"We have him!" he cried before he came in. "He fell from his horse near
Heliopolis."

"Philometor?" screamed Cleopatra, flinging herself upon Hierax. "He fell
from his horse--you have murdered him?"

The tone in which the words were said, so full of grief and horror that
the general said compassionately:

"Calm yourself, noble lady; your husband's wound in the forehead is not
dangerous. The physicians in the great hall of the temple of the Sun
bound it up, and allowed me to bring him hither on a litter."

Without hearing Hierax to the end Cleopatra flew towards the door, but
Euergetes barred her way and gave his orders with that decision which
characterized him, and which forbade all contradiction:

"You will remain here till I myself conduct you to him. I wish to have
you both near me."

"So that you may force us by every torment to resign the throne!" cried
Cleopatra. "You are in luck to-day, and we are your prisoners."

"You are free, noble queen," said the Roman to the poor woman, who was
trembling in every limb. "And on the strength of my plenipotentiary
powers I here demand the liberty of King Philometor, in the name of the
Senate of Rome."

At these words the blood mounted to King Euergetes' face and eyes, and,
hardly master of himself, he stammered out rather than said:

"Popilius Laenas drew a circle round my uncle Antiochus, and threatened
him with the enmity of Rome if he dared to overstep it. You might excel
the example set you by your bold countryman--whose family indeed was far
less illustrious than yours--but I--I--"

"You are at liberty to oppose the will of Rome," interrupted Publius with
dry formality, "but, if you venture on it, Rome, by me, will withdraw her
friendship. I stand here in the name of the Senate, whose purpose it is
to uphold the treaty which snatched this country from the Syrians, and by
which you and your brother pledged yourselves to divide the realm of
Egypt between you. It is not in my power to alter what has happened here;
but it is incumbent on me so to act as to enable Rome to distribute to
each of you that which is your due, according to the treaty ratified by
the Republic.

"In all questions which bear upon that compact Rome alone must decide,
and it is my duty to take care that the plaintiff is not prevented from
appearing alive and free before his protectors. So, in the name of the
Senate, King Euergetes, I require you to permit King Philometor your
brother, and Queen Cleopatra your sister, to proceed hence, whithersoever
they will." Euergetes, breathing hard in impotent fury, alternately
doubling his fists, and extending his quivering fingers, stood opposite
the Roman who looked enquiringly in his face with cool composure; for a
short space both were silent. Then Euergetes, pushing his hands through
his hair, shook his head violently from side to side, and exclaimed:

"Thank the Senate from me, and say that I know what we owe to it, and
admire the wisdom which prefers to see Egypt divided rather than united
in one strong hand--Philometor is free, and you also Cleopatra."

For a moment he was again silent, then he laughed loudly, and cried to
the queen:

"As for you sister--your tender heart will of course bear you on the
wings of love to the side of your wounded husband."

Cleopatra's pale cheeks had flushed scarlet at the Roman's speech; she
vouchsafed no answer to her brother's ironical address, but advanced
proudly to the door. As she passed Publius she said with a farewell wave
of her pretty hand.

"We are much indebted to the Senate."

Publius bowed low, and she, turning away from him, quitted the room.

"You have forgotten your fan, and your children!" the king called after
her; but Cleopatra did not hear his words, for, once outside her
brother's apartment, all her forced and assumed composure flew to the
winds; she clasped her hands on her temples, and rushed down the broad
stairs of the palace as if she were pursued by fiends.

When the sound of her steps had died away, Euergetes turned to the Roman
and said:

"Now, as you have fulfilled what you deem to be your duty, I beg of you
to explain the meaning of your dark speeches just now, for they were
addressed to Euergetes the man, and not the king. If I understood you
rightly you meant to imply that your life had been attempted, and that
one of those extraordinary old men devoted to Serapis had been murdered
instead of you."

"By your orders and those of your accomplice Eulaeus," answered Publius
coolly.

"Eulaeus, come here!" thundered the king to the trembling courtier, with
a fearful and threatening glare in his eyes. "Have you hired murderers to
kill my friend--this noble guest of our royal house--because he
threatened to bring your crimes to light?"

"Mercy!" whimpered Eulaeus sinking on his knees before the king.

