PHARAOH ON THE THRONE
To be carried into the presence of Pharaoh!—words of significant import, suggesting speedy condemnation and summary punishment. With arms strapped tight to his body, with feet bound together under his horse's girth, guarded on either side by mounted bowmen, surrounded by scores of their comrades on horseback and on foot, Sarchedon rode slowly on through the night, and at dawn found himself before the portals of a flourishing town dedicated to the worship of Bubastis, as revealed in the outward semblance of the cat.
Here, in one of the noblest cities of his dominions, Pharaoh was administering justice, according to custom. At sunrise the Egyptian king ascended his judgment-seat to dispose without appeal of all cases laid at the royal feet. Therefore had Sarchedon been conducted hither, through the hours of darkness, to receive the award of his crime.
As they neared their destination, the adjacent country began to teem with life. Cows and oxen, speckled, spotted, and ring-streaked, dragged the plough through a lately-irrigated soil, the former doing their work far more nimbly than their weightier brothers. Playful calves leaped and frisked behind, marked, like their dams, with the brand of their respective owners. Slender husbandmen, naked to the waist, followed in pairs, scattering seed over that rich and generous surface. Scores of birds from the banks of the neighbouring river followed their movements; while a steward or overseer in every field directed the toil of the labourers, taking account of their expenditure and their stores. Peace and plenty seemed to reign throughout the land, and Sarchedon could not but reflect he might be looking his last on a world of light, life, labour, and prosperity.
Unlike his own Assyrian cities, there were no bowmen on these walls, no guard in this capacious gate, through which all seemed free to pass at will. Two gigantic sphinxes, indeed, couched half-a-bowshot apart, kept watch in majestic gravity on either side. Two colossal idols, cat-headed and of compound form, half man, half monster, faced each other at the entrance; but within, a crowded market, swarming with peasants, glowed in gaudy luscious fragrance of fruit and flowers. A thousand tongues chattered, a thousand arms gesticulated; the ass munched its provender; the sacred stork pushed its long beak at will into woven basket or wicker pannier. Merry faces and broad smiles gleamed in the morning sun. A burst of cymbals rose in the warm serene air, and Pharaoh went up to his golden judgment-seat, the birthplace of those unanswerable decrees that signified life and death.
As his guards hurried Sarchedon along the streets, much interest and curiosity seemed excited by the personal appearance of the prisoner; while comments flew from lip to lip on his stature, his bearing, and the probable punishment of his crime.
"Stately as a sycamore," said one, apparently a carpenter by trade, "and hard as a tamarisk; he will bear impalement as seasoned wood stands soaking, without a warp. If they keep water from him, my friends, we shall find him alive on the fourth day."
"Impalement!" interrupted an old hag, grandmother to the first speaker; "Pharaoh will never order such a goodly youth to the stake. No, no. Let him be carefully disembowelled; give me a measure of myrrh, a pound or two of cassia, and a handful of spice—I wouldn't ask you for cinnamon, oil of cedar, nor palm-wine—and if he look not as tall and comely a thousand years hence as at this moment, may I never touch salt or natron, iron probe or linen swaddlers, again."
"Fie, mother!" said a good-humoured peasant, emptying a basketful of onions and lentils at the feet of a purchaser. "Pharaoh is merciful, though he lives for ever. The youth may escape with the loss of his shapely nose, or at worst a thousand blows on the soles of his feet. By the talons of our Cat, 'tis a goodly measure of manhood; 'twere pity to make a mummy of it before its time. Why, what hath he done?"
"Ay, what hath he done?" echoed a score of voices, to be answered by a score of extravagant surmises.
He had slain an Israelite! Bah! they would fine him a quarter of wheat, and let him go. He had murdered an Egyptian! It was a hanging matter; but here at Bubastis their dams and banks were raised by working gangs of such criminals. He would escape with hard labour for life. Not much worse than their own peasant lot, after all. Better, forsooth, in so far that such miscreants paid no taxes, and Pharaoh found them enough to eat. No, it was a blacker business than this. He had insulted a priest; he had blasphemed Athor; he had put his finger in his mouth to ridicule Horus; he had said openly that Osiris was a falsehood and Isis a harlot; he smote Anubis in the muzzle, mocked with feline sounds the majesty of Bubastis; outrage of outrages, spat on the sacred bull itself! He was a spy, a stranger disguised as an Israelite, a Philistine—nay, a child of Seth, with square ears—a worshipper of Abitur in the mountains, a devil, and a son of devils! Away with him! down with him! slay him! tear him limb from limb!
