The Yoke Part 6

Kenkenes gazed at his father with the inquiry on his face that he did not voice. The sculptor had risen from his bench and was searching a chest of rolled plans near him. He caught his son's look and closed his mouth on an all but spoken expression. Kenkenes continued to gaze at him in some astonishment, and the elder man muttered to himself:

"I like him not, though if Osiris should ask me why, I could not tell.

But he hath a too-ready smile, and by that I know he will twirl Meneptah like a string about his finger."

The eyes of the young man widened. "The new adviser?" he asked.

"Even so," was the emphatic reply.

Before Kenkenes could ask for further enlightenment a female slave bowed in the doorway.

"The Lady Senci sends thee greeting and would speak with thee. She is at the outer portal in her curricle," she said, addressing Mentu.

The great man sprang to his feet, glanced hurriedly at his ink-stained fingers, at his robe, and then fled across the court into the door he had entered to change his dress the day before.

Kenkenes smiled, for Mentu had been a widower these ten Nile floods.

The slave still lingered.

"Also is there a messenger for thee, master," she said, bowing again.

"So? Let him enter."

The man whom the slave ushered in a few minutes later was old, spare and bent, but he was alert and restless. His eyes were brilliant and over them arched eyebrows that were almost white. He made a jerky obeisance.

"Greeting, son of Mentu. Dost thou remember me?"

The young man looked at his visitor for a moment.

"I remember," he said at last. "Thou art Ranas, courier to Snofru, priest of On. Greeting and welcome to Memphis. Enter and be seated."

"Many thanks, but mine errand is urgent. I have been a guest of my son, who abideth just without Memphis, and this morning a messenger came to my son's door. He had been sent by Snofru to Tape, but had fallen ill on the river between On and Memphis. As it happened, the house of my son was the nearest, and thither he came, in fever and beyond traveling another rod. As the message he bore concerned the priesthood, I went to Asar-Mut and I am come from him to thee. He bids thee prepare for a journey before presenting thyself to him, at the temple."

Kenkenes frowned in some perplexity.

"His command is puzzling. Am I to become a messenger for the G.o.ds?"

"The first messenger was a n.o.bleman," the old courier explained in a conciliatory tone, "and the holy father spoke of thy fidelity and despatch."

"Mine uncle is gracious. Salute him for me and tell him I obey."

The old man bowed once more and withdrew.

When Kenkenes crossed the court a little time later he met his father.

"The Lady Senci brings me news that makes me envious," Mentu began at once, "and shames me because of thee!"

Kenkenes lifted an expressive brow at this unexpected onslaught. "Nay, now, what have I done?"

"Nothing!" Mentu a.s.serted emphatically; "and for that reason am I wroth. The Lady Senci's nephew, Hotep, is the new chief of the royal scribes."

"I call that good tidings," Kenkenes replied, a cheerful note in his voice, "and worth greeting with a health to Hotep. But thou must remember, my father, that he is older than I."

"How much?" the elder sculptor asked.

"Three whole revolutions of Ra."

The artist regarded his son scornfully for a moment.

"The Lady Senci wishes me to prepare plans for the further elaboration of her tomb," he went on, at last, "but the work on the obelisk may not be laid aside. If I might trust you to go on with them, the Lady Senci need not wait."

"But I have, this moment, been summoned by my holy uncle, Asar-Mut, to go on a journey, and I know not when I return," Kenkenes explained.

Mentu gazed at him without comprehending.

"A messenger on his way to Tape from Snofru was overtaken with misfortune here, and Asar-Mut, getting word of it, sent for me," the young man continued. "I can only guess that he wishes me to carry on the message."

"Humph!" the elder sculptor remarked. "Asar-Mut has kingly tastes.

The couriers of priests are not usually of the n.o.bility. But get thee gone."

The pair separated and the young man pa.s.sed into the house. The ape under the bunch of leaves in a palm-top looked after him fixedly for a moment, and then sliding down the tree, disappeared among the flowers.

When, half an hour later, Kenkenes entered a cross avenue leading to a great square in which the temple stood, he found the roadway filled with people, crowding about a group of disheveled women. These were shrieking, wildly tearing their hair, beating themselves and throwing dust upon their heads. Kenkenes immediately surmised that there was something more than the usual death-wail in this.

He touched a man near him on the shoulder.

"Who may these distracted women be?" he asked.

"The mothers of Khafra and Sigur, and their women."

"Nay! Are these men dead? I knew them once.

"They are by this time. They were to be hanged in the dungeon of the house of the governor of police at this hour," the man answered with morbid relish in his tone. Kenkenes looked at him in horror.

"What had they done?" he asked. The man plunged eagerly into the narrative.

"They were tomb robbers and robbed independently of the brotherhood of thieves.[1] They refused to pay the customary tribute from their spoil to the chief of robbers, and whatsoever booty they got they kept, every jot of it. Innumerable mummies were found rifled of their gold and gems, and although the chief of robbers and the governor of police sought and burrowed into every den in the Middle country, they could not find the missing treasure. Then they knew that the looting was not done by any of the licensed robbers. So all the professional thieves and all the police set themselves to seek out the lawless plunderers."

"Humph!" interpolated Kenkenes expressively.

"Aye. And it was not long with all these upon the scent until Khafra and Sigur were discovered coming forth from a tomb laden with spoil, and in the struggle which ensued they did murder. But the constabulary have not found the rest of the booty, though they made great search for it and may have put the thieves to torture. Who knows? They do dark things in the dungeon under the house of the governor of police."

"And so they hanged them speedily," said Kenkenes, desirous of ending the grisly tale.

"And so they hanged them. I could not get in to see, and these screaming mothers attracted me, so I am here. But my neighbor's son is a friend of the jailer, and I shall know yet how they died."

But Kenkenes was stalking off toward the temple, his shoulders lifted high with disgust.

"O, ye inscrutable Hathors," he exclaimed finally; "how ye have disposed the fortunes of four friends! Two of us hanged, a third in royal favor, a fourth an--an--an offender against the G.o.ds."