The valley in which Thebes Diospolis was situated was wide and the overflow of the Nile did not reach the arable uplands near the Arabian hills. Three thousand years before, Menes had established a system of irrigation which had added hundreds of square miles to the agricultural area of Egypt, and every monarch after him had unfailingly preserved the institution. From Syene to Pelusium the country was ramified with canals, and vast sums and great labor were expended yearly upon their keeping.
Since the work was heavy and the demand for it constant, it became a punitive part of each nome's administration. Therefore, the convicts whose misdeeds were too serious to be punished adequately by the bastinado or the fine, and yet not grave enough to merit a sentence to the quarries or the mines, were sent to the canals.
So here in the canals of the eastern Thebaid, was Kenkenes, a prisoner known only by a number. His fellows were unjust public weighers, usurers, rioters, habitual tax-evaders, broken debtors, forgers and housebreakers.
The season of toil had been unusually severe. The native convicts had more to endure than the lash, the bitter fare, the terrible sun by day, and a bed of dust by night, for the afflictions that befell all Egypt were theirs also. The strange prisoner among them suffered these things and had further the drawback of his own physical strength to combat. The plagues overcame the weaker convicts and decimated the number of laborers, so Kenkenes was put, alone, to the work that two men had done before.
However, the accumulation of toil came upon him gradually and his supple frame toughened as the demand upon it increased. Nor was he sensible of pain or great weariness, for his mind was far away from the sun-heated desert of the eastern Thebaid. He spoke seldom, and held himself aloof from his fellow prisoners. He regarded his taskmasters as if they were written authority no more animate than watered scrolls of papyrus. No one doubted from the beginning that he was high-born, and this mark of a great fall might have exposed him to abuse; but his great strength and unusual deportment did not invite mistreatment. In short, he was looked upon as mildly mad.
When Kenkenes had rejected the gods, hope, sundered from faith, groped wildly and desperately. In his rare moments of cheer he could not anticipate freedom without trusting to something, and in his misanthropy his doubt had placed no limit on its scope, questioning the honor of king or slave. In these better moments he wanted to believe in something.
So constantly had his sorrows attended him that he had come to dread the night, when there was neither event nor labor to interrupt their dominance over his mind. He caught eagerly at any less troublous problem that might suggest itself, for he felt that he had been conquered by his plight.
As he lay by night, apart from the rest of the prisoners, he gazed at one glittering star that stood in the north. About it were scintillating clusters, single stars and faint streaks of never-dissipated mists. Night after night that one brilliant point had remained unmoved in its steady gaze from the uppermost, but the clusters rotated about it; the single stars were westward moving; the mists shifted. And a question began to trouble him: What hand had marshaled the stars? Seb,[1] whom Toth had supplanted? Osiris, whom Set destroyed? The young man put them aside. They were feeble. Nothing so weak had created the mighty hosts of heaven. So he began to weigh the question.
What hand had marshaled the stars? An accident? Since man must worship something supernal, what more tremendous than the cataclysm, if such it were, that evolved the stars. Had the same or a series of such events brought forth the earth and man? Was the accident continuously attendant? Did it spread the Nile over Egypt and call it again within its banks every year? Did it clothe the fields and bring them to harvest every revolution of the sun? Did it hang the moon like a sickle in the west or lift it over the Arabian hills like a bubble of silver every eight and twenty days?
If it were omnipotent, infinite and omnipresent, could it be an accident? If it were, why not worship it and call it God?
The reasoning led him again in the direction of the gods, but he saw no reason for a multiplicity of deities. Each member of the Egyptian Pantheon presided over some special field of human interest or human environment. To him, who had lived next to nature till her study had become a worship, there were no flaws in her chronology, no shortcomings or plethora. The earth responded to the skies; the waters were in harmony with the earth, the harvests with all. There was unity in the control over the universe and the hand that was powerful enough to swing the moon was mighty enough to flood the Nile, was tender enough to nourish the harvests, was wise enough to govern men. Where, then, was any need of a superfluity of powers?
But behold, something had thrust a dread hand between the tender ministrations of this other Thing and the benefits to men. By this time it had reached the remotenesses of Egypt that it was the God of the Hebrews. The young man arrived at this alternative in his reasoning: There was a minister of good and another of evil—two powers presiding over the earth,—or,—the sole minister was offended and had deserted its charge, or had loosed upon Egypt the evil at its command. Here Kenkenes paused. He could not arrive at any conclusion on the matter or convince himself that he had not reasoned well.
Night after night, he fell asleep upon his ponderings, but they returned to him with fresh food for thought after every sunset. The reconstruction of something worshipful was more fascinating than had been the demolition of the gods. It took many a night's meditation for the evolution of any fixed idea from the bewildering convection of thought. And at last he had concluded only that there was one thing—Power—Purpose, which was greater than man.
This was not a great achievement. He had simply permitted the universal, indefinable claim to piety, inherent in every reasoning thing, to assert itself.
Great and sincere and beyond expression was his amazement and his joy when a taskmaster called him from the canal-bed one day and informed him that he was free.
The order was shown him at his request, and the name of the Princess Ta-user as his champion filled him with puzzlement. State news filtered slowly down even to the level he had occupied for the past eight months. He had heard that it was Masanath whom the Hathors had destined to wear the crown of queen to Rameses; the convicts had known of the supremacy of Har-hat. He could not understand how it came that Ta-user, lately discarded, could prevail upon the crown prince to persuade Meneptah, or could herself persuade the king to the overthrow of the fan-bearer's wishes in the matter. Furthermore, why should the princess have taken up his cause? But he did not tarry while he pondered.
His raiment and his money, conscientiously preserved for him by the authorities, had been sent to him, and a little way outside the camp he stepped from the lowest to his rightful rank, swifter than he had descended from it. Covering his sun-burnt shoulders with his robes, assuming the circlet once again, he went toward the distant city of Thebes, once more in spirit and dress the son of the royal murket.
At the heavy-walled prison across the Nile he asked after the signet. It had not been returned with the writing. Neither was there any word to him concerning his prayer to Pharaoh for the liberty of Rachel. It began to dawn on him that he had been released only after he had been sufficiently punished; that he had failed in the most vital aims of his mission; that the signet, having been found, seemed now to be lost irretrievably. For a space his relief at his freedom was overshadowed by chagrin, but after a little he recovered himself. "At least I am free to care for her, now," he reflected.
Just as he emerged from the imposing doorway of the house of the governor of police, he was jostled by a half-grown boy. To Kenkenes, it seemed that the youth had been on the point of entering, but instead he apologized inaudibly and walked away.
