rts to escape and her inevitable capture might amuse her tormentor.
And after the manner of the miserable captive so beset, she seized upon
the momentary release and sought to fly. The three little Hebrews
clung to her--the one that had answered Har-hat weeping bitterly and
remorsefully.

"Nay, weep not," she said in a hurried whisper. "It would have ended
just the same. Heard ye not what he said concerning a husband? But
let me go! Let Rachel hide ere the serving men return!"

She undid their arms and ran back toward the quarries. For a moment
the children hesitated and then they pursued her, crying in an
undertone as they ran. Past the stone-pits, up the winding valley she
fled until she reached the encampment and her own tent.

The women saw her come and old Deborah, who was preparing vegetables
for the noonday meal, left the fires and hastened to the shelter.
There, Rachel, choking with terror and tears, gave the story of the
morning.

Deborah made no interruption and after the disjointed and unhappy
recital was complete, she sat for some moments, motionless and silent.
Then she arose and made as if to leave the tent, but Rachel caught at
her hand in affright.

"Nay, be not so frightened," the old woman said soothingly. "I go to
look for Atsu. He will come in a little while."

With that, she went forth. After a time--more than two hours, in
truth, but infinitely longer to Rachel, the voice of the taskmaster was
heard without, talking with Deborah. He was permitting no curb to the
expression of his rage.

"The gods rend his heart to ribbons!" he panted after a tempest of
anathema. "Curse the insatiate brute! Is there not enough of Egypt's
women who are willingly loose that he must destroy the purest spirit on
earth? He shall not have her, if I take his life to save her!"

After a moment's savage rumination, he broke out again.

"He has us on the hip! We shall be put to it to hide her away from him
now. Do thou go to her--nay, I will go."

Rachel heard him enter the tent and walk across the matting on the
floor. She flung her arm over her face and huddled closer to the
linen-covered heap of straw against which she had thrown herself. Even
the eyes of the taskmaster were intolerable, in her shame. Atsu
plunged into the heart of his subject at once.

"There is no escape in the choosing of the tens, now, Rachel. I have
said that I would not vex thee again with my love. Once I offered the