“Do men give love to women too, then, in that land?”
“Once only in their lives, Princess. Men have one love as they have one word, and part with their life sometimes because of either.”
“I will not detain thee further, oh, wise counsellor!” she said with sudden coldness. “Deign to give thy orders to Fan-tu, and what boat or escort thou dost need shall await thy commands.”
The Pharaoh took the news of my departure very quietly; nothing seemed ever to disturb his sullen, sarcastic equanimity. He listened quite patiently to my various recommendations concerning his health, and actually stretched out a hand to me, in token of a promise that he would follow them.
I asked for an audience of Queen Maat-kha, but she sent me a somewhat curt message that she was sick and could see no one.
In the late afternoon a boat and an escort had been prepared for me, and with a sigh of relief I saw the fairy palace of Princess Neit-akrit gradually fade away into the distance.
CHAPTER XXI.
A DEBT OF HONOUR
Net-amen is certainly the prettiest of the cities of this ancient land. It has been built on an undulating slope which rises upwards, with tier upon tier of palms and sycamores, mimosas and giant fuchsias. It is essentially an industrial city: the houses are not so imposing as those of Men-ne-fer, which is the royal residence and the abode of the wealthy. In Net-amen the houses are built of a species of burnt clay: there is less sculpture and very little marble: before each doorstep the householders squat and ply their trade or craft. The goldsmith, with brazier and minute instruments, fashions necklaces of exquisite workmanship, pendants in imitation of birds and beetles, daintily chased and covered with enamel, the gorgeous colours of which these people alone know how to produce. Then the potters, who turn the soft clay jars, fashioning them into every kind of fanciful shapes, and then passing them on to the limner, who, with fine brush and colours, draws upon the vases those quaint figures which delight the antiquarian, and which—as I have learned since I have caught a glimpse of Egypt as it was or is—are an exact rendering of the people of Kamt. Then there are the women, with their rough spinning-wheels and tall spindles made of rush, or sitting at the looms, weaving those gossamer tissues with which the noble ladies of the land only half hide their voluptuous charms.
The first aspect of Net-amen fascinated me. There was less grandeur but more of real humanity about it. The weavers, the potters, the goldsmiths seemed to me much more tangible than the gorgeous and fantastic personages who in wondrous pageant had, in Men-ne-fer, moved before my eyes.
On the summit of the hills, surrounded by trees and flowers, stood the miracle palace, which one hundred thousand workmen had built in seventeen days for the beloved of the gods.