Revolutionist And Eavesdropper

: Other World Life

In Kem, where agriculture was almost the only occupation, and where the

ox was helpful both in planting and threshing the grain, it was quite

natural that he should be revered, or at least respected as a partner in

the toil, and that a strong prejudice should prevail against his being

slaughtered for food. In fact, it was not the practice of the Kemish to

eat any large animals, but they confined themselves to fish and small
< r /> fowl for meats. Nevertheless, I urged upon Hotep the necessity of

killing some of his cattle to provide food for his miserable and

poorly-fed labourers. But he stubbornly refused to do so, saying his men

would rather eat the flesh of mules than of cattle.



Without being pressed for it, he paid me the second hundred thousand

cargoes of wheat, which he bought from the Pharaoh with gold, as he had

done before. But I divided this entire quantity of grain among Hotep's

labourers, which eked out their half-rations for almost a year. I

stipulated that none of this grain should be used for seed, for I

firmly believed it would be wasted. But Pharaoh again lent the seed for

planting a third crop, insisting that the discouraged Hotep should put

it in the ground, and reminding him that the only way he could get grain

to pay his heavy debts was to raise a crop.



Thenocris had not been long in learning the location of our house near

her favourite gate, and it was her habit to call on us every day at the

time of the noon-day meal. She always carried and caressed her white

rabbit, and they came to us like two dumb animals to be fed. Her tall,

stately figure, traversing the city on her daily journey to our house,

soon became a familiar sight; and when the people began to be oppressed

by hunger, they gradually overcame their early fear of us, and followed

her to our door for food. We had never turned any away, for beggary was

rare enough in Kem, and no sane person ever resorted to it except in the

sorest extremes of need.



Zaphnath doubtless looked with an evil eye upon the crowds that daily

thronged our door to secure food. The Pharaoh rarely left his palace,

and bothered little about affairs outside, and Zaphnath must have been

at the bottom of an edict which was shortly issued. Nothing that I

remember in Kem better illustrated the absolute power of the Pharaoh and

the unrestrained enforcement of his merest whim. The edict referred to

the scarcity of bread and the multitude of foreigners who were flocking

to the city to secure it, and provided (ostensibly for the good of the

Kemish people) that no man in the city of Kem should give bread or any

sort of food to any but the members of his own household. Moreover, no

man should sell grain or bread at a less price than that established by

the Pharaoh for the sale of his own.



The doctor and I realized that this was aimed at no one but us. They

were jealous of our charity, and wished to turn everybody's need to

their own profit. We scoffed at the tyranny of such an edict, but it was

the arbitrary sort of law to which the Kemish were accustomed. Yet if we

gave up our undertaking, and the unfortunate multitude went unfed for a

few days, bread riots were certain to break out, and they might result

in the death or overthrow of the short-sighted Pharaoh, and the seizure

of his grain. Even this would not settle the question, for the victors

might enforce a worse monopoly of it, if that were possible.



"We must continue to feed them all outside the city,--at the Gnomons,

for instance," I suggested.



"Yes, we must feed them there in a large chamber, and eat with them, so

that they may be considered members of our household," added the doctor.



Thus it happened that the paths which Hotep's mules had worn so deeply

were now thronged by a great multitude of the city's poor in their

daily pilgrimage to the Gnomons. In an enormous chamber which we fitted

up for that purpose, we served to each comer one generous meal, and

there were so many who came that this meal was going on almost all day

long. The Pharaoh fed no one but his favourites and his soldiers, and of

these last he discharged a large number, reducing his army to a hungry,

ill-fed thousand men. Those who were discharged came to eat with us, and

many of those retained would gladly have done so, had we not excluded

every one in the Pharaoh's service.



Meantime the Nasr-Nil ran lower in her banks than ever before, and gave

no signs of rising; the nightly snows were brief and evanescent, and the

rains, which had never been copious on Ptah, now ceased entirely. Every

green thing gradually vanished from Kem, and Hotep's third crop rotted

or lay sodden in the ground as the others had done. He knew that I had

been offered the opportunity to plant the Pharaoh's fields, and that I

had not only refused, but had hoarded grain. This may have led him to

conclude that I knew some reason for the famine, and I was not surprised

when he sought me one day at the Gnomons. He begged a strictly private

interview with me, and I conducted him to a small room I had constructed

by running two thin walls of porous stone from one Gnomon to another,

and covering the enclosure with a flat roof.



"Dost thou know that thou hast linked together with thy slender walls

the monuments of two antagonistic dynasties?" he began. "This structure

to the left was built by the fifth ancestor of the present Pharaoh, in

truth the first ruler of his dynasty. The structure to the right,

however, is vastly older, and was built by the tenth Pharaoh of the

dynasty, from which I am directly descended. My ancestors were

vanquished by dint of wars, and their powers usurped by the ancestors of

this same selfish Pharaoh, who hath not so good a right to rule as I."



