The Yoke Part 38

"Will he be there?" she demanded.

"Nay, that I can pledge thee." She slipped past her guardian, out of the tent and sped up the valley, determined that Deborah's prohibition, however just, should not stay her.

The old Israelite turned to look after her, and her eyes fell on Atsu, his face black with rage, his arms folded, talking with a fat, wildly gesticulating servitor. At that moment the courier caught sight of Rachel flying up the valley and, flinging a doc.u.ment at Atsu's feet, started to pursue. Atsu halted him with an iron hand, and Deborah paused to see no more. With a prayer she ran up the valley the way Rachel had taken.

CHAPTER XIX

IN THE DESERT

In the early morning of the next day after the rout at Senci's, Kenkenes wandered restlessly about the inner court of his father's house. He had slept but little the preceding night, and now, dizzy and irritable, the freshness of the morning did not invigorate him and the haunting perplexities were with him still.

There was no need of haste to the Arabian hills and yet he could not wait patiently in Memphis for an appropriate hour to visit Masaarah.

He paced hither and thither, flung himself on the benches in the shade, only to rise and resume his uneasy walk. Anubis was omnipresent and particularly ungovernable. If his young master were in motion he vibrated and oscillated like a shuttle. If Kenkenes sat, he paced the tessellated pavement slowly and with a foot-fall lighter than a birds.

The sculptor eyed him understandingly, and finally arose.

"Come, Anubis! t.i.t, t.i.t, t.i.t!" he called, backing toward the work-room. Anubis bounded after him, but as Kenkenes paused just over the threshold, the ape also halted. His master retreated to the rear of the room still calling, but to the ape there was something portentous familiar in this proceeding. It hinted of imprisonment.

Turning as though pursued, he disappeared up an acacia tree from which he could not be dislodged. With a vexed exclamation, Kenkenes pa.s.sed out of the court into the house, slamming the swinging door so sharply that it sprang open again after him. As the old portress put back the outer doors leading into the street, that her young master might go forth, a shadow quick as thought slipped out after him. The old portress clapped her hands with a shrill command but the shadow was gone.

Once more in his work-day dress, his wallet of tools and provisions across his shoulder, the young sculptor pa.s.sed toward the Nile, moody and unhappy but determined. At the river-side he hired the shallow bari that had given him faithful service for so long, and receiving the oars from Sepet, the boatman, prepared to push away. At that moment, Anubis, tremulous but unrepentant, bounded in beside him.

"Anubis!" Kenkenes exclaimed. "Of a truth I believe thou art possessed of the arts of magic. Now, if thou art lost in the hills and devoured by a wolf, upon thine own head be it. Pull in that paw, before thou becomest a foolish sacrifice to the sacred crocodile. I wonder thy self-respect does not keep thee from coming when thou art unwelcome."

And subsiding into silence, the sculptor turned toward Masaarah.

He made a landing below the stone wharf, for there a two-oared bari was already drawn up, and the tangle of herbage was a safe hiding-place for his own boat. He looked toward the quarry and hesitated. He had no heart yet to face her, who had laid his cruelest sorrow on him. He would continue his work on Athor until he had gathered a.s.surance from that unforbidding face.

His light foot made no sound and he entered the niche silently.

Kneeling on the chipped stone at the base of the statue, her face against the drapings, her arms clasping its knees, was Rachel. In one hand was the collar of rings. She had not heard the sculptor's approach.

For an instant his surprise transfixed him. Had she repented? A great wave of compa.s.sion and tenderness swept over him and he drew her face away between his palms. With a terrified start, the girl turned a swift glance upward. When she recognized Kenkenes her tearful face colored vividly. Her posture was such that she could not rise, and with infinite gentleness he lifted her to her feet.

"What is it, Rachel? Art thou in trouble?"

Joy and maidenly confusion took away her voice.

"Alas," he went on sadly. "Am I so fallen from thy favor, shut out and denied thy confidence?"

"Nay, nay," she protested. "Think not so harshly of me. I am--I came--" she faltered and paused. He did not help or spare her. He had come to learn why she had done this thing, why she had said that, and why she had repulsed him without explanation, when there was unmistakable preference for him in her unstudied acts. He held his peace and waited for her to proceed. Meanwhile Rachel suffered cruelly. She had no thought in her mind concerning her conduct toward him. It was the shameful event of the morning, which must be told to explain her presence before Athor, that made her cover her crimson face at last. Kenkenes silenced the protests of his gallantry, and drawing her hands away, lifted her face on the tips of his fingers and waited.

While they stood thus, Deborah, exhausted and praying, staggered into the inclosure.

"Rachel!" she panted. "The serving-men--thou art pursued!" The fat courier, purple of countenance and breathing hard, appeared in the opening. Rachel shrank against Kenkenes and Deborah dropped on her knees between the pair and the servitor.

"Out of the way, hag!" the man puffed. "Let me at yon slave. Out!"

He struck at Deborah with a short mace but Kenkenes caught his arm and thrust him aside.

"Go, go back to the camp," he said to the old woman. "No harm shall befall Rachel." Raising her, he put her behind him, and advanced toward the courier.

