THE ESCAPE FROM KOSSEIR

     IT WAS the siesta time when Maru came down to the docks and found the Nubian porters lounging in the shade while they refreshed themselves with flat, dry cakes of bread and muddy water. They watched him lazily as he strolled past the boats by the landing, casting over them an anxious glance which he vainly endeavored to conceal. "Look at the little scribe," called one of them to another jeeringly. "How neat he looks in his pretty white kilt and with his pen behind his ear!"
      "See him blush!" remarked a second, spitting out a stone he had found in his bread and stretching out a long arm for the water. "That's right, my dear! Take out the sweet pen now and throw it away! Did they beat your poor little back until you ran off to go for a soldier? What a shame!"
      This being rather near the truth, Maru blushed more hotly than ever and walked away, fairly breaking into a run as one group of Nubians after another began to laugh.
      "Now then, boy! Look where you are going," cried a solid citizen, catching him by the arm as he raced toward an alley. "Can't a man come peacefully down to his boat without being knocked right off the wharf?"
      "You have a boat?" stammered Maru. "Do you -- do you need a boy?"
      "Of course not," said the solid man contemptuously. "Go home to Mother." He turned Maru's face toward the alley and gave a strong push which sent him flying. Maru could hear the Nubians roar as he disappeared from view.
      "So you want to run away, do you, my boy?" asked a hoarse voice as Maru was using the edge of the offending white kilt to wipe the blood off his scraped knees. Maru looked up and arose slowly, uncertain how to answer and not much liking what he saw.
      The man standing over him was a very dark-colored Egyptian with a dash of Nubian blood visible in his thick lips and the heavy contour of his face. His legs were short and a little bowed, but a formidable chest and arms gave him a misshapen appearance, rather like one of those apes Pharaoh collected in tribute from time to time. He grinned, showing discolored teeth, and inquired once more in beery tones, "Want to see life and grow rich, is that it? How would you like to go with a caravan to Kosseir?"
      "Er -- I think I must go home now." Maru flattened himself against the wall of the alley and tried to sidle past him. The man put out a great, rough hand, and gripped his arm.
      "Oh no you don't! I thought you wanted to have adventures and see the world."  
      Maru squirmed and writhed, but without the slightest effect, until in desperation he bent down his head and bit at the back of the detaining hand.
      This produced a stunning box on the ear, followed by another and another. "You would, would you?" said the beery voice as things swam before him. "Take that to teach you a lesson, and come along with me." Maru felt himself dragged forward, seeing through a mist of tears the guffawing Nubians. He was pushed up a gangplank, felt a horny foot in his posterior, shot forward, hit his head against something hard, and for the moment knew no more.
      He was awakened by the sound of someone groaning from a dream in which one of the servants was giving him his daily bath. After a minute, he opened his eyes and the groaning stopped. A douche of water caught him full in the face before his eyes had time to focus, causing him to gasp and retch feebly, putting up a hand to cover his face.
      "I don't much like it," somebody was grumbling. "If I had my way we would drop him over the side and no questions asked. What possessed you to pick up a boy like that from the public dock?"
      "There he was just when I needed a boy," protested another. "Do you think I can afford to buy me a slave every time one happens to drop dead? Pass me the water."
      Maru opened his eyes and stared wildly at what came within his range of vision. He was lying somewhere in the back part of a boat, looking up at the legs of an Ethiopian, who stood on a small high platform handling the steering oar. Maru made a little movement to sit up, but desisted with a moan as he felt a sudden twinge of pain in his head.
      "What's your name, boy?" It was the dark man bending over him.
      "Maru.”
      "You have got a new master, Maru," said the dark man threateningly, "and in case you do not like it, here is my stick." He produced a stick and made whistling noises through the air. "Now are you going to lie here quiet and cause no trouble?"
      "Yes." Maru shut his aching eyes.
      "Leave the boy alone, Satmi," grumbled the other voice from behind him. "From the looks of him, you might just as well have thrown him to the crocodiles."
