CHAPTER 12

BAKNik, PRIEST OF AMMON

Memphis was growing more rapidly than ever. Almost half a million inhabitants at the last census, and already the optimists predicting a million by the next.

Menni noticed the changes as he passed along rapidly on foot. As usual, when making an excursion through the city, unofficial and more or less secret, he had put on a heavy wig of curled hair and a frankly false beard which swung pendulous under his chin. He carried no insignia of rank, was unaccompanied, might merely have been one of the wealthy but despised merchant class.

He followed the line of the immense embankments of the Nile for a mile or two beyond the precincts of the double palace—the Pharaoh, which was to give its name to the sovereigns who resided there—passing along walled gardens for the most part, with here and there a double-storied house with its garden on the roof, in the style recently imported from Asia. Then he turned off to the left through a wide district inhabited by the poorer classes.

These classes always interested Menni. He even nourished some sort of foolish conception in his heart that they were as good as the rich and noble.

He smiled at the naked children who trooped round the mud-built houses. The roofs of many of these poor dwellings were more or less artistically decorated with egg-shells—making them cooler and more attractive to the eye.

Most of the men were away from home—some of them at work in the palace, perhaps—but the women were busy, weaving, ran corn between two flat stones, making bricks of fuel from cow-dung and grass.

Most of the women had their foreheads and bare shoulders tattooed—a cheap and lasting ornamentation, like the egg-shells on their houses.

He came again into a neighborhood of the wealthy, where the road he was following again passed between garden-walls. One of the largest of these establishments was his destination—the home of his old friend, Baknik, priest of Ammon.

Like many of his kind, Baknik was one of the wealthiest men in Memphis—both wealthy and powerful, head of a princely family. His home was a sort of miniature of the royal palace itself—a crenelated wall fully fifteen feet high surrounding the space of five or six acres, the entire interior occupied by several detached buildings three and four stories in height, highly cultivated courtyards between.

From one of these courtyards a giant, sacred acacia-tree reared its graceful head. It was covered with blossoms, filling the whole neighborhood with its fragrance.

Over a far corner of the wall rose the conical tops of three capacious granaries. Baknik was evidently prepared against a year of famine—a wise and sagacious man in every respect.

Menni swung through the wide gate of his friend’s home, into a wide and lofty anteroom adjoining the servants’ quarters, was greeted deferentially by Baknik’s chief butler, who ushered him at once into the state reception-room and banquet-hall just beyond.

It was a large and lofty apartment—occupying two stories of the building—beautifully encased with beams and panels of painted cedar. Scattered about were numerous small tables and inlaid chairs of cedar and gold, of ebony and ivory.

It was here that the two friends greeted each other. A moment later they passed on through one or two other rooms, mounted a flight of steps, and came out on a broad balcony just under the branches of the flowering acacia.

Baknik, though enjoying a day of rest, was every inch the priest. His head had been freshly shaven. The exquisitely fine linen tunic he wore was immaculate, uncreased.

“Even bad luck is not altogether bad, since it brings you to see me,” he said as he clapped his friend on the shoulder.

Even in his unofficial moments Baknik was a wonderful psychic. Those soft, luminous brown eyes of his were perpetually seeing things invisible to most people. It was that way now. There was no need for Menni to say that anxiety, as well as friendship, had brought him on this long errand to the outskirts of Memphis.

Baknik was not yet forty years old, but he had had a remarkable career. An accepted priest at sixteen, a divine father at twenty, a full initiate at twenty-seven.

His face, while ascetic, was lively with sympathy and imagination. When those large, dark eyes of his were not veiled with mysticism they simply danced with intelligence and humor.

As Menni dropped into a chair he smiled gravely, heaved a sigh, held up his hand to show the sapphire ring.

“She who lives in the Double Palace!”

Baknik’s face, still smiling, was none the less grave. He looked for a space at the ring in silence.

“Now isn’t that just like her?” he murmured. “Now isn’t that just like her? Do you know what happened to me the other day when I was summoned to the royal presence? She intimated that I could kiss her foot instead of the ground in front of her. Baknik was slow-witted. No, he couldn’t take a hint. He kissed the ground, like any one else!”

In spite of his words, it was evident that Baknik had divined the seriousness of his friend’s errand.

“What do you want me to do, my boy?”

“There is so much,” Menni answered, “that I hardly know where to begin. Oh, why didn’t you take the double throne when you had a chance? There isn’t a priest or a prince in Egypt who wouldn’t have swung round to you sooner or later. I could have given you the palace guards. I have them in my hand.”

Again Baknik smiled that grave smile of his—no humor in it, just sympathy.

“I am lazy,” he said, waving his hand around him. “This is world enough for me, empire enough—a fairly comfortable home, two of the dearest wives in the world. I’m lazy—”

“Tell me,” said Menni; “are you too lazy—I know you’re not—to help me, dear old friend? If there is a man in Egypt who needs the aid of such powers as yours, I’m he.”

At this reference to his powers a gradual and beautiful change came into Baknik’s fine face. It kept its sympathy, but its quality of ascetic mysticism increased. His eyes, fixed on Menni’s, became more somber still.

He had drawn up another chair and seated himself just in front of his friend.

“I know it,” he said. “You don’t have to tell me. Last night I was in the seventh chamber of the pyramid—high up, high up, where even such as I can see without error. I had gone there to study anew the movement of Orion. But it was not that which I saw. Instead, I saw you and the Pharaoh. She was thinking of you. And you were thinking of Berenice.”

“Where is she now?” Menni whispered.

Baknik closed his eyes. His face had gone whiter than it usually was. His voice also came in an almost inaudible whisper.

“I see her on the Nile at Abydos. She and her pious mistress have just visited the tomb of Menes. She buys a tame rabbit from a child. They enter their boat while the slaves make ready to cast off for the journey back to Memphis.”

“Is she well?”

“She is well, but she is homesick, thinks of you—thinks of you even now, as she kisses that little rabbit she has just bought. Ah, see, the rabbit has leaped from her arms, has made its way ashore. The children there try to recapture it; but it is well away among the reeds.”

The priest opened his eyes. His face was still pale. He was still under the influence of his “concentration,” but he smiled slightly.

“Dear Baknik,” said Menni, “you are good. But these—these are what stabbed my heart.”

He held out the ring and the fragment of papyrus.