Masanath, suffocating with wrath and rebellion and overpowered with an exaggerated appreciation of her shame, tumbled down in the shadows of the narrow passage and wrapped her mantle around her head.
When she had wept till the creamy linen over her small face was wet and her throat hurt under the strain of angry sobs, and until she was sure that Rameses was gone, she picked herself up and went cautiously to the end of the passage to reconnoiter.
The prince stood under the single lamp in the great corridor, between her and the refuge of her chamber. Another was close to him, her hands upon his shoulders.
Masanath retired into the dusk and waited. When she looked again the hands were clasped about the prince's neck. Back into the shadows she shrank, pressing her tiny palms together in a wild prayer for Ta-user's triumph. After an interval she looked again in time to see Rameses undo the arms about his knees and fling the princess from him. Cold with dismay and shaking with her sudden descent from hope to despair, Masanath watched him disappear into the dark.
"O most ill-timed, iron continence!" she wailed under her breath. But the change which had come over Ta-user interested her immediately. Fascinated, she forgot to hide again, but the light of the single lamp did not penetrate to her position.
The princess kept the posture of abandoned humiliation, into which Rameses had flung her, until the heir's footsteps died away up the corridor. Then she raised herself and faced the direction the prince had taken. Her lithe body bent a little, her rigid arms were thrust back of her, and the hands were clenched hard. Her head was forced forward, the long neck curved sinuously like a vulture's. She began to speak in a whisper that hissed as though she breathed through her words. Masanath felt her flesh crawl and her soft hair take on life. Not all the words of the sorceress were intelligible. At first only her ejaculations were distinct.
"Puny knave!" Masanath heard. "Well for thee I do not love thee, else thou shouldst sleep this night in the reeking cave of a paraschite, with the whine of feeding flies about thee for dreams. Well for me that I do not love thee, for thine instant death would rob me of the long revenge that I would liefer have! Share thy crown with me! When Ta-user hath done with thee thou shalt have no crown to share! Turned from Siptah for thee! How thou wilt marvel when thou learnest that I never turned from Siptah nor wooed thee with a single glance but for Siptah's sake. Go on! Sleep well! Have no regrets, for thy doom was spoken long before this night's haughty work. Rather do I thank thee for thy scorn. It robs me of qualms and adds instead a dark delight in that which I shall do!"
She turned toward Masanath, walking swiftly. The fan-bearer's daughter, stricken with panic, fled, nor paused until she had passed far beyond the chamber of Ta-user.
Cowering in a friendly niche, she waited until the princess had disappeared, and then only after a long time was she sufficiently reassured to reach her own apartments.
It was the next day's noon before Masanath saw her father. Then he came with light step as she sat in her room. Approaching from behind her, he took her face between his hands, and tilting it back, kissed her.
"I give thee joy, Masanath. Thou hast melted the iron prince."
She rose and faced him. "Did Rameses tell thee I loved him?" she demanded, a faint hope stirring in her heart.
"Nay, far from it. He told me, and laughed as he said it, that if thy soft heart had any passion for him it was hate."
"Said he that? Nay, now, my father, thou seest I can not marry him." There was relief in her voice, and she drew near to the fan-bearer and invited his arms. He sat down instead, and drawing up a stool with his foot, bade her sit at his feet.
"Listen! It is a whim of the Hathors to conceal one's own feelings from him at times, that he may accomplish his own undoing, being blind. Much is at stake on thy love for the prince. Awake, Masanath! Thou dost love him; thou wilt wed him—and it shall go well with—all others whom thou lovest."
"Wouldst use me for a price, my father—wouldst barter thy daughter for something?" she asked in a tone low with apprehension.
"Ah, what inelegant words," he chid. "Thou dost miscall my purpose. Look, my daughter. Have I not served thee with hand and heart all thy life, asking nothing, sacrificing much? I, for one, have a debt against thee, and thou canst pay it in thy marriage to Rameses. Dost thou not love me enough to make me secure with the prince, and so, secure in mine advisership to the king?"
Masanath arose slowly, as if her movements kept pace with the progress of her realizations. Thus far she had been a loving and a believing child. The genial knavishness of her father had never appeared as such to her. In her sight he was cheery, great and lovable. Most of all she had flattered herself that he loved her better than life, and that his nights were sleepless in planning for her happiness. Now, a terrifying lapse in his care, or a more terrifying display of his real character, appalled her.
He had placed his demand in the most irresistible form, by calling upon her dutifulness. Being obedient, she felt constrained to submit, but being spirited, with her heart already bestowed, she resisted.
She floundered wildly for testimony that would justify her rebellion in his sight. The memory of Ta-user's threats came to her as unexpected and unbidden as all inspirations come.
"Shall I hold thee in thy position at the expense of Egypt's peace, if not at the expense of the dynasty?" she cried.
"By the heaven-bearing shoulders of Buto!" he responded laughingly, "thou dost put a high estimate on the results of thine acts. Add thereto, 'if not at the expense of the Pantheon,' and thou shalt have all heaven and earth at thy mercy."
"Nay, my father, hear me! Thou knowest Ta-user—"
"O, aye, I know Ta-user—all Egypt knows her—more particularly,Rameses."
"Thou dost not fathom the evil in her—"
"Her fangs are drawn, daughter."
"Hear me, father. Last night, after Rameses—after he—after he left me, he met Ta-user. And the talk between them was of such nature that she knelt to him and he flung her off. They were between me and mine apartments, and I could not but know of it. When he left her she made such threats that it were treason for me to give them voice again. What she asked of him I surmise. It could not have been other than a prayer to him, to fulfil what was expected of him concerning her. Thou knowest the breach between the Pharaoh and his brother, Amon-meses, is but feebly bridged till Rameses shall heal the wound in marriage with Ta-user. His failure, added to the vehement contempt he displayed for her last night, shall make that breach ten times as deep and ever receding, so there can be no healing of it."
Har-hat flung his head back and laughed heartily.
"Thou timid child! frightened with the ravings of a discarded wanton. She and her following of churls can do nothing against the Son of Ptah. The moles in the necropolis are richer than they. None of loyal Egypt will espouse their cause, and without money how shall they get them mercenaries? Nay, why vex thee with matters of state? All that is required of thee is thy heart for Rameses, no more."
"Judge not for Rameses, I pray thee," she insisted, coming near him."Knowing that I love him not, perchance he might be gentler withTa-user did he see his peril."
Again Har-hat laughed.
"I am not blind, O little reluctant," he said. "I know the secret spring of thy concern for Egypt—for Ta-user—for Rameses. I have not told thee all the stake upon thy love for the prince. Does it not seem that since a maiden will not love one winsome man there must be another already installed in her heart?"
She drew back, changing color.
