He took me forward to a great water jar that stood upon the prow and, behold! it seemed to be full of blood, and in it was a fish dead, and—stinking.
“This water,” said he, “I drew from the Nile with my own hands, not five hours sail to the north. But now we have outsped the blood, which follows after us,” and taking a lamp he held it over the prow of the boat and I saw that all its planks were splashed as though with blood.
“Be advised by me, learned scribe,” he added, “and fill every jar and skin that you can gather with sweet water, lest to-morrow you and your company should go thirsty,” and he laughed a very dreary laugh.
Then we parted without more words, for neither of us knew what to say, and about midnight he sailed on with the wind, taking his chance of grounding on the sandbanks in the darkness.
For my part I did as he bade me, though my rowers who had not spoken with his men, thought that I was mad to load up the barge with so much water.
At the first break of day I gave the order to start. Looking over the side of the barge it seemed to me as though the lights of dawn had fallen from the sky into the Nile whereof the water had become pink-hued. Moreover, this hue, which grew ever deeper, was travelling up stream, not down, against the course of nature, and could not therefore have been caused by red soil washed from the southern lands. The bargemen stared and muttered together. Then one of them, leaning over the side, scooped up water in the hollow of his hand and drew some into his mouth, only to spit it out again with a cry of fear.
“’Tis blood,” he cried. “Blood! Osiris has been slain afresh, and his holy blood fills the banks of Nile.”
So much were they afraid, indeed, that had I not forced them to hold to their course they would have turned and rowed up stream, or beached the boat and fled into the desert. But I cried to them to steer on northwards, for thus perhaps we should sooner be done with this horror, and they obeyed me. Ever as we went the hue of the water grew more red, almost to blackness, till at last it seemed as though we were travelling through a sea of gore in which dead fish floated by the thousand, or struggled dying on the surface. Also the stench was so dreadful that we must bind linen about our nostrils to strain the foetid air.
We came abreast of a town, and from its streets one great wail of terror rose to heaven. Men stood staring as though they were drunken, looking at their red arms which they had dipped in the stream, and women ran to and fro upon the bank, tearing their hair and robes, and crying out such words as—
“Wizard’s work! Bewitched! Accursed! The gods have slain each other, and men too must die!” and so forth.