Anubis realized his moment of freedom was short and with an instant bound he was out and gone.

In no little dismay Rachel started in pursuit, but she had not moved ten paces from the bottom of the steps before she paused, transfixed.

An Egyptian, not Pepi, was hauling a boat into the reeds.  The craft secure, he turned up the slant, walking rapidly.

There was no mistaking that commanding stature.

Anubis descended on him like an arrow.  The man saw the ape, halted a fraction of an instant, caught sight of Rachel, and with a cry, his arms flung wide, broke into a run toward her.

The ape bounded for his shoulder, but missed and alighted at one side, chattering raucously.  The running man did not pause.

The world revolved slowly about Rachel, and the sustaining structure of her frame seemed to lose its rigidity.  She put out her hands, blindly, and they were caught and clasped about Kenkenes’ neck.  And there in the strong support of his tightening arms, her face hidden against the leaping heart, all time and matters of the world drifted away.  In their place was only a vast content, featureless and full of soft dusk and warmth.

Gone were all the demure resolutions, the memory of faith or unfaith.  Nothing was patent to her except that this was the man she loved and he had returned from the dead.

Presently she became vaguely aware that he was speaking.  Though a little unsteady and subdued, it was the same melody of voice that she seemed to have known from the cradle.

“Rachel!  Rachel!” he was saying, “why didst thou not go to my father as I bade thee?  Nay, I do not chide thee.  The joy of finding thee hath healed me of the wrench when I found thee not, at my father’s house, at dawn to-day.  But tell me.  Why didst thou not go?”

“I—­I feared—­” she faltered after a silence.

“My father?  Nay, now, dost thou fear me?  Not so; and my father is but myself, grown old.  He was only a little less mad with fear than I, when he discovered that thou shouldst have come to him so long ago, and camest not.  It damped his joy in having me again, and I left him pale with concern.  Did I not tell thee how good he is?”

“Aye, it was not that I feared him, but that I feared that thou—­” And she paused and again he helped her.

“That I was dead?  That I had played thee false?  Rachel!  But how couldst thou know?  Forgive me.  Since the tenth night I left thee I have been in prison.”

“In prison!” she exclaimed, lifting her face.  “Alas, that I did not think of it.  It is mine to beg thy forgiveness, Kenkenes, and on my very knees!”

“So thou didst think it, in truth!” She hid her face again and craved his pardon.

But he pressed her to him and soothed her.

“Nay, I do not chide thee.  Had I been in thy place, I might have thought the same.  But it is past—­gone with the horrors of this horrible season—­Osiris be thanked!”