"Hast thou words with me?" he said coolly. "What wilt thou?"

"The girl. Give her up!"

"Nay, but thou art peremptory. What wilt thou with her?"

"For the harem of the Pharaoh's chief adviser," the man retorted.

The blood in Kenkenes' veins seemed to become molten; flashes of fierce light blinded him and his sinews hardened into iron. He bounded forward and his fingers buried themselves in soft and heated flesh.

The first glimmer of reason through his murderous insanity was the consciousness of a rain of blows upon his head and shoulders, and a blackening face settling back to the earth before him.

He released his grip on the throat of the strangling servitor and flung off his other a.s.sailants. For a moment, stunned by the hard usage at the hands of the reinforcing men, he staggered, and seemed about to succ.u.mb. The men pursued him to finish their work, but as he eluded them, it seemed that a third person--a woman all in white with extended arms--came into their view.

Kenkenes saw the foremost, a tall Nubian in a striped tunic, stop in his tracks, and the second, smaller and lighter but a Nubian also, following immediately behind, b.u.mped against his fellow.

Mouths agape, eyes staring, they stood and marveled. The strange presence, they discovered at once, was neither a human being nor an apparition. It was stone--a statue.

"Sacrilege!" the first exploded. "A--a--by Amen, it is the slave herself!"

In the little pause, Kenkenes recovered himself, but he knew that he gave Rachel to her fate, if the pair overcame him. He caught her hand and with the whispered word, "Run!" fled with her toward the front of the cliff facing the Nile. It was a desperate chance for escape but he seized it.

Immediately they were pursued and at the brink of the hill, overtaken.

The stake was too large for the young artist to risk its loss by adhering to the unwritten rules of combat. He released Rachel, whirled about, and as the foremost descended on him, ducked, seized the man about the middle, and pitched him head-first down into the valley. The second, the tall Nubian that wore the striped tunic, halted, dismayed, and Kenkenes, catching Rachel's hand, prepared to descend. But she checked him with a cry. "Look!"

His eyes followed her outstretched arm. At regular intervals along the Nile, the distant figures of men were seen posted. Escape was cut off.

He mounted to the top of the cliff and led Rachel out of view from the river. The second man retreated, and raged from afar. The sculptor turned up the s.h.i.+ngly slope toward the sun-white ridge of higher hills inland. Here, he would hide with Rachel, till his strength returned and the ache left his head clear to plan a safe escape. The Nubian called on all the G.o.ds to annihilate them and started in pursuit. The sculptor did not pause, and, emboldened by the indifference of the man he dogged, the pursuer drew near and made menacing demonstrations.

Kenkenes had no desire to be followed. He bade Rachel wait for him and approached the Nubian.

"Now," he began coolly, "thou art unwelcome, likewise, insolent. Also art thou a fool, but it is an arch-idiot indeed that lacketh caution.

This maiden is beloved of all the Israelites. Thou art one man, and alone. It would not be safe for thee to attempt to take her without help even across that little s.p.a.ce between Masaarah and the Nile. I should hara.s.s thee with others within call. Do thou save thyself and send the chief adviser after her. I would treat with him also."

The Nubian backed away and Kenkenes followed him relentlessly until the man, overcome with trepidation, took to his heels and fled.

Even then, Kenkenes did not lessen his vigilance. He caught up Anubis, who had bounded beside him during the entire time, and running back to Rachel, turned into the limestone wastes.

Kenkenes had risked his suggestions to the single Nubian, and their effect upon him gave the young sculptor some hope that the pursuing force had been limited to these three. Though the men along the Nile were not within call, they would prevent flight into Memphis, and the camp of the Israelites, if not similarly picketed, would offer security only for the moment. Why had not the Hebrews protected her in the beginning? He would get to a place of perfect safety first and learn all concerning this matter.

After an hour's cautious dodging from shelter to shelter, through the ma.s.ses of rocks, they toiled up the great ridge of hills deep into the desert. Rachel would have gone on and on, but Kenkenes drew her into the shadow of a great rock and stopped to listen. The oppressive silence was unbroken. Far and near only gray wastes of hills heaved in heated solitude about them.

"Sit here in the shadow and rest," he said, turning to the weary girl beside him. "I shall keep watch."

He cleared a s.p.a.ce for her among the debris at the base of the great fragment and pressed her down in the place he had made. Next he undid his belt and fastened Anubis to a boulder, too heavy for the ape to move. The animal resented the confinement, and Kenkenes, tying him by force, found in the forepaws the collar of golden rings. With a murmur of satisfaction, the young man reclaimed the necklace and thrust it into the bosom of his dress.

When he arose the day grew dark before him, and he was obliged to steady himself against the rock till the vertigo pa.s.sed. His a.s.sailants had hurt him more than he had thought. But he took up his vigil and maintained it faithfully till all sense of danger had vanished.

Rachel, who had been watching his face, touched his hand at last, and bade him rest. The invitation was welcome and with a sigh he sank down beside her.

"Lie down," she said softly. "Thou hast been most cruelly misused.