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The last of Seti's lover-like behavior toward her dated back to a time before the court had gone to Thebes long, long ago. Ta-user, also, had gone, but the fan-bearer's daughter did not regret her.
He did not remember anything that Rachel had told him concerning her life in Memphis, or that Har-hat was in Tanis, and Masanath like to be the only resident in the fan-bearer's palace. His reasoning powers abandoned their supremacy to all the fierce impulses toward revenge and bloodletting of which his nature was capable.
The fan-bearer's countenance showed a remarkable increase of temper, but there was no sign of apprehension or discomfiture upon it. "Thou hast beheld the grace of thy king under question," Kenkenes said calmly. "Therefore thou art denied the plea that submission to the same thing will belittle thee. Thy best defense is patience and prompt answer."
But the same saving Providence that shields the adventurous child attended him. He clambered up the opposite bank and struck out for Memphis on a hard run. He had but one purpose and that was to find Har-hat and strangle him with grim joy. The rescue of Rachel did not occur to him, for in his excited mind the simple touch of the fan-bearer's hand was sufficient to kill her with its dishonor.
His puny ideas had to be championed by another before they became fixed convictions. After the plague of locusts, the Hebrew question reached serious proportions. Har-hat had estranged most of the ministers, and in his strait Meneptah felt vaguely and for the first time that he needed the acquiescence of others in addition to the fan-bearer's ready concord.
"Come hither and lie down by me," she said. "I am afraid and thou art unhappy. Give me some of thy courage and I will sorrow with thee." The Israelite smiled sadly and obeyed. It was dawn when the fan-bearer's daughter awoke again. The door had been set aside, and on the rock threshold a squat copper lamp was sending up periodic eruptions of dense white vapor.
Rameses was dead and with him died the fan-bearer's hold upon his position. Seti was arisen in the heir's place, with all the heir's enmity to him. But from Seti he could not purchase security with Masanath. Hotep supported Meneptah out of the death chamber, for the court paraschites were already hiding in the shadows of the great halls without. The bed-chamber slowly emptied.
She turned toward Masanath, walking swiftly. The fan-bearer's daughter, stricken with panic, fled, nor paused until she had passed far beyond the chamber of Ta-user. Cowering in a friendly niche, she waited until the princess had disappeared, and then only after a long time was she sufficiently reassured to reach her own apartments. It was the next day's noon before Masanath saw her father.
A mysterious Providence shielded her. Anubis, which she formally claimed as hers, was the only one of the numerous dumb dwellers in the fan-bearer's house that had escaped. And of him there is something to be told. Shortly after the arrival of the Israelites in Memphis, Anubis disappeared for days. "He is gone to visit the murket," Masanath explained.
He had heard that it was Masanath whom the Hathors had destined to wear the crown of queen to Rameses; the convicts had known of the supremacy of Har-hat. He could not understand how it came that Ta-user, lately discarded, could prevail upon the crown prince to persuade Meneptah, or could herself persuade the king to the overthrow of the fan-bearer's wishes in the matter.
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