CHAPTER X
Pharaoh Seeks to Exalt a Foreign God
Pharoah stirred.
At once two ebony black Nubians recommenced to wave their ostrich-feather fans above his restless head.
Again did Shamash, an Asiatic eunuch, hold to his master’s nose a small glass phial of somnific poppy-oil.
Once again did Bekit, his little daughter, chafe with fragrant sandal oil his fleshless ankles.
All in vain! Pharaoh’s frame failed to relax.
Suddenly, with an impatient gesture, Pharaoh pushed aside the ivory head-rest and summoned Dedu, Keeper of the Royal Linen.
The rebuffed, but smiling Bekit, held to her father’s lips a blue glazed goblet filled to its lotiform brim with sparkling Thinite wine. As he drank, the swaying forms of Ata and Mai, youngest of the court dancers, rose from the floor beyond him. Barely had they assumed a single graceful posture before the gold seal-ring upon Pharaoh’s hand flashed in the semi-gloom. He waved them impatiently aside.
Entering softly, Dedu, Keeper of the Royal Linen, carefully drew back the curtains from the windows. These green byssus draperies had served to keep out the brilliant rays of the sun, as reflected from Queen Thi’s “pleasure lake,” on the northern shore of which Perao, the royal palace, stood.
Thus, one might admire the charming decoration of the room, with its green tiled walls, its cedar columns, its elaborately designed ceiling, and its painted stucco floor covered with powdered lazuli and gold dust.