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."