"How little of the court-lady thou art, Masanath," he broke oft, looking at her face. "Thy sensations are too near the surface. Thou must teach thy face to dissemble. It was this very eloquence of countenance that betrayed thy foolish preferences. Mind thee, I know it to be but a maiden fancy which, discouraged, dies. But have a care lest it bring disaster upon him whom thou hast put in jeopardy of the fierce power of the prince."
Masanath's eyes widened with terror. The fan-bearer continued: "I have but to mention the name of Hotep—"
She clutched at her heart.
"Ah?" he observed with mild interrogation in the word. "How foolish thy caprice! Hotep does not thank thee. His marble spirit hath set its loves upon ink-pots and papyri and such pulseless things. How I should reproach myself if I must undo him—"
"Nay, bring no disaster on the head of the noble Hotep," she begged."He—I—there is naught between us."
"It is even as I had thought. I shall tell Rameses and send him to thee," he said, moving away.
With a bound she was between him and the door.
"If he ask tell him there is naught between me and the royal scribe, but send him not hither," she commanded with vehemence.
"If thou art rebellious, Masanath, I must chasten thee."
"Threaten me not!" she cried, thoroughly aroused, "or by the Mother of Heaven, I shall demand audience with Meneptah and tell him what thou wouldst do."
"Bluster!" he answered with an irritating laugh.
"Hast won the sanction of the Pharaoh for this betrothal?" she demanded.
"Meneptah's will is clay in my hands," he replied contemptuously.
"Vex me further and I shall tell him that!"
He caught her arm, and though the fierce grasp pinched her, she knew by that she had gained a point.
"And further," she continued, gathering courage at each word, "I shall ask him why thou shouldst be so anxious to keep the breach between him and his brother and defeat his aims at peace."
His face blazed and he shook her, but she went on in wild triumph. "I have a confederate in Rameses. He loves thee not. And I have but to hint and ruin thee beyond the restoring power of the marriages of a thousand daughters!"
Har-hat's forte had been polished insult, but when the evil in him would have expressed itself in its own brutal manner he was helpless.
"Hotep—Hotep—" he snarled.
The name was potent. Again she recoiled.
"I shall yield him up to Rameses," he went on.
"And in that very hour thou dost, in that same hour will I charge thee with treason before the throne of Meneptah!" she returned recklessly.
The pair gazed at each other, breathless with temper.
"Wilt thou wed Rameses?" he demanded.
"So thou wilt avoid the name of Hotep in the presence of Rameses and wilt shield him as if his safety were to bring thee gain," she replied, thrusting skilfully, "I will wed the prince in one year. Furthermore, in that time I shall be free to go where and when I please, to dwell where I please and to be vexed with the sight of thee or that royal monster no more than is my desire. Say, wilt thou accept?"
He had twitted her about her frank face. He could not tell now but that she was fearless and had measured her strength. He did not know that within she trembled and felt that her threats were empty. But, being guilty in his soul, and facing righteousness, Har-hat succumbed.
"Have it thy way, then, vixen," he exclaimed; "but remember, I hold a heavy hand above thy head and Hotep's!"
He strode out of her presence, and when she was sure he was gone, she fell on her face and wept miserably.
At Tanis, the next day after the arrival of Meneptah, there came a messenger from Thebes to Hotep, and the royal scribe retired to his apartments to read the letter.
And after he had read he was glad that he had secluded himself, for his demonstrations of relief at the news the message imparted were most extravagant and unrestrained. For the moment he permitted no reminder of Kenkenes' present plight to subdue his joy in the realization that his friend was not dead.
Having exulted, he read the letter again, and then he summoned all his shrewdness to his aid.
He would wait till the confusion of the court's settling itself had subsided before he presented the petition to Meneptah. Furthermore, he would relieve his underlings and write the king's communications with his own hand till he knew that the reply to Kenkenes had been sent. Har-hat should be watched vigilantly.
But order and routine were not restored in the palace of Meneptah. The unrest that precedes a national crisis had developed into irritability and pugnacity.
Tanis was within hearing of the plaints of Israel, and the atmosphere quivered with omen and portent. Moses appeared in this place and that, each time nearer the temporary capital, and wherever he came he left rejoicing or shuddering behind him.
Meanwhile the fan-bearer laughed his way into the throne. Meneptah's weakness for him grew into stubborn worship. The old and trusted ministers of the monarch took offense and sealed their lips; the new held their peace for trepidation. The queen, heretofore meek and self-effacing, laid aside her spindle one day and, meeting her lord at the door of the council chamber; protested in the name of his dynasty and his realm.
But the king was beyond help, and the queen, angry and hurt, bade him keep Har-hat out of her sight, and returned to her women. Thereafter even Meneptah saw her rarely.
The rise of the fan-bearer was achieved in an incredibly short time. It proved conclusively that until this period an influence against Har-hat had been at work upon Meneptah, and seeing that Rameses had subsided, having cause to propitiate the father of the woman he would wed, the courtiers began to blame the prince and talk of him to one another.
He seemed lost in a dream. In the council chamber he lounged in his chair with his eyes upon nothing and apparently hearing nothing. But the slow shifting of the spark in his sleepy eyes indicated to those who observed closely that he heard but kept his own counsel. If Meneptah spoke to him he but seconded Har-hat's suggestions. But once again the observant ones noted that the fan-bearer did not advise at wide variance with any of the prince's known ideas. Thus far the most caviling could not see that Har-hat's favoritism had led to any misrule, but the field of possibilities opened by his complete dominance over the Pharaoh was crowded with disaster, individual and national.
The betrothal of Rameses to Har-hat's daughter gave further material for contention. It seemed to indicate that the fan-bearer had builded for himself for two reigns.
Hotep's situation was most poignantly unhappy. He was fixed under the same roof with the man that had taken his love by piracy; he must greet him affably and reverently every day; he must live in daily contemplation of the time when he must meet Masanath also as his sovereign—the wife of the prince, whom he must serve till death. Hardest of all, he must wear a serene countenance and cover his sorrow most surely, for his own sake and for Masanath's.
Ta-user still remained at court. Seti, in a fume of boyish indignation at Rameses, attended her like a shadow. Among the courtiers there were others who were not alive to the true nature of the princess and who joined Seti in his resentment against the heir.
Amon-meses and Siptah, snarling and malevolent, had left the court abruptly on the morning of its departure for Tanis. The Hak-heb received them once again, and an ominous calm settled over that little pocket of fertility in the desert—Nehapehu.
Thus the court was torn with factions; old internal dissensions made themselves evident again, but the vast murmur in Goshen was heard above the strife.
All this had come to pass in the short space of a month. When half of that time had elapsed, Hotep, fearing to delay the petition of Kenkenes longer, lest conditions should become worse rather than better, met the Pharaoh in the hall one day and gave him the writing. Earnestly the scribe impressed Meneptah with the importance of the petition and begged him to acquaint himself in an hour of solitude with its contents and the identity of the supplicant.
