placid face.

"The Lady Masanath would abet him who would aid Kenkenes," he said.

"Even so. But hear me, I pray thee, Hotep. This most rapacious
miscreant would hold his favor with the king. He knew I loved
Masanath, and he held her out of my reach till I should consent to
countenance his advisership to my father. I consented--and should I
lapse, I lose Masanath."

Hotep was on his feet by this time, his face turned away. Rameses
could not guess what a tempest raged in his heart.

"But be thou assured," the prince continued grimly, "that only so long
as Masanath is not yet mine, shall I endure him. After that he shall
fall as never knave fell or so deserved to fall before. Aye,--but
stay, Hotep. I have not done. I have some small grain of hope for
this unfortunate friend of ours. The marriage hath been delayed. I
shall press my suit, and wed Masanath sooner, if she will, and Kenkenes
need not decay in prison--"

Hotep did not stay longer. He bowed and departed without a word.

"Out upon the man, I offered all I could," Rameses muttered, but
immediately he arose and hurried to the well of the stairway.

"Hotep!" he called. The scribe, half-way down, turned and looked up.

"Return to me in an hour. Give me time to ponder and I may more
profitably help thee," the prince commanded. Hotep bowed and went on.

The hour was barely long enough for the smarting soul of the scribe to
soothe itself. Deep, indeed, his love for Kenkenes that he returned at
all. Masanath's name, spoken so familiarly, so boastingly, by the
prince was fresh outrage to his already affronted heart. It mattered
not that Rameses did not know. His talk of marriage with Masanath was
exultation, nevertheless. Once again, Hotep flung himself on his couch
and wrestled with his spirit.

At the end of the hour, he went once again to Rameses. He was calm and
composed, but he made no apology for his abrupt departure, when last he
was there. Perhaps, however, he gained in the respect of Rameses by
that lapse. The blunt prince was more patient with the sincere than
with the diplomatic.

"Thou hast said," the prince began immediately, "that Har-hat hath
imprisoned Kenkenes till what time he shall divulge the hiding-place of
the Israelite?"

Hotep bowed.

"The fan-bearer charges him with slave-stealing?"

"And sacrilege," the scribe added. The prince opened his eyes. "Aye,
Kenkenes carried his beauty-love into blasphemy. He e