The glory of the PharaohsWeigall, Arthur E. P. Brome (Arthur Edward Pearse Brome)
History
The glory of the Pharaohs
Weigall, Arthur E. P. Brome (Arthur Edward Pearse Brome)
Egypt -- Antiquities
When the narrative is able to be resumed one finds that Wenamon has set
sail from the city, and has travelled along the coast to the proud city
of Tyre, where he arrived one afternoon penniless and letterless, having
now nothing left but the little Amon-of-the-Road and his own audacity.
The charms of Tyre, then one of the great ports of the civilised world,
were of no consequence to the destitute Egyptian, nor do they seem to
have attracted the skipper of his ship, who, after his long delay at
Dor, was in no mood to linger. At dawn the next morning, therefore, the
journey was continued, and once more an unfortunate lacuna interrupts
the passage of the report. From the tattered fragments of the writing,
however, it seems that at the next port of call--perhaps the city of
Sidon--a party of inoffensive Sicilian merchants was encountered, and
immediately the desperate Wenamon hatched a daring plot. By this time he
had come to place some trust in Mengebet, the skipper, who, for the sake
of his own good standing in Egypt, had shown himself willing to help the
envoy of Amon-Ra in his troubles, although he would not go so far as to
delay his journey for him; and Wenamon therefore admitted him to his
councils. On some pretext or another a party led by the Egyptian paid a
visit to these merchants and entered into conversation with them. Then,
suddenly overpowering them, a rush was made for their cash-box, which
Wenamon at once burst open. To his disappointment he found it to contain
only thirty-one debens of silver, which happened to be precisely the
amount of silver, though not of gold, which he had lost. This sum he
pocketed, saying to the struggling merchants as he did so, “I will take
this money of yours, and will keep it until you find my money. Was it
not a Sicilian who stole it, and no thief of ours? I will take it.”
With these words the party raced back to the ship, scrambled on board,
and in a few moments had hoisted sail and were scudding northwards
towards Byblos, where Wenamon proposed to throw himself on the mercy of
Zakar-Baal, the prince of that city. Wenamon, it will be remembered, had
always considered that he had been robbed by a Sicilian of Dor,
notwithstanding the fact that only a sailor of his own
[Illustration: An Egyptian Priest or Religious Official
From a wooden statuette of about B.C. 1300, now in Cairo]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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