The Yoke | Page 2

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