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King David, Innocent Blood, and
Bloodguilt
Praise for King David, Innocent Blood, and
Bloodguilt
‘Shepherd’s fresh take on King David shows why this controversial ruler is
one of the most compelling characters in the entire Bible. With a clear
command of current scholarship on King David, this deeply researched and
carefully argued book presents a bold case for greater attention to the
often-overlooked problem of bloodguilt as central to our understanding of
David’s reign. Shepherd models what a skilled and detailed interpretation of
the text can provide when one reads the story of David in its current form.’
Jeremy Schipper, Professor of Hebrew Bible, University of Toronto and
author of Parables and Conflict in the Hebrew Bible

‘Shepherd’s monograph is a lucid, accessible, and welcome addition to

studies of the figure of David, combining a rich knowledge of scholarly work
on Samuel and Kings with fascinating and judicious readings of individual
stories that convincingly demonstrate just how much the narrative of David
is shaped by questions surrounding illegitimate bloodshed.’
David Janzen, Professor of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Durham
University and author of The Necessary King

‘From the slaying of Goliath to the secretly arranged murder of Uriah, the
specter of blood follows the famous career of King David at every turn. With
a meticulous and carefully documented analysis of the text, Shepherd’s work
draws attention to the paradox of violence at the core of this narrative and
an important subplot that will be of interest to general readers and biblical
scholars alike.’
Keith Bodner, Professor of Religion, Crandall University and author of The
Rebellion of Absalom

‘Shepherd provides a fresh and compelling reading of David’s story. The

problem of bloodguilt emerges as a central motif within the narrative,
making this a crucial work for future work on David’s story and also the
wider issue of how this motif is understood within the Hebrew Bible.’
David Firth, Trinity College Bristol and author of 1 and 2 Samuel: A
Kingdom Comes
‘Shepherd makes a strong case for reading bloodguilt as a pervasive theme
throughout the David story, illuminating aspects of the story of David’s rise,
reign, and succession. The book will repay careful reading; its argument is
well-constructed and well-supported, and certainly got me thinking about
these well-known stories in new ways.’
Christine Mitchell, Professor of Hebrew Bible, Knox College, Toronto

‘This book deals with a question that is immensely important not only for
the image of King David and for the assessment of the Books of Samuel, but
also for the theology and ethics of our days…Scholarly and with a
commanding knowledge of the relevant research, Shepherd offers clarifying
insights into both the bloody reality as portrayed in the books of Samuel,
and the struggle against the curse of constantly renewed bloodguilt that is
waged in them.’
Walter Dietrich, Emeritus Professor of Old Testament, University of Bern
and author of The Early Monarchy in Israel: The Tenth Century B.C.E.
King David, Innocent Blood,
and Bloodguilt

D AV I D J. S H E P H E R D
 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom
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© David J. Shepherd 2023
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ISBN 978–0–19–8842200
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 Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction
David: A Man of War and Blood(s)
Reading the David Story/ies
What is the David Story About?
The David Story and Bloodguilt
The David Story and Retribution
The David Story and Homicide
The David Story and Ritual Violence
The Approach and Outline of the Book
1. ‘Innocent Blood’: 1 Sam 16–22
The Sparing of David
The Killings at Nob
2. ‘Blood without Cause’: 1 Sam 23–26
The Sparing of Saul
The Sparing of Nabal
The Sparing of Saul (Again)
3. ‘Your Blood be on Your Head’: 1 Sam 27–2 Sam 1
The Killing of Saul
The Killing of Saul (Again)
4. ‘His Blood at Your Hand’: 2 Sam 2–4
The Killing of Abner
The Killing of Ishbosheth
5. ‘The Sword Will Never Depart’: 2 Sam 5–12
The Killing of Uriah
The Killing of David and Bathsheba’s First Son
6. ‘That the Redeemer of Blood Will Ruin No More’: 2 Sam 13–14
The Killing of Amnon
The Sparing of Absalom
7. ‘Man of Blood’: 2 Sam 15–20
The Sparing of Shimei
The Killing of Absalom
The Sparing of Shimei (Again)
The Killing of Amasa
8. ‘The Bloodguilt of Saul’: 2 Sam 21–24
The Killing of the Seven Saulides
9. ‘Bring Back His Bloody Deeds’: 1 Kgs 1–2
The Killing of Adonijah
The Killing of Joab
The Sparing of Abiathar and the Sons of Barzillai
The Killing of Shimei
Conclusion: King David, Innocent Blood, and Bloodguilt
The Problem in David’s Rise
The Problem in David’s Reign
The Problem in David’s Succession
The Nature of the Problem
The Prevalence and Importance of the Problem
Problem without End
A Problem for Whom?

Bibliography
Index of Subjects
Index of Biblical References
 Acknowledgements

Thanks to the name my parents gave me, I am quite sure that

‘David’ was among the first words I heard upon entering the world.
Being a David who was also a Shepherd ensured that my interest
was especially keen when the subject of David came up in my youth
and I am very grateful to those who acquainted me with the
highlights of his story in those early years. The rest of David’s story
in the Hebrew Bible was introduced to me by yet another David—
Professor David Jobling—distinguished scholar and teacher of Old
Testament language and literature at St. Andrew’s College. His close
reading of Samuel during my days as an undergraduate student in
his class set a standard which few since have matched, and
influenced me in ways which became clearer to me only when I
began to take a more serious interest in David a decade ago. This
interest in David inevitably found its way into my own classroom in
turn and I am grateful to my students for their insights on the David
story over the years as we have explored it together at Trinity.
I am also very appreciative of the feedback offered in recent
years by various scholarly audiences with whom I have shared
papers in preparation for this book. Some of the ideas on David and
Uriah which appear in Chapter 5 were aired at a meeting of the
Society for Old Testament Study held in Manchester in 2012, while
early thoughts on Abimelech were presented at the University of
Lausanne in 2016. My reading of 2 Sam 21:1‒14 (Chapter 8)
benefited from feedback offered at: the Society of Biblical
Literature’s 2017 Annual Meeting in Boston, Cambridge University’s
Divinity Faculty Senior Research Seminar in 2018 and, in that same
year, the Doktorandenkolloquium in the Faculty of Theology of
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen. Rather closer to home, my
treatment of 1 Sam 25 (Chapter 2) was refined with the help of
those who attended a symposium on forgiveness in the Hebrew
Bible at the Trinity Centre for Biblical Studies in Dublin. Finally, the
treatment of Absalom which now appears in Chapters 6 and 7 was
improved by comments and questions from those attending the joint
meeting of the Society for Old Testament Study, the
Oudtestamentisch Werkgezelschap and the Old Testament Society of
South Africa held at the University of Groningen in 2018 and from
members of the Divinity Faculty Research Seminars of the
Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, where I presented in October
of 2019.
That various colleagues around the world have been kind enough
to comment on drafts of chapters—and in some cases, the entire
manuscript—of this book, has been truly humbling. For this, I owe
debts of gratitude not easily repaid to Graeme Auld, Walter Dietrich,
Hugh Pyper, Rachelle Gilmour, David Firth, Jeremy Schipper, Keith
Bodner, George Nicol, Christine Mitchell, David Janzen, Stephen
Chapman, Steve Wiggins, and Mark Awabdy. Together they have
spared the reader a good number of deficiencies in what follows and
certainly bear no responsibility for those which remain. The same
must be said for Tom Perridge and the staff at OUP to whom I am
very grateful for their patience and their professionalism in seeing
this project through and affording me the scope to tackle it properly.
Finally, my greatest appreciation must be reserved for my dear
wife, Hilda, and my three wonderful daughters, Anna, Sophie, and
Sarah, not only for allowing this David to have spent so much time
writing about ‘that’ David, but also for ensuring that our family life is
thankfully much less fraught than his.
 Introduction

David: A Man of War and Blood(s)

