"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.