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"Dost thou espouse the cause of thy nation's enemy?" he asked. "I espouse the cause of the oppressed, and which, now, is more oppressed Egypt or the Hebrew?" This was different sort of persuasion from that which the king had heard since Har-hat took up the fan. The scribe was compelling him by reason; the man's personality was not entering at all into the argument. Meneptah's high brows knitted.
Of the love of Hotep and Masanath something yet remains to be told. It was common to examine the entire family of a traitor as to their complicity in his misdeeds, and the option lay with the Pharaoh whether or not they should bear some of his punishment. Har-hat was dead, the army destroyed at his hands. When the news of the disaster reached Tanis Meneptah's anger and grief knew no bounds.
Kenkenes caught a single glance of the eyes under the gray shelter of the heavy brows. Once, the young man had seen hanging from Meneptah's neck the rarest jewel in the royal treasure. The wise men had called it an opal. It shot lights as beautiful and awful as the intensest flame. And something in the eyes of this mighty man brought back to Kenkenes the memory of the fires of that wondrous gem.
Meneptah's weakness for him grew into stubborn worship. The old and trusted ministers of the monarch took offense and sealed their lips; the new held their peace for trepidation. The queen, heretofore meek and self-effacing, laid aside her spindle one day and, meeting her lord at the door of the council chamber; protested in the name of his dynasty and his realm.
Har-hat imprisoned him because the gallant young man loved the maiden whom Har-hat would have taken for his harem." Meneptah's face blazed. "Go on," he said sharply. "The fan-bearer had some little right on his side, for the young man had committed sacrilege in carving a statue, and had stolen the maiden away and hidden her when Har-hat would have taken her.
It would seem that the Israelites effected their escape under cover of the Libyan invasion in the fifth year of Meneptah's reign, and on this account it is that their name is introduced into the pæan wherein the destruction of the Libyan host is celebrated and the Pharaoh is declared to have restored peace to the whole world.
What have I won therefrom? Naught save, perchance, the smiles of Egypt at my disappointment." Meneptah's face flushed. "Say on, O my kinswoman," he said, moving uncomfortably. "Kinswoman! And a year agone, I thought to hear, 'O my daughter." The color in the king's face deepened. "Wilt thou reproach me, Ta-user, for my son's wilfulness?" was his tactless reply.
To the first resplendent member of the retinue at Meneptah's palace, who cast one glance at the fillet the sculptor wore, and bent suavely before him, Kenkenes stated his mission. The retainer bowed again and called a rosy page hiding in the dusk of the corridor. "Go thou to the apartments of my Lord Hotep and tell him a visitor awaits him in his chamber of guests."
Surging murmurs of unanimous sorrow rose and fell as if blown by the chill wind to and fro over Egypt. The nation crouched with her face in the dust. There was no perfunctory sorrow in her abasement. She was bowed down with her own woe, not Meneptah's. Never before had a prince's going-out been attended by such wild grief.
Then, even if Meneptah's army did not continue to follow him, he would be enabled to buy mercenaries and return equipped to do battle with Meneptah, even as he had vowed. The flower of the military was with him; the Pharaoh was incapable and Egypt demoralized. The success of the traitor seemed assured.
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