might see her face; and even as he wished, she pierced him with a look
which, from her midnight eyes, seemed like lightning from a
thunder-cloud.

"Gods!" he exclaimed as he retreated up the slope behind the camp. And
a moment later he continued his soliloquy in a voice that struggled
between mirth and amazement: "Have I never seen an Israelite until I
beheld these twain, the Lady Miriam and that bent dart of lightning in
the valley? If these be Israelites I never saw one before. If those
cowed shepherds that have strayed now and again out of Goshen be
Hebrews, then these are not. And the gods shield me from the disfavor
of them, be they slaves or sibyls!"

When he reached his block of stone he unrolled his load of equipments
and set to work without delay. He was remote from any possible
interruption from Memphis, and the slaves in the gorge and in the
stone-pits had no opportunity to come upon his sacrilege in idle hours.
They would be held like prisoners within the limits of the quarries.
His sense of security had been strengthened by the renewed activities
in Masaarah.

With a shovel of tamarisk he cleared the slab of its drift of sand. He
found that the block broadened at the base and was separate from the
sheet of rock on which it stood. Among his supplies was a roll of reed
matting, and with this cut into proper lengths, he carpeted a
considerable space about the block. Precaution rather than luxury had
prompted this procedure, since the chipped stone falling on the
covering could be carried cleanly and at once from the spot.

Pausing long enough to eat a thin slice of white bread and