When the prophet Samuel is sent to Bethlehem to anoint one of
Jesse’s sons to be king, David is not only the last, but also seemingly
the least to appear. Even his own father summons David only
grudgingly, and apparently for good reason, because as he advises
Samuel, David is the youngest and a keeper of sheep (1 Sam
16:11). However, when King Saul requests that a musician be found
to soothe his troubled soul and his servants suggest David, the
reader soon discovers that the youngest son of Jesse is no ordinary
shepherd. Indeed, the servants insist that David is not only divinely
blessed, musically gifted, brave, and eloquent: he is also a ‘man of
war’ ( 1 Sam 16:18).
The son of Jesse’s willingness to go to war is confirmed in the
very next chapter, by the first words David utters in the books of
Samuel: ‘What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and
removes the reproach from Israel?’ (1 Sam 17:26). When Saul goes
on to compare David’s mettle unfavourably to that of the seasoned
warrior Goliath, the young shepherd reports proudly what he would
do when a bear or lion had the temerity to turn on him after
relinquishing a stolen sheep. David would not merely take the
would-be predator by the hair and strike it; he would kill it for good
measure (v. 35). David’s victory over Goliath, however, is much more
than the killing of a beast. It is the triumph of youth over
experience, humility over arrogance, and little over large. But it is
also the triumph of sling over sword and the decisive blow in the
Israelite army’s routing of their Philistine rivals. It is thus hardly
surprising that David’s killing of Goliath has cemented his reputation
as a man of war. Indeed, this is underlined in the following chapter
(1 Sam 18), when the women irritate Saul by eulogizing David for
slaying ten times more Philistines than he has.
Yet if those in Saul’s orbit sing the young David’s praises in 1 Sam
16, by the time we reach 2 Sam 16, other Saulide voices may be
heard expressing a rather different view. Here, as the now much
older David retreats from Jerusalem to save his life and kingdom
from his son Absalom, he is met by Shimei, son of Gera and a man
of Saul’s tribe. Instead of celebrating David as a ‘man of war’, Shimei
curses him as a ‘man of bloods’ ( 2 Sam 16:8 and cf. 7).1 In
1–2 Samuel and 1 Kgs 1–2, this language of ‘blood(s)’, or ‘bloodguilt’
as it is often translated, is invariably associated with David and often
killings with which he is connected, including those of Saul,
Ishbosheth, and Abner. Because David seems to benefit from these
and other killings and seeks to dissociate himself from them, some
have suggested that the tradition intends to rebut historical
accusations of David’s responsibility for killing these men.2 Indeed,
the reporting of Shimei’s accusations strongly suggests that such
charges did circulate at some point and were perceived as
problematic for David. Some scholars go further, concluding that the
historical David was in fact guilty of the killings.3 Steven McKenzie,
for instance, argues that the historical David not only sanctioned
Abner’s death, but must be the prime suspect in Ishbosheth’s killing
and must also have encouraged the Philistines into the conflict which
claimed Saul’s life.4 In a similar vein, Baruch Halpern suggests that
David commissioned the assassination of Ishbosheth, killed Abner
(apparently himself) and was at least complicit in the killing of Saul
by the Philistines.5
It is of course theoretically possible that the books of Samuel, as
we now have them, have indeed omitted details of David’s actual
involvement in these and other killings which work to his favour.
However, such details are ultimately beyond literary analysis and
outside our concern here, because they belong to the necessarily
hypothetical histories reconstructed by McKenzie, Halpern, and
others, rather than the (also tendentious) history of David offered by
the books of Samuel and 1 Kings.6 Instead, the interest of the
present study is in how the story of David we do have in Samuel and
1 Kings is illuminated by attention to the shedding of innocent blood
and the problems it has presented as posing for David and others
within the narrative. But before explaining how earlier readers have
engaged with the David tradition vis-à-vis bloodguilt and related
issues, it is worth considering how and why we have arrived at a
place where we may speak of these traditions as constituting a
‘Story of David’ at all.

