"To discover if Har-hat hath taken her!"
"Go on."
"If he hath the Lord God make iron of my hands till I strangle him!"
"Madman!" Mentu exclaimed. "Thou wilt be flayed!"
"Be assured that I shall earn the flaying! The punishment shall be no more savage than the deed that invites it! But enough of that. If I go to Tanis and find her the spoil of the fan-bearer, thine augury will hold, I return not to Memphis. . . . If she was lost in the Nile—!"
"Nay! Nay! put away the thought if it wrench thee so. No man removed from his place during that night. We were caught and transfixed at what we did. For three days I sat in the court, where I was overtaken by the darkness, and in that time I stirred not except to slip down on the bench and sleep. The palsy seized all Memphis likewise—not one of my neighbors moved. But the resident Hebrews of the city seemed to have been warned, or else the favor of their strange God was with them. For it is said they came and went as they willed, carrying lamps."
Kenkenes looked at his father with growing hope.
"If that be true," he said eagerly, "if the palsy fell upon Egypt and not upon Israel, Rachel may have fled safely—she may have escaped them!" Mentu assented with a nod.
"She may have returned to her people," Kenkenes went on. "And if she be in Goshen I must reach her, find her, before her people depart. Having found her—" but Kenkenes stopped and made no effort to resume. Mentu set his teeth, his hands clenched and his whole figure seemed to denote intense physical restraint. Suddenly he whirled upon his son.
"Thou wilt go with her, out of Egypt?" he demanded.