The Yoke Part 94

It is the love of riper years, that makes the lips of lovers silent.

But Kenkenes and Rachel were very young and wholly demonstrative, and they had need of many words to supplement the testimony of caresses.

They had much to tell and they left no avowal unmade.

But at last Kenkenes' voice wearied and Rachel noted it. So in her pretty authoritative way, she stroked his lashes down and bade him sleep. When she removed her hands and clasped them above his head, his eyes did not open.

As she bent over him, she noted with a great sweep of tenderness how young he was. In all her relations with Kenkenes she had seen him in the manliest roles. She had depended upon him, looked up to him, and had felt secure in his protection. Now she contemplated a face from which content had erased the mature lines that care had drawn. The curve of his lips, the length of the drooping lashes, the roundness of cheek, and the softness of throat, were youthful--boyish. With this enlightenment her love for him experienced a transfiguration. She seemed to grow older than he; the maternal element leaped to the fore; their positions were instantly reversed. It was hers to care for him!

After a long time, his arms relaxed about her, and she undid them and disposed them in easy position. Lifting the fillet from his brow, she smoothed out the mark it had made and settled the cushions more softly under his head. From the heap of coverings she took the amplest and the softest and spread it over him. Remembering that the wind from the sea blew shrewdly at night, she laid rugs about the edges of the tent which fluttered in the breeze and returned again to his side.

After another s.p.a.ce of rapt contemplation of his unconscious face she went forth and drew the entrance together behind her.

The next daybreak was the happiest Israel had known in a hundred years.

Egypt, overthrown and humbled, was behind them; G.o.d was with them, and Canaan was just ahead--perhaps only beyond the horizon. Few but would have laughed at the glory of Babylonia, a.s.syria and the great powers.

For had it not been promised that out of Israel nations should be made, and kings should come?

The march was to be taken up immediately, and in the cool of the morning the host was ready to advance.

Rachel had not permitted herself to be seen until the tent of Miriam was struck. She knew that Kenkenes was without, waiting for her, and with the delightful inconsistency of maidenhood, she dreaded while she longed to meet her beloved again. And when the moment arrived she slipped across the open s.p.a.ce to the camel that was to bear her into Canaan, but in the shadow of the faithful creature, Kenkenes overtook her and folded her in his arms.

"A blessing on thee, my sweet! And I am blest in having thee once more."

"Didst thou sleep well?" she asked.

"Most industriously, since I made up what I lost and overlapped a little. And yet I was abroad at dawn prowling about thy tent lest thou shouldst flee me once again. Rachel--" his voice sobered and his face grew serious--"Rachel, wilt thou wed me this day?"

"If it were only 'aye' or 'nay' to be said, I should have said it long ago," she answered with averted eyes, "but there are many things that thou shouldst know, Kenkenes, before thou demandest the answer from me."

"Name them, Rachel," he said submissively; "but let me say this first.

Mine eyes are not mystic but most truthfully can I tell this moment, which of us twain will rule over my tent."

"And thou art ready for the tent and shepherd life of Israel?" she asked gravely, but before he could answer she went on.

"Hear me first. So tender hast thou been of me; so much hast thou sacrificed for my sake that it were unkind to bind thee to me in the life-long sacrifice and life-long hardships that I may know. Thine enemy and mine is dead, and Egypt rid of him. There is much in Egypt to prosper thee; there, thy state is high; there, thou hast opportunity and wealth. Israel can offer thee G.o.d and me. Even the faith thou couldst keep in Egypt, so thou wert watchful. And further, thou art the murket's son, and building takes the place of carving for thee, now. But, here, O Kenkenes, thou must lay thy chisel down for ever, for the faith of the mult.i.tude, so newly weaned from idolatry, is too feeble to be tried with the sight of images."

Kenkenes heard her with a pa.s.sive countenance. She gave him news, indeed--facts of a troublous nature, but he held his peace and let her proceed.

"And this, yet further. Once in that time when I was a slave and thou my master and loved me not--"

His dark eyes reproached her.

"Didst love me, then, of a truth? But it matters not--and yet"--coming closer to him, "it matters much! In that time ere thou hadst told me so, we talked of Canaan, thou and I. I boasted of it, being but newly filled with it and freshly come from Caleb who taught us. Then, Israel was enslaved and not yet so vastly helped by Jehovah. But alas! I have seen Israel freed, and attended by its G.o.d, and by the tokens of its conduct, Israel is far, far from Canaan. I am of Israel and whosoever weds with me, will be of Israel likewise. It may not be that I shall escape my people's sorrows. Shall I bring them upon thy head, also, my Kenkenes?"

After a little he answered, sighing.

"Thou dost not love me, Rachel."

"Kenkenes!"

"Aye, I have said. Thou wouldst send me away from thee, back into Egypt."

"O, seest thou not? I would have thee know thy heart; I would not have thee choose blindly; I do but sacrifice myself," she cried, panic-stricken.

"And yet, thou wouldst deny me that same delight of sacrifice. Can I not surrender for thee as well?"

She drooped her head and did not answer.

"Ah! thou speakest of the benefits of Egypt," he continued. "What were Egypt without thee, save a great darkness haunted and vacant? Besides, there is no Egypt beyond this sea. She hath risen and crossed with Israel--all her beauty and her glory and her beneficence. For thou art Egypt and shalt be to me all that I loved in Egypt."

He took her hands.

"Why may I not as justly doubt thy knowledge of thy heart?" he asked softly.

Seeing that she surrendered, he persisted no further in his protest.

"When wilt thou wed me, my love?"

She drew back from him a little, though she willingly left her hands where they were, and Kenkenes, noting the flush on her cheeks, the pretty gravity of her brow, and the well-known air she a.s.sumed when she discoursed, smiled and said fondly to himself:

"By the signs, I am to be taught something more."

"Thou knowest, my Kenkenes," she began, "the Hebrews are married simply. There is feasting and dancing and the bride is taken to the house of her father-in-law. Thereafter there is still much feasting, but the wedding ceremony is done at the home-bringing of the bride."

"I hear," said Kenkenes when she paused.

"I am without kindred; thou art here without house. There can be no wedding feast for us, nor dancing nor singing, for Israel is on the march."

"Of a truth," Kenkenes a.s.sented.

"So there is only the essential portion of the ceremony left to us--the home-bringing of the bride."

"It is enough," said Kenkenes.

"Hur and Miriam brought me to thy tent last night."

With his face lighting, Kenkenes drew her to him and put his arm about her.

"So if thou wilt, we shall say--that--from--that moment--"

Her voice grew lower, her words more unready and failed altogether.

"From that moment," he said eagerly, rea.s.suring her. "From that moment--"

"From that moment, I have been thy wife!"

CHAPTER XLVII