Download the full version of the ebook now at ebooksecure.

com

(eBook PDF) California Politics: A Primer 5th

Edition

https://ebooksecure.com/product/ebook-pdf-
california-politics-a-primer-5th-edition/

Explore and download more ebook at https://ebooksecure.com

 Recommended digital products (PDF, EPUB, MOBI) that
you can download immediately if you are interested.

(eBook PDF) California Politics and Government: A

Practical Approach 14th Edition

https://ebooksecure.com/product/ebook-pdf-california-politics-and-
government-a-practical-approach-14th-edition/

ebooksecure.com

(eBook PDF) California Politics and Government: A

Practical Approach 14th Edition

https://ebooksecure.com/product/ebook-pdf-california-politics-and-
government-a-practical-approach-14th-edition-2/

ebooksecure.com

(eBook PDF) Canadian Criminal Justice: A Primer 5th

Canadian Edition

https://ebooksecure.com/product/ebook-pdf-canadian-criminal-justice-a-
primer-5th-canadian-edition/

ebooksecure.com

(eBook PDF) An Introduction to Intercultural

Communication: Identities in a Global Community 9th
Edition
https://ebooksecure.com/product/ebook-pdf-an-introduction-to-
intercultural-communication-identities-in-a-global-community-9th-
edition/
ebooksecure.com
(eBook PDF) Entrepreneurship Theory Process Practice 10th
by Donald

https://ebooksecure.com/product/ebook-pdf-entrepreneurship-theory-
process-practice-10th-by-donald/

ebooksecure.com

(eBook PDF) Fundamentals of General, Organic, and

Biological Chemistry 7th Edition

https://ebooksecure.com/product/ebook-pdf-fundamentals-of-general-
organic-and-biological-chemistry-7th-edition/

ebooksecure.com

(eBook PDF) Applied Social Research: A Tool for the Human

Services 9th Edition

https://ebooksecure.com/product/ebook-pdf-applied-social-research-a-
tool-for-the-human-services-9th-edition/

ebooksecure.com

(Original PDF) Automotive Technology: A Systems Approach

3rd Edition

https://ebooksecure.com/product/original-pdf-automotive-technology-a-
systems-approach-3rd-edition/

ebooksecure.com

Coastal Reservoir: Technology and Applications 1st Edition

Shu-Qing Yang - eBook PDF

https://ebooksecure.com/download/coastal-reservoir-technology-and-
applications-ebook-pdf/

ebooksecure.com
(eBook PDF) Practical Guide to Partnerships and LLCs 7th
Edition by Robert Ricketts

https://ebooksecure.com/product/ebook-pdf-practical-guide-to-
partnerships-and-llcs-7th-edition-by-robert-ricketts/

ebooksecure.com
 California Campaigns
Conclusion: A Complex Electorate
10. Political Engagement
Citizens and Politics
Predictors of Political Participation and Disengagement
The Five Californias
One Percent
Elite Enclave
Main Street
Struggling
Disenfranchised
News and Media Habits
Types of Political Participation
Major Voting Trends
Special Interest Groups: Indirectly Connecting Citizens to
Government
Conclusion: An Evolving Political Community
11. Concluding Thoughts
Notes
Index

8
About the Author

Renée Bukovchik Van Vechten

is a professor of political science at the University of Redlands. She
earned a B.A. in political science from the University of San Diego
and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Irvine. Van Vechten’s
political science research examines legislative processes and
behavior, including the impacts of political reforms such as term
limits. She teaches courses on American institutions such as
Congress, reform politics, and California politics. Her expertise on
state-level politics and policy is evident in her textbook, California
Politics: A Primer, and she has a chapter in Civic Engagement in
Political Science. Her scholarship on pedagogy and instructional
practices has extended to research methods, online discussion forums,
simulations, and internships. Van Vechten is serving a three-year
term as a member of the APSA Council and Executive Board, as
chair of the Teaching and Learning Policy Committee. She served as
chair of the APSA Political Science Education organized member
section from 2013 to 2015. She was the section’s program chair for
the 2013 annual meeting, and has been a track moderator for the
APSA Teaching and Learning Conference (2014–2016). Service to
the association includes membership on awards committees and the
Presidential Task Force on Technology (2015–2016), and helping to
facilitate the transfer of sponsorship of the Journal of Political
Science Education to APSA. Van Vechten is also active in the
Western Political Science Association, having co-chaired a
conference-within-a-conference on teaching and learning (2015,
2016, 2018). She has received several teaching awards, including the
Rowman and Littlefield Award for Innovative Teaching in Political
Science (via APSA) in 2008, APSA’s only national teaching award at
that time. She is frequently consulted by local media for commentary
about state and national politics.

9
Preface

California is a seductress. She coaxes the optimistic to rebuild after

wildfires ravage their neighborhoods, and she entices struggling
immigrants, middle class families, college students, and “Dreamers” to
imagine a better life. The golden sun may not shine brightly for all, but the
allure of undiscovered riches still arouses hopes, dreams, and plans.

California’s elected leaders are also dazzled by her alchemy. The state’s
economy has continued to improve and buoy the nation’s fortunes, and
legislators continue to pass laws that enrich its reputation as an
extraordinary, exceptional state where “big things happen.” Legislators are
attempting to outshine the federal government in areas such as climate
change policy and clean energy production; they have partnered with
Governor Jerry Brown to make California a global leader in the fight
against climate change by extending the state’s cap-and-trade program to
2030, tightening greenhouse gas emissions, and imposing a range of
measures on businesses and consumers to help “green” the state.
Recreational use of marijuana became legal in 2018, and lawmakers have
provided the legal framework for implementing the ballot initiative that
voters approved in 2016. More boldly, Democratic leaders of the
Assembly and Senate have joined executive branch officials in subverting
federal policies that they view as inhumane and detrimental, declaring the
state a sanctuary for non-violent undocumented immigrants. With the
election of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency, California elected
officials have burnished the state’s reputation for resistance.

Exceptionalism seems to run in California’s political blood, and these

political developments reinforce the view that California occupies a class
of its own. However, the daily challenges of running what is effectively
one of the world’s largest countries are enough to take the shine off the
Golden State’s reputation for being a land where dreams come true. The
grinding work of government is nowhere more apparent than in the
struggle to fund California’s crumbling system of roads and highways with
a gas tax that is resented by citizens and business owners alike. Even as
lawmakers reach consensus about how to best address a persistent
problem, the people do not always trust the decisions of their full-time
representatives.

