Not an instant did he hesitate.

Ahead of him was the narrow bed of a miniature torrent which rolled out of the desert during the infrequent rains.  Now it was dry, packed hard, free of all obstructions except the great boulders, and led in a comparatively straight line toward the sea.  It was an ideal stretch for running.

He summoned all his forces, gathering, in a mighty mental effort, all that depended on his speed, and took the path with a leap.  The dazed king and his ministers saw him with whom they had that moment talked stretch a vast and ever-widening breach between them with a bat-like swoop, and while they watched he was swallowed up in distance.

The bed of the torrent served him for the first few miles.  Then it turned abruptly toward the Bitter Lakes.  He left it and entered the rougher country.  Thereafter no great bursts of speed were possible, because the runner had to pick his way.  He ran, not with a steady pace, each stride equal to the preceding, but with bounds, aside and forward, dimly calculating the safety of the footfall.

Suddenly a column of sand rose under his feet, and he dashed through it.  Blinded and choking, he cleared his eyes, caught his breath and ran on.  A gust of wind, like a breath of flame, met him from the east and passed.  Then he realized that the atmosphere had thickened, as if an opaque cloud of heat had enveloped the earth.  He glanced at the sky and saw that it was strewn with fragmentary clouds, but a little south and east of him was the pillar, unmoving and gilded royally.

There was storm in the air.

Finally the region began to grow level, proving the proximity to the sea.  In another moment he came upon the old sea bed.  It was sandy, sedge-grown, with here and there a palm, and tremendously trampled.

Israel had passed this way.

The clash and ring of meeting metal fell on his ear.  He looked and saw ahead of him two men fighting with a third.  Three horses with empty saddles nervously watched the fray.

The single combatant was a soldier in the uniform of a common fighting man.  One of the pair was a tall Nubian in a striped tunic; the other was an Egyptian, short, fat, purple of countenance—­Unas!

With a furious exclamation, Kenkenes slackened his pace only long enough to undo the falchion at his side and rushed to the fight.  It did not matter to him who the soldier was or what his cause.  The fact that he was fighting the emissaries of Har-hat was sufficient indorsement of the lone soldier.  But even as he sprang forward, Unas sank on the sand, moved convulsively once or twice and lay still.

The soldier staggered back from the second servitor and fell.  The Nubian, standing over him, swung his heavy weapon aloft, but Kenkenes thrust his falchion over the fallen man and caught the blow, as it descended, upon the broad back of the blade.