I think I was born without a vestige of revolutionary spirit, for I have

always felt a respect for the institutions that are, and an allegiance

to the powers that rule. I remember the distinct shock which this

utterance of Hotep's gave me. I said nothing, but he answered the

surprised look on my face.



"Thou knowest well that the entire labouring population of Kem is fed by

me in my fields on one side of the city; while all the poor and

unfortunate are fed by you here on the other side. What man of Kem

thinks of the grand palace of the Pharaoh in the midst of the city, but

to curse it? What subject who knows how the Pharaoh and his favourites

gorge themselves in luxurious plenty, while he nurses his hunger, but

would a thousand times rather pay allegiance to those who save him from

absolute starvation? And Zaphnath, in his nightly wanderings and his

daily errands of espionage, thinkest thou he overhears a public grumbler

who fails to curse him and his Pharaoh, and to extol the men from the

Blue Star, and the unfortunate farmer, who, until now, has been able to

give the people work and sustenance?"



"Doth Zaphnath spend his time in watching and spying, then?" I asked.



"Aye, that he doth! I crossed his path even now, coming through the

city, and he set at following me, but by quick turns I eluded him. He it

is who by his loans and compacts hath snared and tricked me until now I

am utterly ruined, unless I can claim my rightful turn at ruling. Alone

I cannot do it; with thy help I can."



"How, then, could I be of assistance to you?" I exclaimed in some

astonishment, without stopping to think of the justice of his claims.



"From what I have heard of the thunder thou commandest, and the

lightning thou art able to carry, it doth appear that thou couldst

overcome the Pharaoh and his thousand half-starved men, who secretly

itch to change masters. Thou hast the means to do it; I have the right

to do it; and the people would unanimously applaud the doing of it. Let

us strike together, then; let us seize the Pharaoh's grain and apportion

it among our supporters and the needy, and when I am established as

Pharaoh, thou shalt be my ruler in the place of Zaphnath."



"Thou temptest me but little, O Hotep. Once before I was offered a

rulership in Kem which I refused. Besides, am I not bound by an

agreement to loyalty and obedience to this Pharaoh?"



"Aye! Even as I am bound to come to a sure ruin; and as every man in Kem

is bound to sit meekly by and starve. But is a ruler no way bound? May

he claim the life of his subjects for his profit? How long will they

suffer such treatment? And if we are restrained by loyalty, how long

will it be till some one else strikes the blow we stick at----?"



He was interrupted by a vigorous knocking at the door, as of one who

commands rather than entreats an opening. Who could it be? I turned to

see, but Hotep caught me by the arm.



"Before thou openest, tell me if thou wilt join me in this undertaking

for the sake of a suffering people?"



"Nay, Hotep; it is wrong, and I will not do it. I am bound to this

Pharaoh, bad as he is, and to thy dynasty I owe nothing." The rapping

began again and more loudly now, but Hotep still restrained me.



"For half of all my fields wilt thou furnish me the grain to pay the

Pharaoh, and thus avert my ruin?"



"And if I would, how wouldst thou feed the men and mules and cattle

through another year of famine, and another, and another?"



"Thou thinkest the crops will fail yet three more years!" he exclaimed,

half stupefied by the thought.



"Aye, four! I know it for most certain," I answered, and the insistent

knocking was vigorously renewed.



"Then I am too deep in the mire for thee or any one to pull me out. Open

to this importunate knocker."



I threw open the door, and there stood the keen-eyed, angry-visaged

Zaphnath! How long had he been listening outside there? How much had he

stealthily overheard before he began knocking? All the Kemish had need

to speak doubly loud to us from Earth, for our ears were not made for

thin air and its weak sounds. Moreover, Hotep had spoken throughout with

a fervent declamation. But what I said in my ordinary tones was always

easily understood by Hotep's keen ears. Therefore it seemed quite

certain that Zaphnath had heard through the thin wall all that Hotep had

said, and probably none of what I said. So much the worse. He had

doubtless supplied my speeches to suit himself, and made them fit into

Hotep's plotting. At any rate there was hot anger in his face when he

spoke to me,--



"Thou servest the Pharaoh well, by contriving how to cross his wishes at

every point! It were well thy office were withdrawn; I have brothers

about me now who could better fill it."



"Whenever it pleaseth the Pharaoh or his all-potent ruler to abrogate

his compact with me, I am quite ready to begin where we left off when it

was made," I retorted. I did not think till afterwards that this might

serve wrongly to indicate to him the tenor of my answers to Hotep's

scheming. His eyes flashed angrily at this, yet he made no reply, but

spoke to Hotep instead.



"Before the end of the clock this day, the Pharaoh requireth of thee

full settlement of all thou owest him. Attempt nothing but a just and

full repayment, O most precious Hotep, for thy every act is watched and

known to us!"