      "He'll be all right at Coptos," said Satmi carelessly. "You had better get some sleep, boy. Tomorrow there will be work."
      Maru drifted off into half-unconsciousness as the big boat swung down the river, vaguely aware of the bales of cargo on which he was lying and the pale stars in the evening sky above. Now and then a lookout man in the bows would warn of a sandbank, and the voice of the Ethiopian would arise in a half-chanted answer as he leaned upon the creaking oar. On these occasions Maru was roused from his vague slumber to notice that the moon was up, was high, or was waning as the night wore on. Before dawn he awoke completely, shivering and hungry, and sat up in the gray light to take stock of his surroundings.
      He was lying on a heap of old mats thrown down on top of some cargo so carefully swathed that its outlines were hardly visible. All around him lay jars of various shapes, piled in heaps on their sides and packed between bundles so closely that except on the rowers' benches and the little catwalk between them there was no clear space to be seen. A familiar creak from astern caused him to glance upward and catch sight of a patched brown sail gliding slowly past the edge of the boat. He jumped to his feet, picked his way carefully across the cargo, and knelt on a rowing bench to look out over the water. Not twenty yards off, another cargo boat was going upstream with the help of the wind. Maru actually opened his mouth to give a shout, but shut it again determinedly. Tears gathered in his eyes, however, as he watched the distance between the two boats increasing until the other disappeared around a big bend in the stream.

      "That's right," said an approving voice behind him. "If you had called out, they would have killed you. The captain is frightened that there may be trouble over you in Thebes."
      A Nubian boy of about Maru's own age was sitting behind him on the catwalk with his knees up to his chin, engaged in biting pieces off a lump of dark bread that looked as hard as any brick. He grinned as Maru gulped, put his bread down before him on the deck, and hammered off a sizable portion. "Here," he said abruptly, thrusting it at Maru. "Have something to eat."
      Maru took it without a word because his voice was not yet under control. He worried at it, succeeded in biting off a piece, and began to chew. It was not good, but it was quite sustaining. After he had ground up a few mouthfuls and swallowed them, he felt distinctly better.
      "Who are you?" he inquired, reflecting that he had never seen a more dusty, or more knobbly little figure in his life.
      The Nubian, whose mouth was stopped with bread, took a large, unchewed piece out in order to say concisely, "Donkey Boy," before he popped it back in and began to work on it.
      "What's your name, then?" persisted Maru.
      "That's what they call me, because I drive the donkeys. It's not a bad life, and plenty of masters are worse than Satmi is."
      "Shall I drive donkeys too?"
      "That's what I came to talk to you about," replied Donkey Boy, nodding his shock head solemnly at Maru. "A man like me has to look after his own interests, seeing that Satmi has worse than no sense at all when he has drunk a little beer. Think of picking you up like that on the wharf with all the porters watching! Why don't you go over the side before we all get into trouble about you? There's a landing on that shore." He pointed at a rickety little dock, near which a huddle of huts and a clump of untidy looking palms marked some sort of settlement. "Well, what about it?"
      Maru shook his head, "I can't go home," he said. "My uncle – “
      "Don't tell me!” interrupted Donkey Boy hastily. "I don't want to know who he is. A man like me has to keep himself out of trouble."
      "Don't worry," said Maru. "I think they may not come after me because there would be complications when I was found."
      Donkey Boy heaved a sigh of obvious relief. "It's not bad with the convoys," he said, pursing his lips judicially, "and when Satmi gets away from the beer shops, he's a good-tempered man. Can you use any weapons?"
      "Why, yes," said Maru, surprised at the question. "We were trained every day with the bow and arrow or the spear."
      "You'll do," said Donkey Boy grinning. "Ever handled a donkey?"
      "I've driven a horse."
      "You just wait," said Donkey Boy. "You just wait and see!
