xaltation.

Enraptured with her beauty, her perfect fulfilment of his needs, he
realized last the unlovely features of her presence. She balanced a
heavy water pitcher on her head and wore a rough surplice, more
decorous than the dress of the average bondwoman, but the habit of a
slave, nevertheless. He had halted directly in her path, and after a
moment's hesitancy she passed around him and went on.

Immediately Kenkenes recovered himself and with a few steps overtook
her. Without ceremony he transferred the heavy pitcher to his own
shoulder. The girl turned her perfect face, full of amazement, to him,
and a wave of color dyed it swiftly.

"Thy burden is heavy, maiden," was all he said.

The bulk of the jar on the farther shoulder made it necessary for him
to turn his face toward her, but she was uneasy under the intent gaze
of his level black eyes. She dropped behind him, but he slackened his
pace and kept beside her. For the moment he was no longer the man of
pulse and susceptibility but the artist. Therefore her thoughts and
sensations were apart from his concern. The unfamiliar perfection of
the Semitic countenance bewildered him. He took up his panegyric.
Never was a mortal countenance so near divine. And the sumptuousness
of her figure--its faultless curves and lines, its lissome roundness,
its young grace, the beauty of arm and neck and ankle! Ah! never did
anything entirely earthly dwell in so fair, so splendid a form.

As they neared the camp the girl spoke to him for the first time. He
recognized in her voice the same serene tone he had noted in his talk
with the Hebrew some days before.

"Give me my burden now," she said. "Thou hast affronted thy rank for
me, and I thank thee many times."

The sculptor paused and for a moment stood embarrassed. It went sorely
against his gallantry to lay the burden again upon her and he said as
much.

"Nay, Egypt has no qualms against loading the Hebrew," she said
quietly. "Wouldst thou put thy nation to shame?"

Kenkenes opened his eyes in some astonishment.

"Now am I even more loath," he declared. "What art thou called?"

"Rachel."

"It hath an intrepid sound, but Athor would become thee better. Now I
am a sculptor from the city, come to study thy women for a frieze," he
continued unblushingly, "and I would go no farther in my search.
Rachel repeated will be beauty multiplied. Let me see thee once in a
while,--to-morrow."

A sudden flush