The Yoke Part 69

Rachel wrapped her wimple about her face and removed it once only to gaze at the quarries of Masaarah. They were deserted. Months before, directly after the affliction of the Nile, the Israelites had been returned to Goshen.

After the bari had pa.s.sed below the stone wharf, Rachel covered herself and neither spoke nor moved. Her heart was heavy beyond words.

Pepi broke the silence once.

"Shall we drop the ape first, my Lady?"

Rachel shook her head. Anubis was her last hold on Kenkenes.

At the Marsh of the Discontented Soul, the bari nosed among the reeds and grounded gently. Rachel stood for a moment gazing sadly across the stretch of sand toward the abrupt wall against which it terminated inland. Pepi, already on sh.o.r.e, reached a patient hand toward her and awaited her awakening. Anubis landed with a bound and made in a series of wide circles for the cliff. His escape aroused Rachel and she stepped out of the boat. After a moment's thought, she bade Pepi pull away from the sh.o.r.e and await her at a safe distance.

"I shall stay no longer than to write my whereabouts on the tomb, but thy boat here may attract the attention of others on the river, and hereafter they might ask what thou didst in this place. And I am not afraid."

The slow Egyptian obeyed reluctantly, shaking his head as he stood away from sh.o.r.e.

With a sigh that was almost a sob, Rachel walked back over the sand toward the cave that had been her only shelter once.

She did not fear it. Kenkenes had crossed this gray level of sand in the night and its wet border at the river had borne the print of his sandal. He had made the tomb a home for her, he had knelt on its rock pavement and kissed her hands in its dusk and had pa.s.sed its threshold, like a shadow, to return no more. And here, too, was the other faithful suggestion of her lost love--the pet ape. How his fitful fidelities had directed themselves to her! She caught him up as he pa.s.sed her. He struggled, turned in her arms, and then became pa.s.sive, breathing loudly.

She climbed the rough steps and sat down on the topmost one to think.

She was surrounded with old evidences of her sorrow. Nor was there any cheer before her. Escape was in prospect, but it was liberty without light or peace--a gray freedom without hope, purpose or fruit. Her retrospect gradually brightened, never to brilliance but to a soft luminance, brightest at the farthermost point and sad like the dying daylight. She summarized her griefs--danger, death, suspense, shame and long hopelessness. The lonely girl's stock of unhappiness took her breath away and she pushed back the wimple as if to clear away the oppression.

Anubis realized his moment of freedom was short and with an instant bound he was out and gone.

In no little dismay Rachel started in pursuit, but she had not moved ten paces from the bottom of the steps before she paused, transfixed.

An Egyptian, not Pepi, was hauling a boat into the reeds. The craft secure, he turned up the slant, walking rapidly.

There was no mistaking that commanding stature.

Anubis descended on him like an arrow. The man saw the ape, halted a fraction of an instant, caught sight of Rachel, and with a cry, his arms flung wide, broke into a run toward her.

The ape bounded for his shoulder, but missed and alighted at one side, chattering raucously. The running man did not pause.

The world revolved slowly about Rachel, and the sustaining structure of her frame seemed to lose its rigidity. She put out her hands, blindly, and they were caught and clasped about Kenkenes' neck. And there in the strong support of his tightening arms, her face hidden against the leaping heart, all time and matters of the world drifted away. In their place was only a vast content, featureless and full of soft dusk and warmth.

Gone were all the demure resolutions, the memory of faith or unfaith.

Nothing was patent to her except that this was the man she loved and he had returned from the dead.

Presently she became vaguely aware that he was speaking. Though a little unsteady and subdued, it was the same melody of voice that she seemed to have known from the cradle.

"Rachel! Rachel!" he was saying, "why didst thou not go to my father as I bade thee? Nay, I do not chide thee. The joy of finding thee hath healed me of the wrench when I found thee not, at my father's house, at dawn to-day. But tell me. Why didst thou not go?"

"I--I feared--" she faltered after a silence.

