Part 2 (1/2)
”There are most comfortable baths attached to them, my lord,” declared Master Ghizla, bobbing down twice and thrice in salaams. ”And there are taps with very cold water and taps with very hot water. They are suites which I let only to princely n.o.bles like your lords.h.i.+p; and I have had the honour of lodging in them the Persian Prince Kardusi, whom you surely know, and Baabab, Satrap of Mesopotamia, whom you also surely know, my lords, as princely n.o.bles.”
”Certainly, certainly,” replied Lucius, trying to jest. ”Kardusi and Baabab, I know them well.”
”We are even related to them and call them by their names,” Uncle Catullus broke in, airily, with a bow and puffing out his stomach. ”But there is something that I want to ask you, Master Ghizla, something that neither his lords.h.i.+p nor Master Vettius will care so much about: are there kitchens to the suites, kitchens where our trusty cook can prepare us this or that simple fare?”
”There are most comfortable kitchens to these princely suites, my lord,” Master Ghizla a.s.sured him. ”His Highness the Satrap Baabab often gave very sumptuous banquets and would invite his excellency the legate to his table every other day; and near the kitchens there is a well of water clear as crystal.”
”I don't drink much water,” said Uncle Catullus.
”We have old Mareotis wine in our cellars, my lord, wine thick as ink, dark-purple as molten princely sealing-wax and fragrant as the own lotus of our Lady Isis, blessed be her name! We have also the rose-coloured date-wine of Meroe and the fine topaz-yellow liqueur of Napata: we have all the Ethiopian liqueurs....”
”That's better than water,” said Uncle Catullus, smacking his lips. ”What say you, my dear Lucius?”
Lucius had made a great effort that morning to control his grief; together with his uncle and the tutor, he had stared with interest at the splendid panorama that unrolled itself before their eyes as they entered the Great Harbour; he had welcomed his steward Vettius with a kind word; he had interested himself in the apartments which he was to occupy. Now, however, tired and listless, he had sunk into a seat, beside the silver image of the G.o.ddess, and sat looking disconsolately in front of him. He was a tall, comely fellow, with an athletic frame developed by wrestling exercise; and his dark eyes, though now veiled with melancholy and longing, gleamed with a deep spark of intelligence. Immensely rich, the sole heir of various relatives who had died childless, he had joined for but a short time in the mad orgies of the young Romans of his own rank and had soon devoted himself to many branches of science, to astronomy in particular, philosophy, magic, the favourite pa.s.sion of that period; he amused himself with modelling and sculpture; as a collector, he loved everything that was beautiful: pictures and statues, old coins and old gla.s.s; and his Etruscan antiquities were famous all over Rome. Certainly, he had always desired to see Egypt, to travel through Egypt; and the sight of the marble palaces of Alexandria had already charmed him for a moment. But his grief and longing returned to him immediately after; red anger awoke in him once more and impotent fury that Ilia, his best-beloved slave, had vanished, one inauspicious morning, from his villa at Baiae, without leaving a trace behind her.
”Come, Lucius,” said Catullus, ”we're going on sh.o.r.e now, my dear fellow. There are our litters waiting for us, prepared by Master Ghizla's care....”
”With excellent, powerful Libyan bearers, my lord, bearers whom I reserve exclusively for princely n.o.bles like you....”
”And, if you care first to take a turn through the city, sir,”
Vettius proffered, ”I will see to it that the furniture and baggage are conveyed from the s.h.i.+ps to your apartments, so that you will find everything arranged in time for luncheon.”
Although Lucius of course travelled with his own litters and his own bearers, Ghizla and Vettius had judged that two Alexandrian litters, with twelve Libyan bearers, would serve his purpose better at Alexandria, especially because here they were accustomed to move quicker, at a trot, than in Rome, where the pace was statelier and slower. Master Ghizla, therefore, who would not fail to charge the litters and bearers in his bill at double the price and more, had quickly and slyly set out his litters in front of the gangway, before Rufus, the under-steward, had even thought of preparing his master's own litter.
”Very well, Vettius,” said Lucius, making an effort and rising. ”I see two litters: those are for Uncle Catullus and me. And how is our good Thrasyllus to accompany us? For he knows the city already from the writings of Eratosthenes and Strabo; he can tell us much that is interesting on the way; and the tour would not afford us half the same pleasure without him.”
”I have had a good donkey saddled for Master Thrasyllus,” said Master Ghizla, with a salaam.
In fact, an a.s.s, held by a boy on a leading-rein, stood waiting behind the litters, among the open-mouthed populace.
”And if,” the Sabaean hinted, suavely, ”if I might entrust the n.o.ble lords to the conduct of my younger brother Caleb, he will go in front of the n.o.ble lords and act as a guide with whom they will doubtless be no less satisfied than were the Prince of Persia and the Satrap of Mesopotamia....”
”Kardusi and Baabab,” Uncle Catullus completed, mischievously. ”Two pleasant, simple fellows: I'm sorry they're gone.”
But Ghizla pointed to Caleb, who now came up with a flourish of salaams and bowed. As against Ghizla, who was tall, lean and dignified, Caleb, the younger man, was vivacious and sparkling, with dark eyes, flas.h.i.+ng teeth and a gay, smiling mouth. He wore wide striped trousers of many colours, a white burnous, a red turban and large rings in his ears; and he spoke better Latin than his brother, with now and then a few sentences of Greek.
Lucius accepted Caleb as his guide; and they went on sh.o.r.e; and Lucius and Uncle Catullus took their seats in their litters. Thrasyllus mounted his quiet donkey; but Caleb flung himself with a swagger on to a jet-black, gaily-caparisoned Sabaean mare, who neighed when she felt the red heels of Caleb's sandals in her flanks. So the procession started: first three ebon-black outrunners, with whips which they cracked right and left to make room, to drive barking dogs away and to keep beggars at a distance; then Caleb, proudly sitting his horse like a young conqueror, always smiling and sparkling with black eyes and white teeth; then the two litters, with Thrasyllus at the side on his donkey; and round the three travellers a number of guards, armed with whips and sticks.
They pressed through the crowd along the quay, where everybody looked and pointed at the distinguished foreigners; they went at a quick trot, for the outrunners went at a trot, cracking their whips; Caleb, on his Sabaean mare, showed off his equestrian powers and pranced elegantly along upon his steed; the litter-bearers followed at a short, steady quick-trot; even Thrasyllus' donkey, as sober as a philosopher, trotted blithely on; and behind trotted the guards, shaking their sticks and flouris.h.i.+ng their long whips. They trotted along the middle of the broad street, over the great stone flags; and it seemed as though everything were trotting in a quick rhythm, including all the other litters, the carts and hors.e.m.e.n, who with their outrunners and outriders also strove to make their way through the bustle.
So the cavalcade trotted on; and the street-boys scattered and the ibises scattered with outstretched necks and wide-flapping wings.
”What crowds of ibises!” Catullus cried. ”Thrasyllus, isn't it comical to see so many ibises walking and fluttering through the streets of Alexandria?”
”My lord,” cried Thrasyllus, from the back of his dancing donkey, ”the ibises are Alexandria's scavengers.”
”I dare say, but they are unclean birds themselves for all that! And they are counted among the sacred animals!” cried Uncle Catullus. ”Whoos.h.!.+ Whoos.h.!.+”
And he drove them away, with a flourish of his arm from the litter, for the whips of the runners trotting behind circled, it is true, around the street-boys but ever spared the sacred ibises, one of which would sometimes stray, fluttering wildly, among the bearers.