by Georg Ebers
CHAPTER XXIII.
The news of the end of the sacred ram of Anion, and of the death of thebull Apis of Memphis, had reached the House of Seti, and was receivedthere with loud lamentation, in which all its inhabitants joined, fromthe chief haruspex down to the smallest boy in the school-courts.
The superior of the institution, Ameni, had been for three days inThebes, and was expected to return to-day. His arrival was looked forwith anxiety and excitement by many. The chief of the haruspices waseager for it that he might hand over the imprisoned scholars to condignpunishment, and complain to him of Pentaur and Bent-Anat; the initiatedknew that important transactions must have been concluded on the fartherside of the Nile; and the rebellious disciples knew that now sternjustice would be dealt to them.
The insurrectionary troop were locked into an open court upon bread andwater, and as the usual room of detention of the establishment was toosmall for them all, for two nights they had had to sleep in a loft onthin straw mats. The young spirits were excited to the highest pitch,but each expressed his feelings in quite a different manner.
Bent-Anat's brother, Rameses' son, Rameri, had experienced the sametreatment as his fellows, whom yesterday he had led into every sort ofmischief, with even more audacity than usual, but to-day he hung hishead.
In a corner of the court sat Anana, Pentaur's favorite scholar, hidinghis face in his hands which rested on his knees. Rameri went up to him,touched his shoulders and said:
"We have played the game, and now must bear the consequences for goodand for evil. Are you not ashamed of yourself, old boy? Your eyes arewet, and the drops here on your hands have not fallen from the clouds.You who are seventeen, and in a few months will be a scribe and a grownman!"
Anana looked at the prince, dried his eyes quickly; and said:
"I was the ring-leader. Ameni will turn me out of the place, and I mustreturn disgraced to my poor mother, who has no one in the world but me."
"Poor fellow!" said Rameri kindly. "It was striking at random! If onlyour attempt had done Pentaur any good!"
"We have done him harm, on the contrary," said Anana vehemently,"and have behaved like fools!" Rameri nodded in full assent, lookedthoughtful for a moment, and then said:
"Do you know, Anana, that you were not the ringleader? The trick wasplanned in this crazy brain; I take the whole blame on my own shoulders.I am the son of Rameses, and Ameni will be less hard on me than on you."
"He will examine us all," replied Anana, "and I will be punished soonerthan tell a lie."
Rameri colored.
"Have you ever known my tongue sin against the lovely daughter of Ra?"he exclaimed. "But look here! did I stir up Antef, Hapi, Sent and allthe others or no? Who but I advised you to find out Pentaur? Did Ithreaten to beg my father to take me from the school of Seti or not? Iwas the instigator of the mischief, I pulled the wires, and if we arequestioned let me speak first. Not one of you is to mention Anana'sname; do you hear? not one of you, and if they flog us or deprive us ofour food we all stick to this, that I was guilty of all the mischief."
"You are a brave fellow!" said the son of the chief priest of Anion,shaking his right hand, while Anana held his left.
The prince freed himself laughing from their grasp.
"Now the old man may come home," he exclaimed, "we are ready for him.But all the same I will ask my father to send me to Chennu, as sure asmy name is Rameri, if they do not recall Pentaur."
"He treated us like school-boys!" said the eldest of the youngmalefactors.
"And with reason," replied Rameri, "I respect him all the more for it.You all think I am a careless dog--but I have my own ideas, and I willspeak the words of wisdom."
With these words he looked round on his companions with comical gravity,and continued--imitating Ameni's manner:
"Great men are distinguished from little men by this--they scorn andcontemn all which flatters their vanity, or seems to them for the momentdesirable, or even useful, if it is not compatible with the laws whichthey recognize, or conducive to some great end which they have setbefore them; even though that end may not be reached till after theirdeath.
"I have learned this, partly from my father, but partly I have thoughtit out for myself; and now I ask you, could Pentaur as 'a great man'have dealt with us better?"
"You have put into words exactly what I myself have thought ever sinceyesterday," cried Anana. "We have behaved like babies, and instead ofcarrying our point we have brought ourselves and Pentaur into disgrace."
The rattle of an approaching chariot was now audible, and Rameriexclaimed, interrupting Anana, "It is he. Courage, boys! I am the guiltyone. He will not dare to have me thrashed--but he will stab me withlooks!"
Ameni descended quickly from his chariot. The gate-keeper informed himthat the chief of the kolchytes, and the inspector of victims from thetemple of Anion, desired to speak with him.
