Uarda : a Romance of Ancient Egypt — Complete by Georg Ebers (find a book to read txt) 📕

and when we get there you will find him with your father.”

The princess looked sadly at the ground. Nefert looked affectionately at her, and asked:

“Are you thinking of the difference in rank which parts you from the man you have chosen?”

“The man to whom I offer my hand, I put in the rank of a prince,” said Bent-Anat. “But if I could set Pentaur on a throne, as master of the world, he would still be greater and better than I.”

“But your father?” asked Nefert doubtfully.

“He is my friend, he will listen to me and understand me. He shall know everything when I see him; I know his noble and loving heart.”

Both were silent for some time; then Bent-Anat spoke:

“Pray have lights brought, I want to finish my weaving.”

Nefert rose, went to the door of the tent, and there met Uarda; she seized Nefert’s hand, and silently drew her out into the air.

“What is the matter, child? you are trembling,” Nefert exclaimed.

“My father is here,” answered Uarda hastily. “He is escorting some prisoners from the mines of Mafkat. Among them there are two chained together, and one of them—do not be startled—one of them is the poet Pentaur. Stop, for God’s sake, stop, and hear me. Twice before I have seen my father when he has been here with convicts. To-day we must rescue Pentaur; but the princess must know nothing of it, for if my plan fails—”

“Child! girl!” interrupted Nefert eagerly. “How can I help you?”

“Order the steward to give the drivers of the gang a skin of wine in the name of the princess, and out of Bent-Anat’s case of medicines take the phial which contains the sleeping draught, which, in spite of your wish, she will not take. I will wait here, and I know how to use it.”

Nefert immediately found the steward, and ordered him to follow Uarda with a skin of wine. Then she went back to the princess’s tent, and opened the medicine case.

[A medicine case, belonging to a more ancient period than the reign of Rameses, is preserved in the Berlin Museum.]

“What do you want?” asked Bent-Anat.

“A remedy for palpitation,” replied Nefert; she quietly took the flask she needed, and in a few minutes put it into Uarda’s hand.

The girl asked the steward to open the wine-skin, and let her taste the liquor. While she pretended to drink it, she poured the whole contents of the phial into the wine, and then let Bent-Anat’s bountiful present be carried to the thirsty drivers.

She herself went towards the kitchen tent, and found a young Amalekite sitting on the ground with the princess’s servants. He sprang up as soon as he saw the damsel.

“I have brought four fine partridges,”

[A brook springs on the peak called by the Sinaitic monks Mr. St. Katherine, which is called the partridge’s spring, and of which many legends are told. For instance, God created it for the partridges which accompanied the angels who carried St. Katharine of Alexandria to her tomb on Sinai.]

he said, “which I snared myself, and I have brought this turquoise for you—my brother found it in a rock. This stone brings good luck, and is good for the eyes; it gives victory over our enemies, and keeps away bad dreams.”

“Thank you!” said Uarda, and taking the boy’s hand, as he gave her the sky-blue stone, she led him forward into the dusk.

“Listen, Salich” she said softly, as soon as she thought they were far enough from the others. “You are a good boy, and the maids told me that you said I was a star that had come down from the sky to become a woman. No one says such a thing as that of any one they do not like very much; and I know you like me, for you show me that you do every day by bringing me flowers, when you carry the game that your father gets to the steward. Tell me, will you do me and the princess too a very great service? Yes?—and willingly? Yes? I knew you would! Now listen. A friend of the great lady Bent-Anat, who will come here to-night, must be hidden for a day, perhaps several days, from his pursuers. Can he, or rather can they, for there will probably be two, find shelter and protection in your father’s house, which lies high up there on the sacred mountain?”

“Whoever I take to my father,” said the boy, “will be made welcome; and we defend our guests first, and then ourselves. Where are the strangers?”

“They will arrive in a few hours. Will you wait here till the moon is well up?”

“Till the last of all the thousand moons that vanish behind the hills is set.”

“Well then, wait on the other side of the stream, and conduct the man to your house, who repeats my name three times. You know my name?”

“I call you Silver-star, but the others call you Uarda.”

“Lead the strangers to your hut, and, if they are received there by your father, come back and tell me. I will watch for you here at the door of the tent. I am poor, alas! and cannot reward you, but the princess will thank your father as a princess should. Be watchful, Salich!”

The girl vanished, and went to the drivers of the gang of prisoners, wished them a merry and pleasant evening, and then hastened back to Bent-Anat, who anxiously stroked her abundant hair, and asked her why she was so pale.

“Lie down,” said the princess kindly, “you are feverish. Only look, Nefert, I can see the blood coursing through the blue veins in her forehead.”

Meanwhile the drivers drank, praised the royal wine, and the lucky day on which they drank it; and when Uarda’s father suggested that the prisoners too should have a mouthful one of his fellow soldiers cried: “Aye, let the poor beasts be jolly too for once.”

The red-beard filled a large beaker, and offered it first to a forger and his fettered companion, then he approached Pentaur, and whispered:

“Do not drink any-keep awake!”

As he was going to warn the physician too, one of his companions came between them, and offering his tankard to Nebsecht said:

“Here mumbler, drink; see him pull! His stuttering mouth is spry enough for drinking!”