familiar figure among the reeds. For a
moment he hesitated and then rambled through the riotous growth in that
direction. As he drew near, Rachel raised herself from a search in a
thicket of herbs, her arms full of them and her face a little flushed.

"Idler!" said Kenkenes.

"Nay," she answered with a smile, "I am at work--learned work."

"Gathering witch-weeds for an incantation, sorceress?"

"Not so. I am hunting herbs to make simples for the sick."

"Of a truth? Then never before now have I craved for an illness that I
might select my leech."

Again she smiled and made a sheaf of the herbs, preparatory to binding
it. The bundle was unruly, and several of the plants dropped. She
bent to pick them up and others fell. Kenkenes came to her rescue and
gathered them all into his large grasp.

"Now, while I hold it," he suggested.

With the most gracious self-possession she smoothed out the fiber, put
it twice, thrice about the sheaf and knotted it, her fingers, cool and
moist after their contact with the marsh sedge, touching the sculptor's
more than once.

"There! I thank thee."

"Are there any sick in the camp?"

"Only those who have been blinded by the stone-dust. But I prepare for
sickness during health."

"A wise provision. Would we might prepare for sorrow during
contentment."

"We may lay up comfort for us against the coming of misfortune."

"How?"

"In choosing friends," she answered.

His mind went back to the scene of that morning. Did she speak of the
taskmaster?

"Thou hast found it so?" he asked.

"Thou hast said." She added no more, though the sculptor was eager for
an example.

"How goes it with the statue?" she asked, seeing that he did not move
out of her path.

"Slowly," he answered. "But it shall hasten to completeness when I
once begin."

"What wilt thou do with it when it is done? Destroy it?"

He shook his head with a smile.

"Leave it there to betray thee to the vengeance of the priesthood one
day?"

"I have no fear of discovery."

"Nay, but fear or unfear never yet warded off misfortune," she said
gravely. "It is better to entertain causeless concern than unwise
confidence."

He eagerly accepted this establishment of equality between them, and
overshot his mark.

"Advise me, Rachel. What should I do?"

She gazed at him for a moment distrustfully, wondering if he mocked her
and asking herself if she had not deserved it in assuming comradeship