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

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      It was already late; but the banquet did not begin till midnight, for the guests, before it began, assisted at the play which was performed by lamp and torch-light on the sacred lake in the south of the Necropolis, and which represented the history of Isis and Osiris.

      When he entered the decorated hall in which the tables were prepared, he found all the guests assembled. The Regent Ani was present, and sat on Ameni’s right at the top of the centre high-table at which several places were unoccupied; for the prophets and the initiated of the temple of Amon had excused themselves from being present. They were faithful to Rameses and his house; their grey-haired Superior disapproved of Ameni’s severity towards the prince and princess, and they regarded the miracle of the sacred heart as a malicious trick of the chiefs of the Necropolis against the great temple of the capital for which Rameses had always shown a preference.

      The pioneer went up to the table, where sat the general of the troops that had just returned victorious from Ethiopia, and several other officers of high rank, There was a place vacant next to the general. Paaker fixed his eyes upon this, but when he observed that the officer signed to the one next to him to come a little nearer, the pioneer imagined that each would endeavor to avoid having him for his neighbor, and with an angry glance he turned his back on the table where the warriors sat.

      The Mohar was not, in fact, a welcome boon-companion. “The wine turns sour when that churl looks at it,” said the general.

      The eyes of all the guests turned on Paaker, who looked round for a seat, and when no one beckoned him to one he felt his blood begin to boil. He would have liked to leave the banqueting hall at once with a swingeing curse. He had indeed turned towards the door, when the Regent, who had exchanged a few whispered words with Ameni, called to him, requested him to take the place that had been reserved for him, and pointed to the seat by his side, which had in fact been intended for the high-priest of the temple of Amon.

      Paaker bowed low, and took the place of honor, hardly daring to look round the table, lest he should encounter looks of surprise or of mockery. And yet he had pictured to himself his grandfather Assa, and his father, as somewhere near this place of honor, which had actually often enough been given up to them. And was he not their descendant and heir? Was not his mother Setchem of royal race? Was not the temple of Seti more indebted to him than to any one?

      A servant laid a garland of flowers round his shoulders, and another handed him wine and food. Then he raised his eyes, and met the bright and sparkling glance of Gagabu; he looked quickly down again at the table.

      Then the Regent spoke to him, and turning to the other guests mentioned that Paaker was on the point of starting next day for Syria, and resuming his arduous labors as Mohar. It seemed to Paaker that the Regent was excusing himself for having given him so high a place of honor.

      Presently Ani raised his wine-cup, and drank to the happy issue of his reconnoitring-expedition, and a victorious conclusion to every struggle in which the Mohar might engage. The high-priest then pledged him, and thanked him emphatically in the name of the brethren of the temple, for the noble tract of arable land which he had that morning given them as a votive offering. A murmur of approbation ran round the tables, and Paaker’s timidity began to diminish.

      He had kept the wrappings that his mother had applied round his still aching hand.

      “Are you wounded?” asked the Regent.

      “Nothing of importance,” answered the pioneer. “I was helping my mother into the boat, and it happened—”

      “It happened,” interrupted an old school-fellow of the Mohar’s, who himself held a high appointment as officer of the city-watch of Thebes—“It happened that an oar or a stake fell on his fingers.”

      “Is it possible!” cried the Regent.

      “And quite a youngster laid hands on him,” continued the officer. “My people told me every detail. First the boy killed his dog—”

      “That noble Descher?” asked the master of the hunt in a tone of regret. “Your father was often by my side with that dog at a boar-hunt.”

      Paaker bowed his head; but the officer of the watch, secure in his position and dignity, and taking no notice of the glow of anger which flushed Paaker’s face, began again:

      “When the hound lay on the ground, the foolhardy boy struck your dagger out of your hand.”

      “And did this squabble lead to any disturbance?” asked Ameni earnestly.

      “No,” replied the officer. “The feast has passed off to-day with unusual quiet. If the unlucky interruption to the procession by that crazy paraschites had not occurred, we should have nothing but praise for the populace. Besides the fighting priest, whom we have handed over to you, only a few thieves have been apprehended, and they belong exclusively to the caste,107 so we simply take their booty from them, and let them go. But say, Paaker, what devil of amiability took possession of you down by the river, that you let the rascal escape unpunished.”

      “Did you do that?” exclaimed Gagabu. “Revenge is usually your—”

      Ameni threw so warning a glance at the old man, that he suddenly broke off, and then asked the pioneer: “How did the struggle begin, and who was the fellow?”

      “Some insolent people,” said Paaker, “wanted to push in front of the boat that was waiting for my mother, and I asserted my rights. The rascal fell upon me, and killed my dog and—by my Osirian father!—the crocodiles would long since have eaten him if a woman had not come between us, and made herself known to me as Bent-Anat, the daughter of Rameses. It was she herself, and the rascal was the young prince Rameri, who was yesterday forbidden this temple.”

      “Oho!” cried the old master of the hunt. “Oho! my lord! Is this the way to speak of the children of the king?”

      Others of the company who were attached to Pharaoh’s family expressed their indignation; but Ameni whispered to Paaker—“Say no more!” then he continued aloud:

      “You never were careful in weighing your words, my friend, and now, as it seems to me, you are speaking in the heat of fever. Come here, Gagabu, and examine Paaker’s wound, which is no disgrace to him—for it was inflicted by a prince.”

      The old man loosened the bandage from the pioneer’s swollen hand.

      “That was a bad blow,” he exclaimed; “three fingers are broken, and—do you see?—the emerald too in your signet ring.”

      Paaker looked down at his aching fingers, and uttered a sigh of rehef, for it was not the oracular ring with the name of Thotmes III., but the valuable one given to his father by the reigning king that had been crushed. Only a few solitary fragments of the splintered stone remained in the setting; the king’s name had fallen to pieces, and disappeared. Paaker’s bloodless lips moved silently, and an inner voice cried out to him: “The Gods point out the way! The name is gone, the bearer of the name must follow.”

      “It is a pity about the ring,” said Gagabu. “And if the hand is not to follow it—luckily it is your left hand—leave off drinking, let yourself be taken to Nebsecht the surgeon, and get him to set the joints neatly, and bind them up.”

      Paaker rose, and went away after Ameni had appointed to meet him on the following day at the Temple of Seti, and the Regent at the palace.

      When the door had closed behind him, the treasurer СКАЧАТЬ