To meet face to face this all-knowing, all-seeing, celestial creature, from whom there could be no secrets hid nor any guilt concealed, was an ordeal to which a man might well look forward with utter horror. It was this terrible dread that, in the tale with which we are now concerned, held the captain of this Nubian vessel in agony upon his couch.
As he lay there, biting his finger-nails, one of the ship’s officers, himself a former leader of expeditions, entered the cabin to announce their arrival at the Shallal docks.
“Good news, prince,” he said cheerfully to his writhing master. “Look, we have reached home. They have taken the mallet and driven in the mooring-post; the ship’s cable has been put on land. There is merrymaking and thanksgiving, and every man is embracing his fellow. Our crew has returned unscathed, without loss to our soldiers. We have reached the end of Wawat, we have passed Bigeh. Yes, indeed, we have returned safely; we have reached our own land.”
At this the prince seems to have groaned anew, much to the distress of his friend, who could but urge him to pull himself together and to play the man.
“Listen to me, prince,” he begged, “for I am one void of exaggeration. Wash yourself, pour water on your fingers.”
The Pharaoh Rameses II, B.C. 1292-1225. From his statue now at Turin.
The wretched man replied, it would seem, with a repetition of his fears; whereupon the old sailor seems to have sat down by his side and to have given him a word of advice as to how he should behave in the king’s presence. “Make answer when you are addressed,” he said; “speak to the king with a heart in you; answer without restraint. For it is a man’s mouth that saves him.... But do as you will: to talk to you is wearisome (to you).”
Presently the old sailor was seized with an idea. He would tell a story, no matter whether it were strictly true or not, in which his own adventures should be set forth. He would describe how he was wrecked upon an unknown island, how he was saved from death, and how, on his return, he was conducted into the Pharaoh’s presence. A narrative of his own experiences before his sovereign might give heart to his captain, and might effectually lift the intolerable burden of dread from the princely shoulders.