IN THE DESERT
In the early morning of the next day after the rout at Senci's,
Kenkenes wandered restlessly about the inner court of his father's
house. He had slept but little the preceding night, and now, dizzy and
irritable, the freshness of the morning did not invigorate him and the
haunting perplexities were with him still.
There was no need of haste to the Arabian hills and yet he could not
wait patiently in Memphis for an appropriate hour to visit Masaarah.
He paced hither and thither, flung himself on the benches in the shade,
only to rise and resume his uneasy walk. Anubis was omnipresent and
particularly ungovernable. If his young master were in motion he
vibrated and oscillated like a shuttle. If Kenkenes sat, he paced the
tessellated pavement slowly and with a foot-fall lighter than a birds.
The sculptor eyed him understandingly, and finally arose.
"Come, Anubis! Tit, tit, tit!" he called, backing toward the
work-room. Anubis bounded after him, but as Kenkenes paused just over
the threshold, the ape also halted. His master retreated to the rear
of the room still calling, but to the ape there was something
portentous familiar in this proceeding. It hinted of imprisonment.
Turning as though pursued, he disappeared up an acacia tree from which
he could not be dislodged. With a vexed exclamation, Kenkenes passed
out of the court into the house, slamming the swinging door so sharply
that it sprang open again after him. As the old portress put back the
outer doors leading into the street, that her young master might go
forth, a shadow quick as thought slipped out after him. The old
portress clapped her hands with a shrill command but the shadow was
gone.
Once more in his work-day dress, his wallet of tools and provisions
across his shoulder, the young sculptor passed toward the Nile, moody
and unhappy but determined. At the river-side he hired the shallow
bari that had given him faithful service for so long, and receiving the
oars from Sepet, the boatman, prepared to push away. At that moment,
Anubis, tremulous but unrepentant, bounded in beside him.
"Anubis!" Kenkenes exclaimed. "Of a truth I believe thou art possessed
of the arts of magic. Now, if thou art lost in the hills and devoured
by a wolf, upon thine own head be it. Pull in that paw, before thou
becomest a foolish sacrifice to the sacred crocodile. I wonder thy
self-respect does not keep thee from coming when thou art unwelcome."
And subsiding into silence, the sculptor turned toward Masaarah.
He made a landing below the stone wharf, for there a two-oared bari was
already drawn up, and the tangle of herbage was a safe hiding-place for
his own boat. He looked toward the quarry and hesitated. He had no
heart yet to face her, who had laid his cruelest sorrow on him. He
would continue his work on Athor until he had gathered assurance from
that unforbidding face.
His light foot made no sound and he entered the niche silently.
Kneeling on the chipped stone at the base of the statue, her face
against the drapings, her arms clasping its knees, was Rachel. In one
hand was the collar of rings. She had not heard the sculptor's
approach.
For an instant his surprise transfixed him. Had she repented? A great
wave of compassion and tenderness swept over him and he drew her face
away between his palms. With a terrified start, the girl turned a
swift glance upward. When she recognized Kenkenes her tearful face
colored vividly. Her posture was such that she could not rise, and
with infinite gentleness he lifted her to her feet.
"What is it, Rachel? Art thou in trouble?"
Joy and maidenly confusion took away her voice.
"Alas," he went on sadly. "Am I so fallen from thy favor, shut out and
denied thy confidence?"
"Nay, nay," she protested. "Think not so harshly of me. I am--I
came--" she faltered and paused. He did not help or spare her. He had
come to learn why she had done this thing, why she had said that, and
why she had repulsed him without explanation, when there was
unmistakable preference for him in her unstudied acts. He held his
peace and waited for her to proceed. Meanwhile Rachel suffered
cruelly. She had no thought in her mind concerning her conduct toward
him. It was the shameful event of the morning, which must be told to
explain her presence before Athor, that made her cover her crimson face
at last. Kenkenes silenced the protests of his gallantry, and drawing
her hands away, lifted her face on the tips of his fingers and waited.
While they stood thus, Deborah, exhausted and praying, staggered into
the inclosure.
"Rachel!" she panted. "The serving-men--thou art pursued!" The fat
courier, purple of countenance and breathing hard, appeared in the
opening. Rachel shrank against Kenkenes and Deborah dropped on her
knees between the pair and the servitor.
"Out of the way, hag!" the man puffed. "Let me at yon slave. Out!"
He struck at Deborah with a short mace but Kenkenes caught his arm and
thrust him aside.
"Go, go back to the camp," he said to the old woman. "No harm shall
befall Rachel." Raising her, he put her behind him, and advanced
toward the courier.
"Hast thou words with me?" he said coolly. "What wilt thou?"
"The girl. Give her up!"
"Nay, but thou art peremptory. What wilt thou with her?"
"For the harem of the Pharaoh's chief adviser," the man retorted.
The blood in Kenkenes' veins seemed to become molten; flashes of fierce
light blinded him and his sinews hardened into iron. He bounded
forward and his fingers buried themselves in soft and heated flesh.
The first glimmer of reason through his murderous insanity was the
consciousness of a rain of blows upon his head and shoulders, and a
blackening face settling back to the earth before him.
He released his grip on the throat of the strangling servitor and flung
off his other assailants. For a moment, stunned by the hard usage at
the hands of the reinforcing men, he staggered, and seemed about to
succumb. The men pursued him to finish their work, but as he eluded
them, it seemed that a third person--a woman all in white with extended
arms--came into their view.
Kenkenes saw the foremost, a tall Nubian in a striped tunic, stop in
his tracks, and the second, smaller and lighter but a Nubian also,
following immediately behind, bumped against his fellow.
Mouths agape, eyes staring, they stood and marveled. The strange
presence, they discovered at once, was neither a human being nor an
apparition. It was stone--a statue.
"Sacrilege!" the first exploded. "A--a--by Amen, it is the slave
herself!"
In the little pause, Kenkenes recovered himself, but he knew that he
gave Rachel to her fate, if the pair overcame him. He caught her hand
and with the whispered word, "Run!" fled with her toward the front of
the cliff facing the Nile. It was a desperate chance for escape but he
seized it.
Immediately they were pursued and at the brink of the hill, overtaken.
The stake was too large for the young artist to risk its loss by
adhering to the unwritten rules of combat. He released Rachel, whirled
about, and as the foremost descended on him, ducked, seized the man
about the middle, and pitched him head-first down into the valley. The
second, the tall Nubian that wore the striped tunic, halted, dismayed,
and Kenkenes, catching Rachel's hand, prepared to descend. But she
checked him with a cry. "Look!"
His eyes followed her outstretched arm. At regular intervals along the
Nile, the distant figures of men were seen posted. Escape was cut off.
He mounted to the top of the cliff and led Rachel out of view from the
river. The second man retreated, and raged from afar. The sculptor
turned up the shingly slope toward the sun-white ridge of higher hills
inland. Here, he would hide with Rachel, till his strength returned
and the ache left his head clear to plan a safe escape. The Nubian
called on all the gods to annihilate them and started in pursuit. The
sculptor did not pause, and, emboldened by the indifference of the man
he dogged, the pursuer drew near and made menacing demonstrations.
Kenkenes had no desire to be followed. He bade Rachel wait for him and
approached the Nubian.
"Now," he began coolly, "thou art unwelcome, likewise, insolent. Also
art thou a fool, but it is an arch-idiot indeed that lacketh caution.
This maiden is beloved of all the Israelites. Thou art one man, and
alone. It would not be safe for thee to attempt to take her without
help even across that little space between Masaarah and the Nile. I
should harass thee with others within call. Do thou save thyself and
send the chief adviser after her. I would treat with him also."
The Nubian backed away and Kenkenes followed him relentlessly until the
man, overcome with trepidation, took to his heels and fled.
Even then, Kenkenes did not lessen his vigilance. He caught up Anubis,
who had bounded beside him during the entire time, and running back to
Rachel, turned into the limestone wastes.
Kenkenes had risked his suggestions to the single Nubian, and their
effect upon him gave the young sculptor some hope that the pursuing
force had been limited to these three. Though the men along the Nile
were not within call, they would prevent flight into Memphis, and the
camp of the Israelites, if not similarly picketed, would offer security
only for the moment. Why had not the Hebrews protected her in the
beginning? He would get to a place of perfect safety first and learn
all concerning this matter.
