The Greatest Historical Novels of Georg Ebers. Georg Ebers
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dark, and he answered with displeasure:
“No judgment is allowed to pupils as to their teachers—nor to you. If you were not the son of the king, who rules Egypt as Ra, I would punish your temerity with stripes. My hands are tied with regard to you, and yet they must be everywhere and always at work if the hundreds committed to my care are to be kept from harm.”
“Nay, punish me!” cried Rameri. “If I commit a folly I am ready to bear the consequences.”
Ameni looked pleased at the vehement boy, and would willingly have shaken him by the hand and stroked his curly head, but the penance he proposed for Rameri was to serve a great end, and Ameni would not allow any overflow of emotion to hinder him in the execution of a well considered design. So he answered the prince with grave determination:
“I must and will punish you—and I do so by requesting you to leave the House of Seti this very day.”
The prince turned pale. But Ameni went on more kindly:
“I do not expel you with ignominy from among us—I only bid you a friendly farewell. In a few weeks you would in any case have left the college, and by the king’s command have transferred your blooming life, health, and strength to the exercising ground of the chariot-brigade. No punishment for you but this lies in my power. Now give me your hand; you will make a fine man, and perhaps a great warrior.”
The prince stood in astonishment before Ameni, and did not take his offered hand. Then the priest went up to him, and said:
“You said you were ready to take the consequences of your folly, and a prince’s word must be kept. Before sunset we will conduct you to the gate of the temple.”
Ameni turned his back on the boys, and left the school-court.
Rameri looked after him. Utter whiteness had overspread his blooming face, and the blood had left even his lips. None of his companions approached him, for each felt that what was passing in his soul at this moment would brook no careless intrusion. No one spoke a word; they all looked at him.
He soon observed this, and tried to collect himself, and then he said in a low tone while he held out his hands to Anana and another friend:
“Am I then so bad that I must be driven out from among you all like this—that such a blow must be inflicted on my father?”
“You refused Ameni your hand!” answered Anana. “Go to him, offer him your hand, beg him to be less severe, and perhaps he will let you remain.”
Rameri answered only “No.” But that “No” was so decided that all who knew him understood that it was final.
Before the sun set he had left the school. Ameni gave him his blessing; he told him that if he himself ever had to command he would understand his severity, and allowed the other scholars to accompany him as far as the Nile. Pentaur parted from him tenderly at the gate.
When Rameri was alone in the cabin of his gilt bark with his tutor, he felt his eyes swimming in tears.
“Your highness is surely not weeping?” asked the official.
“Why?” asked the prince sharply.
“I thought I saw tears on your highness’ cheeks.”
“Tears of joy that I am out of the trap,” cried Rameri; he sprang on shore, and in a few minutes he was with his sister in the palace.
CHAPTER XXIV.
This eventful day had brought much that was unexpected to our friends in Thebes, as well as to those who lived in the Necropolis.
The Lady Katuti had risen early after a sleepless night. Nefert had come in late, had excused her delay by shortly explaining to her mother that she had been detained by Bent-Anat, and had then affectionately offered her brow for a kiss of “good-night.”
When the widow was about to withdraw to her sleeping-room, and Nemu had lighted her lamp, she remembered the secret which was to deliver Paaker into Ani’s hands. She ordered the dwarf to impart to her what he knew, and the little man told her at last, after sincere efforts at resistance—for he feared for his mother’s safety—that Paaker had administered half of a love-philter to Nefert, and that the remainder was still in his hands.
A few hours since this information would have filled Katuti with indignation and disgust; now, though she blamed the Mohar, she asked eagerly whether such a drink could be proved to have any actual effect.
“Not a doubt of it,” said the dwarf, “if the whole were taken, but Nefert only had half of it.”
At a late hour Katuti was still pacing her bedroom, thinking of Paaker’s insane devotion, of Mena’s faithlessness, and of Nefert’s altered demeanor; and when she went to bed, a thousand conjectures, fears, and anxieties tormented her, while she was distressed at the change which had come over Nefert’s love to her mother, a sentiment which of all others should be the most sacred, and the most secure against all shock.
Soon after sunrise she went into the little temple attached to the house, and made an offering to the statue, which, under the form of Osiris, represented her lost husband; then she went to the temple of Anion, where she also prayed a while, and nevertheless, on her return home, found that her daughter had not yet made her appearance in the hall where they usually breakfasted together.
Katuti preferred to be undisturbed during the early morning hours, and therefore did not interfere with her daughter’s disposition to sleep far into the day in her carefully-darkened room.
When the widow went to the temple Nefert was accustomed to take a cup of milk in bed, then she would let herself be dressed, and when her mother returned, she would find her in the veranda or hall, which is so well known to the reader.
To-day however Katuti had to breakfast alone; but when she had eaten a few mouthfuls she prepared Nefert’s breakfast—a white cake and a little wine in a small silver beaker, carefully guarded from dust and insects by a napkin thrown over it—and went into her daughter’s room.
She was startled at finding it empty, but she was informed that Nefert had gone earlier than was her wont to the temple, in her litter.
With a heavy sigh she returned to the veranda, and there received her nephew Paaker, who had come to enquire after the health of his relatives, followed by a slave, who carried two magnificent bunches of flowers, and by the great dog which had formerly belonged to his father. One bouquet he said had been cut for Nefert, and the other for her mother.96
Katuti had taken quite a new interest in Paaker since she had heard of his procuring the philter.
No other young man of the rank to which they belonged, would have allowed himself to be so mastered by his passion for a woman as this Paaker was, who went straight to his aim with stubborn determination, and shunned no means that might lead to it. The pioneer, who had grown up under her eyes, whose weaknesses she knew, and whom she was accustomed to look down upon, suddenly appeared to her as a different man—almost a stranger—as the deliverer of his friends, and the merciless antagonist of his enemies.
These reflections had passed rapidly through her mind. Now her eyes rested on the sturdy, strongly-knit figure of her nephew, and it struck her that he bore no resemblance to his tall, handsome father. Often had she admired her brother-in-law’s slender hand, that nevertheless could so effectually wield a sword, but that of his son was broad and ignoble in form.
While Paaker was telling her that he must shortly leave for Syria, she involuntarily observed the action of this hand, which often went cautiously to his girdle as if he had something concealed there; this was the oval phial with the rest of the philter. Katuti observed it, and her cheeks flushed when it occurred to her to guess what he had there.
The pioneer could not but observe Katuti’s agitation, and he said in a tone of