“Said they aught concerning their intents—­this pair, who set upon you?” Kenkenes asked.

“O, aye, they blustered, and if they bring half of their threats to pass, it will go ill with thee, Egyptian.  They will set the priests upon thee immediately; the hills will be searched; the Nile will be picketed.  It behooves thee to have a care for thyself.  As for Rachel, I know not what will become of her.  She is penned out in the desert, for the camp is to be watched, and they boast that the hunt will end only with her capture.”

“Let them look to it that it does not end with the choking of the swine who inspired it!  I long to put him beyond the cure of leeches.”

He made no answer to Deborah’s words concerning Rachel’s plight.  Deborah had disarranged his plans.  He could not take the old woman, grievously wounded, on the long journey to Nehapehu, and, indeed, had she been well, his small boat might not hold together with a burden of three for a distance of half a hundred miles.  For a moment his perplexity baffled his ingenuity.

It occurred to him that he might cross to the Memphian shore and procure a larger boat; but what would protect his helpless charges during the hours of absence, or in case he were taken?  He realized that he dare not run a risk; his every movement must be safe and sure.  He could not ask the wounded Israelite to return to the camp now, seeing that she had suffered mistreatment at the hands of Har-hat’s servants and deserted not.

“If there were but a grotto in the rocks—­a cave or a tomb—­” he stopped and smote his hands together.

“By Apis!  I have it—­the Tomb of the Discontented Soul!”

He turned to the two women, who had talked softly together in Hebrew, and spoke lightly in his relief.

“We have shelter for this night—­safer than any other place in all Egypt.  Trouble no more concerning that.  Let me hide my sacrilege and rob them of indisputable evidence against me, and then we shall get to our refuge.”

He lifted Deborah in his arms, and bearing her out into the open, left her with Rachel.

Then he reentered the shadowy niche.  The night was not too dark to show the interior.  Athor, a torso, broken in twain, headless, armless, was prostrate.  It had been pushed over against the great cube that sheltered it and the fall against the hard limestone had ruined it.  Kenkenes clenched his hands and choked back the angry tears.  To the artist the destruction partook of the heinousness of murder, of the pathos of death.  He set about concealing the wreck with all speed, for he wished to be merciful to his eyes.

He collected the fragmentary members, and carrying them down the slope a little way, dug a grave for them in the sand.  To the trench he rolled the trunk on the tamarisk cylinders, and buried all that was left of Athor the Golden.  Over the grave he laid a flat stratum of rock that the wind might not uncover the ruin.