The weird of the wanderer Being the papyrus records of some incidents in one of the previous lives of Mr. Nicholas Crabbe
Thus I spoke; and instantly I stepped ashore. But, when the two slaves
popped their heads above the bulwark to observe my going, then,
indeed, I rubbed the marigolds in my hand against the necklace of
bloodstones which I wore, moistening the beads with the flower-juice;
and, having made the proper _Act of Will_, I forthwith vanished away,
simply becoming invisible at two paces’ distance, and all in broad
daylight. And this I did as very becoming to a god, and also to confirm
them in fidelity, for a slave will not play his lord falsely when he
has no certainty whether his said lord is here, or there.
In this manner, I came to Tanis.
FOOTNOTES:
[30] This sentence is exquisite in its justice. If we moderns only had
the gumption to let ourselves be guided by the great natural law of
Sympathy and Antipathy as naïvely as Mr. Crabbe appears to have done,
how many failures, and (one can even say) tragedies, would be avoided.
A. H.
THE TENTH PAPYRUS
But I wended my way through the city, having taken my visible shape
again in a dark entry. And I passed the walls and the gates, and the
temples with their pylons, and quays thronged with merchants of all
nations and slaves of all human colour. And I saw the galleys of the
Sidonians, and the light barks of the Sikels, with heavy merchant-ships
from Rome, and Argive biremes and trading sloops. But a great
quinquereme lay in the fairway of the mighty river; and it flew the
royal purple standard of the Lagidai, denoting that a prince of Egypt
was on board. And, everywhere about me were the insolent mercenaries
of the flute-playing Pharoah, standing in crowds: nor did any soldier
stand alone, save the sentry on the great ship which swang at anchor in
the current of the Tanitic branch of life-giving Sihor. Yet, great and
busy as it appeared, Tanis had but a small part of the shadow of its
former greatness when it was the chief city of the Lower Land. Slowly
and surely had that greatness faded, as a well-painted wall fades
unsheltered from the stress of storms in some northern land, when wind
and rain wipe away the fresh pigment, leaving a tasteless thing behind.
But heavenly Ra poured down very hot radiance from the
turquoise-coloured vault of heaven; and the streets were crowded with
evil-stenched mongrel folk, half-Argive, half-sons of Khem, mingled
with the Hebrew hawkers who trot everywhere. And, because the mind in
my lordly breast desired to pass a word with articulately-speaking
men, I looked about for one with whom I might suitably address myself.
And I selected a haughty Roman, wrapped in pride and a purple-bordered
paludament, who surveyed the quays and the market-place, while a slave
sheltered his bare head with a sunshade of ostrich feathers. Whom I
approached, intending to converse with him. And, coming nearer, while
a squadron of Makedonians passed by, I heard the blameless creature
muttering to himself in his own tongue, saying: “Gods! That men calling
themselves soldiers should slouch in that manner! Perpol! But a cohort
of ours would outmatch a legion of theirs!”
But I let the pride of race inflate me also, most superbly; and thus,
in the Argive tongue, I saluted him, saying: “Hail, O senator. And how
likest thou these mercenaries of the Lagidai?”
But he began to grow black fastidiously, because one unknown should
have addressed him without introduction: but, when he saw how large I
was and how assured my gait, he answered me in Latin, saying: “O man
of the vast shoulders, whoever thou art, speak to me (I pray) in the
language of Rome.”
To whom I repeated my question as he wished. And he responded:
“Indifferent well. But tell me, why dost thou (a stranger) dare to
address me?”
“Thou,” I said, “art not a god, that I should worship thee.”
“But,” he answered, “I am a Roman citizen.”
Him I immediately coughed at, saying: “Never yet have I been told that
Roman citizens are the gods whom men ought to worship.”
Whereat, having blown off a little indignation, he laughed hugely; and
would have known more of me; but I indifferently turned away to hire a
litter in which I caused myself to be borne to the great temple of Isis.
But, when I reached that place, I began to walk very warily, making
inquiry of the priest on duty in the portico. And, because the most
wily way of dealing with earth-walking men, enmeshed with stupid petty
deceits, is to be quite truthful and quite straight and never anything
but bold, therefore, I instantly asked for my friend Amenemhat, priest
of Tanis, who, being bound to me by sacred spells, would (with me)
enjoy a mutual pleasure from a meeting. And, Amenemhat not being an
uncommon name among Tanitic priests, if (perchance) my inquiry should
bring to me one who was not the Amenemhat whom I desired to see, then
I still possessed sufficient wisdom and magic apparatus for disposing
of him in a suitable manner. On this account, I openly inquired for
Amenemhat in the portico of the temple at Tanis.
And the watcher-priest answered, saying that Amenemhat was engaged in
celebrating mysteries, and could not be seen at the moment. To whom I
shewed the _Sign of the Peeping Thumb_, saying that I (also being a
priest) would enter and pontificate with my friend. But the other still
delayed me with gentle words, saying: “Sir, I do perceive that thou art
a very notable mage and also an initiate priest possessing singular and
admirable secrets: for, up thy sleeve, I see the silver chain which
binds a master’s staff to thy wrist. Nevertheless, our rites are so
sacrosanct and so solemn that not even the high priest of Ra at Thebes
may intervene in them. Wherefore, O master-mage, be propitious; and be
pleased to repose thyself awhile in a cool room, refreshing thy body
with fruit and wine: for the day is hot, and thou seemest to have come
from very far.”
