Harmachis

“ Come, Harmachis; let me kiss thee! It is not for a woman to be hard on a man because he loved our sex too much. Why, that is but nature; and Nature knows her business, else she had made us otherwise. But here is an evil case. Knowest thou that this Macedonian Queen of thine hath seized the temple lands and revenues, and driven away the priests—all, save the holy Amenemhat, who lies here, and whom she left, I know not why; ay, and caused the worship of the Gods to cease within these walls. Well, he's gone!—he's gone! and indeed he is better with Osiris, for his life was a sore burden to him. ”

“ Whatever proportion of truth there may have been in their spiritual claims and imaginings, if indeed there was any, such men as the Prince Harmachis have been told of in the annals of every great religion, and, as is shown by the testimony of monumental and sacred inscriptions, they were not unknown among the worshippers of the Egyptian Gods, and more especially of Isis. ”

“ Harmachis—Ani, by. your works have you become known to us, yet know this: Before you can gain membership in the Secret Council of Rameses, you have before you a perilous path, beset with strange scenes and much travail. In your journey there you will visit strange places, endure ordeals horrific and terrible, but before you are permitted to begin your journey you must submit to the Judgment of Amenti. ”

“ Now it must be come, for if I take not the gems the Roman will surely seize on Egypt, and then there will be no Pharaoh to whom the secret may be told. Nay, let us away with fears and to the work. Why dost look so frightened? Having pure hearts, there is naught to fear, Harmachis.”
“Even as thou wilt,” I said again; “it is for thee to judge, since if thou judgest falsely on thee will surely fall the curse from which there is no escape.” ”

“ Time and grief had done their work indeed; scarce could I think myself the same as when, the royal Harmachis—in all the splendour of my strength and youthful beauty—I first had looked upon the woman's loveliness that did destroy me. And yet within me burned the same fire as of yore; yet I was not changed, for time and grief have no power to alter the immortal spirit of man. Seasons may come and go; Hope, like a bird, may fly away; Passion may break its wings against the iron bars of Fate; Illusions may crumble as the cloudy towers of sunset flame ”

“ By that first and holy right of woman—by the right of the great love I bear thee, and which, it seems, thou hast no eyes to see—by the right of my glory and my shame. Oh, be not wroth with me, Harmachis, nor set me down as light, because the truth at last has burst from me; for I am not so. I am what thou wilt make me. I am the wax within the moulder’s hands, and as thou dost fashion me so I shall be. There breathes within me now a breath of glory, blowing across the waters of my soul, that can waft me to ends more noble than ever I have dreamed afore, if thou wilt be my pilot and my guide. ”

“ To live the prey of so many memories, the fount of an undying shame that night by night, as I lie sleepless, shall well afresh from my sorrow-stricken heart!—to live torn by a love I cannot lose!—to stand alone like some storm-twisted tree, and, sighing day by day to the winds of heaven, gaze upon the desert of my life, while I wait the lingering lightning's stroke—nay, that will not I, Harmachis! ”

“ Never to have known some woman-heart beat all in tune to thine—never to have seen the eyes of thy adored aswim with passion's tears, as she sighed her vows upon thy breast!—Never to have loved!—never to have lost thyself in the mystery of another's soul; nor to have learned how Nature can overcome our naked loneliness, and with the golden web of love of twain weave one identity! Why, it is never to have lived, Harmachis! ”

“ For thou dost not love me who still dost love that queenly woman thou hast hounded to the death! Her thou shalt never win, and I thee shall never win, and this is the bitter end of Fate! See, Harmachis: I ask one boon before I go and for all time become naught to thee but a memory of shame. Tell me that thou dost forgive me so far as thine is to forgive, and in token thereof kiss me—with no lover’s kiss, but kiss me on the brow, and bid me pass in peace. ”

“ Canst thou refuse, O our Hope? Doth not the holy love of country swell within thy heart? Canst thou dash the cup of Freedom from thy lips and bear to drink the bitter draught of slaves? The emprise is great; maybe it shall fail, and thou with thy life, as we with ours, shalt pay the price of our endeavour. But what of it, Harmachis? Is life, then, so sweet? Are we so softly cushioned on the stony bed of earth? Is bitterness and sorrow in its sum so small and scant a thing? Do we here breathe so divine an air that we should fear to face the passage of our breath? ”

