"ge30v10" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ebers Georg)

the acknowledgment that, at the moment of his summons to the king, he had
been in the act of going to the commander-in-chief to beg a release from
military service, the priest interrupted him to remind him of the debt of
gratitude he, Bai, owed to him as the preserver of his life. Then he
added that he would make every effort in his power to keep him in the
army and show that the Egyptians--even against Pharaoh's will, or which
he would speak farther with him privately--knew how to honor genuine
merit without distinction of person or birth.

The Hebrew had little time to repeat his resolve; the head chamberlain
interrupted them to lead Hosea into the presence of the "good god."

The sovereign awaited Hosea in the smaller audience-room adjoining the
royal apartments.

It was a stately chamber, and to-day looked more spacious than when, as
of yore, it was filled with obsequious throngs. Only a few courtiers and
priests, with some of the queen's ladies-in-waiting, all clad in deep
mourning, stood in groups near the throne. Opposite to Pharaoh,
squatting in a circle on the floor, were the king's councillors and
interpreters, each adorned with an ostrich plume.

All wore tokens of mourning, and the monotonous, piteous plaint of the
wailing women, which ever and anon rose into a loud, shrill, tremulous
shriek, echoed through the silent rooms within to this hall, announcing
that death had claimed a victim even in the royal dwelling.

The king and queen sat on a gold and ivory couch, heavily draped with
black. Instead of their usual splendid attire, both wore dark robes, and
the royal consort and mother, who mourned her first-born son, leaned
motionless, with drooping head, against her kingly husband's shoulder.

Pharaoh, too, gazed fixedly into space, as though lost in a dream. The
sceptre had slipped from his hand and lay in his lap.

The queen had been torn away from the corpse of her son, which was now
delivered to the embalmers, and it was not until she reached the entrance
of the audience-chamber that she had succeeded in checking her tears.
She had no thought of resistance; the inexorable ceremonial of court
etiquette required the queen to be present at any audience of importance.
To-day she would gladly have shunned the task, but Pharaoh had commanded
her presence, and she knew and approved the course to be pursued; for she
was full of dread of the power of the Hebrew Mesu, called by his own
people Moses, and of his God, who had brought such terrible woe on the
Egyptians. She had other children to lose, and she had known Mesu from
her childhood, and was well aware how highly the great Rameses, her
husband's father and predecessor, had prized the wisdom of this stranger
who had been reared with his own sons.

Ah, if it were only possible to conciliate this man. But Mesu had