THE SEVENTH PAPYRUS

But now the sun was near his setting, swathing the vast dome of heaven with arras of green and lilac and rose and burning gold. And, on the floor by my couch, the slave had fallen asleep, with the fan still in his hand, and his gleaming limbs stretched out, smooth, brick-red, decently folded. But, the air being cooler, I did not disturb him, but remained lying on the couch, pondering my dream. And, the more I pondered, the less I knew of the manner in which I might assist the fulfilment of the Supreme Decree. But, above all things, I was anxious to avoid the vulgar error of confusing particulars with universals, so as not to lose the fruit of any revelations which the gods had intended.

And, while I was thus meditating, suddenly I remembered a certain magic, by which one may learn a very great deal of the future; and it seemed to me that, in this way, I might test the prediction of my dream. But, indeed, it was the well-made body of my slave, straight, quickening, and apparently spotless, meeting my eyes while I thought on these matters, which recalled this magic from my memory: for it may only be done with just such an innocent one. Wherefore, being awakened, Yokkho opened his fearless black eyes and listened: whom I commanded to slip into the river, and to return to me fresh and clean. This he did. But I inspected him with the most careful minuteness from head to foot; and, having found neither speck nor blemish anywhere upon him, and his teeth sound and perfect, then I knew that he was worthy of my purpose.

But, having seated him on the edge of the cabin roof, with his legs hanging down, for there the light was strongest, I placed his right hand on his knee, the palm being upward: whereon, with my Waterman’s Ideal Fountain Pen,⁠[25] I drew two squares, a lesser inside a greater; and, in each corner of the outer square, I wrote the arabic numbers, Four Two Eight Six, with a Three between the Four and the Eight, and a One between the Eight and the Six, and a Seven between the Six and the Two, and a Nine between the Two and the Four; and, in the top of the inner square, I wrote the arabic number Five: but, under it, I put a fair large drop of pure dichroic ink, purple-black, having unscrewed the top of my pen. And, when all this had been well-done, I bade Yokkho to bend the ridge of his supple back, looking attentively into the drop of ink, and telling me what he should see therein. But, standing below him in the waist of the barge, I looked up into his downcast eyes, very long and lucid and fixed upon the drop of ink. And the black-fringed eyelids gently winked from time to time in the ordinary manner: but, being a very obedient slave, his gaze did not waver from the palm of his hand.

Then, there came a moment when the winking ceased, and the eyes became fixed wide open but still looking downward. And, when I, with a low voice, bade him again to speak, telling the things which he saw in the drop of ink, then, indeed, he spoke as one who at a long distance speaks to himself, very gravely, very slowly, very solemnly, saying: “The silver god, pointing at the galley, slays.” Then his eyes wavered, and again became fixed. And his voice continued, speaking single sets of words divided by intervals as before; and he thus said: The silver god, in the temple, taking the bow which sings.... The silver god, in the ship, speaking with the azure-haired god, on the white horses.... The silver god leading the golden goddess, from the dark.... The silver god, and the golden goddess, before many gods and goddesses.... The silver god, and the golden goddess on a throne.... The silver god, following the star. Having said these words, which seemed to be nonsensical, he tired me. Whereat I smacked him, shaking his hand till the dark ink trickled over his thighs; and so I dismissed him to relieve Nesamun at the steering-oar.

Thus I did with Yokkho, without gaining the wisdom which I expected.

But, during the rest of the evening, while the boatman was sleeping, I made no more attempts at explaining the past or foreseeing the future: for it seemed that this was not permitted. But I myself took the steering-oar, dismissing the slave to seek more sleep in the waist, by the boatman. And, as we sailed along, I watched the sky turning violet with an after-glow of rose-colour fretted with green, which deepened into the clear dark heliotrope of night sown with innumerable constellations, surrounding the white-blazing serene moon. But, when the slaves had finished sleeping, they prepared a meal, and I refreshed my body with food and wine, while Yokkho returned to the steering-oar.

