The messenger drank deep at an irrigation canal, for he turned away from water when he followed the army, and leaving the level, dust-cushioned road behind, plunged into a rock-strewn, rolling land, desolate and silent.  The growing light of the moon was his only advantage.

The region became savage, the trail of the army wound hither and thither to avoid sudden eminences or sudden hollows.  Kenkenes dogged it faithfully, for it found the smoothest way, and, besides, the wild beasts had been frightened from the track of a multitude.

In the early hour of the morning, Kenkenes emerged from a high-walled valley with battlemented summits.  Before him was the army encamped, and wild, indeed, was the region chosen for the night’s rest.  The glistening soil was thickly strewn with rocks, varying in size from huge cubes to sharp shingle.  Every abrupt ravine ahead was accentuated with profound shadow, and the dim horizon was broken with hills.  The locality maintained an irregular slope toward the east.  The camp stretched before the messenger for a mile, but the great army had changed its posture.  It squatted like a tired beast.

Kenkenes approached it dropping with weariness, and after a time was passed through the lines and conducted to the headquarters of the king.  In the center of the great field were pitched the multi-hued tents of Meneptah and his generals.  Above them, turning like weather-vanes upon their staves, were the standards bearing the royal and divine device, the crown and the uplifted hands, the plumes and the god-head.

About the royal pavilion in triple cordon paced the noble body-guard of the Pharaoh.

Of one of these Kenkenes asked that a personal attendant of the king be sent to him.

In a little time, some one emerged from the Pharaoh’s tent, and came through the guard-line to the messenger.  It was Nechutes.

The cup-bearer took but a single glance at Kenkenes and started back.

“Thou!” he exclaimed in a hoarse whisper.  “Out of Amenti!”

“And nigh returning into it again,” was the tired reply.

In a daze, Nechutes took the offered hands and stared at Kenkenes through the dark.

“Where hast thou been?” he finally asked.

“In the profoundest depths of trouble, Nechutes, nor have I come out therefrom.”

The cup-bearer’s face showed compassion even in the dusk.

“Nay, now; thine was but the fortune a multitude of lovers have suffered before thee,” he said, with a contrite note in his deep voice.  “It was even odds between us and I won.  Hold it not against me, Kenkenes.”

It was the sculptor’s turn to be amazed.  But with one of the instant realizations that acute memory effects, he recalled that he had disappeared immediately after Nechutes had been accepted by the Lady Ta-meri.  And now, by the word of the apologetic cup-bearer, was it made apparent to Kenkenes that a tragic fancy concerning the cause of his disappearance had taken root in the cup-bearer’s mind.  With a desperate effort, Kenkenes choked the first desire to laugh that had seized him in months.