PALESTINE.

Amorite Cities, _thus_: HEBRON. Hivite Cities: _BEEROTH_.

Places taken by the Israelites: _Jericho_.

Conjectural line of march of Joshua: ...................]

To do this they had to deceive the Israelites into believing that they
were inhabitants of some land far from Canaan, and this they must do,
not only before Joshua actually attacked them, but before he sent out
another scouting party. For Beeroth would inevitably have been the very
first town which it would have approached, and once Joshua's spies had
surveyed it, all chance of the Hivites successfully imposing upon him
would have vanished.

But they were exposed to another danger, if possible more urgent still.
The headquarters of the newly formed Amorite league was at Jerusalem, on
the same plateau as Gibeon, the Hivite capital, and distant from it less
than six miles. A single spy, a single traitor, during the anxious time
that their defection was being planned, and Adoni-zedec, the king of
Jerusalem, would have heard of it in less than a couple of hours; and
the Gibeonites would have been overwhelmed before Joshua had any inkling
that they were anxious to treat with him. Whoever was dilatory, whoever
was slow, the Gibeonites dared not be. It can, therefore, have been, at
most, only a matter of hours after Joshua's return to Gilgal, before
their wily embassy set forth.

But their defection had an instant result. Adoni-zedec recognized in a
moment the urgency of the situation. With Joshua in possession of Gibeon
and its dependencies, the Israelites would be firmly established on the
plateau at his very gates, and the states of southern Palestine would be
cut off from their brethren in the north.

Adoni-zedec lost no time; he sought and obtained the aid of four
neighbouring kings and marched upon Gibeon. The Gibeonites sent at once
the most urgent message to acquaint Joshua with their danger, and Joshua
as promptly replied. He made a forced march with picked troops all that
night up from Gilgal, and next day he was at their gates.

Counterblow had followed blow, swift as the clash of rapiers in a duel
of fencers. All three of the parties concerned--Hivite, Amorite and
Israelite--had moved with the utmost rapidity. And no wonder; the stake
for which they were playing was very existence, and the forfeit, which
would be exacted on failure, was extinction.

3.--DAY, HOUR, AND PLACE OF THE MIRACLE

The foregoing considerations enable us so