Kenkenes expressed his thanks and the priest went on.
"Be not rash, I charge thee. Farewell, and thy father's gods attend thee."
Without the dwarf pylons, Kenkenes bent for the old man's blessing and turned away. Walking rapidly to the northern limits of the town, he took the dusty highway again, and struck into an easy run.
The road sloped up toward the north, but the rise was gradual and the ascent was not wearying. The miles slipped behind swiftly, for he covered them as naturally as the unloitering bird traverses the air.
In two hours he had reached the pinnacle of the upland. To the north the road led continuously down to the sea. He paused and looked back over the long gentle declivity toward the south and west.
A sharp pain pierced him. In that moment, he realized that he was expatriated. After he had warned Meneptah, Egypt dropped out of his aims. Thereafter he had the rescue of Rachel, or her avenging to accomplish, and the results following upon the necessity of either of these alternatives would not permit him to return into the land of his fathers. There was no turning back now, nor any desire in him to do so. His conscience had been witness to the renunciation of his nation and his faith, and it did not chide him.
Still he stretched out his arms to the limitless, featureless, velvety dusk that was Egypt by day, and wept.
He entered Tanis in the middle of the third watch, and there he learned that the Pharaoh had departed, but whither, the solemn, haggard citizens he met could not tell. He repaired to the inn, a house of mourning, also, and awaited the dawn. Then he looked on the funereal capital of Meneptah. The city no longer cried out; it sighed or sobbed, exhausted with its grief; it went the heavy round of labor demanded by the necessities of life, bowed, disheveled and blinded with woe. Kenkenes, humbled, sorrowful, and helpless, averted his eyes and hurried to the palace.
There he found that the queen and Seti, with all the queen's retinue, had departed on a pilgrimage to the temple of the sacred ram at Mendes for the welfare of the soul of Rameses. Masanath was in Pelusium mourning for her sister who died with the first-born. The others,—Har-hat, Hotep, Nechutes, Menes, Seneferu, Kephren the mohar,—all except the palace attendants had accompanied the king. The great house of the Pharaoh was empty, solitary and haunted.
The destination of the king was a state secret that had not been imparted to the chamberlains. Kenkenes returned into the unhappy streets again.