Part 34 (1/2)
”Then you have seen Pharaoh?” interrupted Ninyas. ”What is he like?”
The cup-bearer looked surprised.
”I have indeed stood before him,” he answered, ”and spoken with Pharaoh face to face. His throne is of beaten gold, studded with jewels; his garments s.h.i.+ne and glisten so that he seems clad in light; but the man himself is of low stature and puny frame, lean, sallow, undignified. It is only the line of Ashur who are princes in bearing as in blood.”
”The princes of Ashur go out to war with their hosts,” responded Ninyas, accepting the compliment greedily enough. ”Pharaoh lay soft in his palace beyond the river many a night while I was watching with bow and spear.”
”Pharaoh lives for ever,” said the other. ”So proclaim his captains and officials from rise to set of sun. Perhaps it is that he cares not to front death in battle or the chase. Nevertheless, he entertained me with all the honour due to him who carried the message of my lord the king.”
”And what message had my lord the king for one with whom he might have made his own terms at his very gate?” asked the prince.
Once more the puzzled look crossed his face, while Sethos pondered ere he replied. The path he trod seemed very dangerous; he must look well to his balance at every step. Taking courage, he answered frankly, yet with a certain caution,
”What am I, that I should stand in the light of the king's countenance?
The reed withers in the furnace and is consumed, the bar of iron doth but bend and obey. On such a matter it was not fitting that the lowest of his servants should speak with the king face to face. I received my instructions from him who stood on the king's right hand. Shall I repeat them to my lord?”
Ninyas watched him keenly.
”Why not?” he asked.
”I was commanded to make all speed through the desert, until I came into the presence of Pharaoh himself,” said the cup-bearer; ”to speak out boldly, as befitted him who represented the glory of Nimrod; to demand the body of a son of Ashur, lying captive in the land of Egypt; and if aught but good had befallen him, to warn Pharaoh that a.s.syria would come down with her chariots and hors.e.m.e.n to take a life for every hair of Sarchedon's head.”
The prince started as if he was stung.
”Sarchedon!” he exclaimed. ”Was it even so? And you brought him back with you to Ascalon?”
”It seemed but my duty,” answered Sethos, ”to shelter in a city of refuge one on whose head the king set so high a price, rather than suffer him to fall a second time into the hand of the false Egyptian.”
Ninyas seemed much disturbed, betraying his vexation, as the other could not but perceive, in the unnatural composure of his demeanour.
”And these instructions?” said he, after a pause. ”They must have been given by one in authority, standing at the right hand of my lord the king.”
”They were given by a.s.sarac, high-priest of Baal,” answered the cup-bearer. ”Surely my lord is but proving his servant with empty words.
What am I, that I should seek to show aught but the truth in the sight of my lord.”
”a.s.sarac, high-priest of Baal!” repeated Ninyas. ”And at the right hand of the Great King! Beware, my friend; beware! There is yet a morsel of bread and a cruse of water in that dungeon where you pa.s.sed the day.
When a son of Ashur speaks to his lord with a lie in his mouth, surely his face is already covered, and his blood lies on his own head.”
Hurt, alarmed, and in the utmost perplexity, the tears rising to his eyes, Sethos could but answer in a broken voice: ”The Great King is gone to the G.o.ds! If my lord should slay his servant, he can only speak of that which he hath seen and knows.”
In spite of all his self-control, Ninyas turned deadly pale, rocking and tottering where he stood, like a man stricken sore in fight. Then he called for another cup of wine, and turning to Sethos, with a smile said only:
”Leave me now; I am wearied, and the sun smote fierce to-day on the desert sand. See that they water not my horse till he is cool; and, Sethos, let not man nor woman come near me till I clap my hands.”
With these words Ninyas retired to his chamber, and was seen no more, leaving the cup-bearer at his wits' end with astonishment, a state which was shared more or less by all the household; for was not the banquet spread, the hall lighted, the wine poured out, yet the prince absent?
Such an event had never yet come to pa.s.s in the memory of his servants; and Rekamat, who hoped to-night she would regain some of the footing she had lost in his favour, was loud in protestations of astonishment and vexation.
She was yet more dismayed, however, on the morrow to learn that a troop of hors.e.m.e.n had pa.s.sed out of the gate at sunrise, and disappeared in the desert towards the north; the watchman farther reporting, that in their centre, on the prince's favourite steed, rode a woman closely veiled. Rekamat bit her lip in sore vexation, to keep back the tears of spite and shame that rose br.i.m.m.i.n.g to her eyes.