danaid king departed, and lastly when the Pharaoh preceded the conquered
+princes to the banquet.
+
+The charioteer remembered how his master had restored him to dignity and
+honor, for the sake of his faithful wife; and gratefully pressed her
+hand.
+
+Suddenly there was a noise in front of the tent, and an officer entered
+to announce to Mena that the Danaid king and his daughter, accompanied by
+body-guard, requested to see and speak with him and Nefert.
+
+The entrance to the tent was thrown wide open.  Uarda retired modestly
+into the back-ground, and Mena and Nefert went forward hand in hand to
+meet their unexpected guests.
+
+The Greek prince was an old man, his beard and thick hair were grey, but
+his movements were youthful and light, though dignified and deliberate.
+His even, well-formed features were deeply furrowed, he had large,
+bright, clear blue eyes, but round his fine lips were lines of care.
+Close to him walked his daughter; her long white robe striped with purple
+was held round her hips by a golden girdle, and her sunny yellow hair
+fell in waving locks over her neck and shoulders, while it was confined
+by a diadem which encircled her head; she was of middle height, and her
+motions were measured and calm like her father's.  Her brow was narrow,
+and in one line with her straight nose, her rosy mouth was sweet and
+kind, and beyond everything beautiful were the lines of her oval face and
+the turn of her snow-white throat.  By their side stood the interpreter
+who translated every word of the conversation on both sides.  Behind them
+came two men and two women, who carried gifts for Mena and his wife.
+
+The prince praised Mena's magnanimity in the warmest terms.
+
+"You have proved to me," he said, "that the virtues of gratitude, of
+constancy, and of faith are practised by the Egyptians; although your
+merit certainly appears less to me now that I see your wife, for he who
+owns the fairest may easily forego any taste for the fair."
+
+Nefert blushed.
+
+"Your generosity," she answered, "does me more than justice at your
+daughter's expense, and love moved my husband to the same injustice, but
+your beautiful daughter must forgive you and me also."
+
+Praxilla went towards her and expressed her thanks; then she offered her
+the costly coronet, the golden clasps and strings of rare pearls which
+her women carried; her father begged Mena to accept a coat of mail and a
+shield of fine silver work.  The strangers were then led into the tent,
+and were there welcomed and entertained with all honor, and offered bread
+and wine.  While Mena pledged her father, Praxilla related to Nefert,
+with the help of the interpreter, what hours of terror she had lived
+through after she had been taken prisoner by the Egyptians, and was
+brought into the camp with the other spoils of war; how an older
+commander had asserted his claim to her, how Mena had given her his hand,
+had led her to his tent, and had treated her like his own daughter.  Her
+voice shook with emotion, and even the interpreter was moved as she
+concluded her story with these words: "How grateful I am to him, you will
+fully understand when I tell you that the man who was to have been my
+husband fell wounded before my eyes while defending our camp; but he has
+recovered, and now only awaits my return for our wedding."
+
+"May the Gods only grant it!"  cried the king, "for Praxilla is the last
+child of my house.  The murderous war robbed me of my four fair sons
+before they had taken wives, my son-in-law was slain by the Egyptians at
+the taking of our camp, and his wife and new-born son fell into their
+hands, and Praxilla is my youngest child, the only one left to me by the
+envious Gods."
+
+While he was still speaking, they heard the guards call out and a child's
+loud cry, and at the same instant little Scherau rushed into the tent
+holding up his hand exclaiming.
+
+"I have it!  I have found it!"
+
+Uarda, who had remained behind the curtain which screened the sleeping
+room of the tent--but who had listened with breathless attention to every
+word of the foreigners, and who had never taken her eyes off the fair
+Praxilla--now came forward, emboldened by her agitation, into the midst
+of the tent, and took the jewel from the child's hand to show it to the
+Greek king; for while she stood gazing at Praxilla it seemed to her that
+she was looking at herself in a mirror, and the idea had rapidly grown to
+conviction that her mother had been a daughter of the Danaids.  Her heart
+beat violently as she went up to the king with a modest demeanor, her
+head bent down, but holding her jewel up for him to see.