“ For I am all things, Life is my spirit, and Nature is my raiment. I am the laughter of the babe, I am the maiden’s love, I am the mother’s kiss. I am the Child and Servant of the Invisible that is God, that is Law, that is Fate—though myself I be not God and Fate and Law. When winds blow and oceans roar upon the face of the Earth thou hearest my voice; when thou gazest on the starry firmament thou seest my countenance; when the spring blooms out in flowers, that is my smile, Harmachis. For I am Nature’s self, and all her shapes are shapes of Me. I breathe in all that breathes. ”

“ Thirty-one thousand men who bear arms are sworn to rise when the tidings come to them. Within five days every citadel in Egypt will be in our hands, and then what have we to fear? From Rome but little, for her hands are full; and, besides, we will make alliance with the Triumvirate, and, if need be, buy them off. For of money there is plenty in the land, and if more be wanted thou, Harmachis, knowest where it is stored against the need of Khem, and outside the Roman's reach of arm. ”

“ No contemporary historian or poet can name them without breaking out into passionate praise of their nobleness and as passionate lament for their unmerited fate. “Alas for the sons of Bermek,” cries Salih ben Tarif, “and the happy days of their power! With them the world was as a bride; but now it is widowed and bereft of its children.” “The Barmecides,” says Fekhreddin Razi, “were to their time as a plume to the brow, as a crown to the head. The world was requickened under their administration and the empire carried to the highest pinnacle of splendour. ”

“ The most remarkable instance of the many which Oriental history presents is the execrable conduct of the Khalif Hārūnu-’r-Rāshīd, so undeservedly celebrated in the Thousand and One Nights, in murdering his principal Vizier Ja`far and utterly ruining the other members of the noble house of Barmak (the Barmecides of our common translation of the Arabian Nights) , all of whom were as famed for their unbounded liberality as for their brilliant abilities. An interesting account of the Barmakis and their ruin is given in Dr Jonathan Scott’s Tales, Anecdotes, &c., from the Arabic and Persian. ”

“ His military exploits and his love of science prove this caliph to have been no ordinary man; but then the glory of his achievements was tarnished by his cruelty to the Barmacides. These were a distinguished tribe or family, descended from the ancient kings of Persia. They had rendered the most signal services to the successive caliphs, and won the respect and affection of the whole empire. Giaffar Barmacide, who was considered the most virtuous of Mussulmans and the most eminent author of the age, was the vizier of Haroun. ”

“ Since I have found no man to love me in the day of adversity, or to stand by me in the day of battle, save only thee, O victorious king, who hast torn away the night from above me, I will be thy servant, I and all my house, and Khninsu shall pay tribute into thy treasury. For, as to thee, thou art Harmakhis, chief of the imperishable stars, thou art king, even as he is king, and even as he doth not destroy himself, neither shalt thou destroy thyself! ”

“ On the upper part of the stele, which is now one of the treasures of the Louvre, Paris, King Hammurabi salutes, with his right hand reverently upraised, the sun god Shamash, seated on his throne, at the summit of E-sagila, by whom he is being presented with the stylus with which to inscribe the legal code. Both figures are heavily bearded, but have shaven lips and chins. The god wears a conical headdress and a flounced robe suspended from his left shoulder, while the king has assumed a round dome-shaped hat and a flowing garment which almost sweeps the ground. ”

“ Then, one day, the hermit Uttanka came of his own accord to visit him, as if he were the time of accomplishment of the previous decree of Śiva. And when the hermit came to the door, the king, being blinded with passion, intoxication, and the pride of sovereignty, would not listen, though the warders announced his arrival. Then the hermit was angry, and denounced this curse on the king, “O man blinded with intoxication, you shall fall from your throne, and become a wild elephant.” ”

