第74章

His thoughts were sad enough while the chariot rolled towards the city of On, where the host of Pharaoh was gathering, and the thunder of the feet of horses echoed in his ears, when, as he pondered, it chanced that he looked up. There, on a knoll of sand before him, a bow-shot from the chariot, stood a camel, and on the camel a man sat as though he waited the coming of the host. Idly the Wanderer wondered who this might be, and, as he wondered, the man urged the camel towards the chariot, and, halting before it cried "Hold!" in a loud voice.

"Who art thou?" cried the captain of the chariot, "who darest cry 'hold' to the host of Pharaoh?"

"I am one who have tidings of the barbarians," the man made answer from the camel.

The Wanderer looked on him. He was wondrous little, withered and old; moreover, his skin was black as though with the heat of the sun, and his clothing was as a beggar's rags, though the trappings of the camel were of purple leather and bossed with silver. Again the Wanderer looked; he knew him not, and yet there was that in his face which seemed familiar.

Now the captain of the chariot bade the driver halt the horses, and cried, "Draw near and tell thy tidings."

"To none will I tell my tidings save to him who shall lead the host of Pharaoh. Let him come down from the chariot and speak with me."

"That may not be," said the captain, for he was charged that the Wanderer should have speech with none.

"As thou wilt," answered the aged man upon the camel; "go then, go to thy doom! thou art not the first who hath turned aside a messenger from the Gods."

"I am minded to bid the soldiers shoot thee with arrows," cried the captain in anger.

"So shall my wisdom sink in the sand with my blood, and be lost with my breath. Shoot on, thou fool."

Now the captain was perplexed, for from the aspect of the man he deemed that he was sent by the Gods. He looked at the Wanderer, who took but little heed, or so it seemed. But in his crafty heart he knew that this was the best way to win speech with the man upon the camel.

Then the captain took counsel with the captain of the horsemen, and in the end they said to the Wanderer:

"Descend from the chariot, lord, and walk twelve paces forward, and there hold speech with the man. But if thou go one pace further, then we will shoot thee and the man with arrows." And this he cried out also to him who sat upon the camel.

Then the man on the camel descended and walked twelve paces forward, and the Wanderer descended also from the chariot and walked twelve paces forward, but as one who heeds little what he does. Now the two stood face to face, but out of earshot of the host, who watched them with arrows set upon the strings.

"Greetings, Odysseus of Ithaca, son of Laertes," he said who was clothed in the beggar's weeds.

The Wanderer looked upon him hard, and knew him through his disguise.

"Greeting, Rei the Priest, Commander of the Legion of Amen, Chief of the Treasury of Amen."

"Rei the Priest I am indeed," he answered, "the rest I am no more, for Meriamun the Queen has stripped me of my wealth and offices, because of thee, thou Wanderer, and the Immortal whose love thou hast won, and by whom thou hast dealt so ill. Hearken! I learned by arts known to me of the dream of Pharaoh, and of thy sending forth to do battle with the barbarians. Then I disguised myself as thou seest, and took the swiftest camel in Tanis, and am come hither by another way to meet thee. Now I would ask thee one thing. How came it that thou didst play the Immortal false that night? Knowest thou that she waited for thee there by the pylon gate? Ay, there I found her and led her to the Palace, and for that I am stripped of my rank and goods by Meriamun, and now the Lady of Beauty is returned to her shrine, grieving bitterly for thy faithlessness; though how she passed thither I know not."

"Methought I heard her voice as those knaves bore me to my dungeon," said the Wanderer. "And she deemed me faithless! Say, Rei, dost thou know the magic of Meriamun? Dost thou know how she won me to herself in the shape of Argive Helen?"

And then, in as few words as might be, he told Rei how he had been led away by the magic of Meriamun, how he who should have sworn by the Star had sworn by the Snake.

When Rei heard that the Wanderer had sworn by the Snake, he shuddered.

"Now I know all," he said. "Fear not, thou Wanderer, not on thee shall all the evil fall, nor on that Immortal whom thou dost love; the Snake that beguiled thee shall avenge thee also."

"Rei," the Wanderer said, "one thing I charge thee. I know that I go down to my death. Therefore I pray thee seek out her whom thou namest the Hathor and tell her all the tale of how I was betrayed. So shall I die happily. Tell her also that I crave her forgiveness and that I love her and her only."

"This I will do if I may," Rei answered. "And now the soldiers murmur and I must be gone. Listen, the might of the Nine-bow barbarians rolls up the eastern branch of Sihor. But one day's march from On the mountains run down to the edge of the river, and those mountains are pierced by a rocky pass through which the foe will surely come. Set thou thy ambush there, Wanderer, there at Prosopis--so shalt thou smite them. Farewell. I will seek out the Hathor if in any way I can come at her, and tell her all. But of this I warn thee, the hour is big with Fate, and soon will spawn a monstrous birth. Strange visions of doom and death passed before mine eyes as I slept last night.

Farewell!"

Then he went back to the camel and climbed it, and passing round the army vanished swiftly in a cloud of dust.

The Wanderer also went back to the host, where the captains murmured because of the halt, and mounted his chariot. But he would tell nothing of what the man had said to him, save that he was surely a messenger from the Under-world to instruct him in the waging of the war.

Then the chariot and the horsemen passed on again, till they came to the city of On, and found the host of Pharaoh gathering in the great walled space that is before the Temple of Ra. And there they pitched their camp hard by the great obelisks that stand at the inner gate, which Rei the architect fashioned by Thebes, and the divine Rameses Miamun set up to the glory of Ra for ever.