Apepi

“ When Apepi’s captains in the gathering light perceived with how small a body they had to do, they were dismayed who thought that all this while they had been attacking the flank of the Babylonian host in the darkness. ”

“ Anath turned aside and spoke with certain other of his fellow councillors. Then he came and bowed before Apepi and said:
“Life! Blood! Strength! O Pharaoh! Such wisdom as the gods have given us bids us urge Pharaoh, as do the diviners who have consulted with their spirits, not to join battle but to make peace with Babylon before it is too late.”
“Is it so?” asked Apepi. “What terms then can I offer to the King of Babylon, who comes to seize Egypt and add it to his empire?”
“We think, Pharaoh,” answered Anath, “that Ditanah does not desire to take Egypt. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When I said that such a marriage as this Apepi proposes had many merits, what I meant was, not that she should be thrown to the Shepherd lion, but that a marriage between her and the Prince Khian would have those merits. How could Egypt be better tied together? Even if we are strong enough to wage it, we are haters of war, and would not attain our ends by death and bloodshed. Yet to propose such a thing would defeat itself, since, as she told us, this Lady Nefra is not one to be sold or driven. Her heart and nothing else is her guide, which she will follow fast and far. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Oh! let us play no more with words. I, whom you call the Scribe Rasa, am Khian, once Prince of the North, the affianced of Queen Nefra, whom my father Apepi would seize to be his wife. When he discovered that I, his envoy, had become his rival, the King imprisoned and would have killed me, and that is why we came together in yonder darksome vault. ”

“ Apepi will send an army to destroy us and to capture the Queen, but he will find nothing to destroy, for the Order has its hiding places, and in Egypt are many tombs and catacombs where soldiers dare not come, while the Queen will be far away. If Apepi seeks a curse, let the curse fall upon him, as fall it shall when a hundred thousand Babylonians pour down on Tanis in answer to dead Rima’s prayer and to right her daughter’s wrongs. ”

“ After the dynasty had borne rule for five reigns, covering the space perhaps of one hundred and fifty years, a king came to the throne named Apepi, who has left several monuments, and is the only one of the "Shepherds" that stands out for us in definite historical consistency as a living and breathing person. Apepi built a great temple to Sutekh at Zoan, or Tanis, his principal capital, composed of blocks of red granite, and adorned it with obelisks and sphinxes. ”

“ Man’s day is short, and Pharaoh or peasant, soon he is forgot and perchance, in the end, it will be better for him if he has been a bringer of peace rather than the wearer of a ravelled robe of power that he does not seek.”
“Truly I was right when I said that you must belong to yonder Order of the Dawn, for not so in a like case should I have answered the King my father, Khian,” said Apepi, astonished. ”

“ The Prince Khian, the only lawful son of King Apepi—at present—has been sworn a member of the Order of the Dawn, which order it is the purpose of King Apepi to destroy, as is not wonderful, kings being what they are, seeing that it has just crowned a certain lady Queen of all Egypt and thereby in a sense declared war against him, the usurper. ”

“ 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!” ”

“ The pacific rule of Apepi and his predecessors allowed Thebes to increase in power, and her monuments now recommence. Three kings who bore the family name of Taa, and the throne name of Ra-Sekenen, bore rule in succession at the southern capital. The third of these, Taa-ken, or "Taa the Victorious," was contemporary with Apepi, and paid his tribute punctually, year by year, to his lawful suzerain. He does not seem to have had any desire to provoke war; but Apepi probably thought that he was becoming too powerful, and would, if unmolested, shortly make an effort to throw off the Hyksôs yoke. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Moreover, we think that if the oracle of those Egyptian goddesses be true, this child of hers cannot be killed. Make them captives, O King, and hold them fast, but do not leave them at large to move mighty Babylon and the world against you.”
“You are right,” said Apepi. “It shall be done. Let Rima, the widow of King Kheperra, and her daughter Nefra, Princess of Upper Egypt, be brought to my Court, even if an army must be sent to fetch them. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Hail to thee who art in the midst of thine Ark, Oh rising Sun who risest, and declining (1) one who declinest: at whose will millions spring forth, as he turneth his face to the unborn generations of men: Chepera in the middle of his Bark, who overthroweth Apepi.
Here are the children of Seb who overthrow the adversaries of Osiris and destroy them from the Bark of Rā. ”