“ You know one must camp somewhere, and if we can’t find the camera, at dawn one might make a sketch.”
“Are you mad?” I asked by way of answer, and Higgs collapsed, but to this hour he has never forgiven me.
We looked our last upon Harmac, the god whose glory we had destroyed, and went on swiftly till darkness overtook us almost opposite to that ruined village where Shadrach had tried to poison the hound Pharaoh, which afterwards tore out his throat. Here we unloaded the camels, no light task, and camped, for near this spot there was water and a patch of maize on which the beasts could feed. ”

“ Hormisdas was assassinated after a reign of eleven years, and a usurper named Behram (or Varanes, as he is also called) seized the throne, and received considerable support from the Jews. By the help of the Greek Emperor Mauritius, Hormisdas’s son, Chosroes II. succeeded in crushing Behram, punishing at the same time with great severity the Jews, who had upheld him. Among others, the Jews of Antioch were put to death, or reduced to slavery. ”

“ A king of knowledge, instructed by Shamash the judge, I strongly established Sippara, reclothed the rear of the shrine of Aya (the consort of Shamash) , and planned out Ê-BAB-BAR (temple of Shamash at Sippara) like a dwelling in heaven. In arms I avenged Larsa (held by the Elamite, Rim-Sin) , and restored Ê-BAB-BAR (temple of Shamash at Larsa) for Shamash my helper. As overlord I gave fresh life to Erech, furnishing abundance of water to its people, and completed the spire of Ê-AN-NA (temple of Nanâ at Erech) . I completed the glory of Anu and Ninni. ”

“ With the brand of Cain upon my brow, I fled Virginia—fled between two days, and here I am, a cave-hermit, on the verge of fifty years, with a giant’s frame, unracked by disease; but with hair and beard almost as white as driven snow.
“Yes, yes,” he continued, as though the young hunter had put a question, “it is a terrible thing to kill a fellow-creature in the first heat of passion; but I will not tell you aught further of that dark night, now. Boy, from that day to this I have not taken a human life—nor ever will I, not even the life of an Indian. ”

“ The great king Hammurabi (commonly placed near the year 2000 B.C.) , in his noteworthy civil code, takes Shamash as his patron, as the inspirer of wisdom and the controller of human right; and from this time onward this deity is invoked by the kings in their inscriptions. The worship of the sun was established in Canaan at an early time (as the name of the town Bethshemesh, 'house of Shemesh,' shows) , and under Assyrian influence was adopted by a large number of Israelites in the seventh century B.C. ”

“ More distinct grew the plash of oars, and presently six canoes, loaded to the water with painted braves, flitted past the Shawnee’s line of vision.
In the prow of the foremost canoe stood Tecumseh.
“Tecumseh is on the war-path,” said Oonalooska, returning to the hermit. “The White Wolf is not with him. The Lone Man and Oonalooska must tear the pale-faces from his people before the great chief returns.”
The hermit saw the truth of the Indian’s words, and promptly acknowledged it. Tecumseh had never been outwitted by a white man. ”

“ Even the idols of the vanquished shared the fate of their people: the king tore them from the sanctuaries which had hitherto sheltered them, and took them as prisoners in his train to form a court of captive gods about his patron divinity. Shamash, the great judge of heaven, inspired him with justice, and the prosperity which his good administration obtained for the people was less the work of the sovereign than that of the immortals. ”

“ She grasped his arm and impulsively looked into his face. “But your friend, we have forgotten him, and done nothing to save him, and now it is too late.”
“We could not help it; we had to think of our own safety.”
“I shall send for Captain Tradmos and try to devise some other plan,” she said, as they descended the stairs.
“We should not be seen together,” she added, as they approached the throne-room; “besides, you ought to go to your chambers. No one is allowed to be out when the dead is being removed.” ”

“ The hour for escape had arrived.
“I’ve lived in this hole in the ground for eighteen years,” said the hermit, taking a mournful survey of the cave, whose walls were lined with the skins of all animals, “and you may think that it goes hard with me to leave it. But if I stay here now, Alaska’s wolves will drink Hewitt blood. I want to live till I can see my boy again, and—” here he turned away, and muttered in an undertone: “Yes, I’d like to see her, too. I could forgive her now; but, oh, God! will I ever meet my wife on earth more?” ”