Chapter 36

AFTER his reception by the viceroy, Sargon delayed at Pi-Bast, waiting for letters from the pharaoh at Memphis. Meanwhile strange reports began to circulate among officers and nobles.

The Phoenicians told, of course as the greatest secret, that the priests, it was unknown for what reason, not only forgave the Assyrians the unpaid tribute, not only freed them once and for all time from paying it, but, besides, to facilitate some northern war for the Assyrians, had concluded a treaty of peace for many years with them.

"The pharaoh," said the Phoenicians, "on learning of these concessions to Assyria fell very ill. Prince Ramses is troubled, and goes around grief-stricken. But both must give way to the priests, for they are not sure of the nobles and the army."

This enraged the Egyptian aristocracy.

"Is it possible?" whispered magnates who were in debt. "Does the dynasty not trust us? Have the priests undertaken to disgrace and ruin Egypt? For it is clear that if Assyria has a war in the distant north somewhere, now is just the time to attack her and fill the reduced treasury of the pharaoh and the aristocracy with plunder."

One and another of the young lords made bold to ask the prince what he thought of Assyrians. Ramses was silent, but the gleam in his eyes and his fixed lips expressed his feelings sufficiently.

"It is clear," whispered the lords, later on, "that this dynasty is bound by the priesthood. It yields not its confidence to nobles; great misfortunes are threatening Egypt."

Silent anger was soon turned into secret councils, which had even the semblance of conspiracy. Though many persons took part in this action, the priests were self-confident, or knew nothing of this in their blindness; and Sargon, though he felt the existing hatred, did not attach to it importance. He learned that Prince Ramses disliked him, but that he attributed to the event in the arena, and to his jealousy in the affair of the priestess. Confident, however, in his position as ambassador, he drank, feasted, and slipped away almost every evening to Kama, who received with increasing favor his courting and his presents.

Such was the condition of mind in the higher circles, when on a certain night the holy Mentezufis rushed to the prince's dwelling, and declared that he must see the viceroy immediately.

The courtiers answered that one of his women was visiting their lord, and that they would not disturb him. But when Mentezufis insisted with increasing emphasis, they called out Ramses.

The prince appeared after a time, and was not even angry.

"What is this?" asked he of the priest. "Are we at war, that Thou takest the trouble to visit me at an hour like the present?"

Mentezufis looked diligently at the prince, and sighed deeply.

"Has the prince not gone out all the evening?" inquired he.

"Not a step."

"Can I give a priest's word for this?"

The heir was astonished.

"It seems to me," answered he, haughtily, "that thy word is not needed, since I have given mine. What does this mean?"

They withdrew to a special chamber.

"Dost Thou know, lord," asked the excited priest, "what has happened, perhaps an hour since? Some young men attacked the worthy Sargon and clubbed him."

"Who were they? Where did this happen?"

"At the villa of a Phoenician priestess named Kama," answered Mentezufis, watching the face of the heir sharply.

"Daring fellows," said the prince, shrugging his shoulders, "to attack such a stalwart man! I suppose that more than one bone was broken in that struggle."

"But to attack an ambassador! Consider, worthy lord, an ambassador protected by the majesty of Assyria and Egypt," said the priest.

"Ho! ho!" laughed the prince. "Then King Assar sends ambassadors even to Phoenician dancers?"

Mentezufis was confused. All at once he tapped his forehead, and cried out also, with laughter,

"See, prince, what a simple man I am, unfamiliar with ceremonies. I forgot that Sargon, strolling about in the night near the house of a suspected woman, is not an ambassador, but an ordinary person."

After a while he added,

"In every case something evil has happened. Sargon may conceive a dislike for us."

"Priest! O priest!" cried Ramses, shaking his head. "Thou hast forgotten this, a thing of much more importance, that Egypt has no need to fear or even care for the good or bad feeling toward her, not merely of Sargon, but King Assar."

Mentezufis was so confused by the appositeness of the remark, that, instead of an answer, he bowed, muttering,

"Prince, the gods have given thee the wisdom of high priests, may their names be blessed! I wanted to issue an order to search for these insolents, but now I prefer to follow thy advice, for Thou art a sage above sages. Tell me, therefore, lord, what I am to do with Sargon and those turbulent young people."

"First of all, wait till morning. As a priest, Thou knowest best that divine sleep often brings good counsel."

"But if before morning I think out nothing?"

"I will visit Sargon in every case, and try to efface that little accident from his memory."

The priest took farewell of Ramses with marks of respect. On the way home, he pondered.

"I will let the heart be torn out of my breast," thought he, "if the prince had to do with that business. He neither beat Sargon, nor persuaded another to beat him; he did not even know of the incident. Whoso judges an affair with such coolness and so pointedly cannot be a confederate. In that case I can begin an investigation, and if we do not mollify the shaggy barbarian I will deliver the disturbers to justice. Beautiful treaty of friendship between two states, which begins by insulting the ambassador!"

