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Title: The Yoke

Author: Elizabeth Miller

Release date: August 22, 2005 [eBook #16583]
                Most recently updated: December 12, 2020

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Al Haines


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YOKE ***




Produced by Al Haines









THE YOKE

A ROMANCE OF THE DAYS WHEN THE LORD REDEEMED THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL
FROM THE BONDAGE OF EGYPT


BY

ELIZABETH MILLER




GROSSET & DUNLAP

Publishers  -:-  New York




COPYRIGHT, 1904

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY


JANUARY




TO

PERCY MILLER

MY BROTHER

WHO CONSTRUCTED

THE PLOT




CONTENTS


CHAPTER

       I  CHOOSING THE TENS
      II  UNDER BAN OF THE RITUAL
     III  THE MESSENGER
      IV  THE PROCESSION OF AMEN
       V  THE HEIR TO THE THRONE
      VI  THE LADY MIRIAM
     VII  ATHOR, THE GOLDEN
    VIII  THE PUNISHMENT OF ATSU
      IX  THE COLLAR OF GOLD
       X  THE DEBT OF ISRAEL
      XI  HEBREW CRAFT
     XII  CANAAN
    XIII  THE COMING OF THE PHARAOH
     XIV  THE MARGIN OF THE NILE
      XV  THE GODS OF EGYPT
     XVI  THE ADVICE OF HOTEP
    XVII  THE SON OF THE MURKET
   XVIII  AT MASAARAH
     XIX  IN THE DESERT
      XX  THE TREASURE CAVE
     XXI  ON THE WAY TO THEBES
    XXII  THE FAN-BEARER'S GUEST
   XXIII  THE TOMB OF THE PHARAOH
    XXIV  THE PETITION
     XXV  THE LOVE OF RAMESES
    XXVI  FURTHER DIPLOMACY
   XXVII  THE HEIR INTERVENES
  XXVIII  THE IDOLS CRUMBLE
    XXIX  THE PLAGUES
     XXX  HE HARDENED HIS HEART
    XXXI  THE CONSPIRACY
   XXXII  RACHEL'S REFUGE
  XXXIII  BACK TO MEMPHIS
   XXXIV  NIGHT
    XXXV  LIGHT AFTER DARKNESS
   XXXVI  THE MURKET'S SACRIFICE
  XXXVII  AT THE WELL
 XXXVIII  THE TRAITORS
   XXXIX  BEFORE EGYPT'S THRONE
      XL  THE FIRST-BORN
     XLI  THE ANGEL OF DEATH
    XLII  EXPATRIATION
   XLIII  "THE PHARAOH DREW NIGH"
    XLIV  THE WAY TO THE SEA
     XLV  THROUGH THE RED SEA
    XLVI  WHOM THE LADY MIRIAM SENT
   XLVII  THE PROMISED LAND




THE YOKE

A STORY OF THE EXODUS


CHAPTER I

CHOOSING THE TENS

Near the eastern boundary of that level region of northern Egypt, known
as the Delta, once thridded by seven branches of the sea-hunting Nile,
Rameses II, in the fourteenth century B. C., erected the city of Pithom
and stored his treasure therein.  His riches overtaxed its coffers and
he builded Pa-Ramesu, in part, to hold the overflow.  But he died
before the work was completed by half, and his fourteenth son and
successor, Meneptah, took it up and pushed it with the nomad
bond-people that dwelt in the Delta.

The city was laid out near the center of Goshen, a long strip of
fertile country given over to the Israelites since the days of the
Hyksos king, Apepa, near the year 1800 B. C.

Morning in the land of the Hebrew dawned over level fields, green with
unripe wheat and meadow grass.  Wherever the soil was better for
grazing great flocks of sheep moved in compact clouds, with a lank dog
and an ancient shepherd following them.

The low, shapeless tents and thatched hovels of the Israelites stood in
the center of gardens of lentils, garlic and lettuce, securely hedged
against the inroads of hares and roving cattle.  Close to these were
compounds for the flocks and brush inclosures for geese, and cotes for
the pigeons used in sacrifice.  Here dwelt the aged in trusteeship over
the land, while the young and sturdy builded Pa-Ramesu.

Sunrise on the uncompleted city tipped the raw lines of her half-built
walls with broken fire and gilded the gear of gigantic hoisting cranes.
Scaffolding, clinging to bald façades, seemed frail and cobwebby at
great height, and slabs of stone, drawn and held by cables near the
summit of chutes, looked like dice on the giddy slide.

Below in the still shadowy passages and interiors, speckled with fallen
mortar, lay chains, rubble of brick and chipped stone; splinters,
flinders and odd ends of timber; scraps of metal, broken implements and
the what-not that litters the path of construction.  Without, in the
avenues, vaguely outlined by the slowly rising structures on either
side, were low-riding, long, heavy, dwarf-wheeled vehicles and sledges
to which men, not beasts, had been harnessed.  Here, also, were great
cords of new brick and avalanches of glazed tile where disaster had
overtaken orderly stacks of this multi-tinted material.  In the open
spaces were covered heaps of sand, and tons of lime, in sacks; layers
of paint and hogsheads of tar; ingots of copper and pigs of bronze.
Roadways, beaten in the dust by a multitude of bare feet, led in a
hundred directions, all merging in one great track toward the camp of
the laboring Israelites.

This was pitched in a vast open in the city's center, wherein Rameses
II had planned to build a second Karnak to Imhotep.  Under the gracious
favor of this, the physician god, the great Pharaoh had regained his
sight.  But death stayed his grateful hand and Meneptah forgot his
father's debt.  Here, then, year in and year out, an angular sea of low
tents sheltered Israel.

Let it not be supposed that all the sons of Abraham were here.
Thousands labored yet in the perfection of Pithom, on the highways of
the Lower country, and on the Rameside canal, and the greater number
made the brick for all Egypt in the clay-fields of the Delta.
Therefore, within the walls of Pa-Ramesu there were somewhat more than
three thousand Hebrews, men, women and children.

On a slight eminence, overlooking the camp, were numerous small
structures of sun-dried brick, grouped about one of larger dimensions.
Above this was raised a military standard, a hawk upon a cross-bar,
from which hung party-colored tassels of linen floss.  By this sign,
the order of government was denoted.  The Hebrews were under martial
law.

The camp was astir.  Thin columns of blue smoke drifted up here and
there between the close-set tents, and the sibilant wearing of
stone-mills, as they ground the wheat, was heard in many households.
The nutty aroma of parching lentils, and the savor of roasting papyrus
root and garlic told the stage of the morning meal.  The strong-armed
women, rich brown in tint from the ardent sun, crowned with coil upon
coil of heavy hair, bent over the pungent fires.  Sturdy children,
innocent of raiment, went hither and thither, bearing well filled skins
of water.  Apart from these were the men of Israel, bearded and grave,
stalwart and scantily clad.  They repaired a cable or fitted an
ax-handle or mended a hoe.  But they were full of serious and absorbed
discourse, for the great Hebrew, Moses, from the sheep-ranges of
Midian, had been among them, showing them marvels of sorcery, preaching
Jehovah and promising freedom.  The first high white light of dawn was
breaking upon the century-long night of Israel.

Before one of the tents an old woman knelt beside a bed of live coals,
turning a browning water-fowl upon a pointed stick.  She was a
consummate cook, and the bird was fat and securely trussed.  Now and
again she sprinkled a pinch of crude salt on the embers to suppress the
odor of the burning drippings, and lifted the fowl out of the reach of
the pale flames that leaped up thereafter.  Presently she removed the
fowl and forked it off the spit into a capacious earthenware bowl near
by.  Then, with green withes as tongs, she drew forth a round tile from
under the coals and set it over the dish to complete the baking.  From
another tile-platter at hand she took several round slices of durra
bread and proceeded to toast them with much skill, tilting the hot tile
and casting each browned slice in on the fowl as it was done.  When she
had finished, she removed the cover and set the bowl on the large
platter, protecting her hands from its heat with a fold of her habit.
With no little triumph and some difficulty she got upon her feet and
carried the toothsome dish into her shelter, to place it beyond the
reach of stealthy hands.  No such meal was cooked that morning,
elsewhere, in Pa-Ramesu, except at the military headquarters on the
knoll.

There was little inside the tent, except the meagerest essential
furnishing.  A long amphora stood in a tamarisk rack in one corner; a
linen napkin hung, pinned to the tent-cloth, over it; a glazed laver
and a small box sat beside it.  A mat of braided reeds, the handiwork
of the old Israelite, covered the naked earth.  This served as seat or
table for the occupants.  Several wisps of straw were scattered about
and a heap of it, over which a cotton cloak had been thrown, lay in one
corner.

"Rachel," the old woman said briskly.

Evidently some one slept under the straw, for the heap stirred.

"Rachel!" the old woman reiterated, drawing off the cloak.

Without any preliminary pushing away of the straw, a young girl sat up.
A little bewildered, she divested her head and shoulders of a frowsy
straw thatch and stood erect, shaking it off from her single short
garment.

She was not more than sixteen years old.  Above medium height and of
nobler proportions than the typical woman of the race, her figure was
remarkable for its symmetry and utter grace.  The stamp of the
countenance was purely Semitic, except that she was distinguished, most
wondrously in color, from her kind.  Her sleep had left its exquisite
heaviness on eyes of the tenderest blue, and the luxuriant hair she
pushed back from her face was a fleece of gold.  Hers was that rare
complexion that does not tan.  The sun but brightened her hair and
wrought the hue of health in her cheeks.  Her forehead was low, broad,
and white as marble; her neck and arms white, and the hands, busied
with the hair, were strong, soft, dimpled and white.  The grace of her
womanhood had not been overcome by the slave-labor, which she had known
from infancy.

"Good morning, Deborah.  Why--thy bed--have I slept under it?" she
asked.

"Since the middle of the last watch," the old woman assented.

"But why?  Did Merenra come?" the girl inquired anxiously.

"Nay; but I heard some one ere the camp was astir and I covered thee."

"And thou hast had no sleep since," the girl said, with regret in her
voice.  "Thou dost reproach me with thy goodness, Deborah."

She went to the amphora and poured water into the laver, drew forth
from the box a horn comb and a vial of powdered soda from the Natron
Lakes, and proceeded with her toilet.

"Came some one, of a truth?" she asked presently.

Deborah pointed to the smoking bowl.  Rachel inspected the fowl.

"Marsh-hen!" she cried in surprise.

"Atsu brought it."

"Atsu?"

"Even so.  From his own bounty and for Rachel," Deborah explained.

Rachel smiled.

"Thou art beset from a new direction," the old woman continued dryly,
"but thou hast naught to fear from him."

"Nay; I know," Rachel murmured, arranging her dress.

The garb of the average bondwoman was of startling simplicity.  It
consisted of two pieces of stuff little wider than the greatest width
of the wearer's body, tied by the corners over each shoulder, belted at
the waist with a thong and laced together with fiber at the sides, from
the hips to a point just above the knee.  It was open above and below
this simple seam and interfered not at all with the freedom of the
wearer's movements.  But Rachel's habit was a voluminous surplice,
fitting closely at the neck, supplied with wide sleeves, seamed, hemmed
and of ample length.  Deborah was literally swathed in covering, with
only her withered face and hands exposed.  There was a hint of rank in
their superior dress and more than a suggestion of blood in the bearing
of the pair; but they were laborers with the shepherds and
serving-people of Israel.

"He would wed thee, after the manner of thy people, and take thee from
among Israel," Deborah continued.

The girl drooped her head over the lacing of her habit and made no
answer.  The old woman looked at her sharply for a moment.

"Well, eat; Rachel, eat," she urged at last.  "The marsh-hen will stand
thee in good stead and thou hast a weary day before thee."

Rachel looked at the old woman and made mental comparison between the
ancient figure and her strong, young self.  With great deliberation she
divided the fowl into a large and small part.

"This," she said, extending the larger to Deborah, "is thine.  Take
it," waving aside the protests of the old woman, "or the first taste of
it will choke me."

Deborah submitted duly and consumed the tender morsel while she watched
Rachel break her fast.

"What said Atsu?" Rachel asked, after the marsh-hen was less apparent.

"Little, which is his way.  But his every word was worth a harangue in
weight.  Merenra and his purple-wearing visitor, the spoiler, the
pompous wolf, departed for Pithom last night, hastily summoned thither
by a royal message.  But the commander returns to-morrow at sunset.
This morning, every tenth Hebrew in Pa-Ramesu is to be chosen and sent
to the quarries.  Atsu will send thee and me, whether we fall among the
tens of a truth or not.  So we get out of the city ere Merenra returns.
He called the ruse a cruel one and not wholly safe, but he would sooner
see thee dead than despoiled by this guest of Merenra's--or any other.
I doubt not his heart breaketh for thy sake, Rachel, and he would rend
himself to spare thee."

"The Lord God bless him," the girl murmured earnestly.

"Where dost thou say we go?" she asked after a little silence.

"To the quarries of Masaarah, opposite Memphis."

The color in the young Israelite's face receded a little.

"To the quarries," she repeated in a half-whisper.

"Fearest thou?"

"Nay, not for myself, at all, but we may not have another Atsu over us
there.  I fear for thee, Deborah."

The old woman waved her hands.

"Trouble not concerning me.  I shall not die by heavy labor."

But the girl shook her head and gazed out of the low entrance of the
tent.  Her face was full of trouble.  Once again the old woman looked
at her with suspicion in her eyes.  Presently the girl asked, coloring
painfully:

"Was Atsu commanded to hold me for this guest of Merenra's--ah!" she
broke off, "did Atsu name him?"

"Not by the titles by which the man would as lief be known," Deborah
answered grimly, "but I remember he called him 'the governor.'"

There was a brief pause.

"Not so," she resumed, answering Rachel's first question.  "Atsu but
overheard him say to Merenra to see to it that thou wast taken from
toil and made ready to journey with him to Bubastis."

"He can not take me by right save by a document of gift from the
Pharaoh," Rachel protested indignantly.

"Of a truth," the old woman admitted; "but Merenra is chief commander
over Pa-Ramesu and how shall thine appeal to the Pharaoh pass beyond
Merenra if he see fit to humor this ravening lord with a breach of the
law?  The message summoning him in haste to Pithom before the order
could be fulfilled was all that saved thee.  And if Merenra return ere
thou art safely gone, thou art of a surety undone."

Rachel moved away a little and stood thinking.  The old woman went on
with a note of despondency in her voice.

"Alas, Rachel! thou art in eternal peril because of thy lovely face.
Beauty is a curse to a bondwoman.  What I beheld in truth yesterday I
have seen in dreams--the discourteous hand put forth to seize thee and
the power back of it to enforce its demand.  And yet, I would not wish
thee old and uncomely, for that, too, is a curse to the bondwoman," she
added with a reflective shrug of the shoulders.

"If I but knew his name--" Rachel pondered aloud.

"What matter?" the old woman answered almost roughly.  "Suffice it to
know that he is a knave and a noble and hath evil in his heart against
thee."

"Now, if I might dye my hair or stain my face--" Rachel began after a
pause.

"Thou foolish child!  It would not wear, nor hide thy charm at all!"

"But I dread the quarries for thee, Deborah.  If only we might be
hidden here, somewhere."

"Come, dost thou want to marry Atsu?" the old woman demanded harshly.

The girl turned toward her, her face flushed with resentment.

"Nay!  And that thou knowest.  For this very mingling with Egypt is
Israel cursed.  The idolatrous have reached out their hands in marriage
and wedded the Hebrews away from the God of Abraham.  When did an
Egyptian desert his gods for the faith of the Hebrew he took in
marriage?  Not at any time.  Therefore have we fed the shrines of the
idols and increased the numbers of the idolaters and behold, the hosts
of Jehovah have dwindled to naught.  Therefore is He wroth with us, and
justly.  For are there not pitiful shrines to Ra, Ptah and Amen within
the boundaries of Goshen?  Nay, I wed not with an idolater," she
concluded firmly.

Deborah's wrinkled face lighted and she put a tender arm about the girl.

"Of a truth, then, it is for me that thou wouldst avoid the quarries,"
she said.  "I did but try thee, Rachel."

Rachel looked at her reproachfully, but the old woman smiled and drew
her out into the open.

Without, Israel of Pa-Ramesu made ready to surrender a tenth of her
number to the newest task laid on it by the Pharaoh.  Quarrying was
unusual labor for an Israelite and the name carried terror with it.
Long had it meant heavy punishment for the malefactor and now was the
Hebrew to take up its bitter life.  The hard form of oppression
following so closely upon the promise of liberty by Moses had
diversified effects upon the camp.  There was rebellion among the
optimists, and the less hopeful spirits were crushed.  There was the
scoffer, who exasperates; the enthusiast, the over-buoyant, who could
point out favorable omens even in this bitter affliction; and it could
not be divined which of these troubled the people more.  But whatever
the individual temper, the entire camp was overhung with distress.

Israel had gathered in families before her tents--the mothers hovering
their broods, the fathers tramping uneasily about them.  In the heart
of each, perhaps, was an indefinable conviction that he should fall
among the tens.  Since Israel had died in droves by hard labor in the
brick-fields and along the roadways and canals, in what numbers and
with what dire speed would not Israel perish in the dreaded stone-pits!

Just outside the doorway of their shelter, Deborah and Rachel
overlooked the troubled camp.

"Moses comes in time," Rachel said, speaking in a low tone, "for Israel
is in sore straits.  The hand of the oppressor assaileth with fury his
bones and his sinews now.  How shall it be with him if he is bequeathed
from Pharaoh to Pharaoh of an intent like unto the last three?  He
shall have perished from the face of the earth, for the Hebrew bends
not; he breaks."

Deborah did not answer at once.  Her sunken eyes were set and she
seemed not to hear.  But presently she spoke:

"Thou hast said.  But the Hebrew droppeth out of the inheritance of the
Pharaohs in thy generation, Rachel.  The end of the bondage is at hand.
Thou shalt see it.  Of a truth Israel shall perish.  If its afflictions
increase for long.  But they shall not continue.  Have we entered
Canaan as God sware unto Abraham we should?  Have we possessed the
gates of our enemies?  Shall He stamp us out, with His promise yet
unfulfilled?  Behold, we have gone astray from Him, but not utterly, as
all the other peoples of the earth.  For centuries, amid the great
clamor of prayers to the hollow gods, there arose only from this
compound of slaves, here, a call to Him.  Out of the reek of idolatrous
savors, drifted up now and again the straight column from the altar of
a Hebrew, sacrificing to the One God.  Where, indeed, are any faithful,
save in Israel?  Shall He condemn us who only have held steadfast?
Nay!  He hath but permitted the oppression that we may have our fill of
the glories of Egypt and be glad to turn our backs upon her.  He will
cure us of idols by showing forth their helplessness when they are
cried unto; and when Israel is in its most grievous strait and
therefore most prone to attach itself to whosoever helpeth it.  He will
prove Himself at last by His power.  Aye, thou hast said.  Israel can
suffer little more without perishing.  Therefore is redemption at hand."

Rachel had turned her eyes away from the humiliation of Israel to its
exaltation--from fact to prophecy.  She was looking with awed face at
Deborah.  The prophetess went on:

"Israel hath been a green tree, carried hither in seed and grown in the
wheat-fields of Mizraim.  The herds and the flocks of the Pharaoh
gathered under its branches and were sheltered from the sun by day and
from the wolves by night.  The early Pharaohs loved it, the later
Pharaohs used it and the last Pharaohs feared it.  For it grew
exceedingly and overshadowed the wheat-fields and they said: 'It will
come between us and Ra who is our god and he will bless it instead of
the wheat.  Let us cut it down and build us temples of its timber.'
But the Lord had planted the tree in seed and in its youth it grew
under the tendance of the Lord's hand.  And in later years, though it
lent its shadow as a grove for the idols and temples of gods, the most
of it faced Heaven, and for that the Lord loves it still.  The Pharaohs
have lopped its branches, unmolested, but lo! now that the ax strikes
at its girth, the Lord will uproot it and plant it elsewhere than in
Mizraim.  But the soil will not relinquish it readily, for it hath
struck deep.  There shall be a gaping wound in Mizraim where it stood
and all the land shall be rent with the violence of the parting."

The prophetess paused, or rather her voice died away as if she actually
beheld the scene she foretold, and no more words were needed to make it
plain.  Rachel's hands were clasped before her breast.  "Sayest thou
these things in prophecy?" she asked finally in an eager half-whisper.
Deborah's eyes seemed to awaken.  She looked at Rachel a moment and
answered with a nod.  The girl's vision wandered slowly again toward
the camp, and the sorrowful unrest of Israel subdued the inspired
elation that had begun to possess her.  Her face clouded once more.
Deborah touched her.

"Trouble not thyself concerning these people.  They go forth to labor,
but their burdens shall be lightened ere long.  As for thee and me--"
she paused and looked up toward the eminence on which the military
headquarters were built.

"As for thee and me--" Rachel urged her.  Deborah motioned in the
direction she gazed.  "Come, let us make ready," she said; "they are
beginning."

The Egyptian masters over Israel of Pa-Ramesu were emerging from the
quarters.  They were, almost uniformly, tall, slender and immature in
figure.  Dressed in the foot-soldier's tunic and coif, they looked like
long-limbed youths compared with the powerful manhood of the sons of
Abraham.

Among them, in white wool and enameled aprons, was a number of scribes,
without whom the official machinery of Egypt would have stilled in a
single revolution.

The men advanced, sauntering, talking with one another idly, as if
awaiting authority to proceed.

That came, presently, in the shape of an Egyptian charioteer.  The
vehicle was heavy, short-poled, set low on two broad wheels of six
spokes, and built of hard wood, painted in wedge-shaped stripes of
green and red.  The end was open, the front high and curved, the side
fitted with a boot of woven reeds for the ax and javelins of the
warrior.  Axle and pole were shod with spikes of copper and the joints
were secured with tongues of bronze.  The horses were bay, small,
short, glossy and long of mane and tail.  The harness was simple, each
piece as broad as a man's arm, stamped and richly stained with many
colors.

The man was an ideal soldier of Egypt.  He was tall and
broad-shouldered, but otherwise lean and lithe.  In countenance, he was
dark,--browner than most Egyptians, but with that peculiar ruddy
swarthiness that is never the negro hue.  His duskiness was accentuated
by low and intensely black brows, and deep-set, heavy-lidded eyes.
Although his features were marked by the delicacy characteristic of the
Egyptian face, there was none of the Oriental affability to be found
thereon.  One might expect deeds of him, but never words or wit.

He wore the Egyptian smock, or kamis--of dark linen, open in front from
belt to hem, disclosing a kilt or shenti of clouded enamel.  His
head-dress was the kerchief of linen, bound tightly across the forehead
and falling with free-flowing skirts to the shoulders.  The sleeves
left off at the elbow and his lower arms were clasped with bracelets of
ivory and gold.  His ankles were similarly adorned, and his sandals of
gazelle-hide were beaded and stitched.  His was a somber and barbaric
presence.  This was Atsu, captain of chariots and vice-commander over
Pa-Ramesu.

His subordinates parted and gave him respectful path.  He delivered his
orders in an impassive, low-pitched monotone.

"Out with them, and mark ye, no lashes now.  Leave the old and the
nursing mothers."

The drivers disappeared into the narrow ways of the encampment, and
Atsu, with the scribes at his wheels, drove out where the avenue of
sphinxes would have led to the temple of Imhotep.  Here was room for
three thousand.  He alighted and, with the scribes who stood, tablets
in hand, awaited the coming of the Israelites.

The camp emptied its dwellers in long wavering lines.  Into the open
they came, slowly, and with downcast eyes, each with his remnant of a
tribe.  Though the columns were in order, they were ragged with many
and varied statures--now a grown man, next to him a child, and then a
woman.  Here were the red-bearded sons of Reuben, shepherds in skins
and men of great hardihood; the seafaring children of Zebulon; a
handful of submissive Issachar, and some of Benjamin, Levi, and Judah.

"Do we not leave the aged behind?" the scribe asked, indicating Deborah
who came with Judah.

"Give her her way," Atsu replied indifferently, and the scribe subsided.

The lines advanced, filling up the open with moody humanity.  A scribe
placed himself at the head of each column, and as the hindmost
Israelite emerged into the field the movement was halted.

If an eye was lifted, it shifted rapidly under the stress of
desperation or suspense.  If any spoke, it was the rough and
indifferent, whose words fell like blows on the distressed silence.
Many were visibly trembling, others had whitened beneath the tropical
tan, and the wondering faces of children, who feared without
understanding, turned now and again to search for their elders up and
down the lines.

The drivers distributed themselves among the Israelites and each with a
scribe went methodically along the files choosing every tenth.

"Get thee to my house and bring me my lists," Atsu said to the soldier
who was beginning on Judah.  "I will look to thy work."  The man
crossed his left hand to his right shoulder and hastened away.

One by one nine Israelites dropped out of line as Atsu numbered them
and returned to camp.  He touched the tenth.

"Name?" the scribe asked.

"Deborah," was the reply.

Meanwhile Atsu walked rapidly down the line to Rachel.  The Hebrews
fell out as he passed, and the relief on the faces of one or two was
mingled with astonishment.  He paused before the girl, hesitating.
Words did not rise readily to his lips at any time; at this moment he
was especially at loss.

"Thou canst abide here, in perfect security--with me," he said at last.
She shook her head.  "I thank thee, my good master."

"For thy sake, not mine own, I would urge thee," he continued with an
unnatural steadiness.  "Thou canst accept of me the safety of marriage.
Nothing more shall I offer--or demand."

The color rushed over the girl's face, but he went on evenly.

"A part go to Silsilis, another to Syene, a third to Masaarah.  If
thine insulter asks concerning thy whereabouts I shall not trouble
myself to remember.  But what shall keep him from searching for
thee--and are there any like to defend thee, if he find thee, seeing I
am not there?  And even if thou art securely hidden, thou hast never
dreamed how heavy is the life of the stone-pits, Rachel."

"Keep Deborah here," the girl besought him, distressed.  "She is old
and will perish--"

"Nay, I will not send thee out alone," was the reply.  "If thou goest,
so must she.  But--hast thou no fear?"

Once again she shook her head.

"I trust to the triumph of the good," she replied earnestly.

The sound of the scribe's approach behind him, moved him on.

"Farewell," he said as he went, and added no more, for his composure
failed him.

"The grace of the Lord God attend thee," she whispered.  "Farewell."

All the morning the work went on, and when the Egyptian mid-winter noon
lay warm on the flat country, three hundred Israelites were ready for
the long march to the Nile.  They left behind them a camp oppressed
with that heart-soreness, which affliction added to old afflictions
brings,--the numb ache of sorrow, not its lively pain.  Only Deborah,
the childless, and Rachel, the motherless, went with lighter
hearts,--if hearts can be light that go forward to meet the unknown
fortunes of bond-people.

As they moved out, one of the older Hebrews in the forward ranks began
to sing, in a wild recitative chant, of Canaan and the freedom of
Israel.  The elders in the line near him took it up and every face in
the long column lighted and was lifted in silent concord with the
singers.  Atsu in his chariot, close by, scanned his lists absorbedly,
but one of the drivers hurried forward with a demand for silence.  A
young Hebrew, who had tramped in agitated silence just ahead, worked up
into recklessness by the fervor of the singers, defied him.  His voice
rang clear above the song.

"Go to, thou bald-faced idolater!  Israel will cease to do thy bidding
one near day."

The driver forced his way into the front ranks and began to lay about
him with his knout.  Instantly he was cast forth by a dozen brawny arms.

"Mutiny!" he bawled.

A group of drivers reinforced him at once.

"By Bast," the foremost cried, as he came running.  "The sedition of
the renegade, Mesu,[1] bears early fruit!"

But the spirit of rebellion became contagious and the men of Israel
began to throw themselves out of line.  At this moment, Atsu seemed to
become conscious of the riot and drove his horses between the
combatants.

"Into ranks with you!" he commanded, pressing forward upon the Hebrews.
The men obeyed sullenly.

"I have said there was to be no use of the knouts," he said sharply,
turning upon the drivers.  "Forward with them!"

The first driver muttered.

"What sayest thou?" Atsu demanded.

The man's mouth opened and closed, and his eyes drew up, evilly, but he
made no answer.

"Forward with them," Atsu repeated, without removing his gaze from the
driver.

Slowly, and now silently, the hereditary slaves of the Pharaoh moved
out of Pa-Ramesu.  And of all the departing numbers and of all that
remained behind, none was more stricken in heart than Atsu, the stern
taskmaster over Israel.


[1] Moses.




CHAPTER II

UNDER BAN OF THE RITUAL

Holy Memphis, city of Apis, habitat of Ptah!

Not idly was she called Menefer, the Good Place.  Not anywhere in Egypt
were the winds more gentle, the heavens more benign, the environs more
august.

To the south and west of her, the Libyan hills notched the horizon.  To
the east the bald summits of the Arabian desert cut off the traveling
sand in its march on the capital.  To the north was a shimmering level
that stretched unbroken to the sea.  Set upon this at mid-distance, the
pyramids uplifted their stupendous forms.  In the afternoon they
assumed the blue of the atmosphere and appeared indistinct, but in the
morning the polished sides that faced the east reflected the sun's rays
in dazzling sheets across the valley.

Out of a crevice between the heights to the south the broad blue Nile
rolled, sweeping past one hundred and twenty stadia or sixteen miles of
urban magnificence, and lost itself in the shimmering sky-line to the
north.

The city was walled on the north, west, and south, and its river-front
was protected by a mighty dike, built by Menes, the first king of the
first dynasty in the hour of chronological daybreak.  Within were
orderly squares, cross-cut by avenues and relieved from monotony by
scattered mosaics of groves.  Out of these shady demesnes rose the
great white temples of Ptah and Apis, and the palaces of the various
Memphian Pharaohs.

About these, the bazaars and residences, facade above facade, and tier
upon tier, as the land sloped up to its center, shone fair and white
under a cloudless sun.

Memphis was at the pinnacle of her greatness in the sixth year of the
reign of the divine Meneptah.  She had fortified herself and resisted
the great invasion of the Rebu.  Her generals had done battle with him
and brought him home, chained to their chariots.

And after the festivities in celebration of her prowess, she laid down
pike and falchion, bull-hide shield and helmet, and took up the chisel
and brush, the spindle and loom once more.

The heavy drowsiness of a mid-winter noon had depopulated her booths
and bazaars and quieted the quaint traffic of her squares.  In the
shadows of the city her porters drowsed, and from the continuous wall
of houses blankly facing one another from either side of the streets,
there came no sound.  Each household sought the breezes on the
balconies that galleried the inner walls of the courts, or upon the
pillared and canopied housetops.

Memphis had eaten and drunk and, sheltered behind her screens, waited
for the noon to pass.

Mentu, the king's sculptor, however, had not availed himself of the
hour of ease.  He did not labor because he must, for his house stood in
the aristocratic portion of Memphis, and it was storied, galleried,
screened and topped with its breezy pavilion.  Within the hollow space,
formed by the right and left wings of his house, the chamber of guests
to the front, and the property wall to the rear, was a court of
uncommon beauty.  Palm and tamarisk, acacia and rose-shrub, jasmine and
purple mimosa made a multi-tinted jungle about a shadowy pool in which
a white heron stood knee-deep.  There were long stretches of sunlit
sod, and walks of inlaid tile, seats of carved stone, and a single
small obelisk, set on a circular slab, marked with measures for
time--the Egyptian sun-dial.  On every side were evidences of wealth
and luxury.

So Mentu labored because he loved to toil.  In a land languorous with
tropical inertia, an enthusiastic toiler is not common.  For this
reason, Mentu was worth particular attention.  He towered a palm in
height over his Egyptian brethren, and his massive frame was entirely
in keeping with his majestic stature.  He was nearly fifty years of
age, but no sign of the early decay of the Oriental was apparent in
him.  His was the characteristic refinement of feature that marks the
Egyptian countenance, further accentuated by self-content and some
hauteur.  The idea of dignity was carried out in his dress.  The kilt
was not visible, for the kamis had become a robe, long-sleeved,
high-necked and belted with a broad band of linen, encompassing the
body twice, before it was fastened with a fibula of massive gold.

That he was an artisan noble was another peculiarity, but it was proof
of exceptional merit.  He had descended from a long line of royal
sculptors, heightening in genius in the last three.  His grandsire had
elaborated Karnak; his father had decorated the Rameseum, but Mentu had
surpassed the glory of his ancestors.  In the years of his youth, side
by side with the great Rameses, he had planned and brought to
perfection the mightiest monument to Egyptian sculpture, the
rock-carved temple of Ipsambul.  In recognition of this he had been
given to wife a daughter of the Pharaoh and raised to a rank never
before occupied by a king's sculptor.  He was second only to the
fan-bearers, the most powerful nobles of the realm, and at par with the
market, or royal architect, who was usually chosen from among the
princes.  And yet he had but come again to his own when he entered the
ranks of peerage.  In the long line of his ancestors he counted a king,
and from that royal sire he had his stature.

He sat before a table covered with tools of his craft, rolls of
papyrus, pens of reeds, pots of ink of various colors, horns of oil,
molds and clay images and vessels of paint.  Hanging upon pegs in the
wooden walls of his work-room were saws and the heavier drills, chisels
of bronze and mauls of tamarisk, suspended by thongs of deer-hide.

The sculptor, rapidly and without effort, worked out with his pen on a
sheet of papyrus the detail of a frieze.  Tiny profile figures, quaint
borders of lotus and mystic inscriptions trailed after the swift reed
in multitudinous and bewildering succession.  As he worked, a young man
entered the doorway from the court and, advancing a few steps toward
the table, watched the development of the drawings with interest.

Those were the days of early maturity and short life.  The Egyptian of
the Exodus often married at sixteen, and was full of years and ready to
be gathered to Osiris at fifty-five or sixty.  The great Rameses lived
to the unheard-of age of seventy-seven, having occupied the throne
since his eleventh year.

This young Egyptian, nearly eighteen, was grown and powerful with the
might of mature manhood.  A glance at the pair at once established
their relationship as father and son.  The features were strikingly
similar, the stature the same, though the young frame was supple and
light, not massive.

The hair was straight, abundant, brilliant black and cropped midway
down the neck and just above the brows.  There was no effort at
parting.  It was dressed from the crown of the head as each hair would
naturally lie and was confined by a circlet of gold, the token of the
royal blood of his mother's house.  The complexion was the hue of a
healthy tan, different, however, from the brown of exposure in that it
was transparent and the red in the cheek was dusky.  The face was the
classic type of the race, for be it known there were two physiognomies
characteristic of Egypt.

The forehead was broad, the brows long and delicately penciled, the
eyes softly black, very long, the lids heavy enough to suggest serenity
rather than languor.  The nose was of good length, aquiline, the
nostril thin and sharply chiseled.  The cut of the mouth and the warmth
of its color gave seriousness, sensitiveness and youthful tenderness to
the face.

Egypt was seldom athletic.  Though running and wrestling figured much
in the pastime of youths, the nation was languid and soft.  However,
Seti the Elder demanded the severest physical exercise of his sons, and
Rameses II, who succeeded him, made muscle and brawn popular by
example, during his reign.  Here, then, was an instance of
king-mimicking that was admirable.

Originally the young man had been gifted with breadth of shoulder,
depth of chest, health and vigor.  He would have been strong had he
never vaulted a pole or run a mile.  To these advantages were added the
results of wise and thorough training, so wise, so thorough, that
defects in the national physique had been remedied.  Thus, the calves
were stanch and prominent, whereas ancient Egypt was as flat-legged as
the negro; the body was round and tapered with proper athletic rapidity
from shoulder to heel, without any sign of the lank attenuation that
was characteristic of most of his countrymen.

The suggestion of his presence was power and bigness, not the
good-natured size that is hulking and awkward, but bigness that is
elegant and fine-fibered and ages into magnificence.

He wore a tunic of white linen, the finely plaited skirt reaching
almost to the knees.  The belt was of leather, three fingers in breadth
and ornamented with metal pieces, small, round and polished.  His
sandals were of white gazelle-hide, stitched with gold, and, by way of
ornament, he had but a single armlet, and a collar, consisting of ten
golden rings, depending by eyelets from a flexible band of the same
material.  The metal was unpolished and its lack-luster red harmonized
wonderfully with the bronze throat it clasped.

Diminutive Isis in profile had emerged part-way from the background of
papyrus, and the sculptor lifted his pen to sketch in the farther
shoulder as the law required.  The young man leaned forward and
watched.  But as the addition was made, giving to the otherwise shapely
little goddess an uncomfortable but thoroughly orthodox twist, he
frowned slightly.  After a moment's silence he came to the bench.

"Hast thou caught some great idea on the wing or hast thou the round of
actual labor to perform?" he asked.

His attention thus hailed, the sculptor raised himself and answered:

"Meneptah hath a temple to Set[1] in mind; indeed he hath stirred up
the quarries for the stone, I am told, and I am making ready, for I
shall be needed."

The older a civilization, the smoother its speech.  Age refines the
vowels and makes the consonants suave.  They spoke easily, not hastily,
but as oil flows, continuously and without ripple.  The younger voice
was deep, soft enough to have been wooing and as musical as a chant.

"Would that the work were as probable as thou art hopeful," the young
man said with a sigh.

"Out upon thee, idler!" was the warm reply.  "Art thou come to vex me
with thy doubts and scout thy sovereign's pious intentions?"  The young
man smiled.

"Hath the sun shone on architecture or sculpture since Meneptah
succeeded to the throne?" he asked.

Mentu's eyes brightened wrathfully but the young man laid a soothing
palm over the hand that gripped the reed.

"I do not mock thee, father.  Rather am I full of sympathy for thee.
Thou mindest me of a war-horse, stabled, with his battle-love
unsatisfied, hearing in every whimper of the wind a trumpet call.  Nay,
I would to Osiris that the Pharaoh's intents were permanent."

Somewhat mollified, Mentu put away the detaining hand and went on with
his work.  Presently the young man spoke again.

"I came to speak further of the signet," he said.

"Aye, but what signet, Kenkenes?"

"The signet of the Incomparable Pharaoh."

"What! after three years?"

"The sanctuary of the tomb is never entered and it is more than worth
the Journey to Tape[2] to search for the scarab again."

"But you would search in vain," the sculptor declared.  "Rameses has
reclaimed his own."

Kenkenes shifted his position and protested.

"But we made no great search for it.  How may we know of a surety if it
be gone?"

"Because of thy sacrilege," was the prompt and forcible reply.  "Osiris
with chin in hand and a look of mystification on his brow, pondering
over the misdeeds of a soul!  Mystification on Osiris!  And with that,
thou didst affront the sacred walls of the royal tomb and call it the
Judgment of the Dead.  Not one law of the sculptor's ritual but thou
hadst broken, in the sacrilegious fresco.  Gods!  I marvel that the
rock did not crumble under the first bite of thy chisel!"

Mentu fell to his work again.  While he talked a small ape entered the
room and, discovering the paint-pots, proceeded to decorate his person
with a liberal hand.  At this moment Kenkenes became aware of him and,
by an accurately aimed lump of clay, drove the meddler out with a show
of more asperity than the offense would ordinarily excite.  Meanwhile
the sculptor wetted his pen and, poising it over the plans, regarded
his drawings with half-closed eyes.  Then, as if he read his words on
the papyrus he proceeded:

"Thou wast not ignorant.  All thy life hast thou had the decorous laws
of the ritual before thee.  And there, in the holy precincts of the
Incomparable Pharaoh's tomb, with the opportunity of a lifetime at
hand, the skill of thy fathers in thy fingers, thou didst execute an
impious whim,--an unheard-of apostasy."  He broke off suddenly,
changing his tone.  "What if the priesthood had learned of the deed?
The Hathors be praised that they did not and that no heavier punishment
than the loss of the signet is ours."

"But it may have caught on thy chisel and broken from its fastening.
Thou dost remember that the floor was checkered with deep black
shadows."

"The hand of the insulted Pharaoh reached out of Amenti[3] and stripped
it off my neck," Mentu replied sternly.  "And consider what I and all
of mine who come after me lost in that foolish act of thine.  It was a
token of special favor from Rameses, a mark of appreciation of mine
art, and, more than all, a signet that I or mine might present to him
or his successor and win royal good will thereby."

"That I know right well," Kenkenes interrupted with an anxious note in
his voice, "and for that reason am I possessed to go after it to Tape."

The sculptor lifted a stern face to his son and said, with emphasis:
"Wilt thou further offend the gods, thou impious?   It is not there,
and vex me no further concerning it."

Kenkenes lifted one of his brows with an air of enforced patience, and
sauntered across the room to another table similarly equipped for
plan-making.  But he did not concern himself with the papyrus spread
thereon.  Instead he dropped on the bench, and crossing his shapely
feet before him, gazed straight up at the date-tree rafters and
palm-leaf interbraiding of the ceiling.

Though the law of heredity is not trustworthy in the transmission of
greatness, Kenkenes was the product of three generations of heroic
genius.  He might have developed the frequent example of decadence; he
might have sustained the excellence of his fathers' gift, but he could
not surpass them in the methods of their school of sculpture and its
results.  There was one way in which he might excel, and he was born
with his feet in that path.  His genius was too large for the limits of
his era.  Therefore he was an artistic dissenter, a reformer with noble
ideals.

Mimetic art as applied to Egyptian painting and sculpture was a curious
misnomer.  Probably no other nation of the world at that time was so
devoted to it, and certainly no other people of equal advancement of
that or any other time so wilfully ignored the simplest rules of
proportion, perspective and form.  The sculptor's ability to suggest
majesty and repose, and at the same time ignore anatomical
construction, was wonderful.  To preserve the features and individual
characteristics of a model and obey the rules of convention was a feat
to be achieved only by an Egyptian.  There was no lack of genius in
him, but he had been denied liberty of execution until he knew no other
forms but those his fathers followed generations before.

All Egypt was but a padding that the structural framework of religion
supported.  Science, art, literature, government, commerce, whatever
the member, it was built upon a bone of religion.  The processes and
uses of sculpture were controlled by the sculptor's ritual and woe unto
him who departed therefrom in depicting the gods!  The deed was
sacrilege.

In the portrait-forms the limits were less severely drawn.  There were
a dozen permissible attitudes, and, the characteristic features might
be represented with all fidelity; but there were boundaries that might
not be overstepped.  The result was an artistic perversion that
well-nigh perpetrated a grotesque slander on the personal appearance of
the race.

After the manner of Egyptians it was understood that Kenkenes was to
follow his father's calling, and ahead of him were years of labor laid
in narrow lines.  If he rebelled, he incurred infinite difficulty and
opposition, and yet he could not wholly submit.  He had been an apt and
able pupil during the long process of his instruction, but when the
moment of actual practice of his art arrived, he had rebelled.  His
first work had been his last and, in the estimation of his father, had
entailed a grievous loss.  Thereafter he had been limited to copying
the great sculptor's plans, the work of scribes and underlings.

Thus, he had passed three years that chafed him because of their
comparative idleness and their implied rebuke.  The pressure finally
became too great, and he began to weigh the matter of compromise.  If
he could secretly satisfy his own sense of the beautiful he might
follow the ritual with grace.

His cogitations, as he sat before his table, assumed form and purpose.

Presently Mentu, raising his head, noted that the shadows were falling
aslant the court.  With an interested but inarticulate remark, he
dropped his pen among its fellows in an earthenware tray, his plans
into an open chest, and went out across the court, entering an opposite
door.

With his father's exit, Kenkenes shifted his position, and the
expression of deep thought grew on his face.  After a long interval of
motionless absorption he sprang to his feet and, catching a wallet of
stamped and dyed leather from the wall, spread it open on the table.
Chisel, mallet, tape and knife, he put into it, and dropped wallet and
all into a box near-by at the sound of the sculptor's footsteps.

The great artist reentered in court robes of creamy linen, stiff with
embroidery and gold stitching.

"Har-hat passes through Memphis to-day on his way to Tape, where he is
to be installed as bearer of the king's fan on the right hand.  He is
at the palace, and nobles of the city go thither to wait upon him."

"The king was not long in choosing a successor to the lamented Amset,"
Kenkenes observed.  "Har-hat vaults loftily from the nomarchship of
Bubastis to an advisership to the Pharaoh."

"Rather hath his ascent been slower than his deserts.  How had the Rebu
war ended had it not been for Har-hat?  He is a great warrior, hath won
honor for Egypt and for Meneptah.  The army would follow him into the
jaws of Tuat,[4] and Rameses, the heir, need never take up arms, so
long as Har-hat commands the legions of Egypt.  But how the warrior
will serve as minister is yet to be seen."

"Who succeeds him over Bubastis?"

"Merenra, another of the war-tried generals.  He hath been commander
over Pa-Ramesu.  Atsu takes his place over the Israelites."

"Atsu?" Kenkenes mused.  "I know him not."

"He is a captain of chariots, and won much distinction during the Rebu
invasion.  He is a native of Mendes."

Left alone, Kenkenes crossed the court to the door his father had
entered and emerged later in a street dress of mantle and close-fitting
coif.  He took up the wallet and quitted the room.  Passing through the
intramural park and the chamber of guests, he entered the street.  It
was a narrow, featureless passage, scarcely wide enough to give room
for a chariot.  The brown dust had more prints of naked than of
sandaled feet, for most men of the young sculptor's rank went abroad in
chariots.

Once out of the passage, he turned across the city toward the east.
Memphis had pushed aside her screens and shaken out her tapestries
after the noon rest and was deep in commerce once again.  From the low
balconies overhead the Damascene carpets swung, lending festivity to
the energetic traffic below.  The pillars of stacked ware flanking the
fronts of pottery shops were in a constant state of wreckage and
reconstruction; the stalls of fruiterers perfumed the air with crushed
and over-ripe produce; litters with dark-eyed occupants and fan-bearing
attendants stood before the doorways of lapidaries and booths of
stuffs; venders of images, unguents, trinkets and wines strove to
outcry one another or the poulterer's squawking stall.  Kenkenes met
frequent obstructions and was forced to reduce his rapid pace.
Curricles and chariots and wicker chairs halted him at many crossings.
Carriers took up much of the narrow streets with large burdens;
notaries and scribes sat cross-legged on the pavement, surrounded by
their patrons and clients, and beggars and fortune-tellers strove for
the young man's attention.  The crowd thickened and thinned and grew
again; pigeons winnowed fearlessly down to the roadway dust, and a
distant yapping of dogs came down the slanting street.  At times
Kenkenes encountered whole troops of sacred cats that wandered about
the city, monarchs over the monarch himself.  By crowding into doorways
he allowed these pampered felines to pass undisturbed.

In the district near the lower edge of the city he met the heavy carts
of rustics, laden with cages of geese and crates of produce, moving
slowly in from the wide highways of the Memphian nome.  The broad backs
of the oxen were gray with dust and their drivers were masked in grime.

The smell of the river became insistent.  In the open stalls the
fishmongers had their naked brood keeping the flies away from the stock
with leafy branches.  The limits of Memphis ended precipitately at a
sudden slope.  In the long descent to the Nile there were few permanent
structures.  Half-way down were great lengths of high platform built
upon acacia piling.  This was the flood-tide wharf, but it was used now
only by loiterers, who lay upon it to bask dog-like in the sun.  The
long intervening stretch between the builded city and the river was
covered with boats and river-men.  Fishers mending nets were grouped
together, but they talked with one another as if each were a furlong
away from his fellow.  Freight bearers, emptying the newly-arrived
vessels of cargo, staggered up toward the city.  Now and again sledges
laden with ponderous burdens were drawn through the sand by yokes of
oxen, oftener by scores of men, on whom the drivers did not hesitate to
lay the lash.

River traffic was carried on far below the flood-tide wharf.  Here the
long landings of solid masonry, covered with deep water four months of
the year, were lined with vessels.  Between yard-arms hanging aslant
and over decks, glimpses of the Nile might be caught.  It rippled
passively between its banks, for it was yet seven months before the
first showing of the June rise.  Here were the frail papyrus bari,
constructed like a raft and no more concave than a long bow; the huge
cedar-masted cangias, flat-bottomed and slow-moving; the ancient dhow
with its shapeless tent-cabin aft; the ponderous cattle barges and
freight vessels built of rough-hewn logs; the light passenger skiffs;
and lastly, the sumptuous pleasure-boats.  These were elaborate and
beautiful, painted and paneled, ornamented with garlands and sheaves of
carved lotus, and spread with sails, checkered and embroidered in many
colors.  From these emerged processions of parties returning from
pleasure trips up the Nile.  They came with much pomp and following,
asserting themselves and proceeding through paths made ready for them
by the obsequious laboring classes.

Presently there approached a corps of servants, bearing bundles of
throw-sticks, nets, two or three fox-headed cats, bows and arrows,
strings of fish and hampers of fowl.  Behind, on the shoulders of four
stalwart bearers, came a litter, fluttering with gay-colored hangings.
Beside it walked an Egyptian of high class.  Suddenly the bearers
halted, and a little hand, imperious and literally aflame with jewels,
beckoned Kenkenes from the shady interior of the litter.

He obeyed promptly.  At another command the litter was lowered till the
poles were supported in the hands of the bearers.  The curtains were
withdrawn, revealing the occupant--a woman.

This, to the glory of Egypt!  Woman was defended, revered, exalted
above her sisters of any contemporary nation.  No haremic seclusion for
her; no semi-contemptuous toleration of her; no austere limits laid
upon her uses.  She bared her face to the thronging streets; she
reveled beside her brother; she worshiped with him; she admitted no
subserviency to her lord beyond the pretty deference that it pleased
her to pay; she governed his household and his children; she learned,
she wrote, she wore the crown.  She might have a successor but no
supplanter; an Egyptian of the dynasties before the Persian dominance
could have but one wife at a time; none but kings could be profligate,
openly.  So, while Babylonia led her maidens to a market, while
Ethiopia ruled hers with a rod, while Arabia numbered hers among her
she-camels, Egypt gloried in national chivalry and spiritual love.

This was the sentiment of the nation, by the lips of Khu-n-Aten, the
artist king:

"Sweet love fills my heart for the queen; may she ever keep the hand of
the Pharaoh."

Whatever Egypt's mode of worshiping Khem and Isis, nothing could set at
naught this clean, impulsive, sincere avowal.

Here, then, openly and in perfect propriety was a woman abroad with her
suitor.

She might have been eighteen years old, but there was nothing girlish
in her gorgeous beauty.  She was a red rose, full-blown.

Her robes were a double thickness of loose-meshed white linen, with a
delicate stripe of scarlet; her head-dress a single swathing of scarlet
gauze.  She wore not one, but many kinds of jewels, and her anklets and
armlets tinkled with fringes of cats and hawks in carnelian.  Her hair
was brilliant black and unbraided.  Her complexion was transparent, and
the underlying red showed deeply in the small, full-lipped mouth; like
a stain in the cheeks; like a flush on the brow, and even faintly on
the dainty chin.  Her eyes were large and black, with the amorous lid,
and lined with kohl beneath the lower lash.  Her profile showed the
exquisite aquiline of the pure-blooded Egyptian.

Aside from the visible evidences of charm there was an atmosphere of
femininity that permeated her immediate vicinity with a witchery little
short of enchantment.  She was the Lady Ta-meri, daughter of Amenemhat,
nomarch[5] of Memphis.

The Egyptian accompanying the litter was nearly thirty years of age.
He was an example of the other type of the race, differing from the
classic model of Kenkenes.  The forehead retreated, the nose was long,
low, slightly depressed at the end; the mouth, thick-lipped; the eye,
narrow and almond-shaped; the cheek-bones, high; the complexion, dark
brown.  Still, the great ripeness of lip, aggressive whiteness of teeth
and brilliance of eye made his face pleasant.  He wore a shenti of
yellow, over it a kamis of white linen, a kerchief bound with a yellow
cord about his head, and white sandals.

He was the nephew of the king's cup-bearer, who had died without issue
at Thebes during the past month.  His elder brother had succeeded his
father to a high office in the priesthood, but he, Nechutes, was a
candidate for the honors of his dead uncle.

Kenkenes gave the man a smiling nod and bent over the lady's fingers.

"Fie!" was her greeting.  "Abroad like the rabble, and carrying a
burden."  She filliped the wallet with a pink-stained finger-nail.

"Sit here," she commanded, patting the cushioned edge of the litter.

The sculptor declined the invitation with a smile.

"I go to try some stone," he explained.

"Truly, I believe thou lovest labor," the lady asserted accusingly.
"Ah, but punishment overtakes thee at last.  Behold, thou mightst have
gone with me to the marshes to-day, but I knew thou wouldst be as deep
in labor as a slave.  And so I took Nechutes."

Kenkenes shot an amused glance at her companion.

"I would wager my mummy, Nechutes, that this is the first intimation
thou hast had that thou wert second choice," he said.

"Aye, thou hast said," Nechutes admitted, his eyes showing a sudden
light.  He had a voice of profound depth and resonance, that rumbled
like the purring of the king's lions.  "And not a moment since she
swore that it was I who made her sun to move, and that Tuat itself were
sweet so I were there."

"O Ma[6]," the lady cried, threatening him with her fan.  "Thou
Defender of Truth, smite him!"

Kenkenes laughed with delight.

"Nay, nay, Nechutes!" he cried.  "Thou dost betray thyself.  Never
would Ta-meri have said anything so bald.  Now, when she is moved to
give me a honeyed fact, she laps it with delicate intimation, layer on
layer like a lotus-bud.  And only under the warm interpretation of my
heart will it unfold and show the gold within."

Nechutes stifled a derisive groan, but the lady's color swept up over
her face and made it like the dawn.

"Nay, now," she protested, "wherein art thou better than Nechutes, save
in the manner of telling thy calumny?  But, Kenkenes," she broke off,
"thou art wasted in thy narrow realm.  They need thy gallant tongue at
court."

The young sculptor made soft eyes at her.

"If I were a courtier," he objected, "I must scatter my small eloquence
among many beauties that I would liefer save for one."

She appropriated the compliment at once.

"Thou dost not hunger after even that opportunity," she pouted.  "How
long hath it been since the halls of my father's house knew thy steps?
A whole moon!"

"I feared that I should find Nechutes there," Kenkenes explained.

During this pretty joust the brows of the prospective cup-bearer had
knitted blackly.  The scowl was unpropitious.

"Thou mayest come freely now," he growled, "The way shall be clear."

The lady looked at him in mock fear.

"Come, Nechutes," the sculptor implored laughingly, "be gracious.
Being in highest favor, it behooves thee to be generous."

But the prospective cup-bearer refused to be placated.  He rumbled an
order to the slaves and they shouldered the litter.

Ta-meri made a pretty mouth at him, and turned again to Kenkenes.

"Nay, Kenkenes," she said.  "It was mine to say that the way shall be
clear--but I promise it."

She nodded a bright farewell to him, and they moved away.  The
sculptor, still smiling, continued down to the river.

At the landing he engaged one of the numerous small boats awaiting a
passenger, and directed the clout-wearing boatman to drop down the
stream.

Directly opposite his point of embarkation there were farm lands,
fertile and moist, extending inland for a mile.  But presently the
frontier of the desert laid down a gray and yellow dead-line over which
no domestic plant might strike its root and live.

But the arable tracts were velvet green with young grain, the verdant
level broken here and there by a rustic's hut, under two or three
close-standing palms.  Even from the surface of the Nile the checkered
appearance of the country, caused by the various kinds of products, was
noticeable.  Egypt was the most fertile land in the world.

However, as the light bari climbed and dipped on the little waves
toward the north the Arabian hills began to approach the river.  Their
fronts became abrupt and showed the edges of stratum on stratum of
white stone.  About their bases were quantities of rubble and gray dust
slanting against their sides in slides and drifts.  Across the
narrowing strip of fertility square cavities in rows showed themselves
in the white face of the cliffs.  The ruins of a number of squat hovels
were barely discernible over the wheat.

"Set me down near Masaarah," Kenkenes said, "and wait for me."  The
boatman ducked his head respectfully and made toward the eastern shore.
He effected a landing at a bedding of masonry on which a wharf had once
been built.  The rock was now over-run with riotous marsh growth.

The quarries had not been worked for half a century.  The thrifty
husbandman had cultivated his narrow field within a few feet of the
Nile, and the roadway that had once led from the ruined wharf toward
the hills was obliterated by the grain.

Kenkenes alighted and struck through the wheat toward the pitted front
of the cliffs.  Before him was a narrow gorge that debouched into the
great valley over a ledge of stone three feet in height.  After much
winding the ravine terminated in a wide pocket, a quarter of a mile
inland.  Exit from this cul-de-sac was possible toward the east by a
steep slope leading to the top of one of the interior ridges of the
desert.  Kenkenes did not pause at the cluster of houses.  The roofs
had fallen in and the place was quite uninhabitable.  But he leaped up
into the little valley and followed it to its end.  There he climbed
the sharp declivity and turned back in the direction he had come, along
the flank of the hill that formed the north wall of the gorge.  The
summit of the height was far above him, and the slope was covered with
limestone masses.  There had been no frost nor rain to disturb the
original rock-piling.  Only the agencies of sand and wind had
disarranged the distribution on which the builders of the earliest
dynasty had looked.  And this was weird, mysterious and labyrinthine.

At a spot where a great deal of broken rock encumbered the ground,
Kenkenes unslung his wallet and tested the fragments with chisel and
mallet.  It was the same as the quarry product--magnesium limestone,
white, fine, close-grained and easily worked.  But it was broken in
fragments too small for his purpose.  Above him were fields of greater
masses.

"Now, I was born under a fortunate sign," he said aloud as he scaled
the hillside; "but I fear those slabs are too long for a life-sized
statue."

On reaching them he found that those blocks which appeared from a
distance to weigh less than a ton, were irregular cubes ten feet high.

He grumbled his disappointment and climbed upon one to take a general
survey of his stoneyard.  At that moment his eyes fell on a block of
proper dimensions under the very shadow of the great cube upon which he
stood.  It was in the path of the wind from the north and was buried
half its height in sand.

Kenkenes leaped from his point of vantage with a cry of delight.

"Nay, now," he exclaimed; "where in this is divine disfavor?"  He
inspected his discovery, tried it for solidity of position and purity
of texture.  Its location was particularly favorable to secrecy.

It stood at the lower end of an aisle between great rocks.  All view of
it was cut off, save from that position taken by Kenkenes when he
discovered it.  A wall built between it and the north would bar the
sand and form a nook, wholly closed on two sides and partly closed at
each end by stones.  All this made itself plain to the mind of the
young sculptor at once.  With a laugh of sheer content, he turned to
retrace his steps and began to sing.

Then was the harsh desolation of the hills startled, the immediate
echoes given unaccustomed sound to undulate in diminishing volume from
one to another.  He sang absently, but his preoccupation did not make
his tones indifferent.  For his voice was soft, full, organ-like,
flexible, easy with illimitable lung-power and ineffable grace.  When
he ceased the silence fell, empty and barren, after that song's
unaudienced splendor.


[1] Set--the war-god.

[2] Thebes.

[3] Amenti--The realm of Death.

[4] Tuat--The Egyptian Hades.

[5] Nomarch--governor of a civil division called a nome.  A high office.

[6] Ma--The goddess of truth.




CHAPTER III

THE MESSENGER

Mentu returned from the session at the palace, uncommunicative and
moody.  When, after the evening meal, Kenkenes crossed the court to
talk with him, he found the elder sculptor feeding a greedy flame in a
brazier with the careful plans for the new temple to Set.  Kenkenes
retired noiselessly and saw his father no more that night.

The next day Mentu was bending over fresh sheets of papyrus, and when
his son entered and stood beside him he raised his head defiantly.

"I have another royal obelisk to decorate," he said, fixing the young
man with a steady eye, "of a surety,--without doubt,--inevitably,--for
the thing is all but ready to be set up at On."

"I am glad of that," Kenkenes replied gravely.  "Let me make clean
copies of these which are complete."

He gathered up the sheets and took his place at the opposite table.
Then ensued a long silence, broken only by the loud and restless
investigations of the omnipresent and unabashed ape.

At last the elder sculptor spoke.

"The eye of heaven must be unblinkingly upon the divine Meneptah," he
observed, as though he had but thought aloud.

Kenkenes gazed at his father with the inquiry on his face that he did
not voice.  The sculptor had risen from his bench and was searching a
chest of rolled plans near him.  He caught his son's look and closed
his mouth on an all but spoken expression.  Kenkenes continued to gaze
at him in some astonishment, and the elder man muttered to himself:

"I like him not, though if Osiris should ask me why, I could not tell.
But he hath a too-ready smile, and by that I know he will twirl
Meneptah like a string about his finger."

The eyes of the young man widened.  "The new adviser?" he asked.

"Even so," was the emphatic reply.

Before Kenkenes could ask for further enlightenment a female slave
bowed in the doorway.

"The Lady Senci sends thee greeting and would speak with thee.  She is
at the outer portal in her curricle," she said, addressing Mentu.

The great man sprang to his feet, glanced hurriedly at his ink-stained
fingers, at his robe, and then fled across the court into the door he
had entered to change his dress the day before.

Kenkenes smiled, for Mentu had been a widower these ten Nile floods.

The slave still lingered.

"Also is there a messenger for thee, master," she said, bowing again.

"So?  Let him enter."

The man whom the slave ushered in a few minutes later was old, spare
and bent, but he was alert and restless.  His eyes were brilliant and
over them arched eyebrows that were almost white.  He made a jerky
obeisance.

"Greeting, son of Mentu.  Dost thou remember me?"

The young man looked at his visitor for a moment.

"I remember," he said at last.  "Thou art Ranas, courier to Snofru,
priest of On.  Greeting and welcome to Memphis.  Enter and be seated."

"Many thanks, but mine errand is urgent.  I have been a guest of my
son, who abideth just without Memphis, and this morning a messenger
came to my son's door.  He had been sent by Snofru to Tape, but had
fallen ill on the river between On and Memphis.  As it happened, the
house of my son was the nearest, and thither he came, in fever and
beyond traveling another rod.  As the message he bore concerned the
priesthood, I went to Asar-Mut and I am come from him to thee.  He bids
thee prepare for a journey before presenting thyself to him, at the
temple."

Kenkenes frowned in some perplexity.

"His command is puzzling.  Am I to become a messenger for the gods?"

"The first messenger was a nobleman," the old courier explained in a
conciliatory tone, "and the holy father spoke of thy fidelity and
despatch."

"Mine uncle is gracious.  Salute him for me and tell him I obey."

The old man bowed once more and withdrew.

When Kenkenes crossed the court a little time later he met his father.

"The Lady Senci brings me news that makes me envious," Mentu began at
once, "and shames me because of thee!"

Kenkenes lifted an expressive brow at this unexpected onslaught.  "Nay,
now, what have I done?"

"Nothing!" Mentu asserted emphatically; "and for that reason am I
wroth.  The Lady Senci's nephew, Hotep, is the new chief of the royal
scribes."

"I call that good tidings," Kenkenes replied, a cheerful note in his
voice, "and worth greeting with a health to Hotep.  But thou must
remember, my father, that he is older than I."

"How much?" the elder sculptor asked.

"Three whole revolutions of Ra."

The artist regarded his son scornfully for a moment.

"The Lady Senci wishes me to prepare plans for the further elaboration
of her tomb," he went on, at last, "but the work on the obelisk may not
be laid aside.  If I might trust you to go on with them, the Lady Senci
need not wait."

"But I have, this moment, been summoned by my holy uncle, Asar-Mut, to
go on a journey, and I know not when I return," Kenkenes explained.

Mentu gazed at him without comprehending.

"A messenger on his way to Tape from Snofru was overtaken with
misfortune here, and Asar-Mut, getting word of it, sent for me," the
young man continued.  "I can only guess that he wishes me to carry on
the message."

"Humph!" the elder sculptor remarked.  "Asar-Mut has kingly tastes.
The couriers of priests are not usually of the nobility.  But get thee
gone."

The pair separated and the young man passed into the house.  The ape
under the bunch of leaves in a palm-top looked after him fixedly for a
moment, and then sliding down the tree, disappeared among the flowers.

When, half an hour later, Kenkenes entered a cross avenue leading to a
great square in which the temple stood, he found the roadway filled
with people, crowding about a group of disheveled women.  These were
shrieking, wildly tearing their hair, beating themselves and throwing
dust upon their heads.  Kenkenes immediately surmised that there was
something more than the usual death-wail in this.

He touched a man near him on the shoulder.

"Who may these distracted women be?" he asked.

"The mothers of Khafra and Sigur, and their women."

"Nay!  Are these men dead?  I knew them once.

"They are by this time.  They were to be hanged in the dungeon of the
house of the governor of police at this hour," the man answered with
morbid relish in his tone.  Kenkenes looked at him in horror.

"What had they done?" he asked.  The man plunged eagerly into the
narrative.

"They were tomb robbers and robbed independently of the brotherhood of
thieves.[1]  They refused to pay the customary tribute from their spoil
to the chief of robbers, and whatsoever booty they got they kept, every
jot of it.  Innumerable mummies were found rifled of their gold and
gems, and although the chief of robbers and the governor of police
sought and burrowed into every den in the Middle country, they could
not find the missing treasure.  Then they knew that the looting was not
done by any of the licensed robbers.  So all the professional thieves
and all the police set themselves to seek out the lawless plunderers."

"Humph!" interpolated Kenkenes expressively.

"Aye.  And it was not long with all these upon the scent until Khafra
and Sigur were discovered coming forth from a tomb laden with spoil,
and in the struggle which ensued they did murder.  But the constabulary
have not found the rest of the booty, though they made great search for
it and may have put the thieves to torture.  Who knows?  They do dark
things in the dungeon under the house of the governor of police."

"And so they hanged them speedily," said Kenkenes, desirous of ending
the grisly tale.

"And so they hanged them.  I could not get in to see, and these
screaming mothers attracted me, so I am here.  But my neighbor's son is
a friend of the jailer, and I shall know yet how they died."

But Kenkenes was stalking off toward the temple, his shoulders lifted
high with disgust.

"O, ye inscrutable Hathors," he exclaimed finally; "how ye have
disposed the fortunes of four friends!  Two of us hanged, a third in
royal favor, a fourth an--an--an offender against the gods."

Presently the avenue opened into the temple square.  With reverential
hand Memphis put back her dwellings and her bazaars, that profane life
might not press upon the sacred precincts of her mighty gods.  Here was
a vast acreage, overhung with the atmosphere of sanctity.  The grove of
mysteries was there, dark with profound shadow, and silent save for a
lonesome bird song or the suspirations of the wind.  The great pool in
its stone basin reflected a lofty canopy of sunlit foliage, and the
shaggy peristyle of palm-tree trunks.

The shadow of the great structure darkened its approaches before it was
clearly visible through the grove.  The devotee entered a long avenue
of sphinxes--fifty pairs lining a broad highway paved with polished
granite flagging.

At its termination the two truncated pyramids that formed the entrance
to the temple towered upward, two hundred feet of massive masonry.
Egypt had dismantled a dozen mountains to build two.

When he reached the gateway that opened like a tunnel between the
ponderous pylons, he was delayed some minutes waiting till the porter
should admit him through the wicket of bronze.  At last, a lank youth,
the son of the regular keeper, appeared, and, with an inarticulate
apology, bade him enter.

Within the overarching portals he was met by a novice, a priest of the
lowest orders, to whom he stated his mission.  With a sign to the young
man to follow, the priest passed through the porch into the inner court
of the temple.  This was simply an immense roofless chamber.  Its sides
were the outer walls of the temple proper, reinforced by stupendous
pilasters and elaborated with much bas-relief and many intaglios.  The
ends were formed by the inner pylons of the porch and outer pylons of
the main temple.  The latter were guarded by colossal divinities.  Down
the center of the court was a second aisle of sphinxes.  They had
entered this when the priest, with a startled exclamation, sprang
behind one of the recumbent monsters in time to avoid the frolicsome
salutation of an ape.

"Anubis!  Mut, the Mother of Darkness, lends you her cloak!  Out!"
Kenkenes cried, striking at his pet.  The wary animal eluded the blow
and for a moment revolved about another sphinx, pursued by his master,
and then fled like a phantom out of the court by the path he came.  By
this time the priest had emerged from his refuge and was attempting to
prevent the young man's interference with the will of the ape.

"Nay, nay; I am sorry!" the priest exclaimed as Anubis disappeared.
"It is an omen.  Toth[2] visiteth Ptah; Wisdom seeketh Power!  Came he
by divine summons or did he seek the great god?  It is a problem for
the sorcerers and is of ominous import!"

"The pestiferous creature followed me unseen from the house," Kenkenes
explained, rather flushed of countenance.  "To me it is an omen that
the idler who keeps the gate is not vigilant."

The priest shook his head and led the way without further words into
the temple.  Here the young sculptor was conducted through a wilderness
of jacketed columns, over pavements that rang even under sandaled feet,
to the center of a vast hall.  The priest left him and disappeared
through the all-enveloping twilight into the more sacred part of the
temple.

In a moment, Asar-Mut, high priest to Ptah, appeared, approaching
through the dusk.  He wore the priestly habiliments of spotless linen,
and, like a loose mantle, a magnificent leopard-skin, which hung by a
claw over the right shoulder and, passing under the left arm, was
fastened at the breast by a medallion of gold and topaz.  He was a
typical Egyptian, but thinner of lip and severer of countenance than
the laity.  The wooden dolls tumbled about by the children of the realm
were not more hairless than he.  His high, narrow head was ghastly in
its utter nakedness.

Kenkenes bent reverently before him and was greeted kindly by the
pontiff.

"Hast thou guessed why I sent for thee?" he asked at once.

"I have guessed," Kenkenes replied, "but it may be wildly."

"Let us see.  I would have thee carry a message for the brotherhood."

Kenkenes inclined his head.

"Good.  Be thy journey as quick as thy perception.  I ask thy pardon
for laying the work of a temple courier upon thy shoulders, but the
message is of such import that I would carry it myself were I as young
and unburdened with duty as thou."

"I am thy servant, holy Father, and well pleased with the opportunity
that permits me to serve the gods."

"I know, and therefore have I chosen thee.  My trusted courier is dead;
the others are light-minded, and Tape is in the height of festivity.
They might delay--they might be lured into forgetting duty, and," the
pontiff lowered his voice and drew nearer to Kenkenes, "and there are
those that may be watching for this letter.  A nobleman would not be
thought a messenger.  Thou dost incur less danger than the
clout-wearing runner for the temple."

A light broke over Kenkenes.

"I understand," he said.

"Go, then, by private boat at sunset, and Ptah be with thee.  Make all
speed."  He put a doubly wrapped scroll into Kenkenes' hands.  "This is
to be delivered to our holy Superior, Loi, priest of Amen.  Farewell,
and fail not."

Kenkenes bowed and withdrew.

It was long before sunset, and he had an unfulfilled promise in mind.
He crossed the square thoughtfully and paused by the pool in its
center.  The surface, dark and smooth as oil, reflected his figure and
face faithfully and to his evident satisfaction.  He passed around the
pool and walked briskly in the direction of another narrow passage
lined by rich residences.

He knocked at a portal framed by a pair of huge pilasters, which
towered upward, and, as pillars, formed two of the colonnade on the
roof.  A portress admitted him with a smile and led him through the
sumptuously appointed chamber of guests into the intramural park.
There she indicated a nook in an arbor of vines and left him.

With a silent foot he crossed the flowery court and entered the bower.
The beautiful dweller sat in a deep chair, her little feet on a carved
footstool, a silver-stringed lyre tumbled beside it.  She was alone and
appeared desolate.  When the tall figure of the sculptor cast a shadow
upon her she looked up with a little cry of delight.

"Oh," she exclaimed, "a god led thee hither to save me from the
solitude.  It is a moody monster not catalogued in the list of
terrors."  She thrust the lyre aside with her sandal and pushed the
footstool, only a little, away from her.

"Sit there," she commanded.  Kenkenes obeyed willingly.  He drew off
his coif and tossed it aside.

"Thou seest I am come in the garb of labor," he confessed.

"I see," she answered severely.  "Am I no longer worthy the robe of
festivity?"

"Ah, Ta-meri, thou dost wrong me," he said.  "Chide me, but impugn me
not.  Nay, I am on my way to Tape.  I was summoned hurriedly and am
already dismissed upon mine errand, but I could not use myself so ill
as to postpone my visit for eighteen days."

She jeered at him prettily.

"To hear thee one would think thou hadst been coming as often as
Nechutes."

"How often does Nechutes come?"

"Every day."

"Of late?" he asked, with a laugh in his eyes.

"Nay," she answered sulkily.  "Not since the day--that day!"

Kenkenes was silent for a moment.  Then he put his elbow on the arm of
her chair and leaned his head against his hand.  The attitude brought
him close to her.

"All these days," he said at length, "he has been unhappy among the
happy and the unhappiest among the sad.  He has summoned the shuddering
Pantheon, to hear him vow eternal unfealty to thee, Ta-meri--and lo!
while they listened he begged their most potent charm to hold thee to
him still.  Poor Nechutes!"

"Thou dost treat it lightly," she reproached him, her eyes veiled, "but
it is of serious import to--to Nechutes."

"Nay, I shall hold my tongue.  I efface myself and intercede for him,
and thou dost call it exulting.  And when I am fallen from thy favor
there will be none to plead my cause, none to hide her misty eyes with
contrite lashes."

"Mine eyes are not misty," she retorted.

"Thou hast said," he admitted, in apology.  "It was not a happy term.
I meant bejeweled with repentant dew."

She shook her little finger at him.

"If thou dost persist in thy calumny of me, thou mayest come to test
thy dismal augury," she warned.

He dropped his eyes and his mouth drooped dolorously.

"I come for comfort, and I get Nechutes and all the unpropitious
possibilities that his name suggests."

"Comfort?  Thou, in trouble?  Thou, the light-hearted?" she laughed.

"Nay; I am discontented, but I might as well hope to heave the skies
away with my shoulders as to rebel against mine oppression.  So I came
to be petted into submission."

"Nay, dost thou hear him?" the lady cried.  "And he came, because he
was sure he would get it!"

"And he will go away because the Lady Ta-meri means he shall not have
it," he exclaimed.  He reached toward his coif and immediately a
panic-stricken little hand stayed him.

"Nay," she said softly.  "I was but retaliating.  Hast thou not plagued
me, and may I not tease thee a little in revenge?  Say on."

"My--but now I bethink me, I ought not to tell thee.  It savors of that
which so offends thy nice sense of gentility--labor," he said, sinking
back in his easy attitude again.

"Fie, Kenkenes," she said.  "Hath some one put thy slavish love of toil
under ban?  Does that oppress thee?"  He reproved her with a pat on the
nearest hand.

"The king toils; the priests toil; the powers of the world labor.  None
but the beautiful idle may be idle, and that for their beauty's sake.
Nay, it is not that I may not work, but I may not work as I wish and I
am heart-sick therefore."

His last words ended in a tone of genuine dejection.  His eyes were
fixed on the grass of the nook and his brows had knitted slightly.  The
expression was a rare one for his face and in its way becoming--for the
moment at least.  The hand he had patted drew nearer, and at last,
after a little hesitancy, was laid on his black hair.  He lifted his
face and took cheer, from the light in her eyes, to proceed.

"Since I may speak," he began, "I shall.  Ta-meri, thou knowest that as
a sculptor I work within limits.  The stature of mine art must crouch
under the bounds of the ritual.  It is not boasting if I say that I
see, with brave eyes, that Egypt insults herself when she creates
horrors in stone and says, 'This is my idea of art.'  And these things
are not human; neither are they beasts--they are grotesques that verge
so near upon a semblance of living things as to be piteous.  They
thwart the purpose of sculpture.  Why do we carve at all, if not to
show how we appear to the world or the world appears to us?  Now for my
rebellion.  I would carve as we are made; as we dispose ourselves; aye,
I would display a man's soul in his face and write his history on his
brow.  I would people Egypt with a host of beauty, grace and
naturalness--"

"Just as if they were alive?" Ta-meri inquired with interest.

"Even so--of such naturalness that one could guess only by the hue of
the stone that they did not breathe."

The lady shrugged her shoulders and laughed a little.

"But they do not carve that way," she protested.  "It is not sculpture.
Thou wouldst fill the land with frozen creatures--ai!" with another
little shrug.  "It would be haunted and spectral.  Nay, give me the old
forms.  They are best."

Kenkenes fairly gasped with his sudden descent from earnest hope to
disappointment.  A flood of half-angry shame dyed his face and the
wound to his sensibilities showed its effect so plainly that the beauty
noted it with a sudden burst of compunction.

"Of a truth," she added, her voice grown wondrous soft, "I am full of
sympathy for thee, Kenkenes.  Nay, look up.  I can not be happy if thou
art not."

"That suffices.  I am cheered," he began, but the note of sarcasm in
his voice was too apparent for him to permit himself to proceed.  He
caught up the lyre, and drawing up a diphros--a double seat of fine
woods--rested against it and began to improvise with an assumption of
carelessness.  Ta-meri sank back in her chair and regarded him from
under dreamy lids--her senses charmed, her light heart won by his
comeliness and talent.  Kenkenes became conscious of her inspection, at
last, and looked up at her.  His eyes were still bright with his recent
feeling and the hue in his cheeks a little deeper.  The admiration in
her face became so speaking that he smiled and ran without pausing into
one of the love-lyrics of the day.  Breaking off in its midst, he
dropped the lyre and said with honest apology in his voice:

"I crave thy pardon, Ta-meri.  What right had I to weight thee with my
cares!  It was selfish, and yet--thou art so inviting a confidante,
that it is not wholly my fault if I come to seek of thee, my oldest and
sweetest friend, the woman comfort that was bereft me with my rightful
comforter."

"Neither mother nor sister nor lady-love," she mused.  He nodded, but
the slight interrogative emphasis caught him, and he looked up at her.
He nodded again.

"Nay, nor lady-love, thanks to the luck of Nechutes."

"Nechutes is no longer lucky," she said deliberately.

"No matter," Kenkenes insisted.  "I shall be gone eighteen days, and
his luck will have changed before I can return."

"Thine auguries seem to please thee," she pouted.

He put the back of her jeweled hand against his cheek.

"Nay, I but comfort thee at the sacrifice of mine own peace."

"A futile sacrifice."

"What!"

"A futile sacrifice!"

"Ah, Ta-meri, beseech the Goddess Ma to forget thy words!" he cried in
mock horror.  She tossed her head, and instantly he got upon his feet,
catching up his coif as he did so.

"Come, bid me farewell," he said putting out his hand, "and one of
double sweetness, for I doubt me much if Nechutes will permit a welcome
when I return."

"Nechutes will not interfere in mine affairs," she said, as she rose.

"Nay, I shall know if that be true when I return," he declared.

She stamped her foot.

"Fie!" he laughed.  "Already do I begin to doubt it."

She turned from him and kept her face away.  Kenkenes went to her and,
taking both her hands in his, drew her close to him.  She did not
resist, but her face reproached him--not for what he was doing, but for
what he had done.  With his head bent, he looked down into her eyes for
a moment.  Her red mouth with its sulky pathos was almost irresistible.
But he only pressed one hand to his lips.

"I must wait until I return," he said from the doorway, and was gone.

On the broad bosom of the Nile at sunset, four strong oarsmen were
speeding him swiftly up to Thebes.  Off the long wharves at the
southernmost limits of the city, the rapid boat overtook and passed
low-riding, slowly moving stone-barges laden with quarry slaves.  The
unwieldy craft progressed heavily, nearer and within the darkening
shadow of the Arabian hills.  Kenkenes watched them as long as they
were in sight, an unwonted pity making itself felt in his heart.  For
even in the dusk he distinguished many women and the immature figures
of children; and none knew the quarry life better than he, who was a
worker in stone.



[1] In ancient Egypt burglary was reduced to a system and governed by
law.  The chief of robbers received all the spoil and to him the
victimized citizen repaired and, upon payment of a certain per cent. of
the value of the object stolen, received his property again.  The
original burglar and the chief of robbers divided the profits.  This
traffic was countenanced in Egypt until the country passed into British
hands.

[2] The ape was sacred to and an emblem of Toth, the male deity of
Wisdom and Law.




CHAPTER IV

THE PROCESSION OF AMEN

Thebes Diospolis, the hundred-gated, was in holiday attire.  The great
suburb to the west of the Nile had emptied her multitudes into the
solemn community of the gods.  Besides her own inhabitants there were
thousands from the entire extent of the Thebaid and visitors even from
far-away Syene and Philae.  It was an occasion for more than ordinary
pomp.  The great god Amen was to be taken for an outing in his ark.

Every possible manifestation of festivity had been sought after and
displayed.  The air was a-flutter with party-colored streamers.
Garlands rioted over colossus, peristyle, obelisk and sphinx without
conserving pattern or moderation.  The dromos, or avenue of sphinxes,
was carpeted with palm and nelumbo leaves, and copper censers as large
as caldrons had been set at equidistance from one another, and an
unceasing reek of aromatics drifted up from them throughout the day.

For once the magnificence of the wondrous city of the gods was set down
from its usual preeminence in the eyes of the wondering spectator, and
the vastness of the multitude usurped its place.  The bari of Kenkenes
seeking to round the island of sand lying near the eastern shore
opposite the village of Karnak, met a solid pack of boats.  The young
sculptor took in the situation at once, and, putting about, found a
landing farther to the north.  There he made a portage across the flat
bar of sand to the arm of quiet water that separated the island from
the eastern shore.  Crossing, he dismissed his eager and excited
boatmen and struck across the noon-heated valley toward the temple.
The route of the pageant could be seen from afar, cleanly outlined by
humanity.  It extended from Karnak to Luxor and, turning in a vast loop
at the Nile front, countermarched over the dromos and ended at the
tremendous white-walled temple of Amen.  Between the double ranks of
sightseers there was but chariot room.  The side Kenkenes approached
sloped sharply from the dromos toward the river, and the rearmost
spectators had small opportunity to behold the pageant.  The multitude
here was less densely packed.  Kenkenes joined the crowd at this point.

Here was the canaille of Thebes.

They wore nothing but a kilt of cotton--or as often, only a cincture
about the loins, and their lean bodies were blackened by the terrible
sun of the desert.  They were the apprentices of paraschites,[1]
brewers, professional thieves, slaves and traffickers in the unclean
necessities of a great city, and only their occasional riots, or such
events as this, brought them into general view of the upper classes.
They had nothing in common with the gentry, whom they were willing to
recognize as creatures of a superior mold.  Among themselves there were
established castes, and members of each despised the lower and hated
the upper.  Kenkenes slackened his pace when he recognized the
character of these spectators, and after hesitating a moment, he hung
the flat wallet containing the message around his neck inside his kamis
and pushed on.  Every foot of progress he essayed was snarlingly
disputed until the rank of the aggressive stranger was guessed by his
superior dress, when he was given a moody and ungracious path.  But he
finally met an immovable obstacle in the shape of a quarrel.

The stage of hostilities was sufficiently advanced to be menacing, and
the young sculptor hesitated to ponder on the advisability of pressing
on.  While he waited, several deputies of the constabulary,
methodically silencing the crowd, came upon these belligerents in turn
and belabored the foremost into silence.  The act decided the young
man.  The feelings of the rabble were now in a state sufficiently
warlike to make them forget their ancient respect for class and turn
savagely upon him, should he show any desire to force his way through
their lines.  Therefore he gave up his attempt to reach the temple and
made up his mind to remain where he was.  At that moment, several
gorgeous litters of the belated wealthy rammed a path to the very front
and were set down before the rabble.  Kenkenes seized upon their
advance to proceed also, and, dropping between the first and second
litter, made his way with little difficulty to the front.  With the
complacency of a man that has rank and authority on his side he turned
up the roadway and continued toward the temple.  He was halted before
he had proceeded ten steps.  A litter richly gilded and borne by four
men, came pushing through the crowd and was deposited directly in his
path.

But for the unusual appearance of the bearers, Kenkenes might have
passed around the conveyance and continued.  Instead, he caught the
contagious curiosity of the crowd and stood to marvel.  The men were
stalwart, black-bearded and strong of feature, and robed in no Egyptian
garb.  They were draped voluminously in long habits of brown linen,
fringed at the hem, belted by a yellow cord with tasseled ends.  The
sleeves were wide and showed the wristbands of a white under-garment.
The head-dress was a brown kerchief bound about the brow with a cord,
also yellow.

While Kenkenes examined them in detail, a long, in-drawn breath of
wonder from the circle of spectators caused him to look at the
alighting owner of the litter.

He took a backward step and halted, amazed.

Before him was a woman of heroic proportions, taller, with the
exception of himself, than any man in the crowd.  Upon her, at first
glance, was to be discerned the stamp of great age, yet she was as
straight as a column and her hair was heavy and midnight-black.  Hers
was the Semitic cast of countenance, the features sharply chiseled, but
without that aggressiveness that emphasizes the outline of a withered
face.  Every passing year had left its mark on her, but she had grown
old not as others do.  Here was flesh compromising with age--accepting
its majesty, defying its decay--a sublunar assumption of immortality.
There was no longer any suggestion of femininity; the idea was dread
power and unearthly grace.  Of such nature might the sexless archangels
partake.

"Holy Amen!" one of the awed bystanders exclaimed in a whisper to his
neighbor.  "Who is this?"

"A princess from Punt," [2] the neighbor surmised.

"A priestess from Babylon," another hazarded.

"Nay, ye are all wrong," quavered an old man who had been looking at
the new-comers under the elbows of the crowd.  "She is an Israelite."

"Thou hast a cataract, old man," was the scornful reply from some one
near by.  "She is no slave."

"Aye," went on the unsteady voice, "I know her.  She was the favorite
woman of Queen Neferari Thermuthis.  She has not been out of the Delta
where her people live since the good queen died forty years ago.  She
must be well-nigh a hundred years old.  Aye, I should know her by her
stature.  It is of a truth the Lady Miriam."

At the sound of his mistress' name one of the bearers turned and shot a
sharp glance at the speaker.  Instantly the old man fell back, saying,
as a sneer of contempt ran through the rabble at the intelligence his
words conveyed: "Anger them not.  They have the evil eye."

Kenkenes had guessed the nationality of the strangers immediately, but
had doubted the correctness of his surmise, because of their noble
mien.  If he suffered any disappointment in hearing proof of their
identity, it was immediately nullified by the joy his artist-soul took
in the stately Hebrew woman.  He forgot the mission that urged him to
the temple and, permitting the shifting, restless crowd to surround
him, he lingered, thinking.  This proud disdain must mark his goddess
of stone in the Arabian hills, this majesty and power; but there must
be youth and fire in the place of this ancient calm.

A porter that stood beside him, emboldened by barley beer and the
growing disapproval among the on-lookers, cried:

"Ha! by the rags of my fathers, she outshines her masters, the
brickmaking hag!"

Kenkenes, who towered over the ruffian, became possessed of a sudden
and uncontrollable indignation.  He pecked the man on the head with the
knuckle of his forefinger, saying in colloquial Egyptian:

"Hold thy tongue, brawler, nor presume to flout thy betters!"

The stately Israelite, who had taken no notice of any word against her,
now turned her head toward Kenkenes and slowly inspected him.  He had
no opportunity to guess whether her gaze was approving, for the crowd
about him, grown weary of waiting, had become quarrelsome and was
loudly resenting his defense of the Hebrews.  The porter, supported by
several of his brethren, was already menacing the young sculptor when
some one shouted that the procession was in sight.

From his position Kenkenes commanded a long view of the street that
declined sharply toward the river.  As yet there was nothing to be seen
of the pageant, but the dense crowds far down the highway swayed
backward from the narrow path between them.  Presently, scantily-clad
runners were distinguished coming in a slow trot between the
multitudes.  The lane widened before the swing of their maces and there
were cries of alarm as the spectators in the middle were pressed
between the retreating forward ranks and the immovable rear.  Running
water-bearers pursued the couriers with gurglets, sprinkling the way.
Directly after these, slim bare-limbed youths came in a rapid pace
strewing the path with flowers and palm-leaves.  By this time the
intermittent sound of music had grown insistent and continuous.  Solemn
bodies of priests approached, series after series of the shaven,
white-robed ministers of Amen.  The murmur had grown to an uproar.  The
wild clamor of trumpet, pipe, cymbal and sistrum, with the long drone
of the arghool as undertone, drifted by.  The upper orders of priests
followed in the vibrating wake of the musicians.  Then came Loi,
high-priest to the patron god of Thebes, walking alone, his ancient
figure most pitifully mocked by the richness of his priestly robes.

After him the great god, Amen, in his ark.

The air was rent with acclaim.  The crowd was too dense for any one to
prostrate himself, but every Egyptian, potentate or slave, assumed as
nearly as possible the posture of humility.  Kenkenes bent reverently,
but he lifted his eyes and looked long at the passing ark.  Six priests
bore it upon their shoulders.  It was a small boat, elaborately carved,
and the cabin in the center--the retreat of the deity--was picketed
with a cordon of sacred images.  The entire feretory was overlaid with
gold and crusted with gems.

Mentu, his father, had planned one for Ptah, and a noble work it
was,--quite equal to this, Kenkenes thought.

His artistic deliberations were interrupted by an angry tone in the
clamor about him.  The Israelites had called out a demonstration of
contempt before, and he guessed at once that they had further
displeased the rabble.  It was even as he had thought.  The four
bearers with folded arms contemplated the threatening crowd with a
sidelong gaze of contempt.  The stately Israelite stood in a dream, her
brilliant eyes fixed in profound preoccupation on the distance.
Kenkenes knew by the present attitude of the group that they had made
no obeisance to Amen.  Hence the mutterings among the faithful.  Few
had seen the offense at first, but the demonstration spread
nevertheless, and assumed ominous proportions.

"Nay, now," Kenkenes thought impatiently, "such impiety is foolhardy."
But he drifted into the group of Hebrews and stood between the woman of
Israel and her insulters.  The bearers glanced at him, at one another,
and closed up beside him, but he had eyes only for the majestic
Israelite.  Not till he saw her bend with singular grace did he look
again on the pageant, interested to know what had won her homage.

She had done obeisance before the crown prince of Egypt.  He stood in a
sumptuous chariot drawn by white horses and driven by a handsome
charioteer.  The princely person was barely visible for the pair of
feather fans borne by attendants that walked beside him.  Through
continuous cheering he passed on.  Seti, the younger, followed, driving
alone.  His eyes wandered in pleased wonder over the multitude which
howled itself hoarse for him.

Close behind him was a chariot of ebony drawn by two plunging,
coal-black horses.  A robust Egyptian, who shifted from one foot to the
other and talked to his horses continually, drove therein alone.  As he
approached, the Hebrew woman raised herself so suddenly that one of the
nervous animals side-stepped affrighted.  The swaggering Egyptian, with
a muttered curse, struck at her with his whip.  The four bearers sprang
forward, but she quieted them with a few words in Hebrew.  Reentering
her litter she was borne away, while the Thebans were still lost in the
delights of the procession.

In the few strange words of the woman of Israel, Kenkenes had caught
the name of Har-hat.  This then was the bearer of the king's fan--this
insulter of age and womanhood.  And the words of Mentu seemed very
fitting,--"I like him not."

The Thebans were in raptures.  The splendors of the pageant had far
surpassed their expectations.  Priests, soldiers and officials came in
companies, rank upon rank, of exalted and ornate dignity.  Chariots and
horses shone with gilding, polished metal and gay housings, while the
marching legions clanked with pike and blade and shield.  Now that the
chief luminaries of the procession had passed, the rich and lofty
departed with a great show of indifference to the rest of the parade.
But the humbler folk, all unlearned in the art of assumption, had not
reached that nice point of culture, and lingered to see the last
foot-soldier pass.

Kenkenes, urged by his mission, was departing with the rich and lofty,
when his attention was attracted by the chief leading the section of
royal scribes now passing.  His was a compact, plump figure, amply
robed in sheeny linen, and he balanced himself skilfully in his light
shell of a chariot, which bumped over the uneven pavement.  He was not
a brilliant mark in the long parade, but something other than his mere
appearance made him conspicuous.  Behind him, walking at a respectful
distance, was his corps of subordinates--all mature, many of them aged,
but the years of their chief were fewer than those of the youngest
among them.  From the center of the crowd his face appeared boyish, and
the multitude hailed him with delight.  But the crown prince himself
was not more unmoved by their acclaim.  His silent dignity,
misunderstood, brought forth howls of genuine pleasure, and groups of
young noblemen, out of the great college of Seti I, saluted him by
name, adding thereto exalted titles in good-natured derision.

"Hotep!" ejaculated Kenkenes aloud, catching the name from the lips of
the students.  "By Apis, he is the royal scribe!"

Not until then had he realized the extent of his friend's exaltation.

He turned again toward the temple, walking between the crowds and the
marching soldiers, indifferent to the shouts of the spectators--lost in
contemplation.  But the procession moved more swiftly than he and the
last rank passed him with half his journey yet to complete.  Instantly
the vast throng poured out into the way behind the rearmost soldier and
swallowed up the sculptor in a shifting multitude.  For an hour he was
hurried and halted and pushed, progressing little and moving much.
Before he could extricate himself, the runners preceding the pageant
returning the great god to his shrine, beat the multitude back from the
dromos and once again Kenkenes was imprisoned by the hosts.  And once
again after the procession had passed, he did fruitless battle with a
tossing human sea.  But when the street had become freer, he stood
before the closed portal of the great temple.  The solemn porter
scrutinized the young sculptor sharply, but the display of the
linen-wrapped roll was an efficient passport.  In a little space he was
conducted across the ringing pavements, under the vaulted shadows, into
the presence of Loi, high priest to Amen.

The ancient prelate had just returned from installing the god in his
shrine and was yet invested in his sacerdotal robes.  At one time this
splendid raiment had swathed an imposing figure, but now the frame was
bowed, its whilom comfortable padding fallen away, its parchment-like
skin folded and wrinkled and brown.  He was trembling with the long
fatigue of the spectacle.

He spelled the hieratic writings upon the outer covering of the roll
which the young man presented to him, and asked with some eagerness in
his voice:

"Hast thou traveled with all speed?"

"Scarce eight days have I been on the way.  Only have I been delayed a
few hours by the crowds of the festival."

"It is well," replied the pontiff.  "Wait here while I see what says my
brother at On."

He motioned Kenkenes to a seat of inlaid ebony and retired into a
curtained recess.

The apartment into which Kenkenes had been conducted was small.  It was
evidently the study of Loi, for there was a small library of papyri in
cases against the wall; a deep fauteuil was before a heavy table
covered with loosely rolled writings.  The light from a high slit under
the architrave sifted down on the floor strewn with carpets of
Damascene weave.  Two great pillars, closely set, supported the
ceiling.  They were of red and black granite, and each was surmounted
by a foliated encarpus of white marble.  The ceiling was a marvelous
marquetry of many and wondrously harmonious colors.

In one wall was the entrance leading to another chamber.  It was
screened by a slowly swaying curtain of broidered linen, which was tied
at its upper corners to brass rings sunk in the stone frame of the
door.  This frame attracted the attention of the young sculptor.  It
consisted of two caryatides standing out from the square shaft from
which they were carved, their erect heads barely touching the ceiling.
The figures were of heroic size and wore the repose and dignity of
countenance characteristic of Egyptian statues.  The sculptor had been
so successful in bringing out this expression that Kenkenes stood
before them and groaned because he had not followed nature to the
exquisite achievement he might have attained.

He was deeply interested in his critical examination of the figures
when the old priest darted into the apartment, his withered face
working with excitement.

"Go!  Go!" he cried.  "Eat and prepare to return to Memphis with all
speed.  Thine answer will await thee here to-night at the end of the
first watch,--and Set be upon thee if thou delayest!"

Kenkenes, startled out of speech, did obeisance and hastened from the
temple.

The outside air was thick with dust and intensely hot under the
reddening glare of the sun.  It was late afternoon.  The city was still
crowded, the river front lined with a dense jam of people awaiting
transportation to the opposite shore.  Kenkenes knew that many would
still be there on the morrow, since the number of boats was inadequate
to carry the multitude of passengers.

He began to think with concern upon the security of his own bari, left
in the marsh-growth by the Nile side, north of Karnak.  He left the
shifting crowd behind and struck across the sandy flat toward the arm
of quiet water.  Straggling groups preceded and followed him and at the
Nile-side he came upon a number contending for the possession of his
boat.  They were image-makers and curriers, equally matched against one
another, and a Nubian servitor in a striped tunic, who remained neutral
that he might with safety join the winning party.  The appearance of
the nobleman checked hostilities and the contestants, recognizing the
paternalism of rank after the manner of the lowly, called upon him to
arbitrate.

"The boat is mine, children," [3] was his quiet answer.  He pushed it
off, stepped into it, and turned it broadside to them.

"See here, the scarab of Ptah," he said, tapping the bow with a paddle,
"and the name of Memphis?"  With that he drew away to the sandbar
before the astonished men had realized the turn of events.  Then they
looked at one another in silence or muttered their disgust; but the
Nubian went into transports of rage, making such violent demonstrations
that the image-makers and curriers turned on him and bade him cease.

At the Libyan shore Kenkenes gave his bari into the hands of a
river-man and by a liberal fee purchased its security from
confiscation.  Then he turned his face toward the center of the western
suburb of Thebes Diospolis.  He had the larger palace of Rameses II in
view and he walked briskly, as one who goes forward to meet pleasure.
Only once, when he passed the palace and temple of the Incomparable
Pharaoh, which stood at the mouth of the Valley of the Kings, he
frowned in discontent.  Far up the tortuous windings of this gorge was
the tomb of the great Rameses and there had the precious signet been
lost.  As he looked at the high red ridge through which this crevice
led, he remembered his father's emphatic prohibition and bit his lip.
Thereafter, throughout a great part of his walk, he railed mentally
against the useless loss of a most propitious opportunity.

To the first resplendent member of the retinue at Meneptah's palace,
who cast one glance at the fillet the sculptor wore, and bent suavely
before him, Kenkenes stated his mission.  The retainer bowed again and
called a rosy page hiding in the dusk of the corridor.