10
Are Californians exceptional in their distrust of government? Do
Californians use political power differently than citizens of other states?
How extraordinary is California politics, really? This short text, California
Politics: A Primer, attempts to outline the puzzle that is California politics,
providing readers with analytical tools to piece together an answer to these
broad questions. By emphasizing how history, political culture, rules, and
institutions influence choices that lie at the heart of governing, the text
moves beyond mere recitation of facts, pressing the reader to think about
how these forces conspire to shape politics today and how they will
determine the state of affairs tomorrow. It asks the reader to consider what
exceptional politics is and isn’t, and what can be accomplished within the
context of state politics.

Because this book is intended to provide the essentials of California

politics, brevity and breadth eclipse detail and depth. The following pages
form a tidy snapshot of how the state is governed and how its politics
work. Timely examples succinctly clarify trends and concepts, but to limit
the book’s length, some developments are given only brief attention or a
passing mention. Instructors may seize on these mentions as cues for
further elaboration in class. Strong visuals in the form of figures, charts,
graphs, maps, and photos also allow readers to discern the basics quickly,
but readers should also take time to uncover the clues to understanding
politics and tease out the rich patterns contained in these illustrations and
in the accompanying captions. Some of these graphics, such as the
cartograms, suggest to the reader novel ways of perceiving current trends.

What’s New to the Fifth Edition

The thoroughly updated text covers recent policy developments and is
informed by scholarly research on comparative state politics and the most
current government reports available. Focus has shifted onto California’s
place in a federal system and state leaders’ pointed resistance to the
policies endorsed by President Donald Trump and his appointees.
Particular attention has been paid to immigration and the environment,
including California’s sanctuary state status, greenhouse gas emissions
regulations stemming from AB 32, and water and drought-related issues
and fixes. These policies—and also those relating to prison reform and
housing, among others—have become increasingly salient as measures of
California’s perceived exceptionalism, a status reinforced by bold
measures that sometimes render the state a leader, and at other times, an

11
outlier. It should be noted that to conserve space, these policy discussions
have been woven into relevant chapters instead of having been sliced off
into a standalone chapter dedicated to policy issues. Electoral innovations
that have taken root are also described in several chapters (principally
Chapter 9); some of these include the Top Two Primary; a series of
changes to encourage higher voter registration and participation, including
all vote-by-mail elections; the emerging impacts of restructured term
limits; and expanded coverage of the citizen-led decennial redistricting
process.

With a nod to the importance of political geography, a new section in

Chapter 10 briefly explores how distinct segments of the population are
primed for political engagement or disaffection. The “Five Californias”
schema (a product of the Measure of America program series produced by
the Social Science Research Council and developed by researchers Sarah
Burd-Sharps and Kristen Lewis in A Portrait of California) helps the
reader understand how human development is related to opportunity and
political participation. Further, informative maps have been refreshed and
a map of the state’s proposed high-speed rail project has been added, and
graphics have been updated for this edition wherever possible,
incorporating data releases by the U.S. Census Bureau, state agencies, and
public affairs research organizations.

Many of the current graphics are incorporated into PowerPoint lecture

slides that are designed to provide instructors with helpful guidance and
guideposts for classroom instruction. Instructors should go to
http://study.sagepub.com/california5e to register and download materials,
including:

A test bank, available in Respondus, offers a diverse set of test

questions for every chapter to help effectively assess students’
progress and understanding.
Editable, chapter-specific Microsoft® PowerPoint® slides offer you
complete flexibility in easily creating a multimedia presentation for
your course.
All graphics from the book, in PowerPoint, PDF, and JPG, are
available for use while lecturing, in discussion groups, or for
importing into test material.

Finally, for the first time, key terms are indicated with bold lettering in the
text and are listed, with definitions, at the end of each chapter. Terms that

12
may be considered secondary in importance are italicized.

Acknowledgments
The clean and vigorous style in which this book is written is meant to
prime the reader for engaged discussions about California politics now and
hereafter. An expert (and exceedingly patient) crew at CQ Press initiated
this ongoing conversation about California politics, namely Charisse
Kiino, executive director extraordinaire; Nancy Matuszak, who
shepherded this book carefully and skillfully for the last three editions and
is hereby honored as an Adventurous Gastronome; Elise Frasier, who has
earned my undying admiration for her expertise and incisiveness,
synergetic spirit, and can-do attitude; and a masterful production,
marketing, and content development team that includes Michelle Ponce,
Elise Frasier, Zachary Hoskins, Karen Wiley, and Anna Villarruel. The
book’s continued success is testament to their professional prowess. I also
extend sincere thanks to those colleagues who have taken the time to
provide essential feedback on previous editions, as well as numerous
reviewers whose insights and advice provided the thrust for improvements:
David Fisk, UC-San Diego; Herbert E. Gooch III, California Lutheran
University; Richard Groper, CSULA; Robert P. Hager, Jr., Los Angeles
Mission College; Maria Sampanis, CSU Sacramento; Ronnee Schreiber,
San Diego State University; and James Starkey, Long Beach City College.
My boundless thanks also goes to the many extraordinary public
employees of California who helped provide critical source material for
the book, from the staff of the Legislative Analyst’s Office to the Senate
and Assembly standing committee staff and many in between. I salute
Darren Chesin, Randy Chinn, and Brian Ebbert for their inexhaustible
“institutional memory,” which they have been willing to share with me;
the insights and friendship of Patrick Johnston, Rick Battson, Alison
Dinmore, and Mark Stivers continue to help clarify my thoughts, research,
theorizing, and writing about California politics immeasurably, and make
my visits to Sacramento feel familiar and welcoming. Many thanks as well
to Cheryl Schmidt, and also Dean Bonner and his colleagues at the Public
Policy Institute of California for their first-rate research and assistance.
The inimitable Bill Stokes remains a peerless Sacramento host, jazz
virtuoso, and holy reverend Irishman who has made every Sacramento
adventure well worth the trip. I cherish my community of teacher-scholars
at the University of Redlands, and I am blessed with a supportive
community of friends and a loving family, foremost among them my awe-

13
inspiring husband, Charlie, who has been my sunlight in shadowy times,
an inspirational parent, a brilliant businessman, caring confidant, and the
person to whom this effort is dedicated. I also thank my late mom, Ann,
and dad, Joe, beautiful, faithful, and giving exemplars who taught me to
find happiness in living each day to its fullest; my mother-in-law, Ruth,
whose generosity and sense of style are as-yet unmatched and who is still
too young to have three great-grandchildren; my natural sorority sisters,
Elise, Natasha, Juleann, and Magdalena; and my Ava and Zachary, whose
astounding artwork, design sense, ecology efforts, trick shot videos, and
political awareness bring smiles to my soul, and who make this state a
richer, more golden place.

