Elizabeth Miller - The Yoke

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THE YOKE

A ROMANCE OF THE DAYS WHEN THE LORD REDEEMED THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL
FROM THE BONDAGE OF EGYPT

BY

ELIZABETH MILLER

GROSSET & DUNLAP

Publishers -:- New York

COPYRIGHT, 1904

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY

JANUARY

TO

PERCY MILLER

MY BROTHER

WHO CONSTRUCTED

THE PLOT

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I CHOOSING THE TENS
II UNDER BAN OF THE RITUAL
III THE MESSENGER
IV THE PROCESSION OF AMEN
V THE HEIR TO THE THRONE
VI THE LADY MIRIAM
VII ATHOR, THE GOLDEN
VIII THE PUNISHMENT OF ATSU
IX THE COLLAR OF GOLD
X THE DEBT OF ISRAEL
XI HEBREW CRAFT
XII CANAAN
XIII THE COMING OF THE PHARAOH
XIV THE MARGIN OF THE NILE
XV THE GODS OF EGYPT
XVI THE ADVICE OF HOTEP
XVII THE SON OF THE MURKET
XVIII AT MASAARAH
XIX IN THE DESERT
XX THE TREASURE CAVE
XXI ON THE WAY TO THEBES
XXII THE FAN-BEARER'S GUEST
XXIII THE TOMB OF THE PHARAOH
XXIV THE PETITION
XXV THE LOVE OF RAMESES
XXVI FURTHER DIPLOMACY
XXVII THE HEIR INTERVENES
XXVIII THE IDOLS CRUMBLE
XXIX THE PLAGUES
XXX HE HARDENED HIS HEART
XXXI THE CONSPIRACY
XXXII RACHEL'S REFUGE
XXXIII BACK TO MEMPHIS
XXXIV NIGHT
XXXV LIGHT AFTER DARKNESS
XXXVI THE MURKET'S SACRIFICE
XXXVII AT THE WELL
XXXVIII THE TRAITORS
XXXIX BEFORE EGYPT'S THRONE
XL THE FIRST-BORN
XLI THE ANGEL OF DEATH
XLII EXPATRIATION
XLIII "THE PHARAOH DREW NIGH"
XLIV THE WAY TO THE SEA
XLV THROUGH THE RED SEA
XLVI WHOM THE LADY MIRIAM SENT
XLVII THE PROMISED LAND

THE YOKE

A STORY OF THE EXODUS

CHAPTER I

CHOOSING THE TENS

Near the eastern boundary of that level region of northern Egypt, known
as the Delta, once thridded by seven branches of the sea-hunting Nile,
Rameses II, in the fourteenth century B. C., erected the city of Pithom
and stored his treasure therein. His riches overtaxed its coffers and
he builded Pa-Ramesu, in part, to hold the overflow. But he died
before the work was completed by half, and his fourteenth son and
successor, Meneptah, took it up and pushed it with the nomad
bond-people that dwelt in the Delta.

The city was laid out near the center of Goshen, a long strip of
fertile country given over to the Israelites since the days of the
Hyksos king, Apepa, near the year 1800 B. C.

Morning in the land of the Hebrew dawned over level fields, green with
unripe wheat and meadow grass. Wherever the soil was better for
grazing great flocks of sheep moved in compact clouds, with a lank dog
and an ancient shepherd following them.

The low, shapeless tents and thatched hovels of the Israelites stood in
the center of gardens of lentils, garlic and lettuce, securely hedged
against the inroads of hares and roving cattle. Close to these were
compounds for the flocks and brush inclosures for geese, and cotes for
the pigeons used in sacrifice. Here dwelt the aged in trusteeship over
the land, while the young and sturdy builded Pa-Ramesu.

Sunrise on the uncompleted city tipped the raw lines of her half-built
walls with broken fire and gilded the gear of gigantic hoisting cranes.
Scaffolding, clinging to bald facades, seemed frail and cobwebby at
great height, and slabs of stone, drawn and held by cables near the
summit of chutes, looked like dice on the giddy slide.

