The Yoke. Elizabeth Miller
Atsu walked rapidly down the line to Rachel. The Hebrews fell out as he passed, and the relief on the faces of one or two was mingled with astonishment. He paused before the girl, hesitating. Words did not rise readily to his lips at any time; at this moment he was especially at loss.
"Thou canst abide here, in perfect security—with me," he said at last.
She shook her head. "I thank thee, my good master."
"For thy sake, not mine own, I would urge thee," he continued with an unnatural steadiness. "Thou canst accept of me the safety of marriage. Nothing more shall I offer—or demand."
The color rushed over the girl's face, but he went on evenly.
"A part go to Silsilis, another to Syene, a third to Masaarah. If thine insulter asks concerning thy whereabouts I shall not trouble myself to remember. But what shall keep him from searching for thee—and are there any like to defend thee, if he find thee, seeing I am not there? And even if thou art securely hidden, thou hast never dreamed how heavy is the life of the stone-pits, Rachel."
"Keep Deborah here," the girl besought him, distressed. "She is old and will perish—"
"Nay, I will not send thee out alone," was the reply. "If thou goest, so must she. But—hast thou no fear?"
Once again she shook her head.
"I trust to the triumph of the good," she replied earnestly.
The sound of the scribe's approach behind him, moved him on.
"Farewell," he said as he went, and added no more, for his composure failed him.
"The grace of the Lord God attend thee," she whispered. "Farewell."
All the morning the work went on, and when the Egyptian mid-winter noon lay warm on the flat country, three hundred Israelites were ready for the long march to the Nile. They left behind them a camp oppressed with that heart-soreness, which affliction added to old afflictions brings—the numb ache of sorrow, not its lively pain. Only Deborah, the childless, and Rachel, the motherless, went with lighter hearts—if hearts can be light that go forward to meet the unknown fortunes of bond-people.
As they moved out, one of the older Hebrews in the forward ranks began to sing, in a wild recitative chant, of Canaan and the freedom of Israel. The elders in the line near him took it up and every face in the long column lighted and was lifted in silent concord with the singers. Atsu in his chariot, close by, scanned his lists absorbedly, but one of the drivers hurried forward with a demand for silence. A young Hebrew, who had tramped in agitated silence just ahead, worked up into recklessness by the fervor of the singers, defied him. His voice rang clear above the song.
"Go to, thou bald-faced idolater! Israel will cease to do thy bidding one near day."
The driver forced his way into the front ranks and began to lay about him with his knout. Instantly he was cast forth by a dozen brawny arms.
"Mutiny!" he bawled.
A group of drivers reinforced him at once.
"By Bast," the foremost cried, as he came running. "The sedition of the renegade, Mesu,[1] bears early fruit!"
But the spirit of rebellion became contagious and the men of Israel began to throw themselves out of line. At this moment, Atsu seemed to become conscious of the riot and drove his horses between the combatants.
"Into ranks with you!" he commanded, pressing forward upon the Hebrews.
The men obeyed sullenly.
"I have said there was to be no use of the knouts," he said sharply, turning upon the drivers. "Forward with them!"
The first driver muttered.
"What sayest thou?" Atsu demanded.
The man's mouth opened and closed, and his eyes drew up, evilly, but he made no answer.
"Forward with them," Atsu repeated, without removing his gaze from the driver.
Slowly, and now silently, the hereditary slaves of the Pharaoh moved out of Pa-Ramesu. And of all the departing numbers and of all that remained behind, none was more stricken in heart than Atsu, the stern taskmaster over Israel.
[1] Moses.
CHAPTER II
UNDER BAN OF THE RITUAL
Holy Memphis, city of Apis, habitat of Ptah!
Not idly was she called Menefer, the Good Place. Not anywhere in Egypt were the winds more gentle, the heavens more benign, the environs more august.
To the south and west of her, the Libyan hills notched the horizon. To the east the bald summits of the Arabian desert cut off the traveling sand in its march on the capital. To the north was a shimmering level that stretched unbroken to the sea. Set upon this at mid-distance, the pyramids uplifted their stupendous forms. In the afternoon they assumed the blue of the atmosphere and appeared indistinct, but in the morning the polished sides that faced the east reflected the sun's rays in dazzling sheets across the valley.
Out of a crevice between the heights to the south the broad blue Nile rolled, sweeping past one hundred and twenty stadia or sixteen miles of urban magnificence, and lost itself in the shimmering sky-line to the north.
The city was walled on the north, west, and south, and its river-front was protected by a mighty dike, built by Menes, the first king of the first dynasty in the hour of chronological daybreak. Within were orderly squares, cross-cut by avenues and relieved from monotony by scattered mosaics of groves. Out of these shady demesnes rose the great white temples of Ptah and Apis, and the palaces of the various Memphian Pharaohs.
About these, the bazaars and residences, facade above facade, and tier upon tier, as the land sloped up to its center, shone fair and white under a cloudless sun.
Memphis was at the pinnacle of her greatness in the sixth year of the reign of the divine Meneptah. She had fortified herself and resisted the great invasion of the Rebu. Her generals had done battle with him and brought him home, chained to their chariots.
And after the festivities in celebration of her prowess, she laid down pike and falchion, bull-hide shield and helmet, and took up the chisel and brush, the spindle and loom once more.
The heavy drowsiness of a mid-winter noon had depopulated her booths and bazaars and quieted the quaint traffic of her squares. In the shadows of the city her porters drowsed, and from the continuous wall of houses blankly facing one another from either side of the streets, there came no sound. Each household sought the breezes on the balconies that galleried the inner walls of the courts, or upon the pillared and canopied housetops.
Memphis had eaten and drunk and, sheltered behind her screens, waited for the noon to pass.
Mentu, the king's sculptor, however, had not availed himself of the hour of ease. He did not labor because he must, for his house stood in the aristocratic portion of Memphis, and it was storied, galleried, screened and topped with its breezy pavilion. Within the hollow space, formed by the right and left wings of his house, the chamber of guests to the front, and the property wall to the rear, was a court of uncommon beauty. Palm and tamarisk, acacia and rose-shrub, jasmine and purple mimosa made a multi-tinted jungle about a shadowy pool in which a white heron stood knee-deep. There were long stretches of sunlit sod, and walks of inlaid tile, seats of carved stone, and a single small obelisk, set on a circular slab, marked with measures for time—the Egyptian sun-dial. On every side were evidences of wealth and luxury.
So Mentu labored because he loved to toil. In a land languorous with tropical inertia, an enthusiastic toiler is not common. For this reason, Mentu was worth particular attention. He towered a palm in height over his Egyptian brethren, and his massive frame was entirely