After a time Kenkenes turned away and addressed one of the bearded men
at that moment, ascending the wooden plane.
"What do ye here?" he asked.
The man answered in unready Egyptian, but, for an inferior, in a manner
curiously collected.
"The Pharaoh addeth to the burden of the chosen people. We dig stone
for a temple to the war-god."
"The chosen people!" Kenkenes repeated inquiringly.
"The children of Israel," the Hebrew explained. Kenkenes lifted one
eyebrow quizzically and went his way. As he leaped up into the gorge
he vaguely realized that he had seen no trace of an encampment near the
hamlet, which he knew to be uninhabitable.
"Of a truth, the chosen people seem to follow me of late," he said to
himself as he rambled up the valley. "Meneptah must have scattered
them out of Goshen into all the corners of Egypt."
As he turned the last winding of the gorge he came upon a cluster of
some threescore tents, spread over the level pocket at the valley's
end. Almost against the northern wall the house of the commander had
been built to receive the earliest shadow of the afternoon. The
military standard was raised upon its roof and a scribe, making entries
on a roll of linen, sat cross-legged on a mat before the door.
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