"Go thou to the apartments of my Lord Hotep and tell him a visitor
awaits him in his chamber of guests."

The lad slipped away and the retainer led Kenkenes into a long chamber
near the end of the corridor.  The hall had been darkened to keep out
the glare of the day, air being admitted only through a slatted blind
against which a shrub in the court outside beat its waxen leaves.
Before his eyes had become accustomed to the dusk Kenkenes heard
footsteps coming down the outer passage, with now and then the light
and brisk scrape of the sandal toe on the polished floor.  The young
sculptor smiled at the excited throb of his heart.  The new-comer
entered the hall and drew up the shutter.  The brilliant flood of light
revealed to him the tall figure of the sculptor rising from his
chair--to the sculptor the trim presence of the royal scribe.

The friends had not met in six years.

For a space long enough for recognition to dawn upon the scribe, he
stood motionless and then with an exclamation of extravagant delight he
seized his friend and embraced him with woman-like emotion.


[1] Undertakers--embalmers, an unclean class.

[2] Punt--Arabia.

[3] The oriental master calls his servants "children."




CHAPTER V

THE HEIR TO THE THRONE

Loi was not present at the sunset prayers in Karnak.  An hour before he
had summoned the trustiest priest in the brotherhood of ministers to
Amen and bade him conduct the ceremonies of the evening.  Then he sent
to the temple stores, put into service another boat and was ferried
over to the Libyan suburb of Thebes.  He had himself borne in a litter
to the greater palace of Rameses II, and asked an audience with
Meneptah.

The king was at prayers in the temple of his father, close to the
palace, and the dusk of twilight was settling on the valley of the
Nile, before Loi was summoned to the council chamber.

The hall he entered was vast and full of deep shadows.  The two windows
set in one wall, many feet above the floor, showed two spaces of
darkening sky.  A single torch of aromatics flared and hissed beside
the throne dais.  Tremendous wainscoting covered the base of the walls,
more than a foot above a man's height.  It was massively carved with
colossal sheaves of lotus-blooms and sword-like palm-leaves.  Columns
of great girth, bouquets of conventional stamens, ending in foliated
capitals, supported by the lofty ceiling.  The few men gathered in
council were surrounded, over-shadowed, and dwarfed by monumental
strength and solemnity.

Behind a solid panel of carved cedar, which hedged the royal dais,
stood Meneptah.  Above his head were the intricate drapings of a canopy
of gold tissue.  On a level with his eyes, at his side, was the single
torch.  His vision, like his father's, was defective.  He was forty
years old, but appeared to be younger.  His person was plump, and in
stature he was shorter than the average Egyptian.  His coloring was
high and of uniform tint.  The arch of the brow, and the conspicuous
distance between it and the eye below, the disdainful tension of the
nostril and the drooping corners of the mouth, gave his face the
injured expression of a spoiled child.  The lips were of similar
fullness and the chin retreated.  There was refinement in his face, but
no force nor modicum of perception.

Below, with the light of the torch wavering up and down his robust
figure, was Har-hat, Meneptah's greatest general and now the new
fan-bearer.  In repose his face was expressive of great good-humor.
Merriment lighted his eyes and the cut of his mouth was for laughter.
But the smile seemed to be set and, furthermore, indicated that the
fan-bearer found much mirth in the discomfiture of others.  Aside from
this undefined atmosphere of heartlessness, it can not be said that
there was any craft or wickedness patent on his face, for his features
were good and indicative of unusual intelligence.  To the unobservant,
he seemed to be a lovable, useful, able man.  However, we have seen
what Mentu thought of him, and Mentu's estimation might have
represented that of all profound thinkers.  But to the latter class,
most assuredly, Meneptah did not belong.

Har-hat, taking the place of the king during the Rebu war, had
displayed such generalship that the Pharaoh had rewarded him at the
first opportunity with the highest office, except the regency, at his
command.

To the king's right, beside the dais, with a hand resting on the back
of a cathedra, or great chair, was the crown prince, Rameses.  The old
courtiers of the dead grandsire, visiting the court of Meneptah, flung
up their hands and gasped when they beheld the heir to the double crown
of Egypt.  They looked upon the old Pharaoh, renewed in youth and
strength.  There were the same narrow temples with the sloping brow,
the same hawked nose, the same full lips, the same heavy eye with the
smoldering ember in its dusky depths.  The only radical dissimilarity
was the hue of the prince's complexion.  It was a strange, un-Egyptian
pallor, an opaque whiteness with dark shadows that belied the testimony
of vigor in his sinewy frame.

The old courtiers that were still attached to the court of Meneptah
watched with fascination the development of the heir's character.  He
was twenty-two years old now and had proved that no alien nature had
been housed in the old Pharaoh's shape.  If any pointed out the
prince's indolence as proving him unlike his grandsire the old
courtiers shook their heads and said: "He does not reign as yet and he
but saves his forces till the crown is his."  So Egypt, stagnated at
the pinnacle of power by the accession of Meneptah, began to look
forward secretly to the reign of Rameses the Younger, with a hope that
was half terror.

To-night he stood in semi-dusk robed in festal attire, for somewhere a
rout awaited him.  And of the groups of power and rank about him, none
seemed to fit that majestic council chamber so well as he.  It was not
the robe of costly stuffs he wore, nor the trappings of jewels, which
if he moved never so slightly emitted a shower of frosty sparks--but a
peculiar emanation of magnetism that at once repelled and attracted,
and made him master over the monarch himself.  He had never met repulse
or defeat; he had never entered the presence of his peer; he had never
loved, he had never prayed.  He was a solitary power, who admitted
death as his only equal, and defied even him.

The other counselors were minor members of the cabinet, who had been
summoned, but expected only to hear and keep silence while the great
powers--the king, the prince, the priest and the fan-bearer--conferred.

Loi entered, bowing and walking with palsied step.  At one time the
three central figures of the hall had been his pupils.  He had taught
them from the simplest hieratic catechism to the initiation into the
mysteries.  As novices they had kissed his hand and borne him
reverence.  Now as the initiated, exalted through the acquisition of
power, it lay with them to reverse conditions if they pleased.  But as
the old prelate prepared to do obeisance before Meneptah, he was stayed
with a gesture, and after a word of greeting was dismissed to his
place.  Rameses saluted him with a motion of his hand and Har-hat bowed
reverently.  The pontiff backed away to the great council table set
opposite the throne and was met there by a courtier with a chair.

At a sign from the king, who had already sunk into his throne, the old
man sat.

"Thou bringest us tidings, holy Father?"

"Even so, O Son of Ptah."

"Say on."

The priest moved a little uncomfortably and glanced at the ministers
grouped in the shadows.

"Save for the worthy Har-hat and our prince, O my King, thou hast no
need of great council," he said.

Meneptah raised his hand and the supernumerary ministers left the
chamber.  When they were gone, Loi unwrapped the roll Kenkenes had
brought and began to read:


"To Loi, the most high Servant of Amen, Lord of Tape, the Servant of
Ra, at On, sends greeting:

"The gods lend me composure to speak calmly with thee, O Brother.  And
let the dismay which is mine explain the lack of ceremony in this
writing.

"It is not likely that thou hast forgotten the good Queen Neferari
Thermuthis' foster-son--the Hebrew Mesu, whom she found adrift in a
basket on Nilus.  But lest the years have driven the memory of his
misdeeds from thy mind, I tell again the story.  Thou knowest he was
initiated a priest of Isis, and scarce had the last of the mysteries
been disclosed to him, ere it was seen that the brotherhood had taken
an apostate unto itself.

"By the grace of the gods, he interfered in a brawl at Pithom and
killed an Egyptian.  Before he could be taken he fled into Midian, and
the secrets of our order were safe, for a time.

"One by one our fellows have entered Osiris.  The young who knew not
have filled their places.  Thou and I, only, are left--and the Hebrew!

"He hath returned!

"The gods make strong our hands against him!  He went away as a menace,
but he returneth as a pestilence.  The demons of Amend are with him,
and his hour is most propitious.  He hath sunk himself in the
Israelitish pool here in the north, and he will breathe therefrom such
vapors as may destroy Egypt--faith--state--all!

"The bond-people are already in ferment.  There was mutiny at Pa-Ramesu
recently, when three hundred were chosen to work the quarries.
Moreover, the taskmasters are corrupt.  The commander, one Atsu by
name, appointed when the chief Merenra became nomarch over Bubastis,
hath disarmed the under-drivers, removed the women from toil and
restored many privileges which are ruinous to law and order.  The whole
Delta is in commotion.  The nomad tribes near the Goshen country are
agitated; communities of Egyptian shepherds have been won over to the
Hebrew's cause, and now the Israelitish renegade needs but to betray
the secrets to bring such calamity upon Egypt as never befell a nation.

"But, Brother, he is within reach of an avenging hand!  Commission us,
I pray thee, to protect the mysteries after any manner that to us
seemeth good.

"Despatch is urgent.  He may fly again.  Give us thine answer as we
have sent this to thee--by a nobleman--a swift and trusty one, and the
blessings of the Radiant Three be upon thy head.

"Thy servant, the Servant of Ra,

"Snofru."


When the priest finished, the king was sitting upright, his face
flushed with feeling.

"Sedition!" he exclaimed; "organized rebellion in the very heart of my
realm!"

He paused for a space and thrust back the heavy fringes of his cowl
with a gesture of peevish impatience.

"What evil humor possesses Egypt?" he burst forth irritably.  "Hardly
have I overthrown an invader before my people break out.  I quiet them
in one place and they revolt in another.  Must I turn a spear upon mine
own?"

"Well," he cried, stamping his foot, when the three before him kept
silence, "have ye no word to say?"

His eyes rested on Har-hat, with an imperious expectation in them.  The
fan-bearer bent low before he answered.

"With thy gracious permission, O Son of Ptah," he said, "I would
suggest that it were wise to cool an insurrection in the simmering.
The disaffection seems to be of great extent.  But the Rameside army
assembled on the ground might check an open insurrection.  Furthermore,
thou hast seen the salutary effect of thy visit to Tape when she forgot
her duty to her sovereign.  Thy presence in the Delta would undoubtedly
expedite the suppression of the rebellion likewise."

"O, aye," Meneptah declared.  "I must go to Tanis.  It seems that I
must hasten hither and thither over Egypt pursuing sedition like a
scent-hunting jackal.  Mayhap if I were divided like Osiris[1] and a
bit of me scattered in each nome, I might preserve peace.  But it goes
sore against me to drag the army with me.  Hast thou any simpler plan
to offer, holy Father?"

The old priest shifted a little before he answered.

"The mysteries of the faith are in possession of Mesu," he began at
last.  "The writing saith he hath exerted great influence over the
bond-people--in truth he hath entered a peaceful land and stirred it
up--and time is but needed to bring the unrest to open warfare.  Thou,
O Meneptah, and thou, O Rameses, and thou, O Har-hat, each being of the
brotherhood--ye know that we hold the faith by scant tenure in the
respect of the people.  Ye know the perversity of humanity.  Obedience
and piety are not in them.  Though they never knew a faith save the
faith of their fathers, we must pursue them with a gad, tickle them
with processions and awe them with manifestations.  So if it were to
come over the spirit of this Hebrew to betray the mysteries, to scout
the faith and overturn the gods, he would have rabble Egypt following
at his heels.

"As the writing saith, he hath the destruction of the state in mind,
and his own aggrandizement.  He but beginneth on the faith because he
seeth in that a rift wherein to put the lever that shall pry the whole
state asunder.  So with two and a half millions of Hebrews and a horde
of renegade Egyptians to combat, I fear the Rameside army might spill
more good blood than is worth wasting on a mongrel multitude.  The
rabble without a leader is harmless.  Cut off the head of the monster,
and there is neither might nor danger in the trunk.  Put away Mesu, and
the insurrection will subside utterly."

The priest paused and Meneptah stroked the polished coping of the panel
before him with a nervous hand.  There was complete silence for a
moment, broken at last by the king.

"Mesu, though a Hebrew, an infidel and a malefactor, is a prince of the
realm, my foster-brother--Neferari's favorite son.  I can not rid
myself of him on provocation as yet misty and indirect."

"Nay," he added after another pause, "he shall not die by hand of
mine."  The prelate raised his head and met the eyes of the king.
After he read what lay therein, the dissatisfaction that had begun to
show on his ancient face faded.

The Pharaoh settled back into his seat and his brow cleared as if the
problem had been settled.  But suddenly he sat up.

"What have I profited by this council?  Shall I take the army or leave
it distributed over Egypt?"  He stopped abruptly and turned to the
crown prince.  "Help us, my Rameses," he said in a softer tone.  "We
had well-nigh forgotten thee."

Rameses raised himself from the back of his cathedra, against which he
lounged, and moved a step forward.

"A word, my father," he said calmly.  "Thy perplexity hath not been
untangled for thee, nor even a thread pulled which shall start it
raveling.  The priesthood can kill Mesu," he said to Loi, "and it will
do them no hurt.  And thou, my father, canst countenance it and seem no
worse than any other monarch that loved his throne.  Thus ye will
decapitate the monster.  But there be creatures in the desert which,
losing one head, grow another.  Mesu is not of such exalted or
supernatural villainy that they can not fill his place.  Wilt thou
execute Israel one by one as it raises up a leader against thee?  Nay;
and wilt thou play the barbarian and put two and a half million at once
to the sword?"

The trio looked uncomfortable, none more so than the Pharaoh.  The
prince went on mercilessly.

"Are the Hebrews warriors?  Wouldst thou go against a host of
trowel-wielding slaves with an army that levels lances only against
free-born men?  And yet, wilt thou wait till all Israel shall crowd
into thy presence and defy thee before thou actest?  And again, wilt
thou descend on them with arms now when they may with Justice cry 'What
have we done to thee?'  Thou art beset, my father."

The Pharaoh opened his lips as if to answer, but the level eye of the
prince silenced him.

"Thou hast not fathomed the Hebrew's capabilities, my father," Rameses
continued.  "In him is a wealth, a power, a magnificence that thy
fathers and mine built up for thee, and the time is ripe for the
garnering of thy profit.  What monarch of the sister nations hath two
and a half millions of hereditary slaves--not tributary folk nor
prisoners of war--but slaves that are his as his cattle and his flocks
are his?  What monarch before thee had them?  None anywhere, at any
time.  Thou art rich in bond-people beyond any monarch since the gods
reigned."

The chagrin died on the Pharaoh's face and he wore an expectant look.
The prince continued in even tones.

"By use, they have fitted themselves to the limits laid upon them by
the great Rameses.  The feeble have died and the frames of the sturdy
have become like brass.  They have bred like beetles in the Nile mud
for numbers.  Ignorant of their value, thou hast been indifferent to
their existence.  Forgetting them was pampering them.  They have lived
on the bounty of Egypt for four hundred years and, save for the wise
inflictions of a year or two by the older Pharaohs, they have
flourished unmolested.  How they repay thee, thou seest by this
writing.  Now, by the gods, turn the face of a master upon them.
Remove the soft driver, Atsu, and put one in his stead who is worthy
the office.  Tickle them to alacrity and obedience with the lash--yoke
them--load them--fill thy canals, thy quarries, thy mines with them--"
He broke off and moved forward a step squarely facing the Pharaoh.

"Thou hast thine artist--that demi-god Mentu, in whom there is
supernatural genius for architecture as well as sculpture.  Make him
thy murket[2] as well, and with him dost thou know what thou canst do
with these slaves?  Thou canst rear Karnak in every herdsman's village;
thou canst carve the twin of Ipsambul in every rock-front that faces
the Nile; thou canst erect a pyramid tomb for thee that shall make an
infant of Khufu; thou canst build a highway from Syene to Tanis and
line it with sisters of the Sphinx; thou canst write the name of
Meneptah above every other name on the world's monuments and it shall
endure as long as stone and bronze shall last and tradition go on from
lip to lip!"

The prince paused abruptly.  Meneptah was on his feet, almost in tears
at the contemplation of his pictured greatness.

"Mark ye!" the prince began again.  His arm shot out and fell and the
flash of its jewels made it look like a bolt of lightning.  "I would
not fall heir to Israel--and if these things are done in thy lifetime I
must build my monuments with prisoners of war!"

The old hierarch, who had been nervously rubbing the arm of his chair
during the last of the prince's speech, broke the dead silence with an
awed whisper.

"Ah, then spake the Incomparable Pharaoh!"

Meneptah put out his hand, smiling.

"No more.  The way is shown, I follow, O my Rameses!"



[1] Osiris--the great god of Egypt, was overcome by Set, his body
divided and scattered over the valley of the Nile.  Isis, wife of
Osiris, gathered up the remains and buried them at This or Abydos.

[2] Murket--the royal architect, an exalted office usually held by
princes of the realm.




CHAPTER VI

THE LADY MIRIAM

Meanwhile the scribe of the "double house of life," and the son of the
royal sculptor were taking comfort on the palace-top beneath the subdued
light of a hooded lamp.

The pair had spoken of all Memphis and its gossip; had given account of
themselves and had caught up with the present time in the succession of
events.

"Hotep, at thy lofty notch of favor, one must have the wisdom of Toth,"
Kenkenes observed, adding with a laugh, "mark thou, I have compared thee
with no mortal."

Hotep shook his head.

"Nay, any man may fill my position so he but knows when to hold his
tongue and what to say when he wags it."

"O, aye," the sculptor admitted in good-natured irony.  "Those be simple
qualifications and easy to combine."

The scribe smiled.

"Mine is no arduous labor now.  During my years of apprenticeship I was
sorely put to it, but now I have only to wait upon the king and look to
it that mine underlings are not idle.  If another war should come--if any
manner of difficulty should arise in matters of state, I doubt not mine
would be a heavy lot."

The young man spoke of war and fellowship with a monarch as if he had
been a lady's page and gossiped of fans and new perfumes.

Kenkenes looked at him with a full realization of the incongruity of the
youth of the man and the weight of the office that was his.

But at close range the scribe's face was young only in feature and tint.
He was born of an Egyptian and a Danaid, and the blond alien mother had
impressed her own characteristics very strongly on her son.

He had a plump figure with handsome curves, waving, chestnut hair and a
fair complexion.  Nose and forehead were in line.  The eyes were of that
type of gray that varies in shade with the mental state.  His temper
displayed itself only in their sudden hardening into the hue of steel;
content and happiness made them blue.  They were always steady and
comprehending, so that whoever entered his presence for the first time
said to himself: "Here is a man that discovers my very soul."

Whatever other blunder Meneptah might have made, he had redeemed himself
in the wisdom he displayed in choosing his scribe.  Kenkenes had been led
to ask how Hotep had come to his place.

"My superior, Pinem, died without a son," the scribe had explained; "and
as my record was clean, and the princes had ever been my patrons, the
Pharaoh exalted me to the scribeship."

Kenkenes had then set down a mark in favor of the princes.

"I doubt not," the scribe observed at last, "that my time of ease is
short-lived."

The sculptor looked at him with inquiry in his eyes.

"When sedition arises and defies the Pharaoh in his audience chamber,"
Hotep went on, "it has reached the stage of a single alternative--success
or death.  Dost know the Lady Miriam?"

"The Israelite?"

"Even so."

"I saw her this day."

"Good.  Now, look upon the scene.  Thou knowest she is the sister of
Prince Mesu, and the favorite waiting-woman of the good Queen Thermuthis.
She has lived in obscurity for forty years, but this morning she swept
into the audience chamber, did majestic obeisance and besought a word
'with him who was an infant in her maturity,' she said.  The council
chamber was filled with those gathered to welcome Har-hat.  Meneptah bade
her speak.  Hast thou ever heard an Israelitish harangue?" he broke off
suddenly.

Kenkenes shook his head.

"Ah, theirs is pristine oratory--occult eloquence," the scribe said
earnestly, "and she is mistress of the art.  She told the history of
Israel and catalogued its wrongs in a manner that lacked only measure and
music to make it a song.  But, Kenkenes, she did not move us to
compunction and pity.  When she had done, we had not looked on a picture
of suffering and oppression, but of insulted pride and rebellion.
Instead of compunction, she awakened admiration, instead of pity,
respect.  For the moment she represented, not a multitude of complaining
slaves, but a race of indignant peers.

"Meneptah--ah! the good king," the scribe went on, "was impressed like
the rest of us.  But finally he showed her that the Israelites were what
they were by the consent of the gods; that their unwillingness but
increased the burden.  He pointed out the example of his illustrious
sires as justification for his course; enumerated some of their
privileges,--the fertile country given them by Egypt, and the freedom
that was theirs to worship their own God,--and summarily refused to
indulge them further.

"Then she became ominous.  She bade him have a care for the welfare of
Egypt before he refused her.  Her words were dark and full of evil
portent.  The air seemed to winnow with bat-wings and to reek with vapors
from witch-potions and murmur with mystic formulas.  Every man of us
crept, and drew near to his neighbor.  When she paused for an answer, the
king hesitated.  She had menaced Egypt and it stirreth the heart of the
father when the child is threatened.  He turned to Har-hat in his
perplexity and craved his counsel.  The fan-bearer laughed good-naturedly
and begged the Pharaoh's permission to send her to the mines before she
bewitched his cattle and troubled him with visions.  Har-hat's unconcern
made men of us all once more, but Meneptah shook his head.  'The name of
Neferari Thermuthis defends her,' he said; 'let her go hence'."

"'And I take no amelioration to my people?' she demanded.  'Nay,' he
replied, 'not in the smallest part shall their labor be lessened.'

"Holy Isis, thou shouldst have seen her then, Kenkenes!

"She approached the very dais of the throne and, throwing up her arms,
flung her defiance into the face of her sovereign.  It were treason to
utter her words again.  I have seen men white and shaking from rage, but
Meneptah never hath so much of temper to display.  Far be it from me to
say that the king was afraid, but I tell you, Kenkenes, mine own hair is
not yet content to lie flat.  She concentrated all the denunciatory
bitterness of the tongue and pronounced and gloried in the doom of the
dynasty, heaping the blame of its destruction upon the head of Meneptah!"

The scribe finished his story in a whisper.  Kenkenes was by this time
sitting up, his eyes shining with interest and wonder.

"Gods!  Hotep, thou dost make me creep."

"Creep!" the scribe responded heartily, "never in my life have I so
wanted to flee a royal audience.  When she had done, she turned and swept
from the presence and no man lifted a finger to stay her."

For a moment there was an expressive silence between the two young men.
At last Kenkenes broke it in a voice of intense admiration.

"What an intrepid spirit!  Small wonder that she did not heed the
condemnation of the rabble at mid-day--she who was fresh from a triumph
over the Pharaoh!"

Hotep's eyes widened warningly and he shook his head.

"Nay, hush me not, Hotep," Kenkenes went on in a reckless whisper.  "I
must say it.  Would to the gods I had been there to copy it in stone!"

"Hush! babbler!" the scribe exclaimed, his eyes twinkling nevertheless,
"thine art will make an untimely mummy of thee yet."

Kenkenes poured out his first glass of wine and set it down untasted.
The contemplated sacrilege in stone opposite Memphis confronted him.

"If Egypt's lack of art does not kill me first," he added in defense.

"Nay," Hotep protested, "why wouldst thou perpetuate the affront to the
Pharaoh?"

"Because it is history and a better delineation of the Israelitish
character than all the wordy chronicles of the historians could depict,"
was the spirited reply.

"But the ritual," Hotep began, with the assurance of a man that feels he
is armed with unanswerable argument.

"Sing me no song of the ritual," Kenkenes broke in impatiently.  "The
ritual offends mine ears--my sight, my sense.  We have quarreled beyond
any treaty-making--ever."

The other looked at him with amazement and much consternation.

"Art thou mad?" he exclaimed.

"Nay, but I am rebellious--as rebellious as the Israelite, for I have
already shaken my fist in the face of the sculptor's canons.  And the
time will come when the world will call my revolt just.  I would there
were a chronicler, here, now, to write me down, since I would be
remembered as the pioneer.  I shall win no justification, in these days,
perhaps only persecution, but I would reap my reward of honor, though it
be a thousand years in coming."

"Thou hast a grudge against the conventional forms and the rules of the
ritual?" Hotep asked, after a thoughtful silence.

"I have a distaste for the horrors it compels and am ignorant of their
use," Kenkenes answered stubbornly.

"Kenkenes," the scribe began, "Law is a most inexorable thing.  It is the
governor of the Infinite.  It is a tyrant, which, good or bad, can demand
and enforce obedience to its fiats.  It is a capricious thing and it
drags its vassal--the whole created world--after it in its mutations, or
stamps the rebel into the dust while the time-serving obedient ones
applaud.  So thou hast set up resistance against a thing greater than
gods and men and I can not see thee undone.  I love thee, but I should be
an untrue friend did I abet thee in thy lawlessness.  Submit gracefully
and thy cause shall have an audience with Law some day--if it have merit."

The young sculptor's face was passive, but his eyes were fixed sadly on
the remote stars strewn above him.  He felt inexpressibly solitary.  His
zest in his convictions did not flag, but it seemed that the whole world
and the heavens had receded and left him alone with them.

Again Hotep spoke.

"There is more court gossip," he began cheerily, as if no word had been
said that could depress the tone of the conversation.

Kenkenes accepted the new subject gladly.

"Out with it," he said.  "Within the four walls of my world I hear naught
but the clink of mallet and falling stone."

"The breach between Meneptah and Amon-meses, his mutinous brother, may be
healed by a wedding."

"So?"

"Of a surety--nay, and not of a surety, either, but mayhap.  A match
between the niece of Amon-meses, the Princess Ta-user, and the heir,
Rameses."

Kenkenes sat up again in his earnestness.  "Nay," he exclaimed.  "Never!"

"Wherefore, I pray thee?" Hotep asked with a deprecating smile.

"There is no mating between the lion and the eagle; the stag and the asp!
They could not love."

"Thou dreamy idealist!" Hotep laughed.  "The half of great marriages are
moves of strategy, attended more by Set[1] than Athor.[2]  Ta-user is mad
for the crown, Rameses for undisputed power.  Each has one of these two
desirable things to give the other."

"And how shall they appease Athor?" Kenkenes demanded warmly.  "Ta-user
loves Siptah, the son of Amon-meses, and Rameses will crown whom he loves
though he had a thousand other crown-loving, treaty-dowered wives!"

Hotep smiled.  "I thought the four walls of thy world hedged thee, but it
seems thou art right well acquainted with royalty."

"Scoff!" Kenkenes cried.  "But I can tell thee this: Rameses will put his
foot on the neck of Amon-meses if the pretender trouble him, and will wed
with a slave-girl if she break the armor over his iron heart."

Hotep laughed again and suggested another subject.

"The new fan-bearer," he began.

"Nay, what of him?" Kenkenes broke in at once.

"And shall we quarrel about him, also?"

"Dost thou know him?" Hotep queried.

"Right well--from afar and by hearsay."

"Do thou express thyself first concerning him, and I shall treat thee to
the courtier's diplomacy if I agree not."

"I like him not," Kenkenes responded bluntly.

Hotep leaned toward him, with the smile gone from his face, the jest from
his manner, and laid his hand on the sculptor's.  The pressure spoke
eloquently of hearty concord.  "But he has a charming daughter," he said.

Kenkenes inspected his friend's face critically, but there was nothing to
be read thereon.

A palace attendant approached across the paved roof and bent before the
scribe.

"A summons from the Son of Ptah, my Lord," he said.

"At this hour?" Hotep said in some surprise as he arose.  "I shall return
immediately," he told Kenkenes.

"Nay," the sculptor observed, "my time is nearly gone.  Let me depart
now."

"Not so.  I would go with thee.  This will be no more than a note.  If it
be more I shall put mine underlings to the task."

He disappeared in the dark.  Kenkenes lay back on the divan and thought
on the many things that the scribe had told him.  But chiefly he pondered
on Har-hat and the Israelite.

When Hotep returned he carried his cowl and mantle, and a scroll.  "I
too, am become a messenger," he said, "but I am self-appointed.  This
note was to go by a palace courier, but I relieved him of the task."

The pair made ready and departed through the still populous streets of
Thebes to the Nile.  There they were ferried over to the wharves of Luxor.

At the temple the porter conducted them into the chamber in which the
ancient prelate spent his shortening hours of labor.  He was there now,
at his table, and greeted the young men with a nod.  But taking a second
look at Hotep, he beckoned him with a shaking finger.

"Didst bring me aught, my son?" he asked as the scribe bent over him.

"Aye, holy Father; this message to the taskmaster over Pa-Ramesu."

"Ah," the old man said.  "Is that not yet gone?"

"Nay, the Pharaoh asks that thou insert the name of him whom thou didst
recommend for Atsu's place.  The Son of Ptah had forgotten him."

The old man pushed several scrolls aside and prepared to make the
addition..

"But thou art weary, holy Father; let me do it," Hotep protested gently.

"Nay, nay, I can do it," the old man insisted.  "See!" drawing forth a
scroll unaddressed, "I have written all this in an hour.  O aye, I can
write with the young men yet."  He made the interlineation, rolled the
scroll and sealed it.  "I am sturdy, still."  At that moment, he dropped
his pen on the floor and bent to pick it up, but was forestalled by
Hotep.  Then he addressed the scrolls, carefully dried the ink with a
sprinkling of sand and delivered one to Hotep, the other to Kenkenes.
"This to the king, and that to Snofru.  The gods give thee safe journey,"
he continued to Kenkenes.  "Who art thou, my son?"

"I am the son of Mentu, holy Father.  My name is Kenkenes," the young man
answered.

"Mentu, the royal sculptor?"

Kenkenes bowed.

"Nay, but I am glad.  I knew thy father, and since thou art of his blood,
thou art faithful.  Let neither death nor fear overtake thee, for thou
hast the peace of Egypt in thy very hands.  Fail not, I charge thee!"

After a reverent farewell, the two young men went forth.

A slender Egyptian youth went with them to the wharves and awakened the
sleeping crew of a bari.

Hotep they carried across and set ashore on the western side.

"May the same favoring god that brought thee hither, grant thee a safe
journey home, my friend.  The court comes to Memphis shortly.  Till then,
farewell," said Hotep.

"All Memphis will hail her illustrious son, O Hotep.  Farewell."

It was not long until the sculptor was drifting down toward Memphis under
a starry sky--the shadowy temples of Thebes hidden by the sudden
closing-in of the river-hills about her.



[1] Set--the war-god.

[2] Athor--the Egyptian Venus; the feminine love-deity.




CHAPTER VII

ATHOR, THE GOLDEN

At sunrise the morning after his return from On, Kenkenes appeared at
the Nile, attended by a burden-bearing slave.

The first lean, brown boatman who touched his knee and offered his bari
for hire, Kenkenes patronized.  The slave had eased his load into the
boat and Kenkenes was on the point of embarking when a four-oared bari,
which had passed them like the wind a moment before, put about several
rods above them and returned to the group on shore.

A bent and withered servitor was standing in the bow of the boat,
wildly gesticulating, as if he feared Kenkenes would insist on pulling
away despite his efforts.  The young man recognized the servant of
Snofru, old Ranas.

The large bari was beached and the servitor alighted with agility and,
beckoning to Kenkenes, took him aside.

"There has been an error--a grave error, concerning the message," the
old man began in excitement; "but thou art in no wise at fault.  Yet
mayhap thou canst aid us in unraveling the tangle.  See!"

He displayed the linen-wrapped roll, the covering split where Snofru
had opened it, but the wavering hieratic characters of the address in
Loi's hand, still intact.

When the young sculptor had gazed, the old servant nervously undid the
roll, and showed within a letter to the commander over Pa-Ramesu,
written in the strong epistolary symbols of the royal scribe.

Kenkenes frowned with vexation.  Innocent and efficient though he had
been, the miscarriage of his mission stung him nevertheless.  The
blunder was not long a mystery to him.

Summoning all the patience at his command, he recounted the events in
the apartments of the ancient hierarch of Amen.

"There were two Scrolls," he explained; "one to the Servant of Ra at
On, the other to Atsu.  The holy father sealed them both before he
addressed them and confused the directions.  The one which I should
have brought to thine august master, hath gone to the taskmaster over
Pa-Ramesu."

"Thou madest all speed?" the servant demanded, trembling with eagerness.

"A half-day's journey less than the usual time I made in returning.  I
doubt much, if the messenger with the other scroll hath passed Memphis
yet, since he may not have been despatched in such hot haste.
Furthermore, because of the festivities in Tape, it would have been
well-nigh impossible for him to hire a boat until the next day."

This information kindled a light of hope on the old servant's face.

"Thou givest me life again," he exclaimed.  "The blessings of Ra be
upon thee!"

Without further words he ran back to the boat, and the last Kenkenes
saw of him, he was frantically urging his boatmen to greater speed,
back to On.

Kenkenes had come to the Nile that morning, rejoicing in the
propitiousness of his opportunity.  Mentu was at that moment in On,
seeing to the decoration of the second obelisk reared by Meneptah to
the sun.  The great artist had prepared to be absent a month, and had
left no work for his son to do.  But the coming of Ranas with the news
of his mission's failure had filled Kenkenes with angry discomfiture.

He dismissed his slave and rowed down-stream toward Masaarah.

As he approached the abandoned wharf, a glance showed him that some
effort toward restoring it had been made.  The overgrowth of vines had
been cut away and the level of the top had been raised by several
fragments of rough stone.

The tracks of heavy sledges had crushed the young grain across the
field toward the cliffs.

Kenkenes stood up and looked toward the terraced front of the hills, in
which were the quarries.

There were dust, smoke, stir and moving figures.

The stone-pits were active again after the lapse of half a century.

"By the grace of the mutable Hathors," the young man muttered as he
dropped back into his seat, "my father may yet decorate a temple to
Set, but by the same favor, it seems that I shall be snatched from the
brink of a sacrilege."

He permitted his boat to drift while he contemplated his predicament.
Suddenly he smote his hands together.

"Grant me pardon, ye Seven Sisters!" he exclaimed.

"I misread your decree.  Ye have but covered my tracks toward
transgression."

After a little thought he resumed his felicitations.

"Who of Memphis will think I come to Masaarah, save to look after the
taking out of stone?  Is it not part of my craft?  Nay, but I shall
make offering in the temple for this.  And need any of these unhappy
creatures in Masaarah see me except as it pleases me to show myself?"

He seized his oars and rowed down the river another furlong.  Leaving
the craft fixed in the tangle of herbage at the water's edge, he
shouldered his cargo and crossed the narrow plain to the cliffs below
Masaarah.  There he made a difficult ascent of the fronts facing the
Nile and reached his block of stone without approaching the hamlet of
laborers.

Depositing his burden, he set forth to reconnoiter.  He descended again
into the Nile valley by the way he had come and wandered toward the
mouth of the gorge.  From a little distance he looked upon a scene of
great activity.  In the shadow of one of the dilapidated hovels, four
humped oxen stood, their heavy harness still hanging upon them, though
the sledges they drew, covered with stone dust and broken pieces, were
some distance away from them.  A company of half a score of children
were ascending in single file, along a slanting plane of planks, into
the hollow in the cliff upon which work had been renewed.  Along the
rock-wall ahead of them a scaffold had been erected and here were men
drilling holes in the stone, or driving wooden wedges into the holes
already made, or pouring water on the wedges as the skins the children
bore were passed up to them.

Kenkenes picked his way through the debris of sticks, stones, dust and
cast-off water-skins, and serenely disregarding the stare of the
laborers, went up to the edge of the stone-pit and watched the work
with interest.  A constant stream of broken stone rattled down under
the scaffold and long runlets of water fed an ever increasing pool in
the depression before the cliff.  A single slab of irregular dimensions
lay on the sand at the base of a wooden chute, down which it had
descended from the hollow in the cliff the evening before.  The cavity
it left bade fair to enlarge by nightfall, for the swelling wedges were
rending another slab from its bedding with loud reports and the sudden
etching of fissures.

The young sculptor noted with some wonder that the laborers were
Israelites.

After a time Kenkenes turned away and addressed one of the bearded men
at that moment, ascending the wooden plane.

"What do ye here?" he asked.

The man answered in unready Egyptian, but, for an inferior, in a manner
curiously collected.

"The Pharaoh addeth to the burden of the chosen people.  We dig stone
for a temple to the war-god."

"The chosen people!" Kenkenes repeated inquiringly.

"The children of Israel," the Hebrew explained.  Kenkenes lifted one
eyebrow quizzically and went his way.  As he leaped up into the gorge
he vaguely realized that he had seen no trace of an encampment near the
hamlet, which he knew to be uninhabitable.

"Of a truth, the chosen people seem to follow me of late," he said to
himself as he rambled up the valley.  "Meneptah must have scattered
them out of Goshen into all the corners of Egypt."

As he turned the last winding of the gorge he came upon a cluster of
some threescore tents, spread over the level pocket at the valley's
end.  Almost against the northern wall the house of the commander had
been built to receive the earliest shadow of the afternoon.  The
military standard was raised upon its roof and a scribe, making entries
on a roll of linen, sat cross-legged on a mat before the door.  In one
of the narrow ways between the tents an old woman, very bowed and
voluminously clad, prepared a great hamper of lentils and another of
papyrus root for the noonday meal.  One or two children sitting on the
earth beside her rendered her assistance, and a third kept the turf
fire glowing under a huge bubbling caldron.  Kenkenes passed through
the camp by this narrow way and paused to look with much curiosity at
the ancient Israelite.  Never had he seen any old person so active or a
slave so wrapped in covering.  He hoped she would lift her head that he
might see her face; and even as he wished, she pierced him with a look
which, from her midnight eyes, seemed like lightning from a
thunder-cloud.

"Gods!" he exclaimed as he retreated up the slope behind the camp.  And
a moment later he continued his soliloquy in a voice that struggled
between mirth and amazement: "Have I never seen an Israelite until I
beheld these twain, the Lady Miriam and that bent dart of lightning in
the valley?  If these be Israelites I never saw one before.  If those
cowed shepherds that have strayed now and again out of Goshen be
Hebrews, then these are not.  And the gods shield me from the disfavor
of them, be they slaves or sibyls!"

When he reached his block of stone he unrolled his load of equipments
and set to work without delay.  He was remote from any possible
interruption from Memphis, and the slaves in the gorge and in the
stone-pits had no opportunity to come upon his sacrilege in idle hours.
They would be held like prisoners within the limits of the quarries.
His sense of security had been strengthened by the renewed activities
in Masaarah.

With a shovel of tamarisk he cleared the slab of its drift of sand.  He
found that the block broadened at the base and was separate from the
sheet of rock on which it stood.  Among his supplies was a roll of reed
matting, and with this cut into proper lengths, he carpeted a
considerable space about the block.  Precaution rather than luxury had
prompted this procedure, since the chipped stone falling on the
covering could be carried cleanly and at once from the spot.

Pausing long enough to eat a thin slice of white bread and
gazelle-meat, and to drink a draft from the porous and ever cooling
water bottle, he turned to the protection and concealment of his statue.

The place was strewn with tolerably regular fragments, and the building
of a segment of wall to the north at the edge of the matting required
more time than strength or skill.  He built solidly against the
penetrative sand, and as high as his head.  The early afternoon blazed
upon him and passed into the mellower hours of the later day before he
had finished.  He hid his shovel and two cylindrical billets of wood,
such as were used to roll great weights, under the edge of his reed
carpet, and his preparations were complete.  He wiped his brow,
congratulating himself on the snugness of his retreat and the
auspicious beginning of his transgression.

Weary and happy, he rowed himself back to Memphis and slept soundly on
the eve of a great offense against the laws of Egypt.

But the next day, when the young sculptor faced the moment of actual
creation, he realized that his goddess must take form from an
unembodied idea.  The ritual had been his guide before, and his genius,
set free to soar as it would, fluttered wildly without direction.  His
visions were troubled with glamours of the old conventional forms; his
idea tantalized him with glimpses of its perfect self too fleeting for
him to grasp.  The sensation was not new to him.  During his maturer
years he had tried to remember his mother's face with the same yearning
and heart-hurting disappointment.  But this time he groped after
attributes which should shape the features--he had spirit, not form, in
mind; and the odds against which his unguided genius must battle were
too heroic for it to succeed without aid.  The young sculptor realized
that he was in need of a model.  Stoically, he admitted that such a
thing was as impossible as it was indispensable.  It seemed that he had
met complete bafflement.

He took up his tools and returned to Memphis.  But each succeeding
morning found him in the desert again, desperately hopeful--each
succeeding evening, in the city disheartened and silent.

So it followed for several days.

On the sixth of January the festival in honor of the return of Isis
from Phenicia was celebrated in Memphis.  Kenkenes left the revel in
mid-afternoon and crossed the Nile to the hills.  He found no content
away from his block of stone--no happiness before it.  But he wandered
back to the seclusion of the niche that he might be moody and sad of
eye in all security.

The stone-pits were deserted.  The festivities in Memphis had extended
their holiday to the dreary camp at Masaarah.  Kenkenes climbed up to
his retreat and remained there only a little time.  The unhewn rock
mocked him.

He descended through the gorge and found that the Hebrews were but
nominally idle.  A rope-walk had been constructed and the men were
twisting cables of tough fiber.  The Egyptians lounged in the long
shadows of the late afternoon and directed the work with no effort and
little concern.  The young sculptor overlooked the scene as long as it
interested him and continued down the valley toward the Nile.

Presently a little company of Hebrew children approached, their bare
feet making velvety sounds in the silence of the ravine.  Each balanced
a skin of water on his head.  The little line obsequiously curved
outward to let the nobleman pass, and one by one the sturdy children
turned their luminous eyes up to him, some with a flash of white teeth,
some with a downward dip of a bashful head.  One of them disengaged a
hand from his burden and swept a tangle of moist black curls away from
his eyes.  The sun of the desert had not penetrated that pretty thatch
and the forehead was as fair as a lotus flower.

Kenkenes caught himself looking sharply at each face as he passed, for
it contained somewhat of that for which he sought.  As he walked along
looking after them he became aware that some one was near him, He
turned his head and stopped in his tracks.

He confronted his idea embodied--Athor, the Golden!

It was an Israelitish maiden, barely sixteen years old, but in all his
life he had never looked upon such beauty.  He had gazed with pleased
eyes on the slender blush-tinted throats and wrists of the Egyptian
beauties, but never had he beheld such whiteness of flesh as this.  He
had sunk himself in the depths of the dusky, amorous eyes of high-born
women of Memphis, but here were fathomless profundities of azure that
abashed the heavens.  He had been very near to loveliest hair of Egypt,
so close that its odorous filaments had blown across his face and his
artist senses had been caught and tangled in its ebon sorcery.  But
down each side this broad brow was a rippling wave of gold, over each
shoulder a heavy braid of gold that fell, straightened by its own
weight, a span below the waist.  The winds of the desert had roughened
it and the bright threads made a nimbus about the head.  Its glory
overreached his senses and besieged his soul.  Here was not witchery,
but exaltation.

Enraptured with her beauty, her perfect fulfilment of his needs, he
realized last the unlovely features of her presence.  She balanced a
heavy water pitcher on her head and wore a rough surplice, more
decorous than the dress of the average bondwoman, but the habit of a
slave, nevertheless.  He had halted directly in her path, and after a
moment's hesitancy she passed around him and went on.

Immediately Kenkenes recovered himself and with a few steps overtook
her.  Without ceremony he transferred the heavy pitcher to his own
shoulder.  The girl turned her perfect face, full of amazement, to him,
and a wave of color dyed it swiftly.

"Thy burden is heavy, maiden," was all he said.

The bulk of the jar on the farther shoulder made it necessary for him
to turn his face toward her, but she was uneasy under the intent gaze
of his level black eyes.  She dropped behind him, but he slackened his
pace and kept beside her.  For the moment he was no longer the man of
pulse and susceptibility but the artist.  Therefore her thoughts and
sensations were apart from his concern.  The unfamiliar perfection of
the Semitic countenance bewildered him.  He took up his panegyric.
Never was a mortal countenance so near divine.  And the sumptuousness
of her figure--its faultless curves and lines, its lissome roundness,
its young grace, the beauty of arm and neck and ankle!  Ah! never did
anything entirely earthly dwell in so fair, so splendid a form.

As they neared the camp the girl spoke to him for the first time.  He
recognized in her voice the same serene tone he had noted in his talk
with the Hebrew some days before.

"Give me my burden now," she said.  "Thou hast affronted thy rank for
me, and I thank thee many times."

The sculptor paused and for a moment stood embarrassed.  It went sorely
against his gallantry to lay the burden again upon her and he said as
much.

"Nay, Egypt has no qualms against loading the Hebrew," she said
quietly.  "Wouldst thou put thy nation to shame?"

Kenkenes opened his eyes in some astonishment.

"Now am I even more loath," he declared.  "What art thou called?"

"Rachel."

"It hath an intrepid sound, but Athor would become thee better.  Now I
am a sculptor from the city, come to study thy women for a frieze," he
continued unblushingly, "and I would go no farther in my search.
Rachel repeated will be beauty multiplied.  Let me see thee once in a
while,--to-morrow."

A sudden flush swept over her face and her eyes darkened.

"It shall not keep thee from thy labor," he added persuasively.

The color deepened and she made a motion of dissent.

"Nay! thou dost not refuse me!" he exclaimed, his astonishment evident
in his voice.

"Of a surety," she replied.  "Give me my burden, I pray thee."

Dumb with amazement, too genuine to contain any anger, Kenkenes obeyed.
As she went up the shady gorge, walking unsteadily under the heavy
pitcher, he stood looking after her in eloquent silence.

And in eloquent silence he turned at last and continued down the
valley.  There was nothing to be said.  His appreciation of his own
discomfiture was too large for any expression.

In a few steps he met the short captain who governed the quarries.
Kenkenes guessed his office by his dress.  He was adorned in festal
trappings, for he had spent most of the day in revel across the Nile.

"Dost thou know Rachel, the Israelitish maiden?" Kenkenes asked,
planting himself in the man's way.

"The yellow-haired Judahite?" the man inquired, a little surprised.

"Even so," was the reply.

The soldier nodded.

"Look to it that she is put to light labor," the sculptor continued,
gazing loftily down into the narrow eyes.  The soldier squared off and
inspected the nobleman.  It did not take him long to acknowledge the
young sculptor's right to command.

"It does not pay to be tender with an Israelite," the man answered
sourly.

Kenkenes thrust his hand into the folds of his tunic over his breast
and, drawing forth a number of golden rings strung on a cord, jingled
them musically.

The soldier grinned.

"That will coax a man out of his dearest prejudice.  I will put her
over the children."

Kenkenes dropped the money into the man's palm.

"I shall have an eye to thee," he said warningly.  "Cheat me not."

He went his way.  The incident restored to him the power of speech.

"Now, by Horus," he began, "am I to be denied by an Israelite that
which the favoring Hathors designed I should have?  Not while the arts
of strategy abide within me.  The children, I take it, will come here
with the water," he cogitated, stamping upon the wet and deserted ledge
which he had reached, "and here will she be, also."

He raised his eyes to the ragged line of rocks topping the northern
wall of the gorge.

"I shall perch myself there like a sacred hawk and filch her likeness.
Nay, now that I come to ponder on it, it is doubtless better that she
know naught about it.  She might drop certain things to the Egyptians
hereabout that would lead to mine undoing.  The gods are with me, of a
truth."

He descended into the larger valley and went singing toward the Nile.




CHAPTER VIII

THE PUNISHMENT OF ATSU

One late afternoon, in the streets of Pa-Ramesu, a curious new-comer
bowed before Atsu, the commander of Israel of the treasure city.  The
visitor was old and tremulous from fatigue, and the stains of hard
travel were evident upon him.

"Greeting, Atsu.  The peace of the divine Mother attend thee," he said.
"Snofru, the beloved of Ra at On, sends thee greeting by his servant,
Ranas."

"Greeting," the taskmaster replied, after he had inspected the
white-browed servant.  "The shelter of my roof and the bread of my
board are thine;" adding after a little pause, "and in truth thou
seemest to need these things."

The old man smiled an odd wry smile and followed lamely after the long
swinging stride of the commander toward the headquarters on the knoll.

Within the house of Atsu, Ranas delivered into the hands of the soldier
the message that Kenkenes had brought to Snofru.  While Atsu undid the
roll the old servant made voluble apologies for the broken seal.  The
commander stepped to the doorway for better light and read the writing.

The old servant back in the dusk of the interior saw the stern face
harden, the heavy brows knit blackly, the dusky red fade from the
cheek.  Ranas knew what the soldier read, for he had had the roll with
its broken seal, from On to Memphis and from Memphis back to On again.
But with all his astuteness he could not have guessed what extremes of
wrath and grief the insulted taskmaster suffered.  The sheet rolled
itself together again and was broken and crushed in the iron fingers
that gripped it.  Presently he tossed it aside.  Hardly had it left his
hand before he hastened to pick it up, straightened it out and re-read
it feverishly.  He forgot the old servant; but had he remembered the
man's curious gaze, no resolution could have hidden that joy which
slowly wrote itself upon his face.  There was balm in the barb for all
the wound it made.  This is what he read:


"To Atsu, Commander over the Builders of Pa-Ramesu, These: To mine ears
hath come report of mutiny and idleness through thy weak government of
my bond-people.  Also that thou hast enforced my commands but feebly,
and so defeated my purposes, which were my sire's, after whose
illustrious example I reign.

"For these and kindred inefficiencies art thou removed from the
government over Pa-Ramesu.

"I hereby bestow upon thee another office within the limits of thy
capacity.  Thou wilt take up the flagellum over Masaarah when thou hast
surrendered Pa-Ramesu to thy successor.

"By this thou shalt learn that the Pharaohs will be ably served.

"Horemheb of Bubastis, thy successor, accompanieth these.

"Give him honor.            MENEPTAH."


The diction was manifestly the king's.  None other of high estate would
have inspired so spiteful a letter.  But the appointment to Masaarah
made Atsu forget the sting in the second reading.  To Masaarah!  To
Masaarah and Rachel!  He folded the broken sheet and thrust it into his
bosom.  Meeting the keen eye of his guest, the color rushed back to the
taskmaster's face and he summoned two attendant Hebrews to wait upon
the old man while he went forth to gain composure in the air.

After the old man had been fed and given such other comfort as the
soldier's house afforded, the taskmaster returned.  Then Ranas shifted
his position so that he might watch his host's face most intelligently,
and turned to the real purpose of his visit.

"Thou canst see, my master, that if thy message bore the wrapping for
the epistle to Snofru, the message to the holy father must have borne
thy name.  Thou hast received no letter as yet which was not intended
for thee?"

The question was delivered politely, but the old man thrust his curious
face forward and shook his head with a combination of interrogation and
dissent, which was highly insincere.

"I have received naught which was not intended for me," the taskmaster
replied warmly.

After a moment's intent contemplation of Atsu's face the courier went
on: "Nay, so had I thought.  The messenger came to Snofru with all
speed and out-stripped the courier bound for Pa-Ramesu.  It is even as
I had thought.  He may arrive shortly, but I must tarry till he comes."

Atsu assented bluntly, and after that if they talked it was of
impersonal things and in a desultory manner.  When night came Atsu
called his attendants and had the weary old man put to bed in a
curtained corner of the house.  For himself there was no sleep.

At midnight there came the beat of hoofs on the dust-muffled ways of
Pa-Ramesu.  A sentry knocked at the door of the commander and announced
a visitor.  Atsu, who still sat under the unextinguished reed light,
greeted the new-comer with an exclamation of concern.  The man was
covered with dust, his dress was torn and bloody, his right hand
swathed in cloths, and his lip, right cheek and eye were swollen and
discolored.

"By Horus, friend, thou lookest ill-used," the taskmaster exclaimed.
"What has befallen thee?"

"Naught--naught of any lasting hurt," the newcomer replied carelessly.
"We were set upon by a troop of murdering Bedouins this side of
Bubastis and had a pretty fight."

"Aye, thou hast the stamp of its beauty upon thy face.  A slave, here,
with some balsam," Atsu continued, addressing the sentry, "and a
captain of the constabulary next.  We will cure these Bedouins and
their hurt at once."

"Nay," the visitor protested.  "It is only a spear-slit in my hand, and
a flying stirrup marred my face.  I am well.  Look to the Bedouins,
however; they ran our messenger through--Set consume them!"

"Doubt not, we shall look to them.  They grow strangely insolent of
late."

"Small wonder," the other responded heartily.  "Is not the whole north
a seething pot of lawlessness; and by the demons of Amenti, is not the
Israelite the fire under the caldron?  Nay, but I shall have especial
joy in damping him!"

The man laughed and dropped into the chair Atsu had offered him.

"Then thou art Horemheb, the new taskmaster over Pa-Ramesu?"

"So! has my news outridden me?" the man exclaimed in very evident
amazement.

Ranas, indifferently clad in a hastily donned kamis, at this moment
parted the curtains of his retreat and came forth with an apologetic
courtesy.

"And thy messenger, sir?  What of him?" he asked eagerly.

"Dead, and left at a wayside house."

"And the message?" the old man persisted.

Horemheb surveyed him with increasing astonishment.

"Where hast thou these tidings?" he demanded.  "They are scarce three
hours old.  Who reached thee with them before me?"

Atsu interposed and explained the interchange of letters.

"Oh," said Horemheb.  "So the correct message came to thee,
nevertheless, good Atsu.  But I can not tell thee aught of the other.
It is lost."

"Lost!" Ranas shrieked.

"Gods! old man.  It was only pigment and papyrus, not gold or jewels.
A kindly disposed Hebrew came to our help with some of his people, and
we put the Bedouins to flight.  But after the struggle, search as we
might with torches which the Hebrew brought, the message was not to be
found.  A Bedouin made off with it, I doubt not."

Ranas stood speechless for an instant, and then he rushed up to the new
taskmaster.

"His name?" he demanded fiercely.  "The Hebrew!  What was he like?
Where does he dwell?"

"A murrain on the maniac!" Horemheb exploded.

"He called himself Aaron!"

Ranas staggered against the wall for support and beat the air with his
arms.

"Aaron, the brother of Mesu!  O ye inscrutable Hathors!" he babbled.
"A Bedouin made off with it!  Oh!  Oh!  What idiocy!"




CHAPTER IX

THE COLLAR OF GOLD

The next morning after his meeting with the golden-haired Israelite,
Kenkenes came early to the line of rocks that topped the north wall of
the gorge and, ensconced between the gray fragments, looked down unseen
on her whenever she came to the valley's mouth.  All day long the
children came staggering up from the Nile, laden with dripping hides,
or returned in a free and ragged line down the green slope of the field
to the river again.

Vastly more simple and time-saving would have been one of the capacious
water carts.  But what would have employed these ten youthful Hebrews
in the event of such improvement?  There was to be no labor-saving in
the quarries.  Therefore, through the dust, up the weary slanting
plane, again and again till the day's work amounted to a journey of
miles, the Hebrew children toiled with their captain and co-laborer,
Rachel.

At the summit of the wooden slope the beautiful Israelite, who had
preceded her charges, passed up the burden of each one to the Hebrews
on the scaffold.  From his aery Kenkenes watched this particular phase
of her tasks with interest.  She was not too far from him for the
details of her movements to be distinguishable, and the posture of the
outstretched arms and lifted face fulfilled his requirements.  He
abandoned the modeling of her features for that day and copied the
attitude.  Once in the morning and once in the afternoon a countryman
of hers, strong, young and but lightly bearded, stepped down from his
place on the scaffold and relieved her.  The sculptor noted the act
with some degree of disquiet, hoping that the graceful protests of the
girl might prevail.  When the stalwart Hebrew overrode her
remonstrances, and motioned her toward a place at the side of the
frame-work where she might rest, the young sculptor frowned
impatiently.  But his humane heart chid him and he waited with some
assumption of grace till she should take up her burden again.

At sunset he retired cautiously, but several dawns found him among the
rocks, with reed pen, papyri and molds of clay.  When he climbed to his
retreat within the walls of stone, on the hillside in the late
afternoon, he hid several studies of the girl's head and statuettes of
clay under the matting.

At last he began the creation of Athor the Golden.  For days he labored
feverishly, forgetting to eat, fretting because the sun set and the
darkness held sway for so long.  Having overstepped the law, he placed
no limit to the extent of his artistic transgression.

After choosing nature as his model, he followed it slavishly.  On the
occasion of his initial departure from the accepted rules, he had never
dreamed it possible to disregard ritualistic commandments so
absolutely.  He even ignored the passive and meditative repose,
immemorial on the carven countenances of Egypt.

The face of Athor, as she put forth her arms to receive the sun, must
show love, submission, eagerness and great appeal.

As Kenkenes said this thing to himself, he lowered chisel and mallet
and paused.  Posture and form would avail nothing without these
emotions written on the face.  He began to wonder if he might carve
them, unaided.  He had not found them in the Israelite, and he
confessed to himself, with a little laugh, a doubt that he should ever
see them on her countenance.

Then a vagabond impulse presented itself unbidden in his mind and was
frowned down with a blush of apology to himself.  And yet he remembered
his coquetry with the Lady Ta-meri as some small defense in the form of
precedent.

"Nay," he replied to this evidence, "it is a different woman.  Between
myself and Ta-meri it is even odds, and the vanquished will have
deserved his defeat."

That evening--it was several days after the face of the goddess had
begun to emerge from the block of stone--he went to the upper end of
the gorge and passed through the camp on his way home, that he might
meet his model.

The laborers had not returned from the quarries, though the evening
meal bubbled and fumed over the fires in the narrow avenue between the
tents.  Kenkenes passed by on the outskirts of the encampment and went
on.

Deep shadow lay on the stone-pits when Kenkenes reached the mouth of
the gorge, and a cool wind from the Nile swept across the grain.  The
day's work had been prolonged in the lowering of a huge slab from its
position in its native bed.  The monolith was already on the brink of
the wooden incline, and every man was at the windlasses by which the
cables controlling its descent were paid out.  Kenkenes saw at a glance
that none of the water-bearers was present, and he knew the lovely
Israelite was with them.  He did not pause.

Before the sound of the quarry stir had been left behind he heard a
sharp report, the frightened shrieks of women and shouts of warning.
He looked back in time to see the huge stone turn part way round on the
chute and rush, end first, earthward.  Expectant silence fell, broken
only by the vicious snarl of a flying windlass crank.  But in an
instant the great slab struck the earth with a thunderous sound that
reverberated again and again from the barren hills about.  A vast
all-enveloping cloud of dust and earth filled the hollow quarry like
smoke from an explosion.  But there was no further outcry, and through
the outskirts of the lifting cloud men were seen making deliberate
preparations to repair the parted cable.  Assured that no calamity had
occurred, Kenkenes went on.

In a few steps he met the children water-bearers flying to the scene of
the accident.  Not one of them bore a water-skin.  The excited young
Hebrews did not stop to question the sculptor, but ran on, and were
swallowed up in dust.

Half-way to the Nile he came upon her whom he sought.  She was standing
alone in the midst of ten sheepskins, and the grain was wetted with the
spilled water.  He pointed to the discarded hides about her.

"The camp will go thirsty if the runaways do not return," he said.
"Thy burden is too heavy for even me to-night."

"They will return," she answered.

"Aye, it was naught but a parting cable and a falling rock.  I was near
and saw no evidence of disaster.  Had the children asked me, I should
have told them as much."

"They will return," she repeated, and Kenkenes fancied that there was a
dismissal in this quiet repetition.  But he did not mean to see it.  He
went on, with a smile.

"I am glad they did not stop, for I wanted to see thee, with that
frightened longing of a man who hath resolved on confession and meeteth
his confessor on a sudden.  Now that the moment hath arrived I marvel
how I shall make my peace with Athor, whose command I most deliberately
broke."

She raised her beautiful eyes to his face and waited for him to
proceed.  The pose of the head was exactly what he wanted.  Rapidly he
compared every detail of her face with his memory of the statue of
Athor, noting with satisfaction that his studies had been happily
faithful.  His scrutiny was so swift and skilful that there seemed to
be nothing unusual in his gaze.

"I am culpable but impenitent," he continued.  "I shall not forswear
mine offense.  Neither is there any need of a plea to justify myself,
for my very sin is its own justification.  Behold me!  I perched myself
like a sacred hawk at the mouth of the valley and filched thy likeness.
Do with me as thou wilt, but I shall die reiterating approval of my
deed."

His extravagant speech wrought an interesting change on the face before
him.  There was a pronounced curve of her mouth, a slight tension in
the chiseled nostril--in fact, an indefinable disdain that had not been
there before.  It would become Athor well.  Kenkenes understood the
look but he did not flinch.  Instead he let his head drop slowly until
he looked at her from under his brows.  Then he summoned into his eyes
all the wounded feeling, pathos, soft reproach and appeal, of which his
graceless young heart was capable, and gazed at her.

Khufu might have been as easily melted by the twinkle of a rain drop.
Never in his life had he faced such comprehensive contemplation.  Calm,
monumental and icy disdain deepened on every feature.

Kenkenes stood motionless and suffered her to look at him.  Being a man
of fine soul, the eloquent gaze spoke well-deserved rebuke.  He knew
that his color had risen, and his eyes fell in spite of heroic efforts
to keep them steady.  His sensations were unique; never had he
experienced the like.  When he recovered himself her blue eyes were
fixed absently on the distant quarries.

Every impulse urged him to set himself right in the eyes of this most
discerning slave.

"Wilt thou forgive me?" he asked earnestly.  "I would I could make thee
know I crave thy good will."

There was no mistaking the honesty in these words.

Her face relaxed instantly.

"But I fear I have not set about it wisely," he added.  "Let me give
thee a peace-offering to prove my contrition."

He slipped from about his neck the collar of golden rings and moved
forward to put it about her throat.

She drew back, her face flushing hotly under an expression of positive
pain.

Kenkenes dropped his hands to his sides with a limpness highly
suggestive of desperate perplexity.  Was not this a slave?  And yet
here was the fine feeling of a princess.  He stood, for once in his
life, at a loss what to do.  He could not depart without the greatest
awkwardness, and yet, if he lingered, he sacrificed his comfort.
Presently he exclaimed helplessly:

"Rachel, do thou tell me what to say or do.  It seems that I but sink
myself the deeper in the quicksand of thy disapproval at every struggle
to escape.  Do thou lead me out."

He had met a slave, justed with an equal and flung up his hands in
surrender to his better.  He did not confess this to himself, but his
words were admission enough.  Never would his high-born spirit have
permitted him to make such a declaration to one slavish in soul.

The straightforward acknowledgment of defeat and the genuine concern in
his voice were irresistible.  She answered him at once, distantly and
calmly.

"Thou, as an Egyptian, hast honored me, a Hebrew, with thy notice.  I
have deserved neither gift nor fee."

"Nay, but let us put it differently," he replied.  "I, as a man, have
given thee, a maiden, offense, and having repented, would appease thee
with a peace-offering.  Believe me, I do not jest.  By the gentle
goddesses, I fear to speak," he added breathlessly.

The Israelite's blue eyes were veiled quickly, but the Egyptian guessed
aright that she had hidden a smile in them.

"Am I forgiven?" he persisted.

"So thou wilt offend no further," she said without raising her eyes.

"I promise.  And now, since the goddess hath refused mine offering, I
may not take it back.  What shall I do with this?" he asked, holding up
the collar of gold.

"Put it about thy statue's neck," she said softly.

Kenkenes gasped and retreated a step.  Instantly she was imploring his
pardon.

"It was a forward spirit in me that made me say it.  I pray thee,
forgive me."

"Thou hast given no offense, but how dost thou know of this--tell me
that."

"I came upon it by accident three days ago.  Several of the children
had gone fowling for the taskmaster's meal, and were so long absent
that I was sent to look for them.  The path down the valley is old, and
I have followed it with the idea of labor ever in my mind.  And this
was a moment of freedom, so I thought to spend it where I had not been
a slave, I went across the hills, and, being unfamiliar with them, lost
my way.  When I climbed upon one of the great rocks to overlook the
labyrinth, lo! at my feet was the statue.  I knew myself the moment I
looked, and it was not hard to guess whose work it was."

She paused and looked at him with appeal on her face.

"Thou hast told no one?"

"Nay," was the quick and earnest answer.

"Thou hast caught me in a falsehood," he said.  The statement was
almost brutal in its directness.

But the question that came back swiftly was not less pointed.

"There was no frieze of bondmaidens--naught of anything thou hast told
me?"

"Nay, not anything.  I am carving a statue against the canons of the
sculptor's ritual for the sake of my love of beauty.  Until thou didst
come upon it, I alone possessed the secret.  Thou knowest the
punishment which will overtake me?"

"Aye, I know right well.  Yet fear not.  The statue is right cunningly
concealed and none will ever find it, for the children were
unsuccessful and the meals for the overseer will be brought him from
the city hereafter.  And I will not betray thee--I give thee my word."

Her tone was soft and earnest; her assurances were spoken so
confidently, her interest was so genuine, that a queer and
unaccountable satisfaction possessed the young artist at once.

At this moment the runaway water-bearers came in sight and in obedience
to very evident dismissal in the Israelite's eyes, Kenkenes bade her
farewell and left her.

But he had not gone two paces before she overtook him.

"Approach thy work from various directions," she cautioned, "else thou
wilt wear a path which may spy on thee one day."

The moment the words passed her lips, Kenkenes, who still held the
collar, put it about her neck, passing his hands under the thick
plaits, and snapped the clasp accurately.

The act was done instantly, and with but a single movement.  He was
gone, laughing on his way, before she had realized what he had done.

There was revel in the young man's veins that evening, but the great
house of his father was silent and lonely.  If he would find a
companion he must leave its heavy walls.  His resolution was not long
in making nor his instinct slow in directing him.  An hour after the
evening meal, when he entered the chariot that waited, he had laid
aside the simple tunic, and in festal attire was, every inch of his
many inches, the son of the king's favorite artist.  His charioteer
drove in the direction of the nomarch's house.

The portress conducted him into the faintly lighted chamber of guests
and went forth silently.  Kenkenes interpreted her behavior at once.

"There is another guest," he thought with a smile, "and I can name him
as promptly as any chanting sorcerer might."  When the serving woman
returned she bade him follow her and led the way to the house-top.

There, under the subdued light of a single lamp, was the Lady Ta-meri;
at her feet, Nechutes.

"I should wear the symbol-broidered robe of a soothsayer," the sculptor
told himself.

"You made a longer sojourn of your visit to Tape than you had
intended," the lady said, after the greetings.

"Nay, I have been in Memphis twenty days at least."

"So?" queried Nechutes.  "Where dost thou keep thyself?"

"In the garb of labor among the ink-pots and papyri of the sculptor
class," the lady answered.  "I warrant there are pigment marks on his
fingers even now."

Kenkenes extended his long right hand to her for inspection.  She
received it across her pink palm and scrutinized it laughingly.

"Nay, I take it back.  Here is naught but henna and a suspicion of
attar.  He has been idle these days."

"Hast thou forgotten the efficacy of the lemon in the removal of
stains?" the sculptor asked with a smile.

The lady frowned.

"Give us thy news from Tape, then," she demanded, putting his hand away.

"The court is coming to Memphis sooner.  That is all.  O, aye, I had
well-nigh forgot.  There is also talk of a marriage between Rameses and
Ta-user."

"Fie!" the lady scoffed.  "Nechutes hath more to tell than that, and he
hath stayed in Memphis."

"Thou wilt come to realize some day, Ta-meri, that I am fitted to the
yoke of labor, when I fail thee in all the nicer walks thou wouldst
have me tread.  Come, out with thy gossip, Nechutes."

"I had a letter from Hotep to-day--a budget of news, included with
official matters with which the king would acquaint me.  Ta-user, with
Amon-meses and Siptah, hath joined the court at Tape--"

"And Siptah, she brought with her--" the sculptor interrupted softly.

Nechutes cast an expressive look at Kenkenes and went on.

"And the courting hath begun."

Silence fell, and the lady looked at the two young men with wonder in
her eyes.

"Nay, but that is interesting," Kenkenes admitted, recovering himself.
"Tell me more."

"The offices of cup-bearer and murket are to be bestowed in Memphis,"
Nechutes continued.

"And the one falls to Nechutes," the lady declared triumphantly.

"Of a truth thou hast a downy lot before thee, Nechutes," the young
sculptor said heartily.  "And never one so deserving of it.  I give
thee joy."

"And the other goes to the noble Mentu," Nechutes added in a meek voice.

"Sphinx!" Ta-meri cried, tapping him on the head.  "You did not tell me
that."

The surprised delight of Kenkenes was not so bewildering as to blind
him to the reason why Nechutes had withheld this news from Ta-meri.
The blunt Egyptian was not anxious to speed his rival's cause.

"Does my father know of this?" he asked.

"I doubt not.  The same messenger that brought me news of mine own
appointment departed for On when he learned that Mentu was there."

"Nay, but that will be wine in his veins," Kenkenes mused happily.  "It
will make him young again.  His late inactivity hath chafed him sorely."

"You have come honestly by your labor-loving," Nechutes commented.
"Hotep adds further that Mentu is the only one of the king's new
ministers that is no longer a young man."

"It is Rameses who counsels him, I doubt not," the sculptor replied.
"He hath great faith in the powers of youth.  And behold what a cabinet
he hath built up for his father.  First," Kenkenes continued,
enumerating on his fingers, "there is Nechutes--"

The new cup-bearer waved his hand, and Kenkenes went on.

"There is my father, the murket.  He needs no further praise than the
utterance of his name.  There is Hotep, on whose lips Toth abideth.
There is Seneferu, the faithful, whom the Rebu dreads.  Next is
Kephren, the mohar,[1] who would outshine his father, the right hand of
the great Rameses, had he but nations to conquer.  After him, Har-hat--"

"Hold!  He is not appointed of the prince.  He was Meneptah's
choice--and his alone," Nechutes interrupted.  "It is rumored that
Rameses is not over-fond of him."

"He will be put to it to hold his high place in the face of the
prince's disfavor," Kenkenes cogitated.

"Nay, but he presses the prince hard for generalship.  It must be so,
since he could win the king's good will over the protest of Rameses.
So I doubt not he can hold his own at court by prudence and strategy."

Meanwhile Ta-meri, in the depths of her chair, gazed at the pair
resentfully.  They had grown interested in weighty things and had
seemingly forgotten her.  So she sighed and bethought her how to punish
them.

"What a relief it will be when the Pharaoh returns to Memphis!" she
murmured in the pause that now followed.  "He will be more welcome to
me than the Nile overflow.  The city has been a desert to me since he
departed."

Nechutes looked at her with reproach in his eyes.

"Consider the desert, O sweet Oasis," Kenkenes said softly.  "Is not
its portion truly grievous if its single palm complain?"

The lady dropped her eyes and her cheeks glowed even through the dusk.
After the long interval of Nechutes' blunt love-making the sculptor's
subtleties fell most gratefully on her ear.

Nechutes scowled, sighed and finally spoke.

"Tape is afflicted in anticipation of the king's departure," he
observed disjointedly.

"Tape does not love Meneptah as Memphis loves him," Kenkenes answered.
"Hast thou not this moment heard Memphis pine for him?  Tape would not
have spoken thus.  She would have said: 'Would that the king were here
that I might ask a boon of him.'  Memphis is the cradle of kings; Tape,
their tomb.  Memphis is full of reverence for the Pharaohs; Tape, of
pride; Memphis of loyalty; Tape, of boon-craving.  Meneptah returns to
the bosom of his mother when he returns to Memphis."

"But he will not remain here long," Nechutes went on.  "He goes to
Tanis to be near the scene of the Israelitish unrest."

"Alas, Ta-meri, and wilt thou droop again?" Kenkenes asked.

"I fear," she assented with a little sigh.  Then, after a pause, she
asked: "Does the murket follow the court?"

Kenkenes shook his head.  "Not when the Pharaoh travels.  But should he
depart permanently from Memphis my father would go.  Many of the court
returning hither will not proceed to Tanis.  The city will not be so
desolate then as now."

"Nay, but I am glad," she said.  "Those who remain will suffice."

"Of a truth?" Nechutes demanded angrily.

"Have I not said?" she replied.

Nechutes rose slowly and made his way to a chair some distance away
from her.  Kenkenes immediately guessed why the cup-bearer was hurt,
but the lady was innocent.  He knew that he had but to speak to restore
Nechutes to favor.

Meanwhile the lady, amazed and deeply offended at the desertion of the
cup-bearer, had turned her back on him.  Kenkenes arose.

Ta-meri sat up in alarm.

"O, do not go.  You have but this moment come," she said.

"Already have I stayed too long," he replied.  "But thy hospitality
makes one forget the debt one owes to a prior guest."

She looked at him from under silken lashes.

"Nechutes has misconducted himself," she objected, "and I would not be
left alone with him."

"Wouldst thou have me stay and see him restored to favor under my very
eyes?  Ah, Ta-meri, where is thy womanly compassion?"

She smiled and extended her hand.  Kenkenes took it and felt it relax
and lie willingly in his palm.

"Nay, do not go," she pleaded softly.

"Give me leave to come again instead."

"To-morrow," she said, half questioning, half commanding.  He did not
promise, but as he bent over to kiss her hand, he said in a low tone:

"Hast thou forgotten that Nechutes leaves Memphis with the going of the
king?"

The lady started and flung a conscience-stricken glance at the scowling
cup-bearer.  And while her face was turned, Kenkenes departed like a
shadow.  But the portals of the nomarch's house had hardly closed
behind him before he demanded of himself, impatiently, why he had made
Nechutes' peace, why he kept the cup-bearer for ever between himself
and Ta-meri.  And as if to evade this catechism something arose in him
and asked him why he should not.

And to this he could give no answer.



[1] Mohar--The king's pioneer, an office that might be defined as
minister of war.




CHAPTER X

THE DEBT OF ISRAEL

For an instant after the sculptor had put the collar about her throat,
Rachel stood motionless, her face flushing and whitening with
conflicting emotions.

But her indecision was only momentary.  Rebellion was in the ascendant.

She thrust her fingers under the band and essayed to wrench off the
offending necklace, but the stout fastening held and the flexible braid
printed its woof on the back of the soft neck.  Almost in tears she
undid the clasp and flung the collar away.

It struck the earth with a musical ring, and the green of the wheat hid
all but a faint ray of the red metal.

The rout of children descended on her, each clamoring a story of the
accident.  But without a word she marshaled them and turned once again
toward the river to refill the hides.  At the water's edge she kept her
eyes resolutely from the broad dimpling breast of the Nile toward the
south.  She feared that she might see the light bari that was driving
back to Memphis against that slow but mighty current as easily as if
wind and water went with it.

But even before she turned again toward Masaarah, her better nature
began to chide her.  She remembered her impetuous act with a flush of
shame.

"His peace-offering--a proof of his good will, and thou didst mistreat
it, as if he had meant it for a purchase or a fee.  The indignity thou
hast petulantly fancied, Rachel."

After a time another thought came to her.

"The act was not womanly.  Wherein hast thou rebuked him, in casting
away the trinket?  Thou hast the dignity of Israel to uphold in thy
dealings with this young man."

When she reached the spot where the collar had fallen, she sought for
it furtively, and having found it, thrust it into the bosom of her
dress.

"I shall not keep it," she said, quieting the protests of her pride.
"I shall make him take it back to-morrow."

Entering her low shelter in the camp some time later, she found Deborah
absent.  Impelled by an unreasoning desire to keep secret this event,
she hastily hid the collar in the sand of the tent floor and laid the
straw matting of her bed smoothly over its burial place.  Again she
struggled with her pride and demanded of herself why she had become
secretive.

"Fie!" she replied.  "How couldst thou tell this story to Deborah?
Why, it is well-nigh unbecoming."

The dusk settled down over the valley.  Deborah came in like a phantom
from the camp-fires with the evening meal, and the pair sat down
together to eat, Rachel silent, Deborah thoughtful.

"Another Egyptian comes to govern Masaarah," the old woman observed.
"Agistas departed but now, leaving the camp in charge of the
under-drivers."

"It makes little odds with us--this change of taskmasters, Deborah--be
he Agistas or any other Egyptian.  They are masters and we continue to
be slaves," Rachel answered after a little silence.

"Nay, art thou losing spirit?" Deborah asked with animation.  "How
shall the elders keep of good heart if the young surrender?"

"I despair not," the girl protested.  "I did but remark this thing; and
I have spoken truly, have I not?"

"Even so.  But this evening there must be more recognition in thee of
thy lot since it overflows in words.  I, too, have spoken truly, have I
not?"

Rachel smiled.  "It may be," she said.

When they had supped, they went out before the tent to get the cooling
air.  It was Deborah again that first broke the silence.

"Elias is smitten with blindness from the stone-dust," she said
absently.

"For all time?" Rachel asked anxiously.

"Nay, if he could but rest them and bathe them in the proper simples."

"Alas--" Rachel began, but she checked herself hurriedly.  "He was my
father's servant," she said instead--"the last living one.  Jehovah
spare him.  One by one they fall, until I shall be utterly without tie
to prove I once had kindred."

Deborah looked at the girl fixedly for a moment.  Then she put up her
hand and leaned on the soft young shoulder.

"Am I not left?" she asked.

Rachel passed her arm about the bowed figure, with some compunction for
her complaint.

"My mother's friend!" she exclaimed lovingly.  "I know she died in
peace, remembering that I was left to thy care."

"I mind me," she continued after a little silence, "how tender and
frail she was.  Thou wast as a strong tree beside her.  I seem to
myself to be mighty compared to my memory of her."

Deborah took the white hand that lay across her shoulder.  "Thou art
like to thy father.  Thy mother was black-eyed and fragile--born to the
soft life of a princess.  Misfortune was her death, though she
struggled to live for thee.  Praise God that thou art like to thy
father, else thou hadst died in thine infancy."

"Nay, hath my lot been sterner than the portion of all Israel?"

"Of a surety, thou canst guess it, for are there many of thy tribe like
thee--without a kinsman?"

Rachel shook her head, and the old woman continued absently: "Of thy
mother's family there were four, but they died of the heavy labor.  Thy
father, Maai, surnamed the Compassionate, was the eldest of six.  They
were mighty men, tawny like the lion and as bold--worthy sons of Judah!
But there is none left--not one."

"Ten!" Rachel exclaimed, "and not one remaineth!"

"Aye, and they died as though they were plague-smitten--in pairs and
singly, in a little space."

Deborah felt a strong tremor run through the young figure against which
she leaned, and the arm across her shoulder was withdrawn, that the
hand might clear the eyes of their tears.

The old woman discreetly held her peace till the girl should recover.

"Thou must bear in mind, Rachel," she began, after a long silence,
"that Egypt had an especial grudge against thy house,--hence, its
especial vengeance.  Seti, the Pharaoh, began the oppression of the
children of Israel, but the bondage was not all-embracing, in the
beginning.  There were Hebrews to whom Egypt was indebted and chief
among these was thy father's grandsire, Aram.  Seti paid the debt to
him by sparing his small lands and his little treasure and himself when
he put Israel to toil.  Thy father's father, thy grandsire, Elihu,
younger brother to Amminadab, who was father-in-law to Aaron, came to
his share of his father's goods when Aram was gathered to his fathers.
This was in the latter days of Seti.  Thy grandsire sent his little
treasure into Arabia and bought lands with it.  After many trials he
caused to grow thereon a rose-shrub which had no period of
rest--blooming freshly with every moon.  And there he had the Puntish
scentmaker on the hip, for the Arabic rose rested often.  The attar he
distilled from his untiring flower, had another odor, wild and sweet
and of a daintier strength.  When he was ready to trade he sent in a
vial of crystal to Neferari Thermuthis and to Moses, then a young man
and a prince of the realm, a few drops of this wondrous perfume.  Doubt
not, the Hebrew prince knew that the gift came from a son of Israel.
The queen and Moses used the attar.  Therefore all purple-wearing Egypt
must have it or die, since the fashion had been set within the
boundaries of the throne.  Then did Elihu name a price for his sweet
odor that might have been small had each drop been a jewel.  But Egypt
opened her coffers and bought as though her idols had broken their
silence and commanded her."

The old woman paused and reflected with grim satisfaction on the remote
days of an Israelitish triumph.

"Meanwhile," she continued finally, "thy grandsire lived humbly in
Goshen.  None dreamed that this keeper of a little flock, lord over a
little tent and tiller of a few acres, was the great Syrian merchant
who was despoiling Mizraim.

"Next he became a money-lender, through his steward, to the Egyptians,
and wrested from them what they had saved in putting Israel to toil
without hire.  So his riches increased a hundredfold and the half of
noble Egypt was beholden to him.  Then he turned to aid his oppressed
brethren.

"He bribed the taskmasters or kept watch over them and discovered
wherein they were false to the Pharaoh, and held their own sin over
their heads till they submitted through fear of him.  He filled
Israel's fields with cattle, the hills with Hebrew flocks, the valleys
with corn.  Alas!  Had it not been--but, nay, Jehovah was not yet
ready.  He had chosen Moses to lead Israel."

The old woman paused and sighed.  After a silence she continued:

"Thy father fell heir to the most of his wealth, but not to his
immunity.  With a heart as great as his sire's he continued the good
work.  He wedded thy mother, the daughter of another free Israelite,
and in his love for her, never was man more happy.  In the midst of his
hope and his peace an enemy betrayed him to Rameses, the Incomparable
Pharaoh.  And Rameses remembered not his father's covenant.  So Maai's
lands, his flocks, his home, were taken; thou, but new-born, and thy
mother with her people were sent to the brick-fields--himself and his
brothers to the mines; and in a few years thou wast all that was left
of thy father's house."

The effect of this recital on the young Israelite was deep.  Anguish,
wrath, and the pain that intensifies these two, helplessness, inflamed
her soul.  The story was not entirely new to her; she had heard it, a
part at a time, in her childhood; but now, her understanding fully
developed, the whole history of her family's wrongs appealed to her in
all its actual savagery.  Egypt, as a unit, like a single individual,
had done her people to death.  Between her and Egypt, then, should be
bitter enmity, rancor that might never be subdued, and eternal warfare.
Her enemy had conquered her, had put her in bondage, and made sport of
her as a pastime.  The accumulation of injury and insult seemed more
than she could bear, and the vague hope of Israel in Moses seemed in
the face of Egypt's strength a folly most fatuous.

"O Egypt!  Egypt!" she exclaimed with concentrated passion.  "What a
debt of vengeance Israel owes to thee!"

The old woman laid her shriveled hands on the arm of her ward.

"Aye, and it shall be paid," she said fiercely.  "Thou canst not get
thy people back, nor alleviate for them now the pangs that killed them;
but to the mortally wronged there is one restitution--revenge!"

At this moment some one over near the western limits of the camp cried
out a welcome; a commotion arose, noisy with cheers and rapid with
running.  Presently it died down and the pair before the tent saw a
horseman ride through the gloom toward the empty frame house of the
overseer.

The two women lapsed immediately into their absorbed communion again.

"Lay it not to Egypt alone, but to all the offenders against Jehovah.
Midian and Amalek, passing through to do homage to the Pharaoh, sneer
at Israel; Babylon in her chariot of gold flicks her whip at the sons
of Abraham as she bears her gifts of sisterhood to Memphis.  We suffer
not only the insults of a single nation, but despiteful use by all
idolaters.  Let but the world gather before Jehovah's altar and there
shall be no more affronts to Israel."

"Must we bide that time?" Rachel asked.  "Or shall we bring it about?"

"Nay," Deborah replied scornfully.  "Even my mystic eyes are not potent
enough to see so far into the future.  We throw off the bondage sooner
than thou dreamest, daughter of Judah, but if the nations bow at the
altar of Jehovah, it will take a stronger hand than Israel's to bring
them there."

After a silence Rachel murmured, as though to herself: "We shall go,
and soon, and leave no debt behind.  Will the vengeance befall all
Egypt, the good as well as the bad?"

"Hast thou forgotten God's promise to Abraham concerning the wicked
cities of the plain?  If there were ten righteous therein He had not
destroyed them utterly."

"Nay, but if there be but one therein?"

"One?  Now, for what one dost thou concern thyself?  Atsu?"

Rachel, startled out of her dream, hesitated, her face coloring hotly,
though unseen, beneath the kindly dusk of night.

"Yea," she said in a low tone, wondering gravely if she spake the
truth.  Somebody beside her laughed the short unready laugh of one slow
at mirth.

"Of a truth?" he asked.  Rachel turned about and faced Atsu.  He took
her hands and drew her near him.

"Nay, Deborah," he said sadly; "pursue her not into the secret chambers
of her young heart.  I doubt not there is 'one' therein, but why shall
we demand what manner of 'one' it is when she may not even confess it
to herself?"

Confused and a little guilty by reason of the necklace, and wondering
why she admitted any guilt, Rachel drew away from him.

"Nay," he went on, retaining his clasp.  "Let there be perfect
understanding between us twain, thou Radiant One.  I shall not plague
thee with my love, nor even let it be apparent after this.  Men have
lived in constant fellowship, but no nearer to the women whom they
love, and am I less able than my kind?  So I be not hateful to thee,
Rachel, I am content."

"Hateful to me!" she cried reproachfully.

"Nay?  No more then.  I have spoken the last with thee concerning my
love.  And thus I seal the pact."

He drew her, unresisting, to him, and kissed her forehead.

"For my gentleness to the Hebrews of Pa-Ramesu," he continued in a
calmer tone as he released her, "they have stripped me of my rank and
sent me to govern Masaarah.  So they thought to punish me, never
dreaming that they joined me to Rachel, and hid me away in a nook with
a handful to whom I may be merciful and none will spy upon me!  They
thwarted their end."

"Happy Masaarah!" Rachel said earnestly.

Atsu laughed again and disappeared in the dark.

Rachel drew her hand furtively across the place on her brow that the
taskmaster's lips had touched.  The keen eyes of the old Israelite saw
the motion and understood it.

"It is not Atsu," she said astutely.

"Nay," the girl protested, "and yet it is Atsu, in mine own meaning, or
any one in Egypt who is fair to Israel.  The grace of that one would be
sufficient in God's sight to save all Egypt from doom.  That was my
meaning."

The light in the frame quarters of the taskmaster was extinguished and
at that moment a shadowy figure emerged from the dark and approached
the pair.

"A courier from Mesu speaketh without the camp, even now," the visiting
Israelite said in a half-whisper.  "Atsu hath put out his light, to
sleep, but even if he sleep not, the people may go without fear and
listen to the speaker.  Come ye and give him audience."

"We come," Deborah replied.

As the old woman and her ward walked down through the night in the
direction taken by the entire population of the quarries, Deborah said
quietly:

"Thy cloud of depression hath rifted somewhat since sunset, daughter."

Rachel pressed her hand repentantly.

At the side of an open space, now closely filled with sitting
listeners, stood a Hebrew, not older than thirty-five.  A knot of
flaming pitch, stuck in a crevice of rock near him, lighted his face
and figure.  His frame had the characteristic stalwart structure of the
Israelitish bondman.  The black hair waved back from a placid white
forehead; the eyes were serene and level, the mouth rather wide but
firm, the jaw square.  The beard would have been light for a much
younger man, and it was soft, red-brown and curling.  It added a
mildness and tenderness to the face.  Whoever looked upon him was
impressed with the unflinching piety of the countenance.

This was Caleb the Faithful, son of Jephunneh, the Kenezite.

He was talking when Rachel and her ancient guardian entered the hollow,
and he continued in a passive tone throughout the several arrivals
thereafter.  He spoke as one that believes unfalteringly and has
evidence for the faith.  He did not recount Israel's wrongs--he would
have worked against his purpose had he wrought his hearers into an
angry mood.  Besides, the story would have been superfluous.  None knew
Israel's wrongs better than Israel.

He talked of redemption and Canaan.




CHAPTER XI

HEBREW CRAFT

When Mentu returned from On a light had kindled in his eyes and his
stately step had grown elastic.  The man that withdraws from a busy
life while in full vigor has beckoned to Death.  Inactivity preys upon
him like a disease.  The great artist, forced into idleness by the
succession of an incapable king, had been renewed by the prospect of
labor which his exaltation into the high office had afforded.  With
pleasure in his heart, Kenkenes watched his father grow young again.

"Who was thy good friend in this?" the young man asked one evening
after a number of contented remarks concerning the market's
appointment.  "Who said the word in the Pharaoh's ear?"

"So to raise me to this office it is needful that something more than
my deserts must have urged the king?" Mentu retorted.

"Nay! that was not my meaning," Kenkenes made haste to say.  "But thou
knowest, my father, that Meneptah must be for ever directed.  Who,
then, offered him this wise counsel?  Rameses?"

"It was never Har-hat," Mentu replied, but half placated.

"If he had, thou and I must no longer call him a poor counselor."

"Bribe--" the murket began, ruffled once more.

"Nay," Kenkenes interrupted smiling.  "He had but proved himself worthy
and wise."

Mentu shook his head, but there was no more temper evident in his face.

"Now is a propitious hour for a good counselor," Kenkenes pursued.

"What knowest thou?" Mentu asked with interest.

"Tape," the young man replied briefly.

"Nay, the sedition in Tape is old and vitiated."

"And the Hak-heb."

"That breach may be healed.  But we have sedition to fear among the
bond-people--"

"The bond-people!"

"Even so.  Open and organized sedition."

"The Israelites?" Kenkenes exclaimed with an incredulous note in his
voice.

"The Israelites."

"I would sooner fear a rebellion among the draft-oxen and the mules of
Nehapehu." [1]

"The elder Seti's fears and the fears of the great Rameses were other
than yours."

"O, aye, they had cause for fear then, but since Seti yoked the
creatures--"

"The Pharaohs did not begin in time," the elder man interrupted.  "Had
that royal fiat, the decimation of Hebrew children, continued, we
should not have had the Israelite to-day, but gods!" he shuddered with
horror.  "I hope that is a horrid slander--tradition, not fact.  I like
not to lay the slaughter or babes at the door of any Egyptian dynasty.
But had an early Pharaoh of the house of Tothmes enforced the
absorption of the Hebrew by his same rank among the Egyptian, we should
not have the menace of a hostile alien within our borders to-day.  The
heavy hand of oppression has made a wondrous race of them for strength.
Theirs is no mean intellect; great men have come from among them, and
they will be a hardy foe arrayed against us."

"They are not warriors; they are poor and unequipped for hostilities;
they are thoroughly under subjection," the young man pursued.  "What
can they do against us?"

"Do!" Mentu exclaimed with impatience in the repetition.  "They have
only to say to the banished Hyksos: 'Come ye, let us do battle with
Egypt.  We will be your mercenaries.'  They have only to send greeting
to that lean traitor Amon-meses, thus: 'Give us the Delta to be ours
and we will help you win all Egypt,' and there will be enough done."

"They must have a pact among themselves and a leader, first," Kenkenes
objected.

"Have I not said they are organized?  And their leader is found.  He is
a foster-brother to Meneptah; an initiated priest of Isis; a sorcerer
and an infidel of the blackest order.  He is Prince Mesu, a Hebrew by
birth."

"Dost thou know him?" Kenkenes asked with interest.

"Nay, he has dwelt in Midian these forty years.  He returned some time
ago and hath dwelt passively in Goshen till--"

The artist dropped his voice and came nearer to his son.

"He hath dwelt passively in Goshen till of late, and it is whispered
that some secret work against him inaugurated by the priesthood, or
mayhap the Pharaoh, hath given him provocation to revolt against
Meneptah."

After a silence Kenkenes asked in a lowered tone:

"Hath he made demonstration?"

"O, aye, he is clamoring to lead his people a three days' journey into
the wilderness to make sacrifice to their god."

"Shades of mine ancestors!  If that is all, let them, so they return,"
Kenkenes said amicably.

"Let them!" the sculptor exploded.  "Dost thou believe that they would
return?"

"I apprehend that the Rameside army would be capable of thwarting them
if they were disposed to depart permanently."

"Thou dost apprehend--aye, of a truth, I know thou dost!  Halt all our
works of peace for an indefinite time; mass the vast army of the
Pharaoh and spend days and good arrows in retrieving the runaways,
merely that a barbarian god may smell the savor of holy animals
sacrificed!  Gods!  Kenkenes, thou art as trustworthy a counselor as
Har-hat!"

Thereafter there was a silence in the work-room.  But a peppery man is
seldom sulky, and Kenkenes was fully prepared for the mildness in his
father's voice when he spoke again.

"Thou shouldst see the pretense in his demand, Kenkenes.  He must have
provocation to urge him to rebellion, and he knows full well that
Meneptah will not grant that petition."

"But hath he not provocation--thou hast but a moment ago told--"

"But that was only an offense against him.  The whole people would not
go into revolt because some one had conspired against one of their
number.  Therefore he telleth Israel that its God would have Israel
make a pilgrimage, promising curses upon the people if they obey not.
Then he putteth the appeal to the Pharaoh and the Pharaoh denieth it.
Wherefore the whole people is enraged and hath rallied to the
conspirator's cause.  Seest thou, my son?"

"It is strategy worthy the Incomparable Pharaoh--"

"It is Hebrew craft!"

"Perhaps thou art right.  But what personal grudge hath Mesu against
Egypt or the priesthood or Meneptah?"

"It is said that he was wanted out of the way, and by an unfortunate
sum of accidents, the miscarriage of a priest's letter and a fight
between a messenger and Bedouins in front of a Hebrew tent, gave the
information into the hands of Mesu himself."

By this time Kenkenes was on his feet.

"A miscarriage of a priest's letter," he repeated slowly.

The artist nodded.

After the silence the young man spoke again:

"And thou believest truly that because of this letter--because of this
Israelite's grievance against the powers of Egypt, we shall have
uprising and serious trouble among our bond-people?"

"I have said," Mentu answered, raising his head as though surprised at
the earnestness in his son's voice.  Kenkenes did not meet his father's
eyes.  He turned on his heel and left the work-room.

Had the spiteful Seven, the Hathors, used him as a tool whereby
mischief should be wrought between the nation and her slaves?



[1] The Fayum.




CHAPTER XII

CANAAN

When the imperative necessity of harmonious expression became apparent,
the young artist laid aside his chisel and mallet, and the Arabian
desert knew his footsteps no more for many days after the rough-hewing
of Athor's face.  Instead, he mingled with the people of Memphis in
quest of the expression.  The pursuit became fascinating and
all-absorbing.  With the most deliberate calculation, he studied the
faces of the betrothed and of newly wedded wives, and finding too much
of content therein, he sought out the unelect for study.  And with
these, his search ended.

Thereafter he made innumerable heads in clay, and covered linen scrolls
with drawings.  But it was the semblance he gained and not the spirit.
The light eluded him.

On the day after Mentu's return from On, Kenkenes paid the first visit
to Masaarah since the incident of the collar,--and the last he thought
to make until he had won that for which he strove.  He went to bury the
matting in the sand and to hide other evidences of recent occupancy
about the niche.  He left the block of stone undisturbed, for the
transgression was not yet apparent on the face of Athor.  The scrolls,
which had been concealed under the carpeting, were too numerous for his
wallet to contain, but he carried the surplus openly in his hand.

It was sunset before he had made an end.  To return to the Nile by way
of the cliff-front would have saved him time, but there was a boyish
wish in his heart to look again on the lovely face that had helped him
and baffled him.  So he descended into the upper end of the ravine and
slowly passed the outskirts of the camp, but the bond-girl was nowhere
to be seen.  The spaces between the low tents were filled with feeding
laborers and there was an unusual amount of cheer to be noted among
Israel of Masaarah.  Kenkenes heard the talk and laughter with some
wonderment as he passed.  He admitted that he was disappointed when,
without a glimpse of Rachel, he emerged into the Nile valley.  But he
leaped lightly down the ledge, crossed the belt of rubble, talus and
desert sand, and entered the now well-marked wagon road between the
dark green meadow land on either side.  Egypt was in shadow--her sun
behind the Libyan heights,--but the short twilight had not fallen.
Overhead were the cooling depths of sky, as yet starless, but the river
was breathing on the winds and the sibilant murmur of its waters began
to talk above the sounds of the city.  To the north, the south and the
east was pastoral and desert quiet; to the west was the gradual
subsidence of urban stir.  Frogs were beginning to croak in the
distance, and in the long grain here and there, a nocturnal insect
chirred and stilled abruptly as the young man passed.

Within a rod of the pier some one called:

"My master!"

The voice came from a distance, but he knew whom he should see when he
turned.  Half-way across the field toward the quarries Rachel was
coming, with a scroll in her lifted hand.  He began to retrace his
steps to meet her, but she noted the action and quickened her rapid
walk into running.

"Thou didst drop this outside the camp," she said as she came near.  "I
feared it might have somewhat pertaining to the statue on it, and I
have brought it, with the permission of the taskmaster."  She stopped,
and putting her hand into the folds of her habit on her breast,
hesitated as if for words to speak further.  Kenkenes interrupted her
with his thanks.

"How thou hast fatigued thyself for me, Rachel!  Out of all Egypt I
doubt if I might find another so constant guardian of my welfare.  The
grace of the gods attend thee as faithfully.  I thank thee, most
gratefully."

The purpose in her face dissolved, the hand that seemed to hold
somewhat in the folds of her habit relaxed and fell slowly.  While
Kenkenes waited for her to speak, he noted that a dress of unbleached
linen replaced the coarse cotton surplice she had worn before, and her
feet were shod with simple sandals--an extravagance among slaves.  But
the garb was yet too mean.  The sculptor wondered at that moment how
the sumptuous attire of the high-born Memphian women would become her.
He shook his head and in his imagination dressed her in snow-white
robes with but the collar of rings about her throat, and stood back to
marvel at his picture of splendid simplicity.

"Hast thou not something more to tell me?" he asked kindly.  "Do thou
rest here on the wharf while we talk.  Art thou not quite breathless?"

"Nay, I thank thee," she faltered.  "I may not linger."  The hand once
again sought the folds over her breast.

"Then let me walk with thee on thy way.  It will be dark soon."

"Nay," she protested flushing, "and again, I thank thee.  It is not
needful."  She made a movement as if to leave him, but he stepped to
her side.

