H. Rider Haggard

“ Know, O King, that I call upon you in the name of our gods and by our common blood, to avenge the wrongs that I have suffered in Egypt, and the slaying of my lord beloved, the King Kheperra. I call upon you to roll down in your might upon Egypt and to smite the Shepherd dogs who slew my husband and took his heritage, and to establish my daughter, the Princess Nefra, as Queen of Egypt, and to slay those who were traitors to her and would have given her and me to doom. ”

“ Nefra and Khian stood together gazing by the light of the moon at the mighty mass of the Pyramid of Ur.
“Our holiday is done, Wife,” he said, “and to-morrow, ceasing to be but a Brother and a Sister of the Dawn, we must become the rulers of Egypt united at last from the Cataracts to the sea. Strange has been our lot since first side by side we looked upon yonder pyramid. Yet, Beloved, I think that the Strength which preserved us through so many perils and now, from sickness and the gates of death has brought me with joy to those of health, will be with us in the years to come.” ”

“ Ru saw him fall and leaped into the water, swimming with great strokes. As the Pharaoh rose he seized him with his mighty hands and dragged him to the bank where he broke him like a stick, then cast him to the shore.
“Pharaoh Apepi is dead!” piped the thin voice of Anath, “but Pharaoh Khian lives! Life! Blood! Strength! Pharaoh! Pharaoh! Pharaoh!”
So he cried as he hacked at Khian’s bonds and dragged away the gag, and all the multitude beneath took up the ancient greeting, shouting:
“Life! Blood! Strength! Pharaoh! Pharaoh! Pharaoh!” ”

“ I, Hathor, goddess of Love and Beauty, bestow upon thee, the Princess of Egypt, all that I have to give. Beautiful exceedingly shalt thou be in body and in spirit. Loved exceedingly shalt thou be, and through love thou shalt make smooth the path of millions. Turning neither to right nor left, forgetting crookedness and policies, follow thou Hathor’s star and thine own heart, rejoicing in Hathor’s gifts and leaving all else to Heaven that sees what thou canst not see and works to ends thou dost not know. ”

“ Moreover, I love you, Nefra. From the moment when I heard your voice yonder by the palm trees and knew you for a woman beneath your cloak, I loved you, though then I thought you but some simple girl. What more is there to say? The future is dark; great dangers lie ahead. Mayhap it will be necessary to fly to far lands and leave all these pomps behind us. Yet together would they not be well lost?”
“Then what of Egypt, Prince Khian? What of Egypt and the mission laid upon me and the oath you heard me swear in this very hall?” ”

“ Now it was her custom to wander about the great graveyard that surrounded the pyramids where in their splendid tombs so many of the ancient nobles and princes of Egypt had been laid to rest a thousand years or more before her day, so long ago indeed that none remembered the names of those who slept beneath these monuments. On these wanderings of hers it was her pleasure to go unaccompanied save by her body-servant, Ru, for Kemmah, who now grew aged, had no strength for such rough journeys over tumbled stones and through deep sand. ”

“ Babylon is far off and all the lands between are ablaze with war. Therefore take heart, Queen, and wait with patience.”
“I have no heart left,” answered Rima, “who desire but one thing—to find my lord again whether he sits at the table of your Osiris, or rides the clouds with Bel, or sleeps in the deep darkness. Where he is, there would I be and nowhere else, and least of all in this accursed Egypt. Give me my child to nurse, that I may hold her while I may. We love that most that we must leave the soonest, Kemmah.” ”

“ Yonder stands the Spirit of the Pyramids, there on its very crest, clad all in white.”
“Nay,” answered another, “it is clad in black.”
“There must be two of them,” called a third, “one in white and one in black. Without doubt these are no spirits, but those we seek, the Prince Khian and the priest, who all this while have dwelt not in the pyramid but on its crest.”
“Fool,” cried a voice, “how can men live for weeks in such a place? These are ghosts, I say. Have we not heard that the pyramids are haunted. Look! The thing mocks us, making signs with its arms.” ”

“ O Pharaoh, a thought has come to me: is there not another way? Can you not walk a gentler road and gain your ends without breaking faith with the Order of the Dawn, which indeed is greatly to be feared, since, like the Prince Khian, I hold that it is protected by Heaven itself? You believe that this Lady of the Pyramids is the lawful child of Kheperra, and it may be so. If this can be established, here is my plan. Send an embassy to Roy the Prophet and demand that this lady should be given to you in marriage and become your lawful queen, as she well may do, seeing that now you have none. ”

