If he were suffering punishment for the statue, what punishment had been his for the sacrilegious execution of the Judgment of the Dead in the tomb of Rameses II? What, other than the reclamation of the signet by the Incomparable Pharaoh, even as Mentu had said? If the hypothesis held, he had committed sacrilege, he had offended the G.o.ds, and might not the acc.u.mulated penalty be--O unspeakable--the loss of Rachel?

On the other hand, if the signet were still in the tomb, Rameses had not reclaimed it--Rameses had not been offended. The ritual condemned his act, but if Rameses in the realm of inexorable justice and supernal wisdom did not, how should he reconcile the threats of the ritual and the evident pa.s.siveness of the royal soul? If he found the signet and achieved his ends, aside from its civil power over him, what weight would the canonical thunderings have to his inner heart?

Once again he paused. The deductions of his free reasoning led him upon perilous ground. They made innuendoes concerning the stability of the other articles of hieratical law. He was startled and afraid of his own arguments.

"Nay, by the G.o.ds," he muttered to himself, "it is not safe to reason with religion."

But every stroke of his oar was active persistence in his heresy.

He believed he should find the signet.

Thereafter he could turn a deaf ear to any renegade ideas such an event might suggest.

It was an unlucky chance that befell the theological inst.i.tutions of Egypt as far as this devotee was concerned, that Kenkenes had landed at the capital of the hated Pharaoh.

But he shook himself and tried to fix his attention on the night. The stars were few--the mult.i.tude obliterated by the moon, the luminaries abashed thereby. The light fell through a high haze of dust and was therefore wondrously refracted and diffused. The hills made high lifted horizons, undulating toward the east, serrated toward the west.

In the sag between there was no human companionship abroad.

Throughout great lengths of sh.o.r.e-line the tuneless stridulation of frogs, the guttural cries of water-birds and the general movement in the sedge indicated a serene content among small life. But sometimes he would find silence on one bank for a goodly stretch where there was neither marsh-chorus nor cadences of insects. The hush would be profound and an affrighted air of suspense was apparent. And there at the river-brink the author of this breathless dismay, some lithe flesh-eater, would stride, shadow-like, through the high reeds to drink. Now and then the woman-like scream of the wildcat, or the harsh staccato laugh of the hyena would startle the marshes into silence.

Sometimes retiring shapes would halt and gaze with emberous eyes at the boat moving in midstream.

Kenkenes admitted with a grim smile that the great powers of the world and the wild were against him. But Rachel's face came to him as comfort--the memory of it when it was tender and yielding--and with a lover's buoyancy he forgot his sorrows in remembering that she loved him. He dropped the anchor and, lying down in the bottom of his boat, dreamed happily into the dawn.

During the day he landed for supplies at a miserable town of pottery-makers, leaving his boat at the crazy wharves.

When he returned the bari was gone. A negro, the only one near the river who was awake, told him that a dhow, laden with clay, in making a landing had struck the bari, staved in its side, upset it and sent it adrift.

The mischance did not trouble Kenkenes.

After some effort he aroused a crew of oarsmen, procured a boat, and continued at once to Thebes.

[1] Khu-aten--Tel-el-Amarna.

CHAPTER XXII

THE FAN-BEARER'S QUEST

At sunset on the day after the festivities at the Lady Senci's, Hotep deserted his palace duties and came to the house of Mentu. He had in mind to try again to persuade his friend from his folly, for the scribe was certain that Kenkenes was once more returning to his sacrilege and the Israelite.

The old housekeeper informed him that the young master was not at home, though he was expected even now.

Hotep waited in the house of his aunt, neighbor to the murket, and about the middle of the first watch asked again for Kenkenes.

Nay, the young master had not returned. But would not the n.o.ble Hotep enter and await him?

The scribe, however, returned to the palace, and put off his visit until the next day.

The following noon a page brought him a message from his aunt, the Lady Senci. It was short and distressed.

"Kenkenes has not returned, Hotep, and since he is known to have gone upon the Nile, we fear that disaster has overtaken him. Come and help the unhappy murket. His household is so dismayed that it is useless.

Come, and come quickly."

The probability of the young artist's death in the Nile immediately took second place in the scribe's mind. Kenkenes had displayed to Hotep the effect of Rameses' savage boast to exterminate the Hebrews.

It was that incident which had convinced the scribe that the Arabian hills would claim the artist on the morrow. He had not stopped to surmise the extremes to which Kenkenes would go, but his mysterious disappearance seemed to suggest that the lover had gone to the Israelitish camp to remain.

He made ready and repaired to the house of the murket. Mentu met him in the chamber of guests. By the dress of the great artist it would seem that he had returned at that moment from the streets.

Hotep sat down beside him, and with tact and well-chosen words told his story and summarized his narration with a mild statement of his suspicions.

There was no outbreak on the part of Mentu. But his broad chest heaved once, as though it had thrown off a great weight.

"But Kenkenes has been a dutiful son," he said after a silence, "I can not think he would use me so cruelly--no word of his intent or his whereabouts."

The objection was plausible.

"Then, let us go to Masaarah and discover of a surety," the scribe suggested.

When Atsu emerged from the mouth of the little valley into the quarries some time after the midday meal, he was confronted by the murket and the royal scribe. Neither of the men was unknown to him.

Hotep halted him.

"Was there a guest with the fair-haired Israelite maiden last night?"

the scribe asked.

Atsu's face, pinched and darker than usual, blazed wrathfully.

"Have ye also joined yourselves with Har-hat to run that hard-pressed child to earth?" he exclaimed. "Do ye call yourselves men?"

"The G.o.ds forbid!" Hotep protested. "We do not concern ourselves with the maiden. It is the man who may be with her that we seek."

The taskmaster made an angry gesture, and Hotep interrupted again.

"I do not question her decorum, and the man of whom I speak is of spotless character. He is lost and we seek him."

"I can not help you; my wits are taxed in another search."

Hotep's face showed light at the taskmaster's words.

"Is she also gone?" he asked mildly. "Then let me give you my word, that the discovery of one will also find the other."

Atsu gazed with growing hope at the scribe.

"How is he favored?" he asked at last.