A great rush of impatience, suspense, eagerness and heart-hunger fell on the young artist the instant he knew his footsteps were turned toward Memphis and Rachel. The six days that must intervene between the present time and the moment he entered the old capital seemed insufferable. Never did a lover so fume against the inexorable deliberation of time and the obstinate length of distance. The preliminaries to departure seemed to accumulate and lengthen—and lessen in importance. Haste consumed him. Under a momentary impulse, with all seriousness he began to consider his own fleetness of foot as more expedient than travel by boat. But he put the thought aside, and summoning as much patience as was possible, set about with all speed preparing to depart.
Thebes had not awakened from the coma of horror into which it had lapsed during the great plagues. It was Kenkenes' first visit to the city since he had left it for the desert, eight months before. Now, the change in the great capital of the south impressed itself upon him, in spite of his haste and his all-absorbing thought of Memphis. The activities of life seemed to be suspended. The call to prayers could be heard hourly from the great gongs of the temple at Karnak, when in happier days the sound had been lost in the city's noises within the very shadow of the pylons. He could hear strains of music in religious processions, when the wind was fair, but he missed the acclaim of the populace. Besides these sounds, silence had settled over Thebes. Booths were closed in many instances; the streets, which ordinarily were quiet, were now deserted; there were no carpets swinging from balconies and housetops, and the citizens he saw were sober of countenance and of garb. So few, indeed, he met, that he noted each passer-by as an event. Once, some distance away from him, he saw again the youth whom he had met in the doorway of the prison.
At a caterer's he purchased supplies for a day's journey and looked about him for a carrier. Catching the boy's eye, he beckoned him, but the youth turned on his heel and disappeared. The son of the merchant offering himself, Kenkenes continued rapidly toward the river where he engaged a vessel to take him to Memphis.
He roused the boatmen into immediate activity by promises of reward for every mile gained over the average day's journey. Their passenger and cargo shipped, the men fell to their oars and the craft shot out of the still waters by the landings into midstream and turned toward the north.
As they cleared, the private passage boat belonging to a nobleman swept up near to them and crossing their track took the same direction several hundred yards nearer the Libyan shore. Kenkenes noted that it was a bari of elegant pattern, deep draft and more numerously manned than his. He noted further that one of the boat's crew was the youth he had met thrice in a short space at Thebes.
"Small wonder that he was not willing to serve me," he commented to himself.
If he observed the companion boat during the next five days it was to remark that since his own vessel kept sturdily alongside one of superior rowing force his men were of a surety earning the promised reward. When they entered the long straight stretches of the Middle country the elegant stranger dropped behind and attended Kenkenes and his crew more distantly thereafter.
Except for these few occasions, Kenkenes had no thought of his surroundings. He stood in the prow and looked down the shimmering width of river, in the direction his heart had taken long before him. And when the white cliffs that proved him close to Memphis came shouldering up from the northern horizon, he had forgotten the stranger in the eager, trembling anticipations that possessed him.
[1] Seb—The Egyptian Chronos.
On the morning of the eighteenth day, immediately after sunrise, Rachel came to the curtains over Masanath's door, and put them aside.
Within, she saw her hostess yet in her bed-gown, her hair disordered and her tiny feet bare. She stood before a shrine of silver, the statue of Isis in turquoise displayed therein, and an offering of pressed dates before it. But there was no sign of devotion or humility in the attitude of the Egyptian. One plump arm was stretched toward the image and the hand was tightly clenched. Neither was there any reverence in her voice.
Rachel dropped the curtain and waited. The words came distinctly through the linen hangings.
"Thou false one![1] thou ingrate! Is it for this that every day I have sent two fat ducks to the altar in thy name? Is it that I must be separated from my beloved and wedded to the man I hate, that I have prayed to thee day and night? Who hath been more faithful to thee and whom hast thou served more cruelly? Mark thou! If thou darest to cause this thing to come to pass, night nor day shall I rest until I have found the bones of Osiris and scattered them to the four winds of heaven! So carefully shall I hide them, so widely shall I scatter them, that no help of Nepthys, Toth or Anubis shall let thee gather them up again! Aye, I will do it, though I die in the doing and remain unburied, I swear by Set! Remember thou!"
Rachel went softly away.
After a time she returned. She had covered her white dress with a mantle of brown linen and over her head she wore a wimple of the same material. Her hair had been coiled and secured with a bodkin. When she put her hand under the wimple and drew it across her mouth, only her fair skin and blue eyes distinguished her from any other Egyptian lady dressed for a long journey.
She lifted the curtains and entered, and it was long before she came forth again. Then her eyes were hidden and her head bowed, for she had bidden farewell to Masanath. She was returning to Goshen.
In the street before the house she entered her litter and with Pepi walking beside her went to the Nile. And there they were joined by Anubis. He had been absent for days, so his greeting was extravagant, his loyalty inalienable. He entered the bari Pepi had loaded with Rachel's belongings, and would not be coaxed or menaced into disembarking.
"Nay, let him come," Rachel said at last. "Thou canst set him on the shore opposite the tomb. He will leave us willingly there."
So they pushed away.
Rachel wrapped her wimple about her face and removed it once only to gaze at the quarries of Masaarah. They were deserted. Months before, directly after the affliction of the Nile, the Israelites had been returned to Goshen.
After the bari had passed below the stone wharf, Rachel covered herself and neither spoke nor moved. Her heart was heavy beyond words.
Pepi broke the silence once.
"Shall we drop the ape first, my Lady?"
Rachel shook her head. Anubis was her last hold on Kenkenes.
At the Marsh of the Discontented Soul, the bari nosed among the reeds and grounded gently. Rachel stood for a moment gazing sadly across the stretch of sand toward the abrupt wall against which it terminated inland. Pepi, already on shore, reached a patient hand toward her and awaited her awakening. Anubis landed with a bound and made in a series of wide circles for the cliff. His escape aroused Rachel and she stepped out of the boat. After a moment's thought, she bade Pepi pull away from the shore and await her at a safe distance.
"I shall stay no longer than to write my whereabouts on the tomb, but thy boat here may attract the attention of others on the river, and hereafter they might ask what thou didst in this place. And I am not afraid."
The slow Egyptian obeyed reluctantly, shaking his head as he stood away from shore.
With a sigh that was almost a sob, Rachel walked back over the sand toward the cave that had been her only shelter once.
She did not fear it. Kenkenes had crossed this gray level of sand in the night and its wet border at the river had borne the print of his sandal. He had made the tomb a home for her, he had knelt on its rock pavement and kissed her hands in its dusk and had passed its threshold, like a shadow, to return no more. And here, too, was the other faithful suggestion of her lost love—the pet ape. How his fitful fidelities had directed themselves to her! She caught him up as he passed her. He struggled, turned in her arms, and then became passive, breathing loudly.
