The Yoke Part 93

In the early hours of the morning, having become so accustomed to the roar of the wind and the sound of the moving mult.i.tude, Kenkenes ceased to be conscious of it. Other sounds, which hours before would have failed to reach his ears, became distinct. The crying of tired children reached him, and he detected even s.n.a.t.c.hes of talk among the ranks some distance away from him. Thus a clamor of noise, secondary in force, grew about him. Above it all, at last, came a sound that would have made him halt if he could.

He tried to think it one of the many voices of the storm, but the second time he heard it, he knew what it was.

Far to the rear, a trumpet-call, beautiful and spirited, rose upon the air.

The Egyptian army was in pursuit!

Israel heard it, and crying aloud in its terror, swept forward, as if the trumpet-call had commanded it. Kenkenes felt a quickening of pulse, a momentary tremor, but no more.

He became conscious finally of a warmth penetrating his sandals. He knew that he had been struggling up a slope for a long time, and now he realized that he was again on the dry, sun-heated sand of the desert.

The mult.i.tude ceased to crowd, the pressure about him diminished; the ranks began to widen to his left and right; the leaders halted altogether, and though there was still much movement among the body and rear of the host, people turned to look upon their neighbors.

The overhanging cloud parted from the eastern horizon, leaving a strip of sky softly lighted by the coming morn. Without any preliminary diminution of its force, the wind failed entirely.

Kenkenes, with many others, looked back and saw that the pillar, illuminated, but no longer illuminating, had halted above a solitary figure of seemingly super-human stature in the morning gray, standing on an eminence, overlooking the sea.

The arm was uplifted and outstretched, tense and motionless.

From his superior height, Kenkenes saw, over the heads of the immense concourse, two lines of foam riding like the wind across the sea-bed toward each other. Between them was a great body of plunging horses; overhead a forest of fluttering banners; and faint from the commotion came shouts and wild notes of trumpets. Then the two lines of foam smote against each other with a fearful rush and a m.u.f.fled report like the cannonading of surf. A mountain of water pitched high into the air and collapsed in a vast froth, which spread abroad over the churning, wallowing sea. The falling wind dashed a sheet of spray over the silent host on the eastern sh.o.r.e. Sharp against the white foam, dark objects and ma.s.ses sank, arose, and sank again.

At that moment the sun thrust a broad shaft of light between the horizon and the lifted cloud.

It discovered only the sea, raving and stormy, and afar to the west a misty, vacant, lifeless line of sh.o.r.e.

"And the waters returned and covered the chariots and the hors.e.m.e.n, and all the host of the Pharaoh that came into the sea after them; there remained not so much as one of them."

So perished Har-hat and the flower of the Egyptian army.

CHAPTER XLVI

WHOM THE LADY MIRIAM SENT

Of the ensuing day, Kenkenes had no very distinct memory. Very fair and beautiful, one recollection remained--a recollection of another figure on the eminence, and by the flash of white upthrown arms, and the blowing of a somber cloud of hair, this time it was a woman. How the morning sun glittered on the shaken timbrel; how the spotless draperies went wild in the wind; how the group of lissome maidens on the sand below wound in and out, in a mazy dance; how the mult.i.tude was swept into transports of beatification; how the men became prophets and the women, psalmists; how the vast wilderness reverberated with a great chant of exultation--all this he remembered as a sublime dream.

Thereafter, Israel moved inland and down the coast some distance, for the sea began to surrender its dead. Of the stir and method of the removal he did not remember, but of the encampment and the rea.s.sembling of the tribes he recalled several incidents. He was numb and sleep-heavy beyond words, and while leaning, in a semi-conscious condition, against some household goods, he was discovered by the owner, who was none other than the friendly son of Judah, his a.s.sistant in his search for Rachel in Pa-Ramesu. The man's honest joy over Kenkenes' safety was good to look upon. A few words of explanation concerning his very apparent exhaustion were fruitful of some comfort to the young Egyptian. The Hebrew's wife had a motherly heart, and the weary face of the comely youth touched it. Therefore, she brought him bread and wine and made him a place in the shadow of her tent-furnishings where he might sleep till what time the family shelter could be raised.

But Kenkenes did not rest. He fell asleep only to dream of Rachel, and awoke asking himself why he had abandoned the search for her; why he had left Egypt without her; and why he had not gone to Moses at once for aid to further his seeking through Israel.