"They must wait," said the Prophet shortly. "Show them meanwhile intothe garden pavilion. Where is the chief haruspex?"
He had hardly spoken when the vigorous old man for whom he was enquiringhurried to meet him, to make him acquainted with all that had occurredin his absence. But the high-priest had already heard in Thebes all thathis colleague was anxious to tell him.
When Ameni was absent from the House of Seti, he caused accurateinformation to be brought to him every morning of what had taken placethere.
Now when the old man began his story he interrupted him.
"I know everything," he said. "The disciples cling to Pentaur, and havecommitted a folly for his sake, and you met the princess Bent-Anat withhim in the temple of Hatasu, to which he had admitted a woman of lowrank before she had been purified. These are grave matters, and must beseriously considered, but not to-day. Make yourself easy; Pentaur willnot escape punishment; but for to-day we must recall him to this temple,for we have need of him to-morrow for the solemnity of the feast of thevalley. No one shall meet him as an enemy till he is condemned; I desirethis of you, and charge you to repeat it to the others."
The haruspex endeavored to represent to his superior what a scandalwould arise from this untimely clemency; but Ameni did not allow him totalk, he demanded his ring back, called a young priest, delivered theprecious signet into his charge, and desired him to get into his chariotthat was waiting at the door, and carry to Pentaur the command, in hisname, to return to the temple of Seti.
The haruspex submitted, though deeply vexed, and asked whether theguilty boys were also to go unpunished.
"No more than Pentaur," answered Ameni. "But can you call thisschool-boy's trick guilt? Leave the children to their fun, and theirimprudence. The educator is the destroyer, if he always and only keepshis eyes open, and cannot close them at the right moment. Beforelife demands of us the exercise of serious duties we have a mightyover-abundance of vigor at our disposal; the child exhausts it in play,and the boy in building wonder-castles with the hammer and chisel ofhis fancy, in inventing follies. You shake your head, Septah! but I tellyou, the audacious tricks of the boy are the fore-runners of the deedsof the man. I shall let one only of the boys suffer for what is past,and I should let him even go unpunished if I had not other pressingreasons for keeping him away from our festival."
The haruspex did not contradict his chief; for he knew that when Ameni'seyes flashed so suddenly, and his demeanor, usually so measured, was asrestless as at present, something serious was brewing.
The high-priest understood what was passing in Septah's mind.
"You do not understand me now," said he. "But this evening, at themeeting of the initiated, you shall know all. Great events are stirring.The brethren in the temple of Anion, on the other shore, have fallen offfrom what must always be the Holiest to us white-robed priests, and willstand in our way when the time for action is arrived. At the feast ofthe valley we shall stand in competition with the brethren from Thebes.All Thebes will be present at the solemn service, and it must be provedwhich knows how to serve the Divinity most w
orthily, they or we. We mustavail ourselves of all our resources, and Pentaur we certainly cannot dowithout. He must fill the function of Cherheb
[Cherheb was the title of the speaker or reciter at a festival. We cannot agree with those who confuse this personage with the chief of the Kolchytes.]
for to-morrow only; the day after he must be brought to judgment. Amongthe rebellious boys are our best singers, and particularly young Anana,who leads the voices of the choir-boys.
"I will examine the silly fellows at once. Rameri--Rameses' son--wasamong the young miscreants?"
"He seems to have been the ring-leader," answered Septah.
Ameni looked at the old man with a significant smile, and said:
"The royal family are covering themselves with honor! His eldestdaughter must be kept far from the temple and the gathering of thepious, as being unclean and refractory, and we shall be obliged to expelhis son too from our college. You look horrified, but I say to youthat the time for action is come. More of this, this evening. Now, onequestion: Has the news of the death of the ram of Anion reached you?Yes? Rameses himself presented him to the God, and they gave it hisname. A bad omen."
"And Apis too is dead!" The haruspex threw up his arms in lamentation.
"His Divine spirit has returned to God," replied Ameni. "Now we havemuch to do. Before all things we must prove ourselves equal to those inThebes over there, and win the people over to our side. The panegyricprepared by us for to-morrow must offer some great novelty. The RegentAni grants us a rich contribution, and--"
"And," interrupted Septah, "our thaumaturgists understand thingsvery differently from those of the house of Anion, who feast while wepractise."