People were stirring in the cabin amidships and on the small forward platform. Maru learned that there were a couple of traders on board in addition to Satmi, besides the captain and the Ethiopians who made up the crew. There was nothing to do but to sit and warm in the sun, lazily watching the river and the various activities upon it. Women were already at their washing, and the clop of their regular beating could be heard around every little bend in the stream. Fishermen were out in tarred reed boats, or sometimes in larger ones in which half a dozen men would be splitting their fish and hanging them on the yards to dry in the sun. Market boats of all sizes filled with big grass baskets of produce were rowed by chattering men or women out of the mouths of irrigation canals. Traders passed up and down, loaded to the very roof of their cabins. The abusive shouts of boatmen rose in the air, mingled with the lowing of cattle, and the chanting of oarsmen. On the bank in rough temporary stocks a big wooden boat was being constructed. Farther down came another, and another. The brown or whitewashed walls of houses began to appear instead of fields. Far off in the distance a white wall flanked by brightly colored towers came into view.
      "The city of Coptos," said Donkey Boy, pointing, "and there is the temple of Min."

      The wharves of Coptos stretched literally for miles along the river, the outer ones crowded with humbler, local vessels, and the inner ones bustling with porters, donkeys, overseers, scribes, and a complicated assortment of wares. The air was thick with the scent of frankincense and spices from Arabia.

      Little crates of bright birds, monkeys, and even young giraffes came up from Kosseir on the Red Sea, together with ivory, gold, and a special collection of carefully protected trees. Maru had seen such sights before when Pharaoh received his tribute, but the jumble, the noise, and the confusion was utterly new. He was staring, fascinated at everything, when a stick poked him sharply in the ribs. Satmi was standing behind him.
       "Come on, boy," he said, gesturing toward the wharf-side. "Work."  I
      The next days passed in a hustle and bustle of loading, unloading, and getting familiar with donkeys. Maru discovered precisely what Donkey Boy had meant when he had nodded his head and said, "You just wait and see!" Donkeys, he found, did not kick often, but they bit. Sometimes his would be as good as gold, standing patiently to be loaded. Suddenly they reached round and nipped for no reason, or gave a shake when the girths were being tightened, so that the paniers shifted and everything had to be replaced. They would suffer themselves to be piled with an incredible load of jars of ointment, cheap beads, bronze spearheads, and other treasures dear to the Africans of Punt. After carrying these for an hour or so, with no sign of weakness, they would suddenly refuse to move, presenting no uncovered surface to their furious drover except a rump impervious to blows and insensitive even to frantic prodding with a spear. Over and over again Donkey Boy had to come to the rescue with a strange cry which seemed to soothe donkeys, and with an expert hand in their ears.
      "You'll learn," he always repeated. "Don't get so excited." But whether because of a natural antipathy to donkeys, or because so much else was strange and new, Maru did not immediately learn.
      The convoy consisted of six groups of about a dozen donkeys, each with its owner, who might act as drover or, like Satmi, as a guard. Each group provided one soldier, and there were extra weapons packed on the donkey's backs. Satmi gave Maru a bow when he saw that he could use it, and he seemed to consider that the boy's skill with this weapon had won him a right to be left alone. As Donkey Boy had said, Satmi was good-humored enough in places where he could obtain no beer.
      From Coptos to Kosseir on the Red Sea was a five-day journey through a cleft in the barren hills over waterless rocks and blistering sand. The men rose before dawn and marched to some spot where a little shade for man and beast was known to be obtainable. Here they unloaded, watered the donkeys, and spent the hot hours of the day in trying to sleep or in fighting with flies, which appeared in the midst of the lifeless desert as though some devil were in them. When the sun sank low, the donkeys were loaded again with much slipping and cursing, and a second march through the gathering dark was begun. Maru found this the worst part of the day, as the burning earth gave back its heat until the air was like an oven. Even in sandals, his feet grew sore from the hot sand.
