One night, a night of terror and of horror, a spectre flew across the whole of Egypt, entering every house the door of which was not marked with red, and the first-born of the males died, the son of the Pharaoh as well as the son of the meanest hind; yet the King, notwithstanding all these dread signs, would not yield.
He remained within the recesses of his palace, fierce, silent, gazing at the body of his son stretched out upon the funeral couch with the jackals’ feet, and heedless of the tears of Tahoser which wetted his hand.
Mosche stood upon the threshold of the room without any one having introduced him, for all the servants had fled hither and thither; and he repeated his demand with imperturbable serenity.
“Go,” said Pharaoh at last, “and sacrifice unto your God as you please.”
Tahoser threw herself on the King’s neck, and said to him, “Now I love you, for you are a man, and not a god of granite.”
CHAPTER XVII
The Pharaoh did not answer Tahoser; he gazed with a sombre eye upon the body of his first-born son; his untamed pride rebelled, even as he yielded. In his heart he did not believe in the Lord, and he explained away the scourges which had smitten Egypt by attributing them to the magic power of Mosche and Aharon, which was greater than that of his magicians. The thought of yielding exasperated his violent, fierce soul.
But even had he wished to retain the Israelites, his terrified people would not have allowed it. The Egyptians, dreading to die, would all have driven out the foreigners who were the cause of their ills and suffering. They kept away from them with superstitious terror, and when the great Hebrew passed, followed by Aharon, the bravest fled, fearing some new prodigy, and they said, “Is not the rod of his companion about to turn into a serpent again and coil itself around us?”
Had Tahoser then forgotten Poëri when she threw her arms around the Pharaoh’s neck? In no wise; but she felt, springing up within the King’s obstinate soul, projects of vengeance and of extermination; she feared massacres in which would have fallen the young Hebrew and the gentle Ra’hel—a general destruction, which this time would have changed the waters of the Nile into real blood; and she strove to turn away the King’s wrath by her caresses and gentle words.
The funeral procession came for the body of the young prince, to carry it to the Memnonia quarter, where it was to undergo the preparation for embalming, which lasts seventy days. The Pharaoh saw the body depart with a gloomy look, and he said, as if filled with a melancholy presentiment—
“Now have I no longer a son, O Tahoser. If I die, you will be Queen of Egypt.”
“Why speak of death?” said the priest’s daughter; “years will follow years without leaving a trace of their passage upon your robust body, and generations will fall around you like the leaves around a tree which remains standing.”
“Have I not been vanquished—I who am invincible?” replied the Pharaoh. “Of what use are the bassi-relievi of the temples and the palaces which represent me armed with a scourge and a sceptre, driving my war chariot over bodies, and dragging by their hair subject nations, if I am obliged to yield to the spells of a foreign magician—if the gods to whom I have raised so many vast temples, built for eternity, do not defend me against the unknown god of that low race? The prestige of my power is forever gone; my wise men, reduced to silence, abandon me; my people murmur against me. I am only a mighty simulacrum. I willed, and I could not perform. You were right when you said just now, Tahoser, that I am a man. I have come down to the level of men. But since you love me now, I shall try to forget; I shall wed you when the funeral ceremonies are over.”
Fearing lest the Pharaoh should recall his word, the Hebrews were getting ready for departure, and soon their cohorts started, led by a cloud of smoke during the day and a pillar of fire by night. They took their way through the sandy wastes that lie between the Nile and the Sea of Weeds, avoiding the tribes which might have opposed their passage. One after another, the Hebrew tribes defiled in front of the copper statue made by the magicians, which possessed the property of stopping escaping slaves, but this time the spell, which had been invincible for centuries, failed to work; the Lord had destroyed it. The vast multitude advanced slowly, covering the land with its flocks, its beasts of burden laden with the riches borrowed from the Egyptians, dragging the enormous baggage of a nation which is suddenly migrating. The human eye could see neither the head nor the tail of the column, which disappeared on either horizon in a cloud of dust. If any one had sat down by the roadside to see pass the whole procession, he would have seen the sun rise and set more than once. Men came and came and came always. The sacrifice to the Lord was a vain pretext; Israel was leaving the land of Egypt forever, and the mummy of Yusouf, in its painted and gilded case, was carried along on the shoulders of bearers who were relieved at regular intervals.
