The victory was won! Now came its fruits, the hour of plunder was at hand. There were the great parks of waggons filled with stores and women; there were the pavilions of the royal prince, the generals and the officers. Amasis himself, riding down our lines his helmet in his hand, laughing as ever, shouted to us to go and take, but to be careful to keep him his share.
We rushed forward without rank or order, for now there was nothing to fear. All the enemy were fled save those who lay dead or wounded, swart, blackbearded men. I, being young and swift of foot, outran my fellows. We came to the pavilion of the prince over which the banners of Babylon hung limply in the still air. The soldiers swarmed into it seeking treasure, but I who cared nothing for golden cups or jewels, ran round to another pavilion in its rear which I guessed would be that of the women. Why I did this I was not sure, for I wanted women even less than the other spoil; but I think it must have been because I was curious and desired to see what these ladies were like and how they were housed.
Thus it came about that I entered this place alone and letting fall the flap of the tent, which was magnificent and lined with silk and embroideries, stared round me till my eyes grew accustomed to the shadowed light and I saw that it was empty. No, not empty, for at its end, seated on a couch was a glittering figure, clad it seemed in silver mail, and beside it something over which a veil was thrown. Thinking that this was a man, I drew my sword which I had sheathed, and advanced cautiously.
Now I was near and the figure of which the head was bowed, looked up and stared at me. Then I saw that the face beneath the silver helm was that of a woman, a very beautiful woman, with features such as the Greeks cut upon their gems, and large dark eyes. I gazed at her and she gazed at me. Then she spoke, first in a tongue which I did not understand, and when I shook my head, in Greek.
"Egyptian, if so you be," she said, "seek elsewhere after the others who are fled. I am no prize for you."
She threw aside a broidered cape that hung over her mail, and I saw that piercing the mail was an Egyptian arrow of which the feathered shaft was broken off, also that blood ran to her knees, staining the armour.
I muttered words of pity, saying that I would bring a physician, for suddenly I bethought me of Belus.
"It is useless," she said, "the hurt is mortal; already I die."
Not knowing what to do, I made as though to leave her, then stood still, and all the while she watched me.
"You are young and have a kindly face," said she, "high born too, or so I judge. Look," and with a swift motion she cast off the veil from that which rested against her.
Behold! it was a child of three or four years of age, a lovely child, beautifully attired.
"My daughter, my only one," she said. "Save her, O Egyptian Captain."
I stepped forward and bent down to look at the child. At this moment some soldiers burst into the tent and saw us. Wheeling round I perceived that they were men of my own company.
"Begone!" I cried, whereon one of them called out,
"Why, it is our young captain, the Count Ramose, who woos a captive. Away, comrades, she is his, not ours, by the laws of war. Away! and tell the rest to seek elsewhere."
Then laughing in their coarse soldier fashion, they departed and presently I heard them shouting that this tent must be left alone.
"Save her, Count Ramose, if such be your name," repeated the woman. "Hearken. She is no mean child, for I am a daughter of him who once was King of Israel. Now at the last I grow clearsighted and a voice tells me to trust you whom my God has sent to me to be my friend. Swear to me by him you worship that you will guard this child, yours by spoil of war; that you will not sell her on the market, that you will keep her safe and clean, and when she comes to womanhood, suffer her to wed where she will. Swear this and I, Mysia, of the royal House of Israel, will call down the blessing of Jehovah on you and yours and all your work, as should you fail me, I will call down His curse."
"A great oath," I exclaimed hesitating, "to be taken by one who is no oath breaker."
"Aye, great, great! Yet, hearken. She is not dowerless."
She glanced about her wildly to make sure that we were alone, then from her side, or perhaps from some hidingplace in the couch, she drew a broidered bag, and thrust it into my hands.
"Hide it," she said. "These royal jewels are her heritage; among them are pearls without price."
I thrust the bag into the pouch I carried, throwing from it the water bottle and the food which it had contained. Then I answered,
"I swear; yet, believe me, Lady, not for the gems' sake."
"I know it, Count Ramose, for such eyes as yours were never given to a robber of the helpless."
Then, as I knew by the motion of her hands, she blessed me in a strange tongue, Hebrew I suppose, and blessed her daughter also.