“ Now Roy looked him in the eyes and said:
“It comes into my mind, how or whence does not matter, that although he travels as a simple officer of the Court, called I know not what, the man is no other than the Prince Khian, Apepi’s heir.”
“So I think also,” said Tau, “and not without reason. Tell me, holy Prophet, have you learned aught concerning this Khian?”
“Much, Tau. From his boyhood he has been watched by those at Apepi’s Court who are our friends, and their report of him is very good. He has his faults like other men in youth, and he is somewhat rash. ”

“ Then I seek no throne; then I seek nothing but a grave. Nay, first I seek vengeance. I tell you that of Apepi and his Shepherds I will not leave one living, of his cities not one stone shall remain upon another.”
“Kind words from a Sister of the Dawn, and from her one of whose titles is Uniter of Lands—not their destroyer!” exclaimed Tau, shrugging his shoulders, and adding, “O Child, do you not understand that all life is a trial and that as we pass the trials, so we shall be rewarded or condemned? ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the names of all the gods and for the welfare of Egypt, we command you to take Rima the Babylonian, wife of the good god Pharaoh who is not, and her child, the Royal Princess Nefra, and to bring them to us, living if may be, that they may be delivered to King Apepi in fulfilment of our oath. ”

“ The Messenger Rima the Queen heard through her spies that Apepi, King of the Shepherds, purposed to take her and her child and to hold them captive. Having learned that this was the truth, she summoned a council of such lords as remained in Upper Egypt, and of the high priests of the gods, to ask them what she should do.
“Behold,” she said, “I am a widow. My lord and yours fell fighting bravely against the North, leaving his heir, this royal infant. When it became known that he was dead, his army would fight no more but fell back on Thebes, and therefore the Shepherds claim the victory. ”

“ For very many days the great army marched across the plains and deserts, as the progress of so vast a host was slow, till at length it drew near to the borders of Egypt. Then it was that Tau heard from his spies and skirmishers that Apepi with all his strength, a mighty power, had built a line of forts upon his boundary and in front of these was preparing to give battle to the Babylonians. These tidings he took to Nefra who sat in her chariot armed in glittering mail like some young war goddess, surrounded by a bodyguard under the command of Ru. ”

“ At length a ray of light dispels the darkness for an instant. ‘It came to pass,’ says an ancient papyrus, ‘that the land of Khemi belonged to the enemy. No one was sovereign lord in the day when that happened. The King Sekenen-Ra ruled in the south, but the enemy ruled in the district of the Amu, and Apepi, their king, was in the city of Avaris ”

“ They saw and trembled, and returning, made report to Apepi at his Council.
“Let Pharaoh hearken!” they said. “For every man we muster, the Babylonians have two under the command of the Prince Abeshu who is reported to be a great general, though some say that he was once a priest and a magician. The spies tell also that with them marches the Princess Nefra, daughter of Kheperra, she who slipped through Pharaoh’s fingers and is affianced to Pharaoh’s son, who also slipped through his fingers and, if he lives, is hidden we know not where, unless he, too, be with the Babylonians. ”

“ I am the lord of the red crown which is on the head of the shining one, (3) he who gives life to mankind from the heat of his mouth, and who delivers Rā from Apepi.
The fourth domain. O this great and lofty mountain of the Netherworld, on the highest point of which ends the sky. It is three hundred measures in length, and ten in width. There is a snake on it, he with sharp knives is his name, he is seventy cubits in his windings, he lives by slaughtering the glorious ones and the damned in the Netherworld. ”

“ So, everything having been made ready and the roll containing the offers and the threats of King Apepi given into his keeping, together with offerings of gold for the gods of the Children of the Dawn and presents of jewels for the Princess Nefra, if it should be proved that she was the wondrous maiden who dwelt among them, Khian departed. Yet he did not travel as the Prince, but rather as a Scribe of the Court, Rasa by name, whom it had pleased the King to choose to be his envoy upon a certain business. ”

“ But,” he added with a sigh, “what says Nefra our Princess, who after to-night’s ceremony will be our Queen?”
“I say,” answered Nefra coldly, “that I am not a woman to be sold for the price of a crown, or of a hundred crowns. This man, Apepi the Usurper, is one of the fierce Shepherds who are the enemies of our race. He is a thief of the desert who has stolen half Egypt and holds it by force and fraud. He, who is more than old enough to be my father, slew my father, the Pharaoh Kheperra, and strove to slay me and my mother, the Queen Rima, the daughter of Babylon. ”

“ 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. ”