The Land of Foam

III. THE SLAVE OF PHARAOH

as in previous years the bushes burst into flower covering the hill slopes with a flaming carpet, when spring came again to the shores of Oeniadae. The bright constellation of the Archer (The early setting of the Archer constellation was regarded as heralding the end of the winter storms.)had begun to set early, the regular west wind heralded the beginning of the seafaring season. Five ships had returned to Calydon, having left for Crete in early spring, and then two Cretan ships had arrived. But Pandion was on none of them.

Agenor was frequently lost in silent meditation but he strove to keep his feelings of alarm hidden from his family.

The lone traveller had disappeared in Crete, had been lost somewhere in the mountains of that huge island amidst big communities of people whose languages he did not know.

The old artist had decided to go to Calydon and from there, if opportunity offered, to leave for Crete in order to find out what he could of Pandion’s fate.

Thessa had lately got into the habit of wandering off alone. Even the silent sympathy of her family lay heavy on her.

In profound grief the girl stood before the calm, eternally moving sea. Sometimes she ran down to the shore in the hope that Pandion would return to the place where they had parted.

But these days of hope had long since passed. Thessa was now certain that far beyond the line that divides the sky from the sea some misfortune had occurred. Only captivity or death could have prevented Pandion from returning to her.

And Thessa implored the waves that came rolling in from afar, perhaps from that place where her beloved P and km was now — implored them to tell her what had happened. And she was sure that she had to wait but a little while and the waves would give her a sign to tell her where Pandion was. But the waves the sea cast at her feet were all alike, and their rhythmic noise told her no more than silence would have done.

How could she discover what had become of her lover? How could she, a woman, whose lot in life is to be with her man, the mistress and protector of his home, his companion when travelling and the healer of his wounds-how could she overcome the distance that separated them? There was but one road for the woman who refused to obey a man, be it her father, husband or brother, and that was to become a hetaera in the city or the harbour. She was a woman — she could not set out for another country, she could not even make an attempt to search for Pandion.

There was nothing left for her to do but wander up and clown the shores of the mighty sea. There was nothing she could do! No way in which she could help!

Even if Pandion had perished she would never, never know where he had died.

A deluge of silver-blue moonlight inundated the entire valley. It was cut off by deep black shadows from crevices in the steep cliffs but it streamed along the river following its course from south to north.

Darkness filled the square well of the slave compound near Nut-Amon, or Waset, the great capital city of Aigyptos.

The wall was brightly illuminated and cast a dull reflection from its rough surface.

Pandicn lay on a bundle of coarse grass on the floor of his narrow cell. With great caution he thrust his head out of the low entrance that looked like a rat-hole. At the risk of attracting the sentries’ attention the young Hellene got up on his knees to admire the pale disc of the moon floating high in the heavens over the edge of the gloomy wall. It was painful to think that the same moon was shining over distant Oeniadae. Perhaps Thessa, his Thessa, was asking Hecate where he was, little suspecting that from his stinking hole his eyes, too, were fixed on that silver disc. Pandion drew his head back into the darkness that was filled with the dusty smell of heated clay and turned his face to the wall.

The raging despair of the first days, the fits of terrible grief, had long since passed. Pandion had changed very considerably. His thick, clean-cut brows were knit in a permanent frown, the golden eyes of the descendant of Hyperion were dark with the fires of wrath that secretly but stubbornly burned in them, his lips were now kept tightly pressed together.

His mighty body, however, was still filled with inexhaustible energy, his intellect was unimpaired. The youth had not lost heart; he still dreamed of liberty.

Pandion was gradually developing into a fighting man who was to be feared not only on account of his courage, strength and boundless determination but also because of the urge to maintain his spirits even in the hell that surrounded, him and to carry his dreams, desires and love through all trials and tribulations. That which had been impossible to a lonely man ignorant of the language and the country had become eminently possible — Pandion had a companion, a comrade. A comrade! Only he who has had to stand alone in the face of menacingly superior forces, only he who has been alone in a distant foreign land can appreciate to the full the meaning of that word. A comrade means friendly help, understanding, protection, common thoughts and dreams, wise counsel, timely reproach, support and comfort. During the seven months he had been employed on jobs in the vicinity of the capital Pandion had learned something of the strange language of Aigyptos and began to understand his fellow-slaves despite their many tongues.

He began to distinguish those who had clear-cut, well-defined individuality from amongst the five hundred slaves confined in the shehne and daily driven out to work.

On their part the other slaves gradually learned to trust one another and some of them became friendly with Pandion.

The terrible privations which they shared, the common longing for liberty united them in a common struggle to win their emancipation, strike a blow at the blind, oppressive forces of the rulers of the Black Land and return to their long-lost native lands. “

Home — that was a word they could all understand although to some it meant a land that lay beyond the mysterious swamps in the south, to others somewhere beyond the sands to the east or west and to the third, like Pandion, a land beyond the seas in the north.

There were but few in the shehne, however, who had strength enough to prepare for the combat. The others, exhausted by their heavy drudgery and perpetual undernourishment, were slowly fading away without a murmur. These were mostly people of advanced age, who had no interest in what was going on around them; there was not a spark of resolution in their dull eyes; they showed no desire to communicate with their companions; they worked, ate slowly and sank into a heavy sleep and next morning shuddered at the cries of the warders who awakened them to trudge along in the column of slaves, sluggish and indifferent.

Pandion soon realized why there were so many separate cells in the slave compound: they kept people apart. After supper it was forbidden to hold communication with one another; the sentries on the wall watched for infringements of this rule and next morning an arrow or a stick fell to the’ lot of the disobedient. Not every slave possessed either the strength or the courage to take advantage of the darkness and crawl to the cells of his companions, but some of Pandion’s comrades did.