Reading the David Story/ies

The rich afterlife of the biblical David in Western culture undoubtedly
owes much to his associations with messianism and the Psalms, but
there can be little doubt that David’s later fame is also very much
due to the stories about him in the Hebrew Bible.7 Indeed, the tales
of David’s unlikely anointing, his defeat of Goliath, and his liaison
with Bathsheba have entranced readers over the centuries,
including, of course, biblical scholars. Those within this guild,
however, have also concerned themselves with stories of David
which are less well-known—indeed known only to those inducted
into the mysteries of biblical scholarship. In the case of David, these
mysteries produced for many years what might be described as a
scholarly ‘Tale of Two Stories’—a tale which can be told here only in
a very abridged and imperfect way.
Amongst his many contributions, Julius Wellhausen long ago
identified a story focused on David’s rise, the beginning of which is
obvious (David’s arrival in 1 Sam 16) and the end of which
Wellhausen found in 2 Sam 8.8 The similarity of some individual
stories to each other within this wider narrative and various
inconsistencies between—and intrusions within—them, persuaded
Wellhausen that here in the books of Samuel, as elsewhere in the
Hebrew Bible, various sources had been collected and edited to
produce the text as we now have it. Nevertheless, he argued that
when taken together, the passages from 1 Sam 15/16–2 Sam 8
represented a ‘First story/history of David’, recounting David’s rise
from shepherd in Bethlehem to king in Jerusalem at the expense of
Saul and his house.9 Wellhausen’s ‘Second story/history of David’ ran
from 2 Sam 9 to 1 Kgs 2 (excluding 2 Sam 21–24) and told the story
of David’s subsequent reign and Solomon’s installation.10 The artistry
and coherence of Wellhausen’s second story was increasingly
acknowledged following Leonhard Rost’s influential analysis of these
chapters as a ‘Succession Narrative’.11 Of course, some since have
seen this narrative as beginning rather earlier than 2 Sam 9 and
have rightly preferred the terminology of ‘Court History’ due to 2
Samuel’s initial lack of explicit interest in succession.12 However, the
discrete division of the traditions about David into ‘two stories’—one
account of his rise and another of his reign—enjoyed widespread
scholarly support (with honourable exceptions) throughout much of
the twentieth century.
The fact that scholarship on the David traditions as a whole did
not remain entirely a tale of two stories is due in large part to a
series of studies appearing in the late 1970s and early 1980s which
explored the David narratives in new ways.13 Charles Conroy’s 1978
study of 2 Sam 13–20 as ‘story’ broke new ground by viewing these
chapters through the lens of plot, character, point of view, etc.14
However, in that same year, a very similar furrow was also ploughed
by David Gunn.15 Perhaps because of Conroy’s more technical focus
on language in the later sections of his work, but probably also
because of the greater scope and ambition of Gunn’s book, it was
the contribution of the latter which would prove more enduring.
Gunn’s title, The Story of King David, might have suggested to
some readers that he would begin with David established on the
throne in 2 Sam 9. Instead, he argued that 2 Sam 2 (beginning in
verses 8 or 12) through to chapter 4 offers a more satisfactory
beginning to the story of the reign of David which unfolds in 2
Samuel. In making his case, Gunn pointed out that David’s request
to show kindness to a Saulide at the beginning of chapter 9 seems
to presuppose the account of Ishbosheth’s death (and by extension
chapters 2‒4). Gunn then showed that the style of these chapters
has much in common with the much-vaunted style of Rost’s
‘Succession Narrative’. Finally, he joined his voice to those who had
already suggested that Rost’s theme of ‘succession’ failed to capture
the breadth of narrative interests in 2 Sam 9–20 and 1 Kgs 1–2, let
alone the expanded story of King David for which Gunn was arguing.
Thus, Gunn included in his story of King David not merely David’s
retention of the throne (at Absalom’s expense) and Solomon’s
accession to it (at Adonijah’s expense), but also now David’s
accession to the throne (at Ishbosheth’s expense; chs. 2‒4).
Moreover, Gunn argued that this larger story is not merely about
succession, but also the interplay and consequence of David’s and
others’ ‘giving and grasping’ of the kingdom, both for himself and
other individuals.16
While Gunn’s careful thematic analysis has been cited less often
than it deserves, his willingness to think in terms of a larger story of
David instead of a ‘Tale of Two Stories’ was to prove influential.
Gunn himself would go on to discuss the second half of 1 Samuel as
very much Saul’s story rather than David’s.17 However, The Story of
King David led others to consider whether the story of David might
not begin even earlier than Gunn had recognized and whether the
themes of a still wider story of David might differ from those which
Gunn himself had identified.18 This influence is visible already in
Walter Brueggeman’s slender and more accessible David’s Truth in
Israel’s Imagination and Memory (1985). This study is still explicitly
structured with reference to ‘the rise of David’ and the ‘Succession
Narrative’, but insists on reading them together as a single story of
David which includes and even goes beyond 1 Sam 16 to 1 Kgs 2.19
Brueggeman’s suggestion that this larger story illustrates David’s
capacity for ‘receiving and relinquishing with some graciousness’ is
itself an obvious illustration of Gunn’s influence, but also reflects
Brueggeman’s wider scope.20
 The extent to which scholarly interest in the larger story of David
and its themes burgeoned in the years which followed may be seen
in a series of studies which appeared before and after the turn of
the millennium. While K. L. Noll’s The Faces of David (1997) is
largely focused on the three poems in 2 Samuel (1:19‒27, 22, 23:1‒
17), he begins by discussing the themes and characterization of
David in the ‘prose story’ as a whole.21 Noll is critical of Shamai
Gelander’s earlier argument that the books of Samuel are primarily
about the capriciousness of God and David’s heroic domestication of
him. Indeed, as Noll notes, the textual evidence offered by Gelander
is slender and these books are much more about David than they
are about God.22 More appealing to Noll, however, is David
Damrosch’s passing suggestion that the David story’s ‘deepest
concerns are with issues of knowledge and understanding’.23 In
developing this to a greater extent than Damrosch does, Noll rightly
points out that the David stories are often less than forthcoming
regarding why things happen in the way they do and what
characters do and do not know.24 While this may to some extent
reflect the sort of narrative the books of Samuel offer (i.e. open-
ended, indeterminate),25 we will see that others too have discerned
the thematic significance of knowledge within the David story. At the
same time, Noll suggests elsewhere in his study that the chief
concern of the books of Samuel is ultimately that of divine election
and rejection, as captured in the question: ‘Why has Yahweh
rejected Saul and chosen David?’.26 While there can be little doubt
this question is explored in 1 Samuel and the opening chapters of 2
Samuel, in the remainder of 2 Samuel, such a question is clearly less
to the fore than those relating to Adonijah and especially Absalom.
Two years after Gunn’s study appeared, confirmation of this
growing willingness to explore the David traditions more holistically
may be seen in Robert Alter’s commentary on 1 and 2 Samuel,
advertised as The David Story, despite David’s absence from the first
half of 1 Samuel.27 Because Alter wishes to tell the story of David,
he exceeds the boundaries of Samuel in tracking his protagonist into
1 Kings, but his reasons for commenting on the often excised
appendix (2 Sam 21–24) are worth noting. He acknowledges that
these final chapters of 2 Samuel are ‘not of a piece’ in style or
perspective with the rest and may have come from elsewhere.
However, he also makes it clear that he comments on them not
merely because they are part of 2 Samuel, but because he is
persuaded of their coherence with the wider story of David. For Alter
too, this wider story of David revolves around ‘knowledge’. While
Saul seems to be consistently deprived of knowledge, David is
initially well-supplied with it, before eventually succumbing to the
fate of the ‘purblind Saul’.28
Still further, if slightly more oblique, evidence for the growing
appreciation of the wider David story in the books of Samuel and 1
Kings may be found in Steven McKenzie’s King David: A Biography
and in Baruch Halpern’s David’s Secret Demons, which appeared
around the same time.29 Unlike some others, both Halpern and
McKenzie set out in search of the David of history and both conclude
that the latter is rather different from the David of Samuel and
Kings. Allowing for later additions (including Solomon’s succession by
the hand of the Deuteronomist), McKenzie divides the David
traditions in these books into two parts along the broadly
recognizable lines of David’s rise (1 Sam 16–2 Sam 5:3) and his
reign (2 Sam 5:4–1 Kgs 2).30 However, while McKenzie exhumes a
more ‘historical’ and rather less attractive David by frequently
reading against the grain of the biblical traditions, he does largely
treat them as a whole. In doing so, McKenzie sees the tendency to
defend David in the history of David’s rise also reflected in the
account of David’s reign in the remainder of 2 Samuel and 1 Kgs 1–
2. This tendency McKenzie sees as complicated only slightly by the
later addition of the Bathsheba affair to explain Absalom’s rebellion
as a punishment.31 Halpern too understands the David traditions as
containing two stories. However, Halpern’s two stories are not those
of David’s rise and reign respectively, but rather two separate
accounts of David with differing perspectives (called simply A and B)
which have been woven together to produce the story of David as
we now find it. Nevertheless, like McKenzie, Halpern’s interest in
David’s story as a whole in Samuel and 1 Kings (in addition to his
own ‘Tale of Two Stories’) is made clear from his title and the
extended treatment of ‘David’s History in the Books of Samuel’ which
he offers at the outset of his study.32
The exploration of David’s story as a whole and in its ‘final form’
in Samuel and Kings has persisted even amongst those who are also
and perhaps more interested in the compositional history of the
David story.33 This may be seen in the still more recent work of two
other eminent David scholars, Walter Dietrich and John Van Seters.
Dietrich, one of the most prominent and prolific exponents of a
redaction critical approach to the traditions about David, believes
that what we have now in the books of Samuel and 1 Kings is the
result of a long process of collection, expansion, and revision of
sources beginning in the earliest period of the monarchy.34 Indeed,
Dietrich now sees a large collection of texts comprising a ‘narrative
opus’ as having existed prior to the work of the Deuteronomistic
editor. Running from the beginning of 1 Samuel to 1 Kgs 12,
Dietrich’s ‘maximal’ narrative collection includes the traditions of Saul
and Solomon, but it has at its heart the traditions about David. It is
worth noting, however, that in Dietrich’s view, this collection was
sufficiently complete and coherent already in its pre-exilic form to
allow for a ‘holistic appreciation of the present text, its poetic
structure and its content’—not least in relation to David.35 For
Dietrich, following the finishing touches of a pro-Davidic redactor,
the portrait of David as he rises to power is positively glowing and
only slightly tarnished as he reigns and is eventually succeeded.36
While Van Seters disavows the extensive and multiple redactional
layers detected by Dietrich, he does share Dietrich’s interest in how
the narratives about David came to be as we have them now.37 It is
clear that Van Seters also shares Rost’s enthusiasm for the unity and
artistry of what Van Seters would call the Court History. However,
Van Seters is happy to abandon the ‘History of David’s Rise’ in favour
of offering, as Halpern does, his own ‘Tale of Two Stories’ of David,
which he too labels, ‘Account A’ and ‘Account B’. Van Seters’ Account
A—part of an earlier and larger Deuteronomistic history—is basically
positive in its portrayal of David, coinciding in extent with
Wellhausen’s first story of David’s rise (1 Sam 16–2 Sam 8).
However, Van Seters’ earlier and happier portrait of David is much
slimmer than Wellhausen’s. This is because large parts of it (e.g. 1
Sam 17, 1 Sam 25, etc.) are seen by Van Seters as belonging instead
to his second story, Account B, which includes these and the Court
History (2 Sam 9–20 and 1 Kgs 1–2) as part of the Deuteronomistic
story’s radical revision in the Persian period. Yet, if Van Seters’
presentation seems at first glance to perpetuate the ‘Tale of Two
Stories’ of David,38 he too is deeply concerned with the final form of
the story of David as a whole, which he christens the ‘David Saga’ on
analogy with later Icelandic texts. According to Van Seters, in the
hands of the Saga’s author, David’s character and family are heavily
tarnished in order to impress upon later readers how dangerous and
undesirable a revival of the Davidic kingdom would be in their own
time.39

What is the David Story About?

