The Yoke Part 36

Kenkenes kissed her hand. "And wilt thou say that to Nechutes and put him in the highest heaven?"

"Already have I wished him well," she responded, pretending to pout, "but he repaid me poorly."

"Nay! What did he?"

"Begged me to become his wife."

"And having given him the span, thou didst yield him the cubit also when he asked it?" he surmised.

"Nay, not yet. But--shall I?" she lifted her face and looked at him, smiling and bewitchingly beautiful. Her eyes dared him; her lips invited him; all her charms rose up and besought him. For a moment, Kenkenes was startled. If he had believed that Ta-meri loved him never so slightly, his sensations would have been most distressing.

But he knew and was glad to know that he awakened nothing deeper than a superficial partiality, which lasted only as long as he was in her sight to please her eye. In spite of his consternation, he could think intelligently enough to surmise what had inspired her words. The Lady Senci had guessed the nature of his trouble; even Menes had hinted a suspicion of the truth in a bantering way. What would prevent the beauty from seeing it also and preempting to herself the honors of his disheartenment? But he was in no mood for a coquettish tilt with her.

His sober face was not more serious than his tone when he made answer:

"Do not play with him, Ta-meri. He is worthy and loves thee most tenderly. Thou lovest him. Be kind to thine own heart and put him to the rack no more. Thou art sure of him and I doubt not it pleases thee to tantalize thyself a little while; but Nechutes, who must endure the lover's doubts, is suffering cruelly. Thou art a good child, Ta-meri; how canst thou hurt him so?"

He paused, for her eyes, growing remorseful, had wandered away from him. He knew he had reasoned well. The guests in the banquet-room began to emerge, talking and laughing. The voice of Nechutes was not heard among them. Kenkenes glanced toward the group and saw the cup-bearer a trifle in advance, his sullen face averted.

"He comes yonder," Kenkenes added in a whisper, "poor, moody boy! Go back to him and take him all the happiness I would to the G.o.ds I knew.

Farewell."

He pressed her hand and continued toward the door.

Once again he was hailed, this time by Rameses. He halted, stifling a groan, and returned to the prince. Nechutes and Ta-meri had disappeared.

"One other thing, I would tell thee, Kenkenes," the prince said, "and then thou mayest go. The Pharaoh heard a song to the sunrise on the Nile some time ago and I identified the voice for him. He would have thee sing for him, Kenkenes."

"The Pharaoh's wish is law," was the slow answer.

"Oh, it was not a command," Rameses replied affably, for he was still holding Masanath's hand and therefore in high good humor with himself.

"In truth he said the choice should be thine whether thou wilt or not.

He would not insist that a n.o.bleman become his minstrel. But more of this later; the G.o.ds go with thee."

Kenkenes bowed and escaped.

In his room a few moments later, he lighted his lamp of scented oils and contemplated the comforts about him. His conscience pointed a condemning finger at him. Here was luxury to the point of uselessness for himself; across the Nile was the desolate quarry-camp for his love.

In Memphis he had robed himself in fine linen and reveled, had eaten with princes and slept sumptuously--in his strength and his manhood and unearned idleness. And she, but a tender girl, had toiled for the quarry-workers and fasted and now faced death in the hideous extermination purposed for her race.

He ground his teeth and prayed for the dawn.

He forgot that he had come away from the Arabian hills because she repelled him; he remembered his scruples concerning their social inequality, only to revile himself; Hotep's caution was more than ever a waste of words to him. He forgot everything except that he was here in comfort, she, there in want and in peril, and he had not rescued her.

He did not sleep. He tossed and counted the hours.

"Sing for the Pharaoh!" he exclaimed, "aye, I will sing till the throat of me cracks--not for the reward of his good will alone, but for Rachel's liberty. That first, and the unraveling of this puzzle thereafter."

CHAPTER XVIII

AT MASAARAH

Since the day Kenkenes had wounded her hand with the knife, Rachel had seen him but twice in many weeks.

One mid-morning, the oxen were unyoked from the water-cart and led ambling up to the pit where a monolith, too huge to be moved by men alone, had been taken forth and was to be transferred to the Nile. The bearers carried water directly from the river during this time, and it was given Rachel to govern them in the departure from the routine.