She climbed the rough steps and sat down on the topmost one to think.
She was surrounded with old evidences of her sorrow. Nor was there any cheer before her. Escape was in prospect, but it was liberty without light or peace—a gray freedom without hope, purpose or fruit. Her retrospect gradually brightened, never to brilliance but to a soft luminance, brightest at the farthermost point and sad like the dying daylight. She summarized her griefs—danger, death, suspense, shame and long hopelessness. The lonely girl's stock of unhappiness took her breath away and she pushed back the wimple as if to clear away the oppression.
Anubis realized his moment of freedom was short and with an instant bound he was out and gone.
In no little dismay Rachel started in pursuit, but she had not moved ten paces from the bottom of the steps before she paused, transfixed.
An Egyptian, not Pepi, was hauling a boat into the reeds. The craft secure, he turned up the slant, walking rapidly.
There was no mistaking that commanding stature.
Anubis descended on him like an arrow. The man saw the ape, halted a fraction of an instant, caught sight of Rachel, and with a cry, his arms flung wide, broke into a run toward her.
The ape bounded for his shoulder, but missed and alighted at one side, chattering raucously. The running man did not pause.
The world revolved slowly about Rachel, and the sustaining structure of her frame seemed to lose its rigidity. She put out her hands, blindly, and they were caught and clasped about Kenkenes' neck. And there in the strong support of his tightening arms, her face hidden against the leaping heart, all time and matters of the world drifted away. In their place was only a vast content, featureless and full of soft dusk and warmth.
Gone were all the demure resolutions, the memory of faith or unfaith. Nothing was patent to her except that this was the man she loved and he had returned from the dead.
Presently she became vaguely aware that he was speaking. Though a little unsteady and subdued, it was the same melody of voice that she seemed to have known from the cradle.
"Rachel! Rachel!" he was saying, "why didst thou not go to my father as I bade thee? Nay, I do not chide thee. The joy of finding thee hath healed me of the wrench when I found thee not, at my father's house, at dawn to-day. But tell me. Why didst thou not go?"
"I—I feared—" she faltered after a silence.
"My father? Nay, now, dost thou fear me? Not so; and my father is but myself, grown old. He was only a little less mad with fear than I, when he discovered that thou shouldst have come to him so long ago, and camest not. It damped his joy in having me again, and I left him pale with concern. Did I not tell thee how good he is?"
"Aye, it was not that I feared him, but that I feared that thou—" And she paused and again he helped her.
"That I was dead? That I had played thee false? Rachel! But how couldst thou know? Forgive me. Since the tenth night I left thee I have been in prison."
"In prison!" she exclaimed, lifting her face. "Alas, that I did not think of it. It is mine to beg thy forgiveness, Kenkenes, and on my very knees!"
"So thou didst think it, in truth!" She hid her face again and craved his pardon.
But he pressed her to him and soothed her.
"Nay, I do not chide thee. Had I been in thy place, I might have thought the same. But it is past—gone with the horrors of this horrible season—Osiris be thanked!"
"Thanks be to the God of Israel," she demanded from her shelter.
"And the God of Israel," he said obediently.
"Nay, to the God of Israel alone," she insisted, raising her head.
He laughed a little and patted her hands softly together.
"It was but the habit in me that made me name Osiris. There is no god for me, but Love."
"So long, so long, Kenkenes, and not any change in thee?" she sighed."How hath Egypt been helped of her gods, these grievous days?"
"The gods and the gods, and ever the gods!" he said. "What have we to do with them? Deborah bade me turn from them and this I have done with all sincerity. Much have I pondered on the question and this have I concluded. Egypt's holy temples have been vainly built; her worship has been wasted on the air. There was and is a Creator, but, Rachel, that Power whose mind is troubled with the great things is too great to behold the petty concerns of men. My fortunes and thine we must direct, for though we implored that Power till we died from the fervor of our supplications, It could not hear, whose ears are filled with the murmurings of the traveling stars. Why we were created and forgotten, we may not know. How may we guess the motives of anything too great for us to conceive? Whatsoever befalls us results from our use at the hands of men, or from the nature of our abiding-place. We must defend ourselves, prosper ourselves and live for what we make of life. After that we shall not know the troubles and the joys of the world, for the tombs are restful and soundless. Is it not so, my Rachel?"
She shook her head. "Thou hast gone astray, Kenkenes. But thou wast untaught—"
"I have reasoned, Rachel, and the Power I have found in my ponderings, makes all the gods seem little. Thy God must manifest himself more fearfully; he must overthrow my reasoning before I can bow to him. And if, of a surety, he is greater than the Power I have made, will he need my adoration or listen to my prayers? Nay, nay, my Rachel. If thou wilt have me worship, let me fall on my face to thee—"
She interrupted him with a quick gesture.
"Kenkenes, have I prayed in vain for the light to fall on thee?" she asked sadly.
He smiled and moved closer, looking down into her face as he had done when he studied it as Athor.
"Nay, hast thou done that, and hast thou not been heard? Thou dost but fix me in mine unbelief. Did any god exist he would have heard thy supplications. Come, let us make an end of this. There are sweeter themes I would discuss. Where hast thou been, these many months? Not here in this haunted cave?"
His lightness sank her hope to the lowest ebb. A sudden hurt reached her heart. His unregeneracy suggested unfaithfulness to her. Their positions had been reversed. It was she that had been denied. Duty reasserted itself with a chiding sting.
"I have been a guest with Masanath—"
"The daughter of Har-hat!" he cried, retreating a step.
"The daughter of mine enemy," she went on. "She found me here by accident and took me to her home in Memphis. There Deborah died. And there, eighteen days agone, I discovered who it was that sheltered me, and now I return to my people."
"The fan-bearer did not find thee?" he demanded at once.
"Nay. Unseen, I looked upon his man. Alas! the wound to the daughter-love in Masanath! On the morrow she departeth for Tanis where she will wed with the Prince Rameses."
Kenkenes' hands fell to his sides. "Nay, now! Of a surety, this is the maddest caprice the Hathors ever wrought. In the house of thine enemy! Well for me I did not know it! I should have died from very apprehension. And all these months thou wast within sight of my father's doors!"
"I saw him once," she said.
"And discovered not thyself! How cruelly thou hast used thyself,Rachel. He would have told thee, long ago, why I came not back."
"Aye, now I know; but, Kenkenes, I could not go, fearing—"
"Enough. I forgot. Come, let us go hence. Memphis and my father's house await thee now."
"But I go to my people, even now," she answered, with averted face and unready words.
Kenkenes whitened.
"And leave me?" he asked quietly.
"Think me not ungrateful," she said. "I have said no words of thanks since there is none that can express a tithe of my great indebtedness to thee."