Below in the still shadowy passages and interiors, speckled with fallen
mortar, lay chains, rubble of brick and chipped stone; splinters,
flinders and odd ends of timber; scraps of metal, broken implements and
the what-not that litters the path of construction. Without, in the
avenues, vaguely outlined by the slowly rising structures on either
side, were low-riding, long, heavy, dwarf-wheeled vehicles and sledges
to which men, not beasts, had been harnessed. Here, also, were great
cords of new brick and avalanches of glazed tile where disaster had
overtaken orderly stacks of this multi-tinted material. In the open
spaces were covered heaps of sand, and tons of lime, in sacks; layers
of paint and hogsheads of tar; ingots of copper and pigs of bronze.
Roadways, beaten in the dust by a multitude of bare feet, led in a
hundred directions, all merging in one great track toward the camp of
the laboring Israelites.

This was pitched in a vast open in the city's center, wherein Rameses
II had planned to build a second Karnak to Imhotep. Under the gracious
favor of this, the physician god, the great Pharaoh had regained his
sight. But death stayed his grateful hand and Meneptah forgot his
father's debt. Here, then, year in and year out, an angular sea of low
tents sheltered Israel.

Let it not be supposed that all the sons of Abraham were here.
Thousands labored yet in the perfection of Pithom, on the highways of
the Lower country, and on the Rameside canal, and the greater number
made the brick for all Egypt in the clay-fields of the Delta.
Therefore, within the walls of Pa-Ramesu there were somewhat more than
three thousand Hebrews, men, women and children.

On a slight eminence, overlooking the camp, were numerous small
structures of sun-dried brick, grouped about one of larger dimensions.
Above this was raised a military standard, a hawk upon a cross-bar,
from which hung party-colored tassels of linen floss. By this sign,
the order of government was denoted. The Hebrews were under martial
law.

The camp was astir. Thin columns of blue smoke drifted up here and
there between the close-set tents, and the sibilant wearing of
stone-mills, as they ground the wheat, was heard in many households.
The nutty aroma of parching lentils, and the savor of roasting papyrus
root and garlic told the stage of the morning meal. The strong-armed
women, rich brown in tint from the ardent sun, crowned with coil upon
coil of heavy hair, bent over the pungent fires. Sturdy children,
innocent of raiment, went hither and thither, bearing well filled skins
of water. Apart from these were the men of Israel, bearded and grave,
stalwart and scantily clad. They repaired a cable or fitted an
ax-handle or mended a hoe. But they were full of serious and absorbed
discourse, for the great Hebrew, Moses, from the sheep-ranges of
Midian, had been among them, showing them marvels of sorcery, preaching
Jehovah and promising freedom. The first high white light of dawn was
breaking upon the century-long night of Israel.

Before one of the tents an old woman knelt beside a bed of live coals,
turning a browning water-fowl upon a pointed stick. She was a
consummate cook, and the bird was fat and securely trussed. Now and
again she sprinkled a pinch of crude salt on the embers to suppress the
odor of the burning drippings, and lifted the fowl out of the reach of
the pale flames that leaped up thereafter. Presently she removed the
fowl and forked it off the spit into a capacious earthenware bowl near
by. Then, with green withes as tongs, she drew forth a round tile from
under the coals and set it over the dish to complete the baking. From
another tile-platter at hand she took several round slices of durra
bread and proceeded to toast them with much skill, tilting the hot tile
and casting each browned slice in on the fowl as it was done. When she
had finished, she removed the cover and set the bowl on the large
platter, protecting her hands from its heat with a fold of her habit.
With no little triumph and some difficulty she got upon her feet and
carried the toothsome dish into her shelter, to place it beyond the
reach of stealthy hands. No such meal was cooked that morning,
elsewhere, in Pa-Ramesu, except at the military headquarters on the
knoll.