So the Pharaoh became very wroth indeed, and resolved to pursue the fleeing Hebrews. He ordered six hundred war chariots to be prepared, called together his commanders, bound around his body his broad crocodile-leather belt, filled the two quivers in his car with arrows and javelins, drew on his wrist his brazen bracelet which deadens the vibration of the cord, and started, followed by a nation of soldiers. Furious and formidable, he urged his horses to their topmost speed, and behind him the six hundred chariots sounded with the noise of brass like earthly thunder. The foot-soldiers hastened on, but they were unable to keep up with his impetuous speed.
Often the Pharaoh was obliged to stop and await the rest of his army. During these halts he struck with his fist the edge of his chariot, stamped with impatience, and ground his teeth. He bent towards the horizon, seeking to perceive, behind the sand whirled by the wind, the fleeing tribes of the Hebrews, and raged at the thought that every hour increased the interval which separated them. Had not his officers held him back, he would have driven straight before him at the risk of finding himself single-handed against a whole people.
They were no longer traversing the green valley of Egypt, but plains varied with many changing hills and barred with undulations like the surface of the sea; the framework of the land was visible through the thin soil. Jagged rocks, broken into all sorts of shapes, as if giant animals had trampled them under foot when the earth was still in a condition of mud, on the day when it emerged from chaos, broke the stretches here and there, and relieved from time to time by their abrupt breaks the flat horizon-line which merged into that of the sky in a zone of reddish mist. At vast distances grew palm trees, outspreading their dusty leaves near some spring, frequently dried up, and in the mud of which the thirsty horses plunged their bloodshot nostrils.
But the Pharaoh, insensible to the rain of fire which fell from the white-hot heavens, at once gave the signal for departure, and horsemen and footmen started again on the march. Bodies of oxen or beasts of burden lying on either side, with spirals of vultures sweeping around above them, marked the passage of the Hebrews, and prevented the angry King from losing their track.
A swift army, practised to marching, goes faster than a migrating people which drags with it women, children, old men, baggage, and tents; so the distance was rapidly diminishing between the Egyptian troops and the Israelite tribes.
It was near Pi-ha’hiroth that the Egyptians came up with the Hebrews. The tribes were camped on the shore, but when the people saw shining in the sun the golden chariot of the Pharaoh, followed by his war chariots and his army, they uttered a mighty shout of terror, and began to curse Mosche, who had led them to destruction.
In point of fact their situation was desperate: in front of the Hebrews was the line of battle, behind them the deep sea. The women rolled on the ground, tearing their clothes, pulling at their hair, beating their breasts.
“Why did you not leave us in Egypt? Slavery is better than death, and you have led us into the desert to die. Were you afraid that we should not have sepulchres enough?”
Thus yelled the multitudes, furious with Mosche, who remained impassible. The bolder took up their
arms and prepared to defend themselves, but the confusion was frightful, and the war chariots, when they charged through that compact mass, would certainly make an awful slaughter.
Mosche stretched out his hand over the sea, after having called upon the name of the Lord, and then took place a wonder which no magician could have repeated; there arose an east wind of startling violence which blew through the waters of the Sea of Weeds like the share of a giant plough, throwing to right and left briny mountains crowned with crests of foam. Divided by the impetuosity of that irresistible wind, which would have swept away the pyramids like grains of dust, the waters rose like liquid walls and left free between them a broad way which could be traversed dry shod. Through their translucency, as behind thick glass, were seen marine monsters twisting and squirming, terrified at being surprised by daylight in the mysterious depths of the abyss.
The Hebrew tribes rushed through this miraculous issue, forming a human torrent that flowed between two steep banks of green waters. An innumerable race marked with two millions of black dots the livid bottom of the gulf, and impressed its feet upon mud which the belly of the leviathans alone had rayed; and the terrible wind still blew, passing over the heads of the Hebrews, whom it would have thrown to the ground like grain, and keeping back by its breath the heap of roaring waters.
It was the breath of the Lord which was dividing the sea.
Terrified at the wonder, the Egyptians hesitated to pursue the Hebrews, but the Pharaoh, with that high courage which nothing could daunt, urged on his horses, which reared and plunged, lashing them in turn with his terrible thonged whip, his eyes bloodshot, foaming at the lips, and roaring like a lion whose prey is escaping. He at last compelled them to enter that strangely opened road. The six hundred cars followed. The Israelites of the rear guard, among whom were Poëri, Ra’hel, and Thamar, believed themselves lost when they saw the enemy taking the same road that they had traversed. But when the Egyptians were fairly within the gulf, Mosche made a sign, the wheels of the cars fell off, and there was a horrible confusion of horses and warriors falling against each other. Then the mountains of water, miraculously sustained, suddenly fell, and the sea closed in, whirling in its foam men and animals and chariots like straw caught by the eddies in the current of a river.
Alone the Pharaoh, standing within his chariot, which had come to the surface, shot, drunk with pride and anger, the last arrows of his quiver against the Hebrews, who were now reaching the other shore. Having exhausted his arrows, he took up his javelin, and although already nearly half engulfed, with his arm alone above the water, he hurled it, a powerless weapon, against the unknown God whom he still braved from the depths of the abyss. A mighty billow, which rolled two or three times over the edge of the sea, engulfed the last remains.
Nothing was left of the glory and of the army of the Pharaoh.
On the other bank Miriam, the sister of Aharon, exulted and sang as she played on the timbrel, and all the women of Israel beat time upon onager-skins. Two millions of voices were singing the hymn of deliverance.
CHAPTER XVIII
Tahoser in vain awaited Pharaoh, and then reigned over Egypt. Then she also died after a short time. She was placed in the magnificent tomb which had been prepared for the king, whose body was never found; and her story, written upon papyrus, with the headings of the pages in red characters, by Kakevou, a scribe of the double chamber of light and keeper of the books, was placed by her side under the network of bands.
Was it the Pharaoh or Poëri she regretted? Kakevou the scribe does not tell us, and Dr. Rumphius, who translated the hieroglyphs of the Egyptian grammat, did not venture to settle the question.
As for Lord Evandale, he never married, although he was the last of his race. His young countrywomen cannot understand his coldness towards their sex. But it would never occur to them that Lord Evandale is retrospectively in love with Tahoser, the daughter of the high-priest Petamounoph, who died three thousand five hundred years ago. Yet there are English crazes which have less sound reason for their existence than this one.
OBSESSION, POSSESSION, by Elliott O’Donnell
Clocks, Chests, and Mummies
As I have already remarked, spirit or unknown brains are frequently present at births. The brains of infants are very susceptible to impressions, and, in them, the thought-germs of the occult brains find snug billets. As time goes on, these germs develop and become generally known as “tastes,” “cranks,” and “mamas.”
It is an error to think that men of genius are especially prone to mamas. On the contrary, the occult brains have the greatest difficulty in selecting thought-germs sufficiently subtle to lodge in the brain-cells of a child of genius. Practically, any germ of carnal thought will be sure of reception in the protoplasmic brain-cells of a child, who is destined to become a doctor, solicitor, soldier, shopkeeper, labourer, or worker in any ordinary occupation; but the thought-germ that will find entrance to the brain-cells of a future painter, writer, actor, or musician, must represent some propensity of a more or less extraordinary nature.