"Take her," she said presently in Greek, "for I die."
She bent down and kissed the child, then tried to lift her but could not, being too weak to bear her weight. I took her in my arms, asking,
"How is she named and who was her father?"
"Myra is her name," she gasped in a faint voice. Then her eyes closed, she fell sideways on the couch, groaned and presently was dead.
Lifting the veil with which it had been covered when first I entered the tent, I threw it over the child which seemed to be drugged, or mayhap had swooned with fear, cast one last glance at the pale beauty of her dead mother, who looked indeed as though she sprang from the blood of kings, and departed from that tent which presently the soldiers plundered and burned.
Here I will say that of this lady's history I heard no more for many years. She declared herself to be a daughter of a king of Jerusalem, and I half believed the story thinking that at the moment of death she would not lie to me. Certainly such a captive when she grew to womanhood might well have been taken by a king's son as one of his household. Also the jewels which the lady Mysia gave to me, were splendid and priceless, such as kings might own, being for the most part necklaces of great pearls. Among these also was an emerald cylinder on which were graven signs and writing that I could not read, a talisman of power as I learned afterwards. But of this in its place.
Departing from the tent and skirting the great pavilion of Merodach, I passed through groups of soldiers, counting or quarrelling over their spoils. As night fell, I climbed the slopes of the little hills that were thick with dead, for by now after the cruel fashion of war, all the enemy's wounded had been slain. At length I came to the tent which I shared with Belus, laughed at on the way by one or two because of the great bundle of spoil which I carried in my arms.
Here I found that philosopher, who had put off the armour which became him so ill, clad in his own garments and engaged in eating a simple meal of bread and sundried fruits. When he had greeted me, which he did heartily rejoicing to see me come safe from the battle, for the first time in the dusk of the tent he noted the bundle in my arms.
"It is strange how the wisest of us may be deceived. I have watched you from boyhood and thought that I knew your mind, Ramose. Indeed I would have sworn that whatever your faults, you were one who cared little for spoil. Yet I see that you have been plundering like the commonest."
"Aye, Belus, I have been plundering and found a rich treasure, yet I think one of which no one will wish to rob me. Lift the veil and look."
He did so, while I turned to the door of the tent so that the last of the daylight fell upon me and my burden. Belus stared at the child who still slept or swooned. Then he stared at me, saying,
"Now I wonder what god is at work in this business, and to what end."
"The god of mercy, I think, if there be such a one which I find it hard to believe just now," I answered. Then I told him all the story.
"There are certain oaths that may be broken and yet leave the soul of him who swore them but little stained, and there are others of which even the stretching calls down Heaven's vengeance. Such a one, Ramose, is that which you took before the dying mother of this child, who by now doubtless has registered it in the Recorder's book beyond the earth. Henceforth for good or evil, she is your charge."
"I know it, Belus."
"Yet what is to be done?" he went on. "How can you remain a soldier who have a babe tied to your girdle?"
"I do not wish to remain a soldier, who have seen enough of slaughter, Belus."
"If you marry, your wife will look askance at this little maiden and perchance maltreat her, Ramose; for what woman would believe a tale of a babe found upon the battlefield?"
"I do not wish to marry, Belus. Have I not told you that I have done with women?"
"Yes, but" Here a thought seemed to strike him for he grew silent and at that moment the child awoke and began to wail.
We quieted her as best we could and fed her with bread soaked in the milk of goats, or camels, I forget which, for of all these Belus had a store in the tent, till at last she fell asleep in my arms. Then I laid her on my bed and gave Belus the jewels. These he hid away among his charms and medicines where none would dare to search for them lest some spell should be loosed upon them. For all the Egyptians held Belus to be a great magician.
"They are the child's and holy," he said, "and therefore we need give no account of them to the tellers of the spoil."
To which I answered that this was so, and turned to gaze upon the gift that God had sent to me. As I gazed a great love of that sweet child entered my heart where it still lives today.
Chapter VII
Ramose Seeks Refuge in Cyprus
When I woke on the following morning the sun was up and save for the child Myra, I found myself alone in the tent. She was seated by me upon the rugs which, spread upon the sand, made my soldier's couch, looking at me with her large, dark eyes. When she saw that I was awake, she asked for her mother, speaking in the Babylonian tongue of which I knew much even in those days, having learned it from Belus. I told her that her mother had gone away, leaving me to watch her, and I think she understood for she began to weep. Then I took her in my arms and kissed her, till presently she ceased weeping and kissed me back, at which my heart went out to her who was an orphan in the power of strangers.
