Chapter XI: The Holy Tanofir

We entered the City of Graves that is called Sekera. In the centre towered pyramids that hid the bones of ancient and forgotten kings, and everywhere around upon the desert sands was street upon street of monuments, but save for a priest or two hurrying to patter his paid office in the funeral chapels of the departed, never a living man. Bes looked about him and sniffed with his wide nostrils.

“Is there not death enough in the world, Master,” he asked, “that the living should wish to proclaim it in this fashion, rolling it on their tongues like a morsel they are loth to swallow, because it tastes so good? Oh! what a waste is here. All these have had their day and yet they need houses and pyramids and painted chambers in which to sleep, whereas if they believed the faith they practised, they would have been content to give their bones to feed the earth they fed on, and fill heaven with their souls.”

“Do your people thus, Bes?”

“For the most part, Master. Our dead kings and great ones we enclose in pillars of crystal, but we do this that they may serve a double purpose. One is that the pillars may support the roof of their successors, and the other, that those who inherit their goods may please themselves by reflecting how much handsomer they are than those who went before them. For no mummy looks really nice, Master, at least with its wrappings off, and our kings are put naked into the crystal.”

“And what becomes of the rest, Bes?”

“Their bodies go to the earth or the water and the Grasshopper carries off their souls to--where, Master?”

“I do not know, Bes.”

“No, Master, no one knows, except the lady Amada and perhaps the holy Tanofir. Here I think is the entrance to his hole,” and he pulled up his beast with a jerk at what looked like the doorway of a tomb.

Apparently we were expected, for a tall and proud-looking girl clad in white and with extraordinarily dark eyes, appeared in the doorway and asked in a soft voice if we were the noble Shabaka and Bes, his slave.

“I am Shabaka,” I answered, “and this is Bes, who is not my slave but a free citizen of Egypt.”

The girl contemplated the dwarf with her big eyes, then said,

“And other things, I think.”

“What things?” inquired Bes with interest, as he stared at this beautiful lady.

“A very brave and clever man and one perhaps who is more than he seems to be?”

“Who has been telling you about me?” exclaimed Bes anxiously.

“No one, O Bes, at least not that I can remember.”

“Not that you can remember! Then who and what are you who learn things you know not how?”

“I am named Karema and desert-bred, and my office is that of Cup to the holy Tanofir.”

“If hermits drink from such a cup I shall turn hermit,” said Bes, laughing. “But how can a woman be a man’s cup and what kind of a wine does he drink from her?”

“The wine of wisdom, O Bes,” she replied colouring a little, for like many Arabs of high blood she was very fair in hue.

“Wine of wisdom,” said Bes. “From such cups most drink the wine of folly, or sometimes of madness.”

“The holy Tanofir awaits you,” she interrupted, and turning, entered the doorway.

A little way down the passage was a niche in which stood three lamps ready lighted. One of these she took and gave the others to us. Then we followed her down a steep incline of many steps, till at length we found ourselves in a hot and enormous hall hewn from the living rock and filled with blackness.

“What is this place?” said Bes, who looked frightened, and although he spoke in a low whisper, our guide overheard him and turning, answered,

“This is the burial place of the Apis bulls. See, here lies the last, not yet closed in,” and holding up her lamp she revealed a mighty sarcophagus of black granite set in a niche of the mausoleum.

“So they make mummies of bulls as well as of men,” groaned Bes. “Oh! what a land. But when I have seen the holy Tanofir it was in a brick cell beneath the sky.”

“Doubtless that was at night, O Bes,” answered Karema, “for in such a house he sleeps, spending his days in the Apis tomb, because of all the evil that is worked beneath the sun.”

“Hump,” said Bes, “I should have thought that more was worked beneath the moon, but doubtless the holy Tanofir knows better, or being asleep does not mind.”

Now in front of each of the walled-up niches was a little chapel, and at the fourth of these whence a light came, the maiden stopped, saying,

“Enter. Here dwells the holy Tanofir. He tended this god during its life-days in his youth, and now that the god is dead he prays above its bones.”

“Prays to the bones of a dead bull in the dark! Well, give me a live grasshopper in the light; he is more cheerful,” muttered Bes.

“O Dwarf,” cried a deep and resounding voice from within the chapel, “talk no more of things you do not understand. I do not pray to the bones of a dead bull, as you in your ignorance suppose. I pray to the spirit whereof this sacred beast was but one of the fleshly symbols, which in this haunted place you will do well not to offend.”

Then for once I saw Bes grow afraid, for his great jaw dropped and he trembled.

“Master,” he said to me, “when next you visit tombs where maidens look into your heart and hermits hear your very thoughts, I pray you leave me behind. The holy Tanofir I love, if from afar, but I like not his house, or his----” Here he looked at Karema who was regarding him with a sweet smile over the lamp flame, and added, “There is something the matter with me, Master; I cannot even lie.”

“Cease from talking follies, O Shabaka and Bes, and enter,” said the tremendous voice from within.

So we entered and saw a strange sight. Against the back wall of the chapel which was lit with lamps, stood a life-sized statue of Maat, goddess of Law and Truth, fashioned of alabaster. On her head was a tall feather, her hair was covered with a wig, on her neck lay a collar of blue stones; on her arms and wrists were bracelets of gold. A tight robe draped her body. In her right hand that hung down by her side, she held the looped Cross of Life, and in her left which was advanced, a long, lotus-headed sceptre, while her painted eyes stared fixedly at the darkness. Crouched upon the ground, at the feet of the statue, scribe fashion, sat my great-uncle Tanofir, a very aged man with sightless eyes and long hands, so thin that one might see through them against the lamp-flame. His head was shaven, his beard was long and white; white too was his robe. In front of him was a low altar, on which stood a shallow silver vessel filled with pure water, and on either side of it a burning lamp.

