THE ANGEL OF DEATH
Kenkenes had spent two weeks in Goshen in systematic search for Rachel.
The labor had been time-consuming and fruitless.
More than two million Israelites were encamped about Pa-Ramesu, and
among this host Kenkenes had searched thoroughly and fearlessly. He
was an Egyptian and a noble, and Israel did not make his way easy. But
all Judah knew Rachel and loved her, and the first the young man came
upon was a quarryman who had known of Rachel's flight from Har-hat and
of her protection at the hands of an Egyptian. Therefore when Kenkenes
bore witness, by his stature, that he was the protecting Egyptian, and
by his testimony concerning the God of Israel, that he was worthy, this
friendly son of Judah began to suspect that Rachel would be glad to see
the young noble, and he joined Kenkenes in his search. Furthermore, he
softened the hearts of the tribe toward the Egyptian and they tolerated
him with some assumption of grace.
The other tribes gave him no heed except to glower at him in the
camp-ways or to mutter after him when he had passed. Seeing that Judah
suffered him, they did not fall on him. Thus the young man was safe.
As for the notice Kenkenes took of Israel, it began and ended with his
inquiry after Rachel, the daughter of Maai the Compassionate, a son of
Judah. His earnestness absorbed him. Otherwise he was but partly
conscious of great preparations making in camp, of tremendous
excitement, heightening of zeal and vast meetings after nightfall, when
he had withdrawn to a far-off meadow to sleep in the grass.
When he had searched throughout the length and breadth of Israel and
found Rachel not, he led his horse from the distant meadow, where he
had been pastured, and turned his head toward Tanis.
While he was binding the saddle of sheep's wool about the Arab's narrow
girth he was surprised to find that the friendly son of Judah had
followed him to the pasture. The man approached, as though one spirit
urged him and another held him back, and offered Kenkenes the shelter
of his tent for the night.
Somewhat gratified and astonished, Kenkenes, thanked him and declined.
Still the Hebrew lingered and urged him with strange persistence.
Kenkenes expressed his gratitude, but would not stay.
Having taken the road toward Tanis where Rachel might be in the hands
of Har-hat, his heart seemed to turn to iron in his breast. All the
energies and aims of his youth seemed to resolve into one grim and
inexorable purpose.
It was far into the second watch when he left Pa-Ramesu. But the great
city of tents was not yet sleeping.
The horse was anxious for a journey after a fortnight of idleness and
he bade fair to keep pace with his rider's impatience. The Arabian
hills had sunk below the sky-line and the Libyan desert was not marked
by any eminence. With Pa-Ramesu behind him, a wide unbroken horizon
belted the dusky landscape. The lights winked out over Goshen and the
hamlets were not visible except as Kenkenes came upon them. The
shepherd dogs barked afar off, or now and then a wakened bird cheeped
drowsily, or the waters in the canals rippled over a pebbly space.
But these sounds ceased unaccountably, at last, and a silence settled
down till the atmosphere was tense with stillness. A deadening hand
seemed to cover the night.
The silence roused Kenkenes and he realized the solemnity of the earth,
the vastness of the sky and the majesty of the solitude. Mysteriously
affected, he withdrew within himself and humbly acknowledged the One
God.
At midnight a chill struck the breeze and he drew his mantle about him
while he rode. The wind freshened and a heated counter-current from
the desert met it and they whirled away, rustling through the grassy
country.
The Arab reduced his gallop so suddenly that Kenkenes was jolted. The
small peaked ears of the horse went up and he showed a disposition to
move sidewise into the meadow growth beside the way.
"A wild beast hath taken the road," Kenkenes thought.
The horse brought up, with a start, his prominent muscles twitching,
and sniffed the air strongly.
A high oscillation in the atmosphere descended on Kenkenes.
The Arab reared, snorting, and then crouched, quivering with wild
terror in every limb.
Unconscious, even of the movement, Kenkenes threw up his arm as if to
ward off the blow and bent upon his horse's neck.
Gust after gust of icy air swept down on his head, as if winnowed by
frozen wings. Then with a backward waft, colder than any wind he had
ever known, the hovering Presence passed.
Instantly the horse plunged and took the road toward Tanis as if stung
by a lash. Kenkenes, shaken and full of solemn dread, did well to keep
his saddle. He grasped the stout leather bridle with strong hands, but
he might have curbed the hurricane as easily. The Arab stretched his
gaunt length, running low, and the haunted night reechoed with the
sound of his hoofs. The land of Goshen lay east and west, with a
slight divergence toward the north. The road to Tanis ran due north.
It was not long until Kenkenes' flying steed brought him in sight of
the un-Israelite Goshen. Illuminated windows starred the plain and the
wind shrilling in Kenkenes' ears bore uncanny sounds. A turf-thatched
hovel at the roadside showed a light as they swept by and a long scream
clove the air, but the Arab was not to be halted.
The murmurous wind did not soothe him, and the wakeful night had a
terror for him that he could not outrun. He veered sharply and
galloped through the pastures to avoid a roadside hamlet that shrieked
and moaned. He leaped irrigation canals and brush hedges, swept
through fields and gardens, until, at last, by dint of persuasion,
coupled with the animal's growing fatigue, Kenkenes succeeded in
drawing the horse down into a milder pace.
The young man made no effort to fathom the mysterious visitation.
Instead, he bowed his head and rode on, awed and humbled.
The night wore away and the gray of the morning showed him,
strange-featured, the misty levels, meadows, fields and gardens of
northern Goshen. The wind faltered and died; the stars, strewn down
the east, paled and went out, one by one. Fragmentary clouds toward
the sunrise became apparent, tinted, silvered and at last, like flakes
of gold, scattered down to a point of intensest brilliance on the
horizon. A lark sprang out of the wet, wind-mown grass of a meadow and
shot up, up till it was lost in radiance and only a few of its
exquisite notes filtered down to earth again.
A brazen rim showed redly on the horizon and the next instant the sun
bounded above the sky-line.
It was the morning after the Passover, and Kenkenes, the son of Mentu,
was the only Egyptian first-born that lived to see it break.