Within a few short hours he should again see his beloved, noble father, who had needed great deliberation and much persuasion from Hosea’s mother—­long since dead—­ere he would permit his son to follow the bent of his inclinations and enter upon a military life in Pharaoh’s army.  He had anticipated that very day surprising him with the news that he had been promoted above men many years his seniors and of Egyptian lineage.  Instead of the slights Nun had dreaded, Hosea’s gallant bearing, courage and, as he modestly added, good-fortune had gained him promotion, yet he had remained a Hebrew.  When he felt the necessity of offering to some god sacrifices and prayer, he had bowed before Seth, to whose temple Nun had led him when a child, and whom in those days all the people in Goshen in whose veins flowed Semitic blood had worshipped.  But he also owed allegiance to another god, not the God of his fathers, but the deity revered by all the Egyptians who had been initiated.  He remained unknown to the masses, who could not have understood him; yet he was adored not only by the adepts but by the majority of those who had obtained high positions in civil or military life-whether they were servants of the divinity or not—­and Hosea, the initiated and the stranger, knew him also.  Everybody understood when allusion was made to “the God,” the “Sum of All,” the “Creator of Himself,” and the “Great One.”  Hymns extolled him, inscriptions on the monuments, which all could read, spoke of him, the one God, who manifested himself to the world, pervaded the universe, and existed throughout creation not alone as the vital spark animates the human organism, but as himself the sum of creation, the world with its perpetual growth, decay, and renewal, obeying the laws he had himself ordained.  His spirit, existing in every form of nature, dwelt also in man, and wherever a mortal gazed he could discern the rule of the “One.”  Nothing could be imagined without him, therefore he was one like the God of Israel.  Nothing could be created nor happen on earth apart from him, therefore, like Jehovah, he was omnipotent.  Hosea had long regarded both as alike in spirit, varying only in name.  Whoever adored one was a servant of the other, so the warrior could have entered his father’s presence with a clear conscience, and told him that although in the service of the king he had remained loyal to the God of his nation.

Another thought had made his heart pulse faster and more joyously as he saw in the distance the pylons and obelisks of Tanis; for on countless marches through the silent wilderness and in many a lonely camp he had beheld in imagination a virgin of his own race, whom he had known as a singular child, stirred by marvellous thoughts, and whom, just before leading his troops to the Libyan war, he had again met, now a dignified maiden of stern and unapproachable beauty.  She had journeyed from Succoth to Tanis to attend his mother’s funeral, and her image had been