第12章

"O Royal One," she cried, "wisely did thy mother prophecy. Surely the Holy Spirit, the Knepth, was in her, O thou conceived by a God! See the omen. The lion there--he growls within the Capitol at Rome--and the dead man, he is the Ptolemy--the Macedonian spawn that, like a foreign weed, hath overgrown the land of Nile; with the Macedonian Lagid? thou shalt go to smite the lion of Rome. But the Macedonian cur shall fly, and the Roman lion shall strike him down, and thou shalt strike down the lion, and the land of Khem shall once more be free! free! Keep thyself but pure, according to the commandment of the Gods, O son of the Royal House; O hope of Khemi! be but ware of Woman the Destroyer, and as I have said, so shall it be. I am poor and wretched; yea, stricken with sorrow. I have sinned in speaking of what should be hid, and for my sin I have paid in the coin of that which was born of my womb; willingly have I paid for thee. But I have still of the wisdom of our people, nor do the Gods, in whose eyes all are equal, turn their countenance from the poor; the Divine Mother Isis hath spoken to me--but last night she spake--bidding me come hither to gather herbs, and read to thee the signs that I should see. And as I have said, so it shall come to pass, if thou canst but endure the weight of the great temptation. Come hither, Royal One!" and she led me to the edge of the canal, where the water was deep, and still and blue. "Now gaze upon that face as the water throws it back. Is not that brow fitted to bear the double crown? Do not those gentle eyes mirror the majesty of kings? Hath not the Ptah, the Creator, fashioned that form to fit the Imperial garb, and awe the glance of multitudes looking through thee to God?

"Nay, nay!" she went on in another voice--a shrill old wife's voice--"I will--be not so foolish, boy--the scratch of a lion is a venomous thing, a terrible thing; yea, as bad as the bite of an asp--it must be treated, else it will fester, and all thy days thou shalt dream of lions; ay, and snakes; and, also, it will break out in sores. But I know of it--I know. I am not crazed for nothing. For mark! everything has its balance--in madness is much wisdom, and in wisdom much madness. /La! la! la!/ Pharaoh himself can't say where the one begins and the other ends. Now, don't stand gazing there, looking as silly as a cat in a crocus-coloured robe, as they say in Alexandria; but just let me stick these green things on the place, and in six days you'll heal up as white as a three-year-child. Never mind the smart of it, lad. By Him who sleeps at Phil?, or at Abouthis, or at Abydus--as our divine masters have it now--or wherever He does sleep, which is a thing we shall all find out before we want to--by Osiris, I say, you'll live to be as clean from scars as a sacrifice to Isis at the new moon, if you'll but let me put it on.

"Is it not so, good folk?"--and she turned to address some people who, while she prophesied, had assembled unseen by me--"I've been speaking a spell over him, just to make a way for the virtue of my medicine--/la! la!/ there's nothing like a spell. If you don't believe it, just you come to me next time your wives are barren; it's better than scraping every pillar in the Temple of Osiris, I'll warrant. I'll make 'em bear like a twenty-year-old palm. But then, you see, you must know what to say--that's the point--everything comes to a point at last.

/La! la!/"

Now, when I heard all this, I, Harmachis, put my hand to my head, not knowing if I dreamed. But presently looking up, I saw a grey-haired man among those who were gathered together, who watched us sharply, and afterwards I learned that this man was the spy of Ptolemy, the very man, indeed, who had wellnigh caused me to be slain of Pharaoh when I was in my cradle. Then I understood why Atoua spoke so foolishly.

"Thine are strange spells, old wife," the spy said. "Thou didst speak of Pharaoh and the double crown and of the form fashioned by Ptah to bear it; is it not so?"

"Yea, yea--part of the spell, thou fool; and what can one swear by better nowadays than by the Divine Pharaoh the Piper, whom, and whose music, may the Gods preserve to charm this happy land?--what better than by the double crown he wears--grace to great Alexander of Macedonia? By the way, you know about everything: have they got back his chlamys yet, which Mithridates took to Cos? Pompey wore it last, didn't he?--in his triumph, too--just fancy Pompey in the cloak of Alexander!--a puppy-dog in a lion's skin! And talking of lions--look what this lad hath done--slain a lion with his own spear; and right glad you village folks should be to see it, for it was a very fierce lion--just see his teeth and his claws--his claws!--they are enough to make a poor silly old woman like me shriek to look at them! And the body there, the dead body--the lion slew it. Alack! he's an Osiris[*] now, the body--and to think of it, but an hour ago he was an everyday mortal like you or me! Well, away with him to the embalmers. He'll soon swell in the sun and burst, and that will save them the trouble of cutting him open. Not that they will spend a talent of silver over him anyway. Seventy days in natron--that's all he's likely to get.

/La! la!/ how my tongue does run, and it's getting dark. Come, aren't you going to take away the body of that poor lad, and the lion, too?

There, my boy, you keep those herbs on, and you'll never feel your scratches. I know a thing or two for all I'm crazy, and you, my own grandson! Dear, dear, I'm glad his Holiness the High Priest adopted you when Pharaoh--Osiris bless his holy name--made an end of his son; you look so bonny. I warrant the real Harmachis could not have killed a lion like that. Give me the common blood, I say--it's so lusty."

[*] The soul when it has been absorbed in the Godhead.--Editor.

"You know too much and talk too fast," grumbled the spy, now quite deceived. "Well, he is a brave youth. Here, you men, bear this body back to Abouthis, and some of you stop and help me skin the lion.

We'll send the skin to you, young man," he went on; "not that you deserve it: to attack a lion like that was the act of a fool, and a fool deserves what he gets--destruction. Never attack the strong until you are stronger."

But for my part I went home wondering.