After an hour's cautious dodging from shelter to shelter, through the
masses of rocks, they toiled up the great ridge of hills deep into the
desert. Rachel would have gone on and on, but Kenkenes drew her into
the shadow of a great rock and stopped to listen. The oppressive
silence was unbroken. Far and near only gray wastes of hills heaved in
heated solitude about them.
"Sit here in the shadow and rest," he said, turning to the weary girl
beside him. "I shall keep watch."
He cleared a space for her among the debris at the base of the great
fragment and pressed her down in the place he had made. Next he undid
his belt and fastened Anubis to a boulder, too heavy for the ape to
move. The animal resented the confinement, and Kenkenes, tying him by
force, found in the forepaws the collar of golden rings. With a murmur
of satisfaction, the young man reclaimed the necklace and thrust it
into the bosom of his dress.
When he arose the day grew dark before him, and he was obliged to
steady himself against the rock till the vertigo passed. His
assailants had hurt him more than he had thought. But he took up his
vigil and maintained it faithfully till all sense of danger had
vanished.
Rachel, who had been watching his face, touched his hand at last, and
bade him rest. The invitation was welcome and with a sigh he sank down
beside her.
"Lie down," she said softly. "Thou hast been most cruelly misused.
And all for me!"
Obediently, he slipped from a sitting to a recumbent posture. She put
out her arm, and supporting him, seemed about to take his head into her
lap. Instead, she slipped the mantle from the strap that bound it
across his shoulders, and rolling it swiftly, made a pillow of it for
his head.
The wallet that had hung by the same strap over his shoulder, attracted
her attention and she guessed that it had been used as a carrier for
provision. She laid it open and took out the water-bottle. The
pith-stopper had held, during all the violent motion, and the dull
surface of the porous and ever-cooling pottery was cold and wet.
She put the bottle to his lips and, after he had drunk, bathed his
bruises most tenderly.
Succumbing to the gentle influence of her fingers, he put up his hands
to take them, but they moved out of his reach in the most natural
manner possible. He could not feel that she had purposely avoided his
touch, but he made no further attempt when the soothing fingers
returned. Finally he raised himself on his elbow and supported his
head in his hand.
"Now am I new again," he said; "once more ready to help thee. Let us
take counsel together and get into safety and comfort." He paused a
moment till his serious words would not follow with unseeming
promptness upon his light tone.
"I know thy trouble, Rachel," he began again soberly. "There is no
need that thou shouldst hurt thyself by the telling. But there are
details which would be helpful in aiding thee if I had them in mind.
Thou knowest better than I. Wilt thou aid me?"
Her golden head drooped till her face was bowed upon her hands. After
a little silence she answered him, her voice low with shame.
"This man sought to take me before, at Pa-Ramesu, but Atsu learned of
it in time and sent me to Masaarah. This morning I met him again--"
She paused, and Kenkenes aided her.
"Aye, I can guess--poor affronted child!"
"Atsu meant to escape with me again, but the servants of the nobleman
came before we could get away."
Kenkenes knew by her choice of words that she did not know the name of
her persecutor, and he did not tell her what it was. He could not bear
the name of Har-hat on her lips. She went on, after a little silence.
"I came--" she began, coloring deeply, "to leave thy collar with the
statue--I did not expect to find thee there."
How little it takes to dispirit a lover! How could he know that any
thought had led her to do that thing save an impulse actuated by
indifference or real dislike? His hope was immediately reduced to the
lowest ebb. The mention of the taskmaster's name brought forward the
probability of a rival.
"I can take thee back to Atsu," he said slowly. "These menials will
not remain in the hills after sunset, and under cover of night I can
slip thee, by strategy, past any sentries they may have set and get
thee to Atsu. I, by my sacrilege, and he by his insubordination, are
both under ban of the law, but danger with him will be sweeter danger
than peril with me, I doubt not."
She looked at him, and the hurt that began to show on her face gave
place to puzzlement.
"Is it not so?" he asked with a bitter smile. "The companionship of
ones beloved works wonders out of heavy straits!"
"But--. Dost thou--? Atsu is naught to me," she cried, her grave face
brightening.
