genius, Kenkenes."

"I am not like to forget him so long as a bird sings or the Nile
ripples make music. Osiris pillow him most softly."

"He is not dead, my Prince."

"Nay!" Rameses cried, sitting up. "The knave should be bastinadoed for
the tears he wrung from us!"

"Thou wouldst deny my petition. I am come to implore thee to intercede
for him."

Rameses bade him proceed.

"Thou art acquainted with the nature of Kenkenes, O Prince. He is a
visionary--an idealist, and so firmly rooted are his beliefs that they
are to his life as natural as the color of his eyes. He is a
beauty-worshiper. Athor possesses him utterly, and her loveliness
blinds him to all other things, particularly to his own welfare and
safety.

"In the beginning he fell in love, and a soul like his in love is most
unreasoning, immoderate and terribly faithful. The maiden is
beautiful--I saw her--most divinely beautiful. She is wise, for I saw
that also. She is good, for I felt it, unreasoning, and when a man
hath a woman intuition, a god hath spoken the truth to his heart. But
she is a slave--an Israelite."

"An Israelite!"

Hotep bowed his head.

"By the gods of my fathers, I ought not to marvel! Nay, now, is that
not like the boy? An Israelite! And half the noble maids of Memphis
mad for him!"

"He is not for thee and me to judge, O Rameses," Hotep interrupted.
"The gods blew another breath in him than animates our souls. For thee
and me such conduct would be the fancies of madmen; for Kenkenes it is
but living up to the alien spirit with which the gods endowed him. It
might be torture for him to wed according to our lights."

"Perchance thou art right. Go on."

"It seems that Har-hat looked upon the girl, and taken by her beauty,
asked her at the Pharaoh's hands for his harem."

"Ah, the--! Why does he not marry honorably?"

"It is not for me to divine," Hotep went on calmly. "The fan-bearer
sent his men to take her, but she fled from them to Kenkenes, and he
protected her--hid her away--where, none but Kenkenes and the maiden
know. Har-hat is most desirous of owning her, but Kenkenes keeps his
counsel. Therefore, Har-hat overtook him in Tape, where he went to get
a signet belonging to his father, and imprisoned him till what time he
should divulge the hiding-place of the Israelite."

"Never was there a true villain till Har-hat was born! What poor
feeble shadows have trodden the world for knaves before the