An Egyptian Princess — Complete eBook

Georg Ebers
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 688 pages of information about An Egyptian Princess — Complete.

An Egyptian Princess — Complete eBook

Georg Ebers
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 688 pages of information about An Egyptian Princess — Complete.
[A similar travelling medicine-chest is to be seen in the Egyptian Museum at Berlin.  It is prettily and compendiously fitted up, and must be very ancient, for the inscription on the chest, which contained it stated that it was made in the 11th dynasty (end of the third century B. C.) in the reign of King Mentuhotep.]

The drops worked wonders; in a few hours the fever was quieted, and at sunrise the patient opened his eyes once more.  We bowed down before him, believing him to be your brother, and asked if he would like to be taken to the palace in Babylon.  This he refused vehemently, and asseverated that he was not the man we took him for, but, . . .”

“Who can be so like Bartja? tell me quickly,” interrupted the king, “I am very curious to know this.”

“He declared that he was the brother of your high-priest, that his name was Gaumata, and that this would be proved by the pass which we should find in the sleeve of his Magian’s robe.  The landlord found this document and, being able to read, confirmed the statement of the sick youth; he was, however, soon seized by a fresh attack of fever, and began to speak incoherently.”

“Could you understand him?”

“Yes, for his talk always ran on the same subject.  The hanging-gardens seemed to fill his thoughts.  He must have just escaped some great danger, and probably had had a lover’s meeting there with a woman called Mandane.”

“Mandane, Mandane,” said Cambyses in a low voice; “if I do not mistake, that is the name of the highest attendant on Amasis’ daughter.”

These words did not escape the sharp ears of the Greek.  He thought a moment and then exclaimed with a smile; “Set the prisoners free, my King; I will answer for it with my own head, that Bartja was not in the hanging-gardens.”

The king was surprised at this speech but not angry.  The free, unrestrained, graceful manner of this Athenian towards himself produced the same impression, that a fresh sea-breeze makes when felt for the first time.  The nobles of his own court, even his nearest relations, approached him bowing and cringing, but this Greek stood erect in his presence; the Persians never ventured to address their ruler without a thousand flowery and flattering phrases, but the Athenian was simple, open and straightforward.  Yet his words were accompanied by such a charm of action and expression, that the king could understand them, notwithstanding the defective Persian in which they were clothed, better than the allegorical speeches of his own subjects.  Nitetis and Phanes were the only human beings, who had ever made him forget that he was a king.  With them he was a man speaking to his fellow-man, instead of a despot speaking with creatures whose very existence was the plaything of his own caprice.  Such is the effect produced by real manly dignity, superior culture and the consciousness of a right to freedom, on the mind even of a tyrant.  But there was something

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An Egyptian Princess — Complete from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.