when I opened the jar. Even through wine and myrrh I tasted the tang of death. I spilled much of it down my chin as I drank, but the Hittites attributed this to my fuddled condition.
Prince Shubattu was curious, and holding out his cup to me, he said, “I am no stranger to you. Tomorrow I shall be your lord and Pharaoh. Let me taste your wine, or I shall not believe it is as excellent as you say.”
But I pressed the wine jar to my breast and refused him earnestly, saying, “This wine does not suffice for two, and I have no more with me, and I desire to get drunk this evening because this is a day of great rejoicing for all Egypt and the land of Hatti-hee-haw, heehaw!”
I brayed like a donkey and pressed the wine jar closer. The Hittites doubled up with laughing and smote their knees, but Shubattu was accustomed to having every wish granted. He begged and besought me to let him taste of my wine until at last I wept and filled his cup until my little. jar was empty. Nor was it hard for me to weep, so great was my terror at this moment.
When Shubattu had been given the wine, he looked about him as if warned by some misgiving. Then in the Hittite manner he held out the cup to me saying, “Hallow my cup, as you are my friend, and I will do you a like favor.”
He said this because he did not wish to seem suspicious and let his cupbearer taste the wine. I took a deep draught from his cup, whereupon he emptied it, tasted the wine, and seemed to be listening to his body with his head on one side as he said, “Truly your wine is strong, Sinuhe! It mounts to the head like smoke and burns the stomach like fire, but it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth, which I will rinse away with wine from the mountains.”
He refilled his cup with his own wine, thus swilling it out. I knew the poison would not take effect until the morning because his bowels were bound and he had eaten copiously.
I swallowed as much wine as I could and pretended to be very drunk. I waited yet half a water measure’s time before I bade them lead me to my tent, lest I should arouse suspicion in the minds of the Hittites. I clung tightly to my empty wine jar that it might not be left behind to be examined by them. When the Hittites, with many coarse jests, had put me to bed and left me to myself, I rose hastily. Thrusting my finger down my throat, I vomited the poison and the protecting oil. So acute was my fear that the sweat poured off me and my knees trembled, and perhaps the poison had to some extent affected me. Therefore, I rinsed my stomach many times; I drank cleansing draughts and vomited repeatedly until at last I threw up from pure fright without the help of emetics.
Not until I was as limp as a wet rag did I rinse out the wine jar, smash it, and bury the pieces in the sand. After this I lay sleepless, trembling with fear and with the effects of the poison. All night long Shubattu’s great eyes gazed at me; I saw his face before me in the darkness and could not forget his proud, careless laugh and his dazzling teeth.
3
Hittite pride came to my aid. Next morning when Prince Shubattu felt indisposed, he would not confess to it or put off the journey because of the pains in his stomach. He stepped into his chair denying that he suffered, although this required great self-mastery. The journey continued all day, therefore, and when I passed his chair, he waved to me and strove to smile. His physician twice administered binding and pain-killing medicines, thus aggravating his condition by allowing the poison to exert its full effect. A powerful purge might even then have saved his life.
In the afternoon he fell into a deep coma. His eyes turned in his head, and his drawn face assumed a yellow pallor, striking terror to the heart of his physician, who summoned me to his aid. When I saw his desperate plight, I had no need to feign terror, for it was real enough and chilled me despite the day’s heat. I felt ill already from the poison. I said that I knew the symptoms to be those of the desert sickness, of which I had warned Shubattu the evening before and of which I had read the signs in his face, although he would not heed me.
The caravan halted, and we tended him where he lay in his chair, giving him stimulants and cleansing draughts and laying hot stones to his stomach. I saw to it that the Hittite physician alone mixed the drugs and administered them, forcing them between the Prince’s clenched teeth. I knew that he would die and desired by my counsel to render his death as painless and easy as might be since I could not do more.
When evening came we bore him to his tent. The Hittites gathered outside to mourn aloud, to rend their clothes, strew ashes in their hair, and gash themselves with knives. They were in mortal fear, knowing that King Shubbiluliuma would have no mercy on them if the Prince died in their charge. I watched with the Hittite physician at the bedside of the Prince and saw this fair youth, who but the day before had been robust and happy, wasting away in pallor and ugliness before my eyes.
The Hittite physician, filled with suspicion and despair, made continual examination of his condition, but the symptoms were no different from those of a severe stomach disorder. No one thought of poison since I had drunk the same wine from his cup. I had carried out my task with noteworthy skill and with great profit to Egypt; yet I felt no pride as I watched Prince Shubattu die.
On the following day he regained consciousness. As death approached, he called softly for his mother, like a sick child. In a low, pitiful voice he moaned, “Mother, Mother! My lovely Mother!” But when the pains loosed their grip of him, his face lit up in a boyish smile and he remembered that he was of royal blood.
He summoned his officers and said, “Let no one bear the blame for my death, for it has come on me in the form of the desert sickness, and I have been tended by the best physician of the land of Hatti and the most eminent physician of Egypt. Their arts have not availed to cure me, because it is the will of the heavens and of the Earth Mother that I should die-and assuredly the desert is ruled not by the Earth Mother but by the gods of Egypt, and it exists to protect Egypt. The Hittites must not seek to cross the desert, for my death is a sign of this, even as the defeat of our chariots in the desert was a sign although we would not heed it. Give the physicians a present worthy of me when I am dead. And you, Sinuhe, greet Princess Baketamon and say that I release her from her promise and feel great sorrow because I may not carry her to her marriage bed for my own joy and hers. Bring her this greeting, for as I die I see her floating in my dreams like a story princess, and I die with her timeless beauty before my eyes though I have never seen her.”
He went with a smile on his lips, for death comes at times like bliss after great agony, and his eyes before they faded saw strange visions. I surveyed him trembling, forgetful of his race, his speech, and the color of his skin; I remembered only that he, my fellow man, died by my hand and my wickedness. Hardened though I was by all the deaths
I had witnessed during my lifetime, yet my heart quaked at the passing of Prince Shubattu, and the tears poured down my cheeks.
The Hittites laid his body in strong wine and honey that they might bear it to the royal tombs, where eagles and wolves watched over the eternal sleep of kings. They were touched by my emotion, and at my desire they willingly certified on a clay tablet that I was in no way to blame for Prince Shubattu’s death but had exerted every art to save him. They attested this with their seals and with the seal of Prince Shubattu, that no shadow might fall on me in Egypt because of their lord’s death. For they judged Egypt by themselves and believed that when I told Princess Baketamon of Prince Shubattu’s fate she would have me put to death.
Thus I saved Egypt from the power of the Hittites, and I ought to have rejoiced. I did not, being oppressed with the sense that death followed ever at my heels. I had become a physician that I might heal and give life, but my father and mother died because of my wickedness, Minea died because of my weakness, Merit and little Thoth because of my blindness, and Pharaoh Akhnaton because of my hatred and my friendship and for the sake of Egypt. All whom I loved died a violent death-Prince Shubattu also, whom I had grown to love during his death agony. Everywhere, a curse went with me.
I returned to Tanis, to Memphis, and at last to Thebes. I gave orders for my ship to be made fast at the quay of the golden house, and having entered the presence of Eie and Horemheb, I said to them, “Your will has been done. Prince Shubattu has perished in the Sinai desert, and no shadow falls on Egypt because of his death.”
They rejoiced greatly at my words. Eie took the golden chain of the scepter bearer from his neck and hung it about my own, and Horemheb said, “Relate this also to Princess Baketamon; she will not believe us if we tell her of it, but will fancy that I have had him assassinated out of jealousy.”
Princess Baketamon received me. She had painted her cheeks and mouth brick red, but in her dark, oval eyes
