rater!" interrupted a companion. "If thou lovest Bedouin
warfare so well, wherefore dost thou join thyself to the Israelite who
fights not at all?"

"Spoil!" retorted the first, "and new fields, O waster of the air!
Hast thou not heard of Canaan?"

"Nay," shouted a third, "he hath an eye only to some heifer-eyed
brickmaker among them!"

The soldier moved forward to the group and grounded his pike. His
attitude interested them, and in the expectant silence he repeated the
writing on the tablet.

"So saith the writing," the first speaker began, but the warrior
interrupted him.

"It behooves thee to obey. Thou art yet within the reach of the
awkward arms of Egypt."

"One against a troop of Bedouins," the trifler laughed.

"And there are a thousand within sound of my beaten shield," was the
harsh answer.

"Come," said an elder complacently, "it does no harm to ask the
alleviation of any man's hurt, and it may keep us whole for the journey
into Canaan." He dismounted, and in a twinkling the company, even to
the babes, had followed his example. Each dropped to his haunches, his
hands spread upon his knees, and there was no sound for a few minutes.

Then they rose simultaneously and, flinging themselves upon their
horses, departed as they came, like the whirlwind, over the road to
Pa-Ramesu and the heart of Goshen.

These were part of the mixed multitude that went with Israel.

The dust of their going had hardly settled before a drove of
hosannahing Israelites approached from the direction of the Nile. The
soldier saw them without seeming to see and, moving toward the tablet,
a four-foot stela of sandstone, planted himself against its inscribed
face, and, resting his pike, contemplated the west.

The ragged rout approached, singing and shouting, noisy and of doubtful
temper. A cloud of dust came with them and the odor of stall and of
quarry sweat.

Want plays havoc with the Oriental's appearance. It acutely
accentuates his already aggressive features and reduces his color to
ghastliness. The approaching Hebrews were studies of sharp angularity
in monochrome, and the soul which showed in the eyes was no longer a
spiritual but a ravenous thing.

Being something distinctly Egyptian, the soldier brought their actual
temper to the surface. They had suffered long, but their time had come.

The foremost flung themselves into his view and halted, hushed and
amazed. When those behind them tried to press f