Then she burst into tears and turning fled away with the high priest. Pharaoh went also leaving me and Bes alone. I looked for the holy Tanofir to speak with him, but he too was gone.
“It is time to sleep, Master,” said Bes, “for all this talk is more wearisome than any battle. Why! what is this that has your name upon it?” and he picked a silk-wrapped package from the floor and opened it.
Within were the priceless rose-hued pearls!
CHAPTER XIV. SHABAKA FIGHTS THE CROCODILE
“Where to?” I said to Bes when we were outside the palace, for I was so broken with grief that I scarcely knew what I did.
“To the house of the lady Tiu, I think, Master, since there you must make preparations for your start on the morrow, also bid her farewell. Oh!” he went on in a kind of rapture which afterwards I knew was feigned though at the time I did not think about it, “Oh! how happy should you be who now are free from all this woman-coil, with life new and fresh before you. Reflect, Master, on the hunting we will have yonder in Ethiopia. No more cares, no more plannings for the welfare of Egypt, no more persuading of the doubtful to take up arms, no more desperate battle-ventures with your country’s honour on your sword-point. And if you must see women — well, there are plenty in Ethiopia who come and go lightly as an evening breeze laden with the odour of flowers, and never trouble in the morning.”
“At any rate you are not free from such coils, Bes,” I said and in the moonlight I saw his great face fall in.
“No, Master, I am tying them about my throat. See, such is the way of the world, or of the gods that rule the world, I know not which. For years I have been happy and free, I have enjoyed adventures and visited strange countries and have gathered learning, till I think I am the wisest man upon the Nile, at the side of one whom I loved and holding nothing at risk, except my own life which mattered no more than that of a gnat dancing in the sun. Now all is changed. I have a wife whom I love also, more than I can tell you,” and he sighed, “but who still must be looked after and obeyed — yes, obeyed. Further, soon I shall have a people and a crown to wear, and councillors and affairs of state, and an ancient religion to support and the Grasshopper itself knows what besides. The burden has rolled from your back to mine, Master, making my heart which was so light, heavy, and oh! I wish it had stopped where it was.”
Even then I laughed, sad as I was, for truth lived in the philosophy of Bes.
“Master,” he went on in a changed voice, “I have been a fool and my folly has worked you ill. Forgive me since I acted for the best, only until the end no one ever knows what is the best. Now here is the house and I go to meet my wife and to make certain arrangements. By dawn perhaps you will be ready to start to Ethiopia.”
“Do you really desire that I should accompany you there, Bes?”
“Certainly, Master. That is unless you should desire that I accompany you somewhere else instead, by sea southward for instance. If so, I do not know that I would refuse, since Ethiopia will not run away and there is much of the world that I should still like to visit. Only then there is Karema to be thought about, who expects, or, when she learns all, soon will expect, to be a queen,” he added doubtfully.
“No, Bes, I am too tired to make new plans, so let us go to Ethiopia and not disappoint Karema, who after holding a cup so long naturally would like to try a sceptre.”
“I think that is wisest, Master; at any rate the holy Tanofir thinks it wisest, and he is the voice of Fate. Oh! why do we trouble who after all, every one of us, are nothing but pieces upon the board of Fate.”
Then he turned and left me and I entered the house where I found my mother sitting, still in her festal robes, like one who waits. She looked at my face, then asked what troubled me. I sat down on a stool at her feet and told her everything.
“Much as I thought,” she said when I had finished. “These over-learned women are strange fish to catch and hold, and too much soul is like too much sail upon a boat when the desert wind begins to blow across the Nile. Well, do not let us blame her or Bes, or Peroa who is already anxious for his dynasty and would rather that Amada were a priestess than your wife, or even the goddess Isis, who no doubt is anxious for her votaries. Let us rather blame the Power that is behind the veil, or to it bow our heads, seeing that we know nothing of the end for which it works. So Egypt shuts her doors on you, my Son, and whither away? Not to the East again, I trust, for there you would soon grow shorter by a head.”
“I go to Ethiopia, my Mother, where it seems that Bes is a great man and can shelter me.”
“So we go to Ethiopia, do we? Well, it is a long journey for an old woman, but I weary of Memphis where I have lived for so many years and doubtless the sands of the south make good burial grounds.”
“We!” I exclaimed. “We?”
“Surely, my Son, since in losing a wife you have again found a mother and until I die we part no more.”
When I heard this my eyes filled with tears. My conscience smote me also because of late, and indeed for years past, I had thought so much of Amada and so little of my mother. And now it was Amada who had cast me out, unjustly, without waiting to learn the truth, because at the worst I, who worshipped her, had saved myself from death in slow torment by speaking her name, while my mother, forgetting all, took me to her bosom again as she had done when I was a babe. I knew not what to say, but remembering the pearls, I drew them out and placed them round my mother’s neck.
She looked at the wonderful things and smiled, then said,
“Such gems as these become white locks and withered breasts but ill. Yet, my Son, I will keep them for you till you find a wife, if not Amada, then another.”
“If not Amada, I shall never find a wife,” I said bitterly, whereat she smiled.
Then she left me to make ready before she slept a while.
Work as we would noon had passed two hours, on the following day, before we were prepared to start, for there was much to do. Thus the house must be placed in charge of friends and the means of travel collected. Also a messenger came from Pharaoh praying me for his and Egypt’s sake to think again before I left them, and an answer sent that go I must, whither the holy Tanofir would know if at any time Pharaoh desired to learn. In reply to this came another messenger who brought me parting gifts from Pharaoh, a chain of honour, a title of higher nobility, a commission as his envoy to whatever land I wandered, and so forth, which I must acknowledge. Lastly as we were leaving the house to seek the boat which Bes had made ready on the Nile, there came yet another messenger at the sight of whom my heart leapt, for he was priest of Isis.
He bowed and handed me a roll. I opened it with a trembling hand and read:
“From the Prophetess of Isis whose house is at Amada, aforetime
Royal Lady of Egypt, to the Count Shabaka,
“I learn, O my Cousin, that you depart from Egypt and knowing the
reason my heart is sore. Believe me, my Cousin, I love you well,
better than any who lives upon the earth, nor will that love ever
change, since the goddess who holds my future in her hands, knows
of what we are made and is not jealous of the past. Therefore she
will not be wroth at the earthly love of one who is gathered to
her heavenly arms. Her blessing and mine be on you and if we see
each other no more face to face in the world, may we meet again in
the halls of Osiris. Farewell, beloved Shabaka. Oh! why did you