The wave gathered force as it advanced; the popular indignation swelled into ferocity. Instead of merry good-morrows and happy laughter, the air was filled with yell and shriek and wild revengeful howl. Faces, but now smiling in content, were distorted with brutal hate and cruel lust for blood. The crowd surged and swayed through the market-place, leaping, bristling, closing in like wolves about their prey. Could they have reached the Assyrian, he must have been torn to pieces ere he lifted a finger in self-defence. But for those whose trade is war there exists a professional instinct of brotherhood stronger than any prejudices of nationality, any credulity of fanaticism. The bowmen who guarded him recognised in Sarchedon one of their own calling, and made common cause with a warrior, even against their kindred and countrymen vociferating for his blood. With the unerring rapidity of discipline, they formed round their charge in double rank, forcing their way at a steady even tramp through the wavering crowd, and so opening a space on every side, kept it clear by bending their formidable bows.
Advancing thus in a long avenue of colossal sphinxes brightened by the morning sun, they arrived at the entrance of the royal palace. Here, with an infuriated yell, the populace made a final rush; but were beaten back by the archers, at the cost of a few broken heads and bloody faces, though, fortunately for the prisoner, without loss of life or injury to limb.
The judgment-seat of Pharaoh—a throne of solid gold, elevated on twenty-four steps of the same metal above the raised floor on which accusers and accused were stationed face to face—seemed to blaze in a flood of sunlight, that bathed it from the open sky above.
The palace, Sarchedon observed, was built, like those of his own country, round an unroofed court. It differed but little from the dwelling of an Assyrian king in architecture and general plan, but was even more profusely decorated, in a greater variety of sculptures, minutely designed, gaudily-coloured, and representing many of the lowest reptiles and animals with a fidelity not entirely pleasing to the eye.
Here, besides the fox, the jackal, the porcupine, the lizard, the locust, and the asp, were an infinity of compound monsters, the produce of a theology which persisted in embodying every attribute of its ideal under a form, however grotesque, that should give tangible expression to its idolatry. Such were the winged goat, the serpent-headed lion, the griffin with pinions spread and feathered crest striding over its mysterious triad of flowers, the bitch, dragging her homely chain, hanging her heavy teats, canine in all her properties but her sleek bird's head and delicate beak. Things that creep and things that fly, from the stork and the raven, the crocodile and the ichneumon, to the serpent, the beetle, and the bat, filled every interstice on the variegated walls; while between the crowded figures closely-packed hieroglyphics recorded for initiated readers the history, the nature, and the occult signification of each. Deeds of arms too and field sports, from taking of towns and spearing of the river-horse to numbering of captives and snaring of song-birds, were handed down to future ages in imperishable carving; while, at stately intervals, solemn and majestic, here in the palace of the Pharaohs, towered the statues of those numerous gods in whom Egypt had ever trusted for succour at her need.
Osiris, the great benefactor and founder of their nation, the inventor of agriculture, mechanics, all arts necessary to life; who taught men how to plough the earth and train the vine; who, in his contest with Typhon, the principle of evil, was cut asunder into six-and-twenty pieces; and who, as every true Egyptian firmly believed, would return in his original form at some future epoch to judge and regenerate mankind.
Had not Isis yonder, his wife and sister, collected the fragments of his dismembered body to put together and embalm the whole ere, summoning the high-priest from each of all her temples, she confided to him, and him alone, as she caused him to think, the sacred deposit, so that each carried away what he believed to be the body of his god, under solemn oath that he would never divulge to living man the place of its sepulture, persuaded that his own temple was the revered and sacred spot? This mighty deity of the future and the past here revealed himself for his worshippers to adore in the massive statue of a bull!
Isis, too, with her ten thousand names, sat in a place of honour over against her lord; and near her Horus, their son, with finger on his lip, emblem of princely modesty and discretion, supported by his half-brother, Anubis, the wise and faithful, with human form and a dog's sagacious head. Multiplied too in many a niche and along many a lofty corridor, stood erect and threatening the figure of that deity to whom the city was especially sacred, worshipped under the semblance of a cat. Avenues of cat-headed monsters kept watch in hall and passage; while presiding, as it were, in the very entrance of the court, stood a gigantic image of granite, wearing the short ears of the sacred animal, its sleek round head, and cruel feline smile.
