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.