"He confesses his crime!" cried Euergetes; he laid his hand on the girdle
of his weeping subordinate, and commanded Hierax to hand him over without
delay to the watch, and to have him hanged before all beholders by the
great gate of the citadel. Eulaeus tried to pray for mercy and to speak,
but the powerful officer, who hated the contemptible wretch, dragged him
up, and out of the room.

"You were quite right to lay your complaint before me," said Euergetes
while Eulaeus cries and howls were still audible on the stairs. "And you
see that I know how to punish those who dare to offend a guest."

"He has only met with the portion he has deserved for years," replied
Publius. "But now that we stand face to face, man to man, I must close my
account with you too. In your service and by your orders Eulaeus set two
assassins to lie in wait for me--"

"Publius Cornelius Scipio!" cried the king, interrupting his enemy in an
ominous tone; but the Roman went on, calmly and quietly:

"I am saying nothing that I cannot support by witnesses; and I have truly
set forth, in two letters, that king Euergetes during the past night has
attempted the life of an ambassador from Rome. One of these despatches is
addressed to my father, the other to Popilius Lamas, and both are already
on their way to Rome. I have given instructions that they are to be
opened if, in the course of three months reckoned from the present date,
I have not demanded them back. You see you must needs make it convenient
to protect my life, and to carry out whatever I may require of you. If
you obey my will in everything I may demand, all that has happened this
night shall remain a secret between you and me and a third person, for
whose silence I will be answerable; this I promise you, and I never broke
my word."

"Speak," said the king flinging himself on the couch, and plucking the
feathers from the fan Cleopatra had forgotten, while Publius went on
speaking.

"First I demand a free pardon for Philotas of Syracuse, 'relative of the
king,' and president of the body of the Chrematistes, his immediate
release, with his wife, from their forced labor, and their return from
the mines."

"They both are dead," said Euergetes, "my brother can vouch for it."

"Then I require you to have it declared by special decree that Philotas
was condemned unjustly, and that he is reinstated in all the dignities he
was deprived of. I farther demand that you permit me and my friend Lysias
of Corinth, as well as Apollodorus the sculptor, to quit Egypt without
let or hindrance, and with us Klea and Irene, the daughters of Philotas,
who serve as water-bearers in the temple of Serapis.--Do you hesitate as
to your reply?"

"No," answered the king, and he tossed up his hand. "For this once I have
lost the game."

"The daughters of Philotas, Klea and Irene," continued Publius with
imperturbable coolness, "are to have the confiscated estates of their
parents restored to them."

"Then your sweetheart's beauty does not satisfy you!" interposed
Euergetes satirically.

"It amply satisfies me. My last demand is that half of this wealth shall
be assigned to the temple of Serapis, so that the god may give up his
serving-maidens willingly, and without raising any objections. The other
half shall be handed over to Dicearchus, my agent in Alexandria, because
it is my will that Klea and Irene shall not enter my own house or that of
Lysias in Corinth as wives, without the dowry that beseems their rank.
Now, within one hour, I must have both the decree and the act of
restitution in my hands, for as soon as Juventius Thalna arrives
here--and I expect him, as I told you this very day--we propose to leave
Memphis, and to take ship at Alexandria."

"A strange conjuncture!" cried Euergetes. "You deprive me alike of my
revenge and my love, and yet I see myself compelled to wish you a
pleasant journey. I must offer a sacrifice to Poseidon, to the Cyprian
goddess, and to the Dioscurides that they may vouchsafe your ship a
favorable voyage, although it will carry the man who in the future, can
do us more injury at Rome by his bitter hostility, than any other."

"I shall always take the part of which ever of you has justice on his
side."

Publius quitted the room with a proud wave of his hand, and Euergetes, as
soon as the door had closed behind the Roman, sprang from his couch,
shook his clenched fist in angry threat, and cried:

You, you obstinate fellow and your haughty patrician clan may do me
mischief enough by the Tiber; and yet perhaps I may win the game in spite
of you!

"You cross my path in the name of the Roman Senate. If Philometor waits
in the antechambers of consuls and senators we certainly may chance to
meet there, but I shall also try my luck with the people and the
tribunes.