What becomes clear from this all-too-brief survey is that the story of
David as a whole has been increasingly the object of scholarly
investigation,40 even amongst those whose interests are also in the
stories of David they find within it or behind it. Yet, while we have
already seen that considerable effort has been invested in discerning
the themes of these subsidiary stories of David, with a few
exceptions, rather less progress seems to have been made in
answering the question: what is the story of David, as a whole,
about?
The most obvious answer to this question might seem to be that
the story is about ‘David’—whose entrance in 1 Samuel marks the
beginning of his story and whose exit in 1 Kings marks its end.
However, it is clear that ‘David’ is a much better answer to the
question ‘who is the story about?’ or perhaps even ‘who/what is the
subject of the story?’. To suggest instead that David’s story is about
David’s rise, reign, and succession might seem equally
unexceptionable. Yet, again, while this summary captures what the
story of David is about at the level of plot, it begs the question what
the story of David is really about at a deeper level? It is at this point
that we begin to grapple with the question of theme.41 Indeed, Rost
recognized as much when he famously argued that the Succession
Narrative’s ‘theme (thema) is the question (frage): “Who will sit on
David’s throne?”’.42 As we have seen, many since have been
persuaded that 2 Sam 9–20 and 1 Kgs 1–2 are about rather more
than merely succession and that this is even more true of the wider
story of David. However, most would acknowledge not only the value
of considering what lies behind or above the plot of this part of
David’s story, but also the theoretical possibility that succession is
one of the themes which does so.
That a story which is composed of multiple sources, as David’s
surely is, might have more than one theme, seems rather likely.
Indeed, this is recognized by David Clines in relation to the
Pentateuch, even if he insists that one theme must be primary and
others subsumed within it.43 This latter assumption is less evident in
Gunn’s treatment of David’s story, which also argues for an
overarching theme of the ‘giving and grasping’ of the kingdom,
without explicitly insisting on its priority or primacy.44 Indeed, it
seems probable that the story of David as a whole might be about a
variety of things at a thematic level, including, for instance,
‘relinquishing and receiving’ (Brueggeman’s variation on Gunn’s
theme), as well as ‘knowledge’ (so Noll and Alter). If so, it might be
useful to think of assertions of the priority of a particular theme as
answering not merely the question what is the story of David really
about, but rather which of a variety of themes is this story more
about?
Certainly, such a question makes some sense at the level of
character, as most would agree that the story of David is more about
David than it is about, for instance, Mephibosheth, or even more
significant characters like Absalom. So too at the level of plot, the
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counsellor.
No one spoke a word in the vast and crowded building, as we
made our way down into the arena first, and then up the gradients to
the seats allotted to us. In the shadows behind and all around, my
eyes, becoming accustomed to the gloom, distinguished a crowd of
moving figures, with here and there a glint of helmet and shield.
The silence was becoming weird and almost oppressive. We were
all standing, except the Pharaoh, who looked terribly cadaverous
beneath the gorgeous diadem which he wore. At last Ur-tasen,
raising has hands up towards the starlit sky, began to recite a long
and solemn prayer. It was an invocation to all the gods of Egypt—of
whom I noticed there was a goodly number—for righteousness,
justice and impartiality. The solemn Egyptians in white robes, who, I
concluded, were perhaps the jury, spoke the responses in nasal,
sleepy tones.
While Ur-tasen prayed, a number of slaves, who were naked save
for a white veil wound tightly round their heads, were going about
carrying large trays, from which each member of the jury one by one
took something, which I discovered to be a branch of lotus blossom.
This each man touched with his forehead as he spoke the
responses, and then held solemnly in his right hand.
We were, of course, deeply interested in the proceedings: the
mode of administering justice in every country is the surest keynote
to the character of its people. Here a decided savour of mysticism
accompanied it; the peculiar hour of the night, the weird light of the
moon, the white draperies, the hooded slaves even, all spoke of a
people whose every thought tended towards the picturesque.
But now Ur-tasen had finished speaking. The last response had
been uttered, and silence once again reigned within the mysterious
hall. A herald came forth with long silver trumpet, and stood in the
centre of the arena, with the light of the moon shining full upon him.
He raised his trumpet skywards and blew a deafening blast. Then
three times he called a name in a loud voice,—“Har-sen-tu! Har-sen-
tu! Har-sen-tu!” and every time he called he was answered by a
flourish of trumpets from three different ends of the buildings,
accompanied by the loud cry:
“Is he there? Is he there? Is he there?”
 The herald then added:
“Let him come forthwith, with all his sins, before the judgment-seat
of the holy Pharaoh, and in the immediate presence of him whom
Osiris has sent down from heaven, the son of Ra, the beloved of the
gods. Let him come without fear, but let him come covered with
remorse.”
Evidently Har-sen-tu was the first criminal to be tried in our
presence in the great hall of Men-ne-fer. There was a stir among the
crowd, and from out the shadows a curious group detached itself
and came forward slowly and silently. There were men and women,
also two or three children, all dressed in black, and some had their
heads entirely swathed in thick dark veils. In the midst of them,
carried by four men, was the criminal, he who, covered with sins,
was to stand forth before the Pharaoh for judgment, mercy or
pardon. That criminal was the dead body of a man, swathed in white
linen wrappings, through which the sharp features were clearly
discernible. The men who had carried it propped the corpse up in the
middle of the building, facing the Pharaoh, until it stood erect, weird
and ghostlike, stiff and white, sharply outlined by the brilliant moon
against the dense black of the shadows behind, while round, in
picturesque groups, a dozen or so men and women knelt and stood,
the women weeping, the children crouching awed and still, the men
solemn and silent.
And the Pharaoh, with his high priest, the three learned judges,
the numerous jury, sat in solemn judgment upon the dead.
From amidst the group a man came forward, and in quiet,
absolutely passionless tones, began recounting the sins of the
deceased.
“He owned three houses,” he said, “and twenty-five oxen; he had
at one time seventy sheep, and his cows gave him milk in plenty. His
fields were rich in barley and wheat, and he found gold dust amidst
the shingle by the stream close to his house. And yet,” continued the
accuser, “I, his mother’s sister’s child, asked him to lend me a few
pieces of money, also the loan of his cow since my child was sick
and needed the milk, and he refused me, though I asked him thrice;
and all the while he loaded Suem-ka, his concubine, with jewels and
with gold, although Isis had pronounced no marriage blessing upon
their union.”
It took this speaker some little time to recount all the misdeeds of
the dead man, his hardness of heart, his negligences, and the frauds
he had perpetrated: and, above all, his unlawful passion for Suem-
ka, who had been his slave and had become his mistress.
When he had finished a woman came forward, and she, in her
turn, related how she had vainly begged of the rich man to repent
him of his sins and cast the vile slave from him, but he had driven
her away, though he was her own brother, roughly from his door.
There were several accusers who spoke of the dead man’s sins, and
each, when they had finished their tale, added solemnly:
“Therefore do I crave of thee, oh, most holy Pharaoh! of thee, who
dost deliver judgment in the name of Ra, all-creating, of Horus, all-
interceding, and of Osiris, bounty-giving, that thou dost decree that
Har-sen-tu’s body is unfit for preservation, lest it should remain as an
abode for his villainous soul and allow it to rise again in after years to
perpetrate further frauds and cruelties.”
While the accusers spoke there were no protestations on the part
of the mourners, who crowded round their dead. Once or twice a
sob, quickly checked, escaped one of the women’s throats. Judges
and jury listened in solemn silence, and when no more was
forthcoming to speak of the sins of Har-sen-tu, the defenders of the
silent criminal had their say.
His friends and relations evidently, those who had benefited by his
wealth or had not suffered through his hardness. Those too,
perhaps, who had something to gain through the rich man’s death.
The most interesting witness for this strange defence was
undoubtedly Suem-ka, the slave. She was a fine, rather coarse-
looking girl, with large dark eyes and full figure. She was entirely
wrapped in the folds of a thick black veil, but her arms and hands, as
she raised them imploringly towards the Pharaoh, and swore before
Isis that she had never been aught but a lowly handmaiden to her
dead master, were, I noticed, covered with rings and gems.
The rich man had many friends. They formed a veritable phalanx
round his corpse, defying the outraged relatives, confronting his
enemies, and entreating for him the right of embalming, of holy
sepulture, so that his body might be kept pure and undefiled from
decay, ready to once more receive the soul, when it had concluded
its wanderings in the shadowland where dwelleth Anubis and Hor,
and Ra, the Most High.
I felt strangely impressed by this curious pleading for one so silent
and so still, who seemed to stand there in awesome majesty, hearing
accusation and defence with the same contemptuous solemnity, the
same dignity of eternal sleep.
When accusers and defenders had had their say, there was a long
moment of silence: then the three judges rose and recapitulated the
sins and virtues of the dead man. Personally, I must confess that,
had I been on the jury, I should have found it very difficult to give any
opinion on the case. Suem-ka, the slave, with her arms and hands
covered with jewels, was, to my mind, the strongest witness against
the master whom she tried to shield. But then it did not transpire that
the deceased had had a wife, or had any children. The numerous
jury, however, seemed to have made up their minds very quickly.
When the last of the judges had finished speaking, they all rose from
their seats and some held the lotus flower, which they had in their
hand, high over their heads, while the others—and I noticed that
these were decidedly in the minority—dropped the blossom to the
ground.
The judges took count and pronounced a solemn “Ay,” and Suem-
ka, overcome with emotion, fell sobbing at the feet of the dead man.
After this Ur-tasen rose and delivered judgment upon the dead.
“Har-sen-tu! Har-sen-tu! Har-sen-tu! rejoice! The holy Pharaoh has
heard thy sins! But the gods have whispered mercy into the air. Isis
smileth down in joy upon thee.
“Har-sen-tu! Har-sen-tu! Har-sen-tu! go forth from the judgment-
seat of the holy Pharaoh, to face fearlessly the more majestic, more
mysterious throne of Osiris!
“Har-sen-tu! Har-sen-tu! Har-sen-tu! may Anubis, the jackal-
headed god, guide thee! may Horus intercede for thee and Osiris
receive thee in the glorious vault of heaven, where dwelleth Ra, and
where is neither sin nor disease, sorrow nor tears! Har-sen-tu, thou
art pure!”
 A scribe handed him a document which he placed before the
Pharaoh, who with his usual contemptuous listlessness placed his
seal upon it. Then I saw the high priest hesitate one moment, while
the scribe waited and the Pharaoh shrugged his shoulders, laughing
in his derisive way. Hugh smiled. I think we both guessed the cause
of the high priest’s hesitation. Ur-tasen was frowning, and looking
now at Hugh, and now at the document in his hand; but Suem-ka,
the slave, happy in her triumph, ended the suspense by shouting:
“Thy hand upon the seal, oh, beloved of the gods!”
With a slight frown Ur-tasen ordered the scribe to hand the
document across to Hugh, who placed his name beside that of the
Pharaoh in bold hieroglyphic characters:

Then the parchment was handed over by one of the judges to the
relatives of the deceased, who, as silently as they had come, retired,
bearing their dead away with them. The laws of Kamt had granted
them leave to perform the last and solemn rites of embalming the
body of their kinsman, and making the body a fitting habitation for
the soul until such time as it should return once more upon earth
from the land of shadows.
And the herald again called thrice upon a name, and again the
dead was arraigned before the living, his virtues extolled by his
friends, his sins magnified by his enemies; but in this case he was
deemed unworthy of embalming; the soul should find no more that
dwelling-place which had been the abode of cruelty and of fraud, of
lying and of cheating, and it should be left to wander homeless in the
dark shadows of death till it had sunk, a lifeless atom, merged in the
immeasurable depths of Nu, the liquid chaos which is annihilation.
The wailing of the relatives of this condemned corpse was truly
pitiable: the law had decreed upon the evil-doer the sentence of
eternal death.
Two more cases were dealt with in the same way. Mr. Tankerville
had often in his picturesque way related to us this judgment of the
dead practised in ancient Egypt, and I remember once having seen a
picture representing the circular hall, the judges and the accused;
but, as in everything else in this wonderful land, how infinitely more
mystic, more poetic was the reality than the imagining. The hour of
the night, the crescent moon above, the silent and solemn corpse,
the most dignified in still majesty amidst all those who dared to judge
him, all this made a picture which has remained one of the most
vivid, the most cherished, in my mind.
 CHAPTER XI.
THE TRIAL OF KESH-TA, THE SLAVE

Then came the turn of the living.