Next morning the lordly Sargon lay on his felt couch till midday. He lay thus rather frequently, however, that is, after each drinking- feast. Near him, on a low divan, sat the devout Istubar, with eyes fixed on the ceiling, while muttering a prayer.

"Istubar," sighed the dignitary, "art Thou sure that no man of our court knows of my misfortune?"

"Who could know, if Thou hast seen no one?"

"But the Egyptians!" groaned Sargon.

"Of the Egyptians Mentezufis and the prince know, yes, and those madmen who surely will remember thy fists for a long time."

"They may they may; but it seems to me that the heir was among them, and that his nose is crushed, if not broken."

"The heir has a sound nose, and he was not there, I assure thee."

"In that case," sighed Sargon, "the prince should impale a good number of those rioters on stakes. I am an ambassador; my person is sacred."

"But I tell thee," counseled Istubar, "to cast anger from thy heart, and not to complain even; for if those rioters are arraigned before a court, the whole world will learn that the ambassador of the most worthy King Assar goes about among Phoenicians, and, what is worse, visits them alone during night hours. What wilt Thou answer if thy mortal enemy, the chancellor Lik-Bagus, asks thee, 'Sargon, what Phoenicians didst Thou see, and of what was thy discourse with them at night, outside their temple '?"

Sargon sighed, if sounds like the growling of a lion are to be called sighs.

That moment one of the Assyrian officers rushed in. He knelt down, struck the pavement with his forehead, and said to Sargon,

"Light of our lord's eyes! There is a crowd of magnates and dignitaries of Egypt before the entrance, and at the head of them the heir himself, with the evident intention of giving thee homage."

But before Sargon could utter a command, the prince was in the door of the chamber. He pushed the gigantic watch aside, and approached the felts quickly, while the confused ambassador, with widely opened eyes, knew not what to do, to flee naked to another chamber, or hide beneath the covers.

On the threshold stood a number of Assyrian officers, astonished at the invasion of the heir in opposition to every etiquette. But Istubar made a sign to them, and they vanished.

The prince was alone; he had left his suite in the courtyard.

"Be greeted, O ambassador of a great king, and guest of the pharaoh. I have come to visit thee and inquire if Thou hast need of anything, also to learn if time and desire will permit thee to ride in my company on a horse from my father's stables, surrounded by our suites in a manner becoming an ambassador of the mighty Assar, may he live through eternity!"

Sargon listened as he lay there, without understanding a syllable. But when Istubar interpreted the words of the Egyptian viceroy, the ambassador felt such delight that he beat his head against the couch, repeating the names Ramses and Assar.

When he had calmed himself, and made excuses for the wretched state in which so worthy and famous a guest had found him, he added,

"Do not take it ill, O lord, that an earthworm and a support of the throne, as I am, show delight in a manner so unusual. But I am doubly pleased at thy coming; first, because such a super-terrestrial honor has come to me; second, because in my dull and worthless heart I thought that thou, O lord, wert the author of my misfortune. It seemed to me that among the sticks which fell on my shoulders I felt thine, which struck, indeed, vigorously."

The calm Istubar interpreted phrase after phrase to the prince. To this the heir, with genuine kingly dignity, answered,

"Thou wert mistaken, O Sargon. If Thou thyself hadst not confessed the error, I should command to count out fifty blows of a stick to thee, so that Thou shouldst remember that persons like me do not attack one man with a crowd, or in the night-time."

Before the serene Istubar could finish the interpretation of this speech, Sargon had crawled up to the prince and embraced his legs earnestly.

"A great lord! a great king!" cried he. "Glory to Egypt, that has such a ruler."

To this the prince answered,

"I will say more, Sargon. If an attack was made on thee yesterday, I assure thee that no one of my courtiers made it. For I judge that a man of such strength as Thou art must have broken more than one skull. But my attendants are unharmed, every man of them."

"He has told truth, and spoken wisely," whispered Sargon to Istubar.

"But though," continued the prince, "this evil deed has happened, not through my fault, or through that of my attendants, I feel bound to decrease thy dissatisfaction with a city in which Thou wert met so unworthily; hence I have visited thy bedchamber; hence I open to thee thy house at all times, as often as them mayst wish to visit it, and I beg thee to accept this small gift from me."

The prince drew forth from his tunic a chain set with rubies and sapphires.

The gigantic Sargon shed tears; this moved the prince but did not affect the indifference of Istubar. The priest saw that Sargon had tears, joy, or anger, at call, as befitted the ambassador of a king full of wisdom.

The viceroy sat a moment longer, and then took farewell of Sargon. While going out, he thought that the Assyrians, though barbarians, were not evil minded, since they knew how to respond to magnanimity.

