There he found that the queen and Seti, with all the queen’s retinue, had departed on a pilgrimage to the temple of the sacred ram at Mendes for the welfare of the soul of Rameses.  Masanath was in Pelusium mourning for her sister who died with the first-born.  The others,—­Har-hat, Hotep, Nechutes, Menes, Seneferu, Kephren the mohar,—­all except the palace attendants had accompanied the king.  The great house of the Pharaoh was empty, solitary and haunted.

The destination of the king was a state secret that had not been imparted to the chamberlains.  Kenkenes returned into the unhappy streets again.

He went to the square in which the loiterers were congregated, even though there was one dead in the household, and seeking out the most intelligent, questioned him concerning the departure of the Pharaoh.

He learned that the king and the ministers had left Tanis, and driven south, the afternoon after the night of death.  At nightfall, sixteen chariots from the nome followed him.  And though the young man inquired of many sources in the capital, he discovered nothing further.

Avowedly, it was Meneptah’s intent to overtake the Hebrews, turn them back, or destroy them.  He could not accomplish that thing with a score of ministers and sixteen picked chariots.  It was evident that he meant to collect an army near the track of the Hebrews, and that he had departed for the rendezvous.

If the Israelites traveled but two miles an hour, they could cover the distance between Pa-Ramesu and the Rameside wall by the sunset of this, the second day after the death of the first-born.  It would have been the first act of the Pharaoh to close the gates of the wall against them.  The army of the north could gather from the remotest nomes by the close of this day also.  Therefore, the hour to proceed against the Israelites was not far away.  Kenkenes knew that he might not delay, even for a short sleep, in Tanis.

He fixed upon Pithom as the chosen spot for the rendezvous, since it was situated on the Wady Toomilat.

He refreshed himself with a beaker of sour wine in which a recuperative simple had been stirred, and took the road to the south.

Immediately outside of the city walls he came upon the track of the departing king, and followed it faithfully as long as there was light to show it to him.  A dozen miles out of Tanis he ceased to run, and thereafter his progress became slower as his fatigue increased.  Toward the end of the first watch, at the northern borders of the district known as Succoth, at the extreme east of Goshen, he came upon a mighty track.

Even in the dark he could see that a diaphanous gauze of dust overhung it and the air was heavy with the most volatile particles.  The sandy earth had been ground and worked to the depth of over a foot.  How difficult had it been for the rearmost ranks to cover this ploughed soil!  The track was a mile in width, and by the nature of the marks upon it, Kenkenes knew that husbandmen, not warriors, had passed over this spot.  It was the path of Israel, leading east to the Rameside wall.