"I have achieved nothing for thee. Not even have I won thy freedom. I have failed. But shameless in mine undeserts, I am come to ask my reward nevertheless." He was very near to her, his face full of purpose and intensity, his voice of great restraint.
"That which once thou didst refuse to hear, thou hast known for long by other proof than words," he went on. "Let me say it now. I love thee, Rachel." Taking her cold hands he drew her back to him.
"Once I forbore," he continued, the persuasive calm in his manner heightening, "because I knew it would hurt thee to say me 'nay,' I told myself that I was brave, then, when the actual loss of thee was distant. But thou wilt leave me now and my fortitude for thy sake is gone. I am selfish because I love thee so. The extreme is reached. I can withstand no more. Dost thou love me, Rachel?"
What need for him to wait for the word that gave assent? Was there not eloquent testimony in her every feature and in every act of that hour he had been with her? But his hands trembled, holding hers, till she told him "aye."
"Then ask what thou wilt of me," he said, the restraint gone, desperation taking its place. "I submit, so thou dost yield thyself to me. Shall I pray thy prayers, kneel in thy shrines? Shall I go with thee into slavery? Shall I learn thy tongue, turn my back on my people, become one of Israel and hate Egypt? These things will I do, and more, so I shall find thee all mine own when they are done."
But she freed her hands to cover her face and weep. Kenkenes sighed from the very heaviness of his unhappiness.
"Thou shouldst hate me, if, to win thee, I bowed in pretense to thyGod," he said weakly.
Perhaps his words awakened a hope or perhaps they made her desperate. Whatever the sensation, she raised her head and spoke with a sudden assumption of calm:
"Naught could make me hate thee, Kenkenes, but I should know if thou didst pretend. Thou art as transparent as air. Thou art honest, guileless—too good to be lost to the Bosom that must have thrilled with joy when he beheld what a beautiful soul His hands had wrought. Few of His believers have conceived the greatness of Jehovah as thou hast, O my Kenkenes. In that art thou proved ripe for His worship. Thou hast found His might to be so limitless that thou thinkest thyself as naught in His sight. In that hast thou gone astray. The mind is gross that can not heed the weak and small. Shall we say that the spinner of the gossamer, the painter of the rose is not fine? Shall He forget His daintiest, frailest works for His mightiest? Thou, artist and creator thyself, Kenkenes, answer for Him. Nay; not so! He, who hath an ear to the lapse between an hour and an hour, hath counted His song-birds and numbered His blossoms. For are they, being small, less wondrous than the heavens, His handiwork? Shall He then fail to hear the voice of His sons in whom He hath taken greater pains?"
She paused for a moment and looked at him. His expression urged her on.
"Does it not trouble thee when I, whom thou hast but lately known, am in sorrow? How much more then does thine unhappiness vex His holy heart, who fashioned thee, who blew the breath of life into thy nostrils! Wilt thou deny the Hand that led thee to me, here, in this hour—that cared for me during the season of distress and peril? Nay, my beloved, there is no greater virtue than gratitude. It is an essential in the make-up of the great of heart—wilt thou put it out of thy fine nature?"
Again she paused, and this time he answered in a half-whisper:
"Thou dost shake me in mine heresy."
"It is but newly seated in thy credence," she said eagerly, "and is easy to be put aside—easier to cast off than was the idolatry. Put it away in truth from thee and grieve thy Lord God no more."
"Would that I could, now, this hour. We may discipline the soul and chasten the body, but how may we govern the mind and its disorderly beliefs? It laughs at the sober restraint of the will; my heart is broken for its sake, but it is reprobate still."
"And I have not won thee?" she asked, shrinking from him.
"Give me time—teach me more—return not to Goshen. Come back toMemphis with me!" he begged in rapid words, pressing after her. "Noman uncovered so great a problem, alone, in a moment. How shall I findGod in an hour?"
"O had I the tongue of Miriam!" she exclaimed.
"Go not yet. Wilt thou give me up, after a single effort? Miriam could not win me, nor all thy priests. I shall be led by thee alone. A day longer—an hour—"
"But after the manner of man, thou wilt put off and wait and wait.Thou art too able, Kenkenes, too full of power for aid of mine—"
"Rachel, if thou goest into Goshen—" he began passionately, but she clutched him wildly, as if to hold him, though death itself dragged at her fingers.
"Hide me!" she gasped in a terrified whisper. "The servant of Har-hat!"
At the mention of his enemy's name, Kenkenes turned swiftly about.
Two half-clad Nubians were at the river's edge, hauling up an elegant passage boat. It was deep of draft and had many sets of oars. Approaching over the sand, hesitatingly, and with timid glances toward the tomb beyond, were four others. The foremost was the youth he had seen in Thebes. The next wore a striped tunic. Fourth and last was Unas.
"Now, by my soul," Kenkenes exclaimed aloud, "there is no more mystery concerning the boy." He turned and took Rachel in his arms.
"Now, do thou test the helpfulness of thy God! I have been tricked and I see no help for us. Enter the tomb and close the door, and since thou lovest honor better than liberty, let this be thine escape."
He put his only weapon, his dagger, into her hands. For an instant he gazed at her tense white face; then bending over her, he kissed her once and put her behind him.
"Go," he said.
"What want ye?" he demanded of the men.
"A slave," Unas answered evilly, stepping to the fore.
"Your authority?" The fat courier flourished a document and held up a blue jewel, hanging about his neck. Meneptah had forgotten his promise to return the lapis-lazuli signet to Mentu.
"Thou art undone, knave!" the courier added with a short laugh. He clapped his hands and the four Nubians advanced rapidly upon Kenkenes. There was to be no parley.
Kenkenes glanced at the youth. He was not full grown,—spare, light and small in stature.
"I am sorry for thee, boy," Kenkenes muttered. "Thy gods judge between thee and me!"
The Nubians, two by two, each man ready to spring, rushed.
With a bound, Kenkenes seized the youth by the ankles and swung him like an animate bludgeon over his head. The attacking party was too precipitate to halt in time and the yelling weapon swung round, horizontally mowing down the foremost pair of men like wooden pins. The weight of the boy, more than the force of the blow, jerked him from the sculptor's hands. Kenkenes recovered himself and retreated. As he did so, he stumbled on a fragment of rock. He wrenched it from its bed and balanced it above his head.
The powerful figure with the primitive weapon was too savage a picture for the remaining pair to contemplate at close quarters. Unas had made no movement to help in the assault. He had felt the weight of the sculptor's hand and had evidently published the savagery of the young man to his assistants. They had come prepared to capture an athletic malefactor, but here was a jungle tiger brought to bay. They retired till their fallen fellows should arise.
