Suddenly the sound of cautiously wielded oars attracted his attention. In the end of the boat was a hawser-hole, painted and shaped like the eye of Osiris. Kenkenes turned about on his couch and watched through this aperture.
A barge, judiciously darkened, emerged into the circle of faint radiance about Senci's boat. There were probably a dozen Theban nobles of various ages grouped in attitudes of hushed expectancy in the bow. One robust peer, with a boat-hook in his hand, leaned over the prow. Another, barely older than fourteen, had mounted the side of the boat, and steadying himself by the shoulder of a young lord, gazed ahead at the group in the bow of Senci's boat.
"By the horns of Isis," he whispered in disgust, "the most of them are babes!"
The robust noble turned his head and jeered good-naturedly under his breath.
"Mark the infant sneering at the buds. But be of cheer. One is there, ripe enough to sate your green appetite."
"Nay! do you distribute them now? Let me make my choice, then."
But a general chorus of whispered protests arose.
"Hold, not so fast. The fan-bearer first. 'Twas he who hit upon the plan."
The nose of the pursuing boat crept alongside the stern of the one pursued, and the oars rested in obedience to a whispered order. The diagonal current which moved out from the Arabian shore, and the backward wash of water from the oars of the forward boat, heaved the head of the nobles' barge toward its object. The robust courtier leaned forward and made fast to his captive with the hook. A sigh of approval and excitement ran through the group.
"Gods! how they will scatter!" the young lord tittered nervously.
"Nay, now, there must be no such thing," the robust noble said, addressing them all. "Mind you, we but come as guests. It shall be left to the ladies to say how we shall abide with them. Show me a light."
The instant brilliance that followed proved that a hood had been lifted from a lamp. One of the men held a cloak between it and the group on Senci's boat. Kenkenes raised himself. The lamp discovered to his angry eyes the face of Har-hat.
"Now, hold this hook for me while I get aboard," the fan-bearer chuckled.
With a single step the young sculptor crossed to the side of the barge and wrenched the hook from the hands of the man that held it. For a moment he poised it above him, struggling with a mighty desire to bring it down on the head of the startled fan-bearer. The youthful lord dropped from his point of vantage and half of the group retreated precipitately. Har-hat drew back slowly and raised himself, as Kenkenes lowered the weapon. For a space the two regarded each other savagely. The contemplation endured only the smallest part of a moment, but it was eloquent of the bitterest mutual antagonism. There was no relaxing in the rigid lines of the young sculptor's figure, but the fan-bearer recovered himself immediately.
"Forestalled!" he laughed. "Retreat! We would not steal another man's bliss though it be fourteen times his share!"
The oars fell and the boat darted back into the night, the affable sound of Har-hat's raillery receding into silence with it.
Kenkenes flung the boat-hook into the Nile and returned to his bench, puzzled at the inordinate passion of hate in his heart for the fan-bearer.
At the end of the first watch the flotilla drifted into Memphis. Bonfires so vast as to suggest conflagrations made the long water-front as brilliant as day. Far up the slope toward the city the red light discovered a great multitude, densely packed and cheering tumultuously. Amid the uproar one by one the barges approached and discharged their occupants along the wharves. Soldiery in companies drove a roadway through the mass from time to time, by which the arrivals might enter Memphis, though few of these departed at once. When the Lady Senci's barge drew up, Mentu forced his way through the increasing crowd to meet and assist its occupants to alight. Kenkenes, still on deck, was handing his charges down the stairway one by one, when he saw Io, who stood at the very end of the line, lean over the side, her face aglow with joy. Kenkenes guessed the cause of her delight and, deserting his post, went to her side. Below stood Seti, on tiptoe, his hands upstretched against the tall hull.
"O, I can not reach thee," he was crying. Kenkenes caught up the trembling, blushing, repentant girl and lowered her plump into the prince's eager arms.
When Kenkenes saw her an hour later, he lifted her out of her curricle before the portals of Senci's house.
"What did I tell thee?" he said softly.
But the little girl clung to his arms and leaned against him with a sob.
"O Kenkenes," she whispered, "he came but to drag me away to look upon her!"
"Didst go?" he asked.
