The Yoke Part 46

The fate of the young man seemed to be explained. The great house of Mentu was darkened; the servants went unkempt and the artist wore a blue scarf knotted about his hips. The high priest dismissed the subject of the sacrilege from his mind, now that his nephew was dead.

The people of Memphis who knew Kenkenes mourned with Mentu; the festivities were dull without him, and there were some, like Io and the Lady Senci, who went into retirement and were not to be comforted.

But Har-hat presented jeweled housings to Apis for the prospering of his search after Rachel, and set about a.s.sisting the G.o.d with all his might. He sent couriers, armed with a description and warrant for the arrest of Kenkenes and the Israelite, into all the large cities of Egypt. He ransacked Pa-Ramesu and the brick-fields, Silsilis, Syene, where there were quarries, and especially Thebes, which was large and remote, a tempting place for fugitives.

When he heard the news of the young sculptor's death, he actually sent a message of condolence to Mentu, much to the tearful and unspeakable rage of the heart-broken murket. Yet, with all the limitless resources placed at the command of a bearer of the king's fan, Har-hat continued to search for the young artist, until word came to him from Thebes several days later.

His next move was to bring to the notice of the Pharaoh that the taskmaster Atsu was pampering the Israelites of Masaarah and defeating the ends of the government. Furthermore, the overseer had treated with contempt the personal commands of the fan-bearer. So Atsu was removed entirely from over the Hebrews, reduced to the rank of a common soldier, and returned to the nome from which he came, in the coif and tunic of a cavalryman.

Thus it was that Har-hat avenged himself for the loss of Rachel, put all aid out of her reach, and kept up an unceasing pursuit of her.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE TOMB OF THE PHARAOH

It was far into the tenth night that Kenkenes arrived in Thebes. On the sixteenth day Rachel would begin to expect him, and he could not hope to reach Memphis by that time. She should not wait an hour longer than necessary. He would get the signet that night and return by the swiftest boat obtainable in Thebes. The dawn should find him on the way to Memphis.

He entered the streets of the Libyan suburb of the holy city, and pa.s.sed through it to the scattering houses, set outside the thickly-settled portion, and nearer to the necropolis. At the portals of the most pretentious of these houses he knocked and was admitted.

He was met presently in the chamber of guests by an old man, gray-haired and bent. This was the keeper of the tomb of Rameses the Great.

"I am the son of Mentu," he said, "thy friend, and the friend of the Incomparable Pharaoh. Perchance thou dost remember me."

"I remember Mentu," the old man replied, after a s.p.a.ce that might have been spent in rumination, or in collecting his faculties to speak.

"He decorated the tomb of Rameses," the young man continued.

"Aye, I remember. I watched him often at the work."

"Thou knowest how the great king loved him."

The old man bent his head in a.s.sent.

"He was given a signet by Rameses, and on the jewel was testimony of royal favor which should outlive the Pharaoh and Mentu himself."

"Even so. A precious talisman, and a rare one."

"It was lost."

"Nay! Lost! Alas, that is losing the favor of Osiris. What a calamity!" The old man shook his head and his gray brows knitted.

"But the place in which it was lost is small, and I would search for it again."

"That is wise. The G.o.ds aid them who surrender not."

By this time the old man's face had become inquiring.

"There is need for the signet now--"

"The n.o.ble Mentu, in trouble?" the old man queried.

"The son of the n.o.ble Mentu is in trouble--the purity of an innocent one at stake, and the foiling of a villain to accomplish," Kenkenes answered earnestly.

"A sore need. Is it-- Wouldst thou have me aid thee?"

"Thou hast said. I come to thee to crave thy permission to search again for the signet."

"Nay, but I give it freely. Yet I do not understand."

"The signet was lost in the tomb of the Incomparable Pharaoh. May I not visit the crypt?"

The old man thought a moment. "Aye, thou canst search. If thou wilt come for me to-morrow--"

"Nay, I would go this very night."

The keeper's face sobered and he shook his head.

"Deny me not, I pray thee," Kenkenes entreated earnestly. "Thou, who hast lived so many years, hast at some time weighed the value of a single moment. In the waste or use of the scant s.p.a.ce between two breaths have lives been lost, souls smirched, the unlimited history of the future turned. And never was a greater stake upon the saving of time than in this strait--which is the peril of spotless womanhood."

The old man rubbed his head. "Aye, I know, I know. Thy haste is justifiable, but--"

"I can go alone. There is no need that thou shouldst waste an hour of thy needed sleep for me. I pledge thee I shall conduct myself without thee as I should beneath thine eye. Most reverently will I enter, most reverently search, most reverently depart, and none need ever know I went alone."

The ancient keeper weakened at the earnestness of the young man.

"And thou wilt permit no eye to see thee enter or come forth from the valley?"

"Most cautious will I be--most secret and discreet."

"Canst thou open the gates?"

"I have not forgotten from the daily practice that was mine for many weeks."

"Then go, and let no man know of this. Amen give thee success."

Kenkenes thanked him gratefully and went at once.

The moon was in its third quarter, but it was near midnight and the valley of the Nile between the distant highlands to the east and west was in soft light. On the eastern side of the river there was only a feeble glimmer from a window where some chanting leech stood by a bedside, or where a feast was still on. But under the l.u.s.ter of the waning moon Thebes lost its outlines and became a city of marbles and shadows and undefined limits.

On the western side the vision was interrupted by a lofty, sharp-toothed range, tipped with a few scattered stars of the first magnitude. In the plain at its base were the palaces of Amenophis III, of Rameses II, and their temples, the temples of the Tothmes, and far to the south the majestic colossi of Amenophis III towered up through the silver light, the faces, in their own shadow, turned in eternal contemplation of the sunrise. Grouped about the great edifices were the booths of funeral stuffs and the stalls of caterers to the populace of the Libyan suburb of Thebes. But these were hidden in the dark shadows which the great structures threw. The moon blotted out the profane things of the holy city and discovered only its splendors to the sky.

At the northwest limits of the suburb, the hills approached the Nile, leaving only a narrow strip a few hundred yards wide between their fronts and the water. Here the steep ramparts were divided by a tortuous cleft, which wound back with many cross-fissures deep into the desert. The ravine was simply a chasm, with perpendicular sides of naked rock.

At its upper end, it was blocked by a wall of unscalable heights.

Nowhere in its length was it wider than a hundred yards, and across the mouth a gateway wide enough for three chariots abreast had been built of red granite.