“ Shall Babylon, my great ally, bow herself before these runaways who did not dare to await the battle? Never! Let Khian die if die he must, and let me die with him. But if so, not one man shall be left living in Tanis, and not one man of Shepherd blood throughout the North. Write it down, Temu, as the Prince Abeshu shall tell you, and let the messenger take it back to that cruel crossbred cur Apepi, and let heralds call it out to those who stand upon the gateway and the walls, while the captains bid the attack begin at every other mouth of Tanis. ”

“ That perhaps we shall know when you have ceased to live, Khian. Learn now how I will deal with these tomb rats of the pyramids who have defied and insulted me. I will send an army—already it is on its road—to knock them on the head, all of them. Only one will I spare—the Lady Nefra; not because she is born of a royal House, but because I have looked upon her and seen that she is beautiful, for, Khian, you are not the only man who can worship beauty. Therefore I will bring her here and make her mine, and for a marriage gift I will give her your head, Khian ”

“ Know, O King Apepi, that we, Roy the Prophet and the Council of the Order of the Dawn, who sit in the shadow of the ancient pyramids built long ago by certain kings of Egypt, once members of our order, to serve as tombs for their bodies and to be monuments to their greatness on which all eyes might gaze till the end of the world; we who from age to age drink of the wisdom of the Sphinx, the Terror of the desert, have received your message and given it consideration. ”

“ Horses screamed, men fell and groaned out their lives.
The moon grew dark, but still the battle went on in the twilight that precedes the dawn, when it was difficult to distinguish friend from foe. The light of day began to gather and by it the captain of the Babylonians saw that he could advance no more. Nor could he fly, for the cloud of Apepi’s Horse was all about him. Therefore he made a square of those who remained to him, perhaps two thousand or more sound men and many wounded, and gave orders that none must surrender, since this was a fight to the death for the honour of Babylon. ”

“ Yet a stranger’s tale and a vision are poor props to lean upon when life and safety hang in the balance and with them the crown of Egypt. I’ll not trust myself and the babe to this man and his boat lest soon both of us should sleep at the bottom of the Nile, or lie awaiting death in some Shepherd dungeon. Let us bide where we are; your gods can protect us as well here as by the Pyramids of Memphis, should we live to reach them. Or if we must go, let these gods send us some sign; they have still many hours in which to travel from their heaven. ”

“ There are so many sorts of love; that of men for women, or of women for men, which is a curse and a madness sent into the world by Set to be its torment; that of kings for power which is the father of war; that of merchants for wealth which breeds theft and misery; that of the learned for wisdom, a bird which never can be snared; that of the mother for her child, which is holy; and that of the slave for him or her he serves, which is the only sort I know. Ask it of Roy the Prophet, though I think he has forgotten all love save that of the gods and death. ”

“ Yet if Khian lives and you live to find him, then wed him if you will and take my blessing on you both. Look not wrath, Mir-bel, for in the end who knows what the gods may bring to pass. Learn also from this thwarting of your desire that they do not give everything to any man, who to you have given so much. Should this Queen slip through your hands, the heir to Babylon can find another to share his throne. It is my will, Prince Mir-bel, that when the army marches against Apepi, you bide here to guard me, lest some evil god should tempt you to do wrong. ”

“ I am very old and it is revealed to me that soon I must pass hence, how as yet I do not know. Yes, I, the seeker after light, must enter into the darkness where, as I trust, I shall find light. Prince Khian, you look upon my face for the last time. All my days I have striven to bring about the unity of Egypt, without bloodshed if that might be. Now perchance in the persons of you, Prince and Queen, this unity will be accomplished and Egypt will be one again, if only for a while. ”

“ We are a race that generations ago entered Egypt and took possession of its richest lands, driving its king back to Thebes and usurping the throne of the North. This I still hold, and the South also in a fashion, for we have corrupted its chief nobles and its high priests, binding them with chains of gold. Yet we are in peril, having been much weakened by ceaseless wars with Babylon; also, many of our people have intermarried with Egyptians, as indeed I did myself, so that the Shepherds are becoming stained to the colour of the dwellers on the Nile. ”

“ Learn, O Queen, that this world and its sufferings are but a shadow and a show, and that beyond them, like the pyramids towering above the sands and palm trees at their base, stands the eternal verity whose name is Love. ”

“ Lord, I reached the summit in safety just as the dawn began to break, and there lay flat all day in the little hollow that you know, where part of the cap stone is broken off. It was very hot there, Lord, with the sun beating full upon me, nor did I dare to move lest I should be seen. Yet I endured till at last came the hour of sunset. Then I rose up and stood upon the very point clad in my white robe, so that all the soldiers could see me. ”