But I agreed with alacrity, for my throat was twisted with thirst.
Moreover, I saw something; and, beside, I well-knew the ways of
priests, who always may be led by the nose by anyone wily enough to
agree with them. And together we strolled into a cool antechamber,
having an apsidal recess wherein we seated ourselves on cushions. And,
over the recess, was carven a winged image of the Divine Ma, as above
the Pharoah’s throne, deep graven in the black rock of Syene and filled
with fine red gold. But the watcher-priest, having named himself to me
as Mensau, tapped the floor with his white ivory walking-staff; and
acolyths of the temple, very straightly formed but plump, robed in
fine linen, with their shaven heads roundly-shining and increasing the
long blackness of their eyes,--these, indeed, brought trays of fruits
and wines and a excellent beer of their own brewing. And, having laid
these before us, they flitted away, leaving me alone with the priest.
He seemed to be about my own age, whatever that may be: but he was
straight in figure as the fragile Egyptians are, and his face was like
smooth ivory, well-carved, wise and gentle of mien. And, having filled
a cup of Korinthic bronze (which is platinum)[31] to the brim with good
red wine from a well-chased Alexandrian flagon, he offered it to me.
But I chose beer: so he took it for himself; and, leaning toward me
watching him very warily, he began to speak, saying: “Health to thee, O
expected Wanderer.”
But my wile was to lead him on, secretly compelling him to shew me the
way to the very root of the mystery, which I had suspected, and now was
assured of. Wherefore I, all unmoved, responded, saying: “Health also
to thee, O Mensau, priest of Isis, who wearest the garb of a priest of
Ptah perchance for coolness’ sake. And, as I perceive that thou knowest
me, tell me now how long will that other deny himself to me.”
“Dost thou then know me, O Nicholas?” he asked, surprized, but smiling.
“Yea: I know well the Amenemhat who looketh out of thine eye-holes.
But thy form is strange to me:” I responded magniloquently.
Thus I spoke. But the mind in my noble breast began all of a sudden to
tell me all sorts of things: so that I knew that the form, in which
I had known Amenemhat at Thebes, was a form which I myself had given
him by the merest haphazard and in something like a violent hurry,
having summoned him from tiresome Amentet, to be my familiar, and being
unable to use him in the form of hot eyes and a jelly. And, also, I
knew that I never had seen him in his own form, which his father and
mother had made for him by the help of the gods of his stars. And,
having understood all these things, I fell into a muse, because of the
infinite number of causes and effects which a seeker after wisdom must
acquire, and arrange in his mind ready for use at any moment.
But, even now, weighted and bedazzled as I was with unthought-of
wisdom, all was not quite clear to me. I, therefore, continued to
speak, saying: “Nevertheless, O Amenemhat, though I know thee, and
though I am beginning to know thy real form which is other than that
which I gave to thee at Thebes, still, my mind is doubtful, not of the
What, nor of the Where. The dimension of Space is known to me: but what
of Time? I understand the Categories, of Substance, of Quantity, of
Quality, of Relation, of Action, of Passion, of Place, of Position, of
Possession: but I do not understand the When. Have I already lived and
summoned thee from Amentet nineteen hundred years hence? Am I living
now another life nineteen centuries before I was born? Or is this all
some dream and some weird vision in those secret halls of Thebes? Or
what?”
“Nay,” Amenemhat answered: “this is neither dream nor vision, but
a special disposition of The Supreme, whereby thou, O Seeker after
Wisdom, art granted experiences granted to no other man, as a reward
for thy well-endured pains, and as a means of perfecting thee for some
enormous purpose. And, to this end, I, whom thou hast known as a Sahu
and an Osirian, have a message for thee, O Wanderer through the Ages.
Doubt, then, no more: but take all things as the immortal gods are
pleased to send them, always going onward cheerfully from one step to
the next. For, know, that in Amentet, and in the Outer Immensities of
Immeasurable Space, where The Supreme is, there is no such limitation
as Time, nor any Impossibility to Him, or to Them His uncountable
forms.”
Thus he spoke; and again was silent. But I sat still, drinking the
beer of Osiris, letting the wisdom of his words take root in my lordly
mind. And anon I said: “This, then, indeed is the meeting of thy Theban
prediction. But tell me, O Amenemhat, though thou didst expect me, by
what means did these eyes of thine recognize me whom, formerly, thou
didst see at Thebes with other eyes?”
“I recognized thee, O Nicholas,” he said, “even at a distance, by thy
stride and by the self-assurance of thy gait of the straightened knees:
for no other man walketh as dost thou, as the owner and scorner of all
worlds old and new. But, also, I saw the shape of the orb of divination
in the folds of thy robe; and thou didst make the _Sign_ and shew the
staff of power.”
And so we fell into more intimate conversation; and I told him all
which had befallen me during my voyage down the river, of the slaying
of that Pyrrhos (the most righteous of men), of the blameless[32]
Ethiopian whose face I had spoiled, tearing also his hand (like a
dirty rag) in twain; and I spoke of my two trusty slaves, and of all
other matters which it was necessary for him to know. But, when I saw
that he was not minded to make revelations to me on the instant, then,
indeed, I determined to stay awhile with him, as a guest of the temple,
pursuing my studies in the magic arts among holy mages whose business
was none other, and waiting the pleasure of the blessed gods inhabiting
olympian palaces.