The Greatest Historical Novels of Georg Ebers. Georg Ebers

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СКАЧАТЬ the right of taking three of the criminals who are working in the quarries into their house as servants. Naturally they will, next year, choose Pentaur, set him at liberty—and I shall be laughed at.”

      “Well considered!” said aid Hekt.

      “I have taken counsel with myself, with Katuti, and even with Nemu,” continued Ani, “but all that they have suggested, though certainly practicable, was unadvisable, and at any rate must have led to conjectures which I must now avoid. What is your opinion?”

      “Assa’s race must be exterminated!” muttered the old woman hoarsely.

      She gazed at the ground, reflecting.

      “Let the boat be scuttled,” she said at last, “and sink with the chained prisoners before it reaches Chennu.”

      “No-no; I thought of that myself, and Nemu too advised it,” cried Ani. “That has been done a hundred times, and Ameni will regard me as a perjurer, for I have sworn not to attempt Pentaur’s life.”

      “To be sure, thou hast sworn that, and men keep their word—to each other. Wait a moment, how would this do? Let the ship reach Chennu with the prisoners, but, by a secret order to the captain, pass the quarries in the night, and hasten on as fast as possible as far as Ethiopia. From Suan—[The modern Assuan at the first cataract.]—the prisoners may be conducted through the desert to the gold workings. Four weeks or even eight may pass before it is known here what has happened. If Ameni attacks thee about it, thou wilt be very angry at this oversight, and canst swear by all the Gods of the heavens and of the abyss, that thou hast not attempted Pentaur’s life. More weeks will pass in enquiries. Meanwhile do thy best, and Paaker do his, and thou art king. An oath is easily broken by a sceptre, and if thou wilt positively keep thy word leave Pentaur at the gold mines. None have yet returned from thence. My father’s and my brother’s bones have bleached there.”

      “But Ameni will never believe in the mistake,” cried Ani, anxiously interrupting the witch.

      “Then admit that thou gavest the order,” exclaimed Hekt. “Explain that thou hadst learned what they proposed doing with Pentaur at Chennu, and that thy word indeed was kept, but that a criminal could not be left unpunished. They will make further enquiries, and if Assa’s grandson is found still living thou wilt be justified. Follow my advice, if thou wilt prove thyself a good steward of thy house, and master of its inheritance.”

      “It will not do,” said the Regent. “I need Ameni’s support—not for to-day and to-morrow only. I will not become his blind tool; but he must believe that I am.”

      The old woman shrugged her shoulders, rose, went into her cave, and brought out a phial.

      “Take this,” she said. “Four drops of it in his wine infallibly destroys the drinker’s senses; try the drink on a slave, and thou wilt see how effectual it is.”

      “What shall I do with it?” asked Ani.

      “Justify thyself to Ameni,” said the witch laughing. “Order the ship’s captain to come to thee as soon as he returns; entertain him with wine—and when Ameni sees the distracted wretch, why should he not believe that in a fit of craziness he sailed past Chennu?”

      “That is clever! that is splendid!” exclaimed Ani. “What is once remarkable never becomes common. You were the greatest of singers—you are now the wisest of women—my lady Beki.”

      “I am no longer Beki, I am Hekt,” said the old woman shortly.

      “As you will! In truth, if I had ever heard Beki’s singing, I should be bound to still greater gratitude to her than I now am to Hekt,” said Ani smiling. “Still, I cannot quit the wisest woman in Thebes without asking her one serious question. Is it given to you to read the future? Have you means at your command whereby you can see whether the great stake—you know which I mean—shall be won or lost?”

      Hekt looked at the ground, and said after reflecting a short time:

      “I cannot decide with certainty, but thy affair stands well. Look at these two hawks with the chain on their feet. They take their food from no one but me. The one that is moulting, with closed, grey eyelids, is Rameses; the smart, smooth one, with shining eyes, is thyself. It comes to this—which of you lives the longest. So far, thou hast the advantage.”

      Ani cast an evil glance at the king’s sick hawk; but Hekt said: “Both must be treated exactly alike. Fate will not be done violence to.”

      “Feed them well,” exclaimed the Regent; he threw a purse into Hekt’s lap, and added, as he prepared to leave her: “If anything happens to either of the birds let me know at once by Nemu.”

      Ani went down the hill, and walked towards the neighboring tomb of his father; but Hekt laughed as she looked after him, and muttered to herself:

      “Now the fool will take care of me for the sake of his bird! That smiling, spiritless, indolent-minded man would rule Egypt! Am I then so much wiser than other folks, or do none but fools come to consult Hekt? But Rameses chose Ani to represent him! perhaps because he thinks that those who are not particularly clever are not particularly dangerous. If that is what he thought, he was not wise, for no one usually is so self-confident and insolent as just such an idiot.”

      CHAPTER XXXIII.

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      An hour later, Ani, in rich attire, left his father’s tomb, and drove his brilliant chariot past the witch’s cave, and the little cottage of Uarda’s father.

      Nemu squatted on the step, the dwarf’s usual place. The little man looked down at the lately rebuilt hut, and ground his teeth, when, through an opening in the hedge, he saw the white robe of a man, who was sitting by Uarda.

      The pretty child’s visitor was prince Rameri, who had crossed the Nile in the early morning, dressed as a young scribe of the treasury, to obtain news of Pentaur—and to stick a rose into Uarda’s hair.

      This purpose was, indeed, the more important of the two, for the other must, in point of time at any rate, be the second.

      He found it necessary to excuse himself to his own conscience with a variety of cogent reasons. In the first place the rose, which lay carefully secured in a fold of his robe, ran great danger of fading if he first waited for his companions near the temple of Seti; next, a hasty return from thence to Thebes might prove necessary; and finally, it seemed to him not impossible that Bent-Anat might send a master of the ceremonies after him, and if that happened any delay might frustrate his purpose.

      His heart beat loud and violently, not for love of the maiden, but because he felt he was doing wrong. The spot that he must tread was unclean, and he had, for the first time, told a lie. He had given himself out to Uarda to be a noble youth of Bent-Anat’s train, and, as one falsehood usually entails another, in answer to her questions he had given her false information as to his parents and his life.

      Had evil more power over him in this unclean spot than in the House of Seti, and at his father’s? It might very well be so, for all disturbance in nature and men was the work of Seth, and how wild was the storm in his breast! And yet! He wished nothing but good to come of it to Uarda. She was so fair and sweet—like some child of the Gods: and certainly the white maiden must have been stolen from СКАЧАТЬ