THE ANCIENT WORLD SERIES - Complete Haggard Edition. Henry Rider Haggard
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the water, swimming with great strokes. As the Pharaoh rose he seized him with his mighty hands and dragged him to the bank where he broke him like a stick, then cast him to the shore.
"Pharaoh Apepi is dead!" piped the thin voice of Anath, "but Pharaoh Khian lives! Life! Blood! Strength! Pharaoh! Pharaoh! Pharaoh!"
So he cried as he hacked at Khian's bonds and dragged away the gag, and all the multitude beneath took up the ancient greeting, shouting:
"Life! Blood! Strength! Pharaoh! Pharaoh! Pharaoh!"
It was evening. Khian lay upon a couch in the royal pavilion of the Babylonians, whither by his own command he had been brought, since as yet Nefra could not enter the city. The Lady Kemmah and a leech bathed his bruised face and bandaged his swollen knee, while Nefra, who stood near, shivered at the sight of a long red burn upon his flesh made by the touch of hot iron.
Then suddenly a question burst from her:
"Tell me, Khian, why did you fly away from me in the battle, when you might have escaped and spared us all this agony?"
"Did not some two thousand sound men and with them very many wounded rejoin this army upon that day, Lady," asked Khian, "being the survivors of the force which was sent to rescue me and the garrison of the mountain stronghold?"
"They did, and were questioned, but knew nothing except that you drove out your chariot and surrendered yourself to the Shepherds, after which the attack upon them ceased."
"Then do you not understand that sometimes it is right that one man should offer himself up for many?"
"Yes," answered Nefra, colouring, "I understand now--that you are even nobler than I thought. Yet, when you could have escaped, why did you fly away, as I saw you do?"
"Ask the Prophet Tau," replied Khian wearily.
"Why did Khian fly away, my Uncle? Tell me if you know, since he will not."
"Does not the oath sworn of those who enter into the fellowship of the Dawn demand that they shall never break a promise, Niece? Perchance our brother here had vowed to deliver himself up in Egypt, and did so, even when he might have stayed at your side. So at least I have believed from the first."
"Is that so, Khian?"
"It is so, Nefra. With this oath I bought the lives of those men. Would you have had me break it even to win my own--and you?"
"I cannot say, but oh! Khian, you are noble, who did this knowing that if you died, all my life I should have been ignorant /why/ you died, seeming to desert me."
"Not so, Nefra, since Tau knew and would have told you at his own time."
"How did you know that which was hid from me, my Uncle?"
"My office has its secrets, Niece. Enough that I knew, as I knew also that it would never be necessary for me to set out the truth to you."
"So you let me suffer all these things when there was no need, my Uncle!" exclaimed Nefra angrily.
"Perhaps, Niece, and to your own good. Why should you alone escape from suffering which is the medicine of the soul, you, who if you be the Queen of Egypt, are, as I would pray you to remember, first and foremost a sister of the Dawn and the servant of its laws? Be humble, Sister. Sacrifice your self-will. Learn to obey if you would command, and seek, not self-will or glory but the light. For so, when these little storms have rolled away, you shall find the eternal calm."
"Faith! Have faith!" muttered Temu who stood behind.
"Aye," went on Tau, "have faith and humility, for by faith we climb and in humility we serve--not ourselves but others, which is the only true service. I say these things to you now even in the hour of your joy, for soon we must part, I to my hermitage and you to your throne, and then who can reprove the Pharaoh on the throne?"
"You could and will, I am sure, my Uncle," Nefra answered, tossing her head.
Then suddenly her mood changed and, turning, she threw her arms about him and kissed him on the brow, saying:
"Oh! my most beloved Uncle, what is there that I do not owe to you? When I was a babe you saved me and my mother from the hands of those traitorous Theban nobles, with whom soon I hope to talk if they be still alive."
"I think that the Lady Kemmah and Ru here had something to do with that, Niece."
"Yes, yet they did but fulfil their offices, whereas you travelled up Nile to rescue us."
"Fulfilling /my/ orders, Niece."
"Then you brought us to the pyramids and there you watched over my childhood, teaching me all the little that I know. Afterwards it was you who led me to Babylon and in secret worked upon the heart of the Great King, so that, as though at my prayers, he abandoned his plan of wedding me to Mir-bel and gave me this great army that has brought us victory and peace."
"God, for His own purposes, changed the heart of my father, Ditanah, on that matter, not I, Niece."
"Afterwards," she continued, taking no heed of his words, "you comforted me in a hundred ways; also it was you who held me back from accompanying the five thousand to the mountain stronghold which, had I done so, would have brought me to death or shame. Oh! and I know not what besides. And how have I paid you back? Often enough with pride and angry words and rebellion against your commands; aye, and disbelief when you told me that if I found patience all would work for my good and that of Khian, whom I believed dead, even when you bade me hope on. Yet," she added in another voice, "if I behaved thus, it was your fault, not mine, for who was it that spoiled me in my youth, giving me my way when I should have been taught obedience?"
"The holy Roy, I think; also the Lady Kemmah," answered Tau with his quiet smile.
At this moment guards challenged without. Then the curtain of the pavilion was drawn and, heralded by Ru, there entered the old Vizier Anath and with him others of the councillors and captains of the Shepherds.
Anath and his company prostrated themselves thrice, to Nefra, to Khian, and to the Prince Abeshu, the General of the armies of Babylon.
"Queen and Princess," he said, "on behalf of all the Shepherds we come to surrender to you the city of Tanis and to pray your clemency for those who have fought against you and for every one who breathes within its walls. Is it granted?"
"Be my mouth and answer," said Nefra to Tau. "Your mind is my mind and by your words I will be bound, as I think will his Highness, the Prince Khian, who is still too sick for ceremonies."
"It is granted," said Tau. "To those who will be loyal to Nefra, Queen of Egypt, and to Khian, Prince of the North, whom she purposes to take as husband, all is forgiven. To-morrow we enter Tanis and proclaim the great peace."
"We hear and thank you, Queen and Princess," said Anath. "Now I have a word to say to the Prince Khian, I who come before him with the blood of Pharaoh on my hands, for which deed I crave pardon. Let the Prince hearken. When the Prince was cast into yonder prison, it was I who saved him with the help of yonder Brother of the Dawn and a certain jailer. Being suspected of this deed by Pharaoh I was disgraced and myself imprisoned. Therefore I could not rescue him when he was shut up in the pyramid or prevent his pursuit to the mountain outpost of the Babylonians where he took refuge. Afterwards I regained power because Pharaoh knew that I alone might perchance save him from the fangs of the Lion of Babylon. When the great host poured down upon Egypt I counselled Pharaoh to surrender and, if the Prince still lived, proclaim a marriage between his son, Khian and the royal Nefra. For answer he struck me like a dog--see, here are the marks"--and he touched his head. "Afterwards Pharaoh fled, his attack having failed, and the Prince Khian, through his own nobleness, fell into his power. I pleaded for his life in vain, both in the palace and on the gateway, but Pharaoh was mad with jealousy and hate and would have put the Prince to death by torment before the very eyes of the royal Nefra and of the host of Babylon. Then, before it was too late, I smote, and saved the Prince and the people of the Shepherds. Have I pardon for this deed?"
Now Tau went to where Khian lay upon his couch and talked with him apart. Presently he returned