Once more the herald called a name—a woman’s—three times:
“Kesh-ta! Kesh-ta! Kesh-ta!” and thrice the cry resounded:
“Is she there? Is she there? Is she there?”
But this time there were no reassuring words about mercy and
fearlessness. The living evidently were more harshly dealt with in
Kamt than the dead.
Pushed and jostled by a couple of men, her hands tied behind her
back, a rope round her neck, a woman suddenly appeared in the
circle of light. Her eyes roamed wildly round, half-defiant, half-
terrified; her hair hung tangled over her shoulders, and the whole of
one side of her face was one ugly gaping wound.
“Who and what art thou?” demanded the judges.
The woman did not reply. She looked to me half a maniac, and
wholly irresponsible; but the men behind her prodded her with their
spears, till she fell upon her knees. Hugh had frowned, his own
special ugly frown. I could see that he would not stand this sort of
thing very long, and I held myself ready to restrain him, if I could,
from doing anything rash, or to lend him a helping hand if he refused
to be restrained.
Suddenly his attention and mine was arrested by a name, and
wondering, we listened, spell-bound by its strange and
unaccountable magic.
The judges had peremptorily repeated:
“Answer! Who and what art thou?”
“I am Kesh-ta,” replied the woman, with surly defiance, “and I am a
slave of Princess Neit-akrit.”
“Why art thou here?”
“Because I hate her,” she half hissed, half shouted, as she turned
her ghastly wounded face to the moonlight, as if to bear witness to
the evil passion in her heart.
 “Take care, woman,” warned the judges, “lest thy sacrilegious
tongue bring upon thee judgment more terrible than thou hast
hitherto deserved.”
She laughed a strange, weird, maniacal laugh, and said:
“That cannot be, oh, learned and wisest of the judges of Kamt.
Dost think perchance that thy mind can conceive or thy cruelty
devise a more horrible punishment than that which I endured
yesterday, when my avenging hands tried to reach her evil form and
failed, for want of strength and power?”
“Be silent! and hear from the lips of thy accusers the history of the
heinous sin which thou didst commit yesterday, and for which the
high priest of Ra will anon deliver judgment upon thee.”
“Nay! I will not be silent, and I will not hear! I will tell thee and the
holy Pharaoh, and him who has come from heaven to live amongst
the people of Kamt, I will tell them all of my sin. Let them hate and
loathe me, let them punish me if they will; the Pharaoh is mighty and
the gods are great, but all the powers of heaven and the might of the
throne cannot inflict more suffering on Kesh-ta than she has already
endured.”
“Be silent!” again thundered the judges; and at a sign from them
the two men quickly wound a cloth round the unfortunate woman’s
mouth and a few yards of rope round her body. Thus forcibly silent,
pinioned and helpless, she knelt there before her judges, defiant
and, I thought, crazy, while her accuser began slowly to read the
indictment.
“Kesh-ta, the low-born slave, who has neither father nor mother,
nor brother nor sister, for she is the property of the most pure and
great, the Princess Neit-akrit of the house of Memmoun-ra.
“The gods gave her a son, who through the kindness of the noble
princess became versed in many arts, and being a skilled craftsman
was much esteemed by the great Neit-akrit, of the house of
Memmoun-ra.
“Yesterday, whilst Sem-no-tha knelt before the great princess,
whilst she deigned to speak to her slave, Kesh-ta, his mother, crept
close behind him, and slew her son with her own hand before the
eyes of Neit-akrit, the young and pure princess, and then with the
blood of the abject slave his murderess smeared the garments of
Neit-akrit, causing her to turn sick and faint with loathing.
“Therefore I, the public accuser, do hereby demand, in the name
of the people of Kamt, both freeborn and slave, that this woman, for
this grievous sin she committed, be for ever cast out from the
boundaries of the land; that her body be given as a prey to the
carrion that dwell in the wilderness of the valley of death, so that the
jackals and the vultures might consume the very soul which, abject
and base, had conceived so loathsome a crime.”
There was dead silence after this; I could see Hugh, with clenched
hands and lips tightly set, ready at any cost to prevent the terrible
and awful deed, the consequences of which we had already
witnessed in the lonely desert beyond the gates of Kamt. The
Pharaoh had turned positively livid; amidst his white draperies he
looked more ghostlike and dead than the corpses which had just
now stood before us; Khefaran’s face was still impassive.
Then the judges said solemnly:
“Take the gag off the woman’s mouth; it is her turn to speak now.”
I heaved a sigh of relief. There was a great sense of fairness in
this proceeding, which, for the moment, relieved the tension on my
overwrought nerves. I saw that Hugh, too, was prepared to wait and
listen to what the woman would have to say.
The gag had been removed, and yet Kesh-ta did not speak; it
seemed as if she had ceased to be conscious of her surroundings.
“Woman, thou hast heard the accusation pronounced against
thee: what hast thou to say?”
She looked at the judges, and at the crowd of men, on whose
faces she could see nothing but loathing and horror, then suddenly
her wild and wandering gaze rested upon Hugh, and with a loud
shriek she wrenched her arms from out her bonds, and stretched
them towards him, crying:
“Thou, beloved of the gods, hear me! I ask for no pardon, no
mercy! Remember death, however horrible, is life to me; the arid
wilderness, wherein the gods do not dwell, where bones of evil-doers
lie rotting beneath the sun, will be to me an abode of bliss, for
inaccessible mountains will lie between me and her. There, before
grim and slowly-creeping death overtakes me, I shall have time to
rejoice that I, with my own hands, saved Sem-no-tha, my son, my
beloved, from the same terrible doom. He was a slave, abject at her
feet, but he was tall and handsome, and she smiled on him. And
dost know what happens when Neit-akrit smiles upon a man, be he
freeborn or be he slave? He loses his senses, he becomes
intoxicated, a coward and a perjurer, and his reason goeth forth—a
vagabond—out of his body. Hast heard of Amen-het, the architect,
oh, beloved of the gods? hast heard that for a smile from her he
perjured himself and committed such dire sacrilege that Osiris
himself veiled his countenance for one whole day because of it, until
Amen-het was cast out of Kamt, to perish slowly and miserably body
and soul. And I saw Sem-no-tha at the feet of Neit-akrit! I saw her
smile on him, and knew that he was doomed; knew that to see her
smile again he would lie and he would cheat, would sell his soul for
her and die an eternal death, and I, his mother, who loved him above
all, who had but him in all the world, preferred to see him dead at my
feet, than damned before the judgment-seat of the Most High!
“Ay! I am guilty of murder,” she continued more excitedly than
ever, “I have nothing to say! I slew Sem-no-tha, the slave of Neit-
akrit!—Her property!—Not mine!—I am only his mother—and am too
old, too weary to smile! Beloved of the gods, they did not tell thee all
my sins; they did not tell thee that when I saw Sem-no-tha lying dead
at my feet, and Neit-akrit kneeling by his side, while a tear of pity for
her handsome slave fell upon his white and rigid form, that with the
knife still warm with his blood, I tried to mar for ever the beauty of her
face. I had no wish to kill her, only to make upon that ivory white
flesh a hideous scar that would make her smile seem like the
grimace of death. But Fano-tu stopped my arm ready to strike, and
to punish me he, with his own hand, made upon my face this gaping
wound, such as I had longed to make on that of Neit-akrit. You may
condemn me—nay, you must cast me out of Kamt, for if you do not I
tell you that were you to bury me beneath the tallest pyramid the
proud Pharaohs have built for themselves, and set the entire
population of Kamt to guard it and me, I yet would creep out and find
my way to her, and I tell you Kesh-ta would not fail twice.”
Exhausted, she sank back, half fainting, on the ground, while
deathlike silence reigned around; one by one every member of the
jury dropped his lotus flower before him, and the judges, having
taken count, pronounced solemnly the word “Guilty!”
Then Ur-tasen rose and delivered judgment.
“Kesh-ta! Kesh-ta! Kesh-ta! thou art accursed! Thy crime is
heinous before the gods! Thy very thoughts pollute the land of Kamt.
“Kesh-ta! Kesh-ta! Kesh-ta! thou art accursed. Be thy name for
ever erased from the land that bare thee. May the memory of thee
be cast out of the land, for thou art trebly accursed.
“Kesh-ta! Kesh-ta! Kesh-ta! thou are accursed! The gods decree
that thou be cast out for ever beyond the gates of Kamt, into the
valley of death, where dwell neither bird nor beast, where neither
fruit nor tree doth grow, and where thy soul and body, rotting in the
arid sand, shall become a prey for ever to the loathsome carrion of
the desert.”
Kesh-ta’s answer to this terrible fiat was one loud and prolonged
laugh. I felt almost paralysed with the horror of the scene. My mind
persistently conjured up before me the vision of the lonely desert
strewn with whitening bones, the vultures and screeching jackals,
and the loathsome cannibal who once had been just such a living,
breathing, picturesque man as these now before me. The woman’s
crime was horrible, but she was human, and above all, she was a
woman. Trouble seemed to have unhinged her mind, and the
thought to me was loathsome that so irresponsible a being should
suffer such appalling punishment.
Already Ur-tasen had handed up to the Pharaoh the document
that confirmed the awful sentence, and the sick, almost dying, man
prepared, with trembling hand, to give his royal assent to the
monstrous deed, when, in a moment, Hugh was on his feet: he had
shaken off the torpor, which, with grim horror, had also paralysed his
nerves, and drawing his very tall British stature to its full height, he
placed a restraining hand on that of the priest.
“Man!” he said in loud tones, which went echoing through the
vastness of the building, “where is thy justice? Look at that woman
whom thou hast just condemned to tortures so awful which not even
thou, learned as thou art, canst possibly conceive.”
The judges and the jury had one and all risen from their seats and
were staring awestruck at Hugh, who at this moment, tall and white
amidst these dark sons of the black land, looked truly like some
being of another world. The Pharaoh had, after the first moment of
astonishment, quietly shrugged his shoulders, as if he cared little
what the issue of this strange dispute might be between the stranger
and the all-powerful high priest. Ur-tasen alone had preserved
perfect composure and dignified solemnity. Quietly he folded his
arms across his chest and said:
“I, who am vowed to the service of Ra, am placed here upon earth
that I might enforce obedience to his laws.”
