Ranas staggered against the wall for support and beat the air with his arms.

"Aaron, the brother of Mesu! O ye inscrutable Hathors!" he babbled.

"A Bedouin made off with it! Oh! Oh! What idiocy!"

CHAPTER IX

THE COLLAR OF GOLD

The next morning after his meeting with the golden-haired Israelite, Kenkenes came early to the line of rocks that topped the north wall of the gorge and, ensconced between the gray fragments, looked down unseen on her whenever she came to the valley's mouth. All day long the children came staggering up from the Nile, laden with dripping hides, or returned in a free and ragged line down the green slope of the field to the river again.

Vastly more simple and time-saving would have been one of the capacious water carts. But what would have employed these ten youthful Hebrews in the event of such improvement? There was to be no labor-saving in the quarries. Therefore, through the dust, up the weary slanting plane, again and again till the day's work amounted to a journey of miles, the Hebrew children toiled with their captain and co-laborer, Rachel.

At the summit of the wooden slope the beautiful Israelite, who had preceded her charges, pa.s.sed up the burden of each one to the Hebrews on the scaffold. From his aery Kenkenes watched this particular phase of her tasks with interest. She was not too far from him for the details of her movements to be distinguishable, and the posture of the outstretched arms and lifted face fulfilled his requirements. He abandoned the modeling of her features for that day and copied the att.i.tude. Once in the morning and once in the afternoon a countryman of hers, strong, young and but lightly bearded, stepped down from his place on the scaffold and relieved her. The sculptor noted the act with some degree of disquiet, hoping that the graceful protests of the girl might prevail. When the stalwart Hebrew overrode her remonstrances, and motioned her toward a place at the side of the frame-work where she might rest, the young sculptor frowned impatiently. But his humane heart chid him and he waited with some a.s.sumption of grace till she should take up her burden again.

At sunset he retired cautiously, but several dawns found him among the rocks, with reed pen, papyri and molds of clay. When he climbed to his retreat within the walls of stone, on the hillside in the late afternoon, he hid several studies of the girl's head and statuettes of clay under the matting.

At last he began the creation of Athor the Golden. For days he labored feverishly, forgetting to eat, fretting because the sun set and the darkness held sway for so long. Having overstepped the law, he placed no limit to the extent of his artistic transgression.

After choosing nature as his model, he followed it slavishly. On the occasion of his initial departure from the accepted rules, he had never dreamed it possible to disregard ritualistic commandments so absolutely. He even ignored the pa.s.sive and meditative repose, immemorial on the carven countenances of Egypt.

The face of Athor, as she put forth her arms to receive the sun, must show love, submission, eagerness and great appeal.

As Kenkenes said this thing to himself, he lowered chisel and mallet and paused. Posture and form would avail nothing without these emotions written on the face. He began to wonder if he might carve them, unaided. He had not found them in the Israelite, and he confessed to himself, with a little laugh, a doubt that he should ever see them on her countenance.

Then a vagabond impulse presented itself unbidden in his mind and was frowned down with a blush of apology to himself. And yet he remembered his coquetry with the Lady Ta-meri as some small defense in the form of precedent.

"Nay," he replied to this evidence, "it is a different woman. Between myself and Ta-meri it is even odds, and the vanquished will have deserved his defeat."

That evening--it was several days after the face of the G.o.ddess had begun to emerge from the block of stone--he went to the upper end of the gorge and pa.s.sed through the camp on his way home, that he might meet his model.

The laborers had not returned from the quarries, though the evening meal bubbled and fumed over the fires in the narrow avenue between the tents. Kenkenes pa.s.sed by on the outskirts of the encampment and went on.

Deep shadow lay on the stone-pits when Kenkenes reached the mouth of the gorge, and a cool wind from the Nile swept across the grain. The day's work had been prolonged in the lowering of a huge slab from its position in its native bed. The monolith was already on the brink of the wooden incline, and every man was at the windla.s.ses by which the cables controlling its descent were paid out. Kenkenes saw at a glance that none of the water-bearers was present, and he knew the lovely Israelite was with them. He did not pause.

Before the sound of the quarry stir had been left behind he heard a sharp report, the frightened shrieks of women and shouts of warning.

He looked back in time to see the huge stone turn part way round on the chute and rush, end first, earthward. Expectant silence fell, broken only by the vicious snarl of a flying windla.s.s crank. But in an instant the great slab struck the earth with a thunderous sound that reverberated again and again from the barren hills about. A vast all-enveloping cloud of dust and earth filled the hollow quarry like smoke from an explosion. But there was no further outcry, and through the outskirts of the lifting cloud men were seen making deliberate preparations to repair the parted cable. a.s.sured that no calamity had occurred, Kenkenes went on.

