stily as
his father entered in order that the latter might not see the traces
of tears on his cheeks. A few minutes later the king, with his
captains, started from the palace. Most of them rode in chariots,
the rest on horseback. The town was quiet now and the streets almost
deserted. With the exception of the garrison, all the men capable of
bearing arms had gone forth; the women with anxious faces stood in
groups at their doors and watched the royal party as it drove out.

The charioteer of Amuba was a tall and powerful man; he carried a
shield far larger than was ordinarily used, and had been specially
selected by the king for the service. His orders were that he was not
to allow Amuba to rush into the front line of fighters, and that he
was even to disobey the orders of the prince if he wished to charge
into the ranks of the enemy.

"My son must not shirk danger," his father said, "and he must needs go
well in the fight; but he is still but a boy, not fit to enter upon a
hand-to-hand contest with the picked warriors of Egypt. In time I hope
he will fight abreast of me, but at present you must restrain his
ardor. I need not bid you shield him as well as you can from the
arrows of the Egyptians. He is my eldest son, and if aught happens
to me he will be the king of the Rebu; and his life is therefore a
precious one."

Half an hour later they came upon the tail of the stragglers making
their way to the front. The king stopped his chariot and sharply
reproved some of them for their delay in setting out, and urged them
to hasten on to the appointed place. In two hours the king arrived at
this spot, where already some forty thousand men were assembled. The
scouts who had been sent out reported that although the advance-guard
of the Egyptians might arrive in an hour's time, the main body were
some distance behind and would not be up in time to attack before
dark.

This was welcome news, for before night the rest of the forces of the
Rebu, fully thirty thousand more, would have joined. The king at once
set out to examine the ground chosen by his general for the conflict.
It sloped gently down in front to a small stream which ran through
soft and marshy ground, and would oppose a formidable obstacle to the
passage of chariots. The right rested upon a dense wood, while a
village a mile and a half distant from the wood was held by the left
wing.

A causeway which led from this across the marsh had been broken up,
and h