“Khem calls thee, Harmachis. Come then, thou Deliverer; leap like Horus from the firmament, break her chains, scatter her foes, and rule a Pharaoh on Pharaoh’s Throne—”
“Enough, enough!” I cried, while the long murmur of applause swept about the columns and up the massy walls. “Enough; is there any need to adjure me thus? Had I a hundred lives, would I not most gladly lay them down for Egypt?”
“Well said, well said!” answered Sepa. “Now go forth with the woman yonder, that she may make thy hands clean before they touch the sacred emblems, and anoint thy brow before it is encircled of the diadem.”
And so I went into a chamber apart with the old wife, Atoua. There, muttering prayers, she poured pure water over my hands into a ewer of gold, and having dipped a fine cloth into oil wiped my brow with it.
“O happy Egypt!” she said; “O happy Prince, that art come to rule in Egypt! O Royal youth!—too Royal to be a priest—so shall many a fair woman think; but, perchance, for thee they will relax the priestly rule, else how shall the race of Pharaoh be carried on? O happy I, who dandled thee and gave my flesh and blood to save thee! O royal and beautiful Harmachis, born for splendour, happiness, and love!”
“Cease, cease,” I said, for her talk jarred upon me; “call me not happy till thou knowest my end, and speak not to me of love, for with love comes sorrow, and mine is another and a higher way.”
“Ay, ay, so thou sayest—and joy, too, that comes with love! Never talk lightly of love, my King, for it brought thee here! La! la! but it is always the way—‘The goose on the wing laughs at crocodiles,’ so goes their saying down at Alexandria; ‘but when the goose is asleep on the water, it is the crocodiles that laugh.’ Not but what women are pretty crocodiles. Men worship the crocodiles at Anthribis—Crocodilopolis they call it now, don’t they?—but they worship women all the world over! La! how my tongue runs on, and thou about to be crowned Pharaoh! Did I not prophesy it to thee? Well, thou art clean, Lord of the Double Crown. Go forth!”
So I went from the chamber with the old wife’s foolish talk ringing in my ears, though of a truth her folly had ever a grain of wit in it.
As I came, the Dignitaries rose once more and bowed before me. Then my father, without delay, drew near me, and placed in my hands a golden image of the divine Ma, the Goddess of Truth, and golden images of the arks of the God Amen-Ra, of the divine Mout, and the divine Khons, and spoke solemnly:
“Thou swearest by the living majesty of Ma, by the majesty of Amen-Ra, of Mout, and of Khons?”
“I swear,” I said.
“Thou swearest by the holy land of Khem, by Sihor’s flood, by the Temples of the Gods and the eternal Pyramids?”
“I swear.”
“Remembering thy hideous doom if thou shouldst fail therein, thou swearest that thou wilt in all things govern Egypt according to its ancient laws, that thou wilt preserve the worship of its Gods, that thou wilt do equal justice, that thou wilt not oppress, that thou wilt not betray, that thou wilt make no alliance with the Roman or the Greek, that thou wilt cast out the foreign Idols, that thou wilt devote thy life to the liberty of the land of Khem?”
“I swear.”
“It is well. Mount, then, the throne, that in the presence of these thy subjects, I may name thee Pharaoh.”
I mounted upon the throne, of which the footstool is a Sphinx, and the canopy the overshadowing wings of Ma. Then Amenemhat drew nigh once again and placed the Pshent upon my brow, and on my head the Double Crown, and the Royal Robe about my shoulders, and in my hands the Sceptre and the Scourge.
“Royal Harmachis,” he cried, “by these outward signs and tokens, I, the High Priest of the Temple of Ra-Men-Ma at Abouthis, crown thee Pharaoh of the Upper and Lower Land. Reign and prosper, O Hope of Khemi!”
“Reign and prosper, Pharaoh!” echoed the Dignitaries, bowing down before me.
Then, one by one, they swore allegiance, till all had sworn. And, having sworn, my father took me by the hand; he led me in solemn procession into each of the seven Sanctuaries that are in this