Presently Belus returned, bringing with him a woman called Metep, the widow of a soldier who had been killed by a fall from his horse at the beginning of our march. This Metep was the daughter of a peasant of the Delta, not wellfavoured but kindhearted, one, too, who had loved her husband and would have naught to do with the trollops of the camp, where she must stay earning her living as she could do till the army returned to Egypt. As it chanced she, who counted some thirty years, was childless; yet she loved children, as those often do who have none. Therefore we hired her to be the nurse of little Myra whom she tended well and watched as though she were her own, preparing her food and making her garments of stuffs that came from the spoils of the Babylonian camp.
Belus told me that he had visited this camp at the break of day, hoping to learn something of the lady Mysia, who while she was dying, had told me that she was the daughter of a Jewish king. In this he failed, for drunken soldiers had fired the tent after plundering it and though he saw a body lying among the ashes, it was so charred that he could not tell whether it were that of man or woman, also it wore no armour such as I had seen, of which perhaps it had been stripped by some marauder who, if it was silver, broke it up for melting.
Also both then and afterwards he questioned certain prisoners, but could learn nothing of this lady Mysia, who perhaps among the Babylonians went by some other name. Merodach, they said, had women in his train as had other princes and lords, but who these were they did not know, for after the Eastern fashion they were kept apart and when the host marched, travelled on camels in covered panniers, or sometimes in closed litters. But now death had taken those who led the beasts or bore the litters, and with them the most of the lords who owned the women, the slaughter having been very great. Therefore none was left to tell their tale, even if it were known.
So the beauteous lady Mysia and her history were lost in the darkness of the past, which even the eyes of Belus the diviner could not pierce.
Amasis summoned the army and made an oration. He praised it. He showed that its victory had been very marked over a mighty host that outnumbered it many times; that it had been won by discipline and courage, (of his own skill in generalship he said nothing) and this without the aid of Greeks, (here the thousands of his hearers shouted in their joy) those Greeks whom Pharaoh leant upon and thought necessary in war, holding as he did that they outpassed the Egyptians in all qualities that make a soldier.
When he had given time for these cunning words of his to sink into the hearts of his hearers, where as he guessed, they would bear fruit in the future among Egyptians who hated and were jealous of the Greeks that Pharaoh favoured, Amasis spoke of other matters.
He said that after taking thought and counsel with his captains, he had determined not to follow the Babylonians into their own country.
"That host," he declared, "is utterly destroyed. Few of them will live to behold the walls of the Great City, for thirst and the desert men will cut off many of those who escaped the battle. But the King of Babylon has other armies to fight us who are few and warworn after two victories, and whose horses are wearied with heat and work. Lastly, friends, I have no command from Pharaoh, the good god our master, to pursue the Babylonians across the deserts but only that I should beat them back from the borders of Egypt and because of your valour this has been done. Now, therefore, with your leave, we will return to Sais and make our report to Pharaoh."
Once more the army shouted applause, for nothing did they desire less than to march into the burning waterless deserts, there to fight new battles against the countless hosts of Babylon, they who wished to return to their wives and children, having earned the plots of watered land that Pharaoh promised to his victorious soldiers.
This matter finished Amasis spoke of that of the booty which was very great, for the Babylonian camp had been full of riches, also thousands of horses and beasts of burden had been captured during and after the battle. This spoil he commanded all men to bring in, that his officers might divide it among them according to their rank. Next morning this was done, though not without many quarrels, for all who had captured anything, wished to keep it for themselves. Amongst others I appeared carrying the child, Myra, in whose garments were hidden the jewels that her mother had given to me. This I did, because the punishment of those who withheld anything, was death, also because I felt that my honour was at stake although this wealth was not mine, but the child's.
When I appeared before the officers bearing Myra in my arms, a great laugh went up. One cried out, "How shall this plunder be divided?" Another answered, "Let the little one be taken and sold in the slave market." To which a third replied, "Who then will carry her to Sais?"