ly they fell on their
knees, crying out:

"Ye have the leave of the powers of Egypt! Go! Make haste! Take your
flocks, all that is yours! Aye, strip us even, if ye will! But let
not the sun rise upon you in Egypt! For we be all dead men!"

A murmur ran through the ministers. "The Hebrews!"

They came slowly, side by side, the two brothers. Egyptians in all
attitudes of entreaty cumbered their path--Egyptians, born to the
purple, rich, proud, powerful, on their faces to enslaved Israel!

Meneptah wrenched himself from Hotep's sustaining arms and, staggering
forward, all but on his knees, met them.

"Rise up and get you forth from among my people," he besought them,
"both ye and the children of Israel, and go and serve the Lord as ye
have said. Also take your flocks and your herds as ye have said, and
be gone; and bless me also!"

Great was the fall for a Pharaoh to pray a blessing from the hands of a
slave; great was his humility to kneel to them. But there was no
triumph, no exultation on the faces of the Hebrews. Aaron, with his
bearded chin on his breast, looked down on the head of the shuddering,
pleading monarch; but Moses, after sad contemplation of the humbled
king, raised his splendid head and gazed with kindling eyes at Har-hat.

Then with the words, "It is well," spoken without animation, he turned
and, with his brother, disappeared into the dusk of the long corridor.
The expression, the act, the mode of departure seemed to indicate that
the Israelites doubted the stability of the king's intent. In a
moment, therefore, the courtiers were pursuing the departing brothers,
urging and praying with all their former wild insistence.

Har-hat put Masanath on her feet and started to leave her, but she
flung her arms about his neck.

"Forgive me, my father," she sobbed. "For my rebellion the gods may
absolve me, but I have been unfilial and for that there is no
justification. If aught should befall thee in these awful days, how I
should reproach myself! Sawest thou not the Hebrew's gaze upon thee?
Say thou dost forgive me!"

"Nay, nay," he said hastily; "thou hast not done me to death by thine
undutifulness. And the Hebrew fears me. Get back to thy chamber and
rest." He kissed her and undid her clinging arms. Going to the king,
he put aside Hotep, who was striving to raise the monarch, and lifted
Meneptah in his arms.

"Masanath is better now, good Hotep, and I would take my place beside