"Nay," she answered fiercely.
After a silence Kenkenes spoke again:
"He does not love her, Io. Believe me. I doubt not the sorceress hath bewitched him, but he would not rush after a whilom sweetheart to have her look upon a new one. Rather would he strive to cover up his faithlessness. But he hath been untrue to thee in this—that he shares a thought with the witch when his whole mind should be full of thee. Bide thy time till he emerges from the spell, then make him writhe. Meantime, save thy tears. Never was a man worth one of them."
He kissed her again and set her inside Senci's house.
But one remained now of the procession he had escorted from the river. This was the Lady Ta-meri's litter, and his own chariot stood ahead of it. She had lifted the curtains and was piling the opposite seat with cushions in a manner unmistakably inviting. He hesitated a moment. Should he dismiss his charioteer and journey to the nomarch's mansion in the companionable luxury of the litter? But even while he debated with himself, he passed her with a soft word and stepped into his chariot.
[1] The inundation, more properly Nilus—the river-god.
Meneptah having come and the old regime of life resumed, Memphis subsided into her normal state of dignity. Mentu remained in his house preparing for his investiture with the office of murket. His hours were spent in study, and the coming and going of Kenkenes crossed his consciousness as swiftly as the shadows wavered under his young palms. His son might work for hours near him on mysterious drawings, but so deep was the great artist in the writings of the old murkets that he did not think to ask him what he did. It might not have won his attention even had he seen the young man burn the sheets of papyrus thereafter, and grow restless and dissatisfied. He remarked, however, that Kenkenes was absent during the noon-meal, but when the sundown repast was served and the young man was in his place, Mentu had forgotten that he had not been there at midday.
Kenkenes had visited his niche in the Arabian desert. On his way to the statue he came to the line of rocks where he had hidden himself to get Athor's likeness, and looked down into the quarry opposite him. He was astonished to see at the ledge, just below, a great water-cart with three humped oxen attached. The water-bearers were grouped about it and a Hebrew youth was drawing off the water in skins and jars. The children received their burdens from his hands and passed up the wooden incline to the scaffold. There Kenkenes saw that the incline had been extended to the level of the platform, and the children were able to deliver the hides directly into the hands of the laborers. Then it occurred to Kenkenes that there was not a woman in sight about the quarries. While he wondered, Rachel emerged from the windings of the valley into the open space below.
She carried a band of linen and a small box of horn in her hand. When the young bearers saw her, one of them, who had been rubbing his eye, came to her. She set her box upon an outstanding edge of stone and devoted herself to him. Drawing his head back until it rested against her bosom, with tender hands she dressed the injured optic with balm from the box.
Kenkenes from his aery watched her, noting with a softening countenance the almost maternal love that beautified her face. Now and then she spoke soothingly as the boy flinched, but her words were so softly said that the sculptor did not catch them. The eye dressed, she covered it with the bandage and the pair separated. It was with some regret that Kenkenes saw her turn to leave the spot. But at that moment the taskmaster rode into the open space. She made a sign of salutation and paused at a word from him. Kenkenes fancied that her face had sobered and he looked down on the cowled head and shoulders of the overseer, wrathfully wondering if the Egyptian had played the master so harshly that Rachel dreaded him. Presently the man dismounted; and though his back was turned toward Kenkenes, the young sculptor knew by his stature that he was not the soldier who had first governed the quarries. The young man watched him excitedly but there was no display of tyranny or even authority in the taskmaster's manner. They talked, and by the motion of the man's hand Kenkenes fancied that he described something growing near the Nile. Presently they walked together toward the outlet of the valley. The taskmaster leaped down the ledge and, turning, put up his arms and lifted Rachel down. It was plain that something more than courtesy inspired the act, for the man's hands fell reluctantly. Kenkenes faced sharply about and proceeded up the hill to his statue with a queer discomfort tugging at his heart.
That night in his effort to bring forth the coveted expression in his drawings of Athor, Kenkenes all but satisfied himself.