Immediately behind this dazzling throne, constituting it indeed the very tribunal of the Pharaohs, watching, as men believed, over sentence and acquittal, accuser and accused, might be seen the statue of a female figure, with blinded eyes, serene impassive face, and wings spread out in front, as though grasping and embracing all within their sweep. This was Thmei, emblematic goddess of truth and justice, whose essential attributes were thus typified in her outward form: the blinded eyes signifying her impartiality, the calm visage her indifference to consequences, the wings instead of hands her incorruptible nature, inaccessible to the bribes it was impossible for her to accept.
Standing between his guards, still pinioned and secured, Sarchedon's eye took in all these details of Pharaoh's sumptuous palace ere the glare of burnished gold permitted him to observe the judgment-seat and its occupant. After a time, however, he was able to distinguish the person of a pale slender sallow man, showing like the wick of a lighted candle through a blaze of shining raiment, dazzling jewels, and royal Egyptian state. Pharaoh's attitude was one of extreme exhaustion and fatigue; his face looked very sad and weary, but in its long narrow eyes, low brow, and prominent chin there lurked a strange resemblance to the pitiless features of that colossal figure which was destined hereafter to keep watch over his tomb.
A case had just been disposed of, trifling, indeed, in its details, and scarcely worth the intervention of a monarch; but it was the custom of Egypt, that wherever Pharaoh held his court, he should administer justice in person, from the pilfering of a handful of lentils to desecration of an idol, blasphemy against a god, or resistance to the authority of the king. A dozen strokes of the bastinado had been awarded for the first offence. Sarchedon, accused of the last, was brought forward by the archers, and placed at the lowest step of the throne.
"Unbind him," said Pharaoh, looking round on his men of war with something of scorn. Then, in the prisoner's own dialect, he addressed him shortly and sternly: "You are an Assyrian. What do you here?"
The tone was of one who had never known opposition, and the keen dark eye wandered over Sarchedon from head to foot with something of the cat's expression, pausing carelessly before she makes up her mind to pounce.
"My life is in the hand of Pharaoh," answered the prisoner. "I will not deny my nation nor my name."
"What brought you into Egypt?" continued the king, still in the same scornful indifferent accents. "Have you any knowledge of my country and its customs?"
"I came here first as a conqueror," answered the haughty Assyrian. "It was not for us to learn the manners and customs of the Egyptians, but to impose on them our own."
The guards, who understood him passably well, exchanged looks of consternation at this imprudent reply; but something like a smile crossed Pharaoh's face, and sinking back into the throne, he observed carelessly,
"Let his accusation be read out."
It was the law of Egypt that, even in the presence of the supreme authority, all judicial proceedings should be reduced to a written statement, comprising the charge, the evidence on both sides, and the defence. It was believed that thus only could be avoided the bias of skilful oratory and impassioned eloquence, where an offender was pleading for his life.
A priest—distinguished by gravity of demeanour and wisdom of aspect no less than by the purity of his linen garments and the reverence he seemed to command from the bystanders—now read from a roll of papyrus the terms of the accusation with which the prisoner stood charged. It set forth in simple language that "he this Assyrian stranger, having come surreptitiously into the land of Egypt, had there consorted, of his own free will, with their slaves the Israelites, tampering with their patriarchs, and inciting that stiff-necked people to revolt; that he had even headed the outbreak of a gang during a temporary respite from their labours—an indulgence, it added, which ought never to have been permitted by the task-master; had hurled that functionary from the saddle, and well-nigh slain him while bleeding and helpless on the ground; that such an enormity was in itself an insult to the majesty of the king, an outrage on the Egyptian nation, and a crime only to be expiated by death. He laid his charge at the feet of Pharaoh, who, like Thmei, was the embodiment of truth, justice, and wisdom, and would live in power and glory for ever."
From out the blaze of splendour flaming round the throne came again that calm and scornful voice, wearily enunciating the usual formula,
"Produce your witnesses."
Two or three archers belonging to the force that had guarded the working gang of Israelites here stepped forward, and with them, to the prisoner's consternation, the younger son of Sadoc—that fragile boy, in whose defence he had brought down the wrath of Egypt on his own head.
The poor youth had been on horseback since nightfall. Unaccustomed, like his nation in general, to the exercise of riding, he was a pitiable object of soreness, fatigue, perplexity, and alarm. The archers gave their evidence clearly enough. It amounted to little more than the bare facts of the case. Then they dragged the young Israelite into the terrible presence of Pharaoh, pale and faint with mortal fear.
