Georg Ebers - Ultimate Collection: 20+ Historical Novels & Short Stories. Georg Ebers
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arrow.”
“You cruel fellow!” exclaimed Zopyrus. “Why do you remind us, that it is much more glorious to die in battle than to have our necks wrung off?”
“Quite right,” answered the elder man; “I confess that I have seen many a death, which I should prefer to our own,—indeed to life itself. Ah, boys, there was a time when things went better than they do now.”
“Tell us something about those times.”
“And tell us why you never married. It won’t matter to you in the next world, if we do let out your secret.”
“There’s no secret; any of your own fathers could tell you what you want to hear from me. Listen then. When I was young, I used to amuse myself with women, but I laughed at the idea of love. It occurred, however, that Panthea, the most beautiful of all women, fell into our hands, and Cyrus gave her into my charge, because I had always boasted that my heart was invulnerable. I saw her everyday, and learnt, my friends, that love is stronger than a man’s will. However, she refused all my offers, induced Cyrus to remove me from my office near her, and to accept her husband Abradatas as an ally. When her handsome husband went out to the war, this high-minded, faithful woman decked him out with all her own jewels and told him that the noble conduct of Cyrus, in treating her like a sister, when she was his captive, could only be repaid by the most devoted friendship and heroic courage. Abradatas agreed with her, fought for Cyrus like a lion, and fell. Panthea killed herself by his dead body. Her servants, on hearing of this, put an end to their own lives too at the grave of this best of mistresses. Cyrus shed tears over this noble pair, and had a stone set up to their memory, which you can see near Sardis. On it are the simple words: ‘To Panthea, Abradatas, and the most faithful of servants.’ You see, children, the man who had loved such a woman could never care for another.”
The young men listened in silence, and remained some time after Araspes had finished, without uttering a word. At last Bartja raised his hands to heaven and cried: “O thou great Auramazda! why dost thou not grant us a glorious end like Abradatas? Why must we die a shameful death like murderers?”
As he said this Croesus came in, fettered and led by whip-bearers. The friends rushed to him with a storm of questions, and Bartja too went up to embrace the man who had been so long his tutor and guide. But the old man’s cheerful face was severe and serious, and his eyes, generally so mild, had a gloomy, almost threatening, expression. He waved the prince coldly back, saying, in a voice which trembled with pain and reproach: “Let my hand go, you infatuated boy! you are not worth all the love I have hitherto felt for you. You have deceived your brother in a fourfold manner, duped your friends, betrayed that poor child who is waiting for you in Naukratis, and poisoned the heart of Amasis’ unhappy daughter.”
Bartja listened calmly till he heard the word “deceived”; then his hand clenched, and stamping his foot, he cried: “But for your age and infirmities, and the gratitude I owe you, old man, these slanderous words would be your last.”
Croesus beard this outbreak of just indignation unmoved, and answered: “This foolish rage proves that you and Cambyses have the same blood in your veins. It would become you much better to repent of your crimes, and beg your old friend’s forgiveness, instead of adding ingratitude to the unheard-of baseness of your other deeds.”
At these words Bartja’s anger gave way. His clenched hands sank down powerless at his side, and his cheeks became pale as death.
These signs of sorrow softened the old man’s indignation. His love was strong enough to embrace the guilty as well as the innocent Bartja, and taking the young man’s right hand in both his own, he looked at him as a father would who finds his son, wounded on the battle-field, and said: “Tell me, my poor, infatuated boy, how was it that your pure heart fell away so quickly to the evil powers?”
Bartja shuddered. The blood came back to his face, but these words cut him to the heart. For the first time in his life his belief in the justice of the gods forsook him.
He called himself the victim of a cruel, inexorable fate, and felt like a bunted animal driven to its last gasp and hearing the dogs and sportsmen fast coming nearer. He had a sensitive, childlike nature, which did not yet know how to meet the hard strokes of fate. His body and his physical courage had been hardened against bodily and physical enemies; but his teachers had never told him how to meet a hard lot in life; for Cambyses and Bartja seemed destined only to drink out of the cup of happiness and joy.
Zopyrus could not bear to see his friend in tears. He reproached the old man angrily with being unjust and severe. Gyges’ looks were full of entreaty, and Araspes stationed himself between the old man and the youth, as if to ward off the blame of the elder from cutting deeper into the sad and grieved heart of the younger man. Darius, however, after having watched them for some time, came up with quiet deliberation to Croesus, and said: “You continue to distress and offend one another, and yet the accused does not seem to know with what offence he is charged, nor will the accuser hearken to his defence. Tell us, Croesus, by the friendship which has subsisted between us up to this clay, what has induced you to judge Bartja so harshly, when only a short time ago you believed in his innocence?”
The old man told at once what Darius desired to know—that he had seen a letter, written in Nitetis’ own hand, in which she made a direct confession of her love to Bartja and asked him to meet her alone. The testimony of his own eyes and of the first men in the realm, nay, even the dagger found under Nitetis’ windows, had not been able to convince him that his favorite was guilty; but this letter had gone like a burning flash into his heart and destroyed the last remnant of his belief in the virtue and purity of woman.
“I left the king,” he concluded, “perfectly convinced that a sinful intimacy must subsist between your friend and the Egyptian Princess, whose heart I had believed to be a mirror for goodness and beauty alone. Can you find fault with me for blaming him who so shamefully stained this clear mirror, and with it his own not less spotless soul?”
“But how can I prove my innocence?” cried Bartja, wringing his hands. “If you loved me you would believe me; if you really cared for me.... ”
“My boy! in trying to save your life only a few minutes ago, I forfeited my own. When I heard that Cambyses had really resolved on your death, I hastened to him with a storm of entreaties; but these were of no avail, and then I was presumptuous enough to reproach him bitterly in his irritated state of mind. The weak thread of his patience broke, and in a fearful passion he commanded the guards to behead me at once. I was seized directly by Giv, one of the whip-bearers; but as the man is under obligations to me, he granted me my life until this morning, and promised to conceal the postponement of the execution. I am glad, my sons, that I shall not outlive you, and shall die an innocent man by the side of the guilty.”
These last words roused another storm of contradiction.
Again Darius remained calm and quiet in the midst of the tumult. He repeated once more the story of the whole evening exactly, to prove that it was impossible Bartja could have committed the crime laid to his charge. He then called on the accused himself to answer the charge of disloyalty and perfidy. Bartja rejected the idea of an understanding with Nitetis in such short, decided, and convincing words, and confirmed his assertion with such a fearful oath, that Croesus’ persuasion of his guilt first wavered, then vanished, and when Bartja had ended, he drew a deep breath, like a man delivered from a heavy burden, and clasped him in his arms.
But with all their efforts they could come to no explanation of what had really happened. In one thing, however, they were all agreed: that Nitetis loved Bartja and had written the letter with a wrong intention.
“No one who saw her,” cried Darius, “when Cambyses announced that Bartja had chosen a wife, could doubt for a moment that she was in love with him. When she let the goblet fall, I heard Phaedime’s father say that the Egyptian women seemed to take a great interest in the affairs of their brothers-in-law.”
While they were talking, the sun rose and shone pleasantly into the prisoners’ room.
“Bartja,” murmured Mithras, “means to make our parting difficult.”