"My father? Nay, now, dost thou fear me? Not so; and my father is but myself, grown old. He was only a little less mad with fear than I, when he discovered that thou shouldst have come to him so long ago, and camest not. It damped his joy in having me again, and I left him pale with concern. Did I not tell thee how good he is?"

"Aye, it was not that I feared him, but that I feared that thou--" And she paused and again he helped her.

"That I was dead? That I had played thee false? Rachel! But how couldst thou know? Forgive me. Since the tenth night I left thee I have been in prison."

"In prison!" she exclaimed, lifting her face. "Alas, that I did not think of it. It is mine to beg thy forgiveness, Kenkenes, and on my very knees!"

"So thou didst think it, in truth!" She hid her face again and craved his pardon.

But he pressed her to him and soothed her.

"Nay, I do not chide thee. Had I been in thy place, I might have thought the same. But it is past--gone with the horrors of this horrible season--Osiris be thanked!"

"Thanks be to the G.o.d of Israel," she demanded from her shelter.

"And the G.o.d of Israel," he said obediently.

"Nay, to the G.o.d of Israel alone," she insisted, raising her head.

He laughed a little and patted her hands softly together.

"It was but the habit in me that made me name Osiris. There is no G.o.d for me, but Love."

"So long, so long, Kenkenes, and not any change in thee?" she sighed.

"How hath Egypt been helped of her G.o.ds, these grievous days?"

"The G.o.ds and the G.o.ds, and ever the G.o.ds!" he said. "What have we to do with them? Deborah bade me turn from them and this I have done with all sincerity. Much have I pondered on the question and this have I concluded. Egypt's holy temples have been vainly built; her wors.h.i.+p has been wasted on the air. There was and is a Creator, but, Rachel, that Power whose mind is troubled with the great things is too great to behold the petty concerns of men. My fortunes and thine we must direct, for though we implored that Power till we died from the fervor of our supplications, It could not hear, whose ears are filled with the murmurings of the traveling stars. Why we were created and forgotten, we may not know. How may we guess the motives of anything too great for us to conceive? Whatsoever befalls us results from our use at the hands of men, or from the nature of our abiding-place. We must defend ourselves, prosper ourselves and live for what we make of life. After that we shall not know the troubles and the joys of the world, for the tombs are restful and soundless. Is it not so, my Rachel?"

She shook her head. "Thou hast gone astray, Kenkenes. But thou wast untaught--"

"I have reasoned, Rachel, and the Power I have found in my ponderings, makes all the G.o.ds seem little. Thy G.o.d must manifest himself more fearfully; he must overthrow my reasoning before I can bow to him. And if, of a surety, he is greater than the Power I have made, will he need my adoration or listen to my prayers? Nay, nay, my Rachel. If thou wilt have me wors.h.i.+p, let me fall on my face to thee--"

She interrupted him with a quick gesture.

"Kenkenes, have I prayed in vain for the light to fall on thee?" she asked sadly.

He smiled and moved closer, looking down into her face as he had done when he studied it as Athor.

"Nay, hast thou done that, and hast thou not been heard? Thou dost but fix me in mine unbelief. Did any G.o.d exist he would have heard thy supplications. Come, let us make an end of this. There are sweeter themes I would discuss. Where hast thou been, these many months? Not here in this haunted cave?"

His lightness sank her hope to the lowest ebb. A sudden hurt reached her heart. His unregeneracy suggested unfaithfulness to her. Their positions had been reversed. It was she that had been denied. Duty rea.s.serted itself with a chiding sting.

"I have been a guest with Masanath--"

"The daughter of Har-hat!" he cried, retreating a step.

"The daughter of mine enemy," she went on. "She found me here by accident and took me to her home in Memphis. There Deborah died. And there, eighteen days agone, I discovered who it was that sheltered me, and now I return to my people."

"The fan-bearer did not find thee?" he demanded at once.

"Nay. Unseen, I looked upon his man. Alas! the wound to the daughter-love in Masanath! On the morrow she departeth for Tanis where she will wed with the Prince Rameses."