alas! Babylon is far off and all the lands between are ablaze with war. Therefore take heart, Queen, and wait with patience.”
“I have no heart left,” answered Rima, “who desire but one thing – to find my lord again whether he sits at the table of your Osiris, or rides the clouds with Bel, or sleeps in the deep darkness. Where he is, there would I be and nowhere else, and least of all in this accursed Egypt. Give me my child to nurse, that I may hold her while I may. We love that most that we must leave the soonest, Kemmah.”
Then Kemmah gave her the babe and turned away to hide her tears, since she was sure that sorrow was eating out the life of this bereaved widow and daughter of kings.
Once when they were off Memphis which they strove to pass at early dawn before men were abroad, there was danger. Officers came to their ship from a boat, bidding it lie to, a command that Tau thought it best to obey.
“Now play your parts well,” he said to Kemmah, “remembering that you are my sister and that the Queen is my wife who lies sick. Go tell her to forget her woes and be as crafty as a serpent. As for you, Ru, hide that great axe of yours, though where you can find it easily, remembering that you are a slave whom I bought for a great sum in Thebes that I may make money by showing off your strength in market-places, and that you can talk little or no Egyptian.”
The boat came alongside. In it were two officers, young men who seemed to be sleepy, for they yawned, and a common fellow who rowed it. The two officers climbed to the deck and asked for the captain. Tau appeared, very roughly clad, and in a coarse voice inquired of their business.
“It is your business that we want to know, Sailor,” said one of the officers.
“That is easy to tell, sir. I am a trader who take corn up Nile and bring cattle down. There are a number of calves forward there, bred by the best southern bulls. Are you perchance buyers? If so, you might like to look at them. There is one that has the ‘apis’ marks upon it, or something of the kind.”
“Do we look like cattle dealers?” asked the officer haughtily. “Show me your writings.”
“Here they are, sir,” and Tau produced a papyrus sealed by the trade masters at Memphis and other cities.
“A wife and child, a sister – which means another wife grown old – and so many crew. Well, we seek two women and a child, so perhaps we had better see them.”
“Is it necessary?” asked the other. “This does not look like a queen’s warship such as we were told to search for, and the stench of those calves is horrible after a night of feasting.”
“Warship, sir? Did you talk of a warship? Well, there is one following us down the river. We saw her once, but being of such deep draught, she got stuck on a sand bank so that I do not know when she will reach Memphis. She seemed to be a very fine ship with a multitude of armed men on board of her. But it was said that she was going to stop at Siout, the frontier city of the South, or what used to be its frontier city before we beat those proud-stomached Southerns. But come and look at the women, if you will; come and look at them.”
This information about the warship seemed to interest the two officers so much that they followed Tau thinking little of the two women. He took a lantern and thrust it through the curtains into the cabin, saying;
“May an evil spirit take this thing! How badly it burns.”
“An evil stink has taken it already,” answered one of the officers, pinching his nostrils between his finger and thumb as he peered between the curtains. In the low light the place was very dark and all that the officers could see was Kemmah in dirty garments seated on a sack – little did they know that this sack contained the ancient and priceless royal ornaments of Upper Egypt – and engaged in mixing milk and water in a gourd, while beyond on a couch lay a woman with dishevelled hair and holding a bundle to her breast.
Just then the lantern went out and Tau began to talk of finding oil to relight it.
“It is needless, Friend,” said the chief officer, “I think that we have seen enough. Pursue your voyage in peace and sell the calves at the best price you can get.”
Then he turned to the deck where, as ill luck would have it, he caught sight of Ru squatted on the boards and trying to look as small as he could.
“That is a big black man,” he said. “Now did not some spy send a message about a Negro who killed many of our friends up yonder? Stand up, fellow.”
Tau translated, or seemed to do so, and Ru stood up, rolling his big eyes till the white showed and grinning all over a silly face.
“Ah!” said the officer, “a very big man. By the gods! what a chest and arms. Now, Captain, who is this giant and what are you doing with him on board your trading boat?”
“Lords,” answered Tau, “he is a venture of mine in which I have put most of my savings. He is mighty and performs feats of strength, for the sight of which I hope to get much money down in Tanis.”
“Does he?” said the officer, much interested but with suspicion. “Well, fellow, perform a feat of strength.”
Ru shook his head vaguely.
“He does not understand your tongue, sir, who is an Ethiopian. Stay, I will tell him.”
Then he began to address Ru in unknown words. Ru woke up and nodded, grinning. Next instant he sprang at the two officers, seized one of them with either hand by the neckbands of their garments and lifted them from the deck as though they had been infants. Next, roaring with laughter, he stepped to the side of the ship and held them out over the Nile as though he were about to drop them into the water. The officers shouted, Tau swore and tried to drag him back, yelling orders into his ear. Ru turned round astonished, still holding the two men in the air before him and looking at the belly of the ship as though he meant to throw them into it.
At length he seemed to understand and dropped them to the deck, on which they fell flat.
“That is one of his favourite tricks, sirs,” said Tau as he helped them to their feet. “He is so strong that he can carry a third man in his teeth.”
“Is it?” said an officer. “Well, we have had enough of your savage and his tricks, who, I think, will land you in prison before you have done with him. Keep him off now while we get into the boat.”
Thus was the ship of Tau searched by the officers of Apepi.
When the boat had gone and once more the ship was slipping past the quays of Memphis unobserved in the mists drawn by the rising sun from the river, Ru came near to the tiller and said:
“I think, Lord Tau, for a lord or count I hold you to be, although it pleases you to pass as the owner of a small trading boat, that you would have done well to let me drop those two fine fellows into the Nile that tells no stories of those it buries. By and by it will be found that there is no warship such as you talked of so wonderfully, and then -?”
“And then, Breaker of Bones, it may go hard with those officers who chattered of such a ship like finches in the reeds and while they did so let the real prize slip through their fingers. For this, indeed, I am sorry, since those young men were not bad fellows in their way. As for dropping them into the Nile, it might have been well enough, though cruel, had there not been a witness. What would that boatman who rowed them to the ship have reported when he found that they returned from it no more?”
“You are clever,” said Ru admiringly. “I
