for three whole days, and now, at last, for this the third day, darkness
over all the world. But as to the cause of these curses the pilot knew
nothing, being a plain man. Only the story went among the people that
the Gods were angry with Khem (as they call Egypt), which indeed was
easy to see, for those things could come only from the Gods. But why
they were angered the pilot knew not, still it was commonly thought that
the Divine Hathor, the Goddess of Love, was wroth because of the worship
given in Tanis to one they called THE STRANGE HATHOR, a goddess or a
woman of wonderful beauty, whose Temple was in Tanis. Concerning her
the pilot said that many years ago, some thirty years, she had
first appeared in the country, coming none knew whence, and had been
worshipped in Tanis, and had again departed as mysteriously as she came.
But now she had once more chosen to appear visible to men, strangely,
and to dwell in her temple; and the men who beheld her could do nothing
but worship her for her beauty. Whether she was a mortal woman or a
goddess the pilot did not know, only he thought that she who dwells
in Atarhechis, Hathor of Khem, the Queen of Love, was angry with the
strange Hathor, and had sent the darkness and the plagues to punish them
who worshipped her. The people of the seaboard also murmured that it
would be well to pray the Strange Hathor to depart out of their coasts,
if she were a goddess; and if she were a woman to stone her with stones.
But the people of Tanis vowed that they would rather die, one and
all, than do aught but adore the incomparable beauty of their strange
Goddess. Others again, held that two wizards, leaders of certain slaves
of a strange race, wanderers from the desert, settled in Tanis, whom
they called the Apura, caused all these sorrows by art-magic. As if,
forsooth, said the pilot, those barbarian slaves were more powerful than
all the priests of Egypt. But for his part, the pilot knew nothing, only
that if the Divine Hathor were angry with the people of Tanis it was
hard that she must plague all the land of Khem.