Had not Isis yonder, his wife and sister, collected the fragments of his dismembered body to put together and embalm the whole ere, summoning the high-priest from each of all her temples, she confided to him, and him alone, as she caused him to think, the sacred deposit, so that each carried away what he believed to be the body of his god, under solemn oath that he would never divulge to living man the place of its sepulture, persuaded that his own temple was the revered and sacred spot? This mighty deity of the future and the past here revealed himself for his worshippers to adore in the massive statue of a bull!
Isis, too, with her ten thousand names, sat in a place of honour over against her lord; and near her Horus, their son, with finger on his lip, emblem of princely modesty and discretion, supported by his half-brother, Anubis, the wise and faithful, with human form and a dog's sagacious head. Multiplied too in many a niche and along many a lofty corridor, stood erect and threatening the figure of that deity to whom the city was especially sacred, worshipped under the semblance of a cat. Avenues of cat-headed monsters kept watch in hall and passage; while presiding, as it were, in the very entrance of the court, stood a gigantic image of granite, wearing the short ears of the sacred animal, its sleek round head, and cruel feline smile.
Immediately behind this dazzling throne, constituting it indeed the very tribunal of the Pharaohs, watching, as men believed, over sentence and acquittal, accuser and accused, might be seen the statue of a female figure, with blinded eyes, serene impassive face, and wings spread out in front, as though grasping and embracing all within their sweep. This was Thmei, emblematic goddess of truth and justice, whose essential attributes were thus typified in her outward form: the blinded eyes signifying her impartiality, the calm visage her indifference to consequences, the wings instead of hands her incorruptible nature, inaccessible to the bribes it was impossible for her to accept.
Standing between his guards, still pinioned and secured, Sarchedon's eye took in all these details of Pharaoh's sumptuous palace ere the glare of burnished gold permitted him to observe the judgment-seat and its occupant. After a time, however, he was able to distinguish the person of a pale slender sallow man, showing like the wick of a lighted candle through a blaze of shining raiment, dazzling jewels, and royal Egyptian state. Pharaoh's attitude was one of extreme exhaustion and fatigue; his face looked very sad and weary, but in its long narrow eyes, low brow, and prominent chin there lurked a strange resemblance to the pitiless features of that colossal figure which was destined hereafter to keep watch over his tomb.
A case had just been disposed of, trifling, indeed, in its details, and scarcely worth the intervention of a monarch; but it was the custom of Egypt, that wherever Pharaoh held his court, he should administer justice in person, from the pilfering of a handful of lentils to desecration of an idol, blasphemy against a god, or resistance to the authority of the king. A dozen strokes of the bastinado had been awarded for the first offence. Sarchedon, accused of the last, was brought forward by the archers, and placed at the lowest step of the throne.
"Unbind him," said Pharaoh, looking round on his men of war with something of scorn. Then, in the prisoner's own dialect, he addressed him shortly and sternly: "You are an Assyrian. What do you here?"
The tone was of one who had never known opposition, and the keen dark eye wandered over Sarchedon from head to foot with something of the cat's expression, pausing carelessly before she makes up her mind to pounce.
"My life is in the hand of Pharaoh," answered the prisoner. "I will not deny my nation nor my name."
"What brought you into Egypt?" continued the king, still in the same scornful indifferent accents. "Have you any knowledge of my country and its customs?"
"I came here first as a conqueror," answered the haughty Assyrian. "It was not for us to learn the manners and customs of the Egyptians, but to impose on them our own."