nothing of arms-I have none to give you, and if I had, you should not have it, for I will not meet evil with evil. You may make your dispositions for the defense of Tanis, but shed no blood and defend yourselves only if attacked.”
“Be it as you say,” said Horemheb. “Let lunacy prevail! I will die in Tanis at your command, for without grain and gold the most valiant army cannot long survive. But no doubts or half measures! I will defend myself according to my own good sense. Farewell!”
He went, and Eie also took his leave of Pharaoh, with whom I remained alone. He looked at me with eyes filled with unspeakable weariness and said, “Virtue has gone out of me with my words,
Sinuhe, yet even in my weakness I am happy. What do you mean to do?”
I looked at him in bewilderment, and smiling slightly he asked, “Do you love me, Sinuhe?”
When I confessed that I loved him, his madness notwithstanding, he said, “If you love me, you know what you have to do.”
My mind rose up against his will, although inwardly I well knew what he required of me. At length I said in irritation, “I fancied you had need of me as a physician, but if not, then I will go. It is true I shall make but a poor hand at overturning the images of gods, and my arms are overweak for wielding a sledge hammer, but your will be done. The people will flay me alive and crush my head with stones and hang my body head downward from the walls, but how should that concern you? I will go then to Thebes, where there are many temples and where the people know me.”
He made no answer and I left him in wrath.
On the following day Horemheb boarded his ship for Memphis, whence he was to proceed to Tanis. Before he went, I promised to lend him as much gold as I could lay my hands on in Thebes and to send him half the grain I possessed. The other half I thought to put to my own uses. Perhaps it was just this failing that determined my whole life: half I gave to Akhnaton and half to Horemheb. To no one did I give the whole.
3
Thothmes and I made the journey to Thebes, and while we were yet far from it, corpses came drifting downstream toward us. Swollen and rocking they came; the shaven heads of priests were to be seen among them, men of high and low degree, guards and slaves. The crocodiles had no need to swim upstream, for in cities and villages throughout the length of the river great numbers lost their lives and were cast into the Nile.
When we came to Thebes, many parts of the city were on fire. Even from the City of the Dead flames were leaping, for the people were robbing the tombs and burning the embalmed bodies of priests. Frenzied crosses hurled horns into the water and beat them down with stakes until they drowned, from which we deduced that the old gods had already been overthrown and that Aton had conquered.
We went straight to the Crocodile’s Tail where we met Kaptah. He had put off his fine clothes, muddied his hair, and assumed the gray garment of the poor. He had also removed the gold plate from his eye and was now zealously serving drinks to ragged slaves and armed porters from the harbor.
“Rejoice, my brothers,” he said, “for this is a day of great happiness! There are now neither lords nor slaves, neither high nor low, but all are free to come and go as they will. Today drink wine at my expense. I hope you will remember my tavern should fortune favor you and enable you to come by silver and gold in the temples of the false gods or in the houses of bad masters. I am a slave like yourselves and was born so, in proof of which behold my eye, which a cruel master blinded with his stylus when angry with me for having drunk a jar of his beer and refilled it with my own water. Such wrongs wi|J. never again be wrought. No one will ever again labor with his hands or feel the rod because he is a slave; all shall be joy and jubilation, leaping and pleasure continually.”
Not until he had babbled thus far did he notice Thothmes and myself. Looking somewhat foolish, he led us to a private room.
He said, “You would be wise to dress in cheaper clothes and to soil your hands and faces, for slaves and porters roam the streets praising Aton. In Aton’s name they beat everyone who seems to them too fat and who has never labored with his hands. They have forgiven me my paunch because I was once a slave and because I have distributed grain among them and let them drink for nothing. Tell me what ill fortune brings you to Thebes just now, for in these days it is a most unhealthy place for those of high rank.”
We showed him our axes and sledge hammers and told him that we had come to overturn the images of false gods and to hew away their names from all inscriptions.
Kaptah nodded sagely and said, “Yours may be a clever plan and acceptable to the people so long as they do not learn who you are. Many changes are on the way, and the horns will be revenged for your deeds if ever they return to power. I cannot believe that this to-do will long continue, for where are the slaves to get their grain? And in their unbridled violence they have done such deeds as cause the crosses to doubt and to turn horn so as to restore order.”
“You spoke of grain, Kaptah,” I said. “Know that I have promised half our grain to Horemheb that he may wage war against the Hittites, and this you must immediately ship to Tanis. You shall have the other half milled and bake bread of the flour to be distributed to the starving people in all the cities and villages where our corn is stored. When your servants dispense this bread, they shall receive no payment but shall say, ‘This is the bread of Aton; take ye and eat of it in his name, and give praise to Pharaoh and his god.’“
When Kaptah heard this, he tore his clothes, since they were but those of a slave, and cried out bitterly, “Lord, this beggars you, and where then shall I make my profit? You have caught Pharaoh’s madness: you stand on your head and walk backward. Woe is me, poor wretch, that ever I should see this day! Not even the scarab will help us, and no one will bless you for the bread. Moreover, that damned Horemheb sends impudent answers to my demands, telling me to come myself and fetch the gold I have lent him in your name. He is worse than any robber, this friend of yours, for a robber takes what he takes, while Horemheb promises interest on what he borrows, thus tormenting his creditors with vain hopes so that in the end they burst their livers in exasperation. I see from your eyes that you are in earnest and that my lamentations are vain, and I must comply with your will although it will make you poor.”
We left Kaptah to fawn on the slaves and to haggle over the sacred vessels and other valuables that the porter? had stolen from the temples. All honest people had withdrawn into their houses and barred the doors; the streets were deserted, and some of the temples in which the priests had taken refuge had been set alight and were still burning. We entered the plundered temples to cut away the names of the gods and there met other adherents of Pharaoh engaged in the same task. We swung our axes and sledges so vigorously that the sparks flew. Every day our zeal increased, and we labored in order to avert our eyes from all that went on.
The people suffered hunger and want, and when the slaves and porters had rejoiced for a time in their freedom, they formed themselves into bands, which broke into rich men’s houses to distribute their corn and oil and wealth among the poor. Kaptah hired men to grind corn and bake bread, but the people stole the bread from his servants, saying, “This bread has been filched from the poor, and it is but right that it should be shared among them.” No one praised my name although I beggared myself in a single month.
Forty days and forty nights passed in this way, with the turmoil in Thebes growing steadily worse. Men who had once weighed gold stood begging in the streets while their wives sold their jewels to slaves so as to buy bread for their children. At the end of this period Kaptah came stealing to my house in the darkness and said, “My lord, it is time for you to fly. Aton’s kingdom is soon to fall, and I believe no honest man will regret it. Law and order will be restored-but first the crocodiles must be fed, and more copiously than ever before, for the priests purpose to liberate Egypt from evil blood.”
I asked him how he knew this and he answered innocently, “Have I not always been a faithful horn, and in secret worshiped Ammon? I have lent liberally to his priests, for they pay good interest and pawn his land for gold. Eie has made an agreement with the priests in order to preserve his own life, so the priests have the guards on their side. The leading men in Egypt have once more attached themselves to Ammon; the priests have summoned Negroes from the land of Kush, and the Shardanas, who have been plundering the country districts, are now in their pay. Indeed, Sinuhe, the mills will soon be turning again, but the bread which shall be baked of that flour will be Ammon’s bread not Aton’s. The gods are returning, the old order is coming back, and all will be as before, praise be to Ammon! For I am already weary of this confusion despite the riches it has brought me.”
