There was no place here to shelter the lost girl.
There were the huts to the north of the Marsh and the deserted village
of Toora to search. He retraced his steps.
As he came again before the tomb he went to it. Half-way up the steps
he stopped.
On a blank face of the rock, sheltered by a jutting ledge above it, was
an inscription, a little faint, but he ascribed that to the poor
quality of the pencil and roughness of the tablet. This is what he
read:
"Her whom thou seekest thou wilt find in the palace of Har-hat, in the
city."
Perhaps under other circumstances Kenkenes would have understood
correctly the origin and intent of the writing. Already, however, his
fears pointed to the palace of Har-hat as the prison of Rachel, and
this faint inscription was corroboration. It appealed to him as
villainy worthy of the fan-bearer. It was like his exquisite
effrontery.
Kenkenes whirled away with an indescribable sound, rather like the
snarl of an infuriated beast than an expression of a reasoning
creature. Dashing down the sand, he plunged into the Nile and swam
with superhuman speed for the Memphian shore.
He defied death as a maniac does. The river was a mile in width and
teeming with crocodiles.
Pages:
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535