14
Chapter 1 Introduction

Outline
Principles for Understanding California Politics

As if the State of California weren’t exceptional enough, it could be

considered one of the largest countries in the world. Only five other
nations had a larger gross domestic product than California in 2016, and its
$2.6 trillion economy rivals those of France and India.1 With a population
nearing 40 million, the state boasts 4 million more people than Canada.2
California houses more billionaires than in Hong Kong and Moscow
combined.3 Its territorial spread includes breathtaking coastlines, fertile
farmland both natural and human made, one of the globe’s hottest deserts,
the highest and lowest points in the continental United States, dense urban
zones, twenty-one mountain ranges, and ancient redwood forests—a
resource-rich expanse with 1,100 miles of coastline and an area that could
accommodate a dozen east coast states.

California’s reputation for being the “great exception” among the

American states has intensified since the political journalist Carey
McWilliams characterized it that way in 1949. The state is an
exaggeration; it sparks global trends, and national and world issues
permeate the state’s politics. Immigration, climate change, civil rights,
terrorism, pandemics, economic tides, and waves of social issues push and
pull on those who make policy decisions for one of the world’s most
diverse political communities. Unlike most democratic governments,
however, elected officials share responsibility for policymaking with
ordinary Californians who make laws through the initiative process at the
state and local levels. This hybrid political system (a combination of
direct and representative democracy) provides an outlet for voters’ general
distrust of politicians and dissatisfaction with representative government
and enables the electorate to reshape it over time. If politics is a process
through which people with differing goals and ideals try to manage their
conflicts by working together to allocate values for society—which
requires bargaining and compromise—then California’s system is
especially vulnerable to repeated attempts to fix what’s perceived as

15
broken, and parts of it may be periodically upended. For more than 100
years, the initiative process has permitted voters, wealthy corporations, and
interest groups to perform a series of historical experiments on the state’s
political system, from rebooting elections to retuning taxation rates to
refashioning the legislature through term limits. Some of these reforms,
which are discussed throughout this book, are celebrated as triumphs.
Proposition 13 in 1978, for example, deflated ballooning property tax rates
for homeowners (now limited to 1 percent of the property’s sale price) and
arrested rate increases, an arrangement that voters guard watchfully to this
day. On the other hand, direct democracy tends to promote all-or-nothing
solutions that have been fashioned through a process devoid of bargaining
and compromise, two hallmarks of democratic lawmaking.

Reforms also tend to produce unanticipated consequences that demand

further repairs. Property owners may covet the low property tax rates that
Prop 13 guarantees, but it has led to chronic underfunding of education
and heavy reliance on user fees for public services, as well as unequal tax
bills across every neighborhood. Local governments still face a backlog of
critical infrastructure projects that continues to swell along with the
population. Meanwhile, citizens’ general disdain for taxes and politicians
persists.

California’s bulging population ensures that public policy issues exist on a

massive scale. More than one of every eight U.S. residents lives in
California, and one of every four Californians is foreign-born—the largest
percentage among the states. Among them are approximately 2.5 million
undocumented immigrants.4 Prisons have shrunk by tens of thousands
over the last few years as, under federal court order, many nonviolent
criminals have been shifted to county jails and paroled, but California’s
criminal population is second only to that of Texas in size, with over
130,000 in custody and another 50,000 under some form of correctional
control. In 2010, just over 10 percent of the population was over age 65;
that percentage will double by 2030.5

Extreme weather events merely reinforce California’s distinctiveness.

After five long years of drought, during which time California confronted
the driest winter in 500 years with desperate conservation efforts, storms in
2017 replenished the Sierra snowpack, filling those reservoirs to 190% of
normal in one of the wettest winters on record. Ski season in the Sierra
Nevada mountains extended into August. The lasting effects of drought,
however, can be seen in the state’s stricken forests, where more than 100

16
Visit https://testbankfan.com
now to explore a rich
collection of testbank or
solution manual and enjoy
exciting offers!
million dead trees have elevated the risk of both erosion and wildfires that
can transform whole regions into catastrophic infernos.6 It’s also visible in
the continued overpumping of groundwater that has caused land to sink
faster than ever, a phenomenon called subsidence that buckles roads,
irrigation canals, bridges, and pipes, costing state and local governments
millions to fix. The detrimental effects of flooding are also painfully
apparent in infrastructure failures such as the Oroville Dam, whose
spillways buckled under torrential rains in 2017 and ultimately will cost
about $500 million to restore.7

The drought may have ended, but the fights over water that continue to
rage are unlike those anywhere in the United States. Farmers in the Central
Valley are jockeying for the same water that helps feed Southern
California, and they are pitted against environmentalists over how much
flow should be diverted to replenish the failing Delta ecosystem, the
complex Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta estuary located east of San
Francisco. Meanwhile, Governor Brown has endorsed the building of 35-
mile-long, four-story high “twin tunnels” to send Sacramento River water
underneath the imperiled Delta to the South and inland farms, at a cost of
an estimated $16 billion (to be covered by water users, not the state).8 This
controversial project, named California WaterFix, whose price tag is three
times the size of many states’ entire annual budgets, demonstrates the
magnitude of issues in California. WaterFix has absorbed decades of
planning, would require at least a decade of construction, and involves
government agencies at all levels. It directly affects major sectors of the
state, from industries such as agribusiness to the environment to 25 million
residents, among them powerful stakeholders who want either to kill,
reshape, or advance this project in ways that will maximize their own
interests. In fall 2017, water agencies responsible for financing the project
began to pull out of the deal, possibly dooming it to failure. The project
demonstrates the hazards of shifting from the status quo when big money
and high-powered interests are at stake.

Figure 1.1 Gross Domestic Product, 2016 (in millions)

17
 Sources: Legislative Analyst’s Office, “California’s Economy: One of
the Largest in the World,”
http://www.lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3511; The World Bank,
“Gross Domestic Product, 2016,”
http://databank.worldbank.org/data/download/GDP.pdf.

