im that he could not outrun. He veered sharply and
galloped through the pastures to avoid a roadside hamlet that shrieked
and moaned. He leaped irrigation canals and brush hedges, swept
through fields and gardens, until, at last, by dint of persuasion,
coupled with the animal's growing fatigue, Kenkenes succeeded in
drawing the horse down into a milder pace.

The young man made no effort to fathom the mysterious visitation.
Instead, he bowed his head and rode on, awed and humbled.

The night wore away and the gray of the morning showed him,
strange-featured, the misty levels, meadows, fields and gardens of
northern Goshen. The wind faltered and died; the stars, strewn down
the east, paled and went out, one by one. Fragmentary clouds toward
the sunrise became apparent, tinted, silvered and at last, like flakes
of gold, scattered down to a point of intensest brilliance on the
horizon. A lark sprang out of the wet, wind-mown grass of a meadow and
shot up, up till it was lost in radiance and only a few of its
exquisite notes filtered down to earth again.

A brazen rim showed redly on the horizon and the next instant the sun
bounded above the sky-line.

It was the morning after the Passover, and Kenkenes, the son of Mentu,
was the only Egyptian first-born that lived to see it break.

CHAPTER XLII

EXPATRIATION

At sunrise, Kenkenes drew up his horse and took counsel with himself.
By steady riding he could reach Tanis shortly, but once within the
capital of the Pharaoh, he was near to Har-hat and within reach of the
fan-bearer's potent hand. When he entered the city he must be mentally
and physically alert. He had not slept since the last daybreak, and he
was weary and heavy-headed.

Ahead of him was a squat hamlet, set on the very border of Goshen. It
was the same village that Seti had designated in his appointment with
Moses. Here he might have found a hospitable roof and a pallet of
matting, but the accompanying gratuity of curiosity and comment would
have outweighed the small advantage of a bed indoors over a bed in the
meadows.

He dismounted and, leading his horse some distance from the road, into
the fringe of water-sprouts which lined the canal, picketed him within
shade, out of view from the highway. Usually the meadow growth within
reach of the seepage from the canals was most luxuriant, and here the
flocks of the Israelites had come for sweet grass. They had kept the
underbrush down, an