The vanquished were struggling to gain their feet, and Kenkenes noted it with concern. He was not gaining in this lull. There were other stones about him. He hurled the fragment with a sure aim, and a Nubian, who had been overthrown, dropped limply and stretched himself on the sand.
With a howl the remaining three charged. They were too close for the second missile of Kenkenes to do any slaughter, and he went down under the combined attack, fighting insanely.
"Slit his throat," Unas shrieked, tumbling on the captive, as Kenkenes' superhuman struggles threatened to shake them off. One of the men raised himself and made ready to obey. Holding to Kenkenes with one hand, he drew a knife from his belt and prepared to strike.
At that instant, the captive caught sight of a pale woman-face, the eyes blazing with vengeance. There was a flash of a white-sleeved arm and the thump and jolt of a dagger driven strongly through flesh. The murderous Nubian yelled and tumbled, kicking, on the sand. He carried a knife at the juncture of the neck and shoulder.
Instantly there was a chorus of yells.
"She-devil! Hyena!"
Unas detached himself from the struggle and plunged after Rachel, now in full sight of Kenkenes. He saw her retreat, warding off the fat courier with her hands; he saw her stumble and fall; he saw Anubis fly, with a chatter of rage, in the face of the courier, and struggling mightily, he threw off his captors, and leaped to his feet.
And then the light went out in Egypt!
[1] It was not uncommon for Egyptians to threaten their gods.
A water-carrier in Syene was carrying a yoke across his shoulders and the great earthen jars swung ponderously as he walked. His bare feet disturbed the red dust of the path down to the granite-basined river, and tiny clouds puffed out on each side of the way at every footfall.
On a housetop in Memphis, a gentlewoman, in a single gauze slip and many jewels, lounged on a rug and gazed at nothing across the city. A flat-shanked Ethiopian fanned her listlessly and dreamed also.
A little boy, innocent of raiment, stood before a new tomb, oppositeTanis and awaited his father who labored within.
The water-carrier collapsed in his tracks; the lady shrieked; the Ethiopian dropped the fan; the little boy fell on his face—all at the same instant.
From the sea to the first cataract, from the deepest recess in the Arabian hills to the remotest peak in the Libyan desert, Egypt was blinded and muffled and smothered in a dead, black night—even darkness that could be felt.
Kenkenes stood still. Harsh hands were no longer on him and for an instant no sound was to be heard. Profound gloom enveloped him. His every sense was frustrated.
Some one of his assailants had found his heart with a knife and this was death, he thought.
Then strange, far-off murmurings filled his ears. From the river and beside him went up wild, hoarse cries of men in mortal terror. Memphis began to drone like a vast and troubled hive. The distant pastures became blatant and the poultry near the huts of rustics cackled in wild dismay. In the hills about beasts whimpered and the air was full of the screaming of bewildered birds.
With the awakening of sound, Kenkenes knew that another plague had befallen Egypt.
The dread that might have transfixed him was overcome by the instant recollection of Rachel's peril. No restraining hands were upon him, but he stood yet a space attempting to catch some rift in the thick night. There was not one ray of light.
While he waited it was more distinctly borne in upon him that during that space Rachel might suffer. He would go to her.
The night made a wall ahead of him which was imminent and indiscernible. It was like a great weight upon his shoulders and a pitfall at his feet.
He crouched and fumbled before him. His apprehension was physical; his mind urged him; his body rebelled. He would have run but he could barely force one foot ahead of the other. Illusory obstacles confronted him. He waved his arms and put forward a foot. The ground was lower than he thought, and he stepped weightily. He brought up the other foot laboriously, hesitatingly. This was not advance, but time-losing.
Meanwhile, what might not be happening to Rachel in this chaos of gloom and clamor? Why need he hide his escape? None of these near-by assailants had any care now save for his own safety.
He called her name loudly and listened.
There was no answer in her voice.
He forced himself to move, but had the next step led into an abyss his feet could not have been more reluctant. He flailed the air with his arms and accomplished another pace. He realized that he could not reach, in an hour, at this rate, the spot in which he had last seen her. Again he called, using his full lung power, but the only reply was an echo, or the hoarse supplications of men, near him and on the river. The river! Had Rachel gone that way too far and beyond retreat? The thought chilled him with terror and horror.
He execrated himself for his trepidation and strove wildly to proceed; but strive as he might he could not advance. How long since the darkness had fallen, and he had moved but two paces from the spot in which it had overtaken him! The outcry near him subsided into low murmurs of terror, and none lifted a voice in answer to his distracted call.
If Rachel had been near she would have replied to him. The alternatives he had to choose as her possible fate were death in the Nile or capture by Unas. The one he fought away from him wildly, the other made him frantic. And the realization of his own helplessness, with the picture of her distress at that moment, crushed him.
A tangle of wind-mown reeds tripped him and pitched him to his knees among the high marsh growth.
He did not rise.
The babe in pain cries to his mother; the man in his maturity may outgrow the susceptibility to tears, but he never outwears the want of a stronger spirit upon which to call in his hour of distress.
For Kenkenes it had been a far cry, from his careless days and his empyrean populous with deities, to this utter and unhappy night and one unseen Power. In that time he had run the gamut of sensations from a laugh to a wail. Now was his need the sorest of all his life. The most helpful of all hands must aid him. His fathers' gods were in the dust. What of that unapproachable, unfeeling Omnipotence he had created in their stead?
He fell on his face and prayed.
"O Thou, who art somewhere behind the phantom gods that we have raised! To whom all prayer ascends by many-charted paths; Thou who canst spread this sooty night across the morning skies and turn to milk the bones of men! Thou who didst undo my surest plans, who dost mock my boasted power, who hast stripped me till my feeble self is bared to me even in this dreadful night; Thou who wast a fending hand about her; who art her only succor now—to whom she prays—and by that sign, Thou Very God! I bow to Thee.
"My lips are stiff at prayer to such as Thou. But what need of my tongue's abashed interpretation of that which I would say, since even the future's history is open unto Thee?
"I have run my course without craving Thine aid, and lo! here have I ended—a voice appealing through the night—no more.
"Now, wilt Thou heed an alien's plea; wilt Thou know a stranger petitioning before Thy high and holy place? How shall I win Thine ear? Charge me with any mission, weight me with a lifetime of penances, strip me of power everlastingly, but grant me leave to supplicate Thy throne.
"Not for myself do I pray, O Hidden God! Not one jot would I overtax Thy bounty toward me beyond the sufferance of my devotion. But for her I pray—for her, out somewhere in this unlifting gloom, her tender maidenhood uncomforted—with night, with death, with long dishonor threatening her. Attend her, O Thou august Warden! Let her not cry out to Thee in vain! Be Thou as a wall about her, as a light before her, as a firm path beneath her feet. Do Thou as Thou wilt with me. Lo! I offer up myself as ransom for her—myself—all I have! Take her from me, deny mine eyes the sight of her for ever, blot me wholly out of her heart, yield me over to the wrath of mine enemies, and to Thine unknowable vengeance thereafter; but save her, Great God! save her from her enemy!
"Dost Thou hear me, O Holy Mystery? Is there no sign, no manifestation that Thou dost attend?
"Nay, but I know that Thou hearest me! By my faith in Thy being I know it, Lord!"
Peace fell on him and he slept.
In after years Kenkenes remembered only vaguely the long hours of that black and lonely vigil. This climax to a calamitous space eight months in length might have crushed a less sturdy spirit, but he was mystically sustained.
With the exception of a few intervals of short duration most of the time was spent in sleep, so profound and dreamless as to border on coma. The reeds had received him on a bed of crushed herbage and the upstanding ranks about him sheltered him from the blowing sand. The whilom assailants of the young man were not so kindly served by the gods to whom they appealed loudly and frequently. The city in the distance moaned and complained and the hills were full of fear.
In one of his profound lapses of slumber a hairy paw felt of Kenkenes' face. Later a drifting boat nosed about among the reeds at the water's edge. Presently one of the crew cried out, and a second voice said:
"Nay, fear not; it is an ape, by the feel of him. Toth is with us. It is a good omen; let him not go forth."
Silence fell again, for the boat drifted on.
At last dawn-lights reddened about the horizon; stars faded out of the uppermost as naturally as if they had been there during the three days of unlifting night. All Egypt showed up darkly in the coming day.
Kenkenes, in his couch of reeds, slept on peacefully. The mid-morning sun shone in his face before he awakened.
He leaped to his feet, cramped and stiffened by his long inactivity, and looked about him. Near by was a disturbed spot of wide circumference. Here had the struggle taken place. Here, also, some of the sand was stained with the blood of the Nubian, who had been wounded by Rachel. Fresh footprints led toward the water. He followed them with a wildly beating heart. There were no marks of a little sandal. At the Nile edge the deep line cut by a keel was still visible in the wet sand. His own boat and the other were gone. All other signs had been obliterated, for the wind had been busy during the darkness.
Across the cultivated land, or rather the land which would have been wheat-covered but for the locusts, he saw the huts of rustics, and to each of these he went, asking of the pallid and terror-stricken tenants if Rachel had come to them. Gaining no information, he went next to Masaarah, appeasing his hunger with succulent roots plucked from the loam beside the river. The quarries were deserted, the pocket in the valley, where the Israelites had pitched their tents, was as solitary as it had ever been. There was no place here to shelter the lost girl.
There were the huts to the north of the Marsh and the deserted village of Toora to search. He retraced his steps.
As he came again before the tomb he went to it. Half-way up the steps he stopped.
On a blank face of the rock, sheltered by a jutting ledge above it, was an inscription, a little faint, but he ascribed that to the poor quality of the pencil and roughness of the tablet. This is what he read:
"Her whom thou seekest thou wilt find in the palace of Har-hat, in the city."
Perhaps under other circumstances Kenkenes would have understood correctly the origin and intent of the writing. Already, however, his fears pointed to the palace of Har-hat as the prison of Rachel, and this faint inscription was corroboration. It appealed to him as villainy worthy of the fan-bearer. It was like his exquisite effrontery.
Kenkenes whirled away with an indescribable sound, rather like the snarl of an infuriated beast than an expression of a reasoning creature. Dashing down the sand, he plunged into the Nile and swam with superhuman speed for the Memphian shore.
He defied death as a maniac does. The river was a mile in width and teeming with crocodiles. But the same saving Providence that shields the adventurous child attended him. He clambered up the opposite bank and struck out for Memphis on a hard run.
He had but one purpose and that was to find Har-hat and strangle him with grim joy. The rescue of Rachel did not occur to him, for in his excited mind the simple touch of the fan-bearer's hand was sufficient to kill her with its dishonor.
He did not remember anything that Rachel had told him concerning her life in Memphis, or that Har-hat was in Tanis, and Masanath like to be the only resident in the fan-bearer's palace. His reasoning powers abandoned their supremacy to all the fierce impulses toward revenge and bloodletting of which his nature was capable.
Though it was day when he entered the great capital of the Pharaohs, the streets were almost deserted, and every doorway and window showed interiors brilliant with a multitude of lamps. Memphis was prepared against a second smothering of the lights of heaven.
The few pedestrians Kenkenes met fell back and gave room to the dripping apparition which ran as if death-pursued. One told him on demand where the mansion of Har-hat stood, and after a few slow minutes he was within its porch. He flung himself against the blank portal and beat on it. He did not pause to await a response. He felt within him strength to batter down the doors if they did not open.
Presently an old portress came forth from a side entry and Kenkenes seized her. Fearing that she might cry out and defeat his purpose, he put his hand over her mouth.
"Your master," he demanded hoarsely. "Where is he? Answer and answer quietly!"
For a moment she was dumb with terror.
"Gone," she gasped at last when Kenkenes shook her.
"Where? When?" he insisted.
"To Tanis, eight months since!"
"Was an Israelite maiden brought here? Answer and truly, by your immortal soul!"
"Many months ago, aye, but she departed three days ago for Goshen," the old woman answered falteringly.
"And she came not back?"
"Nay."
"Swear, by Osiris!"
"By Osiris—"
"And the Lady Masanath?"
"Gone, also, to Tanis with Unas, this morning."
"Thou liest! In the dark?"
"Nay, I swear by Osiris," she protested wildly. "The light came in with the hour of dawn."
Kenkenes released her and hurried away. He did not doubt that the old woman had told the truth. He had overslept the light. Unas could not have taken Rachel and Masanath to Tanis together. The Israelite would have been sent on before.
There was yet Atsu to question, and then—on to Tanis to rescue Rachel or to avenge her.
He met no one until he reached a bazaar of jewels near the temple square. An armed watchman stood before the tightly closed front of the lapidary's booth, above the portal of which a flaring torch was stuck in a sconce.
"The house of Atsu?" the watchman repeated after Kenkenes. "Atsu is no longer a householder in Memphis."
"When did he depart?"
"Eight or nine months ago, at the persuasion of the Pharaoh."
The lightness of the man's manner irritated the already vexed spirit of the young artist.
"Be explicit," he demanded sharply. "What meanest thou?"
"He was stripped of his insignia and reduced to the rank of ordinary soldier," the man answered, "for pampering the Israelites. He is with the legions in the north."
"Hath he kin in the city?"
"Nay, he is solitary."
Kenkenes walked away unsteadily. The nervous energy that had upborne him during his intense excitement was deserting him. His hunger and weariness were asserting themselves.
He turned down the narrow passage leading to his father's house. And suddenly, in the way of such vagrant thoughts, it occurred to him that the inscription on the tomb had been pointedly denied by the old woman's statements.
"Ah, I might have known," he said impatiently. "Rachel put the writing there for me when she left the tomb for the shelter Masanath offered her in Memphis."
The admission cheered him somewhat, but it did not repair his exhausted forces. By the time he reached his father's door he was unsteady, indeed, and beyond further exertion.
The murket sat at his place in the work-room, but no papyrus scrolls lay before him; his fine implements were not in sight; the ink-pots and pens were put away and the table was clear except for a copper lamp that sputtered and flared at one end. The great artist's arms were extended across the table, his head bowed upon them, his hands clasped. The attitude was not that of weariness but of trouble.
Kenkenes hesitated. For the first time since the hour he left Memphis for Thebes, months before, he felt a sense of culpability. He realized, with great bounds of comprehension, that the results of his own trouble had not been confined to himself. He began to understand how infectious sorrow is.
He crossed the room and laid a trembling hand on the murket's shoulder. Instantly the great artist lifted his head and, seeing Kenkenes, leaped to his feet with a cry that was all joy.
The young man responded to the kiss of welcome with so little composure that Mentu forced him down on the bench and summoned a servant.
The old housekeeper appeared at the door, started with a suppressed cry and flung herself at her young master's feet. He raised her and touched her cheek with his lips.
"Bring me somewhat to eat and drink, Sema," he said weakly. "I have fasted, since I returned here, well-nigh four days agone."
The stiff old creature rose with a murmur half of compassion, half of promise, and went forth immediately.
The murket stood very close to his son, regarding him with interrogation on his face.
"Memphis was full of famishing at the coming of dawn this morning," he said. "For the first time in my life I knew hunger, and it is a fearsome thing, but thou—a shade from Amenti could not be ghastlier. Where hast thou been—what are thy fortunes, Kenkenes?"
"Rachel—thou knowest—" Kenkenes began, speaking with an effort.
"Aye, I know. Didst find her?"
"Aye, and lost her, even while I fought to save her!"
"Alas, thou unfortunate!" Mentu exclaimed. "Of a surety the gods have punished thee too harshly!"
Kenkenes was not in the frame of mind to receive so soft a speech composedly. A strong tremor ran over him and he averted his face. The murket came to his side and smoothed the damp hair.
The old housekeeper entered with broth and bread and a bottle of wine. Mentu broke the bread and filled the beaker, while Sema stood aloof and gazed with troubled eyes at the unhappy face of the young master. Silent, they watched him eat and drink, grieved because of the visible effort it required and because no life or strength returned to him with the breaking of his fast. When he had finished, the bowl and platter were taken away, but at a sign the old housekeeper left the wine with the murket. After she had gone Mentu glanced at the draggled dress of his son.
"Thou needest, further, the attention of thy slave, Kenkenes," he suggested.
The young man shook his head. "Not yet," he said. "My time is short, and it is thy help I need."
The murket sat down beside his son.
Without further introduction Kenkenes plunged into his story. He had had no time to tell it four days before. Then he had asked for Rachel with his second word, and finding her not, had rushed immediately to the search for her.
Mentu heard without comment till the story was done. Most of it he had known from Hotep, and only the recent events at the tomb excited him.
When Kenkenes made an end the murket brought his clenched hand down on the table with a force that made the lamp wink and the implements rattle in their boxes above him.
"Curse that smooth villain Har-hat!" he cried in a tempest of wrath. "A murrain upon his greedy, crafty lust! The gods blast him in his knavery! Now is my precious amulet in his hands. Would it were white-hot and clung to him like a leech!"
Kenkenes said nothing. The murket's wrath was more comforting to him than tender words could have been.
"Who hath the ear of Meneptah?" the murket continued with increasing vehemence. "Har-hat! And behold the miseries of Egypt! Shall we put any great sin past the knave who sinneth monstrously, or divine his methods who is a master of cunning? The land is entangled in difficulty! Give me but a raveling fiber to pull, and, by the gods, I know that we shall find Har-hat at the other end of it! He is destroying Egypt for his ambition's sake! And that a son of mine—me! the right hand of the Incomparable Pharaoh—should furnish meat for his rending!" His voice failed him and he shook his clenched hands high above his head in an abandon of fury.
"Did I not tell thee?" he burst forth again, pointing a finger at his son. "Did I not warn thee from the first?"
Kenkenes raised his head.
"Can you avoid a knave if he hath designs on you?" he asked. "Have I erred in crossing his will? Have I sinned in loving and protecting her whom I love?"
Mentu's hands fell down at his sides. The simple questions had silenced him. His son was blameless now that he had expiated his offenses against the law, and from the moral standpoint his persistence in his claim on Rachel was just—praiseworthy.
"Nay," he said sullenly, "but since thou didst love the girl, how came it that thou didst not wed her long ago and save her this shame and danger?"
He saw the face of his son grow paler.
"The bar of faith lay between us," Kenkenes answered. "I was an idolater, she a worshiper of the One God. She would not wed with me, therefore."
The murket looked at his son, stupefied with amazement.
"Thou—thou—" he said at last, his words coming slowly by reason of his emotions. "The Israelite rejected thee!"
Kenkenes bent his head in assent.
"Thou! A prince among men—a nobleman, a genius—a man whom all women—Kenkenes! by Horus, I am amazed! And thou didst endure it, and continue to love and serve and suffer for her! Where is thy pride?"
Kenkenes stopped him with a motion of his hand.
"A maid's unwillingness is obstacle enough," he said. "Shall a man summon further difficulty in the form of his self-esteem to stand in the way of his love? Nay, it could not be, and that thou knowest, my father, since thou, too, hast loved. When a man is in love it is his pride to be long-suffering and humble. But there is naught separating us now save it be the hand of Har-hat."
"So much for Israelitish zeal! Thou hast been a pawn for her to play during these months. Long ago had she surrendered if thou hadst been—"
Kenkenes smiled. "She did not surrender. It was I."
"Thy faith?" the murket asked in a voice low with earnestness.
"Thou hast said!"
A dead silence ensued. Kenkenes may have awaited the outbreak with a quickening of the heart, but it did not come. Instead, the murket sat down on the bench and gazed at his son intently.
After a long interval he spoke.
"Thus far had I hoped that thou wast taken by the Israelite but in thy fancy. The hope was vain. Thou art in love with her."
Kenkenes endured the steady gaze and waited for Mentu to go on.
"There is no help for thee now," the murket continued stoically. "If the gods will but tolerate thee till the madness leaves thee after thou art wedded and satisfied, it may be that thou wilt turn again to the faith of thy fathers. But if I would fix thee in thine apostasy I should try to persuade thee now."
"Aye, and further, I should be moved to urge thee into heresy," calmly responded Kenkenes.
The murket flung up one hand in a gesture of dissent, and arising, walked toward the door of the workroom. There he leaned his shoulder against the frame and looked out at the night. Presently Kenkenes went to him and laid his hand on his sleeve.
The murket spoke first, proving what thoughts had been his during the little space of silence.
"There is little patriotism in thee, Kenkenes. Thou wouldst wed with one of Egypt's enemies and bow down to the God which has devastated thy country."
The hand on his sleeve fell.
"What did Egypt to Israel for a hundred years before these miseries came to pass?" Kenkenes asked. "Let me tell thee how Egypt hath used Rachel. She is free-born, of noble blood, even as thou art and as I am. Her house was wealthy, the name powerful. There were ten of her family—four of her mother's, six of her father's. Rameses, the Incomparable Pharaoh, had use for their treasure and need of their labor in the brick-fields and mines. This day Rachel possesses not even her own soul and body, nor one garment to cover herself, nor a single kinsman to shield her from the power of her masters! Well for Egypt that the God of Israel hath not demanded of Egypt treasure for treasure seized, toil for toil compelled, lash for lash inflicted, blood for blood outpoured! This desolation had been thrice desolate and Egypt's glory gone like the green grass in the breath of the Khamsin! And yet would such justice restore to Rachel the love she lost, the comfort that should have been hers? Nay, not even the sorcery of Mesu might do that. The debt of Egypt to Rachel is most cheaply discharged by the service of one life for the ten which were taken from her!"
"Let be; Israel shall cumber Egypt no longer," the murket muttered after a little; "and the quarrel between them shall be at an end. The hour approacheth when every Hebrew shall leave Egypt—shall be driven forth if he leave it not willingly."
"Thinkest thou so of a truth?" Kenkenes asked earnestly.
"Of a truth. Thou seest the plight of the nation. Can it endure longer? And if thou takest this Israelite to wife—" He paused abruptly, for he had pressed the problem and a solution opened itself so suddenly that it staggered him. Kenkenes understood the pause. Again he laid his hand on the murket's sleeve.
"On this very matter would I take counsel with thee, my father," he said gently. "The night grows, and my time is short."
Mentu turned an unhappy face toward his son and followed him back to the bench they had left. He felt, intuitively, that there was further grave purpose in the young man's mind and there was dread in his paternal heart.
"Thou knowest, my father," Kenkenes began, "that I may not give over my love for Rachel. I am free to love her and she to love me. There is no obstacle between us. Such love, therefore, in the sight of heaven, becometh a duty and carrieth duty with it. In the spirit I am as though I had been bound to her by the marrying priests. Her griefs are mine to comfort, her wrongs mine to avenge.
"She is gone and there are these three surmises as to her whereabouts. She may have escaped and returned to Goshen; she may have wandered to death in the Nile; she may have been taken by Har-hat."
He paused, and Mentu gazed fixedly at the lamp.
"I am going to Tanis," Kenkenes began, with forced restraint.
"Wherefore?" Mentu demanded.
"To discover if Har-hat hath taken her!"
"Go on."
"If he hath the Lord God make iron of my hands till I strangle him!"
"Madman!" Mentu exclaimed. "Thou wilt be flayed!"
"Be assured that I shall earn the flaying! The punishment shall be no more savage than the deed that invites it! But enough of that. If I go to Tanis and find her the spoil of the fan-bearer, thine augury will hold, I return not to Memphis. . . . If she was lost in the Nile—!"
"Nay! Nay! put away the thought if it wrench thee so. No man removed from his place during that night. We were caught and transfixed at what we did. For three days I sat in the court, where I was overtaken by the darkness, and in that time I stirred not except to slip down on the bench and sleep. The palsy seized all Memphis likewise—not one of my neighbors moved. But the resident Hebrews of the city seemed to have been warned, or else the favor of their strange God was with them. For it is said they came and went as they willed, carrying lamps."
Kenkenes looked at his father with growing hope.
"If that be true," he said eagerly, "if the palsy fell upon Egypt and not upon Israel, Rachel may have fled safely—she may have escaped them!" Mentu assented with a nod.
"She may have returned to her people," Kenkenes went on. "And if she be in Goshen I must reach her, find her, before her people depart. Having found her—" but Kenkenes stopped and made no effort to resume. Mentu set his teeth, his hands clenched and his whole figure seemed to denote intense physical restraint. Suddenly he whirled upon his son.
"Thou wilt go with her, out of Egypt?" he demanded.
"I shall go with her, out of Egypt."
Mentu gained his feet. "And dost thou remember that while I live my commands are yet law over thee?" he continued in a tone of increasing intensity. "Mine it is to say whether thou shall do this thing or do it not!"
He turned away and strode back to his post against the door-frame, his face toward the night. Kenkenes had slowly risen to his feet. Not for an instant did his father's authority appear to him as an obstacle. He knew that the murket's outburst was a final stand before capitulation. Kenkenes was troubled only for what might follow after his father had surrendered.
He followed the murket to the door and laid his arm across the broad shoulders.
"Father," he said persuasively. Mentu did not move.
"Look at me, father," Kenkenes insisted. Still no movement. The young man put his arm closer about the shoulders, and lifting his hand, would have turned the face toward him. But the palm touched a wet cheek.
The murket had consented.
* * * * * *
An hour later, when it was far into the second watch, Kenkenes changed his dress and made himself presentable. Then, without further counsel with the murket, he went silently and unseen to the portal of Senci's house. After a long time, for her household had been asleep, he was admitted, and the Lady Senci, perplexed and surprised, joined him in the chamber of guests.
With few and simple words he told his story, pictured his father's loneliness and, while she wept silently, begged her to become his father's wife—on the morrow.
There was no long persuasion; the need of the occasion was sufficient eloquence for the murket's noble love.
An hour after the next day's sunrise Mentu and Senci repaired together to the temple, and when they returned Senci went not again into her own house.
In preparing for his departure, Kenkenes asked at the hands of his father, not his patrimony, for that would have been an embarrassment of wealth, but such portion of it as might be carried in small bulk. In mid-afternoon Senci brought him a belt of gazelle-hide and in this had been sewed a fortune in gems. The murket had given his son his full portion and more.
At the close of day, with his face set and colorless, Kenkenes stepped into the narrow passage before his father's house. The great portal closed slowly and noiselessly behind him. He did not pause, but sprang into his chariot and was driven rapidly away.