The people suffered hunger and want, and when the slaves and porters had rejoiced for a time in their freedom, they formed themselves into bands, which broke into rich men’s houses to distribute their corn and oil and wealth among the poor. Kaptah hired men to grind corn and bake bread, but the people stole the bread from his servants, saying, “This bread has been filched from the poor, and it is but right that it should be shared among them.” No one praised my name although I beggared myself in a single month.
Forty days and forty nights passed in this way, with the turmoil in Thebes growing steadily worse. Men who had once weighed gold stood begging in the streets while their wives sold their jewels to slaves so as to buy bread for their children. At the end of this period Kaptah came stealing to my house in the darkness and said, “My lord, it is time for you to fly. Aton’s kingdom is soon to fall, and I believe no honest man will regret it. Law and order will be restored-but first the crocodiles must be fed, and more copiously than ever before, for the priests purpose to liberate Egypt from evil blood.”
I asked him how he knew this and he answered innocently, “Have I not always been a faithful horn, and in secret worshiped Ammon? I have lent liberally to his priests, for they pay good interest and pawn his land for gold. Eie has made an agreement with the priests in order to preserve his own life, so the priests have the guards on their side. The leading men in Egypt have once more attached themselves to Ammon; the priests have summoned Negroes from the land of Kush, and the Shardanas, who have been plundering the country districts, are now in their pay. Indeed, Sinuhe, the mills will soon be turning again, but the bread which shall be baked of that flour will be Ammon’s bread not Aton’s. The gods are returning, the old order is coming back, and all will be as before, praise be to Ammon! For I am already weary of this confusion despite the riches it has brought me.”
I was deeply agitated by his words, and said, “Pharaoh Akhnaton will never agree to this.”
But Kaptah smiled slyly, rubbed his blind eye with his forefinger, and said, “He will not be asked! The city of Akhetaton is already doomed and all who stay there shall die the death. Once the rebels have the power in their own hands, they will block all the roads thither so that the inhabitants must starve. They demand that Pharaoh shall return to Thebes and prostrate himself before Ammon.”
Then my thoughts cleared, and I saw before me the face of Pharaoh, and those eyes, which mirrored a disillusionment more bitter than death.
I said, “Kaptah, this iniquity must never be! We have walked many roads together, you and I. Let us walk this way together also, to the end. Poor though I now am, yet you are still rich. Buy arms; buy spears and arrows; buy all the clubs you can lay hands upon. With your gold buy the guards into your service. Distribute the weapons among the slaves and porters of the harbors. I do not know what will come of it, Kaptah, but the world has never yet seen such an opportunity as this to make all things new. When the land and the wealthy estates have been shared out, when the houses of the affluent are inhabited by the poor and their gardens are made playgrounds for the children of slaves, then assuredly the people will be pacified. Each shall then come by his own, each work as best pleases him, and all things shall be better than before.”
But Kaptah trembled and said, “Lord, I have no intention of working with my hands in my old age. Already they have set eminent men to turning millstones, while their wives and daughters serve the slaves and porters in the pleasure houses. There is nothing good in any of this but only evil. My lord Sinuhe, do not require of me to tread this path. When I think of it, I think also of that dark house I once entered in your company. I vowed never to speak of that again, but now I speak because I must. Lord, you have once again resolved to enter a dark house, ignorant of what awaits you-and it may be that a rotting monster and a stinking death await you. If we are to judge by what we have seen, we may suppose that Pharaoh Akhnaton’s god is as terrible as that of Crete, that he forces the best and most gifted men of Egypt to dance before bulls and leads them into a dark house whence there is no return. No, lord! I do not follow you a second time into the house of Minotauros.”
And he neither wept nor protested as before but spoke to me solemnly, imploring me to turn from my purpose. At last he said, “If you will consider neither yourself nor me, think at least of Merit and of little Thoth, who love you. Take them away from here and hide them in a safe place. Once the mills of Ammon begin to turn, the life of no one here will be safe.”
But my fervor had blinded me, and his warnings were to me foolishness. I said to him stiffly, “Who would persecute a woman and a little boy? In my house they dwell in safety. Aton conquers and must conquer, or life is not worth living. The people have sense, and they know that Pharaoh wishes them well. How could it be possible for them to return by their own desire to the tyranny of darkness and fear? Ammon’s house is the dark house of which you speak, not Aton’s. It will take more than a few bribed guards and scared nobles to overthrow him when he has the whole people behind him.”
Kaptah rejoined, “I have said what I had to say and shall not repeat it. I burn to tell you a little secret, but as it is not mine I don’t dare, and perhaps it would have no effect on you, obsessed as you now are. Don’t blame me hereafter, lord, if later you gash your face and knees upon the stones in your despair. Don’t blame me if the monster devours you. It is all one to me, being but a onetime slave with no children to bewail my death. Therefore, lord, I will follow you along this uttermost road, though I know it to be in vain. Let us enter the dark house together, lord, as before. If you will allow it, I will take a wine jar with me this time also.”
On that same day Kaptah began to drink, and he drank from morning till night. Yet in his drunkenness he obeyed my commands and distributed arms in the harbor, and calling the officers of the guard secretly to the Crocodile’s Tail, he bribed them to take the part of the poor against the rich.
Hunger and riot prevailed in Thebes with this coming of Aton’s kingdom on earth, and delirium seized the people’s minds so that they were drunk without drinking. There was no longer any difference between those who bore the cross and those who did not, and the only things that counted were a weapon, a hard fist, and a loud voice. If anyone in the street saw a loaf in the hand of another he snatched it, saying, “Give me the loaf, for are we not all brothers in the sight of Aton?” And if he met another arrayed in fine linen, he said, “Give me your garment, for we are brothers in the name of Aton, and no man should be better dressed than his brother.” If the horn was spied at a man’s neck or on his clothes he was put to turning millstones or pulling down burned-out houses-that is, if he were not beaten to death and thrown to the crocodiles that lay in wait by the landing stages. Anarchy prevailed, and deeds of violence were daily multiplied.
Twice thirty days went by; no longer than this did Aton’s kingdom on earth endure before it crumbled. For the black troops shipped from the land of Kush and the Shardanas hired by Eie encircled the city so that none might make his escape. The horn faction rallied in every quarter and were furnished by the priests with arms from the vaults of Ammon. Those who had no weapons hardened the ends of their sticks by fire, bound their pestles with copper and fashioned arrowheads from the ornaments of their women.
The horns rallied, and with them all who desired the good of Egypt. The quiet, patient, peaceful people also said, “We desire the return of the old order, for we have had more than our bellyful of the new, and Aton has plundered us enough.”