"Out upon thee, daughter of Israel, thou art ungracious," he
remonstrated laughingly.  "I can not think thee so wondrous brave.  For
it is a long walk to the camp and the night will be pitch-black.  Why
may I not go with thee?"

"There is naught to be feared."

"Of a truth?  Those hills are as full of wild beasts as Amenti is of
spirits.  And even if no hurt befell thee, the trepidation of that long
journey would be cruel.  Nay; Ptah, the gallant god, would spurn my
next offering, did I send thee back to camp alone.  Wilt thou come?"

She bowed and dropped behind him.  Her resolution to maintain the forms
of different rank between them was not characteristic of other slaves
he had known.  There was no presumption or humble gratitude in her
manner when he would offer her the courtesies of an equal, but he had
met the disdain of a peer once when he thought he talked with a slave.
There was something mocking in her perfunctory deference, but her pride
was genuine.  Her conduct seemed to say: "I would liefer be a Hebrew
and a slave than a princess of the God-forgotten realm of Egypt."

The young sculptor was unruffled, however.  He was turning over in his
mind, with interest, the evidence that tended to show that the
Israelite had something more to tell him, that her courage had failed
her, and that her hand had sought something concealed in her dress.  He
recalled the former meetings with her and arrived at a surmise so
sudden and so conclusive that with difficulty he kept himself from
making outward demonstration of his conviction.  "The collar, by Apis!
I offended her with the trinket.  And she came to make me take it back,
but her courage fled.  Pie upon my clumsy gallantries!  I must make
amends.  I would not have her hate me."

He broke the silence with an old, old remark--one that Adam might have
made to Eve.

"Look at the stars, Rachel.  There is a dark casement in the heavens--a
blink of the eye and the lamp is alight."

"So I watch them every night.  But they are swifter here in Memphis.
At Mendes, where Israel toiled once, they are more deliberate," she
answered readily.

"Aye, but you should see them at Philae.  They ignite and bound into
brilliance like sparks of meeting metal and flint.  Ah, but the tropics
are precipitate!"

"I know them not," she ventured.

"Their acquaintance is better avoided.  They have no mean--they leap
from extreme to extreme.  They are violent, immoderate.  It is instant
night and instant day; it is the maddest passion of summer always.
Nature reigns at the top of her voice and chokes her realm with the
fervor of her maternity.  Nay, give me the north.  I would feel the
earth's pulse now and then without burning my fingers."

"There is room for choice in this land of thine," she mused after a
little.

"Land of mine?" he repeated inquiringly, turning his head to look at
her.  "Is it not also thine?"

"Nay, it is not the Hebrews' and it never was," the clear answer came
from the dusk behind him.

"So!" he exclaimed.  "After four hundred years in Egypt they have not
adopted her!"

"We have but sojourned here a night.  The journey's end is farther on."

"Israel hath made a long night of the sojourn," he rejoined laughingly.

"Nay," she answered.  "Thou hast not said aright.  It is Egypt that
hath made a long night of our sojourn."

There was a silence in which Kenkenes felt accused and uncomfortable.
It would require little to make harsh the temper of the talk.  It lay
with him, one of the race of offenders, to make amends.

"It is for me to admit Egypt's sin and ask a truce," he said gently.
"So be thou generous to me, since it is I who am abashed in her stead."

Again there was silence, broken at last by the Israelite in a voice
grown wondrously contrite.

"I do not reproach thee.  Nor, indeed, is all Egypt at fault.  The sin
lies with the Pharaohs."

"Ah! the gods forbid!" he protested.  "Lay it on the shoulders of
babes, if thou wilt, but I am party to treason if I but give ear to a
rebuke of the monarch."

"I am not ignorant of the law.  I shall spare thee, but I have
purchased my right to condemn the king."

"Thou indomitable!  And I accused thee of fear.  I retract.  But tell
me--what is the journey's end?  Is it the ultimate goal of all flesh?"

"Not so," she answered proudly.  "It is Israel's inheritance promised
for four hundred years.  The time is ripe for possession.  We go
forward to enter into a land of our own."

"Thou givest me news.  Come, be the Hebrews' historian and enlighten
me.  Where lies the land?"

Rachel hesitated.  To her it was a serious problem to decide whether
the lightness of the sculptor's tone were mockery or good fellowship.
Kenkenes noted her silence and spoke again.

"Perchance I ask after a hieratic secret.  If so, forgive the blunder."

"Nay," she replied at once.  "It is no secret.  All Egypt will know of
it ere long.  God hath prepared us a land wherein we may dwell under no
master but Jehovah.  We go hence shortly to enter it.  The captain of
Israel will lead us thither and Jehovah will show him the way.  Abraham
was informed that it was a wondrous land wherein the olive and the
grape will crown the hills; the corn will fill the valleys; the cattle
and sheep, the pasture lands.  There will be many rivers instead of one
and the desert will lie afar off from its confines.  The sun will shine
and the rain will fall and the winds will blow as man needeth them, and
there will be no slavery and no heavy life therein.  The land shall be
Israel's and its enemies shall crouch without its borders, confounded
at the splendor of the children of God.  And there will our princes
arise and a throne be set up and a mighty nation established.  Cities
will shine white and strong-walled on the heights, and caravans of
commerce will follow down the broad roadways to the sea.  There will
the ships of Israel come bowing over the waters with the riches of the
world, and our wharves will be crowded with purple and gold and
frankincense.  Babylon shall do homage on the right hand and Egypt upon
the left, and the straight smoke from Jehovah's altar will rise from
the center unfailing by day or by night."

They had reached the ledge and Kenkenes sat down on it, leaning on one
hand across Rachel's way.  She paused near him.  Even in the dark he
could see the light in her eyes, and the joy of anticipation was in her
voice.  As yet he did not know whether she talked of the Israelitish
conception of supernal life, or of a belief in a temporal redemption.

"And there shall be no death nor any of the world-sorrows therein?" he
asked.

"Since we shall dwell in the world we may not escape the world's
uncertainties," she replied, looking at his lifted face.  "But most men
live better lives when they live happily, and I doubt not there will be
less unhappiness, provident or fortuitous, in Israel, the nation, than
in Israel, enslaved."

So the slave talked of freedom as slaves talk of it--hopefully and
eloquently.  A pity asserted itself in the young sculptor's heart and
grew to such power that it tinctured his speech.

"Is thy heart then so firmly set on this thing?" he asked gently.

"It is the hope that bears Israel's burdens and the balm that heals the
welt of the lash."

And in the young man's heart he said it was a vain hope, a happy
delusion that might serve to make the harsh bondage endurable till time
dispelled it.  The simple words of the girl were eloquent portrayal of
Israel's plight, and Kenkenes subsided into a sorry state of helpless
sympathy.  She was not long in interpreting his silence.

"Vain hope, is it?" she said.  "And how shall it come to pass in the
face of the Pharaoh's denial and the might of Egypt's arms?  Thou art
young and so am I, but both of us remember Rameses.  There has been
none like him.  He overthrew the world, did he not?  And it was a hard
task and a precarious and a long one, when he but measured arms with
mortals.  Is it not a problem worthy the study to ponder how he might
have fared in battle with a god?"

Kenkenes lifted his head suddenly and regarded her.

"Aye," she continued, "I have given thee food for thought.  Futile
indeed were Israel's hopes if it set itself unaided against the
Pharaoh.  But the God of Israel hath appointed His hour and hath
already descended into fellowship with His chosen people.  He hath
promised to lead us forth, and the Divine respects a promise.  So a God
against a Pharaoh.  Doth it not appear to thee, Egyptian, that there
approaches a marvelous time?"

"Give me but faith in the hypothesis and I shall say, of a surety," he
replied.

"Thou hast said.  Shall we not go on, my master?"

"I am Kenkenes, the son of Mentu," he told her.

She bent her head in acknowledgment of the introduction and moved
forward as if to climb up by the projecting edges of the strata.  But
he put a powerful arm about her and lifted her into the valley.  With a
light bound he was beside her.  Ahead of them was profound darkness,
hedged by black and close-drawn walls and canopied by distant and
unillumining stars.  She resumed her place behind him though he was
moved to protest, but her deliberate manner seemed to demand its way.
So they continued slowly.

"Thou givest me interest in the God of Israel," he said, to reopen the
subject.  "The Egyptian dwells in his gods, but thou sayest that the
God of Israel dwells in Israel."

"Even so.  But thou speakest of Israel's God, even after the fashion of
my people.  They are jealous, saying that the true God hath but one
love and that is Israel.  If they would think it, let them, but He is
the all-God, of all the earth, the One God--thy God as well as mine."

"Mine!" Kenkenes exclaimed.

"Thou hast said."

"Now, by all things worshipful, this is news.  I had ever thought that
our gods are those to whom we bow.  Either thou sayest wrong or I have
been remiss in my devotions."

"Nay, listen," she said earnestly, stepping to his side.  "Already have
I told thee of the captain of Israel.  He was reared among princes in
the house of the Pharaoh, and he is learned in all the wisdom of Egypt.
He instructeth the elders concerning Jehovah, and from mouth to mouth
his wisdom traverseth till it reacheth the ears of the young.  This,
then, I have from the lips of Moses, who speaketh naught but the truth.
In early times all on earth had perished for wickedness by the sending
of the One God, save a holy man and his three sons.  These men
worshiped the God of Abraham, who was the father of Israel.  One of the
sons founded thy race, saith Moses, and one established mine.  The
tribes that went into Egypt worshiped the same God.  Lo, is it not
written in the early tombs?  So Moses testifieth, but if thou doubtest,
go question thy historians.  And some of the tribes called that God Ra,
others, Ptah, and yet others, Amen.  But in time they quarreled and
each tribe refused to admit the identity of the three-named One God,
saying, 'Thy god sendeth plague and affliction, and ours sendeth rich
harvests and the Nile floods.'  Did not the same God do each of these
things in His wisdom?  Even so.  But when they were at last united into
one great people, they had forgotten the quarrel, forgotten that in the
beginning they had worshiped one God, and they bowed down to three
instead.  Nay, if there were but one among you who dared, there are
loose threads fluttering, which, if drawn, might unravel the whole
fabric of idolatry and disclose that which it hides--the One God--the
God of Abraham."

Kenkenes had walked in silence, looking down into the luminous eyes,
lost in wonder.  Rachel suddenly realized at what length she had talked
and stopped abruptly, dropping back to her place again as if chidden.

"Come," said Kenkenes, noting her action, "walk beside me, priestess.
I would hear more of this.  It is like all forbidden things--wondrously
alluring."

"I did forget," she answered stubbornly.  "There is nothing more."

Kenkenes stopped.

"Come," he insisted.  "The teacher rather precedes the pupil.  At
least, thou shalt walk beside me."

"I pray thee, let us go on.  We are not yet at the camp--we have walked
so slowly," she answered.  At that moment several fragments of rock,
loosening, slid down in the dark just behind her.  She caught her
breath and was beside the young artist in an instant.  He laughed in
sheer delight.

"Thou hast assembled the spirits by thy blasphemy," he said.  "And
remember, I must soon return to this haunted place alone."

"Thou canst get a brand of fire or a cudgel at the camp," she said with
some remorse in her voice, "and run for the river bank."  With that she
resumed her place behind him.

Kenkenes laughed again.  It gave him uncommon pleasure to know that his
model was concerned for him.  He put out his hand and deliberately drew
her up to his side.  Not content with that he bent his arm and put her
hand under it and into his palm, so that she could not leave him again.
She submitted reluctantly, but her fingers, lost in his warm clasp,
were cold and ill at ease.  He felt their chill and released her to
slip about her shoulders the light woolen mantle he had worn.  Her
apprehension lest he take her hand again was so evident that he
refrained, though he slackened his step and kept with her.

But she spoke no more until they were beside the outermost circle of
coals that had been a cooking fire for the camp.  Here they met a man,
whom, by his superior dress, Kenkenes took to be the taskmaster.  They
were almost upon him before he was seen.

"Rachel!" he exclaimed.

"Here am I," she answered, a little anxiously.

"Thou wast gone long--" he began.

The sculptor interposed.

"She hath done me a service and it was my pleasure to talk with her,"
he said complacently.  "Chide her not."

The glow from the fire lighted the young man's face, and the
taskmaster, standing in deep shadow, scanned it sharply but did not
answer.  Kenkenes turned and strode away down the valley.

Rachel snatched a thick sycamore club which had been left over in the
construction of the scaffold and ran after him.  But the young sculptor
had disappeared in the dark.

"Kenkenes," she cried at last desperately.  He answered immediately.

She slipped off the mantle.

"This, thy mantle," she said when he approached, "and this," thrusting
the club into his hands.  "There is as much danger in the valley for
thee as for me."

And like a shadow she was gone.

As he hurried on again through the dense gloom of the ravine, the young
man thought long on the Israelite and her words.  She had offered him
theories that peremptorily contradicted the accepted idea among
Egyptians, that Moses was inspired by a personal motive of revenge.
The argument put forth by his father began to show sundry weaknesses.
Furthermore Rachel's version gave him a much coveted opportunity to
slip from his shoulders the discomforting blame that had rested there
since he had heard that a miscarried letter might effect a national
disturbance.  Much as the practical side of his nature sought to decry
the great Hebrew's motive, a sense of relief possessed him.

"I fear me, Kenkenes, thou durst not boast thyself an embroiler of
nations," he said to himself.  "The Hebrew prince is a zealot, and
zealots have no fear for their lives.  Truly those Israelites are an
uncommon and a proud people.  But, by Besa, is she not beautiful!"

He enlarged on this latter thought at such exhaustive length that he
had traversed the valley and field, found his boat, crossed the Nile
and was at home before he had made an end.




CHAPTER XIII

THE COMING OF THE PHARAOH

On the first day of February, runners, dusty, breathless and excited,
passed the sentries of the Memphian palace of Meneptah with the news
that the Pharaoh was but a day's journey from his capital.  They were
the last of a series of couriers that had kept the city informed of the
king's advance.  For days before, public drapers were to be seen
clinging cross-legged to obelisk and peristyle; moving in spread-eagle
fashion, hung in a jacket of sail-cloth attached to cables, across the
fronts of buildings, looping garlands, besticking banners and spreading
tapestries.  Scattering sounds of hammer and saw continued even through
the night.  The city's metals were polished, her streets were sprinkled
and rolled, her stone wharves scoured, her landings painted, her
flambeaux new-soaked in pitch.  The gardens, the storehouses and the
wine-lofts felt unusual draft for the festivities, and the great
capital was decked and scented like a bride.

Now, on the eve of the Pharaoh's coming, the preparations were
complete.  The city was full of excitement and pleasant expectancy.
Only once before during the six years of Meneptah's reign had such
enthusiasm prevailed.  When the Rebu horde descended upon Egypt,
Meneptah had sent his generals out to meet the invader, but he,
himself, had remained under cover in Memphis because he said the stars
were unpropitious.  And this was the son of Rameses II, than whom, if
the historians and the singer Pentaur say true, there was never a more
puissant monarch!  But when the marauder was overthrown and routed, and
his generals turned toward Memphis with their captives in chains,
Meneptah hastened to meet them, decked his chariot with war trophies
and entered his capital in triumph.  He was hailed with exultant
acclaim.

"Hail, mighty Pharaoh! who smites with his glance and annihilates with
his spear.  He overthrew companies alone, and with his lions he routed
armies.  His enemies crumbled before him like men of clay, for he
breathed hot coals in his wrath and flames in his vengeance."  And the
enthusiasm that inspired the eulogy was sincere.  Meneptah was none the
less loved because Memphis understood him.  The Pharaoh was the apple
of her eye and she worshiped him stubbornly.

Now he was returning from a bloodless campaign--one that neither
required nor brought forth any generalship--but it was a victory and
had been personally conducted by Meneptah, so Memphis was preparing to
fall into paroxysms of delight, little short of hysteria.

An hour after sunrise on the day of the Pharaoh's coming a gorgeous
regatta assembled off the wharves of Memphis.  It was a flotilla of the
rank and wealth of the capital, with that of On, Bubastis, Busiris, and
even Mendes and Tanis.  The boats were high-riding, graceful and
finished at head and stern with sheaves of carved lotus.  Hull and
superstructure were painted in gorgeous colors with a preponderance of
ivory and gold.  Masts, rigging and oars were wrapped with lotus, roses
and mimosa.  Sails and canopies were brilliant with dyes and undulant
with fringes.  Troops of tiny boys, innocent of raiment, were posted
about the sides of the vessels holding festoons.  Oarsmen wore chaplets
on the head or garlands around the loins, and half-clad slave-girls
were scattered about with fans of dyed plumes.  Bridges of boats had
been hastily run out between the vessels, and over these the embarking
voyagers or visitors passed in a stream.  On shore was a great
multitude and every advantageous point of survey was occupied.  And
here were catastrophes and riots, panics and love-making, gambling and
gossip and all the other things that mark the assembly of a crowd.  But
these incidents drew the attention of the populace only momentarily
from the revel of the nobility on the Nile.  For there were laughter
and songs, strumming of the lyre, shouts, polite contention and the
drone of general conversation among such numbers that the sound was of
great volume.

At the head of the pageant were the boats of the nomarch and the
courtiers to Meneptah who remained in Memphis.  Near the forefront of
these was the pleasure-boat of Mentu.

Kenkenes dropped from its deck to the walk rising and falling at its
side, and made his way through the crowd in search of a vessel bearing
a winged sun and the oval containing the symbols of On.  As he passed
the prow of a tall pleasure-boat he was caught in a rope of flowers let
down from above and looped about him with a dexterous hand.  He turned
in the pretty fetters and looked up.  Above him was a row of a dozen
little girl-faces, set like apple-blossoms along the side of the
vessel.  The youngest was not over twelve years of age, the oldest,
fourteen.  Each rosy countenance was rippled with laughter, but the
sound was lost in the great turmoil about them.  In the center of the
group, a pair of hands put forth under the chin of an older girl, held
the ends of the garland with a determined grip.  Her eyes were gray,
her hair was chestnut, her face very fair.  Kenkenes recognized her
with a sudden warmth about his heart.  The others were strangers to
him.  A glance at the plate on the side of the boat showed him that
this was the one he sought.  Most willingly he obeyed the insistent
summons of the garland and permitted himself to be drawn to the barge.
There, the same hands showed him the ladder against the side, and a
dozen pretty arms were extended to haul him aboard as he climbed.

But the instant he planted foot on the deck the lovely rout retreated
to shelter at the side of a smiling woman seated in the shadow of fans.
Only his fair-faced captor stood her ground.

"Hail, Hapi," [1] she cried, doing obeisance.  "Pity the desert."  She
flung wide her hands.  With the exception of the youths at the oars
there was no other man on the boat.

"Ye may call me forth," Kenkenes replied, "but how shall ye return me
to my banks?  Hither, sweet On," he continued, catching the hand of the
fair-faced girl, "submit first to submergence."  She took his kisses
willingly.  "This for Seti, thy lover; this for Hotep, thy brother, and
this for me who am both in one.  How thou art grown, Io!"

"But she hath not denied thee the babyhood privileges for all that,
Kenkenes," the smiling woman said.

"It is an excellent example of submission she hath set, Lady Senci," he
replied, advancing toward the young girls about her.  "Let us see if it
prevail."

But the troop scattered with little cries of dismay.

"Nay," he observed, as he bent over Senci's hand, "never were two maids
alike, and I shall not strive to make them so."

"Thy father hath most graciously kept his word in sending us a
protector," Senci continued, "My nosegay of beauties drooped last night
when they arrived from On with my brother sick, aboard.  They feared
they must stop with me in Memphis for want of a man."

"It was the first word I heard from my father this morning and the last
when I left him even now: 'Io's father hath failed her through
sickness, so do thou look after the Lady Senci--and the gods give thee
grace for once to do a thing well!'"

The lady smiled and patted his arm.  "He did not fear; he knew whom he
chose.  But behold our gallant escort--the nomarch ahead, beside us the
new cup-bearer and behind us all the rank of the north."

"Aye, and when we cast off thou mayest look for the new murket on thy
right."

The lady blushed.  "I have not seen thy father yet, this morning."

"So?  His robes must fit poorly."

At that moment a gang-plank was run across from the broad flat stern of
the nomarch's boat to the prow of Senci's, a carpet was spread on it,
and Ta-meri, with little shrieks and tottering steps, came across it.
Kenkenes put out his arms to her and lifted her down when she arrived.

"Wonder brought me," she cried.  "I dreamed I saw thee kiss a maiden
thrice and I came to see if it were true."

"O most honest vision!  It is true and this is she," Kenkenes answered,
indicating Io.

Ta-meri flung up her hands and gazed at the blushing girl with wide
eyes.

"Enough," she said at last.  "It is indeed a marvel.  Never have I seen
such a thing before, and never shall I see it again."

"And if that be true, fie and for shame, Kenkenes," Senci chid
laughingly.

"Ta-meri always shuts her eyes," the sculptor defended himself stoutly.
The nomarch's daughter caught his meaning first and covered her face
with her hands.  The chorus of laughter did not drown her protests.

"Kenkenes, thou art a mortal plague!" she exclaimed behind her defense.

"Truce," he said.  "Thou didst accuse me and I did defend myself.  We
are even."

"Nay, but am I also even with Ta-meri?" Io asked shyly.

"Now," Senci cried, "which of ye will say 'aye' or 'nay' to that!"

Ta-meri retreated protesting to the prow again, but the gang-plank had
been withdrawn.  An army of slaves were breaking up the bridges of
boats.  The oars of the nomarch's barge rose and fell and the vessel
bore away.  Ta-meri cried out again when she saw it depart but she made
no effort to stay it.

"Come back, Ta-meri," Io called.  "I shall not press thee for an
accounting."

The lanes of water between the boats cleared, the scented sails filled,
the bristling fringes of oars dipped and flashed, a great shout arose
from the populace on shore and the shining pageant moved away toward
Thebes.  The barge of Nechutes swung into position on the left of
Senci--the oars on Mentu's boat rose and halted and the vessel drifted
till it was alongside her right.  Kenkenes put his arm about Io, who
stood beside him and whispered exultantly or irreverently concerning
the vigilance of the cup-bearer and the murket.

"And," he continued oracularly, "there will be a third attending us
when we return, if thou hast been coy with the gentle Seti during his
long absence."

"Nay, I have sent him messages faithfully and in no little point have I
failed him in constancy.  But I can not see why he should love me, who
am to the court-ladies as a thrush to peafowls.  He writes me such
praise of Ta-user."

"Now, Io!  Art thou so little versed in the ways of men that thou dost
wonder why we love or how we love or whom we love?  The very fact that
thou art different from Seti's surroundings is like to make him love
thee best."

"I am not jealous; only he hath so much to tell of Ta-user."

"Aye, since she is like to become his sister, it is not strange.  But
what says he of her?"

Io thrust her hand into the mist of gauzes over her bosom and with a
soft flush on her cheeks drew forth a small, flattened roll of linen.
Kenkenes made a place for her on his chair and drew her down beside
him.  Together the pair undid the scroll and Kenkenes, following the
tiny pink finger, came upon these words:

"Ah, thou shouldst see her, my sweet.  Thou knowest she was born of a
prince of Egypt and a lovely Tahennu, and the mingling of our dusky
blood with that of a fair-haired northern people, hath wrought a
marvelous beauty in Ta-user.  Her hair is like copper and like copper
her eyes.  There is no brownness nor any flush in her skin.  It is like
thick cream, smooth, soft and cool.  And when she walks, she minds me
of my grandsire's leopardess, which once did stride from shadow to
shadow in the palace with that undulatory, unearthly grace.  In nature,
she is world-compelling.  When first she met me, she took my face
between her palms and gazed into mine eyes.  Ai! she bewitched me, then
and there.  My individuality died within me--I felt an unreasoning
submission, strangely mingled with aversion.  I was compelled--divorced
from mine own forces, which vaguely protested from afar. . . .  And
yet, thou shouldst see her meet Rameses.  He makes me marvel.  He
knows--she knows--aye, all Egypt knows why she hath come to court, and
yet they meet--she salutes him with bewildering grace--he inclines his
proud head with never a tremor and they pass.  Or, if they tarry to
talk, it is an awesome sight to see the determined encounter of two
mighty souls--tremendous charm against tremendous resistance--and Io, I
know that they have sounded to the deepest the depth of each other's
strength.  I long to see Ta-user conquer--and yet, again I would not."

Thereafter followed matters which Kenkenes did not read.  He rolled the
letter and gave it back to Io.  The little girl sat expectantly
watching his face.

"Nay, I would not take Seti's boyish transports seriously," he said
gently.  "His very frankness disclaims any heart interest in Ta-user.
Besides, she is as old as I--three whole Nile-floods older than the
prince.  She thinks on him as Senci looks on me--he regards her as a
lad looks up to gracious womanhood.  Nay, fret not, thou dear jealous
child."

Io's lips quivered as she looked away.

"It is over and over--ever the same in every letter--Ta-user, Ta-user,
till I hate the name," she said at last.

"Then when thou seest him at midday up the Nile, be thou gracious to
some other comely young nobleman and see him wince.  Naught is so good
for a lover as uncertainty.  It is a mistake to load him with the great
weight of thy love.  Doubt not, thou shalt carry all the burden of
jealousy and pain if thou dost.  Divide this latter with him, and he
shall be content to share more of the first with thee.  But thou hast
condemned him without trial, Io.  Spare thy heart the hurt and wait."

The young face cleared and with a little sigh she settled back in the
chair and said no more.

It was noon when the royal flotilla was sighted.  There were nineteen
barges approaching in the form of two crescents like a parenthesis, the
horns up and down the Nile, and in the center of the inclosed space was
Meneptah's float.  Here was only the royal family, the king, queen,
Ta-user, and the two princes, who took the place of fan-bearers in
attendance on their father.  The vessel was manned by two reliefs of
twelve oarsmen from Theban nobility.

If magnificence came to conduct Meneptah, it met splendor as its
charge.  The pastoral solitude of the Middle country was routed for the
moment by an assemblage of the brilliance and power of all Egypt.

With a shout that made the remote hills reply again and again, the
convoy divided, a half retreating to either side of the Nile and the
home-coming fleet entered the hollow.  The nomarch's boat detached
itself from its following and took up a position in the center, beside
the royal barge.  The advance was delayed only long enough for the
escort to turn, take in the sails--for they went against the wind
now--and form an outer parenthesis.  Then with another shout the
triumphant return began.

The other fleet absorbed the attention of each voyager.  Every barge
had a new-comer alongside and near enough to talk across the water.
Therefore a great babel and confusion arose in which rational
conversation became impossible.  Then vessels essayed to approach
nearer one another and the formation began to break.  The right oars of
one boat and the left of another would be withdrawn and the vessels
lashed together.  Then they were permitted to drift, with some poling
to keep them in the proper direction.  When this proceeding was
impracticable because of the construction of the barges, one boat would
take another in tow until the occupants of one had joined those of the
other by a gang-plank laid from prow to stern.  By sunset the
merrymaking had developed into indiscriminate boarding.  Only the
vessels of the king and the nomarch and the barge of Senci were not
involved in the uproarious revel that followed.  The fates were amiable
and no mishaps occurred in spite of the recklessness of the pastime.
Men and women alike took part in the play, and the general temper of
the merrymakers was good-natured and innocent.

The dusk fell and the shadows of night were made seductive by the dim
lamps that began to burn from mast-top and prow.  On the barge of Senci
only a single and subdued light was swung from a bronze tripod in the
bow, and the fourteen charges of the young sculptor, wearied with the
long day's excitement, were disposed in graceful abandon under its
glow.  Senci sat with Ta-meri's head in her lap, and three or four
drowsy little girls were tumbled about her feet.  Only Io was wide
awake, and even her sweet face wore a pensive air.  Kenkenes had
retired to the stern, where, under the high up-standing end, stood a
long wooden bench.  The young sculptor had flung himself on this, and
with the whole of the boat and its freight within range of his vision,
he listened to the riot about him.

Suddenly the sound of cautiously wielded oars attracted his attention.
In the end of the boat was a hawser-hole, painted and shaped like the
eye of Osiris.  Kenkenes turned about on his couch and watched through
this aperture.

A barge, judiciously darkened, emerged into the circle of faint
radiance about Senci's boat.  There were probably a dozen Theban nobles
of various ages grouped in attitudes of hushed expectancy in the bow.
One robust peer, with a boat-hook in his hand, leaned over the prow.
Another, barely older than fourteen, had mounted the side of the boat,
and steadying himself by the shoulder of a young lord, gazed ahead at
the group in the bow of Senci's boat.

"By the horns of Isis," he whispered in disgust, "the most of them are
babes!"

The robust noble turned his head and jeered good-naturedly under his
breath.

"Mark the infant sneering at the buds.  But be of cheer.  One is there,
ripe enough to sate your green appetite."

"Nay! do you distribute them now?  Let me make my choice, then."

But a general chorus of whispered protests arose.

"Hold, not so fast.  The fan-bearer first.  'Twas he who hit upon the
plan."

The nose of the pursuing boat crept alongside the stern of the one
pursued, and the oars rested in obedience to a whispered order.  The
diagonal current which moved out from the Arabian shore, and the
backward wash of water from the oars of the forward boat, heaved the
head of the nobles' barge toward its object.  The robust courtier
leaned forward and made fast to his captive with the hook.  A sigh of
approval and excitement ran through the group.

"Gods! how they will scatter!" the young lord tittered nervously.

"Nay, now, there must be no such thing," the robust noble said,
addressing them all.  "Mind you, we but come as guests.  It shall be
left to the ladies to say how we shall abide with them.  Show me a
light."

The instant brilliance that followed proved that a hood had been lifted
from a lamp.  One of the men held a cloak between it and the group on
Senci's boat.  Kenkenes raised himself.  The lamp discovered to his
angry eyes the face of Har-hat.

"Now, hold this hook for me while I get aboard," the fan-bearer
chuckled.

With a single step the young sculptor crossed to the side of the barge
and wrenched the hook from the hands of the man that held it.  For a
moment he poised it above him, struggling with a mighty desire to bring
it down on the head of the startled fan-bearer.  The youthful lord
dropped from his point of vantage and half of the group retreated
precipitately.  Har-hat drew back slowly and raised himself, as
Kenkenes lowered the weapon.  For a space the two regarded each other
savagely.  The contemplation endured only the smallest part of a
moment, but it was eloquent of the bitterest mutual antagonism.  There
was no relaxing in the rigid lines of the young sculptor's figure, but
the fan-bearer recovered himself immediately.

"Forestalled!" he laughed.  "Retreat!  We would not steal another man's
bliss though it be fourteen times his share!"

The oars fell and the boat darted back into the night, the affable
sound of Har-hat's raillery receding into silence with it.

Kenkenes flung the boat-hook into the Nile and returned to his bench,
puzzled at the inordinate passion of hate in his heart for the
fan-bearer.

At the end of the first watch the flotilla drifted into Memphis.
Bonfires so vast as to suggest conflagrations made the long water-front
as brilliant as day.  Far up the slope toward the city the red light
discovered a great multitude, densely packed and cheering tumultuously.
Amid the uproar one by one the barges approached and discharged their
occupants along the wharves.  Soldiery in companies drove a roadway
through the mass from time to time, by which the arrivals might enter
Memphis, though few of these departed at once.  When the Lady Senci's
barge drew up, Mentu forced his way through the increasing crowd to
meet and assist its occupants to alight.  Kenkenes, still on deck, was
handing his charges down the stairway one by one, when he saw Io, who
stood at the very end of the line, lean over the side, her face aglow
with joy.  Kenkenes guessed the cause of her delight and, deserting his
post, went to her side.  Below stood Seti, on tiptoe, his hands
upstretched against the tall hull.

"O, I can not reach thee," he was crying.  Kenkenes caught up the
trembling, blushing, repentant girl and lowered her plump into the
prince's eager arms.

When Kenkenes saw her an hour later, he lifted her out of her curricle
before the portals of Senci's house.

"What did I tell thee?" he said softly.

But the little girl clung to his arms and leaned against him with a sob.

"O Kenkenes," she whispered, "he came but to drag me away to look upon
her!"

"Didst go?" he asked.

"Nay," she answered fiercely.

After a silence Kenkenes spoke again:

"He does not love her, Io.  Believe me.  I doubt not the sorceress hath
bewitched him, but he would not rush after a whilom sweetheart to have
her look upon a new one.  Rather would he strive to cover up his
faithlessness.  But he hath been untrue to thee in this--that he shares
a thought with the witch when his whole mind should be full of thee.
Bide thy time till he emerges from the spell, then make him writhe.
Meantime, save thy tears.  Never was a man worth one of them."

He kissed her again and set her inside Senci's house.

But one remained now of the procession he had escorted from the river.
This was the Lady Ta-meri's litter, and his own chariot stood ahead of
it.  She had lifted the curtains and was piling the opposite seat with
cushions in a manner unmistakably inviting.  He hesitated a moment.
Should he dismiss his charioteer and journey to the nomarch's mansion
in the companionable luxury of the litter?  But even while he debated
with himself, he passed her with a soft word and stepped into his
chariot.



[1] The inundation, more properly Nilus--the river-god.




CHAPTER XIV

THE MARGIN OF THE NILE

Meneptah having come and the old regime of life resumed, Memphis
subsided into her normal state of dignity.  Mentu remained in his house
preparing for his investiture with the office of murket.  His hours
were spent in study, and the coming and going of Kenkenes crossed his
consciousness as swiftly as the shadows wavered under his young palms.
His son might work for hours near him on mysterious drawings, but so
deep was the great artist in the writings of the old murkets that he
did not think to ask him what he did.  It might not have won his
attention even had he seen the young man burn the sheets of papyrus
thereafter, and grow restless and dissatisfied.  He remarked, however,
that Kenkenes was absent during the noon-meal, but when the sundown
repast was served and the young man was in his place, Mentu had
forgotten that he had not been there at midday.

Kenkenes had visited his niche in the Arabian desert.  On his way to
the statue he came to the line of rocks where he had hidden himself to
get Athor's likeness, and looked down into the quarry opposite him.  He
was astonished to see at the ledge, just below, a great water-cart with
three humped oxen attached.  The water-bearers were grouped about it
and a Hebrew youth was drawing off the water in skins and jars.  The
children received their burdens from his hands and passed up the wooden
incline to the scaffold.  There Kenkenes saw that the incline had been
extended to the level of the platform, and the children were able to
deliver the hides directly into the hands of the laborers.  Then it
occurred to Kenkenes that there was not a woman in sight about the
quarries.  While he wondered, Rachel emerged from the windings of the
valley into the open space below.

She carried a band of linen and a small box of horn in her hand.  When
the young bearers saw her, one of them, who had been rubbing his eye,
came to her.  She set her box upon an outstanding edge of stone and
devoted herself to him.  Drawing his head back until it rested against
her bosom, with tender hands she dressed the injured optic with balm
from the box.

Kenkenes from his aery watched her, noting with a softening countenance
the almost maternal love that beautified her face.  Now and then she
spoke soothingly as the boy flinched, but her words were so softly said
that the sculptor did not catch them.  The eye dressed, she covered it
with the bandage and the pair separated.  It was with some regret that
Kenkenes saw her turn to leave the spot.  But at that moment the
taskmaster rode into the open space.  She made a sign of salutation and
paused at a word from him.  Kenkenes fancied that her face had sobered
and he looked down on the cowled head and shoulders of the overseer,
wrathfully wondering if the Egyptian had played the master so harshly
that Rachel dreaded him.  Presently the man dismounted; and though his
back was turned toward Kenkenes, the young sculptor knew by his stature
that he was not the soldier who had first governed the quarries.  The
young man watched him excitedly but there was no display of tyranny or
even authority in the taskmaster's manner.  They talked, and by the
motion of the man's hand Kenkenes fancied that he described something
growing near the Nile.  Presently they walked together toward the
outlet of the valley.  The taskmaster leaped down the ledge and,
turning, put up his arms and lifted Rachel down.  It was plain that
something more than courtesy inspired the act, for the man's hands fell
reluctantly.  Kenkenes faced sharply about and proceeded up the hill to
his statue with a queer discomfort tugging at his heart.

That night in his effort to bring forth the coveted expression in his
drawings of Athor, Kenkenes all but satisfied himself.

The next day, without any apparent cause, he went back to the niche in
the desert, stayed without purpose, and departed when no tangible
reason urged him.  When the day declined he climbed down the front of
the hill and crossed the narrow field toward his boat, which was buried
in the rank vegetation of the water's edge.  At the Nile he noted, a
little distance up the river, a familiar figure among the reeds.  For a
moment he hesitated and then rambled through the riotous growth in that
direction.  As he drew near, Rachel raised herself from a search in a
thicket of herbs, her arms full of them and her face a little flushed.

"Idler!" said Kenkenes.

"Nay," she answered with a smile, "I am at work--learned work."

"Gathering witch-weeds for an incantation, sorceress?"

"Not so.  I am hunting herbs to make simples for the sick."

"Of a truth?  Then never before now have I craved for an illness that I
might select my leech."

Again she smiled and made a sheaf of the herbs, preparatory to binding
it.  The bundle was unruly, and several of the plants dropped.  She
bent to pick them up and others fell.  Kenkenes came to her rescue and
gathered them all into his large grasp.

"Now, while I hold it," he suggested.

With the most gracious self-possession she smoothed out the fiber, put
it twice, thrice about the sheaf and knotted it, her fingers, cool and
moist after their contact with the marsh sedge, touching the sculptor's
more than once.

"There!  I thank thee."

"Are there any sick in the camp?"

"Only those who have been blinded by the stone-dust.  But I prepare for
sickness during health."

"A wise provision.  Would we might prepare for sorrow during
contentment."

"We may lay up comfort for us against the coming of misfortune."

"How?"

"In choosing friends," she answered.

His mind went back to the scene of that morning.  Did she speak of the
taskmaster?

"Thou hast found it so?" he asked.

"Thou hast said."  She added no more, though the sculptor was eager for
an example.

"How goes it with the statue?" she asked, seeing that he did not move
out of her path.

"Slowly," he answered.  "But it shall hasten to completeness when I
once begin."

"What wilt thou do with it when it is done?  Destroy it?"

He shook his head with a smile.

"Leave it there to betray thee to the vengeance of the priesthood one
day?"

"I have no fear of discovery."

"Nay, but fear or unfear never yet warded off misfortune," she said
gravely.  "It is better to entertain causeless concern than unwise
confidence."

He eagerly accepted this establishment of equality between them, and
overshot his mark.

"Advise me, Rachel.  What should I do?"

She gazed at him for a moment distrustfully, wondering if he mocked her
and asking herself if she had not deserved it in assuming comradeship
with him.

"Nay, it is not my place, my master," she said.  "I did forget."

He put his hand on hers with considerable determination in his manner.

"Let us make an end to this eternal emphasis of different rank.  I
would forget it, Rachel.  Wilt thou not permit me?  I am thy friend and
nothing harsher--above all things, not thy master."

Never before had he spoken so to her.  She ventured to look at him at
last.  His face was grave and a little passionate and his eyes demanded
an answer.

"Aye, I shall gladly be thy friend," she answered; "but never hast thou
been so much of a master as in the denial that thou art."  The first
gleam of girlish mischief danced in her blue eyes.  The young sculptor
noted it with gladness.  He took the free hand and pressed it, and when
she turned toward the roadway through the wheat he turned with her and
hand in hand they went.  As they neared it he spoke again.

"Again would I ask, when wilt thou advise me concerning the statue?
Here is my boat.  Let us turn it into a high seat of council and I will
sit at thy feet and learn."

"Nay, if I sit I shall linger too long, and there is a
taskmaster--albeit a gentle one--waiting with other things for me to
do."

Kenkenes kicked the turf and frowned.

"It sounds barbarous--this talk of master upon thy lips, Rachel.  Thou
art out of thy place," he answered.

"I am no more worthy of freedom than my people," she replied with
dignity.

"Thy people!  They should be lawgivers and advisers among Egypt's high
places, rather than brick-makers and quarry-slaves, if thou art a
typical Israelite."

"Aye!" she exclaimed, "and thou hast given tongue to the same estimate
of Israel, which hath wrought consternation among the powers of
Mizraim.  And for that reason are we enslaved.  Think of it, thou who
art unafraid to think.  Think of a people in bondage because of its
numbers, its sturdiness and its wisdom.  Thou who art in rebellion
against ancient law dost feel somewhat of Israel's hurt.  Behold, am I
not also oppressed because I may think to the upsetting of idolatry and
the overthrow of mine oppressors?  Thou and I are fellows in bondage;
but mark me!  I am nearer freedom than thou.  The Pharaohs began too
late.  Ye may not dam the Nile at flood-tide."

Her face was full of triumph and her voice of prophecy.  She seemed to
declare with authority the freedom of her people.  Kenkenes did not
speak immediately.  His thoughts were undergoing a change.  The pity he
had felt that night a month agone for her sanguine anticipation of
freedom seemed useless and wasted.  Her confidence was no longer
fatuous.  He admitted in entirety the truth of her last words.  If all
Israel--nay, if but part, if but its leaders were as able and
determined as she, did Meneptah guess his peril?  Was not Egypt most
ominously menaced?  He remembered that he had been amused at his
father's perturbation over the Israelitish unrest, but he vindicated
Mentu then and there.  Furthermore, if all Israel were like unto her,
what heinous injustice had been perpetrated upon an able people?  He
found himself hoping that they would assert themselves and enter
freedom, whether it be in Canaan or in Egypt.

"If ever Israel come to her own," he said impulsively, "I pray thee,
Rachel, remember me to her powers as her partizan in her darker days.
And take this into account when thou comest to judge Egypt.  The half
of the nation know not thy people, even as I have been ignorant; and
Osiris pity the hand that would oppress them if all Egypt is made
acquainted with them as I have been in these past days.  Art thou
indeed typical of thy race?"

"Hast thou not been among us often enough to discover?" she parried
smilingly.

He shook his head.  "Nay, I have known but one Israelite, and she keeps
me perpetually aghast at Egypt."

Rachel's eyes fell.

"We did speak of the statue," she began.

"O, aye!  I meant to tell thee how I had fortified myself against
mischance.  I can not break up the statue; sooner would I assail sweet
flesh with a sledge; but when it is done I shall bury it in the sands.
It will wrench me sorely to do even that.  During the carving I feel
most secure, for Memphis and Masaarah think I come hither to look after
the removal of stones, since I am a sculptor.  But if an Egyptian
should come upon it by mischance before it is complete, I have left no
trace of myself upon it.  Most of all I trust to the generosity of the
Hathors, who have abetted me so openly thus far."

Rachel heard him thoughtfully.

"What a pity it is that thou must follow after the pattern of God and
sate thy love of beauty by stealth under ban and in fear.  Till what
time Mizraim sets this law of sculpture aside she may not boast her
wisdom flawless.  It is past understanding why she exacts obedience to
this law most diligently, which fathers these ill-favored images of her
gods, when their habitations are most splendidly and most beautifully
built.  She robeth herself in fine linen, decketh herself with jewels,
anointeth her hair and maketh her eyes lovely with kohl, and lo! when
she would picture herself she setteth her shoulders awry and slighteth
the grace of her joints and the softness of her flesh.  O, that thy
brave spirit had arisen long ago, ere the perversion had become a
heritage, dear to the Egyptian sculptor as his bones!  But now, artist
though he be, his eye is so befilmed by ancient use that he sees no
monstrousness in his work.  So thou hast nation-wide, nation-old,
nation-defended custom to fight.  And alas! thou art but one, Kenkenes,
and I fear for thee."

For once the young sculptor's ready speech failed him.  He drew near
her, his eyes shining, his lips parted, drinking every word as if it
were authoritative privilege for him to indulge his love of beauty
without limit and openly.  Here was that which he had sought in vain
from those nearest to him--that which he had ceased to believe was to
be found in Egypt--comfort, sympathy, perfect understanding.  What if
it came from the lips of an hereditary slave of the Pharaoh--a toiler
in the quarries, an infidel, an alien nomad?  If an alien, a slave, an
unbeliever thought so deeply, felt so acutely and responded so
discerningly to such delicate requirements--the slave, the nomad for
him!

"Rachel," he began almost helplessly, "I am beyond extrication in debt
to thee--thou golden, thou undecipherable mystery!"

She flushed to her very brows and her eyes fell quickly.

"I have appealed to all sources from which I might justly expect
sympathy--to men of reason, of power, of mine own kin, and to women of
heart--and not once have I found in them the broad and kindly
understanding which thou hast displayed for me out of the goodness of
thy beautiful heart.  Behold! thou hast given speech to my own hidden
longings, summarized my difficulties, foreshadowed my misfortunes,
deplored them--aye, of a truth, heaved my very sighs for me!"  His
voice fell and grew reverent.  "I would call thee an immortal, but
there is a better title for thee--woman--a true woman--and thou dost
even uplift the name."

For the first time in the history of their acquaintance she laughed,
not mirthfully, but low and very happily, and the fleeting glimpse she
gave him of her eyes showed them radiant and glad.  He caught her
hands, the bundle of herbs fell, and drawing her near him, he lifted
the pink palms to his lips and pressed them there.

"Nay," she said, recovering herself and withdrawing her hands, "I am
not an Egyptian but a Hebrew, unbiased by the prejudices of thy nation.
It is not strange that I can understand thy rebellion, which is but a
rift in thine Egyptian make-up through which reason shows.  Any alien
could comfort thee as well."

"And thou hast no more sympathy for me than any alien would have?" he
asked, somewhat piqued.

"Is there any other sympathizing alien with whom I may compare and
learn?" she asked with a smile.

She took up her bundle of herbs again and seemed to be preparing to
leave him.

"How dost thou know these things," he asked hurriedly; "all these
things--sculpture, religion, history?"

"I was not born a slave," she answered simply.

"Nay, cast out that word.  I would never hear thee speak it, Rachel."

"Then, I was born out of servitude.  My great grandsire was exempted by
Seti when Israel went into bondage.  His children and all his house
were given to profit by the covenant.  But the name grew wealthy and
powerful to the third generation.  My father was Maai the
Compassionate, who loved his brethren better than himself.  Them he
helped.  Rameses the Great forgot his father's promise when he found he
had need of my father's treasure--" she paused and continued as if the
recital hurt her.  "There were ten--four of my mother's house, six of
my father's.  To the mines and the brick-fields they were sent, and in
a little space I was all that was left."

Horrified and conscience-stricken, Kenkenes made as if to speak, but
she went on hurriedly.

"My mother's nurse, Deborah, who went with us into servitude, is
learned, having been taught by my mother, and I have been her pupil."

"And there is not one of thy blood--not one guardian kinsman left to
thee?" Kenkenes asked slowly.

"Not one."

Up to this moment, during every interview with Rachel, Kenkenes had
forsworn some little prejudice, or sacrificed some of his blithe
self-esteem.  But the tragic narrative swept all these supports from
him and left him solitary to face the charge of indirect complicity in
murder.  He was an Egyptian--a loyal supporter of the government and
its policies; he had profited by Israel's toil, and if he succeeded to
his father's office, Israel would serve him directly in his labor for
the Pharaoh to be.  He had known that Israel was oppressed, that Israel
died of hard labor, and he had pitied it, as the humane soul in him had
felt for the overworked draft-oxen or the sacrifices that were led
bleating to the altars.  Perhaps he had even casually decried the
policy that sent women into the brick-fields and did men to death in a
year in the mines.  But his own conscience had not been hurt, nor had
he taken the misdeed home to himself.

Now his sensations were vastly different.  He felt all the guilt of his
nation, and he had nothing to offer as amends but his own humiliation.
Of this he had an overwhelming plenitude and his eloquent face showed
it.  With an effort he raised his head and spoke.

"Rachel, if my humiliation will satisfy thee even a little as vengeance
upon Egypt, do thou shame me into the dust if thou wilt."

"I do not understand thee," she said with dignity.

"Believe me.  I would help thee in some wise, and alas! there is no
other way by deed or word that I could prove my sorrow."

Tears leaped into her eyes.

"Nay!  Nay!" she exclaimed.  "Thou dost wrong me, Kenkenes.  What
wickedness were mine to make the one contrite, guiltless heart in Egypt
suffer for all the unrepentant and the wrong-doers of the land!"

Once again he took her hand and kissed it, because the act was more
eloquent than words at that moment.

"It is near sunset," she said softly, "give me leave to depart."

"Farewell, and the divine Mother attend thee."

She bowed and left him.

That night in the dim work-room Kenkenes brought forth upon papyrus a
face of Athor, so full of love and yearning that he knew his own heart
had given his fingers direction and inspiration.  He sought no further.

To-morrow in the niche in the desert he would carve the want of his own
soul in the countenance of the goddess.




CHAPTER XV

THE GODS OF EGYPT

It was Kenkenes' first love and so was most rapturous, but it did not
cast a glamour over the stern perplexities that it entailed.  He knew
the suspense that is immemorial among lovers, and further to trouble
him he had the harsh obstacle of different society.  Rachel was a
quarry-slave, a member of the lowest rank in the Egyptian scale of
classes.  She was an Israelite, an infidel and a reviler of the gods.

He was a descendant of kings, a devout Osirian and welcomed in Egypt's
high places.

Never could extremes have been greater.  But Kenkenes would not have
given any of these obstacles a moment's consideration had not the
weight of their neglect fallen on the shoulders of Rachel.  If he had
been a sovereign he could have taken her freely, and purple-wearing
Egypt would have kissed her sandal; but he occupied a place that could
provide with honor only him who was born to it.

To lift Rachel to that position would be to expose her to the affronts
of an undemocratic society.  On the other hand he might sacrifice name
and station and go down to her; but he was not to be judged harshly
because he hesitated at this step.

Rachel had given him no sign of preference beyond a pretty fellowship.
In the beginning this realization had hurt him, but as he tossed night
after night, troubled beyond expression, he remembered this thing with
some melancholy comfort.  It was a sorry solution of his problem to
feel that he was unloved, and even while he recognized its efficacy, he
prayed that it might not be so.

His heavy heart did not retard the progress of his statue or make its
beauty indifferent.  The more he suffered the greater the passion in
the face.  He labored daily and tirelessly.

But day by day he looked, unseen, on his love in the valley, and the
oftener he looked the more irresolute he grew.  The conflict between
his heart and his reason was gradually shifting in favor of his love.

His longing, as it continued to crave, grew from hunger to starving,
and though his reason pointed to disastrous results, his heart
justified itself in the blind cry, "Rachel, Rachel!"

He had endured a month before his fortitude succumbed entirely.  Once
near sunset, as Rachel was proceeding toward the camp from some helpful
mission to the quarries, she caught the fragments of a song, so
distantly and absently sung that she could not locate it.  There were
singers among the Israelites, but they sang with wild exultation and
more care for the sense than the melody.  They had cultivated the chant
and forgotten the lyric, because they had more heart for prophecy than
passion.  Rachel had revered her people's song, but there was something
in this half-heard music that touched her youth and her love of life.
She stopped to hear it well.

It had all the power and profundity of the male voice, but it was as
subdued, as flawless and sympathetic as a distant, deep-toned bell.
There was not even a breath of effort in it, nor an insincere
expression, and it pursued a theme of little range and much simplicity.
The singer sang as spontaneously as a bird sings.  She did not catch
the words, but something in the fervor of the music told her it was a
song of love--and a song of love unsatisfied.  There was a pathos in it
that touched the fountain of her tears and awoke to willingness that
impulse in her womanhood that longs to comfort.

As she stood in an attitude of rapt attention.  Kenkenes rounded a
curve in the valley just ahead of her.  The song died suddenly on his
lips and the color deepened in his cheeks.

"Fie!" he exclaimed.  "Here thou art, O Athor, catching me in the
imperfection of my practice.  Now will the keen edge of their perfect
beauty be dulled upon thine ear when I come to lift my tuneful
devotions to thee."

"And it was thou singing?" she asked.

"It was I--and Pentaur; mine the voice; Pentaur's the song."

"Together ye have wrought an eloquent harmony, but such a voice as
thine would gild the pale effort of the poorest words," she said
earnestly.  "What dost thou with thy voice?"

"Once I won me a pretty compliment with it," he said softly, bending
his head to look at her.  She flushed and her eyes fell.

"Nay, it is but my pastime and at the command of my friends," he
continued.  "See.  This is what has made me sing."

He unslung his wallet and took out of it a statuette of creamy chalk.

"Thus far has the Athor of the hills progressed."  He put it into her
hands for examination.  The face was complete, the minute features as
perfect as life, the plaits of long hair and all the figure exquisitely
copied and shaped.  The pedestal was yet in rough block.  Rachel
inspected it, wondering.  Finally she looked up at him with praise in
her eyes.

"Dost thou forgive me?" he asked.

"It is for me to ask thy forgiveness," she answered.  "So we be equally
indebted and therefore not in debt."

"Not so.  I know the joy of creating uncramped, and the joy of copying
such a model far outweighs any small delight thy little vanity may have
experienced.  Thy vanity?  Hast thou any vanity?"

"Nay, I trust not," she replied laughingly.  "Vanity is self-esteem run
to seed."

"Sage!  Let me make haste to carve the pedestal that I may know how low
to do obeisance to wisdom.  Hold it so, I pray thee."

He took the statue and set it on a flat cornice jutting from the stone
wall.  Rachel obediently steadied it.  He selected from his tools a
knife with a rounded point of wonderful keenness and smoothed away the
chalk in bulk.  They stood close together, the sculptor bending from
his commanding height to work.  From time to time he shifted his
position, touching her hand often and saying little.

The pedestal given shape, he began its elaboration.  Pattern after
pattern of graceful foliation emerged till the design assumed the
intricate complexity of the Egyptic style.

Rachel watched with absorbed interest, her head unconsciously settling
to one side in critical contemplation.  Kenkenes, pressing the blade
firmly upon the chalk, felt her cheek touch his shoulder for a fraction
of a second; his fingers lost their steadiness and direction, but not
their strength; the blade slipped, and the fierce edge struck the white
hand that held the statuette.

With a cry he dropped the knife, flung one arm about her and drew her
very close to him.  The image toppled down and was broken on the rock
below, but he saw only the fine scarlet thread on the soft flesh.

Again and again he pressed the wounded hand to his lips, his eyes
dimmed with tears of compunction.

"O, Rachel, Rachel!" he exclaimed in a sudden burst of passionate
contrition.  "Must even the most loving hand in Egypt be lifted against
thee?"

The great content on the glorified face against his breast was all the
expression of pardon that he asked.

"My love!  My Rachel!" he whispered.  "Ah, ye generous gods! indulge me
still further.  Let this, your richest gift, be mine."

The gods!

Stunned and only realizing that she must undo his clasp, she freed
herself and retreated a little space from him.

And then she remembered.

Slowly and relentlessly it came home to her that this was one of the
abominable idolaters, and she had forsworn such for ever.  These very
arms that had held her so shelteringly had been lifted in supplication
to the idols, and the lips, whose kiss she had awaited, would swear to
love her, by an image.  The pitiless truth, once admitted, smote her
cruelly.  She covered her face with her hands.

Kenkenes, amazed and deeply moved, went to her immediately.

"What have I said?" he begged.  "What have I done?"

What had he done, indeed?  But to have spoken, though to explain, would
have meant capitulation.  She wavered a moment, and then turning away,
fled up the valley toward the camp--not from him, but from herself.




CHAPTER XVI

TEE ADVICE OF HOTEP

If Mentu, looking up from the old murkets, noted that the face of his
son was weary and sad, he laid it to the sudden heat of the spring; for
now it was the middle of March and Ra had grown ardent and the marshes
malarious.  The old housekeeper, to whom the great artist mentioned his
son's indisposition, glanced sharply at the young master, touched his
hand when she served him at table, and felt his forehead when she
pretended to smooth his hair.  And having made her furtive examination,
the astute old servant told the great artist that the young master was
not ill.  If she had further information to impart, Mentu did not give
her the opportunity, for had she not said that Kenkenes was well?  So
he fell to his work again.

Senci noted it, and sorrowful Io, but they, like Mentu, ascribed it to
the miasmas and said nothing to the young man about himself.

But Hotep was a penetrative man, and more hidden things than his
friend's ailment had been an open secret to his keen eye.  He did not
care to know which one of the butterflies was the fluttering object of
Kenkenes' bounteous love, for Hotep knew that those high-born Memphian
women, who were openly partial to the handsome young sculptor, loved
him for his comeliness and his silken tongue alone.  It would take a
profounder soul than any they had displayed to understand and
sympathize with the restive genius hidden under the smooth exterior
they saw.

Therefore, with some impatience, Hotep conceded that his friend was in
love, and presumably throwing himself away.  So the scribe purposed,
even though the attempt were inevitably fruitless, to win Kenkenes out
of his dream.

One faint dawn he entered the temple to pray for his own cause at the
shrine of the lovers' goddess.

In the half-night of the vast interior, at the foot of the sumptuous
pedestal of Athor, he distinguished another supplicant, kneeling.  But
there was a hopelessness in the droop of the bowed head and a tenseness
in the interlaced fingers of the clasped hands, which proved that
Athor's answer had not been propitious.

Hotep knew at once who besought the goddess.  Setting his offering of
silver and crystal on the altar, the scribe departed with silent step.
But without, he ground his teeth and execrated the giver of pain to
Kenkenes.

In mid-afternoon of the same day Hotep's chariot drew up at the portals
of Mentu's house, and the scribe in his most splendid raiment was
conducted to Kenkenes.  The young sculptor was alone.

"What was it, a palsy or the sun which kept thee at home this day?" was
Hotep's greeting.  "Nine is a mystic number and is fruitful of much
gain.  Eight times within a month have I come for thee.  The ninth did
supply thee.  Blessed be the number."

Kenkenes smiled.  "But there are seven Hathors, and five days in the
epact--and the Radiant Three.  To me it seemeth there are many good
numbers."

Hotep plucked his sleeve.

"Come, I will show thee the best of all--One, the One."

Kenkenes arose.  "Let me robe myself befittingly, then."

"Not too effectively," the scribe cried after him.  "I would not have
thee blight my chances with the full blaze of thy beauty."

When Kenkenes returned Hotep looked at him with another thought than
had been uppermost in his mind since he had noted his friend's
dejection.  This time, he was impatient with Kenkenes.

"And such a man as this will permit a woman to break his heart!"

Then was the young sculptor taken to the palace of the Pharaoh.  On its
roof, in the great square shadow of its double towers, he was presented
to a dainty little lady, whose black eyes grew large and luminous at
the coming of the scribe.  She was Masanath, the youngest and only
unwedded child of Har-hat, the king's adviser.  Her oval face had a
uniform rose-leaf flush, her little nose was distinctly aquiline, her
little mouth warm and ripe.  Her teeth were dazzlingly white, and, like
a baby's, notched on the edges with minute serrations.  But with all
her tininess, she planted her sandal with decision and scrutinized
whosoever addressed her in a way that was eloquent of a force and
perception larger by far than the lady they characterized.

And this was the love of Hotep.  Kenkenes smiled.  The top of her
pretty head was not nearly on a level with his shoulders, and the small
hand she extended had the determined grip with which a baby seizes a
proffered finger.  A vision of the golden Israelite rose beside her and
the smile vanished.

The day was warm and the courtiers in search of a breeze were scattered
about the palace-top in picturesque groups.  Masanath occupied a
diphros, or double chair, and a female attendant, standing behind her,
stirred the warm air with a perfumed fan.  The lady was on the point of
sharing her seat with one of her guests, when Har-hat, who had been
lounging by himself on the parapet, sauntered over to his daughter's
side.

"My father," she said, "the son of Mentu, the first friend of the noble
Hotep."

Kenkenes had noticed, with a chill, the approach of the fan-bearer,
and, angry with himself for his unreasoning perturbation, strove to
greet him composedly.  But he could not force himself into
graciousness.  The formal obeisance might have been made appropriately
to his bitterest enemy.

"The son of Mentu and I have met before," the fan-bearer declared
laughingly.  "But I scarce should have recognized him in this man of
peace had not his stature been impressed upon me in that hour when
first I met him."  The fan-bearer paused to enjoy the wonder of his
daughter and the scribe, and the hardening face of Kenkenes.

"But for the agility the gods have seen fit to leave me in mine
advancing years," he continued, "this self-same courteous noble would
have brained me with a boat-hook on an occasion of much merrymaking, a
month agone."

He sat down on the arm of Masanath's chair and shouted with laughter.
With a great effort Kenkenes controlled himself.

"Shall I give the story in full?" he asked with an odd quiet in his
voice.

"Nay!  Nay!" Har-hat protested; "I have told the worst I would have
said concerning that defeat of mine."  Again he laughed and returned to
the young man's identity once more.

"Aye, I might have known that thou wast somewhat of kin to Mentu.  Ye
are as much alike as two owlets--same candid face."

He sauntered away, leaving an awkward silence behind him.

"Sit beside me?" asked Masanath, drawing the folds of her white robes
aside to make room for the scribe.  But Hotep did not seem to hear.
Instead, he wandered away for another chair, became interested in a
group of long-eyed beauties near by and apparently forgot Masanath.
Kenkenes did not permit any lapse between the invitation and its
acceptance.  He dropped into the place made for Hotep, as if the offer
had been extended to him.

"From Bubastis to Memphis, from Bast to Ptah," he said.  "Dost thou
miss the generous levels of the Delta in our crevice between the hills?"

She shook her head.  "Memphis is the lure of all Egypt, and he who hath
been transplanted to her would flout the favor of the gods, did he make
homesick moan for his native city."

"And thou hast warmer regard for the stir of Memphis than the quiet of
the north?"

"There is no quiet in the north now."

"So?"

"Nay; hast thou not heard of the Israelitish unrest?"

"Aye, I had heard--but--but hath it become of any import?"

"It is the peril of Egypt that she does not realize her menace in these
Hebrews," the lady answered.  "The north knows it, but it has sprung
into life so recently, and from such miserable soil, that even my
father, who has been away from the Delta but a few months, does not
appreciate the magnitude of the disaffection."

"Thou hast lived among them, Lady Masanath.  What thinkest thou of
these people?" Kenkenes asked after a little silence.

"Of the mass I can not speak confidently," she answered modestly.
"They are proud--they pass the Egyptian in pride; they have kept their
blood singularly pure for such long residence among us; they are
stubborn, querulous and unready.  But above all they are a contented
race if but the oppression were lifted from their shoulders.  They are
an untilled soil--none knows what they might produce, but the
confidence of their leader, who is a wondrous man, bespeaks them a
capable people.  To my mind they are mistreated beyond their deserts.
I would have the powers of Egypt use them better."

"Is it known in the north what Mesu's purpose is?  The Israelites among
us talk of their own kingdom, and I wonder if the Hebrew means to set
up a nation within us, or assail the throne of the Pharaohs, or go
forth and settle in another country."

The lady shrugged her shoulders.  "The Hebrews talk in similitudes.
The prospect of freedom so uplifts them that they chant their purposes
to you, and bewilder you with quaint words and hidden meanings.  But
these three facts, my Lord, are apparent and most potent in results
when combined; they are oppressed beyond endurance; they are many; they
are captained by a mystic.  They have but to choose to rebel, and it
would tax the martial strength of Egypt to quiet them."

The magisterial dignity of the little lady was most delightful.  The
young sculptor's sensations were divided between interest in the grave
subject she discussed and pleasure in her manner.  Happening to glance
in the direction of the scribe, he found the gray eye of his friend
fixed upon him from the group of beauties.  Presently Hotep rambled
back with an ebony stool and sat a little aloof in thoughtful silence
until the visit was over.

When Kenkenes alighted at the door of his father's house some time
later, Hotep leaned over the wheel of the chariot and put his hand on
the sculptor's shoulder.

"Thou hast met Har-hat and, by his own words, thou hast had some
unpleasant commerce with him.  What he did to thee I know not, but I
shall let thee into mine own quarrel with him.  He lays the curb of
silence on my lips and enforces the indifference in my mien.  If I
revolt the penalty is humiliation and disaster for Masanath and for me.
I love her, but I dare not let her dream it.  The fan-bearer hath
greater things in store for her than a scribe can promise.  I am thy
brother in hatred of him."

The next dawn, even before sunrise, Hotep found Kenkenes once again in
the temple before the shrine of Athor.  But this time the scribe knelt
silently beside his friend.

When they emerged into the sunless solemnity of the grove he turned to
Kenkenes.

"With the licensed forwardness of an old friend, I would ask what thou
hast to crave of the lovers' goddess, O thou loveless?"

"Favor and pardon," Kenkenes answered.

"So?  But already have I reached the limit.  Not even a friend may ask
an accounting of a man's misdeeds."

Kenkenes smiled.  "Ask me," he said, "and spare me the effort of
voluntary confession."

"Then, what hast thou done?"

"Come and look upon mine offense.  Thine eyes will serve thee better
than my tongue."

The pair were in costume hardly fitted for the dust of the roadway, but
Memphis was not astir.  They went across the city toward the river and
at the landings found an early-rising boatman, who let them his bari.

Kenkenes took the oars and moved out into the middle of the swiftest
current of the Nile.  There he headed down-stream and permitted the
boat to drift.

The clear heavens, blue and pellucid as a sapphire, were still cool,
but from the lower slope down the east a radiance began to crawl
upward.  The peaks of the Libyan desert grew wan.

The young men did not resume their talk.  The dawn in Egypt was a
solemn hour.  Kenkenes raised his eyes to the heights of the west.  On
the shore a group approached the Nile edge, and Hotep guessed by the
cluster of fans and standards that it was the Pharaoh at his morning
devotions to Nilus.  The white points on the hilltops reddened and
caught fire.

Softly and absently Kenkenes began to sing a hymn to the sunrise.
Hotep rested his cheek on one hand and listened.  More solemn, more
appealing the notes grew, fuller and stronger, until the normal power
of the rich voice was reached.  The liquid echo on the water gave it a
mellow embellishment, and Hotep saw the central figure of the group on
shore lift his hand for silence among the courtiers.

But Kenkenes sang on unconscious even of his nearest auditor.  After
the nature of humanity he was nearer to his gods in trouble than in
tranquillity.

The white fronts of Memphis receded slowly, for neither took up the
oars.  Hotep hesitated to break the silence that fell after the end of
the hymn.  The shadow on the singer's face proved that the heart would
have flinched at any effort to soothe it.  It was the young sculptor's
privilege to speak first.

After a long silence, Kenkenes roused himself.

"Look to the course of the bari, Hotep, and chide it with an oar if it
means to beach us.  I doubt me much if I am fit to control it with the
wine of this wind on my brain."

Hotep took up the oars and rowed strongly.  "Thine offense does not sit
heavily on thy conscience," he said.

"I have made my peace with Athor."

"Hath she given thee her word?"

"Nay, no need.  For I did not offend her.  Rather hath she abetted
me--urged me in my trespass.  She persuaded me to become vagrant with
her, and I followed the divine runaway into the desert.  I doubt not I
was chosen because I was as lawless as her needs required.  Athor is
beautiful and would prove herself so to her devotees.  And to me was
the lovely labor appointed."

Hotep looked at him mystified.

"By the gods," he said at last, "thou hadst better get in out of this
wind."

Kenkenes laughed genuinely.  "My babble will take meaning ere long.  If
thou questionest me, I must answer, but I am determined not to betray
my secret yet."

"Go we to On?" Hotep asked plaintively, after a long interval of
industry for him and dream for Kenkenes.  The young sculptor sat up and
looked at the opposite shore.  "Nay," he cried, "we are long past the
place where we should have landed.  Yonder is the Marsh of the
Discontented Soul.  Let me row back."

He turned and pulled rapidly toward the eastern shore.  Away to the
south, behind them, were the quarries of Masaarah.  But they were still
a considerable distance above Toora, a second village of
quarry-workers, now entirely deserted.  The pitted face of the mountain
behind the town was without life, for, as has been seen, Meneptah was
not a building monarch.  Directly opposite them the abrupt wall of the
Arabian hills pushed down near to the Nile and the intervening space
was a flat sandy stretch, ending in a reedy marsh at the water's edge.
The line of cultivation ended far to the south and north of it, though
the soil was as arable as any bordering the Nile.  A great number of
marsh geese and a few stilted waders flew up or plunged into the water
with discordant cries and flapping of wings as the presence of the
young men disturbed the solitude.  The sedge was wind-mown, and there
were numberless prints of bird claws, but no mark of boat-keel or human
foot.  The place should have been a favorite haunt of fowlers, but it
was lonely and overshadowed with a sense of absolute desertion.

"But," Hotep began suddenly, "thou hast spoken of offense and pardon,
and now thou boastest that Athor abetted thee."

"Why is this called the Marsh of the Discontented Soul?"

The scribe smiled patiently.  "Of a truth, dost thou not know?"

"As the immortals hear me, I do not.  I have never asked and the
chronicles do not speak of it."

"Nay; the story is four hundred years old, and the chroniclers do not
tell it because it is out of the scope of history, I doubt not.  But it
has become tradition throughout Egypt to shun the spot, though few know
why they must.  A curse is laid upon the place.  An unfaithful wife
whom the priests denied repose with her ancestors is entombed yonder."
He pointed toward an angle between an outstanding buttress and the
limestone wall.  "Her soul haunts him who comes here with the plea that
her mummy be removed to On, where she dwelt in life, and laid with the
respected dead, in the necropolis."

Kenkenes shrugged his shoulders.  "I trust the unhappy soul will not
trouble us.  We came here by way of misadventure--not to disturb her.
But how came it they did not entomb her nearer On?"

"She betrayed one great man and tempted another.  She offended against
the lofty.  Therefore, her punishment was the more heavy--her isolation
in death like to banishment in life."

"So; if she had slighted a paraschite and tempted a beer brewer, her
fate would have been less harsh.  O, the justness of justice!"

The morning was well advanced when they reached the niche on the
hillside--Hotep, wondering; Kenkenes, silent and expectant.

The sculptor led the way into the presence of Athor, and stepped aside.
The scribe halted and gazed without sound or movement--petrified with
amazement.

Before him, in hue and quiescence was a statue in stone--in all other
respects, a human being.  The figure was of white magnesium limestone,
and stood upon rock yet unhewn.

The ritual had been trampled into the dust.

The eye of the most unlearned Egyptian could detect the sacrilege at a
single glance.

It was the image of a girl, draped in an overlong robe, fastened over
each shoulder by a fibula, ornamented with a round medallion.  Through
the vestments, intentionally simple, there was testimony of the
exquisite lines of the figure they clothed.

The sole observance of hieratic symbol were the horns of Athor set in
the hair.

The figure was posed as if in the act of a forward movement.  The knee
was slightly bent in an attitude of supplication.  The face was
upturned, the eyes lifted, the arms extended to their fullest, forward
and upward, the fingers curved as if ready to receive.  The hair was
separated into two heavy plaits, which fell below the waist down the
back.

One sandaled foot was advanced, slightly; the other hidden by the hem
of the robe.

Every physical feature visible upon the living form so disposed and
draped had been carved upon this grace in stone.  Egypt had never
fashioned anything so perfect.  Indeed, she would not have called it
sculpture.

The glyptic art of Greece had been paralleled hundreds of years before
it was born.

On the face there was the light of overpowering love together with the
intangible pride so marked on the representations of profane deities.
But the most manifest emotions were the great yearning and entreaty.
They were marked in the attitude of the head thrown back, in the
outstretched arms and in the bent knee.  That there was more hopeful
expectancy than despairing insistence, was proved by the curve of the
ready fingers and the uncertain smile on the lips.  It was Athor,
eternally young, eternally in love, eternally unsatisfied, receiving
the setting sun as she had done since the world began.  None of the
rapturous impatience and uncertainty of the moment had been lost since
the first sunset after chaos.  And yet, with all the pulse and fervor,
here was womanhood, immaculate and ineffable.

Never did face so command men to worship.

"Holy Amen!" the scribe exclaimed, his voice barely audible in its
earnestness.  "What consummate loveliness!  But what--what unspeakable
impiety!"

"Hast thou seen Athor?  She is before thee."

"Athor!  The golden goddess in the image of a mortal!  Kenkenes, the
wrath of the priests awaits thee and thereafter the doom of the
insulted Pantheon!"  The scribe shuddered and plucked at his friend's
robe as if to drag him away from the sight of his own creation.

Firmly fixed were the young artist's convictions to resist the
impelling force of Hotep's consternation.

"Nay, nay, Hotep," he answered soothingly.  "The wrath of the gods for
an offense thus flagrant is exceedingly slow, if it is to fall.  Lo!
they have propitiated me at great length if they mean to accomplish
mine undoing at last.  Thus far, and the statue is well-nigh complete,
I have met no form of obstacle."

But Hotep shook his head in profound apprehension.  He looked at the
statue furtively and murmured:

"O Kenkenes, what madness made thee trifle with the gods?"

"Have I not said?  The goddess herself lured me.  Is she not the
embodied essence of Beauty?  The ritual insults her.  Ah, look at the
statue, Hotep.  How could Athor be wroth with the sculptor who called
such a face as that, a likeness of her!"

"It startles me," the scribe declared.  "It is supernaturally human.
That is not art, but creation.  O apostate, thine offense is of
two-fold seriousness.  Thou hast stolen the function of the divine
Mother and made a living thing!"

Kenkenes laughed with sheer joy at his comrade's genuine praise.  The
more dismayed Hotep might be, the more sincere his compliment.  But the
scribe, plunged into a stupor of concern lest the authorities discover
the sacrilege, went on helplessly.

"What wilt thou do with it when it is done?"

"I have left no mark of myself upon it."

"Nay, but the priesthood can scent out a blasphemer as a hound scents a
jackal."

"Thou wilt not betray me, Hotep; I shall not publish myself, and the
other--the only other who possesses my secret--the Israelite, who was
my model, is fidelity's self.  I would trust her with my soul."

"An Israelite!  Thy nation's most active foe at this hour!"

"She is no enemy to me, Hotep."

Slowly the scribe's eyes traveled from the face of Athor to the face of
Kenkenes.  The young sculptor turned away and leaned against the great
cube that walled one side of the niche.  He was not prepared to meet
his friend's discerning eyes.  Hotep surveyed him critically.  A
momentous surmise forced itself upon him.  He went to Kenkenes and,
laying an affectionate arm across his shoulder, leaned not lightly
thereon.

"Thou hast said, O my Kenkenes, that I should understand thy meaning
when thou spakest mysteriously a while agone.  May I not know, now?
Thou didst plead offense to Athor and didst boast her pardon.  Later
thou calledst her thy confederate.  And earliest of all, thou didst
confess to asking favor of her.  How may all these things be?"

"Look thou," Kenkenes began at once.  "On one hand, I have my new
belief concerning sculpture--on the other, the beliefs of my fathers.
I practise the first and make propitiation for the second.  No harm
hath overtaken me.  Am I not pardoned?  Furthermore, Athor is beauty,
and beauty guided my hand in creating this statue.  Therefore, Athor
being beauty, Athor was my confederate.  Is it not lucid, O Son of
Wisdom?"

Hotep laughed.  "Nay, thou wilt not prosper, Kenkenes.  Thou servest
two masters.  But there is one thing still unexplained--the favor of
Athor."

"That is not mine to boast.  I have but craved it," Kenkenes replied
hesitatingly.

"Where doth she live?" Hotep asked, by way of experiment.

"In the quarries below."

There was no more doubt in the mind of Hotep.  Here was a duty, plain
before him, and his dearest friend to counsel.  His must be tender
wisdom and persuasive authority.  Not a drop of the scribe's blood was
democratic.  He could not understand love between different ranks of
society, and, as a result, doubted if it could exist.  Kenkenes must be
awakened while it was time.

"Do thou hear me, O my Kenkenes," he said after some silence.  "If I
overstep the liberty of a friend, remind me, but remember
thou--whatsoever I shall say will be said through love for thee, not to
chide thee.  No man shapeth his career for himself alone, nor does
death end his deeds.  He continues to act through his children and his
children's children to the unlimited extent of time.  Seest thou not, O
Kenkenes, that the ancestor is terribly responsible?  What more heavy
punishment could be meted to the original sinner, than to set him in
eternal contemplation of the hideous fruitfulness of his initial sin!

"I have said sin, because sin, only, is offense in the eyes of the
gods.  But sin and error are one in the unpardoning eye of nature.
Thus, if thou dost err, though in all innocence, though the gods
absolve thee, thou wilt reap the bitter harvest of thy misguided
sowing, one day--thou or thy children after thee.  The doom is spoken,
and however tardy, must fall--and the offense is never expiated.  There
is nothing more relentless than consequence.

"If thou weddest unwisely thou dost double thy children's portion of
difficulty, since thou art unwise and their mother unfit.  If,
perchance, thy only error lay in thy choice of wife, the result is
still the same.  Let her be most worthy, and yet she may be most
unfitting.  She must fit thy needs as the joint fits the socket.
Virtue is essential, but it is not sufficient.  Beauty is good--I
should say needful, but certainly it is not all.  Love is indispensable
and yet not enough."

"I should say that these three things are enough," put in Kenkenes.

"They would gain entrance into the place of the blest--the bosom of
Osiris--but they are not sufficient for the over-nice nobility of
Egypt," the scribe averred promptly.  "Thou must live in the world and
the world would pass judgment on thy wife.  If thou art a true husband,
thou wouldst defend her, and be wroth.  Yet, canst thou be happy being
wroth and at odds with the world?"

Kenkenes slipped from under the affectionate arm and busied himself
with the statue, marking with a sliver of limestone where his chisel
must smooth away a flaw.  But the voice of the scribe went on steadily.

"The nobility of Egypt will not accept an unbeliever and an Israelite.
That monarch who favored the son of Abraham, Joseph, is dead.  The
tolerant spirit died with him.  Another sentiment hath grown up and the
loveliest Hebrew could not overthrow it.  Henceforward, there is
eternal enmity between Egypt and Israel."

The sliver of stone dropped from the fingers of the artist and his eyes
wandered away, dreamy with thought.  He remembered the story of the
wrong of Rachel's house, and it came home to him with overwhelming
force that the feud between Egypt and Israel was the barrier between
him and his love.  He was punished for a crime his country had
committed.

"Oh!" he exclaimed to himself.  "Am I not surely suffering for the sins
of my fathers?  How cruelly sound thy reasoning is, O thou placid
Hotep!"

The scribe saw that as the sculptor stood, the pleading hands of Athor
all but touched his shoulders.  Hotep went to him and turned him away
from the statue.  He knew he could not win his friend with the beauty
of that waiting face appealing to him.

"Thus far thou hast borne with me, Kenkenes--and having grown bold
thereby, I would go further.  Return with me to Memphis and come hither
no more.  She will soon be comforted, if she is not already betrothed.
Egypt needs thee--the Hathors have bespoken good fortune for thee--and
thou art justified in aspiring to nothing less than the hand of a
princess.  Come back to Memphis and let her heal thee with her
congruous love."

"Nay, my Hotep, what a waste of words!  I will go back to Memphis with
thee, not for thy reasoning, but for mine own--nay, hers."

"Hast thou--did the Israelite--" the scribe began in amazement, and
paused, ashamed of his unbecoming curiosity.

"Aye; and let us speak of it no more.  Thou hast my story, my
confidence and my love.  Keep the first and the rest shall be thine for
ever."

"And this?" questioned Hotep, nodding toward the statue, though he
resolutely kept the face of Kenkenes turned from it.

"Let it be," Kenkenes replied.  Hotep hesitated, dissatisfied, but
feared to insist on its destruction, so he went arm in arm with his
friend down to the river, without a word of protest.  "I will at him
again when he is better," he told himself, "and we will bury the
exquisite sacrilege."

There was an animated group of Hebrew children at the Nile drawing
water, and among them was a golden-haired maiden.  Hotep had but to
glance at her to know that he looked on the glorious model of the pale
divinity on the hill above.  At the sound of their approach through the
grain, she looked up.  As she caught sight of Kenkenes, she started and
flushed quickly and as quickly the color fled.

Since she was near the boat, Kenkenes stood close beside her for a
moment while he pushed the bari into the water.

"Gods!  What a noble pair!" Hotep ejaculated under his breath.  But he
saw Kenkenes bend near the Israelite, as if to make his final plea; a
spasm of anguish contracted her white face, and she turned her head
away.  The incident, so eloquent to Rachel and Kenkenes, had been so
swift and subtile in its enactment, that only the quick eye of Hotep
detected it.  Again he called on the gods in exclamation:

"She is saner than he!"

On the way back to Memphis he maintained a thoughtful silence.  Since
he had seen Rachel, he began to understand the love of Kenkenes for her.




CHAPTER XVII

THE SON OF THE MURKET

March and April had passed and now it was the first of May.  Five days
before, the ceremony of installation had been held for the murket and
the cup-bearer and for four days thereafter the new officers passed
through initiatory formalities.  But on the fifth day the rites of
investiture had been brought to an end, and Mentu and Nechutes entered
on the routine of service.

To Mentu fell the dignified congratulations of his own world of sedate
old nobles and stately women.  But Nechutes was younger and well
beloved by youthful Memphis, so on the night of the fifth day, the
house of Senci was aglow and in her banquet-room there was much young
revel in his honor.

Aromatic torches flaring in sconces lighted the friezes of lotus, the
painted paneling on the walls, and the clustered pillars that upheld
the ceiling of the chamber.  The tables had been removed; the musicians
and tumblers common to such occasions were not present, for the rout
was small and sufficient unto itself for entertainment.

Gathered about a central figure, which must needs be the one of highest
rank--and in this instance it was the crown prince--were the young
guests.  They were noblemen and gentlewomen of Memphis, freed for an
evening from the restraint of pretentious affairs and spared the
awesome repression of potentates and monitors.

Hotep was host and these were his guests.

First, there was Rameses, languid, cynical, sumptuous, and enthroned in
a capacious fauteuil, significantly upholstered in purple and gold.

Close beside him and similarly enthroned was Ta-user.  She wore a
double robe of transparent linen, very fine and clinging in its
texture.  The over-dress was simply a white gauze, striped with narrow
lines of green and gold.  From the fillet of royalty about her
forehead, an emerald depended between her eyes.  Her zone was a broad
braid of golden cords, girdling her beneath the breast, encompassing
her again about the hips, and fastened at last in front by a
diamond-shaped buckle of clustered emeralds.  Her sandals were mere
jeweled straps of white gazelle-hide, passing under the heel and ball
of the foot.  She was as daringly dressed as a lissome dancing-girl.

On a taboret at her right was Seti, the little prince.  Although he was
nearly sixteen he looked to be of even tenderer years.  In him, the
charms of the Egyptian countenance had been so emphasized, and its
defects so reduced, that his boyish beauty was unequaled among his
countrymen.

At his feet was Io, playing at dice with Ta-meri and Nechutes.  Ta-meri
was more than usually brilliant, and Nechutes, flushed with her favor,
was playing splendidly and rejoicing beyond reason over his gains.

Opposite this group was another, the center of which was Masanath.  She
sat in the richest seat in the house of Senci.  It was ivory tricked
with gold; but small and young as the fan-bearer's daughter was, there
was none in that assembly who might queen it as royally as she from its
imperial depths.  By her side was the boon companion of Rameses.  He
was Menes, surnamed "the Bland," captain of the royal guard, a most
amiable soldier and chiefly remarkable because, of all the prince's
world, he was the only one that could tell the truth to Rameses and
tell it without offense.

On the floor between Masanath and Menes was the son of Amon-meses, the
Prince Siptah.  He was a typical Oriental, bronze in hue, lean of
frame, brilliant of eye, white of teeth, intense in temperament and
fierce in his loves and hates.  Religion comforted him through his
appetites; in his sight craft was a virtue, intrigue was politics, and
love was a fury.  His eyes never left Ta-user for long, and his every
word seemed to be inspired by some overweening emotion.

Aside from these there were others in the group.  Some were sons and
daughters of royalty, cousins of the Pharaoh's sons and of Ta-user and
Siptah; many were children of the king's ministers, and all were noble.

Senci and Hotep's older sister, the Lady Bettis, a dark-eyed matron of
thirty, presided in duenna-like guardianship over the rout.  They sat
in a diphros apart from the young revelers.

Kenkenes was momently expected.  For the past two months he had been
seen every evening wherever there was high-class revel in Memphis.  But
he had laughed perfunctorily and lapsed into preoccupation when none
spoke to him, and his song had a sorry note in it, however happy the
theme.  But these were things apparent only to those that saw deeper
than the surface.

"Where is Kenkenes?" Menes demanded.  "Hath he forsworn us?"

"I saw him to-day," Nechutes ventured, without raising his eyes from
the game, "when we were fowling on the Nile below the city.  He was
alone, pulling down-stream, just this side of Masaarah."

Hotep frowned and gave over any hope that Kenkenes would join the
merrymaking that night.  But at that moment, Ta-meri, who sat facing
the entrance to the chamber, poised the dice-box in air and drew in a
long breath.  The guests followed her eyes.

Kenkenes stood in the doorway, the curtain thrust aside and above him.
His voluminous festal robes were deeply edged with gold, but his arms,
bare to the shoulder, and his strong brown neck were without their
usual trappings of jewels.  The omission seemed intentional, as if the
young man had meant to contrast the ornament of young strength and
grace with the glitter and magnificence of the other guests.  He had
succeeded well.

Perhaps to most of those present, the young man's presence was not
unusual, but Hotep was not blind to a manifest alteration in his
manner.  There was cynicism in the corners of his mouth, and a hint of
hurt or temper was evident in the tension of his nostril and the
brilliance of his eyes.  Hotep had no need of seers and astrologers,
for his perception served him in all tangible things.  He knew
something untoward had set Kenkenes to thinking about himself, and
guessing where the young artist had gone that evening, he surmised
further how he had been received.

And though he was sorry in his heart for his friend's unhappiness, he
confessed his admiration for Rachel.

"Late," cried Hotep, rising.

"Thy pardon, Hotep," Kenkenes replied, advancing into the chamber, "I
had an errand of much importance to Masaarah and it was fruitless.  It
shall trouble me no more."

Hotep lifted his brows, as though he exclaimed to himself, and made no
answer.  Kenkenes greeted the guests with a wave of his hand and did
obeisance before Rameses.

"Thou speakest of Masaarah, my Kenkenes," the crown prince commented
after the salutation, "and it suggests an inquiry I would make of thee.
Dost thou go on as sculptor, or wilt thou follow thy father into the
art of building?"

"Since the Pharaoh chose for my father, he shall choose for me also."

"Nay, the Pharaoh did not choose," Rameses objected dryly.  "It was I."

"Of a truth?  Then thou shalt choose for me, O my generous Prince."

"Follow thy father.  I would have thee for my murket.  Nay, it is ever
so.  I mold the Pharaoh and he gets the credit."

"And thou, the blame, when blame accrues from the molding," Menes put
in very distinctly, though under his breath.

"But be thou of cheer, O Son of the Sun," Kenkenes added.  "When thou
art Pharaoh, thou canst retaliate upon thine own heir, in the same
fashion."

"Thou givest him tardy comfort, O Son of Mentu," Siptah commented with
an unpleasant laugh.  "He will lose all recollection of the grudge,
waiting so long."

Rameses turned his heavy eyes toward the speaker, but Kenkenes halted
any remark the prince might have made.

"Nay, let it pass," he said placidly, dropping into a chair.  "All this
savors too much of the future and is out of place in the happy
improvidence of the present."

"Let it all pass?" Ta-user asked.  "Nay, I would hold the prince to the
promise he made a moment agone, when the choosing of the new murket
comes round again."

"Do thou so, for me, then, when that time comes," Kenkenes interrupted.

Ta-user laughed very softly and delivered the young artist a level look
of understanding from her topaz eyes.  "I fear thou art indeed
improvident," she continued, "if thou leavest thy future to others."

"Then all the world is improvident, since it belongeth to others to
shape every man's future.  But Hotep, the lawgiver, denies this thing.
He holds that every man builds for himself."

"Right, Hotep!" Rameses exclaimed.  "It was such belief that made a
world-conqueror of my grandsire."

"Nay, thy pardon, O my Prince.  Hotep's counsel will not always hold,"
Kenkenes objected.

"Give me to know wherein it faileth," the prince demanded.

"Alas! in a thousand things.  In truth a man even draws his breath by
the leave of others."

"By the puny god, Harpocrates!" the prince cried, scoffing.  "That is
the weakest avowal I have heard in a moon!"

Kenkenes flushed, and Rameses, recovering from his amusement, pressed
his advantage.

"Let me give thee a bit of counsel from mine own store that thou mayest
look with braver eyes on life.  Take the world by the throat and it
will do thy will."

"Again I dispute thee, O Rameses."

"Name thy witness," the prince insisted.  Kenkenes leaned on his elbow
toward him.

"Canst thou force a woman to love thee?" he asked simply.

Ta-user glanced at the prince and the sleepy black eyes of the heir
narrowed.

"Let us get back to the issue," he said.  "We spoke of others shaping
the future of men.  You may not force a woman to love you, but no love
or lack of love of a woman should misshape the destiny of any man."

"That is a matter of difference in temperament, my Prince," Ta-user put
in.

"It may be, but it is the expression of mine own ideas," he answered
roughly.

The lashes of the princess were smitten down immediately and Siptah's
canine teeth glittered for a moment, one set upon the other.  Kenkenes
patted his sandal impatiently and looked another way.  His gaze fell on
Io.  She had lost interest in the game.  The color had receded from her
cheeks and now and again her lips trembled.  Kenkenes looked and saw
that Seti's eyes were adoring Ta-user, who smiled at him.  With a
sudden rush of heat through his veins, the young artist turned again to
Io, and watched till he caught her eye.  With a look he invited her to
come to him.  She laid down the dice, during the momentary abstraction
of her playing-mates, and murmuring that she was tired, came and sat at
the feet of her champion.

"Wherefore dost thou retreat, Io?" Ta-user asked.  "Art vanquished?"

"At one game, aye!" the girl replied vehemently.

Kenkenes laid his hand on her head and said to her very softly:

"If only our pride were spared, sweet Io, defeat were not so hard."

The girl lifted her face to him with some questioning in her eyes.

"Knowest thou aught of this game, in truth?" she asked.

He smiled and evaded.  "I have not been fairly taught."

Ta-meri gathered up the stakes and Nechutes, collecting the dice, went
to find her a seat.  But while he was gone, she wandered over to
Kenkenes and leaned on the back of his chair.

"Let me give thee a truth that seemeth to deny itself in the
expression," Io said, turning so that she faced the young artist.

"Say on," he replied, bending over her.

"The more indifferent the teacher in this game of love, the sooner you
learn," said Io.  Kenkenes took the tiny hand extended toward him in
emphasis and kissed it.

"Sorry truth!" he said tenderly.  As he leaned back in his chair he
became conscious of Ta-meri's presence and turned his head toward her.
Her face was so near to him that he felt the glow from her warm cheek.
His gaze met hers and, for a moment, dwelt.

All the attraction of her gorgeous habiliments, her warm assurance and
her inceptive tenderness detached themselves from the general fusion
and became distinct.  Her beauty, her fervor, her audacity, were not
unusually pronounced on this occasion, but the spell for Kenkenes was
broken and the inner working's were open to him.  Different indeed was
the picture that rose before his mind--a picture of a fair face,
wondrously and spiritually beautiful; of the quick blush and sweet
dignity and unapproachable womanhood.  His eyes fell and for a moment
his lids were unsteady, but the color surged back into his cheeks and
his lips tightened.

He took Io's hands, which were clasped across his knee, and rising,
gave the chair to Ta-meri.  He found a taboret for himself, and as he
put it down at her feet, he saw Nechutes fling himself into a chair and
scowl blackly at the nomarch's daughter.  Kenkenes sighed and
interested himself in the babble that went on about him.

The first word he distinguished was the name of Har-hat, pronounced in
clear tones.  Menes, who sat next to Kenkenes, put out his foot and
trod on the speaker's toes.  The man was Siptah.

"Choke before thou utterest that name again," the captain said in a
whisper, "else thou wilt have Rameses abusing Har-hat before his
daughter."

"What matters it to me, his temper or her hurt?" Siptah snarled.

"Churl!" responded Menes, amiably.

"What is amiss between the heir and the fan-bearer?" Kenkenes asked.

"Everything!  Rameses fairly suffocates in the presence of the new
adviser.  The Pharaoh is sadly torn between the twain.  He worships
Rameses and, body of Osiris! how he loves Har-hat!  But sometime the
council chamber with the trio therein will fall--the walls outward, the
roof, up--mark me!"

Again, clear and with offensive emphasis, Siptah's voice was heard
disputing, in the general babble.

"Magnify the cowardice of the Rebu if you will, but it was Har-hat who
made them afraid," he was saying.

The slow eyes of Rameses turned in the direction of the tacit
challenge.  Menes' black brows knitted at Siptah, but Kenkenes came to
the rescue.  A lyre, the inevitable instrument of ancient revels, was
near him and he caught it up, sweeping his fingers strongly across the
strings.

A momentary silence fell, broken at once by the applause of the
peace-loving, who cried, "Sing for us, Kenkenes!"

He shook his head, smiling.  "I did but test the harmony of the
strings; harmony is grateful to mine ear."

Menes' lips twitched.  "If harmony is here," he said with meaning, "you
will find it in the instrument."

Again, a voice from the general conversation broke in--this time from
Rameses.

"Kenkenes hath outlasted an army of other singers.  I knew him as such
when mine uncles yet lived and my father was many moves from the
throne.  It was while we dwelt unroyally here in Memphis.  They made
thee sing in the temple, Kenkenes.  Dost thou remember?"

"Aye," Ta-user took it up.  "They made thee sing in the temple and it
went sore against thee, Kenkenes.  Most of the upper classes in the
college here were hoarse or treble by turns, and the priests required
thee by force from thy tutors because thou couldst sing.  Thou wast a
stubborn lad, as pretty as a mimosa and as surly as a caged lion.  I
can see thee now chanting, with a voice like a lark, and frowning like
a very demon from Amenti!"

The princess laughed musically at her own narration and received the
applause of the others with a serene countenance.  She had repaid
Kenkenes for his implied championship of her cause earlier in the
evening.

"Art still as reluctant, Kenkenes?" the Lady Senci called to him.

Kenkenes looked at the lyre and did not answer at once.  There was no
song in his heart and a moody silence seemed more like to possess his
lips.  His audience, too, was not in the temper for song.  He took in
the expression of the guests with a single comprehensive glance.
Siptah's hands were clenched and his face was blackened with a frown.
Ta-user's silken brows were lifted, and even the pallid countenance of
the prince was set and his eyes were fixed on nothing.  Seti was
entangled by the princess' witchery and he saw no one else.  Io,
blanched and miserable, forgotten by Seti, forgot all others.  In his
heart Kenkenes knew that Nechutes was unhappy and Hotep and Masanath;
and even if there were those in the banquet-room who had no overweening
sorrow, the evident discontent of the troubled oppressed them.

Far from finding inspiration for song in the faces of the guests,
Kenkenes felt an impulse to rush out of the atmosphere of unrest and
unhappiness into the solitary night, where no intrusion of another's
sorrow could dispute the great triumph of his own grief.  The bitter
soul in him longed to laugh at the idea of singing.

The hesitation between Senci's invitation and his answer was not
noticeable.  He put the instrument out of his reach, tossing it on a
cushion a little distance away.

"Not so reluctant," he said, turning his face toward the lady, "as
unready.  I have exhausted my trove of songs for this self-same
company,--wherefore they will not listen to reiteration, which is ever
insipid."

Senci wisely accepted his excuse, and pressed him no further.  One or
two of the more observant members of the company looked at him, with
comprehension in their eyes.  Seldom, indeed, had Kenkenes refused to
sing, and his reluctance corroborated their suspicions that all was not
well with the young artist.

The irrepressible Menes observed to Io in one of his characteristic
undertones, but so that all the company heard it: "What makes us surly
to-night?  Look at Kenkenes; I think he is in love!  What aileth thee,
sweet Io?  Hast lost much to that gambling pair--Ta-meri and Nechutes?
And behold thy fellows!  What a sulky lot!  I am the most cheerful
spirit among us."

"Boast not," she responded; "it is not a virtue in you.  You would be
blithe in Amenti, for one can not get mournful music out of a timbrel."

The soldier's eyes opened, and he caught at her, but she eluded him and
growled prettily under her breath.

"Come, Bast," he cried, making after her.  "Kit, kit, kit!"

She sprang away with a little shriek and Kenkenes, throwing out his
arm, caught her and drew her close.

"Menes is malevolent--" he began.

"Aye, malevolent as Mesu!" she panted.

"What!" the soldier cried.  "Has the Hebrew sorcerer already become a
bugbear to the children?"

"If he become not a bugbear to all Egypt, we may thank the gods,"
Siptah put in.

Rameses laughed scornfully, but Ta-user and Seti spoke simultaneously:

"Siptah speaks truly."

"Yea, Menes," the heir scoffed; "he hath already become a bugbear to
the infants.  Hear them confess it?"

Siptah buried his clenched hand in a cushion on the floor near him.

"O thou paternal Prince," he said, "repeat us a prayer of exorcism as a
father should, and rid us of our fears."

"And pursuant of the custom bewailed an hour agone, we shall return
thanks to the Pharaoh, for the things thou dost achieve, O our
Rameses," Menes added.

"If there are any prayers said," the prince replied, "the Hebrews will
say them.  Mine exorcism will be harsher than formulas."

The rest of the company ceased their undertone and listened.

"Wilt thou tell us again what thou hast said, O Prince?" Kenkenes asked.

"Mine exorcism of the Hebrew sorcerer, Mesu, will be harsher than
formulas.  I shall not beseech the Israelites and it will avail them
naught to beseech me."

"Thou art ominous, Light of Egypt," Kenkenes commented quietly.  "Wilt
thou open thy heart further and give us thy meaning?"

"Hast lived out of the world, O Son of Mentu?  The exorcism will begin
ere long.  In this I give thee the history of Israel for the next few
years and close it.  I shall not fall heir to the Hebrews when I come
to wear the crown of Egypt."

"Are they to be sent forth?" Kenkenes asked in a low tone.

