The Yoke Part 31

"I have made my peace with Athor."

"Hath she given thee her word?"

"Nay, no need. For I did not offend her. Rather hath she abetted me--urged me in my trespa.s.s. She persuaded me to become vagrant with her, and I followed the divine runaway into the desert. I doubt not I was chosen because I was as lawless as her needs required. Athor is beautiful and would prove herself so to her devotees. And to me was the lovely labor appointed."

Hotep looked at him mystified.

"By the G.o.ds," he said at last, "thou hadst better get in out of this wind."

Kenkenes laughed genuinely. "My babble will take meaning ere long. If thou questionest me, I must answer, but I am determined not to betray my secret yet."

"Go we to On?" Hotep asked plaintively, after a long interval of industry for him and dream for Kenkenes. The young sculptor sat up and looked at the opposite sh.o.r.e. "Nay," he cried, "we are long past the place where we should have landed. Yonder is the Marsh of the Discontented Soul. Let me row back."

He turned and pulled rapidly toward the eastern sh.o.r.e. Away to the south, behind them, were the quarries of Masaarah. But they were still a considerable distance above Toora, a second village of quarry-workers, now entirely deserted. The pitted face of the mountain behind the town was without life, for, as has been seen, Meneptah was not a building monarch. Directly opposite them the abrupt wall of the Arabian hills pushed down near to the Nile and the intervening s.p.a.ce was a flat sandy stretch, ending in a reedy marsh at the water's edge.

The line of cultivation ended far to the south and north of it, though the soil was as arable as any bordering the Nile. A great number of marsh geese and a few stilted waders flew up or plunged into the water with discordant cries and flapping of wings as the presence of the young men disturbed the solitude. The sedge was wind-mown, and there were numberless prints of bird claws, but no mark of boat-keel or human foot. The place should have been a favorite haunt of fowlers, but it was lonely and overshadowed with a sense of absolute desertion.

"But," Hotep began suddenly, "thou hast spoken of offense and pardon, and now thou boastest that Athor abetted thee."

"Why is this called the Marsh of the Discontented Soul?"

The scribe smiled patiently. "Of a truth, dost thou not know?"

"As the immortals hear me, I do not. I have never asked and the chronicles do not speak of it."

"Nay; the story is four hundred years old, and the chroniclers do not tell it because it is out of the scope of history, I doubt not. But it has become tradition throughout Egypt to shun the spot, though few know why they must. A curse is laid upon the place. An unfaithful wife whom the priests denied repose with her ancestors is entombed yonder."

He pointed toward an angle between an outstanding b.u.t.tress and the limestone wall. "Her soul haunts him who comes here with the plea that her mummy be removed to On, where she dwelt in life, and laid with the respected dead, in the necropolis."

Kenkenes shrugged his shoulders. "I trust the unhappy soul will not trouble us. We came here by way of misadventure--not to disturb her.

But how came it they did not entomb her nearer On?"

"She betrayed one great man and tempted another. She offended against the lofty. Therefore, her punishment was the more heavy--her isolation in death like to banishment in life."

"So; if she had slighted a paraschite and tempted a beer brewer, her fate would have been less harsh. O, the justness of justice!"

The morning was well advanced when they reached the niche on the hillside--Hotep, wondering; Kenkenes, silent and expectant.

The sculptor led the way into the presence of Athor, and stepped aside.

The scribe halted and gazed without sound or movement--petrified with amazement.

Before him, in hue and quiescence was a statue in stone--in all other respects, a human being. The figure was of white magnesium limestone, and stood upon rock yet unhewn.

The ritual had been trampled into the dust.

The eye of the most unlearned Egyptian could detect the sacrilege at a single glance.

It was the image of a girl, draped in an overlong robe, fastened over each shoulder by a fibula, ornamented with a round medallion. Through the vestments, intentionally simple, there was testimony of the exquisite lines of the figure they clothed.

The sole observance of hieratic symbol were the horns of Athor set in the hair.

The figure was posed as if in the act of a forward movement. The knee was slightly bent in an att.i.tude of supplication. The face was upturned, the eyes lifted, the arms extended to their fullest, forward and upward, the fingers curved as if ready to receive. The hair was separated into two heavy plaits, which fell below the waist down the back.

One sandaled foot was advanced, slightly; the other hidden by the hem of the robe.

Every physical feature visible upon the living form so disposed and draped had been carved upon this grace in stone. Egypt had never fas.h.i.+oned anything so perfect. Indeed, she would not have called it sculpture.

The glyptic art of Greece had been paralleled hundreds of years before it was born.

On the face there was the light of overpowering love together with the intangible pride so marked on the representations of profane deities.

But the most manifest emotions were the great yearning and entreaty.

They were marked in the att.i.tude of the head thrown back, in the outstretched arms and in the bent knee. That there was more hopeful expectancy than despairing insistence, was proved by the curve of the ready fingers and the uncertain smile on the lips. It was Athor, eternally young, eternally in love, eternally unsatisfied, receiving the setting sun as she had done since the world began. None of the rapturous impatience and uncertainty of the moment had been lost since the first sunset after chaos. And yet, with all the pulse and fervor, here was womanhood, immaculate and ineffable.

Never did face so command men to wors.h.i.+p.

"Holy Amen!" the scribe exclaimed, his voice barely audible in its earnestness. "What consummate loveliness! But what--what unspeakable impiety!"

"Hast thou seen Athor? She is before thee."

"Athor! The golden G.o.ddess in the image of a mortal! Kenkenes, the wrath of the priests awaits thee and thereafter the doom of the insulted Pantheon!" The scribe shuddered and plucked at his friend's robe as if to drag him away from the sight of his own creation.

Firmly fixed were the young artist's convictions to resist the impelling force of Hotep's consternation.

"Nay, nay, Hotep," he answered soothingly. "The wrath of the G.o.ds for an offense thus flagrant is exceedingly slow, if it is to fall. Lo!

they have propitiated me at great length if they mean to accomplish mine undoing at last. Thus far, and the statue is well-nigh complete, I have met no form of obstacle."

But Hotep shook his head in profound apprehension. He looked at the statue furtively and murmured:

"O Kenkenes, what madness made thee trifle with the G.o.ds?"

"Have I not said? The G.o.ddess herself lured me. Is she not the embodied essence of Beauty? The ritual insults her. Ah, look at the statue, Hotep. How could Athor be wroth with the sculptor who called such a face as that, a likeness of her!"

"It startles me," the scribe declared. "It is supernaturally human.

That is not art, but creation. O apostate, thine offense is of two-fold seriousness. Thou hast stolen the function of the divine Mother and made a living thing!"

Kenkenes laughed with sheer joy at his comrade's genuine praise. The more dismayed Hotep might be, the more sincere his compliment. But the scribe, plunged into a stupor of concern lest the authorities discover the sacrilege, went on helplessly.

"What wilt thou do with it when it is done?"

"I have left no mark of myself upon it."

"Nay, but the priesthood can scent out a blasphemer as a hound scents a jackal."

"Thou wilt not betray me, Hotep; I shall not publish myself, and the other--the only other who possesses my secret--the Israelite, who was my model, is fidelity's self. I would trust her with my soul."

"An Israelite! Thy nation's most active foe at this hour!"

"She is no enemy to me, Hotep."

Slowly the scribe's eyes traveled from the face of Athor to the face of Kenkenes. The young sculptor turned away and leaned against the great cube that walled one side of the niche. He was not prepared to meet his friend's discerning eyes. Hotep surveyed him critically. A momentous surmise forced itself upon him. He went to Kenkenes and, laying an affectionate arm across his shoulder, leaned not lightly thereon.