+
+The bystanders all gazed in astonishment at the veteran chief, for he
+staggered as she came up to him, stretched out his hands as if in terror
+towards the girl, and drew back crying out:
+
+"Xanthe, Xanthe!  Is your spirit freed from Hades?  Are you come to
+summon me?"
+
+Praxilla looked at her father in alarm, but suddenly she, too, gave a
+piercing cry, snatched a chain from her neck, hurried towards Uarda, and
+seizing the jewel she held, exclaimed:
+
+"Here is the other half of the ornament, it belonged to my poor sister
+Xanthe!"
+
+The old Greek was a pathetic sight, he struggled hard to collect himself,
+looking with tender delight at Uarda, his sinewy hands trembled as he
+compared the two pieces of the necklet; they matched precisely--each
+represented the wing of an eagle which was attached to half an oval
+covered with an inscription; when they were laid together they formed the
+complete figure of a bird with out-spread wings, on whose breast the
+lines exactly matched of the following oracular verse:
+
+    "Alone each is a trifling thing, a woman's useless toy
+     But with its counterpart behold! the favorite bird of Zeus."
+
+A glance at the inscription convinced the king that he held in his hand
+the very jewel which he had put with his own hands round the neck of his
+daughter Xanthe on her marriage-day, and of which the other half had been
+preserved by her mother, from whom it had descended to Praxilla.  It had
+originally been made for his wife and her twin sister who had died young.
+Before he made any enquiries, or asked for any explanations, he took
+Uarda's head between his hands, and turning her face close to his he
+gazed at her features, as if he were reading a book in which he expected
+to find a memorial of all the blissful hours of his youth, and the girl
+felt no fear; nor did she shrink when he pressed his lips to her
+forehead, for she felt that this man's blood ran in her own veins.  At
+last the king signed to the interpreter; Uarda was asked to tell all she
+knew of her mother, and when she said that she had come a captive to
+Thebes with an infant that had soon after died, that her father had
+bought her and had loved her in spite of her being dumb, the prince's
+conviction became certainty; he acknowledged Uarda as his grandchild,
+and Praxilla clasped her in her arms.
+
+Then he told Mena that it was now twenty years since his son-in-law had
+been killed, and his daughter Xanthe, whom Uarda exactly resembled, had
+been carried into captivity.  Praxilla was then only just born, and his
+wife died of the shock of such terrible news.  All his enquiries for
+Xanthe and her child had been fruitless, but he now remembered that once,
+when he had offered a large ransom for his daughter if she could be
+found, the Egyptians had enquired whether she were dumb, and that he had
+answered "no."  No doubt Xanthe had lost the power of speech through
+grief, terror, and suffering.
+
+The joy of the king was unspeakable, and Uarda was never tired of gazing
+at his daughter and holding her hand.
+
+Then she turned to the interpreter.
+
+"Tell me," she said.  "How do I say 'I am so very happy?'"
+
+He told her, and she smilingly repeated his words.  "Now 'Uarda will love
+you with all her heart?'" and she said it after him in broken accents
+that sounded so sweet and so heart-felt, that the old man clasped her to
+his breast.
+
+Tears of emotion stood in Nefert's eyes, and when Uarda flung herself
+into her arms she said:
+
+"The forlorn swan has found its kindred, the floating leaf has reached
+the shore, and must be happy now!"  Thus passed an hour of the purest
+happiness; at last the Greek king prepared to leave, and the wished to
+take Uarda with him; but Mena begged his permission to communicate all
+that had occurred to the Pharaoh and Bent-Anat, for Uarda was attached to
+the princess's train, and had been left in his charge, and he dared not
+trust her in any other hands without Bent-Anat's permission.  Without
+waiting for the king's reply he left the tent, hastened to the banqueting
+tent, and, as we know, Rameses and the princess had at once attended to
+his summons.
+
+On the way Mena gave them a vivid description of the exciting events that
+had taken place, and Rameses, with a side glance at Bent-Anat, asked
+Rameri:
+
+"Would you be prepared to repair your errors, and to win the friendship
+of the Greek king by being betrothed to his granddaughter?"
