If she departed, the next day's sun might dawn upon him in Memphis, searching and sorrowing because he found her not. The hour of separation might be delayed for twenty days—in that time he might come.
"I will stay till my people go—if they depart within twenty days," Rachel made answer. "But I must be gone ere thy father's servant returns."
Masanath rebelled, sobbing.
"Nay, weep not. The hour is distant. In that time, since these are days of miracles, thy sorrows and mine may have faded like a mist. Come, no more. Let us bide the workings of the good God."
[1] Imhotep—The physician-god.
CHAPTER XXXIII
BACK TO MEMPHIS
The valley in which Thebes Diospolis was situated was wide and the overflow of the Nile did not reach the arable uplands near the Arabian hills. Three thousand years before, Menes had established a system of irrigation which had added hundreds of square miles to the agricultural area of Egypt, and every monarch after him had unfailingly preserved the institution. From Syene to Pelusium the country was ramified with canals, and vast sums and great labor were expended yearly upon their keeping.
Since the work was heavy and the demand for it constant, it became a punitive part of each nome's administration. Therefore, the convicts whose misdeeds were too serious to be punished adequately by the bastinado or the fine, and yet not grave enough to merit a sentence to the quarries or the mines, were sent to the canals.
So here in the canals of the eastern Thebaid, was Kenkenes, a prisoner known only by a number. His fellows were unjust public weighers, usurers, rioters, habitual tax-evaders, broken debtors, forgers and housebreakers.