gth and energy of soul and body to the welfare of our
people. Nor shall the love of woman turn me from the great duty I have
taken upon myself. As for thy wife, I shall treat her as a stranger
unless, as a prophetess, she summons me to announce a new message from
the Lord."

With these words he held out his hand to his companion and, as Hur
grasped it, loud voices were heard from the fighting-men, for messengers
were climbing the mountain, who, shouting and beckoning, pointed to the
vast cloud of dust that preceded the march of the tribes.

CHAPTER XXV.

The Hebrews came nearer and nearer, and many of the young combatants
hastened to meet them. These were not the joyous bands, who had joined
triumphantly in Miriam's song of praise, no, they tottered toward the
mountain slowly, with drooping heads. They were obliged to scale the
pass from the steeper side, and how the bearers sighed; how piteously
the women and children wailed, how fiercely the drivers swore as they
urged the beasts of burden up the narrow, rugged path; how hoarsely
sounded the voices of the half fainting men as they braced their
shoulders against the carts to aid the beasts of burden.

These thousands who, but a few short days before, had so gratefully felt
the saving mercy of the Lord, seemed to Joshua, who stood watching their
approach, like a defeated army.

But the path they had followed from their last encampment, the harbor by
the Red Sea, was rugged, arid, and to them, who had grown up among the
fruitful plains of Lower Egypt, toilsome and full of terror.

It had led through the midst of the bare rocky landscape, and their
eyes, accustomed to distant horizons and luxuriant green foliage, met
narrow boundaries and a barren wilderness.

Since passing through the Gate of Baba, they had beheld on their way
through the valley of the same name and their subsequent pilgrimage
through the wilderness of Sin, nothing save valleys with steep
precipices on either side. A lofty mountain of the hue of death had
towered, black and terrible, above the reddish-brown slopes, which
seemed to the wanderers like the work of human hands, for the strata of
stones rose at regular intervals. One might have supposed that the giant
builders whose hands had toiled here in the service of the Sculptor of
the world had been summoned away ere they had completed the task, which
in this wilderness had no searching eye to fear and seemed destined for
the service of n