+
+The prince could not answer a word, but he clasped his father's hand, and
+kissed it so warmly that Rameses, as he drew it away, said:
+
+"I really believe that you have stolen a march on me, and have been
+studying diplomacy behind my back!"
+
+Rameses met his noble opponent outside Mena's tent, and was about to
+offer him his hand, but the Danaid chief had sunk on his knees before him
+as the other princes had done.
+
+"Regard me not as a king and a warrior," he exclaimed, "only as a
+suppliant father; let us conclude a peace, and permit me to take this
+maiden, my grandchild, home with me to my own country."
+
+Rameses raised the old man from the ground, gave him his hand, and said
+kindly:
+
+"I can only grant the half of what you ask.  I, as king of Egypt, am most
+willing to grant you a faithful compact for a sound and lasting peace; as
+regards this maiden, you must treat with my children, first with my
+daughter Bent-Anat, one of whose ladies she is, and then with your
+released prisoner there, who wishes to make Uarda his wife."
+
+"I will resign my share in the matter to my brother," said Bent-Anat,
+"and I only ask you, maiden, whether you are inclined to acknowledge him
+as your lord and master?"
+
+Uarda bowed assent, and looked at her grandfather with an expression
+which he understood without any interpreter.
+
+"I know you well," he said, turning to Rameri.  "We stood face to face in
+the fight, and I took you prisoner as you fell stunned by a blow from my
+sword.  You are still too rash, but that is a fault which time will amend
+in a youth of your heroic temper.  Listen to me now, and you too, noble
+Pharaoh, permit me these few words; let us betroth these two, and may
+their union be the bond of ours, but first grant me for a year to take my
+long-lost child home with me that she may rejoice my old heart, and that
+I may hear from her lips the accents of her mother, whom you took from
+me.  They are both young; according to the usages of our country, where
+both men and women ripen later than in your country, they are almost too
+young for the solemn tie of marriage.  But one thing above all will
+determine you to favor my wishes; this daughter of a royal house has
+grown up amid the humblest surroundings; here she has no home, no family-
+ties.  The prince has wooed her, so to speak, on the highway, but if she
+now comes with me he can enter the palace of kings as suitor to a
+princess, and the marriage feast I will provide shall be a right royal
+one."
+
+"What you demand is just and wise," replied Rameses.  "Take your grand-
+child with you as my son's betrothed bride--my future daughter.  Give me
+your hands, my children.  The delay will teach you patience, for Rameri
+must remain a full year from to-day in Egypt, and it will be to your
+profit, sweet child, for the obedience which he will learn through his
+training in the army will temper the nature of your future husband.  You,
+Rameri, shall in a year from to-day--and I think you will not forget the
+date--find at your service a ship in the harbor of Pelusium, fitted and
+manned with Phoenicians, to convey you to your wedding."
+
+"So be it!"  exclaimed the old man.   "And by Zeus who hears me swear--I
+will not withhold Xanthe's daughter from your son when he comes to claim
+her!"
+
+When Rameri returned to the princes' tent he threw himself on their necks
+in turn, and when he found himself alone with their surly old house-
+steward, he snatched his wig from his head, flung it in the air, and then
+coaxingly stroked the worthy officer's cheeks as he set it on his head
+again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI.
+
+Uarda accompanied her grandfather and Praxilla to their tent on the
+farther side of the Nile, but she was to return next morning to the
+Egyptian camp to take leave of all her friends, and to provide for her
+father's internment.  Nor did she delay attending to the last wishes of
+old Hekt, and Bent-Anat easily persuaded her father, when he learnt how
+greatly he had been indebted to her, to have her embalmed like a lady of
+rank.
+
+Before Uarda left the Egyptian camp, Pentaur came to entreat her to
+afford her dying preserver Nebsecht the last happiness of seeing her once
+more; Uarda acceded with a blush, and the poet, who had watched all night
+by his friend, went forward to prepare him for her visit.
