The Yoke Part 84

But these sounds ceased unaccountably, at last, and a silence settled down till the atmosphere was tense with stillness. A deadening hand seemed to cover the night.

The silence roused Kenkenes and he realized the solemnity of the earth, the vastness of the sky and the majesty of the solitude. Mysteriously affected, he withdrew within himself and humbly acknowledged the One G.o.d.

At midnight a chill struck the breeze and he drew his mantle about him while he rode. The wind freshened and a heated counter-current from the desert met it and they whirled away, rustling through the gra.s.sy country.

The Arab reduced his gallop so suddenly that Kenkenes was jolted. The small peaked ears of the horse went up and he showed a disposition to move sidewise into the meadow growth beside the way.

"A wild beast hath taken the road," Kenkenes thought.

The horse brought up, with a start, his prominent muscles twitching, and sniffed the air strongly.

A high oscillation in the atmosphere descended on Kenkenes.

The Arab reared, snorting, and then crouched, quivering with wild terror in every limb.

Unconscious, even of the movement, Kenkenes threw up his arm as if to ward off the blow and bent upon his horse's neck.

Gust after gust of icy air swept down on his head, as if winnowed by frozen wings. Then with a backward waft, colder than any wind he had ever known, the hovering Presence pa.s.sed.

Instantly the horse plunged and took the road toward Tanis as if stung by a lash. Kenkenes, shaken and full of solemn dread, did well to keep his saddle. He grasped the stout leather bridle with strong hands, but he might have curbed the hurricane as easily. The Arab stretched his gaunt length, running low, and the haunted night reechoed with the sound of his hoofs. The land of Goshen lay east and west, with a slight divergence toward the north. The road to Tanis ran due north.

It was not long until Kenkenes' flying steed brought him in sight of the un-Israelite Goshen. Illuminated windows starred the plain and the wind shrilling in Kenkenes' ears bore uncanny sounds. A turf-thatched hovel at the roadside showed a light as they swept by and a long scream clove the air, but the Arab was not to be halted.

The murmurous wind did not soothe him, and the wakeful night had a terror for him that he could not outrun. He veered sharply and galloped through the pastures to avoid a roadside hamlet that shrieked and moaned. He leaped irrigation ca.n.a.ls and brush hedges, swept through fields and gardens, until, at last, by dint of persuasion, coupled with the animal's growing fatigue, Kenkenes succeeded in drawing the horse down into a milder pace.

The young man made no effort to fathom the mysterious visitation.

Instead, he bowed his head and rode on, awed and humbled.

The night wore away and the gray of the morning showed him, strange-featured, the misty levels, meadows, fields and gardens of northern Goshen. The wind faltered and died; the stars, strewn down the east, paled and went out, one by one. Fragmentary clouds toward the sunrise became apparent, tinted, silvered and at last, like flakes of gold, scattered down to a point of intensest brilliance on the horizon. A lark sprang out of the wet, wind-mown gra.s.s of a meadow and shot up, up till it was lost in radiance and only a few of its exquisite notes filtered down to earth again.

A brazen rim showed redly on the horizon and the next instant the sun bounded above the sky-line.

It was the morning after the Pa.s.sover, and Kenkenes, the son of Mentu, was the only Egyptian first-born that lived to see it break.

CHAPTER XLII

EXPATRIATION

At sunrise, Kenkenes drew up his horse and took counsel with himself.

By steady riding he could reach Tanis shortly, but once within the capital of the Pharaoh, he was near to Har-hat and within reach of the fan-bearer's potent hand. When he entered the city he must be mentally and physically alert. He had not slept since the last daybreak, and he was weary and heavy-headed.

Ahead of him was a squat hamlet, set on the very border of Goshen. It was the same village that Seti had designated in his appointment with Moses. Here he might have found a hospitable roof and a pallet of matting, but the accompanying gratuity of curiosity and comment would have outweighed the small advantage of a bed indoors over a bed in the meadows.

He dismounted and, leading his horse some distance from the road, into the fringe of water-sprouts which lined the ca.n.a.l, picketed him within shade, out of view from the highway. Usually the meadow growth within reach of the seepage from the ca.n.a.ls was most luxuriant, and here the flocks of the Israelites had come for sweet gra.s.s. They had kept the underbrush down, and the herbage closely cropped. But for two months Israel had been near Pa-Ramesu with its cattle, and the ca.n.a.l-borders were again riotous with growth. The place Kenkenes came upon was most tempting, odorous and cool. He rolled his mantle for a pillow and flung himself into the gra.s.s, where he lay, half-buried in green, and slept.