Rameses laughed shortly.

"Thou art not versed in the innuendoes of court-talk, my Kenkenes.
Nay, they die in Egypt and fertilize the soil."

"It will raise a Set-given uproar, Rameses," Menes broke in with meek
conviction; "and as thou hast said--to the king, the credit--to his
advisers, the blame."

"Nay; the process is longer and more natural," the prince replied
carelessly.  "It is but the same method of the mines.  Who can call
death by hard labor, murder?"

The full brutality of the prince's meaning struck home.  Kenkenes
gripped the arm of Ta-meri's chair with such power that the sinews
stood up rigid and white above the back of the brown hand.  Luckily,
all of the guests were contemplating Rameses with more or less horror.
They did not see the color recede from the young artist's face or his
eyes ignite dangerously.

Masanath sat up very straight and leveled a pair of eyes shining with
accusation at the prince.

"Of a truth, was thine the fiat?" she demanded.

"Even so, thou lovely magistrate," he answered with an amused smile.
"Was it not a masterful one?"

Hotep delivered her a warning glance, but she did not heed it.  Austere
Ma, the Defender of Truth, could have been as easily crushed.

"Masterful!" she cried.  "Nay!  Menes, lend me thy word.  Of all
Set-given, pitiless, atrocious edicts, that is the cruelest!  Shame on
thee!"

At her first words, Rameses raised himself from his attitude of languor
into an upright and intensely alert position.  The company ceased to
breathe, but Kenkenes heaved a soundless sigh of relief.  Masanath had
uttered his denunciations for him.

Meanwhile the prince's eyes began to sparkle, a rich stain grew in his
cheeks and when she made an end he was the picture of animated delight.
For the first time in his life he had been defied and condemned.

But his gaze did not disturb Masanath.  Her eyes dared him to resent
her censure.  The prince had no such purpose in mind.

"O by Besa! here is what I have sought for so long," he exclaimed, at
last.  "Hither! thou treasure, thou dear, defiant little shrew!  Thou
art more to me than all the wealth of Pithom.  Hither, I tell thee!"

But she did not move.  The company was breathing with considerable
relief by this time, but not a few of them were casting furtive glances
at Ta-user.

"Hither!" Rameses commanded, stamping his foot.  "Nay, I had forgot she
defies my power.  Behold, then, I come to thee."

Masanath anticipated his intent, and rising with much dignity, she put
the ivory throne between her and the prince.  Cool and self-possessed
she gathered up her lotuses, as fresh after an evening in her hand as
they were when the slaves gathered them from the Nile; found her fan
and made other serene preparations to depart.  Rameses, fended from her
by the chair, stood before her and watched with a smile in his eyes.

Presently he waved his hand to the other guests.

"Arise; the princess is going," he commanded.

In the stir and rustle, laughter and talk of the guests, getting up at
the prince's sign--for it was customary to permit the highest of rank
to dismiss a company--Masanath slipped from among them and attempted to
leave unnoticed.  But Rameses was before her and had taken possession
of her hand before she could elude him.  As Kenkenes passed them on his
way to the door her soft shoulders were squared; she had drawn herself
as far away from the prince as she might and was otherwise evincing her
discomfort extravagantly.

Before them was Hotep, outwardly undisturbed, smiling and complacent.
At one side was Ta-user, at the other Seti, and Io hung on Hotep's arm.

The young artist walked past them hurriedly, moved to leave all the
ferment and agitation behind him.  If he had thought to forget his
sorrows among the light-hearted revel of those that did not sorrow, he
misdirected his search.

At the doors the Lady Senci met him and drew him over to the diphros,
now vacated by Bettis.

And there she took his face between her hands and kissed him.

"Hail! thou son of the murket!" she said.

"Having much, I am given more," he responded.  "Behold the prodigality
of good fortune.  The Hathors exalt me in the world and add thereto a
kiss from the Lady Senci."

"I was impelled truly," she confessed, "but by thine own face as well
as by the Hathors.  Kenkenes, if I did not know thee, I should say thou
wast pretending--thou, to whom pretense is impossible."

He did not answer, for there was no desire in his heart to tell his
secret; his experience with Hotep had warned him.  Yet the unusual
winsomeness of his father's noble love was hard to resist.

"Thy manner this evening betrays thee as striving to hide one spirit
and show another," she continued, seeing he made no response.

"Thou hast said," he admitted at last; "and I have not succeeded.  That
is a sorry incapacity, for the world has small patience with a man who
can not make his face lie."

"Bitter!  Thou!" she chid.

"Have I not spoken truly?" he persisted.

"Aye, but why rebel?  No man but hides a secret sorrow, and this would
be a tearful world did every one weep when he felt like it."

"But I am most overwhelmingly constrained to weep, so I shall stay out
of the world and vex it not."

She looked at him with startled eyes.

"Art thou so troubled, then?" she asked in a lowered tone.

"Doubly troubled--and hopelessly," he replied, his eyes away from her.

She came nearer and, putting up her hands, laid them on his shoulders.

"You are so young, Kenkenes---so young, and youth is like to make much
of the little first sorrows.  Furthermore, these are troublous days.
Saw you not the temper of the assembly to-night?  Egypt is a-quiver
with irritation.  Every little ripple in the smooth current of life
seems magnified--each man seeketh provocation to vent his causeless
exasperation.  And when such ferment worketh in the gathering of the
young, it is portentous.  It bodeth evil!  You are but caught in the
fever, my Kenkenes, and your little vexations are inflamed until they
hurt, of a truth.  Get to your rest, and to-morrow her smile will be
more propitious."

Kenkenes looked at the uplifted face and noted the laugh in the eyes.

"What a tattling face is mine," he said, "Is her name written there
also?"  He drew his fingers across his forehead.

"No need; I have been young and many are the young that have wooed and
wed beneath mine eyes.  I know the signs."  She nodded sagely and
continued after a little pause:

"I shall not pry further into your sorrow, Kenkenes; but you are good
and handsome, and winsome, and wealthy, and young, and it is a stony
heart that could hold out long against you.  I would wager my mummy
that the maiden is this instant well-nigh ready to cast herself at your
feet, save that your very excellence deters her.  Go, now, and let your
dreams be sweeter than these last waking hours have been."

Again she kissed him and let him go.

In the corridor without, he received his mantle and kerchief from a
servant and continued toward the outer portals.  But before he reached
them, Ta-meri stepped out of a cross-corridor and halted.  Never before
did her eyes so shine or her smile so flash within the cloud of gauzes
that mantled and covered her.  Kenkenes wondered for a moment if he
must explain the change in his countenance to her also.  But the beauty
had herself in mind at that moment.

"Kenkenes, thou hast given me no opportunity to wish thee well, as the
son of the murket."

"Ah, but in this nook thy good wishes will be none the less sincere nor
my delight any less apparent."

"Most heartily I give thee joy!"

Kenkenes kissed her hand.  "And wilt thou say that to Nechutes and put
him in the highest heaven?"

"Already have I wished him well," she responded, pretending to pout,
"but he repaid me poorly."

"Nay!  What did he?"

"Begged me to become his wife."

"And having given him the span, thou didst yield him the cubit also
when he asked it?" he surmised.

"Nay, not yet.  But--shall I?" she lifted her face and looked at him,
smiling and bewitchingly beautiful.  Her eyes dared him; her lips
invited him; all her charms rose up and besought him.  For a moment,
Kenkenes was startled.   If he had believed that Ta-meri loved him
never so slightly, his sensations would have been most distressing.
But he knew and was glad to know that he awakened nothing deeper than a
superficial partiality, which lasted only as long as he was in her
sight to please her eye.  In spite of his consternation, he could think
intelligently enough to surmise what had inspired her words.  The Lady
Senci had guessed the nature of his trouble; even Menes had hinted a
suspicion of the truth in a bantering way.  What would prevent the
beauty from seeing it also and preempting to herself the honors of his
disheartenment?  But he was in no mood for a coquettish tilt with her.
His sober face was not more serious than his tone when he made answer:

"Do not play with him, Ta-meri.  He is worthy and loves thee most
tenderly.  Thou lovest him.  Be kind to thine own heart and put him to
the rack no more.  Thou art sure of him and I doubt not it pleases thee
to tantalize thyself a little while; but Nechutes, who must endure the
lover's doubts, is suffering cruelly.  Thou art a good child, Ta-meri;
how canst thou hurt him so?"

He paused, for her eyes, growing remorseful, had wandered away from
him.  He knew he had reasoned well.  The guests in the banquet-room
began to emerge, talking and laughing.  The voice of Nechutes was not
heard among them.  Kenkenes glanced toward the group and saw the
cup-bearer a trifle in advance, his sullen face averted.

"He comes yonder," Kenkenes added in a whisper, "poor, moody boy!  Go
back to him and take him all the happiness I would to the gods I knew.
Farewell."

He pressed her hand and continued toward the door.

Once again he was hailed, this time by Rameses.  He halted, stifling a
groan, and returned to the prince.  Nechutes and Ta-meri had
disappeared.

"One other thing, I would tell thee, Kenkenes," the prince said, "and
then thou mayest go.  The Pharaoh heard a song to the sunrise on the
Nile some time ago and I identified the voice for him.  He would have
thee sing for him, Kenkenes."

"The Pharaoh's wish is law," was the slow answer.

"Oh, it was not a command," Rameses replied affably, for he was still
holding Masanath's hand and therefore in high good humor with himself.
"In truth he said the choice should be thine whether thou wilt or not.
He would not insist that a nobleman become his minstrel.  But more of
this later; the gods go with thee."

Kenkenes bowed and escaped.

In his room a few moments later, he lighted his lamp of scented oils
and contemplated the comforts about him.  His conscience pointed a
condemning finger at him.  Here was luxury to the point of uselessness
for himself; across the Nile was the desolate quarry-camp for his love.
In Memphis he had robed himself in fine linen and reveled, had eaten
with princes and slept sumptuously--in his strength and his manhood and
unearned idleness.  And she, but a tender girl, had toiled for the
quarry-workers and fasted and now faced death in the hideous
extermination purposed for her race.

He ground his teeth and prayed for the dawn.

He forgot that he had come away from the Arabian hills because she
repelled him; he remembered his scruples concerning their social
inequality, only to revile himself; Hotep's caution was more than ever
a waste of words to him.  He forgot everything except that he was here
in comfort, she, there in want and in peril, and he had not rescued her.

He did not sleep.  He tossed and counted the hours.

"Sing for the Pharaoh!" he exclaimed, "aye, I will sing till the throat
of me cracks--not for the reward of his good will alone, but for
Rachel's liberty.  That first, and the unraveling of this puzzle
thereafter."




CHAPTER XVIII

AT MASAARAH

Since the day Kenkenes had wounded her hand with the knife, Rachel had
seen him but twice in many weeks.

One mid-morning, the oxen were unyoked from the water-cart and led
ambling up to the pit where a monolith, too huge to be moved by men
alone, had been taken forth and was to be transferred to the Nile.  The
bearers carried water directly from the river during this time, and it
was given Rachel to govern them in the departure from the routine.

Suddenly she became aware that some one approached through the grain,
and when she raised her head, she looked up into the face of Kenkenes.
It was Kenkenes, indeed, but Kenkenes in robes of rustling linen and
trappings of gold.  Never had she seen so stately an Egyptian, nor any
so entitled to the name of nobleman.  In quick succession she
experienced the moving sensations of surprise, pride in him, and
depression.  The last fell on her with the instant recollection of
duty, when his face bent appealingly over hers.  Trembling, she turned
away from him, and when she looked again, he was returning to Memphis.

Now, her days had ceased to be the dreamy lapses of time in which she
lived and walked.  The glamour that had made the quarries sufferable
had passed; all the realization of her enslavement, with the
accompanying shame, came to her, and her hope for Israel was lost in
the destruction of her personal happiness.

Still, the longing to look on Kenkenes once again made the dawns more
welcome, the days longer and the sunsets more disheartening.  Vainly
she summoned pride to her aid; vainly she exhorted herself to
consistency.

"How long," she would say, "since thou didst reject the good Atsu
because he is an idolater and an Egyptian?  How long since thou wast
full of wrath against the chosen people who wedded Egyptians and became
of them?  And now, who is it that is full of sighs and strange conduct?
Who is it that hath forgotten the idols and the abominations and the
bondage of her people and mourneth after one of the oppressors?  And
how will it be with thee when the chosen people go forth, or the
carving is complete and the Egyptian cometh no more; or how will it be
when he taketh one of the long-eyed maidens of his kind to wife?"

In the face of all this, her intuition rose up and bore witness that
the Egyptian loved her, and was no less unhappy than she.

So time came and went and weeks passed and he came not again.  Late,
one sunset, while there yet was daylight, she left the camp merely that
she might wander down the valley to the same spot where, at the same
hour, she had met Kenkenes on that last occasion of talk between them.

Moving slowly down the shadows, she saw a figure approaching.  The
stature of the new-comer identified him.  The head was up, the step
slow, the bearing expectant.  In the one scant lapse between two throbs
of her heart, Rachel knew her lover, remembered all the power of his
attraction, and realized that her joy and love could carry her beyond
her fortitude and resolution.

Just ahead of her, not farther than three paces, a long fragment of
rock had fallen from above and leaned against the wall.  There was an
ample space formed by its slant against the cliff and almost before she
knew it, she had crept into this crevice.  Cowering in the dusk, she
clutched at her loud-beating heart and listened intently.

There was no sound of his steps on the rough roadway of the valley and
though she watched eagerly from her hiding-place, she did not see him
pass.  After a long time she emerged.  He was gone.

When she looked in the dust she found that his footprints turned not
far from her hiding-place and led toward the Nile.

She knew then that he had seen her when she had caught sight of him,
and failing to meet her as he had expected, had guessed she had hidden
from him.

This was the sunset of the night of the revel at Senci's house.  It was
this incident that had made Kenkenes late at the festivities, and
cynical when he came.

On her way back to the camp Rachel met Atsu, mounted and attended by a
scribe, the taskmaster's secretary.  The two officials were on their
way to Memphis to worship in the great temple and to spend a night
among free-born men.  Once every month, no oftener, did Atsu return to
his own rank in the city.  Recognizing Rachel, he drew up his horse;
the scribe rode on.

"Hast been in search of the Nile wind, Rachel?  The valley holds the
day-heat like an oven," he said.

"Nay, I did not go so far.  The darkness came too quickly."

"Endure it a while.  I shall move the people into the large valley
where they may have the north breeze and the water-smell after sunset,
now that the summer is near.  I am glad I met thee.  Deborah tells me
the water for the camp-cooking is turbid, and I doubt not the children
draw it from some point below the wharf where the drawing for the
quarry-supply stirs up the ooze.  Do thou go with the children in the
morning when they are sent for the camp supply, and get it above the
wharf."

"I hear," she answered.

"The gods attend thee," he said, riding away.

"Be thy visit pleasant," she responded, and turned again up the valley.

The taskmaster was forgotten at her second step, and her contrition and
humiliation came back with a rush.  There was little sleep for her that
night, so heavy was her heart.

The next morning Rachel obeyed Atsu and followed the children to the
Nile.  Crossing the field, absorbed in her trouble, she did not hear
the beat of hoofs or the grind of wheels until she was face to face
with the attendants of a company of charioteers.  The troop of
water-carriers had scattered out of the road-way and each little
bronzed Israelite was bending with his right hand upon his left knee in
token of profound respect.  Rachel hastily joined them.

When she looked again the retinue of servants had passed.  After them
came a gilded chariot with a sumptuous Egyptian within.  By the
annulets over his temples and the fringed ribbons pendent therefrom,
the Israelite knew him to be royal.

Behind, a second chariot was driven by a single occupant, who wore the
badges of princehood also.

The third was a chariot of ebony drawn by two prancing coal-black
horses whose leathers and housings shone and jingled.  Rachel's eyes
met those of the driver and the life-current froze in her veins.
Har-hat, fan-bearer to the Pharaoh, late governor of Bubastis, drew up
his horses and calmly surveyed her.  The action halted the chariots of
a dozen courtiers following him.  One by one they came to a stand-still
and each man peered around his predecessor until the fan-bearer became
conscious of the pawing horses behind him.  He drove out of line and
alighted.  With an apologetic wave of his hand, he motioned the
procession to proceed and busied himself with the harness as if he had
found a breakage.  Those that had passed were by this time some
distance ahead and, missing the grind of wheels in their wake, looked
back.  The fan-bearer beckoned to one of the attendants who had gone
before, and the man returned.

Meanwhile the procession moved on and the nobles glanced first at the
fan-bearer, and next, at the Israelite.  But Athor in the niche on the
hillside was not more white and stony than its living model in the
valley.  There was no retreat.  The fan-bearer stood between her and
the Nile, his servant between her and the quarries.  She felt the
sickening numbness that stupefies one who realizes a terrible strait,
from which there is neither succor nor escape.

The procession passed and the servant, halting, bowed to his master.
He was short and fat, thick of neck and long of arm--a most unusual
Egyptian.  Har-hat tossed him the reins and, walking around his horses,
approached Rachel.  The smallest Hebrew--too small to be awed and yet
old enough to realize that the beloved Rachel was in danger, dropped
the hide he bore, and flinging himself before her, clasped her with his
arms, and turned a defiant face at Har-hat over his shoulder.  The
fan-bearer paused.

"It is the very same," he said laughingly.  "The hard life of the
quarries hath not robbed thee in the least of thy radiance.  But by the
gambling god, Toth, thou didst take a risk!  Dost dream what thou didst
miss through a malevolent caprice of the Hathors?  Five months ago I
would have taken thee out of bondage into luxury but for an industrious
taskmaster and the unfortunate interference of a royal message.  But
the Seven Sisters repent, and I find thee again."

Rachel had fixed her eyes upon the white walls of Memphis shining in
the morning sun, and did not seem to hear him.

"Nay, now, slight me not!  It was the fault of the taskmaster and not
mine.  I confess the charm of distant Memphis, but it is more glorious
within its walls.  I am come to take thee thither.  Thank me with but a
look, I pray thee."

Seeing she did not move nor answer, he tilted his head to one side and
surveyed her with interest.

"Hath much soft persuasion surfeited thee into deafness?"  The color
surged up into Rachel's face.

"Ha!" he exclaimed, "not so!  Perhaps thou art but reluctant, then."
He whirled upon the other children, cowering behind him.

"Is she wedded?" he demanded.

Frightened and trembling, they did not answer till he repeated the
question and stamped his foot.  Then one of them shook his head.

"It is well.  I need not delay till a slave-husband were disposed of in
the mines.  Hither, Unas!"

The fat servitor came forward.

"I know this taskmaster not, nor can I coax or press him into giving
her up without the cursed formality of a document of gift from the
Pharaoh.  Get thee back to Memphis with this," he drew off a signet
ring and gave it to the servitor, "and to the palace.  There have my
scribe draw up a prayer to the Pharaoh, craving for me the mastership
over the Israelite, Rachel,--for household service."  The fan-bearer
laughed.  "Forget not, this latter phrase, else the Pharaoh might fancy
I would take her to wife.  Haste thee! and bring back Nak and Hebset
with thee to row the boat back, and help thee fetch her.  She may have
a lover who might make trouble for thee alone.  Get thee gone."

He took the reins from his servitor's hands and turned again toward
Rachel.

"I go forth to hunt, and there is danger in that pastime.  I may not
return.  It would be most fitting to bid me a tender farewell, but thou
art cruel.  Nevertheless, I shall care for myself most diligently this
day, and return to thee in Memphis by nightfall.  Farewell!"  He sprang
into his chariot and, urging his horses, pursued the far-away
procession at a gallop.

Unas was already at the Nile-side, preparing to return to Memphis.  To
Rachel it seemed as if she had been set free for a moment, that her
efforts to escape and her inevitable capture might amuse her tormentor.
And after the manner of the miserable captive so beset, she seized upon
the momentary release and sought to fly.  The three little Hebrews
clung to her--the one that had answered Har-hat weeping bitterly and
remorsefully.

"Nay, weep not," she said in a hurried whisper.  "It would have ended
just the same.  Heard ye not what he said concerning a husband?  But
let me go!  Let Rachel hide ere the serving men return!"

She undid their arms and ran back toward the quarries.  For a moment
the children hesitated and then they pursued her, crying in an
undertone as they ran.  Past the stone-pits, up the winding valley she
fled until she reached the encampment and her own tent.

The women saw her come and old Deborah, who was preparing vegetables
for the noonday meal, left the fires and hastened to the shelter.
There, Rachel, choking with terror and tears, gave the story of the
morning.

Deborah made no interruption and after the disjointed and unhappy
recital was complete, she sat for some moments, motionless and silent.
Then she arose and made as if to leave the tent, but Rachel caught at
her hand in affright.

"Nay, be not so frightened," the old woman said soothingly.  "I go to
look for Atsu.  He will come in a little while."

With that, she went forth.  After a time--more than two hours, in
truth, but infinitely longer to Rachel, the voice of the taskmaster was
heard without, talking with Deborah.  He was permitting no curb to the
expression of his rage.

"The gods rend his heart to ribbons!" he panted after a tempest of
anathema.  "Curse the insatiate brute!  Is there not enough of Egypt's
women who are willingly loose that he must destroy the purest spirit on
earth?  He shall not have her, if I take his life to save her!"

After a moment's savage rumination, he broke out again.

"He has us on the hip!  We shall be put to it to hide her away from him
now.  Do thou go to her--nay, I will go."

Rachel heard him enter the tent and walk across the matting on the
floor.  She flung her arm over her face and huddled closer to the
linen-covered heap of straw against which she had thrown herself.  Even
the eyes of the taskmaster were intolerable, in her shame.  Atsu
plunged into the heart of his subject at once.

"There is no escape in the choosing of the tens, now, Rachel.  I have
said that I would not vex thee again with my love.  Once I offered thee
marriage as refuge.  My love and the shelter of my name are thine to
take or leave.  I will urge thee no more."

He paused for a space and, as she made no answer, he went on as though
she had rejected him explicitly.

"Then I shall hide thee somewhere in Egypt.  The ruse is not secure,
but it may serve."

She sat up and put the hair back from her face.

"Thou good Atsu," she said in a voice subdued with much weeping, "Wilt
thou add more to mine already hopeless indebtedness to thee?  Art thou
blind to the ill-use thou invitest upon thine own head in thy care for
me?  Let me imperil thee no more.  Is there no other way?"

He shook his head.  Slowly her face fell, and she sighed for very
heaviness of spirit.  Atsu stooped and took her hand.

"Make ready and let us leave this place," he said kindly, "and thou
canst decide in the securer precincts of Memphis what thou wilt do.
Lose no time."  He turned away and, signing to Deborah to follow him,
left the tent.

Rachel arose and began her preparations to depart.  The formidable
blockade in the way to safety seemed to clear and her heart leaped at
the anticipation of freedom or stopped at the suggestion of failure.
She hastened slowly, for her excitement made most of her movements
vain.  Her hands trembled and held things insecurely; she forgot the
place of many of her belongings, in that humble, orderly house.
Alternately praying and fearing, she stopped now and then to be sure
that the sounds of the camp were not those of the returning servants.
The simple apparel gathered together, she collected the remaining
mementoes of her family,--saved with so much pain and guarded with such
diligence by old Deborah.  These were trinkets of gold and ivory, bits
of frail gauzes in which a wondrous perfume lingered, and a scroll of
sheep-skin bearing the records of the house.  And after all these had
been found and gathered together, she furtively put the straw aside and
drew forth the collar of golden rings.

With the first glint of light on the red metal, the hope and animation
in her heart went out.  What of Kenkenes?  No thought came to her now,
but the most unhappy.  The obligations which she would have gladly laid
on him had fallen to Atsu.  She dared not confess to him her love, and
she could not give him gratitude.  He had entered her life like a
bewildering radiance, but it was Atsu who had saved her and emancipated
her and would save her again.

She thrust the collar into her bosom with a sob and went on
mechanically with her preparations.  But during one of her movements
the coins clinked musically.  She clutched them, and they rang again,
softly.  They reproached her, and in that irresistible way,--gently.
They made a sound even as she breathed.  As she walked they chafed.
They took weight and crushed her breast.  And with every sound from
them, she felt Kenkenes' arm about her, her hand lost in his, the
warmth of his young cheek against hers.  Never so long as his gift were
in her possession might she hope to put these memories from her, and
she could not cherish them hopefully now.  Desperate grief stirred her
into action.  She went quickly to the door of the tent and there met
Deborah.

"This is not mine," she said, holding up the necklace.  "It belongs to
the young nobleman who brought me back to camp that night."

"Leave it with the tribe and it shall be given him."

"Nay, he may not return to camp.  I know where he comes and I can leave
it there.  It is not far--only a little way."

Deborah stood in her path.

"Will he be there?" she demanded.

"Nay, that I can pledge thee."  She slipped past her guardian, out of
the tent and sped up the valley, determined that Deborah's prohibition,
however just, should not stay her.

The old Israelite turned to look after her, and her eyes fell on Atsu,
his face black with rage, his arms folded, talking with a fat, wildly
gesticulating servitor.  At that moment the courier caught sight of
Rachel flying up the valley and, flinging a document at Atsu's feet,
started to pursue.  Atsu halted him with an iron hand, and Deborah
paused to see no more.  With a prayer she ran up the valley the way
Rachel had taken.




CHAPTER XIX

IN THE DESERT

In the early morning of the next day after the rout at Senci's,
Kenkenes wandered restlessly about the inner court of his father's
house.  He had slept but little the preceding night, and now, dizzy and
irritable, the freshness of the morning did not invigorate him and the
haunting perplexities were with him still.

There was no need of haste to the Arabian hills and yet he could not
wait patiently in Memphis for an appropriate hour to visit Masaarah.
He paced hither and thither, flung himself on the benches in the shade,
only to rise and resume his uneasy walk.  Anubis was omnipresent and
particularly ungovernable.  If his young master were in motion he
vibrated and oscillated like a shuttle.  If Kenkenes sat, he paced the
tessellated pavement slowly and with a foot-fall lighter than a birds.
The sculptor eyed him understandingly, and finally arose.

"Come, Anubis!  Tit, tit, tit!" he called, backing toward the
work-room.  Anubis bounded after him, but as Kenkenes paused just over
the threshold, the ape also halted.  His master retreated to the rear
of the room still calling, but to the ape there was something
portentous familiar in this proceeding.  It hinted of imprisonment.
Turning as though pursued, he disappeared up an acacia tree from which
he could not be dislodged.  With a vexed exclamation, Kenkenes passed
out of the court into the house, slamming the swinging door so sharply
that it sprang open again after him.  As the old portress put back the
outer doors leading into the street, that her young master might go
forth, a shadow quick as thought slipped out after him.  The old
portress clapped her hands with a shrill command but the shadow was
gone.

Once more in his work-day dress, his wallet of tools and provisions
across his shoulder, the young sculptor passed toward the Nile, moody
and unhappy but determined.  At the river-side he hired the shallow
bari that had given him faithful service for so long, and receiving the
oars from Sepet, the boatman, prepared to push away.  At that moment,
Anubis, tremulous but unrepentant, bounded in beside him.

"Anubis!" Kenkenes exclaimed.  "Of a truth I believe thou art possessed
of the arts of magic.  Now, if thou art lost in the hills and devoured
by a wolf, upon thine own head be it.  Pull in that paw, before thou
becomest a foolish sacrifice to the sacred crocodile.  I wonder thy
self-respect does not keep thee from coming when thou art unwelcome."
And subsiding into silence, the sculptor turned toward Masaarah.

He made a landing below the stone wharf, for there a two-oared bari was
already drawn up, and the tangle of herbage was a safe hiding-place for
his own boat.  He looked toward the quarry and hesitated.  He had no
heart yet to face her, who had laid his cruelest sorrow on him.  He
would continue his work on Athor until he had gathered assurance from
that unforbidding face.

His light foot made no sound and he entered the niche silently.
Kneeling on the chipped stone at the base of the statue, her face
against the drapings, her arms clasping its knees, was Rachel.  In one
hand was the collar of rings.  She had not heard the sculptor's
approach.

For an instant his surprise transfixed him.  Had she repented?  A great
wave of compassion and tenderness swept over him and he drew her face
away between his palms.  With a terrified start, the girl turned a
swift glance upward.  When she recognized Kenkenes her tearful face
colored vividly.  Her posture was such that she could not rise, and
with infinite gentleness he lifted her to her feet.

"What is it, Rachel?  Art thou in trouble?"

Joy and maidenly confusion took away her voice.

"Alas," he went on sadly.  "Am I so fallen from thy favor, shut out and
denied thy confidence?"

"Nay, nay," she protested.  "Think not so harshly of me.  I am--I
came--" she faltered and paused.  He did not help or spare her.  He had
come to learn why she had done this thing, why she had said that, and
why she had repulsed him without explanation, when there was
unmistakable preference for him in her unstudied acts.  He held his
peace and waited for her to proceed.  Meanwhile Rachel suffered
cruelly.  She had no thought in her mind concerning her conduct toward
him.  It was the shameful event of the morning, which must be told to
explain her presence before Athor, that made her cover her crimson face
at last.  Kenkenes silenced the protests of his gallantry, and drawing
her hands away, lifted her face on the tips of his fingers and waited.

While they stood thus, Deborah, exhausted and praying, staggered into
the inclosure.

"Rachel!" she panted.  "The serving-men--thou art pursued!"  The fat
courier, purple of countenance and breathing hard, appeared in the
opening.  Rachel shrank against Kenkenes and Deborah dropped on her
knees between the pair and the servitor.

"Out of the way, hag!" the man puffed.  "Let me at yon slave.  Out!"
He struck at Deborah with a short mace but Kenkenes caught his arm and
thrust him aside.

"Go, go back to the camp," he said to the old woman.  "No harm shall
befall Rachel."  Raising her, he put her behind him, and advanced
toward the courier.

"Hast thou words with me?" he said coolly.  "What wilt thou?"

"The girl.  Give her up!"

"Nay, but thou art peremptory.  What wilt thou with her?"

"For the harem of the Pharaoh's chief adviser," the man retorted.

The blood in Kenkenes' veins seemed to become molten; flashes of fierce
light blinded him and his sinews hardened into iron.  He bounded
forward and his fingers buried themselves in soft and heated flesh.

The first glimmer of reason through his murderous insanity was the
consciousness of a rain of blows upon his head and shoulders, and a
blackening face settling back to the earth before him.

He released his grip on the throat of the strangling servitor and flung
off his other assailants.  For a moment, stunned by the hard usage at
the hands of the reinforcing men, he staggered, and seemed about to
succumb.  The men pursued him to finish their work, but as he eluded
them, it seemed that a third person--a woman all in white with extended
arms--came into their view.

Kenkenes saw the foremost, a tall Nubian in a striped tunic, stop in
his tracks, and the second, smaller and lighter but a Nubian also,
following immediately behind, bumped against his fellow.

Mouths agape, eyes staring, they stood and marveled.  The strange
presence, they discovered at once, was neither a human being nor an
apparition.  It was stone--a statue.

"Sacrilege!" the first exploded.  "A--a--by Amen, it is the slave
herself!"

In the little pause, Kenkenes recovered himself, but he knew that he
gave Rachel to her fate, if the pair overcame him.  He caught her hand
and with the whispered word, "Run!" fled with her toward the front of
the cliff facing the Nile.  It was a desperate chance for escape but he
seized it.

Immediately they were pursued and at the brink of the hill, overtaken.
The stake was too large for the young artist to risk its loss by
adhering to the unwritten rules of combat.  He released Rachel, whirled
about, and as the foremost descended on him, ducked, seized the man
about the middle, and pitched him head-first down into the valley.  The
second, the tall Nubian that wore the striped tunic, halted, dismayed,
and Kenkenes, catching Rachel's hand, prepared to descend.  But she
checked him with a cry.  "Look!"

His eyes followed her outstretched arm.  At regular intervals along the
Nile, the distant figures of men were seen posted.  Escape was cut off.
He mounted to the top of the cliff and led Rachel out of view from the
river.  The second man retreated, and raged from afar.  The sculptor
turned up the shingly slope toward the sun-white ridge of higher hills
inland.  Here, he would hide with Rachel, till his strength returned
and the ache left his head clear to plan a safe escape.  The Nubian
called on all the gods to annihilate them and started in pursuit.  The
sculptor did not pause, and, emboldened by the indifference of the man
he dogged, the pursuer drew near and made menacing demonstrations.
Kenkenes had no desire to be followed.  He bade Rachel wait for him and
approached the Nubian.

"Now," he began coolly, "thou art unwelcome, likewise, insolent.  Also
art thou a fool, but it is an arch-idiot indeed that lacketh caution.
This maiden is beloved of all the Israelites.  Thou art one man, and
alone.  It would not be safe for thee to attempt to take her without
help even across that little space between Masaarah and the Nile.  I
should harass thee with others within call.  Do thou save thyself and
send the chief adviser after her.  I would treat with him also."

The Nubian backed away and Kenkenes followed him relentlessly until the
man, overcome with trepidation, took to his heels and fled.

Even then, Kenkenes did not lessen his vigilance.  He caught up Anubis,
who had bounded beside him during the entire time, and running back to
Rachel, turned into the limestone wastes.

Kenkenes had risked his suggestions to the single Nubian, and their
effect upon him gave the young sculptor some hope that the pursuing
force had been limited to these three.  Though the men along the Nile
were not within call, they would prevent flight into Memphis, and the
camp of the Israelites, if not similarly picketed, would offer security
only for the moment.  Why had not the Hebrews protected her in the
beginning?  He would get to a place of perfect safety first and learn
all concerning this matter.

After an hour's cautious dodging from shelter to shelter, through the
masses of rocks, they toiled up the great ridge of hills deep into the
desert.  Rachel would have gone on and on, but Kenkenes drew her into
the shadow of a great rock and stopped to listen.  The oppressive
silence was unbroken.  Far and near only gray wastes of hills heaved in
heated solitude about them.

"Sit here in the shadow and rest," he said, turning to the weary girl
beside him.  "I shall keep watch."

He cleared a space for her among the debris at the base of the great
fragment and pressed her down in the place he had made.  Next he undid
his belt and fastened Anubis to a boulder, too heavy for the ape to
move.  The animal resented the confinement, and Kenkenes, tying him by
force, found in the forepaws the collar of golden rings.  With a murmur
of satisfaction, the young man reclaimed the necklace and thrust it
into the bosom of his dress.

When he arose the day grew dark before him, and he was obliged to
steady himself against the rock till the vertigo passed.  His
assailants had hurt him more than he had thought.  But he took up his
vigil and maintained it faithfully till all sense of danger had
vanished.

Rachel, who had been watching his face, touched his hand at last, and
bade him rest.  The invitation was welcome and with a sigh he sank down
beside her.

"Lie down," she said softly.  "Thou hast been most cruelly misused.
And all for me!"

Obediently, he slipped from a sitting to a recumbent posture.  She put
out her arm, and supporting him, seemed about to take his head into her
lap.  Instead, she slipped the mantle from the strap that bound it
across his shoulders, and rolling it swiftly, made a pillow of it for
his head.

The wallet that had hung by the same strap over his shoulder, attracted
her attention and she guessed that it had been used as a carrier for
provision.  She laid it open and took out the water-bottle.  The
pith-stopper had held, during all the violent motion, and the dull
surface of the porous and ever-cooling pottery was cold and wet.

She put the bottle to his lips and, after he had drunk, bathed his
bruises most tenderly.

Succumbing to the gentle influence of her fingers, he put up his hands
to take them, but they moved out of his reach in the most natural
manner possible.  He could not feel that she had purposely avoided his
touch, but he made no further attempt when the soothing fingers
returned.  Finally he raised himself on his elbow and supported his
head in his hand.

"Now am I new again," he said; "once more ready to help thee.  Let us
take counsel together and get into safety and comfort."  He paused a
moment till his serious words would not follow with unseeming
promptness upon his light tone.

"I know thy trouble, Rachel," he began again soberly.  "There is no
need that thou shouldst hurt thyself by the telling.  But there are
details which would be helpful in aiding thee if I had them in mind.
Thou knowest better than I.  Wilt thou aid me?"

Her golden head drooped till her face was bowed upon her hands.  After
a little silence she answered him, her voice low with shame.

"This man sought to take me before, at Pa-Ramesu, but Atsu learned of
it in time and sent me to Masaarah.  This morning I met him again--"
She paused, and Kenkenes aided her.

"Aye, I can guess--poor affronted child!"

"Atsu meant to escape with me again, but the servants of the nobleman
came before we could get away."

Kenkenes knew by her choice of words that she did not know the name of
her persecutor, and he did not tell her what it was.  He could not bear
the name of Har-hat on her lips.  She went on, after a little silence.

"I came--" she began, coloring deeply, "to leave thy collar with the
statue--I did not expect to find thee there."

How little it takes to dispirit a lover!  How could he know that any
thought had led her to do that thing save an impulse actuated by
indifference or real dislike?  His hope was immediately reduced to the
lowest ebb.  The mention of the taskmaster's name brought forward the
probability of a rival.

"I can take thee back to Atsu," he said slowly.  "These menials will
not remain in the hills after sunset, and under cover of night I can
slip thee, by strategy, past any sentries they may have set and get
thee to Atsu.  I, by my sacrilege, and he by his insubordination, are
both under ban of the law, but danger with him will be sweeter danger
than peril with me, I doubt not."

She looked at him, and the hurt that began to show on her face gave
place to puzzlement.

"Is it not so?" he asked with a bitter smile.  "The companionship of
ones beloved works wonders out of heavy straits!"

"But--.  Dost thou--?  Atsu is naught to me," she cried, her grave face
brightening.

The blood surged back to his cheeks and the life into his eyes.  He
leaned toward her, ready to ask for more enlightenment concerning her
conduct, when she went on dreamily: "But he is wondrous kind and hath
made the camp bright with his humanity.  Israel loveth Atsu."

Kenkenes turned again to the perplexity in hand.

"I came this morning to ask thy permission to give thee thy freedom.  I
doubt not Israel of Masaarah, hidden in a niche in the hills, does not
dream that it is the plan of the Pharaoh--nay, the heir to the crown of
Egypt by the mouth of the Pharaoh--to exterminate the Hebrews."  Rachel
recoiled from him.

"What sayest thou?" she exclaimed, her voice sharp with terror.

"Nay, forgive me!" he said penitently.  "So intent was I on thy rescue
that I forgot to soften my words.  Let it be.  It is said; I would it
were not true."

Her affright was only momentary, for her faith restored her ere his
last words were spoken.

"It will not come to pass," she declared.  "Jehovah will not suffer it.
Thou shalt see--and let the Pharaoh beware!"  Her words were vehement
and she offered no argument.  She saw no need of it, since her belief,
merely expressed, had the force of fact with her.

"I am committed to the cause of Israel--that thou knowest, Rachel,"
Kenkenes made answer.  After another silence he took up the thread of
his talk.

"If thy danger from this man were set aside I should not return thee to
the camp, even if there were no doom spoken upon Israel.  I would have
thee free; I would have thee in luxury, sheltered in my father's
house--I would--"

"Thou dost paint a picture that mocks me now, O Kenkenes," she broke in
on his growing fervor.  "Doubly am I enslaved, and the safety of
Masaarah and Memphis is no more for me."

"Thou hast said," he answered in a subdued voice.  "It was given me
last night to win favor with the Pharaoh for thy sake, but the need of
that favor fell before it was won.  But I despair not.  What is thy
pleasure, Rachel?  Shall I take thee to Atsu, or wilt thou stay with
me?"

"This nobleman will know of a surety that Atsu is my friend, but he
must guess the other Egyptian who hath helped me.  If I go to Atsu I
take certain danger to him; if I stay with thee the peril must wander
ere it overtakes us.  But I would not burden either.  Is there no other
way?"

He shook his head.  "It lies between me and Atsu to care for you, and
the peril for you and for us is equal.  My name is as good as
published, for I am gifted with a length of limb beyond my fellows.  I
was found before the statue and they, describing me to the priests,
will prove to the priests, who know my calling, that the son of Mentu
has committed sacrilege.  And the priesthood would not wait till dawn
to take me."

"I will stay with thee, Kenkenes," she said simply.

He became conscious of the collar on his breast and drew it forth.

"With this," he began, assuming a lightness, "I fear I gave thee
offense one day and thou hast held it against me.  Now let me heal that
wound and sweeten thy regard for me with this same offending trinket.
Wilt thou take it as a peace-offering from my hands and wear it
always?"  She bent toward him and, with worshiping hands, he put aside
the loosened braids and clasped the necklace about her throat.

"There are ten rings," he continued.  "Let them be named thus," telling
them off with his fingers, "This first of all--Hope--it shall be thy
stay; this--Faith--it shall comfort thee; this--Good Works--it shall
publish thee; this--Sacrifice--it shall win thee many victories;
this--Chastity--it shall be thy name; the next--Wisdom--it shall guide
thee; after it--Steadfastness--it shall keep thee in all these things;
Truth--it shall brood upon thy lips; Beauty--it shall not perish; this,
the last, is Love, of which there is naught to be said.  It speaketh
for itself."

Their eyes met at his last words and for a moment dwelt.  Then Rachel
looked away.

"Are the fastenings secure?" she asked.

"Firm as the virtues in a good woman's soul."

"They will hold.  I would not lose one of them."

A long silence fell.  The curious activity of desert-life, interrupted
for the time by the presence of the fugitives, resumed its tenor and
droned on about them.  The rasping grasshopper, the darting lizard, the
scorpion creeping among the rocks, a high-flying bird, a small,
skulking, wild beast put sound and movement in the desolation of the
region.  The horizon was marked by undulating hills to the west; to the
east, by sharper peaks.  The scant growth was blackened or partly
covered with sand, and it fringed the distant uplands like a stubbly
beard.  The little ravines were darkened with hot shadows, but the bald
slopes presented areas, shining with infinitesimal particles of quartz
and mica, to a savage sun and an almost unendurable sky.  From
somewhere to the barren north the wind came like a breath of flame,
ash-laden and drying.  There was nothing of the cool, damp river breeze
in this.  They were in the hideous heart of the desert to whom death
was monotony, resisting foreign life, an insult.

The two in the shortening shadow of the great rock were glad of the
water-bottle.  The necessity of comfortable shelter for Rachel began to
appeal urgently to Kenkenes.  He put aside his dreams and thought aloud.

"What cover may I offer thy dear head this night?" he began.  "We may
not return to the camp, for there of a surety they lie in wait for us.
Toora is deserted and so tempting a spot for fugitives that it will be
searched immediately.  Not a hovel this side of the Nile but will be
visited.  I would take thee to my father--"

"Nay," she said firmly.  "I will take affliction to none other.
Already have I undone two of the best of Egypt.  I will carry the
distress no further."

After a silence he began again.

"How far wilt thou trust in me, Rachel?"

She raised her face and looked at him with serious eyes.

"In all things needful which thou wilt require of me."

"And thou canst sleep this night in an open boat?"

She nodded.

"To-morrow, then," he continued, taking her hand, "we shall reach
Nehapehu, where I can hide thee with some of the peasantry on my
father's lands.  And there thou canst abide until I go to Tape and
return.

"Thou must know," he continued, explaining, "the Athor of the hills is
not my first sacrilege.  Once I committed a worse.  My father was the
royal sculptor to Rameses and is now Meneptah's murket."  Rachel
glanced at him shyly and sought to withdraw her hand, for she
recognized the loftiness of the title.  But he retained his clasp.  "He
is a mighty genius.  He planned and executed Ipsambul.  For that, which
is the greatest monument to Rameses, the Incomparable Pharaoh loved
him, and while the king lived my father was overwhelmed with his
favors.  Nor did the royal sculptor's good fortune wane, as is the
common fate of favorites, for the great king planned that my father's
house should be honored even after his death though the dynasties
change.  So Rameses gave him a signet of lapis lazuli, and its
inscription commanded him who sat at any time thereafter on the throne
of Egypt to honor the prayer of its bearer in the unspeakable name of
the Holy One.

"After the death of Rameses," the narrator went on, "we went to Tape,
my father and I, to inscribe the hatchments and carve the scene of the
Judgment of the Dead in the tomb of the great king.  Now, I am my
father's only child and have been taught his craft.  I have been an apt
pupil, and he had no fear in trusting me with the execution of the
fresco.  I had long been in rebellion, practising in secret my lawless
ideas, and I was seized with an uncontrollable aversion to marring
those holy walls with the conventional ugliness commanded by the
ritual.  I assembled my ideas and dared.  I worked rapidly and well.
The work was done before my father discovered it."  Kenkenes paused and
laughed a little.

"Suffice it to say the fresco was erased.  And the solemnity of the
crypt was hardly restored before my father found that his sacred
signet, which he always wore, was gone.  Nay, nay, I might not search
for it more than the fruitless once, for he declared, and of a truth
believed firmly, that the great king had reclaimed his gift.  I did not
and never have I believed it.  Now I need the signet and I shall go
after it on the strength of that belief.

"Having found it, I shall appeal to Meneptah for thy liberty and safety
and whatever boon thou wouldst have and for myself.  What thinkest
thou?  Shall I go on?"

Rachel smiled and looked up at him gratefully.

"I will go with thee, Kenkenes," she said.

Her ready confidence and the easiness of his name on her lips filled
him with joy.  "Ah! ye ungentle Hathors!" he mourned to himself, "why
may I not tell her how much I love her?"

But the white hand which he pressed against his breast asked its
release with gentle reluctance, and he set it free.

Once again the silence fell and was not frequently broken thereafter.

There was no invitation in her manner, and he could not speak what he
would.

The sun dropped behind the Libyan hills and the heights filled with
shadow.  At length he said:

"It is time."

Lifting her to her feet, the ape attending them, he went toward the
Nile, hand in hand with Rachel, his love all untold.




CHAPTER XX

THE TREASURE CAVE

The sudden night had just fallen, and there was an incomplete moon in
the west.  But already the desert was full of feeble shadows and silver
interspaces, and all that tense silence of evening upon unpeopled
localities.

Kenkenes stood upon the top of a huge monolith, listening.  Below, with
only her face in the faint moonlight, was Rachel, looking up to him.
Anubis, oppressed by the voiceless expectancy of the two young people,
crouched at his master's feet.  For a while there was only the ringing
turmoil of his own quickened blood in the young man's ears.  But
presently, up from the southern slope, rose the sound he had heard some
minutes before--a long, quavering note, ending in a high eery wail.

Kenkenes was familiar with the screams of wild beasts, and he knew the
irreconcilable differences between them and the human voice.  Instantly
he sent back across the hollow a strong reply that the startled echoes
repeated again and again.  Almost immediately the first cry was
repeated, but a desperate power had entered into it.  Kenkenes dropped
from his point of vantage.

"Some one calleth, of a surety," he said, "and by the voice, it is a
woman."

"It is Deborah come up from the camp to seek for me!" Rachel exclaimed.

"I doubt not.  But the gods are surely with her, to fend the beasts
from her in this savage place.  It is well we came this way."

With all the haste possible on the rough slope, they descended.  The
ground was familiar to Kenkenes, for the niche was near the foot of the
declivity.

Half-way down he called again, and the answer came up from the
hiding-place of Athor.  In another moment they were within and beside
the prostrate form of the old Israelite.  Rachel dropped on her knees,
crying out in her solicitude.  Her words were in the soft language of
her own people and unintelligible to Kenkenes, but her voice trembled
with concern.  The old woman answered soothingly and at some length.
The narrative was frequently broken by low exclamations from Rachel,
and at its end the girl turned to Kenkenes with a sob of anger.

"The Lord God break them in pieces and His fury be upon them!" she
cried.  "They set upon her and beat her and left her to the jackals!"

"Set consume them!" Kenkenes responded wrathfully.  "How came they upon
you?  Did you not return to camp?"

"Nay, the mother heart in me would not suffer me to desert Rachel.  I
stayed without this place, and ye outstripped me when ye fled.  After a
time the fat servitor, rousing out of his swoon, came forth from here,
and another, who had been lurking in the rocks, joined him, and the
pair, in searching for you, discovered me and beat me with maces,
leaving me for dead."

After a grim silence, broken only by the low weeping of Rachel,
Kenkenes bade her continue.

"The search they made for you was not thorough, for one was ill and
both were afraid.  But they came upon the statue again, and the sight
of it mocked them, so they overthrew it and broke it."

Kenkenes drew a sharp breath and glanced at the place where Athor
should have been.  Except for themselves, the niche was evidently
vacant.  The old woman continued:

"Then they descended into the camp of Israel.  After a time I heard the
sound of voices as if there were many men in the hills, and the heart
of me was afraid.  With much pain and travail I crept into this place,
and here sounds come but faintly.  But I heard sufficient to know that
there were many who sought diligently, but whether they were our own
people or the minions of thine enemy, Rachel, I could not with safety
discover."

"Said they aught concerning their intents--this pair, who set upon
you?" Kenkenes asked.

"O, aye, they blustered, and if they bring half of their threats to
pass, it will go ill with thee, Egyptian.  They will set the priests
upon thee immediately; the hills will be searched; the Nile will be
picketed.  It behooves thee to have a care for thyself.  As for Rachel,
I know not what will become of her.  She is penned out in the desert,
for the camp is to be watched, and they boast that the hunt will end
only with her capture."

"Let them look to it that it does not end with the choking of the swine
who inspired it!  I long to put him beyond the cure of leeches."

He made no answer to Deborah's words concerning Rachel's plight.
Deborah had disarranged his plans.  He could not take the old woman,
grievously wounded, on the long journey to Nehapehu, and, indeed, had
she been well, his small boat might not hold together with a burden of
three for a distance of half a hundred miles.  For a moment his
perplexity baffled his ingenuity.

It occurred to him that he might cross to the Memphian shore and
procure a larger boat; but what would protect his helpless charges
during the hours of absence, or in case he were taken?  He realized
that he dare not run a risk; his every movement must be safe and sure.
He could not ask the wounded Israelite to return to the camp now,
seeing that she had suffered mistreatment at the hands of Har-hat's
servants and deserted not.

"If there were but a grotto in the rocks--a cave or a tomb--" he
stopped and smote his hands together.

"By Apis!  I have it--the Tomb of the Discontented Soul!"

He turned to the two women, who had talked softly together in Hebrew,
and spoke lightly in his relief.

"We have shelter for this night--safer than any other place in all
Egypt.  Trouble no more concerning that.  Let me hide my sacrilege and
rob them of indisputable evidence against me, and then we shall get to
our refuge."

He lifted Deborah in his arms, and bearing her out into the open, left
her with Rachel.

Then he reentered the shadowy niche.  The night was not too dark to
show the interior.  Athor, a torso, broken in twain, headless, armless,
was prostrate.  It had been pushed over against the great cube that
sheltered it and the fall against the hard limestone had ruined it.
Kenkenes clenched his hands and choked back the angry tears.  To the
artist the destruction partook of the heinousness of murder, of the
pathos of death.  He set about concealing the wreck with all speed, for
he wished to be merciful to his eyes.

He collected the fragmentary members, and carrying them down the slope
a little way, dug a grave for them in the sand.  To the trench he
rolled the trunk on the tamarisk cylinders, and buried all that was
left of Athor the Golden.  Over the grave he laid a flat stratum of
rock that the wind might not uncover the ruin.

Returning to the niche, he took up the matting with its weight of
chipped stone, and went down through the dark to the line of rocks
opposite the quarries.  There he permitted the rubble to slide with a
mixture of earth, like a natural displacement, into the talus, of a
similar nature, at the base of the cliff.  The matting he shook and
laid aside.  It would serve for a bed in the tomb that night.

Then he destroyed the north wall.  In the four months of its existence
the sand had banked against it more than half its height.  Each stone
removed in the dismantling was carried away to a new place, until the
whole fortification was, as once it had been, scattered up and down the
slope.  The light, dry sand he pitched with his wooden shovel against
the great cube until it all lay where the wind would have piled it had
no second wall stood in its way.  By dawn the strong breeze from the
north would cover every footprint and shovel-mark to a level once more.
He went again to the line of rocks and threw the shovel with a sure aim
and a strong arm into the quarries across the valley.  To-morrow it
would seem that an Israelite had forgotten one of his tools.

The work was done.

With an ache in his heart, Kenkenes returned to Deborah and Rachel.

"The shelter for us is in the cliff to the north, near Toora," he began
immediately.  "It is a tomb, but others before us have partaken of the
dead's hospitality." [1]

"How am I to reach it?" Deborah asked.  "Is the place far?"

"A good hour's journey, but we go by water.  Still, we must walk to the
Nile."

"That I can not do," the old woman declared.

"Nay, but I can carry you," Kenkenes replied, bending over her.  She
shrank away from him.

"Thou hast forgotten," she protested.

"Not so," he insisted stoutly.  Taking her up, he settled her on one
strong arm against his breast.  The free hand he extended to Rachel,
who had taken the matting, and together they went laboriously down the
steep front of the hill.  They proceeded cautiously, watching before
and behind them lest they be surprised.

He had covered his boat well with the tangle of sedge and marsh-vines,
and after a long space of search, he found it.

Once again he lifted Deborah and laid her in the bottom of the boat.
With its triple burden, the bari sank low in the water, but Kenkenes
wielded the oars carefully.  The faint moonlight showed him the way.
Now and then a red glimmer across the grain marked the location of a
farmer's hut, but there was no other sign of life.  Even at the
Memphian shore there was little activity.

When the line of cultivation ended Kenkenes knew he was in the
precincts of the Marsh of the Discontented Soul.  He rowed across what
he believed to be one-half of its width and drew into the reeds.  The
sound and movement awoke many creatures, which hurried away in the
dark, and something slid off into the river with a splash.  The lapping
of the ripples sounded like a drinking beast.  Kenkenes put a bold foot
on the soggy sand and stepped out.  Rachel followed him with bated
breath.  Anubis unceremoniously mounted his shoulder.  He dragged the
bari far up on the shore, once more lifted Deborah and started up the
warm sand.

At the base of the limestone cliff he deposited his burden and brought
together a little heap of dried reeds and flag blades.  This he fired
after many failures by striking together his chisel and a stone.
Rachel hid the blaze from the Nile while he made and lighted a torch of
twisted reeds and stamped out the fire.  In the feeble moonlight he
discerned a stairway of rough-hewn steps leading into a cavity in the
wall.  The southern side of the ascent was sheltered by an outstanding
buttress of rock.

He put the torch into Rachel's hand, and, taking up Deborah, climbed a
dozen steps to a dark opening half-closed by a fallen door.  Pushing
the obstruction aside with his foot, he entered.  When they were all
within he closed the entrance and unrolled the reeds.

There was a helter-skelter of mice past them and a rustle of retiring
insects.  The torch blazed brightly and showed him a squat copper lamp
on the floor of the outer chamber.  The vessel contained sandy dregs of
oil and a dirty floss of cotton.  With an exclamation of surprise
Kenkenes lighted the wick, and after a little sputtering, it burned
smokily.

"Nay, now, how came a lamp in this tomb?" he asked without expecting an
answer.

The chamber was low-roofed and small--the whole interior rough with
chisel-marks.  To the eyes of the sculptor, accustomed to the gorgeous
frescoes in the tombs of the Memphian necropolis, the walls looked bare
and pitiful.  There were several prayers in the ancient hieroglyphics,
but no ancestral records or biographical paintings.  Several strips of
linen were scattered over the floor, with the customary litter of dried
leaves, dust, refuse brought by rodents, cobwebs and the cast-off
chrysalides of insects.  In one corner was a bronze jar, Kenkenes
examined it and found it contained cocoanut-oil for burning.

"Of a truth this is intervention of the gods," he commented, a little
dazed, but filling his lamp nevertheless.

Ahead of him was a black opening leading into the second chamber.  He
stooped, and entering, held the lamp above his head.  He cried out, and
Rachel came to his side.

In the center of the room was a stone sarcophagus of the early, broad,
flat-topped pattern.  In one corner was a two-seated bari, in another a
mattress of woven reeds.  Leaning against the sarcophagus was a wooden
rack containing several earthenware amphorae; on the floor about it was
a touseled litter of waxed outer cerements torn from mummies.  All
these things they observed later.  Now their wide eyes were fixed on
the top of the coffin.  At one time there had been a dozen linen sacks
set there, but the mice and insects had gnawed most of them away.  The
bottoms and lower halves yet remained, forming calyxes, out of which
tumbled heaps of gold and silver rings, zones, bracelets, collars and
masks from sarcophagi--all of gold; images of Isis in lapis lazuli and
amethyst; scarabs in garnets and hematite, Khem in obsidian, Bast in
carnelian, Besa in serpentine, signets in jasper, and ropes of diamonds
which had been Babylonian gems of spoil.

"The plunder of Khafra and Sigur, by my mummy!" Kenkenes ejaculated.

"Will they return?" Rachel asked, in a voice full of fear.

"They are gathered to Amenti for their misdeeds many months agone," he
explained.  "See how thickly the dust lies here without a print upon
it.  They were tomb-robbers.  None of the authorities could discover
their hiding-place, and lo! here it is."

He walked round the sarcophagus and found at the head, on the floor,
several bronze cases sealed with pitch.  He opened one of them with
some difficulty.  Flat packages wrapped with linen lay within.

"Dried gazelle-meat,--and I venture there is wine in those amphorae.
They lived here, I am convinced, and fed upon the food offerings they
filched from the tombs.  Was there ever such intrepid lawlessness?"

"Here is a snare and net," Rachel reported.

"Did they not profit by superstition?  As long as they were here they
were safe.  They did not fear the spirit."

"The spirit?" Deborah, still in the outer chamber, repeated with
interest.

"The spirit of this tomb," Kenkenes explained, returning to her.  In a
few words he told her the story as Hotep had told it to him.

"Canst thou discover the name?" she asked when he had finished.

"The sarcophagus is plain.  There is no inscription within yonder
crypt, for I have this moment looked.  But let me examine this writing
here by the door."

After a while he spoke again.  "The name is not given.  It says only
this:

             'The Spouse to Potiphar,
           Captain of the Royal Guard to
             Apepa, Child of the Sun,
   In the Twelfth Year of Whose Luminous Reign
                     She Died.
   Rejected by the Forty-two at On, because of
                    Unchastity,
                  She Lies Here,
  Until Admitted to the Divine Pardon of Osiris.'"


"Aye, I know," Deborah responded.  "It is history to the glory of a son
of Abraham.  Him, who brought our people here, she would have tempted,
but he would have none of her.  Therefore she bore false witness
against him and he was thrust into prison.

"But the God of Israel does not suffer for ever His chosen to be
unjustly served, and he was finally exalted over Upper and Lower
Mizraim.  And honor and long life and a perfumed memory are his, and
she--lo! she hath done one good thing.  Her house hath become a shelter
for the oppressed and for that may she find peace at last."

Kenkenes looked at the old woman with admiring eyes.  The quaint speech
of the Hebrews had always fascinated him, but now it had become melody
in his ears.  In this, the first moment of mental idleness since
midday, he had time to think on Deborah.  He knew that he had seen her
before, and now he remembered that it was she who had transfixed him
with a look on an occasion when Israel had first come to Masaarah.

But he did not remind her of the incident.  Instead, he set about
counteracting any effect that might follow should her memory, unaided,
recall the occurrence.  He had put her down on the matting, and the
running spiders and slower insects worried her.

"A murrain on the bugs," he said.  "We shall have a creepy night of it.
Let us bottle this treasure and lay the mattress out of their reach on
the sarcophagus.  Endure them a while, Deborah, till we make thee a
refuge."

He set the lamp in the opening from the outer into the inner crypt and
entered the second chamber.  Rachel followed him, and the old Israelite
watched them with brilliant eyes.

Kenkenes swept the jewels as if they had been almonds into an empty
amphora and returned it to the rack.  The mattress he laid upon the
broad top of the sarcophagus.

"A line of oil run around the coffin will keep the insects away,"
Rachel ventured.  Kenkenes returned to the outer chamber for the jar of
oil; but Rachel took it from him.

"Let me be thy handmaid," she said softly.

He did not protest, and she reentered the crypt.

"Luckily the mattress is large enough for the two of you," Kenkenes
observed to Deborah, "but it will be hard sleeping."

"The Hebrews are not spoiled with couches of down," she replied.

"There are enough of the wrappings in yonder to take off the hardness,
but even with the matting over them they will be gruesome things to
sleep upon.  They would bewitch your dreams.  But mayhap ye will not
suffer from one night's discomfort."

"Where go we to-morrow?"

Kenkenes did not answer immediately.  Another plan for Rachel's
security had been growing in his mind, and his heart leaped at the
prospect of its acceptance by her.

"There is a large boat here, and we might go to On," he began at last.
"There is one way possible to save Rachel from this man as long as I
live, and I would she were to be persuaded into accepting the
conditions."

"Name them and let me judge."

He hesitated for proper words and his cheeks flushed.  Deborah looked
at him with comprehension in her gaze.

"Rachel is not blind to my love for her, and thou, too, art discerning.
Yet I would declare myself.  I love Rachel, and I would take her to
wife.  Then, not even the Pharaoh could take her from me by law."

Deborah raised herself with difficulty, and after peering into the
inner chamber to see where Rachel was, approached him softly.

"Thou lovest Rachel.  Aye, that is a tale I have heard oftener than I
have fingers to count upon.  From the first men of her tribe I have
heard it, from the best of Egypt and the worst.  But she kept her heart
and stayed by my side.  Now thou comest, young, comely, gifted with
fair speech and full of fervor.  Thou lovest as she would be loved, and
her heart goes out to thee, even as thou wouldst have it--in love."

Kenkenes' face glowed and his fine eyes shone with joy.

"But mark thou!" she continued passively.  "If thou wouldst save her,
think upon some other way, for thou mayest not wed her.  Jehovah
planteth the faith of Abraham anew in Israel.  In Rachel and in
Rachel's house it died not during the hundred years of the bondage.
Therefore the name is godly.  Of her, what would thy heart say?  Hath
she not beauty, hath she not wisdom, hath she not great winsomeness?
There is none like her in these days among all the children of Abraham.
To her Israel looketh for example, for, since she compelleth by her
grace, those who behold her will consider whatever she doeth as good.
Great is the reward of him who can direct and directeth aright, but
shall he not appear abominable in the sight of the Lord if he useth his
power to lead astray?  Lo! if she wed thee, to her people it will seem
that she would say: 'Behold, this man is fair in my sight, and it is
good for the chosen of the Lord to take the idolater into his bosom.'
There is a multitude in Israel, which, like sheep, follow blindly as
they are led.  Great will be the labor to engrave the worship of the
Lord God in their hearts, when all the powers of Israel shall strive to
do that thing for them.  How shall there be any success if Moses and
the appointed of the Lord bid them worship, while the husband or wife
that dwelleth in their tent saith 'Worship not'?  To these, Rachel's
marriage with thee would be justification and incentive to incline
toward idolaters and idols.  Then there are the wise and discerning who
know that Rachel hath turned away from the best among her people.  How,
then, shall she be fallen in their sight if she wed with an idolater?

"She knoweth all these things and she keepeth a firm hold upon herself,
but she hath not said these things to thee lest her strength fail her."

And thus was the mystery explained to him.

"Thou bowest down to a beetle," she went on without pausing.  "Thou
worshipest a cat; thou offerest up sacrifice to an image and conservest
abominable and heathen rites.  Thou art an idolater, and as such thou
art not for Rachel.  And yet, this further: if thou canst become a
worshiper of the true God, thou shalt take her.  Never have I seen an
Egyptian won over to the faith of Abraham, but there approacheth a time
of wonders and I shall not marvel."

To Egypt its faith was paramount.  Israel in its palmiest days was not
more vigilantly, jealously fanatical than Egypt.  Every worshiper was a
zealot; every ecclesiast an inquisitor.  Church and State were
inseparably united; law was fused with religion; science and the arts
were governed by hieratic canons.

The individual ate, slept and labored in the name of the gods, and
national matters proceeded as the Pantheon directed by the
ecclesiastical mouthpiece.

Life was an ephemeral preface to the interminable and actual existence
of immortality.  Temporal things were transient and only of
probationary value.  The tomb was the ultimate and hoped-for, infinite
abiding-place.

To the ideal Osirian his faith was the essential fiber in the fabric of
his existence, to withdraw which meant physical and spiritual
destruction.  The forfeiture of his faith for Rachel, therefore,
appealed to Kenkenes as a demand upon his blood for his breath's sake.
His plight was piteous; never were alternatives so apparently
impossible.

At first there was no coherent thought in the young man's mind.  His
consciousness seemed to be full of rebellion, longing and amazement.
Never in his life had he been refused anything he greatly desired, when
he had justice on his side.  Now he was rejected, not for a
shortcoming, but, according to his religious lights, for a virtue
instead.  His gaze searched the visible portion of the other chamber
and found Rachel.  In the half-light he saw that she had cast herself
down against the sarcophagus, face toward the stone, her whole attitude
one of weary depression.

Piteous as was the sight, there was comfort in it for him.  Rachel
loved him so much that she was bowed with the conflict between her love
and her duty.  His manhood reasserted itself.  Love in youth bears hope
with it in the face of the most hopeless hindrances.  With the blood of
the Orient in his veins and the fire of youth to heighten its ardor, he
was not to be wholly and for ever cast down.  Furthermore, there was
Rachel to be comforted.

He turned to Deborah.

"Let it pass, then.  Deny me not the joy of loving her, nor her the
small content of loving me.  If there should be change, let it be in
thy prohibitions, not in our love.  Enough.  Art thou weary?  Wouldst
thou sleep?"

"Nay," she answered bluntly.

"Then I would take counsel with thee.  Thou knowest the end of Israel?"
he asked.

"I know the purpose of the Pharaoh, but there is no end to Israel."

"Not yet, perchance," he said calmly, "or never.  But we shall not put
trust in auguries.  The oppression of the people is already begun at
Pa-Ramesu and the brick-fields.  Ye shall not return to those dire
hardships.  Ye can not return to Masaarah.  In Memphis I offer my
father's house, but Rachel refuses it.  In Nehapehu there is safety
among the peasantry on the murket's lands.  My father lost an
all-powerful signet in the tomb of the Incomparable Pharaoh at Tape,
and did not search for it because he believed that Rameses had taken it
away from him.  The king will honor it and grant whatever petition I
make to him.  If ye are unafraid to abide in this tomb for the few
remaining hours of this night I shall take you to Nehapehu at dawn.
There ye can abide till I go to Tape and return.  What sayest thou?"

The old woman looked at him quietly for a moment.

"Is this place safe?" she asked.

"The forty-two demons of Amenti could not drive an Egyptian into this
tomb."

"How comes it that thou art not afraid?"

"I have no belief in spirits."

"Nor have we.  Why need we go hence?  We shall abide here till thou
shalt return."

"In this place!" Kenkenes exclaimed, recoiling.  "Nay!  I shall be gone
sixteen days at least."

"We shall not fear to live in a tomb, we who have defied untombed death
daily.  We shall remain here."

"This hole--this cave of death!"

"We have shelter, and by thine own words, none will molest us here.  We
are not spoiled with soft living, nor would we take peril to any.
Without are fowls, herbs, roots, water--within, security, meat and
wine.  We shall not fear the dead whom, living, Joseph rebuked.  We
shall be content and well housed."

"But thou art wounded," he essayed.

She scouted his words with heroic scorn.  "Nay, let us have no more.
If thou canst accomplish this thing for Rachel, do it with a light
heart, for we shall be safe.  If thou art successful, Israel will rise
up and call thee blessed; if thou failest, the sons of Abraham will
still remember thee with respect."

No humility, no cringing gratitude in this.  Queen Hatasu, talking with
her favorite general, could not have commended him in a more queenly
way.

To Kenkenes it seemed that their positions had been reversed.  He
craved to serve them and they suffered him.

"I shall go then to-night," he said simply.

"Nay, bide with us to-night, for thou art weary.  There is no need for
such haste."

He opened his lips to protest, his objections manifesting themselves in
his manner.  But she waved them aside.

"Thou hast the marks of hard usage upon thee," she said; "thou hast
slaved for us since midday, and now the night is far spent.  Thine eyes
are heavy for sleep, thy face is weary.  And before thee is a task
which will require thy keenest wit, thy steadiest hand.  Thou owest it
to Rachel and to thyself to go forth with the eye of a hawk and the
strength of a young lion."

Because of Rachel's name in her argument he yielded and turned
immediately to the subject of their lonesome residence in the haunted
tomb.  "If aught befall me," he said, "for I am in the unknowable hands
of the Hathors, disguise thyself and Rachel.  If thou art skilled in
altering thou canst find pigment among the roots of the Nile.  Dye her
hair and stain her face, take the boat and go to my father's house in
Memphis.  He is Mentu, the murket to the Pharaoh--a patriot and a
friend to the kings.  He knows not the Hebrew, but he is generous,
hospitable and kind to the oppressed of whatever blood.  Tell him
Rachel's trouble and of me.  I am his only child, and my name on thy
lips will win thee the best of his board, the shelter of his roof, the
protection of his right arm.  Wait for me, however, in this place till
a month hath elapsed.

"Keep the amphorae filled with water, fresh every day, and preserve a
stock of food within the tomb always to stand you in good stead if
Rachel's enemy discover her hiding-place and besiege it."

His eyes ignited and his face grew white.

"Starve within this cave," he went on intensely, approaching her, "but
deliver her not into his hands, I charge thee, for the welfare of thy
immortal soul.  If thou art beset and there is no escape, before she
shall live for the despoiler--take her life!"

Deborah scanned him narrowly, and when he made an end she opened her
lips as though to speak.  But something deterred her, and she moved
away from him.

"Come, spread the matting, Rachel," she said.  "The master will stay
with us to-night."

Obediently the girl came, still white of face, but composed.  She made
a pallet of one roll of the matting, generously sprinkled the floor
about it with oil to keep away the insects, put the lamp behind the
amphora rack, hung her scarf over the frame that the light might not
shine in her guest's eyes, and set the door a little aside to let the
cool night air enter from the river.  Having completed her service, she
bade him a soft good-night and disappeared into the inner crypt, where
Deborah had gone before her.

Kenkenes immediately flung himself upon the pallet because Rachel's
hands had made it, and in a moment became acutely conscious of all the
ache of body and the pain of soul the day had brought him.  The first
deprived him of comfort, the second of his peace, and there was the
smell of dawn on the breeze before he fell asleep.

After sunset the next day Deborah roused him.  He awoke restored in
strength and hungry.  The old Israelite had prepared some of the
gazelle-meat for him, and this, with a draft of wine from an amphora,
refreshed him at once.  Provisions had been put in his wallet, and a
double handful of golden rings, with several jewels, much treasure in
small bulk, had been wrapped in a strip of linen and was ready for him.
By the time all preparations were complete the night had come.

He bade Deborah farewell and took Rachel's hand.  It was cold and
trembled pitifully.  Without a word he pressed it and gave it back.  He
had reached the entrance, when it seemed that a suppressed sound smote
on his ears, and he stopped.  Deborah, her face grown stern and hard,
had moved a step or two forward and stood regarding Rachel sharply.
Neither saw her.

"Did you speak, Rachel?" Kenkenes asked.  He fancied that her arms had
fallen quickly as he turned.

"Nay, except to bid thee take care of thyself, Kenkenes," she faltered,
"more for thine own sake than for mine."

He returned and, on his knee, pressed her hand to his lips.

"God's face light thee and His peace attend thee," she continued.  The
blessing was full of wondrous tenderness and music.  He knew how her
face looked above him; how the free hand all but rested on his head,
and for a moment his fortitude seemed about to desert him.  But she
whispered:

"Farewell."

And he arose and went forth.



[1] The tombs of the Orient in ancient times were common places of
refuge for fugitives, lepers and outcasts.




CHAPTER XXI

ON THE WAY TO THEBES

The moon was ampler and its light stronger.  The Nile was a vast and
faintly silvered expanse, roughened with countless ripples blown
opposite the direction of the current.  The north wind had risen and
swept through the crevice between the hills with more than usual
strength, adding its reedy music to the sound of the swiftly flowing
waters.

After launching his bari, Kenkenes gazed a moment, and then, with a
prayer to Ptah for aid, struck out for the south, rowing with powerful
strokes.

At the western shore lighted barges swayed at their moorings or
journeyed slowly, but the Nile was wide, and the craft, blinded by
their own brilliance, had no thought of what might be hugging the
Arabian shore.  Yet Kenkenes, with the inordinate apprehension of the
fugitive, lurked in the shadows, dashed across open spaces and imagined
in every drifting, drowsy fisher's raft a pursuing party.  He prayed
for the well-remembered end of the white dike, where the Nile curved
about the southernmost limits of the capital.  The day had not yet
broken when he passed the last flambeau burning at the juncture of the
dike with the city wall.  He rowed on steadily for Memphis, and
immediate danger was at last behind him.

The towers of the city had sunk below the northern horizon when,
opposite a poor little shrine for cowherds on the shore, a brazen gong
sounded musically for the sunrise prayers.  The Libyan hilltops were,
at that instant, illuminated by the sun, and Kenkenes, in obedience to
lifelong training, rested his oars and bent his head.  When he pulled
on again he did not realize that he had been, with the stubbornness of
habit, maintaining the breach between him and Rachel.  There was no
thought in his mind to give over his faith.

At noon, weary with heat, hunger and heavy labor, he drew up at
Hak-heb, on the western side of the Nile, fifty miles above Memphis.
The town was the commercial center for the pastoral districts of the
posterior Arsinoëite nome--Nehapehu.  Here were brought for shipment
the wine, wheat and cattle of the fertile pocket in the Libyan desert.
Being at a season of commercial inactivity, when the farmers were
awaiting the harvest, the sunburnt wharves were almost deserted.

Few saw Kenkenes arrive.  Most of the inhabitants were taking the
midday rest, and every moored boat was manned by a sleeping crew.  He
made a landing and went up through the sand and dust of the hot street
to the only inn.  Here he ate and slept till night had come again.
Refreshed and invigorated, he continued his journey.  At noon the next
day he stopped to sleep at another town and to buy a lamp, materials
for making fire, ropes and a plummet of bronze sufficiently heavy to
anchor his boat.  He was entering a long stretch of distance wherein
there was no inhabited town, and he was making ready to sleep in the
bari.  Then he began to travel by day, for he was too far from Memphis
to fear pursuit, and rest in an open boat under a blazing sun would be
impossible.

The third evening he paused opposite a ruined city on the eastern bank
of the Nile.  Hunters not infrequently went inland at this point for
large game, and although the place was in a state of partial
demolishment, Kenkenes hoped that there might be an inn.  He tied his
boat to a stake and entered Khu-aten,[1] the destroyed capital of
Amenophis IV, self-styled Khu-n-Aten.

Here under a noble king, who loved beauty and had it not, the barbarous
rites of the Egyptian religion were overthrown and sensuous and
esthetic ceremonies were established and made obligatory all over the
kingdom.  In his blind groping after the One God, the king had directed
worship to the most fitting symbol of Him--the sun.

He appeased the luminous divinity by offerings of flowers, regaled it
with simmerings from censers, besought it with the tremulous harp and
had it pictured with grace and vested with charm.  And since the power
of the national faith was all-permeating, its reconstruction was
far-reaching in effect.  Egypt was swept into a tremendous and
beautiful heresy by a homely king, whose word was law.

But at his death the reaction was vast and vindictive.  The orthodox
faith reasserted itself with a violence that carried every monument to
the apostasy and the very name of the apostate into dust.  Now the
remaining houses of Khu-ayen were the homes of the fishers--its ruins
the habitation of criminals and refugees.

The hand of the insulted zealot, of the envious successor, of the
invader and conqueror, had done what the reluctant hand of nature might
not have accomplished in a millennium.  The ruins showed themselves,
stretching afar toward and across the eastern sky, in ragged and
indefinable lines.  The oblique rays of the newly risen moon slanted a
light that was weird and ghostly because it fell across a ruin.
Kenkenes climbed over a chaos of prostrate columns, fallen architraves
and broken colossi, and the sounds of his advance stirred the rat, the
huge spider, the snake and the hiding beast from the dark debris.  Here
and there were solitary walls standing out of heaps of wreckage, which
had been palaces, and frequent arid open spaces marked the site of
groves.  In complex ramifications throughout the city sandy troughs
were still distinguishable, where canals had been, and in places of
peculiarly complete destruction the strips of uneven pavement showed
the location of temples.

There was not a house at which Kenkenes dared to ask hospitality.
Those that lived so precariously would have little conscience about
stripping him of his possessions.

He retraced his steps to the wharves and drew away, prepared to spend
the night in his boat.

After leaving Khu-aten, the Nile wound through wild country, the hills
approaching its course so closely as to suggest the confines of a
gorge.  The narrow strip of level land on the eastern side lay under a
receding shadow cast by the hills, but the river and the western shore
were in the broad brilliance of the moon.  The night promised to be one
of exceeding brightness and Kenkenes shared the resulting wakefulness
of the wild life on land.

The half of his up-journey was done and the conflict of hope and doubt
marshaled feasible argument for and against the success of his mission.
In some manner the destruction of Khu-aten offered, in its example of
Egypt's fury against progress, a parallel to his own straits.

In his boyhood he had heard the Pharaoh Khu-n-Aten anathematized by the
shaven priests, and in the depths of his heart he had been startled to
find no sympathy for their rage against the artist-king.

Ritual-bound Egypt had resented liberty of worship--a liberalism that
lacked naught in zeal or piety, but added grace to the Osirian faith.
In his beauty-worship, Kenkenes was not narrow.  He would not confine
it to glyptic art, nor indeed to art alone--all the uses of life might
be bettered by it.  His appreciation of Khu-n-Aten's ambition had been
passive before, but when his own spirit experienced the same fire and
the same reproach, his sympathy became hearty partizanship.

His mind wandered back again to the ruin.  How fiercely Egypt had
resented the schism of a Pharaoh, a demi-god, the Vicar of Osiris!  The
words of Rachel came back to him like an inspiration:

"Thou hast nation-wide, nation-old, nation-defended prejudice to
overcome, and thou art but one, Kenkenes."

But one, indeed, and only a nobleman.  Could he hope to change Egypt
when a king might not?  Behold, how he was suffering for a single and
simple breach of the law.  At the thought he paused and asked himself:

"Am I suffering for the sacrilege?"

The admission would entail a terrifying complexity.

If he were suffering punishment for the statue, what punishment had
been his for the sacrilegious execution of the Judgment of the Dead in
the tomb of Rameses II?  What, other than the reclamation of the signet
by the Incomparable Pharaoh, even as Mentu had said?  If the hypothesis
held, he had committed sacrilege, he had offended the gods, and might
not the accumulated penalty be--O unspeakable--the loss of Rachel?

On the other hand, if the signet were still in the tomb, Rameses had
not reclaimed it--Rameses had not been offended.  The ritual condemned
his act, but if Rameses in the realm of inexorable justice and supernal
wisdom did not, how should he reconcile the threats of the ritual and
the evident passiveness of the royal soul?  If he found the signet and
achieved his ends, aside from its civil power over him, what weight
would the canonical thunderings have to his inner heart?

Once again he paused.  The deductions of his free reasoning led him
upon perilous ground.  They made innuendoes concerning the stability of
the other articles of hieratical law.  He was startled and afraid of
his own arguments.

"Nay, by the gods," he muttered to himself, "it is not safe to reason
with religion."

But every stroke of his oar was active persistence in his heresy.

He believed he should find the signet.

Thereafter he could turn a deaf ear to any renegade ideas such an event
might suggest.

It was an unlucky chance that befell the theological institutions of
Egypt as far as this devotee was concerned, that Kenkenes had landed at
the capital of the hated Pharaoh.

But he shook himself and tried to fix his attention on the night.  The
stars were few--the multitude obliterated by the moon, the luminaries
abashed thereby.  The light fell through a high haze of dust and was
therefore wondrously refracted and diffused.  The hills made high
lifted horizons, undulating toward the east, serrated toward the west.
In the sag between there was no human companionship abroad.

Throughout great lengths of shore-line the tuneless stridulation of
frogs, the guttural cries of water-birds and the general movement in
the sedge indicated a serene content among small life.  But sometimes
he would find silence on one bank for a goodly stretch where there was
neither marsh-chorus nor cadences of insects.  The hush would be
profound and an affrighted air of suspense was apparent.  And there at
the river-brink the author of this breathless dismay, some lithe
flesh-eater, would stride, shadow-like, through the high reeds to
drink.  Now and then the woman-like scream of the wildcat, or the harsh
staccato laugh of the hyena would startle the marshes into silence.
Sometimes retiring shapes would halt and gaze with emberous eyes at the
boat moving in midstream.

Kenkenes admitted with a grim smile that the great powers of the world
and the wild were against him.  But Rachel's face came to him as
comfort--the memory of it when it was tender and yielding--and with a
lover's buoyancy he forgot his sorrows in remembering that she loved
him.  He dropped the anchor and, lying down in the bottom of his boat,
dreamed happily into the dawn.

During the day he landed for supplies at a miserable town of
pottery-makers, leaving his boat at the crazy wharves.

When he returned the bari was gone.  A negro, the only one near the
river who was awake, told him that a dhow, laden with clay, in making a
landing had struck the bari, staved in its side, upset it and sent it
adrift.

The mischance did not trouble Kenkenes.

After some effort he aroused a crew of oarsmen, procured a boat, and
continued at once to Thebes.



[1] Khu-aten--Tel-el-Amarna.




CHAPTER XXII

THE FAN-BEARER'S QUEST

At sunset on the day after the festivities at the Lady Senci's, Hotep
deserted his palace duties and came to the house of Mentu.  He had in
mind to try again to persuade his friend from his folly, for the scribe
was certain that Kenkenes was once more returning to his sacrilege and
the Israelite.

The old housekeeper informed him that the young master was not at home,
though he was expected even now.

Hotep waited in the house of his aunt, neighbor to the murket, and
about the middle of the first watch asked again for Kenkenes.

Nay, the young master had not returned.  But would not the noble Hotep
enter and await him?

The scribe, however, returned to the palace, and put off his visit
until the next day.

The following noon a page brought him a message from his aunt, the Lady
Senci.  It was short and distressed.

"Kenkenes has not returned, Hotep, and since he is known to have gone
upon the Nile, we fear that disaster has overtaken him.  Come and help
the unhappy murket.  His household is so dismayed that it is useless.
Come, and come quickly."

The probability of the young artist's death in the Nile immediately
took second place in the scribe's mind.  Kenkenes had displayed to
Hotep the effect of Rameses' savage boast to exterminate the Hebrews.
It was that incident which had convinced the scribe that the Arabian
hills would claim the artist on the morrow.  He had not stopped to
surmise the extremes to which Kenkenes would go, but his mysterious
disappearance seemed to suggest that the lover had gone to the
Israelitish camp to remain.

He made ready and repaired to the house of the murket.  Mentu met him
in the chamber of guests.  By the dress of the great artist it would
seem that he had returned at that moment from the streets.

Hotep sat down beside him, and with tact and well-chosen words told his
story and summarized his narration with a mild statement of his
suspicions.

There was no outbreak on the part of Mentu.  But his broad chest heaved
once, as though it had thrown off a great weight.

"But Kenkenes has been a dutiful son," he said after a silence, "I can
not think he would use me so cruelly--no word of his intent or his
whereabouts."

The objection was plausible.

"Then, let us go to Masaarah and discover of a surety," the scribe
suggested.

When Atsu emerged from the mouth of the little valley into the quarries
some time after the midday meal, he was confronted by the murket and
the royal scribe.  Neither of the men was unknown to him.

Hotep halted him.

"Was there a guest with the fair-haired Israelite maiden last night?"
the scribe asked.

Atsu's face, pinched and darker than usual, blazed wrathfully.

"Have ye also joined yourselves with Har-hat to run that hard-pressed
child to earth?" he exclaimed.  "Do ye call yourselves men?"

"The gods forbid!" Hotep protested.  "We do not concern ourselves with
the maiden.  It is the man who may be with her that we seek."

The taskmaster made an angry gesture, and Hotep interrupted again.

"I do not question her decorum, and the man of whom I speak is of
spotless character.  He is lost and we seek him."

"I can not help you; my wits are taxed in another search."

Hotep's face showed light at the taskmaster's words.

"Is she also gone?" he asked mildly.  "Then let me give you my word,
that the discovery of one will also find the other."

Atsu gazed with growing hope at the scribe.

"How is he favored?" he asked at last.

"He is tall, half a palm taller than his fellows; comely of
countenance; young; in manner, amiable and courteous--."

Atsu interrupted him with a wave of his hand.  "I saw him once--good
three months agone, but not since."

The reply baffled Hotep for a moment.  He realized that to find
Kenkenes he must begin a search for Rachel.

"Good Atsu, he whom we seek is a friend to the maiden.  He is much
beloved by me--by us.  Whomsoever he befriendeth we shall befriend.
Wilt thou tell us when and from whom the maiden fled?"

Atsu had become willing by this time.  This amiable young noble might
be able to lift the suspense that burdened his unhappy heart.

"Har-hat--Set make a cinder of his heart!--asked her at the hands of
the Pharaoh for his harem--"

Mentu interrupted him with a growling imprecation and Hotep's fair face
darkened.

"Yesterday morning he sent three men to me," the taskmaster continued,
"with the document of gift from the Son of Ptah, but she saw them in
time and fled into the desert.  At that hour there were only women in
the camp, and the three men made short work of me when I would have
held them till she escaped.  In three hours, two of them returned--one,
sick from hard usage, and the third, they said, had been pitched over
the cliff-front into the valley of the Nile.  They had not captured her
and they were too much enraged to explain why they had not.  During
their absence I emptied the quarries of Israelites and posted them
along the Nile to halt the Egyptians, if they came to the river with
Rachel.  But we let them return to Memphis empty-handed, and thereafter
searched the hills till sunset.  The maiden's foster-mother, it seems,
fled with her, but neither of them, nor any trace of them, was to be
found."

"Does it not appear to thee," Hotep asked, after a little silence,
"that the same hand which so forcibly persuaded the Egyptians to
abandon the pursuit may have led the maiden to a place of safety?  My
surmises have been right in general, O noble Mentu, but not in detail,"
he continued, turning to the murket.  "There is, however, the element
of danger now to take the place of the gracelessness we would have laid
to him.  Thou knowest Har-hat, my Lord."

He thanked the dark-faced taskmaster.  "Have no concern for the maiden.
She is safe, I doubt not."

He took Mentu's arm and passing up through the Israelitish camp,
climbed the slope behind it.

"It is my duty and thine to hide this lovely folly up here, ere these
searching minions of Har-hat or frantic Israelites come upon it."

The scribe's sense of direction and location was keen.  It was one of
the goodly endowments of the savage and the beast which the gods had
added to the powers of this man of splendid intellect.  He doubled back
through the great rocks, his steps a little rapid and never hesitating,
as though his destination were in full view.  Mentu followed him,
silent and moodily thoughtful.  At last Hotep stopped.

Before them was a narrow aisle leading down from the summit of the
hill.  It was hemmed in on each side by tumbled masses of stone.  The
aisle terminated at its lower end in a long white drift of sand against
a great cube.  Instinct and reason told Hotep that here had been the
hiding-place of Athor, but there was no sign that human foot had ever
entered the spot.  After a space of puzzlement, Hotep smiled.

"He hath made way with the sacrilege himself," he said with relief in
his voice; "I had not credited him with so much foresight.  Nay, now,
if the runaway will but come home, we will forgive him."

Mentu said nothing.  Indeed, since Hotep had told him of the recent
doings of Kenkenes, the murket had had little to say.  He had felt in
his lifetime most of the sorrows that can overtake a man of his
position and attainments--but he had never known the chagrin of a
wayward child.  The fear that he was to know that humiliation, now,
made his heart heavy beyond words.

As they turned away the sound of voices smote upon their ears.

"Near this spot, it must be, my Lord," one said.

"Find the sacrilege, lout.  We seek not the neighborhood of it."

Hotep caught the murket's arm and drew him out of the aisle into hiding
behind another great stone.

"This is the place; this is the place," the first voice declared, and
his statement was seconded by another and as positive a voice.

There was the sound of the new-comers emerging into the aisle, and
immediately the first speaker exclaimed in a tone full of astonishment
and disappointment:

"O, aye; I see!" the master assented with an irritating laugh.

"Har-hat!" Hotep whispered.

Another of the party broke in impatiently: "Make an end to this chase.
Saw you any sacrilege, or was it a phantom of your stupid dreams?"

"Asar-Mut," Mentu said under his breath.

The first voice and its second protested in chorus.

"As the gods hear me, I saw it!" the first went on.  "It was a statue
most sacrilegiously wrought and the man stood before it.  It was
cunningly hidden between two walls, and there is no spot on the desert
that looks so much like the place as this.  And yet, no wall--no
statue--no sign of--"

"How did you find it yesterday?" the fan-bearer asked.

"We followed the hag, and she, the girl.  The pair of them were in
sight of each other, as they ran."

"How did they find it?"

"Magic!  Magic!"

"There were three of you and one man overthrew you all?" the high
priest commented suspiciously.

"Holy Father!" the servant protested wildly, "he was a giant--a monster
for bigness.  Besides, there were but two of us, after he had all but
throttled me."

Har-hat laughed again.  "Aye, and after he pitched Nak over the cliff,
there was but one.  But tell me this: was he noble or a churl?"

"He wore the circlet."

Mentu's long fingers bent as if he longed for a throat between them.

"The craven invented his giant to salve his valor," the priest said.

"It may be," the fan-bearer replied musingly, "but thy nephew, holy
Father, is conspicuously tall and well-muscled.  Likewise, he is a
sculptor.  Furthermore, the two slaves came home badly abused.  Unas
has some proof for his tale--"

"Kenkenes is the soul of fidelity," the high priest retorted warmly.
"He has had unnumbered opportunities to betray the gods and he has ever
been steadfast."

"Nay, I did not impugn him.  The similarity merely appealed to me.  Let
us get down into the valley and question that villain Atsu.  I would
know what became of the girl."

"Mine interests are solely with the ecclesiastical features of the
offense, my Lord," Asar-Mut replied.  "I would get back to Memphis."

"Bear us company a little longer, holy Father.  The taskmaster may tell
us somewhat of this blaspheming sculptor-giant."

When the last sound of the departing men died away, Mentu turned across
the hill toward the Nile-front of the cliff.

"Nay, I will go back to Memphis first," he said grimly.  "Mayhap
Kenkenes hath returned.  If Asar-Mut should question him, he would not
evade nor equivocate, so I shall send him away that he may not meet his
uncle.  I would not have him lie, but he shall not accomplish his own
undoing."

But days of seeking followed, growing frantic as time went on, and
there was no trace of the lost artist.  Even his pet ape did not
return.  Asar-Mut questioned Mentu closely concerning the fidelity of
Kenkenes to the faith and the ritual.

"I ask after his soul," he explained.  But he gained no evidence from
Mentu.

On the fourteenth day after the disappearance of the young sculptor,
Sepet, the boatman that had hired his bari to Kenkenes, found the boat
among the wharf piling.  It was overturned, its bottom ripped out, one
side crushed as if a river-horse had played with it.  In the small
compartment at the tiller were provisions for a light lunch; a wallet,
empty; a rope and a plummet of bronze used to moor a boat in midstream
while the sportsman fished; the light woolen mantle worn as often for
protection against the sun as against the cold, and other things to
prove that Kenkenes had met with disaster.

The fate of the young man seemed to be explained.  The great house of
Mentu was darkened; the servants went unkempt and the artist wore a
blue scarf knotted about his hips.  The high priest dismissed the
subject of the sacrilege from his mind, now that his nephew was dead.
The people of Memphis who knew Kenkenes mourned with Mentu; the
festivities were dull without him, and there were some, like Io and the
Lady Senci, who went into retirement and were not to be comforted.

But Har-hat presented jeweled housings to Apis for the prospering of
his search after Rachel, and set about assisting the god with all his
might.  He sent couriers, armed with a description and warrant for the
arrest of Kenkenes and the Israelite, into all the large cities of
Egypt.  He ransacked Pa-Ramesu and the brick-fields, Silsilis, Syene,
where there were quarries, and especially Thebes, which was large and
remote, a tempting place for fugitives.

When he heard the news of the young sculptor's death, he actually sent
a message of condolence to Mentu, much to the tearful and unspeakable
rage of the heart-broken murket.  Yet, with all the limitless resources
placed at the command of a bearer of the king's fan, Har-hat continued
to search for the young artist, until word came to him from Thebes
several days later.

His next move was to bring to the notice of the Pharaoh that the
taskmaster Atsu was pampering the Israelites of Masaarah and defeating
the ends of the government.  Furthermore, the overseer had treated with
contempt the personal commands of the fan-bearer.  So Atsu was removed
entirely from over the Hebrews, reduced to the rank of a common
soldier, and returned to the nome from which he came, in the coif and
tunic of a cavalryman.

Thus it was that Har-hat avenged himself for the loss of Rachel, put
all aid out of her reach, and kept up an unceasing pursuit of her.




CHAPTER XXIII

THE TOMB OF THE PHARAOH

It was far into the tenth night that Kenkenes arrived in Thebes.  On
the sixteenth day Rachel would begin to expect him, and he could not
hope to reach Memphis by that time.  She should not wait an hour longer
than necessary.  He would get the signet that night and return by the
swiftest boat obtainable in Thebes.  The dawn should find him on the
way to Memphis.

He entered the streets of the Libyan suburb of the holy city, and
passed through it to the scattering houses, set outside the
thickly-settled portion, and nearer to the necropolis.  At the portals
of the most pretentious of these houses he knocked and was admitted.

He was met presently in the chamber of guests by an old man,
gray-haired and bent.  This was the keeper of the tomb of Rameses the
Great.

"I am the son of Mentu," he said, "thy friend, and the friend of the
Incomparable Pharaoh.  Perchance thou dost remember me."

"I remember Mentu," the old man replied, after a space that might have
been spent in rumination, or in collecting his faculties to speak.

"He decorated the tomb of Rameses," the young man continued.

"Aye, I remember.  I watched him often at the work."

"Thou knowest how the great king loved him."

The old man bent his head in assent.

"He was given a signet by Rameses, and on the jewel was testimony of
royal favor which should outlive the Pharaoh and Mentu himself."

"Even so.  A precious talisman, and a rare one."

"It was lost."

"Nay!  Lost!  Alas, that is losing the favor of Osiris.  What a
calamity!"  The old man shook his head and his gray brows knitted.

"But the place in which it was lost is small, and I would search for it
again."

"That is wise.  The gods aid them who surrender not."

By this time the old man's face had become inquiring.

"There is need for the signet now--"

"The noble Mentu, in trouble?" the old man queried.

"The son of the noble Mentu is in trouble--the purity of an innocent
one at stake, and the foiling of a villain to accomplish," Kenkenes
answered earnestly.

"A sore need.  Is it--  Wouldst thou have me aid thee?"

"Thou hast said.  I come to thee to crave thy permission to search
again for the signet."

"Nay, but I give it freely.  Yet I do not understand."

"The signet was lost in the tomb of the Incomparable Pharaoh.  May I
not visit the crypt?"

The old man thought a moment.  "Aye, thou canst search.  If thou wilt
come for me to-morrow--"

"Nay, I would go this very night."

The keeper's face sobered and he shook his head.

"Deny me not, I pray thee," Kenkenes entreated earnestly.  "Thou, who
hast lived so many years, hast at some time weighed the value of a
single moment.  In the waste or use of the scant space between two
breaths have lives been lost, souls smirched, the unlimited history of
the future turned.  And never was a greater stake upon the saving of
time than in this strait--which is the peril of spotless womanhood."

The old man rubbed his head.  "Aye, I know, I know.  Thy haste is
justifiable, but--"

"I can go alone.  There is no need that thou shouldst waste an hour of
thy needed sleep for me.  I pledge thee I shall conduct myself without
thee as I should beneath thine eye.  Most reverently will I enter, most
reverently search, most reverently depart, and none need ever know I
went alone."

The ancient keeper weakened at the earnestness of the young man.

"And thou wilt permit no eye to see thee enter or come forth from the
valley?"

"Most cautious will I be--most secret and discreet."

"Canst thou open the gates?"

"I have not forgotten from the daily practice that was mine for many
weeks."

"Then go, and let no man know of this.  Amen give thee success."

Kenkenes thanked him gratefully and went at once.

The moon was in its third quarter, but it was near midnight and the
valley of the Nile between the distant highlands to the east and west
was in soft light.  On the eastern side of the river there was only a
feeble glimmer from a window where some chanting leech stood by a
bedside, or where a feast was still on.  But under the luster of the
waning moon Thebes lost its outlines and became a city of marbles and
shadows and undefined limits.

On the western side the vision was interrupted by a lofty,
sharp-toothed range, tipped with a few scattered stars of the first
magnitude.  In the plain at its base were the palaces of Amenophis III,
of Rameses II, and their temples, the temples of the Tothmes, and far
to the south the majestic colossi of Amenophis III towered up through
the silver light, the faces, in their own shadow, turned in eternal
contemplation of the sunrise.  Grouped about the great edifices were
the booths of funeral stuffs and the stalls of caterers to the populace
of the Libyan suburb of Thebes.  But these were hidden in the dark
shadows which the great structures threw.  The moon blotted out the
profane things of the holy city and discovered only its splendors to
the sky.

At the northwest limits of the suburb, the hills approached the Nile,
leaving only a narrow strip a few hundred yards wide between their
fronts and the water.  Here the steep ramparts were divided by a
tortuous cleft, which wound back with many cross-fissures deep into the
desert.  The ravine was simply a chasm, with perpendicular sides of
naked rock.

At its upper end, it was blocked by a wall of unscalable heights.
Nowhere in its length was it wider than a hundred yards, and across the
mouth a gateway wide enough for three chariots abreast had been built
of red granite.

This was the valley of the Tombs of the Kings.

In chambers hewn in solid rock, the monarchs of the eighteenth and
nineteenth dynasties were entombed.  All along the walls of the gorge,
nature had secured the sacred resting-place of the sovereigns against
trespass from the end and sides of the chasm, and Egypt had dutifully
strengthened the one weak point in the fortification--the entrance--by
the gateway of granite.  But there was no vigilance of guards.
Whosoever knew how to open the gates might enter the valley.  The
secret of the bolts was known only among the members of the royal
family and the court.  To Kenkenes, whose craft as a sculptor had
taught him the intricate devices used in closing tombs, the opening of
these gates was simple.  Even the mighty portals of Khufu and Menka-ra
would yield responsive to his intelligent touch.

He let himself into the valley and, closing the valves behind him, went
up the tortuous gorge, darkened by the shadows of its walls.  He
continued past the mouth of the valley's southern arm wherein were
entombed the kings of the eighteenth dynasty.  Here, in this open
space, he could see the circling bats, which before he could only hear
above his head.  Somewhere among the rocks up the moonlit hollow an owl
hooted.  But the tombs he sought were in the upper end of the main
ravine.

Here lay Rameses I, the founder of that illustrious dynasty--the
nineteenth.  Near-by was his son, Seti I, and next to him the splendid
tyrant, Rameses the Great, the Incomparable Pharaoh.

By the time Kenkenes had reached the spot, all lightness in his heart
had gone out like the extinguishing of a candle, and the weight of
suspense, the fear of failure, fell on him as suddenly.  He approached
the elaborate facade of the solemn portals, climbed the pairs of steps,
and paused at each of the many landings with a prayer for the success
of his mission, not for the repose of the royal soul, after the custom
of other visitors.  With trembling hands he pushed the doors, rough
with inscriptions, and the great stone valves swung ponderously inward,
the bronze pins making no sound as they turned in the sockets.
Kenkenes entered and closed the portals behind him.

Instantly all sound of the outside world was cut off--the sound of the
wind, the chafing of the sands on the hills above, the movement and
cries of night-birds, beasts and insects.  Absolute stillness and
original night surrounded him.

With all speed he lighted his lamp, but the flaring name illuminated
only a little space in the brooding, hovering blackness about him.

The atmosphere was stagnant and heavily burdened with old aromatic
scent, and the silence seemed to have accumulated in the years.  Even
the soft whetting of his sandal, as he walked, made echoes that shouted
at him.  The little blaze fizzed and sputtered noisily and each throb
of his heart sounded like a knock on the portal.

He did not pause.  The darkness might cloud and tinge and swallow up
his light as turbid water absorbs the clear; the silence might resent
the violation.  This was the habitation of a royal soul in perpetual
vigil over its corpse and vested with all the powers and austere
propensities of a thing supernatural.  But not once did the impulse
come to him to fly.  Rachel's face attended him like a lamp.

He moved forward, his path only discovered to him step by step as the
light advanced, the sumptuous frescoes done by the hand of his father
emerging, one detail at a time.  The solemn figures fixed accusing eyes
upon him from every frieze; the passive countenance of the monarch
himself confronted him from every wall.  One wondrous chamber after
another he traversed, for the tomb penetrated the very core of the
mountain.

The innermost crypt contained the altars.  This was the sanctuary, the
holy of holies, never entered except by a hierarch.

When Kenkenes reached the final threshold he paused.  Thus far, his
presence had been merely a midnight intrusion.  If he entered the
sanctuary his coming would be violation.  He thought of the distress of
Rachel and dared.

The first alabaster altar glistened suddenly out of the night like a
bank of snow.  Kenkenes' sandal grated on the sandy dust that lay thick
on the floor.  Not even the keeper had entered this crypt to remove the
accumulated dust of six years.

Under this floor of solid granite was the pit containing the sarcophagi
of the dead monarch, of his favorite son and destined heir, Shaemus,
and his well-beloved queen, Neferari Thermuthis.  The opening into the
pit had been sealed when Rameses had descended to emerge no more.  The
chamber over it was brilliant with frescoing and covered with
inscriptions.  There were three magnificent altars of alabaster and
over each was an oval containing the name of one of the three sleepers
in the pit below.

In this chapel the signet had been lost.

Kenkenes set his light on the floor and began his search.  The first
time he searched the floor, he laid the lack of success to his excited
work.  The second time, the perspiration began to trickle down his
temples.  Thereafter he sought, lengthwise and crosswise, calling on
the gods for aid, but there was no glint of the jewel.

At last, sick with despair, he sat down to collect himself.  Suddenly
across the heavy silence there smote a sound.  In a place closer to the
beating heart of the world, the movement might have escaped him.  Now,
though it was but the rustle of sweeping robes, it seemed to sough like
the wind among the clashing blades of palm-leaves.

For a moment Kenkenes sat, transfixed, and in that moment the sound
came nearer.  He remembered the injunction of the old keeper.  Human or
supernatural, the new-comer must not find him there.  He leaped behind
the altar of Shaemus, extinguishing the light as he did so.  He flung
the corner of his kamis over the reeking wick that the odor might not
escape, but his fear in that direction was materially lessened when he
saw that the stranger bore a fuming torch.

On one end of the short pole of the torch was a knot of flaming pitch,
on the other was a bronze ring fitted with sprawling claws.  The
stranger set the light on the floor and the device kept the torch
upright.  He crossed the room and stood at the altar of Neferari
Thermuthis.

By the deeply fringed and voluminous draperies, and by the venerable
beard, rippling and streaked with gray, the young sculptor took the
stranger to be an Israelite.  As Kenkenes looked upon him, he was
minded of his father, the magnificent Mentu.  There was the bearing of
the courtier, with the same wondrous stature, the same massive frame.
But the delicate features of the Egyptian, the long, slim fingers, the
narrow foot, were absent.  In this man's countenance there was majesty
instead of grace; in his figure, might, instead of elegance.  The
expression had need of only a little emphasis in either direction to
become benign or terrible.  Kenkenes caught a single glance of the eyes
under the gray shelter of the heavy brows.  Once, the young man had
seen hanging from Meneptah's neck the rarest jewel in the royal
treasure.  The wise men had called it an opal.  It shot lights as
beautiful and awful as the intensest flame.  And something in the eyes
of this mighty man brought back to Kenkenes the memory of the fires of
that wondrous gem.

The stranger stood in profound meditation, his splendid head gradually
sinking until it rested on his breast.  The arms hung by the sides.
The attitude suggested a sorrow healed by the long years until it was
no more a pain, but a memory so subduing that it depressed.  At last
the great man sank to his knees, with a movement quite in keeping with
his grandeur and his mood, and bowed his head on his arms.

Pressed down with awe, Kenkenes followed his example, and although he
seemed to kneel on some rough chisel mark in the floor, he did not
shift his position.  The discomfort seemed appropriate as penitence on
that holy occasion.

After a long time the stranger arose, took up the torch and quitted the
chamber.  He went away more slowly than he had come, with reluctant
step and averted face.

When night and profound silence were restored in the crypt, Kenkenes
regained his feet and, examining the irritated knee, found the
offending object clinging to the impression it had made in the flesh.
The shape of the trifle sent a wild hope through his brain.  Groping
through the dark, he found his lamp and lighted it with trembling hands.

He held the lapis-lazuli signet!

He did not move.  He only grasped the scarab tightly and panted.  The
sudden change from intense suspense to intense relief had deprived him
of the power of expression.  Only his physical make-up manifested its
rebellion against the shock.

As the tumult in his heart subsided, his mind began to confront him
with happy fancies.  Rachel was already free.  In that moment of
exuberance he thrust aside, as monstrous, the bar of different faith.
He believed he could overcome it by the very compelling power of his
love and the righteousness of his cause.  He spent no time picturing
the method of his triumph over it.  Beyond that obstacle were tender
pictures of home-making, love and life, which so filled him with
emotion that, in a sudden ebullition of boyish gratitude, he pressed
the all-potent signet to his lips.

Then, his cheeks reddening with a little shame at his impulsiveness, he
examined the scarab.  The cord by which it had been suspended passed
through a small gold ring between the claws of the beetle.  This had
worn very thin and some slight wrench had broken it.

"Ah!" he exclaimed aloud.  "It is even as I had thought.  But let me
not seem to boast when I tell my father of it.  It will be victory
enough for me to display the jewel, and abashment enough for him to
know he was wrong."

He ceased to speak, but the echoes talked on after him.  He shivered,
caught up his light and raced through the sumptuous tomb into the world
again.

It was near dawn and the skies were pallid.  He was hungry and weary
but most impatient to be gone.  He would repair to Thebes and break his
fast.  Thereafter he would procure the swiftest boat on the Nile and
take his rest while speeding toward Memphis.

The inn of the necropolis was like an immense dwelling, except that the
courts were stable-yards.  The doors, opening off the porch, were
always open and a light burned by night within the chamber.  So long
and so murkily had it burnt, that the chamber Kenkenes entered was
smoky and redolent of it.  Aside from a high, bench-like table, running
half the length of the rear wall, there was nothing else in the room.
Kenkenes rapped on the table.  In a little time an Egyptian emerged
from under the counter, on the other side.  Understanding at last that
the guest wished to be fed, he staggered sleepily through a door and,
presently reappearing, signed Kenkenes to enter.

The room into which the young sculptor was conducted was too large to
be lighted by the two lamps, hung from hooks, one at each end of the
chamber.  Down either side, hidden in the shadows, were long benches,
and from the huddled heap that occupied the full length of each, it was
to be surmised that men were sleeping on them.  Above them the slatted
blinds had been withdrawn from the small windows and the morning breeze
was blowing strongly through the chamber.  At the upper end was another
table, similar to the one in the outer room, except for a napkin in the
middle with a bottle of water set upon it.  An Egyptian woman stood
beside this table and gave the young man a wooden stool.

As Kenkenes walked toward the seat a stronger blast of wind puffed out
the light above his head.  The woman climbed up to take the lamp down
and set it on the table while she relighted it.  The skirt of her dress
caught on the top of the stool she had mounted and pulled it over on
the wooden floor with a sharp sound.

One of the sleepers stirred at the noise and turned over.  Presently he
sat up.

Kenkenes righted the stool and sat down on it, the light shining in his
face.  He saw the guest in the shadow shake off the light covering and
walk swiftly through the door into the outer chamber.

Meanwhile the silent woman served her guest with cold baked water-fowl,
endives, cucumbers, wheat bread and grapes, and a weak white wine.
Kenkenes ate deliberately, and consumed all that was set before him.
When he had made an end, he paid his reckoning to the woman and
returned into the outer chamber.

At the doors, he was confronted by four members of the city
constabulary and a Nubian in a striped tunic.

"Seize him!" the Nubian cried.  Instantly the four men flung themselves
upon Kenkenes and pinioned his arms.

"Nay, by the gods," he exclaimed angrily.  "What mean you?"

"Parley not with him," the Nubian said in excitement.  "Get him in
bonds stronger than the grip of hands.  He is muscled like a bull."

The young sculptor looked at the Nubian.  He had seen him before--had
had unpleasant dealings with him.  And then he remembered, so suddenly
and so fiercely that his captors felt the sinews creep in his arms.

"Set spare thee and thine infamous master to me!" he exclaimed
violently.

The Nubian retreated a little, for Kenkenes had strained toward him.

"Get him into the four walls of a cell," the Nubian urged the guards.
"I may not lose him again, as I value my head."

The guards started out of the doors and Kenkenes went with them,
unresisting, but not passively.  All the thoughts were his that can
come to a man, on whose freedom depend another's life and happiness.
Added to these was an all-consuming hate of her enemy and his, new-fed
by this latest offense from Har-hat.  With difficulty he kept the
tumult of his emotions from manifesting themselves to his captors.
They feared that his calm was ominous, and held him tightly.

The necropolis was not astir and the streets were wind-haunted.  The
tread of the six men set dogs to barking, and only now and then was a
face shown at the doorways.  For this Kenkenes thanked his gods, for he
was proud, and the eye of the humblest slave upon him in his
humiliating plight would have hurt him more keenly than blows.

The prison was a square building of rough stone, flat-roofed, three
stories in height.  The red walls were broken at regular intervals by
crevices, barred with bronze.  There was but one entrance.

Herein were confined all the malefactors of the great city of the gods,
and since the population of Thebes might have comprised something over
half a million inhabitants, the dwellers of that grim and impregnable
prison were not few in number.

Kenkenes was led through the doors, down a low-roofed, narrow,
stone-walled corridor to the room of the governor of police.

This was a hall, with a lofty ceiling, highly colored and supported by
loteform pillars of brilliant stone.  Toth, the ibis-headed, and the
Goddess Ma, crowned with plumes, her wings forward drooping, were
painted on the walls.  A long table, massive, plain and solid like a
sarcophagus, stood in the center of the room.  A confused litter of
curled sheets of papyrus, and long strips of unrolled linen scrolls
were distributed carelessly over the polished surface.  At one side
were eight plates of stone--the tables of law, codified and blessed by
Toth.

The governor of police was absent, but his vice, who was jailer and
scribe in one, sat in a chair behind the great table.

When the party entered, he sat up, undid a new scroll, wetted the reed
pen in the pigment, and was ready.

"Name?" he began, preparing to write.

"That, thou knowest," Kenkenes retorted.  The Nubian bowed respectfully
and approaching, whispered to the scribe.  The official ran over some
of the scrolls and having found the one he sought, proceeded to make
his entries from the information contained therein.

When the man had finished Kenkenes nodded toward the eight volumes of
the law.

"If thou art as acquainted with the laws of Egypt as thine office
requires, thou knowest that no free-born Egyptian may be kept ignorant
of the charge that accomplished his arrest.  Wherefore am I taken?"

"For sacrilege and slave-stealing," the scribe replied calmly.

"At the complaint of Har-hat, bearer of the king's fan," Kenkenes added.

"Until such time as stronger proof of thy misdeeds may be brought
against thee," the scribe continued.

"Even so.  In plainer words, I shall be held till I confess what he
would have me tell, or until I decay in this tomb.  Let me give thee my
word, I shall do neither.  Unhand me.  I shall not attempt to escape."

At a sign from the scribe the four men released him and took up a
position at the doors.  Kenkenes opened his wallet and displayed the
signet.  The scribe took it and read the inscription.  There was no
doubting the young man's right to the jewel for here was the name of
Mentu, even as the chief adviser had given it in identifying the
prisoner.  The official frowned and stroked his chin.

"This petitions the Pharaoh," he said at last.  "I can not pass upon
it."

"Send me to my cell, then, and do thou follow," Kenkenes said.  "I have
somewhat to tell thee."

"Take him to his cell," the official said to the men as he returned the
signet to the prisoner.  "I shall attend him."

Kenkenes was led into a corridor, wide enough for three walking side by
side.  There was no light therein, but the foremost of the four stooped
before what seemed a section of solid wall and after a little fumbling,
a massive door swung inward.

The chamber into which it led was wide enough for a pallet of straw
laid lengthwise, with passage room between it and the opposite wall.
The foot of the bed was within two feet of the door.  Between the
stones, in the opposite end near the ceiling, was a crevice, little
wider than two palms.  This noted, the interior of the cell has been
described.

The jailer entered after him, and let the door fall shut.

"I have but to crave a messenger of thee--a swift and a sure one--one
who can hold his peace and hath pride in his calling.  I can offer all
he demands.  And this, further.  Keep his going a secret, for I am
beset and I would not have my rescue by the Pharaoh thwarted."

"I can send thee a messenger," the jailer answered.

"Ere midday," Kenkenes added.

"I hear," the passive official assented.

The solid section of wall swung shut behind him and the great bolts
shot into place.




CHAPTER XXIV

THE PETITION

Some time later the bar rattled down again, and the jailer stood
without, a scribe at his side.  At a sign from the jailer, the latter
made as though to enter, but Kenkenes stopped him.

"I have need of your materials only," he said, "but the fee shall be
yours nevertheless."  The man set his case on the floor and Kenkenes
put a ring of silver in the outstretched palm.

"Fail me not in a faithful messenger," the prisoner repeated to the
jailer.  The official nodded, and the door was closed again.

Kenkenes sat on the floor beside the case, laid the cover back and
taking out materials, wrote thus:

"To my friend, the noble Hotep, greeting:

"This from Kenkenes, whom ill-fortune can not wholly possess, while he
may call thee his friend.

"I speak to thee out of the prison at Tape, where I am held for
stealing a bondmaiden and for executing a statue against the canons of
the sculptor's ritual.  The accumulated penalty for these offenses is
great--my plight is most serious.

"The pitying gods have left me one chance for escape.  If I fail I
shall molder here, for my counsel is mine and the demons of Amenti
shall not rend it from me.

"The tale is short and miserable.  But for the necessity I would not
repeat it, for it publishes the humiliation of sweet innocence.

"Suffice it to say that the offended is she of whom we talked one day
on the hill back of Masaarah; the offender is Har-hat who hath buried
me here in Tape.

"One morning he saw her at the quarries and, taken with her beauty,
asked her at the hands of the Pharaoh, for the hatefullest bondage pure
maidenhood ever knew.

"She fled from the minions he sent to take her, and came to me in that
spot on the hillside where thou and I did talk.

"There the minions found us, and by the evidence they looked upon, I am
further charged with sacrilege.

"Thou dost remember the all-powerful signet, which my father had from
the Incomparable Pharaoh.  He lost it in the tomb of the king, three
years ago, abandoning the search for it before I was assured that it
was not to be found.

"So strong was my faith that the signet was in the tomb, that when this
disaster overtook her, I came to Tape at once to look again for the
treasure.  I found it.

"But by some unknowable mischance mine enemy discovered my whereabouts
and a third minion, who escaped my wrath before the statue that
morning, appeared in the city and caused me to be delivered up to the
authorities on the charges already named.

"She is hidden, and I have provided for her protection, as well as I
may, against the wishes of the strongest man in the land.  For her
immediate welfare I am not greatly troubled.  But, alas!  I would be
with her--thou knowest, O my Hotep, the hunger and heartache of such
separation.

"If the Pharaoh honor not the signet herein inclosed, tell my father of
my plight, let me know the decision of the king, and then I shall trust
to the Hathors for liberty.

"Of this contingency, I would not speak at length.  It may be tempting
the caprice of the Seven Sisters to presuppose such misfortune.

"Let not my father intervene for me.  He shall not endanger himself
further than I have already asked of him.

"But remember thou this injunction, most surely.  That it shall be last
and therefore freshest in thy memory, I put this at the end of the
letter.

"Put the petition herein inclosed into the Pharaoh's hands!  For my
life's sake let it not come into the possession of any other.

"I shall write no more.  My scant eloquence must be saved for the king.

"Gods! but it is good to have faith in a friend.  I salute thee.

"KENKENES."


The letter to Hotep complete, Kenkenes took up another roll and wrote
thus to Meneptah:


"To Meneptah, Beloved of Ptah, Ambassador of Amen, Vicar of Ra, Lord
over Upper and Lower Egypt, greeting:"


At this point he paused.  His power of expression, aghast at the
magnitude of the stake laid on its successful use, became
panic-stricken and fled from him.  He feared that words could not be
chosen which would justify his sacrilege or prove his claims to Rachel
greater than Har-hat's.  Meneptah would be hedged about with prejudice
against his first cause, and deterred by the prior right of Har-hat, in
the second.  The last man that talked with the king molded him.
Flattery alone might prevail against coercion.  It was the one hope.

Kenkenes seized his pen and wrote:


"This from thy subject, Kenkenes, the son of Mentu, thy murket.

"I give thee a true story, O Defender of Women.

"There is a maiden whose kinsmen died of hard labor in the service of
Egypt.  Not one was left to care for her.  Of all her house, she alone
remains.  They died in ignominy.  Shall the last remnant of the unhappy
family be stamped out in dishonor?

"If one came before thee seeking to insult innocence, and another
begging leave to protect it, thou wouldst choose for him who would keep
pure the undefiled.  Have I not said, O my King?

"Before thee, even now is such a choice.

"Already thou hast given over the mastership of Rachel, daughter of
Maai the Israelite, to thy fan-bearer, Har-hat.  By the lips of his own
servants, I am informed that he would have put her in his harem.

"She fled from him and I hid her away, for I could not bear to deliver
her up to the despoiler.

"I love her--she loveth me.  Wilt thou not give her to me to wife?

"Thine illustrious sire bespeaketh thy favor, out of Amenti.  Behold
his signet and its injunction.

"Furthermore, I confess to sacrilege against Athor, in carving a statue
which ignored the sculptor's ritual.  For this, and for hiding the
Israelite, am I imprisoned in the city stronghold of Tape.

"I would be free to return to my love and comfort her, but if it shall
overtax thy generosity to release me, I pray thee announce my sentence
and let me begin to count the hours till I shall come forth again.

"The Israelite hath a nurse, a feeble and sick old woman, Deborah by
name, whom the minions of Har-hat abused.  She can be of no further use
in servitude, and I would have thee set her free to bear company to her
love, the white-souled Rachel.

"But if these last prayers imperil the first by strain upon thy
indulgence, O Beloved of Ptah, do thou set them aside, and grant only
the safety of the oppressed maiden.

"These to thy hand, by the hand of the scribe, Hotep.

"KENKENES."


The letter complete, he summoned the messenger.

"How swift art thou?" he asked.

"So swift that my service is desired beyond mine opportunities to
accept," was the answer.

"How is it that thou art ready to serve me?  Thou seest my plight."

"The jailer spoke of thee as petitioning the Pharaoh.  The king is in
the north where I have not been in all the reign of Meneptah.  Thou
offerest me a pleasure and the fee shall be in proportion to the length
of the journey."

"Nay, but thou art a genius.  Thou dost move me to imitate the Hathors,
since they add fortune to the already fortunate.  Mark me.  I will give
thee thy fee now.  If thou dost return me a letter showing that thou
hast carried the message with all faith and speed, I shall give thee
another fee on thy home-coming.  What thinkest thou?"

The man smiled and nodded.  "Naught but the darts of Amenti shall delay
me."

Kenkenes gave him the message, and a handful of rings.  The man
expressed his thanks, after which he went forth, and the door was
barred.

Kenkenes stood for a while, motionless before the tightly fitted portal
of stone.  Then through the high crevice that was his window the sounds
of life outside smote upon his ear.  The noise of the city seemed to
become all revel.  Some one under the walls laughed--the hearty,
raucous laugh of the care-free boor.

He turned about and flung himself face down in the straw of his pallet.

He had begun to wait.




CHAPTER XXV

THE LOVE OF RAMESES

By the twentieth of May, the court of Meneptah was ready to proceed to
Tanis.

The next week the Pharaoh would depart.  To-night he received noble
Memphis for a final revel.

His palace was aglow, from its tremendous portals to the airy hypostyle
upon its root and from far-reaching wing to wing, with countless
colored lights.  From every architrave and cornice depended garlands
and draperies, and tinted banners waved unseen in the dark.  The great
loteform pillars supporting the porch were festooned with lotus
flowers, and the approaches were strewn with palm-leaves.

The guests came in chariots with but a single attendant or in litters
accompanied by a gorgeous retinue and much authority.  Charioteers
swore full-mouthed oaths and smote slaves; horses reared and plunged
and bearers hurried back through the dark with empty chairs.  Meanwhile
the pacing sentries made frank criticism and gazed at each alighting
new-comer with eyes of connoisseurs.

When the portals opened, a broad shaft of light shot into the night, a
multitude of attendants was seen bowing; gusts of reedy music and
babble and the smell of wilting flowers and Puntish incense swept into
the outer air.

Within, the great feast began and proceeded to completeness.  The
tables were removed and the stage of the revel was far advanced.  The
levels of scented vapor from the aromatic torches undulated midway
between the ceiling and the floor and belted the frescoes upon the
paneled walls.  Far up the vaulted hall, the Pharaoh and his queen, in
royal isolation, were growing weary.

The lions chained to their lofty dais slept.  The guardian nobles that
stood about the royal pair leaned heavily upon their arms.

Out in the sanded strip across the tessellated floor, tumblers were
glistening with perspiration from their vaguely noticed efforts.  Apart
from the guests the painted musicians squatted close together and made
the air vibrant with the softly monotonous strumming of their
instruments.

The company, which was large, had fallen into easy attitudes; an
exciting game of drafts, or a story-teller, or a beauty, attracting
groups here and there over the hall.

Before one table, whereon the scattered pawns of a game yet lay,
Rameses lounged in a deep chair, a semi-recumbent figure in marble and
obsidian.  Beside him, where she had seated herself at his command, was
Masanath.

There was Seti at Ta-user's side, but Io was not at the feast.  She
mourned for Kenkenes.  Ta-meri was there, the bride of a week to
Nechutes, who hovered about her without eye or ear for any other of the
company.  Siptah, Menes, Har-hat, all of the group save Hotep and
Kenkenes, were present and near enough to be of the crown prince's
party, yet scattered sufficiently to talk among themselves.

The game of drafts, prolonged from one to many, had ended disastrously
for the prince in spite of his most gallant efforts to win.  Masanath,
against whom he had played, finally thrust the pawns away and refused
to play further with him.

"Thou dost make sport for the Hathors, O Prince," she said.  "Have
respect for thyself and indulge their caprice no more."

"Hast thou not heard that we may compel the gods?" he asked.  "Perhaps
I do but indulge them, of a truth.  But let me set mine own will
against fate and there shall be no more losing for me."

"It is a precarious game.  Perchance there is as strong a will as
thine, compelling the Hathors contrarily to thine own desires.  What,
then, O Rameses?"

"By the gambling god, Toth, I shall try it!" he exclaimed.  "The
opportunity is before me even now."

He took her hand.

"I catch thy meaning.  Beloved of Isis!  Thou didst challenge me long
ago, and long ago I took it up.  Thus far have we fenced behind
shields.  Down with the bull-hide, now, and bare the heart!"

"Thou dost forget thyself," she retorted, wrenching her hand from him.
"The eyes of thy guests are upon thee."

He laughed.  "The prince's doings become the fashion.  Let me be seen
and there shall be no woman's hand unpossessed in this chamber."

"Thou shalt set no fashion by me.  Neither shalt thou rend the Hathors
between thy wishes and mine.  Furthermore, if thou dost forget thy
princely dignity, thy power will not prevent me if I would remind thee
of thy lapse."

"War!" he exclaimed.  "Now, by the battling hosts of Set, never have I
met a foe so worthy the overcoming.  Listen!  Dost thou know that I
have sorrows?  Dost thou remember that I may have sleepless nights and
unhappy days--discontents, heartaches and oppressions?  I am not less
human because I am royal, but because I am royal I am more unhappy.
Sorry indeed is a prince's lot!  Wherefore?  Because he is sated with
submission; because he hath drunk satiety to its very dregs; because he
hath been denied the healing hunger of appetite, ambition, conquest.
How hath my miserable heart longed to aspire--to conquer!  I have
starved for something beyond my reach.  But lo! in thee I have found
what I sought.  Thou hast defied me, rebuffed me, thwarted me till the
surfeited soul in me hath grown fat upon resistance.  Now shall the
longing to conquer that racketh me be fed!  Go on in thy rebellion,
Masanath!  Gods! but thou art a foe worthy the subduing!  I would not
have thee give up to me now.  I would earn thee by defeats, losses and
many scars.  And thy kiss of submission, in some far day, will give me
more joy than the instant capitulation of many empires."

"Thou hast provided thyself with lifelong warfare, and triumph to thine
enemy at the end," she answered serenely.

Her reply seemed to awaken a train of thought in the prince.  He did
not respond immediately.  He leaned his elbows on his knees, and
clasping his hands before him, thought a while.  In the silence the
talk of the others was audible.

"The festivities of Memphis have lost two, since they lost one," Menes
mused.

"Give us thy meaning," Nechutes asked.

"Hast seen Hotep in Memphian revels since Kenkenes died?" the captain
asked, by way of answer.

Nechutes shook his head.  "The gods have dealt heavily with Mentu," he
said after a little silence.  "Not even the body of his son returned to
him for burial!"

Har-hat, who had been perched on the arm of Ta-meri's chair, broke in.

"Mayhap the young man is not dead," he surmised.

"All the Memphian nome hath been searched, my Lord," Menes protested.

"Aye, but these flighty geniuses are not to be measured by doings of
other men.  Perhaps he hath gone to teach the singing girls at Abydos
or Tape."

"Ah, my Lord!" protested Ta-meri, horrified.

"Nay, now," Har-hat responded, bending over her.  "I but give his
friends hope.  To prove my sincerity I will wager my biggest diamond
against thy three brightest smiles that thou wilt hear of Kenkenes
again, alive and dreamy as ever, led into this strange absence by some
moonshine caprice."

"I would give more than my biggest diamond to believe thee," Nechutes
muttered, turning away.

"Wilt thou wager?" the fan-bearer demanded with animation.

"Nay!" was the cup-bearer's blunt reply.  Har-hat shrugged his
shoulders and lapsed into silence.  Rameses leaned toward Masanath
again.  The expression on his face during the talk and the tone he
chose now showed that he had not heard, nor was even conscious of the
silence that had fallen.  His words were low-spoken, but each of his
companions heard.

"In warfare it is common for a foe to hedge his adversary about so that
fight he must.  Thou art a woman and cunning, and lest thou join
thyself to another and elude me ere the battle is on, I would better
treat thee to a strategy.  I shall wed thee first and woo thee
afterward."

Ta-user leaned across the table, and sweeping the pawns away with her
arms, said, with a smile:

"Quarreling over a game of drafts!  Which is in distress--in need of
allies?"

"Come thou and be my mercenary, Ta-user," Masanath said with impulsive
gratitude.  "Rameses hath lost and demands restitution beyond reason."

Har-hat had risen the instant the words had passed the prince's lips
and left the group.  He did not wish to let his face be seen.  A dash
of dark color grew in the heir's pallid cheeks, partly because he knew
he had been heard, partly because he was angry at the princess'
interruption.

"Strange," mused Menes once again, "that the phrases of war mark the
babble of even the maidens these days.  And half the revels end in
quarrels.  Though I be young in war experience, I would say the omens
point to conflict in which Egypt shall be embroiled."

"Aye, Menes; and perchance thou wilt be measuring swords with a Hebrew
ere the summer is old," Siptah said, speaking for the first time.

"Matching thy good saber-metal with a trowel or a hay-fork, Menes,"
Rameses sneered.

"Hold, thou doughty pride of the battling gods!" Menes cried laughingly
to Rameses.  "For once, I scout thy prophecies.  The Hebrews are
stirred up beyond any settling, save thou dost put them all to the
sword, and that is a task that I would go to Tuat to escape.  Thou wilt
not work the Israelite to death.  I can tell thee that!"

"Hast caught the infectious terror of the infant-scaring, bugbear
Hebrew?" Rameses asked.

Menes leaned against the nearest knee and smiled lazily.

"If the gray-beard sorcerer did meet me in open field, protected only
with bull-hide and armed with a spear, I would fight him till he said
'enough'; but who wants to go against an incantation that would mow
down an army at the muttering?  Not I; yea, Rameses, I am a craven in
battle with a sorcerer."

"If he means to blast us, wherefore hath he not spoken the cabalistic
word ere this?" the prince demanded.

"He had no personal provocation until late," the captain replied.

"Hath the taskmaster set him to making brick?" the prince laughed.

"Nay; but the priesthood plotted against his head, and he is angry."

Rameses raised himself and looked fixedly at the soldier.  Again Menes
laughed.

"Spare me, my Prince!  It is no longer a state secret.  It is out and
over all Egypt.  Why it came not to thine ears I know not.  Perchance
every one is afraid to gossip to thee save mine unabashed self."

"Waster of the air!" Rameses exclaimed.  "What meanest thou?"

"It seems that the older priests have a hieratic grudge against the
Israelite, and when he returned into Egypt they set themselves, with
much bustle, importance and method to silence him.  Hither and thither
they sent for advice, permission and aid, till all the wheels of the
hierarchy were in motion, and the air quivered with portent and intent.
Vain ado!  Superfluous preparation!  The very letter which gave them
explicit and formal permission to begin to get ready to commence to put
away the Hebrew, fell--by the mischievous Hathors!--fell into the hands
of the victim himself!"

Rameses fell back into his chair, his lips twitching once or twice, a
manifestation of his genuine amusement.

"As it follows, the Israelite is angry.  So the witch-pot hath been put
on, and in council with a toad and a cat and an owl, he thinketh up
some especial sending to curse us with," the captain concluded.

"A proper ending," Rameses declared after a little.  "Let men kill each
other openly, if they will, but the methods of the ambushed assassin
should recoil upon himself."

At this point it was seen that the Pharaoh and his queen were preparing
to leave the hall.  All the company arose, and after the royal pair had
passed out the guests began to depart.  Rameses left his party and,
joining Har-hat, led the fan-bearer away from the company.

"It seems that thou, with others, heardest my words with Masanath," the
prince began at once.  "It is well, for it saves me further speech now.
I want thy daughter as my queen."

Har-hat seemed to ponder a little before he answered.  "Masanath does
not love thee," he said at last.

"Nay, but she shall."

"That granted, there are further reasons why ye should not wed," the
fan-bearer resumed after another pause.  "Masanath would come between
Egypt and Egypt's welfare.  Thou knowest what thy marriage with the
Princess Ta-user is expected to accomplish.  At this hour the nation is
in need of unity that she may safely do battle with her alien foes.  If
thou slightest Ta-user thou wilt add to the disaffection of Amon-meses
and his party.  Furthermore, thine august sire would not be pleased
with thee nor with Masanath, nor with me.  It is not my place to show
thee thy duty, Rameses, but of a surety it is my place to refuse to
join thee in thy neglecting of it."

Rameses contemplated the fan-bearer narrowly for a moment.  "Come, thou
hast a game," he said finally.  "Out with it!  Name thy stake."

"O, thou art most discourteous, my Prince," the fan-bearer
remonstrated, turning away.  But Rameses planted himself in his path.

"Stay!" he said grimly.  "Dost thou believe me so blind as to think
thee sincere?  Thou canst use thy smooth pretenses upon the Pharaoh,
but I understand thee, Har-hat.  Declare thyself and vex me no further
with thy subtleties."  Har-hat measured the prince's patience before he
answered.

"When thou canst use me courteously, Rameses," he said with dignity, "I
shall talk with thee again.  Meanwhile do not build on wedding with
Masanath.  I shall mate her with him who hath respect for her father."

For a moment Rameses stood in doubt.  Could it be that this soulless
man had scruples against giving him Masanath?  But Har-hat, allowed a
chance to leave the prince if he would, had not moved.  Rameses
understood the act.  The fan-bearer was awaiting a propitious
opportunity to name his price gracefully.  The momentary warmth of
respect died in the prince's heart.

"Out with it," he insisted more calmly.  "What is it?  Power, wealth or
a wife?  These three things I have to give thee.  Take thy choice."

"I would have thee use me respectfully, reverently," Har-hat retorted
warmly.  "I would have thee speak favorably of me; I would have thee do
me no injustice by deed or word, nor peril my standing with the king!
This I demand of thee--I will not buy it!"

"To be plain," Rameses continued placidly, "thou wouldst insure to
thyself the position of fan-bearer.  Say on."

"I am fan-bearer to the king," Har-hat continued with a show of
increasing heat, "and I would fill mine office.  If thou art to be his
adviser in my stead, do thou take up the plumes, and I will return to
Bubastis."

"Once again I shall interpret.  I am to keep silence in the council
chamber and resign to thee the molding of my plastic father.  It is
well, for I am not pleased with ruling before I wear the crown.  But
mark me!  Thou shalt not advise me when I rule over Egypt.  So take
heed to my father's health and see that his life is prolonged, for with
its end shall end thine advisership.  What more?"

"So thou observest these things I am satisfied."

"Gods! but thou art moderate.  Masanath is worth more than that.  Do I
take her?"

"She does not love thee."

The prince waved his hand and repeated his question.

"I shall speak with her," Har-hat responded, "and give thee her word."

For a moment the prince contemplated the fan-bearer, then he turned
without a word and strode out of the chamber.  In a corridor near his
own apartments he overtook the daughter of Har-hat.  Her woman was with
her.

The prince stepped before them.

The attendant crouched and fled somewhere out of sight.  Masanath drew
herself to the fullest of her few inches and waited for Rameses to
speak.

"Come, Masanath," he said, "thou canst reach the limit of thy power to
be ungracious and but fix me the firmer in my love for thee.  I am come
to tell thee that I have won thee from thy father."

"Thou hast not won me from myself," she replied.

"Nay, but I shall."

"Thou dost overestimate thyself," she retorted.  Catching up the fan
and chaplet that her woman had let fall she made as though to run past
him.  But he put himself in her way, and with shining eyes, caught her
in his arms.

"There, there! my sweet.  I shall do thee no hurt," he laughed,
quieting her struggles with an iron embrace.

"Thou art hurting me beyond any cure now," she panted wrathfully.

"It is thy fault.  Have I not said I am sated with submission?  If thou
wouldst unlock mine arms, kiss me and tell me thou wilt be my queen."

"Let me go," she exclaimed, choking with emotion.

"Better for thee to tell me 'yes'; thou wilt save thy father a lie."

She looked at him speechless.

"I have said.  To-morrow he will tell me that thou hast promised to wed
me--whether thou sayest it or not.  Spare him the falsehood, Masanath,
and me a heartache."

"Wilt thou slander my father to me?" she demanded.  "Art thou a knave
as well as a tyrant?"

"Nay, I have spoken truly.  Sad indeed were thy fate, my Masanath, did
the gods mate thee with a knave, having fathered thee with a villain.
So I am come to know of a truth what is thy will."

"And I can tell thee most truly.  Sooner would I sit upon the peak of a
pyramid all my life than upon a throne with thee; sooner would I be
crowned with fire than wear the asp of a queen to thee.  My father may
wed me to thee, but I will never love thee, nor say it, nor pretend it.
Thou wilt not win a wife if thou dost take a queen by violence.
Release me!"

"Thou dost rivet mine arms about thee."

She stiffened herself and savagely submitted to her imprisonment.

Rameses laughed and, bending her head back, kissed her repeatedly and
with much tenderness.  She struggled madly, but he held her fast.

"This is but the beginning," he said in a low voice, "and I have won.
The end shall be the same.  I am a lovable lover, am I not, Masanath?
Am I not good to look upon?  Dost thou know a more princely prince, and
is my father more of a king than I shall be?  Where do I fail thee in
thy little ideals?  Am I harsh?  Aye, but I am a king.  Am I
rough-spoken?  Aye, because most of the world deserve it.  Thou hast
never felt the sting of my tongue, and never shalt thou unless thou
breakest my heart.  I have much to give thee; not any other monarch
hath so much as I to give his queen.  And yet I ask only thy love in
return."

This was earnest wooing, which contained nothing that she might flout.
So she strained away from him and sulked.  Again he laughed.

"Khem and Athor and Besa have combed my heart and created a being of
the desires they found therein!  O, thou art mine, for the gods
ordained it so."  Again he kissed her, holding her in spite of her
efforts to get away.

"There! carry thy hate of me only to the edge of sleep and dream
sweetly of me."

He released her and continued down the hall.

As he turned out of the smaller passage into the larger corridor,
Ta-user stepped forth from the shadow of a pillar.  The huge column
dwarfed her into tininess.  The hall was but dimly lighted by a single
lamp and that flared above her head.

Rameses paused, for she stood in his path.

"Not yet gone to thy rest?" he asked.

"Rest!" she said scornfully.  "Gone to a night-long frenzy of
relentless consciousness--weary tossing, wasted prayers.  I have not
rested since I left the Hak-heb."

Her voice sounded hollow in the great empty hall.

"So?  Thou art ready for the care of the physicians by this, then, O my
Sister."

"I am not thy sister."

"What!  Hast quarreled with the gentle Seti?"

"Rameses, do not mock me.  Seti does not even stir my pulses.  He could
not rob me of my peace."

"What temperate love!  Mine makes my temples crack and fills mine hours
with sweet distress."

Ta-user looked at him for a moment, then raising her hands, caught the
folds of his robe over his breast.

"Rameses, how far wilt thou go in this trifling with the Lady Masanath?"

"To the marrying priests."  Without looking at her, he loosed her
hands, swung them idly and let them go.

"She does not love thee," she said after a little silence.

"Thy news is old.  She told me that not a moment since."

Ta-user drew a freer breath.  "Thou wilt not wed her, then."

"That I will.  I have vowed it.  Go, Ta-user, the hour is late.  Have
thy woman stir a potion for thee, and sleep.  I would to mine own
dreams.  They yield me what the day denies."

"Stay, Rameses," she urged, catching at his robes once more.  "I would
have thee know something.  But am I to tell thee in words what I would
have thee know?  Surely I have not let slip a single chance to show
thee by token.  Art thou stubborn or blind, that thou dost not pity me
and spare me the avowal?"

Rameses looked down at her upturned face without a softening line on
his pallid countenance.

"Ta-user," he said deliberately, "had I been mummied and entombed I
should have known thine intent.  I marvel that thou couldst think I had
not seen.  Now, hast thou not guessed my mind by this?  Have I not been
sufficiently explicit?  Must I, too, lay bare my heart in words?"

She did not speak for a moment.  Then she said eagerly:

"Let not thy jealousy trouble thee concerning Seti--he is naught to
me--I love him not--a boy, no more."

"Seti!" he exclaimed contemptuously.  "I have no feeling against Seti
save for his unfealty to the little child who loves him,--whose heart
thou hast most deliberately broken."

"Not so," she declared vehemently.  "I can not help the boy's
attachment to me.  She is a child, as thou hast said, and is easily
comforted.  Not so with maturer hearts like mine."

She put her arms about his neck, and flinging her head back, gazed at
him with a heavy eye.

"O, wilt thou put me aside for Masanath?  What is her little dark
beauty compared to mine?  How can she, who is not even a stately
subject, be a stately queen?  Wilt thou set the crown upon her unregal
head, invest her with the royal robes, and yield thy homage to a scowl
and a bitter word?  And me, in whom there is no drop of unroyal blood,
in whom there is all the passion of the southlands and all the fidelity
of the north, thou wilt humiliate.  The gods made me for thee--schooled
me for thy needs and shifted the nation's history so that thou shouldst
have need of me.  Look upon me, Rameses.  Why wilt thou thrust me
aside?"

She was not dealing with Seti, or Siptah, or any other whom she had
bewitched.  There was no spell in the topaz eyes for Rameses.  If her
sorcery affected him at all, it won no more than a cursory interest in
her next move.

"The night is too short to recount my reasons," he replied calmly, as
he put her arms away.  "But I might point out the snarling cur, Siptah,
for one, and a few other comely lords of Egypt."

"What hast thou done in thy life?" she cried.  "I am no more wicked
than thou; thou hast found delight in others beside whom I am all
innocence."

"It may be.  Who knows but there is somewhat of the vulture-nostril in
man, tickled with a vague taint?  But, even then, the sense is
fleeting, more or less as the natures of men vary.  A man hath his
better moments, and how shall they be entirely pure in the presence of
shame?  Nay, I would not mate and live for ever with mine own sins."

"Then as thou dost permit her spotlessness to cover her hate, let my
love for thee hide my sins.  From the first I have loved thee unasked.
She is all unwon."

"Thou hast said it.  She is unwon.  But doth the lion prey upon the
carcass?  Nay.  His kill must be fresh and slain by his own might.
Thou didst stultify thyself by thine instant acquiescence.  Come, let
us make an end to this.  The more said the more thou shalt have of
which to accuse thyself hereafter."

But she dropped before him, her white robes cumbering his path, her
arms clasping his knees.

"What more have I to do of which to accuse myself, O Rameses?  Egypt
knows why I came to court.  Egypt will know why I shall leave it.  What
have I not offered and what hast thou given me?  Where shall I find
that refuge from the pitying smile of the nation?  Spare my womanhood--"

"Ah, fie upon thy pretense, Ta-user!  Art thou not shrewd enough to
know how well I understand thee?  Thou dost not love me.  No woman who
loves pleads beyond the first rebuff.  Love is full of dudgeon.  Thou
dost betray thyself in thy very insistence.  Thou beggest for the crown
I shall wear, and if I were over-thrown to-morrow thou wouldst kneel
likewise to mine enemy.  Thou hast no womanhood to lose in Egypt's
sight.  As thy caprice turned from Siptah to me, let it return thee to
Siptah once again.  And if thy heart doth in truth wince with jealousy,
think on Io."

He undid her arms, flung her from him and disappeared into the dark.




CHAPTER XXVI

FURTHER DIPLOMACY

Masanath, suffocating with wrath and rebellion and overpowered with an
exaggerated appreciation of her shame, tumbled down in the shadows of
the narrow passage and wrapped her mantle around her head.

When she had wept till the creamy linen over her small face was wet and
her throat hurt under the strain of angry sobs, and until she was sure
that Rameses was gone, she picked herself up and went cautiously to the
end of the passage to reconnoiter.

The prince stood under the single lamp in the great corridor, between
her and the refuge of her chamber.  Another was close to him, her hands
upon his shoulders.

Masanath retired into the dusk and waited.  When she looked again the
hands were clasped about the prince's neck.  Back into the shadows she
shrank, pressing her tiny palms together in a wild prayer for Ta-user's
triumph.  After an interval she looked again in time to see Rameses
undo the arms about his knees and fling the princess from him.  Cold
with dismay and shaking with her sudden descent from hope to despair,
Masanath watched him disappear into the dark.

"O most ill-timed, iron continence!" she wailed under her breath.  But
the change which had come over Ta-user interested her immediately.
Fascinated, she forgot to hide again, but the light of the single lamp
did not penetrate to her position.

The princess kept the posture of abandoned humiliation, into which
Rameses had flung her, until the heir's footsteps died away up the
corridor.  Then she raised herself and faced the direction the prince
had taken.  Her lithe body bent a little, her rigid arms were thrust
back of her, and the hands were clenched hard.  Her head was forced
forward, the long neck curved sinuously like a vulture's.  She began to
speak in a whisper that hissed as though she breathed through her
words.  Masanath felt her flesh crawl and her soft hair take on life.
Not all the words of the sorceress were intelligible.  At first only
her ejaculations were distinct.

"Puny knave!" Masanath heard.  "Well for thee I do not love thee, else
thou shouldst sleep this night in the reeking cave of a paraschite,
with the whine of feeding flies about thee for dreams.  Well for me
that I do not love thee, for thine instant death would rob me of the
long revenge that I would liefer have!  Share thy crown with me!  When
Ta-user hath done with thee thou shalt have no crown to share!  Turned
from Siptah for thee!  How thou wilt marvel when thou learnest that I
never turned from Siptah nor wooed thee with a single glance but for
Siptah's sake.  Go on!  Sleep well!  Have no regrets, for thy doom was
spoken long before this night's haughty work.  Rather do I thank thee
for thy scorn.  It robs me of qualms and adds instead a dark delight in
that which I shall do!"

She turned toward Masanath, walking swiftly.  The fan-bearer's
daughter, stricken with panic, fled, nor paused until she had passed
far beyond the chamber of Ta-user.

Cowering in a friendly niche, she waited until the princess had
disappeared, and then only after a long time was she sufficiently
reassured to reach her own apartments.

It was the next day's noon before Masanath saw her father.  Then he
came with light step as she sat in her room.  Approaching from behind
her, he took her face between his hands, and tilting it back, kissed
her.

"I give thee joy, Masanath.  Thou hast melted the iron prince."

She rose and faced him.  "Did Rameses tell thee I loved him?" she
demanded, a faint hope stirring in her heart.

"Nay, far from it.  He told me, and laughed as he said it, that if thy
soft heart had any passion for him it was hate."

"Said he that?  Nay, now, my father, thou seest I can not marry him."
There was relief in her voice, and she drew near to the fan-bearer and
invited his arms.  He sat down instead, and drawing up a stool with his
foot, bade her sit at his feet.

"Listen!  It is a whim of the Hathors to conceal one's own feelings
from him at times, that he may accomplish his own undoing, being blind.
Much is at stake on thy love for the prince.  Awake, Masanath!  Thou
dost love him; thou wilt wed him--and it shall go well with--all others
whom thou lovest."

"Wouldst use me for a price, my father--wouldst barter thy daughter for
something?" she asked in a tone low with apprehension.

"Ah, what inelegant words," he chid.  "Thou dost miscall my purpose.
Look, my daughter.  Have I not served thee with hand and heart all thy
life, asking nothing, sacrificing much?  I, for one, have a debt
against thee, and thou canst pay it in thy marriage to Rameses.  Dost
thou not love me enough to make me secure with the prince, and so,
secure in mine advisership to the king?"

Masanath arose slowly, as if her movements kept pace with the progress
of her realizations.  Thus far she had been a loving and a believing
child.  The genial knavishness of her father had never appeared as such
to her.  In her sight he was cheery, great and lovable.  Most of all
she had flattered herself that he loved her better than life, and that
his nights were sleepless in planning for her happiness.  Now, a
terrifying lapse in his care, or a more terrifying display of his real
character, appalled her.

He had placed his demand in the most irresistible form, by calling upon
her dutifulness.  Being obedient, she felt constrained to submit, but
being spirited, with her heart already bestowed, she resisted.

She floundered wildly for testimony that would justify her rebellion in
his sight.  The memory of Ta-user's threats came to her as unexpected
and unbidden as all inspirations come.

"Shall I hold thee in thy position at the expense of Egypt's peace, if
not at the expense of the dynasty?" she cried.

"By the heaven-bearing shoulders of Buto!" he responded laughingly,
"thou dost put a high estimate on the results of thine acts.  Add
thereto, 'if not at the expense of the Pantheon,' and thou shalt have
all heaven and earth at thy mercy."

"Nay, my father, hear me!  Thou knowest Ta-user--"

"O, aye, I know Ta-user--all Egypt knows her--more particularly,
Rameses."

"Thou dost not fathom the evil in her--"

"Her fangs are drawn, daughter."

"Hear me, father.  Last night, after Rameses--after he--after he left
me, he met Ta-user.  And the talk between them was of such nature that
she knelt to him and he flung her off.  They were between me and mine
apartments, and I could not but know of it.  When he left her she made
such threats that it were treason for me to give them voice again.
What she asked of him I surmise.  It could not have been other than a
prayer to him, to fulfil what was expected of him concerning her.  Thou
knowest the breach between the Pharaoh and his brother, Amon-meses, is
but feebly bridged till Rameses shall heal the wound in marriage with
Ta-user.  His failure, added to the vehement contempt he displayed for
her last night, shall make that breach ten times as deep and ever
receding, so there can be no healing of it."

Har-hat flung his head back and laughed heartily.

"Thou timid child! frightened with the ravings of a discarded wanton.
She and her following of churls can do nothing against the Son of Ptah.
The moles in the necropolis are richer than they.  None of loyal Egypt
will espouse their cause, and without money how shall they get them
mercenaries?  Nay, why vex thee with matters of state?  All that is
required of thee is thy heart for Rameses, no more."

"Judge not for Rameses, I pray thee," she insisted, coming near him.
"Knowing that I love him not, perchance he might be gentler with
Ta-user did he see his peril."

Again Har-hat laughed.

"I am not blind, O little reluctant," he said.  "I know the secret
spring of thy concern for Egypt--for Ta-user--for Rameses.  I have not
told thee all the stake upon thy love for the prince.  Does it not seem
that since a maiden will not love one winsome man there must be another
already installed in her heart?"

She drew back, changing color.

"How little of the court-lady thou art, Masanath," he broke oft,
looking at her face.  "Thy sensations are too near the surface.  Thou
must teach thy face to dissemble.  It was this very eloquence of
countenance that betrayed thy foolish preferences.  Mind thee, I know
it to be but a maiden fancy which, discouraged, dies.  But have a care
lest it bring disaster upon him whom thou hast put in jeopardy of the
fierce power of the prince."

Masanath's eyes widened with terror.  The fan-bearer continued: "I have
but to mention the name of Hotep--"

She clutched at her heart.

"Ah?" he observed with mild interrogation in the word.  "How foolish
thy caprice!  Hotep does not thank thee.  His marble spirit hath set
its loves upon ink-pots and papyri and such pulseless things.  How I
should reproach myself if I must undo him--"

"Nay, bring no disaster on the head of the noble Hotep," she begged.
"He--I--there is naught between us."

"It is even as I had thought.  I shall tell Rameses and send him to
thee," he said, moving away.

With a bound she was between him and the door.

"If he ask tell him there is naught between me and the royal scribe,
but send him not hither," she commanded with vehemence.

"If thou art rebellious, Masanath, I must chasten thee."

"Threaten me not!" she cried, thoroughly aroused, "or by the Mother of
Heaven, I shall demand audience with Meneptah and tell him what thou
wouldst do."

"Bluster!" he answered with an irritating laugh.

"Hast won the sanction of the Pharaoh for this betrothal?" she demanded.

"Meneptah's will is clay in my hands," he replied contemptuously.

"Vex me further and I shall tell him that!"

He caught her arm, and though the fierce grasp pinched her, she knew by
that she had gained a point.

"And further," she continued, gathering courage at each word, "I shall
ask him why thou shouldst be so anxious to keep the breach between him
and his brother and defeat his aims at peace."

His face blazed and he shook her, but she went on in wild triumph.  "I
have a confederate in Rameses.  He loves thee not.  And I have but to
hint and ruin thee beyond the restoring power of the marriages of a
thousand daughters!"

Har-hat's forte had been polished insult, but when the evil in him
would have expressed itself in its own brutal manner he was helpless.

"Hotep--Hotep--" he snarled.

The name was potent.  Again she recoiled.

"I shall yield him up to Rameses," he went on.

"And in that very hour thou dost, in that same hour will I charge thee
with treason before the throne of Meneptah!" she returned recklessly.

The pair gazed at each other, breathless with temper.

"Wilt thou wed Rameses?" he demanded.

"So thou wilt avoid the name of Hotep in the presence of Rameses and
wilt shield him as if his safety were to bring thee gain," she replied,
thrusting skilfully, "I will wed the prince in one year.  Furthermore,
in that time I shall be free to go where and when I please, to dwell
where I please and to be vexed with the sight of thee or that royal
monster no more than is my desire.  Say, wilt thou accept?"

He had twitted her about her frank face.  He could not tell now but
that she was fearless and had measured her strength.  He did not know
that within she trembled and felt that her threats were empty.  But,
being guilty in his soul, and facing righteousness, Har-hat succumbed.

"Have it thy way, then, vixen," he exclaimed; "but remember, I hold a
heavy hand above thy head and Hotep's!"

He strode out of her presence, and when she was sure he was gone, she
fell on her face and wept miserably.




CHAPTER XXVII

THE HEIR INTERVENES

At Tanis, the next day after the arrival of Meneptah, there came a
messenger from Thebes to Hotep, and the royal scribe retired to his
apartments to read the letter.

And after he had read he was glad that he had secluded himself, for his
demonstrations of relief at the news the message imparted were most
extravagant and unrestrained.  For the moment he permitted no reminder
of Kenkenes' present plight to subdue his joy in the realization that
his friend was not dead.

Having exulted, he read the letter again, and then he summoned all his
shrewdness to his aid.

He would wait till the confusion of the court's settling itself had
subsided before he presented the petition to Meneptah.  Furthermore, he
would relieve his underlings and write the king's communications with
his own hand till he knew that the reply to Kenkenes had been sent.
Har-hat should be watched vigilantly.

But order and routine were not restored in the palace of Meneptah.  The
unrest that precedes a national crisis had developed into irritability
and pugnacity.

Tanis was within hearing of the plaints of Israel, and the atmosphere
quivered with omen and portent.  Moses appeared in this place and that,
each time nearer the temporary capital, and wherever he came he left
rejoicing or shuddering behind him.

Meanwhile the fan-bearer laughed his way into the throne.  Meneptah's
weakness for him grew into stubborn worship.  The old and trusted
ministers of the monarch took offense and sealed their lips; the new
held their peace for trepidation.  The queen, heretofore meek and
self-effacing, laid aside her spindle one day and, meeting her lord at
the door of the council chamber; protested in the name of his dynasty
and his realm.

But the king was beyond help, and the queen, angry and hurt, bade him
keep Har-hat out of her sight, and returned to her women.  Thereafter
even Meneptah saw her rarely.

The rise of the fan-bearer was achieved in an incredibly short time.
It proved conclusively that until this period an influence against
Har-hat had been at work upon Meneptah, and seeing that Rameses had
subsided, having cause to propitiate the father of the woman he would
wed, the courtiers began to blame the prince and talk of him to one
another.

He seemed lost in a dream.  In the council chamber he lounged in his
chair with his eyes upon nothing and apparently hearing nothing.  But
the slow shifting of the spark in his sleepy eyes indicated to those
who observed closely that he heard but kept his own counsel.  If
Meneptah spoke to him he but seconded Har-hat's suggestions.  But once
again the observant ones noted that the fan-bearer did not advise at
wide variance with any of the prince's known ideas.  Thus far the most
caviling could not see that Har-hat's favoritism had led to any
misrule, but the field of possibilities opened by his complete
dominance over the Pharaoh was crowded with disaster, individual and
national.

The betrothal of Rameses to Har-hat's daughter gave further material
for contention.  It seemed to indicate that the fan-bearer had builded
for himself for two reigns.

Hotep's situation was most poignantly unhappy.  He was fixed under the
same roof with the man that had taken his love by piracy; he must greet
him affably and reverently every day; he must live in daily
contemplation of the time when he must meet Masanath also as his
sovereign--the wife of the prince, whom he must serve till death.
Hardest of all, he must wear a serene countenance and cover his sorrow
most surely, for his own sake and for Masanath's.

Ta-user still remained at court.  Seti, in a fume of boyish indignation
at Rameses, attended her like a shadow.  Among the courtiers there were
others who were not alive to the true nature of the princess and who
joined Seti in his resentment against the heir.

Amon-meses and Siptah, snarling and malevolent, had left the court
abruptly on the morning of its departure for Tanis.  The Hak-heb
received them once again, and an ominous calm settled over that little
pocket of fertility in the desert--Nehapehu.

Thus the court was torn with factions; old internal dissensions made
themselves evident again, but the vast murmur in Goshen was heard above
the strife.

All this had come to pass in the short space of a month.  When half of
that time had elapsed, Hotep, fearing to delay the petition of Kenkenes
longer, lest conditions should become worse rather than better, met the
Pharaoh in the hall one day and gave him the writing.  Earnestly the
scribe impressed Meneptah with the importance of the petition and
begged him to acquaint himself in an hour of solitude with its contents
and the identity of the supplicant.

Meneptah promised and continued to his apartments.  There Har-hat came
in a few moments, and Meneptah, after his custom, gave over to him the
state communications of the day, and after some little hesitation,
tossed the petition of Kenkenes among them.

"Thou canst attend to this matter as well, good Har-hat.  Why should I
take up the private concerns of my subjects when I am already burdened
with heavy cares?  But do thou look to this petition faithfully.  It
may be important, and I know not from whom it is.  I promised Hotep it
should be given honest attention."

For seven days thereafter every letter sent by the king was written by
Hotep.  At the end of that time he met Meneptah again, and bending low
before him, asked pardon for his insistence, and begged to know what
disposition the Son of Ptah had made of the petition of his friend.  He
was irritably informed that the matter had been given over to the
fan-bearer for attention, since the Pharaoh had been too oppressed with
heavier matters to read the letter.

The state of the scribe's mind, after receiving the information, was
indescribable.

He controlled himself before Meneptah, but he suffered no curb upon his
feelings when he had returned to his own apartments.  After a long time
he succeeded in choking his anger, disgust and grief, realizing that
each moment must be turned to account rather than wasted in railing.

He viewed the situation with enforced calm.  Har-hat was in full
possession of the facts.  He had the signet and was absolute master of
Meneptah.  The Hathors had surrendered Kenkenes wholly into the hands
of his enemy.  Furthermore, the fate of the Israelite seemed to be
sealed.  At the thought Hotep gnashed his teeth.

In his sympathy for his friend's strait, the scribe gave over his
objections to Rachel.  Kenkenes had suffered for her, and, if he would,
he should have her.

Between the king and persuasion was Har-hat, vitally interested in the
defeat of any movement toward the aid of Kenkenes.  The one hope for
the sculptor was the winning over of the Pharaoh, and only one could do
it.  And that was Rameses, who was betrothed to the love of Hotep, and
against her will.

Nothing could have appeared more distasteful to the scribe than the
necessity of prayer to the man for whom he cherished a hate that
threatened to make a cinder of his vitals.  But the more he rebelled
the more his conscience urged him.

He flung himself on his couch and writhed; he reviled the Hathors,
abused Kenkenes for the folly of sacrilege which had brought on him
such misfortune; he execrated Meneptah, anathematized Har-hat and
called down the fiercest maledictions on the head of Rameses.  Having
relieved himself, he arose and, summoning his servant, had his
disordered hair dressed, fresh robes brought for him, and a glass of
wine for refreshment.  On the way to the palace-top he met Ta-user,
walking slowly away from the staircase.  Rameses, solitary and
luxurious, was stretched upon a cushioned divan in the shadow of a
canopy over the hypostyle.

"The gods keep thee, Son of the Sun," Hotep said.

"So it is thou, Hotep.  Nay, but I am glad to see thee.  Methought
Ta-user meant to visit me just now.  Is there a taboret near?"

"Aye, but I shall not sit, my Prince."

"Go to!  It makes me weary to see thee stand.  Sit, I tell thee!"

Hotep drew up the taboret and sat.

"I come to thee with news and a petition," he began.  "It is more
fitting that I should kneel."

"Perchance.  But exertion offends mine eyes in such delicious hours as
these, and I will forego the homage for the sake of mine own sinews.
Out with thy tidings."

"Thou dost remember thy friend and mine, that gentle genius, Kenkenes."

"I am not like to forget him so long as a bird sings or the Nile
ripples make music.  Osiris pillow him most softly."

"He is not dead, my Prince."

"Nay!" Rameses cried, sitting up.  "The knave should be bastinadoed for
the tears he wrung from us!"

"Thou wouldst deny my petition.  I am come to implore thee to intercede
for him."

Rameses bade him proceed.

"Thou art acquainted with the nature of Kenkenes, O Prince.  He is a
visionary--an idealist, and so firmly rooted are his beliefs that they
are to his life as natural as the color of his eyes.  He is a
beauty-worshiper.  Athor possesses him utterly, and her loveliness
blinds him to all other things, particularly to his own welfare and
safety.

"In the beginning he fell in love, and a soul like his in love is most
unreasoning, immoderate and terribly faithful.  The maiden is
beautiful--I saw her--most divinely beautiful.  She is wise, for I saw
that also.  She is good, for I felt it, unreasoning, and when a man
hath a woman intuition, a god hath spoken the truth to his heart.  But
she is a slave--an Israelite."

"An Israelite!"

Hotep bowed his head.

"By the gods of my fathers, I ought not to marvel!  Nay, now, is that
not like the boy?  An Israelite!  And half the noble maids of Memphis
mad for him!"

"He is not for thee and me to judge, O Rameses," Hotep interrupted.
"The gods blew another breath in him than animates our souls.  For thee
and me such conduct would be the fancies of madmen; for Kenkenes it is
but living up to the alien spirit with which the gods endowed him.  It
might be torture for him to wed according to our lights."

"Perchance thou art right.  Go on."

"It seems that Har-hat looked upon the girl, and taken by her beauty,
asked her at the Pharaoh's hands for his harem."

"Ah, the--!  Why does he not marry honorably?"

"It is not for me to divine," Hotep went on calmly.  "The fan-bearer
sent his men to take her, but she fled from them to Kenkenes, and he
protected her--hid her away--where, none but Kenkenes and the maiden
know.  Har-hat is most desirous of owning her, but Kenkenes keeps his
counsel.  Therefore, Har-hat overtook him in Tape, where he went to get
a signet belonging to his father, and imprisoned him till what time he
should divulge the hiding-place of the Israelite."

"Never was there a true villain till Har-hat was born!  What poor
feeble shadows have trodden the world for knaves before the fan-bearer
came.  Go on.  Hath he put him to torture yet?"

"Aye, from the beginning, though not by the bastinado.  He rends him
with suspense and all the doubts and fears for his love that can haunt
him in his cell.  But I have more to tell.  There was a signet, an
all-potent signet, which belonged to the noble Mentu--"

"Aye, I remember," Rameses broke in.  "My grandsire gave it to the
murket in recognition of his great work, Ipsambul.  It commands royal
favor in the name of Osiris.  That should help the dreamer out of his
difficulty."

"Aye, it should, my Prince, but it did not.  Kenkenes sent it to the
Pharaoh, with a petition for his own freedom, but the cares of state
were so pressing that the Son of Ptah gave the letter, unopened, to
Har-hat for attention."

Rameses laughed harshly.

"Kenkenes would better content himself.  The Hathors are against him,"
he cried.  "Was there ever such consummate misfortune?  What more?"

"Is it not enough, O Rameses?" Hotep answered sternly.  "He hath
suffered sufficiently.  Now is it time for them, who profess to love
him, to bestir themselves in his behalf.  Thou knowest how near the
fan-bearer is to the Pharaoh.  Persuasion can not reach the king that
worketh against Har-hat.  Thou alone art as potent with the Son of
Ptah.  Wilt thou not prove thy love for Kenkenes and aid him?"

Rameses did not answer immediately.  Thoughtfully he leaned his elbow
on his knee and stroked his forehead with his hand.  His black brows
knitted finally.

"My hands are tied, Hotep," he began bluntly.  "I permit the sway of
this knave over my father because I am constrained.  Till he begins to
achieve confusion or bring about bad government I must let him alone.
There is no love between us.  We have no quarrel, but I despise him for
that very spirit in him which makes him do such things as thou hast
even told me.  If his offense had been against Egypt or the king or
myself, I could balk him.  But this is a matter of personal interest to
him, which would be open and flagrant interference--"

Hotep broke in earnestly.

"Surely so small a matter of courtesy--if such it may be called--should
not stand between thee and this most pressing need."

"Aye, thou hast said--if it were only a small matter of courtesy.  But
the breach of that same small courtesy entails great disaster for me.
Thou knowest, O my Hotep, that I am betrothed to the daughter of
Har-hat."

With great effort Hotep kept a placid face.

"The Lady Masanath would abet him who would aid Kenkenes," he said.

"Even so.  But hear me, I pray thee, Hotep.  This most rapacious
miscreant would hold his favor with the king.  He knew I loved
Masanath, and he held her out of my reach till I should consent to
countenance his advisership to my father.  I consented--and should I
lapse, I lose Masanath."

Hotep was on his feet by this time, his face turned away.  Rameses
could not guess what a tempest raged in his heart.

"But be thou assured," the prince continued grimly, "that only so long
as Masanath is not yet mine, shall I endure him.  After that he shall
fall as never knave fell or so deserved to fall before.  Aye,--but
stay, Hotep.  I have not done.  I have some small grain of hope for
this unfortunate friend of ours.  The marriage hath been delayed.  I
shall press my suit, and wed Masanath sooner, if she will, and Kenkenes
need not decay in prison--"

Hotep did not stay longer.  He bowed and departed without a word.

"Out upon the man, I offered all I could," Rameses muttered, but
immediately he arose and hurried to the well of the stairway.

"Hotep!" he called.  The scribe, half-way down, turned and looked up.

"Return to me in an hour.  Give me time to ponder and I may more
profitably help thee," the prince commanded.  Hotep bowed and went on.

The hour was barely long enough for the smarting soul of the scribe to
soothe itself.  Deep, indeed, his love for Kenkenes that he returned at
all.  Masanath's name, spoken so familiarly, so boastingly, by the
prince was fresh outrage to his already affronted heart.  It mattered
not that Rameses did not know.  His talk of marriage with Masanath was
exultation, nevertheless.  Once again, Hotep flung himself on his couch
and wrestled with his spirit.

At the end of the hour, he went once again to Rameses.  He was calm and
composed, but he made no apology for his abrupt departure, when last he
was there.  Perhaps, however, he gained in the respect of Rameses by
that lapse.  The blunt prince was more patient with the sincere than
with the diplomatic.

"Thou hast said," the prince began immediately, "that Har-hat hath
imprisoned Kenkenes till what time he shall divulge the hiding-place of
the Israelite?"

Hotep bowed.

"The fan-bearer charges him with slave-stealing?"

"And sacrilege," the scribe added.  The prince opened his eyes.  "Aye,
Kenkenes carried his beauty-love into blasphemy.  He executed a statue
of Athor in defiance of the sculptor's ritual.  For this also, Har-hat
holds a heavy hand over him."

"A murrain on the lawless dreamer!" Rameses muttered.  "Is there
anything more?"

Hotep shook his head.

"He deserves his ill-luck.  Mark me, now.  He will not go mad with a
year's imprisonment, and he will profit by it.  Furthermore, he can not
be persuaded into betraying the Israelite, if he knows how long and how
much he will have to endure.  Once sentenced, Har-hat can add nothing
more thereto.  Has he confessed?"

"To me, he did.  I know not what he said to the Pharaoh.  But the
Goddess Ma broodeth on the lips of Kenkenes."

Rameses nodded, and clapped his hands.  The attendant that appeared he
ordered to bring the scribe's writing-case and implements.  When the
servant returned, Hotep, at a sign from Rameses, prepared to write.

"Write thus to the jailer at Tape:

"'By order of the crown prince, Rameses, the prisoner, Kenkenes, held
for slave-stealing and sacrilege, is sentenced to imprisonment for one
year--'"

Hotep lifted his pen, and looked his rebellion.

"Write!" the prince exclaimed.  "I do him a kindness, with a lesson
added.  Were it in my power to free him I would not--till he had
learned that the law is inexorable and the power of its ministers
supreme.  Go on--'at such labor as the prisoner may elect.  No further
punishment may be added thereto.'  Affix my seal and send this without
fail.  Thou canst write whatever thou wilt to Kenkenes.  For the
Israelite, I shall not concern myself.  The nearer friends to Kenkenes
may look to her.  Mine shall be the care only to see that they are not
harassed by the fan-bearer.  In this, I fulfil the law.  Let Har-hat
help himself."

He dropped back on his divan and Hotep slowly collected his writing
materials and made ready to depart.  Having finished, he lingered a
little.

"A word further, O Rameses.  Kenkenes is proud.  He would liefer die
than suffer the humiliation of public shame.  Memphis believes him
dead.  None but thyself, Har-hat, the noble Mentu and I know of his
plight.  Har-hat hath no call to tell it.  Mentu will not; I shall not.
Wilt thou keep his secret also, my Prince?"

"Far be it from me to humiliate him publicly.  Let him have a care,
hereafter, that he does not humiliate himself."

"I thank thee, O Rameses."

Saluting the prince, Hotep departed.

That night he wrote to Kenkenes and to Mentu, and the two messengers
departed ere midnight.




CHAPTER XXVIII

THE IDOLS CRUMBLE

Meanwhile Kenkenes seldom saw a human face.  Food and water in red clay
vessels, bearing the seal of Thebes, were set inside his door by
disembodied hands.  At intervals he saw the keeper, always attended by
the inevitable scribe, but the visit was a matter of inspection and
rarely was the prisoner addressed.

Though he grew to expect these visits, each time the bar rattled down
he trembled with the hope that the jailer brought him freedom.  Each
successive disappointment was as acute as the last, made more poignant
by the torturing certainty that his hopes were vain.  The effect of one
was not at all counteracted by the other.

Some time after dawn the sun thrust a golden bar, full of motes, across
the door, a foot above his head.  In a space the beam was withdrawn.
The heat and dust of the midday came, instead.  Gnats wove their mazes
in the narrow casement that opened on the outside world, and now and
then the twitter of birds sounded very close to it.  Kenkenes knew how
they flashed as they flew in the sun.  They were prodigal of freedom.
At nightfall, if he stood at full height against the door, he could see
a thread of cooling sky with a single star in its center.

This was all his knowledge of the world.  Hour after hour he paced the
narrow length of the cell, till the circumscribed round made him dizzy.
If he flung himself on his straw pallet, he did not rest.  The mind has
no charity for the body.  If there is to be no mental repose it is vain
to hope for physical.  When the inactivity of his uneasy pallet became
intolerable, he resumed his pace.

He expected the return of his messenger in twenty days after the man's
departure.  At the expiration of that time his suspense and
apprehension became more and more desperate at the passing of each new
day.  In rapid succession he accepted and rejected the thought that the
messenger had played him false, had been assassinated and robbed; that
Meneptah had recalled the signet, or had added the penalty of suspense
to his indorsement of Har-hat's fiat of imprisonment.

When the climax of his sensations was reached, his self-sufficiency
collapsed and he entered into ceaseless supplication of the gods.  He
vowed costly sacrifices to them, adding promises of self-abnegation
which became more comprehensive as his distress increased.  At the end
of a month he had consecrated everything at his command.  Then he
subsided into a numb endurance till what time his prayers should be
answered.

Eight days later, about mid-afternoon, while he lay on his pallet, the
door was flung open and his messenger stood without.  With a cry,
Kenkenes leaped to his feet and wrenched the scroll from the man's
hand.  With unsteady fingers he ripped off the linen cover and read.

The letter was from Hotep, conveying such information regarding his
imprisonment as we already know.  If was couched in the gentlest terms,
and contained that essence of hope which loving spirits can extract
from the most desperate situation, for another's sake.  But for all the
kindly intent of the scribe, his news was none the less unhappy.  The
dreaded had come to pass, and the war between hope and fear was at an
end.  Kenkenes read the missive calmly, and paid the messenger
according to his promise.  The jailer, who had come with the man, read
the sentence and bade the prisoner make his choice of labor.

"Anything, so it will but give me a glimpse of the horizon," he said.

"Thou wilt pay dearly for thy sky," the keeper cautioned him.  "The
softest labor is within doors."

"Give me my wish according to the command of the prince."

The jailer shrugged his shoulders.  "As thou wilt.  Make ready to
follow the canal-workers, to-morrow."

When the door fell shut again, Kenkenes returned to his pallet and
re-read the scroll.

A year's imprisonment!  The sentence defined was the sum of daily
shame, sorrow, homesickness and misanthropy.  Shame in the proud man
admits of no degrees of intensity.  If it exist at all, it is
superlative.  To this was added the loss of Rachel.  How little it
would take to satisfy him, now that she was wholly denied to his eyes!
Only to look down on her again, unseen, from his aery in the rocks over
the valley!

Hotep had offered him hope, based on circumstantial evidence and fact.
Har-hat could not add to his sentence.  That was the only indisputable
cheer he could give.  But would Rameses stay the chief adviser's hand,
seeing that the winning of Masanath depended on the prince's
neutrality, as Hotep had explained?  If Rachel fled to Mentu, as
Kenkenes had bidden her, could the murket protect her, even at his own
peril?  Might not the heavy hand of the powerful favorite fall also on
the head of the king's architect?  Wherein was the murket more immune
than his son?  Rachel's destruction seemed to be decreed by the Hathors.

Such was his thought, and he raised himself to curse the Seven Sisters,
and growing reckless, he included the unhelpful gods in his
maledictions.  The blasphemy comforted him strangely, and he persisted
till his heated brain was cooled.

At dawn the next day he laid aside his fillet of gold, his trappings
and noble dress, and donning the kilt or shenti of the prisoners, was
handcuffed to another malefactor and taken forth to the sun-white plain
between Thebes Diospolis and the Arabian, hills, to labor in the canals
of the nome.

Here, looking continually upon crime, brutality and misery, he asked
himself the divine motive in creating man, and having found no answer,
he began to question man's debt to the gods.

He was going the way of all the weak in faith.  He had pleaded with his
deities, and they had not heard him.  He asked himself what he had done
to deserve their disfavor.  The sacrilege of Athor was too slight an
offense--if offense it were--and here again he paused, set his teeth
and swore that he had done no wrong and the god or man that accused him
was impotent, unjust and ignorant.  Once again he asked himself what he
had done to deserve ill-use at the hands of the Pantheon.  They had
turned a deaf ear to him, and why should he render them further homage?
The doctrine of divine Love, displayed through chastisement, was not in
the Osirian creed.

His eyes grew bold through rebellion and he attacked the wild
inconsistencies of the faith with the destructive instrument of reason.
Each deduction led him on, fascinated, in his apostasy.  Each crumbling
tenet started another toward ruin.  Finding no sound obstacle to stay
him, he fell with avidity to rending the Pantheon.

But he found no cheer nor any hope that day when he told himself
bitterly, "There is no God."




CHAPTER XXIX

THE PLAGUES

The court was gone and Masanath was making the most of each day of her
freedom.  Memphis was in a state of apathy, worn out by revel and
emptied of her luminaries, Ta-meri, intoxicated with the importance of
her position as lady-in-waiting to the queen, had departed with her
husband, the cup-bearer.  Io had returned to her home in On, with an
ache in her brave little heart that outweighed even Masanath's for
heaviness.  The last of Seti's lover-like behavior toward her dated
back to a time before the court had gone to Thebes--long, long ago.

Ta-user, also, had gone, but the fan-bearer's daughter did not regret
her.  The other ladies who remained in Memphis, frightened at the
loftiness of Masanath's future, were uneasy in her presence and seemed
more inclined to bend the knee before her than to continue the girlish
companionship that had once been between them.

So she must entertain herself, if she were entertained at all.

For a time after the departure of Meneptah, Masanath had given herself
up to tears and gloom.  When she had worn out her grief, the elastic
spirit of youth reasserted itself and once again she was as cheerful as
she felt it becoming to be under the circumstances.

The fan-bearer had taken a house for his daughter's use, during her
year of solitary residence, and her own servants, a lady-in-waiting,
the devoted Nari, Pepi, a courier and upper servant, lean, brown and
taciturn, and several slaves, both black and white, had been left with
her.  The older daughter of the fan-bearer lived with her husband in
Pelusium.  Her home could have been an asylum for the younger, but
Masanath was determined to know one year of absolute independence
before she entered the long bondage of queenship.

It was now the middle of June, the height of Egyptian summer.  In a
little space the marshes, which had been, for eight months, favorite
haunts of fowlers, would be submerged, for the inundation was not far
away.

Masanath would hunt for wild-duck and marsh-hen, while there was yet
time.

It was an hour after sunrise.  Her raft, built of papyrus, was
boat-shaped and graceful as a swan.  Pepi was at the long-handled sweep
in the stern.  Masanath sat in the middle, which was heaped with nets,
throw-sticks, and bows and arrows.  A pair of decoy birds, tame and
unfettered, stood near her, craning their small heads, puzzled at the
movement of the boat which was undecipherable since they were
motionless.  Nari sat in the prow, her hands folded, her face quite
expressionless.  The service of the day was out of the routine, but as
a good servant, she was capable of adapting herself to the change.

The little craft darted away from the painted landing for pleasure
boats, and reaching midstream, was turned toward the north.  The
current caught it and swept it along like a leaf.

As they passed the stone wharf at Masaarah, Nari looked toward the
quarries with a show of interest on her face.  She even caught her
breath to speak.  Masanath noted her animation.

"What is it, Nari?"

"Naught but a bit of gossip that came to mine ears, last night, and the
sight of Masaarah urged me to tell it again.  It is said the Hebrews of
these quarries rose against the new driver and drove him out of the
camp, crying, 'Return us our Atsu, return us our Atsu.'"

"What folly!" Masanath exclaimed.  "If they had been the host which
crowds Goshen to her bounds, it might serve.  But this handful in
rebellion against Egypt!  The military of the Memphian nome will crush
them as if they had been so many ants."

"I know," the serving-woman admitted.  "The soldier I had it from, said
that the city commandant would move against them by noon this day."

"The gods help them!" Pepi put in.

"Thy prayer is too late, Pepi," Masanath answered.  "The gods should
have cautioned them ere they took the step.  And yet," she continued,
musing, "straits may become so sore that aught but endurance is
welcome."

Her servants looked at her and at each other, understanding.

Nari went on:

"But the soldier told me further that the Israelites had spent the
night chanting and dancing before their God, and it seems from this
spot that the quarries are empty.  They do not fear, boasting their
God's care."

Masanath shook her head.  "He must look to them at once, ere the
soldiery fall upon them.  His time for aid is short," she said.

A silence fell, and the raft passed below Masaarah.  Again Nari spoke,
proving that she had heard and thought upon the last words of her
mistress.

"Are not the gods omnipotent and everywhere?"

"Aye, so hast thou been taught, Nari."

"Our gods, and the gods of every nation like them?" the serving-woman
persisted.

"The gods of Egypt are so, and each nation boasts its gods equally
potent."

"Mayhap the Hebrews' God will help them," Nari ventured.

Masanath was silent for a moment.  "He hath deserted them for long,"
she said at last, "but they are hard-pressed.  Mayhap their loud
supplications will reach Him in His retreat."

"They boast that He hath returned."

"Let Him prove Himself," Masanath insisted stoutly.

When next she spoke there was no hint of the past serious talk in her
voice.

"A pest on the ban," she exclaimed.  "Look at the Marsh of the
Discontented Soul.  It fairly swarms with teal and coot, and see the
snipe on the sand."  She stood up and watched the sandy strip they were
nearing.  They were a goodly distance out from the shore, but Pepi
poled nearer midstream.  "The pity of it," she sighed; "but I doubt not
the place swarms with crocodile, also."

She sat down again, and looked at the decoy birds.  Their timidity had
increased into actual fear.  Masanath reached a soothing hand toward
one of them and it fled.  The motion of the poling-arm of Pepi
frightened it again, and with a flirt of its wings it retreated toward
Masanath.

"Stop a moment, Pepi," she said.  "Let me quiet this frightened thing.
I can not fathom its terror."

"The unquiet soul, my Lady," Nari whispered, in awe.

"Strange that the gods gifted the creatures with keener sight than
men," Masanath answered, somewhat disturbed.  She moved toward the
bird, talking softly, but the persuasion was as useless as if the decoy
had been a wild thing.  At the nearer approach of the small hand it
took wings and flew.  The mate followed, unhesitating.  The shining
distance toward the west swallowed them up.

The trio on the raft looked at one another.

"Nay, now, saw ye the like before?" Masanath exclaimed, the tone of her
voice divided between astonishment and irritation at the loss of her
pets.

"Let us leave this vicinity," Pepi said, suiting the action to the
word, "it is unholy."  He seized the sweep and drove the raft about,
poling with wide strokes.  At that moment, a cry, which was more of a
hoarse whisper, broke from his lips.

"Body of Osiris!  The river! the river!"

Masanath leaned on one hand and looked over the side of the raft.  With
a bound and a shivering cry, Nari was cowering beside her, the little
craft tossing on the waves at the force of the leap.  Instantly, Pepi
was at her other side, on his knees, praying and shaking.  And together
the trio huddled, but only one, Masanath, was brave enough to watch
what was happening.

From the bottom of the Nile a turbid convection was taking place, as if
the river silt had been stirred up, but the fuming current was assuming
a dull red tinge.  The action had been rapid.  Already the stain had
predominated, streaks of clear water, only here and there, clarifying
the opaque coloring.  The boat rode half its depth in red, the paddle
dripped red, the splashes of water within on the bottom were red, the
sun shone broadly into the mirroring red, a sliding, reeking red!  A
lavender foam broke its bubbles against the drifting raft and a tepid,
invisible vapor, like a moist breath, exhaled from the ensanguined
surface.

Schools of fish, struggling and leaping, filled the space immediately
above the water, and cumbered the raft with a writhing mass.
Numberless crocodiles bounded into the air, braying, snorting, rending
one another and churning the river into froth by their hideous battle.
Dwellers of the deep water drifted into the upper tide--monsters of the
muck at the Nile bottom, turtles, huge crawfish, water-newts, spotted
snakes, curious bleached creatures that had never seen the day, great
drifts of insects, with frogs, tadpoles--everything of aquatic animate
life, came up dead or dying terribly.  Along either bank water-buffalo
and wallowing swine, which had been in the pools near the river,
clambered ponderously, snorting at every step.

Vessels were putting about and flying for the shore.  From the prow of
one tall boat, with distended sails, a figure was seen to spring high
and disappear under the red torrent.  Rioting crews of river-men fought
for first landing at the accessible places on the banks.  Memphis
shrieked and the pastures became compounds of wild beasts that deafened
heaven with their savage bellowing.

Pepi and Nari had no thought of saving themselves.  It was Masanath who
must save them.  They clung to her, dragging her down with their arms
when she attempted to rise.  Bereft of reason, they made the liquid
echoes of the river ring with wild cries of mortal terror.

Masanath had sufficient instinct left to urge her to fly.  With a
mighty effort she shook off her servants and sprang to the sweep.
Instantly they made to follow her, but she threatened them with a
hunting-stick.  The combined weight of the three in the stern would
have swamped the frail boat.

Seizing the sweep she poled with superhuman strength toward the nearest
shore--the Marsh of the Discontented Soul.  If she remembered the
spirit, she forgot her fear of it.  Any terror was acceptable other
than isolation on this mile-wide torrent of blood.

The raft grounded, and as a viscous wash of red lapped across it, she
leaped forth, landing with both feet in the horror.  She floundered out
and crying to her servants to follow her, fled like a mad thing up the
sandy stretch toward the distant wall of rock.

The boat, lightened of her weight, received a backward thrust as she
leaped, and drifted out of the reeds.  The heavy current caught it and
swept it across the smitten river to the Memphian shore.  It bore two
insensible figures.

Masanath ran, thinking only to leave the ghastly flood behind.  Her wet
over-dress flapped about her ankles.  It, too, was stained, and she
tore if off as she ran.  Ahead of her was a sagging limestone wall,
with no gap, but Masanath, hardly sane, would have dashed herself
against it, if hands had not detained her.

"Blood!  Blood!" she shrieked.  "Holy Ptah save us!"

"Peace!" some one made answer.  "God is with us."

The voice was calm and reassuring, the hands firm.  Here, then, was one
who was strong and unafraid, and therefore, a safe refuge.  No longer
called upon to care for herself, Masanath fell into the arms of the
brave unknown and ceased to remember.

Consciousness returned to her slowly and incompletely.  Horror had
dazed her, and her surroundings, but faintly discovered in an
all-enveloping gloom, were not conducive to mental repose and clearness.

She became aware, first, that she was somewhere hidden from the
sunshine and beyond reach of the strange odor from the Nile.

Next she realized that she was sheltered in a cave; that slender lines
of white daylight sifted through the interstices of a door; that a lamp
was burning somewhere behind a screen; that a hairy thing sat in a
corner and looked at her with half-human eyes, and that, as she shrank
at the sight, the warm support under her head moved and a fair face,
framed with golden hair, bent over her.

Then her eyes, becoming clearer as her recollection returned, wandered
away toward the walls of her shelter.  They had been hewn by hands.
There was an opening in one side, leading into another and a darker
crypt.  Was not this a tomb?  She was in the Tomb of the Discontented
Soul!  Terrified, she struggled to gain her feet and fly, but the awful
memory of the plague without returned to her overwhelmingly.  Gentle
hands restrained her, and the same voice that had sought to soothe her
before, continued its soft comforting now.

"Thou art safe and sheltered," she heard.  "No evil shall befall thee."

Was this the spirit of the tomb?  If so, it was most lovely and kindly.
But a solemn voice issued out of the dark cell beyond.  This was the
spirit, of a surety.  She cowered against her fair-haired protector and
shuddered.  But the maiden answered the voice in a strange tongue.
Masanath would have known it to be Hebrew, had she been composed.  But
now it was mystic, cabalistic.

Presently the maiden addressed her.

"Deborah asks after thee, Lady.  How shall I tell her thou findest
thyself?"

"Oh, I can not tell," Masanath answered.  "What has happened?  Is it
true or did I go mad?"

The Israelite smoothed her hair.  "It is a plague," she said.

"Then the hand of Amenti is on us," the Egyptian shuddered.  "Whither
shall we flee?"

"Ye can not flee from the One God," the voice from the crypt said
grimly.

"Nay, but what have I done to vex the gods?" Masanath insisted.  "O let
me go hence.  Where are my servants?"

"It is better for thee to bide here," the voice went on relentlessly.
"For outside the sheltering neighborhood of the chosen people, the hand
of the outraged God shall overtake Egypt and scorch her throat with
thirst and make her veins congeal for want of water."

Masanath gained her feet, crying out wildly:

"My servants!  Where are they?  Let me forth."

The Israelite put an assuring arm about her.  "Thou wilt not dare to
face the Nile again," she warned.  "Stay with us."

"To starve!  To perish of thirst!  To die of pestilence!  The gods have
left us.  We are undone!"

"Aye, the gods have left you," the voice continued harshly.  "Ye are
given over to the vengeance of the God of Abraham.  Howl, Egypt!  Rend
thyself and cover thy head with ashes.  Thy destruction is but begun.
For a hundred years thou hast oppressed Israel.  Now is the hour of the
children of God!"

Masanath wrung her hands, but the voice went on.

"As the Nile flows, so hath the blood of Israel been wasted by the hand
of Egypt.  Now shall the God of Abraham drain her veins, even so, drop
for drop.  For the despoiling of Israel shall her pastures and stables
be filled with stricken beasts--for the heavy hand of the Pharaohs
shall the heavens thunder and scourges fall.  And the wrath of God
shall cool not till Egypt is a waste, shorn of her corn and her
vineyards and her riches, and foul with dead men."

Nothing could have been more vindictive than this disembodied voice.
Masanath thrust her fingers through her hair, and drawing her elbows
forward, sheltered her face with them.

"When have I offended against the Hebrew?" she cried, sick with terror.
"Why should your awful God destroy the innocent and the friend of
Israel among the people of Egypt?"

Rachel, who had stood beside her, with an increasing cloud on her face,
now spoke in Hebrew.  There was mild protest in her tones.

"The plague will pass," the voice from the inner crypt continued.
"Seven days will it endure, no more."

"Deborah is mystic," Rachel added softly, "and is gifted with prophetic
eyes.  Much hath she suffered at Egypt's hands, and her tongue grows
harsh when she speaks of the oppression."

"Nay, but let me go," Masanath begged.  "Where are my servants?  Came
they not after me when I fled?"

"None followed thee, Lady, and thy raft went adrift."

"Let me out of this hideous place, then, for I must seek them.  They
may be dead."

Her tone was imperious, and Rachel, silently obedient, led her to the
entrance and pushed aside the door.  Instantly the terrible turmoil
over Egypt smote upon her ears; next she saw the Nile, moving slowly,
black where its clear surfaces had been green, scarlet and froth-ridden
where the sun had shone upon transparent ripples and white foam; after
that, the strange odor came to her, recalling the smell of the altars,
but now magnified till it was overpoweringly strong.  She sickened and
turned away.

Setting the door in place, Rachel led her back into a corner of the
outer chamber and laid her down on the matting there.

"The Lord God will care for thy servants.  Fret thyself no further, but
be content here until the horror shall pass.  I shall attend thee, so
thou shalt not miss their ministrations."  The Israelite spoke with
gentle authority, smoothing the dark hair of her guest.  Command in the
form of persuasion is doubly effective, since it induces while it
compels.  Masanath was most amenable to this manner of entreaty, since
it disarmed her pride while it governed her impulses.  Thus, though her
inclination urged against it, she ate when the Israelite brought her a
bit of cold fowl and a beaker of wine at midday and again at sunset.
And at night, she slept because the Israelite told her she was safe and
bade her close her eyes.

But once she awoke.  The lamp burned behind a wooden amphora rack and
the interior of the stone chamber was not dark.  The voice in the inner
chamber was still and the human-eyed beast in the corner was now only a
small hairy roll.  In the silence she would have been dismayed, but
close beside her sat the Israelite.  One hand toyed absently with the
golden rings of a collar about her throat.  The face was averted, the
hair unplaited and falling in a shower of bright ripples over the bosom
and down the back.  The beauty of the picture impressed itself on
Masanath, in spite of her drowsiness.  But as well as the beauty, the
dejection in the droop of the head, the unhappiness on the face, were
apparent even in the dusk.  Here was sorrow--the kind of sorrow that
even the benign night might not subdue.  Masanath was well acquainted
with such vigils as the golden Israelite seemed to be keeping.

Her love-lorn heart was stirred.  She spoke to Rachel softly.

"Come hither and lie down by me," she said.  "I am afraid and thou art
unhappy.  Give me some of thy courage and I will sorrow with thee."

The Israelite smiled sadly and obeyed.

It was dawn when the fan-bearer's daughter awoke again.

The door had been set aside, and on the rock threshold a squat copper
lamp was sending up periodic eruptions of dense white vapor.  Rachel
was feeding the ember of the cotton wick with bits of chopped root.
The breeze from the river blew the fumes back into the cave, filling
the dark recesses with a fresh and pungent odor.

Masanath, wondering and remembering, raised her head to look through
the opening.  Day was broad over Egypt, and the turmoil had subsided.
The silence was heavy.  But the Nile was still a wallowing torrent of
red.

She sank back and drew the wide sleeves of her dress over her face.
Rachel put the lamp aside, set the door in place and came to her.

"Thou art better for thy long sleep," she said.  "Now, if thou canst
bear, as well, with the meager food this house affords, the plague will
not vex thee sorely."  Then, in obedience to the Israelite's offer,
Masanath sat up and suffered Rachel to dress her hair and bathe her
tiny hands and face with a solution of weak white wine.

"The water which we had stored with us is also corrupted.  I fear we
shall thirst, if we have but wine to wet our lips," Rachel explained.

"Thou dost not tell me that ye abide in this place?" the fan-bearer's
daughter asked, taking the piece of fowl and hard bread which Rachel
offered her.

"Even so," Rachel responded after a little silence.

"Holy Isis! guests of a spirit!  What a ghastly hospice for women!  How
came ye here?"

For a moment there was silence, so marked that Masanath ceased her
dainty feeding and drew back a little.

"Are ye lepers?" she asked in a frightened voice.

"Nay, we are fugitives," Rachel answered.

"Fugitives!  What strait brought you to seek such asylum as this?"

Again a speaking pause.

"Who art thou, Lady?" Rachel asked, at last.

"I am Masanath, daughter of Har-hat, fan-bearer to the Pharaoh."

"And thou art a friend of the oppressed?" the Israelite continued.

"It is my boast before the gods," the Egyptian answered with dignity.

"I am Rachel, of Israel, daughter of Maai, and I have fled from shame.
In all Egypt, this is the one and only refuge for such as I.  If my
hiding-place were published, no help could save me from the despoiler.
My one protector is she who lies within.  She is my foster-mother, old
and ill from abuse at the hands of brutal servants.  Thou hast my
story."

As Rachel ceased, Deborah called from within.

"There is more," she said.  "Come hither.  I am moved to tell thee."

Masanath obeyed with hesitation and, pausing in the doorway of the
inner chamber, heard the story of the Israelites.  Great was her
perplexity and her sorrow when she heard the name of Kenkenes spoken
calmly and without grief.  They did not know he was dead!  She held her
peace till the story was done, How much more would her heart have been
tortured could the old woman have given her the name of the offending
noble!  Instead, all unsuspecting, she heard the story of Har-hat's
wrong-doing with now and then an exclamation of indignation, condemning
him heartily in her soul.

"The time for the Egyptian's return is long past, but he will come
soon," Deborah concluded.

Masanath slowly turned her head and looked at Rachel.  This, then, was
the love of that dear, dead artist, for whom Memphis mourned and had
ceased to wait.  How doubly grievous his loss, for Rachel was undone
thereby!  How heart-breaking to see her wait for him who would come no
more!  Masanath choked back her tears and said, when she was composed
again:

"Ye need not molder in this cave, I can hide you in Memphis."

"Nay, we will await him here."

"But the Nile will be upon your refuge in three weeks.  Ye would starve
if ye drowned not," the Egyptian protested earnestly.

"It may be we shall not wait so long," Rachel put in.

Masanath looked at her while she thought busily.  "If I tell it, I
break a heart.  But if they bide here, they die.  None other will come
to them by chance or on purpose."

"I would not risk it," she answered.  Returning to the pallet of
matting she finished her breakfast in silence.  After a little sigh she
glanced at the wine in one of the small amphoras which Rachel had
brought to her as a drinking-cup.  "Mayhap the plague is past," she
said, hinting, "and I am athirst."

Rachel took up another jar and went forth.  The hairy creature in the
corner, tethered to the amphora rack, slipped his collar and followed
her.

As soon as the Israelite was gone, Masanath went into the inner
chamber.  Standing by the old woman, who lay upon a mattress, set on
the top of the sarcophagus, she said hurriedly:

"Ye may not remain here.  Kenkenes is known to me and he will not
return."

"Thou dost not tell me he was false to us," Deborah exclaimed.  "Nay, I
will not believe it," she declared.

"Nay, he was the soul of honor, but he is dead."

"Dead!" the old woman cried, catching at her dress.

"Hush!  Tell her not!"

"Aye, thou art right.  Tell her not!  But--but how did he die?"

"By drowning.  His boat was discovered battered and overturned among
the wharf-piling at Memphis, some weeks agone."

The old woman was silent for a moment and then she shook her head.

"He is a resourceful youth and he may have procured another boat and
set this one adrift to deceive his enemies.  Yet, the time has been so
long, it may be; it may be."

"None in Memphis doubts it.  His father hath given him up and his house
and his people are in mourning.  But we may not lose this moment in
surmises.  Wilt thou go with me into Memphis--if this sending is
withdrawn?"

"There is no other choice," Deborah answered after some pondering.
"Kenkenes offered us refuge with his father--alas! that the young man
should die!"  After shaking her head and muttering to herself in her
own tongue, she went on.  "But Rachel hesitated to accept, at first
from maiden shyness, though now she hath a secret fear, I doubt not,
that the Egyptian may have played her false.  The sorry news must be
told her ere she would go."

"Nay, keep it from her yet a while.  Tell her not now."

"How may we?" Deborah asked helplessly.

"Listen.  I am a householder in Memphis for a year.  The place is
secure from much visiting and only my trusted servants are there.  They
will not tell her--none else will--thou and I shall keep discreet
tongues, but if the fact creep out, in the way of such things, we need
not accuse ourselves of killing her hope.  As thou sayest, the young
man may not be dead.  But let us not risk anything.

"And furthermore," she caught up the line of her talk before Deborah
could answer, "I may as well work good out of an evil I can not escape.
I am betrothed to the heir of the crown of Egypt--"

Deborah flung up her hand, drawing away in her amazement.

"Thou!  A coming queen over the proud land of Mizraim--a guest in the
retreat of enslaved Israel!"

Masanath bent her head.  "Ye, in your want and distress, are not more
poor or wretched than I."

The old Israelite's brilliant eyes glittered in the dark.

"Hold!" she exclaimed.  "Thou art not a slave--"

"Nay, am I not?" Masanath rejoined swiftly.  "A slave, a chattel,
doubly enthralled!  But enough of this, I would have said that if I wed
the prince, I can ask Rachel's freedom at his hands."

"So thou canst," Deborah said eagerly--but before she could continue,
Rachel appeared at the outer opening, the amphora held by one arm, the
ape by the other.  Her face was alight with a smile that seemed
dangerously akin to tears.

"Here is water, clean and fresh, but the Nile is bank-full of the
plague.  It was Anubis that showed me!"  She lowered the amphora into
the rack and took up the linen band the ape had slipped.  "Oh, it is
ungrateful to tie thee, Anubis," she went on, "but thou must not betray
us, thou good creature."

"It was Anubis!" Deborah repeated inquiringly.

"Aye.  Not once did the hideous sight disturb him.  He was athirst and
he made me a well in the sand with his paws.  See how Jehovah hath sent
us succor by humble hands."  She stroked the hairy grotesque and
tethered him reluctantly.

Deborah muttered under her breath.  "I liked the creature not, since he
made me think of the abominable idolatries of Mizraim, but he hath
served the oppressed.  He shall be more endurable to me."

The night fell and the dawn came again and again, but holy Hapi was
denied.  Hour by hour the fuming lamp was set before the entrance, the
door was put a little aside, that the entering air might be purified
for those within.  When the aromatic was exhausted, Rachel sought for
the root once more, among the herbs at the river-bank; for the
atmosphere, unsweetened, was beyond endurance.

Never a boat appeared on the water, nor was any human being seen
abroad.  Egypt retired to her darkest corner and shuddered.

But after the seven days were fulfilled, the horror on the waters was
gone.  It went as miasma is dispelled by the sun and wind--as
pestilence is killed by the frost--unseen, unprotesting.  The lifting
of the plague was as awesome as its coming, but it was not horrible.
That was the only difference.  Egypt rejoiced, but she trembled
nevertheless and went about timidly.

The Israelite and the Egyptian carried the punt, the boat of Khafra and
Sigur, and launched it on the clean waters.  Then they prepared
themselves and Deborah and Anubis for a journey, and ere they departed,
Masanath, at Rachel's bidding, wrote with a soft soapstone upon the
rock over the portal of the tomb, the whereabouts of its whilom
dwellers:

"Her, whom thou seekest, thou wilt find at the mansion of Har-hat in
the city."

At sunset, Rachel, all unsuspecting, was sheltered in the house of her
enemy.

Masanath's servants had sought for her, frantically and without system
or method.  Pepi and Nari had been saved by the gods.  They did not
know where she had gone, and nothing human or divine could have driven
them over the Nile to search for her in the Arabian hills.  And for
that reason likewise, they did not notify Har-hat of his daughter's
loss.  The messenger would have had to cross the smitten river.  They
intended to send for the fan-bearer, but they waited for the plague to
lift.  When it was gone, Masanath returned to them.




CHAPTER XXX

"HE HARDENED HIS HEART"

The Nile rose and fell and the seasons shifted until eight months had
passed.  The period was inconsiderable, but its events had never been
equaled in a like space, or a generation, or a whole dynasty, or in all
the history of Egypt.

When the ancient Hebrew shepherd from Midian first demanded audience
with Meneptah, Egypt was autocrat of the earth and mistress of the
seas.  Her name was Glory and Perpetual Life and her substance was all
the fullness of the earth and the treasures thereof.  But eight months
after the Hebrew shepherd had gone forth from that first audience, how
had the mighty fallen!  She was stripped of her groves and desolated in
her wheat-fields; her gardens were naked, her vineyards were barren,
and the vultures grew fat on the dead in her pastures.  About the
thrice-fortified walls of her cities her gaunt husbandmen were camped,
pensioners upon the granaries of the king.  Her commerce had stagnated
because she had no goods to barter; her society ceased to revel, for
her people were called upon to preserve themselves.  Her arts were
forgotten; only religion held its own and that from very fear.  Egypt
was on her knees, but the gods were aghast and helpless in the face of
the hideous power of the unsubstantial, unimaged God of Israel.

Never had a monarch been forced to meet such conditions, but in all the
mighty line of Pharaohs no feebler king than Meneptah could have faced
them.  In treating with the issue he had fretted and fumed, promised
and retracted, temporized with the Hebrew mystic or stormed at him,
hesitated and resolved, and reconsidered and deferred while his realm
descended into the depths of ruin and despair.

It would seem that the dire misfortunes would have pressed the timid
monarch into immediate submission.  But a glance at conditions may
explain the cause of his obduracy.

At this period in theological chronology, human attributes for the
first time were eliminated from the character of a god.  Moses depicted
the first purely divine deity.  Omnipotence was ascribed to the gods,
but Pantheism being full of paradoxes, the gods were not omnipotent.
Loud as were the panegyrics of the devout, the devout recognized the
limitations of their divinities.  None had ever dreamed of a deity that
was actually omnipotent, actually infinite.   Meneptah measured the God
of Israel by his own gods.  Furthermore, the miracles did not amaze him
as they appalled Egypt.  He was exceedingly superstitious; in his eye
the most ordinary natural phenomenon was a demonstration of the occult.
No matter that the advanced science of his time explained rainfall,
unusual heat or cold, over-fruitful or unproductive years, pestilence
and sudden death, eclipses, comets and meteors,--he believed them to be
the direct results of sorcery.  Calamitous as the effects may have been
upon other people, he had ever escaped harm from these sources.  It was
not strange that in time he ceased to fear miracles, and the
demonstrations of Moses were not so terrifying, inasmuch as they did
not greatly affect him.

His horses died, but Arabia was near to replenish his stables; the
pests annoyed him, but his servants fended them from him; the blains
troubled him, but his court physicians were able and gave him relief;
the thunders frightened him, but his fright passed with the storm.
Whenever the sendings became unendurable he had but to yield to gain a
respite, and then he forgot the experience in a day.  Meanwhile he ate,
slept and walked in the same luxury he had known in happier years.

Therefore, Meneptah neither realized his peril nor was personally much
aggrieved by the troublous times.

It did not occur to him that all the people of his realm were not
sheltered against the plagues by wealth and many servants.  He could
not understand why Egypt should be restive under the same afflictions
that he had borne with fortitude.  Summoning all evidence from his
point of view, he was able to present to himself a case of personal
persecution and ill-use.  The Hebrews belonged to him, and because he
held them their God afflicted Egypt.  Egypt complained and would have
him sacrifice his private property, his slaves, for its sake.  To the
peevish king the demand was unreasonable.  Yet he was not extraordinary
in his behavior.  Unselfishness was not an attribute of ancient kings.

Meneptah was a man that wished to be swayed.  He craved approbation and
was helpless without an abettor.  His puny ideas had to be championed
by another before they became fixed convictions.  After the plague of
locusts, the Hebrew question reached serious proportions.  Har-hat had
estranged most of the ministers, and in his strait Meneptah felt
vaguely and for the first time that he needed the acquiescence of
others in addition to the fan-bearer's ready concord.

One early morning, in a corridor leading from the entrance, he met
Hotep.  A sudden impulse urged him to consult his scribe.

"Where hast thou been?" he asked, noticing Hotep's street dress.

"To the temple, O Son of Ptah."

"What hast thou to ask of the gods that thy king can not give thee?"

Hotep hesitated, and the color rushed into his cheeks.  The Hathors
tortured him with an opportunity he dared not seize.  How could he ask
for Masanath?

"I went to pray for that which all Egyptians crave at this hour--the
succor of Egypt," he said, instead.

Meneptah signed his scribe to follow him to a seat near by.

"Why may I not require of thee the services of a higher minister?" he
began, after he had seated himself.  "Never hast thou failed me, and I
can not say so much of the great nobles above thee.  Serve me well in
this, Hotep, and thou mayest take the place of some one of these."

"Let me but serve thee," the scribe returned placidly; "that is reward
in itself."

"Thou knowest," the king began, plunging into the heart of the
question, "that I yielded to these ravening wolves, Mesu and Aaron.  I
have consented to release the Israelites.  But other thought hath come
to me in the night.  Thou knowest that no evil hath befallen the land
of Goshen.  Har-hat explaineth this strange thing by the location of
the strip.  The Nile toucheth it not and rains fall there.  Furthermore
the winds blow differently in that district, and withal the hand of
Rannu of the harvests hath sheltered it.  It may be, but to me it
seemeth that the Hebrew sorcerer hath cast a protecting spell over the
spot.  But whatever the cause, the race of churls and their riches have
escaped misfortune.  Thinkest thou not, good Hotep, that, if they must
go, we may by right require their flocks of them to replenish the
pastures of Egypt?"

Surely the Hathors were exploiting themselves this day.  Another
opportunity for good and what would come of it?  Hotep knew the man
with whom he dealt.  Still it were a sin to slight even an unprofitable
chance that seemed to offer alleviation for Egypt.  He would proceed
cautiously and do his best.

"Be the little lamp trimmed never so brightly, O Son of Ptah, it may
not help the sun.  Thou art monarch, I am thy slave.  How can I mold
thee, my King?"

"Others have swayed me, thou modest man."

"In that hour when thou wast swayed, O Meneptah, another than thyself
ruled over Egypt."

Meneptah looked in amazement at his scribe.  He had never considered
the influence of Har-hat in that light, but, by the gods, it seemed
strangely correct.  He straightened himself.

"Be thou assured, Hotep, that I weigh right well whatever counsel mine
advisers offer me before I indorse it."

Hotep bowed.  "That I know.  And for that reason do I hesitate to give
thee my little thoughts.  It would hurt the man in me to see them
thrust aside."

"Thou evadest," Meneptah contended smiling.

"Wherefore?"

"Because, O King, I should advise against thine inclinations."

"Wherefore?" Meneptah demanded again, this time with some asperity.

"We hold the Hebrews," was the undisturbed reply; "through destruction
and plague we have held them.  They boast the calamities as sendings
from their God.  Egypt's afflictions multiply; every resort hath failed
us.  One is left--to free the slaves and test their boast."

Meneptah's face had grown deprecatory.

"Dost thou espouse the cause of thy nation's enemy?" he asked.

"I espouse the cause of the oppressed, and which, now, is more
oppressed--Egypt or the Hebrew?"

This was different sort of persuasion from that which the king had
heard since Har-hat took up the fan.  The scribe was compelling him by
reason; the man's personality was not entering at all into the
argument.  Meneptah's high brows knitted.  He felt his feeble
resolution filter away; his inclination to hold the Hebrews stayed with
him, but the power to withstand Hotep's strong argument was not in him.

"What wouldst thou have me do?" he asked querulously.

"I am but a mouthpiece for thy realm; I counsel not for myself.  The
strait of Egypt demands that thou set the Hebrew free, yield his goods
and his children to him, and be rid of him and his plagues for ever."

Hotep spoke as if he were reciting a law from the books of the great
God Toth.  His tone did not invite further contention.  He had read the
king his duty, and it behooved the king to obey.  A silence ensued, and
by the signs growing on Meneptah's face, Hotep predicted acquiescence.
It can not be said, however, that he noted them hopefully.  Much time
would elapse in which much contrary persuasion was possible before
Israel could depart from Egypt.

Rameses came out of the dusk at the end of the corridor.  The king
raised himself eagerly and summoned his son.

"Hither, my Rameses!"

With suspense in his soul, Hotep saw the prince approach.  Rameses had
never expressed himself upon the Hebrew question, and the scribe knew
full well that neither himself nor Har-hat, nor all the ministers, nor
heaven and earth could militate against the counsel of that grim young
tyrant.  Meneptah spoke with much appeal in his voice.

"Rameses, I need thee.  Awake out of thy dream and help me.  What shall
I do with the Hebrews?"

"I have trusted to my father's sufficient wisdom to help him in his
strait, without advice of mine," was the indifferent reply.

"Aye; but I crave thy counsel, now, my son."

"Then, neither god nor devil could make me loose my grasp did I wish to
hold the Hebrews!"

Hotep sighed, inaudibly, and was moved to depart, had not lack of the
king's permission made him stay.

"But consider the losses to my realm," Meneptah made perfunctory
protest.  The prince's full lip curled.

"This is but a new method of warfare," he answered.  "Instead of going
forth with thy foot-soldiers and thy chariots, thy javelins and thy
shields, thou sufferest siege within thy borders.  Wilt thou fling up
thy hands and open thy gates to thine enemy, while yet there is plenty
within the realm and men to post its walls?  Let it not be written down
against thee, O my father, that thou didst so.  Losses to Egypt!" the
phrase was bitter with scorn.  "Dost thou remember how many dead the
Incomparable Pharaoh left in Asia?  How many perished of thirst in the
deserts and of cold in the mountains, and of pestilence in the marshes?
Ran not the rivers of the Orient with Egyptian blood, and where shall
the souls of those empty bodies dwell which rotted under the sun on the
great plains of the East?  The Incomparable Pharaoh cast out the word
'surrender' from his tongue.  Wilt thou restore it and use it first in
this short-lived conflict with a mongrel race of shepherds?  Nay, if
thou dost give over now, it shall not be an injustice to thee if it
come to pass that thou shalt bow to a brickmaker as thy sovereign,
sacrifice to the Immaterial God and swear by the beard of Abraham!"

Meneptah winced under the acrid reproach of his son.

"It hath ever been mine intent to keep the Hebrews, but I would not act
unadvised," he explained apologetically.

"Wherefore, then, these frequent consultations with the wolf from
Midian?" was the quick retort.  "Thou art unskilled in the ways of war,
my father.  The king who would conquer treats not with his enemy.  Thou
dost risk the respect of thy realm for thee.  Strengthen thy
fortifications and exhaust the cunning of thy besieger.  And if he
invade thy lines again with insolence and threats, treat him to the
sword or the halter.  If thou art a warrior, prove thy deserts to the
name.  And if Egypt backs thee not in thy stand against the Hebrew,
then it is not the same Egypt that followed Rameses the Great to glory!"

The king put up his hand.

"Enough!  They shall not go; they shall not go!"




CHAPTER XXXI

THE CONSPIRACY

One morning early in March Seti stood beside the parapet on the palace
of the king in Tanis.  His eyes were fixed on the shimmering line of
the northern level, but he did not see it.  Some one came with silent
footfall and laid a hand on his arm.

He turned and looked into Ta-user's eyes.  His face softened and he
took the hand between his own.

"Alas! this day thou returnest into the Hak-heb," he said.

She nodded.  "Would I could take thee with me, but not yet, not yet.
Wait till thou art a little older."

He sighed and looked away again.  "What weighty things absorb my
prince?" she asked.  "What especial labors is he planning?"

His face clouded.  "Dost thou mock me, Ta-user?" he returned.

"Hadst thou no thought at all?" she persisted.

"I merely pondered on mine own uselessness," he answered.

"Fie!"

"Nay, even thou must see it.  I live on my father's bounty; I accept my
people's homage; I adore the gods.  I bear no arms; I neither prepare
to reign nor expect to serve.  I am a thing set above the healthy labor
of the world and below the cares of the exalted.  I am nothing."

"Fie! I say."

Seti looked at her reproachfully.

"Thou hast wealth," she began and paused.

"Wherein doth that make me useful?"

"Much can be done with gold.  Is there none in need?"

"None who asks has been denied.  Yet what right have I to deal alms to
them from whom my riches come?  If I yielded up everything, to my very
cloak, should I have done more than return to them what they have given
me?  I should still be a penniless prince, more useless than ever."  He
sat down on the broad lintel capping the parapet, but retained her hand.

"Ta-user," he continued, as she opened her lips to speak, "what wouldst
thou have me do?"

"I would have thee be useful."

"I shall throw away my lordly trappings," he said, "and become a lifter
of the shadoof[1] this day."

"Seti," she said sternly, putting his hand away, "with thy people
imperiled by the sorcery of a wizard, with thy realm desolated by the
plagues of his sending, canst thou, on whom I have built so much, thus
lightly consider thy uses and ignore the things set at thy very hand to
do?"

The prince looked at her with not a little discomfiture showing on his
young face.  But the interrogation was emphatic, and she awaited an
answer.

"I have no weight with my father," he said soberly.  "Thou knowest that
Egypt will never have peace until the Hebrews depart.  But I can not
persuade my father to release them and I can not persuade the Israelite
to content himself to stay.  Thou dost demand much of me if thou dost
demand of me the impossible."

As much of contempt as it was wise to show glimmered in her eyes.

"And thou art at thy wits' end?" she asked.

"A little way to go.  Help me, Ta-user.  Bear with me."

She moved closer to him and absently smoothed down the fine locks,
disordered by the wind.  Presently she lifted his face and said with
sudden impulsiveness:

"Dost, of a truth, believe everything that is told thee?"

"Am I over-credulous?" he asked.

"Thou art.  Thou believest this Hebrew to be honest in his show of
interest in his people?"

"I can not doubt him, Ta-user.  One has but to see him to be convinced."

"One has but to see him to know that he might be coaxed into
passiveness with that for which an Israelite would sell his
mummy--gold!"

"Nay!  Nay!" Seti exclaimed.  "Thou dost wrong him!  He is the soul of
misdirected zeal.  His is an earnestness not to be frightened with
death nor abated with bribes."

She laughed a cool little laugh.

"Deliver to him but the price he names, and the Israelitish unrest will
settle like a swarm of smoked bees."

"Ta-user, it is thou that art deceived," Seti remonstrated.  "Even the
Pharaoh does not hesitate to assert that Mesu is terribly upright.  Not
even he would dream of offering the wizard Hebrew a peace-tribute."

Once again she laughed.  "Mind me, I speak reverently of the divine
Meneptah, the Shedder of Light, but I do not marvel that he is no more
willing to deliver over to Mesu one color of gold than another."

Seti looked at her with a puzzled expression.  Gazing down into his
eyes, she said with sudden solemnity:

"My Prince, may I give my life into thy hands?"

Impulsively he pressed her hand to his lips.

"The gods overtake me with their vengeance if I guard it not," he
exclaimed.

She drew him from his place on the parapet and led him to a seat in a
corner near the double towers.  There she sat, and he dropped down at
her feet.  He crossed his arms over her lap and lifted his face to her.
For a moment she was silent, contemplating the young countenance.  What
were the thoughts that came to her then?  Did she applaud or rebuke
herself?  Did she pity or despise him?

Is there more of evil than of good wrought by the mind working silently?

Seti was ripe to be plucked by treachery.  His was the faith that is
insulted by a suggestion of wariness.

"While I dwelt obscurely in the Hak-heb," she began, "I was much among
the partizans of Amon-meses.  They are friends of the Pharaoh now, so
what I tell is dead sedition.  But I heard it when it lived, and thou
knowest the penalty invited by him who listens to criticism of the
king.  Attend me, then, for the story is short.

"The history of Mesu is an old tale to thee.  Thy noble grandsire's
first queen, Neferari Thermuthis, adopted the Hebrew, and when she died
he shared in the allotment of her treasure.  But Mesu was an exile in
Midian at the time, and his share was left with Shaemus, then the heir,
to be given over to the foster-son when he should return.  But Shaemus
died, and all thy father's older brothers, so the gracious Meneptah
came to wear the crown.  To him fell the guardianship of the Hebrew's
treasure till what time he should return out of Midian.  Mesu hath
returned.  Hath thy father delivered to him his inheritance?"

Seti's face flamed, but, before he could speak, she went on.  "Not so;
not one copper weight.  It lies untouched in the treasury.  Thine
august sire does not use it, because he hath wealth more than he can
spend.  But it is the Hebrew's, and if it were delivered into his hands
it would redeem Egypt.  I know it.  There, it is done.  My life is in
thy hands."

The prince looked at her with wide eyes, his cheeks flushed, his lips
silent.

"Wouldst thou have proof?" she continued recklessly.  "Seek out Hotep,
who hath been keeper of the records at Pithom and ask him."

"Did he tell thee?" Seti demanded.

"Nay; I learned it from another source, not in the palace."  The prince
lapsed into silence, his eyes averted.  Ta-user regarded him intently.
Suddenly he raised his head.

"Dost thou know the amount of his share?" he asked.

"It is but a moderate part of the queen's fortune, since each of the
king's children by his many women was included."

Seti winced, for there was something dimly offensive in the calm way
she stated the bald fact.

"It is not much, as princely dowers go," she added casually.

"He shall have it," Seti said almost impatiently.  "Out of mine own
wealth he shall have it--not as a bribe--he would not have it so--but
because it is his."

She caught his hands to her breast and cried out in delight.

"And I shall be thy lieutenant, and none shall know of it, save thee
and me."

He smiled up at her.

"Nay, there is danger in this," he said gently, "and I would not
imperil thee.  Already thou hast overstepped safety for Egypt's sake
and mine.  More than this I will not let thee do."

An expression of panic swept over her face.  He interpreted it as hurt.

"Thou hast been my guide for so long, Ta-user.  Let me choose this once
for thee."

She pouted, and putting him away from her, arose and left him.  He
followed her and took her hands.

"A confederate thou must have," she complained; "and whom dost thou
trust more than Ta-user?"

"It is not a matter of trust," he explained, "but of thine immunity
should the Hathors frown upon my plan."

"It matters not," she protested.  "Whom wilt thou trust and imperil
instead of Ta-user?"

"Thou dost hurry me in my plan-making," he remonstrated mildly.
"Mayhap I shall choose Hotep."

She flung up her head, her face the picture of dismay.

"Nay, nay! not Hotep!  Of all thy world, not Hotep!" she exclaimed.

He lifted his brows in amazement.

"Surely thou dost not question his fidelity--his power?"

"Nay! but dost thou not guess what he will do?  Thou child!  Abet thee!
Nay! he would set his foot upon thy plan and foil thee at once with his
politic hand."

"Hotep will obey as I command; that thou knowest," he said with dignity.

"Thou wilt not reach the point of command with him," she vehemently
insisted.  "He would catch thine intent ere thou hadst stated it and
would make thee aghast at thyself in a twinkling by his smooth
reasoning and vivid auguries.  Nay, if thou art to have thy way in
this, I wash my hands of it.  We are as good as undone."

She turned away from him, but he followed her contritely.

"I submit," he said helplessly.  "Advise me, but I--nay, ask me not to
endanger thee, Ta-user."

She shook her head and moved on.  He advanced a step or two after her,
stopped, and wheeling about, resumed his place at the parapet.

After a little pause she was beside him again.

"Shall we forego this thing?" she asked.

"Nay," he answered quietly.  "I can achieve it without help."  She drew
a breath as if to speak but held her peace.  They stood in silence side
by side for a while.

Presently she slipped between him and the parapet.

"Hast thou not called me wise in thy time?" she asked.  "I believed
thee, then."

"I told thee a truth, but I might have added that thou art over-brave,"
he said, catching her drift.

"Listen, then, to me.  Thou, in thy young credulity, seest in this only
justice to an enemy.  I, in the wisdom of riper years and the
discernment bred of experience with knaves, see in it the redemption of
Egypt.  If the heaviest penalty overtook us is it not a result worth
achieving at any cost?  Seti, believe me; grant me my belief!  It is
the one hope of thy father's kingdom.  Shall it fail because thou wast
envious for my safety above Egypt's?  I can aid thee to success.  That
thou hast said.  If thou failest, though thou dost attempt it alone,
dost thou dream that I could see thee punished without crying out, 'It
was I who urged him!'  If thou art undone, likewise am I.  If thou art
to succeed, wilt thou selfishly keep thy success to thyself?"

She slipped her arm about his neck and pressed close to him.

"Nay, Seti, thou dost overestimate the peril.  The Hebrew will not
betray us, and who else will know of it?  I shall make a journey into
Goshen, find Mesu and bid him meet thee at a certain place.  There thou
shalt come at a certain time with the treasure, and the feat is done.
But if we fail--" she flung her head back and bewitched him with a
heavy eye--"will it be hard for me to persuade the king?"

Seti contemplated her with bewilderment in his face.  The youth and
innocence in his young soul revolted, but there was another element
that yielded and was pleased.

"Have it thy way, Ta-user," he said, with hesitation in his words,
while he continued to gaze helplessly into her compelling eyes.

She laughed and kissed him.  "I will see thee again soon."  Putting him
back from her, she descended the stairway.

In the shadow at the foot she came upon two figures, walking close
together, the taller of the two bending over the smaller.  The pair
started apart at sight of the princess.

"A blessing on thy content, Ta-meri," the princess said.  "And upon
thine, Nechutes."

The cup-bearer bowed and rumbled his appreciation of her courtesy.

"Dost thou leave us, Ta-user?" his wife asked.

"Aye, I return to the Hak-heb.  O, I am glad to go.  Would I could
leave the same quiet here in Tanis that I hope to find in Nehapehu."

"Aye, I would thou couldst.  But is it not true, my Princess, that one
may make his own content even in the sorriest surroundings?" Nechutes
asked.

"For himself, even so.  But the very making of one's selfish content
may work havoc with the peace of another.  That I have seen."

"Aye," Nechutes responded uncomfortably, wondering if the princess
meant to confess her disappointment to them.

"It makes me quarrel at the Hathors.  The most of us deserve the ills
that overtake us.  But he--alas--none but the good could sing as he
sang!"


The cup-bearer dropped his indifference immediately.

"Ha!  Whom dost thou mean?" he demanded.

"Oh!" the princess exclaimed.  "Perchance I give thee news."

"If thou meanest Kenkenes, indeed thou dost give us news.  What of him?
We know that he is dead.  Is there anything further?"

"Of a truth, dost thou not know?  Nay, then, far be it from me to tell
thee--anything."  She passed round them and started to go on.  In a few
paces, Nechutes overtook her.

"Give us thy meaning, Ta-user," he said earnestly.  "Kenkenes was near
to me--to Ta-meri.  What knowest thou?"

"The court buzzes with it.  Strange indeed that ye heard it not.  It is
said, and of a truth well-nigh proved, that the heart of the singer
broke when Ta-meri chose thee, Nechutes, and that--that the disaster
which befell him may have been sought."

Nechutes seized her arm, and Ta-meri cried out,

"He sent Ta-meri to me," the cup-bearer said wrathfully.  "Thy news
is--"

"Alas!  Nechutes," the princess said sorrowfully, "it was sacrifice.
He knew that Ta-meri loved thee and he nobly surrendered, but was the
hurt any less because he submitted?"

Nechutes released her and turned away.  Ta-meri covered her face with
her hands and followed him.  He did not pause for her, and she had to
hasten her steps to keep up with him.  The princess looked after them
for a space and went on.

Straight through the corridors toward the royal apartments she went.
Her copper eyes had taken on a luminousness that was visible in the
dark.  There was an elasticity in her step that spoke of exultation.

The Hathors were indulging her beyond reason.

A soldier of the royal guard paced outside the doorway of the king's
apartments.  Ta-user flung him a smile and, passing him without a word
of leave-asking, smiled again and disappeared through the door.

Meneptah, who sat alone, raised his head from the scroll he was
laboriously spelling.  If he had meant to resent the intrusion, the
impulse died within him at the charming obeisance the princess made.

As she rose at his sign, Har-hat entered.  Ta-user came near to the
king, smiling triumphantly at the fan-bearer.

"The gods sped my feet," she said, "and I am here first.  Hold thy
peace, noble Har-hat.  Mine is the first audience."

Having reached the king's side, she dropped on her knees and folded her
hands on the arm of his chair.

"A boon, O Shedder of Light!  So much thou owest me.  Behold, I came to
thee on the hope of thy promises.  What have I won therefrom?  Naught
save, perchance, the smiles of Egypt at my disappointment."

Meneptah's face flushed.

"Say on, O my kinswoman," he said, moving uncomfortably.

"Kinswoman!  And a year agone, I thought to hear, 'O my daughter.'"

The color in the king's face deepened.

"Wilt thou reproach me, Ta-user, for my son's wilfulness?" was his
tactless reply.

Ta-user shot an amused glance at the discomfited countenance of Har-hat
and went on.

"Nay, O my Sovereign.  I do but wish to incline thine ear to me.  Say
first thou wilt grant me my boon."

He looked at her doubtfully, but she drew nearer and lifted her face to
his.

"I do not ask for thy crown, or thy son, or for an army, or treasure,
or anything but that which thou wouldst gladly give me, because of thy
just and generous heart."

The doubt faded out of his face.

"Thou hast my word, Ta-user."

"And for that I thank thee."  She bent her head and touched her lips to
the hand lying nearest her.

"Give me ear, then," she continued.  "Thou hast among thy ministers a
noble genius, the murket, Mentu--"

The king broke in with a dry smile.  "Wouldst have him for a mate?"

She shook her head till the emeralds pendent from the fillet on her
forehead clinked together.  Nothing could have been more childlike than
the pleased smile on her face.

"Nay, nay, he would not have me," she protested.  "But he hath a son."

Har-hat moved forward a pace.  She noted the movement and playfully
waved him back.  "Encroach not.  This hour is mine."  Har-hat's face
wore a dubious smile.

"He hath a son," she repeated.

"He had a son, but he is dead," the king answered.

"Not so!  He is in prison where thy counselor, the wicked, unfeeling,
jealous, rapacious Har-hat hath entombed him!"

Har-hat sprang forward as the king lifted an amazed and angry face.

"Back!" she cried, motioning at him with her full arm.  "It is time the
Hathors overtook thee, thou ineffable knave!"

"I protest!" the fan-bearer cried, losing his temper.

"Enough of this play," Meneptah said sternly.  "Go on with thy tale,
Ta-user.  I would know the truth of this."

"Thou wilt not learn it from the princess," Har-hat exclaimed.

"Ah!" Ta-user ejaculated, a world of innocence, surprise and wounded
feeling in the word.

"Thy words do not become thee, Har-hat," Meneptah said.  The fan-bearer
closed his lips and gazed fixedly at the princess.

She drooped her head and went on in a voice low with hurt.

"The gods judge me if my every word is not true!  Har-hat imprisoned
him because the gallant young man loved the maiden whom Har-hat would
have taken for his harem."

Meneptah's face blazed.  "Go on," he said sharply.

"The fan-bearer had some little right on his side, for the young man
had committed sacrilege in carving a statue, and had stolen the maiden
away and hidden her when Har-hat would have taken her.  The maiden is
an Israelite, and her hiding-place is known to this day only by herself
and her unhappy lover.  Now comes thy villainy, O thou short of
temper," she continued, looking at the fan-bearer.

"Thy father, O Shedder of Light, the Incomparable Pharaoh who reigns in
Osiris, gave Mentu a signet--"

The king interrupted.  "I know of that.  Go on."

"When Kenkenes was overtaken and thrust into prison he sent this signet
to thee, O my Sovereign, with a petition for his release and for the
maiden's freedom.  The writing and the signet came into Har-hat's hands
and he ignored them, though the signet commanded him in the name of the
holy One."  Her voice lowered with awe and dismay at his unregeneracy.
"Kenkenes is still in prison."

"Now, by the gods, Har-hat!" Meneptah exclaimed angrily.  "I would not
have dreamed such baseness in thee!"

The fan-bearer was stupefied with wrath and astonishment.  Words
absolutely refused to come to him.  Ta-user accused him with the wide
eyes of fearless righteousness.  Presently she went on:

"Already hath he languished eight months in prison.  His offense
against the gods and against the laws of the land hath been expiated.
I would have thee set him free now, O Meneptah, that he may return to
his love and comfort her."

Meneptah reached for the reed pen.

"Hold!" cried Har-hat.

"Thou dost forget thyself, good Har-hat," the princess said with
dignity.  "Thou speakest with thy sovereign."

"But I will be heard!" he exclaimed violently.  "Hear me!  I pray thee,
Son of Ptah!"

Meneptah removed the wetted pen and waited.

"Thou didst give the maiden to me thyself!" he began precipitately.
"Thy document of gift I have yet.  He stole her, hid her away,
committed sacrilege and abused two of my servants nigh unto death when
they sought for her.  Hath he any more right to her than I?  Art thou
assured that he hath an honorable purpose in mind for her?  She is
comely and well instructed in service, and I would have put her in my
daughter's train, even as the Hebrew Miriam was lady-in-waiting to
Neferari Thermuthis.  If thou dost examine the records of the petitions
to thee thou wilt find that I asked her expressly for household
service.  It is false that I had any other purpose in mind.

"As to the signet," he continued breathlessly, "there is no word upon
it concerning the palliation of a triple crime!  Shall we invoke the
king in the blameless name of the holy One, and demand forgiveness in
the name of Him who forgiveth no sin?  Furthermore, thou didst give the
writing into my hands, and in obedience to thy command, I acted as I
thought best.  My purposes have been wilfully distorted!"

Meneptah frowned with perplexity.  But while he pondered, Ta-user drew
near to him and said to him very softly:

"If his words be true, O my Sovereign, one lovely Israelite is as
serviceable as another.  The young man loves this maiden.  Doubt it
not!  He is a worthy off-spring of that noble sire, Mentu.  If he
offended, he hath suffered sufficiently.  Let him go, I pray thee."

"It is my word against her surmises, O Meneptah," Har-hat insisted.

The king frowned more and stroked his cheek.

"Thine anger should be abated by this time, Har-hat," he said feebly.

"His rebellion is not yet broken.  I have not the slave yet," the
fan-bearer retorted.

"Mayhap he is ready to surrender her now."

"Not so!" the princess put in.  "He hath endured eight months.  If it
were eight hundred years his silence would be the same.  It is proof of
my boast that he loves her.  No man who would comfort his flesh alone
would suffer such lengths of mortification of flesh!  Let him go, my
King, and give the clean-souled fan-bearer another Israelite for his
daughter."

"Why camest thou not sooner with this to the king?" Har-hat demanded.

"I have but this moment learned of it, and I could not leave the court
without one last act for the good of the oppressed," she replied.

"Have it thy way, Ta-user.  Come to me in an hour," Meneptah began.

"Nay, write it now."

"Thou art insistent."

"Thou didst promise," she whispered, her face so close to his that the
light from the facets of her emeralds turned on his cheek.

He took up his pen and wrote.

"Now promise that the signet shall go back to Mentu," she continued.

"As thou wilt, Ta-user," the king replied.

She caught up the roll, hesitated for a moment, and then kissed his
cheek deliberately and was gone.

A moment later Har-hat overtook her in the hall.

"Hyena!" he exclaimed.  "What is thy game?"

She laughed and shook the scroll in his face.

"It is my turn at the pawns now.  Thou didst play between me and the
crown.  Now I shall harass thee for the joy of it.  Thinkest thou I
cared aught for the dreamer and his loves?  Bah!  I heard this tale
eight months agone while I had naught to do but eavesdrop.  Nay, it was
but my one chance to vex thee."

Again she laughed and ran away to the queen's apartments.

"I am come to bid thee farewell," she said, kneeling before the pale
little woman who loved the king.  The princess put up her face to be
kissed.

"Not my lips!" she cried warningly.  "They yet tingle with the kiss of
Meneptah, thy husband.  I would not have the ecstasy spoiled by
another's touch."

The queen flushed and kissed the cheek.

"Farewell, and peace go with thee," she said quietly.

The princess retained her composure until she reentered the hall.
There she flung her arms above her head and laughed silently.

"Of a truth, I take peace with me, and I leave discord behind!"



[1] Shadoof--a pole with a bucket attached, like the old well-sweep,
used by rustics to dip water from the Nile.




CHAPTER XXXII

RACHEL'S REFUGE

Rachel stood by the parapet on the top of the Memphian house of
Har-hat.  About her were no evidences of her former serfdom.  She wore
an ample robe of white linen, with blue selvages heavily fringed.
About her neck was the collar of gold.   The costume was distinctly
Israelitish, elaborated somewhat at the suggestion of Masanath, to whom
Rachel's golden beauty was a never-lessening wonder.  Compared to the
tiny gorgeous lady, Rachel was as a tall lily to a mimosa.

Masanath was comfortably pillowed on cushions, close to the Israelite.
The rose-leaf flush on her little face was subdued and her dark eyes
were larger than usual.  The physical discomforts of the plagues had
overtaken her; and Rachel, the only one of all the household who had
passed unscathed through the troublous time, had been so tender a nurse
that Masanath recovered with reluctance.

This was the Egyptian's first day on the housetop, and she was not
happy.  The great pots of glazed earthenware, each a small garden in
size, were filled with baked earth.  The locusts had taken her flowers.
In the park below the grass was gone and the palm trees were
shadowless.  Her chariot horses had died in the stables; her pets had
drooped and perished; her birds were missing one morning, and Rachel
said they had flown to Goshen, where there were grain and grasses.
Furthermore, the year of freedom had almost expired and she began to
anticipate sorrowfully.

The period of the Israelite's residence with Masanath had been
uneventful save for those grim, momentous days of plague and loss.
Deborah had survived the removal to comfort in Memphis only a month.
The brutal injuries inflicted by the servants of Har-hat had been too
severe for her age-enfeebled frame to repair.  So she died, blessing
the two young girls who had attended her, and promising peace and
happiness to come.  Then they laid her in a new tomb cut in the rock
face of the Libyan hills and wrote on her sarcophagus:

"She departed out of the land of Mizraim before her people."

And this was prophecy.

Thus was Rachel left, but for Masanath, entirely alone.  None of the
afflictions had overtaken her.  A mysterious Providence shielded her.
Anubis, which she formally claimed as hers, was the only one of the
numerous dumb dwellers in the fan-bearer's house that had escaped.  And
of him there is something to be told.

Shortly after the arrival of the Israelites in Memphis, Anubis
disappeared for days.

"He is gone to visit the murket," Masanath explained.

One noon Rachel, resting on the housetop with her hostess, saw him
leisurely returning, by starts of interest and recollection.  Behind
him, walking cautiously, was a man.

"Anubis returneth," Rachel said, sitting up.

Masanath raised herself and looked.

"Imhotep[1] plagues mine eyes, or that is the murket following him,"
she exclaimed.

Immediately Rachel began to tremble and, sinking back on her cushions,
hid her face.  Masanath continued to watch the approaching man.

"If he comes shall I send for thee?" she asked in a half-whisper.

The Israelite shook her head.  "Only if he asks for me," she answered.

"A pest on the creature!" Masanath exclaimed impatiently after a little
silence.  "He is torturing the man!  Hath he forgot the place?"

She leaned over the parapet and called the ape.  The murket looked up.

"Anubis is my guest, noble Mentu," she replied.  "Wilt thou not come up
with him?"

The murket looked at her a moment before he answered.

"Nay, I thank thee, my Lady.  I left the noonday meal that I might be
led at the creature's will.  He is restless since my son is gone."

Every word of the murket's fell plainly on Rachel's ears.  The tones
were those of Kenkenes, grown older.  The statement came to her as a
call upon her knowledge of the young artist's whereabouts.

"Tell him--tell him--" she whispered desperately.

"What?" asked Masanath, turning about.

"Tell him where Kenkenes went!"

The Egyptian leaned over the parapet.  "Fie! he is gone!" she said.
"Nay, but I shall catch him;" and flying down through the house, out
into the narrow passage, she overtook the murket.

This is what she told Rachel when she returned:

"I said to him: 'My Lord, I know where Kenkenes went.'  And he said:
'Of a truth?' in the calmest way.  'Aye,' said I.  'It hath come to
mine ears that he went to Tape,'  'That have I known for long,' he
answered, after he had looked at me till I wished I were away.  'That
have I known for long, and why he went and why he came not back,' and
having said, he smoothed my hair and told me I was not much like my
father, and departed without another word.  To my mind he hath
conducted himself most strangely.  I doubt not he knows more than you
or I, Rachel."

To Masanath's dismay the Israelite flung herself face down on the rugs
and wept.  "He is not dead; he is not dead," she cried.

The collapse of a composure so strong and bridled filled Masanath with
consternation.  Had Rachel's spirit been of weaker fiber the Egyptian's
own forceful individuality would have longed to sustain it, but when it
broke in its strength she knew that here was a stress of emotion too
deep for her to soothe.

"Then if he is not dead," she said, searching for something to say,
"why weepest thou?"

"Alas! seest thou not, Masanath?  He hath not returned to me; his
father knows his story, and if he be not dead how shall I explain his
absence save that he hath forgotten or repented?"

"Not so!" Masanath declared.  "He is the soul of honor, and there is a
mystery in this that the gods may explain in time.  Comfort thee,
Rachel, for there stirreth a hope in me."  Then with the utmost tact
she told the story of the finding of Kenkenes' boat and the theory
accepted in Memphis.

"I can offer thee hope," she concluded, "but I can not even guess what
should keep him so long.  Of this be assured, however, he did not
desert thee, Rachel."

Enigmatical as it was, the incident was comforting to Rachel.

So the Nile rose and subsided, the winter came and went, and now it was
near the middle of March, Masanath forgot Kenkenes and remembered her
own sorrow now that its consummation was surely approaching.  During
the hours that darkened gradually Rachel was to her an ever-responsive
comforter.  Even in the dead of night, if the weight of her care
burdened her dreams so that she stirred or murmured, she was instantly
soothed till she slept again.  Usually the day did not harass her with
oppression, but if she grew suddenly afraid, Rachel was at her side to
comfort her--never urging, either to rebellion or submission, but ever
offering hope.

So the little Egyptian came to love the Israelite with the love that
demands rather than gives--the love of a child for the mother, of the
benefited for the benefactor.  Gradually Rachel lost sight of her own
trouble in her devotion to Masanath.  She had no time for her own
thoughts.  Each passing day brought the Egyptian's martyrdom nearer,
and Rachel's uses hourly increased.

This day Masanath, who had been ill, was unusually downcast.

"It may be," she said with more cheer in her tones than had been in her
previous remarks, "that I shall die before they can wed me to Rameses."

"Nay, why not say that the Lord God will interfere before that time?"

"Evil and power have joined hands against me, and even the gods are
helpless against such collusion," Masanath answered drearily.

"The sorrows of Egypt are not yet at an end; mayhap the hand of the God
of Israel will overtake the prince."

"Thy God is afflicting, not helping; He will not spare me."

"The hand of the Lord is lifted against Egypt.  Will He bless the land,
then, with such a queen as thou wouldst be?"

"Nay, but thine is a strange God!  Mark thou, I doubt Him not!  But ai!
I should face Him for ever in sackcloth and ashes lest He smite me for
smiling and living my life without care."

"Hath an ill befallen Israel?"

"If thou art Israel, nay!  Thou hast flourished in this dread time like
a palm by a deep well."

"So he prospereth all his chosen."

Masanath shook her head and looked away.  From the stairway Nan
approached.

"Unas hath come from Tanis, my Lady," she said with suppressed
excitement.  Masanath sat up, trembling.

"Isis grant he hath not come to take thee to marriage," the waiting
woman breathed.  Rachel laid an inquiring hand on the little Egyptian's
arm.

"My father's courier," she explained.  "Let him come up," she continued
to Nari.  The waiting woman bowed and left her.

Rachel arose and took a place on the farther side of the hypostyle,
with the screens of matting between her and Masanath.  She was still in
hiding.

The fat servitor came up presently.

"The gracious gods have had thee under their sheltering wings during
these troublous times," he said, bowing.  "It is worth the trip from
Tanis to look upon thee."

"Thy words are fair, Unas.  How is it with my father?" Masanath asked
with stiff lips.

"The gods are good to the Pharaoh.  They permit the wise Har-hat to
continue in health to render service to his sovereign."

Masanath, dreading the news, asked after it at once.  Men have killed
themselves for fear of death.

"Thou hast come to conduct me to court?"

"That is the gracious will of my master."

Masanath half rose from her seat.  "When?" she asked almost inaudibly.

"In twenty days; no more.  I have a mission to perform and shall go
hence immediately.  But I shall return in twenty days, never fear, my
Lady."

Masanath saw that he mocked her.  Her wrath was an effective
counter-irritant for her trouble.  She was calm again.

"Then, if thy message is delivered, go!"

He backed out and descended the stairway.

When she was sure he was gone she flung herself, in a paroxysm of wild
grief and despair, face down on her cushions.  At that moment a cold
hand caught her arm.  She looked up and saw Rachel.  All the blue had
gone from the Israelite's eyes, leaving them black with dreadful
conviction.  The color had receded from her cheeks and her figure was
rigid.

"Who was that man?" she demanded in a voice low with concentrated
emotion.

"Unas, my father's man.  What is amiss, Rachel?"

The Israelite stood for a moment as though she permitted the
intelligence to assemble all the further facts that it entailed.  Then
she turned away and walked swiftly toward the well of the stair.

"Rachel!  Thou--what--thou hast not answered me," Masanath called.

"There is naught to be said.  I--it were best that I go to my people
now, since thou goest to marriage," was the unready reply.

"Thou wilt return to thy people!  Rachel!  Nay, nay I Thou art all I
have.  Come back!  Come back!" Masanath cried, running after her.

Rachel hesitated, trembling with a multitude of emotions.

"It were better I should go," she insisted, trying to escape Masanath's
clasp.  "If I go now I can reach my people and be hidden safely."

The little Egyptian flung herself upon the Israelite, weeping.

"Art thou, too, deserting me--thou, who art the last to befriend me?
What have I done that thou shouldst desert me?"

"Naught!  Naught!  Thou dear unfortunate!" was the passionate reply.
"But I must go!  I must!"

"Thou must flee from sure safety to only possible security!" Masanath
demanded through her tears.  "If I must wed this terrible prince, I
shall put my misery to some use.  I shall ask thy liberty at his hands
and thou shalt live with me for ever, my one comfort, my one support."

"But Israel departeth shortly--"

"Thou shalt not go," Masanath declared hysterically.  "I will not
suffer thee!  The doors shall be barred against thy departure!"

Rachel turned her head away and pushed back her hair.  Her plight was
desperate.  Meanwhile Masanath went on.

"It is not like thee, Rachel, to desert me!  I had not dreamed thee so
selfish--so cruel!"

"Sister!" Rachel cried, "thou torturest me!"  On a sudden Masanath
raised her head and gazed at the Israelite.

"What possessed thee to go?" she demanded.  "Is it Rameses who hath
beset thee?"

Rachel shook her head and avoided Masanath's eye.

"Tell me," the Egyptian insisted.  "There is mystery in this.  What had
my father's man to do with thy hasty resolution to depart?"

There was no answer.  Masanath put the Israelite back from her a little
and repeated her question.

"I can not tell thee," Rachel responded slowly.

Silence fell, and Masanath spoke at last, in a decided voice.

"Thou art within my house, and so under my command.  Thou shalt not
leave me!  I have said!"  She turned to go back to her cushions.
Rachel followed her.

"I pray thee, Masanath--"

"Hold thy peace.  Let us have no more of this."

Rachel grew paler, and she clasped her hands as though praying for
fortitude.  At last she broke out:

"Masanath!  Masanath!  That man--that Unas--attended the noble who
halted me on the road to the Nile, that morning; he was the one sent
back to Memphis for the document of gift; he pursued me into the hills.
He is the servant of the man who follows me!"

The Egyptian recoiled as though she had been struck.

"Nay, nay," she cried, throwing up her hands as though to ward off the
conviction.  "Not my father!  Not he!  Thou art wrong, Rachel!"

"Would to the Lord God that I were, my sister!  But I am not mistaken
in that face.  He was the one that disputed with Kenkenes--was the one
Kenkenes choked.  Never was there another man with such a voice, such a
face, such a figure!  It is he!"

Masanath wrung her hands.

"Tell it over again.  Describe the noble to me."

"He was third in the procession and drove black horses--"

"Holy Mother Isis! his horses were black.  The first two would have
been the princes of the realm, the next the fan-bearer.  Nay, I dare
not hope that it is not true.  Since he would barter his own daughter
for a high place, he would not hesitate to take by force the daughter
of another.  O Mother of Sorrows, hide me! my father! my father!" she
wailed.

Under the combined weight of her griefs, she dropped on the carpeted
pavement and wept without control.  All of Rachel's fear and horror
were swept away in a wave of compunction and pity.  She lifted the
little Egyptian back upon her cushions again and, kneeling beside her,
took the bowed head against her heart.  Her hair fell forward and
framed the two sorrowing faces in a shower of gold.

"Lo!  I have been a guest under thy roof and at thy board, a pensioner
upon thy cheer, and now, even while my heart was full of gratitude,
have I encroached upon thy happiness and broken thine overburdened
heart.  Forgive me, Masanath.  Let me not come between thee and thy
father, sister!  Let me return to my people, for Israel shortly goeth
forth.  Doubt it not.  Then shall I be out of his reach, and the Lord
will not lay up the sin against him.  Furthermore, dost thou not
remember Deborah's words while the spirit of prophecy was upon her?
Promised she not peace for us, and happiness and long tranquillity to
follow these days of sorrow?  Do thou have faith, Masanath.  Cease not
to hope, for the forces of evil have never yet triumphed wholly."

"Nay, but how shall that restore my pride in my father?" Masanath
sobbed.  "How shall I ever think of him without the bitterness of
shame?  What must the world think of him--of me?  Now I know what the
murket meant.  He knew, and Kenkenes knew and all--  Alas! alas!" she
broke forth in fresh grief, "and Hotep knows!"

Rachel could say no more, for in this sorrow no comfort could avail.

She stroked the little Egyptian's hair and let the wounded heart soothe
itself.

Presently Masanath's mind wandered from the new villainy of her father
to the memory of the older offense and she wept afresh.

"If thou goest, Rachel, there is none left to comfort me," she mourned.
"I am alone--desolate, and the powers of Egypt are arrayed against me!"
Rachel was hearing her own plight given expression.  She put aside any
thought of herself and applied herself to Masanath's need.

"Nay, there is Hotep," she whispered.  "He loves thee, and if there is
aught in prophecy, he will comfort thee when I am gone."

"But thou shalt not go," Masanath cried.  "Stay with me, Rachel."

"Thy father's servant returneth in twenty days.  As I have said, if I
go now, I can reach my people and be hidden safely."

The Egyptian held fast to the Israelite and wept.

"Nay, Rachel.  Stay with me.  Thou art all I have!"

Rachel turned her head and gazed toward the south.  Across the
housetops, the far-off sickle of the Nile curved into a crevice between
the hills and disappeared.  Somewhere beyond that blue and broken
sky-line her last claim to Egypt had been lost.  Why should she stay
when Kenkenes was gone?  Meanwhile Masanath went on pleading.

If she departed, the next day's sun might dawn upon him in Memphis,
searching and sorrowing because he found her not.  The hour of
separation might be delayed for twenty days--in that time he might come.

"I will stay till my people go--if they depart within twenty days,"
Rachel made answer.  "But I must be gone ere thy father's servant
returns."

Masanath rebelled, sobbing.

"Nay, weep not.  The hour is distant.  In that time, since these are
days of miracles, thy sorrows and mine may have faded like a mist.
Come, no more.  Let us bide the workings of the good God."



[1] Imhotep--The physician-god.




CHAPTER XXXIII

BACK TO MEMPHIS

The valley in which Thebes Diospolis was situated was wide and the
overflow of the Nile did not reach the arable uplands near the Arabian
hills.  Three thousand years before, Menes had established a system of
irrigation which had added hundreds of square miles to the agricultural
area of Egypt, and every monarch after him had unfailingly preserved
the institution.  From Syene to Pelusium the country was ramified with
canals, and vast sums and great labor were expended yearly upon their
keeping.

Since the work was heavy and the demand for it constant, it became a
punitive part of each nome's administration.  Therefore, the convicts
whose misdeeds were too serious to be punished adequately by the
bastinado or the fine, and yet not grave enough to merit a sentence to
the quarries or the mines, were sent to the canals.

So here in the canals of the eastern Thebaid, was Kenkenes, a prisoner
known only by a number.  His fellows were unjust public weighers,
usurers, rioters, habitual tax-evaders, broken debtors, forgers and
housebreakers.

The season of toil had been unusually severe.  The native convicts had
more to endure than the lash, the bitter fare, the terrible sun by day,
and a bed of dust by night, for the afflictions that befell all Egypt
were theirs also.  The strange prisoner among them suffered these
things and had further the drawback of his own physical strength to
combat.  The plagues overcame the weaker convicts and decimated the
number of laborers, so Kenkenes was put, alone, to the work that two
men had done before.

However, the accumulation of toil came upon him gradually and his
supple frame toughened as the demand upon it increased.  Nor was he
sensible of pain or great weariness, for his mind was far away from the
sun-heated desert of the eastern Thebaid.  He spoke seldom, and held
himself aloof from his fellow prisoners.  He regarded his taskmasters
as if they were written authority no more animate than watered scrolls
of papyrus.  No one doubted from the beginning that he was high-born,
and this mark of a great fall might have exposed him to abuse; but his
great strength and unusual deportment did not invite mistreatment.  In
short, he was looked upon as mildly mad.

When Kenkenes had rejected the gods, hope, sundered from faith, groped
wildly and desperately.  In his rare moments of cheer he could not
anticipate freedom without trusting to something, and in his
misanthropy his doubt had placed no limit on its scope, questioning the
honor of king or slave.  In these better moments he wanted to believe
in something.

So constantly had his sorrows attended him that he had come to dread
the night, when there was neither event nor labor to interrupt their
dominance over his mind.  He caught eagerly at any less troublous
problem that might suggest itself, for he felt that he had been
conquered by his plight.

As he lay by night, apart from the rest of the prisoners, he gazed at
one glittering star that stood in the north.  About it were
scintillating clusters, single stars and faint streaks of
never-dissipated mists.  Night after night that one brilliant point had
remained unmoved in its steady gaze from the uppermost, but the
clusters rotated about it; the single stars were westward moving; the
mists shifted.  And a question began to trouble him: What hand had
marshaled the stars?  Seb,[1] whom Toth had supplanted?  Osiris, whom
Set destroyed?  The young man put them aside.  They were feeble.
Nothing so weak had created the mighty hosts of heaven.  So he began to
weigh the question.

What hand had marshaled the stars?  An accident?  Since man must
worship something supernal, what more tremendous than the cataclysm, if
such it were, that evolved the stars.  Had the same or a series of such
events brought forth the earth and man?  Was the accident continuously
attendant?  Did it spread the Nile over Egypt and call it again within
its banks every year?  Did it clothe the fields and bring them to
harvest every revolution of the sun?  Did it hang the moon like a
sickle in the west or lift it over the Arabian hills like a bubble of
silver every eight and twenty days?

If it were omnipotent, infinite and omnipresent, could it be an
accident?  If it were, why not worship it and call it God?

The reasoning led him again in the direction of the gods, but he saw no
reason for a multiplicity of deities.  Each member of the Egyptian
Pantheon presided over some special field of human interest or human
environment.  To him, who had lived next to nature till her study had
become a worship, there were no flaws in her chronology, no
shortcomings or plethora.  The earth responded to the skies; the waters
were in harmony with the earth, the harvests with all.  There was unity
in the control over the universe and the hand that was powerful enough
to swing the moon was mighty enough to flood the Nile, was tender
enough to nourish the harvests, was wise enough to govern men.  Where,
then, was any need of a superfluity of powers?

But behold, something had thrust a dread hand between the tender
ministrations of this other Thing and the benefits to men.  By this
time it had reached the remotenesses of Egypt that it was the God of
the Hebrews.  The young man arrived at this alternative in his
reasoning: There was a minister of good and another of evil--two powers
presiding over the earth,--or,--the sole minister was offended and had
deserted its charge, or had loosed upon Egypt the evil at its command.
Here Kenkenes paused.  He could not arrive at any conclusion on the
matter or convince himself that he had not reasoned well.

Night after night, he fell asleep upon his ponderings, but they
returned to him with fresh food for thought after every sunset.  The
reconstruction of something worshipful was more fascinating than had
been the demolition of the gods.  It took many a night's meditation for
the evolution of any fixed idea from the bewildering convection of
thought.  And at last he had concluded only that there was one
thing--Power--Purpose, which was greater than man.

This was not a great achievement.  He had simply permitted the
universal, indefinable claim to piety, inherent in every reasoning
thing, to assert itself.

Great and sincere and beyond expression was his amazement and his joy
when a taskmaster called him from the canal-bed one day and informed
him that he was free.

The order was shown him at his request, and the name of the Princess
Ta-user as his champion filled him with puzzlement.  State news
filtered slowly down even to the level he had occupied for the past
eight months.  He had heard that it was Masanath whom the Hathors had
destined to wear the crown of queen to Rameses; the convicts had known
of the supremacy of Har-hat.  He could not understand how it came that
Ta-user, lately discarded, could prevail upon the crown prince to
persuade Meneptah, or could herself persuade the king to the overthrow
of the fan-bearer's wishes in the matter.  Furthermore, why should the
princess have taken up his cause?  But he did not tarry while he
pondered.

His raiment and his money, conscientiously preserved for him by the
authorities, had been sent to him, and a little way outside the camp he
stepped from the lowest to his rightful rank, swifter than he had
descended from it.  Covering his sun-burnt shoulders with his robes,
assuming the circlet once again, he went toward the distant city of
Thebes, once more in spirit and dress the son of the royal murket.

At the heavy-walled prison across the Nile he asked after the signet.
It had not been returned with the writing.  Neither was there any word
to him concerning his prayer to Pharaoh for the liberty of Rachel.  It
began to dawn on him that he had been released only after he had been
sufficiently punished; that he had failed in the most vital aims of his
mission; that the signet, having been found, seemed now to be lost
irretrievably.  For a space his relief at his freedom was overshadowed
by chagrin, but after a little he recovered himself.  "At least I am
free to care for her, now," he reflected.

Just as he emerged from the imposing doorway of the house of the
governor of police, he was jostled by a half-grown boy.  To Kenkenes,
it seemed that the youth had been on the point of entering, but instead
he apologized inaudibly and walked away.

A great rush of impatience, suspense, eagerness and heart-hunger fell
on the young artist the instant he knew his footsteps were turned
toward Memphis and Rachel.  The six days that must intervene between
the present time and the moment he entered the old capital seemed
insufferable.  Never did a lover so fume against the inexorable
deliberation of time and the obstinate length of distance.  The
preliminaries to departure seemed to accumulate and lengthen--and
lessen in importance.  Haste consumed him.  Under a momentary impulse,
with all seriousness he began to consider his own fleetness of foot as
more expedient than travel by boat.  But he put the thought aside, and
summoning as much patience as was possible, set about with all speed
preparing to depart.

Thebes had not awakened from the coma of horror into which it had
lapsed during the great plagues.  It was Kenkenes' first visit to the
city since he had left it for the desert, eight months before.  Now,
the change in the great capital of the south impressed itself upon him,
in spite of his haste and his all-absorbing thought of Memphis.  The
activities of life seemed to be suspended.  The call to prayers could
be heard hourly from the great gongs of the temple at Karnak, when in
happier days the sound had been lost in the city's noises within the
very shadow of the pylons.  He could hear strains of music in religious
processions, when the wind was fair, but he missed the acclaim of the
populace.  Besides these sounds, silence had settled over Thebes.
Booths were closed in many instances; the streets, which ordinarily
were quiet, were now deserted; there were no carpets swinging from
balconies and housetops, and the citizens he saw were sober of
countenance and of garb.  So few, indeed, he met, that he noted each
passer-by as an event.  Once, some distance away from him, he saw again
the youth whom he had met in the doorway of the prison.

At a caterer's he purchased supplies for a day's journey and looked
about him for a carrier.  Catching the boy's eye, he beckoned him, but
the youth turned on his heel and disappeared.  The son of the merchant
offering himself, Kenkenes continued rapidly toward the river where he
engaged a vessel to take him to Memphis.

He roused the boatmen into immediate activity by promises of reward for
every mile gained over the average day's journey.  Their passenger and
cargo shipped, the men fell to their oars and the craft shot out of the
still waters by the landings into midstream and turned toward the north.

As they cleared, the private passage boat belonging to a nobleman swept
up near to them and crossing their track took the same direction
several hundred yards nearer the Libyan shore.  Kenkenes noted that it
was a bari of elegant pattern, deep draft and more numerously manned
than his.  He noted further that one of the boat's crew was the youth
he had met thrice in a short space at Thebes.

"Small wonder that he was not willing to serve me," he commented to
himself.

If he observed the companion boat during the next five days it was to
remark that since his own vessel kept sturdily alongside one of
superior rowing force his men were of a surety earning the promised
reward.  When they entered the long straight stretches of the Middle
country the elegant stranger dropped behind and attended Kenkenes and
his crew more distantly thereafter.

Except for these few occasions, Kenkenes had no thought of his
surroundings.  He stood in the prow and looked down the shimmering
width of river, in the direction his heart had taken long before him.
And when the white cliffs that proved him close to Memphis came
shouldering up from the northern horizon, he had forgotten the stranger
in the eager, trembling anticipations that possessed him.



[1] Seb--The Egyptian Chronos.




CHAPTER XXXIV

NIGHT

On the morning of the eighteenth day, immediately after sunrise, Rachel
came to the curtains over Masanath's door, and put them aside.

Within, she saw her hostess yet in her bed-gown, her hair disordered
and her tiny feet bare.  She stood before a shrine of silver, the
statue of Isis in turquoise displayed therein, and an offering of
pressed dates before it.  But there was no sign of devotion or humility
in the attitude of the Egyptian.  One plump arm was stretched toward
the image and the hand was tightly clenched.  Neither was there any
reverence in her voice.

Rachel dropped the curtain and waited.  The words came distinctly
through the linen hangings.

"Thou false one![1] thou ingrate!  Is it for this that every day I have
sent two fat ducks to the altar in thy name?  Is it that I must be
separated from my beloved and wedded to the man I hate, that I have
prayed to thee day and night?  Who hath been more faithful to thee and
whom hast thou served more cruelly?  Mark thou!  If thou darest to
cause this thing to come to pass, night nor day shall I rest until I
have found the bones of Osiris and scattered them to the four winds of
heaven!  So carefully shall I hide them, so widely shall I scatter
them, that no help of Nepthys, Toth or Anubis shall let thee gather
them up again!  Aye, I will do it, though I die in the doing and remain
unburied, I swear by Set!  Remember thou!"

Rachel went softly away.

After a time she returned.  She had covered her white dress with a
mantle of brown linen and over her head she wore a wimple of the same
material.  Her hair had been coiled and secured with a bodkin.  When
she put her hand under the wimple and drew it across her mouth, only
her fair skin and blue eyes distinguished her from any other Egyptian
lady dressed for a long journey.

She lifted the curtains and entered, and it was long before she came
forth again.  Then her eyes were hidden and her head bowed, for she had
bidden farewell to Masanath.  She was returning to Goshen.

In the street before the house she entered her litter and with Pepi
walking beside her went to the Nile.  And there they were joined by
Anubis.  He had been absent for days, so his greeting was extravagant,
his loyalty inalienable.  He entered the bari Pepi had loaded with
Rachel's belongings, and would not be coaxed or menaced into
disembarking.

"Nay, let him come," Rachel said at last.  "Thou canst set him on the
shore opposite the tomb.  He will leave us willingly there."

So they pushed away.

Rachel wrapped her wimple about her face and removed it once only to
gaze at the quarries of Masaarah.  They were deserted.  Months before,
directly after the affliction of the Nile, the Israelites had been
returned to Goshen.

After the bari had passed below the stone wharf, Rachel covered herself
and neither spoke nor moved.  Her heart was heavy beyond words.

Pepi broke the silence once.

"Shall we drop the ape first, my Lady?"

Rachel shook her head.  Anubis was her last hold on Kenkenes.

At the Marsh of the Discontented Soul, the bari nosed among the reeds
and grounded gently.  Rachel stood for a moment gazing sadly across the
stretch of sand toward the abrupt wall against which it terminated
inland.  Pepi, already on shore, reached a patient hand toward her and
awaited her awakening.  Anubis landed with a bound and made in a series
of wide circles for the cliff.  His escape aroused Rachel and she
stepped out of the boat.  After a moment's thought, she bade Pepi pull
away from the shore and await her at a safe distance.

"I shall stay no longer than to write my whereabouts on the tomb, but
thy boat here may attract the attention of others on the river, and
hereafter they might ask what thou didst in this place.  And I am not
afraid."

The slow Egyptian obeyed reluctantly, shaking his head as he stood away
from shore.

With a sigh that was almost a sob, Rachel walked back over the sand
toward the cave that had been her only shelter once.

She did not fear it.  Kenkenes had crossed this gray level of sand in
the night and its wet border at the river had borne the print of his
sandal.  He had made the tomb a home for her, he had knelt on its rock
pavement and kissed her hands in its dusk and had passed its threshold,
like a shadow, to return no more.  And here, too, was the other
faithful suggestion of her lost love--the pet ape.  How his fitful
fidelities had directed themselves to her!  She caught him up as he
passed her.  He struggled, turned in her arms, and then became passive,
breathing loudly.

She climbed the rough steps and sat down on the topmost one to think.

She was surrounded with old evidences of her sorrow.  Nor was there any
cheer before her.  Escape was in prospect, but it was liberty without
light or peace--a gray freedom without hope, purpose or fruit.  Her
retrospect gradually brightened, never to brilliance but to a soft
luminance, brightest at the farthermost point and sad like the dying
daylight.  She summarized her griefs--danger, death, suspense, shame
and long hopelessness.  The lonely girl's stock of unhappiness took her
breath away and she pushed back the wimple as if to clear away the
oppression.

Anubis realized his moment of freedom was short and with an instant
bound he was out and gone.

In no little dismay Rachel started in pursuit, but she had not moved
ten paces from the bottom of the steps before she paused, transfixed.

An Egyptian, not Pepi, was hauling a boat into the reeds.  The craft
secure, he turned up the slant, walking rapidly.

There was no mistaking that commanding stature.

Anubis descended on him like an arrow.  The man saw the ape, halted a
fraction of an instant, caught sight of Rachel, and with a cry, his
arms flung wide, broke into a run toward her.

The ape bounded for his shoulder, but missed and alighted at one side,
chattering raucously.  The running man did not pause.

The world revolved slowly about Rachel, and the sustaining structure of
her frame seemed to lose its rigidity.  She put out her hands, blindly,
and they were caught and clasped about Kenkenes' neck.  And there in
the strong support of his tightening arms, her face hidden against the
leaping heart, all time and matters of the world drifted away.  In
their place was only a vast content, featureless and full of soft dusk
and warmth.

Gone were all the demure resolutions, the memory of faith or unfaith.
Nothing was patent to her except that this was the man she loved and he
had returned from the dead.

Presently she became vaguely aware that he was speaking.  Though a
little unsteady and subdued, it was the same melody of voice that she
seemed to have known from the cradle.

"Rachel!  Rachel!" he was saying, "why didst thou not go to my father
as I bade thee?  Nay, I do not chide thee.  The joy of finding thee
hath healed me of the wrench when I found thee not, at my father's
house, at dawn to-day.  But tell me.  Why didst thou not go?"

"I--I feared--" she faltered after a silence.

"My father?  Nay, now, dost thou fear me?  Not so; and my father is but
myself, grown old.  He was only a little less mad with fear than I,
when he discovered that thou shouldst have come to him so long ago, and
camest not.  It damped his joy in having me again, and I left him pale
with concern.  Did I not tell thee how good he is?"

"Aye, it was not that I feared him, but that I feared that thou--"  And
she paused and again he helped her.

"That I was dead?  That I had played thee false?  Rachel!  But how
couldst thou know?  Forgive me.  Since the tenth night I left thee I
have been in prison."

"In prison!" she exclaimed, lifting her face.  "Alas, that I did not
think of it.  It is mine to beg thy forgiveness, Kenkenes, and on my
very knees!"

"So thou didst think it, in truth!"  She hid her face again and craved
his pardon.

But he pressed her to him and soothed her.

"Nay, I do not chide thee.  Had I been in thy place, I might have
thought the same.  But it is past--gone with the horrors of this
horrible season--Osiris be thanked!"

"Thanks be to the God of Israel," she demanded from her shelter.

"And the God of Israel," he said obediently.

"Nay, to the God of Israel alone," she insisted, raising her head.

He laughed a little and patted her hands softly together.

"It was but the habit in me that made me name Osiris.  There is no god
for me, but Love."

"So long, so long, Kenkenes, and not any change in thee?" she sighed.
"How hath Egypt been helped of her gods, these grievous days?"

"The gods and the gods, and ever the gods!" he said.  "What have we to
do with them?  Deborah bade me turn from them and this I have done with
all sincerity.  Much have I pondered on the question and this have I
concluded.  Egypt's holy temples have been vainly built; her worship
has been wasted on the air.  There was and is a Creator, but, Rachel,
that Power whose mind is troubled with the great things is too great to
behold the petty concerns of men.  My fortunes and thine we must
direct, for though we implored that Power till we died from the fervor
of our supplications, It could not hear, whose ears are filled with the
murmurings of the traveling stars.  Why we were created and forgotten,
we may not know.  How may we guess the motives of anything too great
for us to conceive?  Whatsoever befalls us results from our use at the
hands of men, or from the nature of our abiding-place.  We must defend
ourselves, prosper ourselves and live for what we make of life.  After
that we shall not know the troubles and the joys of the world, for the
tombs are restful and soundless.  Is it not so, my Rachel?"

She shook her head.  "Thou hast gone astray, Kenkenes.  But thou wast
untaught--"

"I have reasoned, Rachel, and the Power I have found in my ponderings,
makes all the gods seem little.  Thy God must manifest himself more
fearfully; he must overthrow my reasoning before I can bow to him.  And
if, of a surety, he is greater than the Power I have made, will he need
my adoration or listen to my prayers?  Nay, nay, my Rachel.  If thou
wilt have me worship, let me fall on my face to thee--"

She interrupted him with a quick gesture.

"Kenkenes, have I prayed in vain for the light to fall on thee?" she
asked sadly.

He smiled and moved closer, looking down into her face as he had done
when he studied it as Athor.

"Nay, hast thou done that, and hast thou not been heard?  Thou dost but
fix me in mine unbelief.  Did any god exist he would have heard thy
supplications.  Come, let us make an end of this.  There are sweeter
themes I would discuss.  Where hast thou been, these many months?  Not
here in this haunted cave?"

His lightness sank her hope to the lowest ebb.  A sudden hurt reached
her heart.  His unregeneracy suggested unfaithfulness to her.  Their
positions had been reversed.  It was she that had been denied.  Duty
reasserted itself with a chiding sting.

"I have been a guest with Masanath--"

"The daughter of Har-hat!" he cried, retreating a step.

"The daughter of mine enemy," she went on.  "She found me here by
accident and took me to her home in Memphis.  There Deborah died.  And
there, eighteen days agone, I discovered who it was that sheltered me,
and now I return to my people."

"The fan-bearer did not find thee?" he demanded at once.

"Nay.  Unseen, I looked upon his man.  Alas! the wound to the
daughter-love in Masanath!  On the morrow she departeth for Tanis where
she will wed with the Prince Rameses."

Kenkenes' hands fell to his sides.  "Nay, now!  Of a surety, this is
the maddest caprice the Hathors ever wrought.  In the house of thine
enemy!  Well for me I did not know it!  I should have died from very
apprehension.  And all these months thou wast within sight of my
father's doors!"

"I saw him once," she said.

"And discovered not thyself!  How cruelly thou hast used thyself,
Rachel.  He would have told thee, long ago, why I came not back."

"Aye, now I know; but, Kenkenes, I could not go, fearing--"

"Enough.  I forgot.  Come, let us go hence.  Memphis and my father's
house await thee now."

"But I go to my people, even now," she answered, with averted face and
unready words.

Kenkenes whitened.

"And leave me?" he asked quietly.

"Think me not ungrateful," she said.  "I have said no words of thanks
since there is none that can express a tithe of my great indebtedness
to thee."

"I have achieved nothing for thee.  Not even have I won thy freedom.  I
have failed.  But shameless in mine undeserts, I am come to ask my
reward nevertheless."  He was very near to her, his face full of
purpose and intensity, his voice of great restraint.

"That which once thou didst refuse to hear, thou hast known for long by
other proof than words," he went on.  "Let me say it now.  I love thee,
Rachel."  Taking her cold hands he drew her back to him.

"Once I forbore," he continued, the persuasive calm in his manner
heightening, "because I knew it would hurt thee to say me 'nay,' I told
myself that I was brave, then, when the actual loss of thee was
distant.  But thou wilt leave me now and my fortitude for thy sake is
gone.  I am selfish because I love thee so.  The extreme is reached.  I
can withstand no more.  Dost thou love me, Rachel?"

What need for him to wait for the word that gave assent?  Was there not
eloquent testimony in her every feature and in every act of that hour
he had been with her?  But his hands trembled, holding hers, till she
told him "aye."

"Then ask what thou wilt of me," he said, the restraint gone,
desperation taking its place.  "I submit, so thou dost yield thyself to
me.  Shall I pray thy prayers, kneel in thy shrines?  Shall I go with
thee into slavery?  Shall I learn thy tongue, turn my back on my
people, become one of Israel and hate Egypt?  These things will I do,
and more, so I shall find thee all mine own when they are done."

But she freed her hands to cover her face and weep.  Kenkenes sighed
from the very heaviness of his unhappiness.

"Thou shouldst hate me, if, to win thee, I bowed in pretense to thy
God," he said weakly.

Perhaps his words awakened a hope or perhaps they made her desperate.
Whatever the sensation, she raised her head and spoke with a sudden
assumption of calm:

"Naught could make me hate thee, Kenkenes, but I should know if thou
didst pretend.  Thou art as transparent as air.  Thou art honest,
guileless--too good to be lost to the Bosom that must have thrilled
with joy when he beheld what a beautiful soul His hands had wrought.
Few of His believers have conceived the greatness of Jehovah as thou
hast, O my Kenkenes.  In that art thou proved ripe for His worship.
Thou hast found His might to be so limitless that thou thinkest thyself
as naught in His sight.  In that hast thou gone astray.  The mind is
gross that can not heed the weak and small.  Shall we say that the
spinner of the gossamer, the painter of the rose is not fine?  Shall He
forget His daintiest, frailest works for His mightiest?  Thou, artist
and creator thyself, Kenkenes, answer for Him.  Nay; not so!  He, who
hath an ear to the lapse between an hour and an hour, hath counted His
song-birds and numbered His blossoms.  For are they, being small, less
wondrous than the heavens, His handiwork?  Shall He then fail to hear
the voice of His sons in whom He hath taken greater pains?"

She paused for a moment and looked at him.  His expression urged her on.

"Does it not trouble thee when I, whom thou hast but lately known, am
in sorrow?  How much more then does thine unhappiness vex His holy
heart, who fashioned thee, who blew the breath of life into thy
nostrils!  Wilt thou deny the Hand that led thee to me, here, in this
hour--that cared for me during the season of distress and peril?  Nay,
my beloved, there is no greater virtue than gratitude.  It is an
essential in the make-up of the great of heart--wilt thou put it out of
thy fine nature?"

Again she paused, and this time he answered in a half-whisper:

"Thou dost shake me in mine heresy."

"It is but newly seated in thy credence," she said eagerly, "and is
easy to be put aside--easier to cast off than was the idolatry.  Put it
away in truth from thee and grieve thy Lord God no more."

"Would that I could, now, this hour.  We may discipline the soul and
chasten the body, but how may we govern the mind and its disorderly
beliefs?  It laughs at the sober restraint of the will; my heart is
broken for its sake, but it is reprobate still."

"And I have not won thee?" she asked, shrinking from him.

"Give me time--teach me more--return not to Goshen.  Come back to
Memphis with me!" he begged in rapid words, pressing after her.  "No
man uncovered so great a problem, alone, in a moment.  How shall I find
God in an hour?"

"O had I the tongue of Miriam!" she exclaimed.

"Go not yet.  Wilt thou give me up, after a single effort?  Miriam
could not win me, nor all thy priests.  I shall be led by thee alone.
A day longer--an hour--"

"But after the manner of man, thou wilt put off and wait and wait.
Thou art too able, Kenkenes, too full of power for aid of mine--"

"Rachel, if thou goest into Goshen--" he began passionately, but she
clutched him wildly, as if to hold him, though death itself dragged at
her fingers.

"Hide me!" she gasped in a terrified whisper.  "The servant of Har-hat!"

At the mention of his enemy's name, Kenkenes turned swiftly about.

Two half-clad Nubians were at the river's edge, hauling up an elegant
passage boat.  It was deep of draft and had many sets of oars.
Approaching over the sand, hesitatingly, and with timid glances toward
the tomb beyond, were four others.  The foremost was the youth he had
seen in Thebes.  The next wore a striped tunic.  Fourth and last was
Unas.

"Now, by my soul," Kenkenes exclaimed aloud, "there is no more mystery
concerning the boy."  He turned and took Rachel in his arms.

"Now, do thou test the helpfulness of thy God!  I have been tricked and
I see no help for us.  Enter the tomb and close the door, and since
thou lovest honor better than liberty, let this be thine escape."

He put his only weapon, his dagger, into her hands.  For an instant he
gazed at her tense white face; then bending over her, he kissed her
once and put her behind him.

"Go," he said.

"What want ye?" he demanded of the men.

"A slave," Unas answered evilly, stepping to the fore.

"Your authority?"  The fat courier flourished a document and held up a
blue jewel, hanging about his neck.  Meneptah had forgotten his promise
to return the lapis-lazuli signet to Mentu.

"Thou art undone, knave!" the courier added with a short laugh.  He
clapped his hands and the four Nubians advanced rapidly upon Kenkenes.
There was to be no parley.

Kenkenes glanced at the youth.  He was not full grown,--spare, light
and small in stature.

"I am sorry for thee, boy," Kenkenes muttered.  "Thy gods judge between
thee and me!"

The Nubians, two by two, each man ready to spring, rushed.

With a bound, Kenkenes seized the youth by the ankles and swung him
like an animate bludgeon over his head.  The attacking party was too
precipitate to halt in time and the yelling weapon swung round,
horizontally mowing down the foremost pair of men like wooden pins.
The weight of the boy, more than the force of the blow, jerked him from
the sculptor's hands.  Kenkenes recovered himself and retreated.  As he
did so, he stumbled on a fragment of rock.  He wrenched it from its bed
and balanced it above his head.

The powerful figure with the primitive weapon was too savage a picture
for the remaining pair to contemplate at close quarters.  Unas had made
no movement to help in the assault.  He had felt the weight of the
sculptor's hand and had evidently published the savagery of the young
man to his assistants.  They had come prepared to capture an athletic
malefactor, but here was a jungle tiger brought to bay.  They retired
till their fallen fellows should arise.

The vanquished were struggling to gain their feet, and Kenkenes noted
it with concern.  He was not gaining in this lull.  There were other
stones about him.  He hurled the fragment with a sure aim, and a
Nubian, who had been overthrown, dropped limply and stretched himself
on the sand.

With a howl the remaining three charged.  They were too close for the
second missile of Kenkenes to do any slaughter, and he went down under
the combined attack, fighting insanely.

"Slit his throat," Unas shrieked, tumbling on the captive, as Kenkenes'
superhuman struggles threatened to shake them off.  One of the men
raised himself and made ready to obey.  Holding to Kenkenes with one
hand, he drew a knife from his belt and prepared to strike.

At that instant, the captive caught sight of a pale woman-face, the
eyes blazing with vengeance.  There was a flash of a white-sleeved arm
and the thump and jolt of a dagger driven strongly through flesh.  The
murderous Nubian yelled and tumbled, kicking, on the sand.  He carried
a knife at the juncture of the neck and shoulder.

Instantly there was a chorus of yells.

"She-devil!  Hyena!"

Unas detached himself from the struggle and plunged after Rachel, now
in full sight of Kenkenes.  He saw her retreat, warding off the fat
courier with her hands; he saw her stumble and fall; he saw Anubis fly,
with a chatter of rage, in the face of the courier, and struggling
mightily, he threw off his captors, and leaped to his feet.

And then the light went out in Egypt!



[1] It was not uncommon for Egyptians to threaten their gods.




CHAPTER XXXV

LIGHT AFTER DARKNESS

A water-carrier in Syene was carrying a yoke across his shoulders and
the great earthen jars swung ponderously as he walked.  His bare feet
disturbed the red dust of the path down to the granite-basined river,
and tiny clouds puffed out on each side of the way at every footfall.

On a housetop in Memphis, a gentlewoman, in a single gauze slip and
many jewels, lounged on a rug and gazed at nothing across the city.  A
flat-shanked Ethiopian fanned her listlessly and dreamed also.

A little boy, innocent of raiment, stood before a new tomb, opposite
Tanis and awaited his father who labored within.

The water-carrier collapsed in his tracks; the lady shrieked; the
Ethiopian dropped the fan; the little boy fell on his face--all at the
same instant.

From the sea to the first cataract, from the deepest recess in the
Arabian hills to the remotest peak in the Libyan desert, Egypt was
blinded and muffled and smothered in a dead, black night--even darkness
that could be felt.

Kenkenes stood still.  Harsh hands were no longer on him and for an
instant no sound was to be heard.  Profound gloom enveloped him.  His
every sense was frustrated.

Some one of his assailants had found his heart with a knife and this
was death, he thought.

Then strange, far-off murmurings filled his ears.  From the river and
beside him went up wild, hoarse cries of men in mortal terror.  Memphis
began to drone like a vast and troubled hive.  The distant pastures
became blatant and the poultry near the huts of rustics cackled in wild
dismay.  In the hills about beasts whimpered and the air was full of
the screaming of bewildered birds.

With the awakening of sound, Kenkenes knew that another plague had
befallen Egypt.

The dread that might have transfixed him was overcome by the instant
recollection of Rachel's peril.  No restraining hands were upon him,
but he stood yet a space attempting to catch some rift in the thick
night.  There was not one ray of light.

While he waited it was more distinctly borne in upon him that during
that space Rachel might suffer.  He would go to her.

The night made a wall ahead of him which was imminent and
indiscernible.  It was like a great weight upon his shoulders and a
pitfall at his feet.

He crouched and fumbled before him.  His apprehension was physical; his
mind urged him; his body rebelled.  He would have run but he could
barely force one foot ahead of the other.  Illusory obstacles
confronted him.  He waved his arms and put forward a foot.  The ground
was lower than he thought, and he stepped weightily.  He brought up the
other foot laboriously, hesitatingly.  This was not advance, but
time-losing.

Meanwhile, what might not be happening to Rachel in this chaos of gloom
and clamor?  Why need he hide his escape?  None of these near-by
assailants had any care now save for his own safety.

He called her name loudly and listened.

There was no answer in her voice.

He forced himself to move, but had the next step led into an abyss his
feet could not have been more reluctant.  He flailed the air with his
arms and accomplished another pace.  He realized that he could not
reach, in an hour, at this rate, the spot in which he had last seen
her.  Again he called, using his full lung power, but the only reply
was an echo, or the hoarse supplications of men, near him and on the
river.  The river!  Had Rachel gone that way too far and beyond
retreat?  The thought chilled him with terror and horror.

He execrated himself for his trepidation and strove wildly to proceed;
but strive as he might he could not advance.  How long since the
darkness had fallen, and he had moved but two paces from the spot in
which it had overtaken him!  The outcry near him subsided into low
murmurs of terror, and none lifted a voice in answer to his distracted
call.

If Rachel had been near she would have replied to him.  The
alternatives he had to choose as her possible fate were death in the
Nile or capture by Unas.  The one he fought away from him wildly, the
other made him frantic.  And the realization of his own helplessness,
with the picture of her distress at that moment, crushed him.

A tangle of wind-mown reeds tripped him and pitched him to his knees
among the high marsh growth.

He did not rise.

The babe in pain cries to his mother; the man in his maturity may
outgrow the susceptibility to tears, but he never outwears the want of
a stronger spirit upon which to call in his hour of distress.

For Kenkenes it had been a far cry, from his careless days and his
empyrean populous with deities, to this utter and unhappy night and one
unseen Power.  In that time he had run the gamut of sensations from a
laugh to a wail.  Now was his need the sorest of all his life.  The
most helpful of all hands must aid him.  His fathers' gods were in the
dust.  What of that unapproachable, unfeeling Omnipotence he had
created in their stead?

He fell on his face and prayed.

"O Thou, who art somewhere behind the phantom gods that we have raised!
To whom all prayer ascends by many-charted paths; Thou who canst spread
this sooty night across the morning skies and turn to milk the bones of
men!  Thou who didst undo my surest plans, who dost mock my boasted
power, who hast stripped me till my feeble self is bared to me even in
this dreadful night; Thou who wast a fending hand about her; who art
her only succor now--to whom she prays--and by that sign, Thou Very
God! I bow to Thee.

"My lips are stiff at prayer to such as Thou.  But what need of my
tongue's abashed interpretation of that which I would say, since even
the future's history is open unto Thee?

"I have run my course without craving Thine aid, and lo! here have I
ended--a voice appealing through the night--no more.

"Now, wilt Thou heed an alien's plea; wilt Thou know a stranger
petitioning before Thy high and holy place?  How shall I win Thine ear?
Charge me with any mission, weight me with a lifetime of penances,
strip me of power everlastingly, but grant me leave to supplicate Thy
throne.

"Not for myself do I pray, O Hidden God!  Not one jot would I overtax
Thy bounty toward me beyond the sufferance of my devotion.  But for her
I pray--for her, out somewhere in this unlifting gloom, her tender
maidenhood uncomforted--with night, with death, with long dishonor
threatening her.  Attend her, O Thou august Warden!  Let her not cry
out to Thee in vain!  Be Thou as a wall about her, as a light before
her, as a firm path beneath her feet.  Do Thou as Thou wilt with me.
Lo! I offer up myself as ransom for her--myself--all I have!  Take her
from me, deny mine eyes the sight of her for ever, blot me wholly out
of her heart, yield me over to the wrath of mine enemies, and to Thine
unknowable vengeance thereafter; but save her, Great God! save her from
her enemy!

"Dost Thou hear me, O Holy Mystery?  Is there no sign, no manifestation
that Thou dost attend?

"Nay, but I know that Thou hearest me!  By my faith in Thy being I know
it, Lord!"

Peace fell on him and he slept.

In after years Kenkenes remembered only vaguely the long hours of that
black and lonely vigil.  This climax to a calamitous space eight months
in length might have crushed a less sturdy spirit, but he was
mystically sustained.

With the exception of a few intervals of short duration most of the
time was spent in sleep, so profound and dreamless as to border on
coma.  The reeds had received him on a bed of crushed herbage and the
upstanding ranks about him sheltered him from the blowing sand.  The
whilom assailants of the young man were not so kindly served by the
gods to whom they appealed loudly and frequently.  The city in the
distance moaned and complained and the hills were full of fear.

In one of his profound lapses of slumber a hairy paw felt of Kenkenes'
face.  Later a drifting boat nosed about among the reeds at the water's
edge.  Presently one of the crew cried out, and a second voice said:

"Nay, fear not; it is an ape, by the feel of him.  Toth is with us.  It
is a good omen; let him not go forth."

Silence fell again, for the boat drifted on.

At last dawn-lights reddened about the horizon; stars faded out of the
uppermost as naturally as if they had been there during the three days
of unlifting night.  All Egypt showed up darkly in the coming day.

Kenkenes, in his couch of reeds, slept on peacefully.  The mid-morning
sun shone in his face before he awakened.

He leaped to his feet, cramped and stiffened by his long inactivity,
and looked about him.  Near by was a disturbed spot of wide
circumference.  Here had the struggle taken place.  Here, also, some of
the sand was stained with the blood of the Nubian, who had been wounded
by Rachel.  Fresh footprints led toward the water.  He followed them
with a wildly beating heart.  There were no marks of a little sandal.
At the Nile edge the deep line cut by a keel was still visible in the
wet sand.  His own boat and the other were gone.  All other signs had
been obliterated, for the wind had been busy during the darkness.

Across the cultivated land, or rather the land which would have been
wheat-covered but for the locusts, he saw the huts of rustics, and to
each of these he went, asking of the pallid and terror-stricken tenants
if Rachel had come to them.  Gaining no information, he went next to
Masaarah, appeasing his hunger with succulent roots plucked from the
loam beside the river.  The quarries were deserted, the pocket in the
valley, where the Israelites had pitched their tents, was as solitary
as it had ever been.  There was no place here to shelter the lost girl.

There were the huts to the north of the Marsh and the deserted village
of Toora to search.  He retraced his steps.

As he came again before the tomb he went to it.  Half-way up the steps
he stopped.

On a blank face of the rock, sheltered by a jutting ledge above it, was
an inscription, a little faint, but he ascribed that to the poor
quality of the pencil and roughness of the tablet.  This is what he
read:


"Her whom thou seekest thou wilt find in the palace of Har-hat, in the
city."


Perhaps under other circumstances Kenkenes would have understood
correctly the origin and intent of the writing.  Already, however, his
fears pointed to the palace of Har-hat as the prison of Rachel, and
this faint inscription was corroboration.  It appealed to him as
villainy worthy of the fan-bearer.  It was like his exquisite
effrontery.

Kenkenes whirled away with an indescribable sound, rather like the
snarl of an infuriated beast than an expression of a reasoning
creature.  Dashing down the sand, he plunged into the Nile and swam
with superhuman speed for the Memphian shore.

He defied death as a maniac does.  The river was a mile in width and
teeming with crocodiles.  But the same saving Providence that shields
the adventurous child attended him.  He clambered up the opposite bank
and struck out for Memphis on a hard run.

He had but one purpose and that was to find Har-hat and strangle him
with grim joy.  The rescue of Rachel did not occur to him, for in his
excited mind the simple touch of the fan-bearer's hand was sufficient
to kill her with its dishonor.

He did not remember anything that Rachel had told him concerning her
life in Memphis, or that Har-hat was in Tanis, and Masanath like to be
the only resident in the fan-bearer's palace.  His reasoning powers
abandoned their supremacy to all the fierce impulses toward revenge and
bloodletting of which his nature was capable.

Though it was day when he entered the great capital of the Pharaohs,
the streets were almost deserted, and every doorway and window showed
interiors brilliant with a multitude of lamps.  Memphis was prepared
against a second smothering of the lights of heaven.

The few pedestrians Kenkenes met fell back and gave room to the
dripping apparition which ran as if death-pursued.  One told him on
demand where the mansion of Har-hat stood, and after a few slow minutes
he was within its porch.  He flung himself against the blank portal and
beat on it.  He did not pause to await a response.  He felt within him
strength to batter down the doors if they did not open.

Presently an old portress came forth from a side entry and Kenkenes
seized her.  Fearing that she might cry out and defeat his purpose, he
put his hand over her mouth.

"Your master," he demanded hoarsely.  "Where is he?  Answer and answer
quietly!"

For a moment she was dumb with terror.

"Gone," she gasped at last when Kenkenes shook her.

"Where?  When?" he insisted.

"To Tanis, eight months since!"

"Was an Israelite maiden brought here?  Answer and truly, by your
immortal soul!"

"Many months ago, aye, but she departed three days ago for Goshen," the
old woman answered falteringly.

"And she came not back?"

"Nay."

"Swear, by Osiris!"

"By Osiris--"

"And the Lady Masanath?"

"Gone, also, to Tanis with Unas, this morning."

"Thou liest!  In the dark?"

"Nay, I swear by Osiris," she protested wildly.  "The light came in
with the hour of dawn."

Kenkenes released her and hurried away.  He did not doubt that the old
woman had told the truth.  He had overslept the light.  Unas could not
have taken Rachel and Masanath to Tanis together.  The Israelite would
have been sent on before.

There was yet Atsu to question, and then--on to Tanis to rescue Rachel
or to avenge her.

He met no one until he reached a bazaar of jewels near the temple
square.  An armed watchman stood before the tightly closed front of the
lapidary's booth, above the portal of which a flaring torch was stuck
in a sconce.

"The house of Atsu?" the watchman repeated after Kenkenes.  "Atsu is no
longer a householder in Memphis."

"When did he depart?"

"Eight or nine months ago, at the persuasion of the Pharaoh."

The lightness of the man's manner irritated the already vexed spirit of
the young artist.

"Be explicit," he demanded sharply.  "What meanest thou?"

"He was stripped of his insignia and reduced to the rank of ordinary
soldier," the man answered, "for pampering the Israelites.  He is with
the legions in the north."

"Hath he kin in the city?"

"Nay, he is solitary."

Kenkenes walked away unsteadily.  The nervous energy that had upborne
him during his intense excitement was deserting him.  His hunger and
weariness were asserting themselves.

He turned down the narrow passage leading to his father's house.  And
suddenly, in the way of such vagrant thoughts, it occurred to him that
the inscription on the tomb had been pointedly denied by the old
woman's statements.

"Ah, I might have known," he said impatiently.  "Rachel put the writing
there for me when she left the tomb for the shelter Masanath offered
her in Memphis."

The admission cheered him somewhat, but it did not repair his exhausted
forces.  By the time he reached his father's door he was unsteady,
indeed, and beyond further exertion.




CHAPTER XXXVI

THE MURKET'S SACRIFICE

The murket sat at his place in the work-room, but no papyrus scrolls
lay before him; his fine implements were not in sight; the ink-pots and
pens were put away and the table was clear except for a copper lamp
that sputtered and flared at one end.  The great artist's arms were
extended across the table, his head bowed upon them, his hands clasped.
The attitude was not that of weariness but of trouble.

Kenkenes hesitated.  For the first time since the hour he left Memphis
for Thebes, months before, he felt a sense of culpability.  He
realized, with great bounds of comprehension, that the results of his
own trouble had not been confined to himself.  He began to understand
how infectious sorrow is.

He crossed the room and laid a trembling hand on the murket's shoulder.
Instantly the great artist lifted his head and, seeing Kenkenes, leaped
to his feet with a cry that was all joy.

The young man responded to the kiss of welcome with so little composure
that Mentu forced him down on the bench and summoned a servant.

The old housekeeper appeared at the door, started with a suppressed cry
and flung herself at her young master's feet.  He raised her and
touched her cheek with his lips.

"Bring me somewhat to eat and drink, Sema," he said weakly.  "I have
fasted, since I returned here, well-nigh four days agone."

The stiff old creature rose with a murmur half of compassion, half of
promise, and went forth immediately.

The murket stood very close to his son, regarding him with
interrogation on his face.

"Memphis was full of famishing at the coming of dawn this morning," he
said.  "For the first time in my life I knew hunger, and it is a
fearsome thing, but thou--a shade from Amenti could not be ghastlier.
Where hast thou been--what are thy fortunes, Kenkenes?"

"Rachel--thou knowest--" Kenkenes began, speaking with an effort.

"Aye, I know.  Didst find her?"

"Aye, and lost her, even while I fought to save her!"

"Alas, thou unfortunate!" Mentu exclaimed.  "Of a surety the gods have
punished thee too harshly!"

Kenkenes was not in the frame of mind to receive so soft a speech
composedly.  A strong tremor ran over him and he averted his face.  The
murket came to his side and smoothed the damp hair.

The old housekeeper entered with broth and bread and a bottle of wine.
Mentu broke the bread and filled the beaker, while Sema stood aloof and
gazed with troubled eyes at the unhappy face of the young master.
Silent, they watched him eat and drink, grieved because of the visible
effort it required and because no life or strength returned to him with
the breaking of his fast.  When he had finished, the bowl and platter
were taken away, but at a sign the old housekeeper left the wine with
the murket.  After she had gone Mentu glanced at the draggled dress of
his son.

"Thou needest, further, the attention of thy slave, Kenkenes," he
suggested.

The young man shook his head.  "Not yet," he said.  "My time is short,
and it is thy help I need."

The murket sat down beside his son.

Without further introduction Kenkenes plunged into his story.  He had
had no time to tell it four days before.  Then he had asked for Rachel
with his second word, and finding her not, had rushed immediately to
the search for her.

Mentu heard without comment till the story was done.  Most of it he had
known from Hotep, and only the recent events at the tomb excited him.

When Kenkenes made an end the murket brought his clenched hand down on
the table with a force that made the lamp wink and the implements
rattle in their boxes above him.

"Curse that smooth villain Har-hat!" he cried in a tempest of wrath.
"A murrain upon his greedy, crafty lust!  The gods blast him in his
knavery!  Now is my precious amulet in his hands.  Would it were
white-hot and clung to him like a leech!"

Kenkenes said nothing.  The murket's wrath was more comforting to him
than tender words could have been.

"Who hath the ear of Meneptah?" the murket continued with increasing
vehemence.  "Har-hat!  And behold the miseries of Egypt!  Shall we put
any great sin past the knave who sinneth monstrously, or divine his
methods who is a master of cunning?  The land is entangled in
difficulty!  Give me but a raveling fiber to pull, and, by the gods, I
know that we shall find Har-hat at the other end of it!  He is
destroying Egypt for his ambition's sake!  And that a son of mine--me!
the right hand of the Incomparable Pharaoh--should furnish meat for his
rending!"  His voice failed him and he shook his clenched hands high
above his head in an abandon of fury.

"Did I not tell thee?" he burst forth again, pointing a finger at his
son.  "Did I not warn thee from the first?"

Kenkenes raised his head.

"Can you avoid a knave if he hath designs on you?" he asked.  "Have I
erred in crossing his will?  Have I sinned in loving and protecting her
whom I love?"

Mentu's hands fell down at his sides.  The simple questions had
silenced him.  His son was blameless now that he had expiated his
offenses against the law, and from the moral standpoint his persistence
in his claim on Rachel was just--praiseworthy.

"Nay," he said sullenly, "but since thou didst love the girl, how came
it that thou didst not wed her long ago and save her this shame and
danger?"

He saw the face of his son grow paler.

"The bar of faith lay between us," Kenkenes answered.  "I was an
idolater, she a worshiper of the One God.  She would not wed with me,
therefore."

The murket looked at his son, stupefied with amazement.

"Thou--thou--" he said at last, his words coming slowly by reason of
his emotions.  "The Israelite rejected thee!"

Kenkenes bent his head in assent.

"Thou!  A prince among men--a nobleman, a genius--a man whom all
women--Kenkenes! by Horus, I am amazed!  And thou didst endure it, and
continue to love and serve and suffer for her!  Where is thy pride?"

Kenkenes stopped him with a motion of his hand.

"A maid's unwillingness is obstacle enough," he said.  "Shall a man
summon further difficulty in the form of his self-esteem to stand in
the way of his love?  Nay, it could not be, and that thou knowest, my
father, since thou, too, hast loved.  When a man is in love it is his
pride to be long-suffering and humble.  But there is naught separating
us now save it be the hand of Har-hat."

"So much for Israelitish zeal!  Thou hast been a pawn for her to play
during these months.  Long ago had she surrendered if thou hadst been--"

Kenkenes smiled.  "She did not surrender.  It was I."

"Thy faith?" the murket asked in a voice low with earnestness.

"Thou hast said!"

A dead silence ensued.  Kenkenes may have awaited the outbreak with a
quickening of the heart, but it did not come.  Instead, the murket sat
down on the bench and gazed at his son intently.

After a long interval he spoke.

"Thus far had I hoped that thou wast taken by the Israelite but in thy
fancy.  The hope was vain.  Thou art in love with her."

Kenkenes endured the steady gaze and waited for Mentu to go on.

"There is no help for thee now," the murket continued stoically.  "If
the gods will but tolerate thee till the madness leaves thee after thou
art wedded and satisfied, it may be that thou wilt turn again to the
faith of thy fathers.  But if I would fix thee in thine apostasy I
should try to persuade thee now."

"Aye, and further, I should be moved to urge thee into heresy," calmly
responded Kenkenes.

The murket flung up one hand in a gesture of dissent, and arising,
walked toward the door of the workroom.  There he leaned his shoulder
against the frame and looked out at the night.  Presently Kenkenes went
to him and laid his hand on his sleeve.

The murket spoke first, proving what thoughts had been his during the
little space of silence.

"There is little patriotism in thee, Kenkenes.  Thou wouldst wed with
one of Egypt's enemies and bow down to the God which has devastated thy
country."

The hand on his sleeve fell.

"What did Egypt to Israel for a hundred years before these miseries
came to pass?" Kenkenes asked.  "Let me tell thee how Egypt hath used
Rachel.  She is free-born, of noble blood, even as thou art and as I
am.  Her house was wealthy, the name powerful.  There were ten of her
family--four of her mother's, six of her father's.  Rameses, the
Incomparable Pharaoh, had use for their treasure and need of their
labor in the brick-fields and mines.  This day Rachel possesses not
even her own soul and body, nor one garment to cover herself, nor a
single kinsman to shield her from the power of her masters!  Well for
Egypt that the God of Israel hath not demanded of Egypt treasure for
treasure seized, toil for toil compelled, lash for lash inflicted,
blood for blood outpoured!  This desolation had been thrice desolate
and Egypt's glory gone like the green grass in the breath of the
Khamsin!  And yet would such justice restore to Rachel the love she
lost, the comfort that should have been hers?  Nay, not even the
sorcery of Mesu might do that.  The debt of Egypt to Rachel is most
cheaply discharged by the service of one life for the ten which were
taken from her!"

"Let be; Israel shall cumber Egypt no longer," the murket muttered
after a little; "and the quarrel between them shall be at an end.  The
hour approacheth when every Hebrew shall leave Egypt--shall be driven
forth if he leave it not willingly."

"Thinkest thou so of a truth?" Kenkenes asked earnestly.

"Of a truth.  Thou seest the plight of the nation.  Can it endure
longer?  And if thou takest this Israelite to wife--"  He paused
abruptly, for he had pressed the problem and a solution opened itself
so suddenly that it staggered him.  Kenkenes understood the pause.
Again he laid his hand on the murket's sleeve.

"On this very matter would I take counsel with thee, my father," he
said gently.  "The night grows, and my time is short."

Mentu turned an unhappy face toward his son and followed him back to
the bench they had left.  He felt, intuitively, that there was further
grave purpose in the young man's mind and there was dread in his
paternal heart.

"Thou knowest, my father," Kenkenes began, "that I may not give over my
love for Rachel.  I am free to love her and she to love me.  There is
no obstacle between us.  Such love, therefore, in the sight of heaven,
becometh a duty and carrieth duty with it.  In the spirit I am as
though I had been bound to her by the marrying priests.  Her griefs are
mine to comfort, her wrongs mine to avenge.

"She is gone and there are these three surmises as to her whereabouts.
She may have escaped and returned to Goshen; she may have wandered to
death in the Nile; she may have been taken by Har-hat."

He paused, and Mentu gazed fixedly at the lamp.

"I am going to Tanis," Kenkenes began, with forced restraint.

"Wherefore?" Mentu demanded.

"To discover if Har-hat hath taken her!"

"Go on."

"If he hath the Lord God make iron of my hands till I strangle him!"

"Madman!" Mentu exclaimed.  "Thou wilt be flayed!"

"Be assured that I shall earn the flaying!  The punishment shall be no
more savage than the deed that invites it!  But enough of that.  If I
go to Tanis and find her the spoil of the fan-bearer, thine augury will
hold, I return not to Memphis. . . .  If she was lost in the Nile--!"

"Nay!  Nay! put away the thought if it wrench thee so.  No man removed
from his place during that night.  We were caught and transfixed at
what we did.  For three days I sat in the court, where I was overtaken
by the darkness, and in that time I stirred not except to slip down on
the bench and sleep.  The palsy seized all Memphis likewise--not one of
my neighbors moved.  But the resident Hebrews of the city seemed to
have been warned, or else the favor of their strange God was with them.
For it is said they came and went as they willed, carrying lamps."

Kenkenes looked at his father with growing hope.

"If that be true," he said eagerly, "if the palsy fell upon Egypt and
not upon Israel, Rachel may have fled safely--she may have escaped
them!"  Mentu assented with a nod.

"She may have returned to her people," Kenkenes went on.  "And if she
be in Goshen I must reach her, find her, before her people depart.
Having found her--" but Kenkenes stopped and made no effort to resume.
Mentu set his teeth, his hands clenched and his whole figure seemed to
denote intense physical restraint.  Suddenly he whirled upon his son.

"Thou wilt go with her, out of Egypt?" he demanded.

"I shall go with her, out of Egypt."

Mentu gained his feet.  "And dost thou remember that while I live my
commands are yet law over thee?" he continued in a tone of increasing
intensity.  "Mine it is to say whether thou shall do this thing or do
it not!"

He turned away and strode back to his post against the door-frame, his
face toward the night.  Kenkenes had slowly risen to his feet.  Not for
an instant did his father's authority appear to him as an obstacle.  He
knew that the murket's outburst was a final stand before capitulation.
Kenkenes was troubled only for what might follow after his father had
surrendered.

He followed the murket to the door and laid his arm across the broad
shoulders.

"Father," he said persuasively.  Mentu did not move.

"Look at me, father," Kenkenes insisted.  Still no movement.  The young
man put his arm closer about the shoulders, and lifting his hand, would
have turned the face toward him.   But the palm touched a wet cheek.

The murket had consented.

      *      *      *      *      *      *

An hour later, when it was far into the second watch, Kenkenes changed
his dress and made himself presentable.  Then, without further counsel
with the murket, he went silently and unseen to the portal of Senci's
house.  After a long time, for her household had been asleep, he was
admitted, and the Lady Senci, perplexed and surprised, joined him in
the chamber of guests.

With few and simple words he told his story, pictured his father's
loneliness and, while she wept silently, begged her to become his
father's wife--on the morrow.

There was no long persuasion; the need of the occasion was sufficient
eloquence for the murket's noble love.

An hour after the next day's sunrise Mentu and Senci repaired together
to the temple, and when they returned Senci went not again into her own
house.

In preparing for his departure, Kenkenes asked at the hands of his
father, not his patrimony, for that would have been an embarrassment of
wealth, but such portion of it as might be carried in small bulk.  In
mid-afternoon Senci brought him a belt of gazelle-hide and in this had
been sewed a fortune in gems.  The murket had given his son his full
portion and more.

At the close of day, with his face set and colorless, Kenkenes stepped
into the narrow passage before his father's house.  The great portal
closed slowly and noiselessly behind him.  He did not pause, but sprang
into his chariot and was driven rapidly away.

At a landing near the northern limits of Memphis he took a punt, bade
farewell to his sad-faced charioteer and pushed off.

The broken bluffs about Memphis, the temples, the obelisks, the Sphinx,
the pyramids melted into night behind him.  He kept his head down that
he might not look his last on his native city.

He had reached that point where endurance must conserve itself.




CHAPTER XXXVII

AT THE WELL

Once out of its confines the Nile divided its flood over and over again
and hunted the sea in long meanderings over the flat Delta.  A few
miles above On the separation began and continued to the marshy coast
far to the north.  From the summit of the great towers of Bubastis and
Saïs the glistening sinuosities of its branches might be discerned for
many miles.

There was no thirst in the Delta.  Nowhere did the capillary, the
irrigation canal, fail to reach, even now in the season of desolation
and loss.  Half-green stubble, hail-mown and locust-eaten, showed where
a wheat-field had been.  Regular, barren rows were the only evidences
of the lentil and garlic gardens in happier days, and the location of
pastures might be guessed by the skeletons that whitened the uplands.
Through fringes of leafless palm trees, stone-rimmed pools, like
splashes of quicksilver or facets of sapphire, reflected the sky.

Half-way between On and Pa-Ramesu was one of these basins, elliptical
in shape and walled with rough limestone.  Moss grew in the crevices of
the masonry and about it had been a sod of velvet grass.  Black beetles
slipped in and out among the stones; dragon-flies hung over the surface
of the water and large ants made erratic journeys about the rough bark
of the naked palms.  Whoever came dipped his goblet deep, for there the
water was cold.  If he gazed through to the bottom he detected a
convection in the sand below.  This was not a reservoir, but a well.

Once only had it failed, but then Hapi, the holy river, had been
smitten also.

The spring bubbled up at the division of a road.  One branch led along
the northern bank of the Rameside canal, eastward to Pa-Ramesu.  The
other crossed the northwestern limits of Goshen and went toward Tanis,
in the northeast.  Round about the little oasis were the dark circles
where the turf fires of many travelers had been.  The merchants from
the Orient entering Egypt through the great wall of Rameses II, across
the eastern isthmus, passed this way going to Memphis.  Here
Philistine, Damascene, Ninevite and Babylonian had halted; here
Egyptian, Bedouin, Arabian and the dweller of the desert had paused.
The earth about the well was always damp, and the top-most row of the
curb was worn smooth in hollows.  This, therefore, was a point common
to native and alien, the home-keeping and the traveler, the faithful
and the unbeliever.

The strait of Egypt was sore and the aid of the gods essential.  The
priests had seized upon the site as a place of prayers, placed a tablet
there, commanding them, and a soldier to see that the command was
obeyed.

The soldier was in cavalry dress of tunic and tasseled coif, with pike
and bull-hide shield and a light broadsword.  He was no ordinary bearer
of arms.  He walked like a man accustomed to command; he turned a cold
eye upon too-familiar wayfarers and startled them into silence by the
level blackness of his low brows.  Wealth, beauty, age nor rank won
servility or superciliousness from him.  The Egyptian soldier was not
obliged to cringe, and this one abode by the privilege.

He was a man of one attitude, one mood and few words.  The Memnon might
as well have been expected to smile.  The earliest riser found him
there; the latest night wanderer came upon him.  When the day broke,
after the falling of the dreadful night, the brave or the thirsty who
ventured forth saw him at his post, silent, unastonished, unafraid.

Once only the soldier had been seen to flinch.  Merenra, now nomarch of
Bubastis, but whilom commander over Israel at Pa-Ramesu, paused one
noon with his train at the well.  The governor glanced at the soldier,
glanced again, shrugged his shoulders and rode away.  The man-at-arms
winced, and often thereafter stood in abstracted contemplation of the
distance.

Just after sunrise on the second day following the passing of the
darkness, four Egyptians, lank, big-footed and brown, came from the
northeast.  By their dress they had been prosperous rustics of the
un-Israelite Delta.  But the healthful leanness, characteristic of the
race, had become emaciation; there was the studious unkemptness of
mourning upon them, and they, who had ridden once, before the plagues
of murrain and hail, traveled afoot.

They were evidently journeying to On, where the benevolence of Ra would
feed them.

They said nothing, looking a little awed at the soldier and puzzled at
the stela.  The warrior read the command and the unlettered men fell on
their knees, each to a different god.  The Egyptian was not ashamed of
his piety nor did he closet himself to pray.

"Incline the will of the Pharaoh to accord with the needs of the hour,
O thou Melter of Hearts!"

"Rescue the kingdom, O thou Controller of Nations, for it descendeth
into death and none succoreth it!"

"Deal thou as thou deemest best with the destroyer of Egypt, O thou
Magistrate over Kings!"

Thus, in these fragments of prayers was it made manifest that the worm
was turning, apologetically, it is true, but surely.  For once the
prescribed defense of the Pharaoh was ignored.  "It is not the fault of
the Child of the Sun, but his advisers, who are evil men and full of
guile."  And in the odd perversity of fate for once its observance
would have been just.

Having fulfilled the command and relieved their souls, the four arose
and went their way, soft of foot and stately of carriage, after the
manner of all their countrymen.

Next, descending with a volley of yells, a rout of the nomad tribes,
mounted on horses, came from the southwest.

They were chiefly Bedouins, their women perched behind them with the
tiniest members of their broods.  But every child that could bestride a
horse was mounted independently.  Whatever worldly possessions the
nomads owned were bound in numerous flat rolls on other horses which
they led.

"Hail!" they shouted to the warrior, for the desert races are prankish
and unabashed.  A younger among them, without wife or goods, drew his
gaunt horse back upon its scarred haunches and saluted the soldier.

"Greeting, bearer of many arms!" he said, and then addressed a near-by
companion as if he were rods away.  "Behold leaden-toed Egypt, cumbered
with defense!  Bull-hide for shield instead of the safe remoteness of
distance, blade and pike for vulgar intimacy in combat instead of the
nice aloofness of the launched spear--"

"Go to, thou prater!" interrupted a companion.  "If thou lovest Bedouin
warfare so well, wherefore dost thou join thyself to the Israelite who
fights not at all?"

"Spoil!" retorted the first, "and new fields, O waster of the air!
Hast thou not heard of Canaan?"

"Nay," shouted a third, "he hath an eye only to some heifer-eyed
brickmaker among them!"

The soldier moved forward to the group and grounded his pike.  His
attitude interested them, and in the expectant silence he repeated the
writing on the tablet.

"So saith the writing," the first speaker began, but the warrior
interrupted him.

"It behooves thee to obey.  Thou art yet within the reach of the
awkward arms of Egypt."

"One against a troop of Bedouins," the trifler laughed.

"And there are a thousand within sound of my beaten shield," was the
harsh answer.

"Come," said an elder complacently, "it does no harm to ask the
alleviation of any man's hurt, and it may keep us whole for the journey
into Canaan."  He dismounted, and in a twinkling the company, even to
the babes, had followed his example.  Each dropped to his haunches, his
hands spread upon his knees, and there was no sound for a few minutes.

Then they rose simultaneously and, flinging themselves upon their
horses, departed as they came, like the whirlwind, over the road to
Pa-Ramesu and the heart of Goshen.

These were part of the mixed multitude that went with Israel.

The dust of their going had hardly settled before a drove of
hosannahing Israelites approached from the direction of the Nile.  The
soldier saw them without seeming to see and, moving toward the tablet,
a four-foot stela of sandstone, planted himself against its inscribed
face, and, resting his pike, contemplated the west.

The ragged rout approached, singing and shouting, noisy and of doubtful
temper.  A cloud of dust came with them and the odor of stall and of
quarry sweat.

Want plays havoc with the Oriental's appearance.  It acutely
accentuates his already aggressive features and reduces his color to
ghastliness.  The approaching Hebrews were studies of sharp angularity
in monochrome, and the soul which showed in the eyes was no longer a
spiritual but a ravenous thing.

Being something distinctly Egyptian, the soldier brought their actual
temper to the surface.  They had suffered long, but their time had come.

The foremost flung themselves into his view and halted, hushed and
amazed.  When those behind them tried to press forward with jeers, they
turned with a frown and a significant jerk of the head in the direction
of the man-at-arms.  These, also, subsided and passed along the sign of
silence.  A leader in the front rank walked away and took a drink,
using his hands as a cup.  The whole silent herd followed and did
likewise, solemnly and thoughtfully.

Presently the bolder began to whisper and conjecture among themselves,
hushing the sibilant surmises of the humbler with a cautioning frown.
An old man, who could not lower his voice, quavered a resolve to "ask
and discover," and started toward the soldier to put his resolution
into effect.  A wiry old woman seized him and drew him back.

"Wilt thou humiliate him with thy notice, meddler?" she demanded in a
fierce whisper.  "See him not, and it will be a mercy to him in his
hour of abasement,--him who hath been balsam to the wound of Israel!"

She turned about and took the road toward Pa-Ramesu, the unprotesting
old man trotting after her.  The crowd followed, silent at first, then
softly talkative, and finally, in the distance, singing and noisy once
again.

A careening camel, almost white in the early morning sunshine, broke
the sky-line far up the road leading from Tanis in the north.  Very
much nearer, to the west, two single litters, with a staff-bearing
attendant, were approaching.

The camel rider was a Hebrew by the beast that bore him.  Egypt had no
liking for the bearer of the Orient's burdens and small acquaintance
with him.  Likewise the litters were Hebraic, for the attendant was
bearded.  The soldier kept his place before the stela and contemplated
the distance.

The time was not long, though in that land of distances the camel had
far to come from the horizon to the well, until by the soft jarring of
the earth the motionless sentinel knew that the swifter traveler had
arrived.  Haste is not common in tropical countries, and the camel had
been put to his limit of speed.  A commoner spirit than the soldiers
could not have resisted the impulses of curiosity concerning this hot
haste.  But he did not turn his eyes.

The traveler alighted before his mount ceased to move, and undoing his
leathern belt with a jerk, he struck the camel a smart blow on the
shoulder.  There was the protesting buzz of a large fly and an angry,
disabled blundering on the sand, silenced by the stamp of a sandal.

"Thou wouldst have it, pest!" the traveler exclaimed.  "Thy kind is not
to be persuaded from its blood-sucking by milder means.  Ye mind me of
the Pharaoh!"

He turned toward the well, and his glance fell on the man-at-arms for
the first time.  He started a little to find himself not alone, and a
second time he started with sudden recognition.  The well was between
him and the soldier.  He leaned upon his hands on the top of the curb
and gazed at his opposite.  Once he seemed about to speak, but the
studious disregard of the soldier deterred him.  Slowly his eyes fell
until they were directed thoughtfully through his own reflection into
the green depths of the well.

Although there were ten years in favor of the Egyptian, there was a
certain similarity between the two men.  Both were soldiers, both black
and stern.  But one was a Hebrew, no less than forty-five years of age.
He wore a helmet of polished metal, equipped with a visor, which, when
raised, finished the front with a flat plate.  The top of the
head-piece was ornamented with a spike.  His armor was complete--shirt
of mail, shenti extending half-way to the knees, greaves of brass and
mailed shoes.

He was as tall as the Egyptian and as lean, but his structure was
heavy, stalwart and powerful.  His forehead was broad and bold, his
eyes deep-set, steel-blue and keen.  He had the fighting nose,
over-long and hooked like an eagle's beak.  The inexorable character of
his features was borne out by the mouth, thin-lipped and firm in its
closing.  Even his beard, scant and touched with gray, was intractable.
Here was an Israelite who was a warrior, a rare thing--but splendid
when found.

After a pause he turned, and the camel knelt at his command.  The
litters had halted a little distance away under two palms that leaned
their leafless crowns together.  The attendant was hastening toward the
well.

"Joshua!" he cried joyously.

"Even I," the Hebrew soldier said, walking around the kneeling beast.
"Peace to thee, Caleb."

The two men embraced; the warrior imperturbably, the attendant
tearfully.

"What dost thou away from Goshen?" Joshua asked, disengaging himself.
"The faithful of Israel have been summoned thither from the
remotenesses of Mizraim."

But Caleb did not hear, having caught sight of the Egyptian.  The
recognition startled him as it had all the others, but he did not hold
his peace.

"Atsu!" he exclaimed.  Joshua checked him.

"Vex him not with attention," he said in a lowered tone.  "His fall
hath been great, but it hath not killed his pride.  He would speak if
it hurt him to be unremembered."

"Hath he a grudge against us?" Caleb asked in astonishment.

"Nay, look thou at the writing on the tablet.  He would hide its
command from us.  Is he not a friend to Israel still?"

He indicated the characters on either side of the soldier.  The words
were disconnected, but the sense was easily guessed.  The command for
prayers to the Pantheon of Egypt was not hidden, beyond conjecture,
from the discerning.  Caleb saw the meaning of the inscription, but
looked to Joshua for further enlightenment.

"He would spare us," the abler Israelite said.  "Let us return the
kindness and see him not."

All this had the Egyptian heard, but his eyes, fixed so absently on the
horizon, seemed to indicate that he was not conscious of his
surroundings.

Joshua repeated his question.

"I was sent forth with Miriam," Caleb made answer.  "She hath been
abroad, gathering up the scattered chosen."

His eyes brightened and he clasped his hands with the gesture of a
happy woman.

"Deliverance is at hand!  Doubt it not, O Son of Nun!  We go forth!" he
exclaimed.

On the camel were hung a shield, a javelin and a quiver of arrows.
Joshua jostled the arrows in their case before answering.

"Not as the moon changes," he said grimly.  "The time for mild
departure is past and the word of the Lord God unto Moses must be
fulfilled."

"So we but go," Caleb assented, "I care not.  And such is the temper of
all Israel--nay," he broke off, conscientiously; "there is an
exception, an unusual exception."

"There may be more," Joshua replied.  "There is much in Egypt to hold
the slavish.  But the captain of Israel hath called me, out of peaceful
shepherd life, to the severe fortunes of a warrior, and I go, no mile
too short, no moment too swift, that shall speed me into Pa-Ramesu."

"And thou takest up arms for Israel?" Caleb cried.  "Ah! but Moses hath
gloved his right hand in mail, in thee, O Son of Nun!  But," he
continued, uneasy with his story untold, "this was no slavish content
under a master.  Rather did it come from one of the best of Israel."

"Strange that the lofty of Israel should regret a departure from the
land of the oppressors."  Joshua settled himself on the camel and the
tall beast rose to its feet with a lurch.

"Even so," Caleb answered, patting the nose of the camel and arranging
the tassels of its halter.  "It was a quarry-slave, a maiden and of
gentle blood among the nobility of Israel.  She is in the bamboo
litter, Miriam is in the other.

"We are come from farthest Egypt, fifty of us in three barges," he
began.  "To Syene have we been and all the Nilotic towns.  To Nehapehu,
and even deep into the Great Oasis were messengers sent, for we would
not leave a single son of Abraham behind.  And the masters surrendered
them to a man!  Was it the face of Miriam or the fear of Moses or the
might of the Lord that tamed them?  Hath Miriam a compelling glance, or
Moses a power that came not from Jehovah?  Nay, not so.  Praised be His
holy name!"

The mild Israelite clasped his hands and raised his eyes devoutly.  But
fearful lest his pause might furnish an opportunity for Joshua's
escape, he continued at once:

"We were descending the Nile, below Memphis; the river sang and the
hills lifted up their voices.  There was rejoicing in the meadows and
clapping of hands in the valleys.  We possessed the gates of our
enemies and Mizraim sat upon the shores and wept after us.

"Below Masaarah, the darkness fell; the sun perished in the morning and
the stars were not summoned in the night, for the Lord had withdrawn
the lights of heaven.  But His hand was upon the waters and His glory
stood about us and we feared not.

"And lo! there came a call upon Him from the shores to the east.  The
barge of Miriam paused and from the land we succored an Israelitish
maiden.  But when we would have moved on, she flung herself before
Miriam and besought her:

"'Depart not yet, for there is another.'

"'Of the chosen?' the prophetess asked.

"'Nay, an Egyptian, but better and above his kind.'

"'Of the faith?' Miriam asked further.  And the maiden faltered and
said, 'Nay, not yet--but worthy and kindly.'

"But the prophetess bade the men at the poles to continue, saying:
'Shall we cheat Jehovah in his intent and rescue an oppressor?'

"But the maiden clung about the knees of Miriam and prayed to her,
while the prophetess said, 'Nay, nay' and 'Peace,' and sought to soothe
her, and when at that moment some one called out of the darkness, she
put her hand over the maiden's mouth and would not let her answer.  And
the barge went swiftly away.  Then the maiden fell on her face, like
one dead, and she will not be comforted."

Joshua drew himself into securer, position on the camel and shook its
harness.

"Love!" he said with a frown.  "The evilest tie and the strongest
between Israel and Mizraim!"

"Nay," Caleb protested, "thou hast loved."

"A daughter of Israel," the warrior answered bluntly.  "Dost thou
follow me into Goshen, Caleb?"

"Nay, we go on to Tanis, where we shall join Moses and Aaron who lie
there awaiting the Pharaoh's summons."

"The parting shall not be long between thee and me, then.  Peace to
thee, Caleb.  To Miriam, greeting and peace."

The warrior urged his camel and, rounding the stela-guarding soldier
who had stood within ear-shot of the narrative, he was gone in a long
undulating swing up the road that led to Pa-Ramesu.

Caleb gazed after him until he was only a tall shape like the stroke of
a pen in the distance.  Then the mild Israelite looked longingly at the
Egyptian, and finally returned to the litters.  These in a moment were
shouldered by the bearers and moved out up the road toward Tanis.
Caleb walked before them, dotting every other footprint with the point
of his staff.  He sighed gustily and sank his bearded chin on his
breast.

The soldier turned his head as soon as the attendant had passed and
gazed at the litters.

The Hebrew bearers of the foremost were four in number, dressed in the
garb of serving-men to noble Israel.  The hangings of blue linen had
been thrust aside and within was the semi-recumbent figure of a woman.
One knee was drawn up, the hands clasped behind the head, but the
majesty of the august countenance belied the youth of the posture.  The
eyes of the woman met those of the Egyptian and lighted with
recognition.  She lowered her arms and crossed the left to the shoulder
of the right.  It was the old attitude of deference from Israel to
Atsu.  A dusky red dyed the man's cheeks and he touched his knee in
response.

The litter of Miriam passed.

The next was a light frame of jungle bamboo, borne by a pair of young
men.  Its sides were latticed, with the exception of two small
window-like openings on either side.  These were hung with white linen,
but the drapings had been put aside to admit the morning air.

The soldier looked and the shock of recognition drew him a pace away
from the stela.

The head of a young girl, partly turned from him, was framed in the
small window.  The wimple had been thrown back and a single tress of
golden hair had escaped across the forehead.  The countenance was
unhappy, but beautiful for all its misery.  The lids were heavy, as if
weighted down with sorrow; the cheeks were pallid, the lips colorless
and pathetically drooped.  A white hand, resting on the slight frame of
the small opening, was tightly clenched.

The picture was one of weary despair.

The soldier, blanched and shaken, took a step forward as if to speak,
but some realization brought him back to rigid attention against the
stela.

The light litter passed on.

The regular tread of the men grew fainter and fainter and silence
settled again about the well.

The soldier stood erect, gray-faced and immovable, his eyes fixed, his
teeth set, his hand gripping the pike, till the insects, reassured,
began to chirr close about him.  Then his lids quivered; the pike
leaned in his grasp; his jaw relaxed, weakly.  He shifted his position
and frowned, flung up his head and resumed his vigil.  The moments went
on and yet he retained his tense posture.  The hour passed and with it
his physical endurance.

Then his emotion gathered all its forces, all the compelling sensations
of disappointment, rebuff, heart-hurt, jealousy, hopelessness, and
stormed his soul.  He turned about and, stretching his arms across the
top of the stela, hid his face and surrendered.

Around him was the unbroken circle of the earth and above the blue
desert of sky, solitary, soundless.  And the union of earth and heaven,
like a mundane and spiritual collusion, lay between him and the little
litter.

The beat of a horse's hoofs in the distance roused him after a long
time, and hastily turning his back toward the new-comer, he resumed at
once his soldierly attitude.

The traveler bore down on him from the west and reined his horse at the
intersection of the two roads.  He looked up the straight highway
toward Pa-Ramesu, then turned in the saddle and gazed toward Tanis.
His indecision was not a wayfarer's casual hesitancy in the choice of
roads.  By the anxiety written on his face, life, fortune or love might
be at stake upon the correct selection of route.  Once or twice he
looked at the soldier, but showed no inclination to ask advice, even
had the man-at-arms turned his way.

It was one of fate's opportunities to be gracious.  Here was Kenkenes
seeking for the maiden whom he and the soldier loved, and it lay in the
power of the unelect to direct the fortunate.  But Kenkenes did not
know the warrior, and Atsu had no desire to turn his unhappy face to
the new-comer.  The young man grew more and more troubled, his
indecision more marked.  Suddenly he dropped the reins, and without
guiding the horse, urged the animal forward.

Kenkenes was relying on chance for direction.

Confused and unready the horse awaited the intelligent touch on the
bridle.  It did not come.  He flung up his head and smelt the wind.
Nervously he stamped and trod in one place, breathing loudly in protest.

The low voice of his rider continued to urge him.  Perhaps the wind
from Goshen brought the smell of unblighted pastures.  Whatever the
reason, the horse turned, with uncertainty in his step and took the
road eastward to Pa-Ramesu.

Having chosen, he went confidently, and as he was not halted and was
young and swift, he increased his pace to a long run.

Meanwhile far to the north the little litter was borne toward Tanis.
And Atsu, the warrior, did not move his eyes from the distant point
where it had disappeared over the horizon.




CHAPTER XXXVIII

THE TRAITORS

The morning of the second day after the lifting of the darkness lay
golden over Egypt, blue-shadowed before the houses and trees to the
west and shimmering and illusory toward the east.  A slow-moving,
fragmentary cloud had gathered in the zenith just after dawn and for
many minutes over the northern part of Goshen there had been a
perpendicular downpour of illuminated rain.  Now the sky was as clear
and blue as a sapphire and the little wind was burdened with odorous
scents from the clean-washed pastures of Israel.

Seti had crossed the border into Goshen at daybreak and was now well
into the grazing-lands, yet scintillating with the rain.  The hoofs of
his fat little horse were patched with wet sand of the roadway and
there was no dust on the prince's modest raiment.  Behind the youth
plodded two heavy-headed, limp-eared sumpter-mules, driven by a
big-boned black.

Seti was not far from his destination, an obscure village of
image-makers directly south of Tanis and situated on the northern
border of Goshen.  The same region that furnished clay to Israel for
Egypt's bricks afforded material for terra-cotta statuettes.

Ahead of him were fields with clouds of sheep upon the uplands and
cattle standing under the shade of dom-palms.  Here and there hovels
with thatches no higher than a man's head, or low tents, dark with long
use, and lifted at one side, stood in a setting of green.  About them
were orderly and productive gardens.  Nowhere was any sign of the
desolation that prevailed over Egypt.

Seti looked upon the beautiful prosperity of Goshen at first with the
natural delight loveliness inspires, and then with as much savage
resentment as his young soul could feel.  Belting this garden and
stretching for seven hundred miles to the south, was Egypt, desolate,
barren and comatose.  The God of the Hebrews had avenged them fearfully.

"They had provocation," he muttered to himself; "but they have overdone
their vengeance."

A figure appeared on the road over the comb of a slight ridge, and Seti
regarded the wayfarer with interest.

He was a Hebrew.  His draperies were loose, voluminous, heavily
fringed, and of such silky texture of linen that they flowed in the
light wind.  His head was covered with a wide kerchief, which was bound
with a cord, and hid the forehead.

He was of good stature and upright, but his drapings were so ample that
the structure of his frame was not discernible.  His eyes were black,
bright and young in their alertness, but the beard that rippled over
his breast to his girdle was as white as the foam of the Middle Sea.

The Hebrew walked in the grass by the roadside and came on, his face
expectant.  At sight of the prince he stepped into the roadway.  Seti
drew up.

"Thou art Seti-Meneptah?" the ancient wayfarer asked.

"Even so," the prince answered.

The Hebrew put back his kerchief and stood uncovered.

"Dost thou know me, my son?" he asked.

"Thou art that Aaron, of the able tongue, brother to Mesu.  Camest thou
forth to meet me?"

The Hebrew readjusted the kerchief.

"Thou hast said."

"Wast thou, then, so impatient?  Where is thy brother?"

"Nay.  The village of image-makers is not safe.  Moses hath departed
for Zoan." [1]

"And named thee in his stead.  But his mission to my father's capital
bodes no good.  He might have stayed until I could have persuaded him
into friendship."

"Not with all thy gold!" said Aaron gravely.

"Nay, I had not meant that," Seti rejoined with some resentment.  "If
Egypt's plight can not win mercy from him by its own piteousness, the
treasure I bring is not enough."

The Hebrew waved his hand as if to dismiss the subject.

"Let us not dispute so old a quarrel," he said.  "We have a new sorrow,
thou and I."

"Of Mesu's sending?"

"Nay, of thine own misplaced trust."

"What!" the prince exclaimed.  "Have I clothed thy kinsman with more
grace than he owns?"

"Thou hast put faith in thine enemy.  A woman hath deceived thee."

"What dost thou tell me?" Seti cried, leaping to the ground and angrily
confronting Aaron.

"A truth," the Hebrew answered calmly.  "The Princess Ta-user is a
fugitive charged with treason."

Seti turned cold and smote his forehead.  "Undone through me!" he
groaned.

"Not so, my son.  Thou art undone through her.  She betrayed thee."

Seti turned upon him with a fierce movement.

"Peace!" the Hebrew interrupted the furious speech on the prince's
lips.  "I bear thee no malice."

"I will give ear to no tales against the princess," Seti avowed with
ire.

"Thy blind trust hath already wrought havoc with thee.  Let it not
bring heavy punishment upon thy head.  Thou hast dealt kindly with me,
and I am beholden to thee.  Give me leave to discharge my debt."

The prince looked stubbornly at Aaron for a moment, but the doubt that
had begun to assert itself in his mind clamored for proof or refutation.

"Say on," he said.

"The story is long," the Hebrew explained mildly, "and the sun is
ardent.  There are friends in yonder house.  Let us ask the shelter of
their roof for an hour."

Gathering his robes about him with peculiar grace, he went through the
grass toward a low, capacious tent, pitched by a trickling branch of
the great canal.  Seti followed moodily.

A black-haired Israelitish woman, sitting on the earth before the
lifted side of the tent, arose, and reverently kissed the hem of
Aaron's robes.  Her dark-eyed brood appeared at various angles of the
tent, and at a sign and a word from the woman they did obeisance and
hailed the ancient visitor in soft Hebrew.

After a short colloquy between Aaron and the woman of Israel, the
children were dismissed to play in the fields and the woman carried the
bowl and basket of lentils out of ear-shot of her house.

"Let us enter," Aaron said, with an inclination of his head toward
Seti.  He stooped and preceded the young man into the home of the
Hebrew.

The prince saw the black dispose himself on the grass outside, with his
eyes upon the sumpter-mule.

Aaron sat upon one of the rugs, and Seti, following his example, took
another.

"Say on," the prince urged.

The Hebrew began at once.

"What I tell thee, O my son, will soon be talked abroad over the land.
But if thou hast a doubt in thy heart, and art like to question my
truth-speaking, there are witnesses I may summon, such as no wise man
will deny.  And these be Jambres, and the twelve priests of the cities
of the north, and the innkeeper at Pithom, also the governor over the
treasure-city, his soldiers, and others, who know the secret by now.

"I will give thee the tale now, and the proof thereafter, if thou
believest me not.

"Last night, I lay under the tent of a son of Israel, at Pithom.  When
I arose, two hours before dawn, horsemen began to gallop through the
city toward the south.  The inhabitants were aroused; there was much
running to and fro, and the inn was full of lights.

"We approached, and when the tumult had died and the Egyptians were so
full of the tidings that they were glad to relieve themselves even to
an Israelite, I asked and learned this story.  Many times afterward, on
my way hither, I heard it from the lips of men whom I passed, so I am
not deceived.

"Seven days agone, under an evil star, a veiled woman came to the
temple of Bast, in the village of image-makers, and made offerings to
the idol.  She remained in the shrine, praying, for a time without
reason, as though she pretended to worship, until a certain space
should elapse.  At the end of the hour in which she came, another
woman, closely covered, her mouth hidden, entered and knelt near her.
In a little they arose and went forth together, and Jambres, who is
priest at the little temple, grown suspicious by reason of their
behavior, looked after them.  The wind swayed the garments of the
second stranger, and showed the foot and ankle of a man.  Filled with
wonderment, Jambres laid aside his priest's robes and garbing himself
like a wayfarer, followed.  They left the village, going east where the
road leadeth along the canal, which is hidden by the sprouts of young
trees.  Farther up the way were servitors who waited for the man and
woman, but the two stepped out of ear-shot, and sat by the road to talk.

"Jambres, hidden in the fringe of bushes behind, heard them.

"They laid a snare.  And thou, O Prince, wast to be trapped therein."

Seti's eyes were veiled and his face showed a heightening of color.

"Thou wast to come to the temple in the village of image-makers with
treasure to give into the hands of Moses.  Thy message to my brother
was to be delivered by the Princess Ta-user.  She delivered it not.
The word she should have brought came to Moses by a son of Belial, a
godless Hebrew, sent by Jambres, for the brotherhood of priests would
have had Moses come to the temple, for their own ends.  But the
servants of the Lord God of Israel are keen-eyed and they know a jackal
from a hare.  However, these matters I did not hear from the people.
Such secret things are not discussed upon the streets.  All that I
heard in Pithom may be talked openly over Egypt.

"The man and the woman laid their plans, and they were these: Last
night, the man and his servants were to lie at Pithom, and to-day they
were to meet thee at the temple of Bast, overpower thee, take thy
treasure and, with the woman, fly to some secure place.  With the
treasure they were to hire them soldiers--mercenaries, and take arms
against the king, thy father."

The speaker paused again.  Seti's breast labored and his gaze was fixed
upon the Hebrew.

"The ire of Jambres was kindled against the plotters, and he called an
assembly of the priests within short distances from the village of
image-makers and laid his discoveries before them.  They pledged
themselves to proceed to Pithom last night, which was the night they
came together in council, and take the traitors.  But one among their
number, a young priest who knew the woman, played them false, entered
the city before his fellows and warned the plotters.  They had fled,
with the priests in pursuit.

"My son, the man was Siptah, son of Amon-meses; the woman, the Princess
Ta-user."

The prince's face took on an insane beauty.  In each cheek was a
scarlet stain--his lips smiled without parting and his eyes glittered.
He did not question the Hebrew's story.  Something within him
corroborated every word.  He sprang to his feet and with an unnatural
laugh flung his hand above his head.

"Now, by Horus," he cried, "I must get back to Tanis.  I would ask the
pardon of Rameses!"

Aaron arose and laid detaining hands upon him.

"I did not tell thee this, that I might be a bearer of evil tidings.  I
came forth to meet thee, that thou mayest save thyself.  Far be it from
me to bring misfortune upon Israel's one friend in Egypt's high places.
Return to Tanis with all speed and take the treasure with thee.  Then
only will the intent rest against thee--"

"Not so," Seti interrupted harshly.  "Wilt thou rob me of the one balm
to my humiliation?  Wilt thou defeat me also in the one good deed I
would do?  Take thou the treasure and be glad that it fell not into the
hands of the wanton.  Let me depart."

But Aaron was planted in his way.

"Knowest thou not what they will do with thee?  Thou wouldst have given
aid to the enemy of Egypt.  Thou knowest the penalty.  Sooner would
Israel make it a garment of sackcloth and feed upon alms, than yield
thee up to thine enemies for thy gold's sake--"

But Seti would not hear him.  "I care not what they do with me," he
said.  "The gods grant they lay upon me the extreme weight of the law.
I go back to Tanis as one returneth to his beloved."

He shook off the Israelite's hands and ran into the open.  There, he
ordered the black to give the treasure over to the Hebrew, and flinging
himself upon his horse, galloped furiously toward Tanis.

Of the remainder of the day Seti had little memory.  Once or twice as
he proceeded headlong through hamlets, he caught from the lips of
natives a denunciation of Siptah, a vicious epithet applied to Ta-user,
or, like a fresh thrust in an old wound, a pitying groan for himself.
His shame had preceded him on fleet wings.  He hoped he might as
swiftly run his sentence down.

None knew him in the roadways and the towns did not expect him.  The
pickets on the outer wall of Tanis halted him, but when they beheld his
face, their pikes fell and with hands on knees, they bade him pass.
The palace sentries started and gave him room.

He was running, sobbing, through the dark and capacious corridors of
the palace and no man had stayed him yet.  Were they to make his shame
more poignant by pitying him and punishing him not at all?  He flung
himself through the doors of the council chamber and halted.

The great hall was crowded and full of excitement.  Meneptah had
summoned the court to the royal presence.

In his loft above the throng stood the king, purple with rage.  The
queen, in her place at his side, was staying his outstretched hand.
Below at his right stood Rameses, the kingliest presence that ever
graced a royal sitting.  At the left of Meneptah, was Har-hat,
complacent and serene.

Out in the center of a generous space stood Moses.  The great Hebrew
was alone and isolated, but his personality was such that a throng
could not have obscured him.

In his massive physique was an insistent suggestion of immovability and
superhuman strength; in the shape of his imperial head, there was
illimitable capacity; in his face, the image of a nature commanding the
entire range of feeling, from the finest to the fiercest.  There was
nothing of the occult in his atmosphere.  His intense human force would
have commanded, though Egypt had not known him as the emissary of God.

As it was, when he moved the assembly swayed back as if blown by a
wind.  A motion of his hand sent a nervous start over the hall.  The
nearest courtiers seemed prepared to crouch.  Meneptah did not win a
glance from his court.  Every eye, wide and expectant, was fixed upon
the Israelite.

The pale and troubled queen strove in vain.  Meneptah thrust her aside
and shaking his clenched hand at the solitary figure before him, ended
the audience in a voice violent with fury.

"Get thee from me!  Take heed to thyself; see my face no more.  For in
that day thou seest my face, thou shalt die!"

After the speech, the silence fell, deepened, grew ominous.  None
breathed, and the overwrought nerves of the court reached the limit of
endurance.

Then Moses answered.  His tones were quiet, his voice full of a calm
more terrifying than an outburst had been.

"Thou hast spoken well," he said.  "I will see thy face no more."

Another breathless silence and he turned, the courtiers shrinking from
his way, and passed out of the hall.

At the doors, his eyes fell upon Seti.  He made no sign of surprise.
Indeed his glance seemed to indicate that he expected the prince.  He
raised his hand and extended it for a moment over the boy's head, and
went forth.

The strength went from Seti's limbs, the passion from his brain, and
when Rameses with grim purpose in his face beckoned him, he obeyed
meekly and prostrated himself before the angry king.



[1] Zoan--The Hebrew name for Tanis.




CHAPTER XXXIX

BEFORE EGYPT'S THRONE

The distance by highway between Memphis and Tanis was eighty miles, a
little more than two days' journey by horseback.

Masanath had required two weeks to accomplish that distance.  She refused
to travel except in the cool of the morning and of the afternoon; if she
felt the fatigue of an hour's journey, she rested a day at the next town;
she consulted astrologers, and moved forward only under propitious signs;
she insisted on following the Nile until she was opposite Tanis, instead
of taking the highway at On and continuing across the Delta.

The most of her following walked, and she proceeded at the pace of her
plodding servants.

She spoke of her freedom as though she went to meet doom; she gazed on
the sorry fields and pastures of Egypt as though the four walls of a
prison were soon to shut out heaven and earth from her eyes.

She was now within ten miles of Tanis, fourteen days after her departure
from Memphis.

Four solemn Ethiopians bore her litter upon their shoulders, and another
waved a fan of black ostrich plumes over her.  The litter was of
glittering ebony, hung with purple, tasseled with gold.  At her right,
was Unas; at her left, Nari.  Behind her were dusky attendants and sooty
sumpter-mules.

Her robes were white, and very fine, but there was no henna on her nails,
nor kohl beneath her lids, nor jewels in her hair.  So she would prove
that, though she was a coming queen, she was not glad of it.  Hers was
not the spirit that hides its trouble and enamels the exterior with false
flushes and smiles.  She enveloped herself in her feelings.  She
tinctured her voice with them; she made her eyes languid with them; and
the touch of her hand, the curve of her lips and the droop of her head
were eloquent of them.

By this time, she had despaired.  There was yet an opportunity to spend
another day covering the remaining ten miles, but she would loiter no
longer.  She was tired, of a truth.

It was near sunset when a company of royal guards, under Menes, rode up
from the north.

The captain flung himself from his horse and hurried to Masanath's litter.

"Holy Isis!  Lady Masanath," he exclaimed; "where in all Egypt hast thou
hidden thyself these fourteen days?  The whole army of the north hath
been searching after thee, and Rameses hath raved like a madman since
that day long past on which thou shouldst have arrived in Tanis."

"I have been on the way," she answered loftily.  "The haste of the prince
is unseemly.  I would not fatigue myself nor court disaster by
incautiousness, these perilous days."

Menes bowed.  "I am reproved, and contrite.  I forgot that I spoke with
my queen.  But I am most grateful that thou didst permit me to find thee,
for Rameses sent me forth an hour since, with the hard alternative of
fetching thee to him or losing my head.  But that he was sure of my
success is proved by the litter he sent between two horses for thee.
Wilt thou leave this and proceed in the other?"

Masanath answered by extending her hand to him.  Three of the soldiers
laid their cloaks on the earth for her feet; six others let down the
litter and Menes assisted her into the sumptuous conveyance Rameses had
sent.

Another soldier, after rapid and low-spoken instructions from the
captain, whirled his horse about, saluted and took the road toward Tanis
at a gallop.

The six shouldered the litter of the crown princess-to-be, Menes mounted
his horse and rode beside her; Unas, her Memphian train, and the
riderless horses were left to bring up the rear, and Masanath continued
to the capital.

"Perchance, thou hast been famished these fourteen days in the matter of
court-gossip," the captain said.  "Wherefore I am come as thy informant
with such news as thou shouldst know.  For, being ignorant of the
infelicities in the household of the king, it may be that thou wouldst
ask after the little prince, Seti, and wherefore the queen appears no
more at the side of the Pharaoh, nor speaks with thy lord nor sees thy
noble father; and furthermore, where Ta-user hath taken herself and other
things which would embarrass thee to hear answered openly."

Masanath roused herself and prepared to listen.  Serious words from the
lips of the light-hearted captain were not common, and when he spoke in
that manner it was time to take heed.

"I had heard of the little prince's misfortune and of the treason of
Ta-user and her party, and the placing of a price upon her head; but
nothing more hath come to mine ears.  Is there more, of a truth?"

"Remember, I pray thee," the captain replied, riding near to her, "that I
bring thee this for thine own sake--not for the love of tale-bearing.  On
the counsel of Rameses, this day the Pharaoh sentenced Seti to banishment
for a year to the mines of Libya--"

"To the mines!" Masanath cried in horror.

"Not as a laborer.  Nay, the sentence was not so harsh.  But as a scribe
to the governor over them."

"It matters little!" she declared indignantly.  "The boy-prince--the
poor, misguided young brother sent to a year of banishment--a lifelong
humiliation!  Libya, the death-country!  Now, was anything more brutal?
Nay, it is like Rameses!"

"Aye," the captain replied quickly, leaning over her with a cautioning
motion of his hand.  "Aye, and it is like thee to say it.  But hear me
yet further.  The queen and the Son of Ptah have quarreled, violently,
over Seti," he continued in a low tone.  "The little prince merited thy
father's disfavor, because Seti espoused the cause of Ta-user in thy
place, though he loves thee, and for that--we can find no other
reason--the noble Har-hat also urged the king into the harsh sentence of
the little prince.  For this the queen hath publicly turned her back upon
the crown prince and the fan-bearer, and the atmosphere of the palace is
most unhappy."

He lowered his voice to a whisper.  "Hotep championed Seti,--for the
young sister's sake, it would appear,--but to me it seemeth that the
scribe hath lost his wits."

"It would seem that he courteth a sentence to the mines likewise, and he
needs but to go on as he hath begun to succeed most thoroughly.  And it
behooveth his friends to prevent him."

He took Masanath's hand and, leaning from the saddle, whispered:

"Ye are under the same roof--thou and Hotep.  Avoid him as though he were
a pestilence."

He straightened himself and drew his horse away from her so that she
could not answer.

The captain's meaning, though obscure to any other that might have heard
him, was very clear to Masanath.  Har-hat was still holding a threat of
Hotep's undoing over his daughter's head, lest, at the last moment, she
rebel against her marriage.  She trembled, realizing how desperately she
was weighted with the safety of the scribe.  Her fear for him brought the
first feeling of willingness to wed with Rameses that she had ever
experienced.  Distasteful as marriage was to her, it was a species of
sacrifice to be catalogued with the many self-abnegations of which
womanhood is capable when the welfare of the beloved is at stake.

She sank back in the shadows of her litter, covered her face with her
hands and shuddered because of the imminence of her trial.

So they journeyed on, till at last Masanath fell asleep--not from
indifference, for her fears exhausted her--but because her mind still
retained babyhood's way of comforting itself when too roughly beset.

She was aroused in the middle of the first watch by the passage of her
litter between bewildering stretches of lights.  She was within the
palace.  The soldiers that bore her were tramping over a Damascene
carpet, and between long lines of groveling attendants, through an
atmosphere of overwhelming perfume.  The messenger had been swift and the
court had had time to prepare to greet the coming crown princess with
propriety.

After the first spasm of terror, Masanath set her teeth and prepared to
endure.  She was borne to the doors of the throne-room and two nobles
gorgeously habited set the carved steps beside the litter for her feet.

Without hesitation she descended.

The great hall was ablaze with light and lined with courtiers.  The
Pharaoh, with the queen by his side again, was in his place under the
canopy.

How tiny the little bride seemed to those gathered to greet her!  In that
vast chamber, with its remote ceiling, its majestic pillars, its
distances and sonorous echoes, her littleness was pathetically
accentuated.

Outside the shelter of her litter, she felt stripped of all protection.
She dared not look at the ranks of courtiers, lest her gaze fall on the
fair face of the royal scribe.  She reminded Isis of her threat and moved
into the open space, which extended down the center of the hall.

Har-hat, glittering with gems, and rustling in snow-white robes,
approached with triumph in his face to embrace her.  But within three
steps he paused as suddenly as though he had been commanded.  Masanath
had not spoken, but her pretty chin had risen, her mouth curved
haughtily, and the gaze she fixed upon him from under her lashes was cold
and forbidding.

She extended the tips of her fingers to him.  The action clamored its
meaning.  Not in the face of that assembly dared he disregard it, but his
black eyes hardened and flashed threateningly.  The warning given, he
bent his knee and kissed the proffered hand.  He had become the subject
of his daughter.

She suffered him to lead her to the royal dais where she knelt.  The
queen descended, raised her and led her to the throne.  Meneptah met
them, kissed Masanath's forehead, and blessed her.  The queen embraced
her and returned to her place beside the Pharaoh.

Masanath turned to the right of the royal dais and faced the prince.
Thus far, her greetings had not been hard.  Now was the supreme test.
Har-hat conducted her within a few paces of the prince and stepped aside.
What followed was to prove Masanath's willingness.

Rameses stood in the center of a slightly raised platform, which was
carpeted with gold-edged purple.  Behind him was his great chair.  But
for the badge of princehood, the fringed ribbon dependent from a
gem-crusted annulet over each temple, his habiliments were the same as
the Pharaoh's.

Masanath gave him a single comprehensive glance.  She was to wed against
her will, but she noted philosophically that she was to wed with no
puppet, but a kingly king.  With all that, admitting herself a peer to
this man, it wrenched her sorely to acknowledge subserviency to him.

Hope dead--the hour of her trial at hand--nothing was left to uphold her
but the memory of the good she might do for Hotep.  Her face fell and she
approached the prince with slow steps.  Within three paces of the
platform she paused and sank to her knees.

It was done.  She had acknowledged the betrothal and knelt to her lord.
Somewhere in that assembly Hotep had seen it, and she wondered numbly if
he understood why she had submitted; wondered if she had saved him;
wondered if she could endure for the long life they must spend under the
same roof; wondered if the gods would take pity on her and kill her very
soon.

By this time, Rameses had raised her.  He lifted the badge of princehood
from his forehead, shortened the fillet from which it hung, so that it
would fit her small head and set it on her brow.

The great palace shook with the acclaim of the courtiers.  Organ-throated
trumpets were blown; the clang of crossed arms, and sound of beaten
shields arose from all parts of the king's house; all the ancients'
manifestations of joy were made,--and the pair that had brought it forth
looked upon each other.

Masanath was trembling, and filled with a great desire to cry out.  All
this was manifest on her small, white face.  The light had died in the
prince's eyes, the exultation was gone from his countenance.  He knew
what thoughts were uppermost in the mind of Masanath, and the tyrant had
spoken truly to her long ago, when he said his heart might be hurt.  His
brow contracted with an expression of actual pain and he turned with a
fierce movement as if to command the rejoicings to be still.  But a
thought deterred him and taking Masanath's hand he led her down the hall
through the bending ranks of purple-wearing Egyptians to the great
portals of the hall.  There, he gave her into the hands of a troop of
court-ladies, lithe as leopards and gorgeous as butterflies, who led her
with many sinuous obeisances to her apartments.  She had not far to go.
The suite given over to the new crown princess was within the wing of the
palace in which the royal family lived.  Masanath noted with a little
trepidation that her door was very near to the portals over which was the
winged sun, carven and portentous.  Here were the chambers of her lord,
the heir.

Within her own apartments, she was attended multitudinously.
Ladies-in-waiting bent at her elbow; soft-fingered daughters of nobility
habited her in purple-edged robes; flitting apparitions, in a distant
chamber, glimpsed through a vista, laid a table of viands for her, to
which she was led with many soft flatteries; her every wish was
anticipated; all her trepidation conspicuously overlooked; her rank
religiously observed in all speech and behavior.  And of all her retinue,
she was the least complacent.

After her sumptuous meal, she was informed that a member of her private
train had come to Tanis from Memphis, ten days agone, in a state of great
concern and had awaited all that time in the palace till she should
arrive.  Now that she had come, the servitor insisted on seeing the
princess and would not be denied.  Troubled and wondering, Masanath
ordered that he be brought.  In a few minutes, Pepi stood before her.
The taciturn servant was visibly frightened.

"Pepi!" she cried.  "What brings thee here?"

"I have lost the Israelite," he faltered.

"Thou hast lost Rachel!"

"Hear me, my Lady, I pray thee.  Thou knowest we were to stop at the
Marsh of the Discontented Soul to leave a writing on the tomb for the son
of Mentu.  So we did.  The Israelite bade me stand away from the shore
lest we be seen.  I put out into midstream and while mine eyes were
attracted for a space toward the other shore, a boat drew up at the
Marsh.  I started to return, but before I could reach the place, the
Israelite--the man--they were in--each other's arms."

Masanath clasped her hands happily, but the servant went on, in haste.
"It was the son of Mentu, I know, my Lady.  He was wondrous tall, and the
Israelite was glad to see him--"

"O, of a surety it was Kenkenes," Masanath interrupted eagerly.

"Nay, but hear me, my Lady," the serving-man protested, his distress
evident in his voice.  "I moved away and turned my back, for I knew they
had no need of me.  Once, twice, I looked and still they talked together.
But, alas! the third time I looked, it was because I heard sounds of
combat, and I saw that the son of Mentu and several men were fighting.
One, whom by his fat figure I took to be Unas, was pursuing the
Israelite.  I would have returned to help her, but the dreadful night
overtook me before I could reach her--and as thou knowest,--none moved
thereafter.

"When the darkness lifted, I was off the wharves at On, where my boat had
drifted.  I halted only long enough to feed, for I was famished, and with
all haste I returned to the Marsh.  None was there.  I went to the house
in Memphis, but it was dark and closed.  Next I visited the home of Mentu
and asked if Rachel were there, but the old housekeeper had never heard
of such a maiden.  But when I asked if the young master had returned, she
asked me where I had been that I had not heard he was dead.  And having
said, she shut the door in my face.  I think he was within, and she would
not answer me 'aye' or 'nay,' but I know that she told the truth
concerning the Israelite."

Masanath, who had stood, the picture of dismay and apprehension during
the last part of the recital, seized his arm.

"Hast thou had an eye to the master?" she demanded in a fierce whisper.

"Aye," he answered quickly.  "I have followed him like a shadow, and this
I know.  Nak and Hebset were here when I came, but they went that same
night, each in a different direction, to search further for her.  They
returned to-night, but I know not whether they brought one with them."

Masanath clasped her hands and thought for a moment, a mental struggle
evidenced on her little face by the rapid fluctuations of color.

"Get thee down to the kitchens, Pepi," she said presently, "and if Nari
hath come, send her up to me.  Give thyself comfort and remain in the
palace.  It may be that I shall need thee."

She surveyed herself with a swift glance in a plate of polished silver
which was her mirror, and then, darting out of her door, ran down the
corridor as though she would outstrip repentance before it overtook her.

The flight was not long, but she had lost her composure before she
started.  Outside her doors, she trembled as if unprotected.  Soldiers of
the royal guard paced along the hall before her chambers.  The lamps that
burned there were of gold; the drapings were of purple wrought with the
royal symbols; the asp supported the censers; the head of Athor
surmounted the columns.  She was a dweller of the royal house.  Far, far
away from her were the unimperial quarters in which, once, she would have
lived.  There was her father--there was Hotep--

She came upon him whom she sought.  He was on the point of entering his
apartments.  He paused with his hands on the curtains and waited for her.

"A word with thee, my Lord," she panted, chiefly from trepidation.

"I have come to expect no more than a word from thee," he said.

The answer would have sent her away in dudgeon, under any other
circumstances, but her pride could not stand in the way of this very
pressing duty.

"A boon," she said, choking back her resentment.

"A boon!  Thou wouldst ask a boon of me!  Nay, I will not promise, for it
may be thou comest to ask thy freedom, and that I will not grant for
spleen."

Still she curbed herself.  "Nay, O Prince; I am come to ask naught of
thee which--a wife--may not justly ask of--her--lord."

He left the curtain and came close to her.  "Had the words come smoothly
over thy lips, they would have meant any wife--any husband.  But thy very
faltering names thee and me.  What is the boon that thou mayest justly
ask of me?"

"My father--."

"Hold!  There, too, I make a restriction.  Already have I suffered thy
father sufficiently."

Tears leaped into her insulted eyes, and in the bright light, shining
from a lamp above her head, her emotion was very apparent.

"Thou hast begun well in thy siege of my heart, Rameses," she said.  "I
am like to love thee, if thou dost woo me with affronts!"

"I am as like to win thee with rough words as I am with soft speeches.  I
had thought thee above pretense, Masanath."

"I pretend not," she cried, stamping her foot.  "And if thou wouldst know
how I esteem thee, I can tell thee most truthfully."

He laughed and caught her hands.  "Nay, save thy judgment.  Thou hast a
long life with me before thee, and the minds of women can change in the
blink of an eye.  Furthermore, I love thee none the less because thou art
so untamed.  Thou art the world I would subdue.  So thou dost not give
allegiance to another conqueror, I shall not grieve over thy rebellion.
Is there another?" he asked.

"I would liefer wed with well-nigh any other man in Egypt than with thee,
Rameses," she replied deliberately.

The declaration swept him off his feet.

"Gods! but thou dost hate me," he cried.  Panic possessed her for a
moment, remembering Hotep, but it was too late.  She returned the
prince's gaze without wavering, though her hands shook pitifully.  After
what seemed to her an interminable time, he spoke again.

"Perchance I am unwise in taking thee," he said.  "Perchance I but give
thee opportunity to spit me on a dagger in my sleep."

The tears brimmed over her lashes this time.

"Thou dost slander me!" she exclaimed passionately.

"Then I do not understand thee, Masanath," he asserted.

"Of a surety," she declared, withdrawing a hand that she might dry the
evidences of her indignation from her cheeks.  "Take the example home to
thyself!  Thou hast been loved in thy time, and if ever there was
awakened any feeling in thy heart in response it was repugnance.  What if
one of these women had it in her power to take thee against thy will?  By
this time thou hadst been dead of thy frantic hate of her, if self-murder
had not been done!"

"Even so," he answered with a short laugh; "but I will not set thee free,
Masanath, if thou didst convict me a monster in mine own eyes.  If thou
art good thou wilt love me or do thy duty by me.  If thou art base, I
have wedded mine own deserts."

He took the hand she had withdrawn and prepared to go on, but she
interposed.

"Not yet have I asked my boon."

"I am no longer in debt to thy father."

"I ask no favor for my father at thy hands.  Rather am I come to crave a
boon for myself."

"Speak."

"My father asked an Israelite maiden at the hands of the Pharaoh a year
agone, and she was beloved by my friend and thine.  She fled from my
father and was hidden by the man she loved--"

"Aye, I know the story.  Hotep brought it to mine ears months ago.  The
man was Kenkenes, and thy father overtook him and threw him into prison
in Tape.  What more?"

"The gods keep me in my love for thee, O my father! for thou dost strain
it most heavily," Masanath thought.  After an unhappy silence she went on.

"Thou hast given me news.  I know little of the tale save that the day
the darkness fell Kenkenes met his love on the eastern shore of the Nile
opposite Memphis, and there my father's servants came upon them and
fought with him for the possession of the Israelite.  The Israelite is
gone, and my father's servants are still seeking for her, and I would not
have her taken."

"Thou art a queen.  What is she, a slave, to thee?"

"A sister, my comforter, my one friend!"

"Thou canst find sisters and comforters and friends among high-born women
of Egypt.  I had laid Kenkenes' folly concerning this Israelite to the
moonshine genius in him.  But the slave is a sorceress, for the madness
touches whosoever looks upon her.  Behold her worshipers--first, thy
father, Kenkenes, Hotep and thyself, and the gods know whom else.  She
would better be curbed before she bewitches Egypt."

"It is her goodness and her grace that win, Rameses.  If that be sorcery,
let it prevail the world over.  Give her freedom and save her
spotlessness."

"Har-hat shall not take her, I promise thee.  I shall send her back to
her place in the brick-fields."

Masanath recoiled in horror.  "To the brick-fields!" she cried.  "Rachel
to the brick-fields!"

"I have said.  Her Israelitish spotlessness will be secure there, and the
reduction of her charms will be the saving of Kenkenes."

"Alas! what have I done?" she cried.  "I am as fit for the brick-fields
as Rachel.  O, if thou but knew her, Rameses!"

"Nay, it is as well that I do not; she might bewitch me.  And seeing that
she is born of slaves, how shall she be pampered above her parents?  Put
the folly from thy mind, Masanath, and trouble me not concerning a single
slave.  Shall I let one go, seeing that I am holding the body at the
sacrifice of Egypt?"

Great was Masanath's distress to make her seize him so beseechingly.

"Turn not away, my Lord," she begged.  "See what havoc I have wrought for
Rachel when I sought to help her.  And behold the honesty of thy boast of
love for me.  My first boon and thou dost deny it!"

He laughed, and slipping an arm about her, pressed her to him.

"First am I a king--next a lover," he said.  "Thy prayer seeketh to come
between me and my rule over the Israelites.  Ask for something which hath
naught to do with my scepter."

"Surely if thou sendest her to the brick-fields Kenkenes will go into
slavery with her," she persisted, enduring his clasp in the hope that he
might soften.

"Then it were time for the dreamer to be awakened by his prince."

"Thou wilt not come between them!" she exclaimed.

"Nay, no need.  Seven days of the lash and the sun of the slave-world
will heal Kenkenes."

"Thou shalt see!" Masanath declared, endeavoring to free herself.  "And
the gods judge thee for thy savage use of maidenhood!"

Again he laughed, and this time he kissed her in spite of her resistance.

"The gods judge me rather for this sweeter use of maidenhood," he said.
"Let them continue to prosper me in it and hasten the day of her
willingness.  Meanwhile," he continued, still holding her, as if he
enjoyed the mastery over her, "get thee back to thy sleep and put the
thought of slaves out of thy mind.  To-morrow thou settest thy feet in
the path to the throne; to-morrow there will be ceremonies and prayers
and blessings out of number; and to-morrow sunset thou art no longer
betrothed but a bride!  My bride!  Go now, and be proud of me if thou
canst not love me!"

He released her and, as he entered his apartments, lifted the curtain and
stood for an instant looking back at her.

Masanath saw him through her despairing tears--strong, immovable,
terrible--in his youth and his purposes and his capabilities.

Then the curtain fell behind him.

Crushed and stunned with despair and horror, she made her way to her
apartments in a mist of tears.

There was no help for the beloved Rachel or for the young lover.  All
whom she might ask to approach the king in their favor were helpless or
prejudiced.  Seti was disgraced; the queen, useless; Hotep, already too
imminently imperiled; Rameses, Har-hat, against the lovers; and the
king--the poor, feeble king, hopelessly beyond any appeal that she might
direct to him.

A sorry resolve shaped itself in her mind.  To-morrow at dawn she also
would put forth searchers, and finding Rachel, send her out of Egypt, and
Kenkenes after her.




CHAPTER XL

THE FIRST-BORN

At the door of her apartments Masanath was met by the faithful Nari,
who drew her within and showed her triumphantly that the usurping
ladies-in-waiting had departed.  The unhappy girl was grateful for the
change.  The relief for her sorrow was its expression, and she dreaded
the restraint put upon her by the presence of discerning and unfamiliar
eyes.

All desire for sleep had left her.  Nari, weary and heavy-headed,
begged her to retire, but she would not.  So at last the waiting woman,
at her mistress' command, lay down and slept.

The apartment consisted of two chambers running the width of the
palace.  The outer chamber had a window opening on the streets of
Tanis, the inner looked into the palace courtyard.

Masanath wrapped a woolen mantle about her and sat at the window
overlooking the park.

Without was the wide hollow, walled by the many-galleried stories of
the king's house.  Below a fountain of running water, issuing from an
ibis-bill of bronze, and falling into a pool, purled and splashed and
talked on and on to itself.

Above, the mighty constellations were dropping slowly down the west.
The wild north wind from the sea strove against her cheek.  The gods
were too absorbed in great things, the shifting of the heavens, the
flight of the wind and the rocking of the waters, to care for her great
burden of trouble.  Or, indeed, were they not prejudiced against her as
all the world was?  They had heard every prayer but hers.  They had
harkened to Rameses when he asked for her at their hands; they had
harkened to her father and yielded him power at her sacrifice; they had
even pitied Rachel; they had returned her love from Amenti, and yet had
not Rachel reviled them?  Nay, there was conspiracy laid against her by
the Pantheon, and what had she done to deserve it?

In some one of the many windows that looked into the court another
dragged at his chestnut locks and execrated gods and men because of
their hardness of heart.

So the night wore on to its noon.

Masanath was becoming drowsy in spite of her determination to keep a
sleepless vigil until dawn, when she was aroused by a commotion in the
vicinity of the palace.  There were indoor cries and shouts for help.

"A brawl," she thought.  But the noise seemed to emerge into the
street, and there came the sound of flying footsteps and frantic knocks
upon doors without.  The sound seemed to swell and spread abroad,
widening and heightening.  Wild shrieks and husky broken shouts swept
up from all quarters of the town, and the whole air was full of a vast
murmur of many voices, calling and wailing, excited, tremulous and full
of fear.

Masanath passed into the outer room to the window that looked upon the
city.

Every house had a light, which flickered and appeared at this window
and that, and the streets were full of flying messengers, who cried out
as they ran.  Now and then a chariot, drawn at full speed, dashed past,
and by the fluttering robes of the occupants Masanath guessed them to
be physicians.  All Tanis was in uproar, and its alarm possessed her at
once.

She turned to awaken Nari, when she heard inside the palace excited
words and hurrying feet.  Some one ran, barefoot, past her door,
calling under his breath upon the gods.  At that moment an incisive
shriek cut the increasing murmur in the palace and died away in a long
shuddering wail of grief.

"Awake, awake, Nari!" Masanath cried, shaking the sleeping woman.
"Something has befallen the city.  It is in the palace and everywhere."

Meanwhile a chorus of screams smote upon her ears and the wild outcries
of men filled the great palace with terrifying clamor.

Masanath, shaking with dread, wrung her hands and wept.  Nari, stupid
with fear, sat up and listened.

Presently some one came running and beat, with frenzied hands, upon the
door.

"Open!  Open!  In the name of Osiris!" cried a voice which, though it
quaked with consternation, Masanath recognized as her father's.

She flew to the door and wrenched it open.  Har-hat, half-dressed,
stood before it.

"Father, what manner of sending is this?" she cried.

"Death!" he panted.  "Come with me!"  He caught her arm and ran,
dragging her after him down the corridor, half-lighted, but murmurous
with sound.

"What is it, father?" she begged as he hurried her on.

"The gods only know.  Rameses hath been smitten and is dying, or even
now is dead!"

"Rameses!" she breathed in a terrified whisper.  "Rameses!  And an hour
ago I talked with him--so strong, so resolute, so full of life--O Holy
Isis!"

"It is a pestilence sent by Mesu.  The whole city is afflicted.  Ptah
shield us!"

The hangings that covered the entrance to each suite of chambers had
been thrown aside and the interiors were vacant.  But the farther end
of the hall was filled with terrified courtiers in all attitudes and
degrees of extravagant demonstration of grief.  Men and women were
fallen here and there on the pavement or supporting themselves by
pillar and wall, wailing, tearing their hair, wounding their faces,
rending their garments.

All the dwellers of the palace were flocked about the apartments of
Rameses.  From the entrance into these chambers issued sounds of the
wildest nature.  Masanath heard and attempted to draw away from the
fan-bearer.

"Take me not into that awful place!" she pleaded.  "How canst thou
force me, my father!"

But Har-hat did not seem to hear and pushed his way, still dragging her
through the crush of shaking attendants that crowded into the outer
chambers.

The sleeping-room of the heir was the focal spot of violent sorrow.

The royal pair, the king's ministers, the immediate companions of
Rameses, the high priest from the Rameside temple to Set at Tanis and a
corps of leeches were present.  The couch was surrounded.

Seti was not present, for only in the last moment had some one realized
that the young prince should be brought.  Hotep had gone to conduct him
to the chamber.

The queen, inert and lifeless, lay on the floor at the foot of the
prince's bed.  Most of the physicians bent over her.  Her women,
chiefly the wives of the ministers, were hysterical and helpless.

But it was Meneptah who froze the hearts of his courtiers with horror.

Because of his obstinacy Egypt had gone down into famine, pestilence
and destruction.  Without more than ordinary concern he had watched the
hand of the scourge pursue it into ruin till what time he should
relent, and he had not relented.

But now that dread Hand had entered within the boundaries of his loves
and had smitten Rameses, his heir, his idol!

The effect upon him was terrible.  The death chamber rang like a
torture dungeon.  Nechutes and Menes, by united efforts, barely
prevented him from doing self-murder.  The earnest attempts of the
priest to quiet him were totally useless.  Nothing could have been more
shocking.

The violent scene wrought Masanath's already over-strained nerves to
the highest pitch of distress.  The blood congealed in her veins and
her steps lagged, but Har-hat, for some purpose not apparent to any who
looked upon his daughter's anguish, drew her to the very side of the
couch.  The leeches, who had been vainly seeking for some flicker of
life, stepped aside and the eyes of the cowering girl fell on the
prince.

Rameses had seen the Hand that smote him.

The look on the frozen features completed the undoing of Masanath's
self-control and she collapsed beside the bed, utterly prostrated.

Hotep entered with Seti.  The boy prince's face was inflamed with much
weeping, and he flung himself upon the cold clay of Rameses, forgetting
wholly that the older brother had urged the passage of a harsh sentence
upon his young head.

The courtiers, who had stoically witnessed Meneptah's frantic grief,
turned now and hid their blinded eyes.  Hotep went to the Pharaoh and
laid his hand on the monarch's shoulder.  The action commanded.
Exhausted by his frenzy, Meneptah leaned against his scribe.  The
cup-bearer and the captain released him and Hotep spoke quietly.

"Seest thou, O my King, the sorrow of thy people?  Behold thy young son
and pity him.  Look upon thy queen and comfort her.  If thou, their
staff, art broken, who shall bear them up in their sorrow?  Break not.
Be thou as the strong father of thy great son, so that from the bosom
of Osiris he may look upon Egypt and sleep well, seeing that in his
loss his kingdom lost not her prop and stay, her king, also."

The scanty manhood of the monarch, thus ably invoked, responded
somewhat.  He raised himself and permitted Hotep to conduct him to the
side of the boy prince.  Seti fell down at his father's feet, and Hotep
took Meneptah's hand and laid it on the bowed head.

"Thou dost pardon him, O Son of Ptah," the scribe said in the same
quiet voice.  The king nodded weakly and wept afresh.  After the prince
had clasped his father's knees and covered the hand with kisses, he
obeyed the scribe's sign and went away to his mother's side.  Again
Hotep, compelling by his low voice, spoke to the king and the assembly
listened.

"The gods have not limited the darts of affliction to thee, O Son of
Ptah.  Rameses journeyed not alone into Amenti.  He took a kingdom with
him.  Behold, the Hebrew hath loosed his direst plague upon Egypt, and
by the lips of an Israelite, in the streets, every first-born in thy
realm perished in the home of his father this night!"

The entire assembly cried out, and most of them ran sobbing and praying
from the chamber.  Instantly the outcry and clamor in the palace broke
forth again, for the inhabitants knew that the blow which had smitten
Rameses had fallen on one of their own.

Meneptah staggered away from Hotep, his frenzy upon him again.

"Send them hither," he cried hoarsely, waving his arms toward a
white-faced courtier that had stood his ground.  "Send them hither--the
Hebrews, Mesu and Aaron!  Israel shall depart, before they make me sink
the world!  For they have sent madness upon me!  I condemned my gentle
son, I punished those who gave me wise counsel, I have ruined Egypt, I
have slain mine heir, and now the blood of the first-born of all my
kingdom is upon my head!"  His voice rose to a shriek, and Hotep,
putting an arm about him, hushed him with gentle authority and signed
the courtier to obey.

The physicians lifted the queen and bore her away.  Seti stopped at
Masanath's side and looked at her with compassion in his eyes.  Har-hat
came to him.

"Seeing that thou hast won the pardon of thy father, am I not also
included in the restoration of good feeling?  Have I won thine enmity,
my Prince?"

"I hold naught against thee, O Har-hat, but thou hast not been a
profitable counselor to my father in these days of his great need."
The young prince spoke frankly and returned the comprehending gaze of
the fan-bearer.  Har-hat's eyes fell on his daughter, and again on the
prince.  Slow discomfiture overspread his features.  Rameses was dead
and with him died the fan-bearer's hold upon his position.  Seti was
arisen in the heir's place, with all the heir's enmity to him.  But
from Seti he could not purchase security with Masanath.

Hotep supported Meneptah out of the death chamber, for the court
paraschites were already hiding in the shadows of the great halls
without.  The bed-chamber slowly emptied.  Har-hat lifted Masanath and
followed the last out-going courtier.

Another tumult had arisen in the great corridor, an uproar of another
nature that advanced from the entrance hall of the palace.  There were
cries of supplication, persuasion, urging, that were frantic in their
earnestness.  The whole palace seemed to be on its knees.

Hotep, with the king, had paused, and several courtiers went before him
and looked down the cross corridor.  Instantly they fell on their
knees, crying out:

"Ye have the leave of the powers of Egypt!  Go!  Make haste!  Take your
flocks, all that is yours!  Aye, strip us even, if ye will!  But let
not the sun rise upon you in Egypt!  For we be all dead men!"

A murmur ran through the ministers.  "The Hebrews!"

They came slowly, side by side, the two brothers.  Egyptians in all
attitudes of entreaty cumbered their path--Egyptians, born to the
purple, rich, proud, powerful, on their faces to enslaved Israel!

Meneptah wrenched himself from Hotep's sustaining arms and, staggering
forward, all but on his knees, met them.

"Rise up and get you forth from among my people," he besought them,
"both ye and the children of Israel, and go and serve the Lord as ye
have said.  Also take your flocks and your herds as ye have said, and
be gone; and bless me also!"

Great was the fall for a Pharaoh to pray a blessing from the hands of a
slave; great was his humility to kneel to them.  But there was no
triumph, no exultation on the faces of the Hebrews.  Aaron, with his
bearded chin on his breast, looked down on the head of the shuddering,
pleading monarch; but Moses, after sad contemplation of the humbled
king, raised his splendid head and gazed with kindling eyes at Har-hat.

Then with the words, "It is well," spoken without animation, he turned
and, with his brother, disappeared into the dusk of the long corridor.
The expression, the act, the mode of departure seemed to indicate that
the Israelites doubted the stability of the king's intent.  In a
moment, therefore, the courtiers were pursuing the departing brothers,
urging and praying with all their former wild insistence.

Har-hat put Masanath on her feet and started to leave her, but she
flung her arms about his neck.

"Forgive me, my father," she sobbed.  "For my rebellion the gods may
absolve me, but I have been unfilial and for that there is no
justification.  If aught should befall thee in these awful days, how I
should reproach myself!  Sawest thou not the Hebrew's gaze upon thee?
Say thou dost forgive me!"

"Nay, nay," he said hastily; "thou hast not done me to death by thine
undutifulness.  And the Hebrew fears me.  Get back to thy chamber and
rest."  He kissed her and undid her clinging arms.  Going to the king,
he put aside Hotep, who was striving to raise the monarch, and lifted
Meneptah in his arms.

"Masanath is better now, good Hotep, and I would take my place beside
my king."

Without summoning further aid, he half carried the limp monarch up the
hall and into the royal bed-chamber.

Weak, shaking, sated with horror and numb with fear, Masanath attempted
to return to her apartments, but at the second step she reeled.  Hotep
saw her.  The fan-bearer was not in sight.  In an instant the scribe
was beside the fainting girl, supporting her, nor did he release her
until she was safe in the ministering arms of Nari.

As he was leaving her he commended her most solemnly to the gods.

"Death hath wrenched a scepter from the gods and ruled the world this
night," he said.  "We may not delude ourselves that we have escaped, my
Lady.  As sure as there is a first-born in thy father's house and in
mine, that one is dead.  And think of those others whom we love, the
eldest born of other houses!  Do thou pray for us, thou perfect spirit.
I can not, for there is little reverence for my gods in me this night."

He turned away and disappeared down the corridor.

Within her chamber Masanath knelt and dutifully strove to pray, but her
petition resolved itself into a repeated cry for help.  In that hour
she did not think of the relief to her and to many that the death of
Rameses had brought about, for in her heart she counted it sin to be
glad of benefit wrought by the death of any man.

Through the fingers across her face she knew that dawn was breaking,
but quiet had not settled on the city.  Surging murmurs of unanimous
sorrow rose and fell as if blown by the chill wind to and fro over
Egypt.  The nation crouched with her face in the dust.  There was no
perfunctory sorrow in her abasement.  She was bowed down with her own
woe, not Meneptah's.  Never before had a prince's going-out been
attended by such wild grief.  There was no comfort in Egypt, and the
air was tremulous with mourning from the first cataract to the sea.




CHAPTER XLI

THE ANGEL OF DEATH

Kenkenes had spent two weeks in Goshen in systematic search for Rachel.

The labor had been time-consuming and fruitless.

More than two million Israelites were encamped about Pa-Ramesu, and
among this host Kenkenes had searched thoroughly and fearlessly.  He
was an Egyptian and a noble, and Israel did not make his way easy.  But
all Judah knew Rachel and loved her, and the first the young man came
upon was a quarryman who had known of Rachel's flight from Har-hat and
of her protection at the hands of an Egyptian.  Therefore when Kenkenes
bore witness, by his stature, that he was the protecting Egyptian, and
by his testimony concerning the God of Israel, that he was worthy, this
friendly son of Judah began to suspect that Rachel would be glad to see
the young noble, and he joined Kenkenes in his search.  Furthermore, he
softened the hearts of the tribe toward the Egyptian and they tolerated
him with some assumption of grace.

The other tribes gave him no heed except to glower at him in the
camp-ways or to mutter after him when he had passed.  Seeing that Judah
suffered him, they did not fall on him.  Thus the young man was safe.
As for the notice Kenkenes took of Israel, it began and ended with his
inquiry after Rachel, the daughter of Maai the Compassionate, a son of
Judah.  His earnestness absorbed him.  Otherwise he was but partly
conscious of great preparations making in camp, of tremendous
excitement, heightening of zeal and vast meetings after nightfall, when
he had withdrawn to a far-off meadow to sleep in the grass.

When he had searched throughout the length and breadth of Israel and
found Rachel not, he led his horse from the distant meadow, where he
had been pastured, and turned his head toward Tanis.

While he was binding the saddle of sheep's wool about the Arab's narrow
girth he was surprised to find that the friendly son of Judah had
followed him to the pasture.  The man approached, as though one spirit
urged him and another held him back, and offered Kenkenes the shelter
of his tent for the night.

Somewhat gratified and astonished, Kenkenes, thanked him and declined.
Still the Hebrew lingered and urged him with strange persistence.
Kenkenes expressed his gratitude, but would not stay.

Having taken the road toward Tanis where Rachel might be in the hands
of Har-hat, his heart seemed to turn to iron in his breast.  All the
energies and aims of his youth seemed to resolve into one grim and
inexorable purpose.

It was far into the second watch when he left Pa-Ramesu.  But the great
city of tents was not yet sleeping.

The horse was anxious for a journey after a fortnight of idleness and
he bade fair to keep pace with his rider's impatience.  The Arabian
hills had sunk below the sky-line and the Libyan desert was not marked
by any eminence.  With Pa-Ramesu behind him, a wide unbroken horizon
belted the dusky landscape.  The lights winked out over Goshen and the
hamlets were not visible except as Kenkenes came upon them.  The
shepherd dogs barked afar off, or now and then a wakened bird cheeped
drowsily, or the waters in the canals rippled over a pebbly space.

But these sounds ceased unaccountably, at last, and a silence settled
down till the atmosphere was tense with stillness.  A deadening hand
seemed to cover the night.

The silence roused Kenkenes and he realized the solemnity of the earth,
the vastness of the sky and the majesty of the solitude.  Mysteriously
affected, he withdrew within himself and humbly acknowledged the One
God.

At midnight a chill struck the breeze and he drew his mantle about him
while he rode.  The wind freshened and a heated counter-current from
the desert met it and they whirled away, rustling through the grassy
country.

The Arab reduced his gallop so suddenly that Kenkenes was jolted.  The
small peaked ears of the horse went up and he showed a disposition to
move sidewise into the meadow growth beside the way.

"A wild beast hath taken the road," Kenkenes thought.

The horse brought up, with a start, his prominent muscles twitching,
and sniffed the air strongly.

A high oscillation in the atmosphere descended on Kenkenes.

The Arab reared, snorting, and then crouched, quivering with wild
terror in every limb.

Unconscious, even of the movement, Kenkenes threw up his arm as if to
ward off the blow and bent upon his horse's neck.

Gust after gust of icy air swept down on his head, as if winnowed by
frozen wings.  Then with a backward waft, colder than any wind he had
ever known, the hovering Presence passed.

Instantly the horse plunged and took the road toward Tanis as if stung
by a lash.  Kenkenes, shaken and full of solemn dread, did well to keep
his saddle.  He grasped the stout leather bridle with strong hands, but
he might have curbed the hurricane as easily.  The Arab stretched his
gaunt length, running low, and the haunted night reechoed with the
sound of his hoofs.  The land of Goshen lay east and west, with a
slight divergence toward the north.  The road to Tanis ran due north.
It was not long until Kenkenes' flying steed brought him in sight of
the un-Israelite Goshen.  Illuminated windows starred the plain and the
wind shrilling in Kenkenes' ears bore uncanny sounds.  A turf-thatched
hovel at the roadside showed a light as they swept by and a long scream
clove the air, but the Arab was not to be halted.

The murmurous wind did not soothe him, and the wakeful night had a
terror for him that he could not outrun.  He veered sharply and
galloped through the pastures to avoid a roadside hamlet that shrieked
and moaned.  He leaped irrigation canals and brush hedges, swept
through fields and gardens, until, at last, by dint of persuasion,
coupled with the animal's growing fatigue, Kenkenes succeeded in
drawing the horse down into a milder pace.

The young man made no effort to fathom the mysterious visitation.
Instead, he bowed his head and rode on, awed and humbled.

The night wore away and the gray of the morning showed him,
strange-featured, the misty levels, meadows, fields and gardens of
northern Goshen.  The wind faltered and died; the stars, strewn down
the east, paled and went out, one by one.  Fragmentary clouds toward
the sunrise became apparent, tinted, silvered and at last, like flakes
of gold, scattered down to a point of intensest brilliance on the
horizon.  A lark sprang out of the wet, wind-mown grass of a meadow and
shot up, up till it was lost in radiance and only a few of its
exquisite notes filtered down to earth again.

A brazen rim showed redly on the horizon and the next instant the sun
bounded above the sky-line.

It was the morning after the Passover, and Kenkenes, the son of Mentu,
was the only Egyptian first-born that lived to see it break.




CHAPTER XLII

EXPATRIATION

At sunrise, Kenkenes drew up his horse and took counsel with himself.
By steady riding he could reach Tanis shortly, but once within the
capital of the Pharaoh, he was near to Har-hat and within reach of the
fan-bearer's potent hand.  When he entered the city he must be mentally
and physically alert.  He had not slept since the last daybreak, and he
was weary and heavy-headed.

Ahead of him was a squat hamlet, set on the very border of Goshen.  It
was the same village that Seti had designated in his appointment with
Moses.  Here he might have found a hospitable roof and a pallet of
matting, but the accompanying gratuity of curiosity and comment would
have outweighed the small advantage of a bed indoors over a bed in the
meadows.

He dismounted and, leading his horse some distance from the road, into
the fringe of water-sprouts which lined the canal, picketed him within
shade, out of view from the highway.  Usually the meadow growth within
reach of the seepage from the canals was most luxuriant, and here the
flocks of the Israelites had come for sweet grass.  They had kept the
underbrush down, and the herbage closely cropped.  But for two months
Israel had been near Pa-Ramesu with its cattle, and the canal-borders
were again riotous with growth.  The place Kenkenes came upon was most
tempting, odorous and cool.  He rolled his mantle for a pillow and
flung himself into the grass, where he lay, half-buried in green, and
slept.

The April sun, hot as a torrid July noon in northern lands, discovered
the sleeper and stared into his upturned face.  He flung his arm across
his eyes and slept on.  Shadows fell and lengthened; the afternoon
passed, and still he slept.

Mounted couriers riding at a dead gallop, passed over the road, toward
Tanis.  Following them, war-chariots thundered by with a castanet
accompaniment of jingling harness and jarring armor.  Kenkenes stirred
during the tumult, but when it had receded he lay still again.  Three
mounted soldiers leading a score of horses passed.  The Arab in the
copse whinnied softly.  A second trio of soldiers, following with a
smaller drove, heard the call from the bushes and drew up.  The
foremost man spoke to another, tossed the knotted bridles to him and,
dismounting, came through the copse to the Arab.  There he found the
young nobleman, sleeping.

For a moment he hesitated, but no longer.  Silently he untied the
horse, led him forth, attached him with the others and speedily took
the road toward Tanis.

After these had passed the road was deserted and no more came that way.
In a little time the sun set.  The wind from the north freshened and
swayed the close-standing bushes so that their branches chafed one
against another.  At the sound Kenkenes, ready to wake, stirred and
opened his eyes.  After a moment he sat up and looked for the Arab.
The horse was gone.

Kenkenes arose and searched industriously.  The trampled space in the
road convinced him that the horse had departed with a number of others.
Hoping that he might find some trace of the lost animal among the
inhabitants, he went to the hamlet.

Two ragged lines of huts, built of sun-dried brick, formed a single
straggling street.  A low shed, the first building Kenkenes came upon,
showed a flickering red light.  A spare figure darted into it, just
ahead of the young man.

From the threshold, the whole of the small interior was visible.

The light came from a small annealing oven.  At a table, overlaid with
a thin slab of stone, a man was modeling a cat in clay.  On the
opposite side of the room was a younger man, painting an image,
preparatory to burning it in the oven.  The walls were black with
smoke, the floor strewn with broken images and dried crumbs of clay.

In the center of the room was the spare figure, in white robes.
Kenkenes had opened his lips to speak when the conversation among the
trio stopped him.

"Cowards!  Dastards!" the spare man vociferated.  "Is there not a
patriot in Egypt?  The Pharaoh in danger and not a man in the hamlet
who will raise a heel to save him!"

"Holy Father," the short man protested, "the way is long, the horses
have been required at our hands by the Pharaoh and were taken from us,
and if there be evil omens, the king's sorcerers will discover them."

"King's sorcerers!" the spare man repeated indignantly.  "There is not
one of them who can tell a star from a fire-fly or read the events of
yesterday!  Horses!  Must ye go mounted, in litters, in chariots,
afraid of the harsh earth and a rough mile?  In my youth, the young men
went barefoot and traveled the desert for the joy of effort.  Oh, for
one of mine own best days!  Horses!"

"Is the son of Hofa away?" the younger man asked.  "He is a runner as
well as a soldier."

The spare man broke out afresh.

"A runner!  Aye, of a truth he is a runner.  When the tidings came that
the Pharaoh was to pursue the Israelites he ran his best--for the
hay-fields--and is hidden safe under a swath somewhere--the craven!"

Kenkenes stepped into the shed.

"What is this concerning the Israelites?" he demanded.

The spare man turned and the two artisans gazed at the young sculptor
with open mouths.

"The news is not to be cried abroad," the spare man replied shortly.

"Thou hast become cautious too late," Kenkenes retorted.  "The most of
thy talk have I heard.  I would know the rest of it."

"By Bast, thou art imperious!  In my great days the nobles groveled to
me.  Now, am I commanded by them.  How thou art fallen, Jambres!

"The Israelites, my Lord," he continued mockingly, "departed out of the
land of Goshen, in the early morning hours of this day, but the Pharaoh
hath repented, and will pursue them--to turn them back, or to destroy
them."  The old man's voice lost its sarcasm and became anxious.

"But the signs are ominous, the portents are evil.  I know, I know, for
I am no less a mystic because I have fallen from state.  His seers are
liars, they can not guide the king.  He must not pursue them, for death
shadows him the hour he leaves the gates of Tanis.  He must not go!  I
love him yet, and I can not see him overthrown."

"Thou art no more eager to stay him than I," Kenkenes answered quickly.
"Thou art in need of a runner.  I am one."

The eye of the sorcerer fell on the young man's dress.

"A runner among the nobility?" he commented suspiciously.

"Is a man less likely to be a patriot because he is of blood, or less
fleet of foot because he is noble?"

"Nay; nor less useful because he is sharp of tongue.  Come with me!"
Jambres seized his arm and, hurrying him out of the shed, went through
the ragged street to the shrine at the upper end of the village.

From the tunnel-like entrance between the dwarf pylons a light was
diffused as though it came through thin hangings.  The pair entered the
porch and passed into the sanctuary.

Entering his study, Jambres made his way to the heavy table and,
fumbling about the compartments under it, drew forth a wrapped and
addressed roll.  Taking up a lighted lamp, he scrutinized the messenger
sharply.

While he gazed, Kenkenes took the opportunity of inspecting the priest.
He had been a familiar figure about the palaces of two monarchs.  For
thirty years he had read the stars for the great Rameses, six for
Meneptah, but he had measured rods with Moses and had fallen.  From the
pinnacle of power he had declined precipitately to the obscurest office
in the priesthood.  This bird-cote shrine was his.

"Art thou seasoned?  Canst thou endure?  Nay, no need to ask that," he
answered himself, surveying the strong figure before him.  "But who art
thou?"

"I am the son of Mentu, the murket."

"The son of Mentu?  Enough.  If a drop of that man's blood runneth in
thy veins, thou art as steadfast as death.  Surely the gods are with
me."

He opened a second compartment in the end of the table, but before he
found what he sought he raised himself, suddenly.

"If thou art that son of the murket," he asked, "how is it thou art not
dead?"

Kenkenes looked at him, wondering if the news of his supposed death had
penetrated even to this little hamlet.

"Art thou not thy father's eldest born?" the priest asked further.

"His only child."

"What sheltered thee in last night's harvest of death?"

"Thou speakest in riddles, holy Father."

"Knowest thou not that every first-born in Egypt died last night at the
Hebrew's sending?" the sorcerer demanded.

"The first-born of Egypt," Kenkenes repeated slowly.  "At the Hebrew's
sending?"

"Aye, by the sorcery of Mesu.  Save for the eldest of Israel, there is
no living first-born in Egypt to-day.  From that most imperial Prince
Rameses to the firstling of the cowherd, they are dead!"

The young man heard him first with a chill of horror, half-unbelieving,
barely comprehending.  He was not of Israel and yet he had been spared.
Then he remembered the dread presence above him in the night,--the
chill from its noiseless wing.  A light, instant and brilliant as a
revelation, broke over him.  Unconsciously, he raised his eyes and
clasped his hands against his breast.  He knew that his God had
acknowledged him.

When his thoughts returned to earth, he found the glittering eyes of
the sorcerer fixed upon him.

"Seeing that thou dost live, tell me what sheltered thee in this
harvest of death?" Jambres repeated.

"The Lord God of Israel, who reaped it."

The answer was direct and fearless.  To the astonished priest who heard
it, it seemed triumphant.

Each of the many emotions the sorcerer experienced, displayed itself,
in turn, on his face,--amazement, anger, censure, irresolution,
distrust.  After a silence, he took up the scroll and made as if to
return it to its hiding-place in the compartments under the table.

"Stay," Kenkenes said, laying his hand on the sorcerer's.  "Put it not
away, for I shall carry it.  Shall I, being a believer in Israel's God,
be willing for the Pharaoh to pursue Israel?"

"Nay," Jambres replied bluntly; "but thou wouldst stay him for Israel's
sake; I would prevent him for his own."

"So the same end is accomplished, wherefore quarrel over the motive?
But when thou speakest of Israel's sake, which, by the testimony of
past events, is now the more imperiled, Egypt or Israel?"

"Egypt!  But it shall not be wholly overthrown through mine incautious
trust of a messenger."

The young man still retained his hold on the sorcerer's hand.

"Thou dost impugn my fidelity.  Now, consider this.  I could have
defeated thee and accomplished the Pharaoh's undoing by refusing to
carry the message, by keeping silence in yonder shed of image-makers.
Is it not so?"

Jambres assented.

"Even so.  Instead, I offered and now I insist.  Now, if thou deniest
me, there is none to carry the warning and thou, thyself, hast undone
the Pharaoh."

The sorcerer put away the hand and showed no sign of softening.

"Nay, then," Kenkenes said, "there is no need of the writing.  I shall
warn the king by word of mouth."  He turned away and walked swiftly
toward the portals of the shrine.  Jambres beheld him recede into the
dusk and wavered.

"Stay!" he called.

Kenkenes stopped.

"Wilt thou swear fidelity by the holy Name?"

"Aye, and by that holier Name of Jehovah, also."

He returned and faced the priest.  "Thou art mystic, Father Jambres,"
he said persuasively; "what does thy heart tell thee of me?"

"The supplication of the need indorses thee, as it indorses any
desperate chance.  If thou art false, thou art the instrument of Set,
whom the Hathors have given to overthrow Egypt.  If thou art true, the
Pharaoh shall return safe to his capital in Memphis.  The gratitude of
Egypt will be sufficient reward."

"And I take the message?"

Jambres nodded.  "Art thou armed?" he asked, bending again to look into
the compartment he had opened.

"Except for my dagger, nay."

The sorcerer brought forth a falchion of that wondrous metal that could
carve syenite granite and bite into porphyry; also, a pair of
horse-hide sandals and a flat water-bottle.

"Put on these."

Kenkenes undid his cloak and untying his broidered sandals, wrapped
them in his mantle and bound the roll, crosswise, on his back.  Over
this he slung the water-bottle, which the priest had filled in the
meantime, fixed the falchion at his side and put on the horse-hide
sandals.

"When hast thou broken thy fast?" the priest asked next.

"At sunset yesterday."

The priest turned with a sign to the young man to follow him and,
passing through the shrine, led the way out of the sanctuary into the
house of the sorcerer.  Here, shortly, Kenkenes was served by a slave,
with a haunch of gazelle-meat, lettuce, white bread and wine.

While he ate, the priest informed him of the situation he might expect
to find at the end of his journey.

"The Israelites departed in the early hours of this morning taking the
Wady Toomilat, east, toward the gates of the Rameside wall.  It was the
going forth of a multitude,--the exodus of a nation!  And they will
travel at the pace of their slowest lambs.  Thus Meneptah can gather
his legions and make ready to pursue ere they have reached the wall."
The priest had begun calmly, but the thought of pursuit excited him.

"He must not follow!" he continued.  "They are unarmed, but the Pharaoh
deals with a wizard and a strange God--no common foe.  And if these
were all who have evil intents against him, but there is
another--another!"

He came to the young man's side, saying in an excited whisper:

"There is another, I say, within the king's affections--a scorpion
cherished in his bosom!"

The old man's vehemence and his words fired Kenkenes.  He arose and
faced Jambres with kindling eyes.  The sorcerer went on with increasing
excitement.

"Better that his slaves depart increased, enriched threefold by Egypt,
better that never again one stone be laid upon another, nor monument
bear the king's name, than that Meneptah should leave the precincts of
shelter!  For his enemy would lead him outside the pale of protection,
and there put him to death, and wear his crown after him!"

During this impetuous augury, the young man naturally searched after
the identity of the offender.  Not Ta-user, nor Siptah, nor Amon-meses,
for the sorry tale of Seti and the outlawing of the trio had reached
him at Pa-Ramesu.  Furthermore, they had never had a place in the
affections of the king.  There was a new conspirator!  At this point
the blood heated and went charging through the young man's veins.

"If the king's enemy be mine enemy," he declared passionately, "thou
hast this hour commissioned and armed that enemy's dearest foe!  Name
him."

The priest shook his head.  His excitement had not carried him beyond
the limits of caution.

"Save for my mystic knowledge, I have no proof against him, and if I
balk him not and offend him, he hath a heavy and a vengeful hand."

"And thou hast not named him in the writing?"

Again the priest shook his head.

"Then," said the young man firmly, "then will I name him to the
Pharaoh!"

Jambres looked at Kenkenes with profound admiration, not unmixed with
apprehension.

"Let not thy youthful zeal undo thee," he cautioned.  "Perchance thou
dost mistake the man."

"The gods did not bestow all the art upon the mystics when they endowed
thee with divining powers.  They gifted every man with a little of it,
and it speaketh no less truthfully because it is small.  Come, thy
board has been generous and I am satisfied.  I have another and a
fiercer hunger I would appease.  Give me the message and let me be
gone."

Silent, the priest led the way again into the sanctuary.  Taking the
scroll from its hiding-place once more he said, as he gave it into the
messenger's hands: "Go first to Tanis, and if thou findest not the king
in his capital, seek until thou dost find him.  And have a care to
thyself."

Kenkenes hesitated a moment, and said at last:

"It may be that I shall not return, but I would have my father know
that I died not with the first-born.  Wilt thou tell him, when thou
canst?"

"The word shall go to him by sunset to-morrow if I carry it myself."

Kenkenes expressed his thanks and the priest went on.

"Be not rash, I charge thee.  Farewell, and thy father's gods attend
thee."

Without the dwarf pylons, Kenkenes bent for the old man's blessing and
turned away.  Walking rapidly to the northern limits of the town, he
took the dusty highway again, and struck into an easy run.

The road sloped up toward the north, but the rise was gradual and the
ascent was not wearying.  The miles slipped behind swiftly, for he
covered them as naturally as the unloitering bird traverses the air.

In two hours he had reached the pinnacle of the upland.  To the north
the road led continuously down to the sea.  He paused and looked back
over the long gentle declivity toward the south and west.

A sharp pain pierced him.  In that moment, he realized that he was
expatriated.  After he had warned Meneptah, Egypt dropped out of his
aims.  Thereafter he had the rescue of Rachel, or her avenging to
accomplish, and the results following upon the necessity of either of
these alternatives would not permit him to return into the land of his
fathers.  There was no turning back now, nor any desire in him to do
so.  His conscience had been witness to the renunciation of his nation
and his faith, and it did not chide him.

Still he stretched out his arms to the limitless, featureless, velvety
dusk that was Egypt by day, and wept.

He entered Tanis in the middle of the third watch, and there he learned
that the Pharaoh had departed, but whither, the solemn, haggard
citizens he met could not tell.  He repaired to the inn, a house of
mourning, also, and awaited the dawn.  Then he looked on the funereal
capital of Meneptah.  The city no longer cried out; it sighed or
sobbed, exhausted with its grief; it went the heavy round of labor
demanded by the necessities of life, bowed, disheveled and blinded with
woe.  Kenkenes, humbled, sorrowful, and helpless, averted his eyes and
hurried to the palace.

There he found that the queen and Seti, with all the queen's retinue,
had departed on a pilgrimage to the temple of the sacred ram at Mendes
for the welfare of the soul of Rameses.  Masanath was in Pelusium
mourning for her sister who died with the first-born.  The
others,--Har-hat, Hotep, Nechutes, Menes, Seneferu, Kephren the
mohar,--all except the palace attendants had accompanied the king.  The
great house of the Pharaoh was empty, solitary and haunted.

The destination of the king was a state secret that had not been
imparted to the chamberlains.  Kenkenes returned into the unhappy
streets again.

He went to the square in which the loiterers were congregated, even
though there was one dead in the household, and seeking out the most
intelligent, questioned him concerning the departure of the Pharaoh.

He learned that the king and the ministers had left Tanis, and driven
south, the afternoon after the night of death.  At nightfall, sixteen
chariots from the nome followed him.  And though the young man inquired
of many sources in the capital, he discovered nothing further.

Avowedly, it was Meneptah's intent to overtake the Hebrews, turn them
back, or destroy them.  He could not accomplish that thing with a score
of ministers and sixteen picked chariots.  It was evident that he meant
to collect an army near the track of the Hebrews, and that he had
departed for the rendezvous.

If the Israelites traveled but two miles an hour, they could cover the
distance between Pa-Ramesu and the Rameside wall by the sunset of this,
the second day after the death of the first-born.  It would have been
the first act of the Pharaoh to close the gates of the wall against
them.  The army of the north could gather from the remotest nomes by
the close of this day also.  Therefore, the hour to proceed against the
Israelites was not far away.  Kenkenes knew that he might not delay,
even for a short sleep, in Tanis.

He fixed upon Pithom as the chosen spot for the rendezvous, since it
was situated on the Wady Toomilat.

He refreshed himself with a beaker of sour wine in which a recuperative
simple had been stirred, and took the road to the south.

Immediately outside of the city walls he came upon the track of the
departing king, and followed it faithfully as long as there was light
to show it to him.  A dozen miles out of Tanis he ceased to run, and
thereafter his progress became slower as his fatigue increased.  Toward
the end of the first watch, at the northern borders of the district
known as Succoth, at the extreme east of Goshen, he came upon a mighty
track.

Even in the dark he could see that a diaphanous gauze of dust overhung
it and the air was heavy with the most volatile particles.  The sandy
earth had been ground and worked to the depth of over a foot.  How
difficult had it been for the rearmost ranks to cover this ploughed
soil!  The track was a mile in width, and by the nature of the marks
upon it, Kenkenes knew that husbandmen, not warriors, had passed over
this spot.  It was the path of Israel, leading east to the Rameside
wall.

Kenkenes tightened his sandal straps and continued toward the south.
Ahead of him, the horizon began to glow and then an edge,--a half,--all
of a perfect moon lifted a vast orange disk above the world.  At its
first appearance it was sharply cut by a tower of the city of Pithom.

"Now, the God of Israel be thanked," he said to himself, "for another
mile I can not cover."

The gates were tightly closed and a sentry from the wall challenged him.

"I bring a message to the Pharaoh," he answered.

"The Son of Ptah is not within the walls."

"Hath he departed," Kenkenes wearily asked, "or came he not hither?"

"He came not to Pithom."

"Come thou down, then, and let me in, friend, for I am spent."

In a little time, he entered the inn of the treasure city, was given a
bed, upon which he flung himself without so much as loosening the
kerchief on his head, and slept.




CHAPTER XLIII

"THE PHARAOH DREW NIGH"

In mid-afternoon of the following day, Kenkenes awoke and made ready to
take up his search again.  He was weary, listless and sore, but his
mission urged him as if death threatened him.

The young man's athletic training had taught him how to recuperate.
Most of the process was denied him now, because of his haste and the
little time at his command, but the smallest part would be beneficial.
He stepped into the streets of the treasure city, and paused again,
till the recollection of the sorrow upon Egypt returned to him to
explain the gloom over Pithom.  The great melancholy of the land,
attending him hauntingly, oppressed him with a sense of culpability.
And he dared not ask himself wherein he deserved his good fortune above
his countrymen, lest he seem to question the justice of the God of his
adoption.

At a bazaar he purchased two pairs of horse-hide sandals, for the many
miles on the roads had worn out the old and he needed foot-wear in
reserve.  From the booth he went straight to the baths, now wholly
deserted; for when Egypt mourned, like all the East, she neglected her
person.

When he came forth he was refreshed and stronger.  Of the citizens,
haggard and solemn as they had been in Tanis, he asked concerning the
Pharaoh.  None had seen him, nor had he entered the city.  The last one
he questioned was a countryman from Goshen, and from him he learned
that the army was assembling in a great pasture on the southern limits
of the Israelitish country.

At sunset he was again upon the way, taking the level highway of the
Wady Toomilat for a mile toward the west, and turning south, after that
distance, as the rustic had directed him.

The road was good and he ran with old-time ease.  At midnight he came
upon the spot where the army had camped, but the Pharaoh had already
moved against Israel.  He had left his track.  The great belt of
disturbed earth wheeled to the south, and as far as Kenkenes could see
there was the same luminous veil of dust overhanging it, that he had
noted over the path of Israel.

The messenger drank deep at an irrigation canal, for he turned away
from water when he followed the army, and leaving the level,
dust-cushioned road behind, plunged into a rock-strewn, rolling land,
desolate and silent.  The growing light of the moon was his only
advantage.

The region became savage, the trail of the army wound hither and
thither to avoid sudden eminences or sudden hollows.  Kenkenes dogged
it faithfully, for it found the smoothest way, and, besides, the wild
beasts had been frightened from the track of a multitude.

In the early hour of the morning, Kenkenes emerged from a high-walled
valley with battlemented summits.  Before him was the army encamped,
and wild, indeed, was the region chosen for the night's rest.  The
glistening soil was thickly strewn with rocks, varying in size from
huge cubes to sharp shingle.  Every abrupt ravine ahead was accentuated
with profound shadow, and the dim horizon was broken with hills.  The
locality maintained an irregular slope toward the east.  The camp
stretched before the messenger for a mile, but the great army had
changed its posture.  It squatted like a tired beast.

Kenkenes approached it dropping with weariness, and after a time was
passed through the lines and conducted to the headquarters of the king.
In the center of the great field were pitched the multi-hued tents of
Meneptah and his generals.  Above them, turning like weather-vanes upon
their staves, were the standards bearing the royal and divine device,
the crown and the uplifted hands, the plumes and the god-head.

About the royal pavilion in triple cordon paced the noble body-guard of
the Pharaoh.

Of one of these Kenkenes asked that a personal attendant of the king be
sent to him.

In a little time, some one emerged from the Pharaoh's tent, and came
through the guard-line to the messenger.  It was Nechutes.

The cup-bearer took but a single glance at Kenkenes and started back.

"Thou!" he exclaimed in a hoarse whisper.  "Out of Amenti!"

"And nigh returning into it again," was the tired reply.

In a daze, Nechutes took the offered hands and stared at Kenkenes
through the dark.

"Where hast thou been?" he finally asked.

"In the profoundest depths of trouble, Nechutes, nor have I come out
therefrom."

The cup-bearer's face showed compassion even in the dusk.

"Nay, now; thine was but the fortune a multitude of lovers have
suffered before thee," he said, with a contrite note in his deep voice.
"It was even odds between us and I won.  Hold it not against me,
Kenkenes."

It was the sculptor's turn to be amazed.  But with one of the instant
realizations that acute memory effects, he recalled that he had
disappeared immediately after Nechutes had been accepted by the Lady
Ta-meri.  And now, by the word of the apologetic cup-bearer, was it
made apparent to Kenkenes that a tragic fancy concerning the cause of
his disappearance had taken root in the cup-bearer's mind.  With a
desperate effort, Kenkenes choked the first desire to laugh that had
seized him in months.

"Nay, let it pass, Nechutes," he said in a strained voice.  "Thou and I
are friends.  But lead me to the king, I pray thee."

"To the king?" the cup-bearer repeated doubtfully.  "The king sleeps.
Will thine interests go to wreck if thou bidest till dawn?"

"I carry him a message," Kenkenes explained.

"A message!"

"Even so.  Hand hither a torch."

A soldier went and returned with a flaming knot of pitch.  In the
wavering light of the flambeau, Nechutes read the address on the linen
scroll.

"The king could not read by the night-lights," he said after a little.
"Much weeping is not helpful to such feeble eyes as his.  Wait till
dawn.  My tent is empty and my bed is soft.  Wait till daybreak as my
guest."

"Where is Har-hat?"

"In his tent, yonder," pointing to a party-colored pavilion.

"Dost thou keep an unsleeping eye on the Pharaoh?"

"By night, aye."

Kenkenes had a thought to accept the cup-bearer's hospitality.  He knew
that the expected climax would follow immediately upon the king's
perusal of the message, and that the nature of that climax depended
upon himself.  He needed mental vigor and bodily freshness to make
effective the work before him.  His cogitations decided him.

"Let the unhappy king sleep, then, Nechutes; far be it from me to bring
him back to the memory of his sorrows.  Lead me to thy shelter, if thou
wilt."

With satisfaction in his manner Nechutes conducted his guest into a
comfortably furnished tent, and showed him a mattress overlaid with
sheeting of fine linen.

"Shame that thou must defer this soft sleeping till the noisy and
glaring hours of the day," Kenkenes observed as he fell on the bed.

"By this time to-morrow night, I may content myself in a bed of sand
with a covering of hyena-fending stones," the cup-bearer muttered.

"Comfort thee, Nechutes," the artist said sententiously, "But do thou
raise me from this ere daybreak, even if thou must take a persuasive
spear to me."

So saying, he fell asleep at once.

After some little employment among his effects, the cup-bearer came to
the bedside on his way back to the king's tent, and bent over his guest.

"Holy Isis! but I am glad he died not!" he said to himself.  "Aye, and
there be many who are as glad as I am.  Dear Ta-meri!  She will be
rejoiced, and Hotep.  What a great happiness for the old murket--" he
paused and clasped his hands together.  "He is Mentu's only son!  Now,
in the name of the mystery-dealing Hathors, how came it that he died
not with the first-born?"  After a silence he muttered aloud: "Gods!
the army would barter its mummy to have the secret of his safety, this
day!"

At the first glimmerings of the dawn, the melody of many winded
trumpets arose over the encampment of the Egyptians.  Now the notes
were near and clear, now afar and tremulous; again, deep and sonorous;
now, full and rich, and yet again, fine and sweet.  There is a pathos
in the call of a war-trumpet that no frivolous rendering can subdue--it
has sung so long at the death of men and nations.

Outlined in black silhouette against the whitening horizons, the
sentries, tiny and slow-moving in the distance, tramped from post to
post in a forward-leaning line.  Soldiers began to shout to each other.
The clanking of many arms made another and a harsher music.  The tumult
of thousands of voices burdened the wind and above this presently arose
the eager and expectant whinnyings of a multitude of war-horses.

While the army broke its fast and prepared to move the king stood in
the open space before his tent, with his eyes on the east.  The Red Sea
lay there beyond the uplifted line of desert sand, and it was the
birthplace of many mists and unpropitious signs.

Would the sun look upon the king through a veil, or openly?  Would he
smile upon the purposes of the Pharaoh?

There were striations, watery and colorless, in the lower slopes of the
morning sky, and these were taking on the light of dawn without its
hues.  Long wind-blown streaks crossed the zenith from east to west and
the setting stars were blurred.  The moon had worn a narrowing circlet
in the night.  Meneptah shook his head.

Suddenly some one in the ranks of the royal guard exclaimed to a mate:

"Look!  Look to the southeast!"

Meneptah turned his eyes in that direction, as though he had been
commanded.  There, above the spot where he had guessed the Israelites
to be, a straight and mighty column of vapor extended up, up into the
smoky blue of the sky.  The tortuous shapes of the striations across
the zenith indicated that there was great wind at that height, but the
column did not move or change its form.  It was further distinguished
from the clouds over the dawn, by a fine amber light upon it, deepening
to gold in its shadows.  So vivid the tint, that steady contemplation
was necessary to assure the beholders that it was not fire, climbing in
and out of the pillar's heart.  Egypt's skies were rarely clouded and
never by such a formation as this.

Meneptah turned his troubled eyes hurriedly toward the east.  He must
not miss the sunrise.  At that moment, unheralded, the disk of the sun
shot above the horizon as if blown from a crater of the
under-world--blurred, milky-white, without warmth.

He turned away and faced Nechutes, bending before him; behind the
cup-bearer, a stately stranger--Kenkenes.

"A message for thee, O Son of Ptah," Nechutes said.

At a sign from the king, the messenger came forward, knelt and
delivered the scroll.  The king looked at the writing on the wrapping.

"From whom dost thou bring this?" he asked.

"From Jambres, the mystic, O Son of Ptah."

"Ah!"  It was the tone of one who has his surmises proved.  "Now, what
is contained herein?"

Kenkenes took it that the inquiry called for an answer.

"A warning, O King."

"How dost thou know?"

"The purport of the message was told me ere I departed."

"Wherefore?  It is not common to lead the messenger into the secret he
bears."

"I know, O Son of Ptah," Kenkenes replied quietly; "but the messenger
who knew its contents would suffer not disaster or death to stay him in
carrying it to thee."

As if to delay the reading of it, the king dismissed Nechutes and
signed Kenkenes to arise.  Then he turned the scroll over and over in
his hands, inspecting it.

"Age does not cool the fever of retaliation," he said thoughtfully,
"and this ancient Jambres hath a grudge against me.  Come," he
exclaimed as if an idea had struck him, "do thou open it."

Kenkenes took the scroll thrust toward him, and ripped off the linen
wrapping.  Unrolling the writing he extended it to the king.

"And there is naught in it of evil intent?" Meneptah asked, putting his
hands behind him.

"Nay, my King; naught but great love and concern for thee."

"Read it," was the next command.  "Mine eyes are dim of late," he added
apologetically, for, through the young man's reassuring tones, a faint
realization of the trepidation he had exhibited began to dawn on
Meneptah.

Kenkenes obeyed, reading without emphasis or inflection, for he knew no
expression was needed to convey the force of the message to the already
intimidated king.

When Kenkenes had finished, Meneptah was standing very close to him, as
if assured of shelter in the heroic shadow of the tall young messenger.
The color had receded from the monarch's face, and his eyes had widened
till the white was visible all around the iris.

"Call me the guard," he said hoarsely; but when Kenkenes made as if to
obey, the king stayed him in a panic.

"Nay, heed me not.  Mine assassin may be among them."  The sound of his
own voice frightened him.  "Soft," he whispered, "I may be heard."

Kenkenes maintained silence, for he was not yet ready.

Meanwhile, the king turned hither and thither, essayed to speak and
cautiously refrained, grew paler of face and wider of eye, panted,
trembled and broke out recklessly at last.

"Gods!  Trapped!  Hemmed like a wild beast in a circle of spears!  Nay,
not so honestly beset.  Ringed about by vipers ready to strike at every
step!  And this from mine own people, whom I have cherished and hovered
over as they were my children--"  His voice broke, but he continued his
lament, growing unintelligible as he talked:

"Not enough that mine enemies menace me, but mine own must stab me in
my straits!  Not even is the identity of mine assassin revealed, and
there is none on whom I may call with safety and ask protection--"

"Nay, nay, Beloved of Ptah," Kenkenes interrupted.  "There be true men
among thy courtiers."

"Not one--not one whom I may trust," Meneptah declared hysterically.

"Here am I, then."

Meneptah, with the inordinate suspicion of the hard-pressed, backed
hurriedly away from Kenkenes.

"Who art thou?" he demanded.  "How may I know thou art not mine enemy?"

"Not so," Kenkenes protested.  "Give me ear, I pray thee.  Would I have
brought thee thy warning, knowing it such, were I thine enemy?  And
further, did not Jambres, the mystic, who readeth men's souls, trust
me?"

"Aye, so it seems," the king admitted, glad to be won by such physical
magnificence.  "But who art thou?"

"Kenkenes, the son of Mentu, thy murket."

"It can not be," the king declared with suspicion in his eye.  "The
murket had but one son and he must be dead with the first-born."

"Nay; I was in the land of Goshen, the night of death, and the God of
Israel spared me."

Meneptah continued to gaze at him stubbornly.  Then a conclusive proof
suggested itself to Kenkenes, which, under the stress of an austere
purpose and a soul-trying suspense, he had no heart to use.  But the
need pressed him; he choked back his unwillingness, and submitted.
Coming very close to Meneptah, he began to sing, with infinite
softness, the song that the Pharaoh had heard at the Nile-side that
sunrise, now as far away as his childhood seemed.  How strange his own
voice sounded to him--how out of place!

At first, the expression of surprise in the king's face was mingled
with perplexity.  But the dim records of memory spoke at the urging of
association.  After a few bars, the Pharaoh's countenance had become
reassured.  Kenkenes ceased at once.

"Enough!" Meneptah declared.  "The gods have most melodiously
distinguished thee from all others.  Thou art he whom I heard one dawn,
and mine heir in Osiris, my Rameses, told me it was the son of Mentu."

"Then, being of the house of Mentu, thou hast no fear of my
steadfastness, O my Sovereign?"

"Nay; would that I might be as trustful of all my ministers.  Alas,
that a single traitor should lay the stain of unfaith upon all the
court!  Ah, who is mine enemy?"

The sentence, more exclamatory than questioning, seemed to the young
man like a call upon him to voice his impeachments.  His inclination
pressed hard upon him and the tokens of his knowledge wrote themselves
upon his open face.  When a man is dodging death and expecting
treachery, his perceptions become acute.  The king, with his eyes upon
the young man's countenance, caught the change of expression.

He sprang at Kenkenes and seized his arms.

"Speak!" he cried violently.  "Thou knowest; thou knowest!"

A sudden ebullition of rage and vengeance sent a tingling current
through the young man's veins.  The moment had come.  In the eye of a
cautious man, he had been called upon for a dangerous declaration.  He
had a mighty man to accuse, no proof and little evidence at his
command, and a weakling was to decide between them.  But his cause
equipped him with strength and a reckless courage.  He faced the king
fairly and made no search after ceremonious words.  He spoke as he
felt--intensely.

"Nay; it is thou who shalt tell me, O my King.  I know thee, even as
all Egypt knows thee.  There is no power in thee for great evil, but
behold to what depths of misery is Egypt sunk!  Through thee?  Aye, if
we charge the mouth for the word the mind willed it to say.  Have the
gods afflicted thee with madness, or have they given thee into the
compelling hands of a knave?  Say, who is it, thou or another, who
playeth a perilous game with Israel, this day, when its God hath
already rent Egypt and consumed her in wrath?  Like a wise man thou
admittest thine error and biddest thy scourge depart, and lo! ere thy
words are cold thou dost arise and recall them and invite the descent
of new and hideous affliction upon thine empire!  Behold the winnings
of thy play, thus far!  From Pelusium to Syene, a waste, full of
famine, mourners and dead men, and among these last--thy Rameses!--"

Meneptah did not permit him to finish.  Purple with an engorgement of
grief and fury, the monarch broke in, flailing the air with his arms.

"Har-hat!" he cried.  "Not I!  Har-hat, who cozened me!"

The voice rang through the royal inclosure, and the ministers came
running.

Foremost was Har-hat.

At sight of his enemy, the king put Kenkenes between him and the
fan-bearer.  At sight of Kenkenes, Har-hat stopped in his tracks.

Behind followed Kephren and Seneferu, the two generals, who, with the
exception of Har-hat, the commander-in-chief, were the only
arms-bearing men away from their places among the soldiers; after
these, Hotep and Nechutes, Menes of the royal body-guard, the lesser
fan-bearers, the many minor attaches to the king's person--in all a
score of nobles.

They came upon a portentous scene.

The tumult of preparation had subsided and the hush of readiness lay
over the desert.  The orders were to move the army at sunrise, and that
time was past.  The pioneers, or path-makers for the army, were already
far in advance.  Horses had been bridled and each soldier stood by his
mount.  Captains with their eyes toward the royal pavilion moved about
restlessly and wondered.  The high commanding officers absent, the next
in rank began to weigh their chances to assume command.  Soldiers began
to surmise to one another the cause of the delay, which manifestly
found its origin in the quarters of the king.

All this was the environment of a hollow square formed by the royal
guard.  Within was the Pharaoh, shrinking by the side of his messenger.
The messenger, taller, more powerful, it seemed, by the heightening and
strengthening force of righteous wrath, faced the mightiest man in the
kingdom.  Har-hat, though a little surprised and puzzled, was none the
less complacent, confident, nonchalant.  Near the fan-bearer, but
behind him, were the ministers, astonished and puzzled.  But since the
past days had been so filled with momentous events, they were ready to
expect a crisis at the slightest incident.

The fan-bearer did not look at the king.  It was Kenkenes who
interested him.

The young man's frame did not show a tremor, nor his face any
excitement.  There was an intense quiescence in his whole presence.
Hotep, who knew the provocation of his friend and interpreted the
menace in his manner, walked swiftly over to Kenkenes, as if to caution
or prevent.  But the young sculptor undid the small hands of the king,
clinging to his arm, and gave them to Hotep, halting, by that act, all
interference from the scribe.  Then he crossed the little space between
him and the fan-bearer.

"What hast thou done with the Israelite?" he asked in a tone so low
that none but Har-hat heard him.  But the fan-bearer did not doubt the
earnestness in the quiet demand.

"Hast thou come to trouble the king with thy petty loves, during this,
the hour of war?"

"Answer!"

"She escaped me," the fan-bearer answered.

"A lie will not save thee; the truth may plead for thee before Osiris.
Hast thou spoken truly?"

"I have said, as Osiris hears me.  Have done; I have no more time for
thee!"

"Stand thou there!  I have not done with thee."

The thin nostril of the fan-bearer expanded and quivered wrathfully.

"Have a care, thou insolent!" he exclaimed.

Kenkenes did not seem to hear him.  He had turned toward Meneptah.

"I have dared over-far, my King," he said, "because of my love for
Egypt and my concern for thee.  Bear with me further, I pray thee."

Meneptah bent his head in assent.

"Suffer mine inquiry, O Son of Ptah.  Wilt thou tell me upon whose
persuasion thou hast gathered thine army and set forth to pursue
Israel?"

"Upon the persuasion of Har-hat, my minister."

"Yet this question further, my King.  Wherefore would he have thee
overtake these people?"

"Since it was foolish to let them go, being my slaves, my builders and
very needful to Egypt.  But most particularly to execute vengeance upon
them for the death of my Rameses, and for the first-born of Egypt."

"Ye hear," Kenkenes said to the nobles.  Then he faced Har-hat.  The
fan-bearer's countenance showed a remarkable increase of temper, but
there was no sign of apprehension or discomfiture upon it.

"Thou hast beheld the grace of thy king under question," Kenkenes said
calmly.  "Therefore thou art denied the plea that submission to the
same thing will belittle thee.  Thy best defense is patience and prompt
answer."

"Perchance the king will recall his graceful testimony," Har-hat
replied with heat, "when he learns he hath been entangled in the guilty
pursuit of a miscreant after--"

Kenkenes stopped him with a menacing gesture.

"Say it not; nor tempt me further!  Thou speakest of a quarrel between
thee and me, and of that there may be more hereafter.  Now, thou art to
answer to mine impeachment of thee as an offender against the Pharaoh."

Har-hat received the declaration with a wrathful exclamation.

"Thou!  Thou to accuse me!  I to plead before thee!  By the gods, the
limit is reached.  The ranks of Egypt have been juggled, the law of
deference reversed!  A noble to bow to an artisan!  Age to give account
of itself to green youth!"

"And thou pratest of law!  The benefits of law are for him who obeys
it; the reverence of youth is for the honorable old.  But thou wastest
mine opportunity.  Thou shalt silence me no longer.

"Thy dearest enemy, O Har-hat," Kenkenes continued, "would not impugn
thy wits.  He deserves the epithet himself who calls thee fool.  But be
not puffed up for this thing I have said.  Thou hast made a weapon of
thy wits and it shall recoil upon thee.  Thou seest Egypt; not in all
the world is there another empire so piteously humbled.  Her fields are
white with bones instead of harvests; her cities are loud with mourning
instead of commerce; the desert hath overrun the valley.  And this from
the hands of the Hebrews' God!  Who doubts it?  Hath Egypt won any
honor in this quarrel with Israel?  Look upon Egypt and learn.  Hath
the army of the Pharaoh availed him aught against these afflictions?
Remember the polluted waters, the pests, the thunders, the darkness,
the angel of death and tell me.  'Vengeance?'  Vengeance upon a God who
hath blasted a nation with His breath?  Chastisement of a people whose
murmurs brought down consuming fire upon the land?  And yet, for
vengeance and chastisement hast thou urged the king to follow after
Israel.  I know thee better, Har-hat!  That serviceable wit of thine
hath not failed thee in an hour.  Thou hast not wearied of life that
thou courtest destruction by the Hebrews' God.  Never hast thou meant
to overtake Israel!  Never hast thou thought further to provoke their
God!  Rather was it thine intent here, somewhere in the desert, thyself
to be a plague upon Meneptah and wear his crown after him!"

Confident were the words, portentous the manner as though proof were
behind, astounding the accusation.  One by one the ministers had fallen
away from Har-hat and placed themselves by the king.  After a long time
of humiliation for them, the supplanter, the insulter, was overtaken,
his villainy uncovered to the eyes of the king.  Kenkenes had justified
them, and their triumph had come with a gust of wrath that added
further to their relief.

Hotep gazed fixedly at Kenkenes.  Where had this young visionary,
new-released from prison, found evidence to impeach this powerful
favorite?  How was he fortified?  What would be his next play?  How
much more did he know?  And while Hotep asked himself these things,
trembling for Kenkenes, Har-hat put the same questions to himself.  The
roll of papyrus, with its seals, still in the young man's hands, was
significant.  He folded his arms and forced the issue.

"Your proof," he demanded.

"Both the hour and need of my proof are past.  Already art thou
convicted."  Kenkenes indicated the king and the ministers behind him.
The fan-bearer followed the motion of the arm and for the first time
met the gaze of the angry group.

Kenkenes had not ventured blindly, nor dared without deep and shrewd
thought.  When the artist-soul can feel the fiercer passions it has the
capacity to work them out in action.  Kenkenes, having been wronged,
grew vengeful, and therefore had it within him to aspire to vengeance.
He knew his handicap, but had estimated well his strength.  With
calmness and deliberation he had studied conditions, assembled all
contingencies and fortified himself against them, gathered hypotheses,
summarized his evidence and brought about that which he had planned to
accomplish--the destruction of Har-hat's rule over Meneptah.

Har-hat was alone.  Before him were all the powers of the land arrayed
against him.  Behind him in Tanis was Seti, the heir, who hated him,
and the queen who had turned her back upon him.  He had not seen the
need of friends during the days of his supremacy over Meneptah.  Now,
not all his denials, eloquence, subtleties could establish him again in
the faith of the frightened king.  His ministership had crumbled beyond
reconstruction.  What would avail him, then, to defend himself?  What
proof had he to offer against this impeachment?  The young man's
argument met him at every avenue toward which he might turn for escape.
At best his future in Egypt would be mere toleration; the worst,
condign punishment.

A flame of feeling surged into his face.  With a wide sweep of his arm,
as though to thrust away pretense, he faced the ministers, all the
defiance and audacity of his nature faithfully manifested in his manner.

"Why wait ye?  Would ye see me cringe?  Would ye hear me deny, protest,
deprecate?  Go to! ye glowering churls, I disappoint you!  Flock to the
king; dandle the royal babe a while!  Endure the stress a little, for
ye will not serve him long.  And thou," whirling upon Kenkenes,
"dreamest thou I fear this bloody God of Israel, or all the gibbering,
incense-sniffing, pedestal-cumbering gods of earth?  I will show thee,
thou ranting rabble spawn!  See which of us hath the yellow-haired
wanton when I return.  For I go to wrest spoil and fighting men from
Israel.  Then, by all the demons of Amenti! then, I say! look to thy
crown, thou puny, puling King!"

With a bound he broke through the cordon of royal guards, leaped into
his chariot, and putting his horses to a gallop, drove at full speed to
his place at the head of the army.  There, in an instant, clear and
long-drawn, his command to mount rang over the desert.  Front and rear,
wing and wing, the trumpets took up the call, "To horse!"  A second
command in the strong voice, a second winding of the many trumpets, and
with a rush of air and jar of earth the great army of the Pharaoh swept
like the wind toward the sea.

Kenkenes, Menes, Nechutes and those of the royal guard that had started
in pursuit of the traitor, did well to save themselves from
annihilation under the hoofs of twenty thousand horse.  Bewildered and
amazed, they were an instant realizing what was taking place.

"He is running away with the army!" they said to themselves in a daze.
"He is running away with the army!"  And they knew that not all the
efforts of the guards and the ministers and the Pharaoh himself would
avail, for the army had received its orders from its great commander
and no man but he might turn it back.

So the short-poled chariots, multi-tinted and gorgeous, wheel to wheel,
axle-deep in a cloud of dust, glittered out across the desert--sixty
ranks, ten abreast.  Far to the left moved the horsemen, the dust of
their rapid passage hiding their galloping mounts up to the stirrup.
To the watchers by the king they seemed like an undulant sea of quilted
helmets and flying tassels, while the sunlight smote through a level
and straight-set forest of spears.  They were seasoned veterans, many
of them heroes of a quarter-century of wars.  They had followed Rameses
the Great into Asia and had extended the empire and the prowess of arms
to the farthest corners of the known world.  They had drunk the sweets
of unalloyed victory from the blue Nile to the Euphrates and had filled
Egypt with booty, scented with the airs of Arabia, gorgeous from the
looms of India, and heavy with the ivory and gold of Ethiopia.

Now they went in formidable array in pursuit of two millions of slaves
to dye their axes in unresisting blood, to return, not as victors over
a heroic foe, but as drivers of men, herders of sheep and cattle, and
laden with inglorious spoil.

Behind them, in regular ranks, beaten by their drivers into an awkward
run, came the sumpter-mules, and after them the rumbling carts filled
with provision.

Meneptah, raging and weeping, saw his army leave him and gallop in an
aureole of dust toward the Red Sea.

Thus it was that "the Pharaoh drew nigh," but came no farther after
Israel.




CHAPTER XLIV

THE WAY TO THE SEA

Kenkenes did not remain long in the apathy of amazement and
helplessness.  Consternation possessed him the instant he roused
himself sufficiently to realize and speculate.  He had saved the king
and exposed Har-hat, but the accomplishing of this temporary good had
forced the probable commission of a great evil.  If death in some form
did not overtake the fan-bearer he could enrich and strengthen himself
from Israel.  Then, even if Meneptah's army did not continue to follow
him, he would be enabled to buy mercenaries and return equipped to do
battle with Meneptah, even as he had vowed.  The flower of the military
was with him; the Pharaoh was incapable and Egypt demoralized.  The
success of the traitor seemed assured.  What then of Rachel, of his own
father, of the faithful ministers, of all whom Kenkenes had loved or
befriended?  The thought filled him with resolution and vigor.

"If the Lord God of Israel overtake him not," he said, returning to the
king, "then must I!  For, in my good intent, it seems that I have
undone thee.  Hotep," he continued, taking the scribe's hands, "let my
father know that I died not with the first-born.  Also, thou seest the
danger into which the nation hath descended in this hour.  Help thou
the king!  I return not.  Farewell."

He kissed the scribe on the lips, and freeing himself from his clinging
hands, ran through the broken line of the royal guards.

The army was already a compact cluster in the center of a rolling cloud
of dust to the south.

When Nechutes had aroused him before daybreak, the cup-bearer had
brought Hotep with him, and while the messenger broke his fast, he had
availed himself of the scribe's presence to learn many things.  Not the
smallest part of his information was the fact that the Pharaoh's scouts
had located Israel encamped on a sedgy plain at the base of a great
hill on the northern-most arm of the Red Sea.  Meneptah's army had
marched twenty-five miles due south of Pithom and pitched its tents for
the night.  It was twenty-five miles from that point to Baal-Zephon or
the hill before which Israel had camped.  The fugitives had chosen the
smoothest path for travel, keeping along the Bitter Lakes that their
cattle might feed.  Their track led in a southeasterly direction.

But Har-hat, making off with the army, had struck due south.  He had
chosen this line for more than one advantage it offered.  The Arabian
desert approached the sea in a series of plateaux or steps.  The most
westerly was surmounted by a ridge of high hills, higher probably than
any other chain within the boundaries of Egypt.  The most easterly
overlooked the sea-beach and was originally, it may be, the old sea
margin.  At points the table-land advanced within sight of the water;
at other localities an intervening space of several miles lay between
it and the sea.  The summit was flat, at least smooth enough for the
passage of horsemen, and at all times it was a good field for strategic
manoeuverings by an army arrayed against anything which might be on the
beach below.

If Meneptah's scouts had reported truly, Israel had behind it a hill,
east of it the sea.  West of it the army would approach.  South only
could it flee, into a torrid, arid, uninhabited desert.

The slaves were entrapped.  The pursuer had but to follow the pursued
in the only open direction, and overtake the starving, thirsting
multitude at last.  But from Har-hat's movement he had meant to
continue along this plateau, out of sight of Israel, until he had
posted part of his army in the way of escape to the south.  Kenkenes
reached this conclusion without much pondering.  He had his own
manoeuverings in mind.  Of the captain of Israel, Prince Mesu, he would
discover, first, if the Lord God had prepared him against Har-hat.
This grave question answered to the repose of his mind concerning the
welfare of Israel, the path of his next duty would be clearly laid for
him.  He would join the army and take the life of the fan-bearer, for
the sake of all he loved, and Egypt.  In the course of the day's events
his motive had been exalted from the personal desire for revenge to the
high intent of a patriot.  He felt most confident that he would forfeit
his own life in the act.

Not an instant did he hesitate.

Ahead of him was the narrow bed of a miniature torrent which rolled out
of the desert during the infrequent rains.  Now it was dry, packed
hard, free of all obstructions except the great boulders, and led in a
comparatively straight line toward the sea.  It was an ideal stretch
for running.

He summoned all his forces, gathering, in a mighty mental effort, all
that depended on his speed, and took the path with a leap.  The dazed
king and his ministers saw him with whom they had that moment talked
stretch a vast and ever-widening breach between them with a bat-like
swoop, and while they watched he was swallowed up in distance.

The bed of the torrent served him for the first few miles.  Then it
turned abruptly toward the Bitter Lakes.  He left it and entered the
rougher country.  Thereafter no great bursts of speed were possible,
because the runner had to pick his way.  He ran, not with a steady
pace, each stride equal to the preceding, but with bounds, aside and
forward, dimly calculating the safety of the footfall.

Suddenly a column of sand rose under his feet, and he dashed through
it.  Blinded and choking, he cleared his eyes, caught his breath and
ran on.  A gust of wind, like a breath of flame, met him from the east
and passed.  Then he realized that the atmosphere had thickened, as if
an opaque cloud of heat had enveloped the earth.  He glanced at the sky
and saw that it was strewn with fragmentary clouds, but a little south
and east of him was the pillar, unmoving and gilded royally.

There was storm in the air.

Finally the region began to grow level, proving the proximity to the
sea.  In another moment he came upon the old sea bed.  It was sandy,
sedge-grown, with here and there a palm, and tremendously trampled.

Israel had passed this way.

The clash and ring of meeting metal fell on his ear.  He looked and saw
ahead of him two men fighting with a third.  Three horses with empty
saddles nervously watched the fray.

The single combatant was a soldier in the uniform of a common fighting
man.  One of the pair was a tall Nubian in a striped tunic; the other
was an Egyptian, short, fat, purple of countenance--Unas!

With a furious exclamation, Kenkenes slackened his pace only long
enough to undo the falchion at his side and rushed to the fight.  It
did not matter to him who the soldier was or what his cause.  The fact
that he was fighting the emissaries of Har-hat was sufficient
indorsement of the lone soldier.  But even as he sprang forward, Unas
sank on the sand, moved convulsively once or twice and lay still.

The soldier staggered back from the second servitor and fell.  The
Nubian, standing over him, swung his heavy weapon aloft, but Kenkenes
thrust his falchion over the fallen man and caught the blow, as it
descended, upon the broad back of the blade.

"Set receive your cursed soul," the Nubian snarled.  Kenkenes leaped
across the prostrate soldier, and simultaneously the weapons went up,
descended and clashed.  Then followed a wild and fearful battle.

The Egyptian falchion was nothing more than a sword-shaped ax.
Therefore, these were not tongues of steel which would whip their
supple length one across the other and fill the air with the lightning
of their play and the devilish beauty of their music.  The vanquished
would not taste the nice death of a spitted heart.  There was yet the
method of the stone-ax warriors in this battle, and he who fell would
be a fearful thing to see.

Perhaps it was because Kenkenes was stronger and more agile; perhaps he
remembered Deborah at that moment, or perhaps he was simply a better
fighter.  Whatever the cause his blade went up and descended at last,
before the Nubian could parry, and the second servitor of Har-hat fell
on his face and died.

Chilled by the instant sobering, which follows the taking of life, the
young man sickened and whirled away from the quivering flesh.  Plunging
his falchion in the sand to hide its stain, he went back to the fallen
soldier.

He knew by the look on the gray face, by the dark pool that had grown
beside him, that the warrior had fought his last fight.  Kenkenes
raised the man's head, and heard these words, faintly spoken:

"He sent them in pursuit.  I knew he meant to do it, but I could not
get near to kill him.  So I followed them.  But thou art her lover; do
thou protect her now."

"Her!  Rachel?" Kenkenes cried.  "Who art thou?"

"Atsu, once her taskmaster, always her--" the voice died away.

"Where is she?" Kenkenes implored.  "In the name of thy gods, go not
yet!  Where is she?"

The lips parted in answer, but no sound came.  The arm went up as if to
point, but it fell limp without indicating direction, and with a sigh
the soldier turned his face away.

Sobbing, wild with anxiety and grief, Kenkenes shook the inert body,
pleading frantically for some sign to guide him to Rachel.  But there
was no response, for the dead speak not out of Amenti.

At last Kenkenes laid the body down and stood up.  It had come to him
very plainly that, but for Atsu, already these dead servitors would
have been beyond overtaking in pursuit of his love.  Though a worshiper
of Israel's God, Kenkenes was still Egyptian in his instincts.  The man
who had died to save Rachel he could not bury uncoffined in a grave of
sand, where the natural processes of dissolution would destroy him
utterly.  His and Rachel's debts to Atsu were great, and the demand was
made upon him now to discharge all that was possible in the one act of
caring for the dead soldier's remains.  Kenkenes could not bear the
body back to the group he had left about the king, for he had a mission
which concerned all the living who were dear to him.  Furthermore the
sky was threatening, the desert was a terrible place during high winds,
and he dared not delay.

Suddenly a thought struck him.  Travelers and sea-faring men had told
him that there were settlements along the Red Sea.  Might he not go
forward, on his way after Israel, till he found one of these?

He led the largest horse past the dead servitors, and persuading it to
stand, lifted the body of Atsu upon its back.  With difficulty he
mounted, and supporting the limp burden with one arm, turned again
toward the southeast.

As he went forward, Kenkenes meditated on the signs of this recent and
tragic event.  He had searched throughout the length and breadth of
Goshen for Rachel and none had seen her or heard of her since she had
fled from Har-hat into the desert, eight months before he had seen her
last.  Israel was more ignorant of the whereabouts of Rachel than he.
He could not tell whether Har-hat knew where she was, nor could he
guess from the position of the fighters in which direction the servants
had meant to ride.  The tracks of their horses were not to be
discovered in the great trampled roadway Israel had made.

Of this thing Kenkenes was sure.  If Rachel were with Israel she had
joined it after he had left Goshen.  In that case he was going to her,
to ask after her safety, when he inquired after all Israel.  If she
were still in Egypt he would stop Har-hat's search for ever.  This
recollection added to his determination and intensified his zeal.

At the beginning of the great fields of sea-grass he came upon a little
hamlet.  It was a considerable distance inland, and the chief industry
of the people could have been only the gathering of sedge for hay, or
the curing of herb and root for medicines.  Some of the villagers were
in sight but the most of them were out in the direction of the lakes,
laboring in the marsh grass.

In the course of the past year's events Kenkenes had learned to be a
cautious and skilful fugitive.  He did not care to be caught and taxed
with the death of the man whose body he bore.  The village shrine was
the structure nearest to him.  It was built of sun-dried brick, with
three walls, the fourth side open to the sunrise.  Kenkenes dismounted
and reconnoitered.  The shrine was empty, and none of the villagers was
near.

He lifted the dead man from the horse and bore the body into the
sanctuary.  Before the image of Athor was a long table overlaid with a
slab of red sandstone.  Here the offerings were left and here Kenkenes
laid Atsu, a true sacrifice to the love deity.  Reverently the young
man closed the eyes and straightened the chilling limbs.  Going into
his patrimony of jewels sewn in his belt, he took an emerald, and
putting it in the hands, crossed them above the breast.  Then he laid
his mantle over the bier.

At the threshold he found a soft stone and with that he wrote upon the
head of the long table the name of the dead man, and Mendes, his native
city.  Under this he wrote further to the villagers, charging them, in
the name of the goddess, to care for the body reverently and return it
to the tomb of Atsu's fathers.  Having made note of the emerald as
remuneration for their labors, he completed the inscription without
signature.

Thus he insured the safety and preservation of the bones of Atsu, and
in the eye of the average Egyptian he had served the soldier well.  But
Kenkenes was not satisfied.

As he left the shrine he muttered with trembling lips:

"Bless him!  The fate is not kind which yields to such goodness no
reward save gratitude.  There must be, because of the great God's
justness, some especial blessing laid up for Atsu."

In the time he had spent in the sanctuary the atmosphere had grown hazy
and the sun shone obscurely.  To the east were tumbled and darkening
masses, which gathered even as he looked and joined till they stretched
in a vast and unillumined sweep about the horizon.  The wind had died
and the heat bathed him in perspiration.

Once again his eyes sought the pillar and found it above him, still
somewhat to the east, yet in form unchanged, in hue undimmed.
Something within him associated the column of cloud with Israel and
Israel's God.

He went to his horse and found him terrified and unmanageable.  After
vain efforts to soothe the creature, he walked away a little space,
clasping his hands.

"O Thou mysterious God!  By these tokens Thy hand is upon the earth and
upon the heavens.  Even as Thou hast shielded me thus far, withdraw not
Thy sheltering hand from about me, Thy worshiper, in this, Thy latest
hour of mystery."

He skirted the village, now filling with frightened peasants, and took
the path of Israel.

It led in a southeasterly direction toward a far-off hill, barely
outlined through the haze of the distance.  Meanwhile the darkness
settled and over the sea the somber bastion of cloud heaved its sooty
bulk up the sky.  The air stagnated and the whole desert was soundless.

A round and tumbled mass, blue-black but attended by a copper-colored
rack, detached itself from a shelf-like stratum of cloud, and
elongating, seemed to descend to the surface of the sea.  Daylight went
out instantly and a prolonged moan came from the distant east.
Blinding flashes of lightning illuminated the whirling mass and almost
absolute darkness fell after each bolt.  Out of the inky midnight
toward the east came an ever-increasing sound of a maddened sea,
gathering in volume and fury and menace.  Kenkenes flung himself on his
face and waited.

He did not have long to wait.

With a noise of mighty rending, reinforced by a continuous roll of
savage thunder, the storm struck.  A spinning cone of wind caught a
great expanse of sand, and lifting the loose covering, carried a huge
twisting column inland--death and entombment for any living thing it
met.  With it went a great blast of spray, stones, sea-weed, masses of
sedge uprooted bodily, much wreckage, palm trees, small huts which went
to pieces as they were carried along, wild and domestic animals,
anything and everything that lay in the path of the storm.

The rotatory movement passed with the first whirl, but a hurricane,
blowing with overcoming velocity, pressed like a wall against anything
that strove to face it.  Its hoarse raving filled Kenkenes' ears with
titanic sound.  The breath was snatched from his nostrils; his eyelids,
tightly closed, were stung with sharply driven sand.  Though he
struggled to his feet and attempted to proceed, he staggered and
wandered and was prone to turn away from the solid breast of the mighty
blast.  He could not hope to make headway blinded, yet he dared not
lift his face to the sand.  He could make a shelter over his eyes that
he might watch his feet, but he could not discover path and direction
in this manner.

The day was far advanced, and already the army had outstripped him.
Might not Har-hat at this hour be descending with his veterans,
seasoned against the simoons of Arabia, upon Israel, demoralized in the
storm?

Desperate, the young man dropped his hands and flung up his head.

He was standing in a soft light, very faintly diffused about him but
narrowing ahead of him, brightening, as it contracted, into almost
daytime brilliance to the south.  The illuminated strip was not wide;
the plateau to the west was dark; the farther east likewise
storm-obscured.  Taking courage, he raised his eyes for an instant.
The drifting sand would not permit a longer contemplation, but in that
fleeting glimpse he discovered the source of the supernatural radiance.
The pillar was tinged like a cloud in the sunset, with a mellow and
benign fire.

Kenkenes did not marvel and was not perplexed.  The miracles no longer
amazed him, but he had not become indifferent or unthankful.  Each
forward step he took was a declaration of faith; the thrill of relief
in his veins, a psalm of thanksgiving.  The stones were as many and as
sharp, the way as untender, and the mighty tempest strove against him
as powerfully, but he followed the ray, trusting it implicitly.

Night fell unnoticed for it merged with the supernatural darkness of
the day.

At the summit of the slope which led down to the water's edge, he
paused.  Below him was a gentle declivity ending to the south in
darkness.  There was not a glimmer of radiance on the sea.  Far to the
east could be heard the sound of infuriated surges, storming the rocks,
but dense darkness shrouded all the distance.  Only the beach directly
under him was alight.  The shadows cast were blacker than daylight
shadows, and the radiance had a touch of gold, which gilded everything
beneath it.  The poorest object was enriched, the gaudiest subdued.

Had the number of Israel been ten thousand or even a hundred thousand,
Kenkenes might have had some conception of the multitude.  The millions
massed below him on the sand were not to be looked on except as a vast
unit.

The tribes were divided, the herds were collected at the rear or inland
side, and the lepers were isolated, but no order in detail was
possible.  Tents were down, goods were being gathered, and much
commotion was apparent.  Even at a distance Kenkenes could see that
consternation and dismay were rife among Israel.  The whole valley was
murmurous with subdued outcry, and a multitudinous lowing and bleating
of the herds swept up, blown wildly by the hurricane.

The senses, too, are limited in their grasp, even as the brain has
bounds upon its conception.  The dimensions, movement and sound of the
multitude over-taxed the eye and ear.

Was it the storm or the army that had frightened them?

Slipping and sliding in his haste, he descended the slope without care
for the sound he made.  The hillocks and hollows that interposed
irritated him.  His impatience made him forget his great weariness.
Israel's helpless ones to the sword, Israel's treasure open to the
enrichment of a traitor, Israel's fighting-men driven to rally to his
standard--Rachel's people, to be mastered by Har-hat!

Great was his intent and its scope, and how cheaply attained if it cost
but two lives--his enemy's and his own!  How much depended upon him!
His enthusiasm and zeal put out of his sight all his young reluctance
to surrender life and the world.  He could have explained, truthfully,
from his own feelings, what it is that enables men to suffer an eager
martyrdom.

Two Hebrews outside the limits of the camp halted him.

"I bring tidings to your captain," he explained.  The answer was swept
from the speaker's lips and carried astray by the wind, but he caught
these words.

"Thou art an Egyptian.  Thy kind hath no friendship for Israel."

"I am of Egypt, but I am one with you in faith.  Conduct me to the
prince, I pray you."

"Take him," said one to the other.  "He is but one."

The Hebrew, thus addressed, motioned Kenkenes to follow him, and turned
toward the encampment.

They passed through a lane between two tribes.  Kenkenes guessed,
looking first upon one and then the other, that there were one hundred
thousand in the two.  Strip a city of her plan and shape, her houses,
her pleasures and commerce; leave only her people, their smallest
possessions, and all their fears; beset such a city with an army on
three sides, the sea on the fourth and a furious hurricane over
all--and in such state and of such appearance were these two tribes.

Kenkenes fortified himself and resisted with all his might the
contagious panic that seemed about to attack him.  As well as he might,
he concentrated his mind upon other things.  He noted that the shadows
were long like those of afternoon.  Turning his head, he saw that the
pillar stood behind the encampment and that its light was thrown
forward and downward, not backward and outward.  Very manifestly, the
benefits of the miracle were only for the believers in Jehovah.  The
marvel brought into the young man's mind some natural speculation
concerning the great miracle-worker to whom his guide was leading him.
What manner of man was he about to look upon,--a sorcerer, a trafficker
in horrors, a confounder of men?

Ahead, particularly illumined by the celestial light, was a group of
elders--great, grave men, misted in the flying fleeces of their own
beards.  They bent firmly against the blast and the broad streaming of
their ample drapings added much to the idea of supernatural power and
resistance they inspired.

The Hebrew leading Kenkenes slackened his step as if hesitating to
approach so venerable a council, when suddenly the group separated,
revealing a majestic man about whom it had been clustered.

After a word in his own tongue, delivered with bent head and
deferential attitude, the Hebrew stood aside.

Kenkenes prepared to meet a prince of Egypt, whatever the personality
of the Israelite.  He dropped on one knee, bent his head and extended
his hand with the palm toward Moses.  The great man took the fingers
and bade the young Egyptian arise.  Forty years a courtier, forty years
a shepherd, but the graces of the one had not been forgotten in the
simplicities of the other.  When Kenkenes gained his feet, lo! he faced
the wondrous stranger he had seen in the tomb of the Incomparable
Pharaoh.

At a sign from Moses Kenkenes came near to him, that the howl of the
tempest and the turmoil of Israel might not drown their voices.

"Thou art weary, my son," the Israelite said, glancing at the tired
face and dusty raiment.  "Hast thou come from afar?"

"From Goshen to Tanis, and hither, O Prince."

"Afoot?"

"Even so."

"Thou hast journeyed farther than Israel, and Israel is most weary.  I
trust thy journey is done."

And this was the confounder of Egypt, the vicar of God--this kindly
noble!

"Not yet, O Prince; but its dearest mission endeth here.  I come of the
blood of the oppressors, but I am full of pity for thy people's wrongs.
Knowest thou that the Egyptians pursue thee?  Is thy hand made strong
with resource?  Hath the Lord God prepared thee against them?"

"From whom art thou sent?" the Israelite asked pointedly.

"I am come of mine own accord."

"Wherefore?"

"Because I am one with Israel in faith."

The great Lawgiver surveyed him in silence for a moment, but the
penetrative brilliance in his eyes softened.

"Wast thou taught?" he asked at last.

"In casting away the idols, nay; in finding the true God, I was."

In the pause that followed, Israel lifted up its voice, and to Kenkenes
it seemed that the people besought their great captain, urgingly and
chidingly.  The Lawgiver listened for a little space.  His gaze was
absent, the lines of his face were sad.  Something in his attitude
seemed to say, "What profiteth all Thy care, O Lord?  Behold Thy
chosen--these men of little faith!"

Then, as if some thought of the young proselyte, the Egyptian, arose in
contrast, his eyes came back to Kenkenes again.

"Thou hast filled me with gladness, my son," he said simply.

Kenkenes bowed his head and made no answer.  Presently the Israelite
spoke to the panic-stricken people nearest to him.  In the tone and the
words he used there was a world of paternal kindliness--a composite of
confidence, reassurance, and implied protection, that should have
soothed.

"Fear ye not; stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.  For the
Egyptians ye have seen this day, ye shall see again no more for ever."

At the words, Kenkenes lifted his head quickly.  The Hebrew had
answered his question, but how enigmatically!  Was Israel to escape, or
Har-hat to be destroyed?  In either case, the young man wondered
concerning himself.  Again the eyes of the Lawgiver returned to him, as
if the sight of the young Egyptian was grateful to him.

"Abide with us," he said.  "Saith not thy faith, 'Fear not; the Lord
shall fight for thee?'"

Kenkenes' face wore a startled expression; how had the Israelite
divined his purpose?  "Saith not thy faith?"  Faith?  He confessed
faith, but faith had not spoken that thing to him.  Slowly and little
by little it began to manifest itself to him, that he had wavered in
his trust; that the purpose of his visit to Israel had questioned the
fidelity of his God's care; that so surely had he doubted, he had
defied danger and fought with death to ask after the intent of the
Lord; that he had meant to perform the duty which the Lord had left
undone.  The realization came with a rush of shame.  In the asking he
had betrayed his wavering, and Moses had tactfully told him of it.  A
surge of color swept over his face.

"Thou hast recalled my trust to me, my Prince," he said in a lowered
tone.  "Till now, I knew not that it had failed me.  But remember thou,
it was my love for Israel--O, and my love for mine own--that made me
fear.  Forgive me, I pray thee."

The Lawgiver laid his hand on the young man's shoulder but did not
answer at once.  The growing clamor about them had reached the acme of
insistence.  The nearest people pressed through the tribal lines and,
rushing forward, began to throw themselves on their knees, tumbling in
circles about the majestic Hebrew.  Others kept their feet, and with
arms and clenched hands above their heads, shouted vehemently.  Their
cries were partly in Egyptian, partly in their own tongue, but the
cause of their terror and the burden of their supplications were the
same.  The Egyptians were upon them!  Even the dumb beasts were swept
into the panic and the illuminated beach shook with sound.

After a little sad contemplation of the clamoring horde about him, the
Lawgiver drew nearer to Kenkenes and said in his ear, because the
tumult drowned his voice:

"The Lord will fight for thee; thine enemy can not flee His strong
hand.  Wait upon Him and behold His triumph."

Kenkenes bowed his head in acquiescence.




CHAPTER XLV

THROUGH THE RED SEA

The voices of the storm found harmonious tones of different pitch and
swelled in glorious accord from the faintest breath of melody to an
almighty blast that stunned the senses with stupendous harmony.  Then
the chord seemed to melt and lose itself in the wild dissonances of the
hurricane.

The turmoil of Israel began to subside, growing fainter, ceasing among
the ranks nearest the sea, failing toward the rear, dying away like a
sigh up and down the long encampment.  The people that had been on
their knees rose slowly.  The bleating of the flocks quieted into
stillness.  Commotion ceased and Israel held its breath.

The Lawgiver had passed from among them, and those that followed him
with their eyes saw that he was moving toward the sea, seemingly at the
very limit of the outer radiance and still going on.  First to one and
then to another, it became apparent that the extent of the illuminated
beach was widening.  Hither and thither over the multitude the
intelligence ran, in whispers or by glances.  Having showed his
neighbor each looked again.  Ripple-worn sand, shells, barnacle-covered
rocks, slowly came within the pale of the radiance and Moses moved with
it.  Eight stalwart Hebrews, bearing a funeral ark, shrouded with a
purple pall, fringed with gold, emerged from among the people and,
taking a place in front of the Lawgiver, walked confidently down the
sand toward the east.

The radiance progressed step by step.  Wet rocks entered the glow,
lines of sea-weed, immense drifts of debris, the brink of a ledge, the
shadow before it, and then a sandy bottom.

A long line of old men, two abreast, the wind making the picture
awesome as it tossed their beards and gray robes, followed the
Lawgiver.  After these several litters, borne by young men, proceeded
in imposing order.

Except for the raving of the tempest there was no sound in Israel.

A double file of camels with sumptuous housings moved with dignified
and unhasty tread after the litters.  By this time, the foremost ranks
of the procession were some distance ahead, the limit of radiance just
in advance, and lighting with special tenderness the funeral ark.  Here
were the bones of that noblest son of Jacob.  Having brought Israel
into Egypt, Joseph was leading it forth again.

Pools, lighted by the ray, glowed like sheets of gold, darkling here
and there with shadow; long ledges of rock, bearded with deep-water
growth, sparkled rarely in the light; stretches of sodden sand, colored
with salts of the waters, and littered with curious fish-life, lay
between.

Where was the sea?

After the camels followed a score of mules, little and trim in contrast
to the tall shaggy beasts ahead of them.  They were burden-bearing
animals, precious among Israel, for they were laden with the records of
the tribes, much treasure in jewels and fine stuffs, incense, writing
materials, and such things as the people would need, and were not to be
had from among them, or like to be found in the places to which they
might come.  These passed and their drivers with them.

The next moment, Kenkenes was caught in the center of a rushing wave of
humanity.  He fought off the consternation that threatened to seize him
and tried to care for himself, but a reed on the breast of the Nile at
flood could not have been more helpless.  Behind Israel were the
Egyptians, ahead of it miraculous escape; the one impulse of the
multitude was flight.  That any remembered his mate or his children,
his goods, his treasure or his cattle, was a marvel.

The foremost ranks, moving in directly behind the leaders, had adopted
their pace.  Furthermore, as the advance-guard, they had a greater
sense of security, and before them was all the east open for flight.
Not so with the hindmost; they were near the dreaded place from which
the army would descend; ahead of them was a deliberate host; within
them, soul-consuming fear and panic.  The rear rushed, the forward
ranks walked, and the center caught between was jammed into a compact
mass.

Neither halt nor escape was possible.  Press as the hindmost might upon
those forward, the pace was slackened, instead of quickened.  The
advance grew slower as it extended back through the ranks, for each
succeeding line lost a modicum in the length of the step, till at the
rear they were pushing hard and barely moving.  No wonder they sobbed,
prayed, panted, surged, swayed and pressed.  How they reviled the
snail-like leaders, not knowing that the sturdy pace lagged in the body
of the multitude.  So they hasted and progressed only inch by inch.

After the first moment of battle against the human sea, Kenkenes
recognized the futility of resistance and suffered himself to be borne
along.  There was no turning back now, had he been so disposed.  He had
left behind him his purposes, unaccomplished.

He had received no explicit promise from Moses, and if he had given ear
to the doubts of his own reason, he might have been sorely afraid, much
troubled for Egypt and all he loved therein.  But he went with the
multitude passively, even contentedly; he did not speculate how his God
would fight for him; his faith was perfect.

As for his presence with Israel, no one heeded him.  Sometimes it came
his way to be helpful; an old man lost his feet and becoming
panic-stricken was soothed only when the young Egyptian put a strong
arm about him and held him till his feet touched earth again.  Children
became heavy in the arms of parents and the little Hebrews had no fear
of the young man who carried them, a while, instead.  But no one
stopped to take notice that this was an Egyptian, totally unlike those
among the "mixed multitude" that had come to join Israel; nor did any
wonder what a nobleman of the blood of the oppressors did among the
fleeing slaves.  Indeed, if the host had any thought beyond the impulse
of self-preservation, it was only a dim realization that they were
walking over a most rocky, oozy and untender road and that the smell of
the sea was very strong about them.

In the early hours of the morning, having become so accustomed to the
roar of the wind and the sound of the moving multitude, Kenkenes ceased
to be conscious of it.  Other sounds, which hours before would have
failed to reach his ears, became distinct.  The crying of tired
children reached him, and he detected even snatches of talk among the
ranks some distance away from him.  Thus a clamor of noise, secondary
in force, grew about him.  Above it all, at last, came a sound that
would have made him halt if he could.

He tried to think it one of the many voices of the storm, but the
second time he heard it, he knew what it was.

Far to the rear, a trumpet-call, beautiful and spirited, rose upon the
air.

The Egyptian army was in pursuit!

Israel heard it, and crying aloud in its terror, swept forward, as if
the trumpet-call had commanded it.  Kenkenes felt a quickening of
pulse, a momentary tremor, but no more.

He became conscious finally of a warmth penetrating his sandals.  He
knew that he had been struggling up a slope for a long time, and now he
realized that he was again on the dry, sun-heated sand of the desert.
The multitude ceased to crowd, the pressure about him diminished; the
ranks began to widen to his left and right; the leaders halted
altogether, and though there was still much movement among the body and
rear of the host, people turned to look upon their neighbors.

The overhanging cloud parted from the eastern horizon, leaving a strip
of sky softly lighted by the coming morn.  Without any preliminary
diminution of its force, the wind failed entirely.

Kenkenes, with many others, looked back and saw that the pillar,
illuminated, but no longer illuminating, had halted above a solitary
figure of seemingly super-human stature in the morning gray, standing
on an eminence, overlooking the sea.

The arm was uplifted and outstretched, tense and motionless.

From his superior height, Kenkenes saw, over the heads of the immense
concourse, two lines of foam riding like the wind across the sea-bed
toward each other.  Between them was a great body of plunging horses;
overhead a forest of fluttering banners; and faint from the commotion
came shouts and wild notes of trumpets.  Then the two lines of foam
smote against each other with a fearful rush and a muffled report like
the cannonading of surf.  A mountain of water pitched high into the air
and collapsed in a vast froth, which spread abroad over the churning,
wallowing sea.  The falling wind dashed a sheet of spray over the
silent host on the eastern shore.  Sharp against the white foam, dark
objects and masses sank, arose, and sank again.

At that moment the sun thrust a broad shaft of light between the
horizon and the lifted cloud.

It discovered only the sea, raving and stormy, and afar to the west a
misty, vacant, lifeless line of shore.

"And the waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen, and
all the host of the Pharaoh that came into the sea after them; there
remained not so much as one of them."

So perished Har-hat and the flower of the Egyptian army.




CHAPTER XLVI

WHOM THE LADY MIRIAM SENT

Of the ensuing day, Kenkenes had no very distinct memory.  Very fair
and beautiful, one recollection remained--a recollection of another
figure on the eminence, and by the flash of white upthrown arms, and
the blowing of a somber cloud of hair, this time it was a woman.  How
the morning sun glittered on the shaken timbrel; how the spotless
draperies went wild in the wind; how the group of lissome maidens on
the sand below wound in and out, in a mazy dance; how the multitude was
swept into transports of beatification; how the men became prophets and
the women, psalmists; how the vast wilderness reverberated with a great
chant of exultation--all this he remembered as a sublime dream.

Thereafter, Israel moved inland and down the coast some distance, for
the sea began to surrender its dead.  Of the stir and method of the
removal he did not remember, but of the encampment and the reassembling
of the tribes he recalled several incidents.  He was numb and
sleep-heavy beyond words, and while leaning, in a semi-conscious
condition, against some household goods, he was discovered by the
owner, who was none other than the friendly son of Judah, his assistant
in his search for Rachel in Pa-Ramesu.  The man's honest joy over
Kenkenes' safety was good to look upon.  A few words of explanation
concerning his very apparent exhaustion were fruitful of some comfort
to the young Egyptian.  The Hebrew's wife had a motherly heart, and the
weary face of the comely youth touched it.  Therefore, she brought him
bread and wine and made him a place in the shadow of her
tent-furnishings where he might sleep till what time the family shelter
could be raised.

But Kenkenes did not rest.  He fell asleep only to dream of Rachel, and
awoke asking himself why he had abandoned the search for her; why he
had left Egypt without her; and why he had not gone to Moses at once
for aid to further his seeking through Israel.

He arose from his place, sick with all the old suspense and heartache.
He would begin now to look for Rachel and cease not till he found her
or died of his weariness.

He stepped forth directly in the path of a party of women.  He moved
aside to give them room, and glancing at the foremost, recognized her
immediately as the Lady Miriam.  She stopped and looked at him.

"Thou art he who found Jehovah in Egypt?" she asked.

He bowed in assent.

"Thy faith is entire," she commented.  "Also, have I cause to remember
thee.  Thou didst display a courteous spirit in Tape, a year agone."

"Thou hast repaid me with the flattery of thy remembrance, Lady
Miriam," he replied.

"Thy speech publishes thee as noble," she went on calmly.  "Thy name?"

"Kenkenes, the son of Mentu, the murket."

Her lips parted suddenly and her eyes gleamed.

"See yonder tent," she said, indicating a pavilion of new cloth, reared
not far from the quarters of Moses.  "Repair thither and await till I
send to thee."

Without pausing for an answer she swept on, her maidens following, damp
of brow and bright of eye.

Kenkenes turned toward the tent.  A Hebrew at the entrance lifted the
side without a word and signed him to enter.

The interior was not yet fully furnished.  A rug of Memphian weave
covered the sand and a taboret was placed in the center.

Presently the serving-man entered with a laver of sea-water, and an
Israelitish robe, fringed and bound at the selvage with blue.  With the
despatch and adroitness of one long used to personal service, he
attended the young Egyptian, and dressed him in the stately garments of
his own people.  When his service was complete, he took up the bowl and
cast-off dress and went forth.

After a time he brought in a couch-like divan, dressed it with fringed
linen and strewed it with cushions; next, he suspended a cluster of
lamps from the center-pole; set a tiny inlaid table close to the couch,
and on the table put a bottle of wine and a beaker; and brought last a
heap of fine rugs and coverings which he laid in one corner.  The tent
was furnished and nobly.  The man bowed before Kenkenes, awaiting the
Egyptian's further pleasure, but at a sign from the young man, bowed
again and retired.

Kenkenes went over to the divan and sat down on it, to wait.

Presently some one entered behind him.  He arose and turned.  Before
him was the most welcome picture his bereaved eyes could have looked
upon.  His visitor was all in shimmering white and wore no ornament
except a collar of golden rings.  What need of further adornment when
she was mantled and crowned with a glory of golden hair?  Except that
the face was marble white and the eyes dark and large with quiet
sorrow, it was the same divinely beautiful Rachel!

It may have been that he was beyond the recuperative influence of
sudden joy, or that the unexpected restoration of his love might have
swept away his forces had he been in full strength; but whatever the
cause, Kenkenes sank to his knees and forward into the eager arms flung
out to receive him.  Her cry of great joy seemed to come to him from
afar.

"Kenkenes!  O my love!  Not dead; not dead!"

Then it was he learned that she had despaired, grieving beyond any
comfort, for she had counted him with the first-born of Egypt.  And
even though thoughts came to him but slowly now, he said to himself:

"Praise God, I did not think of it, or I had gone distracted with her
trouble."

How rich woman-love is in solicitude and ministering resource!  It made
Rachel strong enough to raise him, and having led him back to the
divan, gently to lay him down among the cushions.  The wine was at her
hand, and she filled the beaker, and held it while he drank.  Then she
kissed him and, hiding her face in his breast, wept soft tears.  And
though he held her very close and had in his heart a great longing to
soothe her, he could not speak.

After a little she spoke.

"I had not dreamed that there was such artifice in Miriam.  She told me
of a nobleman that had served God and Israel, and was in need of
comfort in his tent.  But she bridled her tongue and governed her
expression so cunningly, that I did not dream the hero was mine--mine!"

Then on a sudden she disengaged herself from his arms and gaining her
feet, cried out with her hands over her blushing face:

"And now, I know why she and Hur--O I know why they came with me, and
brought me to the tent!"

"Nay, now; may I not guess, also?" Kenkenes laughed, though a little
puzzled over her evident confusion.  "They had a mind to peep and spy
upon our love-making.  Perchance they are without this instant; come
hither and let us not disappoint them."

She dropped her hands and looked at him with flaming cheeks and smiling
eyes.  There was more in her look than he could fathom, but he did not
puzzle longer when she came back to her place and hid her face away
from him.

It is the love of riper years, that makes the lips of lovers silent.
But Kenkenes and Rachel were very young and wholly demonstrative, and
they had need of many words to supplement the testimony of caresses.
They had much to tell and they left no avowal unmade.

But at last Kenkenes' voice wearied and Rachel noted it.  So in her
pretty authoritative way, she stroked his lashes down and bade him
sleep.  When she removed her hands and clasped them above his head, his
eyes did not open.

As she bent over him, she noted with a great sweep of tenderness how
young he was.  In all her relations with Kenkenes she had seen him in
the manliest roles.  She had depended upon him, looked up to him, and
had felt secure in his protection.  Now she contemplated a face from
which content had erased the mature lines that care had drawn.  The
curve of his lips, the length of the drooping lashes, the roundness of
cheek, and the softness of throat, were youthful--boyish.  With this
enlightenment her love for him experienced a transfiguration.  She
seemed to grow older than he; the maternal element leaped to the fore;
their positions were instantly reversed.  It was hers to care for him!

After a long time, his arms relaxed about her, and she undid them and
disposed them in easy position.  Lifting the fillet from his brow, she
smoothed out the mark it had made and settled the cushions more softly
under his head.  From the heap of coverings she took the amplest and
the softest and spread it over him.  Remembering that the wind from the
sea blew shrewdly at night, she laid rugs about the edges of the tent
which fluttered in the breeze and returned again to his side.

After another space of rapt contemplation of his unconscious face she
went forth and drew the entrance together behind her.

The next daybreak was the happiest Israel had known in a hundred years.
Egypt, overthrown and humbled, was behind them; God was with them, and
Canaan was just ahead--perhaps only beyond the horizon.  Few but would
have laughed at the glory of Babylonia, Assyria and the great powers.

For had it not been promised that out of Israel nations should be made,
and kings should come?

The march was to be taken up immediately, and in the cool of the
morning the host was ready to advance.

Rachel had not permitted herself to be seen until the tent of Miriam
was struck.  She knew that Kenkenes was without, waiting for her, and
with the delightful inconsistency of maidenhood, she dreaded while she
longed to meet her beloved again.  And when the moment arrived she
slipped across the open space to the camel that was to bear her into
Canaan, but in the shadow of the faithful creature, Kenkenes overtook
her and folded her in his arms.

"A blessing on thee, my sweet!  And I am blest in having thee once
more."

"Didst thou sleep well?" she asked.

"Most industriously, since I made up what I lost and overlapped a
little.  And yet I was abroad at dawn prowling about thy tent lest thou
shouldst flee me once again.  Rachel--" his voice sobered and his face
grew serious--"Rachel, wilt thou wed me this day?"

"If it were only 'aye' or 'nay' to be said, I should have said it long
ago," she answered with averted eyes, "but there are many things that
thou shouldst know, Kenkenes, before thou demandest the answer from me."

"Name them, Rachel," he said submissively; "but let me say this first.
Mine eyes are not mystic but most truthfully can I tell this moment,
which of us twain will rule over my tent."

"And thou art ready for the tent and shepherd life of Israel?" she
asked gravely, but before he could answer she went on.

"Hear me first.  So tender hast thou been of me; so much hast thou
sacrificed for my sake that it were unkind to bind thee to me in the
life-long sacrifice and life-long hardships that I may know.  Thine
enemy and mine is dead, and Egypt rid of him.  There is much in Egypt
to prosper thee; there, thy state is high; there, thou hast opportunity
and wealth.  Israel can offer thee God and me.  Even the faith thou
couldst keep in Egypt, so thou wert watchful.  And further, thou art
the murket's son, and building takes the place of carving for thee,
now.  But, here, O Kenkenes, thou must lay thy chisel down for ever,
for the faith of the multitude, so newly weaned from idolatry, is too
feeble to be tried with the sight of images."

Kenkenes heard her with a passive countenance.  She gave him news,
indeed--facts of a troublous nature, but he held his peace and let her
proceed.

"And this, yet further.  Once in that time when I was a slave and thou
my master and loved me not--"

His dark eyes reproached her.

"Didst love me, then, of a truth?  But it matters not--and yet"--coming
closer to him, "it matters much!  In that time ere thou hadst told me
so, we talked of Canaan, thou and I.  I boasted of it, being but newly
filled with it and freshly come from Caleb who taught us.  Then, Israel
was enslaved and not yet so vastly helped by Jehovah.  But alas! I have
seen Israel freed, and attended by its God, and by the tokens of its
conduct, Israel is far, far from Canaan.  I am of Israel and whosoever
weds with me, will be of Israel likewise.  It may not be that I shall
escape my people's sorrows.  Shall I bring them upon thy head, also, my
Kenkenes?"

After a little he answered, sighing.

"Thou dost not love me, Rachel."

"Kenkenes!"

"Aye, I have said.  Thou wouldst send me away from thee, back into
Egypt."

"O, seest thou not?  I would have thee know thy heart; I would not have
thee choose blindly; I do but sacrifice myself," she cried,
panic-stricken.

"And yet, thou wouldst deny me that same delight of sacrifice.  Can I
not surrender for thee as well?"

She drooped her head and did not answer.

"Ah! thou speakest of the benefits of Egypt," he continued.  "What were
Egypt without thee, save a great darkness haunted and vacant?  Besides,
there is no Egypt beyond this sea.  She hath risen and crossed with
Israel--all her beauty and her glory and her beneficence.  For thou art
Egypt and shalt be to me all that I loved in Egypt."

He took her hands.

"Why may I not as justly doubt thy knowledge of thy heart?" he asked
softly.

Seeing that she surrendered, he persisted no further in his protest.

"When wilt thou wed me, my love?"

She drew back from him a little, though she willingly left her hands
where they were, and Kenkenes, noting the flush on her cheeks, the
pretty gravity of her brow, and the well-known air she assumed when she
discoursed, smiled and said fondly to himself:

"By the signs, I am to be taught something more."

"Thou knowest, my Kenkenes," she began, "the Hebrews are married
simply.  There is feasting and dancing and the bride is taken to the
house of her father-in-law.  Thereafter there is still much feasting,
but the wedding ceremony is done at the home-bringing of the bride."

"I hear," said Kenkenes when she paused.

"I am without kindred; thou art here without house.  There can be no
wedding feast for us, nor dancing nor singing, for Israel is on the
march."

"Of a truth," Kenkenes assented.

"So there is only the essential portion of the ceremony left to us--the
home-bringing of the bride."

"It is enough," said Kenkenes.

"Hur and Miriam brought me to thy tent last night."

With his face lighting, Kenkenes drew her to him and put his arm about
her.

"So if thou wilt, we shall say--that--from--that moment--"

Her voice grew lower, her words more unready and failed altogether.

"From that moment," he said eagerly, reassuring her.  "From that
moment--"

"From that moment, I have been thy wife!"




CHAPTER XLVII

THE PROMISED LAND

One sunset, shortly after his marriage, word came to the tent of
Kenkenes that an Amalekite chieftain on his way to Egypt had paused for
the night just without the encampment of Israel.

"Here may be an opportunity to speak with thy father," Rachel
suggested.  The prospect of talking once again to those he had left
behind was one too full of pleasure for the young Egyptian to receive
calmly.  Hurriedly he despatched one of his serving men to the
Amalekite to bid him await a message.  But Rachel called the messenger
back.

"Tell the Amalekite that thou comest from an Egyptian noble.  For such
thy master is, and this chieftain is more willing to take command from
Egypt than from Israel."

The servant in his enthusiasm and the importance of his mission told
the Amalekite that he came from a prince of Egypt.

The chieftain was a youth who had just succeeded his father over his
people and was on his way to Memphis bearing tribute to Meneptah.  To
this tributary nation Egypt was remote, splendid and full of glamour.
The name was synonymous of the world and all the glories thereof, and
particularly had it appealed to the active imagination of this youth.
He had seen many Egyptians, but they were naked prisoners laboring in
the mines of Sinai, or overseers or scribes or the ancient exile who
was governor of the province,--and surely these were not representative
of the land.

Now he was to get a glance at real Egypt.

In the early hours of the dawn a follower came to his pallet and told
him in awed tones that the prince was without.  Tremulous with
pleasurable trepidation, he went out into the misty daybreak twilight
of the open.  And there he met an imperial stranger who towered over
him as a palm over a shrub.  At a single glance the Amalekite saw that
there was a circlet of gold about the brow, that the face was fine and
that the garments swept the sands.  All this was significant, but when
the stranger delivered him two rolls, one addressed to the chief of the
royal scribes of the Pharaoh, the other to the royal murket, and paid
him with a jewel, the Amalekite, convinced and satisfied, prostrated
himself.

But we may not know what the youth thought when he found that there
were few in all Egypt like this princely stranger.

After these writings came, with all fidelity, to the hands of those who
loved him in Egypt, silence fell between them and Kenkenes.

Meneptah erected no more monuments after the eighth year of his reign,
for in that year Mentu, the murket, died.  None could fill his place,
since to his name was attached the title "the Incomparable," as
befitted the artist of that great Pharaoh, likewise titled, who had so
loved him and his genius.  Meneptah, in memory of Mentu and his artist
son who had served his king so well, set up no sculptor nor any murket
in his place.  It was the one graceful act in the life of the feeble
king, the one resolution to which he held most tenaciously.

Though Mentu's union with Senci was short, it was most happy, save
perhaps for the absence of Kenkenes.  But after the letter came from
the well-beloved son there was more cheer in the heart of the father.
Kenkenes was not dead, only absent, as he would have been had he lived
in Tanis or Thebes.  Furthermore, the young man had spoken glowingly
and at length on the future of Israel and the Promised Land, and Mentu
told himself that he might visit Kenkenes one day in that new country.

Since there were no children in their house, Senci and the murket
spoiled Anubis, and in the eyes of his devoted master the ape had
earned his soft life.  Shortly after the departure of Kenkenes Mentu
discovered the ape burying something in the sand of the courtyard
flower-beds.  In spite of the favorite's vigorous protests Mentu
overturned the tiny heap of earth and discovered therein the
lapis-lazuli signet.  There was but one explanation of the ape's
possession of the gem.  He had torn the scarab from about the neck of
Unas when he flew in his face, the moment the light went out.  After
his nature, he kept the jewel because it was bright.

All these things--the discovery of the signet in the tomb, the safety
of Kenkenes when all the other first-born had died, and the testimony
of the miracles to the power of Israel's God--made the good murket
think deeply.  Indeed, all Egypt thought deeply after the Exodus of
Israel, and to such extremes was this sober thinking carried that
through very fear many added the name of the Hebrews' God to the
Pantheon.  Mentu did not go so far, because he saw the inconsistency in
such procedure, but he shook his head and pondered and was not wholly
satisfied with many things in the Osirian creed.

Of the love of Hotep and Masanath something yet remains to be told.  It
was common to examine the entire family of a traitor as to their
complicity in his misdeeds, and the option lay with the Pharaoh whether
or not they should bear some of his punishment.  Har-hat was dead, the
army destroyed at his hands.  When the news of the disaster reached
Tanis Meneptah's anger and grief knew no bounds.

After Rameses had been interred at Thebes beside his fathers, and the
court had returned to Memphis, the king summoned Masanath, the sole
representative of the family of Har-hat, to give reason why she should
not be accused of complicity in the treason of her father.

Meneptah had taken counsel with none on this step.  Perhaps he had an
inkling that it would be unpopular; perhaps he thought he was but
fulfilling the law.  Hotep was at On comforting his family, who mourned
over Bettis, and most of the other ministers were scattered over Egypt
lamenting their own dead, and few expected the ungallant act of the
king.

But one day, when all the court had reassembled, Masanath came into the
great council chamber.  Alone and dressed in mourning, she seemed so
little and defenseless that Meneptah stirred uncomfortably in his
throne.  Slowly she approached the dais and fell on her knees before
the king.  The great gathering of courtiers held its breath, wondering
and pitying.

Such was the scene upon which Hotep came all unknowing.  At a glance he
understood the situation.  It was too much for his well-bridled spirit.
With a cry, full of horror, indignation and compassion, he dropped his
writing-case and scroll, and, rushing forward, flung himself on his
knees beside her, one arm about her, the other extended in supplication
to the Pharaoh.

Meneptah, who, from the moment of Masanath's entrance into the council
chamber, had begun to repent his ill-advised act, was glad to be won
over.  At the end of Hotep's impassioned story he came down from the
dais, and raising Masanath, kissed her and put her into the young man's
arms.  Supplementing his pardon with command, he ordered his scribe to
marry the sad little orphan at once and take her away from the scene of
her sorrows till Isis restored her in spirits again.

The alacrity with which this royal command was obeyed proved how
acceptable it was to the lovers.  By the next sunset they were going by
a slow and sumptuous boat down the broad bosom of the Nile toward the
sea, but they had no care whether or not they ever reached their
destination.

After some months spent on the coast, Masanath grew stronger and began
to live with much appreciation of the joys of existence.  On their
return to Memphis Hotep was made fan-bearer in Har-hat's place, and for
the remaining fourteen years of Meneptah's reign practically ruled over
Egypt.

Vastly different, however, was his favoritism from the favoritism of
Har-hat.  During the wise administration of the young adviser Egypt
recovered something of her former glory, lost in the dreadful
plague-ridden days preceding the Exodus.  The army was reorganized
first, for Ta-user's party began to make demonstrations the hour that
the news of the Red Sea disaster reached the Hak-heb.  All public
building and national extravagance were halted, and the surplus
treasure was expended in restocking the fields and granaries and
restoring commerce.  Within five years after the Exodus the great check
Egypt had met in her nineteenth dynasty was not greatly apparent.

So the land recovered from the plagues, but its ruler never.  The death
of Rameses lay like a heavy sin and torturing remorse on his
conscience.  He wept till the feeble eyes lost their sight, but not
their susceptibility to tears.  At last, succumbing to melancholia, he
became a child, for whom Hotep reigned and for whom the queen cared
with touching devotion.

The story of Seti is history.  It is needless to say that his rough
usage at the hands of Ta-user awakened him, but it was long before he
found courage to return to Io, the sweetheart of his childhood.  Yet,
when he did, after the manner of her kind, she wept over him and took
him back without a word of reproach.  So the fair-faced sister of Hotep
came to be queen over Egypt and took another title with Nefer-ari as
prefix, and the quaint Danaid name, Io, was lost to all lips but Seti's
and Hotep's.

After Seti came to the throne he continued Hotep in the advisership and
prepared to reign happily.  But in a little time the Thebaid, long
disaffected, seceded from the federation of Egypt and crowned
Amon-meses king of Thebes.  Seti gathered his army, marched against the
rebellious district, put Amon-meses to the sword and reduced the
Thebaid to submission.  Then he returned to Memphis for another space
of prosperity.

At the end of a year Ta-user and Siptah, after much browbeating of the
Hak-heb, raised funds sufficient to purchase mercenaries.  Then, with
Ta-user at the head in barbaric splendor, they descended on Memphis.

The course Seti pursued has puzzled historians.  He gathered up his
family, his court, his treasure, and without so much as lifting a
spear, fled into Ethiopia.  After some time Ta-user sent to him and
conferred upon him the title of the Prince of Cush.

To the friends of the young Pharaoh it was patent that he feared to
meet Ta-user.  Having succumbed once to her influence, to his undoing
and the misery of his beloved Io, he dared not come under the
all-compelling eyes of the sorceress again.  So he surrendered his
crown and his country for his soul's sake.

But fifty years after, Seti's son, the formidable Set-Nekt, returned
into Egypt and restored the Rameside house on a basis so solid that
another glorious dynasty arose thereon, second only in brilliance to
that which had gone out in the anarchy of Siptah and Ta-user's reign.
This done, he wreaked personal vengeance upon the usurpers of his
father's throne.  He broke open the tomb of Siptah and Ta-user, threw
out their bodies to the jackals, obliterated the inscriptions, enlarged
the crypt, put his own and his father's history on the walls and used
it for his mausoleum when he died.

And this was the deadliest retaliation he could inflict in his father's
name.

Much of this Kenkenes learned from the lips of Egyptian merchants whom
he met in Canaan, forty years after the Exodus.

Kenkenes was a proselyte who had found his God for himself.  He
believed as he drew his breath and as his heart beat, involuntarily and
without any lapse.  Never could a son of Israel have surrendered
himself more eagerly to the law.  Its good and its purposes were ever
before his eyes, and his footsteps led in the paths that it lighted.
Though he saw not the Lord in a burning bush nor talked with Him on
Sinai, he found Him on the lonely uplands of the sheep-ranges and heard
Him in the voiceless night on the limitless desert.  The young Egyptian
was not yet twenty years old at the time of the numbering before Sinai,
and he entered the Promised Land with Joshua and Caleb.  For verily he
walked with God all the days of his life.

It must not be supposed that there was no serene life nor any happiness
in the long wandering of forty years.  A generation of oriental adults
practically dies out in that time.  The passing of the elders of
Israel, though it was accomplished by plagues and sendings for
iniquities, was as the passing of the old in the Orient to-day.  The
encampment was not continually filled with calamity and great
mourning--far from it.  There were long stretches of peace and plenty,
extending almost uninterruptedly for years, and those who followed the
law escaped the intervals of catastrophe.

Kenkenes was among the chosen people but not of them, partly because he
was of the execrated race of the oppressors and partly because the most
of Israel had nothing in common with the nobleman.  But Moses loved him
and found joy in his company.  Joshua loved him and had him by his side
when Israel warred.  Caleb and Aaron loved him because he was godly,
and Miriam was proud of him and was mild in his presence.  He took no
public part in the people's affairs, yet who shall say that he was not
near when Bezaleel wrought the wondrous angels for the ark?  Who shall
say that his purest jewel did not enter the breast-plate of the high
priest?  There are many names embraced in that general term, "every
wise-hearted man among them that wrought the work of the tabernacle."

So when Israel took up the forty years of pasture-hunting in Paran,
Kenkenes made his tent beautiful and pitched it always apart from the
multitude, and here he was contented all the days that Israel tarried
in that place.  Under his care his flocks increased, his cattle
multiplied and his camels were not few, and he laid up riches for the
four stalwart sons and the golden-haired daughter who were to live
after him.

From the moment of his union with his beautiful wife, through the long
years of semi-isolation that he knew thereafter, he grew closer and
closer to Rachel.  She filled all his needs as Israel failed to supply
them, and he missed neither friend nor neighbor when she was near.
Rachel knew wherein she was more fortunate than other women and her
content and her devotion were beyond measure.  So Kenkenes and Rachel
were lovers all the days of their lives.

If ever they grew reminiscent there was one name spoken more tenderly
than any other--the name of Atsu.  Kenkenes would grow sad of
countenance and he would look away, but there was no jealousy in his
heart for the tears of Rachel weeping over the task-master who died for
her.

The collar of golden rings became popular in Israel, and, after many
modifications effected by time and fashion, it came at last to be the
insignia of the virtuous woman.  For centuries it was worn and no one
knows when the custom died out.

The genius of Kenkenes did not die.  His voice enriched with age, and
the rocky vales wherein his flocks wandered had melodious echoes
whenever he followed the sheep.  But he never used chisel upon stone
again.  His sons were artists after him, but they were handicapped
also.  And so it continued for many generations until the Temple of
Solomon was built.  Then, though the plans came from the Lord, and
artisans were brought from Tyre, it was the descendants of Kenkenes who
made the Temple beautiful "with carved figures of cherubim and palm
trees and open flowers, within and without."



THE END




AUTHOR'S NOTE

When the Chaldeans prostrated themselves before Nebuchadnezzar, they
cried: "O King, live forever!"  When patrician Rome hailed Nero in the
Circus, the acclaim was: "Vivat Imperator!"  When the faithful saluted
the Caliph, they said: "May thy shadow never grow less."

Humanity, living in eternal contemplation of the tomb, offers its
highest tribute in bespeaking immortality for its great.

But Egypt did not invoke the gift of deathlessness upon the Pharaoh;
she declared it.  He was an Immortal and died not.  Though he more
nearly justified the confident declaration of his people, he but proved
that there is no sublunar immortality, though in Egypt--almost.

The Pharaoh lived with a triple purpose: the perpetuity of his empire,
of his dynasty, of his individuality.  He steeped his body in
indestructibility and wrote his name in adamant.  He employed the
manifold means at the command of his era, and whether his monument were
a colossus, a temple or a city, he builded well.

While Europe was yet a vast tract of gloomy forests, and morasses, and
plains, while the stone that was to rear Troy was yet scattered on the
slopes of Ida, Mena, the first Pharaoh of the first Dynasty, deflected
the Nile against the Arabian hills and built Memphis in its bed.  So
say the writings that are graven in stone.  If this be true, this story
deals with a quaint but efficient civilization that was already three
thousand years old, fourteen centuries before Christ.

An effort has been made to conform to the history of the time as it
comes down to us in the form of biblical accounts and the writings of
contemporaneous chroniclers.  The author has taken liberty with
accepted history in the age of Meneptah's first-born and in placing
Hebrews in the quarries at Masaarah.  The escape of Kenkenes in the
Passover is not intended to contradict the biblical statement that not
one of the eldest born was spared.  Rather, it is offered, as an
hypothesis, that the Angel of Death would have passed over any true
believer in Jehovah, regardless of his nationality.  Furthermore, the
author has given the Greek spelling to some names, the Egyptic to
others, the purpose being to present those pronunciations most familiar
to readers.

For all facts herein set forth, the author is indebted to a multitude
of authorities, chiefly to Wilkinson, Birch, Rawlinson, Ebers, and
Erman.




LIST OF CHARACTERS AND PLACES

Abydos,--A-by'-dos, city of Upper Egypt and burial-place of Osiris.

Amenti,--A-men'-tee, the realm of Death.

Amon-meses,--A'-mon-mee'-seez, half-brother to Meneptah and hostile to
him.

Anubis,--A-niu'-bis, pet ape named after the jackal-headed god.

Apepa,--A-pay'-pah, a Hyksos monarch who befriended Joseph.

Asar-Mut,--A-sar-Moot', half-brother to Meneptah and high priest to
Ptah.

Athor,--Ah'-thor, the feminine love-deity.

Atsu,--At'-soo, a noble Egyptian, vice-commander over the works at
Pa-Ramesu, afterwards degraded.

Baal-Zephon,--Bay'-al-Zee'-phon, a hill at the northern end of the Red
Sea.

Bast,--Bahst, the cat-headed goddess, patron deity of Bubastis.

Besa,--Bee'-sah, a dwarf-like deity similar to the Roman Cupid.

Bettis,--Bet'-tis, older sister to Hotep and Io.

Bubastis,--Biu-bast'-is, city in lower Egypt near Goshen.

Deborah,--Deb'-or-ah, an aged woman of Israel, Rachel's attendant.

Hak-heb,--Hayk'-heb, a village on the Nile, shipping point for
Nehapehu, fifty miles south of Memphis.

Har-hat,--Hahr'-hat, fan-bearer, or prime minister to the Pharaoh;
father of Masanath.

Hathors,--Hah'-thorz, seven personifications of Athor, usually seven
cows, similar to the fates of Roman and Greek mythology.

Hotep,--Hoe'-tep, the royal scribe, friend of Kenkenes, brother of
Bettis and Io.

Hyksos,--Hick'-soz, the Shepherd Kings.

Imhotep,--Eem-hoe'-tep, the physician god.

Ipsambul,--Ip-sahm'-bool, a temple cut from living rock.

Io,--Eye'-o, younger sister to Hotep and Bettis, in love with Seti.

Isis,--Eye'-sis, consort to Osiris and goddess of wisdom.

Jambres,--Jam'-breez, a priest in disgrace, sometime astrologer to
Rameses II and to Meneptah.

Kenkenes,--Ken-ken'-eez, son of Mentu, the murket.

Khem,--Kem, the Egyptian Pan.

Khu-n-Aten,--Khoon-Ah'-ten, Amenhotep IV, a Pharaoh of the eighteenth
dynasty, who attempted to reform the national faith.

Loi,--Lo'-ee, high-priest to Amen at Karnak.

Ma,--Mah, the goddess of truth.

Masaarah,--Mah-saar'-ah, a limestone quarry opposite Memphis.

Masanath,--Ma-sayn'-ath, second daughter to Har-hat, beloved of Hotep.

Meneptah,--Me-nep'-tah, successor to Rameses II, and Pharaoh of the
Exodus.

Menes,--Meen'-eez, captain of the royal guard.

Mentu,--Men'-too, the murket or royal architect, father of Kenkenes.

Merenra,--Mer-en'-rah, commander over the works at Pa-Ramesu.

Mesu,--May'-soo, Moses, the Law-giver.

Mizraim,--Miz'-ray-im, the Hebrew name for Egypt.

Mut,--Moot, the mother goddess.

Nari,--Nahr'-ee, the handmaiden of Masanath.

Nechutes,--Nee-koo'-teez, the royal cup-bearer.

Nehapehu,--Nee-hay'-pe-hiu, a fertile pocket in the Libyan desert,
fifty miles south of Memphis.

Neferari Thermuthis,--Nef-er-ahr'-ee Ther-moo'-this, first consort to
Rameses II and foster mother of Moses.

Nomarch,--Nome'-ark, governor of a civil division called a nome.

On, Heliopolis,--near the site of the modern Cairo.

Osiris,--Oh-sy'-ris, the great god of Egypt, the principle of good, the
creator.

Pa-Ramesu,--Pay-Ram'-e-soo, a treasure city begun by Rameses II.

Paraschites,--Par-a-shy'-teez, embalmers, an unclean class.

Pentaur,--Pen'-tor, an Egyptian priest and poet of the time of Rameses
II.

Pepi,--Pay'-pee, servant of Masanath.

Pharaoh,--Fay'-roe, title given to the Egyptian monarchs.

Pithom,---Py'-thom, a treasure city built by Rameses II.

Ptah,--P-tah', the patron deity of Memphis.

Punt,--Poont, Arabia.

Ra,--Rah, the sun god, patron deity of On.

Rachel,--daughter of Maai of Israel, beloved of Kenkenes.

Rameses,--Ram'-e-seez, a popular name for Egyptian kings; the name of
Meneptah's older son and also the name of Meneptah's father, the
Incomparable Pharaoh.

Ranas,--Rah'-nas, the servant of Snofru.

Sema,--See'-mah, an aged servant of Mentu.

Senci,--Sen'-cee, a lady of noble birth, aunt of Hotep and his sisters.

Set,--the god of war and evil.

Seti,--Set'-ee, second son to Meneptah, beloved of Io.

Siptah,--Sip'-tah, son of Amon-meses and claimant to the Egyptian
throne.

Snofru,--Sno'-froo, priest of Ra at On.

Tahennu,--Tah-hen'-niu, a fair-haired tribe on the Mediterranean, which
was exterminated by Seti I.

Ta-meri,--Tam'-e-ree, daughter of the nomarch of Memphis and beloved by
Nechutes.

Tanis,--Tay'-nis, the Egyptian name for Zoan.

Tape,--Tay'-pay, Thebes.

Ta-user,--Tay'-oo'-ser, a princess of the realm and beloved of Siptah.

Thebaid,--Thee-bay'-id, civil division embracing Thebes and surrounding
towns.

Thebes,--Theebz, capital of Upper Egypt and largest city in Egypt.

Toth,--Tote, the male deity of wisdom and law.

Tuat,--Tiu'-ayt, the Egyptian Hades.

Unas,--Yu'nas, servant to Har-hat.

Wady Toomilat,--Wah'-dee Toom'-ee-laht, great Rameside road leading
into the Orient.

Zoan,--Zoe'-an, the capital of the Delta.













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