rces the indifference in my mien. If I
revolt the penalty is humiliation and disaster for Masanath and for me.
I love her, but I dare not let her dream it. The fan-bearer hath
greater things in store for her than a scribe can promise. I am thy
brother in hatred of him."

The next dawn, even before sunrise, Hotep found Kenkenes once again in
the temple before the shrine of Athor. But this time the scribe knelt
silently beside his friend.

When they emerged into the sunless solemnity of the grove he turned to
Kenkenes.

"With the licensed forwardness of an old friend, I would ask what thou
hast to crave of the lovers' goddess, O thou loveless?"

"Favor and pardon," Kenkenes answered.

"So? But already have I reached the limit. Not even a friend may ask
an accounting of a man's misdeeds."

Kenkenes smiled. "Ask me," he said, "and spare me the effort of
voluntary confession."

"Then, what hast thou done?"

"Come and look upon mine offense. Thine eyes will serve thee better
than my tongue."

The pair were in costume hardly fitted for the dust of the roadway, but
Memphis was not astir. They went across the city toward the river and
at the landings found an early-rising boatman, who let them his bari.

Kenkenes took the oars and moved out into the middle of the swiftest
current of the Nile. There he headed down-stream and permitted the
boat to drift.

The clear heavens, blue and pellucid as a sapphire, were still cool,
but from the lower slope down the east a radiance began to crawl
upward. The peaks of the Libyan desert grew wan.

The young men did not resume their talk. The dawn in Egypt was a
solemn hour. Kenkenes raised his eyes to the heights of the west. On
the shore a group approached the Nile edge, and Hotep guessed by the
cluster of fans and standards that it was the Pharaoh at his morning
devotions to Nilus. The white points on the hilltops reddened and
caught fire.

Softly and absently Kenkenes began to sing a hymn to the sunrise.
Hotep rested his cheek on one hand and listened. More solemn, more
appealing the notes grew, fuller and stronger, until the normal power
of the rich voice was reached. The liquid echo on the water gave it a
mellow embellishment, and Hotep saw the central figure of the group on
shore lift his hand for silence among the courtiers.

But Kenkenes sang on unconscious even of his nearest auditor. After
the nature of humanity he was nearer to his gods in troub