ath not killed his pride. He would speak if
it hurt him to be unremembered."

"Hath he a grudge against us?" Caleb asked in astonishment.

"Nay, look thou at the writing on the tablet. He would hide its
command from us. Is he not a friend to Israel still?"

He indicated the characters on either side of the soldier. The words
were disconnected, but the sense was easily guessed. The command for
prayers to the Pantheon of Egypt was not hidden, beyond conjecture,
from the discerning. Caleb saw the meaning of the inscription, but
looked to Joshua for further enlightenment.

"He would spare us," the abler Israelite said. "Let us return the
kindness and see him not."

All this had the Egyptian heard, but his eyes, fixed so absently on the
horizon, seemed to indicate that he was not conscious of his
surroundings.

Joshua repeated his question.

"I was sent forth with Miriam," Caleb made answer. "She hath been
abroad, gathering up the scattered chosen."

His eyes brightened and he clasped his hands with the gesture of a
happy woman.

"Deliverance is at hand! Doubt it not, O Son of Nun! We go forth!" he
exclaimed.

On the camel were hung a shield, a javelin and a quiver of arrows.
Joshua jostled the arrows in their case before answering.

"Not as the moon changes," he said grimly. "The time for mild
departure is past and the word of the Lord God unto Moses must be
fulfilled."

"So we but go," Caleb assented, "I care not. And such is the temper of
all Israel--nay," he broke off, conscientiously; "there is an
exception, an unusual exception."

"There may be more," Joshua replied. "There is much in Egypt to hold
the slavish. But the captain of Israel hath called me, out of peaceful
shepherd life, to the severe fortunes of a warrior, and I go, no mile
too short, no moment too swift, that shall speed me into Pa-Ramesu."

"And thou takest up arms for Israel?" Caleb cried. "Ah! but Moses hath
gloved his right hand in mail, in thee, O Son of Nun! But," he
continued, uneasy with his story untold, "this was no slavish content
under a master. Rather did it come from one of the best of Israel."

"Strange that the lofty of Israel should regret a departure from the
land of the oppressors." Joshua settled himself on the camel and the
tall beast rose to its feet with a lurch.

"Even so," Caleb answered, patting the nose of the camel and arranging
the tassels of its halter. "It was a quarry-slave, a maiden