There was little inside the tent, except the meagerest essential
furnishing. A long amphora stood in a tamarisk rack in one corner; a
linen napkin hung, pinned to the tent-cloth, over it; a glazed laver
and a small box sat beside it. A mat of braided reeds, the handiwork
of the old Israelite, covered the naked earth. This served as seat or
table for the occupants. Several wisps of straw were scattered about
and a heap of it, over which a cotton cloak had been thrown, lay in one
corner.

"Rachel," the old woman said briskly.

Evidently some one slept under the straw, for the heap stirred.

"Rachel!" the old woman reiterated, drawing off the cloak.

Without any preliminary pushing away of the straw, a young girl sat up.
A little bewildered, she divested her head and shoulders of a frowsy
straw thatch and stood erect, shaking it off from her single short
garment.

She was not more than sixteen years old. Above medium height and of
nobler proportions than the typical woman of the race, her figure was
remarkable for its symmetry and utter grace. The stamp of the
countenance was purely Semitic, except that she was distinguished, most
wondrously in color, from her kind. Her sleep had left its exquisite
heaviness on eyes of the tenderest blue, and the luxuriant hair she
pushed back from her face was a fleece of gold. Hers was that rare
complexion that does not tan. The sun but brightened her hair and
wrought the hue of health in her cheeks. Her forehead was low, broad,
and white as marble; her neck and arms white, and the hands, busied
with the hair, were strong, soft, dimpled and white. The grace of her
womanhood had not been overcome by the slave-labor, which she had known
from infancy.

"Good morning, Deborah. Why--thy bed--have I slept under it?" she
asked.

"Since the middle of the last watch," the old woman assented.

"But why? Did Merenra come?" the girl inquired anxiously.

"Nay; but I heard some one ere the camp was astir and I covered thee."

"And thou hast had no sleep since," the girl said, with regret in her
voice. "Thou dost reproach me with thy goodness, Deborah."

She went to the amphora and poured water into the laver, drew forth
from the box a horn comb and a vial of powdered soda from the Natron
Lakes, and proceeded with her toilet.

"Came some one, of a truth?" she asked presently.

Deborah pointed to the smoking bowl. Rachel inspected the fowl.

"Marsh-hen!" she cried in surprise.

"Atsu brought it."

"Atsu?"

"Even so. From his own bounty and for Rachel," Deborah explained.

Rachel smiled.

"Thou art beset from a new direction," the old woman continued dryly,
"but thou hast naught to fear from him."

"Nay; I know," Rachel murmured, arranging her dress.

The garb of the average bondwoman was of startling simplicity. It
consisted of two pieces of stuff little wider than the greatest width
of the wearer's body, tied by the corners over each shoulder, belted at
the waist with a thong and laced together with fiber at the sides, from
the hips to a point just above the knee. It was open above and below
this simple seam and interfered not at all with the freedom of the
wearer's movements. But Rachel's habit was a voluminous surplice,
fitting closely at the neck, supplied with wide sleeves, seamed, hemmed
and of ample length. Deborah was literally swathed in covering, with
only her withered face and hands exposed. There was a hint of rank in
their superior dress and more than a suggestion of blood in the bearing
of the pair; but they were laborers with the shepherds and
serving-people of Israel.

"He would wed thee, after the manner of thy people, and take thee from
among Israel," Deborah continued.

The girl drooped her head over the lacing of her habit and made no
answer. The old woman looked at her sharply for a moment.

"Well, eat; Rachel, eat," she urged at last. "The marsh-hen will stand
thee in good stead and thou hast a weary day before thee."

Rachel looked at the old woman and made mental comparison between the
ancient figure and her strong, young self. With great deliberation she
divided the fowl into a large and small part.

"This," she said, extending the larger to Deborah, "is thine. Take
it," waving aside the protests of the old woman, "or the first taste of
it will choke me."

Deborah submitted duly and consumed the tender morsel while she watched
Rachel break her fast.

"What said Atsu?" Rachel asked, after the marsh-hen was less apparent.