The availability, cost, distribution, storage, and cleanliness of freshwater

represent a fraction of the complex, interrelated issues that state and local
elected officials deal with year round, a pile of “to-do’s” that grows
unceasingly. Water-related concerns are merely one dimension of climate
change, a large-scale phenomenon that also intensifies wildfires, alters
delicate ecosystems, spawns invasive pests that carry infectious diseases,
and affects whether California can produce the craft beer, wines, and food
that the world enjoys. Californians also face a daunting list of
sustainability challenges brought about by natural population growth and
immigration, while deteriorating roads, bridges, storm drains, water
storage, sewage treatment facilities, schools, and jails compete for the
public’s limited attention and money. Developing new affordable housing,
expanding broadband access, and installing infrastructure for zero-
emissions vehicles are also on the state’s wish list. Current infrastructure

18
needs are estimated to exceed $500 billion, and waiting to make repairs
merely increases the bills as problems worsen over time.9 (Formidable
public policy issues such as these are catalogued in the concluding
chapter.)

© raesidecartoon.com

Whether the goal is reducing college fees for students or restricting

offshore oil drilling, different interests compete through the political
process to get what they want. Governing officials weigh private against
public interests, and generally they work hard to fix problems experienced
by their constituents—a job that also requires them to balance the needs of
their own districts against those of their city, county, or the entire state.
This grand balancing act is but one reason politics often appears irrational
and complex, but, like the U.S. government, California’s system was
designed that way, mostly through deliberate choice but also through the
unintended consequences of prior decisions. California’s puzzle of
governing institutions reflects repeated attempts to manage conflicts that
result from millions of people putting demands on a system that creates
both winners and losers—not all of whom give up quietly when they lose.
As happens at the federal level, state officials tend to respond to the most

19
persistent, organized, and well-funded members of society; on the other
hand, losers in California can reverse their fortunes by skillfully
employing the tools of direct democracy to sidestep elected officials
altogether.

Principles for Understanding California Politics

It may seem counterintuitive given the complexity of its problems, but
California politics can be explained and understood logically—although
political outcomes are just as often frustrating and irresponsible as they are
praiseworthy and necessary. In short, six fundamental concepts—choice,
political culture, institutions, collective action, rules, and history—can help
us understand state politics just as they help us understand national or even
local democratic politics. These concepts are employed throughout this
book to explain how Californians and their representatives make
governing decisions and to provide a starting point for evaluating
California’s political system: does it work as intended? Do citizens have
realistic expectations about what problems government can solve, the
services or values it provides, and how efficiently or cheaply it can do so?
How do we measure “successful” politics, and how does California’s
political system compare to others?

Choices: At the Heart of Politics. Our starting point is the premise that
choices are at the heart of politics. Citizens make explicit political choices
when they decide not to participate in an election or when they cast a vote,
but they also make implicit political choices when they send their children
to private schools or refill a water bottle instead of buying a new one.
Legislators’ jobs consist of a series of choices that involve choosing what
to say, which issues to ignore, whose recommendations to take, which
phone calls to return, and how to word a law or cast a vote.

Box 1.1 Comparative FAST FACTS on

California

California Texas United States

Washington,
Capital: Sacramento Austin
DC

20
 Declared
September December independence
Statehood: 9, 1850 29, 1845 from Great
(31st state) (28th Britain July 4,
state) 1776

Number of U.S.
53 36 435
House members:

Number of
58 254 50 states
counties:

Los
Largest city by Houston, New
Angeles,
population:** 2,100,000 York,8,175,000
4,042,000*

Total population: 39,542,000* 27,862,596 323,127,513

Percentage of
foreign-born 27.3% 16.8% 13.4%
persons:***

Median annual
household $61,818 $53,207 $53,889
income:**

Percentage of
persons living
16.3% 17.3% 15.5%
below poverty
level:**

*California Department of Finance, “California Grew by 335,000

Residents in 2016,” press release (May 1, 2017),
http://www.dof.ca.gov/research/demographic/reports/estimates/e-
1/documents/E-1_2017PressRelease.pdf. The U.S. Census Bureau
estimated the figure to be 39,250,017 as of July 1, 2016.

**Current U.S. and Texas demographic and population figures

based on U.S. 2010 census, monthly population estimates as of
July 1, 2016. U.S. Census Bureau, American FactFinder,
“Community Facts: Population Estimates of the Resident
Population: 2016 Population Estimates (July 1, 2016).”

21
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
 "Yes."

"And what do you think, Dio?"

"I think one cannot."

Merira looked at her from under his brows, with mute derision.

"Do you remember, Merira, who it was said: 'I know the day when I
shall not be'?" the king asked.

"I remember: the god Osiris."

"No, the man Osiris. It is the will of the Father that the Son should
suffer and die for all. Blessed be my heavenly Father! I, too, know the day
when I shall not be. It is drawing near—it has come already. Now my
kingdom is coming to an end, now fulfil the last will of your king, Merira,
son of Nehtaneb, and proclaim to men my decree concerning the false gods
and the one true God, whose is the glory for ever and ever!"

"Your will shall be done, sire, but remember: once the fire is kindled,
there is no putting it out."

"Why, did you think we should just play with the fire and then let it
out?" the king said, with a smile. He put both his hands on Merira's
shoulders and again looked deep into his eyes.

"I know what makes you wretched, Merira," he said quietly, almost in a
whisper. "You have not yet decided whether you are my friend or my
enemy. Maybe you will decide very soon. Remember one thing: I love you.
Don't be afraid then, my friend, my beloved enemy; be my friend or my
enemy to the bitter end. God help you!"

He put his arms round him and kissed him.

The chariot was brought. The king stepped into it and Dio followed
him. The whip cracked, the horses dashed off and the chariot flew like the
whirlwind.
 Merira watched it go, and when it disappeared in the last rays of the
setting sun he stretched out his arms towards it and cried:

"You have prophesied your own doom, Akhnaton Uaenra: now your sun
is setting, now your kingdom is coming to an end!"

It was already dark when, having driven far into the hilly desert, the
king stopped and alighted from the chariot. Dio tied the horses to a spear
stuck in the sand. The king sat down on a stone and Dio sat at his feet.

He pointed out to her the distant flame of a bonfire in the desert.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Mahu, strange man that he is...." the king answered. "He follows me
about like a watchdog; I suppose he is afraid of my running away...."

Both were silent: Dio was waiting for him to speak: she knew he had
come with her to the desert in order to talk undisturbed.

"I want to ask you something, Dio, and I cannot, I can't find the words,"
he began quietly, without looking at her.

