Chapter 6
Nefra Conquers the Pyramids

Strange, very strange indeed was the book of Life as it opened itself to the child Nefra, Royal Princess of Egypt. Looking back in after years to those of her infancy, all she could remember was a vision of great pillared halls, where stone images stared at her and the carved or painted walls were full of grotesque figures which seemed to pursue each other everlastingly from darkness into darkness. Then there were visions of white-robed men and women who from time to time gathered in these places and sang sad and mellow chants, of which the echoes haunted her sleep from year to year. Also there was the stately shape of the Lady Kemmah, her nurse whom she loved well yet feared a little, and that of the gigantic Ethiopian named Ru, who always seemed to be about her day and night, carrying a great bronze axe in his hand, whom she loved entirely and feared not at all.

Foremost among them, too, was the awful apparition of an aged man with a white beard and black, flashing eyes whom she came to know as the Prophet and whom all worshipped as though he were a god. She remembered waking up at night and seeing him bending over her, a lantern in his hand, or in the daytime meeting her in the dark temple passages and passing by with words of blessing. To her childish imagination, indeed, he was not human but a ghost to be fled from; yet a kindly ghost withal, since sometimes he gave her delicious sweetmeats or even flowers that a Brother carried in a basket.

Infancy passed by and there came childhood. Still the same halls were about her, peopled by the same folk, but now, at times, with Kemmah her nurse and guarded by the giant Ru and others, she was allowed to wander outside of them, most frequently after night had fallen and when the full moon shone in the sky. Thus it was that first she came to know the lion shape of the terrible Sphinx, lying crouched upon the desert. In the beginning she was afraid of this stone creature with its human face painted red, its royal headdress, and its bearded chin, though afterwards, when it grew familiar to her, she learned to love that face, finding something friendly in its smile and its great calm eyes that stared at the sky as though they would search out its secrets. Indeed, at times she would sit on the sand, sending Kemmah and Ru to a little distance, and tell it her childish troubles and ask it questions, furnishing the answers for herself, since from the great lips of the Sphinx none ever came.

Then beyond the Sphinx rose the mighty pyramids, three principal ones that pierced the very sky, with temples at the base of them wherein dead kings had once been worshipped, and others that were smaller which, she fancied, must be their children. She worshipped those pyramids, believing that the gods had made them, till Tau, her tutor, told her that they were built by men to be the graves of kings.

“They must have been great kings that had such graves; I should like to look on them.”

“Perhaps you will some day,” answered Tau, who was a most learned man and her instructor in many things.

Besides herself there were other children of the Order, born of the wedded brothers and sisters. These were formed into a school, Nefra among them, which school was taught by the Instructed among the Brotherhood. Indeed, nearly all of them had learning, for the full members of the Order of the Dawn were no common folk, although their servants and those who tilled the flat lands not far from the Sphinx having their habitations upon the borders of the great Necropolis were, or seemed to be like, any other husbandmen. To look on them, none would have known that they were partakers in mysteries which they were sworn by solemn oaths not to reveal, and indeed never did reveal, even under the fear of death or torture.

Soon Nefra became the head of this school, not because of her rank but for the reason that she was by far the cleverest of all its pupils, and her quick mind drank up knowledge as a dry fleece of wool drinks up the dew. Yet if any visited that school and watched the children listening to the teacher, or seated on their stools, copying the picture-writing of the Egyptians upon potsherds or fragments of papyrus, save that she sat at the head of a line of them and for something different in her face, they would have found nothing to distinguish her from the other little maidens who were her companions. She wore the same plain robe of white, the same simple sandals to protect her feet from stones and scorpions, while her hair was tied with a stem of dried grass into a single tress after just the same fashion. Indeed, it was a rule of the Order that she should carry on her person no robe or ornament which might reveal that she was not as other children were.

Yet the instruction of Nefra did not end with her lessons in this school, for when these were done or in times of holiday she must learn a deeper lore. Tau, accompanied by Kemmah her nurse, would take her to a little private room that once had been the sleeping place of a priest of the temple in ancient days and there teach her many secret things.

Thus he taught her the Babylonian tongue and writing, or knowledge of the movements of the stars and planets, or the mysteries of religion, showing her that all the gods of all the priests were but symbols of the attributes of an unseen Power, a Spirit that ruled everything and was everywhere, even in her own heart. He taught her that the flesh was but the earthly covering of the soul and that between flesh and soul there reigned eternal war. He taught her that she lived here upon the earth to fulfil the purposes of this almighty Spirit that created her, to whom in a day to come she must return, perchance to be sent out again to this or other worlds; though what those purposes might be were not known even by the wisest men who breathed. And while he taught thus and she listened, watching him with eager eyes, sometimes the old prophet Roy would steal into the chamber and listen also, adding a word here or there, then hold out his hand in blessing and steal away.

Thus, though outwardly Nefra was as are other merry children, inwardly her soul opened like a lotus lily in the sun and she was different from them all.

So the years went on till from a child she grew into a maiden, tall and sweet and very fair. It was at this time in her life that Roy himself and Tau, in the presence of Kemmah only, revealed to her who she was, namely, none other than the Royal Princess of Egypt by right of blood and the appointment of Heaven, and told her the story of her father and her mother and of the kings and queens who went before them; also of the divisions in the land.

