You have spoiled all the
pleasure of life for my hapless self, and among your own people dwells a
noble father whose only son you are. How often I have seen the dear old
man, the stately figure with sparkling eyes and snow-white hair. So would
you look when you, too, had reached a ripe old age, as I said to myself,
when I met him at the harbor, or in the fore-court of the palace,
directing the shepherds who were driving the cattle and fleecy sheep to
the tax-receiver's table. And now his son's obstinacy must embitter every
day of his old age."

"Now," replied Joshua, "he has a son who is going, laden with chains, to
endure a life of misery, but who can hold his head higher than those who
betrayed him. They, and Pharaoh at their head, have forgotten that he has
shed his heart's blood for them on many a battlefield, and kept faith
with the king at every peril. Menephtah, his vice-roy and chief, whose
life I saved, and many who formerly called me friend, have abandoned and
hurled me and this guiltless boy into wretchedness, but those who have
done this, woman, who have committed this crime, may they all. . . ."

"Do not curse them!" interrupted Kasana with glowing cheeks.

But Joshua, unheeding her entreaty, exclaimed "Should I be a man, if I
forgot vengeance?"

The young widow clung anxiously to his arm, gasping in beseeching
accents:

"How could you forgive him? Only you must not curse him; for my father
became your foe through love for me. You know his hot blood, which so
easily carries him to extremes, despite his years. He concealed from me
what he regarded as an insult; for he saw many woo me, and I am his
greatest treasure. Pharaoh can pardon rebels more easily than my father
can forgive the man who disdained his jewel. He behaved like one
possessed when he returned. Every word he uttered was an invective. He
could not endure to stay at home and raged just as furiously elsewhere.
But no doubt he would have calmed himself at last, as he so often did
before, had not some one who desired to pour oil on the flames met him in
the fore-court of the palace. I learned all this from Bai's wife; for
she, too, repents what she did to injure you; her husband used every
effort to save you. She, who is as brave as any man, was ready to aid him
and open the door of your prison; for she has not forgotten that you
saved her husband's life in Libya. Ephraim's chains were to fall with
yours, and everything was ready to aid your f