Returning at nightfall to his hut, Sadoc found it surrounded by a company of bowmen. The tale of bricks his family were required to provide for the king's use had been increased one-tenth, and Sarchedon was to be carried into the presence of Pharaoh without delay.
CHAPTER XXIII
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."