THE ANCIENT WORLD SERIES - Complete Haggard Edition. Henry Rider Haggard

these common cliff-climbers for many a year."

      "What chanced afterwards?" asked Khian.

      "I appeared at sunset as before, and making pretence to toss my arms about, as a ghost or a devil might do, I signalled to him who seems to be the captain of the Arabs. He answered me. We understood each other. After dark I shouted curses at the soldiers telling them that I was the Spirit of Roy the Prophet, and that doom was near to them. They grew frightened at what they held to be a voice from Heaven, and crept away to hide themselves from the words of evil omen, nor, as I think, will they come out of their holes again until the sun is high. Now drink a cup of wine and follow me, both of you."

      CHAPTER XVIII

       HOW NEFRA CAME TO BABYLON

       Table of Content

      After he who was known as the Scribe Rasa, the envoy of Apepi, King of the North, had received the betrothal ring from his affianced, Nefra the Queen, and sailed down Nile to Tanis, there to undergo many evil things, at the Temple of the Dawn all came about as the Captain of the Pyramids afterwards described to him and the priest Temu.

      Scarcely had this Rasa, who was Khian the Prince, departed, than there arrived at the temple, disguised as Arabs, an embassy from Ditanah, the old king of Babylon. These men, nobles of Babylon, were received in secret by the Council, and bowing before Roy the Prophet, presented to him tablets of clay covered with strange signs.

      "Read the writing, Tau," said Roy, "for my sight grows feeble and I forget this foreign tongue which is your own."

      So Tau took the tablets and read:

      "From Ditanah the aged, Lord of Babylon and King of Kings, whose glory is as that of the Sun, the Mighty One. To Roy the holy Seer, the Friend of Heaven, the Prophet of the Order of the Dawn, and to him who sits under Roy, the first of the Brothers of the Dawn, who in Egypt is named Tau, but who, as I, Ditanah, have heard, in Babylon aforetime was named the High Prince Abeshu, the lawful son of my body, with whom I quarrelled because he rebuked my Majesty as to a certain vengeance which I took upon a subject people, and who thereafter fled away and as I believed was long dead-- Greetings.

      "Know, O Roy and O Tau or Abeshu, that I have received your letters informing me of all that passes in Egypt, and that you, Abeshu, still live. Also that it was the desire of my daughter Rima whom I gave in marriage to Kheperra, the Pharaoh of the South and by right of descent the King of all Egypt, that her bones should be brought back for burial to Babylon. Also I have read that her daughter Nefra has in secret been crowned Queen of Egypt and seeks my help to win her throne out of the hands of my enemy, Apepi the Usurper who rules at Tanis.

      "Now I, Ditanah, say to you, Roy the Holy, and to you, Queen Nefra my grandchild, 'Come to me at Babylon with all your company. Thither I swear you safe-conduct in the name of my god Marduk, Ruler of Heaven and Earth, in the name of the gods Nebo and Bel, and of all the other gods who are my lords. There, also, you shall be guarded from all harm by the strength of my hands, and there we will talk together of all these matters.'

      "And to you who are called Tau, I say, 'Come also, and if you can prove to me that you are in truth my son, the Prince Abeshu, I will give you all things that you desire, who have mourned over you for many years, save one thing only, the succession to my throne after me which is promised to another. But if you have lied to me in this matter, then do not come, for surely you shall die.'

      "To the bones, also, of my daughter Rima, whose husband Kheperra, the wolf, Apepi, brought to his death, I will give honourable burial in the sepulchre of kings, where it was her desire to lie at last. Nor do I think that I shall refuse her death-prayer, if Nefra, my grandchild the Queen, will obey me in a certain matter.

      "Sealed with the seal of Ditanah, the Great King and with the seals of his Councillors."

      When Tau had read he touched his forehead with the tablet and gave it to Nefra who sat upon her throne in the centre of the Council. She also laid it against her forehead, then turned to Tau and said:

      "How comes it, my Lord Tau, that all these years you have kept this secret from me, who if the tale that is written here be true, must be a brother of my mother and my uncle?"--a question which caused the envoys to stare at him.

      Tau smiled and answered:

      "O Queen and Niece, the tale is true enough, as should we live to come at Babylon, I will prove to my royal father Ditanah and his Councillors. I am Abeshu and the half-brother of Queen Rima. But when I left Babylon she was but a little child born of another mother whom I had scarcely seen, since she dwelt with the royal women. Nor did I reveal myself to her afterwards when we met again and I saved her from the plots of Apepi at Thebes, or to you when you grew to womanhood, because of oaths that I had taken when I became a Brother of the Dawn, which oaths bound me to lay down all my earthly rank and to forget that I had been a prince. Yet in those oaths there was a loophole-- namely, should it ever become needful to declare myself and my true name and history thereby to help the Order of the Dawn, I was free to do so. To all of which our father the Prophet can bear me witness."

      "Aye," said Roy, "it is true. Hearken, Queen and Sister, and you, the envoys of Ditanah. Many years ago a brother of our Order, now long dead, brought to me a man who said that he desired to become one of us, a noble-looking warrior man, stalwart and square-bearded, who, I judged, had drunk of the water of Euphrates. I asked him his name and country, also why he sought the shelter of the Dawn. He told me, and proved his words, that he was Abeshu, a Prince of Babylon, who had quarrelled with his father, Ditanah the Great King, whose General he had been, over the matter of a subject people whom he had been ordered to massacre, but would not for mercy's sake, and because of his disobedience had been banished or left the land. Afterwards he had served under other kings, those of Cyprus and of Syria, as a captain of their armies, but in the end grew weary of fighting and ambitions, of loves who betrayed him also, and determined to bid farewell to the vanities of the world and in solitude and silence to feed and purify his soul.

      "Therefore, having heard of the Order of the Dawn, he came to knock upon its gate. I answered to him that among us there was no room for one who only sought salvation for himself and rest from earthly toil, since those of our Brotherhood must be the servants of all men and more particularly of the poor and those bound with the chains of sin, sworn to bring peace to the world, even at the cost of their own lives, sworn, too, to poverty and, except for special purposes, to celibacy and the renouncement of all earthly honours. For thus only, as we held, could the soul of man come into union with its god. Therefore, if he became one of us, it must be as the slave of the humblest and he must forget that he had been a Prince of Babylon and a General of her hosts, he who henceforward would be but a minister of Heaven appointed to tasks, mayhap, that the meanest idolator would refuse.

      "In the end, Queen, this suppliant bowed his neck beneath our yoke and laying down all his titles, became known under the humble name of Tau. Yet from Tau the Servant he grew to be Tau the spiritual Lord, and after me, its aged Prophet, the greatest in our Brotherhood, and so acknowledged throughout the world, though until it became necessary to proclaim it to the Great King Ditanah but the other day, none knew that he was Abeshu, the Prince of Babylon."

      Now when they heard this strange story the members of the Council rose and bowed to Tau, as did the envoys from Babylon, setting their hands upon their hearts. But Nefra did more, for she rose also and kissed him on the brow, calling him her beloved uncle and saying that now she understood why she had always loved him from a child.

      Then Tau spoke, saying:

      "All is as has been told, but because of it I neither seek nor deserve your praise. What I have done I did for my own soul's sake who came to know that there is no true joy save in the service of others and in the seeking to draw near to God. Now for a while it seems that, still in the service of others, I must once more be known as a prince and perhaps as a captain in war. If so, let not my royal Father have any fear lest I should seek to claim the heritage of those whom he has appointed to succeed him, I whose only hope and purpose is that I may live and die a Brother of the Dawn."

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