+
+Nebsecht's burns and a severe wound on his head caused him great
+suffering; his cheeks glowed with fever, and the physicians told Pentaur
+that he probably could not live more than a few hours.
+
+The poet laid his cool hand on his friend's brow, and spoke to him
+encouragingly; but Nebsecht smiled at his words with the peculiar
+expression of a man who knows that his end is near, and said in a low
+voice and with a visible effort:
+
+"A few breaths more and here, and here, will be peace."  He laid his hand
+on his head and on his heart.
+
+"We all attain to peace," said Pentaur.  "But perhaps only to labor more
+earnestly and unweariedly in the land beyond the grave.  If the Gods
+reward any thing it is the honest struggle, the earnest seeking after
+truth; if any spirit can be made one with the great Soul of the world it
+will be yours, and if any eye may see the Godhead through the veil which
+here shrouds the mystery of His existence yours will have earned the
+privilege."
+
+"I have pushed and pulled," sighed Nebsecht, "with all my might, and now
+when I thought I had caught a glimpse of the truth the heavy fist of
+death comes down upon me and shuts my eyes.  What good will it do me to
+see with the eye of the Divinity or to share in his omniscience?  It is
+not seeing, it is seeking that is delightful--so delightful that I would
+willingly set my life there against another life here for the sake of
+it."  He was silent, for his strength failed, and Pentaur begged him to
+keep quiet, and to occupy his mind in recalling all the hours of joy
+which life had given him.
+
+"They have been few," said the leech.  "When my mother kissed me and gave
+me dates, when I could work and observe in peace, when you opened my eyes
+to the beautiful world of poetry--that was good!"
+
+And you have soothed the sufferings of many men, added Pentaur, "and
+never caused pain to any one."
+
+Nebsecht shook his head.
+
+"I drove the old paraschites," he muttered, "to madness and to death."
+
+He was silent for a long time, then he looked up eagerly and said: "But
+not intentionally--and not in vain!  In Syria, at Megiddo I could work
+undisturbed; now I know what the organ is that thinks.  The heart!  What
+is the heart?  A ram's heart or a man's heart, they serve the same end;
+they turn the wheel of animal life, they both beat quicker in terror or
+in joy, for we feel fear or pleasure just as animals do.  But Thought,
+the divine power that flies to the infinite, and enables us to form and
+prove our opinions, has its seat here--Here in the brain, behind the
+brow."
+
+He paused exhausted and overcome with pain.  Pentaur thought he was
+wandering in his fever, and offered him a cooling drink while two
+physicians walked round his bed singing litanies; then, as Nebsecht
+raised himself in bed with renewed energy, the poet said to him:
+
+"The fairest memory of your life must surely be that of the sweet child
+whose face, as you once confessed to me, first opened your soul to the
+sense of beauty, and whom with your own hands you snatched from death at
+the cost of your own life.  You know Uarda has found her own relatives
+and is happy, and she is very grateful to her preserver, and would like
+to see him once more before she goes far away with her grandfather."
+
+The sick man hesitated before he answered softly:
+
+"Let her come--but I will look at her from a distance."
+
+Pentaur went out and soon returned with Uarda, who remained standing with
+glowing cheeks and tears in her eyes at the door of the tent.  The leech
+looked at her a long time with an imploring and tender expression, then
+he said:
+
+"Accept my thanks--and be happy."
+
+The girl would have gone up to him to take his hand, but he waved her off
+with his right hand enveloped in wrappings.
+
+"Come no nearer," he said, "but stay a moment longer.  You have tears in
+your eyes; are they for me or only for my pain?"
+
+"For you, good noble man! my friend and my preserver!"  said Uarda.  "For
+you dear, poor Nebsecht!"  The leech closed his eyes as she spoke these
+words with earnest feeling, but he looked up once more as she ceased
+speaking, and gazed at her with tender admiration; then he said softly:
+
+"It is enough--now I can die."
+
+Uarda left the tent, Pentaur remained with him listening to his hoarse
+and difficult breathing; suddenly:
+
+Nebsecht raised himself, and said: "Farewell, my friend,--my journey is
+beginning, who knows whither?"