"Little, which is his way. But his every word was worth a harangue in
weight. Merenra and his purple-wearing visitor, the spoiler, the
pompous wolf, departed for Pithom last night, hastily summoned thither
by a royal message. But the commander returns to-morrow at sunset.
This morning, every tenth Hebrew in Pa-Ramesu is to be chosen and sent
to the quarries. Atsu will send thee and me, whether we fall among the
tens of a truth or not. So we get out of the city ere Merenra returns.
He called the ruse a cruel one and not wholly safe, but he would sooner
see thee dead than despoiled by this guest of Merenra's--or any other.
I doubt not his heart breaketh for thy sake, Rachel, and he would rend
himself to spare thee."

"The Lord God bless him," the girl murmured earnestly.

"Where dost thou say we go?" she asked after a little silence.

"To the quarries of Masaarah, opposite Memphis."

The color in the young Israelite's face receded a little.

"To the quarries," she repeated in a half-whisper.

"Fearest thou?"

"Nay, not for myself, at all, but we may not have another Atsu over us
there. I fear for thee, Deborah."

The old woman waved her hands.

"Trouble not concerning me. I shall not die by heavy labor."

But the girl shook her head and gazed out of the low entrance of the
tent. Her face was full of trouble. Once again the old woman looked
at her with suspicion in her eyes. Presently the girl asked, coloring
painfully:

"Was Atsu commanded to hold me for this guest of Merenra's--ah!" she
broke off, "did Atsu name him?"

"Not by the titles by which the man would as lief be known," Deborah
answered grimly, "but I remember he called him 'the governor.'"

There was a brief pause.

"Not so," she resumed, answering Rachel's first question. "Atsu but
overheard him say to Merenra to see to it that thou wast taken from
toil and made ready to journey with him to Bubastis."

"He can not take me by right save by a document of gift from the
Pharaoh," Rachel protested indignantly.

"Of a truth," the old woman admitted; "but Merenra is chief commander
over Pa-Ramesu and how shall thine appeal to the Pharaoh pass beyond
Merenra if he see fit to humor this ravening lord with a breach of the
law? The message summoning him in haste to Pithom before the order
could be fulfilled was all that saved thee. And if Merenra return ere
thou art safely gone, thou art of a surety undone."

Rachel moved away a little and stood thinking. The old woman went on
with a note of despondency in her voice.

"Alas, Rachel! thou art in eternal peril because of thy lovely face.
Beauty is a curse to a bondwoman. What I beheld in truth yesterday I
have seen in dreams--the discourteous hand put forth to seize thee and
the power back of it to enforce its demand. And yet, I would not wish
thee old and uncomely, for that, too, is a curse to the bondwoman," she
added with a reflective shrug of the shoulders.

"If I but knew his name--" Rachel pondered aloud.

"What matter?" the old woman answered almost roughly. "Suffice it to
know that he is a knave and a noble and hath evil in his heart against
thee."

"Now, if I might dye my hair or stain my face--" Rachel began after a
pause.

"Thou foolish child! It would not wear, nor hide thy charm at all!"

"But I dread the quarries for thee, Deborah. If only we might be
hidden here, somewhere."

"Come, dost thou want to marry Atsu?" the old woman demanded harshly.

The girl turned toward her, her face flushed with resentment.

"Nay! And that thou knowest. For this very mingling with Egypt is
Israel cursed. The idolatrous have reached out their hands in marriage
and wedded the Hebrews away from the God of Abraham. When did an
Egyptian desert his gods for the faith of the Hebrew he took in
marriage? Not at any time. Therefore have we fed the shrines of the
idols and increased the numbers of the idolaters and behold, the hosts
of Jehovah have dwindled to naught. Therefore is He wroth with us, and
justly. For are there not pitiful shrines to Ra, Ptah and Amen within
the boundaries of Goshen? Nay, I wed not with an idolater," she
concluded firmly.

Deborah's wrinkled face lighted and she put a tender arm about the girl.

"Of a truth, then, it is for me that thou wouldst avoid the quarries,"
she said. "I did but try thee, Rachel."

