The first song glorified a journey to the southern part of Quemt. “There you will meet a pretty girl who will offer you the flowers of her bosom,” Pandion understood.
Another song exalted the military valour of the sons of Quemt with loud shouts and expressions so tortuous they seemed meaningless to Pandion. He left the window with feelings of irritation.
“The names of the brave will never die — “ the last words of the song drifted towards him as the singing came to an end and was followed by sounds of laughter and bustle; Pandion again looked into the window.
Slaves had brought in a fair-skinned girl with closely cut, wavy hair and pushed her into the middle of the room. She stood there confused and afraid amidst flowers ‘trodden underfoot by the dancers. A man came out of the crowd and said a few angry words to the girl. Obediently she took the ivory lute that was offered her and the fingers of her tiny hands ran over the strings. Silence fell as the girl’s low clear voice rang out through the room. It was not the jerky, suddenly rising and falling melody of the Egyptians but a song that flowed freely and sadly. At first the sounds fell slowly, like the splashing of separate drops of water, then they merged into regularly rising and falling waves, that rolled and whispered like the waves of the sea and carried with them such unrestrained sorrow that Pandion stood stock-still. He could hear the free, open sea rolling through the song and in the incomprehensible sounds of that magic voice. The sea, unknown and unloved here in Aigyptos, was so near and dear to Pandion that at first he stood aghast as all that was hidden deep in his soul burst suddenly out. That longing for freedom that Pandion knew so well was weeping and wailing in the song. He put his fingers to his ears and clenched his teeth to keep screaming and ran away to the far end of the garden. Throwing himself en to the ground in the shadow of the trees, Pandion gave way to a fit of irrepressible sobbing.
“Hi, Ekwesha, come here! Ekwesha!” shouted Pandion’s master. The young Hellene had not noticed that the feast was over.
Pharaoh’s sculptor was very obviously drunk. Leaning on Pandion’s arm and supported on the other side by his own slave, born in bondage, the Master of the Royal Workshops refused to enter his palanquin and expressed the desire to walk home.
Halfway home, occasionally stumbling over irregularities in the road, he began to praise Pandion, prophesying a great future for him. Pandion was still under the impression created by the song and did not hear what his master was saying. In this way they walked to the, brightly-coloured portico of the Egyptian’s house. His wife and two slave girls, bearing lamps, appeared in the doorway. The royal sculptor stumbled up the steps and slapped Pandion on the shoulder. The latter went down again as no slave from the workshops was allowed to enter the house.
“Wait a minute, Ekwesha!” said the master gleefully, trying to bend his face into the semblance of a cunning smile. “Give that to me!” He almost snatched the lamp out of the hand of one of the slave girls and whispered something to her. The girl disappeared into the darkness.
The Egyptian pushed Pandion through the door and led him into the reception-room. On the left, between the windows, stood a beautiful vase with a fine, dark red design. Pandion had seen such vases in Crete and once more the youth’s heart pained him.
“His Majesty, life, health, strength,” the sculptor pronounced in solemn tones, “has ordered me to make seven vases like the one brought from the islands of your seas. (Life, health, strength — these three words had always to be added to any mention of Pharaoh.) Only we must change those barbaric colours for the blue colour favoured in Tha-Quem… If you earn distinction in this work I’ll mention your name in the Great House… And now…” The master raised his voice and turned towards two dark figures that were approaching them.
They were the slave girl who had left at his behest and another girl wrapped in a long striped cloak.
“Come closer,” ordered the Egyptian impatiently, lifting the lamp to the face of the girl in the cloak.
Her big, bulging black eyes looked fearfully at Pandion, her puffed, childish lips opened in a fluttering sigh. Pandion saw wavy locks protruding from under the cloak, a delicate nose with nervously twitching nostrils — the slave girl was undoubtedly of Asiatic origin, from one of the tribes in the east.
“Look, Ekwesha,” said the Egyptian, with an unsteady but strong movement pulling the cloak off the girl. She gave a faint cry and covered her face with her hands as she stood there stark naked.
“Take her as your wife.” The royal sculptor pushed the girl towards Pandion and she, trembling all over, pressed herself close to the young Hellene.
Pandion moved slightly back and stroked the tangled hair of the young captive, submitting to a mixed feeling of pity and tenderness for this pretty, scared creature.
The royal sculptor smiled and snapped his fingers in approval.
“She will be your wife, Ekwesha, and you will have handsome children that I can leave to my children as a legacy…”
It was as though a steel spring had suddenly uncoiled inside Pandion. The revolt that had long been seething within him and that had been further excited by the song-he had heard that evening, reached its highest point. A red haze stood before his eyes.
Pandion stepped away from the girl, looked round the room and raised his hand. The Egyptian, growing immediately sober, ran into the house calling loudly to his servants for help. Pandion did not even look at the coward and with a laugh of disdain kicked the expensive Cretan vase so hard that its earthenware fragments flew to the floor with a dull clatter.
The house was filled with cries and the sound of running feet. A few minutes later Pandion lay at the feet of his master who bent over him, spat on him, shouting curses and threats.
“The scoundrel deserves death. The broken vase is of greater value than his contemptible life, but he can make many beautiful things… and I don’t want to lose a good worker,” said the sculptor to his wife an hour later. “I’ll spare his life and won’t send him to prison because from there they’ll send him to the gold mines and he’ll die. I’ll send him back to the shehne, let him think things over, and by the time of the next sowing I’ll bring him back…”
And so Pandion, badly beaten but still unbowed, returned to the shehne and, to his great joy, met his old friends, the Etruscans. The whole building gang had been employed on watering the Gardens of Amon since they had finished dismantling the temple.
Towards evening the next day the shehne door opened with its usual creak to admit the smiling Kidogo whose arrival was greeted by the shouts of the other slaves. The Negro’s back was puffed and swollen from the blows of a whip but his teeth shone as he smiled and there was a merry twinkle in his eyes.
“I heard they’d sent you back here,’’ he informed the astonished Pandion, “and I began to stagger about the workshop knocking down and breaking everything that came my way. They beat me and sent me here, which is what I wanted,” said Kidogo.
“But you wanted to become a sculptor, didn’t you?” asked Pandion mockingly.
The Negro waved a carefree hand and, rolling his eyes terrifyingly, spat in the direction of the great capital city of Aigyptos.