influence they perceived in and around them, and the Egyptian religion supplied these images.  What could an invisible creative power guiding the course of the universe be to a love-sick girl?  She sought the friendly Hathor, whose gentle hands held the cords that bound heart to heart, the beautiful mighty representative of her sex—­to her she could trustingly pour forth all the sorrows that burdened her bosom.  What was the petty grief of a mother who sought to snatch her darling child from death, to the mighty and incomprehensible Deity who governed the entire universe?  But the good Isis, who herself had wept her eyes red in bitter anguish, could understand her woe.  And how often in Egypt it was the wife who determined her husband’s relations to the gods!

Rui had frequently seen Hebrew men and women praying fervently in Egyptian temples.  Even if Mesu should induce them to acknowledge his God, the experienced sage clearly foresaw that they would speedily turn from the invisible Spirit, who must ever remain aloof and incomprehensible, and return by hundreds to the gods they understood.

Now Egypt was threatened with the loss of the laborers and builders she so greatly needed, but Rui believed that they might be won back.

“When fair words will answer our purpose, put aside sword and bow,” he had replied to Bai, who demanded that the fugitives should be pursued and slain.  “We have already too many corpses in our country; what we want is workers.  Let us hold fast what we seem on the verge of losing.”

These mild words were in full harmony with the mood of Pharaoh, who had had sufficient sorrow, and would have thought it wiser to venture unarmed into a lion’s cage than to again defy the wrath of the terrible Hebrew.

So he had closed his ears to the exhortations of the second prophet, whose steadfast, energetic will usually exercised all the greater influence upon him on account of his own irresolution, and upheld old Rui’s suggestion that the warrior, Hosea, should be sent after his people to deal with them in Pharaoh’s name—­a plan that soothed his mind and renewed his hopes.

The second prophet, Bai, had finally assented to the plan; for it afforded a new chance of undermining the throne he intended to overthrow.  If the Hebrews were once more settled in the land, Prince Siptah, who regarded no punishment too severe for the race he hated, might perhaps seize the sceptre of the cowardly king Menephtah.

But the fugitives must first be stopped, and Hosea was the right man to do this.  But in Bai’s eyes no one would be more able to gain the confidence of an unsuspicious soldier than Pharaoh and his royal consort.  The venerable high-priest Rui, though wholly unaware of the conspiracy, shared this opinion, and thus the sovereigns had been persuaded to interrupt the mourning for the dead and speak in person to the Hebrew.

Hosea had prostrated himself before the throne and, when he rose, the king’s weary face was bent toward him, sadly, it is true, yet graciously.