He gave Lucius back the sandal. The other priests returned, took up the torches. Quivering with suppressed rage, Lucius walked out of the black pyramid. Uncle Catullus was already sitting on his camel.
Lucius also mounted his. The Cypriote’s image now stood clearly before his eyes. But he said nothing; his lips were tightly shut, his forehead frowned; his grief seemed to be restrained and subdued in his heart by his outraged pride.
And, while Caleb paid the lordly fee, as he always did, Lucius slipped into the old priest’s hand a purse heavy with gold.
XVIII
The short twilight had deepened to purple over the desert; night came gliding along the firmament; the stars began to peep. And Caleb, who suspected Lucius’ emotion at each fresh divination, considered that new impressions would be the best medicine for him. After a short deliberation with Uncle Catullus and Thrasyllus, he said:
“My noble lord, before the night has quite fallen, I should like to take you to the great Neith … for the sake both of the statue itself and of the Jewish prophet, a hermit, who dwells in a cave hard by.”
Lucius nodded his approval. And in the falling night he sat erect on the saddle-pad of his camel and raised his head towards the stars. Had he guessed the truth? Had the truth gradually been revealed within him? Or had the sibyl, Amphris, the oracle and the priests whom he had consulted really shown him the way to that truth? He did not know, he had so many vague memories that it all grew confused in his seeking, solving brain. … But he certainly was the Cypriote, the sailor, Carus … who, shortly before Ilia’s disappearance, had himself disappeared from the crew of the quadrireme … and whom he had once found with Ilia among the oleanders! A thing which she had never been able to explain! Carus! A sailor! Not a slave, it was true, but one of his meanest servants! A Cyprian sailor, to have robbed him of the woman who reigned as queen over his house, whom he dressed like a goddess, whom he covered with everything that was precious! And she must have been kidnapped—it could not be otherwise—with her own consent, her own, infatuated consent.
Had he guessed the truth? Had his groping brain at last divined the truth? Or had the priests and the oracles and Amphris and the sibyl indeed revealed the truth to him? He decided that they must have done so. His soul was inclined to accept the supernatural. And he knew, he knew, thanks to the wise knowledge of the priests and the oracles.
So she had been able to leave him, him, for his hired sailor! He raised his head towards the stars. His lips were tightly clenched, his forehead frowned. But never, he resolved, would his lips utter to anyone, not even to Thrasyllus, the secret truth which the oracles had revealed to him. He would be silent and his pride would suppress his grief.
“Look, my lord,” said Caleb, while Lucius still stared straight before him, up, towards the stars.
Lucius lowered his eyes. And suddenly he gave a start. The Sphinx loomed before him in the night. In the immense starry night, with the sands glittering all around like a silver sea, loomed the immense Neith, the omniscient wisdom. It was more gigantic than any sphinx that he had ever seen.
It had been shaped by Nature herself out of an immense monolith. Human hands had only reshapen it more plainly for human eyes … into the Sphinx. It was not the veiled Isis of Sais; it was the unveiled, silent knowledge, which had known everything from the beginning of time. It raised its head towards the stars … as he had done. It was resting: its lioness-body rested and sank into the sand; its forepaws projected like walls. Its superhuman breasts seemed to heave in the night. Its fixed eyes stared upwards and its granite veil stood out upon its lioness-body. It was awesomely beautiful in the starry night.
The travellers had alighted. And Caleb had fetched the Jewish hermit from the cave in which he lived, opposite the Sphinx.
“I believe he’s mad,” said Caleb, timidly, a little alarmed by Lucius’ frown. “But it doesn’t matter if he is mad. He is the Jewish hermit; and all distinguished foreigners, such as your lordship, listen to him … because he says strange things.”
“He too!” muttered Lucius.
The Jewish hermit came up to them in the fallen night. He was of giant stature and incredibly old; his beard fell in waves down to his waist. His grey robe trailed over the sand. And he exclaimed, in a loud voice:
“I am Tsafnath-Paeneach, ‘he who reveals mysteries!’ I am of the tribe of Joseph himself, who took to wife Asenath the daughter of Potipherah priest of On! In me was the wisdom of Joseph, who interpreted dreams, and the wisdom of the priests of On! But all wisdom is dead in me, Jahve be praised, since I beheld Him!”
“Whom?” asked Lucius, dismayed by the prophet’s booming voice.
“It was a night of twinkling stars!” cried the prophet. “It was thirty years ago! I lived in my cave, as I do now! And I knew everything and I looked Neith in the face and in the eyes. … Along the road, yonder, through the sands … they came! They came, they came, they drew near. … On an ass that stumbled with fatigue sat a woman. A greybeard, staff in hand, led the stumbling beast. Then I saw that the woman held, pressed to her breast, in the folds of her mantle, a Child! And the woman was like Heva and like Isis; and the Child was like Habel and like Horus. When they came before the mighty Neith, the ass could stumble no farther through the sands of the desert. And the woman alighted