+
+"Only not into vacancy, not to end in nothingness!" cried Pentaur warmly.
+
+The leech shook his head.  "I have been something," he said, "and being
+something I cannot become nothing.  Nature is a good economist, and
+utilizes the smallest trifle; she will use me too according to her need.
+She brings everything to its end and purpose in obedience to some rule
+and measure, and will so deal with me after I am dead; there is no waste.
+Each thing results in being that which it is its function to become; our
+wish or will is not asked--my head! when the pain is in my head I cannot
+think--if only I could prove--could prove----"
+
+The last words were less and less audible, his breath was choked, and in
+a few seconds Pentaur with deep regret closed his eyes.
+
+
+Pentaur, as he quitted the tent where the dead man lay, met the high-
+priest Ameni, who had gone to seek him by his friend's bed-side, and they
+returned together to gaze on the dead.  Ameni, with much emotion, put up
+a few earnest prayers for the salvation of his soul, and then requested
+Pentaur to follow him without delay to his tent.  On the way he prepared
+the poet, with the polite delicacy which was peculiar to him, for a
+meeting which might be more painful than joyful to him, and must in any
+case bring him many hours of anxiety and agitation.
+
+The judges in Thebes, who had been compelled to sentence the lady
+Setchem, as the mother of a traitor, to banishment to the mines had,
+without any demand on her part, granted leave to the noble and most
+respectable matron to go under an escort of guards to meet the king on
+his return into Egypt, in order to petition for mercy for herself, but
+not, as it was expressly added--for Paaker; and she had set out, but with
+the secret resolution to obtain the king's grace not for herself but for
+her son.
+
+     [Agatharchides, in Diodorus III. 12, says that in many cases not
+     only the criminal but his relations also were condemned to labor in
+     the mines.  In the convention signed between Rameses and the Cheta
+     king it is expressly provided that the deserter restored to Egypt
+     shall go unpunished, that no injury shall be done "to his house, his
+     wife or his children, nor shall his mother be put to death."]
+
+Ameni had already left Thebes for the north when this sentence was
+pronounced, or he would have reversed it by declaring the true origin of
+Paaker; for after he had given up his participation in the Regent's
+conspiracy, he no longer had any motive for keeping old Hekt's secret.
+
+Setchem's journey was lengthened by a storm which wrecked the ship in
+which she was descending the Nile, and she did not reach Pelusium till
+after the king.  The canal which formed the mouth of the Nile close to
+this fortress and joined the river to the Mediterranean, was so over-
+crowded with the boats of the Regent and his followers, of the
+ambassadors, nobles, citizens, and troops which had met from all parts of
+the country, that the lady's boat could find anchorage only at a great
+distance from the city, and accompanied by her faithful steward she had
+succeeded only a few hours before in speaking to the high-priest.
+
+Setchem was terribly changed; her eyes, which only a few months since had
+kept an efficient watch over the wealthy Theban household, were now dim
+and weary, and although her figure had not grown thin it had lost its
+dignity and energy, and seemed inert and feeble.  Her lips, so ready for
+a wise or sprightly saying, were closely shut, and moved only in silent
+prayer or when some friend spoke to her of her unhappy son.  His deed she
+well knew was that of a reprobate, and she sought no excuse or defence;
+her mother's heart forgave it without any.  Whenever she thought of him--
+and she thought of him incessantly all through the day and through her
+sleepless nights-her eyes overflowed with tears.
+
+Her boat had reached Pelusium just as the flames were breaking out in the
+palace; the broad flare of light and the cries from the various vessels
+in the harbor brought her on deck.  She heard that the burning house was
+the pavilion erected by Ani for the king's residence; Rameses she was
+told was in the utmost danger, and the fire had beyond a doubt been laid
+by traitors.
+
+As day broke and further news reached her, the names of her son and of
+her sister came to her ear; she asked no questions--she would not hear
+the truth--but she knew it all the same; as often as the word "traitor"
+caught her ear in her cabin, to which she had retreated, she felt as if
+some keen pain shot through her bewildered brain, and shuddered as if
+from a cold chill.
