When he came forth he was refreshed and stronger. Of the citizens,
haggard and solemn as they had been in Tanis, he asked concerning the
Pharaoh. None had seen him, nor had he entered the city. The last one
he questioned was a countryman from Goshen, and from him he learned
that the army was assembling in a great pasture on the southern limits
of the Israelitish country.

At sunset he was again upon the way, taking the level highway of the
Wady Toomilat for a mile toward the west, and turning south, after that
distance, as the rustic had directed him.

The road was good and he ran with old-time ease. At midnight he came
upon the spot where the army had camped, but the Pharaoh had already
moved against Israel. He had left his track. The great belt of
disturbed earth wheeled to the south, and as far as Kenkenes could see
there was the same luminous veil of dust overhanging it, that he had
noted over the path of Israel.

The messenger drank deep at an irrigation canal, for he turned away
from water when he followed the army, and leaving the level,
dust-cushioned road behind, plunged into a rock-strewn, rolling land,
desolate and silent. The growing light of the moon was his only
advantage.

The region became savage, the trail of the army wound hither and
thither to avoid sudden eminences or sudden hollows. Kenkenes dogged
it faithfully, for it found the smoothest way, and, besides, the wild
beasts had been frightened from the track of a multitude.

In the early hour of the morning, Kenkenes emerged from a high-walled
valley with battlemented summits. Before him was the army encamped,
and wild, indeed, was the region chosen for the night's rest. The
glistening soil was thickly strewn with rocks, varying in size from
huge cubes to sharp shingle. Every abrupt ravine ahead was accentuated
with profound shadow, and the dim horizon was broken with hills. The
locality maintained an irregular slope toward the east. The camp
stretched before the messenger for a mile, but the great army had
changed its posture. It squatted like a tired beast.

Kenkenes approached it dropping with weariness, and after a time was
passed through the lines and conducted to the headquarters of the king.
In the center of the great field were pitched the multi-hued tents of
Meneptah and his generals. Above them, turning like weather-vanes upon
their staves, were the standards bearing the royal and divine device,
the crown and the u