It was far into the tenth night that Kenkenes arrived in Thebes. On the sixteenth day Rachel would begin to expect him, and he could not hope to reach Memphis by that time. She should not wait an hour longer than necessary. He would get the signet that night and return by the swiftest boat obtainable in Thebes. The dawn should find him on the way to Memphis.
He entered the streets of the Libyan suburb of the holy city, and passed through it to the scattering houses, set outside the thickly-settled portion, and nearer to the necropolis. At the portals of the most pretentious of these houses he knocked and was admitted.
He was met presently in the chamber of guests by an old man, gray-haired and bent. This was the keeper of the tomb of Rameses the Great.
"I am the son of Mentu," he said, "thy friend, and the friend of theIncomparable Pharaoh. Perchance thou dost remember me."
"I remember Mentu," the old man replied, after a space that might have been spent in rumination, or in collecting his faculties to speak.
"He decorated the tomb of Rameses," the young man continued.
"Aye, I remember. I watched him often at the work."
"Thou knowest how the great king loved him."
The old man bent his head in assent.
"He was given a signet by Rameses, and on the jewel was testimony of royal favor which should outlive the Pharaoh and Mentu himself."
"Even so. A precious talisman, and a rare one."
"It was lost."
"Nay! Lost! Alas, that is losing the favor of Osiris. What a calamity!" The old man shook his head and his gray brows knitted.
"But the place in which it was lost is small, and I would search for it again."
"That is wise. The gods aid them who surrender not."
By this time the old man's face had become inquiring.
"There is need for the signet now—"
"The noble Mentu, in trouble?" the old man queried.
"The son of the noble Mentu is in trouble—the purity of an innocent one at stake, and the foiling of a villain to accomplish," Kenkenes answered earnestly.
"A sore need. Is it— Wouldst thou have me aid thee?"
"Thou hast said. I come to thee to crave thy permission to search again for the signet."
"Nay, but I give it freely. Yet I do not understand."
"The signet was lost in the tomb of the Incomparable Pharaoh. May I not visit the crypt?"
The old man thought a moment. "Aye, thou canst search. If thou wilt come for me to-morrow—"
"Nay, I would go this very night."
The keeper's face sobered and he shook his head.
"Deny me not, I pray thee," Kenkenes entreated earnestly. "Thou, who hast lived so many years, hast at some time weighed the value of a single moment. In the waste or use of the scant space between two breaths have lives been lost, souls smirched, the unlimited history of the future turned. And never was a greater stake upon the saving of time than in this strait—which is the peril of spotless womanhood."
The old man rubbed his head. "Aye, I know, I know. Thy haste is justifiable, but—"
"I can go alone. There is no need that thou shouldst waste an hour of thy needed sleep for me. I pledge thee I shall conduct myself without thee as I should beneath thine eye. Most reverently will I enter, most reverently search, most reverently depart, and none need ever know I went alone."
The ancient keeper weakened at the earnestness of the young man.
"And thou wilt permit no eye to see thee enter or come forth from the valley?"
"Most cautious will I be—most secret and discreet."
"Canst thou open the gates?"
"I have not forgotten from the daily practice that was mine for many weeks."
"Then go, and let no man know of this. Amen give thee success."
Kenkenes thanked him gratefully and went at once.
The moon was in its third quarter, but it was near midnight and the valley of the Nile between the distant highlands to the east and west was in soft light. On the eastern side of the river there was only a feeble glimmer from a window where some chanting leech stood by a bedside, or where a feast was still on. But under the luster of the waning moon Thebes lost its outlines and became a city of marbles and shadows and undefined limits.
On the western side the vision was interrupted by a lofty, sharp-toothed range, tipped with a few scattered stars of the first magnitude. In the plain at its base were the palaces of Amenophis III, of Rameses II, and their temples, the temples of the Tothmes, and far to the south the majestic colossi of Amenophis III towered up through the silver light, the faces, in their own shadow, turned in eternal contemplation of the sunrise. Grouped about the great edifices were the booths of funeral stuffs and the stalls of caterers to the populace of the Libyan suburb of Thebes. But these were hidden in the dark shadows which the great structures threw. The moon blotted out the profane things of the holy city and discovered only its splendors to the sky.
At the northwest limits of the suburb, the hills approached the Nile, leaving only a narrow strip a few hundred yards wide between their fronts and the water. Here the steep ramparts were divided by a tortuous cleft, which wound back with many cross-fissures deep into the desert. The ravine was simply a chasm, with perpendicular sides of naked rock.
At its upper end, it was blocked by a wall of unscalable heights. Nowhere in its length was it wider than a hundred yards, and across the mouth a gateway wide enough for three chariots abreast had been built of red granite.
This was the valley of the Tombs of the Kings.
In chambers hewn in solid rock, the monarchs of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties were entombed. All along the walls of the gorge, nature had secured the sacred resting-place of the sovereigns against trespass from the end and sides of the chasm, and Egypt had dutifully strengthened the one weak point in the fortification—the entrance—by the gateway of granite. But there was no vigilance of guards. Whosoever knew how to open the gates might enter the valley. The secret of the bolts was known only among the members of the royal family and the court. To Kenkenes, whose craft as a sculptor had taught him the intricate devices used in closing tombs, the opening of these gates was simple. Even the mighty portals of Khufu and Menka-ra would yield responsive to his intelligent touch.
He let himself into the valley and, closing the valves behind him, went up the tortuous gorge, darkened by the shadows of its walls. He continued past the mouth of the valley's southern arm wherein were entombed the kings of the eighteenth dynasty. Here, in this open space, he could see the circling bats, which before he could only hear above his head. Somewhere among the rocks up the moonlit hollow an owl hooted. But the tombs he sought were in the upper end of the main ravine.
Here lay Rameses I, the founder of that illustrious dynasty—the nineteenth. Near-by was his son, Seti I, and next to him the splendid tyrant, Rameses the Great, the Incomparable Pharaoh.
