CHAPTER X.
HOW THEY WANTED TO BEHEAD THE PRINCESS, AND DID NOT DO IT.
No sooner had the princess entered the camp of the king, than he said to her: "My daughter, you know that all princesses who disobey their fathers are put to death; without which it would be impossible that a kingdom could be well governed. I charged you never to mention the name of your lover, Nebuchadnezzar, my mortal enemy, who dethroned me about seven years ago, and disappeared. In his place you have chosen a white bull, and you have cried Nebuchadnezzar. It is just that I behead you."
The princess replied: "My father, thy will be done; but grant me some time to bewail my sad fate."
"That is reasonable," said King Amasis; "and it is a rule established among the most judicious princes. I give you a whole day to bewail your destiny, since it is your desire. To-morrow, which is the eighth day of my encampment, I will cause the white bull to be swallowed up by the fish, and I will behead you precisely at nine o'clock in the morning."
The beautiful Amasidia then went forth in sorrow, to bewail her father's cruelty, and wandered by the side of the Nile, accompanied by the ladies of her train.
The wise Mambres pondered beside her, and reckoned the hours and the moments.
"Well! my dear Mambres," said she to him, "you have changed the waters of the Nile into blood, according to custom, and cannot you change the heart of Amasis, king of Tanis, my father? Will you suffer him to behead me to-morrow, at nine o'clock in the morning?"
"That depends," replied the reflecting Mambres, "upon the speed and diligence of my couriers."
The next day, as soon as the shadows of the obelisks and pyramids marked upon the ground the ninth hour of the day, the white bull was securely bound, to be thrown to the fish of Jonah; and they brought to the king his large sabre.
"Alas! alas!" said Nebuchadnezzar to himself, "I, a king, have been a bull for nearly seven years; and scarcely have I found the mistress I had lost when I am condemned to be devoured by a fish."
Never had the wise Mambres made such profound reflections; and he was quite absorbed in his melancholy thoughts when he saw at a distance all he expected. An innumerable crowd drew nigh. Three figures of Isis, Osiris, and Horus, joined together, advanced, drawn in a carriage of gold and precious stones by a hundred senators of Memphis, preceded by a hundred girls playing upon the sacred sistrums. Four thousand priests, with their heads shaved, were each mounted upon a hippopotamus.
At a great distance appeared with the same pomp the sheep of Thebes, the dog of Bubastis, the cat of Phœbe, the crocodile of Arsinoë, the goat of Mendes, and all the inferior gods of Egypt, who came to pay homage to the great ox, to the mighty Apis, as powerful as Isis, Osiris, and Horus, united together.
In the midst of the demi-gods, forty priests carried an enormous basket, filled with sacred onions. These were, it is true, gods, but they resembled onions very much.
On both sides of this aisle of gods, followed by an innumerable crowd of people, marched forty thousand warriors, with helmets on their heads, scimitars upon their left thighs, quivers at their shoulders, and bows in their hands.
All the priests sang in chorus, with a harmony which ravished the soul, and which melted it,
"Alas! alas! our ox is dead—
We'll have a finer in its stead."
And at every pause was heard the sound of the sistrums, of cymbals, of tabors, of psalteries, of bag-pipes, harps, and sackbuts.
Amasis, king of Tanis, astonished at this spectacle, beheaded not his daughter. He sheathed his scimitar.