We all harbour these occult missiles, we are all to a certain extent mad: the proud mamma who puts her only son into the Church or makes a lawyer of him, and placidly watches him develop a scarlet face, double chin, and prodigious paunch, would flounce out a hundred and one indignant denials if anyone suggested he had a mania, but it would be true; gluttony would be his mania, and one every whit as prohibitive to his chances of reaching the spiritual plane, as drink, or sexual passion. Love of eating is, indeed, quite the commonest form of obsession, and one that develops soonest. Nine out of ten children—particularly present-day children, whose doting parents encourage their every desire—are fonder of cramming their bellies than of playing cricket or skipping; games soon weary them, but buns and chocolates never. The truth is, buns and chocolate have obsessed them. They think of them all day, and dream of them all night. It is buns and chocolates! wherever and whenever they turn or look—buns and chocolates! This greed soon develops, as the occult brain intended it should; enforced physical labour, or athletics, or even sedentary work may dwarf its growth for a time, but at middle and old age it comes on again, and the buns and chocolates are become so many coursed luncheons and dinners. Their world is one of menus, nothing but menus; their only mental exertion the study of menus, and I have no doubt that “tuck” shops and restaurants are besieged by the ever-hungry spirit of the earth-bound glutton. Though the drink-germ is usually developed later (and its later growth is invariably accelerated with seas of alcohol), it not infrequently feeds its initial growth with copious streams of ginger beer and lemon kali.
Manual labourers—i.e. navvies, coal-heavers, miners, etc.—are naturally more or less brutal. Their brain-cells at birth offered so little resistance to the evil occult influences that they received, in full, all the lower germs of thought inoculated by the occult brains. Drink, gluttony, cruelty, all came to their infant cerebrums cotemporaneously. The cruelty germ develops first, and cats, dogs, donkeys, smaller brothers, and even babies are made to feel the superior physical strength of the early wearer of hobnails. He is obsessed with a mania for hurting something, and with his strongly innate instinct of self-preservation, invariably chooses something that cannot harm him. Daily he looks around for fresh victims, and finally decides that the weedy offspring of the hated superior classes are the easiest prey in company with others of his species, he annihilates the boy in Etons on his way to and from school, and the after recollections of the weakling’s bloody nose and teardrops are as nectar to him. The cruelty germ develops apace. The bloody noses of the well-dressed classes are his mania now. He sees them at every turn and even dreams of them. He grows to manhood, and either digs in the road or plies the pick and shovel underground. The mechanical, monotonous exercise and the sordidness of his home surroundings foster the germ, and his leisure moments are occupied with the memory of those glorious times when he was hitting out at someone, and he feels he would give anything
just to have one more- blow. Curse the police! If it were not for them he could indulge his hobby to the utmost. But the stalwart, officious man in blue is ever on the scene, and the thrashing of a puny cleric or sawbones is scarcely compensation for a month’s hard labour. Yet his mania must be satisfied somehow—it worries him to pieces. He must either smash someone’s nose or go mad; there is no alternative, and he chooses the former. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals prevents him skinning a cat; the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children will be down on him at once if he strikes a child, and so he has no other resource left but his wife—he can knock out all her teeth, bash in her ribs, and jump on her head to his heart’s content. She will never dare prosecute him, and, if she does, some Humanitarian Society will be sure to see that he is not legally punished. He thus finds safe scope for the indulgence of his crank, and when there is nothing left of his own wife, he turns his unattractive and pusillanimous attentions to someone else’s.
But occult thought-germs of this elementary type only thrive where the infant’s spiritual or unknown brain is wholly undeveloped. Where the spiritual or unknown brain of an infant is partially developed, the germ-thought to be lodged in it (especially if it be a germ-thought of cruelty) must be of a more subtle and refined nature.
I have traced the growth of cruelty obsession in children one would not suspect of any great tendency to animalism. A refined love of making others suffer has led them to vent inquisitionary tortures on insects, and the mania for pulling off the legs of flies and roasting beetles under spy-glasses has been gradually extended to drowning mice in cages and seeing pigs killed. Time develops the germ; the cruel boy becomes the callous doctor or “sharp-practising” attorney, and the cruel girl becomes the cruel mother and often the frail divorcée. Drink and cards are an obsession with some; cruelty is just as much a matter of obsession with others. But the ingenuity of the occult brain rises to higher things; it rises to the subtlest form of invention when dealing with the artistic and literary temperament. I have been intimately acquainted with authors—well-known in the popular sense of the word—who have been obsessed in the oddest and often most painful ways.
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