Setting the door in place, Rachel led her back into a corner of the outer chamber and laid her down on the matting there.

“The Lord God will care for thy servants.  Fret thyself no further, but be content here until the horror shall pass.  I shall attend thee, so thou shalt not miss their ministrations.”  The Israelite spoke with gentle authority, smoothing the dark hair of her guest.  Command in the form of persuasion is doubly effective, since it induces while it compels.  Masanath was most amenable to this manner of entreaty, since it disarmed her pride while it governed her impulses.  Thus, though her inclination urged against it, she ate when the Israelite brought her a bit of cold fowl and a beaker of wine at midday and again at sunset.  And at night, she slept because the Israelite told her she was safe and bade her close her eyes.

But once she awoke.  The lamp burned behind a wooden amphora rack and the interior of the stone chamber was not dark.  The voice in the inner chamber was still and the human-eyed beast in the corner was now only a small hairy roll.  In the silence she would have been dismayed, but close beside her sat the Israelite.  One hand toyed absently with the golden rings of a collar about her throat.  The face was averted, the hair unplaited and falling in a shower of bright ripples over the bosom and down the back.  The beauty of the picture impressed itself on Masanath, in spite of her drowsiness.  But as well as the beauty, the dejection in the droop of the head, the unhappiness on the face, were apparent even in the dusk.  Here was sorrow—­the kind of sorrow that even the benign night might not subdue.  Masanath was well acquainted with such vigils as the golden Israelite seemed to be keeping.

Her love-lorn heart was stirred.  She spoke to Rachel softly.

“Come hither and lie down by me,” she said.  “I am afraid and thou art unhappy.  Give me some of thy courage and I will sorrow with thee.”

The Israelite smiled sadly and obeyed.

It was dawn when the fan-bearer’s daughter awoke again.

The door had been set aside, and on the rock threshold a squat copper lamp was sending up periodic eruptions of dense white vapor.  Rachel was feeding the ember of the cotton wick with bits of chopped root.  The breeze from the river blew the fumes back into the cave, filling the dark recesses with a fresh and pungent odor.

Masanath, wondering and remembering, raised her head to look through the opening.  Day was broad over Egypt, and the turmoil had subsided.  The silence was heavy.  But the Nile was still a wallowing torrent of red.

She sank back and drew the wide sleeves of her dress over her face.  Rachel put the lamp aside, set the door in place and came to her.

“Thou art better for thy long sleep,” she said.  “Now, if thou canst bear, as well, with the meager food this house affords, the plague will not vex thee sorely.”  Then, in obedience to the Israelite’s offer, Masanath sat up and suffered Rachel to dress her hair and bathe her tiny hands and face with a solution of weak white wine.