The Yoke Part 91

Sobbing, wild with anxiety and grief, Kenkenes shook the inert body, pleading frantically for some sign to guide him to Rachel. But there was no response, for the dead speak not out of Amenti.

At last Kenkenes laid the body down and stood up. It had come to him very plainly that, but for Atsu, already these dead servitors would have been beyond overtaking in pursuit of his love. Though a worshiper of Israel's G.o.d, Kenkenes was still Egyptian in his instincts. The man who had died to save Rachel he could not bury uncoffined in a grave of sand, where the natural processes of dissolution would destroy him utterly. His and Rachel's debts to Atsu were great, and the demand was made upon him now to discharge all that was possible in the one act of caring for the dead soldier's remains. Kenkenes could not bear the body back to the group he had left about the king, for he had a mission which concerned all the living who were dear to him. Furthermore the sky was threatening, the desert was a terrible place during high winds, and he dared not delay.

Suddenly a thought struck him. Travelers and sea-faring men had told him that there were settlements along the Red Sea. Might he not go forward, on his way after Israel, till he found one of these?

He led the largest horse past the dead servitors, and persuading it to stand, lifted the body of Atsu upon its back. With difficulty he mounted, and supporting the limp burden with one arm, turned again toward the southeast.

As he went forward, Kenkenes meditated on the signs of this recent and tragic event. He had searched throughout the length and breadth of Goshen for Rachel and none had seen her or heard of her since she had fled from Har-hat into the desert, eight months before he had seen her last. Israel was more ignorant of the whereabouts of Rachel than he.

He could not tell whether Har-hat knew where she was, nor could he guess from the position of the fighters in which direction the servants had meant to ride. The tracks of their horses were not to be discovered in the great trampled roadway Israel had made.

Of this thing Kenkenes was sure. If Rachel were with Israel she had joined it after he had left Goshen. In that case he was going to her, to ask after her safety, when he inquired after all Israel. If she were still in Egypt he would stop Har-hat's search for ever. This recollection added to his determination and intensified his zeal.

At the beginning of the great fields of sea-gra.s.s he came upon a little hamlet. It was a considerable distance inland, and the chief industry of the people could have been only the gathering of sedge for hay, or the curing of herb and root for medicines. Some of the villagers were in sight but the most of them were out in the direction of the lakes, laboring in the marsh gra.s.s.

In the course of the past year's events Kenkenes had learned to be a cautious and skilful fugitive. He did not care to be caught and taxed with the death of the man whose body he bore. The village shrine was the structure nearest to him. It was built of sun-dried brick, with three walls, the fourth side open to the sunrise. Kenkenes dismounted and reconnoitered. The shrine was empty, and none of the villagers was near.

He lifted the dead man from the horse and bore the body into the sanctuary. Before the image of Athor was a long table overlaid with a slab of red sandstone. Here the offerings were left and here Kenkenes laid Atsu, a true sacrifice to the love deity. Reverently the young man closed the eyes and straightened the chilling limbs. Going into his patrimony of jewels sewn in his belt, he took an emerald, and putting it in the hands, crossed them above the breast. Then he laid his mantle over the bier.

At the threshold he found a soft stone and with that he wrote upon the head of the long table the name of the dead man, and Mendes, his native city. Under this he wrote further to the villagers, charging them, in the name of the G.o.ddess, to care for the body reverently and return it to the tomb of Atsu's fathers. Having made note of the emerald as remuneration for their labors, he completed the inscription without signature.

Thus he insured the safety and preservation of the bones of Atsu, and in the eye of the average Egyptian he had served the soldier well. But Kenkenes was not satisfied.

As he left the shrine he muttered with trembling lips:

"Bless him! The fate is not kind which yields to such goodness no reward save grat.i.tude. There must be, because of the great G.o.d's justness, some especial blessing laid up for Atsu."

In the time he had spent in the sanctuary the atmosphere had grown hazy and the sun shone obscurely. To the east were tumbled and darkening ma.s.ses, which gathered even as he looked and joined till they stretched in a vast and unillumined sweep about the horizon. The wind had died and the heat bathed him in perspiration.

Once again his eyes sought the pillar and found it above him, still somewhat to the east, yet in form unchanged, in hue undimmed.

Something within him a.s.sociated the column of cloud with Israel and Israel's G.o.d.

He went to his horse and found him terrified and unmanageable. After vain efforts to soothe the creature, he walked away a little s.p.a.ce, clasping his hands.

"O Thou mysterious G.o.d! By these tokens Thy hand is upon the earth and upon the heavens. Even as Thou hast shielded me thus far, withdraw not Thy sheltering hand from about me, Thy worshiper, in this, Thy latest hour of mystery."

He skirted the village, now filling with frightened peasants, and took the path of Israel.

It led in a southeasterly direction toward a far-off hill, barely outlined through the haze of the distance. Meanwhile the darkness settled and over the sea the somber bastion of cloud heaved its sooty bulk up the sky. The air stagnated and the whole desert was soundless.

A round and tumbled ma.s.s, blue-black but attended by a copper-colored rack, detached itself from a shelf-like stratum of cloud, and elongating, seemed to descend to the surface of the sea. Daylight went out instantly and a prolonged moan came from the distant east.

Blinding flashes of lightning illuminated the whirling ma.s.s and almost absolute darkness fell after each bolt. Out of the inky midnight toward the east came an ever-increasing sound of a maddened sea, gathering in volume and fury and menace. Kenkenes flung himself on his face and waited.

He did not have long to wait.

