curiously collected.

"The Pharaoh addeth to the burden of the chosen people. We dig stone
for a temple to the war-god."

"The chosen people!" Kenkenes repeated inquiringly.

"The children of Israel," the Hebrew explained. Kenkenes lifted one
eyebrow quizzically and went his way. As he leaped up into the gorge
he vaguely realized that he had seen no trace of an encampment near the
hamlet, which he knew to be uninhabitable.

"Of a truth, the chosen people seem to follow me of late," he said to
himself as he rambled up the valley. "Meneptah must have scattered
them out of Goshen into all the corners of Egypt."

As he turned the last winding of the gorge he came upon a cluster of
some threescore tents, spread over the level pocket at the valley's
end. Almost against the northern wall the house of the commander had
been built to receive the earliest shadow of the afternoon. The
military standard was raised upon its roof and a scribe, making entries
on a roll of linen, sat cross-legged on a mat before the door. In one
of the narrow ways between the tents an old woman, very bowed and
voluminously clad, prepared a great hamper of lentils and another of
papyrus root for the noonday meal. One or two children sitting on the
earth beside her rendered her assistance, and a third kept the turf
fire glowing under a huge bubbling caldron. Kenkenes passed through
the camp by this narrow way and paused to look with much curiosity at
the ancient Israelite. Never had he seen any old person so active or a
slave so wrapped in covering. He hoped she would lift her head that he