He broke off and then began lower still:

"Do you know what Iserker said to me when I asked him why he
wanted to kill me? 'Because, being a man, you make yourself God'. This
was well said, wasn't it?"

"No, it wasn't: you don't make yourself God."

"I know I don't: it would be better for a man who made himself God not
to have been born. But that's one thing and then there is something else; and
one thing is so like the other that sometimes there is no distinguishing
them.... And then it turns round all of a sudden: it was like this and then, all
at once, it's the other way about...."

He rambled on incoherently, constantly losing the thread of his thought,

wandering off the point and trying to find words; at last he was in a
complete tangle and, with a wave of his hand, said hopelessly:

"No, I cannot! I will tell you another time...."

Dio smiled, and, taking his hand began kissing and stroking it gently,
comforting him like a child.

"Better tell me now, Enra!"

'Enra' was the diminutive of 'Uaenra' and only those most intimate with
him called him so.

"You speak very well, I understand it all. You don't make yourself a
god, that's one thing, and what was the other?" she tried to help him as
though he were a schoolboy who had forgotten his lesson.

"What was the other thing?" he began again and suddenly hurried on
joyfully. "Do you remember the prayer 'Thou, Father art in my heart and no
one knows Thee but me, Thy son?' I have said this and I don't go back on it.
I never shall. This is as fixed in me as the stars in heaven. But this is so
when I am not afraid, and when I am afraid, I pray to the Father: 'send
someone else, someone else instead, I cannot!' And now, too, I am afraid. I
keep thinking of the burden I have taken upon myself. Can a man bear it?
What do you think, can he?"

"I don't know, Enra...."

"Don't you know either?"

The way he looked at her wrung her heart.

She clasped his knees and cried: "Yes, I do know: you can—you alone!"

He said nothing and buried his face in his hands. There was a long
silence.

The stars came out. The Milky Way like a cloud rent in two stretched
from one end of the desert to the other; the Pleiades glowed and the seven
stars of Tuart, the Hippopotamus, glittered with a cold brilliance.
 The king uncovered his face and looked at Dio. His face was as still as
the sleeping desert and the starry heavens above. But Dio shuddered: she
recalled the Sphinx with the face of Akhnaton; if a man had been tortured
for a thousand years in hell and then came to earth again, he would have
such a face.

"Dio, my sister, my beloved, why did you come to me, why did you
love me?" he said, wringing his hands. "It was easier for me without you: I
did not know myself then, did not see myself. For the first time I saw
myself in you and was terrified: who am I? who am I? Go away, I beg you!
Why should you be tortured with me?"

"No, my brother, I shall never go away from you, I want to suffer with
you!"

"You have escaped one fire and now you seek another?"

"Yes, I want to perish in your fire!"

 PART THREE

I AM NOT HE

he days of the floods were approaching.

The black, parched, withered earth, deathlike and

terrible was aching under the terrible sun; the waters of the
Nile barely covered its slimy bed. Men, animals, and
plants were perishing with the heat. Had the heat lasted,
everything, it seemed, would have been burnt up as with the fire of a
conflagration or of the Sheheb.

But at the exact day, at the exact hour, God's miracle took place: Mother
Isis wept over her dead son—the dried-up Nile; her tear—the star Sirius, the
forerunner of the sun—fell into it and the ram-headed Khnum unsealed the
springs of water.

Frogs croaked joyfully; herons paced about the black mud as though
measuring the earth like the wise god Tot, the Measurer; the clerks of the
Water Department measured the height of the water from the Waterfalls to
the Delta by the marks on the stone walls of the measuring wells, while
simple folk did it by the crocodile eggs and ant-heaps: the water never rose
above these. Twelve cubits meant the ruin, sixteen cubits the salvation of
Egypt.
 At that time Merira went to Nut-Amon, Thebes, to see Ptamose who
was at death's door and implored him not to delay. But even when Merira
had arrived in Thebes he kept putting off the meeting, as though he feared
it.

He, too, was ill; he could not sleep at night and in the daytime he
wandered about the town, not knowing what to do with himself. A grimace
of disgust was constantly upon his face as though he smelt an evil stench.
This was one of the curious torments of his illness: he was everywhere
pursued by bad smells—of dead rats as in a granary, of bats as in the burials
caves, or of rotten fish as on the banks of the Nile where fish is cleaned,
salted and dried in the sun. No perfumes were of any use: they only made
the stench worse.

Some three days after his arrival he was sitting by the eastern gates of
the Apet-Oisit enclosure, among the ruins of the tomb-sanctuary of King
Tutmose the Third.

The sun was in the zenith: its rays came down straight almost without
casting any shadow. The dreadful light poured down like molten tin. Merira
sat in the narrow shadow cast by the crown of the giant pillar that had fallen
—the double head of the Heifer-Hather. The shadow at his feet diminished
so rapidly that one could almost see it: only a minute before he had been all
in the shadow and now the sun was burning his feet. He saw a scorpion
running in the dusty grass but he did not stir, he seemed spellbound. There
was a dull pain in his left temple, as though a fishbone had pierced the
eyeball. He felt rather sick, and there was a taste of death in his mouth.

Black dots like flies, swam about in the air, that quivered with the heat,
and turning into transparent glassy maggots melted away. One of them
began to grow and became an ancient Sphinx, with the face of Akhnaton; if
a man had suffered for a thousand years in hell and then came to earth again
he would have a face like that. He slowly swam past and melted away, then
came back again, turned thick and heavy and stood on all fours; his hind
legs were those of a lion but the front were human arms. He ran along
making a hideous clatter with his claws.
 As though breaking with a terrible effort invisible bonds on his arms
and legs, Merira regained consciousness, got up and walked away.

By the same subterranean passages which Dio had trodden, he

descended into the large, low-pitched sepulchral chamber, or sanctuary,
supported by low quadrangular columns. A couch stood in the middle; a
corpse lay upon it.

The vaulted niche in the wall where once Amon's great Ram had lain on
a couch of purple in the brilliant light of sanctuary lamps, was dark and
empty: the animal had just died and its body was being embalmed.

Merira told the two priests who were in the room to go out, and,
approaching the couch with the dead man upon it, knelt down, bending
towards him. The dead man opened his young, living, immortal eyes; his
lips whispered with the rustle of dry leaves:

"Is it you, Merira?"

"Yes."

