The Tales of Ancient Egypt (10 Historical Novels). Georg Ebers

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СКАЧАТЬ to me; but Rameses will not part with you, although—although—In point of fact your office has two aspects; it requires the daring of a soldier, and the dexterity of a scribe. No one denies that you have the first, but the second—the sword and the reed-pen are very different weapons, one requires supple fingers, the other a sturdy fist. The king used to complain of your reports—is he better satisfied with them now?”

      “I hope so,” replied the Mohar; “my brother Horus is a practised writer, and accompanies me in my journeys.”

      “That is well,” said Ani. “If I had the management of affairs I should treble your staff, and give you four—five—six scribes under you, who should be entirely at your command, and to whom you could give the materials for the reports to be sent out. Your office demands that you should be both brave and circumspect; these characteristics are rarely united; but there are scriveners by hundreds in the temples.”

      “So it seems to me,” said Paaker.

      Ani looked down meditatively, and continued—“Rameses is fond of comparing you with your father. That is unfair, for he—who is now with the justified—was without an equal; at once the bravest of heroes and the most skilful of scribes. You are judged unjustly; and it grieves me all the more that you belong, through your mother, to my poor but royal house. We will see whether I cannot succeed in putting you in the right place. For the present you are required in Syria almost as soon as you have got home. You have shown that you are a man who does not fear death, and who can render good service, and you might now enjoy your wealth in peace with your wife.”

      “I am alone,” said Paaker.

      “Then, if you come home again, let Katuti seek you out the prettiest wife in Egypt,” said the Regent smiling. “She sees herself every day in her mirror, and must be a connoisseur in the charms of women.”

      Ani rose with these words, bowed to Paaker with studied friendliness, gave his hand to Katuti, and said as he left the hall:

      “Send me to-day the—the handkerchief—by the dwarf Nemu.”

      When he was already in the garden, he turned once more and said to Paaker

      “Some friends are supping with me to-day; pray let me see you too.”

      The pioneer bowed; he dimly perceived that he was entangled in invisible toils. Up to the present moment he had been proud of his devotion to his calling, of his duties as Mohar; and now he had discovered that the king, whose chain of honor hung round his neck, undervalued him, and perhaps only suffered him to fill his arduous and dangerous post for the sake of his father, while he, notwithstanding the temptations offered him in Thebes by his wealth, had accepted it willingly and disinterestedly. He knew that his skill with the pen was small, but that was no reason why he should be despised; often had he wished that he could reconstitute his office exactly as Ani had suggested, but his petition to be allowed a secretary had been rejected by Rameses. What he spied out, he was told was to be kept secret, and no one could be responsible for the secrecy of another.

      As his brother Horus grew up, he had followed him as his obedient assistant, even after he had married a wife, who, with her child, remained in Thebes under the care of Setchem.

      He was now filling Paaker’s place in Syria during his absence; badly enough, as the pioneer thought, and yet not without credit; for the fellow knew how to write smooth words with a graceful pen.

      Paaker, accustomed to solitude, became absorbed in thought, forgetting everything that surrounded him; even the widow herself, who had sunk on to a couch, and was observing him in silence.

      He gazed into vacancy, while a crowd of sensations rushed confusedly through his brain. He thought himself cruelly ill-used, and he felt too that it was incumbent on him to become the instrument of a terrible fate to some other person. All was dim ‘and chaotic in his mind, his love merged in his hatred; only one thing was clear and unclouded by doubt, and that was his strong conviction that Nefert would be his.

      The Gods indeed were in deep disgrace with him. How much he had expended upon them—and with what a grudging hand they had rewarded him; he knew of but one indemnification for his wasted life, and in that he believed so firmly that he counted on it as if it were capital which he had invested in sound securities. But at this moment his resentful feelings embittered the sweet dream of hope, and he strove in vain for calmness and clear-sightedness; when such cross-roads as these met, no amulet, no divining rod could guide him; here he must think for himself, and beat his own road before he could walk in it; and yet he could think out no plan, and arrive at no decision.

      He grasped his burning forehead in his hands, and started from his brooding reverie, to remember where he was, to recall his conversation with the mother of the woman he loved, and her saying that she was capable of guiding men.

      “She perhaps may be able to think for me,” he muttered to himself. “Action suits me better.”

      He slowly went up to her and said:

      “So it is settled then—we are confederates.”

      “Against Rameses, and for Ani,” she replied, giving him her slender hand.

      “In a few days I start for Syria, meanwhile you can make up your mind what commissions you have to give me. The money for your son shall be conveyed to you to-day before sunset. May I not pay my respects to Nefert?”

      “Not now, she is praying in the temple.”

      “But to-morrow?”

      “Willingly, my dear friend. She will be delighted to see you, and to thank you.”

      “Farewell, Katuti.”

      “Call me mother,” said the widow, and she waved her veil to him as a last farewell.

      CHAPTER XIX.

       Table of Contents

      As soon as Paaker had disappeared behind the shrubs, Katuti struck a little sheet of metal, a slave appeared, and Katuti asked her whether Nefert had returned from the temple.

      “Her litter is just now at the side gate,” was the answer.

      “I await her here,” said the widow. The slave went away, and a few minutes later Nefert entered the hall.

      “You want me?” she said; and after kissing her mother she sank upon her couch. “I am tired,” she exclaimed, “Nemu, take a fan and keep the flies off me.”

      The dwarf sat down on a cushion by her couch, and began to wave the semi-circular fan of ostrich-feathers; but Katuti put him aside and said:

      “You can leave us for the present; we want to speak to each other in private.”

      The dwarf shrugged his shoulders and got up, but Nefert looked at her mother with an irresistible appeal.

      “Let him stay,” she said, as pathetically as if her whole happiness depended upon it. “The flies torment me so, and Nemu always holds his tongue.”

      She patted the dwarf’s big head as if he were a lap-dog, and called the white cat, which with a graceful leap sprang on to her shoulder and stood СКАЧАТЬ