The Egyptian

7

I slept one night at an inn, and then went to what had been my house and called for Kaptah. He came limping forth, his cheeks swollen with blows. When he saw me, he wept for joy and threw himself at my feet.

“Lord, you have come back though I believed you dead! I thought that if you were alive you would surely return for more silver and copper, for when once a man gives, he must go on giving. But you did not come though I have stolen from my new master as much as ever I did in my life, as you may see by my cheek and by my knee which he kicked yesterday. His mother, the old crocodile-may she rot?-threatens to sell me and I am in great fear. Let us leave this evil house, lord, and fly together.”

I hestitated and he misunderstood me.

“I have indeed stolen so much that I can take care of you for a time, and when it is all gone, I can work for you if you will only take me away.”

“I came but to pay my debt to you, Kaptah,” I told him, and I counted gold and silver into his hand, many times the sum he had given me. “But if you like, I will buy your freedom from your master so that you may go where you will.”

“And if you free me, where shall I go since all my life I have been a slave? Without you I am a blind kitten, a lamb forsaken by the ewe. Nor should you waste good gold upon my freedom-why pay for what is already yours?” He blinked his one eye in sly reflection. “A big ship is now fitting out for Smyrna, and we might perhaps venture to sail in her if we first make lavish sacrifice to the gods. It is only a pity that I have not found a powerful enough god since I gave up Ammon, who made such mischief for me.”

Remembering the scarab I had found I gave it to Kaptah, saying, “Here is a god who is very powerful, though small. Guard him well, for I believe he will bring us luck; already I have gold in my purse. Clothe yourself as a Syrian, then, and escape if you must, but do not blame me if you are caught as a runaway slave. May the little god help you; we will so save our money to pay our passage to Smyrna. I can no longer look anyone in the face in Thebes or in the whole land of Egypt, so I will go never to return.”

“Make no vows, for who knows what tomorrow may bring? A man who has once drunk of Nile waters cannot quench his thirst elsewhere. I know not what evil you have done-you drop your eyes when you speak of it-but you are young and will one day forget. A man’s action is as a stone cast into a pool: it makes a splash and rings spread outward, but after a while the waters are still again, and there is no trace of the stone. Human memory is like that water. When sufficient time has passed, everyone will have forgotten you and your deed and you may return-and I hope that by then you will be rich and powerful enough to protect me also.”

“I go and shall not return,” I said resolutely. Just then Kaptah’s mistress called him in a shrill voice. I went to wait for him at the street corner, and after a time he joined me there with a basket. In the basket was a bundle, and he jingled some coppers in his hand.

“The mother of all crocodiles has sent me marketing,” he said delightedly. “As usual she gave me too little money, but it will all help, for I believe Smyrna lies a long way from here.”

His dress and wig were in the basket. We went down to the shore and he changed his clothes among the reeds. I bought him a handsome staff such as is used by servants and running footmen in the houses of the great. Next we went to the quay where the Syrian ships were berthed and found a big, three-masted vessel, on which a rope the thickness of a man’s body ran from stem to stern and from whose masthead fluttered the signal for sailing. The captain was a Syrian, and he was glad to hear that I was a physician, for he respected Egyptian medicine, and many of his crew were sick. The scarab was bringing us luck indeed, for he entered us on the ship’s register and would take no money for our passage, which he said we should earn. From that moment Kaptah venerated the scarab as a god, anointing it daily and wrapping it in fine cloth.

We cast off, the slaves began to bend to their oars, and in eighteen days we reached the borders of the Two Kingdoms. In another eighteen days we reached the Delta, and in two more the sea lay before us, and there was no further shore in sight. When the ship began to roll, Kaptah’s face turned gray, and he clung to the great rope. Presently he moaned to me that his stomach was rising to his ears and he was dying. The wind freshened, the ship rolled more steeply, and the captain headed her out to sea until we were beyond sight of land. Then I, too, grew uneasy, for I could not understand how he would ever find it again. I no longer laughed at Kaptah because I felt giddy myself and had unpleasant sensations. Presently Kaptah vomited and sank down upon the deck; his face was green, and he uttered never another word. I became alarmed, and when I saw that many other passengers were vomiting and moaning that they would perish and that they were strangely altered in the face, I hastened to the captain and told him that it was clear that the gods had put a curse on his vessel, as a terrible sickness had broken out on board despite my skill. I begged him to put back to land while he could still find any, or as a doctor I could not answer for the consequences. But the captain reassured me, saying we had a fair wind, which would bring us smartly along on our course, and that I should not mock the gods by calling this a storm. He swore by his beard that every passenger would be as spry as a young goat the moment he set foot on dry land and that I need not fear for my dignity as a physician. Yet, when I observed the misery of these travelers, I found it hard to believe him.

Why I myself did not fall so gravely ill I cannot say unless it was that immediately after my birth I had been put to rock on the Nile in a reed boat.

I sought to tend Kaptah and the others, but when I would have touched the passengers, they cursed me. When I offered Kaptah some strengthening food, he turned away his face and snapped his jaws noisily like a hippopotamus, to empty his belly though there was no more in it. But Kaptah had never before turned from food, and I began to think he really would die. I was greatly cast down for I had begun to grow used to his nonsense.

Night fell, and at last I slept, fearful though I was of the rolling of the ship, the terrifying smack of the sails, and the thunder of the seas against the hull. Days passed, but none of the passengers died; some indeed recovered enough to eat and walk about the deck. Only Kaptah lay still and touched no food yet showed some sign of life in that he began once more to pray to the scarab, from which I concluded that he had regained hope of reaching land alive. On the seventh day a coast line appeared, and the captain told me that we had sailed past Joppa and Tyre and would be able to make Smyrna direct, thanks to the favorable winds. How he knew all this I cannot even now make out. On the following day we sighted Smyrna, and the captain made lavish sacrifice in his cabin to the sea gods and others. The sails were lowered, the oarsmen manned their oars, and rowed us into the port of Smyrna.

When we had entered smooth water, Kaptah stood up and swore by his scarab that never again would he set foot aboard a ship.