The next day, without any apparent cause, he went back to the niche in the desert, stayed without purpose, and departed when no tangible reason urged him. When the day declined he climbed down the front of the hill and crossed the narrow field toward his boat, which was buried in the rank vegetation of the water's edge. At the Nile he noted, a little distance up the river, a familiar figure among the reeds. For a moment he hesitated and then rambled through the riotous growth in that direction. As he drew near, Rachel raised herself from a search in a thicket of herbs, her arms full of them and her face a little flushed.
"Idler!" said Kenkenes.
"Nay," she answered with a smile, "I am at work—learned work."
"Gathering witch-weeds for an incantation, sorceress?"
"Not so. I am hunting herbs to make simples for the sick."
"Of a truth? Then never before now have I craved for an illness that I might select my leech."
Again she smiled and made a sheaf of the herbs, preparatory to binding it. The bundle was unruly, and several of the plants dropped. She bent to pick them up and others fell. Kenkenes came to her rescue and gathered them all into his large grasp.
"Now, while I hold it," he suggested.
With the most gracious self-possession she smoothed out the fiber, put it twice, thrice about the sheaf and knotted it, her fingers, cool and moist after their contact with the marsh sedge, touching the sculptor's more than once.
"There! I thank thee."
"Are there any sick in the camp?"
"Only those who have been blinded by the stone-dust. But I prepare for sickness during health."
"A wise provision. Would we might prepare for sorrow during contentment."
"We may lay up comfort for us against the coming of misfortune."
"How?"
"In choosing friends," she answered.
His mind went back to the scene of that morning. Did she speak of the taskmaster?
"Thou hast found it so?" he asked.
"Thou hast said." She added no more, though the sculptor was eager for an example.
"How goes it with the statue?" she asked, seeing that he did not move out of her path.
"Slowly," he answered. "But it shall hasten to completeness when I once begin."
"What wilt thou do with it when it is done? Destroy it?"
He shook his head with a smile.
"Leave it there to betray thee to the vengeance of the priesthood one day?"
"I have no fear of discovery."
"Nay, but fear or unfear never yet warded off misfortune," she said gravely. "It is better to entertain causeless concern than unwise confidence."
He eagerly accepted this establishment of equality between them, and overshot his mark.
"Advise me, Rachel. What should I do?"
She gazed at him for a moment distrustfully, wondering if he mocked her and asking herself if she had not deserved it in assuming comradeship with him.
"Nay, it is not my place, my master," she said. "I did forget."
He put his hand on hers with considerable determination in his manner.
"Let us make an end to this eternal emphasis of different rank. I would forget it, Rachel. Wilt thou not permit me? I am thy friend and nothing harsher—above all things, not thy master."
Never before had he spoken so to her. She ventured to look at him at last. His face was grave and a little passionate and his eyes demanded an answer.
"Aye, I shall gladly be thy friend," she answered; "but never hast thou been so much of a master as in the denial that thou art." The first gleam of girlish mischief danced in her blue eyes. The young sculptor noted it with gladness. He took the free hand and pressed it, and when she turned toward the roadway through the wheat he turned with her and hand in hand they went. As they neared it he spoke again.
"Again would I ask, when wilt thou advise me concerning the statue? Here is my boat. Let us turn it into a high seat of council and I will sit at thy feet and learn."
"Nay, if I sit I shall linger too long, and there is a taskmaster—albeit a gentle one—waiting with other things for me to do."
Kenkenes kicked the turf and frowned.
"It sounds barbarous—this talk of master upon thy lips, Rachel. Thou art out of thy place," he answered.
"I am no more worthy of freedom than my people," she replied with dignity.
"Thy people! They should be lawgivers and advisers among Egypt's high places, rather than brick-makers and quarry-slaves, if thou art a typical Israelite."
"Aye!" she exclaimed, "and thou hast given tongue to the same estimate of Israel, which hath wrought consternation among the powers of Mizraim. And for that reason are we enslaved. Think of it, thou who art unafraid to think. Think of a people in bondage because of its numbers, its sturdiness and its wisdom. Thou who art in rebellion against ancient law dost feel somewhat of Israel's hurt. Behold, am I not also oppressed because I may think to the upsetting of idolatry and the overthrow of mine oppressors? Thou and I are fellows in bondage; but mark me! I am nearer freedom than thou. The Pharaohs began too late. Ye may not dam the Nile at flood-tide."
Her face was full of triumph and her voice of prophecy. She seemed to declare with authority the freedom of her people. Kenkenes did not speak immediately. His thoughts were undergoing a change. The pity he had felt that night a month agone for her sanguine anticipation of freedom seemed useless and wasted. Her confidence was no longer fatuous. He admitted in entirety the truth of her last words. If all Israel—nay, if but part, if but its leaders were as able and determined as she, did Meneptah guess his peril? Was not Egypt most ominously menaced? He remembered that he had been amused at his father's perturbation over the Israelitish unrest, but he vindicated Mentu then and there. Furthermore, if all Israel were like unto her, what heinous injustice had been perpetrated upon an able people? He found himself hoping that they would assert themselves and enter freedom, whether it be in Canaan or in Egypt.
"If ever Israel come to her own," he said impulsively, "I pray thee, Rachel, remember me to her powers as her partizan in her darker days. And take this into account when thou comest to judge Egypt. The half of the nation know not thy people, even as I have been ignorant; and Osiris pity the hand that would oppress them if all Egypt is made acquainted with them as I have been in these past days. Art thou indeed typical of thy race?"
"Hast thou not been among us often enough to discover?" she parried smilingly.
He shook his head. "Nay, I have known but one Israelite, and she keeps me perpetually aghast at Egypt."
Rachel's eyes fell.
"We did speak of the statue," she began.
"O, aye! I meant to tell thee how I had fortified myself against mischance. I can not break up the statue; sooner would I assail sweet flesh with a sledge; but when it is done I shall bury it in the sands. It will wrench me sorely to do even that. During the carving I feel most secure, for Memphis and Masaarah think I come hither to look after the removal of stones, since I am a sculptor. But if an Egyptian should come upon it by mischance before it is complete, I have left no trace of myself upon it. Most of all I trust to the generosity of the Hathors, who have abetted me so openly thus far."
Rachel heard him thoughtfully.
"What a pity it is that thou must follow after the pattern of God and sate thy love of beauty by stealth under ban and in fear. Till what time Mizraim sets this law of sculpture aside she may not boast her wisdom flawless. It is past understanding why she exacts obedience to this law most diligently, which fathers these ill-favored images of her gods, when their habitations are most splendidly and most beautifully built. She robeth herself in fine linen, decketh herself with jewels, anointeth her hair and maketh her eyes lovely with kohl, and lo! when she would picture herself she setteth her shoulders awry and slighteth the grace of her joints and the softness of her flesh. O, that thy brave spirit had arisen long ago, ere the perversion had become a heritage, dear to the Egyptian sculptor as his bones! But now, artist though he be, his eye is so befilmed by ancient use that he sees no monstrousness in his work. So thou hast nation-wide, nation-old, nation-defended custom to fight. And alas! thou art but one, Kenkenes, and I fear for thee."
For once the young sculptor's ready speech failed him. He drew near her, his eyes shining, his lips parted, drinking every word as if it were authoritative privilege for him to indulge his love of beauty without limit and openly. Here was that which he had sought in vain from those nearest to him—that which he had ceased to believe was to be found in Egypt—comfort, sympathy, perfect understanding. What if it came from the lips of an hereditary slave of the Pharaoh—a toiler in the quarries, an infidel, an alien nomad? If an alien, a slave, an unbeliever thought so deeply, felt so acutely and responded so discerningly to such delicate requirements—the slave, the nomad for him!
"Rachel," he began almost helplessly, "I am beyond extrication in debt to thee—thou golden, thou undecipherable mystery!"
She flushed to her very brows and her eyes fell quickly.
"I have appealed to all sources from which I might justly expect sympathy—to men of reason, of power, of mine own kin, and to women of heart—and not once have I found in them the broad and kindly understanding which thou hast displayed for me out of the goodness of thy beautiful heart. Behold! thou hast given speech to my own hidden longings, summarized my difficulties, foreshadowed my misfortunes, deplored them—aye, of a truth, heaved my very sighs for me!" His voice fell and grew reverent. "I would call thee an immortal, but there is a better title for thee—woman—a true woman—and thou dost even uplift the name."
For the first time in the history of their acquaintance she laughed, not mirthfully, but low and very happily, and the fleeting glimpse she gave him of her eyes showed them radiant and glad. He caught her hands, the bundle of herbs fell, and drawing her near him, he lifted the pink palms to his lips and pressed them there.
"Nay," she said, recovering herself and withdrawing her hands, "I am not an Egyptian but a Hebrew, unbiased by the prejudices of thy nation. It is not strange that I can understand thy rebellion, which is but a rift in thine Egyptian make-up through which reason shows. Any alien could comfort thee as well."
"And thou hast no more sympathy for me than any alien would have?" he asked, somewhat piqued.
"Is there any other sympathizing alien with whom I may compare and learn?" she asked with a smile.
She took up her bundle of herbs again and seemed to be preparing to leave him.
"How dost thou know these things," he asked hurriedly; "all these things—sculpture, religion, history?"
"I was not born a slave," she answered simply.
"Nay, cast out that word. I would never hear thee speak it, Rachel."
"Then, I was born out of servitude. My great grandsire was exempted by Seti when Israel went into bondage. His children and all his house were given to profit by the covenant. But the name grew wealthy and powerful to the third generation. My father was Maai the Compassionate, who loved his brethren better than himself. Them he helped. Rameses the Great forgot his father's promise when he found he had need of my father's treasure—" she paused and continued as if the recital hurt her. "There were ten—four of my mother's house, six of my father's. To the mines and the brick-fields they were sent, and in a little space I was all that was left."
Horrified and conscience-stricken, Kenkenes made as if to speak, but she went on hurriedly.
"My mother's nurse, Deborah, who went with us into servitude, is learned, having been taught by my mother, and I have been her pupil."
"And there is not one of thy blood—not one guardian kinsman left to thee?" Kenkenes asked slowly.
"Not one."
Up to this moment, during every interview with Rachel, Kenkenes had forsworn some little prejudice, or sacrificed some of his blithe self-esteem. But the tragic narrative swept all these supports from him and left him solitary to face the charge of indirect complicity in murder. He was an Egyptian—a loyal supporter of the government and its policies; he had profited by Israel's toil, and if he succeeded to his father's office, Israel would serve him directly in his labor for the Pharaoh to be. He had known that Israel was oppressed, that Israel died of hard labor, and he had pitied it, as the humane soul in him had felt for the overworked draft-oxen or the sacrifices that were led bleating to the altars. Perhaps he had even casually decried the policy that sent women into the brick-fields and did men to death in a year in the mines. But his own conscience had not been hurt, nor had he taken the misdeed home to himself.
Now his sensations were vastly different. He felt all the guilt of his nation, and he had nothing to offer as amends but his own humiliation. Of this he had an overwhelming plenitude and his eloquent face showed it. With an effort he raised his head and spoke.
"Rachel, if my humiliation will satisfy thee even a little as vengeance upon Egypt, do thou shame me into the dust if thou wilt."
"I do not understand thee," she said with dignity.
"Believe me. I would help thee in some wise, and alas! there is no other way by deed or word that I could prove my sorrow."
Tears leaped into her eyes.
"Nay! Nay!" she exclaimed. "Thou dost wrong me, Kenkenes. What wickedness were mine to make the one contrite, guiltless heart in Egypt suffer for all the unrepentant and the wrong-doers of the land!"
Once again he took her hand and kissed it, because the act was more eloquent than words at that moment.
"It is near sunset," she said softly, "give me leave to depart."
"Farewell, and the divine Mother attend thee."
She bowed and left him.
That night in the dim work-room Kenkenes brought forth upon papyrus a face of Athor, so full of love and yearning that he knew his own heart had given his fingers direction and inspiration. He sought no further.
To-morrow in the niche in the desert he would carve the want of his own soul in the countenance of the goddess.
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.
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 ofsilver and crystal on the altar, the scribe departed with silent step.But without, he ground his teeth and execrated the giver of pain toKenkenes.
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 nobleHotep."
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 toKenkenes.
"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 oftwo-fold seriousness. Thou hast stolen the function of the divineMother 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.