st of Tanis, and lay nearest to the streets
inhabited by the Egyptians themselves.

Usually at this hour herds of cattle and flocks of sheep were being
watered or driven to pasture and the great yard before his house was
filled with cattle, servants of both sexes, carts, and agricultural
implements. The owner usually overlooked the departure of the flocks and
herds, and the mob had marked him and his family for the first victims
of their fury.

The swiftest of the avengers had now reached his extensive
farm-buildings, among them Hornecht, captain of the archers,
brother-in-law of the old astrologer. House and barns were brightly
illumined by the first light of the young day. A stalwart smith kicked
violently on the stout door; but the unbolted sides yielded so easily
that he was forced to cling to the door-post to save himself from
falling. Others, Hornecht among them, pressed past him into the yard.
What did this mean?

Had some new spell been displayed to attest the power of the Hebrew
leader Mesu, who had brought such terrible plagues on the land,--and of
his God.

The yard was absolutely empty. The stalls contained a few dead cattle
and sheep, killed because they had been crippled in some way, while a
lame lamb limped off at sight of the mob. The carts and wagons, too, had
vanished. The lowing, bleating throng which the priests had imagined to
be the souls of the damned was the Hebrew host, departing by night from
their old home with all their flocks under the guidance of Moses.

The captain of the archers dropped his sword, and a spectator might
have believed that the sight was a pleasant surprise to him; but his
neighbor, a clerk from the king's treasure-house, gazed around the empty
space with the disappointed air of a man who has been defrauded.

The flood of schemes and passions, which had surged so high during the
night, ebbed under the clear light of day. Even the soldier's quickly
awakened wrath had long since subsided into composure. The populace
might have wreaked their utmost fury on the other Hebrews, but not upon
Nun, whose son, Hosea, had been his comrade in arms, one of the most
distinguished leaders in the army, and an intimate family friend. Had
he thought of him and foreseen that his father's dwelling would be
first attacked, he would never have headed the mob in their pursuit of
vengeance; nay, he bitterly repented having forgotten the deliberate
judgment which befitted his years.

While