+
+All through that day she could neither eat nor drink, but lay with closed
+eyes on her couch, while her steward--who had soon learnt what a terrible
+share his former master had taken in the incendiarism, and who now gave
+up his lady's cause for lost--sought every where for the high-priest
+Ameni; but as he was among the persons nearest to the king it was
+impossible to see him that day, and it was not till the next morning that
+he was able to speak with him.  Ameni inspired the anxious and sorrowful
+old retainer with, fresh courage, returned with him in his own chariot to
+the harbor, and accompanied him to Setchem's boat to prepare her for the
+happiness which awaited her after her terrible troubles.  But he came too
+late, the spirit of the poor lady was quite clouded, and she listened to
+him without any interest while he strove to restore her to courage and to
+recall her wandering mind.  She only interrupted him over and over again
+with the questions: "Did he do it?" or "Is he alive?"
+
+At last Ameni succeeded in persuading her to accompany him in her litter
+to his tent, where she would find her son.  Pentaur was wonderfully like
+her lost husband, and the priest, experienced in humanity, thought that
+the sight of him would rouse the dormant powers of her mind.  When she
+had arrived at his tent, he told her with kind precaution the whole
+history of the exchange of Paaker for Pentaur, and she followed the story
+with attention but with indifference, as if she were hearing of the
+adventures of others who did not concern her.  When Ameni enlarged on the
+genius of the poet and on his perfect resemblance to his dead father she
+muttered:
+
+"I know--I know.  You mean the speaker at the Feast of the Valley," and
+then although she had been told several times that Paaker had been
+killed, she asked again if her son was alive.
+
+Ameni decided at last to fetch Pentaur himself,
+
+When he came back with him, fully prepared to meet his heavily-stricken
+mother, the tent was empty.  The high-priest's servants told him that
+Setchem had persuaded the easily-moved old prophet Gagabu to conduct her
+to the place where the body of Paaker lay.  Ameni was very much vexed,
+for he feared that Setchem was now lost indeed, and he desired the poet
+to follow him at once.
+
+The mortal remains of the pioneer had been laid in a tent not far from
+the scene of the fire; his body was covered with a cloth, but his pale
+face, which had not been injured in his fall, remained uncovered; by his
+side knelt the unhappy mother.
+
+She paid no heed to Ameni when he spoke to her, and he laid his hand on
+her shoulder and said as he pointed to the body:
+
+"This was the son of a gardener.  You brought him up faithfully as if he
+were your own; but your noble husband's true heir, the son you bore him,
+is Pentaur, to whom the Gods have given not only the form and features
+but the noble qualities of his father.  The dead man may be forgiven--for
+the sake of your virtues; but your love is due to this nobler soul--the
+real son of your husband, the poet of Egypt, the preserver of the king's
+life."
+
+Setchem rose and went up to Pentaur, she smiled at him and stroked his
+face and breast.
+
+"It is he," she said.  "May the Immortals bless him!"
+
+Pentaur would have clasped her in his arms, but she pushed him away as if
+she feared to commit some breach of faith, and turning hastily to the
+bier she said softly:
+
+Poor Paaker--poor, poor Paaker!"
+
+"Mother, mother, do you not know your son?"  cried Pentaur deeply moved.
+
+She turned to him again: "It is his voice," she said.  "It is he."
+
+She went up to Pentaur, clung to him, clasped her arm around his neck as
+he bent over her, then kissing him fondly:
+
+"The Gods will bless you!" she said once more.  She tore herself from him
+and threw herself down by the body of Paaker, as if she had done him some
+injustice and robbed him of his rights.
+
+Thus she remained, speechless and motionless, till they carried her back
+to her boat, there she lay down, and refused to take any nourishment;
+from time to time she whispered "Poor Paaker!"  She no longer repelled
+Pentaur, for she did not again recognize him, and before he left her she
+had followed the rough-natured son of her adoption to the other world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII.
