Thus it was that Har-hat avenged himself for the loss of Rachel, put
all aid out of her reach, and kept up an unceasing pursuit of her.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE TOMB OF THE PHARAOH
It was far into the tenth night that Kenkenes arrived in Thebes. On
the sixteenth day Rachel would begin to expect him, and he could not
hope to reach Memphis by that time. She should not wait an hour longer
than necessary. He would get the signet that night and return by the
swiftest boat obtainable in Thebes. The dawn should find him on the
way to Memphis.
He entered the streets of the Libyan suburb of the holy city, and
passed through it to the scattering houses, set outside the
thickly-settled portion, and nearer to the necropolis. At the portals
of the most pretentious of these houses he knocked and was admitted.
He was met presently in the chamber of guests by an old man,
gray-haired and bent. This was the keeper of the tomb of Rameses the
Great.
"I am the son of Mentu," he said, "thy friend, and the friend of the
Incomparable Pharaoh. Perchance thou dost remember me."
"I remember Mentu," the old man replied, after a space that might have
been spent in rumination, or in collecting his faculties to speak.
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