Meneptah promised and continued to his apartments. There Har-hat came in a few moments, and Meneptah, after his custom, gave over to him the state communications of the day, and after some little hesitation, tossed the petition of Kenkenes among them.
"Thou canst attend to this matter as well, good Har-hat. Why should I take up the private concerns of my subjects when I am already burdened with heavy cares? But do thou look to this petition faithfully. It may be important, and I know not from whom it is. I promised Hotep it should be given honest attention."
For seven days thereafter every letter sent by the king was written by Hotep. At the end of that time he met Meneptah again, and bending low before him, asked pardon for his insistence, and begged to know what disposition the Son of Ptah had made of the petition of his friend. He was irritably informed that the matter had been given over to the fan-bearer for attention, since the Pharaoh had been too oppressed with heavier matters to read the letter.
The state of the scribe's mind, after receiving the information, was indescribable.
He controlled himself before Meneptah, but he suffered no curb upon his feelings when he had returned to his own apartments. After a long time he succeeded in choking his anger, disgust and grief, realizing that each moment must be turned to account rather than wasted in railing.
He viewed the situation with enforced calm. Har-hat was in full possession of the facts. He had the signet and was absolute master of Meneptah. The Hathors had surrendered Kenkenes wholly into the hands of his enemy. Furthermore, the fate of the Israelite seemed to be sealed. At the thought Hotep gnashed his teeth.
In his sympathy for his friend's strait, the scribe gave over his objections to Rachel. Kenkenes had suffered for her, and, if he would, he should have her.
Between the king and persuasion was Har-hat, vitally interested in the defeat of any movement toward the aid of Kenkenes. The one hope for the sculptor was the winning over of the Pharaoh, and only one could do it. And that was Rameses, who was betrothed to the love of Hotep, and against her will.
Nothing could have appeared more distasteful to the scribe than the necessity of prayer to the man for whom he cherished a hate that threatened to make a cinder of his vitals. But the more he rebelled the more his conscience urged him.
He flung himself on his couch and writhed; he reviled the Hathors, abused Kenkenes for the folly of sacrilege which had brought on him such misfortune; he execrated Meneptah, anathematized Har-hat and called down the fiercest maledictions on the head of Rameses. Having relieved himself, he arose and, summoning his servant, had his disordered hair dressed, fresh robes brought for him, and a glass of wine for refreshment. On the way to the palace-top he met Ta-user, walking slowly away from the staircase. Rameses, solitary and luxurious, was stretched upon a cushioned divan in the shadow of a canopy over the hypostyle.
"The gods keep thee, Son of the Sun," Hotep said.
"So it is thou, Hotep. Nay, but I am glad to see thee. MethoughtTa-user meant to visit me just now. Is there a taboret near?"
"Aye, but I shall not sit, my Prince."
"Go to! It makes me weary to see thee stand. Sit, I tell thee!"
Hotep drew up the taboret and sat.
"I come to thee with news and a petition," he began. "It is more fitting that I should kneel."
"Perchance. But exertion offends mine eyes in such delicious hours as these, and I will forego the homage for the sake of mine own sinews. Out with thy tidings."
"Thou dost remember thy friend and mine, that gentle genius, Kenkenes."
"I am not like to forget him so long as a bird sings or the Nile ripples make music. Osiris pillow him most softly."
"He is not dead, my Prince."
"Nay!" Rameses cried, sitting up. "The knave should be bastinadoed for the tears he wrung from us!"
"Thou wouldst deny my petition. I am come to implore thee to intercede for him."
Rameses bade him proceed.
"Thou art acquainted with the nature of Kenkenes, O Prince. He is a visionary—an idealist, and so firmly rooted are his beliefs that they are to his life as natural as the color of his eyes. He is a beauty-worshiper. Athor possesses him utterly, and her loveliness blinds him to all other things, particularly to his own welfare and safety.
"In the beginning he fell in love, and a soul like his in love is most unreasoning, immoderate and terribly faithful. The maiden is beautiful—I saw her—most divinely beautiful. She is wise, for I saw that also. She is good, for I felt it, unreasoning, and when a man hath a woman intuition, a god hath spoken the truth to his heart. But she is a slave—an Israelite."
"An Israelite!"
Hotep bowed his head.
"By the gods of my fathers, I ought not to marvel! Nay, now, is that not like the boy? An Israelite! And half the noble maids of Memphis mad for him!"
"He is not for thee and me to judge, O Rameses," Hotep interrupted. "The gods blew another breath in him than animates our souls. For thee and me such conduct would be the fancies of madmen; for Kenkenes it is but living up to the alien spirit with which the gods endowed him. It might be torture for him to wed according to our lights."
"Perchance thou art right. Go on."
"It seems that Har-hat looked upon the girl, and taken by her beauty, asked her at the Pharaoh's hands for his harem."
"Ah, the—! Why does he not marry honorably?"
"It is not for me to divine," Hotep went on calmly. "The fan-bearer sent his men to take her, but she fled from them to Kenkenes, and he protected her—hid her away—where, none but Kenkenes and the maiden know. Har-hat is most desirous of owning her, but Kenkenes keeps his counsel. Therefore, Har-hat overtook him in Tape, where he went to get a signet belonging to his father, and imprisoned him till what time he should divulge the hiding-place of the Israelite."
"Never was there a true villain till Har-hat was born! What poor feeble shadows have trodden the world for knaves before the fan-bearer came. Go on. Hath he put him to torture yet?"
"Aye, from the beginning, though not by the bastinado. He rends him with suspense and all the doubts and fears for his love that can haunt him in his cell. But I have more to tell. There was a signet, an all-potent signet, which belonged to the noble Mentu—"
"Aye, I remember," Rameses broke in. "My grandsire gave it to the murket in recognition of his great work, Ipsambul. It commands royal favor in the name of Osiris. That should help the dreamer out of his difficulty."
"Aye, it should, my Prince, but it did not. Kenkenes sent it to thePharaoh, with a petition for his own freedom, but the cares of statewere so pressing that the Son of Ptah gave the letter, unopened, toHar-hat for attention."
Rameses laughed harshly.
"Kenkenes would better content himself. The Hathors are against him," he cried. "Was there ever such consummate misfortune? What more?"
"Is it not enough, O Rameses?" Hotep answered sternly. "He hath suffered sufficiently. Now is it time for them, who profess to love him, to bestir themselves in his behalf. Thou knowest how near the fan-bearer is to the Pharaoh. Persuasion can not reach the king that worketh against Har-hat. Thou alone art as potent with the Son of Ptah. Wilt thou not prove thy love for Kenkenes and aid him?"
