id="id00039">Before one of the tents an old woman knelt beside a bed of live coals, turning a browning water-fowl upon a pointed stick. She was a consummate cook, and the bird was fat and securely trussed. Now and again she sprinkled a pinch of crude salt on the embers to suppress the odor of the burning drippings, and lifted the fowl out of the reach of the pale flames that leaped up thereafter. Presently she removed the fowl and forked it off the spit into a capacious earthenware bowl near by. Then, with green withes as tongs, she drew forth a round tile from under the coals and set it over the dish to complete the baking. From another tile-platter at hand she took several round slices of durra bread and proceeded to toast them with much skill, tilting the hot tile and casting each browned slice in on the fowl as it was done. When she had finished, she removed the cover and set the bowl on the large platter, protecting her hands from its heat with a fold of her habit. With no little triumph and some difficulty she got upon her feet and carried the toothsome dish into her shelter, to place it beyond the reach of stealthy hands. No such meal was cooked that morning, elsewhere, in Pa-Ramesu, except at the military headquarters on the knoll.

There was little inside the tent, except the meagerest essential furnishing. A long amphora stood in a tamarisk rack in one corner; a linen napkin hung, pinned to the tent-cloth, over it; a glazed laver and a small box sat beside it. A mat of braided reeds, the handiwork of the old Israelite, covered the naked earth. This served as seat or table for the occupants. Several wisps of straw were scattered about and a heap of it, over which a cotton cloak had been thrown, lay in one corner.

"Rachel," the old woman said briskly.

Evidently some one slept under the straw, for the heap stirred.

"Rachel!" the old woman reiterated, drawing off the cloak.

Without any preliminary pushing away of the straw, a young girl sat up. A little bewildered, she divested her head and shoulders of a frowsy straw thatch and stood erect, shaking it off from her single short garment.

She was not more than sixteen years old. Above medium height and of nobler proportions than the typical woman of the race, her figure was remarkable for its symmetry and utter grace. The stamp of the countenance was purely Semitic, except that she was distinguished, most wondrously in color, from her kind. Her sleep had left its exquisite heaviness on eyes of the tenderest blue, and the luxuriant hair she pushed back from her face was a fleece of gold. Hers was that rare complexion that does not tan. The sun but brightened her hair and wrought the hue of health in her cheeks. Her forehead was low, broad, and white as marble; her neck and arms white, and the hands, busied with the hair, were strong, soft, dimpled and white. The grace of her womanhood had not been overcome by the slave-labor, which she had known from infancy.

"Good morning, Deborah. Why—thy bed—have I slept under it?" she asked.

"Since the middle of the last watch," the old woman assented.

"But why? Did Merenra come?" the girl inquired anxiously.

"Nay; but I heard some one ere the camp was astir and I covered thee."

"And thou hast had no sleep since," the girl said, with regret in her voice. "Thou dost reproach me with thy goodness, Deborah."

She went to the amphora and poured water into the laver, drew forth from the box a horn comb and a vial of powdered soda from the Natron Lakes, and proceeded with her toilet.

"Came some one, of a truth?" she asked presently.

Deborah pointed to the smoking bowl. Rachel inspected the fowl.

"Marsh-hen!" she cried in surprise.

"Atsu brought it."

"Atsu?"

"Even so. From his own bounty and for Rachel," Deborah explained.

Rachel smiled.

"Thou art beset from a new direction," the old woman continued dryly, "but thou hast naught to fear from him."

"Nay; I know," Rachel murmured, arranging her dress.

The garb of the average bondwoman was of startling simplicity. It consisted of two pieces of stuff little wider than the greatest width of the wearer's body, tied by the corners over each shoulder, belted at the waist with a thong and laced together with fiber at the sides, from the hips to a point just above the knee. It was open above and below this simple seam and interfered not at all with the freedom of the wearer's movements. But Rachel's habit was a voluminous surplice, fitting closely at the neck, supplied with wide sleeves, seamed, hemmed and of ample length. Deborah was literally swathed in covering, with only her withered face and hands exposed. There was a hint of rank in their superior dress and more than a suggestion of blood in the bearing of the pair; but they were laborers with the shepherds and serving-people of Israel.

"He would wed thee, after the manner of thy people, and take thee from among Israel," Deborah continued.

The girl drooped her head over the lacing of her habit and made no answer. The old woman looked at her sharply for a moment.

"Well, eat; Rachel, eat," she urged at last. "The marsh-hen will stand thee in good stead and thou hast a weary day before thee."

Rachel looked at the old woman and made mental comparison between the ancient figure and her strong, young self. With great deliberation she divided the fowl into a large and small part.

"This," she said, extending the larger to Deborah, "is thine. Take it," waving aside the protests of the old woman, "or the first taste of it will choke me."

Deborah submitted duly and consumed the tender morsel while she watched
Rachel break her fast.

"What said Atsu?" Rachel asked, after the marsh-hen was less apparent.

"Little, which is his way. But his every word was worth a harangue in weight. Merenra and his purple-wearing visitor, the spoiler, the pompous wolf, departed for Pithom last night, hastily summoned thither by a royal message. But the commander returns to-morrow at sunset. This morning, every tenth Hebrew in Pa-Ramesu is to be chosen and sent to the quarries. Atsu will send thee and me, whether we fall among the tens of a truth or not. So we get out of the city ere Merenra returns. He called the ruse a cruel one and not wholly safe, but he would sooner see thee dead than despoiled by this guest of Merenra's—or any other. I doubt not his heart breaketh for thy sake, Rachel, and he would rend himself to spare thee."

"The Lord God bless him," the girl murmured earnestly.

"Where dost thou say we go?" she asked after a little silence.

"To the quarries of Masaarah, opposite Memphis."

The color in the young Israelite's face receded a little.

"To the quarries," she repeated in a half-whisper.

"Fearest thou?"

"Nay, not for myself, at all, but we may not have another Atsu over us there. I fear for thee, Deborah."

The old woman waved her hands.

"Trouble not concerning me. I shall not die by heavy labor."

But the girl shook her head and gazed out of the low entrance of the tent. Her face was full of trouble. Once again the old woman looked at her with suspicion in her eyes. Presently the girl asked, coloring painfully:

"Was Atsu commanded to hold me for this guest of Merenra's—ah!" she broke off, "did Atsu name him?"

"Not by the titles by which the man would as