Part 26

This result seemed to amaze Ennana. He bent his head, thought for a moment, and said, like a man who perceives something: "I shall find the word and the sign. I have interpreted wrongly the fourth hieroglyph of the fifth perpendicular line in which is the spell of serpents. O King, do you still need us?" said the chief of the wise men aloud. "I long to resume the reading of Hermes Trismegistus, which contains more important secrets than these sleight-of-hand tricks."

The Pharaoh signed to the old man that he might withdraw, and the silent procession returned to the depths of the palace.

The King re-entered the harem with Tahoser. The priest's daughter, terrified and still trembling at these prodigies, knelt down before him and said: "O Pharaoh, do you not fear to anger by your resistance the unknown god who has ordered these Israelites to go a three days' journey into the desert to sacrifice unto him? Let Mosche and his Hebrews depart to fulfil their rites, for perhaps the Lord, as they call him, will afflict the land of Egypt and bring death upon us."

"What! does that reptile jugglery frighten you?" replied the Pharaoh. "Did you not see that my wise men produced serpents with their wands?"

"Yes, but Aharon's devoured them, and that is an ill omen."

"What matters it? Am I not the favourite of Phré, the preferred of Ammon Ra? Have I not under my sandals the effigies of conquered nations? With one breath I shall sweep away when I please the whole of that Hebrew race, and I shall see if their god can protect them."

"Beware, Pharaoh," said Tahoser, who remembered Poëri's words about the power of Jehovah. "Do not allow pride to harden your heart. Mosche and Aharon terrify me; they must be supported by a more powerful god, for they braved your wrath."

"If their god is so powerful," said the Pharaoh, answering the fear expressed by Tahoser, "would he leave them thus captives, humiliated and bowing like beasts of burden under the harvest labour? Let us forget these vain prodigies and live in peace. Think rather of the love I bear you, and remember that the Pharaoh is more powerful than the Lord, the fanciful god of the Hebrews."

"Yes, you are the destroyer of the nations and the ruler of thrones, and men are before you like grains of sand blown by the southern wind. I know it," replied Tahoser.

"And yet I cannot make you love me," said the Pharaoh, with a smile.

"The ibex fears the lion, the dove dreads the hawk, the eye shrinks from the sun, and I can see you yet only through terror and blazing light. It takes human weakness a long time to become familiar with royal majesty; a god always terrifies a mortal."

"You fill me with regret, Tahoser, that I am not the first-comer, an officer, a nomarch, a priest, a labourer, or even less. But since I cannot make the King into a man, I can make a queen out of the woman and bind the golden uræus upon your lovely brow. The Queen will no longer dread the King."

"Even when you make me sit by you on your throne, my thoughts remain kneeling at your feet. But you are so good in spite of your superhuman beauty, your power so boundless and your splendour so dazzling, that perhaps my heart will grow bold and will dare to beat against yours."

Thus talked the Pharaoh and Tahoser. The priest's daughter could not forget Poëri, and sought to gain time by flattering the passion of the King. To escape from the palace, to find the young Hebrew again, was impossible. Besides, Poëri had accepted her love rather than shared it. Ra'hel, in spite of her generosity, was a dangerous rival; and then, the love of the Pharaoh touched the priest's daughter,--she desired to love him, and perhaps she was not so far from doing so as she believed.

XVI

A few days later the Pharaoh was driving along the Nile, standing on his chariot and followed by his court. He had gone forth to observe the height of the flood, when in the centre of the road appeared, like two phantoms, Aharon and Mosche. The king drew in his horses, the foam of whose mouths was already flecking the breast of the tall, motionless old man.

Mosche, with slow and solemn voice repeated his adjuration.

"Prove to me by some wonder the power of your god," answered the King, "and I will grant your request."

Turning towards Aharon, who was a few steps behind him, Mosche said, "Take thy rod, and stretch out thine hand upon the waters of Egypt, upon their streams, upon their rivers, and upon their ponds, and upon all their pools of water, that they may become blood; and that there may be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, both in vessels of wood and in vessels of stone."

Aharon lifted up his rod and smote the waters that were in the river. The train of the Pharaoh awaited the result anxiously. The King, who had a heart of brass within a breast of granite, smiled disdainfully, trusting in the skill of his wise men to confound the foreign magicians. As soon as the river had been smitten by the rod of the Hebrew,--the rod which had been a serpent,--the waters began to turn muddy and to boil; their mud colour was gradually changed; reddish tones began to mingle with it; then the whole mass assumed a sombre purple colour, and the Nile seemed a river of blood with scarlet waves that edged the banks with rosy foam. It seemed to reflect a vast conflagration or a sky rayed by lightning, but the atmosphere was calm, Thebes was not burning, and the unchanging azure spread over the red stream, marked here and there by the white bellies of dead fishes. The long crocodiles, using their crooked paws, emerged from the river on to the bank, and the heavy hippopotami, like blocks of rose granite covered with leprous, black moss, fled through the reeds, or raised above the stream their mighty heads, unable to breathe in that water of blood. The canals, the fish-ponds, and the pools had all turned the same colour, and the vessels full of water were red like the basins in which the blood of victims is collected.

The Pharaoh was not astonished at the wonder, and said to the Hebrews,--

"This miracle might terrify a credulous and ignorant people, but it has nothing surprising for me. Let Ennana and the wise men come. They will repeat this enchantment."

The wise men came, led by their chief. Ennana cast a glance on the river and its purple waves, and saw at once what was the matter.

"Restore things to their primitive condition," he said to Mosche's companion; "I will repeat your wonder."

Aharon again smote the stream, which at once resumed its natural colour. Ennana nodded briefly, like an impartial expert who does justice to the skill of a colleague; he considered the enchantment was well wrought for one who had not had, like himself, the opportunity of studying wisdom in the mysterious chambers of the labyrinth, where a very few of the initiated can alone enter, so trying are the tests which have to be undergone.

"It is my turn now," he said; and he stretched out over the Nile his rod engraved with hieroglyphic signs, muttering a few words of a tongue so old that it had probably ceased to be understood even in the days of Mene, the first king of Egypt,--a language spoken by sphinxes, with syllables of granite.

A vast red flood stretched suddenly from one bank to the other, and the Nile again rolled ensanguined waves to the sea. The twenty-four magicians saluted the king as if they were about to withdraw.

"Remain," said the Pharaoh.