Three Novels of Ancient Egypt

The governor of the South finally granted Isfinis permission to set off after giving him a permit allowing him to cross the border whenever he wished. The convoy raised anchor and set sail in the cool of dawn, Isfinis, Latu, and Ahmose son of Ebana taking their seats in the deck cabin of the first ship, their hearts filled with longing and yearning, while the tears with which he had made his last farewell to his mother still stood in Ahmose's eyes. Isfinis was lost in his dreams: he thought of Thebes and its people — Thebes, the greatest of the cities of the earth, the city of a hundred gates, of obelisks that reached up to the Heavenly Twins, of stupendous temples and towering palaces, of long avenues and huge squares, of markets that knew no peace or rest either by day or by night; Thebes the glorious, the Thebes of Amun, who had decreed that His gates should be closed before His worshippers for ten years of captivity, Thebes which, in the end, had been taken by barbarians who now sat in power as ministers, judges, commanders, and nobles and whose people they had enslaved, so that Fate rubbed their faces in the dirt of those who yesterday had been slaves to them. The youth sighed from the depths of his wounded heart, then thought of the men crouched in the bellies of his ships, all driven by a single hope, all propelled by an unshakeable love of Egypt passed down from generation to generation. How they suffered from the pain of Separation from the wives, daughters, and sons that they had left behind them at the mercy of their enemies! All of them might have been that brave youth Ahmose who had suppressed his longings and curbed his yearning and on whose face resolution and strength were engraved. Among these crowding thoughts an entrancing image rose to the surface of his mind and he looked downward, hiding his eyes from Latu of the piercing glance, who, if he were to discern what he was thinking of, would grow angry once more. He wondered at how his thoughts hovered around her image, unable to drag themselves away from her. In confusion he asked himself, “Is it possible for love and hate to have the same object?” A sad look appeared in his eyes and he said to himself, “However it be with me, I shall not set eyes on her again, so there is no call for disquiet. Can anything in the world defeat forgetfulness?” Latu interrupted his dreams, saying in tones that betrayed concern, “Look to the north! I see a convoy coming on fast.”

The two youths looked behind them and saw a convoy of five ships cutting through the crests of the waves at speed. The eye could not make out who was on board but the convoy was approaching fast and its component parts soon became distinct. Isfmis caught sight of a man standing at the front of the convoy and recognized him. Anxiously he said, “It's Commander Rukh.”

Latu's face paled and he said with increasing agitation, “Do you think he is trying to overtake us?”

The other had no idea how to answer and they watched the convoy anxiously and warily. A number of fears swept over Latu and he asked in exasperation, “Is that imbecile going to try and delay our departure?”

It dawned on Isfmis that he had not yet escaped the consequences of his mistake and that peril was about to descend on the convoy, just as it neared safety's shores. Training his eyes on Rukh's convoy, he saw that it was approaching so fast that it had already overtaken some of the ships of his own. There were five warships, with detachments of guards standing on their decks, whose presence, without a doubt, did not bode well. The lead ship turned toward his own and came alongside and he saw the Commander looking at him — with a cruel expression and heard him yell at him in his thick voice, “Stand to and drop anchor!”

The other ships changed their course to pen the convoy in, and Isfinis ordered his sailors to stop rowing and drop anchor. They obeyed, fearfully noting that the Herdsmen's ships were loaded with soldiers bristling with weapons as though ready for a battle. Isfinis grew more anxious still, fearing that the hate-consumed commander would take his rancor out on the convoy, thus dashing the hopes of his whole people. He said to his companion, “If the man wants my head, it is no bad thing that I should be the first to fall in the new struggle. Should I die, you, Latu, must carry on on the same path and not let anger take control of you and so put an end to all our hopes.”

The older man gripped his hand, overcome by a sudden despair, but Isfinis resumed, saying firmly, “Latu, I give you the very advice you gave me yesterday: avoid unwise anger. Let me pay the price for my mistake. If, tomorrow, you return to my father and pay him your condolences for my death while congratulating him on the Egyptian troops you have brought him, it will be better than your returning to him with me while our hopes have been lost forever.”

He heard Commander Rukh shouting at him, “Come out to the middle of the ship, peasant!”