"Blessed be the True, the Only God! I have waited seven years for you,
my son, I knew that you would come—that I would not die without seeing
you. Why did you tarry so long? Did you think I would not forgive you? I
will forgive everything. Well, tell me, are you with him or with me?"

"Oh, if I only knew, if I only knew, father! This is why I have suffered
so for seven years—because I don't know on whose side I am. Perhaps I am
neither with you nor with him."

"There is no middle course."

"To an honest man there is not, but to a vile one anything is possible.
For seven years I have done nothing but deceive myself and others. Don't
torment me, father, don't ask me, decide yourself on whose side I am!"

"If I do you will not believe me. Do you remember your oath?"

"What are oaths to me? I have broken them long ago."

 "No, you wanted to break them but you could not. You know yourself,
there is no room for both of you in the world, it is either you or he. If you
don't kill him, you will kill yourself."

"Yes, perhaps I will. Or, first him and then myself.... Can one kill the
man one loves, father?"

"Yes. To kill the body in order to save the soul."

"Well, that is how it will be with me, or perhaps it will be different: I

will kill him not out of love but out of envy. A beggar envies a rich man, a
scoundrel envies a noble one, the dead envy the living. Set killed Osiris, his
brother, from envy. And how can I help envying him? He is—and I am not:
he is alive and I am dead He kills me, he destroys me for ever and ever!"

"Why have you not come before? What have you been doing with
him?"

"What have I been doing? I thought I should get the better of him,
deceive him, catch him in my net, but instead...."

He broke off and asked, with a wry smile:

"Was it good, father, that Set killed Osiris?"

"Why do you ask? You know yourself: they, the blind puppies, think it
was not good. Osiris is life and Set is death for men, but for us, the wise
ones, this is not so. The Tormented one torments, the Slain one slays, the
Destroyed one destroys the world. Osiris-Amenti is the eternal West, the
sun of the dead, the end of the world: he will rise over the world and the sun
of the living will be extinguished; the god with an unbeating heart will
conquer the world and the heart of the world will cease to beat. He is
merciful and he ensnares the world with his mercy as a bird-catcher
ensnares a bird. He says 'everlasting life' and, behold, there is everlasting
death. Set and Osiris have been struggling since the beginning of the world,
but the world does not yet know which of the two shall conquer."
 "You speak almost exactly as he does, father! the tiniest hairbreadth
divides you from him...."

"Yes, there is only a hairbreadth difference between truth and falsehood.

Do you know the secret? The first Osiris has been, the second is to come;
this man is but a shadow cast by Him; this one has spoken but the One to
come will act."

"What will He do?"

"Destroy the world."

"Or perhaps the world will perish for His sake and be happy in doing
so?"

"And will you be happy, too?"

"Perhaps I, also."

"Do you love Him, then?"

"I do. How can one help loving Him? He is more beautiful than all the
sons of man. The devil knew well how to tempt man. I love His shadow,
too, King Akhnaton; I love and hate him at the same time. And he knows it
—he knows I want to kill him...."

Without speaking Ptamose took a ring off his finger and put it on
Merira's.

King Tutmose the Third, King Akhnaton's great-great-grandfather, gave

this ring to Hatuseneb, the high priest of Amon. A tiny cup of poison was
concealed under the fiery yellow carbuncle—'Amon's eye.' On his deathbed
the king commanded that if any king of Egypt were false to Amon he was
to be killed with that poison.

"My spirit be upon you, my son, and the Spirit of the Secret One!"
Ptamose said, laying his hands on Merira's head. "Henceforth, you, Merira,
son of Nehtaneb, are the High Priest of Amon. Woe to thy enemies, O Lord!
Their dwelling-place is in darkness but the rest of the earth in thy light: the
sun of them that hate thee is darkened, the sun of them that love thee is
rising!"

He ceased speaking, closed his eyes, and for a few minutes lay without
moving. Suddenly a faint tremor passed over his body. He heaved a deep,
deep sigh; his chest rose, then sank and did not rise again. But there was no
change in his face.

Merira watched him for some time, unable to tell whether he were alive
or dead. He took his hand—it was cold; he felt his heart—it did not beat.

He called the priests and said:

"The great seer—Urma, the prophet of all the gods of the south and the
north, the high priest of Amon, Ptamose, has ascended to the gods!"

II

ow we have begun, we must finish; it is no use crying

over sour milk, as an intelligent girl said once, having
done something that could not be put right," said Ay, a
court dignitary, and everyone laughed.

"How soon will the decree for destroying the gods be

published?" Tuta asked.

"In ten days or so," Parennofer, the Keeper of the King's Seal, replied.

"Couldn't we hurry it? It will be the beginning, you know...." Tuta said.

"It may be the beginning of such things that nothing will be left of us,"
muttered Ahmes, the superintendent of the king's household.

"What is it you are afraid of?" Tuta asked.

 "Oh, anything! It's no joke going against the gods...."

"Well, the gods can fend for themselves, but we must think of our own
skins. In this accursed hole, Aton's province, we are like mice in a trap—
there is no way of escape. They will slaughter us like sheep when the
levelling begins."

"What levelling?"

"Don't you know? The king thinks of nothing but making the rich and
the poor equal. But what if the mob does rise up in earnest?"

"No, I am not particularly afraid of the mob," Ahmes replied. "The mob
may very likely be on our side, but our own sort, the officials, will cut off
our noses in a trice."

"'Better have a head without a nose than a nose without a head,' as a

smart fellow said who had had his nose cut off," Ay said, and everyone
laughed again.

"And what are we to do with Saakera?" Parennofer asked.

"Nothing at all; his Ethiopian woman will deal with him," Ay answered.

Saakera, the heir-apparent, had three hundred and sixty-five wives,

according to the number of days in the year, one more beautiful than the
other, but he was said to prefer to them all an old, hideous and bad-
tempered Ethiopian who, so the rumour ran, used to box his ears and do
what she liked with him.

"One can't trust anyone," Ahmes concluded, looking round at them all
suspiciously. "Do you remember the words of King Amenemhet? 'Do not
trust your brother, do not commune with your friend, for in the day of fear
no one will stand by you. I gave alms to the poor and bread to the hungry;
but he who ate my bread lifted his heel against me.' And someone else, too,
has said rather cleverly 'where there are six conspirators, there is one
traitor.'"
 They all looked at one another in silence: there were more than six of
them.

They were on the top floor of Tuta's summer-house, which had just been
built but was not yet inhabited; no one could disturb them there: the garden
surrounding it was under water during the flooding of the Nile, so that the
house had to be approached by boat.