Three men became Pandion’s closest companions. The first of them was Kidogo, a huge Negro almost four cubits in height who came from a very distant part of Africa to the south-west of Aigyptos. Kindly, jolly and exuberant Kidogo was also a skilled artist and sculptor. His expressive face with its broad nose and thick lips immediately attracted Pandion’s attention by its intellect and energy. Pandion was used to well-built Negroes, but this giant immediately drew the attention of the sculptor by the beauty of his well-proportioned body. Muscles seemingly forged from iron suited Kidogo’s light and lithe figure. His huge eyes seemed all attention and were astounding in their animation against the background of a black face.

At first Pandion and Kidogo communicated with each other by means of drawings made with a pointed stick on the earth or on walls. Later the young Hellene began to talk to the Negro in a mixture of the language of Quemt and the simple, easily remembered language of Kidogo’s people.

In the pitch darkness of moonless nights Pandion and Kidogo crawled to each other’s cells, and talking in whispers, gained fresh strength and courage in the discussion of plans for escape.

One evening after Pandion had been there for a month a group of new slaves was driven into the shehne.

The newcomers sat or lay near the door gazing hopelessly around them, their tormented faces bearing the seal of grief and despair so well known to every one of the captives. On returning from work in the evening Pandion was going to the big water vessels to get a drink when suddenly he almost let fall his bowl. Two of the newcomers were talking softly in Etruscan, a language with which Pandion was familiar. The Etruscans were a strange, rough and ancient people who frequently visited the shores of Oeniadae where they enjoyed the reputation of sorcerers knowing the secrets of nature.

So great was the power of memories of his home that had been evoked that Pandion’s whole body trembled; he spoke to the Etruscans and they understood him. When he asked them how they fell captive to the Egyptians both of them sat silent as though they were not at all pleased with the meeting.

The two Etruscans were of medium height, very muscular and with broad shoulders. Their dark hair was matted with dirt and hung in uneven strands on both sides of their faces. The elder of the two was apparently about forty years old and the younger was approximately the same age as Pandion.

The likeness between them was immediately apparent — their sunken cheeks stressed the protruding cheekbones and their stern hazel eyes flashed with a stubbornness that nothing could break.

Pandion was both puzzled and annoyed by the indifference of the Etruscans and hurried back to his own cell. For several days after this Pandion deliberately paid no attention to them although he knew they were watching him.

Some ten days after the arrival of the Etruscans Pandion and Kidogo were sitting side by side over a supper of papyrus stalks. The two friends ate their food quickly and then lingered a while to talk while the others were finishing their meal. Pandion’s neighbour on the other side was the elder Etruscan. Unexpectedly he laid his heavy hand on the youth’s shoulder and looked mockingly into Pandion’s eyes when he turned towards him.

“A poor comrade will never gain his liberty,” said the Etruscan slowly with a note of challenge in his words; he did not fear that the warders would understand him for the inhabitants of Tha-Quem did not understand the languages of their captives and despised all foreigners.

Pandion jerked his shoulder impatiently, not having understood the import of the Etruscan’s words, but the latter squeezed hard with his fingers that dug into Pandion’s muscles like bronze talons.

“You despise them, and you shouldn’t.” The Etruscan nodded his head towards the other slaves who were busily eating. “The others are no worse than you and they also dream of liberty…”

“They are worse,” exclaimed Pandion arrogantly. “They’ve been here a long time and I haven’t heard of any attempts at escape!”

The Etruscan pressed his lips together contemptuously.

“If youth doesn’t possess sufficient intelligence, then youth must learn from age. You’re strong and healthy, there’s still strength left in your body after a day’s heavy toil, and lack of food hasn’t yet undermined your strength. They have lost their strength; that’s the only difference between you and them, and that’s your good luck. But remember that you can’t escape from here alone: you have to know the road and break through by force and the only force we have is all of us together. When you are a good comrade to all of them there’ll be a better chance of your dreams coming true…”

Amazed at the shrewdness of the Etruscan who had fathomed his most secret thoughts, Pandion could find no answer and only hung his head in silence.

“What’s he saying? What’s he saying?” Kidogo kept asking him.

Pandion wanted to explain but at that moment the overseer beat on the table; the slaves who had finished their meal had to make way for the next party and go to their cells for their night’s rest.

During the night Pandion and Kidogo discussed the Etruscan’s words for a long time. They had to admit that the newcomer understood the position of the slaves better than anybody else. Those who bore the brand of Pharaoh had to know the way out of the country if their escape was to be successful. This was not all: they had to fight their way through a country with a hostile population who believed that the “savages” had been created to work for the people chosen by the gods.

The two friends were despondent at this but they had a feeling of trust in the clever Etruscan.

A few more days passed and there were four friends in Pharaoh’s shehne. Gradually they acquired greater authority amongst the other slaves.

The elder Etruscan, who bore the awe-inspiring name of Cavius, the god of death, was regarded as their senior by many of the staves. The three others, the young Etruscan, whose name was Remdus, Kidogo and Pandion, three strong, hardy and bold men, became his most reliable assistants.

By degrees from amongst the five hundred slaves more and more fighters appeared who were willing to risk their lives in the faint hope of returning to their native lands. And just as slowly the remainder, the cowed, tormented and oppressed, regained confidence in their strength and the hope grew stronger that by uniting they could resist the organized might of a huge state.

But the days passed, empty and aimless, bitter days of captivity, days of heavy drudgery that they hated if only because it contributed towards the prosperity of the cruel taskmasters who had thousands of human lives at their disposal. At sunrise each day columns of worn-out men under armed escort left the shehne for work in different places.

The inhabitants of Aigyptos despised all foreigners and did not take the trouble to learn the languages of their captives. For this reason fresh slaves were at first employed on the simplest tasks; later, as they learned the Quemt language, they were given more complicated instructions and learned handicrafts. The overseers did not bother about the names of their slaves and called them by the names of the peoples to which they belonged.

Thus Pandion was called Ekwesha — Egyptian for all the peoples of the Aegean Sea; the Etruscans were Turu-sha, while Kidogo and all other black slaves were simply called Nehsu — Negro.

For the first two months in the shehne Pandion and forty other fresh slaves did repair work on the canals in the Gardens of Amon, (A temple at Karnak, near Luxor.)

rebuilt dykes washed away by the previous year’s floods, loosened the earth around fruit-trees, pumped water and carried it to the flower-beds.

The overseers took note of the hardiness, strength and ability of the newcomers and gradually selected a new detachment which was sent for building work. It happened that the four friends and thirty other strong slaves — the leaders of the mass of slaves in the shehne — were all in the same group. When they were transferred to building work, their regular contact with the others was interrupted since they remained away from the shehne for weeks on end.

The first work given to Pandion away from Pharaoh’s gardens was the dismantling of an old temple and tomb on the west bank of the river some fifty stadia from the shehne. The slaves were loaded on a boat and ferried across the river under the supervision of an overseer and five soldiers. They were marched along a path northwards to a ridge of vertical cliffs that here formed a gigantic ledge. The path led them past tilled fields on to a metalled road; suddenly a picture was unfolded before Pandion’s eyes that for ever impressed itself on his memory. The slaves had been halted on a wide-open space sloping down to the river and the overseer had gone away, bidding them await his return.

This was the first opportunity Pandion had of studying his surroundings more or less leisurely.

Directly in front of him rose a vertical wall of copper-coloured rock, three hundred cubits high, dotted with patches of blue-black shadow. From the foot of the cliff the white colonnade of a temple spread out in three terraces. A path of smooth grey stone rose from the riverside plain; on either side were rows of strangely carved sphinxes — monsters in the form of recumbent lions with human heads. Further a broad, white staircase between walls on which were carved twining yellow snakes, one on either side, led to the second terraced building supported by low columns, twice the height of a man, of dazzlingly white limestone. In the central part of the temple he noticed a second row of similar columns. On each of them was the representation of a human figure in a royal crown with the hands folded on the breast.

The second terrace of the temple, a big open space with a lane of recumbent sphinxes, was flanked by a colonnade. Some thirty cubits higher was the third, or upper, terrace of the temple, completely surrounded by a colonnade and filling a natural indenture in the cliff face.

The lower terrace of the temple extended in width over a distance of some one and a half stadia; at the extremes there were simple cylindrical columns, in the centre they were square and higher up they had six or sixteen faces. The central columns, the capitals of the side columns, the cornices of the porticos and the human figures were all painted in bright blue and red colours which made the glaring white of the stone still more dazzling.

This temple, brightly lit up by the sun, formed a striking contrast to other gloomy, oppressive temple buildings that Pandion had seen. The young Hellene could not imagine anything more beautiful than those rows of snow-white columns in a framework of coloured patterns. On the terraces grew trees such as Pandion had never seen before — low trees with a dense cluster of branches covered with tiny leaves growing close to each other. These trees gave off a very powerful aroma and their golden-green foliage gave them a very gay appearance backed by snow-white columns accentuated by the red cliffs.

In a burst of wild admiration Kidogo nudged Pandion, smacked his lips and emitted inarticulate sounds expressing approbation.

None of the slaves knew that the temple before which they stood had been built about five hundred years earlier by the architect Sennemut for his mistress Queen Hatshe-psut (Hatshepsut — Queen of the XVIIIth Dynasty (1500–1457 B.C.). The temple is at Deir-el-Bahri.) and was called Zesher-Zesheru — the most magnificent of the magnificent. (The Temple of Montuhotep IV, a Pharaoh of the Middle Kingdom, Xlth Dynasty, about 2050 B.C). The strange trees growing on the terraces had been brought from the Land of Punt to which Queen Hatshepsut had sent a big expedition by sea. Since that time it had been the custom for every new expedition to Punt to bring back young trees for the temple and renew the old plantation which was thus seemingly preserved from ancient days.

The voice of the overseer came from the distance. The slaves moved hurriedly away from the temple and passing round it to the left, found yet another temple, also built on a ledge on the cliff, this time in the form of a small pyramid resting on rows of closely placed columns.

Higher up the river there were two other temples of polished grey granite. The overseer led his party to the nearest of them where they joined another party of about two hundred slaves busy dismantling the temple. The white plaster on the interior walls was decorated with brightly-coloured drawings executed with great mastery. The building officials and technicians of Aigyptos, who had charge of the work, were only interested in the polished granite blocks with which the portico and the colonnade were faced. The interior walls were ruthlessly destroyed.

Pandion was shocked at this wanton destruction of ancient works of art and managed to get into the group of slaves employed in piling the stones on to wooden sleds and dragging them down to the river to be loaded on a low-lying boat.

He did not know that the Pharaohs of Aigyptos had long been dismantling ancient temples, mostly those of the Middle Kingdom (2160–1580 B.C.) which contained a large quantity of beautifully dressed stone; they had no respect for monuments of the past and hastened to perpetuate their own names by building temples and tombs from ready materials.

Neither the Hyksos, the barbaric Shepherd Kings who had conquered Tha-Quem many centuries before, nor the slaves who revolted and ruled the country for a short period some two hundred years before Pandion was born, had touched these magnificent edifices. But now, following the secret instructions of the new Pharaohs of Aigyptos, the temples and tombs of the ancient kings were being dismantled and gold poured into the treasury of the rulers from the plundered tombs hidden under the ancient sand-covered pyramids and from the magnificent underground tombs of the great kings of the XVIIIth, XIXth and XXth dynasties.

Pandion spent altogether three months on this work of dismantling the temple. He and Kidogo worked hard, doing their utmost to lighten the labour of their comrades. This was exactly what their taskmasters wanted: the labour system in Tha-Quem was organized in such a way that the weak had to keep pace with the strong. The unusual strength and shrewdness of Kidogo and Pandion attracted the attention of the overseers and they were sent to the workshop of the stone-masons to learn the craft. One of Pharaoh’s sculptors took them away from this workshop and thus cut them off completely from their comrades in the shahne. Pandion and Kidogo were housed in a long, uncomfortable shed with a number of other slaves who had already mastered the simple craft. Native inhabitants of Aigyptos, free craftsmen, occupied a few huts in one corner of the big workshop yard where there were piles of undressed stone and rubble. The Egyptians kept markedly clear of the slaves as though they might be punished for any connections with them; later Pandion learned that this actually was the case.

The master of the workshop, a royal sculptor, did not suspect that Pandion and Kidogo were real sculptors and was astonished at the progress they made. The young men longed for some creative activity and gave themselves up whole-heartedly to their work, forgetting for a time that they were working for the hated Pharaoh and the vile land of slavery.

Kidogo waxed enthusiastic over his models of animals: hippopotamuses, crocodiles, antelopes and other strange beasts Pandion had never seen; his models were used by other slaves to make faience statuettes. The Egyptian sculptor noticed Pandion’s fondness for modelling people and undertook to teach this promising young Ekwesha; he insisted on the utmost thoroughness in work done to order. “The slightest negligence is the ruin of perfection,” the Egyptian sculptor would constantly repeat — this was the watchword of the ancient masters of the Black Land. The Hellene studied assiduously and at times his nostalgia was forgotten. He made great progress in the precise work of finishing off statues and bas-reliefs from hard stone and in the embossing of gold ornaments.

Pandion accompanied the sculptor to Pharaoh’s palace and saw there apartments of unbelievable luxury. On the coloured floors of the royal quarters there were representations of the thickets of the Great River with their plants and animals, all drawn wonderfully lifelike and framed with wavy lines or spirals of many colours. The faience tiles on the walls of the rooms were covered with a transparent blue glaze through which shone fantastic designs in gold leaf, works of art that were nothing less than magic.

Amidst all this magnificence the young Hellene looked with hatred on the haughty, immobile courtiers. He examined their white garments, ironed in tiny pleats, their heavy necklaces, rings and lockets of cast gold, their wigs of curled hair falling to the shoulders and their embroidered slippers with upturned toes.

Like a silent shadow Pandion followed the hurrying master sculptor; on his way he took note of valuable thin-walled vessels cut from rock-crystal and hard stone, glass vases and pots of grey faience decorated with pale blue designs. He was fully aware of the tremendous amount of labour that had gone into the production of these works of art.

The greatest impression was produced by a gigantic temple near the Gardens of Amon where Pandion began his life as a slave, languishing behind the high walls of the she fine.

This was a temple of many gods built in the course of more than a thousand years. Each of the kings of Tha-Quem had added something new to an already huge structure more than eight hundred cubits in length.

On the right bank of the river, within the bounds of the capital city Nut-Amon, or simply Nut — the city — as the Egyptians called it, lay magnificent gardens with straight rows of high palms at both ends of which were a number of temples. These temple buildings were connected by long avenues of statues of strange animals with the river-banks and the sacred lake in front of the Temple of Mut, a goddess that Pandion could not understand.

Granite beasts, three times the height of a man, with the bodies of lions and the heads of rams and men, gave him a sensation of oppressiveness. Mysterious, frozen into immobility, they lay on their pedestals, close together, bordering an avenue lit up by the blinding sun, their heads hanging over passers-by.

The lofty obelisks, fifty cubits high, covered in bright yellow sheets of an amalgam of gold and silver, gleamed like incandescent needles thrust through the coarse, dark foliage of the palms. In daytime the silver-covered slabs of stone with which the avenues were paved blinded the astonished eyes; by night, in the light of the moon and stars, they were like the flowing stream of an unearthly river of light.

Enormous pylons flanked the entrance to the temple. The huge surfaces of these pylons were covered with enormous sculptures of the gods and Pharaohs and with inscriptions in the mysterious language of Tha-Quem. Colossal doors, covered with sheets of bronze inlaid with ornaments in the gold-silver amalgam, closed the passage between the pylons; their cast bronze hinges, each the weight of several bulls, were imposing in their massiveness.

The interior of the temple was a forest of thick columns fifty cubits high carrying heavy bas-reliefs that filled the upper part of the temple. The huge blocks of stone in the walls, roof and columns were polished and fitted to each other with miraculous precision.

Drawings and bas-reliefs, painted in bright colours, covered the walls, columns and cornices in several tiers. Sun discs, hawks and animal-headed gods gazed down morosely from the mysterious semi-darkness of the distant parts of the temple.

Outside there were the same bright colours, gold and silver; the monstrously massive buildings and sculptures stunned, blinded and oppressed all who saw them.

Everywhere Pandion saw statues of pink and black granite, red sandstone and yellow limestone — the deified rulers of Tha-Quem sitting in inhuman serenity and arrogant poses. In some cases these were colossi up to forty cubits in height cut from the living rock, angular and crude; others, awe-inspiring in their dreadful gloom, were carefully painted, well-finished sculptures, much more than human height.

Pandion had grown up amongst simple people in constant communion with nature and was at first overcome with awe. Everything in this huge, rich country produced a most profound impression on him.

The giant structures built by some means beyond the ken of mortal man, the awful gods hidden in the gloom of the temples, the incomprehensible religion with its intricate rites, the mark of antiquity on the sand-embedded buildings — all this at first gave Pandion a sense of oppressiveness. He believed that the haughty and inscrutable inhabitants of Aigyptos were the masters of profound truths, of some powerful science that was hidden in the writings of the Black Land which no foreigner could understand.

The country itself, squeezed by death-dealing, lifeless deserts into a narrow strip of valley watered by a huge river carrying its waters from some distant and unknown place in the far south, was a world unto itself, in no way related to the other parts of Oicumene.

The sober mind of the young Hellene, however, gradually sifted this mass of impressions in the search for simple and natural truths.

Pandion now had time for meditation; the young sculptor’s spirit, with its constant striving for the beautiful, began to revolt against the life and art of Aigyptos, a protest that later became conscious.

The fertile land, in which inclement weather was unknown, the bright, clear and almost permanently cloudless sky, the amazingly transparent and invigorating air, all seemed to have been specially created for a healthy and happy life. Little as the young Hellene knew of the country, he could not but help noticing the poverty and crowded conditions of the Nemhu, the poorest and most numerous inhabitants of Aigyptos. The colossal temples and statues, the beautiful gardens could not hide the endless rows of mud hovels that housed tens of thousands of craftsmen working for those palaces and temples. As far as the slaves languishing in hundreds of compounds were concerned, Pandion knew about these from his own experience.

It gradually became clear to him that the art of Aigyptos, subordinated to the rulers of the country, the Pharaohs and priests, and controlled by them, was the exact opposite of that which he sought — the reflection of life in art.

It was only when he caught sight of the temple Zesher-Zesheru, open and designed to merge with the surrounding landscape, that he felt that here was something close and pleasing to him.

All other giant temples and tombs were, as a rule, hidden behind high walls. And behind those walls, the craftsmen of Aigyptos. working at the bidding of the priests, had made use of all the artifice at their disposal to take man away from life, to humiliate him and crush his spirit, force him to realize his own insignificance in face of the majesty of the gods and the Pharaohs.

The enormous size of the structures, the colossal amount of labour and material involved did crush the spirit of man. The constantly repeated succession of identical, monotonous forms, piled one on the other, created the impression of infinite distance. Identical sphinxes, identical columns, walls and pylons — all with a careful scantiness of detail — were solid and immobile. Gigantic statues, all alike, lined the passages within the temples, gloomy and ominous.

The rulers of Aigyptos and arbiters of her art were afraid of space; they fenced themselves off from the world of nature and then filled the interiors of. their temples with massive stone columns, thick walls and stone beams that often occupied more space than did the room between them. The greater the distance from the entrance, the thicker grew the forest of columns in the temple, and the rooms, insufficiently lit, grew progressively darker. The huge number of narrow doorways made the temple mysteriously inaccessible and the permanent semi-darkness served to increase the fear of the gods.

Pandion gradually fathomed the secret of this deliberate effect on the spirit of man, an effect achieved through many centuries of building experience.

If Pandion could have seen the enormous pyramids, whose perfect geometrical form stood out so sharply above the wavy lines of the surrounding sand, he would have sensed more fully the imperious manner of setting off man against nature. This was the method adopted by the rulers of Tha-Quem to conceal their fear of the unknown, a fear reflected in the sullen, mysterious religion of the Egyptians.

The craftsmen of the Tha-Quem glorified their gods and their rulers, striving to express their strength in colossal statues of the Pharaohs and in the symmetrical immobility of their massive bodies.

On the walls the Pharaohs themselves were depicted in pictures more than life size. Dwarfs swarmed around their feet — the other inhabitants of the Black Land. In this way the kings of Egypt used every means at their disposal to emphasize their greatness. They believed that by humiliating the people in every way they were exalting themselves, that in this way their influence would be augmented.

Pandion still knew very little of the beautiful native art, the real art of the people of the Black Land, that was not held in bondage by courtiers and priests but was expressed in articles of everyday use amongst the common people. He felt that real art lay in a simple and joyful coalescence with life itself. It should be as different from everything created in Aigyptos as his native land with its variety of rivers, fields, forests, sea and mountains, with its colourful change of seasons differed from this country where the terraced cliffs rose so monotonously from one single river valley, everywhere alike, that was surrounded on all sides by burning- sands and filled with carefully tilled gardens. Thousands of years before the inhabitants of Aigyptos had hidden from the hostile world in the valley of the Nile. Today their descendants were trying to turn their faces away from life by hiding in their palaces and temples.

Pandion felt that the majesty of the art of Aigyptos was to a considerable extent the fruit of the natural abilities of slaves of different races; the most talented were selected from millions and these involuntarily devoted all their creative effort to the glorification of the country that oppressed them. When he had freed himself of his submission to the might of Aigyptos, Pandion resolved to escape as soon as possible and to convince his friend Kidogo of the necessity of this step.

His head was filled with these ideas when he, with Kidogo and ten other slaves, made a long trip to the ruins of the ancient town of Akhetaton. (Akhetaton (Tel el-Amarna) — capital of Pharaoh Amenhotep IV, 1375–1358 B.C.) The young sculptor ruffled the smooth surface of the river with his oars, the fast movement of the boat downstream giving him a sensation of joy. The journey was a long one, almost three thousand stadia, a distance virtually equal to that which separated his native land from Crete and which had once seemed to him to be immeasurably great. During this voyage Pandion learned that the Great Green Sea, as the people of Aigyptos called it, and on the northern shores of which Thessa was awaiting his return, was twice as far away as Akhetaton.

Pandion’s happy mood passed very quickly: for the first time he realized how far inland he was in the depths of Aigyptos and how great a distance separated him from the seacoast where there might be a possibility of returning home.

He bent moodily over his oars and the boat slipped over the smooth surface of the endless river, past thickets of green shrubs, tilled fields, reed jungles and white-hot cliffs.

The royal sculptor lay under a striped awning in the sternsheets and was fanned by a servile slave. Rows of tiny huts stretched along the banks — the fertile land fed a tremendous number of people, thousands of people swarmed the fields, gardens and papyrus thickets, toiling to earn a scanty livelihood. Thousands of people packed the narrow streets of the. countless villages on the outskirts of which towered huge ungainly temples, closely shut off from the sun.

It suddenly struck Pandion that not only he and his comrades were doomed to a pitiful existence in Tha-Quem, but the inhabitants of those miserable huts were also enslaved by their joyless drudgery, that they, too, were the slaves of the ruler and his courtiers despite the fact that they despised him, Pandion, as a branded savage…

Lost in thought, Pandion struck his neighbour’s oar with his own.

“Hi, Ekwesha, wake up, look out for yourself!”

At night the slaves were shut up in the prisons that stood in the vicinity of each township or temple.

Pharaoh’s sculptor was everywhere treated with respect by the local authorities and he went away to his rest accompanied by two trusted servants.

On the fifth day the boat turned a bend formed by outjutting. river-washed rocks. Beyond the bend lay an extensive plain cut off from the river by rows of tall palms and sycamores. The boat approached a stone-paved embankment with two wide staircases leading down to the water. A massive tower rose behind a crenellated wall on the river-bank. The heavy gates stood half-open and through them could be seen a garden with ponds and flower-dotted lawns beyond which stood a white building decorated with colourful designs.

This was the house of the High Priest of the local temples.

The royal sculptor, before whom the sentries bowed in servile humility, entered the gates while the slaves remained outside under the surveillance of two soldiers. They did not have to wait long, for the sculptor soon returned with another man who carried a scroll of papyrus and led the slaves past the temples and dwelling houses to a big site occupied by ruined walls and a forest of columns, the roof over which had collapsed. Amongst the ruins of this dead town there were, here and there, small buildings in a better state of preservation. An occasional tree stump indicated the site of former gardens; dried up ponds, basins and canals were filled with sand, a thick layer of sand covered the stone-paved roads and piled up against walls eroded by time. Not a living soul was to be seen anywhere, deadly silence reigned in the blazing heat.

The sculptor explained to Pandion in a few words that these were the ruins of the once beautiful capital of the Heretic Pharaoh (The Heretic Pharaoh — Amenhotep IV who tried to introduce into Egypt a new religion with only one god — the sun disc Aton.)whom the gods had cursed. No true son of the Black Land dare pronounce his name.

Pandion could not discover what this Pharaoh, who had reigned four centuries earlier, had done and why he had built a new capital.

The newcomer unrolled his papyrus and the two Egyptians studied the drawing on it to discover the whereabouts of a long building with the columns at its entrance lying on the ground. The interior walls of this building were faced with azure-blue stones with veins of gold in them.

Pandion and the other slaves were given the job of removing these thin stone slabs that had been firmly cemented to the walls. The job took them several days to complete and they spent the night there amidst the ruins, food and water being brought to them from the neighbouring dwellings.

When they had finished their job Pandion, Kidogo and four other slaves were ordered to search the ruins in any direction they liked and look for any works of art that might have been left there and which could be taken as gifts for Pharaoh’s palace. The Negro and Pandion set out together, the first time without escort and away from the keen eye of the overseer.

The two friends climbed on to the gate turret of some large building in order to get a view of their surroundings. From the east sand crept up to and into the ruins and stretched away in a desert of rolling dunes and piles of stone as far as the eye could reach.

Pandion looked over the silent ruins and in his excitement grasped Kidogo’s arm tightly.

“Let’s run, we won’t be missed for a long time, nobody can see us,” he whispered.

The Negro’s good-natured face spread in a smile.

“Don’t you know what the desert is?” he asked in astonishment. “At this hour tomorrow the soldiers of the search party would find our dead bodies already dried up by the sun. They,” Kidogo meant the Egyptians, “know what they are doing. There is only one road to the east, it follows the water-holes and they are guarded. In this place the desert holds us tighter than any chains…”

Pandion nodded his head gloomily — his momentary excitement had passed. In silence the two friends left the turret and set out in different directions, looking through holes in the walls and entering rooms through their dark doorways.

Inside a small, well-preserved, two-storied palace, where there were remains of the wooden lattice-work on the windows, Kidogo had the good fortune to find a small statue of an Egyptian girl carved from hard yellow limestone. He called Pandion and together they examined the work of some unknown master. The girl’s pretty face was typically Egyptian, such as Pandion already knew — the low forehead, narrow eyes slanting upwards towards the temples, protruding cheek-bones and thick lips with dimples at the corners of the mouth.

Kidogo took his find to the master of the workshops while Pandion penetrated farther into the ruins. He wandered on, stepping mechanically over wreckage and heaps of stones, taking no note of his direction, and soon he found himself in the shade of a length of wall that was still standing. Right in front of him he saw a tightly closed door leading to underground premises. Pandion pressed on the bronze door handle, the rotten boards collapsed under his weight and he entered a room whose only light came from a narrow chink in the ceiling.

It was a small room built in a thick wall of excellently dressed stone. Two light armchairs of ebony inlaid with ivory were covered with a layer of dust. In one corner lay a half-rotten casket. Against the opposite wall a grey stone statue stood on a block of rose-hued granite, a full-size female figure, the lower part of which had been left unfinished.

Two lithe panthers of black stone, one on either side of the statue, stood as though on guard. Pandion carefully brushed the dust from the statue and stepped back in dumb admiration.

The skill of the craftsman had reproduced in stone the transparent material that enveloped the girl’s body. With her left hand she pressed a lotus bloom firmly to her breast. Her thick hair, braided in a number of fine plaits, framed her face in a heavy coiffure divided by a straight parting and falling over her shoulders. The charming girl did not resemble an Egyptian. Her face was rounder, her nose small and straight and she had a high forehead and big eyes set wide apart.

Pandion glanced at the statue from one side and was amazed at the strange and subtle mockery which the sculptor had given to the girl’s face. Never had he seen such an expression of verve and intellect in a statue; the artists of Aigyptos loved majestic and indifferent immobility more than anything else.

The girl was more like the women of Oeniadae or even more like the beautiful inhabitants of the islands of his native sea.

The bright, intelligent face of the statue was far removed from the sullen beauty of Egyptian works of art and was carved with such great skill that Pandion once again felt the torture of nostalgia. The young Hellene wrung his hands and tried to imagine the model from which the statue had been carved, a girl that somehow seemed near to him, a girl that had found her way to Aigyptos by unknown roads four centuries ago. Had she been a captive like himself or had she come from some distant country of her own free will?

A ray of sunlight, falling through the crack in the ceiling, cast a dusty light on the statue. It seemed to Pandion that the expression on the girl’s face had changed — the eyes blazed, the lips trembled as though a flutter of mysterious, hidden life had reached the stone surface of the statue.

Yes, that was the way to carve a statue… here was the master from whom he could learn to depict living beauty… from this master who had long been dead!

Reverently Pandion laid careful fingers on the face of the statue, feeling for the tiny and elusive details that made the statue a living thing.

For a long time he remained standing before the statue of the beautiful maiden who smiled at him in mocking friendliness. It seemed to him that he had found a new friend whose smile lightened the burden of the endless succession of joyless days.

Unconsciously the youth’s thoughts turned to Thessa, and her living image rose before him again.

Pandion’s eyes wandered over the ornament on the ceiling and walls where stars, bunches of lotus flowers and curving lilies were intermingled with bull’s heads. Suddenly Pandion shuddered: the vision of Thessa disappeared and before him, on the wall, stood a picture of captives tied back to back, being dragged to the feet of Pharaoh. Pandion remembered that it was late and that he must hurry back and take something with him to justify his long absence. He took another look at the statue and realized that he could not place it in the hands of the master sculptor. He regarded such an act as tantamount to treachery, it would be like delivering the girl into slavery for a second time. Looking round, he suddenly remembered the casket he had seen in the corner. Pandion knelt down and removed from it four faience drinking cups, shaped like lotus blossoms and covered with bright blue enamel. That would be enough. Pandion took his last look at the statue of the girl, trying to fix in his memory every detail of her face, and with a deep sigh carried the four cups outside. He looked round to make sure that he was not observed and hurriedly covered the entrance to the room with big boulders and then filled all the spaces between them with rubble so that it looked like part of the damaged wall. He wrapped the cups up carefully in his loin-cloth, made an involuntary gesture of farewell in the direction of the statue, safe in its asylum, and hurried off to join the others. The shouts of the slaves showed him the direction, loudest amongst them being the strong, resonant voice of Kidogo.

The royal sculptor met Pandion at first with threats but calmed down the moment he saw the treasure Pandion had brought him.

The return journey took three days longer as the rowers had to fight against the current of the river. Pandion told Kidogo about the statue and the Negro approved his action, adding that the girl had probably come from the Mashuashi, a people living on the northern edge of the Great Western Desert.

Pandion tried to persuade Kidogo to flee, but his friend only shook his head in reply, rejecting all the plans suggested by the Hellene.

During the seven days of the journey Pandion failed to convince his friend but he, himself, was unable to remain inactive; it seemed that he would not be able to hold out much longer and must inevitably perish. He longed for his companions who had remained on the building jobs and in the shehne. He felt that these men were the force that could bring liberation and which gave him hopes for the future. Here there was no hope of liberation and that made Pandion pant in helpless fury.

Two days after their return to the workshops the royal sculptor took Pandion to the palace of the Chief Builder, where a festival was being prepared. Pandion was ordered to fashion clay statuettes and from them make moulds for the shaping of sweet biscuits.

When Pandion had finished his work he was told to remain at the palace to carry home the palanquin of the royal sculptor when the feast was over. Pandion did not pay any attention to the other slaves, men and women, that filled the palace, but went off by himself in the garden.

It had grown dark, bright stars lit up the sky, but still the feast went on. Sheaves of yellow light piercing the darkness of the garden from the open windows illuminated the trunks of trees, the foliage and flowers of the shrubs and were reflected in patches of glowing red from the mirror-like surfaces of the ponds. The guests were assembled in a big hall on the ground-floor decorated with pillars of polished cedar wood. From the hall came sounds of music. For a long time Pandion had heard nothing in the way of music with the exception of mournful and unknown songs, and he gradually drew closer to the big, low window, hid himself in the bushes and watched what was going on.

A heavy aroma of sweet oils came from the crowded room. The walls, pillars and window-frames were hung with garlands of fresh flowers, mostly lotus blossoms, Pandion noticed. Brightly-coloured jugs of wine, baskets and bowls of fruit stood on low tables near the seats. The guests, excited with the wine they had drunk and anoint-, ed with perfumed unguents, were crowded along the walls, while in the space between the columns girls in long garments were dancing. Their black hair, braided into numerous thin plaits, swung about the shoulders of the dancers, wide bracelets of coloured beads covered their wrists, and girdles”of similar design shone through the thin material of their raiment. Pandion could not help noticing a certain angularity in the bodies of the Egyptian dancing girls who differed very greatly from the strong women of his own country. At one end of the room young Egyptian girls played on a variety of musical instruments: two girls played flutes, another played on a harp of many strings and still two others extracted harsh rattling notes from long two-stringed instruments.

The dancing girls carried thin leaves of gleaming bronze in their hands and from time to time interrupted the rhythm of the dance melody with abrupt, ringing blows on them. Pandion’s ear was unaccustomed to the abrupt changes from high tones to low, to the poignantly moaning notes with a constantly changing tempo. The dances ended and the tired dancing girls gave up the floor to the singers. Pandion listened attentively, trying to understand the words, and found that when the melody was slow and low in tone he could understand the purport of the song.

The first song glorified a journey to the southern part of Quemt. “There you will meet a pretty girl who will offer you the flowers of her bosom,” Pandion understood.

Another song exalted the military valour of the sons of Quemt with loud shouts and expressions so tortuous they seemed meaningless to Pandion. He left the window with feelings of irritation.

“The names of the brave will never die — “ the last words of the song drifted towards him as the singing came to an end and was followed by sounds of laughter and bustle; Pandion again looked into the window.

Slaves had brought in a fair-skinned girl with closely cut, wavy hair and pushed her into the middle of the room. She stood there confused and afraid amidst flowers ‘trodden underfoot by the dancers. A man came out of the crowd and said a few angry words to the girl. Obediently she took the ivory lute that was offered her and the fingers of her tiny hands ran over the strings. Silence fell as the girl’s low clear voice rang out through the room. It was not the jerky, suddenly rising and falling melody of the Egyptians but a song that flowed freely and sadly. At first the sounds fell slowly, like the splashing of separate drops of water, then they merged into regularly rising and falling waves, that rolled and whispered like the waves of the sea and carried with them such unrestrained sorrow that Pandion stood stock-still. He could hear the free, open sea rolling through the song and in the incomprehensible sounds of that magic voice. The sea, unknown and unloved here in Aigyptos, was so near and dear to Pandion that at first he stood aghast as all that was hidden deep in his soul burst suddenly out. That longing for freedom that Pandion knew so well was weeping and wailing in the song. He put his fingers to his ears and clenched his teeth to keep screaming and ran away to the far end of the garden. Throwing himself en to the ground in the shadow of the trees, Pandion gave way to a fit of irrepressible sobbing.

“Hi, Ekwesha, come here! Ekwesha!” shouted Pandion’s master. The young Hellene had not noticed that the feast was over.

Pharaoh’s sculptor was very obviously drunk. Leaning on Pandion’s arm and supported on the other side by his own slave, born in bondage, the Master of the Royal Workshops refused to enter his palanquin and expressed the desire to walk home.

Halfway home, occasionally stumbling over irregularities in the road, he began to praise Pandion, prophesying a great future for him. Pandion was still under the impression created by the song and did not hear what his master was saying. In this way they walked to the, brightly-coloured portico of the Egyptian’s house. His wife and two slave girls, bearing lamps, appeared in the doorway. The royal sculptor stumbled up the steps and slapped Pandion on the shoulder. The latter went down again as no slave from the workshops was allowed to enter the house.

“Wait a minute, Ekwesha!” said the master gleefully, trying to bend his face into the semblance of a cunning smile. “Give that to me!” He almost snatched the lamp out of the hand of one of the slave girls and whispered something to her. The girl disappeared into the darkness.

The Egyptian pushed Pandion through the door and led him into the reception-room. On the left, between the windows, stood a beautiful vase with a fine, dark red design. Pandion had seen such vases in Crete and once more the youth’s heart pained him.

“His Majesty, life, health, strength,” the sculptor pronounced in solemn tones, “has ordered me to make seven vases like the one brought from the islands of your seas. (Life, health, strength — these three words had always to be added to any mention of Pharaoh.) Only we must change those barbaric colours for the blue colour favoured in Tha-Quem… If you earn distinction in this work I’ll mention your name in the Great House… And now…” The master raised his voice and turned towards two dark figures that were approaching them.

They were the slave girl who had left at his behest and another girl wrapped in a long striped cloak.

“Come closer,” ordered the Egyptian impatiently, lifting the lamp to the face of the girl in the cloak.

Her big, bulging black eyes looked fearfully at Pandion, her puffed, childish lips opened in a fluttering sigh. Pandion saw wavy locks protruding from under the cloak, a delicate nose with nervously twitching nostrils — the slave girl was undoubtedly of Asiatic origin, from one of the tribes in the east.

“Look, Ekwesha,” said the Egyptian, with an unsteady but strong movement pulling the cloak off the girl. She gave a faint cry and covered her face with her hands as she stood there stark naked.

“Take her as your wife.” The royal sculptor pushed the girl towards Pandion and she, trembling all over, pressed herself close to the young Hellene.

Pandion moved slightly back and stroked the tangled hair of the young captive, submitting to a mixed feeling of pity and tenderness for this pretty, scared creature.

The royal sculptor smiled and snapped his fingers in approval.

“She will be your wife, Ekwesha, and you will have handsome children that I can leave to my children as a legacy…”

It was as though a steel spring had suddenly uncoiled inside Pandion. The revolt that had long been seething within him and that had been further excited by the song-he had heard that evening, reached its highest point. A red haze stood before his eyes.

Pandion stepped away from the girl, looked round the room and raised his hand. The Egyptian, growing immediately sober, ran into the house calling loudly to his servants for help. Pandion did not even look at the coward and with a laugh of disdain kicked the expensive Cretan vase so hard that its earthenware fragments flew to the floor with a dull clatter.

The house was filled with cries and the sound of running feet. A few minutes later Pandion lay at the feet of his master who bent over him, spat on him, shouting curses and threats.

“The scoundrel deserves death. The broken vase is of greater value than his contemptible life, but he can make many beautiful things… and I don’t want to lose a good worker,” said the sculptor to his wife an hour later. “I’ll spare his life and won’t send him to prison because from there they’ll send him to the gold mines and he’ll die. I’ll send him back to the shehne, let him think things over, and by the time of the next sowing I’ll bring him back…”

And so Pandion, badly beaten but still unbowed, returned to the shehne and, to his great joy, met his old friends, the Etruscans. The whole building gang had been employed on watering the Gardens of Amon since they had finished dismantling the temple.

Towards evening the next day the shehne door opened with its usual creak to admit the smiling Kidogo whose arrival was greeted by the shouts of the other slaves. The Negro’s back was puffed and swollen from the blows of a whip but his teeth shone as he smiled and there was a merry twinkle in his eyes.

“I heard they’d sent you back here,’’ he informed the astonished Pandion, “and I began to stagger about the workshop knocking down and breaking everything that came my way. They beat me and sent me here, which is what I wanted,” said Kidogo.

“But you wanted to become a sculptor, didn’t you?” asked Pandion mockingly.

The Negro waved a carefree hand and, rolling his eyes terrifyingly, spat in the direction of the great capital city of Aigyptos.