But I inquired of Nesamun the name of the city which we were passing on the right hythe, having seen a cluster of temples with their pylons and flagstaves and very many houses there.

“Lord,” he answered, “it is the city of Khenoboskis; and, on the left, should be the lesser Diospolis of the Lagidai which we used to call Mutio. But, in the morning we shall water at Ptolemais Hermii, another city of the Lagidai.”

“Our stay,” I said, “must be a short one: for I wish to come to Tanis without delay.”

“Lord, hast thou not heard of the mutineers at Antaiopolis, who bar the way?”

“Not my way, nor the way of the barge which bears me.”

“Nor the way of thy slaves, then, who attend thee:” added Nesamun very quietly.

“Thou art not afraid?” I responded, inquiring.

“Nay, lord, for who can see with his eyes a god, unwilling, going either here or there. But I also can fight, if fighting be toward.”

Now, when he spoke thus, I laughed without letting my memory be seen. For I remembered that his brother-in-law and partner had taken me for wing-footed Hermes, because of my strange aspect and the magic inchantment which I did with obsequious crocodiles; and I considered that the reputation of godship would do me no harm. But, looking also upon Nesamun, as he crouched before me in the open waist of the barge, more closely than I had looked hitherto, I was ware that he would fight well, as one born for fighting, being of a species different from that of other Egyptians. For he was a very mighty youth, in his prime, and his four bones were large and very long; and, although he had no muscles as youths of other races have, nevertheless his flesh was extremely firm and sinewy, and his skin healthily tanned and as smooth and polished as fine linen. Furthermore, I marked the immense force of his supple shoulders and thighs, and the strength of his loins and arms and deep-breathing breast. But, above all, I could read an indomitable character in the poise of his head and the carriage of his body, and specially in his fierce young eyes, which flashed so blackly and so whitely when his mind looked out on me. For which causes, I was not unwilling to have such an one on my side. And I opined that my own not-inconsiderable strength, and my wiliness, together with my magic and my arms, all assisted by the fearless obedience of little Yokkho and the intelligent force of Nesamun, needed not to worry about the resistance to be encountered.

But, nevertheless, I made my preparations. And, seeing another vessel coming up the river toward us, I bade my boatman to hail her and to ask for news of the rebels. Whereby I learned that, having been driven from Antaiopolis by Psalkos Memmaïdes (the Pharoah’s general and governour of the lower Thebaid), they had sacked Hisoris, and were now holding the very place which I was intending to pass in the morning, that is to say Ptolemais Hermii. And, having mentioned that the rebel-leader Pyrrhos was the mightiest warrior ever seen in Egypt, the strangers scurried fearfully toward Thebes, adjuring us to turn and follow them: for, said they, to go downstream was to court an evil and somewhat protracted death.

Having heard this, and having ordered my slaves to sleep by turns and not to come within sight of Ptolemais Hermii before dawn, I rested tranquilly in dreamless sleep. And, waking while it was yet dark, we three bathed one by one, not disturbing the sons of slime, and also refreshed our bodies with food and wine. Which having been done, I instructed Nesamun and Yokkho for the fray, saying that they were not to concern themselves with anything, excepting the swift manœuvring of the barge, instantly and implicitly obeying my commands. And my first stratagem was to lower the sail, lest it should be injured in the battle which I expected. But Yokkho was to stand by with the cordage, ready to hoist the yard immediately when we should have pierced our foes. And Nesamun was to govern our course with the steering-oar under my directions. But I buckled on my cartridge-belt and loaded my revolver. And, when Helios Hyperion had driven the chariot of the sun about an hour above the horizon, we drifted on the current in sight of Ptolemais Hermii.

But, between us and that city, I espied a long and lofty galley, propelled by forty oars, hissing toward us.

