CHAPTER X.
Amasis received his son with a burst of laughter, and without noticingPsamtik's pale and troubled countenance, shouted: "Did not I tell thee,that a simple Egyptian would find it no easy task to catch such a Greekfox? I would have given ten cities to have been by, when thy captiveproved to be the stammering Lydian instead of the voluble Athenian."
Psamtik grew paler and paler, and trembling with rage, answered in asuppressed voice: "Is it well, my father, thus to rejoice at an affrontoffered to thy son? I swear, by the eternal gods, that but for Cambyses'sake that shameless Lydian had not seen the light of another day. Butwhat is it to thee, that thy son becomes a laughing-stock to thesebeggarly Greeks!"
"Abuse not those who have outwitted thee."
"Outwitted! my plan was so subtly laid, that...
"The finer the web, the sooner broken."
"That that intriguing Greek could not possibly have escaped, if, inviolation of all established precedents; the envoy of a foreign powerhad not taken it upon himself to rescue a man whom we had condemned."
"There thou art in error, my son. We are not speaking of the executionof a judicial sentence, but of the success or failure of an attempt atpersonal revenge."
"The agents employed were, however, commissioned by the king, andtherefore the smallest satisfaction that I can demand of thee, is tosolicit from Cambyses the punishment of him who has interfered in theexecution of the royal decrees. In Persia, where men bow to the king'swill as to the will of a god, this crime will be seen in all itsheinousness. The punishment of Gyges is a debt which Cambyses owes us."
"But I have no intention of demanding the payment of this debt,"answered Amasis. "On the contrary, I am thankful that Phanes hasescaped. Gyges has saved my soul from the guilt of shedding innocentblood, and thine from the reproach of having revenged thyself meanly ona man, to whom thy father is indebted."
"Wilt thou then conceal the whole affair from Cambyses?"
"No, I shall mention it jestingly in a letter, as my manner is, and atthe same time caution him against Phanes. I shall tell him that he hasbarely escaped my vengeance, and will therefore certainly endeavor tostir up the power of Persia against Egypt; and shall entreat my futureson-in-law to close his ears to this false accuser. Croesus and Gygescan help us by their friendship more than Phanes can injure by hishatred."
"Is this then thy final resolve? Can I expect no satisfaction?"
"None. I abide by what I have said."
"Then tremble, not alone before Phanes, but before another--before onewho holds thee in his power, and who himself is in ours."
"Thou thinkest to alarm me; thou wouldst rend the bond formed onlyyesterday? Psamtik, Psamtik, I counsel thee to remember, that thoustandest before thy father and thy king."
"And thou, forget not that I am thy son! If thou compell'st me to forgetthat the gods appointed thee to be my father--if I can hope for no helpfrom thee, then I will resort to my own weapons."
"I am curious to learn what these may be."
"And I need not conceal them. Know then that the oculist Nebenchari isin our power."
Amasis turned pale.
"Before thou couldst possibly imagine that Cambyses would sue for thehand of thy daughter, thou sentest this man to the distant realm ofPersia, in order to rid thyself of one who shared thy knowledge of thereal descent of my so-called, sister Nitetis. He is still there, andat a hint from the priests will disclose to Cambyses that he has beendeceived, and that thou hast ventured to send him, instead of thine own,the child of thy dethroned predecessor Hophra. All Nebenchari's papersare in our possession, the most important being a letter in thine ownhand promising his father, who assisted at Nitetis' birth, a thousandgold rings, as an inducement to secrecy even from the priests."
"In whose hands are these papers?" asked Amasis in a freezing tone.
"In the hands of the priesthood."
"Who speak by thy mouth?"
"Thou hast said it."
"Repeat then thy requests."
"Entreat Cambyses to punish Gyges, and grant me free powers to pursuethe escaped Phanes as it shall seem good in mine eyes."
"Is that all?"
"Bind thyself by a solemn oath to the priests, that the Greeks shall beprevented from erecting any more temples to their false gods in Egypt,and that the building of the temple to Apollo, in Memphis, shall bediscontinued."
"I expected these demands. The priests have discovered a sharp weaponto wield against me. Well, I am prepared to yield to the wishes ofmy enemies, with whom thou hast leagued thyself, but only on twoconditions. First, I insist that the letter, which I confess to havewritten to the father of Nebenchari in a moment of inconsideration, berestored to me. If left in the hands of thy party, it could reduce mefrom a king to the contemptible slave of priestly intrigue."
"That wish is reasonable. The letter shall be returned to thee, if.... "
"Not another if! on the contrary, know that I consider thy petition forthe punishment of Gyges so imprudent, that I refuse to grant it. Nowleave me and appear not again before mine eyes until I summon thee!Yesterday I gained a son, only to lose him to-day. Rise! I demand notokens of a love and humility, which thou hast never felt. Go to thepriests when thou needest comfort and counsel, and see if they cansupply a father's place. Tell Neithotep, in whose hands thou art as wax,that he has found the best means of forcing me to grant demands, whichotherwise I should have refused. Hitherto I have been willing to makeevery sacrifice for the sake of upholding Egypt's greatness; but now,when I see that, to attain their own ends, the priests can strive tomove me by the threat of treachery to their own country, I feel inclinedto regard this privileged caste as a more dangerous enemy to Egypt, thaneven the Persians. Beware, beware! This once, having brought danger uponEgypt through my own fatherly weakness, I give way to the intrigues ofmy enemies; but, for the future, I swear by the great goddess Neith,that men shall see and feel I am king; the entire priesthood shallbe sacrificed rather than the smallest fraction of my royal will!Silence--depart!"
The prince left, but this time a longer interval was necessary, beforethe king could regain even outward cheerfulness sufficient to enable himto appear before his guests.
Psamtik went at once to the commander of the native troops, orderedhim to banish the Egyptian captain who had failed in executing hisrevengeful plans, to the quarries of Thebais, and to send the Ethiopiansback to their native country. He then hurried to the high-priest ofNeith, to inform him how much he had been able to extort from the king.
Neithotep shook his head doubtfully on hearing of Amasis' threats, anddismissed the prince with a few words of exhortation, a practice henever omitted.
Psamtik returned home, his heart oppressed and his mind clouded witha sense of unsatisfied revenge, of a new and unhappy rupture with hisfather, a fear of foreign derision, a feeling of his subjection to thewill of the priests, and of a gloomy fate which had hung over his headsince his birth.
His once beautiful wife was dead; and, of five blooming children, onlyone daughter remained to him, and a little son, whom he loved tenderly,and to whom in this sad moment he felt drawn. For the blue eyes andlaughing mouth of his child were the only objects that ever thawed thisman's icy heart, and from these he now hoped for consolation and courageon his weary road through life.
"Where is my son?" he asked of the first attendant who crossed his path.
"The king has just sent for the Prince Necho and his nurse," answeredthe man.
At this moment the high-steward of the prince's household approached,and with a low obeisance delivered to Psamtik a sealed papyrus letter,with the words: "From your father, the king."
In angry haste he broke the yellow wax of the seal bearing the king'sname, and read: "I have sent for thy son, that he may not become, likehis father, a blind instrument in the hands of the priesthood, forgetfulof what is due to himself and his country. His education shall be mycare, for the impressions of childhood affect the whole of a man's laterlife
. Thou canst see him if thou wilt, but I must be acquainted with thyintention beforehand."
[Signet rings were worn by the Egyptians at a very early period. Thus, in Genesis 41. 42., Pharaoh puts his ring on Joseph's hand. In the Berlin Museum and all other collections of Egyptian antiquities, numbers of these rings are to be found, many of which are more than 4000 years old.]
Psamtik concealed his indignation from the surrounding attendants withdifficulty. The mere wish of a royal father had, according to Egyptiancustom, as much weight as the strictest command. After reflecting a fewmoments, he called for huntsmen, dogs, bows and lances, sprang into alight chariot and commanded the charioteer to drive him to the westernmarshes, where, in pursuing the wild beasts of the desert, he couldforget the weight of his own cares and wreak on innocent creatures hishitherto baffled vengeance.
Gyges was released immediately after the conversation between his fatherand Amasis, and welcomed with acclamations of joy by his companions. ThePharaoh seemed desirous of atoning for the imprisonment of his friend'sson by doubling his favors, for on the same day Gyges received fromthe king a magnificent chariot drawn by two noble brown steeds, andwas begged to take back with him to Persia a curiously-wrought set ofdraughts, as a remembrance of Sais. The separate pieces were madeof ebony and ivory, some being curiously inlaid with sentences, inhieroglyphics of gold and silver.
Amasis laughed heartily with his friends at Gyges' artifice, allowedthe young heroes to mix freely with his family, and behaved towardsthem himself as a jovial father towards his merry sons. That the ancientEgyptian was not quite extinguished in him could only be discerned atmeal-times, when a separate table was allotted to the Persians. Thereligion of his ancestors would have pronounced him defiled, had heeaten at the same table with men of another nation.
