ms and
flowers scattered by a grateful people on the path of victory.

CONCLUSION.

There was an active stir in the camp.

Fires surrounded by groups of happy human beings were burning in front of
the tents, and many a beast was slain, here as a thank-offering, yonder
for the festal supper.

Wherever Joshua appeared glad cheers greeted him; but he did not find his
father, for the latter had accepted an invitation from Hur, so it was
before the prince of Judah's tent that the son embraced the old man, who
was radiant with grateful joy.

Ere Joshua sat down Hur beckoned him aside, ordered a slave who had just
killed a calf to divide it into two pieces and pointing to it, said:

"You have accomplished great deeds for the people and for me, son of Nun,
and my life is too short for the gratitude which is your due from my wife
and myself. If you can forget the bitter words which clouded our peace at
Dophkah--and you say you have done so--let us in future keep together
like brothers and stand by each other in joy and grief, in need and
peril. The chief command henceforth belongs to you alone, Joshua, and to
no other, and this is a source of joy to the whole people, above all to
my wife and to me. So if you share my wish to form a brotherhood, walk
with me, according to the custom of our fathers, between the halves of
this slaughtered animal."

Joshua willingly accepted this invitation, and Miriam was the first to
join in the loud acclamations of approval commenced by the grey-haired
Nun. She did so with eager zeal; for it was she who had inspired her
husband, before whom she had humbled herself, and whose love she now once
more possessed, with the idea of inviting Joshua to the alliance both had
now concluded.

This had not been difficult for her; for the two vows she had made after
the son of Nun, whom she now gladly called "Joshua," had saved her from
the hand of the foe were already approaching fulfilment, and she felt
that she had resolved upon them in a happy hour.

The new and pleasant sensation of being a woman, like any other woman,
lent her whole nature a gentleness hitherto foreign to it, and this
retained the love of the husband whose full value she had learned to know
during the sad time in which he had shut his heart against her.

In the self-same hour which made Hur and Joshua brothers, a pair of
faithful lovers who had been sundered by sacred duties were once more
united; for while the friends