He arose from his place, sick with all the old suspense and heartache.

He would begin now to look for Rachel and cease not till he found her or died of his weariness.

He stepped forth directly in the path of a party of women. He moved aside to give them room, and glancing at the foremost, recognized her immediately as the Lady Miriam. She stopped and looked at him.

"Thou art he who found Jehovah in Egypt?" she asked.

He bowed in a.s.sent.

"Thy faith is entire," she commented. "Also, have I cause to remember thee. Thou didst display a courteous spirit in Tape, a year agone."

"Thou hast repaid me with the flattery of thy remembrance, Lady Miriam," he replied.

"Thy speech publishes thee as n.o.ble," she went on calmly. "Thy name?"

"Kenkenes, the son of Mentu, the murket."

Her lips parted suddenly and her eyes gleamed.

"See yonder tent," she said, indicating a pavilion of new cloth, reared not far from the quarters of Moses. "Repair thither and await till I send to thee."

Without pausing for an answer she swept on, her maidens following, damp of brow and bright of eye.

Kenkenes turned toward the tent. A Hebrew at the entrance lifted the side without a word and signed him to enter.

The interior was not yet fully furnished. A rug of Memphian weave covered the sand and a taboret was placed in the center.

Presently the serving-man entered with a laver of sea-water, and an Israelitish robe, fringed and bound at the selvage with blue. With the despatch and adroitness of one long used to personal service, he attended the young Egyptian, and dressed him in the stately garments of his own people. When his service was complete, he took up the bowl and cast-off dress and went forth.

After a time he brought in a couch-like divan, dressed it with fringed linen and strewed it with cushions; next, he suspended a cl.u.s.ter of lamps from the center-pole; set a tiny inlaid table close to the couch, and on the table put a bottle of wine and a beaker; and brought last a heap of fine rugs and coverings which he laid in one corner. The tent was furnished and n.o.bly. The man bowed before Kenkenes, awaiting the Egyptian's further pleasure, but at a sign from the young man, bowed again and retired.

Kenkenes went over to the divan and sat down on it, to wait.

Presently some one entered behind him. He arose and turned. Before him was the most welcome picture his bereaved eyes could have looked upon. His visitor was all in shimmering white and wore no ornament except a collar of golden rings. What need of further adornment when she was mantled and crowned with a glory of golden hair? Except that the face was marble white and the eyes dark and large with quiet sorrow, it was the same divinely beautiful Rachel!

It may have been that he was beyond the recuperative influence of sudden joy, or that the unexpected restoration of his love might have swept away his forces had he been in full strength; but whatever the cause, Kenkenes sank to his knees and forward into the eager arms flung out to receive him. Her cry of great joy seemed to come to him from afar.

"Kenkenes! O my love! Not dead; not dead!"

Then it was he learned that she had despaired, grieving beyond any comfort, for she had counted him with the first-born of Egypt. And even though thoughts came to him but slowly now, he said to himself:

"Praise G.o.d, I did not think of it, or I had gone distracted with her trouble."

How rich woman-love is in solicitude and ministering resource! It made Rachel strong enough to raise him, and having led him back to the divan, gently to lay him down among the cushions. The wine was at her hand, and she filled the beaker, and held it while he drank. Then she kissed him and, hiding her face in his breast, wept soft tears. And though he held her very close and had in his heart a great longing to soothe her, he could not speak.

After a little she spoke.

"I had not dreamed that there was such artifice in Miriam. She told me of a n.o.bleman that had served G.o.d and Israel, and was in need of comfort in his tent. But she bridled her tongue and governed her expression so cunningly, that I did not dream the hero was mine--mine!"

Then on a sudden she disengaged herself from his arms and gaining her feet, cried out with her hands over her blushing face:

"And now, I know why she and Hur--O I know why they came with me, and brought me to the tent!"

"Nay, now; may I not guess, also?" Kenkenes laughed, though a little puzzled over her evident confusion. "They had a mind to peep and spy upon our love-making. Perchance they are without this instant; come hither and let us not disappoint them."

She dropped her hands and looked at him with flaming cheeks and smiling eyes. There was more in her look than he could fathom, but he did not puzzle longer when she came back to her place and hid her face away from him.