nd her not. The hour of
separation might be delayed for twenty days--in that time he might come.

"I will stay till my people go--if they depart within twenty days,"
Rachel made answer. "But I must be gone ere thy father's servant
returns."

Masanath rebelled, sobbing.

"Nay, weep not. The hour is distant. In that time, since these are
days of miracles, thy sorrows and mine may have faded like a mist.
Come, no more. Let us bide the workings of the good God."

[1] Imhotep--The physician-god.

CHAPTER XXXIII

BACK TO MEMPHIS

The valley in which Thebes Diospolis was situated was wide and the
overflow of the Nile did not reach the arable uplands near the Arabian
hills. Three thousand years before, Menes had established a system of
irrigation which had added hundreds of square miles to the agricultural
area of Egypt, and every monarch after him had unfailingly preserved
the institution. From Syene to Pelusium the country was ramified with
canals, and vast sums and great labor were expended yearly upon their
keeping.

Since the work was heavy and the demand for it constant, it became a
punitive part of each nome's administration. Therefore, the convicts
whose misdeeds were too serious to be punished adequately by the
bastinado or the fine, and yet not grave enough to merit a sentence to
the quarries or the mines, were sent to the canals.

So here in the canals of the eastern Thebaid, was Kenkenes, a prisoner
known only by a number. His fellows were unjust public weighers,
usurers, rioters, habitual tax-evaders, broken debtors, forgers and
housebreakers.

The season of toil had been unusually severe. The native convicts had
more to endure than the lash, the bitter fare, the terrible sun by day,
and a bed of dust by night, for the afflictions that befell all Egypt
were theirs also. The strange prisoner among them suffered these
things and had further the drawback of his own physical strength to
combat. The plagues overcame the weaker convicts and decimated the
number of laborers, so Kenkenes was put, alone, to the work that two
men had done before.

However, the accumulation of toil came upon him gradually and his
supple frame toughened as the demand upon it increased. Nor was he
sensible of pain or great weariness, for his mind was far away from the
sun-heated desert of the eastern Thebaid. He spoke seldom, and held
himself aloof from his fellow prisoners. He regarded his taskmasters
a