The blood surged back to his cheeks and the life into his eyes. He
leaned toward her, ready to ask for more enlightenment concerning her
conduct, when she went on dreamily: "But he is wondrous kind and hath
made the camp bright with his humanity. Israel loveth Atsu."
Kenkenes turned again to the perplexity in hand.
"I came this morning to ask thy permission to give thee thy freedom. I
doubt not Israel of Masaarah, hidden in a niche in the hills, does not
dream that it is the plan of the Pharaoh--nay, the heir to the crown of
Egypt by the mouth of the Pharaoh--to exterminate the Hebrews." Rachel
recoiled from him.
"What sayest thou?" she exclaimed, her voice sharp with terror.
"Nay, forgive me!" he said penitently. "So intent was I on thy rescue
that I forgot to soften my words. Let it be. It is said; I would it
were not true."
Her affright was only momentary, for her faith restored her ere his
last words were spoken.
"It will not come to pass," she declared. "Jehovah will not suffer it.
Thou shalt see--and let the Pharaoh beware!" Her words were vehement
and she offered no argument. She saw no need of it, since her belief,
merely expressed, had the force of fact with her.
"I am committed to the cause of Israel--that thou knowest, Rachel,"
Kenkenes made answer. After another silence he took up the thread of
his talk.
"If thy danger from this man were set aside I should not return thee to
the camp, even if there were no doom spoken upon Israel. I would have
thee free; I would have thee in luxury, sheltered in my father's
house--I would--"
"Thou dost paint a picture that mocks me now, O Kenkenes," she broke in
on his growing fervor. "Doubly am I enslaved, and the safety of
Masaarah and Memphis is no more for me."
"Thou hast said," he answered in a subdued voice. "It was given me
last night to win favor with the Pharaoh for thy sake, but the need of
that favor fell before it was won. But I despair not. What is thy
pleasure, Rachel? Shall I take thee to Atsu, or wilt thou stay with
me?"
"This nobleman will know of a surety that Atsu is my friend, but he
must guess the other Egyptian who hath helped me. If I go to Atsu I
take certain danger to him; if I stay with thee the peril must wander
ere it overtakes us. But I would not burden either. Is there no other
way?"
He shook his head. "It lies between me and Atsu to care for you, and
the peril for you and for us is equal. My name is as good as
published, for I am gifted with a length of limb beyond my fellows. I
was found before the statue and they, describing me to the priests,
will prove to the priests, who know my calling, that the son of Mentu
has committed sacrilege. And the priesthood would not wait till dawn
to take me."
"I will stay with thee, Kenkenes," she said simply.
He became conscious of the collar on his breast and drew it forth.
"With this," he began, assuming a lightness, "I fear I gave thee
offense one day and thou hast held it against me. Now let me heal that
wound and sweeten thy regard for me with this same offending trinket.
Wilt thou take it as a peace-offering from my hands and wear it
always?" She bent toward him and, with worshiping hands, he put aside
the loosened braids and clasped the necklace about her throat.
"There are ten rings," he continued. "Let them be named thus," telling
them off with his fingers, "This first of all--Hope--it shall be thy
stay; this--Faith--it shall comfort thee; this--Good Works--it shall
publish thee; this--Sacrifice--it shall win thee many victories;
this--Chastity--it shall be thy name; the next--Wisdom--it shall guide
thee; after it--Steadfastness--it shall keep thee in all these things;
Truth--it shall brood upon thy lips; Beauty--it shall not perish; this,
the last, is Love, of which there is naught to be said. It speaketh
for itself."
Their eyes met at his last words and for a moment dwelt. Then Rachel
looked away.
"Are the fastenings secure?" she asked.
"Firm as the virtues in a good woman's soul."
"They will hold. I would not lose one of them."
