It was a touching entreaty, but so often interrupted by threats and curses that only a few could hear it.  Just as Ephraim and Miriam reached the shore she shrieked aloud—­a rude hand had torn the gold serpent from her ear.

The cry pierced the youth’s heart like a dagger-thrust and his cheeks paled, for he recognized Kasana.  The bodies beside her were those of her nurse and the wife of the chief priest Bai.

Scarcely able to control himself, Ephraim thrust aside the men who separated him from the object of the moment’s assault, sprang on the sand-hill at whose foot the chariot had rested, and shouted with glowing cheeks in wild excitement: 

“Back!  Woe to any one who touches her!”

But a Hebrew woman, the wife of a brickmaker whose child had died in terrible convulsions during the passage through the sea, had already snatched the dagger from her girdle, and with the jeering cry “This for my little Ruth, you jade!” dealt her a blow in the back.  Then she raised the tiny blood-stained weapon for a second stroke; but ere she could give her enemy another thrust, Ephraim flung himself between her and her victim and wrenched the dagger from her grasp.  Then planting himself before the wounded girl, he swung the blade aloft exclaiming in loud, threatening tones: 

“Whoever touches her, you robbers and murderers, shall mingle his blood with this woman’s.”  Then he flung himself beside Kasana’s bleeding form, and finding that she had lost consciousness, raised her in his arms and carried her to Miriam.

The astonished plunderers speechlessly made way for a few minutes, but ere he reached the prophetess shouts of:  “Vengeance!  Vengeance!” were heard in all directions.  “We found the woman:  the booty belongs to us alone!—­How dares the insolent Ephraimite call us robbers and murderers?—­Wherever Egyptian blood can be spilled, it must flow!—­At him!—­Snatch the girl from him!”

The youth paid no heed to these outbursts of wrath until he had laid Kasana’s head in the lap of Miriam, who had seated herself on the nearest sand-hill, and as the angry throng, the women in front of the men, pressed upon him, he again waved his dagger, crying:  “Back—­I command you.  Let all of the blood of Ephraim and Judah rally around me and Miriam, the wife of their chief!  That’s right, brothers, and woe betide any hand that touches her.  Do you shriek for vengeance?  Has it not been yours through yonder monster who murdered the poor defenceless one?  Do you want your victim’s jewels?  Well, well; they belong to you, and I will give you mine to boot, if you will leave the wife of Hur to care for this dying girl!”

With these words he bent over Kasana, took off the clasps and rings she still wore, and gave them to the greedy hands outstretched to seize them.  Lastly he stripped the broad gold circlet from his arm, and holding it aloft exclaimed: 

“Here is the promised payment.  If you will depart quietly and leave this woman to Miriam, I will give you the gold, and you can divide it among you.  If you thirst for more blood, come on; but I will keep the armlet.”