[Herodotus II. 41. says that the Egyptians neither kissed, nor ate out of the same dish with foreigners, nay, indeed, that they refused to touch meat, in the cutting up of which the knife of a Greek had been used. Nor were the lesser dynasties of the Delta allowed, according to the Stela of Pianchi, to cross the threshold of the Pharaohs because they were unclean and ate fish. In the book of Genesis, the brethren of Joseph were not allowed to eat bread with the Egyptians.]
When Amasis, at last, three days after the release of Gyges, declaredthat his daughter Nitetis would be prepared to depart for Asia in thecourse of two more weeks, all the Persians regretted that their stay inEgypt was so near its close.
Croesus had enjoyed the society of the Samian poets and sculptors. Gygeshad shared his father's preference for Greek art and artists. Darius,who had formerly studied astronomy in Babylon, was one evening observingthe heavens, when, to his surprise, he was addressed by the agedNeithotep and invited to follow him on to the temple-roof. Darius, evereager to acquire knowledge, did not wait to be asked twice, and wasto be found there every night in earnest attention to the old priest'slessons.
On one occasion Psamtik met him thus with his master, and asked thelatter what could have induced him to initiate a Persian in the Egyptianmysteries.
"I am only teaching him," answered the high-priest, "what is as wellknown to every learned Chaldee in Babylon as to ourselves, and amthereby gaining the friendship of a man, whose stars as far outshinethose of Cambyses as the sun outshines the moon. This Darius, I tellthee, will be a mighty ruler. I have even seen the beams of his planetshining over Egypt. The truly wise man extends his gaze into the future,regards the objects lying on either side of his road, as well as theroad itself. Thou canst not know in which of the many houses by whichthou passest daily, a future benefactor may not have been reared forthee. Leave nought unnoticed that lies in thy path, but above all directthy gaze upward to the stars. As the faithful dog lies in wait nightafter night for thieves, so have I watched these pilgrims of the heavensfifty years long--these foretellers of the fates of men, burning inethereal space, and announcing, not only the return of summer andwinter, but the arrival of good and bad fortune, honor and disgrace.These are the unerring guides, who have pointed out to me in Darius aplant, that will one day wax into a mighty tree."
To Bartja, Darius' nightly studies were especially welcome; theynecessitated more sleep in the morning, and so rendered Bartja's stolenearly rides to Naukratis, (on which Zopyrus, to whom he had confidedhis secret, accompanied him), easier of accomplishment. During theinterviews with Sappho, Zopyrus and the attendants used all theirendeavors to kill a few snipes, jackals or jerboas. They could then,on their return, maintain to their Mentor Croesus, that they had beenpursuing fieldsports, the favorite occupation of the Persian nobility.
The change which the power of a first love had wrought in the innermostcharacter of Bartja, passed unnoticed by all but Tachot, the daughterof Amasis. From the first day on which they had spoken together she hadloved him, and her quick feelings told her at once that something hadhappened to estrange him from herself. Formerly his behavior had beenthat of a brother, and he had sought her companionship; but now hecarefully avoided every approach to intimacy, for he had guessed hersecret and felt as if even a kind look would have been an offenceagainst his loyalty to Sappho.
In her distress at this change Tachot confided her sorrows to Nitetis.The latter bade her take courage, and the two girls built many a castlein the air, picturing to themselves the happiness of being alwaystogether at one court, and married to two royal brothers. But as thedays went by, the visits of the handsome prince became more and morerare, and when he did come, his behavior to Tachot was cold and distant.Yet the poor girl could not but confess that Bartja had grown handsomerand more manly during his stay in Egypt. An expression of proud and yetgentle consciousness lay beaming in his large eyes, and a strange dreamyair of rest often took the place of his former gay spirits. His cheekshad lost their brilliant color, but that added to his beauty, while itlessened hers, who, like him, became paler from day to day.
Melitta, the old slave, had taken the lovers under her protection. Shehad surprised them one morning, but the prince had given her such richpresents, and her darling had begged, flattered and coaxed so sweetly,that at last Melitta promised to keep their secret, and later, yieldingto that natural impulse which moves all old women to favor lovers,had even given them every assistance in her power. She already sawher "sweet child" mistress of a hemisphere, often addressed her as "myPrincess" and "my Queen" when none were by to hear, and in many a weakmoment imagined a brilliant future for herself in some high office atthe Persian court.