d on the bank of the river all day long, filling
buckets with water and emptying them into little drains that ran away
into the fields. And over all these slaves were slave-drivers, who
stood beside them with long whips to lash them if they did not work
hard enough. So the poor Israelites were very unhappy, and often
prayed to God that they might be set free again; for they were the
lowest labourers in the land, toiling for those who gave them no money
for their work.

But for all this they increased more and more in numbers, until the
king was afraid that they might some day side with his enemies and
fight against him, and then he would be in great danger; so he treated
them more cruelly still, and at last ordered all the boy children that
were born to the Israelites to be thrown into the river.

[Illustration: The babe among the bulrushes.]

There was great weeping and sorrow amongst the Hebrew mothers when they
heard of the king's cruel order. And they did many strange and brave
things to save their little ones, and did indeed save many of them; but
many others perished, so that there was grief instead of joy in the
poor Hebrew huts whenever a baby boy was born.

Now, Jochebed, one of those Hebrew mothers, lived in the city of the
great king, so close to the side of the blue Nile that the white walls
of the royal palace were reflected in the water. She had a little baby
boy, so beautiful that she told her husband he must not be thrown into
the river where the crocodiles were, for she herself would save him
alive.

She had two other children--Miriam, a girl of fifteen, and Aaron, a
little boy of three--and she told them that they were not to tell any
one they had a little baby brother in the house lest the king's
soldiers should come and take him away and throw him into the river.
And she kept her little baby carefully hidden in the house, running to
him every time he cried lest he should be heard outside, and trembling
each time a soldier passed her door.

For three months she was able to keep her child hidden from the
slave-drivers. Often did she pray to God that he might never be found;
and she loved her baby all the more because of the danger he was in.

But at last a day came when his mother could keep him hidden no longer.
With a sorrowful heart she saw that she must get him away, although at
the moment she could not tell how to do so. Then she weighed him in
her arms, measured him with her hands,