Suddenly she became aware that some one approached through the grain, and when she raised her head, she looked up into the face of Kenkenes.

It was Kenkenes, indeed, but Kenkenes in robes of rustling linen and trappings of gold. Never had she seen so stately an Egyptian, nor any so ent.i.tled to the name of n.o.bleman. In quick succession she experienced the moving sensations of surprise, pride in him, and depression. The last fell on her with the instant recollection of duty, when his face bent appealingly over hers. Trembling, she turned away from him, and when she looked again, he was returning to Memphis.

Now, her days had ceased to be the dreamy lapses of time in which she lived and walked. The glamour that had made the quarries sufferable had pa.s.sed; all the realization of her enslavement, with the accompanying shame, came to her, and her hope for Israel was lost in the destruction of her personal happiness.

Still, the longing to look on Kenkenes once again made the dawns more welcome, the days longer and the sunsets more disheartening. Vainly she summoned pride to her aid; vainly she exhorted herself to consistency.

"How long," she would say, "since thou didst reject the good Atsu because he is an idolater and an Egyptian? How long since thou wast full of wrath against the chosen people who wedded Egyptians and became of them? And now, who is it that is full of sighs and strange conduct?

Who is it that hath forgotten the idols and the abominations and the bondage of her people and mourneth after one of the oppressors? And how will it be with thee when the chosen people go forth, or the carving is complete and the Egyptian cometh no more; or how will it be when he taketh one of the long-eyed maidens of his kind to wife?"

In the face of all this, her intuition rose up and bore witness that the Egyptian loved her, and was no less unhappy than she.

So time came and went and weeks pa.s.sed and he came not again. Late, one sunset, while there yet was daylight, she left the camp merely that she might wander down the valley to the same spot where, at the same hour, she had met Kenkenes on that last occasion of talk between them.

Moving slowly down the shadows, she saw a figure approaching. The stature of the new-comer identified him. The head was up, the step slow, the bearing expectant. In the one scant lapse between two throbs of her heart, Rachel knew her lover, remembered all the power of his attraction, and realized that her joy and love could carry her beyond her fort.i.tude and resolution.

Just ahead of her, not farther than three paces, a long fragment of rock had fallen from above and leaned against the wall. There was an ample s.p.a.ce formed by its slant against the cliff and almost before she knew it, she had crept into this crevice. Cowering in the dusk, she clutched at her loud-beating heart and listened intently.

There was no sound of his steps on the rough roadway of the valley and though she watched eagerly from her hiding-place, she did not see him pa.s.s. After a long time she emerged. He was gone.

When she looked in the dust she found that his footprints turned not far from her hiding-place and led toward the Nile.

She knew then that he had seen her when she had caught sight of him, and failing to meet her as he had expected, had guessed she had hidden from him.

This was the sunset of the night of the revel at Senci's house. It was this incident that had made Kenkenes late at the festivities, and cynical when he came.

On her way back to the camp Rachel met Atsu, mounted and attended by a scribe, the taskmaster's secretary. The two officials were on their way to Memphis to worship in the great temple and to spend a night among free-born men. Once every month, no oftener, did Atsu return to his own rank in the city. Recognizing Rachel, he drew up his horse; the scribe rode on.

"Hast been in search of the Nile wind, Rachel? The valley holds the day-heat like an oven," he said.

"Nay, I did not go so far. The darkness came too quickly."

"Endure it a while. I shall move the people into the large valley where they may have the north breeze and the water-smell after sunset, now that the summer is near. I am glad I met thee. Deborah tells me the water for the camp-cooking is turbid, and I doubt not the children draw it from some point below the wharf where the drawing for the quarry-supply stirs up the ooze. Do thou go with the children in the morning when they are sent for the camp supply, and get it above the wharf."

"I hear," she answered.

"The G.o.ds attend thee," he said, riding away.

"Be thy visit pleasant," she responded, and turned again up the valley.

The taskmaster was forgotten at her second step, and her contrition and humiliation came back with a rush. There was little sleep for her that night, so heavy was her heart.