On meeting each guest, Tuta led him to the washing-stand, then showed
him to a seat on the wide and low couch that ran the whole length of the
room and was covered with carpets, offered him the fragrant cup for the
head and moved towards him the stand with cooling drinks in Tintyrian
vessels of porous clay.

The night was dark and hot, a hot wind smelling of water, river mud and
fish, blew in sudden gusts; it set up its mournful song, that sounded like a
wolf's howl or a child's cry, somewhere very far-off—at the end of the
world, it seemed—then drew nearer and nearer and suddenly came in a
fearful gust, whistling, squealing, roaring and moaning furiously, and
stopped as suddenly; all that could be heard was the splash of water against
the walls of the house and the rustle of palm leaves like a whisper behind
the windows.

During one of these quiet intervals the door opened noiselessly and a
huge black cat, half-panther, walked in like a shadow. Going up to Tuta it
began rubbing itself against his legs, purring loudly. He got up to shut the
door when Merira came in.

Tuta ran forward to meet him and was going to bow down to the ground
before the high priest of Amon; but Merira embraced him and kissed him on
the mouth. Tuta offered him the seat of honour, but Merira sat down on the
floor beside him, slowly looked at them all and said, with a quiet smile:

"Go on, gentlemen, I listen."

"It is for you to speak, father; it shall be as you say," Tuta replied.

"No, decide for yourselves. Do all know what we have met for?"
 "Yes."

"Well, then there is nothing more to say."

"It is no use crying over sour milk," Ay repeated, adding, after a pause,
"It is better that one man should die for all than that the whole people
should perish."

"Who will give him the cup?" Merira asked.

"Three people can give it him in virtue of our office, you, I or Tuta," Ay
answered. "Hadn't we better draw lots?"

The cat looking at the narrow stone-trellised chink-like window, right

under the ceiling, was mewing savagely. Suddenly it made a huge leap
across the room like a real panther, jumped up to the window, and holding
on to the stone bars with its claws, thrust its head against it and tried to put
its paw through, but could not: the trellis was too close. Mewing still more
furiously and plaintively it jumped to the floor and rushed about the room,
its black body smooth and slippery like a snake.

"What's the matter with the cat?" Merira asked. "Has it gone mad? See
the way it bares its teeth! And its eyes glow like candles. Ugh, the devil!
Fancy keeping a reptile like that in the house. Take care Tuta—it will go for
your throat one day when you are asleep!"

"I expect it smells someone," said Ay, looking at the window.

"But who can be there? There is water all round—no one could get
through. A bird or a monkey perhaps," said Tuta.

The wind that had just been roaring stopped again suddenly and
everything was so still that one could hear the water splashing against the
walls of the house and the palm leaves rustling.

"Perhaps it's they?" Parennofer whispered, turning pale.

"Who?" Tuta asked.

 "The restless. It's not for nothing they desecrate the tombs nowadays.
They say there are a lot of evil spirits going about at night."

"Oh please, please don't talk about it!" Tuta implored, his stomach
beginning to ache with fear.

"Drive it away, I beg you," Merira cried, with disgust.

Tuta seized the cat by the collar and tried to drag it out of the room. But
it would not go and he was scarcely able to master it; at last, however he
succeeded, and bolted the door behind it. But the cat went on scratching and
mewing outside the room.

"Let me see, what were we talking about?" Merira began again.

"About casting lots," Tuta reminded him.

"Yes. I don't know how it strikes you, gentlemen, but it seems to me that
it is unworthy of intelligent men to be the slaves of chance. Let us decide
freely. Ay, do you want to give the poison? No? Tuta? Nor you either? Very
well, then I will."

In the depths of the room there was an altar of bronze with a folding
wooden image of King Akhnaton sacrificing to the Sun god. Merira went up
to it, took the image and hit it against the corner of the bronze altar so
violently that it broke in two.

"Woe to thy enemies, O Lord! Their dwelling place is in darkness and

the rest of the earth in thy light; the sun of them that hate thee is darkened
and the sun of them that love thee is rising. Death to Akhnaton Uaenra, the
apostate!"

All repeated, joining hands over the altar:

"Death to the apostate!"

Merira led Tuta by the hand to the armchair and making him sit in it,
said:
 "The high priest of God on high, Amon-Ra, the king over all other gods,
the prophet of all the gods of the south and the north, the great seer of the
sky, Urma Ptamose, commanded me, on his death-bed, to elect king of all
the earth Tutankhamon, the son of King Nebmaar Amenhotep, the son of
Horus. Do you all agree, men and brethren?"

"We agree. Long live Tutankhamon, King of Egypt!"

Neferhepera, the master of the king's wardrobe, gave Merira a golden

serpent of the Sun, Uta.

"By the power given me of God, I crown thee King of Egypt," Merira
said, placing it on Tuta's head.

"Long live the King!" they all cried, prostrating themselves.

Merira's face was suddenly distorted.

"The cat again!" he whispered, looking into a dark corner of the room.

"The cat? Where?" Tuta asked, looking quickly about him.

"There, in the corner, do you see?"

"There is nothing there."

"No, there is not. I must have fancied it."

He moved his hand across his face and smiled.

"Zahi, Heheki—they are winged panthers, with a falcon's head, a human

face on the back, a budding lotos instead of a tail and a belly covered with
sharp teats like the teeth of a saw. They say there are a lot of these unclean
creatures prowling about at night.... But perhaps they don't exist? Old
women's tales .... Heheki, heheki," he laughed suddenly, with a laugh so
dreadful that Tuta felt a shiver running down his back.

"There, there, again, look! But this time it is not a cat—it is he, Uaenra!
Do you see what a face he has—worn out, old, eternal. If a man had
suffered for a thousand years in hell and then came back again, he would
have a face like that ... he looks at me and laughs—he knows I want to kill
him but he thinks I won't dare.... But wait a bit, I'll show you!"

He staggered and almost fell. They all rushed to him and would have
bled him, but he had already recovered. His face was almost calm; only the
corners of his mouth quivered and his lips were twisted into a smile.

All of a sudden there was a frantic squealing and howling outside the
window; the leaves rustled and something fell into the water with a heavy
splash.

They all ran to the ground floor hall which gave on to the garden and
saw the cat floating on the water with its belly ripped open.

"It's a bad business," Ay said.

"Why!" Merira asked.

"Someone has been eavesdropping."

