h road, sloping gently toward the sea.

Ephraim, in whom the elders now saw the future chief, had been
entrusted, at his grandfather's suggestion, with the duty of seeing
that the procession did not stop and, for this purpose, had been given
a leader's staff; for the fishermen whose huts stood at the foot of
Baal-zephon, like the Phoenicians, believed that when the moon reached
her zenith the sea would return to its old bed, and therefore all delay
was to be avoided.

The youth enjoyed the storm, and when his locks fluttered and he battled
victoriously against the gale in rushing hither and thither, as his
office required, it seemed to him a foretaste of the venture he had in
view.

So the procession moved on through the darkness which had speedily
followed the dusk of evening. The acrid odor of the sea-weed and fishes
which had been left stranded pleased the boy,--who felt that he had
matured into manhood,--better than the sweet fragrance of spikenard in
Kasana's tent. Once the memory of it flashed through his brain, but with
that exception there was not a moment during these hours which gave him
time to think of her.

He had his hands full of work; sometimes a heap of sea-weed flung on the
path by a wave must be removed; sometimes a ram, the leader of a flock,
refused to step on the wet sand and must be dragged forward by the
horns, or cattle and beasts of burden must be driven through a pool of
water from which they shrank.

Often, too, he was obliged to brace his shoulder against a heavily-laden
cart, whose wheels had sunk too deeply into the soft sand; and when,
even during this strange, momentous march, two bands of shepherds began
to dispute about precedence close to the Egyptian shore, he quickly
settled the dispute by making them draw lots to decide which party
should go first.

Two little girls who, crying bitterly, refused to wade through a pool
of water, while their mother was busy with the infant in her arms, he
carried with prompt decision through the shallow puddle, and the cart
with a broken wheel he had moved aside by the light of the torches and
commanded some stalwart bondmen, who were carrying only small bundles,
to load themselves with the sacks and bales, nay, even the fragments of
the vehicle. He uttered a word of cheer to weeping women and children
and, when the light of a torch fell upon the face of a companion of
his own age, whose aid he hoped to obtain for the release of Joshua, he
br