"He came not to Pithom."

"Come thou down, then, and let me in, friend, for I am spent."

In a little time, he entered the inn of the treasure city, was given a bed, upon which he flung himself without so much as loosening the kerchief on his head, and slept.

CHAPTER XLIII

"THE PHARAOH DREW NIGH"

In mid-afternoon of the following day, Kenkenes awoke and made ready to take up his search again. He was weary, listless and sore, but his mission urged him as if death threatened him.

The young man's athletic training had taught him how to recuperate.

Most of the process was denied him now, because of his haste and the little time at his command, but the smallest part would be beneficial.

He stepped into the streets of the treasure city, and paused again, till the recollection of the sorrow upon Egypt returned to him to explain the gloom over Pithom. The great melancholy of the land, attending him hauntingly, oppressed him with a sense of culpability.

And he dared not ask himself wherein he deserved his good fortune above his countrymen, lest he seem to question the justice of the G.o.d of his adoption.

At a bazaar he purchased two pairs of horse-hide sandals, for the many miles on the roads had worn out the old and he needed foot-wear in reserve. From the booth he went straight to the baths, now wholly deserted; for when Egypt mourned, like all the East, she neglected her person.

When he came forth he was refreshed and stronger. Of the citizens, haggard and solemn as they had been in Tanis, he asked concerning the Pharaoh. None had seen him, nor had he entered the city. The last one he questioned was a countryman from Goshen, and from him he learned that the army was a.s.sembling in a great pasture on the southern limits of the Israelitish country.

At sunset he was again upon the way, taking the level highway of the Wady Toomilat for a mile toward the west, and turning south, after that distance, as the rustic had directed him.

The road was good and he ran with old-time ease. At midnight he came upon the spot where the army had camped, but the Pharaoh had already moved against Israel. He had left his track. The great belt of disturbed earth wheeled to the south, and as far as Kenkenes could see there was the same luminous veil of dust overhanging it, that he had noted over the path of Israel.

The messenger drank deep at an irrigation ca.n.a.l, for he turned away from water when he followed the army, and leaving the level, dust-cushioned road behind, plunged into a rock-strewn, rolling land, desolate and silent. The growing light of the moon was his only advantage.

The region became savage, the trail of the army wound hither and thither to avoid sudden eminences or sudden hollows. Kenkenes dogged it faithfully, for it found the smoothest way, and, besides, the wild beasts had been frightened from the track of a mult.i.tude.

In the early hour of the morning, Kenkenes emerged from a high-walled valley with battlemented summits. Before him was the army encamped, and wild, indeed, was the region chosen for the night's rest. The glistening soil was thickly strewn with rocks, varying in size from huge cubes to sharp shingle. Every abrupt ravine ahead was accentuated with profound shadow, and the dim horizon was broken with hills. The locality maintained an irregular slope toward the east. The camp stretched before the messenger for a mile, but the great army had changed its posture. It squatted like a tired beast.

Kenkenes approached it dropping with weariness, and after a time was pa.s.sed through the lines and conducted to the headquarters of the king.

In the center of the great field were pitched the multi-hued tents of Meneptah and his generals. Above them, turning like weather-vanes upon their staves, were the standards bearing the royal and divine device, the crown and the uplifted hands, the plumes and the G.o.d-head.

About the royal pavilion in triple cordon paced the n.o.ble body-guard of the Pharaoh.

Of one of these Kenkenes asked that a personal attendant of the king be sent to him.

In a little time, some one emerged from the Pharaoh's tent, and came through the guard-line to the messenger. It was Nechutes.

The cup-bearer took but a single glance at Kenkenes and started back.

"Thou!" he exclaimed in a hoa.r.s.e whisper. "Out of Amenti!"

"And nigh returning into it again," was the tired reply.

In a daze, Nechutes took the offered hands and stared at Kenkenes through the dark.

"Where hast thou been?" he finally asked.

"In the profoundest depths of trouble, Nechutes, nor have I come out therefrom."

The cup-bearer's face showed compa.s.sion even in the dusk.

"Nay, now; thine was but the fortune a mult.i.tude of lovers have suffered before thee," he said, with a contrite note in his deep voice.

"It was even odds between us and I won. Hold it not against me, Kenkenes."

It was the sculptor's turn to be amazed. But with one of the instant realizations that acute memory effects, he recalled that he had disappeared immediately after Nechutes had been accepted by the Lady Ta-meri. And now, by the word of the apologetic cup-bearer, was it made apparent to Kenkenes that a tragic fancy concerning the cause of his disappearance had taken root in the cup-bearer's mind. With a desperate effort, Kenkenes choked the first desire to laugh that had seized him in months.

"Nay, let it pa.s.s, Nechutes," he said in a strained voice. "Thou and I are friends. But lead me to the king, I pray thee."

"To the king?" the cup-bearer repeated doubtfully. "The king sleeps.

Will thine interests go to wreck if thou bidest till dawn?"

"I carry him a message," Kenkenes explained.

"A message!"

"Even so. Hand hither a torch."

A soldier went and returned with a flaming knot of pitch. In the wavering light of the flambeau, Nechutes read the address on the linen scroll.

"The king could not read by the night-lights," he said after a little.

"Much weeping is not helpful to such feeble eyes as his. Wait till dawn. My tent is empty and my bed is soft. Wait till daybreak as my guest."

"Where is Har-hat?"

"In his tent, yonder," pointing to a party-colored pavilion.

"Dost thou keep an unsleeping eye on the Pharaoh?"

"By night, aye."

Kenkenes had a thought to accept the cup-bearer's hospitality. He knew that the expected climax would follow immediately upon the king's perusal of the message, and that the nature of that climax depended upon himself. He needed mental vigor and bodily freshness to make effective the work before him. His cogitations decided him.

"Let the unhappy king sleep, then, Nechutes; far be it from me to bring him back to the memory of his sorrows. Lead me to thy shelter, if thou wilt."

With satisfaction in his manner Nechutes conducted his guest into a comfortably furnished tent, and showed him a mattress overlaid with sheeting of fine linen.

"Shame that thou must defer this soft sleeping till the noisy and glaring hours of the day," Kenkenes observed as he fell on the bed.

"By this time to-morrow night, I may content myself in a bed of sand with a covering of hyena-fending stones," the cup-bearer muttered.

"Comfort thee, Nechutes," the artist said sententiously, "But do thou raise me from this ere daybreak, even if thou must take a persuasive spear to me."

So saying, he fell asleep at once.