"Thou hast said, O my Kenkenes, that I should understand thy meaning when thou spakest mysteriously a while agone. May I not know, now?

Thou didst plead offense to Athor and didst boast her pardon. Later thou calledst her thy confederate. And earliest of all, thou didst confess to asking favor of her. How may all these things be?"

"Look thou," Kenkenes began at once. "On one hand, I have my new belief concerning sculpture--on the other, the beliefs of my fathers.

I practise the first and make propitiation for the second. No harm hath overtaken me. Am I not pardoned? Furthermore, Athor is beauty, and beauty guided my hand in creating this statue. Therefore, Athor being beauty, Athor was my confederate. Is it not lucid, O Son of Wisdom?"

Hotep laughed. "Nay, thou wilt not prosper, Kenkenes. Thou servest two masters. But there is one thing still unexplained--the favor of Athor."

"That is not mine to boast. I have but craved it," Kenkenes replied hesitatingly.

"Where doth she live?" Hotep asked, by way of experiment.

"In the quarries below."

There was no more doubt in the mind of Hotep. Here was a duty, plain before him, and his dearest friend to counsel. His must be tender wisdom and persuasive authority. Not a drop of the scribe's blood was democratic. He could not understand love between different ranks of society, and, as a result, doubted if it could exist. Kenkenes must be awakened while it was time.

"Do thou hear me, O my Kenkenes," he said after some silence. "If I overstep the liberty of a friend, remind me, but remember thou--whatsoever I shall say will be said through love for thee, not to chide thee. No man shapeth his career for himself alone, nor does death end his deeds. He continues to act through his children and his children's children to the unlimited extent of time. Seest thou not, O Kenkenes, that the ancestor is terribly responsible? What more heavy punishment could be meted to the original sinner, than to set him in eternal contemplation of the hideous fruitfulness of his initial sin!

"I have said sin, because sin, only, is offense in the eyes of the G.o.ds. But sin and error are one in the unpardoning eye of nature.

Thus, if thou dost err, though in all innocence, though the G.o.ds absolve thee, thou wilt reap the bitter harvest of thy misguided sowing, one day--thou or thy children after thee. The doom is spoken, and however tardy, must fall--and the offense is never expiated. There is nothing more relentless than consequence.

"If thou weddest unwisely thou dost double thy children's portion of difficulty, since thou art unwise and their mother unfit. If, perchance, thy only error lay in thy choice of wife, the result is still the same. Let her be most worthy, and yet she may be most unfitting. She must fit thy needs as the joint fits the socket.

Virtue is essential, but it is not sufficient. Beauty is good--I should say needful, but certainly it is not all. Love is indispensable and yet not enough."

"I should say that these three things are enough," put in Kenkenes.

"They would gain entrance into the place of the blest--the bosom of Osiris--but they are not sufficient for the over-nice n.o.bility of Egypt," the scribe averred promptly. "Thou must live in the world and the world would pa.s.s judgment on thy wife. If thou art a true husband, thou wouldst defend her, and be wroth. Yet, canst thou be happy being wroth and at odds with the world?"

Kenkenes slipped from under the affectionate arm and busied himself with the statue, marking with a sliver of limestone where his chisel must smooth away a flaw. But the voice of the scribe went on steadily.

"The n.o.bility of Egypt will not accept an unbeliever and an Israelite.

That monarch who favored the son of Abraham, Joseph, is dead. The tolerant spirit died with him. Another sentiment hath grown up and the loveliest Hebrew could not overthrow it. Henceforward, there is eternal enmity between Egypt and Israel."

The sliver of stone dropped from the fingers of the artist and his eyes wandered away, dreamy with thought. He remembered the story of the wrong of Rachel's house, and it came home to him with overwhelming force that the feud between Egypt and Israel was the barrier between him and his love. He was punished for a crime his country had committed.

"Oh!" he exclaimed to himself. "Am I not surely suffering for the sins of my fathers? How cruelly sound thy reasoning is, O thou placid Hotep!"

The scribe saw that as the sculptor stood, the pleading hands of Athor all but touched his shoulders. Hotep went to him and turned him away from the statue. He knew he could not win his friend with the beauty of that waiting face appealing to him.

"Thus far thou hast borne with me, Kenkenes--and having grown bold thereby, I would go further. Return with me to Memphis and come hither no more. She will soon be comforted, if she is not already betrothed.

Egypt needs thee--the Hathors have bespoken good fortune for thee--and thou art justified in aspiring to nothing less than the hand of a princess. Come back to Memphis and let her heal thee with her congruous love."

"Nay, my Hotep, what a waste of words! I will go back to Memphis with thee, not for thy reasoning, but for mine own--nay, hers."

"Hast thou--did the Israelite--" the scribe began in amazement, and paused, ashamed of his unbecoming curiosity.

"Aye; and let us speak of it no more. Thou hast my story, my confidence and my love. Keep the first and the rest shall be thine for ever."

"And this?" questioned Hotep, nodding toward the statue, though he resolutely kept the face of Kenkenes turned from it.

"Let it be," Kenkenes replied. Hotep hesitated, dissatisfied, but feared to insist on its destruction, so he went arm in arm with his friend down to the river, without a word of protest. "I will at him again when he is better," he told himself, "and we will bury the exquisite sacrilege."

