“Het!” continued Kabuefta, “so let it be.” Again his glance swept over the lean and dirty bodies. “I’ll order that you be fed nourishing food and are given an opportunity to bathe. The journey through the five cataracts of the Hapi is a hard one, it will be easier to travel in light boats. I will give orders for you to be freed if you swear you will make no attempt to escape…” Cries of joy interrupted his speech. He waited until they subsided and then continued: “In addition to the oath I give the following order: for every one that runs away ten of his best comrades will be flayed, sprinkled with salt and cast bound on to the sandy banks of the Land of Nub. Those who show cowardice when tackling the animal and run away will be subjected to horrible tortures; I have warned the inhabitants of the Land of Nub and under threat of punishment they will track down all runaways.”
The end of the Prince’s speech met with morose silence which Kabuefta paid no attention to as he again looked over the slaves. His experience helped him make a faultless choice.
“Come here, you,” said the Prince to Cavius. “You will be in charge of the trappers and the mediator between my hunters and your companions.”
Cavius made an unhurried bow to the Prince and his lips curved in a grim smile.
“You are selling us liberty at a high price, O Prince, but we are willing to buy It,” said the Etruscan and turned to his comrades. “The savage beast is no worse than the gold mines, and we have greater hope…”
Kabuefta left them and the slaves were returned to their prison. The Prince of the South kept his promise: the rebels were well fed; they were released from their chains and collars and twice a day were taken down to the Nile to bathe in coves fenced off to keep out the crocodiles. Two days later a hundred and fifty-four slaves were joined to a detachment of soldiers and hunters sailing upstream on light boats made of reeds.
The journey was a long one. The inhabitants of the Black Land reckoned four million cubits from the Gates of the South to the Sixth Cataract of the Nile. The river flowed almost in a straight line through Wawat and Yer-thet but in the Land of Kush, situated higher upstream, it made two wide bends, one to the west and the other to the east. (Kush — the name given by Egyptian geographers to the part of the Nile Valley between the Second and Fifth Cataracts; it included the ancient lands of Jam and Karoi. Yerthet was the province south of the Second Cataract, Wawat between the First and Second.)
The Lord of the Hunt was in a hurry: the journey would take two months; in nine weeks time the water would begin to rise and it would be more difficult to work their way upstream when the speed of the current increased. Then, again, it would only be possible to bring the huge animal in a heavy boat over the cataracts when the floods were at their highest. There would be but little time for the return journey.
Throughout the long journey the slaves were well fed and they felt strong and healthy, despite the hard work they did every day rowing the boats against a current that was especially swift at the cataracts.
They did not worry much about the hunt, that was still before them, since every man was certain that he would survive and gain his freedom. The contrast between the wild unknown lands through which they passed and the period of waiting in a black hole in anticipation of brutal punishment was too great for them. And the men now full of life and strong in mind and body worked with a will. The Lord of the Hunt was pleased with them and did not grudge them food — it was provided by all the towns and villages that lay on their way.
Immediately on leaving the Island of Neb, Pandion and his comrades saw the First Cataract of the Nile. The river was squeezed between rocky cliffs and its swift current broke into separate streams of seething white water, that roared and raged down the slope amongst a tangled mass of black rocks. Hundreds of years before Pandion’s time many thousands of slaves, working under the guidance of Tha-Quem’s most skilled engineers, had built canals through the granite rocks so that even the big warships could pass the cataract easily. The light boats of the hunting expedition did not find any great difficulty in passing the first or any of the other cataracts. The slaves stood up to the waist in water,’ pushing the light boats from one rock to another. Sometimes they had to carry the boats on their shoulders along convenient ledges cut on the banks by the floodwaters. Day after day the hunters made their way farther and farther southwards.
They passed a temple hewn out of living rock on the left bank of the — river. Pandion’s attention was drawn to four gigantic figures, each about thirty cubits high, standing in a niche. These gigantic statues of the conqueror, Pharaoh Ramses II, seemed to guard the entrance to the temple.
The expedition passed the Second Cataract which stretched the length of a whole day’s journey. Still higher up the river they came to the Island of Uronartu with the rapids of Semne; a fortress had been built there nine centuries before on water-eroded granite cliffs by the Pharaoh who conquered Nubia and had been given the name of “Repulse of the Savages.” (Senusret III (the legendary Sesostris) 1887–1849 B.C., a Pharaoh of the Xllth Dynasty (2000–1788), famous for his huge building works.)
The thick walls, twenty cubits high and built of sunbaked brick, were still in an excellent state of preservation; they were thoroughly overhauled every thirty years. On the cliffs there were stone tablets with inscriptions forbidding the Negroes to enter the Land of Tha-Quem.
The gloomy grey fortress with square turrets at the corners and several other turrets facing the river, with narrow staircases leading from the river through the rocks, rose high above the surrounding country, a symbol of the proud might of Quemt. None of the slaves, however, suspected that the great days of mighty Quemt were past, that a country that had been built up by the labour of countless slaves was being rent asunder by constant rebellions and that she was threatened by the growing strength of new peoples.
On their way they passed four other fortresses standing on rocky islands or cliffs on the river-bank. The boats then rounded an ox-bow in the river in the centre of which was situated the town of Hem-Aton, that had been built by the same heretic Pharaoh who had built the capital city amongst the ruins of which Pandion had found the statue of the mysterious girl. The inhabitants of the town were Egyptians who had either been exiled or had fled from the Black Land in times long past. At the end of the ox-bow the river turned at right angles, forced into its new course by high cliffs of dark sandstone. Here began the third narrow stretch of swift-flowing water almost a hundred thousand cubits in length which took the hunters four days to pass.
The fourth stretch of the Nile, above the city of Napata, capital of the kings of Nub, was still longer — it took five days to navigate it. A further delay of two days was caused by negotiations between the Lord of the Hunt and the rulers of Kush. At the Fourth Cataract the hunters were overtaken by three boats carrying Nubians, who were sent ahead to locate the rhinoceros.
Riverside settlements were fewer and farther apart than in Tha-Quem. The valley itself was much narrower and the cliffs that bounded the desert plateaux could be clearly discerned through the heat haze. Hundreds of crocodiles, some of them of enormous size, hid in the reed thickets or lay on the sand-banks exposing their greenish-black backs to the blazing sun. Several careless slaves and soldiers fell victims to the cunning attacks of the silent reptiles right before the eyes of their comrades.