Rachel looked at her reproachfully, but the old woman smiled and drew
her out into the open.

Without, Israel of Pa-Ramesu made ready to surrender a tenth of her
number to the newest task laid on it by the Pharaoh. Quarrying was
unusual labor for an Israelite and the name carried terror with it.
Long had it meant heavy punishment for the malefactor and now was the
Hebrew to take up its bitter life. The hard form of oppression
following so closely upon the promise of liberty by Moses had
diversified effects upon the camp. There was rebellion among the
optimists, and the less hopeful spirits were crushed. There was the
scoffer, who exasperates; the enthusiast, the over-buoyant, who could
point out favorable omens even in this bitter affliction; and it could
not be divined which of these troubled the people more. But whatever
the individual temper, the entire camp was overhung with distress.

Israel had gathered in families before her tents--the mothers hovering
their broods, the fathers tramping uneasily about them. In the heart
of each, perhaps, was an indefinable conviction that he should fall
among the tens. Since Israel had died in droves by hard labor in the
brick-fields and along the roadways and canals, in what numbers and
with what dire speed would not Israel perish in the dreaded stone-pits!

Just outside the doorway of their shelter, Deborah and Rachel
overlooked the troubled camp.

"Moses comes in time," Rachel said, speaking in a low tone, "for Israel
is in sore straits. The hand of the oppressor assaileth with fury his
bones and his sinews now. How shall it be with him if he is bequeathed
from Pharaoh to Pharaoh of an intent like unto the last three? He
shall have perished from the face of the earth, for the Hebrew bends
not; he breaks."

Deborah did not answer at once. Her sunken eyes were set and she
seemed not to hear. But presently she spoke:

"Thou hast said. But the Hebrew droppeth out of the inheritance of the
Pharaohs in thy generation, Rachel. The end of the bondage is at hand.
Thou shalt see it. Of a truth Israel shall perish. If its afflictions
increase for long. But they shall not continue. Have we entered
Canaan as God sware unto Abraham we should? Have we possessed the
gates of our enemies? Shall He stamp us out, with His promise yet
unfulfilled? Behold, we have gone astray from Him, but not utterly, as
all the other peoples of the earth. For centuries, amid the great
clamor of prayers to the hollow gods, there arose only from this
compound of slaves, here, a call to Him. Out of the reek of idolatrous
savors, drifted up now and again the straight column from the altar of
a Hebrew, sacrificing to the One God. Where, indeed, are any faithful,
save in Israel? Shall He condemn us who only have held steadfast?
Nay! He hath but permitted the oppression that we may have our fill of
the glories of Egypt and be glad to turn our backs upon her. He will
cure us of idols by showing forth their helplessness when they are
cried unto; and when Israel is in its most grievous strait and
therefore most prone to attach itself to whosoever helpeth it. He will
prove Himself at last by His power. Aye, thou hast said. Israel can
suffer little more without perishing. Therefore is redemption at hand."

Rachel had turned her eyes away from the humiliation of Israel to its
exaltation--from fact to prophecy. She was looking with awed face at
Deborah. The prophetess went on:

"Israel hath been a green tree, carried hither in seed and grown in the
wheat-fields of Mizraim. The herds and the flocks of the Pharaoh
gathered under its branches and were sheltered from the sun by day and
from the wolves by night. The early Pharaohs loved it, the later
Pharaohs used it and the last Pharaohs feared it. For it grew
exceedingly and overshadowed the wheat-fields and they said: 'It will
come between us and Ra who is our god and he will bless it instead of
the wheat. Let us cut it down and build us temples of its timber.'
But the Lord had planted the tree in seed and in its youth it grew
under the tendance of the Lord's hand. And in later years, though it
lent its shadow as a grove for the idols and temples of gods, the most
of it faced Heaven, and for that the Lord loves it still. The Pharaohs
have lopped its branches, unmolested, but lo! now that the ax strikes
at its girth, the Lord will uproot it and plant it elsewhere than in
Mizraim. But the soil will not relinquish it readily, for it hath
struck deep. There shall be a gaping wound in Mizraim where it stood
and all the land shall be rent with the violence of the parting."

