Ancient Egyptian legends

								

at Koptos, and watched and waited, for she knew that sorrow must come
of this journey to the Southern Land.
The magic men in the magic cabin toiled all night and all day for
three nights and three days along the bottom of the river; and when
they stopped the royal barge stopped also, and Nefer-ka-ptah knew
that he had arrived where the Book lay hidden.
He took the sand out of the royal barge and threw it into the water,
and it made a gap in the river, a gap of a schoenus long and a
schoenus wide; in the middle of the gap lay the iron box, and beside
the box was coiled the great snake that no man can kill, and all
around the box on every side to the edge of the walls of water were
snakes and scorpions and all manner of crawling things.
Then Nefer-ka-ptah stood up in the royal barge, and across the water
he cried to the snakes and scorpions and crawling things; a loud and
terrible cry, and the words were words of magic.  As soon as his
voice was still, the snakes and scorpions and crawling things were
still also, for they were enchanted by means of the magical words of
Nefer-ka-ptah, and they could not move.  Nefer-ka-ptah brought the
royal barge to the edge of the gap, and he walked through the snakes
and scorpions and crawling things, and they looked at him, but could
not move because of the spell that was on them.
And now Nefer-ka-ptah was face to face with the snake that no man
could kill, and it reared itself up ready for battle.  Nefer-ka-ptah
rushed upon it and cut off its head, and at once the head and body
came together, each to each, and the snake that no man could kill was
alive again, and ready for the fray.  Again Nefer-ka-ptah rushed upon
it, and so hard did he strike that the head was flung far from the
body, but at once the head and body came together again, each to
each, and again the snake that no man could kill was alive and ready
to fight.  Then Nefer-ka-ptah saw that the snake was immortal and
could not be slain, but must be overcome by subtle means.  Again he
rushed upon it and cut it in two, and very quickly he put sand on
each part, so that when the head and body came together there was
sand between them and they could not join, and the snake that no man
could kill lay helpless before him.
Then Nefer-ka-ptah went to the great box where it stood in the gap in
the middle of the river, and the snakes and scorpions and crawling
things watched, but they could not stop him.


He opened the iron box and found a bronze box,
He opened the bronze box and found a keté-wood box,
He opened the keté-wood box and found an

      ivory-and-ebony box,
He opened the ivory-and-ebony box and found

      a silver box,
He opened the silver box and found a gold box,
He opened the gold box and found the Book of Thoth.
He opened the Book and read a page, and at once he had enchanted the
sky, the earth, the abyss, the mountains, and the sea, and he
understood the language of birds, fish, and beasts.  He read the