In a few steps he met the children water-bearers flying to the scene of the accident. Not one of them bore a water-skin. The excited young Hebrews did not stop to question the sculptor, but ran on, and were swallowed up in dust.

Half-way to the Nile he came upon her whom he sought. She was standing alone in the midst of ten sheepskins, and the grain was wetted with the spilled water. He pointed to the discarded hides about her.

"The camp will go thirsty if the runaways do not return," he said.

"Thy burden is too heavy for even me to-night."

"They will return," she answered.

"Aye, it was naught but a parting cable and a falling rock. I was near and saw no evidence of disaster. Had the children asked me, I should have told them as much."

"They will return," she repeated, and Kenkenes fancied that there was a dismissal in this quiet repet.i.tion. But he did not mean to see it. He went on, with a smile.

"I am glad they did not stop, for I wanted to see thee, with that frightened longing of a man who hath resolved on confession and meeteth his confessor on a sudden. Now that the moment hath arrived I marvel how I shall make my peace with Athor, whose command I most deliberately broke."

She raised her beautiful eyes to his face and waited for him to proceed. The pose of the head was exactly what he wanted. Rapidly he compared every detail of her face with his memory of the statue of Athor, noting with satisfaction that his studies had been happily faithful. His scrutiny was so swift and skilful that there seemed to be nothing unusual in his gaze.

"I am culpable but impenitent," he continued. "I shall not forswear mine offense. Neither is there any need of a plea to justify myself, for my very sin is its own justification. Behold me! I perched myself like a sacred hawk at the mouth of the valley and filched thy likeness.

Do with me as thou wilt, but I shall die reiterating approval of my deed."

His extravagant speech wrought an interesting change on the face before him. There was a p.r.o.nounced curve of her mouth, a slight tension in the chiseled nostril--in fact, an indefinable disdain that had not been there before. It would become Athor well. Kenkenes understood the look but he did not flinch. Instead he let his head drop slowly until he looked at her from under his brows. Then he summoned into his eyes all the wounded feeling, pathos, soft reproach and appeal, of which his graceless young heart was capable, and gazed at her.

Khufu might have been as easily melted by the twinkle of a rain drop.

Never in his life had he faced such comprehensive contemplation. Calm, monumental and icy disdain deepened on every feature.

Kenkenes stood motionless and suffered her to look at him. Being a man of fine soul, the eloquent gaze spoke well-deserved rebuke. He knew that his color had risen, and his eyes fell in spite of heroic efforts to keep them steady. His sensations were unique; never had he experienced the like. When he recovered himself her blue eyes were fixed absently on the distant quarries.

Every impulse urged him to set himself right in the eyes of this most discerning slave.

"Wilt thou forgive me?" he asked earnestly. "I would I could make thee know I crave thy good will."

There was no mistaking the honesty in these words.

Her face relaxed instantly.

"But I fear I have not set about it wisely," he added. "Let me give thee a peace-offering to prove my contrition."

He slipped from about his neck the collar of golden rings and moved forward to put it about her throat.

She drew back, her face flushing hotly under an expression of positive pain.

Kenkenes dropped his hands to his sides with a limpness highly suggestive of desperate perplexity. Was not this a slave? And yet here was the fine feeling of a princess. He stood, for once in his life, at a loss what to do. He could not depart without the greatest awkwardness, and yet, if he lingered, he sacrificed his comfort.

Presently he exclaimed helplessly:

"Rachel, do thou tell me what to say or do. It seems that I but sink myself the deeper in the quicksand of thy disapproval at every struggle to escape. Do thou lead me out."

He had met a slave, justed with an equal and flung up his hands in surrender to his better. He did not confess this to himself, but his words were admission enough. Never would his high-born spirit have permitted him to make such a declaration to one slavish in soul.

The straightforward acknowledgment of defeat and the genuine concern in his voice were irresistible. She answered him at once, distantly and calmly.

"Thou, as an Egyptian, hast honored me, a Hebrew, with thy notice. I have deserved neither gift nor fee."

"Nay, but let us put it differently," he replied. "I, as a man, have given thee, a maiden, offense, and having repented, would appease thee with a peace-offering. Believe me, I do not jest. By the gentle G.o.ddesses, I fear to speak," he added breathlessly.

The Israelite's blue eyes were veiled quickly, but the Egyptian guessed aright that she had hidden a smile in them.

"Am I forgiven?" he persisted.