The prophetess paused, or rather her voice died away as if she actually
beheld the scene she foretold, and no more words were needed to make it
plain. Rachel's hands were clasped before her breast. "Sayest thou
these things in prophecy?" she asked finally in an eager half-whisper.
Deborah's eyes seemed to awaken. She looked at Rachel a moment and
answered with a nod. The girl's vision wandered slowly again toward
the camp, and the sorrowful unrest of Israel subdued the inspired
elation that had begun to possess her. Her face clouded once more.
Deborah touched her.

"Trouble not thyself concerning these people. They go forth to labor,
but their burdens shall be lightened ere long. As for thee and me--"
she paused and looked up toward the eminence on which the military
headquarters were built.

"As for thee and me--" Rachel urged her. Deborah motioned in the
direction she gazed. "Come, let us make ready," she said; "they are
beginning."

The Egyptian masters over Israel of Pa-Ramesu were emerging from the
quarters. They were, almost uniformly, tall, slender and immature in
figure. Dressed in the foot-soldier's tunic and coif, they looked like
long-limbed youths compared with the powerful manhood of the sons of
Abraham.

Among them, in white wool and enameled aprons, was a number of scribes,
without whom the official machinery of Egypt would have stilled in a
single revolution.

The men advanced, sauntering, talking with one another idly, as if
awaiting authority to proceed.

That came, presently, in the shape of an Egyptian charioteer. The
vehicle was heavy, short-poled, set low on two broad wheels of six
spokes, and built of hard wood, painted in wedge-shaped stripes of
green and red. The end was open, the front high and curved, the side
fitted with a boot of woven reeds for the ax and javelins of the
warrior. Axle and pole were shod with spikes of copper and the joints
were secured with tongues of bronze. The horses were bay, small,
short, glossy and long of mane and tail. The harness was simple, each
piece as broad as a man's arm, stamped and richly stained with many
colors.

The man was an ideal soldier of Egypt. He was tall and
broad-shouldered, but otherwise lean and lithe. In countenance, he was
dark,--browner than most Egyptians, but with that peculiar ruddy
swarthiness that is never the negro hue. His duskiness was accentuated
by low and intensely black brows, and deep-set, heavy-lidded eyes.
Although his features were marked by the delicacy characteristic of the
Egyptian face, there was none of the Oriental affability to be found
thereon. One might expect deeds of him, but never words or wit.

He wore the Egyptian smock, or kamis--of dark linen, open in front from
belt to hem, disclosing a kilt or shenti of clouded enamel. His
head-dress was the kerchief of linen, bound tightly across the forehead
and falling with free-flowing skirts to the shoulders. The sleeves
left off at the elbow and his lower arms were clasped with bracelets of
ivory and gold. His ankles were similarly adorned, and his sandals of
gazelle-hide were beaded and stitched. His was a somber and barbaric
presence. This was Atsu, captain of chariots and vice-commander over
Pa-Ramesu.

His subordinates parted and gave him respectful path. He delivered his
orders in an impassive, low-pitched monotone.

"Out with them, and mark ye, no lashes now. Leave the old and the
nursing mothers."

The drivers disappeared into the narrow ways of the encampment, and
Atsu, with the scribes at his wheels, drove out where the avenue of
sphinxes would have led to the temple of Imhotep. Here was room for
three thousand. He alighted and, with the scribes who stood, tablets
in hand, awaited the coming of the Israelites.

The camp emptied its dwellers in long wavering lines. Into the open
they came, slowly, and with downcast eyes, each with his remnant of a
tribe. Though the columns were in order, they were ragged with many
and varied statures--now a grown man, next to him a child, and then a
woman. Here were the red-bearded sons of Reuben, shepherds in skins
and men of great hardihood; the seafaring children of Zebulon; a
handful of submissive Issachar, and some of Benjamin, Levi, and Judah.

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