This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of thefile for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making anentire meal of them. D.W.]
AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS, Part 2.
By Georg Ebers
The waters of the Nile had begun to rise again. Two months had passedaway since Phanes' disappearance, and much had happened.
The very day on which he left Egypt, Sappho had given birth to a girl,and had so far regained strength since then under the care of hergrandmother, as to be able to join in an excursion up the Nile, whichCroesus had suggested should take place on the festival of the goddessNeith. Since the departure of Phanes, Cambyses' behavior had become sointolerable, that Bartja, with the permission of his brother, had takenSappho to live in the royal palace at Memphis, in order to escape anypainful collision. Rhodopis, at whose house Croesus and his son, Bartja,Darius and Zopyrus were constant guests, had agreed to join the party.
On the morning of the festival-day they started in a gorgeously decoratedboat, from a point between thirty and forty miles below Memphis, favoredby a good north-wind and urged rapidly forward by a large number ofrowers.
A wooden roof or canopy, gilded and brightly painted, sheltered them fromthe sun. Croesus sat by Rhodopis, Theopompus the Milesian lay at herfeet. Sappho was leaning against Bartja. Syloson, the brother ofPolykrates, had made himself a comfortable resting-place next to Darius,who was looking thought fully into the water. Gyges and Zopyrus busiedthemselves in making wreaths for the women, from the flowers handed themby an Egyptian slave.
"It seems hardly possible," said Bartja, "that we can be rowing againstthe stream. The boat flies like a swallow."
"This fresh north-wind brings us forward," answered Theopompus. "Andthen the Egyptian boatmen understand their work splendidly."
"And row all the better just because we are sailing against the stream,"added Croesus. "Resistance always brings out a man's best powers."
"Yes," said Rhodopis, "sometimes we even make difficulties, if the riverof life seems too smooth."
"True," answered Darius. "A noble mind can never swim with the stream.In quiet inactivity all men are equal. We must be seen fighting, to berightly estimated."
"Such noble-minded champions must be very cautious, though," saidRhodopis, "lest they become contentious, and quarrelsome. Do you seethose melons lying on the black soil yonder, like golden balls? Not onewould have come to perfection if the sower had been too lavish with hisseed. The fruit would have been choked by too luxuriant tendrils andleaves. Man is born to struggle and to work, but in this, as ineverything else, he must know how to be moderate if his efforts are tosucceed. The art of true wisdom is to keep within limits."
"Oh, if Cambyses could only hear you!" exclaimed Croesus. "Instead ofbeing contented with his immense conquests, and now thinking for thewelfare of his subjects, he has all sorts of distant plans in his head.He wishes to conquer the entire world, and yet, since Phanes left,scarcely a day has passed in which he has not been conquered himself bythe Div of drunkenness."
"Has his mother no influence over him?" asked Rhodopis. "She is a noblewoman."
"She could not even move his resolution t