The Nile was a vast and
faintly silvered expanse, roughened with countless ripples blown
opposite the direction of the current. The north wind had risen and
swept through the crevice between the hills with more than usual
strength, adding its reedy music to the sound of the swiftly flowing
waters.
After launching his bari, Kenkenes gazed a moment, and then, with a
prayer to Ptah for aid, struck out for the south, rowing with powerful
strokes.
At the western shore lighted barges swayed at their moorings or
journeyed slowly, but the Nile was wide, and the craft, blinded by
their own brilliance, had no thought of what might be hugging the
Arabian shore. Yet Kenkenes, with the inordinate apprehension of the
fugitive, lurked in the shadows, dashed across open spaces and imagined
in every drifting, drowsy fisher's raft a pursuing party. He prayed
for the well-remembered end of the white dike, where the Nile curved
about the southernmost limits of the capital. The day had not yet
broken when he passed the last flambeau burning at the juncture of the
dike with the city wall. He rowed on steadily for Memphis, and
immediate danger was at last behind him.
The towers of the city had sunk below the northern horizon when,
opposite a poor little shrine for cowherds on the shore, a brazen gong
sounded musically for the sunrise prayers.
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