ck that the wind might not uncover the ruin.

Returning to the niche, he took up the matting with its weight of
chipped stone, and went down through the dark to the line of rocks
opposite the quarries. There he permitted the rubble to slide with a
mixture of earth, like a natural displacement, into the talus, of a
similar nature, at the base of the cliff. The matting he shook and
laid aside. It would serve for a bed in the tomb that night.

Then he destroyed the north wall. In the four months of its existence
the sand had banked against it more than half its height. Each stone
removed in the dismantling was carried away to a new place, until the
whole fortification was, as once it had been, scattered up and down the
slope. The light, dry sand he pitched with his wooden shovel against
the great cube until it all lay where the wind would have piled it had
no second wall stood in its way. By dawn the strong breeze from the
north would cover every footprint and shovel-mark to a level once more.
He went again to the line of rocks and threw the shovel with a sure aim
and a strong arm into the quarries across the valley. To-morrow it
would seem that an Israelite had forgotten one of his tools.

The work was done.

With an ache in his heart, Kenkenes returned to Deborah and Rachel.

"The shelter for us is in the cliff to the north, near Toora," he began
immediately. "It is a tomb, but others before us have partaken of the
dead's hospitality." [1]

"How am I to reach it?" Deborah asked. "Is the place far?"

"A good hour's journey, but we go by water. Still, we must walk to the
Nile."

"That I can not do," the old woman declared.

"Nay, but I can carry you," Kenkenes replied, bending over her. She
shrank away from him.

"Thou hast forgotten," she protested.

"Not so," he insisted stoutly. Taking her up, he settled her on one
strong arm against his breast. The free hand he extended to Rachel,
who had taken the matting, and together they went laboriously down the
steep front of the hill. They proceeded cautiously, watching before
and behind them lest they be surprised.

He had covered his boat well with the tangle of sedge and marsh-vines,
and after a long space of search, he found it.

Once again he lifted Deborah and laid her in the bottom of the boat.
With its triple burden, the bari sank low in the water, but Kenkenes
wielded the oars carefully. The faint moonlight showed him the way.
Now and the