swept over her face and her eyes darkened.

"It shall not keep thee from thy labor," he added persuasively.

The color deepened and she made a motion of dissent.

"Nay! thou dost not refuse me!" he exclaimed, his astonishment evident
in his voice.

"Of a surety," she replied. "Give me my burden, I pray thee."

Dumb with amazement, too genuine to contain any anger, Kenkenes obeyed.
As she went up the shady gorge, walking unsteadily under the heavy
pitcher, he stood looking after her in eloquent silence.

And in eloquent silence he turned at last and continued down the
valley. There was nothing to be said. His appreciation of his own
discomfiture was too large for any expression.

In a few steps he met the short captain who governed the quarries.
Kenkenes guessed his office by his dress. He was adorned in festal
trappings, for he had spent most of the day in revel across the Nile.

"Dost thou know Rachel, the Israelitish maiden?" Kenkenes asked,
planting himself in the man's way.

"The yellow-haired Judahite?" the man inquired, a little surprised.

"Even so," was the reply.

The soldier nodded.

"Look to it that she is put to light labor," the sculptor continued,
gazing loftily down into the narrow eyes. The soldier squared off and
inspected the nobleman. It did not take him long to acknowledge the
young sculptor's right to command.

"It does not pay to be tender with an Israelite," the man answered
sourly.

Kenkenes thrust his hand into the folds of his tunic over his breast
and, drawing forth a number of golden rings strung on a cord, jingled
them musically.

The soldier grinned.

"That will coax a man out of his dearest prejudice. I will put her
over the children."

Kenkenes dropped the money into the man's palm.

"I shall have an eye to thee," he said warningly. "Cheat me not."

He went his way. The incident restored to him the power of speech.

"Now, by Horus," he began, "am I to be denied by an Israelite that
which the favoring Hathors designed I should have? Not while the arts
of strategy abide within me. The children, I take it, will come here
with the water," he cogitated, stamping upon the wet and deserted ledge
which he had reached, "and here will she be, also."

He raised his eyes to the ragged line of rocks topping the northern
wall of the gorge.

"I shall perch myself there like a sacred hawk and filch her likeness.
Nay, now that I come to ponder on it, it is doubtless