"Your soldiers have no fear of royal tombs even," added the minister.

"Still it cannot be safe in them since no one has ever returned."

The Greek pushed back to the suite confounded.

"Confess, holy father," hissed the heir, with the greatest anger, "that such a hindrance would not stop even an a.s.s on his journey."

"True, but no a.s.s will ever be pharaoh," retorted the minister, calmly.

"In that case thou, O minister, wilt lead the division through the ravine!" exclaimed Rameses. "I am unacquainted with priestly tactics; besides, I must rest. Come with me, cousin," said he to Tutmosis; and he turned toward some naked hills.

CHAPTER II

Straightway his worthiness Herhor directed his adjutant who carried the mace to take charge of the vanguard in place of Eunana. Then he commanded that the military engines for hurling great stones leave the road, and that the Greek soldiers facilitate pa.s.sage for those engines in difficult places. All vehicles and litters of staff-officers were to move in the rear.

When Herhor issued commands, the adjutant bearing the fan approached Pentuer and asked,--

"Will it be possible to go by this highway again?"

"Why not?" answered the young priest. "But since two sacred beetles have barred the way now, we must not go farther; some misfortune might happen."

"As it is, a misfortune has happened. Or hast thou not noticed that Prince Rameses is angry at the minister? and our lord is not forgetful."

"It is not the prince who is offended with our lord, but our lord with the prince, and he has reproached him. He has done well; for it seems to the young prince, at present, that he is to be a second Menes."

"Or a Rameses the Great," put in the adjutant.

"Rameses the Great obeyed the G.o.ds; for this cause there are inscriptions praising him in all the temples. But Menes, the first pharaoh of Egypt, was a destroyer of order, and thanks only to the fatherly kindness of the priests that his name is still remembered,--though I would not give one bra.s.s uten on this, that the mummy of Menes exists."

"My Pentuer," added the adjutant, "thou art a sage, hence knowest that it is all one to us whether we have ten lords or eleven."

"But it is not all one to the people whether they have to find every year a mountain of gold for the priests, or two mountains of gold for the priests and the pharaoh," answered Pentuer, while his eyes flashed.

"Thou art thinking of dangerous things," said the adjutant, in a whisper.

"But how often hast thou thyself grieved over the luxuries of the pharaoh's court and of the nomarchs?" inquired the priest in astonishment.

"Quiet, quiet! We will talk of this, but not now."

In spite of the sand the military engines, drawn each by two bullocks, moved in the desert more speedily than along the highway. With the first of them marched Eunana, anxiously. "Why has the minister deprived me of leadership over the vanguard? Does he wish to give me a higher position?" asked he in his own mind.

Thinking out then a new career, and perhaps to dull the fears which made his heart quiver, he seized a pole and, where the sands were deeper, propped the balista, or urged on the Greeks with an outcry.

They, however, paid slight attention to this officer.

The retinue had pushed on a good half hour through a winding ravine with steep naked walls, when the vanguard halted a second time. At this point another ravine crossed the first; in the middle of it extended a rather broad ca.n.a.l.

The courier sent to the minister of war with notice of the obstacle brought back a command to fill the ca.n.a.l immediately.

About a hundred soldiers with pickaxes and shovels rushed to the work.

Some knocked out stones from the cliff; others threw them into the ditch and covered them with sand.

Meanwhile from the depth of the ravine came a man with a pickaxe shaped like a stork's neck with the bill on it. He was an Egyptian slave, old and entirely naked. He looked for a while with the utmost amazement at the work of the soldiers; then, springing between them on a sudden, he shouted,--

"What are ye doing, vile people? This is a ca.n.a.l."

"But how darest thou use evil words against the warriors of his holiness?" asked Eunana, who stood there.

"Thou must be an Egyptian and a great person, I see that," said the slave; "so I answer thee that this ca.n.a.l belongs to a mighty lord; he is the manager and secretary of one who bears the fan for his worthiness the nomarch of Memphis. Be on thy guard or misfortune will strike thee!"

"Do your work," said Eunana, with a patronizing tone, to the Greek soldiers who began to look at the slave.

They did not understand his speech, but the tone of it arrested them.

"They are filling in all the time!" said the slave, with rising fear.

"Woe to thee!" cried he, rushing at one of the Greeks with his pickaxe.

The Greek pulled it from the man, struck him on the mouth, and brought blood to his lips; then he threw sand into the ca.n.a.l again.

The slave, stunned by the blow, lost courage and fell to imploring.

"Lord," said he, "I dug this ca.n.a.l alone for ten years, in the night time and during festivals! My master promised that if I should bring water to this little valley he would make me a servant in it, give me one fifth of the harvests, and grant me freedom--do you hear? Freedom to me and my three children!--O G.o.ds!"

He raised his hands and turned again to Eunana,--

"They do not understand me, these vagrants from beyond the sea, descendants of dogs, brothers to Jews and Phnicians! But listen, lord, to me! For ten years, while other men went to fairs and dances or sacred processions, I stole out into this dreary ravine. I did not go to the grave of my mother, I only dug; I forgot the dead so as to give freedom with laud to my children, and to myself even one free day before death. Ye, O G.o.ds, be my witnesses how many times has night found me here! how many times have I heard the wailing cries of hyenas in this place, and seen the green eyes of wolves! But I did not flee, for whither was I, the unfortunate, to flee, when at every path terror was lurking, and in this ca.n.a.l freedom held me back by the feet? Once, beyond that turn there, a lion came out against me, the pharaoh of beasts. The pickaxe dropped from my hands, I knelt down before him, and I, as ye see me, said these words: 'O lord! is it thy pleasure to eat me? I am only a slave.' But the lion took pity, the wolf also pa.s.sed by; even the treacherous bats spared my poor head; but thou, O Egyptian--"

The man stopped; he saw the retinue of Herhor approaching. By the fan he knew him to be a great personage, and by the panther skin, a priest. He ran to the litter, therefore, knelt down, and struck the sand with his forehead.

"What dost thou wish, man?" asked the dignitary.

"O light of the sun, listen to me!" cried the slave. "May there be no groans in thy chamber, may no misfortune follow thee! May thy works continue, and may the current not be interrupted when thou shalt sail by the Nile to the other sh.o.r.e--"

"I ask what thy wish is," repeated Herhor.

"Kind lord," said the man, "leader without caprice, who conquerest the false and createst the true, who art the father of the poor, the husband of the widow, clothing for the motherless, permit me to spread thy name as the equal of justice, most n.o.ble of the n.o.bles."[1]

[1] Authentic speech of a slave.

"He wishes that this ca.n.a.l be not filled in," said Eunana.

Herhor shrugged his shoulders and pushed toward the place where they were filling the ca.n.a.l. Then the despairing man seized his feet.

"Away with this creature!" cried his worthiness, pushing back as before the bite of a reptile.

The secretary, Pentuer, turned his head; his lean face had a grayish color. Eunana seized the man by the shoulders and pulled, but, unable to drag him away from the minister's feet, he summoned warriors. After a while Herhor, now liberated, pa.s.sed to the other bank of the ca.n.a.l, and the warriors tore away the earth-worker, almost carrying him to the end of the detachment. There they gave the man some tens of blows of fists, and subalterns who always carried canes gave him some tens of blows of sticks, and at last threw him down at the entrance to the ravine.