"It is very strange! This head of mine hits upon more good ideas in an
hour than a cool fellow like that has in a year, and yet I am beaten by
him--and if I am honest I can not but confess that it was not his luck
alone, but his shrewdness that gained the victory. He may be off as soon
as he likes with his proud Hera--I can find a dozen Aphrodites in
Alexandria in her place!

"I resemble Hellas and he Rome, such as they are at present. We flutter
in the sunshine, and seize on all that satisfies our intellect or
gratifies our senses: they gaze at the earth, but walk on with a firm
step to seek power and profit. And thus they get ahead of us, and yet--I
would not change with them."



ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

A debtor, says the proverb, is half a prisoner
Old women grow like men, and old men grow like women
They get ahead of us, and yet--I would not change with them



ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS FOR THE SISTERS, COMPLETE:

A subdued tone generally provokes an equally subdued answer
A mere nothing in one man's life, to another may be great
A debtor, says the proverb, is half a prisoner
Air of a professional guide
And what is great--and what is small
Before you serve me up so bitter a meal (the truth)
Behold, the puny Child of Man
Blind tenderness which knows no reason
By nature she is not and by circumstances is compelled to be
Deceit is deceit
Desire to seek and find a power outside us
Evolution and annihilation
Flattery is a key to the heart
Hold pleasure to be the highest good
If you want to catch mice you must waste bacon
Inquisitive eyes are intrusive company
Man is the measure of all things
Man works with all his might for no one but himself
Many a one would rather be feared than remain unheeded
Museum of Alexandria and the Library
Not yet fairly come to the end of yesterday
Nothing permanent but change
Nothing so certain as that nothing is certain
Old women grow like men, and old men grow like women
One hand washes the other
Prefer deeds to words
Priests that they should instruct the people to be obedient
The altar where truth is mocked at
They get ahead of us, and yet--I would not change with them
Virtues are punished in this world
What are we all but puny children?
Who can be freer than he who needs nothing
Who only puts on his armor when he is threatened




JOSHUA, Complete

By Georg Ebers

Translated from the German by Mary J. Safford




PREFACE.

Last winter I resolved to complete this book, and while giving it the
form in which it now goes forth into the world, I was constantly reminded
of the dear friend to whom I intended to dedicate it. Now I am permitted
to offer it only to the manes of Gustav Baur; for a few months ago death
snatched him from us.

Every one who was allowed to be on terms of intimacy with this man feels
his departure from earth as an unspeakably heavy loss, not only because
his sunny, cheerful nature and brilliant intellect brightened the souls
of his friends; not only because he poured generously from the
overflowing cornucopia of his rich knowledge precious gifts to those with
whom he stood in intellectual relations, but above all because of the
loving heart which beamed through his clear eyes, and enabled him to
share the joys and sorrows of others, and enter into their thoughts and
feelings.

To my life's end I shall not forget that during the last few years,
himself physically disabled and overburdened by the duties imposed by the
office of professor and counsellor of the Consistory, he so often found
his way to me, a still greater invalid. The hours he then permitted me to
spend in animated conversation with him are among those which, according
to old Horace, whom he know so thoroughly and loved so well, must be
numbered among the 'good ones'. I have done so, and whenever I gratefully
recall them, in my ear rings my friend's question:

"What of the story of the Exodus?"

After I had told him that in the midst of the desert, while following the
traces of the departing Hebrews, the idea had occurred to me of treating
their wanderings in the form of a romance, he expressed his approval in
the eager, enthusiastic manner natural to him. When I finally entered
farther into the details of the sketch outlined on the back of a camel,
he never ceased to encourage me, though he thoroughly understood my
scruples and fully appreciated the difficulties which attended the
fulfilment of my task.

So in a certain degree this book is his, and the inability to offer it to
the living man and hear his acute judgment is one of the griefs which
render it hard to reconcile oneself to the advancing years which in other
respects bring many a joy.

Himself one of the most renowned, acute and learned students and
interpreters of the Bible, he was perfectly familiar with the critical
works the last five years have brought to light in the domain of Old
Testament criticism. He had taken a firm stand against the views of the
younger school, who seek to banish the Exodus of the Jews from the
province of history and represent it as a later production of the
myth-making popular mind; a theory we both believed untenable. One of his
remarks on this subject has lingered in my memory and ran nearly as
follows:

"If the events recorded in the Second Book of Moses--which I believe are
true--really never occurred, then nowhere and at no period has a
historical event of equally momentous result taken place. For thousands
of years the story of the Exodus has lived in the minds of numberless
people as something actual, and it still retains its vitality. Therefore
it belongs to history no less certainty than the French Revolution and
its consequences."

Notwithstanding such encouragement, for a long series of years I lacked
courage to finish the story of the Exodus until last winter an unexpected
appeal from abroad induced me to resume it. After this I worked
uninterruptedly with fresh zeal and I may say renewed pleasure at the
perilous yet fascinating task until its completion.

The locality of the romance, the scenery as we say of the drama, I have
copied as faithfully as possible from the landscapes I beheld in Goshen
and on the Sinai peninsula. It will agree with the conception of many of
the readers of "Joshua."

The case will be different with those portions of the story which I have
interwoven upon the ground of ancient Egyptian records. They will
surprise the laymen; for few have probably asked themselves how the
events related in the Bible from the standpoint of the Jews affected the
Egyptians, and what political conditions existed in the realm of Pharaoh
when the Hebrews left it. I have endeavored to represent these relations
with the utmost fidelity to the testimony of the monuments. For the
description of the Hebrews, which is mentioned in the Scriptures, the
Bible itself offers the best authority. The character of the "Pharaoh of
the Exodus" I also copied from the Biblical narrative, and the portraits
of the weak King Menephtah, which have been preserved, harmonize
admirably with it. What we have learned of later times induced me to
weave into the romance the conspiracy of Siptah, the accession to the
throne of Seti II., and the person of the Syrian Aarsu who, according to
the London Papyrus Harris I., after Siptah had become king, seized the
government.

The Naville excavations have fixed the location of Pithom-Succoth beyond
question, and have also brought to light the fortified store-house of
Pithom (Succoth) mentioned in the Bible; and as the scripture says the
Hebrews rested in this place and thence moved farther on, it must be
supposed that they overpowered the garrison of the strong building and
seized the contents of the spacious granaries, which are in existence at
the present day.

In my "Egypt and the Books of Moses" which appeared in 1868, I stated
that the Biblical Etham was the same as the Egyptian Chetam, that is, the
line of fortresses which protected the isthmus of Suez from the attacks
of the nations of the East, and my statement has long since found
universal acceptance. Through it, the turning back of the Hebrews before
Etham is intelligible.

The mount where the laws were given I believe was the majestic Serbal,
not the Sinai of the monks; the reasons for which I explained fully in my
work "Through Goshen to Sinai." I have also--in the same
volume--attempted to show that the halting-place of the tribes called in
the Bible "Dophkah" was the deserted mines of the modern Wadi Maghara.

By the aid of the mental and external experiences of the characters,
whose acts have in part been freely guided by the author's imagination,
he has endeavored to bring nearer to the sympathizing reader the human
side of the mighty destiny of the nation which it was incumbent on him to
describe. If he has succeeded in doing so, without belittling the
magnificent Biblical narrative, he has accomplished his desire; if he has
failed, he must content himself with the remembrance of the pleasure and
mental exaltation he experienced during the creation of this work.

Tutzing on the Starnberger See,
September 20th, 1889.
GEORG EBERS.
JOSHUA.




CHAPTER I.

"Go down, grandfather: I will watch."

But the old man to whom the entreaty was addressed shook his shaven head.

"Yet you can get no rest here. . . .

"And the stars? And the tumult below? Who can think of rest in hours like
these? Throw my cloak around me! Rest--on such a night of horror!"

"You are shivering. And how your hand and the instrument are shaking."

"Then support my arm."

The youth dutifully obeyed the request; but in a short time he exclaimed:
"Vain, all is vain; star after star is shrouded by the murky clouds.
Alas, hear the wailing from the city. Ah, it rises from our own house
too. I am so anxious, grandfather, feel how my head burns! Come down,
perhaps they need help."

"Their fate is in the hands of the gods--my place is here.

"But there--there! Look northward across the lake. No, farther to the
west. They are coming from the city of the dead."

"Oh, grandfather! Father--there!" cried the youth, a grandson of the
astrologer of Amon-Ra, to whom he was lending his aid. They were standing
in the observatory of the temple of this god in Tanis, the Pharaoh's
capital in the north of the land of Goshen. He moved away, depriving the
old man of the support of his shoulder, as he continued: "There, there!
Is the sea sweeping over the land? Have the clouds dropped on the earth
to heave to and fro? Oh, grandfather, look yonder! May the Immortals have
pity on us! The under-world is yawning, and the giant serpent Apep has
come forth from the realm of the dead. It is moving past the temple. I
see, I hear it. The great Hebrew's menace is approaching fulfilment. Our
race will be effaced from the earth. The serpent! Its head is turned
toward the southeast. It will devour the sun when it rises in the
morning."

The old man's eyes followed the youth's finger, and he, too, perceived a
huge, dark mass, whose outlines blended with the dusky night, come
surging through the gloom; he, too, heard, with a thrill of terror, the
monster's loud roar.

Both stood straining their eyes and ears to pierce the darkness; but
instead of gazing upward the star-reader's eye was bent upon the city,
the distant sea, and the level plain. Deep silence, yet no peace reigned
above them: the high wind now piled the dark clouds into shapeless
masses, anon severed that grey veil and drove the torn fragments far
asunder. The moon was invisible to mortal eyes, but the clouds were
toying with the bright Southern stars, sometimes hiding them, sometimes
affording a free course for their beams. Sky and earth alike showed a
constant interchange of pallid light and intense darkness. Sometimes the
sheen of the heavenly bodies flashed brightly from sea and bay, the
smooth granite surfaces of the obelisks in the precincts of the temple,
and the gilded copper roof of the airy royal palace, anon sea and river,
the sails in the harbor, the sanctuaries, the streets of the city, and
the palm-grown plain which surrounded it vanished in gloom. Eye and ear
failed to retain the impression of the objects they sought to discern;
for sometimes the silence was so profound that all life, far and near,
seemed hushed and dead, then a shrill shriek of anguish pierced the
silence of the night, followed at longer or shorter intervals by the loud
roar the youthful priest had mistaken for the voice of the serpent of the
nether-world, and to which grandfather and grandson listened with
increasing suspense.

The dark shape, whose incessant motion could be clearly perceived
whenever the starlight broke through the clouds, appeared first near the
city of the dead and the strangers' quarter. Both the youth and the old
man had been seized with terror, but the latter was the first to regain
his self-control, and his keen eye, trained to watch the stars, speedily
discovered that it was not a single giant form emerging from the city of
the dead upon the plain, but a multitude of moving shapes that seemed to
be swaying hither and thither over the meadow lands. The bellowing and
bleating, too, did not proceed from one special place, but came now
nearer and now farther away. Sometimes it seemed to issue from the bowels
of the earth, and at others to float from some airy height.

Fresh horror seized upon the old man. Grasping his grandson's right hand
in his, he pointed with his left to the necropolis, exclaiming in
tremulous tones: "The dead are too great a multitude. The under-world is
overflowing, as the river does when its bed is not wide enough for the
waters from the south. How they swarm and surge and roll onward! How they
scatter and sway to and fro. They are the souls of the thousands whom
grim death has snatched away, laden with the curse of the Hebrew,
unburied, unshielded from corruption, to descend the rounds of the ladder
leading to the eternal world."

"Yes, yes, those are their wandering ghosts," shrieked the youth in
absolute faith, snatching his hand from the grey-beard's grasp and
striking his burning brow, exclaiming, almost incapable of speech in his
horror: "Ay, those are the souls of the damned. The wind has swept them
into the sea, whose waters cast them forth again upon the land, but the
sacred earth spurns them and flings them into the air. The pure ether of
Shu hurls them back to the ground and now--oh look, listen--they are
seeking the way to the wilderness."

"To the fire!" cried the old astrologer. "Purify them, ye flames; cleanse
them, water."

The youth joined his grandfather's form of exorcism, and while still
chanting together, the trap-door leading to this observatory on the top
of the highest gate of the temple was opened, and a priest of inferior
rank called: "Cease thy toil. Who cares to question the stars when the
light of life is departing from all the denizens of earth!"

The old man listened silently till the priest, in faltering accents,
added that the astrologer's wife had sent him, then he stammered:

"Hora? Has my son, too, been stricken?"

The messenger bent his head, and the two listeners wept bitterly, for the
astrologer had lost his first-born son and the youth a beloved father.

But as the lad, shivering with the chill of fever, sank ill and powerless
on the old man's breast, the latter hastily released himself from his
embrace and hurried to the trap-door. Though the priest had announced
himself to be the herald of death, a father's heart needs more than the
mere words of another ere resigning all hope of the life of his child.

Down the stone stairs, through the lofty halls and wide courts of the
temple he hurried, closely followed by the youth, though his trembling
limbs could scarcely support his fevered body. The blow that had fallen
upon his own little circle had made the old man forget the awful vision
which perchance menaced the whole universe with destruction; but his
grandson could not banish the sight and, when he had passed the
fore-court and was approaching the outermost pylons his imagination,
under the tension of anxiety and grief, made the shadows of the obelisks
appear to be dancing, while the two stone statues of King Rameses, on the
corner pillars of the lofty gate, beat time with the crook they held in
their hands.

Then the fever struck the youth to the ground. His face was distorted by
the convulsions which tossed his limbs to and fro, and the old man,
failing on his knees, strove to protect the beautiful head, covered with
clustering curls, from striking the stone flags, moaning under his breath
"Now fate has overtaken him too."

Then calming himself, he shouted again and again for help, but in vain.
At last, as he lowered his tones to seek comfort in prayer, he heard the
sound of voices in the avenue of sphinxes beyond the pylons, and fresh
hope animated his heart.

Who was coming at so late an hour?

Loud wails of grief blended with the songs of the priests, the clinking
and tinkling of the metal sistrums, shaken by the holy women in the
service of the god, and the measured tread of men praying as they marched
in the procession which was approaching the temple.

Faithful to the habits of a long life, the astrologer raised his eyes
and, after a glance at the double row of granite pillars, the colossal
statues and obelisks in the fore-court, fixed them on the starlit skies.
Even amid his grief a bitter smile hovered around his sunken lips;
to-night the gods themselves were deprived of the honors which were their
due.

For on this, the first night after the new moon in the month of
Pharmuthi, the sanctuary in bygone years was always adorned with flowers.
As soon as the darkness of this moonless night passed away, the high
festival of the spring equinox and the harvest celebration would begin.

A grand procession in honor of the great goddess Neith, of Rennut, who
bestows the blessings of the fields, and of Horus at whose sign the seeds
begin to germinate, passed, in accordance with the rules prescribed by
the Book of the Divine Birth of the Sun, through the city to the river
and harbor; but to-day the silence of death reigned throughout the
sanctuary, whose courts at this hour were usually thronged with men,
women, and children, bringing offerings to lay on the very spot where
death's finger had now touched his grandson's heart.

A flood of light streamed into the vast space, hitherto but dimly
illumined by a few lamps. Could the throng be so frenzied as to imagine
that the joyous festival might be celebrated, spite of the unspeakable
horrors of the night.

Yet, the evening before, the council of priests had resolved that, on
account of the rage of the merciless pestilence, the temple should not be
adorned nor the procession be marshalled. In the afternoon many whose
houses had been visited by the plague had remained absent, and now while
he, the astrologer, had been watching the course of the stars, the pest
had made its way into this sanctuary, else why had it been forsaken by
the watchers and the other astrologers who had entered with him at
sunset, and whose duty it was to watch through the night?

He again turned with tender solicitude to the sufferer, but instantly
started to his feet, for the gates were flung wide open and the light of
torches and lanterns streamed into the court. A swift glance at the sky
told him that it was a little after midnight, yet his fears seemed to
have been true--the priests were crowding into the temples to prepare for
the harvest festival to-morrow.

But he was wrong. When had they ever entered the sanctuary for this
purpose in orderly procession, solemnly chanting hymns? Nor was the train
composed only of servants of the deity. The population had joined them,
for the shrill lamentations of women and wild cries of despair, such as
he had never heard before in all his long life within these sacred walls,
blended in the solemn litany.

Or were his senses playing him false? Was the groaning throng of restless
spirits which his grandson had pointed out to him from the observatory,
pouring into the sanctuary of the gods?

New horror seized upon him; with arms flung upward to bid the specters
avaunt he muttered the exorcism against the wiles of evil spirits. But he
soon let his hands fall again; for among the throng he noted some of his
friends who yesterday, at least, had still walked among living men.
First, the tall form of the second prophet of the god, then the women
consecrated to the service of Amon-Ra, the singers and the holy fathers
and, when he perceived behind the singers, astrologers, and pastophori
his own brother-in-law, whose house had yesterday been spared by the
plague, he summoned fresh courage and spoke to him. But his voice was
smothered by the shouts of the advancing multitude.

The courtyard was now lighted, but each individual was so engrossed by
his own sorrows that no one noticed the old astrologer. Tearing the cloak
from his shivering limbs to make a pillow for the lad's tossing head, he
heard, while tending him with fatherly affection, fierce imprecations on
the Hebrews who had brought this woe on Pharaoh and his people, mingling
with the chants and shouts of the approaching crowd and, recurring again
and again, the name of Prince Rameses, the heir to the throne, while the
tone in which it was uttered, the formulas of lamentation associated with
it, announced the tidings that the eyes of the monarch's first-born son
were closed in death.

The astrologer gazed at his grandson's wan features with increasing
anxiety, and even while the wailing for the prince rose louder and louder
a slight touch of gratification stirred his soul at the thought of the
impartial justice Death metes out alike to the sovereign on his throne
and the beggar by the roadside. He now realized what had brought the
noisy multitude to the temple!

With as much swiftness as his aged limbs would permit, he hastened
forward to meet the mourners; but ere he reached them he saw the
gate-keeper and his wife come out of their house, carrying between them
on a mat the dead body of a boy. The husband held one end, his fragile
little wife the other, and the gigantic warder was forced to stoop low to
keep the rigid form in a horizontal position and not let it slip toward
the woman. Three children, preceded by a little girl carrying a lantern,
closed the mournful procession.

Perhaps no one would have noticed the group, had not the gate-keeper's
little wife shrieked so wildly and piteously that no one could help
hearing her lamentations. The second prophet of Amon, and then his
companions, turned toward them. The procession halted, and as some of the
priests approached the corpse the gate-keeper shouted loudly: "Away, away
from the plague! It has stricken our first-born son."

The wife meantime had snatched the lantern from her little girl's hand
and casting its light full on the dead boy's rigid face, she screamed:

"The god hath suffered it to happen. Ay, he permitted the horror to enter
beneath his own roof. Not his will, but the curse of the stranger rules
us and our lives. Look, this was our first-born son, and the plague has
also stricken two of the temple-servants. One already lies dead in our
room, and there lies Kamus, grandson of the astrologer Rameri. We heard
the old man call, and saw what was happening; but who can prop another's
house when his own is falling? Take heed while there is time; for the
gods have opened their own sanctuaries to the horror. If the whole world
crumbles into ruin, I shall neither marvel nor grieve. My lord priests, I
am only a poor lowly woman, but am I not right when I ask: Do our gods
sleep, or has some one paralyzed them, or what are they doing that they
leave us and our children in the power of the base Hebrew brood?"

"Overthrow them! Down with the foreigners! Death to the sorcerer
Mesu,--[Mesu is the Egyptian name of Moses]--hurl him into the sea." Such
were the imprecations that followed the woman's curse, as an echo follows
a shout, and the aged astrologer's brother-in-law Hornecht, captain of
the archers, whose hot blood seethed in his veins at the sight of the
dying form of his beloved nephew, waved his short sword, crying
frantically: "Let all men who have hearts follow me. Upon them! A life
for a life! Ten Hebrews for each Egyptian whom the sorcerer has slain!"

As a flock rushes into a fire when the ram leads the way, the warrior's
summons fired the throng. Women forced themselves in front of the men,
pressing after him into the gateway, and when the servants of the temple
lingered to await the verdict of the prophet of Amon, the latter drew his
stately figure to its full height, and said calmly: "Let all who wear
priestly garments remain and pray with me. The populace is heaven's
instrument to mete out vengeance. We will remain here to pray for their