"What of it?"

"What of it? Why, he will tell the king."

"Let him. I know the king better than you do: he might hear with his
own ears, see with his own eyes and yet not believe. He would hand the spy
over to us."

"Hadn't we better put it off," Tuta began timidly; the fright had given
him such a stomach-ache that he could hardly stand and could not spare a
thought even for his beloved Ruru.

"Let's put it off! Let us!" everyone said.

"Cowards, scoundrels, traitors!" Merira cried in a fury. "If you put it off,
I will inform against you!"
 "But we are thinking of you, Merira," Ay said. "You are ill, you ought to
look after yourself...."

"Here is my medicine!" Merira cried, pointing to the poison ring that

glittered on his finger. "It shall be as we decided: all will be over in three
days' time!"

III

o not judge me, O Lord, for my many sins! I am a man

with no understanding of myself," Merira whispered.

"What are you whispering?" Dio asked.

"Nothing."

He stood at the prow of the boat with a double-edged harpoon in his

hands and she sat at the helm, rowing with a short oar, or pushing off in
shallow places with a long pole. The flat-bottomed boat for two, made of
long stems of papyrus, tied together and covered with coal tar, was so
unstable that one could hardly move in it without risk of upsetting it. Merira
wore the ancient hunting dress: a two-lobed apron—shenti of white linen, a
broad necklace of turquoise and carnelian beads, a small beard of black
horsehair and a 'tiled' closely curled wig; all the rest of the body was naked.
In such dress the dead, after the resurrection, hunted in the blessed fields of
Ialu in the papyrus thickets of the heavenly Nile.

The milky-white sky of the early morning was changing to blue, as

innocent as the smile of a child asleep. The waters of the Nile were still as a
pond; the morning breath was so gentle that the mirror-like surface of the
river was not yet broken with ripples, though boats with full sails were
already flitting upon it like birds. The rafts of pines and cedars from
Lebanon slowly floated along. Men, tiny as ants, dragged by a rope a huge
barge with a granite obelisk, singing a mournful song; it made the stillness
seem more still and the expanse of the river more limitless. The white
houses of the City of the Sun, scattered about like dice in the narrow green
strip of palm groves, were disappearing in the distance.

"What is the matter with you?" Dio asked Merira. "Happy? in good
spirits? No, that's not it.... I have never seen you like this."

"I had a good night," Merira answered. "I slept for quite six hours on
end."

He took a deep, eager breath. He was glad when he felt the smell of bats
and not of dead rats or rotten fish; and to-day—what joy! he smelt nothing
but morning freshness.

"And everything is good," he said, still more joyfully. "See how high the
water is! Isn't it fine?"

"Very fine," she agreed.

"Just think, sixteen and a half cubits! The water hasn't risen so high for
the last ten years!" Merira went on. "The country is saved if the rebels in the
south do not destroy the canals. Look, a little ass in the field doesn't dare to
put its foot in the ditch—ah, now he has done it, clever creature—and men
are more stupid than asses!"

He added, after a pause:

"I had a good dream the other night...."

"What was it?"

"It was about you. I dreamt we were children together walking in a

lovely garden, better than Maru-Aton—a real paradise—and you were
saying something very nice to me. I woke up and thought 'I will do what
she told me.'"

"And what did I say?"

 He shook his head and said nothing.

"Again something you can't tell?"

"No."

He turned away to hide from her the tears that came into his eyes:

"Don't judge me, O Lord, for my many sins! I am a man with no

understanding of myself," he whispered again.

He suddenly struck the water with his harpoon so violently that he

nearly upset the boat. Dio cried out. When he pulled the harpoon out of the
water a fish was struggling on each side of it: an in, with a rectangular,
wing-like fin on its back, glittering like ruby, sapphire and gold, and a ha
with the monstrous head of an anteater, consecrated to the god Set. He
threw both fishes at her feet and she admired the way they struggled, dying.

"Why do you say you have never seen me like this?" he asked.

"I don't know. You always jeer, and to-day you look as though you were
going to smile. Quite like...."

"Like whom?"

She stopped suddenly and looked down; she wanted to say 'quite like
Tamu,' but suddenly she felt frightened and sorry—sorry for this one as for
the other.

"Also something you can't tell?" he asked, smiling.

"No, I can't."

"There, there, look!" he pointed to something that lay on the sand-bank

and seemed exactly like a greenish-black, slimy log.

"What is it?"
 "A crocodile. It hid in the sand for the night and now it has crawled out
and will warm itself in the sun; and at midday, when the north wind blows,
it will open its mouth towards it to get cool. An intelligent beast. But an
ibis's feather paralyzes it and then one can do anything with it..."

He spoke about indifferent things on purpose to hide his emotion, but

went on smiling exactly like Tamu.

The boat cut into a dense mass of papyrus plants. Their umbrella-like
tops quivered as though alive, the stems rustled and bent over the boat like
two high green walls. The yellow ambaki flowers smelt of bitter almond
and warm water and the pink lotoses, nekhebs, of sweet aniseed. Blue
dragonflies whirred unceasingly over the floating leaves. An ichneumon, a
sharp-faced little creature with whiskers, something between a cat and a rat,
was stealing up the entangled papyrus-stems, and the bird-mother fluttering
over her nest desperately flapped her wings to drive the robber away.
Suddenly in the far distance there was a loud trumpet-call: it was a
hippopotamus, roaring as it spouted water from its nostrils like a whale.

Water birds flew about in clouds: sacred herons—benu—with two long

feathers thrown back over their heads, sacred ibises, bald-headed and white
but for a black tail and a black edge on the wings; wild ducks, geese, swans,
cranes, spoonbills, plovers, water-hens, hoopoos, peewits, divers, pelicans,
cormorants, golden-eyes, lapwings, magpies, snipe, fish-hawks and many
others. They were singing, twittering, chirruping, calling, quacking,
screeching, whistling, cackling, cawing, droning, clucking.

"Vepvet!" Merira called, and a huge yellow hunting cat, with emerald
eyes, that had been sleeping at the bottom of the boat, jumped to him and
settled beside him on the bow, pricking up its ears.

He threw a flat, curved tablet made of rhinoceros skin—a weapon of

immemorial antiquity. It flew along, struck its aim and describing an arc in
the air returned to him and fell at his feet. The cat jumped into the thicket
and brought a bird that had been killed. He threw the weapon again, and the
cat brought another bird, and soon the boat was so full of game that it began
to sink.