The Yoke Part 48

The guards started out of the doors and Kenkenes went with them, unresisting, but not pa.s.sively. All the thoughts were his that can come to a man, on whose freedom depend another's life and happiness.

Added to these was an all-consuming hate of her enemy and his, new-fed by this latest offense from Har-hat. With difficulty he kept the tumult of his emotions from manifesting themselves to his captors.

They feared that his calm was ominous, and held him tightly.

The necropolis was not astir and the streets were wind-haunted. The tread of the six men set dogs to barking, and only now and then was a face shown at the doorways. For this Kenkenes thanked his G.o.ds, for he was proud, and the eye of the humblest slave upon him in his humiliating plight would have hurt him more keenly than blows.

The prison was a square building of rough stone, flat-roofed, three stories in height. The red walls were broken at regular intervals by crevices, barred with bronze. There was but one entrance.

Herein were confined all the malefactors of the great city of the G.o.ds, and since the population of Thebes might have comprised something over half a million inhabitants, the dwellers of that grim and impregnable prison were not few in number.

Kenkenes was led through the doors, down a low-roofed, narrow, stone-walled corridor to the room of the governor of police.

This was a hall, with a lofty ceiling, highly colored and supported by loteform pillars of brilliant stone. Toth, the ibis-headed, and the G.o.ddess Ma, crowned with plumes, her wings forward drooping, were painted on the walls. A long table, ma.s.sive, plain and solid like a sarcophagus, stood in the center of the room. A confused litter of curled sheets of papyrus, and long strips of unrolled linen scrolls were distributed carelessly over the polished surface. At one side were eight plates of stone--the tables of law, codified and blessed by Toth.

The governor of police was absent, but his vice, who was jailer and scribe in one, sat in a chair behind the great table.

When the party entered, he sat up, undid a new scroll, wetted the reed pen in the pigment, and was ready.

"Name?" he began, preparing to write.

"That, thou knowest," Kenkenes retorted. The Nubian bowed respectfully and approaching, whispered to the scribe. The official ran over some of the scrolls and having found the one he sought, proceeded to make his entries from the information contained therein.

When the man had finished Kenkenes nodded toward the eight volumes of the law.

"If thou art as acquainted with the laws of Egypt as thine office requires, thou knowest that no free-born Egyptian may be kept ignorant of the charge that accomplished his arrest. Wherefore am I taken?"

"For sacrilege and slave-stealing," the scribe replied calmly.

"At the complaint of Har-hat, bearer of the king's fan," Kenkenes added.

"Until such time as stronger proof of thy misdeeds may be brought against thee," the scribe continued.

"Even so. In plainer words, I shall be held till I confess what he would have me tell, or until I decay in this tomb. Let me give thee my word, I shall do neither. Unhand me. I shall not attempt to escape."

At a sign from the scribe the four men released him and took up a position at the doors. Kenkenes opened his wallet and displayed the signet. The scribe took it and read the inscription. There was no doubting the young man's right to the jewel for here was the name of Mentu, even as the chief adviser had given it in identifying the prisoner. The official frowned and stroked his chin.

"This pet.i.tions the Pharaoh," he said at last. "I can not pa.s.s upon it."

"Send me to my cell, then, and do thou follow," Kenkenes said. "I have somewhat to tell thee."

"Take him to his cell," the official said to the men as he returned the signet to the prisoner. "I shall attend him."

Kenkenes was led into a corridor, wide enough for three walking side by side. There was no light therein, but the foremost of the four stooped before what seemed a section of solid wall and after a little fumbling, a ma.s.sive door swung inward.

The chamber into which it led was wide enough for a pallet of straw laid lengthwise, with pa.s.sage room between it and the opposite wall.

The foot of the bed was within two feet of the door. Between the stones, in the opposite end near the ceiling, was a crevice, little wider than two palms. This noted, the interior of the cell has been described.

The jailer entered after him, and let the door fall shut.

"I have but to crave a messenger of thee--a swift and a sure one--one who can hold his peace and hath pride in his calling. I can offer all he demands. And this, further. Keep his going a secret, for I am beset and I would not have my rescue by the Pharaoh thwarted."

"I can send thee a messenger," the jailer answered.

"Ere midday," Kenkenes added.

"I hear," the pa.s.sive official a.s.sented.

The solid section of wall swung shut behind him and the great bolts shot into place.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE PEt.i.tION

Some time later the bar rattled down again, and the jailer stood without, a scribe at his side. At a sign from the jailer, the latter made as though to enter, but Kenkenes stopped him.

"I have need of your materials only," he said, "but the fee shall be yours nevertheless." The man set his case on the floor and Kenkenes put a ring of silver in the outstretched palm.

"Fail me not in a faithful messenger," the prisoner repeated to the jailer. The official nodded, and the door was closed again.

Kenkenes sat on the floor beside the case, laid the cover back and taking out materials, wrote thus:

"To my friend, the n.o.ble Hotep, greeting:

"This from Kenkenes, whom ill-fortune can not wholly possess, while he may call thee his friend.

"I speak to thee out of the prison at Tape, where I am held for stealing a bondmaiden and for executing a statue against the canons of the sculptor's ritual. The acc.u.mulated penalty for these offenses is great--my plight is most serious.

"The pitying G.o.ds have left me one chance for escape. If I fail I shall molder here, for my counsel is mine and the demons of Amenti shall not rend it from me.

"The tale is short and miserable. But for the necessity I would not repeat it, for it publishes the humiliation of sweet innocence.

"Suffice it to say that the offended is she of whom we talked one day on the hill back of Masaarah; the offender is Har-hat who hath buried me here in Tape.

"One morning he saw her at the quarries and, taken with her beauty, asked her at the hands of the Pharaoh, for the hatefullest bondage pure maidenhood ever knew.

"She fled from the minions he sent to take her, and came to me in that spot on the hillside where thou and I did talk.

"There the minions found us, and by the evidence they looked upon, I am further charged with sacrilege.

"Thou dost remember the all-powerful signet, which my father had from the Incomparable Pharaoh. He lost it in the tomb of the king, three years ago, abandoning the search for it before I was a.s.sured that it was not to be found.

"So strong was my faith that the signet was in the tomb, that when this disaster overtook her, I came to Tape at once to look again for the treasure. I found it.

"But by some unknowable mischance mine enemy discovered my whereabouts and a third minion, who escaped my wrath before the statue that morning, appeared in the city and caused me to be delivered up to the authorities on the charges already named.

"She is hidden, and I have provided for her protection, as well as I may, against the wishes of the strongest man in the land. For her immediate welfare I am not greatly troubled. But, alas! I would be with her--thou knowest, O my Hotep, the hunger and heartache of such separation.