Rameses did not answer immediately. Thoughtfully he leaned his elbow on his knee and stroked his forehead with his hand. His black brows knitted finally.
"My hands are tied, Hotep," he began bluntly. "I permit the sway of this knave over my father because I am constrained. Till he begins to achieve confusion or bring about bad government I must let him alone. There is no love between us. We have no quarrel, but I despise him for that very spirit in him which makes him do such things as thou hast even told me. If his offense had been against Egypt or the king or myself, I could balk him. But this is a matter of personal interest to him, which would be open and flagrant interference—"
Hotep broke in earnestly.
"Surely so small a matter of courtesy—if such it may be called—should not stand between thee and this most pressing need."
"Aye, thou hast said—if it were only a small matter of courtesy. Butthe breach of that same small courtesy entails great disaster for me.Thou knowest, O my Hotep, that I am betrothed to the daughter ofHar-hat."
With great effort Hotep kept a placid face.
"The Lady Masanath would abet him who would aid Kenkenes," he said.
"Even so. But hear me, I pray thee, Hotep. This most rapacious miscreant would hold his favor with the king. He knew I loved Masanath, and he held her out of my reach till I should consent to countenance his advisership to my father. I consented—and should I lapse, I lose Masanath."
Hotep was on his feet by this time, his face turned away. Rameses could not guess what a tempest raged in his heart.
"But be thou assured," the prince continued grimly, "that only so long as Masanath is not yet mine, shall I endure him. After that he shall fall as never knave fell or so deserved to fall before. Aye,—but stay, Hotep. I have not done. I have some small grain of hope for this unfortunate friend of ours. The marriage hath been delayed. I shall press my suit, and wed Masanath sooner, if she will, and Kenkenes need not decay in prison—"
Hotep did not stay longer. He bowed and departed without a word.
"Out upon the man, I offered all I could," Rameses muttered, but immediately he arose and hurried to the well of the stairway.
"Hotep!" he called. The scribe, half-way down, turned and looked up.
"Return to me in an hour. Give me time to ponder and I may more profitably help thee," the prince commanded. Hotep bowed and went on.
The hour was barely long enough for the smarting soul of the scribe to soothe itself. Deep, indeed, his love for Kenkenes that he returned at all. Masanath's name, spoken so familiarly, so boastingly, by the prince was fresh outrage to his already affronted heart. It mattered not that Rameses did not know. His talk of marriage with Masanath was exultation, nevertheless. Once again, Hotep flung himself on his couch and wrestled with his spirit.
At the end of the hour, he went once again to Rameses. He was calm and composed, but he made no apology for his abrupt departure, when last he was there. Perhaps, however, he gained in the respect of Rameses by that lapse. The blunt prince was more patient with the sincere than with the diplomatic.
"Thou hast said," the prince began immediately, "that Har-hat hath imprisoned Kenkenes till what time he shall divulge the hiding-place of the Israelite?"
Hotep bowed.
"The fan-bearer charges him with slave-stealing?"
"And sacrilege," the scribe added. The prince opened his eyes. "Aye, Kenkenes carried his beauty-love into blasphemy. He executed a statue of Athor in defiance of the sculptor's ritual. For this also, Har-hat holds a heavy hand over him."
"A murrain on the lawless dreamer!" Rameses muttered. "Is there anything more?"
Hotep shook his head.
"He deserves his ill-luck. Mark me, now. He will not go mad with a year's imprisonment, and he will profit by it. Furthermore, he can not be persuaded into betraying the Israelite, if he knows how long and how much he will have to endure. Once sentenced, Har-hat can add nothing more thereto. Has he confessed?"
"To me, he did. I know not what he said to the Pharaoh. But theGoddess Ma broodeth on the lips of Kenkenes."
Rameses nodded, and clapped his hands. The attendant that appeared he ordered to bring the scribe's writing-case and implements. When the servant returned, Hotep, at a sign from Rameses, prepared to write.
"Write thus to the jailer at Tape:
"'By order of the crown prince, Rameses, the prisoner, Kenkenes, held for slave-stealing and sacrilege, is sentenced to imprisonment for one year—'"
Hotep lifted his pen, and looked his rebellion.
"Write!" the prince exclaimed. "I do him a kindness, with a lesson added. Were it in my power to free him I would not—till he had learned that the law is inexorable and the power of its ministers supreme. Go on—'at such labor as the prisoner may elect. No further punishment may be added thereto.' Affix my seal and send this without fail. Thou canst write whatever thou wilt to Kenkenes. For the Israelite, I shall not concern myself. The nearer friends to Kenkenes may look to her. Mine shall be the care only to see that they are not harassed by the fan-bearer. In this, I fulfil the law. Let Har-hat help himself."
He dropped back on his divan and Hotep slowly collected his writing materials and made ready to depart. Having finished, he lingered a little.
"A word further, O Rameses. Kenkenes is proud. He would liefer die than suffer the humiliation of public shame. Memphis believes him dead. None but thyself, Har-hat, the noble Mentu and I know of his plight. Har-hat hath no call to tell it. Mentu will not; I shall not. Wilt thou keep his secret also, my Prince?"
"Far be it from me to humiliate him publicly. Let him have a care, hereafter, that he does not humiliate himself."
"I thank thee, O Rameses."
Saluting the prince, Hotep departed.
That night he wrote to Kenkenes and to Mentu, and the two messengers departed ere midnight.
Meanwhile Kenkenes seldom saw a human face. Food and water in red clay vessels, bearing the seal of Thebes, were set inside his door by disembodied hands. At intervals he saw the keeper, always attended by the inevitable scribe, but the visit was a matter of inspection and rarely was the prisoner addressed.
Though he grew to expect these visits, each time the bar rattled down he trembled with the hope that the jailer brought him freedom. Each successive disappointment was as acute as the last, made more poignant by the torturing certainty that his hopes were vain. The effect of one was not at all counteracted by the other.
Some time after dawn the sun thrust a golden bar, full of motes, across the door, a foot above his head. In a space the beam was withdrawn. The heat and dust of the midday came, instead. Gnats wove their mazes in the narrow casement that opened on the outside world, and now and then the twitter of birds sounded very close to it. Kenkenes knew how they flashed as they flew in the sun. They were prodigal of freedom. At nightfall, if he stood at full height against the door, he could see a thread of cooling sky with a single star in its center.
This was all his knowledge of the world. Hour after hour he paced the narrow length of the cell, till the circumscribed round made him dizzy. If he flung himself on his straw pallet, he did not rest. The mind has no charity for the body. If there is to be no mental repose it is vain to hope for physical. When the inactivity of his uneasy pallet became intolerable, he resumed his pace.
He expected the return of his messenger in twenty days after the man's departure. At the expiration of that time his suspense and apprehension became more and more desperate at the passing of each new day. In rapid succession he accepted and rejected the thought that the messenger had played him false, had been assassinated and robbed; that Meneptah had recalled the signet, or had added the penalty of suspense to his indorsement of Har-hat's fiat of imprisonment.
When the climax of his sensations was reached, his self-sufficiency collapsed and he entered into ceaseless supplication of the gods. He vowed costly sacrifices to them, adding promises of self-abnegation which became more comprehensive as his distress increased. At the end of a month he had consecrated everything at his command. Then he subsided into a numb endurance till what time his prayers should be answered.
Eight days later, about mid-afternoon, while he lay on his pallet, the door was flung open and his messenger stood without. With a cry, Kenkenes leaped to his feet and wrenched the scroll from the man's hand. With unsteady fingers he ripped off the linen cover and read.
The letter was from Hotep, conveying such information regarding his imprisonment as we already know. If was couched in the gentlest terms, and contained that essence of hope which loving spirits can extract from the most desperate situation, for another's sake. But for all the kindly intent of the scribe, his news was none the less unhappy. The dreaded had come to pass, and the war between hope and fear was at an end. Kenkenes read the missive calmly, and paid the messenger according to his promise. The jailer, who had come with the man, read the sentence and bade the prisoner make his choice of labor.
"Anything, so it will but give me a glimpse of the horizon," he said.
"Thou wilt pay dearly for thy sky," the keeper cautioned him. "The softest labor is within doors."
"Give me my wish according to the command of the prince."
The jailer shrugged his shoulders. "As thou wilt. Make ready to follow the canal-workers, to-morrow."
When the door fell shut again, Kenkenes returned to his pallet and re-read the scroll.
A year's imprisonment! The sentence defined was the sum of daily shame, sorrow, homesickness and misanthropy. Shame in the proud man admits of no degrees of intensity. If it exist at all, it is superlative. To this was added the loss of Rachel. How little it would take to satisfy him, now that she was wholly denied to his eyes! Only to look down on her again, unseen, from his aery in the rocks over the valley!
Hotep had offered him hope, based on circumstantial evidence and fact. Har-hat could not add to his sentence. That was the only indisputable cheer he could give. But would Rameses stay the chief adviser's hand, seeing that the winning of Masanath depended on the prince's neutrality, as Hotep had explained? If Rachel fled to Mentu, as Kenkenes had bidden her, could the murket protect her, even at his own peril? Might not the heavy hand of the powerful favorite fall also on the head of the king's architect? Wherein was the murket more immune than his son? Rachel's destruction seemed to be decreed by the Hathors.
Such was his thought, and he raised himself to curse the Seven Sisters, and growing reckless, he included the unhelpful gods in his maledictions. The blasphemy comforted him strangely, and he persisted till his heated brain was cooled.
At dawn the next day he laid aside his fillet of gold, his trappings and noble dress, and donning the kilt or shenti of the prisoners, was handcuffed to another malefactor and taken forth to the sun-white plain between Thebes Diospolis and the Arabian, hills, to labor in the canals of the nome.
Here, looking continually upon crime, brutality and misery, he asked himself the divine motive in creating man, and having found no answer, he began to question man's debt to the gods.
He was going the way of all the weak in faith. He had pleaded with his deities, and they had not heard him. He asked himself what he had done to deserve their disfavor. The sacrilege of Athor was too slight an offense—if offense it were—and here again he paused, set his teeth and swore that he had done no wrong and the god or man that accused him was impotent, unjust and ignorant. Once again he asked himself what he had done to deserve ill-use at the hands of the Pantheon. They had turned a deaf ear to him, and why should he render them further homage? The doctrine of divine Love, displayed through chastisement, was not in the Osirian creed.
His eyes grew bold through rebellion and he attacked the wild inconsistencies of the faith with the destructive instrument of reason. Each deduction led him on, fascinated, in his apostasy. Each crumbling tenet started another toward ruin. Finding no sound obstacle to stay him, he fell with avidity to rending the Pantheon.
But he found no cheer nor any hope that day when he told himself bitterly, "There is no God."
The court was gone and Masanath was making the most of each day of her freedom. Memphis was in a state of apathy, worn out by revel and emptied of her luminaries, Ta-meri, intoxicated with the importance of her position as lady-in-waiting to the queen, had departed with her husband, the cup-bearer. Io had returned to her home in On, with an ache in her brave little heart that outweighed even Masanath's for heaviness. The last of Seti's lover-like behavior toward her dated back to a time before the court had gone to Thebes—long, long ago.
Ta-user, also, had gone, but the fan-bearer's daughter did not regret her. The other ladies who remained in Memphis, frightened at the loftiness of Masanath's future, were uneasy in her presence and seemed more inclined to bend the knee before her than to continue the girlish companionship that had once been between them.
So she must entertain herself, if she were entertained at all.
For a time after the departure of Meneptah, Masanath had given herself up to tears and gloom. When she had worn out her grief, the elastic spirit of youth reasserted itself and once again she was as cheerful as she felt it becoming to be under the circumstances.
The fan-bearer had taken a house for his daughter's use, during her year of solitary residence, and her own servants, a lady-in-waiting, the devoted Nari, Pepi, a courier and upper servant, lean, brown and taciturn, and several slaves, both black and white, had been left with her. The older daughter of the fan-bearer lived with her husband in Pelusium. Her home could have been an asylum for the younger, but Masanath was determined to know one year of absolute independence before she entered the long bondage of queenship.
It was now the middle of June, the height of Egyptian summer. In a little space the marshes, which had been, for eight months, favorite haunts of fowlers, would be submerged, for the inundation was not far away.
Masanath would hunt for wild-duck and marsh-hen, while there was yet time.
It was an hour after sunrise. Her raft, built of papyrus, was boat-shaped and graceful as a swan. Pepi was at the long-handled sweep in the stern. Masanath sat in the middle, which was heaped with nets, throw-sticks, and bows and arrows. A pair of decoy birds, tame and unfettered, stood near her, craning their small heads, puzzled at the movement of the boat which was undecipherable since they were motionless. Nari sat in the prow, her hands folded, her face quite expressionless. The service of the day was out of the routine, but as a good servant, she was capable of adapting herself to the change.
The little craft darted away from the painted landing for pleasure boats, and reaching midstream, was turned toward the north. The current caught it and swept it along like a leaf.
As they passed the stone wharf at Masaarah, Nari looked toward the quarries with a show of interest on her face. She even caught her breath to speak. Masanath noted her animation.
"What is it, Nari?"
"Naught but a bit of gossip that came to mine ears, last night, and the sight of Masaarah urged me to tell it again. It is said the Hebrews of these quarries rose against the new driver and drove him out of the camp, crying, 'Return us our Atsu, return us our Atsu.'"
"What folly!" Masanath exclaimed. "If they had been the host which crowds Goshen to her bounds, it might serve. But this handful in rebellion against Egypt! The military of the Memphian nome will crush them as if they had been so many ants."
"I know," the serving-woman admitted. "The soldier I had it from, said that the city commandant would move against them by noon this day."
"The gods help them!" Pepi put in.
"Thy prayer is too late, Pepi," Masanath answered. "The gods should have cautioned them ere they took the step. And yet," she continued, musing, "straits may become so sore that aught but endurance is welcome."
Her servants looked at her and at each other, understanding.
Nari went on:
"But the soldier told me further that the Israelites had spent the night chanting and dancing before their God, and it seems from this spot that the quarries are empty. They do not fear, boasting their God's care."
Masanath shook her head. "He must look to them at once, ere the soldiery fall upon them. His time for aid is short," she said.
A silence fell, and the raft passed below Masaarah. Again Nari spoke, proving that she had heard and thought upon the last words of her mistress.
"Are not the gods omnipotent and everywhere?"
"Aye, so hast thou been taught, Nari."
"Our gods, and the gods of every nation like them?" the serving-woman persisted.
"The gods of Egypt are so, and each nation boasts its gods equally potent."
"Mayhap the Hebrews' God will help them," Nari ventured.
Masanath was silent for a moment. "He hath deserted them for long," she said at last, "but they are hard-pressed. Mayhap their loud supplications will reach Him in His retreat."
"They boast that He hath returned."
"Let Him prove Himself," Masanath insisted stoutly.
When next she spoke there was no hint of the past serious talk in her voice.
"A pest on the ban," she exclaimed. "Look at the Marsh of the Discontented Soul. It fairly swarms with teal and coot, and see the snipe on the sand." She stood up and watched the sandy strip they were nearing. They were a goodly distance out from the shore, but Pepi poled nearer midstream. "The pity of it," she sighed; "but I doubt not the place swarms with crocodile, also."
She sat down again, and looked at the decoy birds. Their timidity had increased into actual fear. Masanath reached a soothing hand toward one of them and it fled. The motion of the poling-arm of Pepi frightened it again, and with a flirt of its wings it retreated toward Masanath.
"Stop a moment, Pepi," she said. "Let me quiet this frightened thing.I can not fathom its terror."
"The unquiet soul, my Lady," Nari whispered, in awe.
"Strange that the gods gifted the creatures with keener sight than men," Masanath answered, somewhat disturbed. She moved toward the bird, talking softly, but the persuasion was as useless as if the decoy had been a wild thing. At the nearer approach of the small hand it took wings and flew. The mate followed, unhesitating. The shining distance toward the west swallowed them up.
The trio on the raft looked at one another.
"Nay, now, saw ye the like before?" Masanath exclaimed, the tone of her voice divided between astonishment and irritation at the loss of her pets.
"Let us leave this vicinity," Pepi said, suiting the action to the word, "it is unholy." He seized the sweep and drove the raft about, poling with wide strokes. At that moment, a cry, which was more of a hoarse whisper, broke from his lips.
"Body of Osiris! The river! the river!"
Masanath leaned on one hand and looked over the side of the raft. With a bound and a shivering cry, Nari was cowering beside her, the little craft tossing on the waves at the force of the leap. Instantly, Pepi was at her other side, on his knees, praying and shaking. And together the trio huddled, but only one, Masanath, was brave enough to watch what was happening.
From the bottom of the Nile a turbid convection was taking place, as if the river silt had been stirred up, but the fuming current was assuming a dull red tinge. The action had been rapid. Already the stain had predominated, streaks of clear water, only here and there, clarifying the opaque coloring. The boat rode half its depth in red, the paddle dripped red, the splashes of water within on the bottom were red, the sun shone broadly into the mirroring red, a sliding, reeking red! A lavender foam broke its bubbles against the drifting raft and a tepid, invisible vapor, like a moist breath, exhaled from the ensanguined surface.
Schools of fish, struggling and leaping, filled the space immediately above the water, and cumbered the raft with a writhing mass. Numberless crocodiles bounded into the air, braying, snorting, rending one another and churning the river into froth by their hideous battle. Dwellers of the deep water drifted into the upper tide—monsters of the muck at the Nile bottom, turtles, huge crawfish, water-newts, spotted snakes, curious bleached creatures that had never seen the day, great drifts of insects, with frogs, tadpoles—everything of aquatic animate life, came up dead or dying terribly. Along either bank water-buffalo and wallowing swine, which had been in the pools near the river, clambered ponderously, snorting at every step.
Vessels were putting about and flying for the shore. From the prow of one tall boat, with distended sails, a figure was seen to spring high and disappear under the red torrent. Rioting crews of river-men fought for first landing at the accessible places on the banks. Memphis shrieked and the pastures became compounds of wild beasts that deafened heaven with their savage bellowing.
Pepi and Nari had no thought of saving themselves. It was Masanath who must save them. They clung to her, dragging her down with their arms when she attempted to rise. Bereft of reason, they made the liquid echoes of the river ring with wild cries of mortal terror.
Masanath had sufficient instinct left to urge her to fly. With a mighty effort she shook off her servants and sprang to the sweep. Instantly they made to follow her, but she threatened them with a hunting-stick. The combined weight of the three in the stern would have swamped the frail boat.
Seizing the sweep she poled with superhuman strength toward the nearest shore—the Marsh of the Discontented Soul. If she remembered the spirit, she forgot her fear of it. Any terror was acceptable other than isolation on this mile-wide torrent of blood.
The raft grounded, and as a viscous wash of red lapped across it, she leaped forth, landing with both feet in the horror. She floundered out and crying to her servants to follow her, fled like a mad thing up the sandy stretch toward the distant wall of rock.
The boat, lightened of her weight, received a backward thrust as she leaped, and drifted out of the reeds. The heavy current caught it and swept it across the smitten river to the Memphian shore. It bore two insensible figures.
Masanath ran, thinking only to leave the ghastly flood behind. Her wet over-dress flapped about her ankles. It, too, was stained, and she tore if off as she ran. Ahead of her was a sagging limestone wall, with no gap, but Masanath, hardly sane, would have dashed herself against it, if hands had not detained her.
"Blood! Blood!" she shrieked. "Holy Ptah save us!"
"Peace!" some one made answer. "God is with us."
The voice was calm and reassuring, the hands firm. Here, then, was one who was strong and unafraid, and therefore, a safe refuge. No longer called upon to care for herself, Masanath fell into the arms of the brave unknown and ceased to remember.
Consciousness returned to her slowly and incompletely. Horror had dazed her, and her surroundings, but faintly discovered in an all-enveloping gloom, were not conducive to mental repose and clearness.
She became aware, first, that she was somewhere hidden from the sunshine and beyond reach of the strange odor from the Nile.
Next she realized that she was sheltered in a cave; that slender lines of white daylight sifted through the interstices of a door; that a lamp was burning somewhere behind a screen; that a hairy thing sat in a corner and looked at her with half-human eyes, and that, as she shrank at the sight, the warm support under her head moved and a fair face, framed with golden hair, bent over her.
Then her eyes, becoming clearer as her recollection returned, wandered away toward the walls of her shelter. They had been hewn by hands. There was an opening in one side, leading into another and a darker crypt. Was not this a tomb? She was in the Tomb of the Discontented Soul! Terrified, she struggled to gain her feet and fly, but the awful memory of the plague without returned to her overwhelmingly. Gentle hands restrained her, and the same voice that had sought to soothe her before, continued its soft comforting now.
"Thou art safe and sheltered," she heard. "No evil shall befall thee."
Was this the spirit of the tomb? If so, it was most lovely and kindly. But a solemn voice issued out of the dark cell beyond. This was the spirit, of a surety. She cowered against her fair-haired protector and shuddered. But the maiden answered the voice in a strange tongue. Masanath would have known it to be Hebrew, had she been composed. But now it was mystic, cabalistic.
Presently the maiden addressed her.
"Deborah asks after thee, Lady. How shall I tell her thou findest thyself?"
"Oh, I can not tell," Masanath answered. "What has happened? Is it true or did I go mad?"
The Israelite smoothed her hair. "It is a plague," she said.
"Then the hand of Amenti is on us," the Egyptian shuddered. "Whither shall we flee?"
"Ye can not flee from the One God," the voice from the crypt said grimly.
"Nay, but what have I done to vex the gods?" Masanath insisted. "O let me go hence. Where are my servants?"
"It is better for thee to bide here," the voice went on relentlessly. "For outside the sheltering neighborhood of the chosen people, the hand of the outraged God shall overtake Egypt and scorch her throat with thirst and make her veins congeal for want of water."
Masanath gained her feet, crying out wildly:
"My servants! Where are they? Let me forth."
The Israelite put an assuring arm about her. "Thou wilt not dare to face the Nile again," she warned. "Stay with us."
"To starve! To perish of thirst! To die of pestilence! The gods have left us. We are undone!"
"Aye, the gods have left you," the voice continued harshly. "Ye are given over to the vengeance of the God of Abraham. Howl, Egypt! Rend thyself and cover thy head with ashes. Thy destruction is but begun. For a hundred years thou hast oppressed Israel. Now is the hour of the children of God!"
Masanath wrung her hands, but the voice went on.
"As the Nile flows, so hath the blood of Israel been wasted by the hand of Egypt. Now shall the God of Abraham drain her veins, even so, drop for drop. For the despoiling of Israel shall her pastures and stables be filled with stricken beasts—for the heavy hand of the Pharaohs shall the heavens thunder and scourges fall. And the wrath of God shall cool not till Egypt is a waste, shorn of her corn and her vineyards and her riches, and foul with dead men."
Nothing could have been more vindictive than this disembodied voice. Masanath thrust her fingers through her hair, and drawing her elbows forward, sheltered her face with them.
"When have I offended against the Hebrew?" she cried, sick with terror."Why should your awful God destroy the innocent and the friend ofIsrael among the people of Egypt?"
Rachel, who had stood beside her, with an increasing cloud on her face, now spoke in Hebrew. There was mild protest in her tones.
"The plague will pass," the voice from the inner crypt continued."Seven days will it endure, no more."
"Deborah is mystic," Rachel added softly, "and is gifted with prophetic eyes. Much hath she suffered at Egypt's hands, and her tongue grows harsh when she speaks of the oppression."
"Nay, but let me go," Masanath begged. "Where are my servants? Came they not after me when I fled?"
"None followed thee, Lady, and thy raft went adrift."
"Let me out of this hideous place, then, for I must seek them. They may be dead."
Her tone was imperious, and Rachel, silently obedient, led her to the entrance and pushed aside the door. Instantly the terrible turmoil over Egypt smote upon her ears; next she saw the Nile, moving slowly, black where its clear surfaces had been green, scarlet and froth-ridden where the sun had shone upon transparent ripples and white foam; after that, the strange odor came to her, recalling the smell of the altars, but now magnified till it was overpoweringly strong. She sickened and turned away.
Setting the door in place, Rachel led her back into a corner of the outer chamber and laid her down on the matting there.
"The Lord God will care for thy servants. Fret thyself no further, but be content here until the horror shall pass. I shall attend thee, so thou shalt not miss their ministrations." The Israelite spoke with gentle authority, smoothing the dark hair of her guest. Command in the form of persuasion is doubly effective, since it induces while it compels. Masanath was most amenable to this manner of entreaty, since it disarmed her pride while it governed her impulses. Thus, though her inclination urged against it, she ate when the Israelite brought her a bit of cold fowl and a beaker of wine at midday and again at sunset. And at night, she slept because the Israelite told her she was safe and bade her close her eyes.
But once she awoke. The lamp burned behind a wooden amphora rack and the interior of the stone chamber was not dark. The voice in the inner chamber was still and the human-eyed beast in the corner was now only a small hairy roll. In the silence she would have been dismayed, but close beside her sat the Israelite. One hand toyed absently with the golden rings of a collar about her throat. The face was averted, the hair unplaited and falling in a shower of bright ripples over the bosom and down the back. The beauty of the picture impressed itself on Masanath, in spite of her drowsiness. But as well as the beauty, the dejection in the droop of the head, the unhappiness on the face, were apparent even in the dusk. Here was sorrow—the kind of sorrow that even the benign night might not subdue. Masanath was well acquainted with such vigils as the golden Israelite seemed to be keeping.
Her love-lorn heart was stirred. She spoke to Rachel softly.
"Come hither and lie down by me," she said. "I am afraid and thou art unhappy. Give me some of thy courage and I will sorrow with thee."
The Israelite smiled sadly and obeyed.
It was dawn when the fan-bearer's daughter awoke again.
The door had been set aside, and on the rock threshold a squat copper lamp was sending up periodic eruptions of dense white vapor. Rachel was feeding the ember of the cotton wick with bits of chopped root. The breeze from the river blew the fumes back into the cave, filling the dark recesses with a fresh and pungent odor.
Masanath, wondering and remembering, raised her head to look through the opening. Day was broad over Egypt, and the turmoil had subsided. The silence was heavy. But the Nile was still a wallowing torrent of red.
She sank back and drew the wide sleeves of her dress over her face.Rachel put the lamp aside, set the door in place and came to her.
"Thou art better for thy long sleep," she said. "Now, if thou canst bear, as well, with the meager food this house affords, the plague will not vex thee sorely." Then, in obedience to the Israelite's offer, Masanath sat up and suffered Rachel to dress her hair and bathe her tiny hands and face with a solution of weak white wine.
"The water which we had stored with us is also corrupted. I fear we shall thirst, if we have but wine to wet our lips," Rachel explained.
"Thou dost not tell me that ye abide in this place?" the fan-bearer's daughter asked, taking the piece of fowl and hard bread which Rachel offered her.
"Even so," Rachel responded after a little silence.
"Holy Isis! guests of a spirit! What a ghastly hospice for women! How came ye here?"
For a moment there was silence, so marked that Masanath ceased her dainty feeding and drew back a little.
"Are ye lepers?" she asked in a frightened voice.
"Nay, we are fugitives," Rachel answered.
"Fugitives! What strait brought you to seek such asylum as this?"
Again a speaking pause.
"Who art thou, Lady?" Rachel asked, at last.
"I am Masanath, daughter of Har-hat, fan-bearer to the Pharaoh."
"And thou art a friend of the oppressed?" the Israelite continued.
"It is my boast before the gods," the Egyptian answered with dignity.
"I am Rachel, of Israel, daughter of Maai, and I have fled from shame. In all Egypt, this is the one and only refuge for such as I. If my hiding-place were published, no help could save me from the despoiler. My one protector is she who lies within. She is my foster-mother, old and ill from abuse at the hands of brutal servants. Thou hast my story."
As Rachel ceased, Deborah called from within.
"There is more," she said. "Come hither. I am moved to tell thee."
Masanath obeyed with hesitation and, pausing in the doorway of the inner chamber, heard the story of the Israelites. Great was her perplexity and her sorrow when she heard the name of Kenkenes spoken calmly and without grief. They did not know he was dead! She held her peace till the story was done, How much more would her heart have been tortured could the old woman have given her the name of the offending noble! Instead, all unsuspecting, she heard the story of Har-hat's wrong-doing with now and then an exclamation of indignation, condemning him heartily in her soul.
"The time for the Egyptian's return is long past, but he will come soon," Deborah concluded.
Masanath slowly turned her head and looked at Rachel. This, then, was the love of that dear, dead artist, for whom Memphis mourned and had ceased to wait. How doubly grievous his loss, for Rachel was undone thereby! How heart-breaking to see her wait for him who would come no more! Masanath choked back her tears and said, when she was composed again:
"Ye need not molder in this cave, I can hide you in Memphis."
"Nay, we will await him here."
"But the Nile will be upon your refuge in three weeks. Ye would starve if ye drowned not," the Egyptian protested earnestly.
"It may be we shall not wait so long," Rachel put in.
Masanath looked at her while she thought busily. "If I tell it, I break a heart. But if they bide here, they die. None other will come to them by chance or on purpose."
"I would not risk it," she answered. Returning to the pallet of matting she finished her breakfast in silence. After a little sigh she glanced at the wine in one of the small amphoras which Rachel had brought to her as a drinking-cup. "Mayhap the plague is past," she said, hinting, "and I am athirst."
Rachel took up another jar and went forth. The hairy creature in the corner, tethered to the amphora rack, slipped his collar and followed her.
As soon as the Israelite was gone, Masanath went into the inner chamber. Standing by the old woman, who lay upon a mattress, set on the top of the sarcophagus, she said hurriedly:
"Ye may not remain here. Kenkenes is known to me and he will not return."
"Thou dost not tell me he was false to us," Deborah exclaimed. "Nay, I will not believe it," she declared.
"Nay, he was the soul of honor, but he is dead."
"Dead!" the old woman cried, catching at her dress.
"Hush! Tell her not!"
"Aye, thou art right. Tell her not! But—but how did he die?"
"By drowning. His boat was discovered battered and overturned among the wharf-piling at Memphis, some weeks agone."
The old woman was silent for a moment and then she shook her head.
"He is a resourceful youth and he may have procured another boat and set this one adrift to deceive his enemies. Yet, the time has been so long, it may be; it may be."
"None in Memphis doubts it. His father hath given him up and his house and his people are in mourning. But we may not lose this moment in surmises. Wilt thou go with me into Memphis—if this sending is withdrawn?"
"There is no other choice," Deborah answered after some pondering. "Kenkenes offered us refuge with his father—alas! that the young man should die!" After shaking her head and muttering to herself in her own tongue, she went on. "But Rachel hesitated to accept, at first from maiden shyness, though now she hath a secret fear, I doubt not, that the Egyptian may have played her false. The sorry news must be told her ere she would go."
"Nay, keep it from her yet a while. Tell her not now."
"How may we?" Deborah asked helplessly.
"Listen. I am a householder in Memphis for a year. The place is secure from much visiting and only my trusted servants are there. They will not tell her—none else will—thou and I shall keep discreet tongues, but if the fact creep out, in the way of such things, we need not accuse ourselves of killing her hope. As thou sayest, the young man may not be dead. But let us not risk anything.
"And furthermore," she caught up the line of her talk before Deborah could answer, "I may as well work good out of an evil I can not escape. I am betrothed to the heir of the crown of Egypt—"
Deborah flung up her hand, drawing away in her amazement.
"Thou! A coming queen over the proud land of Mizraim—a guest in the retreat of enslaved Israel!"
Masanath bent her head. "Ye, in your want and distress, are not more poor or wretched than I."
The old Israelite's brilliant eyes glittered in the dark.
"Hold!" she exclaimed. "Thou art not a slave—"
"Nay, am I not?" Masanath rejoined swiftly. "A slave, a chattel, doubly enthralled! But enough of this, I would have said that if I wed the prince, I can ask Rachel's freedom at his hands."
"So thou canst," Deborah said eagerly—but before she could continue, Rachel appeared at the outer opening, the amphora held by one arm, the ape by the other. Her face was alight with a smile that seemed dangerously akin to tears.
"Here is water, clean and fresh, but the Nile is bank-full of the plague. It was Anubis that showed me!" She lowered the amphora into the rack and took up the linen band the ape had slipped. "Oh, it is ungrateful to tie thee, Anubis," she went on, "but thou must not betray us, thou good creature."
"It was Anubis!" Deborah repeated inquiringly.
"Aye. Not once did the hideous sight disturb him. He was athirst and he made me a well in the sand with his paws. See how Jehovah hath sent us succor by humble hands." She stroked the hairy grotesque and tethered him reluctantly.
Deborah muttered under her breath. "I liked the creature not, since he made me think of the abominable idolatries of Mizraim, but he hath served the oppressed. He shall be more endurable to me."
The night fell and the dawn came again and again, but holy Hapi was denied. Hour by hour the fuming lamp was set before the entrance, the door was put a little aside, that the entering air might be purified for those within. When the aromatic was exhausted, Rachel sought for the root once more, among the herbs at the river-bank; for the atmosphere, unsweetened, was beyond endurance.