yes he thought that this
strong man, too, had been seized by the fever to which so many convicts
fell victims on the march.

When, at the approach of darkness, the wretched band sought a night's
rest in the midst of the wilderness, a terrible conflict of emotions was
seething in Joshua's soul, and the scene around him fitly harmonized with
his mood; for black clouds had again risen in the north from the sea and,
before the thunder and lightning burst forth and the rain poured in
torrents, howling, whistling winds swept masses of scorching sand upon
the recumbent prisoners.

After these dense clouds had been their coverlet, pools and ponds were
their beds. The guards had bound them together hand and foot and,
dripping and shivering, held the ends of the ropes in their hands; for
the night was as black as the embers of their fire which the rain had
extinguished, and who could have pursued a fugitive through such darkness
and tempest.

But Joshua had no thought of secret flight. While the Egyptians were
trembling and moaning, when they fancied they heard the wrathful voice of
Seth, and the blinding sheets of fire flamed from the clouds, he only
felt the approach of the angry God, whose fury he shared, whose hatred
was also his own. He felt himself a witness of His all-destroying
omnipotence, and his breast swelled more proudly as he told himself that
he was summoned to wield the sword in the service of this Mightiest of
the Mighty.

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

A school where people learned modesty
But what do you men care for the suffering you inflict on others
Childhood already lies behind me, and youth will soon follow
Good advice is more frequently unheeded than followed
Precepts and lessons which only a mother can give
Should I be a man, if I forgot vengeance?
To the mines meant to be doomed to a slow, torturing death
What had formerly afforded me pleasure now seemed shallow

JOSHUA

By Georg Ebers

Volume 4.

CHAPTER XX.

The storm which had risen as night closed in swept over the isthmus. The
waves in its lakes dashed high, and the Red Sea, which thrust a bay
shaped like the horn of a snail into it from the south, was lashed to the
wildest fury.

Farther northward, where Pharaoh's army, protected by the Migdol of the
South, the strongest fort of the Etham line, had encamped a short time
before, the sand lashed by the storm whirled through th