      On the third night out, there was a pleasant diversion in camping by a well which seemed cool and gave out a gratifying splash when a bucket was hastily lowered into it. For the first time since setting out, Maru could drink his fill. When he had watered the donkeys, he was even able to remove his sandals and soak his sore and dusty feet, which he found more perfectly refreshing than anything he had ever known.
      Satmi evidently felt the same way because he grinned across in friendly fashion. "Well, youngster," said he, "how do you enjoy seeing life?"
      "Very much," said Maru enthusiastically, reveling in the glorious wetness of his feet and his temporary freedom from donkeys.
      "Bear no grudge?"
      "Not a bit since you put away your stick."
      There was a short companionable silence. Maru put his hands into the water and began to splash it up his arms.
      I was thinking of shipping you off as a slave to Arabia," said Satmi unexpectedly. "Don't want to get into trouble for kidnaping you."
      "You won't get into trouble through me," Maru assured him.
      Satmi grunted. "All right," he said, "as long as you know you can go back home when you like."
      "As soon as you get near the next beer house, I shall be off,” said Maru with meaning.
      Satmi gave a hoarse rumble of a laugh. "You learn fast, boy," he said. "Surely by then you will know how to hide from the stick."
      He got up and hitched his shield into position. "My watch, I think," called he to the convoy captain. Maru yawned. Now that his feet were cool, he felt desperately sleepy. Donkey Boy, who never seemed to be too hot, had curled up half an hour before. In a few hours it would be time to move again. He had a moment's delicious consciousness of relaxing fully before he was asleep.

      Maru dreamed that he had lost his donkeys. One moment they were standing still, apparently hobbled. In the next, with the malice of their kind, they had wriggled themselves free and departed, leaving nothing but a derisive bray to remember them by. Maru woke up suddenly and was conscious of a violent indignation against donkeys, even as it flashed across his mind that what he had heard was actually a stifled scream. With a loud shout, he leaped to his feet, seized his bow, and loosed an arrow point-blank at a figure that had straightened up and was lifting its arm as he arose. In a moment startled cries were mingled with fierce yells, and the braying of donkeys made inextricable confusion through the camp.
      There were but thirteen men with the caravan, but even the drovers slept with their weapons beside them and knew how to use them well. No one but Maru was new on this sort of convoy, so that all had the sense to leave the donkeys to shift for themselves while they assembled to fight for their lives. The desert marauders who had attacked them were armed with long knives, more convenient for midnight assassination than a stand-up fight. Man for man they were no match for the people of the convoy, once the camp had been fully aroused. One huge fellow came yelling through the dark at Maru, who clean missed him in his excitement, since his hand was shaking from the reaction of having actually killed a man. Before he could fit a second arrow to the string, his enemy was upon him. In desperation Maru slashed with his bow across the big man's face, driving him back a little. At that very instant Donkey Boy's javelin flashed past and buried itself deep in the enemy's chest.
      "Get back here," shouted Donkey Boy, seizing another weapon. Maru ran for cover behind a little barricade of merchandise.
      The short, sharp struggle was almost over. The desert robbers had slashed loose a few donkeys, grabbed a few bales, and departed, leaving several of their number groaning upon the ground. By the light of torches, people were soon rounding up their animals, dressing flesh wounds, and taking a rough count of the damage to their wares.
      "Where is Satmi?" called the captain of the convoy suddenly. "Was he not sentry?" Maru shuddered violently, remembering that first scream.
      Satmi was quite dead from a knife thrust through his back. They dug a hole for him and laid him in it, while Maru wandered away with Donkey Boy, sobered and sickened, feeling young and very much alone.
      There was no sleep possible for the rest of that night. Presently the water skins were being filled, and the signal was given for the donkeys to be loaded. Maru saw a barrel-chested man with a knife scar across one cheek approaching, while two or three others lounged along behind. With a beating heart, he felt cautiously beside him for his bow.
      "You slaves there," cried the big man roughly, "get along ,and fall in behind my drover. You belong to me now, and I stand no nonsense. Hurry up!" He made a great slash in the direction of Donkey Boy, who stood nearest, and caught him full across the stern as he dived for safety underneath his animals. Two of the onlookers broke into a laugh.
      "Stop! " cried Maru loudly, snatching up his bow and leveling it, hoping that his trembling would not betray how nervous he really felt. "I am no slave, and Satmi never called me such. The boy and the donkeys both are mine now he is dead."
      "Why you little monkey!" said the big man violently. "Do you think you are the only one in camp who knows how to shoot?"
      "If anybody picks up his bow, I shall put an arrow through your chest," retorted Maru. "Donkey Boy, look out and see if anyone is threatening from behind!"
      "Leave the boys alone," called out the convoy captain, hurrying over with a few supporters at his side. "We all owe our lives to the little Egyptian; and if he wants to say he is free, why, let him do so. Keep your arrows for the desert marauders. We may yet need every fighter we have got.”
      The big fellow hesitated, but Maru's bow was still ready.  "You'll not get away with it," he said scowling, "when we come to Kosseir. I'll teach you who's free there and who is not." He walked off to vent his ill temper on his own unfortunate drover, who was soon heard yelling amid the sound of blows.
      Maru finished the loading and then took his bow in his hand as he walked beside the donkeys, keeping a very respectable distance behind his new enemy. The heat was telling on the animals that day, and everybody felt the lack of sleep. Nevertheless, when they encamped for the night, Maru and Donkey Boy took turns watching and both were sure that their wakefulness had been observed. By morning both boys were thoroughly weary, and were frightened of what might be done to them in the port that lay ahead. Maru, who had been thinking over things carefully, dropped back in the morning's march to talk to the convoy captain, walking at the point of danger in the rear of the line.
      "What did Satmi say about me in the convoy?" he asked.
      The captain shrugged his shoulders. "That you were a rich man's son who had run away from Thebes, and that he was half of a mind to dispose of you, lest you get him into trouble," he said.
      "If I were disposed of now," answered Maru meaningly, “someone would certainly talk, and that might be very bad."
      The captain looked at him keenly. "So I thought," he admitted. "In any case, we owe you something for saving our lives."
      "Look,” said Maru, "will you make a bargain? Give me the Nubian boy and the load of one ass, and take the rest of Satmi's goods for yourself. All I ask is a little protection in the port of Kosseir."
      "See here," said the captain protesting, "Kosseir is not a nursery. It's no place at all for a boy on his own, and there's nowhere it leads to. There is no other place on all this sea which is not utterly savage. You may sail out with a trader, but when he has finished his business, there is no port you can come back to except Kosseir. Even that will seem better than being enslaved by some black chieftain who decorates his beehive hut with skulls. There is no way out of Kosseir, and once you have enemies there, you are done for. Personally, I could not afford to make any, not if Satmi's donkeys were loaded with pure gold."
      There was a frightened silence while Maru thought things over. Presently he plucked up his courage and said in slightly trembling tones, "Can't you even give me a little advice?"
      The captain looked at him more kindly. "We are going straight down to the docks with this convoy, and you should be safe on the quays there until it is dark. If in that time you can get passage to Punt or Arabia, take it. You can always hope that no one will be waiting for you back in Kosseir. I will take over Satmi's donkeys and pay you an honest value if you ever get back to the beer shop in Coptos which is marked with the sign of the red goose."
      He spoke encouragingly, yet Maru knew from a certain pity in his tone that the captain thought little of his chances. He swallowed several times before he could answer, but brought out finally, "I expect I shall not need Satmi's goods, but I shall inquire for you at the Red Goose all the same." He hastened his step to get away from the captain before betraying the extent of his helplessness and fear.

      They reached Kosseir in the forenoon and found it an incredibly tough little settlement made up of shanties huddled around squares that seemed to be regarded as communal garbage dumps. Brown men, black men, and bearded men of all shades lounged in the alleys, all wearing knives and looking like wicked tomcats with torn ears. The only two women Maru saw were screaming and tearing each other's hair in the roadway, while an interested crowd was looking on and making bets. In one doorway a man lay dead with a knife through him, while people stepped over him as though they did not notice what was there. Everything shimmered in a stinking, close, unendurable heat in which the pungent odors of Arabian spices were mingled with garbage, rotting fish, and drying seaweed, together with all the various smells of unwashed humanity.

