Uarda : a Romance of Ancient Egypt — Volume 08Ebers, Georg
History
Uarda : a Romance of Ancient Egypt — Volume 08
Ebers, Georg
Egypt -- History -- To 332 B.C. -- Fiction; German fiction -- Translations into English
The old man cried out at the blow, and at the cry--the paraschites
stricken down with stones--his own struggle with the mob--and the
appearance of Bent Anat flashed into Pentaur's lnernory. Pity and a
sense of his own healthy vigor prompted him to energy; he hastily
snatched the sack from the shoulders of the old man, threw it over his
own, helped up the fallen wretch, and finally men and beasts succeeded in
mounting the rocky wall.
The pulses throbbed in Pentaur's temples, and he shuddered with horror,
as he looked down from the height of the pass into the abyss below, and
round upon the countless pinnacles and peaks, cliffs and precipices, in
many-colored rocks-white and grey, sulphurous yellow, blood-red and
ominous black. He recalled the sacred lake of Muth in Thebes, round
which sat a hundred statues of the lion-headed Goddess in black basalt,
each on a pedestal; and the rocky peaks, which surrounded the valley at
his feet, seemed to put on a semblance of life and to move and open their
yawning jaws; through the wild rush of blood in his ears he fancied he
heard them roar, and the load beyond his strength which he carried gave
him a sensation as though their clutch was on his breast.
Nevertheless he reached the goal.
The other prisoners flung their loads from their shoulders, and threw
themselves down to rest. Mechanically he did the same: his pulses beat
more calmly, by degrees the visions faded from his senses, he saw and
heard once more, and his brain recovered its balance. The old man and
Nebsecht were lying beside him.
His grey-haired companion rubbed the swollen veins in his neck, and
called down all the blessings of the Gods upon his head; but the captain
of the caravan cut him short, exclaiming:
"You have strength for three, Huni; farther on, we will load you more
heavily."
"How much the kindly Gods care for our prayers for the blessing of
others!" exclaimed Nebsecht. "How well they know how to reward a good
action!"
"I am rewarded enough," said Pentaur, looking kindly at the old man.
"But you, you everlasting scoffer--you look pale. How do you feel?"
"As if I were one of those donkeys there," replied the naturalist. "My
knees shake like theirs, and I think and I wish neither more nor less
than they do; that is to say--I would we were in our stalls."
"If you can think," said Pentaur smiling, "you are not so very bad."
"I had a good thought just now, when you were staring up into the sky.
The intellect, say the priestly sages, is a vivifying breath of the
eternal spirit, and our soul is the mould or core for the mass of matter
which we call a human being. I sought the spirit at first in the heart,
then in the brain; but now I know that it resides in the arms and legs,
for when I have strained them I find thought is impossible. I am too
tired to enter on further evidence, but for the future I shall treat my
legs with the utmost consideration."
"Quarrelling again you two? On again, men!" cried the driver.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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