In after years Kenkenes remembered only vaguely the long hours of that
black and lonely vigil. This climax to a calamitous space eight months
in length might have crushed a less sturdy spirit, but he was
mystically sustained.
With the exception of a few intervals of short duration most of the
time was spent in sleep, so profound and dreamless as to border on
coma. The reeds had received him on a bed of crushed herbage and the
upstanding ranks about him sheltered him from the blowing sand. The
whilom assailants of the young man were not so kindly served by the
gods to whom they appealed loudly and frequently. The city in the
distance moaned and complained and the hills were full of fear.
In one of his profound lapses of slumber a hairy paw felt of Kenkenes'
face. Later a drifting boat nosed about among the reeds at the water's
edge. Presently one of the crew cried out, and a second voice said:
"Nay, fear not; it is an ape, by the feel of him. Toth is with us. It
is a good omen; let him not go forth."
Silence fell again, for the boat drifted on.
At last dawn-lights reddened about the horizon; stars faded out of the
uppermost as naturally as if they had been there during the three days
of unlifting night.
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