The Yoke A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt

To the south and west of her, the Libyan hills notched the horizon. To the east the bald summits of the Arabian desert cut off the traveling sand in its march on the capital. To...

March and April had passed and now it was the first of May. Five days before, the ceremony of installation had been held for the murket and the cup-bearer and for four days ther...

The sudden night had just fallen, and there was an incomplete moon in the west. But already the desert was full of feeble shadows and silver interspaces, and all that tense sile...

In mid-afternoon of the following day, Kenkenes awoke and made ready to take up his search again. He was weary, listless and sore, but his mission urged him as if death threaten...

If Mentu, looking up from the old murkets, noted that the face of his son was weary and sad, he laid it to the sudden heat of the spring; for now it was the middle of March and...

Near the eastern boundary of that level region of northern Egypt, known as the Delta, once thridded by seven branches of the sea-hunting Nile, Rameses II, in the fourteenth cent...

The court was gone and Masanath was making the most of each day of her freedom. Memphis was in a state of apathy, worn out by revel and emptied of her luminaries, Ta-meri, intox...

Kenkenes did not remain long in the apathy of amazement and helplessness. Consternation possessed him the instant he roused himself sufficiently to realize and speculate. He had...

Masanath had required two weeks to accomplish that distance. She refused to travel except in the cool of the morning and of the afternoon; if she felt the fatigue of an hour's j...

His palace was aglow, from its tremendous portals to the airy hypostyle upon its root and from far-reaching wing to wing, with countless colored lights. From every architrave an...

It was far into the tenth night that Kenkenes arrived in Thebes. On the sixteenth day Rachel would begin to expect him, and he could not hope to reach Memphis by that time. She...

Once out of its confines the Nile divided its flood over and over again and hunted the sea in long meanderings over the flat Delta. A few miles above On the separation began and...

Mentu returned from the session at the palace, uncommunicative and moody. When, after the evening meal, Kenkenes crossed the court to talk with him, he found the elder sculptor...

In the early morning of the next day after the rout at Senci's, Kenkenes wandered restlessly about the inner court of his father's house. He had slept but little the preceding n...

One morning early in March Seti stood beside the parapet on the palace of the king in Tanis. His eyes were fixed on the shimmering line of the northern level, but he did not see...

The next morning after his meeting with the golden-haired Israelite, Kenkenes came early to the line of rocks that topped the north wall of the gorge and, ensconced between the...

On the first day of February, runners, dusty, breathless and excited, passed the sentries of the Memphian palace of Meneptah with the news that the Pharaoh was but a day's journ...

Within, she saw her hostess yet in her bed-gown, her hair disordered and her tiny feet bare. She stood before a shrine of silver, the statue of Isis in turquoise displayed there...

At sunrise, Kenkenes drew up his horse and took counsel with himself. By steady riding he could reach Tanis shortly, but once within the capital of the Pharaoh, he was near to H...

Thebes Diospolis, the hundred-gated, was in holiday attire. The great suburb to the west of the Nile had emptied her multitudes into the solemn community of the gods. Besides he...

One sunset, shortly after his marriage, word came to the tent of Kenkenes that an Amalekite chieftain on his way to Egypt had paused for the night just without the encampment of...

When the imperative necessity of harmonious expression became apparent, the young artist laid aside his chisel and mallet, and the Arabian desert knew his footsteps no more for...

The first lean, brown boatman who touched his knee and offered his bari for hire, Kenkenes patronized. The slave had eased his load into the boat and Kenkenes was on the point o...

Meneptah having come and the old regime of life resumed, Memphis subsided into her normal state of dignity. Mentu remained in his house preparing for his investiture with the of...

At Tanis, the next day after the arrival of Meneptah, there came a messenger from Thebes to Hotep, and the royal scribe retired to his apartments to read the letter.

One mid-morning, the oxen were unyoked from the water-cart and led ambling up to the pit where a monolith, too huge to be moved by men alone, had been taken forth and was to be...

Loi was not present at the sunset prayers in Karnak. An hour before he had summoned the trustiest priest in the brotherhood of ministers to Amen and bade him conduct the ceremon...

Rachel stood by the parapet on the top of the Memphian house of Har-hat. About her were no evidences of her former serfdom. She wore an ample robe of white linen, with blue selv...

At the door of her apartments Masanath was met by the faithful Nari, who drew her within and showed her triumphantly that the usurping ladies-in-waiting had departed. The unhapp...

She thrust her fingers under the band and essayed to wrench off the offending necklace, but the stout fastening held and the flexible braid printed its woof on the back of the s...

The murket sat at his place in the work-room, but no papyrus scrolls lay before him; his fine implements were not in sight; the ink-pots and pens were put away and the table was...

The morning of the second day after the lifting of the darkness lay golden over Egypt, blue-shadowed before the houses and trees to the west and shimmering and illusory toward t...

Meanwhile the scribe of the "double house of life," and the son of the royal sculptor were taking comfort on the palace-top beneath the subdued light of a hooded lamp.

A water-carrier in Syene was carrying a yoke across his shoulders and the great earthen jars swung ponderously as he walked. His bare feet disturbed the red dust of the path dow...

Of the ensuing day, Kenkenes had no very distinct memory. Very fair and beautiful, one recollection remained--a recollection of another figure on the eminence, and by the flash...

At sunset on the day after the festivities at the Lady Senci's, Hotep deserted his palace duties and came to the house of Mentu. He had in mind to try again to persuade his frie...

The Nile rose and fell and the seasons shifted until eight months had passed. The period was inconsiderable, but its events had never been equaled in a like space, or a generati...

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, Men...

Masanath, suffocating with wrath and rebellion and overpowered with an exaggerated appreciation of her shame, tumbled down in the shadows of the narrow passage and wrapped her m...

The moon was ampler and its light stronger. The Nile was a vast and faintly silvered expanse, roughened with countless ripples blown opposite the direction of the current. The n...

The voices of the storm found harmonious tones of different pitch and swelled in glorious accord from the faintest breath of melody to an almighty blast that stunned the senses...

Some time later the bar rattled down again, and the jailer stood without, a scribe at his side. At a sign from the jailer, the latter made as though to enter, but Kenkenes stopp...

It was Kenkenes' first love and so was most rapturous, but it did not cast a glamour over the stern perplexities that it entailed. He knew the suspense that is immemorial among...

One late afternoon, in the streets of Pa-Ramesu, a curious new-comer bowed before Atsu, the commander of Israel of the treasure city. The visitor was old and tremulous from fati...

More than two million Israelites were encamped about Pa-Ramesu, and among this host Kenkenes had searched thoroughly and fearlessly. He was an Egyptian and a noble, and Israel d...

When Mentu returned from On a light had kindled in his eyes and his stately step had grown elastic. The man that withdraws from a busy life while in full vigor has beckoned to D...

Meanwhile Kenkenes seldom saw a human face. Food and water in red clay vessels, bearing the seal of Thebes, were set inside his door by disembodied hands. At intervals he saw th...