A glance at the alert eager faces of my slaves shewed me that all was as I would have it; and, stepping into the waist, I inspected the advancing enemy. The galley was crowded with mercenaries from stem to stern. Red horse-hair streamed from their helmets. The shields of some, who were Rhodians, bore the rose of Rhodes. The others, as I learned later, were Karians. All wore white and blue kirtles girt with well-made sword-belts: but owing to the heat of the land and the feebleness of those who hitherto had encountered them, they neglected their greaves and body-armour. The rebel Pyrrhos (most righteous of men) stood on the prow, wearing a scarlet kirtle and a short purple military cloak. His helmet gleamed with well-forged brass; and a plume of red horse-hair sprouted therefrom. But the oars of the galley were pulled by enormous portly Nubians, rolling-eyed, blubber-lipped; and fiercely they snorted coming on.

“Stop, stranger!” shouted the blameless Pyrrhos.

“In whose name?” I inquired, dallying with my victim.

“In my name:” he answered.

“On what penalty?”

“Death.”

“For whom?”

“For thee. Spear me this confounded babbler, O Orkhos:” he cried.

A spear hurtled toward me: but, at my quick command, Nesamun zigzagged the barge to let it pass, and held on a straight course as before. The galley swung athwart the stream twenty long paces distant. But I, raising my revolver and taking aim at the rebel-leader, bellowed: “Pyrrhos, I give thy carcase to the sons of slime.”

And dark doom leaped from my finger and pressing palm, and sank into the socket of his eye. And his life withered in the seat of wisdom, so that his soul fled gibbering to the netherworld. But the carcase, heavily lurching, fell, purple and bejewelled, dully splashing into sacred Sihor; and crocodiles dragged down the shreds and tatters of its fatness with bubbling swirlings.

But the blameless mercenaries sucked in their breath during a full minute, being appalled at the sight of their leader turned topsy-turvy by a noise like the yap of a small dog. But Nesamun held my barge still, stem on to the galley’s side and twenty long paces from it, ready to leap forward or backward at my word. But I said, very sternly: “Thus, O ye rebels, do I treat prepotence and audacity. And thus, also, will I deal with all, arrogant, who bar my passage.”

And, so saying, I paused, while I reloaded my revolver, that they might evacuate their sites if they were wise. But, recovering from their amazement, they took to hurling javelins; and the rowers bent to their sweeps, turning the galley upstream and driving the dreadful ram against me. Then, indeed, did Nesamun give proof of his quality, nimbly leaping to and fro on his narrow station to avoid the hissing darts and (at the same time) wielding the steering-oar so dexterously that we circled round the cumbrous galley, always maintaining our relative position. But I, partly sheltered by the bulwarks, fired into selected eyes or ear-holes of the rebels, as their destinies presented the same to me. For the pure lust of fighting, which never before had really inflamed me, had come upon me; and I laughed hideously in bloodthirsty glee as my enemies fell to my hand. And those, in whose wet eyes my bullets quenched their blunt-nosed heat in fizzling, tossed their useless limbs when Death entered to drive out Life; and their knees slackened as they flopped into the river, where crocodiles anxiously scrambled for morsels of them. But my last shot slew two Karians, passing through their ear-holes, and also a Nubian in whose it remained. And the current threw the sweep, slipping from his dead hands on to the oars of his fellows, causing a shocking confusion, in the midst of which I recharged my revolver a third time.

But the rebel-helmsman was already a refection for the sons of slime. And, the galley having swung right round so that it now lay between me and Thebes, I saw that the mercenaries desired to escape upstream, being no longer inclined to have dealings with me. Wherefore, having sent fourteen in all of them to Osiris, I gave a word to Nesamun and Yokkho. And, instantly, the sail ascended to the top of the mast, while the boatman brought us about into a favouring breeze; and, as an eagle spreads his pinions having satiated his hunger with a prey, so we sped on toward Ptolemais Hermii.

In this manner I disposed of an impediment on sacred Sihor.

FOOTNOTES: