HEBREW CRAFT
When Mentu returned from On a light had kindled in his eyes and his
stately step had grown elastic. The man that withdraws from a busy
life while in full vigor has beckoned to Death. Inactivity preys upon
him like a disease. The great artist, forced into idleness by the
succession of an incapable king, had been renewed by the prospect of
labor which his exaltation into the high office had afforded. With
pleasure in his heart, Kenkenes watched his father grow young again.
"Who was thy good friend in this?" the young man asked one evening
after a number of contented remarks concerning the market's
appointment. "Who said the word in the Pharaoh's ear?"
"So to raise me to this office it is needful that something more than
my deserts must have urged the king?" Mentu retorted.
"Nay! that was not my meaning," Kenkenes made haste to say. "But thou
knowest, my father, that Meneptah must be for ever directed. Who,
then, offered him this wise counsel? Rameses?"
"It was never Har-hat," Mentu replied, but half placated.
"If he had, thou and I must no longer call him a poor counselor."
"Bribe--" the murket began, ruffled once more.
"Nay," Kenkenes interrupted smiling. "He had but proved himself worthy
and wise."
Mentu shook his head, but there was no more temper evident in his face.
"Now is a propitious hour for a good counselor," Kenkenes pursued.
"What knowest thou?" Mentu asked with interest.
"Tape," the young man replied briefly.
"Nay, the sedition in Tape is old and vitiated."
"And the Hak-heb."
"That breach may be healed. But we have sedition to fear among the
bond-people--"
"The bond-people!"
"Even so. Open and organized sedition."
"The Israelites?" Kenkenes exclaimed with an incredulous note in his
voice.
"The Israelites."
"I would sooner fear a rebellion among the draft-oxen and the mules of
Nehapehu." [1]
"The elder Seti's fears and the fears of the great Rameses were other
than yours."
"O, aye, they had cause for fear then, but since Seti yoked the
creatures--"
"The Pharaohs did not begin in time," the elder man interrupted. "Had
that royal fiat, the decimation of Hebrew children, continued, we
should not have had the Israelite to-day, but gods!" he shuddered with
horror. "I hope that is a horrid slander--tradition, not fact. I like
not to lay the slaughter or babes at the door of any Egyptian dynasty.
But had an early Pharaoh of the house of Tothmes enforced the
absorption of the Hebrew by his same rank among the Egyptian, we should
not have the menace of a hostile alien within our borders to-day. The
heavy hand of oppression has made a wondrous race of them for strength.
Theirs is no mean intellect; great men have come from among them, and
they will be a hardy foe arrayed against us."
"They are not warriors; they are poor and unequipped for hostilities;
they are thoroughly under subjection," the young man pursued. "What
can they do against us?"
"Do!" Mentu exclaimed with impatience in the repetition. "They have
only to say to the banished Hyksos: 'Come ye, let us do battle with
Egypt. We will be your mercenaries.' They have only to send greeting
to that lean traitor Amon-meses, thus: 'Give us the Delta to be ours
and we will help you win all Egypt,' and there will be enough done."
"They must have a pact among themselves and a leader, first," Kenkenes
objected.
"Have I not said they are organized? And their leader is found. He is
a foster-brother to Meneptah; an initiated priest of Isis; a sorcerer
and an infidel of the blackest order. He is Prince Mesu, a Hebrew by
birth."
"Dost thou know him?" Kenkenes asked with interest.
"Nay, he has dwelt in Midian these forty years. He returned some time
ago and hath dwelt passively in Goshen till--"
The artist dropped his voice and came nearer to his son.
"He hath dwelt passively in Goshen till of late, and it is whispered
that some secret work against him inaugurated by the priesthood, or
mayhap the Pharaoh, hath given him provocation to revolt against
Meneptah."
After a silence Kenkenes asked in a lowered tone:
"Hath he made demonstration?"
"O, aye, he is clamoring to lead his people a three days' journey into
the wilderness to make sacrifice to their god."
"Shades of mine ancestors! If that is all, let them, so they return,"
Kenkenes said amicably.
"Let them!" the sculptor exploded. "Dost thou believe that they would
return?"
"I apprehend that the Rameside army would be capable of thwarting them
if they were disposed to depart permanently."
"Thou dost apprehend--aye, of a truth, I know thou dost! Halt all our
works of peace for an indefinite time; mass the vast army of the
Pharaoh and spend days and good arrows in retrieving the runaways,
merely that a barbarian god may smell the savor of holy animals
sacrificed! Gods! Kenkenes, thou art as trustworthy a counselor as
Har-hat!"
Thereafter there was a silence in the work-room. But a peppery man is
seldom sulky, and Kenkenes was fully prepared for the mildness in his
father's voice when he spoke again.
"Thou shouldst see the pretense in his demand, Kenkenes. He must have
provocation to urge him to rebellion, and he knows full well that
Meneptah will not grant that petition."
"But hath he not provocation--thou hast but a moment ago told--"
"But that was only an offense against him. The whole people would not
go into revolt because some one had conspired against one of their
number. Therefore he telleth Israel that its God would have Israel
make a pilgrimage, promising curses upon the people if they obey not.
Then he putteth the appeal to the Pharaoh and the Pharaoh denieth it.
Wherefore the whole people is enraged and hath rallied to the
conspirator's cause. Seest thou, my son?"
"It is strategy worthy the Incomparable Pharaoh--"
"It is Hebrew craft!"
"Perhaps thou art right. But what personal grudge hath Mesu against
Egypt or the priesthood or Meneptah?"
"It is said that he was wanted out of the way, and by an unfortunate
sum of accidents, the miscarriage of a priest's letter and a fight
between a messenger and Bedouins in front of a Hebrew tent, gave the
information into the hands of Mesu himself."
By this time Kenkenes was on his feet.
"A miscarriage of a priest's letter," he repeated slowly.
The artist nodded.
After the silence the young man spoke again:
"And thou believest truly that because of this letter--because of this
Israelite's grievance against the powers of Egypt, we shall have
uprising and serious trouble among our bond-people?"
"I have said," Mentu answered, raising his head as though surprised at
the earnestness in his son's voice. Kenkenes did not meet his father's
eyes. He turned on his heel and left the work-room.
Had the spiteful Seven, the Hathors, used him as a tool whereby
mischief should be wrought between the nation and her slaves?
[1] The Fayum.