Joshua | Page 6

that they leave us and our children in the power of the base
Hebrew brood?"
"Overthrow them! Down with the foreigners! Death to the sorcerer
Mesu, --[Mesu is the Egyptian name of Moses]--hurl him into the sea."
Such were the imprecations that followed the woman's curse, as an
echo follows a shout, and the aged astrologer's brother-in-law Hornecht,
captain of the archers, whose hot blood seethed in his veins at the sight
of the dying form of his beloved nephew, waved his short sword,
crying frantically: "Let all men who have hearts follow me. Upon them!
A life for a life! Ten Hebrews for each Egyptian whom the sorcerer has
slain!"
As a flock rushes into a fire when the ram leads the way, the warrior's
summons fired the throng. Women forced themselves in front of the
men, pressing after him into the gateway, and when the servants of the
temple lingered to await the verdict of the prophet of Amon, the latter
drew his stately figure to its full height, and said calmly: "Let all who
wear priestly garments remain and pray with me. The populace is
heaven's instrument to mete out vengeance. We will remain here to

pray for their success."

CHAPTER II.
Bai, the second prophet of Amon, who acted as the representative of
the aged and feeble chief-prophet and high-priest Rui, went into the
holy of holies, the throng of inferior servants of the divinity pursued
their various duties, and the frenzied mob rushed through the streets of
the city towards the distant Hebrew quarter.
As the flood, pouring into the valley, sweeps everything before it, the
people, rushing to seek vengeance, forced every one they met to join
them. No Egyptian from whom death had snatched a loved one failed
to follow the swelling torrent, which increased till hundreds became
thousands. Men, women, and children, freedmen and slaves, winged by
the ardent longing to bring death and destruction on the hated Hebrews,
darted to the remote quarter where they dwelt.
How the workman had grasped a hatchet, the housewife an axe, they
themselves scarcely knew. They were dashing forward to deal death
and ruin and had had no occasion to search for weapons--they had been
close at hand.
The first to feel the weight of their vengeance must be Nun, an aged
Hebrew, rich in herds, loved and esteemed by many an Egyptian whom
he had benefitted--but when hate and revenge speak, gratitude shrinks
timidly into the background.
His property, like the houses and hovels of his people, was in the
strangers' quarter, west of Tanis, and lay nearest to the streets inhabited
by the Egyptians themselves.
Usually at this hour herds of cattle and flocks of sheep were being
watered or driven to pasture and the great yard before his house was
filled with cattle, servants of both sexes, carts, and agricultural
implements. The owner usually overlooked the departure of the flocks

and herds, and the mob had marked him and his family for the first
victims of their fury.
The swiftest of the avengers had now reached his extensive farm-
buildings, among them Hornecht, captain of the archers, brother-in-law
of the old astrologer. House and barns were brightly illumined by the
first light of the young day. A stalwart smith kicked violently on the
stout door; but the unbolted sides yielded so easily that he was forced
to cling to the door-post to save himself from falling. Others, Hornecht
among them, pressed past him into the yard. What did this mean?
Had some new spell been displayed to attest the power of the Hebrew
leader Mesu, who had brought such terrible plagues on the land,--and
of his God.
The yard was absolutely empty. The stalls contained a few dead cattle
and sheep, killed because they had been crippled in some way, while a
lame lamb limped off at sight of the mob. The carts and wagons, too,
had vanished. The lowing, bleating throng which the priests had
imagined to be the souls of the damned was the Hebrew host, departing
by night from their old home with all their flocks under the guidance of
Moses.
The captain of the archers dropped his sword, and a spectator might
have believed that the sight was a pleasant surprise to him; but his
neighbor, a clerk from the king's treasure-house, gazed around the
empty space with the disappointed air of a man who has been
defrauded.
The flood of schemes and passions, which had surged so high during
the night, ebbed under the clear light of day. Even the soldier's quickly
awakened wrath had long since subsided into composure. The populace
might have wreaked their utmost fury on the other Hebrews, but not
upon Nun, whose son, Hosea, had been his comrade in arms, one of the