“Nay! not to the word, man, to the spirit,” rejoined Hugh.
“Remember Ra’s decree transmitted to Mena, the founder of this
great kingdom, through the mouth of Horus himself:—‘Be just, oh,
man! but, above all, be merciful!’ ”
“Remember, too, oh, well-beloved of the gods, that same decree
which sayeth:—‘Let no man shed the blood of man, in quarrel,
revenge, or any other cause, for he who sheddeth the blood of man,
his blood, too, shall be shed.’ ”
“But Kesh-ta is irresponsible, half deprived of her reason by
sorrow and the terrible mutilation which the hand of an inhuman
slave-driver inflicted upon her. To throw a human creature in such a
state in the midst of an arid wilderness without food or drink, as a
punishment for a crime which her hand committed, but not her mind,
is barbarous, monstrous, cruel, unworthy the great people of Kamt.”
“Let no man shed the blood of man,” repeated the high priest,
solemnly, “in quarrel, revenge, or any other cause. Hast mission, oh,
beloved of Osiris, to upset the decrees of the gods?”
“Nay! I am here to follow the laws of the gods, as well as all the
people of Kamt, but thou, oh, Pharaoh,” he added, turning to the sick
man, “knowest what physical ailments are, knowest how terrible they
are to bear. Think of the moments of the worst pain thou hast ever
endured, and think of them magnified a thousandfold, and then thou
wilt fall far short of the slow and lingering torture to which thou
wouldst subject this half-crazed woman.”
“Let no man shed the blood of man,” repeated the high priest for
the third time, with more solemnity and emphasis, for he noticed, just
as I did, that Hugh’s powerful appeal, his picturesque—to them,
mysterious—presence was strongly influencing the judges and the
jury and all the spectators. One by one the pink lotus blossoms were
lifted upwards, the judges whispered to one another, the men ceased
to buffet and jostle the unfortunate woman.
“Oh, ye who are called upon to decide if a criminal be guilty or
not,” adjured Ur-tasen, stretching his long gaunt arms towards the
multitude, “pause, before you allow cowardly sentiment to mar your
justice and your righteousness. Who is there among you here who
hath not seen our beautiful Princess Neit-akrit? Who hath not gazed
with love and reverence upon the young and exquisite face which
Isis herself hath given her? And who is there among you who,
remembering her beauty, doth not shudder with infinite loathing at
the thought of that face disfigured by the sacrilegious hand of a low-
born slave, of those eyes rendered sightless, of the young lips stilled
by death? Oh, well-beloved of Osiris,” he added, turning again
towards Hugh, “from the foot of the throne of the gods perchance
thou didst not perceive how exquisitely fair is this greatest of the
daughters of Kamt whom thy presence hath deprived of a throne. Is
not thy godlike sire, whose emissary thou art, satisfied? And in
addition to wrenching the double crown of Kamt from her queenly
brow, wouldst take her life, her smile, her sweetness, too?”
Ur-tasen, with wonderful cunning, had played a trump-card, and
no doubt poor old Hugh was in a tight corner. His position towards
the defrauded princess was at best a very ticklish one, and on the
principle that the son of Ra could do no wrong, it was imperative that
not the faintest suspicion should fasten on him that he bore any ill-
will towards his future kinswoman. I wondered what Hugh would do. I
knew my friend out and out, and there was that in his face which told
me plainly that the unfortunate Kesh-ta would not be “cast out” from
the gates of Kamt.
There must have been some subtle magic in the name of Neit-
akrit, for Ur-tasen’s appeal had quickly and completely done its work.
One by one the lotus blossoms had again been dropped, and the
judges simultaneously repeated:
“Death! Death! Death!”
The wretched woman alone among those present seemed not to
take the slightest interest in the proceedings. She crouched in a
heap in the centre of the hall, and the moonlight showed us at fitful
intervals her great, wild eyes, her quivering mouth, and the hideous
wound made by the cruel hand of Fano-tu.
“Death be it then,” said Hugh, determinedly. “She has killed, and
dreams yet to kill. Sinful and dangerous, let her be removed from
Kamt, but by a quick and sudden act of justice, not by the slow
tortures of inhuman revenge.”
“Let no man shed the blood of man,” once again repeated the high
priest with obvious triumph, “in quarrel, revenge, or any other cause.”
These last words he emphasised with cutting directness, then he
added:
“Thou sayest, oh, well-beloved of the gods, that thou dost honour
the laws of thy sire; remember that he who sheddeth the blood of
man, his blood, too, shall be shed.”
And placing the document once again before the Pharaoh, he said
commandingly, though with outward humility:
“Wilt deign to place thy seal, oh, holy Pharaoh, on this decree
which shall expel from out the gates of Kamt the murdering vermin
that even now crawls at thy feet?”
But with characteristic impulsiveness, and before I could restrain
him, Hugh had snatched the paper from out the high priest’s hand,
and tearing it across he threw it on the ground and placed his foot
upon it.
“Not while I stand on the black soil of Kamt,” he said quietly.
Breathless all had watched the stirring scene before them.
Superstition, reverence, terror, all were depicted on the faces of the
spectators. No one had dared to raise a voice or a finger, even when
Hugh committed this daring act. The Pharaoh had turned, if possible,
even more livid than before, and I could see a slight froth appearing
at the corners of his mouth; he made no movement, however, and
after a while took up his apes and began teasing them, laughing
loudly and drily to himself. I fancied that he a little bit enjoyed Ur-
tasen’s subtle position. The high priest still stood impassive, with
folded arms, and repeated for the fourth time:
“The laws of Ra given unto Mena commandeth that he who sheds
the blood of man, his blood, too, shall be shed. By no hand of man
can the criminal’s blood be shed. The vultures of the wilderness, the
hyenas and the jackals that dwell in the valley of death must shed
the blood of the murderess, that the decrees of Ra and Osiris and
Horus be implicity fulfilled.”
Then he turned to the Pharaoh and added:
“Is it thy will, oh, holy Pharaoh, that the laws prescribed by the
gods follow their course, as they have done since five times a
thousand years? Is it thy will that the base and low vermin which
crawleth at thy feet be allowed to go free and fulfill her murderous
promises, and be a living danger to thy illustrious kinswoman, whom
it is the duty of all the rulers of Kamt to cherish and protect? Or dost
thou decree that in accordance with the will of Ra, who alloweth no
man to shed the blood of man, she shall be cast out for ever from the
land of Kamt, and her sinful blood feed the carrion birds and beasts
of the arid valley of death?”
The Pharaoh gave an indifferent shrug of the shoulders, as if the
matter had ceased to concern him at all. This Ur-tasen interpreted as
a royal assent, for he commanded:
“Take the woman away and bind her with ropes. Let twenty men
stand round to guard her, lest she fulfil her impious threat. Let her
neither sleep, nor eat, nor drink. To-morrow, at break of day, when
the first rays of Osiris peep behind the hills, she shall be led forth
through the mysterious precincts of the temple of Ra and cast out
through the gates of Kamt for ever into the wilderness.”
“By all the gods of heaven, earth or hell,” said Hugh, very quietly, “I
declare unto you that she shall not.”
And before I could stop him he had literally bounded forward, and
slipping past the dumfounded judge and jury had reached the centre
of the hall and was stooping over the prostrate woman.
It was a terrible moment, an eternity of awful suspense to me. I did
not know what Hugh would do, dared not think of what any rashness
on his part might perhaps entail.
“Touch her not, oh, beloved of the gods,” shouted Ur-tasen,
warningly; “she has been judged and found guilty; her touch is
pollution. The gods by my mouth have decreed her fate.”
“Her fate is beyond thy ken and thy decree, oh, man,” said Hugh,
with proud solemnity, as once again his tall stature towered above
them all, “and she now stands before a throne where all is mercy
and there is no revenge.”
 The men round had stooped and tried to lift the prostrate woman.
She turned her face upwards to Hugh; the ashen shade over it was
unmistakable; it was that of the dying, but in her eyes, as she looked
at him, there came, as a last flicker of life, a spark of the deepest, the
most touching, gratitude.
Then softly at first, but gradually more and more distinctly, the
whisper was passed round:
“She is dead!”
And in the moonlight all of us there could see on the woman’s
dress a fast-spreading, large stain of blood.
“He who sheddeth the blood of man,” came in thundering accents
from the high priest, “his blood shall be shed. People of Kamt, who
stand here before the face of Isis, I command ye to tell me whose
hand spilt the blood of that woman.”
“Mine,” said Hugh, quietly, throwing his knife far from him, which
fell, with weird and metallic jingle, upon the granite floor. “The hand
of him whom Ra has sent among you all, the hand of him whom
Osiris loveth, who has come to rule over you, bringing you a
message from the foot of the throne of your god. Touch him, any of
you, if you dare!”
Shuddering, awestruck, all gazed upon him, while I, blindly,
impetuously, rushed to his side, to be near him, to ward off the blow
which I felt convinced would fall upon his daring head, or share it
with him if I were powerless to save. I don’t think that I ever admired
him so much as I did then—I who had often seen him recoil with
horror at thought of killing a beast, who understood the extraordinary,
almost superhuman sacrifice it must have cost him, to free with his
own hand this wretched woman from her awful doom.
But with all his enthusiasm, scientific visionary as he was, Hugh
Tankerville knew human nature well, knew that, awestruck with their
own superstition, they no more would have dared to touch him then
than they would have desecrated one of their own gods. There was
long and deathlike silence while Hugh stood before them all with
hand raised upwards in a gesture of command and defiance; then,
slowly, one by one, the judges and the jury and all the assembled
multitude fell forward upon their faces and kissed the granite floor,
while a low murmur went softly echoing through the pillars of the hall:
 “Oh, envoy of Osiris! Beloved of the gods!”
Then I looked towards Ur-tasen and saw that the high priest, too,
had knelt down like the others. Hugh had conquered for the moment,
through the superstition of these strange people and the magic of his
personality, but I dared not think of what the consequences of his
daring act might be.
Without another word he beckoned to me to follow him, and
together we went out of the judgment-hall of Men-ne-fer.
 CHAPTER XII.
THE CROWN OF KAMT