There was an animated group of Hebrew children at the Nile drawing water, and among them was a golden-haired maiden. Hotep had but to glance at her to know that he looked on the glorious model of the pale divinity on the hill above. At the sound of their approach through the grain, she looked up. As she caught sight of Kenkenes, she started and flushed quickly and as quickly the color fled.

Since she was near the boat, Kenkenes stood close beside her for a moment while he pushed the bari into the water.

"G.o.ds! What a n.o.ble pair!" Hotep e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed under his breath. But he saw Kenkenes bend near the Israelite, as if to make his final plea; a spasm of anguish contracted her white face, and she turned her head away. The incident, so eloquent to Rachel and Kenkenes, had been so swift and subtile in its enactment, that only the quick eye of Hotep detected it. Again he called on the G.o.ds in exclamation:

"She is saner than he!"

On the way back to Memphis he maintained a thoughtful silence. Since he had seen Rachel, he began to understand the love of Kenkenes for her.

CHAPTER XVII

THE SON OF THE MURKET

March and April had pa.s.sed and now it was the first of May. Five days before, the ceremony of installation had been held for the murket and the cup-bearer and for four days thereafter the new officers pa.s.sed through initiatory formalities. But on the fifth day the rites of invest.i.ture had been brought to an end, and Mentu and Nechutes entered on the routine of service.

To Mentu fell the dignified congratulations of his own world of sedate old n.o.bles and stately women. But Nechutes was younger and well beloved by youthful Memphis, so on the night of the fifth day, the house of Senci was aglow and in her banquet-room there was much young revel in his honor.

Aromatic torches flaring in sconces lighted the friezes of lotus, the painted paneling on the walls, and the cl.u.s.tered pillars that upheld the ceiling of the chamber. The tables had been removed; the musicians and tumblers common to such occasions were not present, for the rout was small and sufficient unto itself for entertainment.

Gathered about a central figure, which must needs be the one of highest rank--and in this instance it was the crown prince--were the young guests. They were n.o.blemen and gentlewomen of Memphis, freed for an evening from the restraint of pretentious affairs and spared the awesome repression of potentates and monitors.

Hotep was host and these were his guests.

First, there was Rameses, languid, cynical, sumptuous, and enthroned in a capacious fauteuil, significantly upholstered in purple and gold.

Close beside him and similarly enthroned was Ta-user. She wore a double robe of transparent linen, very fine and clinging in its texture. The over-dress was simply a white gauze, striped with narrow lines of green and gold. From the fillet of royalty about her forehead, an emerald depended between her eyes. Her zone was a broad braid of golden cords, girdling her beneath the breast, encompa.s.sing her again about the hips, and fastened at last in front by a diamond-shaped buckle of cl.u.s.tered emeralds. Her sandals were mere jeweled straps of white gazelle-hide, pa.s.sing under the heel and ball of the foot. She was as daringly dressed as a lissome dancing-girl.

On a taboret at her right was Seti, the little prince. Although he was nearly sixteen he looked to be of even tenderer years. In him, the charms of the Egyptian countenance had been so emphasized, and its defects so reduced, that his boyish beauty was unequaled among his countrymen.

At his feet was Io, playing at dice with Ta-meri and Nechutes. Ta-meri was more than usually brilliant, and Nechutes, flushed with her favor, was playing splendidly and rejoicing beyond reason over his gains.

Opposite this group was another, the center of which was Masanath. She sat in the richest seat in the house of Senci. It was ivory tricked with gold; but small and young as the fan-bearer's daughter was, there was none in that a.s.sembly who might queen it as royally as she from its imperial depths. By her side was the boon companion of Rameses. He was Menes, surnamed "the Bland," captain of the royal guard, a most amiable soldier and chiefly remarkable because, of all the prince's world, he was the only one that could tell the truth to Rameses and tell it without offense.

On the floor between Masanath and Menes was the son of Amon-meses, the Prince Siptah. He was a typical Oriental, bronze in hue, lean of frame, brilliant of eye, white of teeth, intense in temperament and fierce in his loves and hates. Religion comforted him through his appet.i.tes; in his sight craft was a virtue, intrigue was politics, and love was a fury. His eyes never left Ta-user for long, and his every word seemed to be inspired by some overweening emotion.

Aside from these there were others in the group. Some were sons and daughters of royalty, cousins of the Pharaoh's sons and of Ta-user and Siptah; many were children of the king's ministers, and all were n.o.ble.

Senci and Hotep's older sister, the Lady Bettis, a dark-eyed matron of thirty, presided in duenna-like guardianship over the rout. They sat in a diphros apart from the young revelers.

Kenkenes was momently expected. For the past two months he had been seen every evening wherever there was high-cla.s.s revel in Memphis. But he had laughed perfunctorily and lapsed into preoccupation when none spoke to him, and his song had a sorry note in it, however happy the theme. But these were things apparent only to those that saw deeper than the surface.

"Where is Kenkenes?" Menes demanded. "Hath he forsworn us?"

"I saw him to-day," Nechutes ventured, without raising his eyes from the game, "when we were fowling on the Nile below the city. He was alone, pulling down-stream, just this side of Masaarah."