“Chebron!” Ameres exclaimed, laying down the roll of papyrus on which he was engaged and rising to his feet. “What is it, my son? Why do you thus kneel before me in an attitude of supplication? Rise and tell me what has happened.”
Chebron raised his head, but still continued on his knees. Ameres was startled at the expression of his son’s face. The look of health and life had gone from it, the color beneath the bronze skin had faded away, drops of perspiration stood on his forehead, his lips were parched and drawn.
“What is it, my son?” Ameres repeated, now thoroughly alarmed.
“I have forfeited my life, father! Worse, I have offended the gods beyond forgiveness! This morning I went with Amuba with our bows and arrows to shoot a hawk which has for some time been slaying the waterfowl. It came down and we shot together. Amuba killed the hawk, but my arrow struck a tree and flew wide of the mark, and entering the cats’ house killed Paucis, who was chosen only two days to take the place of the sacred cat in the temple of Bubastes.”
An exclamation of horror broke from the high priest, and he recoiled a pace from his son.
“Unhappy boy,” he said, “your life is indeed forfeited. The king himself could not save his son from the fury of the populace had he perpetrated such a deed.”
“It is not my life I am thinking of, father,” Chebron said, “but first of the horrible sacrilege, and then that I alone cannot bear the consequences, but that some of these must fall upon you and my mother and sister; for even to be related to one who has committed such a crime is a terrible disgrace.”
Ameres walked up and down the room several times before he spoke.
“As to our share of the consequences, Chebron, we must bear it as best we can,” he said at last in a calmer tone than he had before used; “it is of you we must first think. It is a terrible affair; and yet, as you say, it was but an accident, and you are guiltless of any intentional sacrilege. But that plea will be as nothing. Death is the punishment for slaying a cat; and the one you have slain having been chosen to succeed the cat of Bubastes is of all others the one most sacred. The question is, What is to be done? You must fly and that instantly, though I fear that flight will be vain; for as soon as the news is known it will spread from one end of Egypt to the other, and every man’s hand will be against you, and even by this time the discovery may have been made.”
“That will hardly be, father; for Amuba has buried the cat among the bushes, and has left the door of the house open so that it may be supposed for a time that it has wandered away. He proposed to me to fly with him at once; for he declares that he is determined to share my fate since we were both concerned in the attempt to kill the hawk. But in that of course he is wrong; for it is I, not he, who has done this thing.”