By the time Kenkenes had reached the spot, all lightness in his heart had gone out like the extinguishing of a candle, and the weight of suspense, the fear of failure, fell on him as suddenly. He approached the elaborate facade of the solemn portals, climbed the pairs of steps, and paused at each of the many landings with a prayer for the success of his mission, not for the repose of the royal soul, after the custom of other visitors. With trembling hands he pushed the doors, rough with inscriptions, and the great stone valves swung ponderously inward, the bronze pins making no sound as they turned in the sockets. Kenkenes entered and closed the portals behind him.
Instantly all sound of the outside world was cut off—the sound of the wind, the chafing of the sands on the hills above, the movement and cries of night-birds, beasts and insects. Absolute stillness and original night surrounded him.
With all speed he lighted his lamp, but the flaring name illuminated only a little space in the brooding, hovering blackness about him.
The atmosphere was stagnant and heavily burdened with old aromatic scent, and the silence seemed to have accumulated in the years. Even the soft whetting of his sandal, as he walked, made echoes that shouted at him. The little blaze fizzed and sputtered noisily and each throb of his heart sounded like a knock on the portal.
He did not pause. The darkness might cloud and tinge and swallow up his light as turbid water absorbs the clear; the silence might resent the violation. This was the habitation of a royal soul in perpetual vigil over its corpse and vested with all the powers and austere propensities of a thing supernatural. But not once did the impulse come to him to fly. Rachel's face attended him like a lamp.
He moved forward, his path only discovered to him step by step as the light advanced, the sumptuous frescoes done by the hand of his father emerging, one detail at a time. The solemn figures fixed accusing eyes upon him from every frieze; the passive countenance of the monarch himself confronted him from every wall. One wondrous chamber after another he traversed, for the tomb penetrated the very core of the mountain.
The innermost crypt contained the altars. This was the sanctuary, the holy of holies, never entered except by a hierarch.
When Kenkenes reached the final threshold he paused. Thus far, his presence had been merely a midnight intrusion. If he entered the sanctuary his coming would be violation. He thought of the distress of Rachel and dared.
The first alabaster altar glistened suddenly out of the night like a bank of snow. Kenkenes' sandal grated on the sandy dust that lay thick on the floor. Not even the keeper had entered this crypt to remove the accumulated dust of six years.
Under this floor of solid granite was the pit containing the sarcophagi of the dead monarch, of his favorite son and destined heir, Shaemus, and his well-beloved queen, Neferari Thermuthis. The opening into the pit had been sealed when Rameses had descended to emerge no more. The chamber over it was brilliant with frescoing and covered with inscriptions. There were three magnificent altars of alabaster and over each was an oval containing the name of one of the three sleepers in the pit below.
In this chapel the signet had been lost.
Kenkenes set his light on the floor and began his search. The first time he searched the floor, he laid the lack of success to his excited work. The second time, the perspiration began to trickle down his temples. Thereafter he sought, lengthwise and crosswise, calling on the gods for aid, but there was no glint of the jewel.
At last, sick with despair, he sat down to collect himself. Suddenly across the heavy silence there smote a sound. In a place closer to the beating heart of the world, the movement might have escaped him. Now, though it was but the rustle of sweeping robes, it seemed to sough like the wind among the clashing blades of palm-leaves.
For a moment Kenkenes sat, transfixed, and in that moment the sound came nearer. He remembered the injunction of the old keeper. Human or supernatural, the new-comer must not find him there. He leaped behind the altar of Shaemus, extinguishing the light as he did so. He flung the corner of his kamis over the reeking wick that the odor might not escape, but his fear in that direction was materially lessened when he saw that the stranger bore a fuming torch.
On one end of the short pole of the torch was a knot of flaming pitch, on the other was a bronze ring fitted with sprawling claws. The stranger set the light on the floor and the device kept the torch upright. He crossed the room and stood at the altar of Neferari Thermuthis.
By the deeply fringed and voluminous draperies, and by the venerable beard, rippling and streaked with gray, the young sculptor took the stranger to be an Israelite. As Kenkenes looked upon him, he was minded of his father, the magnificent Mentu. There was the bearing of the courtier, with the same wondrous stature, the same massive frame. But the delicate features of the Egyptian, the long, slim fingers, the narrow foot, were absent. In this man's countenance there was majesty instead of grace; in his figure, might, instead of elegance. The expression had need of only a little emphasis in either direction to become benign or terrible. Kenkenes caught a single glance of the eyes under the gray shelter of the heavy brows. Once, the young man had seen hanging from Meneptah's neck the rarest jewel in the royal treasure. The wise men had called it an opal. It shot lights as beautiful and awful as the intensest flame. And something in the eyes of this mighty man brought back to Kenkenes the memory of the fires of that wondrous gem.
The stranger stood in profound meditation, his splendid head gradually sinking until it rested on his breast. The arms hung by the sides. The attitude suggested a sorrow healed by the long years until it was no more a pain, but a memory so subduing that it depressed. At last the great man sank to his knees, with a movement quite in keeping with his grandeur and his mood, and bowed his head on his arms.
Pressed down with awe, Kenkenes followed his example, and although he seemed to kneel on some rough chisel mark in the floor, he did not shift his position. The discomfort seemed appropriate as penitence on that holy occasion.
After a long time the stranger arose, took up the torch and quitted the chamber. He went away more slowly than he had come, with reluctant step and averted face.
When night and profound silence were restored in the crypt, Kenkenes regained his feet and, examining the irritated knee, found the offending object clinging to the impression it had made in the flesh. The shape of the trifle sent a wild hope through his brain. Groping through the dark, he found his lamp and lighted it with trembling hands.
He held the lapis-lazuli signet!
He did not move. He only grasped the scarab tightly and panted. The sudden change from intense suspense to intense relief had deprived him of the power of expression. Only his physical make-up manifested its rebellion against the shock.
