seen Hebrew men and women praying fervently in
Egyptian temples. Even if Mesu should induce them to acknowledge his
God, the experienced sage clearly foresaw that they would speedily
turn from the invisible Spirit, who must ever remain aloof and
incomprehensible, and return by hundreds to the gods they understood.

Now Egypt was threatened with the loss of the laborers and builders she
so greatly needed, but Rui believed that they might be won back.

"When fair words will answer our purpose, put aside sword and bow," he
had replied to Bai, who demanded that the fugitives should be pursued
and slain. "We have already too many corpses in our country; what we
want is workers. Let us hold fast what we seem on the verge of losing."

These mild words were in full harmony with the mood of Pharaoh, who
had had sufficient sorrow, and would have thought it wiser to venture
unarmed into a lion's cage than to again defy the wrath of the terrible
Hebrew.

So he had closed his ears to the exhortations of the second prophet,
whose steadfast, energetic will usually exercised all the greater
influence upon him on account of his own irresolution, and upheld old
Rui's suggestion that the warrior, Hosea, should be sent after his
people to deal with them in Pharaoh's name--a plan that soothed his mind
and renewed his hopes.

The second prophet, Bai, had finally assented to the plan; for
it afforded a new chance of undermining the throne he intended to
overthrow. If the Hebrews were once more settled in the land, Prince
Siptah, who regarded no punishment too severe for the race he hated,
might perhaps seize the sceptre of the cowardly king Menephtah.

But the fugitives must first be stopped, and Hosea was the right man
to do this. But in Bai's eyes no one would be more able to gain the
confidence of an unsuspicious soldier than Pharaoh and his royal
consort. The venerable high-priest Rui, though wholly unaware of the
conspiracy, shared this opinion, and thus the sovereigns had been
persuaded to interrupt the mourning for the dead and speak in person to
the Hebrew.

Hosea had prostrated himself before the throne and, when he rose,
the king's weary face was bent toward him, sadly, it is true, yet
graciously.

According to custom, the hair and beard of the father who had lost his
first-born son had been shaven. Formerly they had encircled his face in
a frame of glossy black, but twenty years of anxious government had made
them grey, a