Hugh needed much of my skill when we got back to the palace that
night and were rid of our attendants, safe in our own privacy. The
strain must have been terrible for him to bear. His constitution was a
veritable bundle of nerves; these had been strained almost to
breaking, both in his fight with Ur-tasen and during the awful moment
when, for the sake of a principle, he stained his hand with the blood
of a fellow-creature.
As soon as we were alone I went up to him and grasped that hand
with all the warmth and affection which my admiration for him
commanded, and I felt strangely moved when, in response, I saw in
his great dark eyes a soft look of tenderness and of gratitude. He
knew I had understood him, and I think he was satisfied. Gently, as a
sick child, he allowed me to attend to him; fortunately, through the
many vicissitudes which ultimately brought us to this wondrous land,
I had never discarded my small, compact, portable medicine-chest,
and I soon found a remedy for the poor, tired-out aching nerves.
“There now, that’s better, isn’t it, Girlie?” I said when he was at last
lying, quietly and comfortably, on the couch, and there was less
unnatural brilliancy in his eyes.
“You are awfully good to me, Mark, old chap,” he said. “I am
ashamed to have broken down so completely. You will think that I
deserve more than ever my old schoolboy nickname.”
“Yes! Sawnie Girlie you are,” I said with a laugh, “and Sawnie
Girlie you have ever proved yourself—particularly lately. But now I
forbid you to talk—most emphatically—and command you to go to
sleep. I will not have you ill, remember. Where should I be without
you?”
“Oh, I shall be all right. Don’t worry about me, old chap, and I
assure you that I have every intention of going to sleep, particularly if
you will do ditto. But, Mark, is it not strange how the mysterious
personality of Neit-akrit seems to haunt every corner of this land?”
 “That old Ur-tasen seems to me, somehow, to play a double game,
and I am positively shocked at so old and venerable a personage
getting so enthusiastic over the beauty of a girl young enough to be
his granddaughter. I call him a regular old rip.”
“She certainly seems to have the power to arouse what is basest
in every woman, be she queen like my bride, or slave like poor Kesh-
ta, to make fools of men and cowards of the Pharaoh and his priest.”
“I think that after all your queen may have had the best idea: a
woman who has so much power is best put out of harm’s way. There
are no nunneries in this pagan land, but you had best accede to
Queen Maat-kha’s wish, and command Princess Neit-akrit to
become the priestess of some god.”
“Then she would set to work to demoralise all the priests,” said
Hugh, with a laugh, “and finally upset the gravity of the high priest. I
must find her a husband, Mark; the cares of maternity will sober her
soon enough. I wish you would take her off my hands.”
The next day, at a solemn council, at which the Queen, Ur-tasen
and ourselves were present, and which was held within the precincts
of the temple of Ra, the high priest seemed entirely to have forgotten
the events of the night. He greeted Hugh with solemn and dignified
respect, and it was impossible to read on his parchment-like face
what his thoughts were with regard to the beloved of the gods. I
could not make up my mind whether he did or did not believe the
story of Ra and of the soul of Khefren, and at times I would see his
shrewd eyes fixed upon Hugh and myself with an expression I could
not altogether define. Somehow I mistrusted him, in spite of the fact
that his manner towards Hugh, throughout the council, was
deferential and respectful, even to obsequiousness. Hugh, I could
see, was on his guard and spoke little. Affairs of finance were mostly
discussed. It evidently was Ur-tasen’s business to collect the reports
of the governors and officials on matters agricultural, financial or
religious, and to lay them before his sovereign. He seemed to be the
“Bismarck” of this picturesque land, and to my mind it was unlikely
that he meant to share the power which he had wielded for so long
with any stranger, be he descended from the heavens above or not,
and in the great trial of the unfortunate slave he had been publicly
and absolutely discomfited.
 At the same time, whatever might be the game he meant to play,
he hid his cards well for the present, and neither made suggestion
nor offered criticism, without referring both to Hugh.
Queen Maat-kha, attired in her sombre yet gorgeous black, looked
more radiant and beautiful than ever. She made no effort to hide the
deep and passionate love she felt for her future lord; she had
probably heard of the episode of the night, but, if she had, Hugh’s
daring action had but enhanced her pride in him.
Most of the day was again spent in visiting temples and public
buildings, and in receiving various dignitaries of the city. The
representatives of various crafts and trades came in turn to offer to
the beloved of the gods some exquisite piece of their workmanship,
or object of art, fashioned by their hands: goldsmiths’ and jewellers’
work, smiths’ or turners’ treasures, which, I felt, would one day adorn
the cases of the British Museum, and the barbarous splendours of
which were a veritable feast to the eye.
We did not see the sick Pharaoh throughout the whole of that day.
Once or twice we caught sight of his rose-coloured litter, with its
gorgeous crown of gold, being borne along among the acacia alleys
of the park, and we heard his harsh, sarcastic laugh echoing down
the alabaster corridors; but he took no notice of either Hugh or
myself, and did not appear at either council or reception. The mighty
Pharaoh was sick unto death, and men with shaven crowns, in long
green robes—the representatives of the medical profession of Kamt
—were alone admitted to his presence.
Late that night we sat at table in the vast supper-hall. At the head
of it, on a raised daïs covered with heavy folds of rich black tissue,
Queen Maat-kha sat, with Hugh by her side. I was at her right, and
behind each of us a tall swarthy slave waved a gigantic ostrich
feather fan of many colours, stirring the air gently over our heads.
Through the massive alabaster columns there stretched out before
us the bower of palms and acacias, among which the newly-risen
moon threw dark and mysterious shadows. On the marble floor there
stalked about majestic pink flamingoes, while around the columns
fair musicians squatted, drawing forth from their quaint crescent-
shaped harps sweet and monotonous tones. Only one lamp, low and
dim, in which burned sweet-scented oil, illumined with fitful light the