said:

"You have accomplished great deeds for the people and for me, son of
Nun, and my life is too short for the gratitude which is your due from
my wife and myself. If you can forget the bitter words which clouded our
peace at Dophkah--and you say you have done so--let us in future keep
together like brothers and stand by each other in joy and grief, in need
and peril. The chief command henceforth belongs to you alone, Joshua,
and to no other, and this is a source of joy to the whole people, above
all to my wife and to me. So if you share my wish to form a brotherhood,
walk with me, according to the custom of our fathers, between the halves
of this slaughtered animal."

Joshua willingly accepted this invitation, and Miriam was the first to
join in the loud acclamations of approval commenced by the grey-haired
Nun. She did so with eager zeal; for it was she who had inspired her
husband, before whom she had humbled herself, and whose love she now
once more possessed, with the idea of inviting Joshua to the alliance
both had now concluded.

This had not been difficult for her; for the two vows she had made after
the son of Nun, whom she now gladly called "Joshua," had saved her from
the hand of the foe were already approaching fulfilment, and she felt
that she had resolved upon them in a happy hour.

The new and pleasant sensation of being a woman, like any other woman,
lent her whole nature a gentleness hitherto foreign to it, and this
retained the love of the husband whose full value she had learned to
know during the sad time in which he had shut his heart against her.

In the self-same hour which made Hur and Joshua brothers, a pair of
faithful lovers who had been sundered by sacred duties were once more
united; for while the friends were still feasting before the tent of
Hur, three of the people asked permission to speak to Nun, their
master. These were the old freedwoman, who had remained in Tanis, her
granddaughter Hogla and Assir, the latter's betrothed husband, from whom
the girl had parted to nurse her grandparents.

Hoary Eliab had soon died, and the grandmother and Hogla--the former
on the old man's ass--had followed the Hebrews amid unspeakable
difficulties.

Nun welcomed the faithful couple with joy and gave Hogla to Assir for
his wife.

So this blood-stained day had brought blessings to many, yet it was to
end with a shrill discord.

While the fires in the camp were burning, loud voices were he