As the tumult in his heart subsided, his mind began to confront him with happy fancies. Rachel was already free. In that moment of exuberance he thrust aside, as monstrous, the bar of different faith. He believed he could overcome it by the very compelling power of his love and the righteousness of his cause. He spent no time picturing the method of his triumph over it. Beyond that obstacle were tender pictures of home-making, love and life, which so filled him with emotion that, in a sudden ebullition of boyish gratitude, he pressed the all-potent signet to his lips.
Then, his cheeks reddening with a little shame at his impulsiveness, he examined the scarab. The cord by which it had been suspended passed through a small gold ring between the claws of the beetle. This had worn very thin and some slight wrench had broken it.
"Ah!" he exclaimed aloud. "It is even as I had thought. But let me not seem to boast when I tell my father of it. It will be victory enough for me to display the jewel, and abashment enough for him to know he was wrong."
He ceased to speak, but the echoes talked on after him. He shivered, caught up his light and raced through the sumptuous tomb into the world again.
It was near dawn and the skies were pallid. He was hungry and weary but most impatient to be gone. He would repair to Thebes and break his fast. Thereafter he would procure the swiftest boat on the Nile and take his rest while speeding toward Memphis.
The inn of the necropolis was like an immense dwelling, except that the courts were stable-yards. The doors, opening off the porch, were always open and a light burned by night within the chamber. So long and so murkily had it burnt, that the chamber Kenkenes entered was smoky and redolent of it. Aside from a high, bench-like table, running half the length of the rear wall, there was nothing else in the room. Kenkenes rapped on the table. In a little time an Egyptian emerged from under the counter, on the other side. Understanding at last that the guest wished to be fed, he staggered sleepily through a door and, presently reappearing, signed Kenkenes to enter.
The room into which the young sculptor was conducted was too large to be lighted by the two lamps, hung from hooks, one at each end of the chamber. Down either side, hidden in the shadows, were long benches, and from the huddled heap that occupied the full length of each, it was to be surmised that men were sleeping on them. Above them the slatted blinds had been withdrawn from the small windows and the morning breeze was blowing strongly through the chamber. At the upper end was another table, similar to the one in the outer room, except for a napkin in the middle with a bottle of water set upon it. An Egyptian woman stood beside this table and gave the young man a wooden stool.
As Kenkenes walked toward the seat a stronger blast of wind puffed out the light above his head. The woman climbed up to take the lamp down and set it on the table while she relighted it. The skirt of her dress caught on the top of the stool she had mounted and pulled it over on the wooden floor with a sharp sound.
One of the sleepers stirred at the noise and turned over. Presently he sat up.
Kenkenes righted the stool and sat down on it, the light shining in his face. He saw the guest in the shadow shake off the light covering and walk swiftly through the door into the outer chamber.
Meanwhile the silent woman served her guest with cold baked water-fowl, endives, cucumbers, wheat bread and grapes, and a weak white wine. Kenkenes ate deliberately, and consumed all that was set before him. When he had made an end, he paid his reckoning to the woman and returned into the outer chamber.
At the doors, he was confronted by four members of the city constabulary and a Nubian in a striped tunic.
"Seize him!" the Nubian cried. Instantly the four men flung themselves upon Kenkenes and pinioned his arms.
"Nay, by the gods," he exclaimed angrily. "What mean you?"
"Parley not with him," the Nubian said in excitement. "Get him in bonds stronger than the grip of hands. He is muscled like a bull."
The young sculptor looked at the Nubian. He had seen him before—had had unpleasant dealings with him. And then he remembered, so suddenly and so fiercely that his captors felt the sinews creep in his arms.
"Set spare thee and thine infamous master to me!" he exclaimed violently.
The Nubian retreated a little, for Kenkenes had strained toward him.
"Get him into the four walls of a cell," the Nubian urged the guards."I may not lose him again, as I value my head."
The guards started out of the doors and Kenkenes went with them, unresisting, but not passively. All the thoughts were his that can come to a man, on whose freedom depend another's life and happiness. Added to these was an all-consuming hate of her enemy and his, new-fed by this latest offense from Har-hat. With difficulty he kept the tumult of his emotions from manifesting themselves to his captors. They feared that his calm was ominous, and held him tightly.
The necropolis was not astir and the streets were wind-haunted. The tread of the six men set dogs to barking, and only now and then was a face shown at the doorways. For this Kenkenes thanked his gods, for he was proud, and the eye of the humblest slave upon him in his humiliating plight would have hurt him more keenly than blows.
The prison was a square building of rough stone, flat-roofed, three stories in height. The red walls were broken at regular intervals by crevices, barred with bronze. There was but one entrance.
Herein were confined all the malefactors of the great city of the gods, and since the population of Thebes might have comprised something over half a million inhabitants, the dwellers of that grim and impregnable prison were not few in number.
Kenkenes was led through the doors, down a low-roofed, narrow, stone-walled corridor to the room of the governor of police.
This was a hall, with a lofty ceiling, highly colored and supported by loteform pillars of brilliant stone. Toth, the ibis-headed, and the Goddess Ma, crowned with plumes, her wings forward drooping, were painted on the walls. A long table, massive, plain and solid like a sarcophagus, stood in the center of the room. A confused litter of curled sheets of papyrus, and long strips of unrolled linen scrolls were distributed carelessly over the polished surface. At one side were eight plates of stone—the tables of law, codified and blessed by Toth.
The governor of police was absent, but his vice, who was jailer and scribe in one, sat in a chair behind the great table.
When the party entered, he sat up, undid a new scroll, wetted the reed pen in the pigment, and was ready.
"Name?" he began, preparing to write.
"That, thou knowest," Kenkenes retorted. The Nubian bowed respectfully and approaching, whispered to the scribe. The official ran over some of the scrolls and having found the one he sought, proceeded to make his entries from the information contained therein.
When the man had finished Kenkenes nodded toward the eight volumes of the law.
"If thou art as acquainted with the laws of Egypt as thine office requires, thou knowest that no free-born Egyptian may be kept ignorant of the charge that accomplished his arrest. Wherefore am I taken?"
"For sacrilege and slave-stealing," the scribe replied calmly.