With a noise of mighty rending, reinforced by a continuous roll of savage thunder, the storm struck. A spinning cone of wind caught a great expanse of sand, and lifting the loose covering, carried a huge twisting column inland--death and entombment for any living thing it met. With it went a great blast of spray, stones, sea-weed, ma.s.ses of sedge uprooted bodily, much wreckage, palm trees, small huts which went to pieces as they were carried along, wild and domestic animals, anything and everything that lay in the path of the storm.

The rotatory movement pa.s.sed with the first whirl, but a hurricane, blowing with overcoming velocity, pressed like a wall against anything that strove to face it. Its hoa.r.s.e raving filled Kenkenes' ears with t.i.tanic sound. The breath was s.n.a.t.c.hed from his nostrils; his eyelids, tightly closed, were stung with sharply driven sand. Though he struggled to his feet and attempted to proceed, he staggered and wandered and was p.r.o.ne to turn away from the solid breast of the mighty blast. He could not hope to make headway blinded, yet he dared not lift his face to the sand. He could make a shelter over his eyes that he might watch his feet, but he could not discover path and direction in this manner.

The day was far advanced, and already the army had outstripped him.

Might not Har-hat at this hour be descending with his veterans, seasoned against the simoons of Arabia, upon Israel, demoralized in the storm?

Desperate, the young man dropped his hands and flung up his head.

He was standing in a soft light, very faintly diffused about him but narrowing ahead of him, brightening, as it contracted, into almost daytime brilliance to the south. The illuminated strip was not wide; the plateau to the west was dark; the farther east likewise storm-obscured. Taking courage, he raised his eyes for an instant.

The drifting sand would not permit a longer contemplation, but in that fleeting glimpse he discovered the source of the supernatural radiance.

The pillar was tinged like a cloud in the sunset, with a mellow and benign fire.

Kenkenes did not marvel and was not perplexed. The miracles no longer amazed him, but he had not become indifferent or unthankful. Each forward step he took was a declaration of faith; the thrill of relief in his veins, a psalm of thanksgiving. The stones were as many and as sharp, the way as untender, and the mighty tempest strove against him as powerfully, but he followed the ray, trusting it implicitly.

Night fell unnoticed for it merged with the supernatural darkness of the day.

At the summit of the slope which led down to the water's edge, he paused. Below him was a gentle declivity ending to the south in darkness. There was not a glimmer of radiance on the sea. Far to the east could be heard the sound of infuriated surges, storming the rocks, but dense darkness shrouded all the distance. Only the beach directly under him was alight. The shadows cast were blacker than daylight shadows, and the radiance had a touch of gold, which gilded everything beneath it. The poorest object was enriched, the gaudiest subdued.

Had the number of Israel been ten thousand or even a hundred thousand, Kenkenes might have had some conception of the mult.i.tude. The millions ma.s.sed below him on the sand were not to be looked on except as a vast unit.

The tribes were divided, the herds were collected at the rear or inland side, and the lepers were isolated, but no order in detail was possible. Tents were down, goods were being gathered, and much commotion was apparent. Even at a distance Kenkenes could see that consternation and dismay were rife among Israel. The whole valley was murmurous with subdued outcry, and a mult.i.tudinous lowing and bleating of the herds swept up, blown wildly by the hurricane.

The senses, too, are limited in their grasp, even as the brain has bounds upon its conception. The dimensions, movement and sound of the mult.i.tude over-taxed the eye and ear.

Was it the storm or the army that had frightened them?

Slipping and sliding in his haste, he descended the slope without care for the sound he made. The hillocks and hollows that interposed irritated him. His impatience made him forget his great weariness.

Israel's helpless ones to the sword, Israel's treasure open to the enrichment of a traitor, Israel's fighting-men driven to rally to his standard--Rachel's people, to be mastered by Har-hat!

Great was his intent and its scope, and how cheaply attained if it cost but two lives--his enemy's and his own! How much depended upon him!

His enthusiasm and zeal put out of his sight all his young reluctance to surrender life and the world. He could have explained, truthfully, from his own feelings, what it is that enables men to suffer an eager martyrdom.

Two Hebrews outside the limits of the camp halted him.

"I bring tidings to your captain," he explained. The answer was swept from the speaker's lips and carried astray by the wind, but he caught these words.

"Thou art an Egyptian. Thy kind hath no friendship for Israel."

"I am of Egypt, but I am one with you in faith. Conduct me to the prince, I pray you."

"Take him," said one to the other. "He is but one."

The Hebrew, thus addressed, motioned Kenkenes to follow him, and turned toward the encampment.

They pa.s.sed through a lane between two tribes. Kenkenes guessed, looking first upon one and then the other, that there were one hundred thousand in the two. Strip a city of her plan and shape, her houses, her pleasures and commerce; leave only her people, their smallest possessions, and all their fears; beset such a city with an army on three sides, the sea on the fourth and a furious hurricane over all--and in such state and of such appearance were these two tribes.

Kenkenes fortified himself and resisted with all his might the contagious panic that seemed about to attack him. As well as he might, he concentrated his mind upon other things. He noted that the shadows were long like those of afternoon. Turning his head, he saw that the pillar stood behind the encampment and that its light was thrown forward and downward, not backward and outward. Very manifestly, the benefits of the miracle were only for the believers in Jehovah. The marvel brought into the young man's mind some natural speculation concerning the great miracle-worker to whom his guide was leading him.

What manner of man was he about to look upon,--a sorcerer, a trafficker in horrors, a confounder of men?

Ahead, particularly illumined by the celestial light, was a group of elders--great, grave men, misted in the flying fleeces of their own beards. They bent firmly against the blast and the broad streaming of their ample drapings added much to the idea of supernatural power and resistance they inspired.

The Hebrew leading Kenkenes slackened his step as if hesitating to approach so venerable a council, when suddenly the group separated, revealing a majestic man about whom it had been cl.u.s.tered.