Hanit the Enchantress

by Garrett Chatfield Pier

A trumpeter in the prow blew a shrill note upon his long instrument (a new importation from Syria), a group of singing women from the temple of Sekhmet burst into song; Rahotep, the Chief Eunuch, clapped his fat hands; the ropes were cast off, and the forty maidens dipped their light cedar oars in the placid waters. The barge “Beauties of the Sun Disc” drew out slowly into the dancing waters of the lake.

Seated in the shadow of the great checkered sail, Queen Thi smiled her appreciation of the novel surprise which her maidens had prepared for her. As the vessel drew out through the nodding lotus flowers Kema’s flute made soft music which seemed to mingle with the pearling ripples of the waters. Kema, it seems, played the flute so well that the cranes and water-fowl often lit upon the sides of the barge to hear him.

Queen Thi was not aware that novel entertainments such as this had been customary with the Egyptian court from days immemorial. She was now to hear of just such a method of distraction as had been practiced under the great Egyptian monarch Senefru, who had lived, died and been laid to rest, high up in his colossal pyramid, some twenty centuries before her time.

For Sianekh, the story-teller, suddenly appeared and seated herself upon the deck in front of the Queen’s chair. As was her custom, she neglected both the prostration and the formulæ of greeting. Sianekh was a privileged character at Court, a favorite with the late King, both on account of her inexhaustible fund of stories and because of the fact that Pepi, her husband, had lost his life while defending his royal master from the attack of a wounded lion.

Yes! Thi’s obese and indolent husband, the late Pharaoh, had once been inordinately fond of lion-hunting. One hundred and two lions he had killed with his own arrows. One had gone down upon the very expedition so fatal to his chariot-driver, Pepi. But it was the last animal of that great hunt which had sent Sianekh’s husband to the Valley of Shadows. Pharaoh never forgot Pepi’s sacrifice. Pepi’s tomb never lacked its offerings of beer, wine and milk, flesh and fowl or of fresh white linens for the rewrapping of his mummy.

Sianekh, the story-teller, slipped from the sleeve of her loose white mantle a small ebony wand tipped with electrum.

Without preamble she commenced a tale of King Senefru’s days, a tale of the epoch of those gods of old, the pyramid-builders.

In her monotonous singsong she told how the good king, tired with the cares of state and oppressed by the great heat of noonday, sought a cool spot in which to rest, and found it not. How his son flew upstream in the fleetest royal barge in search of a famous magician. How he found him fishing in the Nile without a hook, and finally persuaded him to come to his father’s court.

She told of the wonders performed there by the aged seer. Of wine turned to honey. Of bees which went into a little hive only to emerge as brilliantly colored birds resembling those of distant Punt. Of the goose’s head which he restored to its body so that it sprang once more to its feet and rushed cackling and hissing from their midst.