A long silence fell. The curious activity of desert-life, interrupted
for the time by the presence of the fugitives, resumed its tenor and
droned on about them. The rasping grasshopper, the darting lizard, the
scorpion creeping among the rocks, a high-flying bird, a small,
skulking, wild beast put sound and movement in the desolation of the
region. The horizon was marked by undulating hills to the west; to the
east, by sharper peaks. The scant growth was blackened or partly
covered with sand, and it fringed the distant uplands like a stubbly
beard. The little ravines were darkened with hot shadows, but the bald
slopes presented areas, shining with infinitesimal particles of quartz
and mica, to a savage sun and an almost unendurable sky. From
somewhere to the barren north the wind came like a breath of flame,
ash-laden and drying. There was nothing of the cool, damp river breeze
in this. They were in the hideous heart of the desert to whom death
was monotony, resisting foreign life, an insult.
The two in the shortening shadow of the great rock were glad of the
water-bottle. The necessity of comfortable shelter for Rachel began to
appeal urgently to Kenkenes. He put aside his dreams and thought aloud.
"What cover may I offer thy dear head this night?" he began. "We may
not return to the camp, for there of a surety they lie in wait for us.
Toora is deserted and so tempting a spot for fugitives that it will be
searched immediately. Not a hovel this side of the Nile but will be
visited. I would take thee to my father--"
"Nay," she said firmly. "I will take affliction to none other.
Already have I undone two of the best of Egypt. I will carry the
distress no further."
After a silence he began again.
"How far wilt thou trust in me, Rachel?"
She raised her face and looked at him with serious eyes.
"In all things needful which thou wilt require of me."
"And thou canst sleep this night in an open boat?"
She nodded.
"To-morrow, then," he continued, taking her hand, "we shall reach
Nehapehu, where I can hide thee with some of the peasantry on my
father's lands. And there thou canst abide until I go to Tape and
return.
"Thou must know," he continued, explaining, "the Athor of the hills is
not my first sacrilege. Once I committed a worse. My father was the
royal sculptor to Rameses and is now Meneptah's murket." Rachel
glanced at him shyly and sought to withdraw her hand, for she
recognized the loftiness of the title. But he retained his clasp. "He
is a mighty genius. He planned and executed Ipsambul. For that, which
is the greatest monument to Rameses, the Incomparable Pharaoh loved
him, and while the king lived my father was overwhelmed with his
favors. Nor did the royal sculptor's good fortune wane, as is the
common fate of favorites, for the great king planned that my father's
house should be honored even after his death though the dynasties
change. So Rameses gave him a signet of lapis lazuli, and its
inscription commanded him who sat at any time thereafter on the throne
of Egypt to honor the prayer of its bearer in the unspeakable name of
the Holy One.
"After the death of Rameses," the narrator went on, "we went to Tape,
my father and I, to inscribe the hatchments and carve the scene of the
Judgment of the Dead in the tomb of the great king. Now, I am my
father's only child and have been taught his craft. I have been an apt
pupil, and he had no fear in trusting me with the execution of the
fresco. I had long been in rebellion, practising in secret my lawless
ideas, and I was seized with an uncontrollable aversion to marring
those holy walls with the conventional ugliness commanded by the
ritual. I assembled my ideas and dared. I worked rapidly and well.
The work was done before my father discovered it." Kenkenes paused and
laughed a little.
"Suffice it to say the fresco was erased. And the solemnity of the
crypt was hardly restored before my father found that his sacred
signet, which he always wore, was gone. Nay, nay, I might not search
for it more than the fruitless once, for he declared, and of a truth
believed firmly, that the great king had reclaimed his gift. I did not
and never have I believed it. Now I need the signet and I shall go
after it on the strength of that belief.
"Having found it, I shall appeal to Meneptah for thy liberty and safety
and whatever boon thou wouldst have and for myself. What thinkest
thou? Shall I go on?"
Rachel smiled and looked up at him gratefully.
"I will go with thee, Kenkenes," she said.
Her ready confidence and the easiness of his name on her lips filled
him with joy. "Ah! ye ungentle Hathors!" he mourned to himself, "why
may I not tell her how much I love her?"
But the white hand which he pressed against his breast asked its
release with gentle reluctance, and he set it free.
Once again the silence fell and was not frequently broken thereafter.
There was no invitation in her manner, and he could not speak what he
would.
The sun dropped behind the Libyan hills and the heights filled with
shadow. At length he said:
"It is time."
Lifting her to her feet, the ape attending them, he went toward the
Nile, hand in hand with Rachel, his love all untold.