CHAPTER XLIX

At sunrise of the twenty-first of Hator there came from Memphis to the camp at the Soda Lakes an order by which three regiments were to march to Libya to stand garrison in the towns, the rest of the Egyptian army was to return home with Rameses.

The army greeted this arrangement with shouts of delight, for a stay of some days in the wilderness had begun to annoy them. In spite of supplies from Egypt and from conquered Libya, there was not an excess of provisions; water in the wells dug out quickly, was exhausted; the heat of the sun burned their bodies, and the ruddy sand wounded their lungs and their eyeb.a.l.l.s. The warriors were falling ill of dysentery and a malignant inflammation of the eyelids.

Rameses commanded to raise the camp. He sent three native Egyptian regiments to Libya, commanding the soldiers to treat people mildly and never wander from the camp singly. The army proper he turned toward Memphis, leaving a small garrison at the gla.s.s huts and in the fortress.

About nine in the morning, in spite of the heat, both armies were on the road; one going northward, the other toward the south.

The holy Mentezufis approached the heir then, and said,--

"It would be well, worthiness, couldst thou reach Memphis earlier.

There will be fresh horses half-way."

"Then my father is very ill?" cried out Rameses.

The priest bent his head.

The prince gave command to Mentezufis, begging him to change in no way commands already made, unless he counselled with lay generals. Taking Pentuer, Tutmosis, and twenty of the best Asiatic hors.e.m.e.n, he went himself on a sharp trot toward Memphis.

In five hours they pa.s.sed half the journey; at the halt, as Mentezufis had declared, were fresh horses and a new escort. The Asiatics remained at that point, and after a short rest the prince with his two companions and a new escort went farther.

"Woe to me!" said Tutmosis. "It is not enough that for five days I have not bathed and know not rose perfumed oil, but besides I must make in one day two forced marches. I am sure that when we reach Memphis no dancer will look at me."

"What! Art thou better than we?" asked the prince.

"I am more fragile," said the exquisite. "Thou, prince, art as accustomed to riding as a Hyksos, and Pentuer might travel on a red-hot sword. But I am so delicate."

At sunset the travellers came out on a lofty hill, whence they saw an uncommon picture unfolded before them. For a long distance the green valley of Egypt was visible, on the background of it, like a row of ruddy fires, the triangular pyramids stood gleaming. A little to the right of the pyramids the tops of the Memphis pylons, wrapped in a bluish haze, seemed to be flaming upward.

"Let us go; let us go!" said Rameses.

A moment later the reddish desert surrounded them again, and again the line of pyramids gleamed until all was dissolved in the twilight.

When night fell the travellers had reached that immense district of the dead, which extends for a number of tens of miles on the heights along the left side of the river.

Here during the Ancient Kingdom were buried, for endless ages, Egyptians,--the pharaohs in immense pyramids, princes and dignitaries in smaller pyramids, common men in mud structures. Here were resting millions of mummies, not only of people, but of dogs, cats, birds,--in a word, all creatures which, while they lived, were dear to Egyptians.

During the time of Rameses, the burial-ground of kings and great persons was transferred to Thebes; in the neighborhood of Memphis were buried only common persons and artisans from regions about there.

Among scattered graves, the prince and his escort met a number of people, pushing about like shadows.

"Who are ye?" asked the leader of the escort.

"We are poor servants of the pharaoh returning from our dead. We took to them roses, cakes, and beer."

"But maybe ye looked into strange graves?"

"O G.o.ds!" cried one of the party, "could we commit such a sacrilege?

It is only the wicked Thebans--may their hands wither!--who disturb the dead, so as to drink away their property in dramshops."

"What mean those fires at the north there?" interrupted the prince.

"It must be, worthiness, that thou comest from afar if thou know not,"

answered they. "To-morrow our heir is returning with a victorious army. He is a great chief! He conquered the Libyans in one battle.

Those are the people of Memphis who have gone out to greet him with solemnity. Thirty thousand persons. When they shout--"

"I understand," whispered the prince to Pentuer. "Holy Mentezufis has sent me ahead so that I may not have a triumphal entry. But never mind this time."

The horses were tired, and they had to rest. So the prince sent hors.e.m.e.n to engage barges on the river, and the rest of the escort halted under some palms, which at that time grew between the Sphinx and the group of pyramids.

Those pyramids formed the northern limit of the immense cemetery. On the flat, about a square kilometre in area, overgrown at that time with plants of the desert, were tombs and small pyramids, above which towered the three great pyramids: those of Cheops, Chafre, and Menkere, and the Sphinx. These immense structures stand only a few hundred yards from one another. The three pyramids are in a line from northeast to southwest. East of this line and nearer the Nile is the Sphinx, near whose feet was the underground temple of Horus.

The pyramids, but especially that of Cheops, as a work of human labor, astound by their greatness. This pyramid is a pointed stone mountain; its original height was thirty-five stories, or four hundred and eighty-one feet, standing on a square foundation each side of which was seven hundred and fifty-five feet. It occupied a little more than thirteen acres of area, and its four triangular walls would cover twenty acres of land. In building it, such vast numbers of stones were used that it would be possible to build a wall of the height of a man, a wall half a metre thick, and two thousand five hundred kilometres long.

When the attendants of the prince had disposed themselves under the wretched trees, some occupied themselves in finding water; others took out cakes, while Tutmosis dropped to the ground and fell asleep directly. But the prince and Pentuer walked up and down conversing.

The night was clear enough to let them see on one side the immense outline of the pyramids, on the other, the Sphinx, which seemed small in comparison.

"I am here for the fourth time," said the heir, "and my heart is always filled with regret and astonishment. When a pupil in the higher school, I thought that, on ascending the throne, I would build something of more worth than the pyramid of Cheops. But to-day I am ready to laugh at my insolence when I think that the great pharaoh in building his tomb paid sixteen hundred talents (about ten million francs) for the vegetables alone which were used by the laborers.

Where should I find sixteen hundred talents even for wages?"

"Envy not Cheops, lord," replied the priest. "Other pharaohs have left better works behind: lakes, ca.n.a.ls, roads, schools, and temples."

"But may we compare those things with the pyramids?"

"Of course not," answered Pentuer, hurriedly. "In my eyes and in the eyes of all the people, each pyramid is a great crime, and that of Cheops, the greatest of all crimes."

"Thou art too much excited," said the prince.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Pyramid of Cheops]

"I am not. The pharaoh was building his immense tomb for thirty years; in the course of those years one hundred thousand people worked three months annually. And what good was there in that work? Whom did it feed, whom did it cure, to whom did it give clothing? At that work from ten to twenty thousand people perished yearly; that is, for the tomb of Cheops a half a million corpses were put into the earth. But the blood, the pain, the tears,--who will reckon them?

"Therefore, wonder not, lord, that the Egyptian toiler to this day looks with fear toward the west, when above the horizon the triangular forms of the pyramids seem b.l.o.o.d.y or crimson. They are witnesses of his sufferings and fruitless labor.

"And to think that this will continue till those proofs of human pride are scattered into dust! But when will that be? For three thousand years those pyramids frighten men with their presence; their walls are smooth yet, and the immense inscriptions on them are legible."

"That night in the desert thy speech was different," interrupted the prince.

"For I was not looking at these. But when they are before my eyes, as at present, I am surrounded by the sobbing spirits of tortured toilers, and they whisper, 'See what they did with us! But our bones felt pain, and our hearts longed for rest from labor.'"

Rameses was touched disagreeably by this outburst.

"His holiness, my father," said he, after a while, "presented these things to me differently; when we were here five years ago, the sacred lord told me the following narrative: