moved her lips constantly, not in prayer—­no, I have listened often when she did not know I was near—­no; she talked to the dead, as though they could hear her in the sepulchre, and understand her words like those who walk alive beneath the sun.  She is near seventy, and for thrice seven years she has gone by the name of grave-haunting Kusaja.  It was in sooth a foolish thing to do; yet perhaps that was why she found it all the harder to give it up, and go she would not, but hid herself among the bushes.  When Ahieser, the overseer, dragged her out, her wailing made one’s heart sore, yet when the time for departure came, the longing to go seized upon her also, and she found it as hard to resist as the others.”

“What had happened to the poor creatures, what possessed them?” asked Hosea, interrupting the old wife’s speech; for in imagination he again beheld the people he must lead, if he valued his father’s blessing as the most priceless boon the world could offer, and beheld them in all their wretchedness.

The startled dame, fearing that she had offended her master’s first-born son, the great and powerful chieftain, stammered: 

“What possessed them, my lord?  Ah, well—­I am but a poor lowly slave-woman; yet, my lord, had you but seen it. . . . "

“Well, even then?” interrupted the warrior in harsh, impatient tones, for this was the first time he had ever found himself compelled to act against his desires and belief.

Eliab tried to come to the assistance of the terrified woman, saying timidly

“Ah, my lord, no tongue can relate, no human mind can picture it.  It came from the Almighty and, if I could describe how great was its influence on the souls of the people. . . . "

“Try,” Hosea broke in, “but my time is brief.  So they were compelled to depart, and set forth reluctantly on their wanderings.  Even the Egyptians have long known that they obeyed the bidding of Moses and Aaron as the sheep follow the shepherd.  Have those who brought the terrible pestilence on so many guiltless human beings also wrought the miracle of blinding the minds of you and of your wife?”

The old man stretched out his hands to the soldier, and answered in a troubled voice and a tone of the most humble entreaty: 

“Oh, my lord, you are my master’s first-born son, the greatest and loftiest of your race, if it is your pleasure you can trample me into the dust like a beetle, yet I must lift up my voice and say:  ’You have heard false tales!’ You were away in foreign lands when mighty things were done in our midst, and far from Zoan,—­[The Hebrew name for Tanis]—­as I hear, when the exodus took place.  Any son of our people who witnessed it would rather his tongue should wither than mock at the marvels the Lord permitted him to behold.  Ah, if you had patience to suffer me to tell the tale. . . .”

“Speak on!” cried Hosea, astonished at the old man’s solemn fervor.  Eliab thanked him with an ardent glance, exclaiming: