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Title: The Yoke
       A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children
       of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt

Author: Elizabeth Miller

Release Date: August 22, 2005 [EBook #16583]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS 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 facades, 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 Arsinoeite 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 u