"What needs all this weight of testimony?" exclaimed the prisoner in a loud bold voice. "It is but heaping weariness and vexation on the head of my lord the king. I deny that I have urged a nation to rebel against its rulers. I admit that I opposed by force the violence that would have scourged a helpless child lying in the dust. If this be deadly crime by the laws of Egypt, would that we had given you a milder code when the children of Ashur came of late to seek you with bow and spear. I have spoken. My life is in Pharaoh's hands. Let him take it how and when he will."
The king looked round on his captains and counsellors with a passing gleam of animation in his eyes.
"This is a bold fellow," said he. "Which of you would dare speak thus, while looking death in the face so close?"
Nobody answered; but a murmur went round the circle, to the effect that "Pharaoh lived for ever!"
The king turned to a venerable man who, with the exception of that indispensable official the fan-bearer, stood nearest the throne, and asked him,
"Have these sons of shepherds been numbered according to the royal decree?"
"The king hath spoken," was the subservient reply, while with a low obeisance a roll of papyrus was laid at the royal feet.
The fan-bearer handed it to his lord, who scanned it with an angry frown. "So many!" muttered Pharaoh; "and so poor a tale of work! Increasing, multiplying, swarming over the land, while they lay it waste like locusts! Sleeping more than they labour, devouring more than they produce, hoarding substance, no doubt, and having children at their desire. Is Pharaoh's arm shortened, or has my hand waxed faint? I must take order with this scum of nations, lest at last they outnumber us, spreading through the land to eat it away like a sore. I have reached to them the sceptre of my protection; it is time they should feel the edge of my wrath!"
Round the king's neck hung a small image in gold of Thmei, goddess of Truth, corresponding in every respect with the statue that towered above his throne. A similar ornament glittered on the breast of the old man whom he addressed, denoting the regent of his kingdom, a magnate second only in power to Pharaoh himself. When such an official possessed the wisdom and courage to oppose the royal decree, for the king's own welfare and that of his people, his granaries were full, his subjects prospered, and, to use their own expression, "the land sung for joy." Too often, however, he was only the echo of his lord.
"The breath of Pharaoh's nostrils shall consume them," was his answer to the king's outbreak, "even as the wind sweepeth a plague of locusts into the sea."
Again the evil smile passed across that weary sallow face. Sensual, selfish, and indolent as was the great ruler of the South, he had yet the political wisdom that foresees a crisis, the subtlety that prevents it, and the resolution that opposes it when it comes. His smile, while it boded no good to the children of Israel, indicated at the same time that he considered his regent an imbecile old man. The facts of the case now laid before him had been detailed to his private ear long before he ascended the judgment-seat, and had been discussed with one of his confidential advisers; a magician of no mean repute, whose keen intellect and scientific knowledge influenced his lord no less than did the startling resources of his art.
This trusted counsellor had pointed out to Pharaoh the impolicy of permitting one of the Assyrian nation to remain amongst a people—situated in their very midst—whose increasing prosperity tyranny and oppression seemed powerless to keep down; and the king recognised in the bold out-spoken prisoner now before him such a leader as the Israelites might be glad to obey, should they determine on a general rising to cast off the Egyptian yoke. True, they had neither arms nor horses nor war-chariots of iron; but they were formidable nevertheless in their numbers, their organisation, and their dogged persistence in some strange inscrutable belief. Pharaoh resolved to find out more of this stranger from the enemy's country ere he let him slip through his grasp either by acquittal or condemnation to death.
Assuming, therefore, an air of rigid impartiality, the king turned to the Israelitish lad, whose terror caused him, as it were, to wither and shrink under the royal eye.
"You have resisted authority," said Pharaoh, "and created a tumult; but you are young, and the king is merciful. Take him back to his dwelling-place," he added sternly to the archers; "scourge him, and let him go."
Then, while the lad, more dead than alive—dreading, perhaps, his weary ride homeward fully as much as the subsequent punishment—was led away between two bowmen, the king once more addressed himself to Sarchedon,
"Assyrian," said he, "your crime, according to our law, must be punished by impalement. Nevertheless, while I inquire farther into your case, I grant you a few days' respite before you die. Remove him, and put him in safe ward. Pharaoh has spoken."
The deep response, "Pharaoh lives for ever!" rose from every quarter of the court, and Sarchedon was hurried out of the royal presence, even as a ragged old peasant hobbled into it to demand justice on his neighbour, who had robbed him of a string of onions and a half-emptied gourd.