+
+The king had left the camp, and had settled in the neighboring city of
+Rameses' Tanis, with the greater part of his army.  The Hebrews, who were
+settled in immense numbers in the province of Goshen, and whom Ani had
+attached to his cause by remitting their task-work, were now driven to
+labor at the palaces and fortifications which Rameses had begun to build.
+
+At Tanis, too, the treaty of peace was signed and was presented to
+Rameses inscribed on a silver tablet by Tarthisebu, the representative of
+the Cheta king, in the name of his lord and master.
+
+Pentaur followed the king as soon as he had closed his mother's eyes,
+and accompanied her body to Heliopolis, there to have it embalmed; from
+thence the mummy was to be sent to Thebes, and solemnly placed in the
+grave of her ancestors.  This duty of children towards their parents, and
+indeed all care for the dead, was regarded as so sacred by the Egyptians,
+that neither Pentaur nor Bent-Anat would have thought of being united
+before it was accomplished.
+
+On the 21st day of the month Tybi, of the 21st year of the reign of
+Rameses, the day on which the peace was signed, the poet returned to
+Tanis, sad at heart, for the old gardener, whom he had regarded and loved
+as his father, had died before his return home; the good old man had not
+long survived the false intelligence of the death of the poet, whom he
+had not only loved but reverenced as a superior being bestowed upon his
+house as a special grace from the Gods.
+
+It was not till seven months after the fire at Pelusium that Pentaur's
+marriage with Bent-Anat was solemnized in the palace of the Pharaohs at
+Thebes; but time and the sorrows he had suffered had only united their
+hearts more closely.  She felt that though he was the stronger she was
+the giver and the helper, and realized with delight that like the sun,
+which when it rises invites a thousand flowers to open and unfold, the
+glow of her presence raised the poet's oppressed soul to fresh life and
+beauty.  They had given each other up for lost through strife and
+suffering, and now had found each other again; each knew how precious
+the other was.  To make each other happy, and prove their affection,
+was now the aim of their lives, and as they each had proved that they
+prized honor and right-doing above happiness their union was a true
+marriage, ennobling and purifying their souls.  She could share his
+deepest thoughts and his most difficult undertakings, and if their house
+were filled with children she would know how to give him the fullest
+enjoyment of those small blessings which at the same time are the
+greatest joys of life.
+
+Pentaur finding himself endowed by the king with superabundant wealth,
+gave up the inheritance of his fathers to his brother Horus, who was
+raised to the rank of chief pioneer as a reward for his interposition at
+the battle of Kadesh; Horus replaced the fallen cedar-trees which had
+stood at the door of his house by masts of more moderate dimensions.
+
+The hapless Huni, under whose name Pentaur had been transferred to the
+mines of Sinai, was released from the quarries of Chennu, and restored to
+his children enriched by gifts from the poet.
+
+The Pharaoh fully recognized the splendid talents of his daughter's
+husband; she to his latest days remained his favorite child, even after
+he had consolidated the peace by marrying the daughter of the Cheta king,
+and Pentaur became his most trusted adviser, and responsible for the
+weightiest affairs in the state.
+
+Rameses learned from the papers found in Ani's tent, and from other
+evidence which was only too abundant, that the superior of the House of
+Seti, and with him the greater part of the priesthood, had for a long
+time been making common cause with the traitor; in the first instance he
+determined on the severest, nay bloodiest punishment, but he was
+persuaded by Pentaur and by his son Chamus to assert and support the
+principles of his government by milder and yet thorough measures.
+Rameses desired to be a defender of religion--of the religion which could
+carry consolation into the life of the lowly and over-burdened, and give
+their existence a higher and fuller meaning--the religion which to him,
+as king, appeared the indispensable means of keeping the grand
+significance of human life ever present to his mind--sacred as the
+inheritance of his fathers, and useful as the school where the people,
+who needed leading, might learn to follow and obey.
+
+But nevertheless no one, not even the priests, the guardians of souls,
+could be permitted to resist the laws of which he was the bulwark,
+to which he himself was subject, and which enjoined obedience to his
+authority; and before be left Tanis he had given Ameni and his followers
+to understand that he alone was master in Egypt.