When she heard these things Nefra wept and trembled.

“Alas! that it should be so,” she said, “for now no longer can I be happy. Tell me, holy Father, whom men name Home-of-Spirits that, they say, hold converse with you in your sleep, what can a poor maid do to right so many wrongs and to bring peace where there is but bitterness and bloodshed?”

“Princess of Egypt,” said Roy, for the first time giving her her title, “I do not know because it is not revealed to me or to any. Yet it is revealed to me and to certain others that in some way unforeseen you will do these things. Aye, and it was revealed in a dream to your mother, the Queen Rima, when you were born, for in this dream that part of the Universal Spirit whom here in Egypt we know as Mother Isis appeared to her and amongst other gifts gave to you, the royal child, the high name of Uniter of Lands.”

Here Kemmah thought to herself that another goddess appeared as well as Isis and gave to this same child different gifts, and though she said nothing Roy seemed to read her thoughts, for he went on:

“As to this dream and certain mysteries by which it was accompanied, the Lady Kemmah, your nurse and instructress, is commanded to inform you; also to show to you the record of all these matters which at that time was written down and sealed, and with it another record of a certain oath which I and others swore to your mother, the Queen Rima, upon her deathbed, concerning a journey which you must make at the appointed time. Enough of these matters. Now I am commanded to tell you that on a day to come which shall be declared when it is known to me, it is our purpose with such state as we can compass, to crown you, standing as you do on the threshold of womanhood, as Queen of Egypt.”

“How can that be?” asked Nefra. “Kings and queens are crowned in temples, or so I have been taught, and in the presence of multitudes of courtiers, with pomp and shoutings. But here – ” and she looked about her.

“Is not this a temple and one of the most ancient and holiest in Egypt, Nefra?” asked Roy. “And for the rest, listen. We seem to be but a humble Brotherhood, the inhabitants of tombs and pyramids which few dare approach because they hold them haunted and deadly to the life and soul of any stranger who dares to violate their sanctuary. Yet I tell you that this Order of the Dawn is more powerful and more far-reaching than the Shepherd king himself and all those that cling to him, as you will learn shortly when you are sworn of it. Its disciples are everywhere, from the Cataracts of the Nile down to the sea; aye, and in lands beyond the sea, and, as we believe, in Heaven above; and one and all they obey the commands that issue from these catacombs, accepting them as the voice of God.”

“Then if so, Holy Prophet, why do you not sit at Tanis openly, instead of in secret in these tombs?”

“Because, Princess, visible power and the trappings of power can only be won by war, and we are sworn to wage no war, we whose empire is of the spirit. It may be that in the end it is decreed that war must be waged and that thus all will be accomplished. Yet it is not our Brotherhood that will lift its banners or, save in self-defence, bring men to their deaths, for we are sworn to peace and gentleness.”

“I rejoice to hear it,” said Nefra, “and now, Master, I pray you let me go to rest, for I am overwhelmed.”

A year or more after this day of the revealing of secrets, but before the ceremonies which it foretold, a terrible thing happened to Nefra.

Now it was her custom to wander about the great graveyard that surrounded the pyramids where in their splendid tombs so many of the ancient nobles and princes of Egypt had been laid to rest a thousand years or more before her day, so long ago indeed that none remembered the names of those who slept beneath these monuments. On these wanderings of hers it was her pleasure to go unaccompanied save by her body-servant, Ru, for Kemmah, who now grew aged, had no strength for such rough journeys over tumbled stones and through deep sand.

Moreover, at this time Nefra loved to be alone, that she might find time to think in solitude over all that had been revealed to her as to her history and fate, and the unsought greatness that had been thrust upon her.

Further, being very vigorous in body as she was in mind, she wearied of being cooped up in the narrow precincts of the temple and its neighbourhood and longed for exercise and adventure. By nature she was a climber, one of those who love to scale heights and thence look down upon the world below. Thus it became her pleasure to scramble to the top of great monuments and even of some of the smaller pyramids, which she found she could do with ease, since her feet were sure and no dizziness ever overtook her.

All of these fancies of hers were reported to Kemmah by Ru and others who watched her, and to Roy and Tau by Kemmah when she found that the young princess would not listen to her chidings, but for the first time in her life turned upon her angrily, reminding her that she was no more a child to be led by the hand and would have her way.

These consulted of the matter, and, it would seem, according to their rule, made divination, taking counsel of that Spirit who, as they declared, guided them in all things.

The end of it was that the Prophet Roy bade his great-niece, the Lady Kemmah, to trouble the Princess no more about this business, but to suffer her to walk where it pleased her and to climb what she would, because it was revealed to him that whoever took harm, she would take none.

“It is not wise to thwart her as to such a little thing, Niece,” he went on, “seeing that there is no danger to her and none of the Shepherds or other enemies dare to approach this haunted place. Also, she goes forth guarded by Ru to talk, not with any man, but only with her own heart amid the holy company of the dead.”

“There are always some who will dare that of which all others are afraid, and who knows whom she may meet and talk with before all is done?” answered Kemmah.

“I have spoken, Niece. Withdraw,” said Roy.

So, having triumphed, Nefra, who was young and headstrong, continued her wanderings and indeed did more.