Ameni nodded assent, and said with a smile: "Also we are moreindispensable than they to the people. They show them the path of life,but we smooth the way of death. It is easier to find the way without aguide in the day-light than in the dark. We are more than a match forthe priests of Anion."
"So long as you are our leader, certainly," cried the haruspex.
"And so long as the temple has no lack of men of your temper!" addedAmeni, half to Septah, and half to the second prophet of the temple,sturdy old Gagabu, who had come into the room.
Both accompanied him into the garden, where the two priests wereawaiting him with the miraculous heart.
Ameni greeted the priest from the temple of Anion with dignifiedfriendliness, the head kolchytes with distant reserve, listened to theirstory, looked at the heart which lay in the box, with Septah and Gagabu,touched it delicately with the tips of his fingers, carefully examiningthe object, which diffused a strong perfume of spices; then he saidearnestly:
"If this, in your opinion, kolchytes, is not a human heart, and if inyours, my brother of the temple of Anion, it is a ram's heart, and ifit was found in the body of Rui, who is gone to Osiris, we here have amystery which only the Gods can solve. Follow me into the great court.Let the gong be sounded, Gagabu, four times, for I wish to call all thebrethren together."
The gong rang in loud waves of sound to the farthest limits of the groupof buildings. The initiated, the fathers, the temple-servants, and thescholars streamed in, and in a few minutes were all collected. Not a manwas wanting, for at the four strokes of the rarely-sounded alarum everydweller in the House of Seti was expected to appear in the court of thetemple. Even the leech Nebsecht came; for he feared that the unusualsummons announced the outbreak of a fire.
Ameni ordered the assembly to arrange itself in a procession, informedhis astonished hearers that in the breast of the deceased prophet Rui, aram's heart, instead of a man's, had been found, and desired them all tofollow his instructions. Each one, he said, was to fall on his kneesand pray, while he would carry the heart into the holiest of holies, andenquire of the Gods what this wonder might portend to the faithful.
Ameni, with the heart in his hand, placed himself at the head of theprocession, and disappeared behind the veil of the sanctuary, theinitiated prayed in the vestibule, in front of it; the priests andscholars in the vast court, which was closed on the west by the statelycolonnade and the main gateway to the temple.
For fully an hour Ameni remained in the silent holy of holies, fromwhich thick clouds of incense rolled out, and then he reappeared witha golden vase set with precious stones. His tall figure was nowresplendent with rich ornaments, and a priest, who walked before him,held the vessel high above his head.
Ameni's eyes seemed spell-bound to the vase, and he followed it,supporting himself by his crozier, with humble inflections.
The initiated bowed their heads till they touched the pavement, andthe priests and scholars bent their faces down to the earth, when theybeheld their haughty master so filled with humility and devotion. Theworshippers did not raise themselves till Ameni had reached the middleof the court and ascended the steps of the altar, on which the vasewith the heart was now placed, and they listened to the slow and solemnaccents of the high-priest which sounded clearly through the wholecourt.
"Fall down again and worship! wonder, pray, and adore! The nobleinspector of sacrifices of the temple of Anion has not been deceivedin his judgment; a ram's heart was in fact found in the pious breast ofRui. I heard distinctly the voice of the Divinity in the sanctuary, andstrange indeed was the speech that met my ear. Wolves tore the sacredram of Anion in his sanctuary on the other bank of the river, but theheart of the divine beast found its way into the bosom of the saintlyRui. A great miracle has been worked, and the Gods have shown awonderful sign. The spirit of the Highest liked not to dwell in the bodyof this not perfectly holy ram, and seeking a purer abiding-place foundit in the breast of our Rui; and now in this consecrated vase. In thisthe heart shall be preserved till a new ram offered by a worthy handenters the herd of Anion. This heart shall be preserved with the mostsacred relics, it has the property of healing many diseases, and thesignificant words seem favorable which stood written in the midst of thevapor of incense, and which I will repeat to you word for word, 'Thatwhich is high shall rise higher, and that which exalts itself, shallsoon fall down.' Rise, pastophori! hasten to fetch the holy images,bring them out, place the sacred heart at the head of the procession,and let us march round the walls of the temple with hymns of praise. Yetemple-servants, seize your staves, and spread in every part of the citythe news of the miracle which the Divinity has vouchsafed to us."
After the procession had marched round the temple and dispersed, thepriest of Anion took leave of Ameni; he bowed deeply and formally beforehim, and with a coolness that was almost malicious said:
"We, in the temple of Anion, shall know how to appreciate what you heardin the holy of holies. The miracle has occurred, and the king shalllearn how it came to pass, and in what words it was announced."
