Joshua | Page 7

most distinguished leaders in the army, and an intimate family friend.
Had he thought of him and foreseen that his father's dwelling would be
first attacked, he would never have headed the mob in their pursuit of
vengeance; nay, he bitterly repented having forgotten the deliberate

judgment which befitted his years.
While many of the throng began to plunder and destroy Nun's deserted
home, men and women came to report that not a soul was to be found
in any of the neighboring dwellings. Others told of cats cowering on
the deserted hearthstones, of slaughtered cattle and shattered furniture;
but at last the furious avengers dragged out a Hebrew with his family
and a half-witted grey-haired woman found hidden among some straw.
The crone, amid imbecile laughter, said her people had made
themselves hoarse calling her, but Meliela was too wise to walk on and
on as they meant to do; besides her feet were too tender, and she had
not even a pair of shoes.
The man, a frightfully ugly Jew, whom few of his own race would have
pitied, protested, sometimes with a humility akin to fawning,
sometimes with the insolence which was a trait of his character, that he
had nothing to do with the god of lies in whose name the seducer
Moses had led away his people to ruin; he himself, his wife, and his
child had always been on friendly terms with the Egyptians. Indeed,
many knew him, he was a money-lender and when the rest of his nation
had set forth on their pilgrimage, be had concealed himself, hoping to
pursue his dishonest calling and sustain no loss.
Some of his debtors, however, were among the infuriated populace,
though even without their presence he was a doomed man; for he was
the first person on whom the excited mob could show that they were
resolved upon revenge. Rushing upon him with savage yells, the
lifeless bodies of the luckless wretch and his family were soon strewn
over the ground. Nobody knew who had done this first bloody deed;
too many had dashed forward at once.
Not a few others who had remained in the houses and huts also fell
victims to the people's thirst for vengeance, though many had time to
escape, and while streams of blood were flowing, axes were wielded,
and walls and doors were battered down with beams and posts to efface
the abodes of the detested race from the earth.
The burning embers brought by some frantic women were extinguished

and trampled out; the more prudent warned them of the peril that would
menace their own homes and the whole city of Tanis, if the strangers'
quarter should be fired.
So the Hebrews' dwellings escaped the flames; but as the sun mounted
higher dense clouds of white dust shrouded the abodes they had
forsaken, and where, only yesterday, thousands of people had
possessed happy homes and numerous herds had quenched their thirst
in fresh waters, the glowing soil was covered with rubbish and stone,
shattered beams, and broken woodwork. Dogs and cats left behind by
their owners wandered among the ruins and were joined by women and
children who lived in the beggars' hovels on the edge of the necropolis
close by, and now, holding their hands over their mouths, searched
amid the stifling dust and rubbish for any household utensil or food
which might have been left by the fugitives and overlooked by the
mob.
During the afternoon Fai, the second prophet of Amon, was carried past
the ruined quarter. He did not come to gloat over the spectacle of
destruction, it was his nearest way from the necropolis to his home. Yet
a satisfied smile hovered around his stern mouth as he noticed how
thoroughly the people had performed their work. His own purpose, it is
true, had not been fulfilled, the leader of the fugitives had escaped their
vengeance, but hate, though never sated, can yet be gratified. Even the
smallest pangs of an enemy are a satisfaction, and the priest had just
come from the grieving Pharaoh. He had not succeeded in releasing
him entirely from the bonds of the Hebrew magician, but he had
loosened them.
The resolute, ambitious man, by no means wont to hold converse with
himself, had repeated over and over again, while sitting alone in the
sanctuary reflecting on what had occurred and what yet remained to be
done, these little words, and the words were: "Bless me too!"
Pharaoh had uttered them, and the entreaty had been addressed neither
to old Rui, the chief priest, nor to himself, the only persons who could
possess the privilege of blessing the monarch, nay--but to the most
atrocious wretch that breathed, to the foreigner the Hebrew, Mesu,

whom he hated more than any other man