The Greatest Historical Novels of Georg Ebers. Georg Ebers
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minutes; then the poet whispered to his guide:
“They are speaking Egyptian, I caught a few words.”
“All the better,” said Kaschta. “Paaker or some of his people are in there; the door is there still, and shut. If we give four hard and three gentle knocks, it will be opened. Can you understand what they are saying?”
“Some one is begging to be set free,” replied Pentaur, “and speaks of some traitor. The other has a rough voice, and says he must follow his master’s orders. Now the one who spoke before is crying; do you hear? He is entreating him by the soul of his father to take his fetters off. How despairing his voice is! Knock, Kaschta—it strikes me we are come at the right moment—knock, I say.”
The soldier knocked first four times, then three times. A shriek rang through the cave, and they could hear a heavy, rusty bolt drawn back, the roughly hewn door was opened, and a hoarse voice asked:
“Is that Paaker?”
“No,” answered the soldier, “I am Kaschta. Do not you know me again, Nubi?”
The man thus addressed, who was Paaker’s Ethiopian slave, drew back in surprise.
“Are you still alive?” he exclaimed. “What brings you here?”
“My lord here will tell you,” answered Kaschta as he made way for Pentaur to enter the cave. The poet went up to the black man, and the light of the fire which burned in the cave fell full on his face.
The old slave stared at him, and drew back in astonishment and terror. He threw himself on the earth, howled like a dog that fawns at the feet of his angry master, and cried out:
“He ordered it—Spirit of my master! he ordered it.” Pentaur stood still, astounded and incapable of speech, till he perceived a young man, who crept up to him on his hands and feet, which were bound with thongs, and who cried to him in a tone, in which terror was mingled with a tenderness which touched Pentaur’s very soul.
“Save me—Spirit of the Mohar! save me, father!” Then the poet spoke.
“I am no spirit of the dead,” said he. “I am the priest Pentaur; and I know you, boy; you are Horus, Paaker’s brother, who was brought up with me in the temple of Seti.”
The prisoner approached him trembling, looked at him enquiringly and exclaimed:
“Be you who you may, you are exactly like my father in person and in voice. Loosen my bonds, and listen to me, for the most hideous, atrocious, and accursed treachery threatens us the king and all.”
Pentaur drew his sword, and cut the leather thongs which bound the young man’s hands and feet. He stretched his released limbs, uttering thanks to the Gods, then he cried:
“If you love Egypt and the king follow me; perhaps there is yet time to hinder the hideous deed, and to frustrate this treachery.”
“The night is dark,” said Kaschita, “and the road to the valley is dangerous.”
“You must follow me if it is to your death!” cried the youth, and, seizing Pentaur’s hand, he dragged him with him out of the cave.
As soon as the black slave had satisfied himself that Pentaur was the priest whom he had seen fighting in front of the paraschites’ hovel, and not the ghost of his dead master, he endeavored to slip past Paaker’s brother, but Horus observed the manoeuvre, and seized him by his woolly hair. The slave cried out loudly, and whimpered out:
“If thou dost escape, Paaker will kill me; he swore he would.”
“Wait!” said the youth. He dragged the slave back, flung him into the cave, and blocked up the door with a huge log which lay near it for that purpose.
When the three men had crept back through the low passage in the rocks, and found themselves once more in the open air, they found a high wind was blowing.
“The storm will soon be over,” said Horus. “See how the clouds are driving! Let us have horses, Pentaur, for there is not a minute to be lost.”
The poet ordered Kaschta to summon the people to start but the soldier advised differently.
“Men and horses are exhausted,” he said, “and we shall get on very slowly in the dark. Let the beasts feed for an hour, and the men get rested and warm; by that time the moon will be up, and we shall make up for the delay by having fresh horses, and light enough to see the road.”
“The man is right,” said Horus; and he led Kaschta to a cave in the rocks, where barley and dates for the horses, and a few jars of wine, had been preserved. They soon had lighted a fire, and while some of the men took care of the horses, and others cooked a warm mess of victuals, Horus and Pentaur walked up and down impatiently.
“Had you been long bound in those thongs when we came?” asked Pentaur.
“Yesterday my brother fell upon me,” replied Horus. “He is by this time a long way ahead of us, and if he joins the Cheta, and we do not reach the Egyptian camp before daybreak, all is lost.”
“Paaker, then, is plotting treason?”
“Treason, the foulest, blackest treason!” exclaimed the young man. “Oh, my lost father!—”
“Confide in me,” said Pentaur going up to the unhappy youth who had hidden his face in his hands. “What is Paaker plotting? How is it that your brother is your enemy?”
“He is the elder of us two,” said Horus with a trembling voice. “When my father died I had only a short time before left the school of Seti, and with his last words my father enjoined me to respect Paaker as the head of our family. He is domineering and violent, and will allow no one’s will to cross his; but I bore everything, and always obeyed him, often against my better judgment. I remained with him two years, then I went to Thebes, and there I married, and my wife and child are now living there with my mother. About sixteen months afterwards I came back to Syria, and we travelled through the country together; but by this time I did not choose to be the mere tool of my brother’s will, for I had grown prouder, and it seemed to me that the father of my child ought not to be subservient, even to his own brother. We often quarrelled, and had a bad time together, and life became quite unendurable, when—about eight weeks since—Paaker came back from Thebes, and the king gave him to understand that he approved more of my reports than of his. From my childhood I have always been softhearted and patient; every one says I am like my mother; but what Paaker made me suffer by words and deeds, that is—I could not—” His voice broke, and Pentaur felt how cruelly he had suffered; then he went on again:
“What happened to my brother in Egypt, I do not know, for he is very reserved, and asks for no sympathy, either in joy or in sorrow; but from words he has dropped now and then I gather that he not only bitterly hates Mena, the charioteer—who certainly did him an injury—but has some grudge against the king too. I spoke to him of it at once, but only once, for his rage is unbounded when he is provoked, and after all he is my elder brother.
“For some days they have been preparing in the camp for a decisive battle, and it was our duty to ascertain the position and strength of the enemy; the king gave me, and not Paaker, the commission to prepare the report. Early yesterday morning I drew it out and wrote it; then my brother said he would carry it to the camp, and I was to wait here. I positively refused, as Rameses had required the report at my hands, and not at his. Well, he raved like a madman, declared that I had taken advantage of his absence to insinuate myself into the king’s favor, and commanded me to obey him as the head of the house, in the name of my father.
“I was sitting irresolute, when he went out of the cavern to call his horses; then my eyes fell on the things which the old black slave was tying together to load on a pack-horse—among them was a roll of writing. I fancied it was my own, and took it up to look at it, when—what should I find? At the risk of my life I had gone among the Cheta, and had found that the main body of their army is collected in a cross-valley of the Orontes, quite hidden in the mountains to the north-east of Kadesh; and in the roll it was