“ Because mayhap, friend Ru, I also choose to serve. Being stupid, like most honest men, especially if they are strong and one of a simple race that understands nothing except love from which is born mankind, and war that keeps down its numbers, you may not believe me when I tell you that the only true joy in life lies in service of this sort or of that. Pharaohs are served, which is why they are often so blind and so satisfied and being but vain bubbles blown along by a wind they cannot see, springing, although they know it not, from the poisoned breath of multitudes ”

“ Would that those vain fools of kings had never built them to bring trouble to the greater fools that come after.”
“Yet I will climb them,” muttered Khian.
“Begone, child, and bid Ru bring the leech, and swiftly,” went on Kemmah.
With one quick glance at Khian, Nefra glided away. Kemmah watched her go, saying to herself as she turned to minister to him:
“How strange a thing is love that can send so many to their deaths, or by its strength draw the dying back to life again. But of the love of these two what will be born?” ”

“ Are we ever happy except when we are mad? Can the sane be happy, or the wise? Is your holy Prophet Roy happy, who is the sanest of the sane and the wisest of the wise? Are all those death-awaiting Whitebeards who surround him happy? Have you ever been happy, except perhaps years ago when sometimes you were mad?”
“If you ask me, I have not,” answered Kemmah, remembering certain things and trembling beneath the thought of them. “Perchance you are right, young sir. Perchance, as drunkards think, we are only happy when we are mad. ”

“ Why do you talk of a poor youth who earns his bread by following the profession of a guide as ‘she,’ also as a thief or perhaps a murderer, and compare him to the Spirit of the Pyramids, Scribe Rasa? Be so good as to keep your head still and not try to look over your shoulder as you are doing, lest I should hurt you with the bandage. Fix your eyes upon the face of the Sphinx in front of you and think of all the riddles you would like to ask of its divinity. ”

“ Yet at this thought Khian was not dismayed, he even smiled a little as it crossed his mind, remembering the teachings of his new philosophy, that all was in the hands of Heaven and that naught happened save that which must happen. He did not desire to die who now had so much for which to live, but if death came that philosophy taught him not to be afraid. Nor did he write himself down a traitor to his duty, because he knew that in any case Nefra would have refused this monstrous marriage, of which she had spoken to him as an insult. ”

“ Bring hither the Babylonian widow and her daughter, the Royal Princess, O King, that these things may be accomplished in their season, though as yet we know not how.”
“Why should I admit to dwell in my house one who, inspired by the devils of Babylon, has prophesied that I shall die in blood? Why should I not rather kill her and be done, and her babe with her?” asked Apepi.
“Because, O King,” answered the chief of the Wise Men, “the dead are stronger than the living, and the spirit of this royal lady will smite more shrewdly than can her flesh. ”

“ Of the future we know nothing because it is hid from men, yet we believe that in it much joy awaits you with length of days, and that the crown which now we set upon your head in secret in time to come shall shine openly before the multitudes of earth. In the name of Egypt and of the Order of the Dawn to which you are sworn, O Queen, I, Roy the Prophet, do you homage. ”

“ Hearken, for as we are now both bound in the bonds of the same great oath we can speak our minds to each other, fearing no betrayal. These rites have changed me little, if at all, who always have known the doctrines of the Dawn that from childhood were instilled into my heart, although, until I attained my present age, under its law I could not be admitted to the full fellowship of the order. Behold! I am still no spirit but a woman as before, full of mortal purposes. ”

“ She bent down and raised him.
“Nay,” she said, smiling, when once more he stood upon his feet, “you are greater than I and it is the woman who serves the man, not the man the woman. Well, we will serve each other and thus be equal. But, Khian, what of Apepi who is your father?”
“I do not know,” he answered. “Yet, father or not, I pray that he may not try to come between us.”
“I pray so also, Khian. To-night is happy, never was there so happy a night; but to-morrow—oh! what of to-morrow?”
“It is in the Hands of God, Nefra, therefore let us fear nothing.” ”

“ Such is my history, O Man, that is yet but begun, for when all the gods are gone and none pour offerings to me or them, still lost in memories I, who was from the beginning, shall remain until the end. Yet was it of this that thou wouldst ask me?”
“Nay, O Sphinx. Tell me, what is the name of that wind among the palm trees of which the sound is as the voice of woman? Whence comes it and whither does it go?”
“That wind, O Man, blew at the begetting of the world and will blow until its death, for without it no life can be. ”