      It was a relief to come out on to the docks, filthy and crowded as they were. There was something tremendous in looking out of that tiny, stinking port at the clean sparkling stretches of the sea. Maru had an instantaneous impression of infinite width and glorious blue which was beyond anything he had ever dreamed. He drew in his breath and stared.
      "Maru!" Donkey Boy brought him abruptly down to earth by nudging him. "The ships for Punt have gone without us. Look there!"
      Sure enough, five ships were standing out, their pinkish-brown sails gradually filling as they caught the breeze that was cut off from Kosseir by the bay. They seemed almost, if not quite, in earshot, but they were definitely gone. Maru watched them turning slowly southward toward the pathway of the midday sun. His heart sank utterly, but he forced himself to say in careful tones, "Very well. We shall have to go to Arabia instead."
      Beneath his usual dusty brown, Donkey Boy was a sickish, greenish color. "We can't," he whispered. "The Arabian ships aren't leaving for five days." His eyes actually filled with tears.
      It was the sight of tears which spurred Maru to action. He looked desperately around. "Come on! There is at least something going on down there."
      The ship to which he was pointing was a large and clumsy freighter, more sturdily built than the Nile boats, fully decked, and with her bulwarks raised. Some altercation was going on between a man seated on the yard-arm and one halfway down the gangplank with a bundle on his back. "Three years!" the latter was yelling, "Three years with that son of ill omen! Why, I wouldn't sail to Arabia with him, let alone to the mouth of the Nile!" He shook his fist at the man on the yard-arm and disappeared amid a crowd of onlookers. Donkey Boy watched him in puzzled fascination, the tears still standing wet on his cheeks.
      "Three years! " said he. "Three years to the mouth of the Nile! What can he mean?"
      "But I know! " exclaimed Maru suddenly. "Why, of course! I had forgotten, but I always knew about that ship. They are going southward, hugging the shore on their right hand. When they have sailed a season, they are to land, plant corn, and reap it, repairing their boat meanwhile, and replenishing their other stores. Then they will set off again and sail on for another season until the land turns northward. After three years or four they hope to go round Africa and reach the mouth of the Nile."
      "I don't believe it," said Donkey Boy flatly, shaking his head with conviction. "They will simply be eaten by monsters or sail over the edge of the world." He looked gloomily at the big boat, in which men were unlashing the sail and setting up the steering oar.
      "It is the way out of Kosseir," insisted Maru. "I do believe there is a good chance that Africa will turn out to be round. In my uncle's palace—“
      "Your uncle's palace!” said Donkey Boy feebly, putting up a half-protesting hand. "A man like me—“
      “Has to keep out of trouble,” finished Maru rapidly. “Donkey Boy, if you and I are to go into undiscovered seas as comrades, I would like you to know who I really am. Now and then there are conspiracies in Pharaoh's palace, as is natural enough when the king has many wives and many sons. It has happened before and may happen again that a prince, though innocent, may learn too much of such dark dealings to be safe. So it was with me. When we sail up the Nile together, you and I will be grown and altered and may be known by different names. I think I shall call myself Sinuhe in memory of a prince who fled in earlier times. Come on, or they will be taking up the gangplank and leave us like trapped rats in stinking Kosseir."
      He tucked his arm in Donkey Boy's and tugged at him gently. The little Nubian looked this way and that at the docks and the alleys, but he yielded to the insistent pressure and followed along. Arm in arm they passed up the gangplank and jumped over the bulwarks. There were shouts back and forth to the yardarm, but the two boys did not reappear. Instead, a couple of sailors pulled in the gangplank. The oars splashed in the water, and the ship set out for the Nile around Africa.