ent in sleep, so profound and dreamless as to border on
coma. The reeds had received him on a bed of crushed herbage and the
upstanding ranks about him sheltered him from the blowing sand. The
whilom assailants of the young man were not so kindly served by the
gods to whom they appealed loudly and frequently. The city in the
distance moaned and complained and the hills were full of fear.

In one of his profound lapses of slumber a hairy paw felt of Kenkenes'
face. Later a drifting boat nosed about among the reeds at the water's
edge. Presently one of the crew cried out, and a second voice said:

"Nay, fear not; it is an ape, by the feel of him. Toth is with us. It
is a good omen; let him not go forth."

Silence fell again, for the boat drifted on.

At last dawn-lights reddened about the horizon; stars faded out of the
uppermost as naturally as if they had been there during the three days
of unlifting night. All Egypt showed up darkly in the coming day.

Kenkenes, in his couch of reeds, slept on peacefully. The mid-morning
sun shone in his face before he awakened.

He leaped to his feet, cramped and stiffened by his long inactivity,
and looked about him. Near by was a disturbed spot of wide
circumference. Here had the struggle taken place. Here, also, some of
the sand was stained with the blood of the Nubian, who had been wounded
by Rachel. Fresh footprints led toward the water. He followed them
with a wildly beating heart. There were no marks of a little sandal.
At the Nile edge the deep line cut by a keel was still visible in the
wet sand. His own boat and the other were gone. All other signs had
been obliterated, for the wind had been busy during the darkness.

Across the cultivated land, or rather the land which would have been
wheat-covered but for the locusts, he saw the huts of rustics, and to
each of these he went, asking of the pallid and terror-stricken tenants
if Rachel had come to them. Gaining no information, he went next to
Masaarah, appeasing his hunger with succulent roots plucked from the
loam beside the river. The quarries were deserted, the pocket in the
valley, where the Israelites had pitched their tents, was as solitary
as it had ever been. There was no place here to shelter the lost girl.

There were the huts to the north of the Marsh and the deserted village
of Toora to search. He retraced his steps.

As he came again before the tomb he went to it. Half-way up the ste