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

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СКАЧАТЬ last the bearer gave the signal; the swift, almost invisible bark, which was generally used for wild fowl shooting, shot by—Rameri seized one end of an oar that the rower held out to him, and drew the little boat up to the landing-place.

      The captain of the watch passed at the same moment, and shouting out, “This is the last boat that can put off before the passage of the God!”

      Bent-Anat descended the steps as quickly as Nefert’s exhausted state permitted. The landing-place was now only dimly lighted by dull lanterns, though, when the God embarked, it would be as light as day with cressets and torches. Before she could reach the bottom step, with Nefert still clinging heavily to her arm, a hard hand was laid on her shoulder, and the rough voice of Paaker exclaimed:

      “Stand back, you rabble! We are going first.” The captain of the watch did not stop him, for he knew the chief pioneer and his overbearing ways. Paaker put his finger to his lips, and gave a shrill whistle that sounded like a yell in the silence.

      The stroke of oars responded to the call, and Paaker called out to his boatmen:

      “Bring the boat up here! these people can wait!” The pioneer’s boat was larger and better manned than that of the princess.

      “Jump into the boat!” cried Rameri.

      Bent-Anat went forward without speaking, for she did not wish to make herself known again for the sake of the people, and for Nefert’s; but Paaker put himself in her way.

      “Did I not tell you that you common people must wait till we are gone. Push these people’s boat out into the stream, you men.”

      Bent-Anat felt her blood chill, for a loud squabble at once began on the landing-steps.

      Rameri’s voice sounded louder than all the rest; but the pioneer exclaimed:

      “The low brutes dare to resist? I will teach them manners! Here, Descher, look after the woman and these boys!”

      At his call his great red hound barked and sprang forward, which, as it had belonged to his father, always accompanied him when he went with his mother to visit the ancestral tomb. Nefert shrieked with fright, but the dog at once knew her, and crouched against her with whines of recognition.

      Paaker, who had gone down to his boat, turned round in astonishment, and saw his dog fawning at the feet of a boy whom he could not possibly recognize as Nefert; he sprang back, and cried out:

      “I will teach you, you young scoundrel, to spoil my dog with spells—or poison!”

      He raised his whip, and struck it across the shoulders of Nefert, who, with one scream of terror and anguish, fell to the ground.

      The lash of the whip only whistled close by the cheek of the poor fainting woman, for Bent-Anat had seized Paaker’s arm with all her might.

      Rage, disgust, and scorn stopped her utterance; but Rameri had heard Nefert’s shriek, and in two steps stood by the women.

      “Cowardly scoundrel!” he cried, and lifted the oar in his hand. Paaker evaded the blow, and called to the dog with a peculiar hiss:

      “Pull him down, Descher.”

      The hound flew at the prince; but Rameri, who from his childhood, had been his father’s companion in many hunts and field sports, gave the furious brute such a mighty blow on the muzzle that he rolled over with a snort.

      Paaker believed that he possessed in the whole world no more faithful friend than this dog, his companion on all his marches across desert tracts or through the enemy’s country, and when he saw him writhing on the ground his rage knew no bounds, and he flew at the youngster with his whip; but Rameri—madly excited by all the events of the night, full of the warlike spirit of his fathers, worked up to the highest pitch by the insults to the two ladies, and seeing that he was their only protector—suddenly felt himself endowed with the strength of a man; he dealt the pioneer such a heavy blow on the left hand, that he dropped his whip, and now seized the dagger in his girdle with his right.

      Bent-Anat threw herself between the man and the stripling, who was hardly more than a boy, once more declared her name, and this time her brother’s also, and commanded Paaker to make peace among the boatmen. Then she led Nefert, who remained unrecognized, into the boat, entered it herself with her companions, and shortly after landed at the palace, while Paaker’s mother, for whom he had called his boat, had yet a long time to wait before it could start. Setchem had seen the struggle from her litter at the top of the landing steps, but without understanding its origin, and without recognizing the chief actors.

      The dog was dead. Paaker’s hand was very painful, and fresh rage was seething in his soul.

      “That brood of Rameses!” he muttered. “Adventurers! They shall learn to know me. Mena and Rameses are closely connected—I will sacrifice them both.”

      CHAPTER XXIX.

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      At last the pioneer’s boat got off with his mother and the body of the dog, which he intended to send to be embalmed at Kynopolis, the city in which the dog was held sacred above all animals;106 Paaker himself returned to the House of Seti, where, in the night which closed the feast day, there was always a grand banquet for the superior priests of the Necropolis and of the temples of eastern Thebes, for the representatives of other foundations, and for select dignitaries of the state.

      His father had never failed to attend this entertainment when he was in Thebes, but he himself had to-day for the first time received the much-coveted honor of an invitation, which—Ameni told him when he gave it—he entirely owed to the Regent.

      His mother had tied up his hand, which Rameri had severely hurt; it was extremely painful, but he would not have missed the banquet at any cost, although he felt some alarm of the solemn ceremony. His family was as old as any in Egypt, his blood purer than the king’s, and nevertheless he never felt thoroughly at home in the company of superior people. He was no priest, although a scribe; he was a warrior, and yet he did not rank with royal heroes.

      He had been brought up to a strict fulfilment of his duty, and he devoted himself zealously to his calling; but his habits of life were widely different from those of the society in which he had been brought up—a society of which his handsome, brave, and magnanimous father had been a chief ornament. He did not cling covetously to his inherited wealth, and the noble attribute of liberality was not strange to him, but the coarseness of his nature showed itself most when he was most lavish, for he was never tired of exacting gratitude from those whom he had attached to him by his gifts, and he thought he had earned the right by his liberality to meet the recipient with roughness or arrogance, according to his humor. Thus it happened that his best actions procured him not friends but enemies.

      Paaker’s was, in fact, an ignoble, that is to say, a selfish nature; to shorten his road he trod down flowers as readily as he marched over the sand of the desert. This characteristic marked him in all things, even in his outward demeanor; in the sound of his voice, in his broad features, in the swaggering gait of his stumpy figure.

      In camp he could conduct himself as he pleased; but this was not permissible in the society of his equals in rank; for this reason, and because those faculties of quick remark and repartee, which distinguished them, had been denied to him, he felt uneasy СКАЧАТЬ