Sargon was so touched that he gave order immediately to bring wine, and he drank from midday till evening.

Some time after sunset the priest, Istubar, left Sargon's chamber for a while; he returned soon, but through a concealed doorway. Behind him appeared two men in dark mantles. When they had pushed their cowls aside, Sargon recognized in one the high priest Mefres, in the other Mentezufis the prophet.

"We bring thee, worthy ambassador, good news," said Mefres.

"May I be able to give you the like," cried the ambassador. "Be seated, holy and worthy fathers. And though I have reddened eyes, speak to me as if I were in perfect soberness; for when I am drunk my mind is improved even. Is this not true, Istubar?"

"Speak on," said the Chaldean.

"Today," began Mentezufis, "I have received a letter from the most worthy minister Herhor. He writes that his holiness may he live through eternity! awaits thy embassy at Memphis in his wonderful palace, and that his holiness may he live through eternity! is well disposed to make a treaty with Assyria."

Sargon tottered on his feet, but his eyes showed clear mental action.

"I will go," said he, "to his holiness the pharaoh, may he live through eternity! In the name of my lord I will put my seal on the treaty, if it be written on bricks in cuneiform letters, for I do not understand your writing. I will lie even all day on my belly before his holiness, and will sign the treaty. But how will ye carry it out, ha! ha! ha! that I know not," concluded he, with rude laughter.

"How darest thou, O servant of the great Assar, doubt the good-will and faith of our ruler?" inquired Mentezufis.

Sargon grew a little sobered.

"I do not speak of his holiness," replied he, "but of the heir to the throne of Egypt."

"He is a young man full of wisdom, who will carry out the will of his father and the supreme council without hesitation," answered Mefres.

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the drunken barbarian again. "Your prince O gods, put my joints out if I speak an untruth, when I say that I should wish Assyria to have such an heir as he is. Our Assyrian heir is a sage, a priest. He, before going to war, looks first at the stars in the sky; afterward he looks under hens' tails. But yours would examine to see how many troops he had; he would learn where the enemy was camping, and fall on him as an eagle on a lamb. He is a leader, he is a king! He is not of those who obey priestly counsels. He will take counsel with his own sword, and ye will have to carry out what he orders. Therefore, though I sign a treaty, I shall tell my lord that behind the sick pharaoh and the wise priests there is in Egypt a young heir to the throne who is a lion and a bull in one person, a man on whose lips there is honey, but in whose heart lies a thunderbolt."

"And Thou wilt tell an untruth," interrupted Mentezufis. "For our prince, though impulsive and riotous somewhat, as is usual with young people, knows how to respect both the counsel of sages and the highest institutions of the country."

"O ye sages learned in letters, ye who know the circuits of the stars!" said Sargon, jeering. "I am a simple commander of troops, who without my seal would not always be able to scratch off my signature. Ye are sages, I am unlearned; but by the beard of my king, I would not change what I know for your wisdom. Ye are men to whom the world of papyrus and brick is laid bare; but the real world in which men live is closed to you. I am unlearned, but I have the sniff of a dog; and, as a dog sniffs a bear from a distance; so I with reddened nose sniff a hero.

"Ye will give counsel to the prince! But ye are charmed by him already, as a dove is by a serpent. I, at least, do not deceive myself; and, though the prince is as kind to me as my own father, I feel through my skin that he hates me and my Assyrians as a tiger hates an elephant. Ha! ha! Only give him an army, and in three months he would be at Nineveh, if soldiers would rise up to him in the desert instead of falling down and dying."

"Even though Thou wert speaking truth," interrupted Mentezufis, "even if the prince wished to go to Nineveh, he will not go."

"But who will detain him when he is the pharaoh?"

"We."

"Ye? ye? Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Sargon. "Ye think always that that young man does not feel this treaty. But I but I ha! ha! ha! I will let the skin be torn from me, and my body be impaled if he does not know everything."

"Would the Phoenicians be so quiet if they possessed not the certainty that your young lion of Egypt would shield them before the bull of Assyria?"

Mentezufis and Mefres looked at each other stealthily. The genius of the barbarian almost terrified them; he had given bold utterance to that which they had not thought of. What would the result be, indeed, if the heir had divined their plans and wished to cross them?

But Istubar, silent thus far, rescued them from momentary trouble.

"Sargon," said he, "Thou art interfering in affairs not thy own. Thy duty is to conclude with Egypt a treaty of the kind that our lord wishes. But what the heir knows or does not know, what he will do or will not do, is not thy affair, since the supreme, eternally existent priestly council assures us that the treaty will be executed. In what way it will be executed is not a question for our heads."

The dry tone with which Istubar declared this calmed the riotous joy of the ambassador. He nodded and muttered,

"A pity for the man in that case! He is a grand warrior, and magnanimous."