Israel had gathered in families before her tents—­the mothers hovering their broods, the fathers tramping uneasily about them.  In the heart of each, perhaps, was an indefinable conviction that he should fall among the tens.  Since Israel had died in droves by hard labor in the brick-fields and along the roadways and canals, in what numbers and with what dire speed would not Israel perish in the dreaded stone-pits!

Just outside the doorway of their shelter, Deborah and Rachel overlooked the troubled camp.

“Moses comes in time,” Rachel said, speaking in a low tone, “for Israel is in sore straits.  The hand of the oppressor assaileth with fury his bones and his sinews now.  How shall it be with him if he is bequeathed from Pharaoh to Pharaoh of an intent like unto the last three?  He shall have perished from the face of the earth, for the Hebrew bends not; he breaks.”

Deborah did not answer at once.  Her sunken eyes were set and she seemed not to hear.  But presently she spoke: 

“Thou hast said.  But the Hebrew droppeth out of the inheritance of the Pharaohs in thy generation, Rachel.  The end of the bondage is at hand.  Thou shalt see it.  Of a truth Israel shall perish.  If its afflictions increase for long.  But they shall not continue.  Have we entered Canaan as God sware unto Abraham we should?  Have we possessed the gates of our enemies?  Shall He stamp us out, with His promise yet unfulfilled?  Behold, we have gone astray from Him, but not utterly, as all the other peoples of the earth.  For centuries, amid the great clamor of prayers to the hollow gods, there arose only from this compound of slaves, here, a call to Him.  Out of the reek of idolatrous savors, drifted up now and again the straight column from the altar of a Hebrew, sacrificing to the One God.  Where, indeed, are any faithful, save in Israel?  Shall He condemn us who only have held steadfast?  Nay!  He hath but permitted the oppression that we may have our fill of the glories of Egypt and be glad to turn our backs upon her.  He will cure us of idols by showing forth their helplessness when they are cried unto; and when Israel is in its most grievous strait and therefore most prone to attach itself to whosoever helpeth it.  He will prove Himself at last by His power.  Aye, thou hast said.  Israel can suffer little more without perishing.  Therefore is redemption at hand.”

Rachel had turned her eyes away from the humiliation of Israel to its exaltation—­from fact to prophecy.  She was looking with awed face at Deborah.  The prophetess went on: