Moon of Israel | Page 6

of gold that I had saved.
So I came to Tanis at the beginning of winter and, walking to the
palace of the Prince, boldly demanded an audience. But now my
troubles began, for the guards and watchmen thrust me from the doors.
In the end I bribed them and was admitted to the antechambers, where
were merchants, jugglers, dancing-women, officers, and many others,
all of them, it seemed, waiting to see the Prince; folk who, having
nothing to do, pleased themselves by making mock of me, a stranger.
When I had mixed with them for several days, I gained their friendship
by telling to them one of my stories, after which I was always welcome
among them. Still I could come no nearer to the Prince, and as my store
of money was beginning to run low, I bethought me that I would return
to Memphis.
One day, however, a long-bearded old man, with a gold-tipped wand of
office, who had a bull's head embroidered on his robe, stopped in front
of me and, calling me a white-headed crow, asked me what I was doing
hopping day by day about the chambers of the palace. I told him my
name and business and he told me his, which it seemed was Pambasa,
one of the Prince's chamberlains. When I asked him to take me to the
Prince, he laughed in my face and said darkly that the road to his
Highness's presence was paved with gold. I understood what he meant
and gave him a gift which he took as readily as a cock picks corn,
saying that he would speak of me to his master and that I must come
back again.
I came thrice and each time that old cock picked more corn. At last I
grew enraged and, forgetting where I was, began to shout at him and
call him a thief, so that folks gathered round to listen. This seemed to
frighten him. At first he looked towards the door as though to summon
the guard to thrust me out; then changed his mind, and in a grumbling
voice bade me follow him. We went down long passages, past soldiers

who stood at watch in them still as mummies in their coffins, till at
length we came to some broidered curtains. Here Pambasa whispered to
me to wait, and passed through the curtains which he left not quite
closed, so that I could see the room beyond and hear all that took place
there.
It was a small room like to that of any scribe, for on the tables were
palettes, pens of reed, ink in alabaster vases, and sheets of papyrus
pinned upon boards. The walls were painted, not as I was wont to paint
the Books of the Dead, but after the fashion of an earlier time, such as I
have seen in certain ancient tombs, with pictures of wild fowl rising
from the swamps and of trees and plants as they grow. Against the
walls hung racks in which were papyrus rolls, and on the hearth burned
a fire of cedar-wood.
By this fire stood the Prince, whom I knew from his statues. His years
appeared fewer than mine although we were born upon the same day,
and he was tall and thin, very fair also for one of our people, perhaps
because of the Syrian blood that ran in his veins. His hair was straight
and brown like to that of northern folk who come to trade in the
markets of Egypt, and his eyes were grey rather than black, set beneath
somewhat prominent brows such as those of his father, Meneptah. His
face was sweet as a woman's, but made curious by certain wrinkles
which ran from the corners of the eyes towards the ears. I think that
these came from the bending of the brow in thought, but others say that
they were inherited from an ancestress on the female side.
Bakenkhonsu my friend, the old prophet who served under the first Seti
and died but the other day, having lived a hundred and twenty years,
told me that he knew her before she was married, and that she and her
descendant, Seti, might have been twins.
In his hand the Prince held an open roll, a very ancient writing as I,
who am skilled in such matters that have to do with my trade, knew
from its appearance. Lifting his eyes suddenly from the study of this
roll, he saw the chamberlain standing before him.
"You came at a good time, Pambasa," he said in a voice that was very
soft and pleasant, and yet most manlike. "You are old and doubtless

wise. Say, are you wise, Pambasa?"
"Yes, your Highness. I am wise like your Highness's uncle, Khaemuas
the