“Thou art no more eager to stay him than I,” Kenkenes answered quickly.  “Thou art in need of a runner.  I am one.”

The eye of the sorcerer fell on the young man’s dress.

“A runner among the nobility?” he commented suspiciously.

“Is a man less likely to be a patriot because he is of blood, or less fleet of foot because he is noble?”

“Nay; nor less useful because he is sharp of tongue.  Come with me!” Jambres seized his arm and, hurrying him out of the shed, went through the ragged street to the shrine at the upper end of the village.

From the tunnel-like entrance between the dwarf pylons a light was diffused as though it came through thin hangings.  The pair entered the porch and passed into the sanctuary.

Entering his study, Jambres made his way to the heavy table and, fumbling about the compartments under it, drew forth a wrapped and addressed roll.  Taking up a lighted lamp, he scrutinized the messenger sharply.

While he gazed, Kenkenes took the opportunity of inspecting the priest.  He had been a familiar figure about the palaces of two monarchs.  For thirty years he had read the stars for the great Rameses, six for Meneptah, but he had measured rods with Moses and had fallen.  From the pinnacle of power he had declined precipitately to the obscurest office in the priesthood.  This bird-cote shrine was his.

“Art thou seasoned?  Canst thou endure?  Nay, no need to ask that,” he answered himself, surveying the strong figure before him.  “But who art thou?”

“I am the son of Mentu, the murket.”

“The son of Mentu?  Enough.  If a drop of that man’s blood runneth in thy veins, thou art as steadfast as death.  Surely the gods are with me.”

He opened a second compartment in the end of the table, but before he found what he sought he raised himself, suddenly.

“If thou art that son of the murket,” he asked, “how is it thou art not dead?”

Kenkenes looked at him, wondering if the news of his supposed death had penetrated even to this little hamlet.

“Art thou not thy father’s eldest born?” the priest asked further.

“His only child.”

“What sheltered thee in last night’s harvest of death?”

“Thou speakest in riddles, holy Father.”

“Knowest thou not that every first-born in Egypt died last night at the Hebrew’s sending?” the sorcerer demanded.

“The first-born of Egypt,” Kenkenes repeated slowly.  “At the Hebrew’s sending?”

“Aye, by the sorcery of Mesu.  Save for the eldest of Israel, there is no living first-born in Egypt to-day.  From that most imperial Prince Rameses to the firstling of the cowherd, they are dead!”

The young man heard him first with a chill of horror, half-unbelieving, barely comprehending.  He was not of Israel and yet he had been spared.  Then he remembered the dread presence above him in the night,—­the chill from its noiseless wing.  A light, instant and brilliant as a revelation, broke over him.  Unconsciously, he raised his eyes and clasped his hands against his breast.  He knew that his God had acknowledged him.