"At the complaint of Har-hat, bearer of the king's fan," Kenkenes added.
"Until such time as stronger proof of thy misdeeds may be brought against thee," the scribe continued.
"Even so. In plainer words, I shall be held till I confess what he would have me tell, or until I decay in this tomb. Let me give thee my word, I shall do neither. Unhand me. I shall not attempt to escape."
At a sign from the scribe the four men released him and took up a position at the doors. Kenkenes opened his wallet and displayed the signet. The scribe took it and read the inscription. There was no doubting the young man's right to the jewel for here was the name of Mentu, even as the chief adviser had given it in identifying the prisoner. The official frowned and stroked his chin.
"This petitions the Pharaoh," he said at last. "I can not pass upon it."
"Send me to my cell, then, and do thou follow," Kenkenes said. "I have somewhat to tell thee."
"Take him to his cell," the official said to the men as he returned the signet to the prisoner. "I shall attend him."
Kenkenes was led into a corridor, wide enough for three walking side by side. There was no light therein, but the foremost of the four stooped before what seemed a section of solid wall and after a little fumbling, a massive door swung inward.
The chamber into which it led was wide enough for a pallet of straw laid lengthwise, with passage room between it and the opposite wall. The foot of the bed was within two feet of the door. Between the stones, in the opposite end near the ceiling, was a crevice, little wider than two palms. This noted, the interior of the cell has been described.
The jailer entered after him, and let the door fall shut.
"I have but to crave a messenger of thee—a swift and a sure one—one who can hold his peace and hath pride in his calling. I can offer all he demands. And this, further. Keep his going a secret, for I am beset and I would not have my rescue by the Pharaoh thwarted."
"I can send thee a messenger," the jailer answered.
"Ere midday," Kenkenes added.
"I hear," the passive official assented.
The solid section of wall swung shut behind him and the great bolts shot into place.
Some time later the bar rattled down again, and the jailer stood without, a scribe at his side. At a sign from the jailer, the latter made as though to enter, but Kenkenes stopped him.
"I have need of your materials only," he said, "but the fee shall be yours nevertheless." The man set his case on the floor and Kenkenes put a ring of silver in the outstretched palm.
"Fail me not in a faithful messenger," the prisoner repeated to the jailer. The official nodded, and the door was closed again.
Kenkenes sat on the floor beside the case, laid the cover back and taking out materials, wrote thus:
"To my friend, the noble Hotep, greeting:
"This from Kenkenes, whom ill-fortune can not wholly possess, while he may call thee his friend.
"I speak to thee out of the prison at Tape, where I am held for stealing a bondmaiden and for executing a statue against the canons of the sculptor's ritual. The accumulated penalty for these offenses is great—my plight is most serious.
"The pitying gods have left me one chance for escape. If I fail I shall molder here, for my counsel is mine and the demons of Amenti shall not rend it from me.
"The tale is short and miserable. But for the necessity I would not repeat it, for it publishes the humiliation of sweet innocence.
"Suffice it to say that the offended is she of whom we talked one day on the hill back of Masaarah; the offender is Har-hat who hath buried me here in Tape.
"One morning he saw her at the quarries and, taken with her beauty, asked her at the hands of the Pharaoh, for the hatefullest bondage pure maidenhood ever knew.
"She fled from the minions he sent to take her, and came to me in that spot on the hillside where thou and I did talk.
"There the minions found us, and by the evidence they looked upon, I am further charged with sacrilege.
"Thou dost remember the all-powerful signet, which my father had from the Incomparable Pharaoh. He lost it in the tomb of the king, three years ago, abandoning the search for it before I was assured that it was not to be found.
"So strong was my faith that the signet was in the tomb, that when this disaster overtook her, I came to Tape at once to look again for the treasure. I found it.
"But by some unknowable mischance mine enemy discovered my whereabouts and a third minion, who escaped my wrath before the statue that morning, appeared in the city and caused me to be delivered up to the authorities on the charges already named.
"She is hidden, and I have provided for her protection, as well as I may, against the wishes of the strongest man in the land. For her immediate welfare I am not greatly troubled. But, alas! I would be with her—thou knowest, O my Hotep, the hunger and heartache of such separation.
"If the Pharaoh honor not the signet herein inclosed, tell my father of my plight, let me know the decision of the king, and then I shall trust to the Hathors for liberty.
"Of this contingency, I would not speak at length. It may be tempting the caprice of the Seven Sisters to presuppose such misfortune.
"Let not my father intervene for me. He shall not endanger himself further than I have already asked of him.
"But remember thou this injunction, most surely. That it shall be last and therefore freshest in thy memory, I put this at the end of the letter.
"Put the petition herein inclosed into the Pharaoh's hands! For my life's sake let it not come into the possession of any other.
"I shall write no more. My scant eloquence must be saved for the king.
"Gods! but it is good to have faith in a friend. I salute thee.
The letter to Hotep complete, Kenkenes took up another roll and wrote thus to Meneptah:
"To Meneptah, Beloved of Ptah, Ambassador of Amen, Vicar of Ra, Lord over Upper and Lower Egypt, greeting:"
At this point he paused. His power of expression, aghast at the magnitude of the stake laid on its successful use, became panic-stricken and fled from him. He feared that words could not be chosen which would justify his sacrilege or prove his claims to Rachel greater than Har-hat's. Meneptah would be hedged about with prejudice against his first cause, and deterred by the prior right of Har-hat, in the second. The last man that talked with the king molded him. Flattery alone might prevail against coercion. It was the one hope.
Kenkenes seized his pen and wrote:
"This from thy subject, Kenkenes, the son of Mentu, thy murket.
"I give thee a true story, O Defender of Women.
"There is a maiden whose kinsmen died of hard labor in the service of Egypt. Not one was left to care for her. Of all her house, she alone remains. They died in ignominy. Shall the last remnant of the unhappy family be stamped out in dishonor?
"If one came before thee seeking to insult innocence, and another begging leave to protect it, thou wouldst choose for him who would keep pure the undefiled. Have I not said, O my King?
"Before thee, even now is such a choice.
"Already thou hast given over the mastership of Rachel, daughter of Maai the Israelite, to thy fan-bearer, Har-hat. By the lips of his own servants, I am informed that he would have put her in his harem.
"She fled from him and I hid her away, for I could not bear to deliver her up to the despoiler.
"I love her—she loveth me. Wilt thou not give her to me to wife?
"Thine illustrious sire bespeaketh thy favor, out of Amenti. Behold his signet and its injunction.
"Furthermore, I confess to sacrilege against Athor, in carving a statue which ignored the sculptor's ritual. For this, and for hiding the Israelite, am I imprisoned in the city stronghold of Tape.
"I would be free to return to my love and comfort her, but if it shall overtax thy generosity to release me, I pray thee announce my sentence and let me begin to count the hours till I shall come forth again.
"The Israelite hath a nurse, a feeble and sick old woman, Deborah by name, whom the minions of Har-hat abused. She can be of no further use in servitude, and I would have thee set her free to bear company to her love, the white-souled Rachel.
"But if these last prayers imperil the first by strain upon thy indulgence, O Beloved of Ptah, do thou set them aside, and grant only the safety of the oppressed maiden.
"These to thy hand, by the hand of the scribe, Hotep.
The letter complete, he summoned the messenger.
"How swift art thou?" he asked.
"So swift that my service is desired beyond mine opportunities to accept," was the answer.
"How is it that thou art ready to serve me? Thou seest my plight."
"The jailer spoke of thee as petitioning the Pharaoh. The king is in the north where I have not been in all the reign of Meneptah. Thou offerest me a pleasure and the fee shall be in proportion to the length of the journey."
"Nay, but thou art a genius. Thou dost move me to imitate the Hathors, since they add fortune to the already fortunate. Mark me. I will give thee thy fee now. If thou dost return me a letter showing that thou hast carried the message with all faith and speed, I shall give thee another fee on thy home-coming. What thinkest thou?"
The man smiled and nodded. "Naught but the darts of Amenti shall delay me."
Kenkenes gave him the message, and a handful of rings. The man expressed his thanks, after which he went forth, and the door was barred.
Kenkenes stood for a while, motionless before the tightly fitted portal of stone. Then through the high crevice that was his window the sounds of life outside smote upon his ear. The noise of the city seemed to become all revel. Some one under the walls laughed—the hearty, raucous laugh of the care-free boor.
He turned about and flung himself face down in the straw of his pallet.
He had begun to wait.
By the twentieth of May, the court of Meneptah was ready to proceed toTanis.
The next week the Pharaoh would depart. To-night he received nobleMemphis for a final revel.
His palace was aglow, from its tremendous portals to the airy hypostyle upon its root and from far-reaching wing to wing, with countless colored lights. From every architrave and cornice depended garlands and draperies, and tinted banners waved unseen in the dark. The great loteform pillars supporting the porch were festooned with lotus flowers, and the approaches were strewn with palm-leaves.
The guests came in chariots with but a single attendant or in litters accompanied by a gorgeous retinue and much authority. Charioteers swore full-mouthed oaths and smote slaves; horses reared and plunged and bearers hurried back through the dark with empty chairs. Meanwhile the pacing sentries made frank criticism and gazed at each alighting new-comer with eyes of connoisseurs.
When the portals opened, a broad shaft of light shot into the night, a multitude of attendants was seen bowing; gusts of reedy music and babble and the smell of wilting flowers and Puntish incense swept into the outer air.
Within, the great feast began and proceeded to completeness. The tables were removed and the stage of the revel was far advanced. The levels of scented vapor from the aromatic torches undulated midway between the ceiling and the floor and belted the frescoes upon the paneled walls. Far up the vaulted hall, the Pharaoh and his queen, in royal isolation, were growing weary.
The lions chained to their lofty dais slept. The guardian nobles that stood about the royal pair leaned heavily upon their arms.
Out in the sanded strip across the tessellated floor, tumblers were glistening with perspiration from their vaguely noticed efforts. Apart from the guests the painted musicians squatted close together and made the air vibrant with the softly monotonous strumming of their instruments.
The company, which was large, had fallen into easy attitudes; an exciting game of drafts, or a story-teller, or a beauty, attracting groups here and there over the hall.
Before one table, whereon the scattered pawns of a game yet lay,Rameses lounged in a deep chair, a semi-recumbent figure in marble andobsidian. Beside him, where she had seated herself at his command, wasMasanath.
There was Seti at Ta-user's side, but Io was not at the feast. She mourned for Kenkenes. Ta-meri was there, the bride of a week to Nechutes, who hovered about her without eye or ear for any other of the company. Siptah, Menes, Har-hat, all of the group save Hotep and Kenkenes, were present and near enough to be of the crown prince's party, yet scattered sufficiently to talk among themselves.
The game of drafts, prolonged from one to many, had ended disastrously for the prince in spite of his most gallant efforts to win. Masanath, against whom he had played, finally thrust the pawns away and refused to play further with him.
"Thou dost make sport for the Hathors, O Prince," she said. "Have respect for thyself and indulge their caprice no more."
"Hast thou not heard that we may compel the gods?" he asked. "Perhaps I do but indulge them, of a truth. But let me set mine own will against fate and there shall be no more losing for me."
"It is a precarious game. Perchance there is as strong a will as thine, compelling the Hathors contrarily to thine own desires. What, then, O Rameses?"
"By the gambling god, Toth, I shall try it!" he exclaimed. "The opportunity is before me even now."
He took her hand.
"I catch thy meaning. Beloved of Isis! Thou didst challenge me long ago, and long ago I took it up. Thus far have we fenced behind shields. Down with the bull-hide, now, and bare the heart!"
"Thou dost forget thyself," she retorted, wrenching her hand from him."The eyes of thy guests are upon thee."
He laughed. "The prince's doings become the fashion. Let me be seen and there shall be no woman's hand unpossessed in this chamber."
"Thou shalt set no fashion by me. Neither shalt thou rend the Hathors between thy wishes and mine. Furthermore, if thou dost forget thy princely dignity, thy power will not prevent me if I would remind thee of thy lapse."
"War!" he exclaimed. "Now, by the battling hosts of Set, never have I met a foe so worthy the overcoming. Listen! Dost thou know that I have sorrows? Dost thou remember that I may have sleepless nights and unhappy days—discontents, heartaches and oppressions? I am not less human because I am royal, but because I am royal I am more unhappy. Sorry indeed is a prince's lot! Wherefore? Because he is sated with submission; because he hath drunk satiety to its very dregs; because he hath been denied the healing hunger of appetite, ambition, conquest. How hath my miserable heart longed to aspire—to conquer! I have starved for something beyond my reach. But lo! in thee I have found what I sought. Thou hast defied me, rebuffed me, thwarted me till the surfeited soul in me hath grown fat upon resistance. Now shall the longing to conquer that racketh me be fed! Go on in thy rebellion, Masanath! Gods! but thou art a foe worthy the subduing! I would not have thee give up to me now. I would earn thee by defeats, losses and many scars. And thy kiss of submission, in some far day, will give me more joy than the instant capitulation of many empires."
"Thou hast provided thyself with lifelong warfare, and triumph to thine enemy at the end," she answered serenely.
Her reply seemed to awaken a train of thought in the prince. He did not respond immediately. He leaned his elbows on his knees, and clasping his hands before him, thought a while. In the silence the talk of the others was audible.
"The festivities of Memphis have lost two, since they lost one," Menes mused.
"Give us thy meaning," Nechutes asked.
"Hast seen Hotep in Memphian revels since Kenkenes died?" the captain asked, by way of answer.
Nechutes shook his head. "The gods have dealt heavily with Mentu," he said after a little silence. "Not even the body of his son returned to him for burial!"
Har-hat, who had been perched on the arm of Ta-meri's chair, broke in.
"Mayhap the young man is not dead," he surmised.
"All the Memphian nome hath been searched, my Lord," Menes protested.
"Aye, but these flighty geniuses are not to be measured by doings of other men. Perhaps he hath gone to teach the singing girls at Abydos or Tape."
"Ah, my Lord!" protested Ta-meri, horrified.
"Nay, now," Har-hat responded, bending over her. "I but give his friends hope. To prove my sincerity I will wager my biggest diamond against thy three brightest smiles that thou wilt hear of Kenkenes again, alive and dreamy as ever, led into this strange absence by some moonshine caprice."
"I would give more than my biggest diamond to believe thee," Nechutes muttered, turning away.
"Wilt thou wager?" the fan-bearer demanded with animation.
"Nay!" was the cup-bearer's blunt reply. Har-hat shrugged his shoulders and lapsed into silence. Rameses leaned toward Masanath again. The expression on his face during the talk and the tone he chose now showed that he had not heard, nor was even conscious of the silence that had fallen. His words were low-spoken, but each of his companions heard.
"In warfare it is common for a foe to hedge his adversary about so that fight he must. Thou art a woman and cunning, and lest thou join thyself to another and elude me ere the battle is on, I would better treat thee to a strategy. I shall wed thee first and woo thee afterward."
Ta-user leaned across the table, and sweeping the pawns away with her arms, said, with a smile:
"Quarreling over a game of drafts! Which is in distress—in need of allies?"
"Come thou and be my mercenary, Ta-user," Masanath said with impulsive gratitude. "Rameses hath lost and demands restitution beyond reason."
Har-hat had risen the instant the words had passed the prince's lips and left the group. He did not wish to let his face be seen. A dash of dark color grew in the heir's pallid cheeks, partly because he knew he had been heard, partly because he was angry at the princess' interruption.
"Strange," mused Menes once again, "that the phrases of war mark the babble of even the maidens these days. And half the revels end in quarrels. Though I be young in war experience, I would say the omens point to conflict in which Egypt shall be embroiled."
"Aye, Menes; and perchance thou wilt be measuring swords with a Hebrew ere the summer is old," Siptah said, speaking for the first time.
"Matching thy good saber-metal with a trowel or a hay-fork, Menes,"Rameses sneered.
"Hold, thou doughty pride of the battling gods!" Menes cried laughingly to Rameses. "For once, I scout thy prophecies. The Hebrews are stirred up beyond any settling, save thou dost put them all to the sword, and that is a task that I would go to Tuat to escape. Thou wilt not work the Israelite to death. I can tell thee that!"
"Hast caught the infectious terror of the infant-scaring, bugbearHebrew?" Rameses asked.
Menes leaned against the nearest knee and smiled lazily.
"If the gray-beard sorcerer did meet me in open field, protected only with bull-hide and armed with a spear, I would fight him till he said 'enough'; but who wants to go against an incantation that would mow down an army at the muttering? Not I; yea, Rameses, I am a craven in battle with a sorcerer."
"If he means to blast us, wherefore hath he not spoken the cabalistic word ere this?" the prince demanded.
"He had no personal provocation until late," the captain replied.
"Hath the taskmaster set him to making brick?" the prince laughed.
"Nay; but the priesthood plotted against his head, and he is angry."
Rameses raised himself and looked fixedly at the soldier. Again Menes laughed.
"Spare me, my Prince! It is no longer a state secret. It is out and over all Egypt. Why it came not to thine ears I know not. Perchance every one is afraid to gossip to thee save mine unabashed self."
"Waster of the air!" Rameses exclaimed. "What meanest thou?"
"It seems that the older priests have a hieratic grudge against the Israelite, and when he returned into Egypt they set themselves, with much bustle, importance and method to silence him. Hither and thither they sent for advice, permission and aid, till all the wheels of the hierarchy were in motion, and the air quivered with portent and intent. Vain ado! Superfluous preparation! The very letter which gave them explicit and formal permission to begin to get ready to commence to put away the Hebrew, fell—by the mischievous Hathors!—fell into the hands of the victim himself!"
Rameses fell back into his chair, his lips twitching once or twice, a manifestation of his genuine amusement.
"As it follows, the Israelite is angry. So the witch-pot hath been put on, and in council with a toad and a cat and an owl, he thinketh up some especial sending to curse us with," the captain concluded.
"A proper ending," Rameses declared after a little. "Let men kill each other openly, if they will, but the methods of the ambushed assassin should recoil upon himself."
At this point it was seen that the Pharaoh and his queen were preparing to leave the hall. All the company arose, and after the royal pair had passed out the guests began to depart. Rameses left his party and, joining Har-hat, led the fan-bearer away from the company.
"It seems that thou, with others, heardest my words with Masanath," the prince began at once. "It is well, for it saves me further speech now. I want thy daughter as my queen."
Har-hat seemed to ponder a little before he answered. "Masanath does not love thee," he said at last.
"Nay, but she shall."
"That granted, there are further reasons why ye should not wed," the fan-bearer resumed after another pause. "Masanath would come between Egypt and Egypt's welfare. Thou knowest what thy marriage with the Princess Ta-user is expected to accomplish. At this hour the nation is in need of unity that she may safely do battle with her alien foes. If thou slightest Ta-user thou wilt add to the disaffection of Amon-meses and his party. Furthermore, thine august sire would not be pleased with thee nor with Masanath, nor with me. It is not my place to show thee thy duty, Rameses, but of a surety it is my place to refuse to join thee in thy neglecting of it."
Rameses contemplated the fan-bearer narrowly for a moment. "Come, thou hast a game," he said finally. "Out with it! Name thy stake."
"O, thou art most discourteous, my Prince," the fan-bearer remonstrated, turning away. But Rameses planted himself in his path.
"Stay!" he said grimly. "Dost thou believe me so blind as to think thee sincere? Thou canst use thy smooth pretenses upon the Pharaoh, but I understand thee, Har-hat. Declare thyself and vex me no further with thy subtleties." Har-hat measured the prince's patience before he answered.
"When thou canst use me courteously, Rameses," he said with dignity, "I shall talk with thee again. Meanwhile do not build on wedding with Masanath. I shall mate her with him who hath respect for her father."
For a moment Rameses stood in doubt. Could it be that this soulless man had scruples against giving him Masanath? But Har-hat, allowed a chance to leave the prince if he would, had not moved. Rameses understood the act. The fan-bearer was awaiting a propitious opportunity to name his price gracefully. The momentary warmth of respect died in the prince's heart.
"Out with it," he insisted more calmly. "What is it? Power, wealth or a wife? These three things I have to give thee. Take thy choice."
"I would have thee use me respectfully, reverently," Har-hat retorted warmly. "I would have thee speak favorably of me; I would have thee do me no injustice by deed or word, nor peril my standing with the king! This I demand of thee—I will not buy it!"
"To be plain," Rameses continued placidly, "thou wouldst insure to thyself the position of fan-bearer. Say on."
"I am fan-bearer to the king," Har-hat continued with a show of increasing heat, "and I would fill mine office. If thou art to be his adviser in my stead, do thou take up the plumes, and I will return to Bubastis."
"Once again I shall interpret. I am to keep silence in the council chamber and resign to thee the molding of my plastic father. It is well, for I am not pleased with ruling before I wear the crown. But mark me! Thou shalt not advise me when I rule over Egypt. So take heed to my father's health and see that his life is prolonged, for with its end shall end thine advisership. What more?"
"So thou observest these things I am satisfied."
"Gods! but thou art moderate. Masanath is worth more than that. Do I take her?"
"She does not love thee."
The prince waved his hand and repeated his question.
"I shall speak with her," Har-hat responded, "and give thee her word."
For a moment the prince contemplated the fan-bearer, then he turned without a word and strode out of the chamber. In a corridor near his own apartments he overtook the daughter of Har-hat. Her woman was with her.
The prince stepped before them.
The attendant crouched and fled somewhere out of sight. Masanath drew herself to the fullest of her few inches and waited for Rameses to speak.
"Come, Masanath," he said, "thou canst reach the limit of thy power to be ungracious and but fix me the firmer in my love for thee. I am come to tell thee that I have won thee from thy father."
"Thou hast not won me from myself," she replied.
"Nay, but I shall."
"Thou dost overestimate thyself," she retorted. Catching up the fan and chaplet that her woman had let fall she made as though to run past him. But he put himself in her way, and with shining eyes, caught her in his arms.
"There, there! my sweet. I shall do thee no hurt," he laughed, quieting her struggles with an iron embrace.
"Thou art hurting me beyond any cure now," she panted wrathfully.
"It is thy fault. Have I not said I am sated with submission? If thou wouldst unlock mine arms, kiss me and tell me thou wilt be my queen."
"Let me go," she exclaimed, choking with emotion.
"Better for thee to tell me 'yes'; thou wilt save thy father a lie."
She looked at him speechless.
"I have said. To-morrow he will tell me that thou hast promised to wed me—whether thou sayest it or not. Spare him the falsehood, Masanath, and me a heartache."
"Wilt thou slander my father to me?" she demanded. "Art thou a knave as well as a tyrant?"
"Nay, I have spoken truly. Sad indeed were thy fate, my Masanath, did the gods mate thee with a knave, having fathered thee with a villain. So I am come to know of a truth what is thy will."
"And I can tell thee most truly. Sooner would I sit upon the peak of a pyramid all my life than upon a throne with thee; sooner would I be crowned with fire than wear the asp of a queen to thee. My father may wed me to thee, but I will never love thee, nor say it, nor pretend it. Thou wilt not win a wife if thou dost take a queen by violence. Release me!"
"Thou dost rivet mine arms about thee."
She stiffened herself and savagely submitted to her imprisonment.
Rameses laughed and, bending her head back, kissed her repeatedly and with much tenderness. She struggled madly, but he held her fast.
"This is but the beginning," he said in a low voice, "and I have won. The end shall be the same. I am a lovable lover, am I not, Masanath? Am I not good to look upon? Dost thou know a more princely prince, and is my father more of a king than I shall be? Where do I fail thee in thy little ideals? Am I harsh? Aye, but I am a king. Am I rough-spoken? Aye, because most of the world deserve it. Thou hast never felt the sting of my tongue, and never shalt thou unless thou breakest my heart. I have much to give thee; not any other monarch hath so much as I to give his queen. And yet I ask only thy love in return."
This was earnest wooing, which contained nothing that she might flout.So she strained away from him and sulked. Again he laughed.
"Khem and Athor and Besa have combed my heart and created a being of the desires they found therein! O, thou art mine, for the gods ordained it so." Again he kissed her, holding her in spite of her efforts to get away.
"There! carry thy hate of me only to the edge of sleep and dream sweetly of me."
He released her and continued down the hall.
As he turned out of the smaller passage into the larger corridor, Ta-user stepped forth from the shadow of a pillar. The huge column dwarfed her into tininess. The hall was but dimly lighted by a single lamp and that flared above her head.
Rameses paused, for she stood in his path.
"Not yet gone to thy rest?" he asked.
"Rest!" she said scornfully. "Gone to a night-long frenzy of relentless consciousness—weary tossing, wasted prayers. I have not rested since I left the Hak-heb."
Her voice sounded hollow in the great empty hall.
"So? Thou art ready for the care of the physicians by this, then, O mySister."
"I am not thy sister."
"What! Hast quarreled with the gentle Seti?"
"Rameses, do not mock me. Seti does not even stir my pulses. He could not rob me of my peace."
"What temperate love! Mine makes my temples crack and fills mine hours with sweet distress."
Ta-user looked at him for a moment, then raising her hands, caught the folds of his robe over his breast.
"Rameses, how far wilt thou go in this trifling with the Lady Masanath?"
"To the marrying priests." Without looking at her, he loosed her hands, swung them idly and let them go.
"She does not love thee," she said after a little silence.
"Thy news is old. She told me that not a moment since."
Ta-user drew a freer breath. "Thou wilt not wed her, then."
"That I will. I have vowed it. Go, Ta-user, the hour is late. Have thy woman stir a potion for thee, and sleep. I would to mine own dreams. They yield me what the day denies."
"Stay, Rameses," she urged, catching at his robes once more. "I would have thee know something. But am I to tell thee in words what I would have thee know? Surely I have not let slip a single chance to show thee by token. Art thou stubborn or blind, that thou dost not pity me and spare me the avowal?"
Rameses looked down at her upturned face without a softening line on his pallid countenance.
"Ta-user," he said deliberately, "had I been mummied and entombed I should have known thine intent. I marvel that thou couldst think I had not seen. Now, hast thou not guessed my mind by this? Have I not been sufficiently explicit? Must I, too, lay bare my heart in words?"
She did not speak for a moment. Then she said eagerly:
"Let not thy jealousy trouble thee concerning Seti—he is naught to me—I love him not—a boy, no more."
"Seti!" he exclaimed contemptuously. "I have no feeling against Seti save for his unfealty to the little child who loves him,—whose heart thou hast most deliberately broken."
"Not so," she declared vehemently. "I can not help the boy's attachment to me. She is a child, as thou hast said, and is easily comforted. Not so with maturer hearts like mine."
She put her arms about his neck, and flinging her head back, gazed at him with a heavy eye.
"O, wilt thou put me aside for Masanath? What is her little dark beauty compared to mine? How can she, who is not even a stately subject, be a stately queen? Wilt thou set the crown upon her unregal head, invest her with the royal robes, and yield thy homage to a scowl and a bitter word? And me, in whom there is no drop of unroyal blood, in whom there is all the passion of the southlands and all the fidelity of the north, thou wilt humiliate. The gods made me for thee—schooled me for thy needs and shifted the nation's history so that thou shouldst have need of me. Look upon me, Rameses. Why wilt thou thrust me aside?"
She was not dealing with Seti, or Siptah, or any other whom she had bewitched. There was no spell in the topaz eyes for Rameses. If her sorcery affected him at all, it won no more than a cursory interest in her next move.
"The night is too short to recount my reasons," he replied calmly, as he put her arms away. "But I might point out the snarling cur, Siptah, for one, and a few other comely lords of Egypt."
"What hast thou done in thy life?" she cried. "I am no more wicked than thou; thou hast found delight in others beside whom I am all innocence."
"It may be. Who knows but there is somewhat of the vulture-nostril in man, tickled with a vague taint? But, even then, the sense is fleeting, more or less as the natures of men vary. A man hath his better moments, and how shall they be entirely pure in the presence of shame? Nay, I would not mate and live for ever with mine own sins."
"Then as thou dost permit her spotlessness to cover her hate, let my love for thee hide my sins. From the first I have loved thee unasked. She is all unwon."
"Thou hast said it. She is unwon. But doth the lion prey upon the carcass? Nay. His kill must be fresh and slain by his own might. Thou didst stultify thyself by thine instant acquiescence. Come, let us make an end to this. The more said the more thou shalt have of which to accuse thyself hereafter."
But she dropped before him, her white robes cumbering his path, her arms clasping his knees.
"What more have I to do of which to accuse myself, O Rameses? Egypt knows why I came to court. Egypt will know why I shall leave it. What have I not offered and what hast thou given me? Where shall I find that refuge from the pitying smile of the nation? Spare my womanhood—"
"Ah, fie upon thy pretense, Ta-user! Art thou not shrewd enough to know how well I understand thee? Thou dost not love me. No woman who loves pleads beyond the first rebuff. Love is full of dudgeon. Thou dost betray thyself in thy very insistence. Thou beggest for the crown I shall wear, and if I were over-thrown to-morrow thou wouldst kneel likewise to mine enemy. Thou hast no womanhood to lose in Egypt's sight. As thy caprice turned from Siptah to me, let it return thee to Siptah once again. And if thy heart doth in truth wince with jealousy, think on Io."
He undid her arms, flung her from him and disappeared into the dark.