of the airless passages, spread its heavy clouds over the
land of Egypt, so fair, so luminous, so golden under its azure sky,
where the night is clearer than the daytime in other climes. The
terrified people, believing themselves already shrouded in the
impenetrable darkness of the sepulchre, groped their way or sat down by
the propylaea, uttering plaintive cries and tearing their clothes.

One night, a night of terror and of horror, a spectre flew across the
whole of Egypt, entering every house the door of which was not marked
with red, and the first-born of the males died, the son of the Pharaoh
as well as the son of the meanest hind; yet the King, notwithstanding
all these dread signs, would not yield.

He remained within the recesses of his palace, fierce, silent, gazing at
the body of his son stretched out upon the funeral couch with the
jackals' feet, and heedless of the tears of Tahoser which wetted his
hand.

Mosche stood upon the threshold of the room without any one having
introduced him, for all the servants had fled hither and thither; and he
repeated his demand with imperturbable serenity.

"Go," said Pharaoh at last, "and sacrifice unto your God as you please."

Tahoser threw herself on the King's neck, and said to him, "Now I love
you, for you are a man, and not a god of granite."

XVII

The Pharaoh did not answer Tahoser; he gazed with a sombre eye upon the
body of his first-born son; his untamed pride rebelled, even as he
yielded. In his heart he did not believe in the Lord, and he explained
away the scourges which had smitten Egypt by attributing them to the
magic power of Mosche and Aharon, which was greater than that of his
magicians. The thought of yielding exasperated his violent, fierce soul.

But even had he wished to retain the Israelites, his terrified people
would not have allowed it. The Egyptians, dreading to die, would all
have driven out the foreigners who were the cause of their ills and
suffering. They kept away from them with superstitious terror, and when
the great Hebrew passed, followed by Aharon, the bravest fled, fearing
some new prodigy, and they said, "Is not the rod of his companion about
to turn into a serpent again and coil itself around us?"

Had Tahoser then forgotten Poeri when she threw her arms around the
Pharaoh's neck? In no wise; but she felt, springing up within the
King's obstinate soul, projects of vengeance and of extermination; she
feared massacr