We knelt down before him, or rather I knelt, for Bes threw himself flat upon his face.

“Am I the King of kings whom you have so lately visited, that you should prostrate yourselves before me?” said Tanofir in his great voice, which, coming from so frail and aged a man seemed most unnatural. “Or is it to the goddess of Truth beyond that you bow yourselves? If so, that is well, since one, if not both of you, greatly needs her pardon and her help. Or is it to the sleeping god beyond who holds the whole world on his horns? Or is it to the darkness of this hallowed place which causes you to remember the nearness of the awaiting tomb?”

“Nay, my Uncle,” I said, “we would greet you, no more, who are so worthy of our veneration, seeing we believe, both of us, that you saved us yonder in the East, from that tomb of which you speak, or rather from the jaws of lions or a cruel death by torments.”

“Perchance I did, I or the gods of which I am the instrument. At least I remember that I sent you certain messages in answer to a prayer for help that reached me, here in my darkness. For know that since we parted I have gone quite blind so that I must use this maiden’s eyes to read what is written in yonder divining-cup. Well, it makes the darkness of this sepulchre easier to bear and prepares me for my own. ‘Tis full a hundred and twenty years since first I looked upon the light, and now the time of sleep draws near. Come hither, my nephew, and kiss me on the brow, remembering in your strength that a day will dawn when as I am, so shall you be, if the gods spare you so long.”

So I kissed him, not without fear, for the old man was unearthly. Then he sent Karema from the place and bade me tell him my story, which I did. Why he did this I cannot say, since he seemed to know it already and once or twice corrected me in certain matters that I had forgotten, for instance as to the exact words that I had used to the Great King in my rage and as to the fashion in which I was tied in the boat. When I had done, he said,

“So you gave the name of Amada to the Great King, did you? Well, you could have done nothing else if you wished to go on living, and therefore cannot be blamed. Yet before all is finished I think it will bring you into trouble, Shabaka, since among many gifts, the gods did not give that of reason to women. If so, bear it, since it is better to have trouble and be alive than to have none and be dead, that is, for those whose work is still to do in the world. And you, or rather Bes, stole the White Signet of signets of which, although it is so simple and ancient, there is not the like for power in the whole world. That was well done since it will be useful for a while. And now Peroa has determined to rebel against the King, which also is well done. Oh! trouble not to tell me of that business for I know all. But what would you learn of me, Shabaka?”

“I am instructed to learn from you the end of these great matters, my Uncle.”

“Are you mad, Shabaka, that you should think me a god who can read the future?”

“Not at all, my Uncle, who know that you can if you will.”

“Call the maiden,” he said.

So Bes went out and brought her in.

“Be seated, Karema, there in front of the altar, and look into my eyes.”

She obeyed and presently seemed to go to sleep for her head nodded. Then he said,

“Wake, woman, look into the water in the bowl upon the altar and tell me what you see.”

She appeared to wake, though I perceived that this was not really so, for she seemed a different woman with a fixed face that frightened me, and wide and frozen eyes. She stared into the silver bowl, then spoke in a new voice, as though some spirit used her tongue.

“I see myself crowned a queen in a land I hate,” she said coldly, a saying at which I gasped. “I am seated on a throne beside yonder dwarf,” a saying at which Bes gasped. “Although so hideous, this dwarf is a great man with a good heart, a cunning mind and the courage of a lion. Also his blood is royal.”

Here Bes rolled his eyes and smiled, but Tanofir did not seem in the least astonished, and said,

“Much of this is known to me and the rest can be guessed. Pass on to what will happen in Egypt, before the spirit leaves you.”

“There will be war in Egypt,” she answered. “I see fightings; Shabaka and others lead the Egyptians. The Easterns are driven away or slain. Peroa rules as Pharaoh, I see him on his throne. Shabaka is driven away in his turn, I see him travelling south with the dwarf and with myself, looking very sad. Time passes. I see the moons float by; I see messengers reach Shabaka, sent by Peroa and you O holy Tanofir; they tell of trouble in Egypt. I see Shabaka and the dwarf coming north at the head of a great army of black men armed with bows. With them I come rejoicing, for my heart seems to shine. He reaches a temple on the Nile about which is camped another great army, a countless army of Easterns under the command of the King of kings. Shabaka and the dwarf give battle to that army and the fray is desperate. They destroy it, they drive it into the Nile; the Nile runs red with blood. The Great King falls, an arrow from the bow of Shabaka is in his heart. He enters the temple, a conqueror, and there lies Peroa, dying or dead. A veiled priestess is there before an image, I cannot see her face. Shabaka looks on her. She stretches out her arms to him, her eyes burn with woman’s love, her breast heaves, and above the image frowns and threatens. All is done, for Tanofir, Master of spirits, you die, yonder in the temple on the Nile, and therefore I can see no more. The power that comes through you, has left me.”

Then once more she became as a woman asleep.

“You have heard, Shabaka and Bes,” said Tanofir quietly and stroking his long white beard, “and what that maiden seemed to read in the water you may believe or disbelieve as you will.”

“What do you believe, O holy Tanofir?” I asked.

“The only part of the story whereof I am sure,” he replied, evading a direct answer, “is that which said that I shall die, and that when I am dead I shall no longer be able to cause the maiden Karema to see visions. For the rest I do not know. These things may happen or they may not. But,” he added with a note of warning in his voice, “whether they happen or not, my counsel to you both is that you say nothing of them beforehand.”