"In the words of the Most High," said the high priest with dignity;he bowed to the other, and turned to a group of priests, who werediscussing the great event of the day.
Ameni enquired of them as to the preparations for the festival of themorrow, and then desired the chief haruspex to call the refractorypupils together in the school-court. The old man informed him thatPentaur had returned, and he followed his superior to the releasedprisoners, who, prepared for the worst, and expecting severe punishment,nevertheless shook with laughter when Rameri suggested that, if bychance they were condemned to kneel upon peas, they should get themcooked first.
"It will be long asparagus
[Asparagus was known to the Egyptians. Pliny says they held in their mouths, as a remedy for toothache, wine in which asparagus had been cooked.]--not peas," said another looking over his shoulder, and pretending tobe flogging. They all shouted again with laughter, but it was hushed assoon as they heard Ameni's well-known footstep.
Each feared the worst, and when the high-priest stood before them evenRameri's mirth was quite quelled, for though Ameni looked neitherangry nor threatening, his appearance commanded respect, and each onerecognized in him a judge against whose verdict no remonstrance was tobe thought
of.
To their infinite astonishment Ameni spoke kindly to the thoughtlessboys, praised the motive of their action--their attachment to ahighly-endowed teacher--but then clearly and deliberately laid beforethem the folly of the means they had employed to attain their end, andat what a cost. "Only think," he continued, turning to the prince,"if your father sent a general, who he thought would be better in adifferent place, from Syria to Kusch, and his troops therefore all wentover to the enemy! How would you like that?"
So for some minutes he continued to blame and warn them, and he endedhis speech by promising, in consideration of the great miracle that gavethat day a special sanctity, to exercise unwonted clemency. For the sakeof example, he said, he could not let them pass altogether unpunished,and he now asked them which of them had been the instigator of the deed;he and he only should suffer punishment.
He had hardly clone speaking, when prince Rameri stepped forward, andsaid modestly:
"We acknowledge, holy father, that we have played a foolish trick; and Ilament it doubly because I devised it, and made the others follow me.I love Pentaur, and next to thee there is no one like him in thesanctuary."
Ameni's countenance grew dark, and he answered with displeasure:
"No judgment is allowed to pupils as to their teachers--nor to you. Ifyou were not the son of the king, who rules Egypt as Ra, I would punishyour temerity with stripes. My hands are tied with regard to you, andyet they must be everywhere and always at work if the hundreds committedto my care are to be kept from harm."
"Nay, punish me!" cried Rameri. "If I commit a folly I am ready to bearthe consequences."
Ameni looked pleased at the vehement boy, and would willingly haveshaken him by the hand and stroked his curly head, but the penance heproposed for Rameri was to serve a great end, and Ameni would notallow any overflow of emotion to hinder him in the execution of a wellconsidered design. So he answered the prince with grave determination:
"I must and will punish you--and I do so by requesting you to leave theHouse 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 afriendly farewell. In a few weeks you would in any case have left thecollege, and by the king's command have transferred your blooming life,health, and strength to the exercising ground of the chariot-brigade. Nopunishment for you but this lies in my power. Now give me your hand; youwill make a fine man, and perhaps a great warrior."
The prince stood in astonishment before Ameni, and did not take hisoffered hand. Then the priest went up to him, and said:
"You said you were ready to take the consequences of your folly, anda prince's word must be kept. Before sunset we will conduct you to thegate of the temple."
Ameni turned his back on the boys, and left the school-court.
Rameri looked after him. Utter whiteness had overspread his bloomingface, and the blood had left even his lips. None of his companionsapproached him, for each felt that what was passing in his soul at thismoment would brook no careless intrusion. No one spoke a word; they alllooked at him.
He soon observed this, and tried to collect himself, and then he said ina 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 likethis--that such a blow must be inflicted on my father?"
"You refused Ameni your hand!" answered Anana. "Go to him, offer himyour hand, beg him to be less severe, and perhaps he will let youremain."
Rameri answered only "No." But that "No" was so decided that all whoknew 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 understandhis severity, and allowed the other scholars to accompany him as far asthe Nile. Pentaur parted from him tenderly at the gate.
When Rameri was alone in the cabin of his gilt bark with his tutor, hefelt 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 onshore, and in a few minutes he was with his sister in the palace.