The April sun, hot as a torrid July noon in northern lands, discovered the sleeper and stared into his upturned face. He flung his arm across his eyes and slept on. Shadows fell and lengthened; the afternoon pa.s.sed, and still he slept.

Mounted couriers riding at a dead gallop, pa.s.sed over the road, toward Tanis. Following them, war-chariots thundered by with a castanet accompaniment of jingling harness and jarring armor. Kenkenes stirred during the tumult, but when it had receded he lay still again. Three mounted soldiers leading a score of horses pa.s.sed. The Arab in the copse whinnied softly. A second trio of soldiers, following with a smaller drove, heard the call from the bushes and drew up. The foremost man spoke to another, tossed the knotted bridles to him and, dismounting, came through the copse to the Arab. There he found the young n.o.bleman, sleeping.

For a moment he hesitated, but no longer. Silently he untied the horse, led him forth, attached him with the others and speedily took the road toward Tanis.

After these had pa.s.sed the road was deserted and no more came that way.

In a little time the sun set. The wind from the north freshened and swayed the close-standing bushes so that their branches chafed one against another. At the sound Kenkenes, ready to wake, stirred and opened his eyes. After a moment he sat up and looked for the Arab.

The horse was gone.

Kenkenes arose and searched industriously. The trampled s.p.a.ce in the road convinced him that the horse had departed with a number of others.

Hoping that he might find some trace of the lost animal among the inhabitants, he went to the hamlet.

Two ragged lines of huts, built of sun-dried brick, formed a single straggling street. A low shed, the first building Kenkenes came upon, showed a flickering red light. A spare figure darted into it, just ahead of the young man.

From the threshold, the whole of the small interior was visible.

The light came from a small annealing oven. At a table, overlaid with a thin slab of stone, a man was modeling a cat in clay. On the opposite side of the room was a younger man, painting an image, preparatory to burning it in the oven. The walls were black with smoke, the floor strewn with broken images and dried crumbs of clay.

In the center of the room was the spare figure, in white robes.

Kenkenes had opened his lips to speak when the conversation among the trio stopped him.

"Cowards! Dastards!" the spare man vociferated. "Is there not a patriot in Egypt? The Pharaoh in danger and not a man in the hamlet who will raise a heel to save him!"

"Holy Father," the short man protested, "the way is long, the horses have been required at our hands by the Pharaoh and were taken from us, and if there be evil omens, the king's sorcerers will discover them."

"King's sorcerers!" the spare man repeated indignantly. "There is not one of them who can tell a star from a fire-fly or read the events of yesterday! Horses! Must ye go mounted, in litters, in chariots, afraid of the harsh earth and a rough mile? In my youth, the young men went barefoot and traveled the desert for the joy of effort. Oh, for one of mine own best days! Horses!"

"Is the son of Hofa away?" the younger man asked. "He is a runner as well as a soldier."

The spare man broke out afresh.

"A runner! Aye, of a truth he is a runner. When the tidings came that the Pharaoh was to pursue the Israelites he ran his best--for the hay-fields--and is hidden safe under a swath somewhere--the craven!"

Kenkenes stepped into the shed.

"What is this concerning the Israelites?" he demanded.

The spare man turned and the two artisans gazed at the young sculptor with open mouths.

"The news is not to be cried abroad," the spare man replied shortly.

"Thou hast become cautious too late," Kenkenes retorted. "The most of thy talk have I heard. I would know the rest of it."

"By Bast, thou art imperious! In my great days the n.o.bles groveled to me. Now, am I commanded by them. How thou art fallen, Jambres!

"The Israelites, my Lord," he continued mockingly, "departed out of the land of Goshen, in the early morning hours of this day, but the Pharaoh hath repented, and will pursue them--to turn them back, or to destroy them." The old man's voice lost its sarcasm and became anxious.

"But the signs are ominous, the portents are evil. I know, I know, for I am no less a mystic because I have fallen from state. His seers are liars, they can not guide the king. He must not pursue them, for death shadows him the hour he leaves the gates of Tanis. He must not go! I love him yet, and I can not see him overthrown."

"Thou art no more eager to stay him than I," Kenkenes answered quickly.

"Thou art in need of a runner. I am one."