+
+The God Seth, who had been honored by the Semite races since the time of
+the Hyksos, and whom they called upon under the name of Baal, had from
+the earliest times never been allowed a temple on the Nile, as being the
+God of the stranger; but Rameses--in spite of the bold remonstrances of
+the priestly party who called themselves the 'true believers'--raised a
+magnificent temple to this God in the city of Tanis to supply the
+religious needs of the immigrant foreigners.  In the same spirit of
+toleration he would not allow the worship of strange Gods to be
+interfered with, though on the other hand he was jealous in honoring
+the Egyptian Gods with unexampled liberality.  He caused temples to be
+erected in most of the great cities of the kingdom, he added to the
+temple of Ptah at Memphis, and erected immense colossi in front of its
+pylons in memory of his deliverance from the fire.
+
+     [One of these is still in existence.  It lies on the ground among
+     the ruins of ancient Memphis.]
+
+In the Necropolis of Thebes he had a splendid edifice constructed-which
+to this day delights the beholder by the symmetry of its proportions in
+memory of the hour when he escaped death as by a miracle; on its pylon he
+caused the battle of Kadesh to be represented in beautiful pictures in
+relief, and there, as well as on the architrave of the great banqueting--
+hall, he had the history inscribed of the danger he had run when he stood
+"alone and no man with him!"
+
+By his order Pentaur rewrote the song he had sung at Pelusium; it is
+preserved in three temples, and, in fragments, on several papyrus-rolls
+which can be made to complete each other.  It was destined to become the
+national epic--the Iliad of Egypt.
+
+Pentaur was commissioned to transfer the school of the House of Seti to
+the new votive temple, which was called the House of Rameses, and arrange
+it on a different plan, for the Pharaoh felt that it was requisite to
+form a new order of priests, and to accustom the ministers of the Gods to
+subordinate their own designs to the laws of the country, and to the
+decrees of their guardian and ruler, the king.  Pentaur was made the
+superior of the new college, and its library, which was called "the
+hospital for the soul," was without an equal; in this academy, which was
+the prototype of the later-formed museum and library of Alexandria, sages
+and poets grew up whose works endured for thousands of years--and
+fragments of their writings have even come down to us.  The most famous
+are the hymns of Anana, Pentaur's favorite disciple, and the tale of the
+two Brothers, composed by Gagabu, the grandson of the old Prophet.
+
+Ameni did not remain in Thebes.  Rameses had been informed of the way in
+which he had turned the death of the ram to account, and the use he had
+made of the heart, as he had supposed it, of the sacred animal, and he
+translated him without depriving him of his dignity or revenues to
+Mendes, the city of the holy rams in the Delta, where, as he observed not
+without satirical meaning, he would be particularly intimate with these
+sacred beasts; in Mendes Ameni exerted great influence, and in spite of
+many differences of opinion which threatened to sever them, he and
+Pentaur remained fast friends to the day of his death.
+
+In the first court of the House of Rameses there stands--now broken
+across the middle--the wonder of the traveller, the grandest colossus in
+Egypt, made of the hardest granite, and exceeding even the well-known
+statue of Memnon in the extent of its base.  It represents Rameses the
+Great.  Little Scherau, whom Pentaur had educated to be a sculptor,
+executed it, as well as many other statues of the great sovereign of
+Egypt.
+
+A year after the burning of the pavilion at Pelusium Rameri sailed to the
+land of the Danaids, was married to Uarda, and then remained in his
+wife's native country, where, after the death of her grandfather, he
+ruled over many islands of the Mediterranean and became the founder of a
+great and famous race.  Uarda's name was long held in tender remembrance
+by their subjects, for having grown up in misery she understood the
+secret of alleviating sorrow and relieving want, and of doing good and
+giving happiness without humiliating those she benefitted.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Drink of the joys of life thankfully, and in moderation
+It is not seeing, it is seeking that is delightful
+The man within him, and not on the circumstances without
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UARDA BY GEORG EBERS, V10 ***
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+*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END*
+
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+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #5448 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5448)