both beauty and pride, for there was in it as much to provoke fascination as there was to invoke respect, and he beheld blue eyes in whose clear gaze shone haughtiness and boldness. She paid no attention to his greeting but looked around the place, no doubt seeking the pygmy. She asked him in a melodious voice that gave all who heard it the impression of thrilling music, “Where is the wonderful creature that was here?”
The youth said, “He will present himself.”
He went to a hatch that opened into the interior of the ship and called, “Zolo!”
Soon, the head of the pygmy appeared through the hatch, followed by his body. Then he approached his master, who took him by the hand to where the princess and her slave girls stood, the pygmy walking with his chest thrust forward and his head tilted backward in an absurd display of pride. He was no more than four hand spans in height, intensely black in color, and his legs were bowed. Isfmis said to him, “Greet your mistress, Zolo!”
The pygmy bowed till his frizzy hair touched the ground. The princess was reassured and asked, her eyes never leaving the pygmy, “Is he animal or human?”
“Human, Your Highness.”
“Why should he not be considered an animal?”
“He has his own language and his own religion.”
“Amazing! Are there many like him?”
“Indeed, my lady. He belongs to a numerous people, composed of men, women, and children. They have a king and poisoned arrows that they shoot at wild animals and raiders. Yet Zolo's folk quickly take a liking to people. They give sincere affection to those they take as friends and will follow them like faithful dogs.”
Wondering, she shook her head with its crown of golden tresses and her lips parted to reveal pearly, regular teeth as she asked, “Where do Zolo's people live?”
“In the furthest forests of Nubia, where the divine Nile has its source.”
“Make him talk to me if you can.”
“He cannot speak our language. At most he can understand a few commands. But he will greet my lady in his own language.”
Isfmis said to the pygmy, “Call down a nice blessing on our lady's head!”
The pygmy's large head shook as though he were trembling, then he uttered strange words in a voice that was more like the lowing of cattle and the princess could not suppress a sweet laugh. She said, “Truly, he is strange. But he is ugly; it would give me no pleasure to acquire him.”
The youth looked crestfallen and said, with the glibness of the cunning merchant, “Zolo, my lady, is not the best thing in my convoy. I have treasures to captivate the soul and steal the heart!”
She turned contemptuously from Zolo to the boastful salesman and for the first time cast him a scrutinizing glance. Finding before her his towering height and youthful bloom, she was amazed that a common trader should appear thus. She asked him, “Do you really have something likely to please me?”
“Indeed, my lady.”
“Then show me a specimen… some examples of your wares.”
Isfmis clapped his hands and a slave came to him and he directed a few words to him in a low voice. The man absented himself for a while, then returned carrying, with the help of another, an ivory box. This they placed in front of the princess and opened. Then they moved aside. The princess looked inside the box, while the slave girls craned their necks, and saw a dazzling array of gleaming pearls, earrings, and bracelets. She examined these with a practiced eye, then stretched out her soft, supple hand to take a necklace of incomparable simplicity and perfection: an emerald heart on a chain of pure gold. She took the heart in her fingers and murmured, “Where did you get this gem? There is nothing like it in Egypt!”
The youth said proudly, “It is the greatest of Nubia's treasures!”
She murmured, “Nubia… Zolo's country. How beautiful it is!”
Isfmis smiled and looking attentively at her fingers he said, “Now that it has attracted your highness's admiration, it would not do for it to be returned to its box.”
Without embarrassment she replied, “Indeed. But I do not have the money to pay for it with me. Are you going to Thebes?”
He said, “Yes, my lady.”
She said, “You will have to come to the palace and take the money.”
The youth bowed respectfully and the princess cast a farewell look at Zolo, then turned away, moving past with her supple, slender form, followed by the slave girls. The youth's eyes hung on her until the ship's side hid her. Then he recalled himself and returned to his ship where Latu awaited him impatiently, asking him before the youth could say anything, “What news?”
He gave him a summary of what the princess had said, then asked smilingly, “Do you think she's really the daughter of Apophis?”
Latu replied angrily, “She is a devil, daughter of a devil!”
Latu's rough words and angry looks awakened the youth from his reverie. It came to him that the person who had aroused his admiration was the daughter of the humiliator of his people, and his grandfather's killer, and that he had not felt in her presence the resentment and hatred that he should. He was angry with himself, fearing that the tone in which he had related her words might have had its source in an admiration that would hurt the honest old man. He said to himself, “I must be worthy of the duty that I came here to perform!” So it was that he did not look after the princess's boat but instead stared long at the horizon and tried to feel hatred for her, sensing that she was a power that must be resisted in every way. She had passed out of his life forever, but… dear God, her beauty had enchanted him, and no one who had the misfortune to see her could close his eyes to the power of its light.
At that moment he thought of his young wife Nefertari, with her straight body, golden-brown face, and enchanting black eyes, and all he could do was to stammer, “How different from each other these two lovely images are!”
4
Thebes’ southern wall with its splendid gates appeared, the temples and obelisks rising up behind, magnificence incarnate and terrifying to behold. The two men stared at the city, their eyes filled with tenderness and sorrow.
Latu said, “The Lord grant you life, glorious Thebes!”
And Isfinis responded, “At last, Thebes, after long years of exile!”
The ship turned toward the shore, the others of the convoy following in its wake, sails furled and oars raised. It made its way among a great number of fishing boats full of fish, some still pulsing — with life, the sailors standing in the waists of the vessels with their naked, copper bodies and muscle-bound arms. An intoxicating joy diffused throughout Isfmis's body as he looked at them and he said to his companion, “Let's hurry! I'm longing to talk to any Egyptian!”
The weather was moderate and gentle and the sky a clear blue, the rising sun bathing in its rays the Nile, the banks, the fields, and the towns. They went on shore wrapped in their cloaks and placing Egyptian caps, like those of the great merchants, on their heads. They took a few steps in the direction of the quarter of the fishermen, groups of whom were standing on the shore, their hands holding the ropes of the nets that the boats cast into the depths of the Nile, singing songs and hymns. Others were filling the carts with fish and thrashing the backs of the oxen harnessed to them toward the marketplaces. A few minutes’ walk from the shore, small or middling mud-brick huts roofed with palm trunks had been set up, giving an appearance of homeliness and indigence.
Isfinis moved from place to place, senses alert, eyes open, watching the fishermen closely, following their movements, and listening to their hymns. He felt toward them an affection and a sorrow that were accompanied by admiration and respect. As he moved among them, familiarity, confidence, and love blended in his heart and he wished that he could stop them and hug them to his breast and kiss their dark faces marked by hardship and poverty. He remembered what Tetisheri had told him about them when she said, “What strong, long-suffering men they are!”
Latu, sharing the youth's emotions, said, “Don't forget that these fishermen are better off than the
