“And thou hast not named him in the writing?”

Again the priest shook his head.

“Then,” said the young man firmly, “then will I name him to the Pharaoh!”

Jambres looked at Kenkenes with profound admiration, not unmixed with apprehension.

“Let not thy youthful zeal undo thee,” he cautioned.  “Perchance thou dost mistake the man.”

“The gods did not bestow all the art upon the mystics when they endowed thee with divining powers.  They gifted every man with a little of it, and it speaketh no less truthfully because it is small.  Come, thy board has been generous and I am satisfied.  I have another and a fiercer hunger I would appease.  Give me the message and let me be gone.”

Silent, the priest led the way again into the sanctuary.  Taking the scroll from its hiding-place once more he said, as he gave it into the messenger’s hands:  “Go first to Tanis, and if thou findest not the king in his capital, seek until thou dost find him.  And have a care to thyself.”

Kenkenes hesitated a moment, and said at last: 

“It may be that I shall not return, but I would have my father know that I died not with the first-born.  Wilt thou tell him, when thou canst?”

“The word shall go to him by sunset to-morrow if I carry it myself.”

Kenkenes expressed his thanks and the priest went on.

“Be not rash, I charge thee.  Farewell, and thy father’s gods attend thee.”

Without the dwarf pylons, Kenkenes bent for the old man’s blessing and turned away.  Walking rapidly to the northern limits of the town, he took the dusty highway again, and struck into an easy run.

The road sloped up toward the north, but the rise was gradual and the ascent was not wearying.  The miles slipped behind swiftly, for he covered them as naturally as the unloitering bird traverses the air.

In two hours he had reached the pinnacle of the upland.  To the north the road led continuously down to the sea.  He paused and looked back over the long gentle declivity toward the south and west.

A sharp pain pierced him.  In that moment, he realized that he was expatriated.  After he had warned Meneptah, Egypt dropped out of his aims.  Thereafter he had the rescue of Rachel, or her avenging to accomplish, and the results following upon the necessity of either of these alternatives would not permit him to return into the land of his fathers.  There was no turning back now, nor any desire in him to do so.  His conscience had been witness to the renunciation of his nation and his faith, and it did not chide him.

Still he stretched out his arms to the limitless, featureless, velvety dusk that was Egypt by day, and wept.

He entered Tanis in the middle of the third watch, and there he learned that the Pharaoh had departed, but whither, the solemn, haggard citizens he met could not tell.  He repaired to the inn, a house of mourning, also, and awaited the dawn.  Then he looked on the funereal capital of Meneptah.  The city no longer cried out; it sighed or sobbed, exhausted with its grief; it went the heavy round of labor demanded by the necessities of life, bowed, disheveled and blinded with woe.  Kenkenes, humbled, sorrowful, and helpless, averted his eyes and hurried to the palace.