"Now where is he?" she muttered. "Osiris--glory to His name--send that he has not wandered in the night, and he blind! Alack! that I could not return before the dark. Alack! and alack! what times have we fallen on, when the Holy High Priest and the Governor, by descent, of Abouthis, is left with one aged crone to minister to his infirmity! O Harmachis, my poor boy, thou hast laid trouble at our doors! Why, what's this? Surely he sleeps not, there upon the ground?--'twill be his death! Prince! Holy Father! Amenemhat! awake, arise!" and she hobbled towards the corpse. "Why, how is it! By Him who sleeps, he's dead! untended and alone--/dead! dead!/" and she sent her long wail of grief ringing up the sculptured walls.
"Hush! woman, be still!" I said, gliding from the shadows.
"Oh, what art thou?" she cried, casting down her basket. "Wicked man, hast thou murdered this Holy One, the only Holy One in Egypt? Surely the curse will fall on thee, for though the Gods do seem to have forsaken us now in our hour of trial, yet is their arm long, and certainly they will be avenged on him who hath slain their anointed!"
"Look on me, Atoua," I cried.
"Look! ay, I look--thou wicked wanderer who hast dared this cruel deed! Harmachis is a traitor and lost far away, and Amenemhat his holy father is murdered, and now I'm all alone without kith or kin. I gave them for him. I gave them for Harmachis, the traitor! Come, slay me also, thou wicked one!"
I took a step toward her, and she, thinking that I was about to smite her, cried out in fear:
"Nay, good Sir, spare me! Eighty and six, by the Holy Ones, eighty and six, come next flood of Nile, and yet I would not die, though Osiris is merciful to the old who served him! Come no nearer--help! help!"
"Thou fool, be silent," I said; "knowest thou me not?"
"Know thee? Can I know every wandering boatman to whom Sebek grants to earn a livelihood till Typhon claims his own? And yet--why, 'tis strange--that changed countenance!--that scar!--that stumbling gait!
It is thou, Harmachis!--'tis thou, O my boy! Art come back to glad mine old eyes? I hoped thee dead! Let me kiss thee?--nay, I forget.
Harmachis is a traitor, ay, and a murderer! Here lies the holy Amenemhat, murdered by the traitor, Harmachis! Get thee gone! I'll have none of traitors and of parricides! Get thee to thy wanton!--it is not thou whom I did nurse."
"Peace! woman; peace! I slew not my father--he died, alas!--he died even in my arms."
"Ay, surely, and cursing thee, Harmachis! Thou hast given death to him who gave thee life! /La! la!/ I am old, and I've seen many a trouble; but this is the heaviest of them all! I never liked the looks of mummies; but I would I were one this hour! Get thee gone, I pray thee!"
"Old nurse, reproach me not! Have I not enough to bear?"
"Ah! yes, yes!--I did forget! Well; and what is thy sin? A woman was thy bane, as women have been to those before thee, and shall be to those after thee. And what a woman! /La! la!/ I saw her, a beauty such as never was--an arrow pointed by the evil Gods for destruction! And thou, a young man bred as a priest--an ill training--a very ill training! 'Twas no fair match. Who can wonder that she mastered thee?
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. And hark thou, Harmachis: he hath not left thee empty-handed; for, so soon as the plot failed, he gathered all his wealth, and it is large, and hid it--where, I can show thee--and it is thine by right of descent."
"Talk not to me of wealth, Atoua. Where shall I go and how shall I hide my shame?"
"Ah! true, true; here mayst thou not abide, for if they found thee, surely they would put thee to the dreadful death--ay, to the death by the waxen cloth. Nay, I will hide thee, and, when the funeral rites of the holy Amenemhat have been performed, we will fly hence, and cover us from the eyes of men till these sorrows are forgotten. /La! la!/ it is a sad world, and full of trouble as the Nile mud is full of beetles. Come, Harmachis, come."
