"
"It would seem that he courteth a sentence to the mines likewise, and he
needs but to go on as he hath begun to succeed most thoroughly. And it
behooveth his friends to prevent him."
He took Masanath's hand and, leaning from the saddle, whispered:
"Ye are under the same roof--thou and Hotep. Avoid him as though he were
a pestilence."
He straightened himself and drew his horse away from her so that she
could not answer.
The captain's meaning, though obscure to any other that might have heard
him, was very clear to Masanath. Har-hat was still holding a threat of
Hotep's undoing over his daughter's head, lest, at the last moment, she
rebel against her marriage. She trembled, realizing how desperately she
was weighted with the safety of the scribe. Her fear for him brought the
first feeling of willingness to wed with Rameses that she had ever
experienced. Distasteful as marriage was to her, it was a species of
sacrifice to be catalogued with the many self-abnegations of which
womanhood is capable when the welfare of the beloved is at stake.
She sank back in the shadows of her litter, covered her face with her
hands and shuddered because of the imminence of her trial.
So they journeyed on, till at last Masanath fell asleep--not from
indifference, for her fears exhausted her--but because her mind still
retained babyhood's way of comforting itself when too roughly beset.
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