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"Get thee to my house and bring me my lists," Atsu said to the soldier who was beginning on Judah. "I will look to thy work." The man crossed his left hand to his right shoulder and hastened away. One by one nine Israelites dropped out of line as Atsu numbered them and returned to camp. He touched the tenth. "Name?" the scribe asked. "Deborah," was the reply.
When night came Atsu called his attendants and had the weary old man put to bed in a curtained corner of the house. For himself there was no sleep. At midnight there came the beat of hoofs on the dust-muffled ways of Pa-Ramesu. A sentry knocked at the door of the commander and announced a visitor.
"This," she said, extending the larger to Deborah, "is thine. Take it," waving aside the protests of the old woman, "or the first taste of it will choke me." Deborah submitted duly and consumed the tender morsel while she watched Rachel break her fast. "What said Atsu?" Rachel asked, after the marsh-hen was less apparent. "Little, which is his way.
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.
But there was no response, for the dead speak not out of Amenti. At last Kenkenes laid the body down and stood up. It had come to him very plainly that, but for Atsu, already these dead servitors would have been beyond overtaking in pursuit of his love. Though a worshiper of Israel's God, Kenkenes was still Egyptian in his instincts.
This was Atsu, captain of chariots and vice-commander over Pa-Ramesu. His subordinates parted and gave him respectful path. He delivered his orders in an impassive, low-pitched monotone. "Out with them, and mark ye, no lashes now. Leave the old and the nursing mothers."
Vainly she summoned pride to her aid; vainly she exhorted herself to consistency. "How long," she would say, "since thou didst reject the good Atsu because he is an idolater and an Egyptian? How long since thou wast full of wrath against the chosen people who wedded Egyptians and became of them? And now, who is it that is full of sighs and strange conduct?
There must be, because of the great God's justness, some especial blessing laid up for Atsu." In the time he had spent in the sanctuary the atmosphere had grown hazy and the sun shone obscurely. To the east were tumbled and darkening masses, which gathered even as he looked and joined till they stretched in a vast and unillumined sweep about the horizon.
Here were the red-bearded sons of Reuben, shepherds in skins and men of great hardihood; the seafaring children of Zebulon; a handful of submissive Issachar, and some of Benjamin, Levi, and Judah. "Do we not leave the aged behind?" the scribe asked, indicating Deborah who came with Judah. "Give her her way," Atsu replied indifferently, and the scribe subsided.
Might he not go forward, on his way after Israel, till he found one of these? He led the largest horse past the dead servitors, and persuading it to stand, lifted the body of Atsu upon its back. With difficulty he mounted, and supporting the limp burden with one arm, turned again toward the southeast. As he went forward, Kenkenes meditated on the signs of this recent and tragic event.
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