Then darkness veiled Miriam's eyes and she felt as if in a dream Ephraim

sever the ropes around her wrists.

Soon after she regained her full consciousness, and now beheld at her
feet the bleeding form of the conquered chieftain; while on the other
side of the tent the floor was strewed with dead and wounded men, Hebrews
and Amalekites, among them many of her husband's slaves.  But beside the
fallen men stood erect, and exulting in victory, the stalwart warriors of
her people, among them the venerable form of Nun, and Joshua, whose
father was binding up his wounds.

To do this she felt was her duty and hers only, and a deep sense of
shame, a burning grief took possession of her as she remembered how she
had sinned against this man.

She knew not how she who had caused him such deep suffering could atone
for it, how she could repay what she owed him.

Her whole heart was overflowing with longing for one kind word from his
mouth, and she approached him on her knees across the blood-stained
floor; but the lips of the prophetess, usually so eloquent, seemed
paralyzed and could not find the right language till at last from her
burdened breast the cry escaped in loud imploring accents:

"Joshua, oh, Joshua!  I have sinned heavily against you and will atone
for it all my life; but do not disdain my gratitude!  Do not cast it from
you and, if you can, forgive me."

She had been unable to say more; then--never would she forget it--burning
tears had gushed from her eyes and he had raised her from the floor with
irresistible strength, yet as gently as a mother touches her fallen
child, and from his lips mild, gentle words, full of forgiveness, echoed
in her ears.  The very touch of his right hand had assured her that he
was no longer angry.

She still felt the pressure of his hand, and heard his assurance that
from no lips would he more gladly hear the name of Joshua than from hers.

With the war-cry "Jehovah our standard!"  he at last turned his back upon
her; for a long time its clear tones and the enthusiastic shouts of his
soldiers echoed in her ears.

Finally everything around her had lapsed into silence and she only knew
that never had she shed such bitter, burning tears as in this hour.  And
she made two solemn vows in the presence of the God who had summoned her
to be His prophetess.  Meanwhile both the men whom they concerned were
surrounded by the tumult of battle.

One had again led his troops from the rescued camp against the foe; the
other was watching with the leader of the people the surging to and fro
of the ever-increasing fury of the conflict.

Joshua found his people in sore stress.  Here they were yielding, yonder
they were still feebly resisting the onslaught of the sons of the desert;
but Hur gazed with increasing and redoubled anxiety at the progress of
the battle; for in the camp he beheld wife and grandson, and below his
son, in mortal peril.

His paternal heart ached as he saw Uri retreat, then as he pressed
forward again and repelled the foe by a well-directed assault, it
throbbed joyously, and he would gladly have shouted words of praise.

But whose ear would have been sharp enough to distinguish the voice of a
single man amid the clash of arms and war-cries, the shrieks of women,
the wails of the wounded, the discordant grunting of the camels, the
blasts of horns and trumpets mingling below?

Now the foremost band of the Amalekites had forced itself like a wedge
into the rear ranks of the Hebrews.

If the former succeeded in opening a way for those behind and joined the
division which was attacking the camp, the battle was lost, and the
destruction of the people sealed; for a body of Amalekites who had not
mingled in the fray were still stationed at the southern entrance of the
valley, apparently for the purpose of defending the oasis against the foe
in case of need.

A fresh surprise followed.

The sons of the desert had fought their way forward so far that the
missiles of the slingers and bowmen could scarcely reach them.  If these
men were not to be idle, it was needful that they should be summoned to
the battle-field.

Hur had long since shouted to Uri to remember them and use their aid
again; but now the figure of a youth suddenly appeared approaching from
the direction of the camp as nimbly as a mountain goat, by climbing and
leaping from one rock to another.

As soon as he reached the first ones he spoke to them, and made signs to
the next, who passed the message on, and at last they all climbed down
into the valley, scaled the western cliff to the height of several men,
and suddenly vanished as though the rock had swallowed them.

The youth whom the slingers and archers had followed was Ephraim.

A black shadow on the cliff where he had disappeared with the others must
be the opening of a ravine, through which they were doubtless to be
guided to the men who had followed Joshua to the succor of the camp.

Such was the belief, not only of Hur but of Aaron, and the former again
began to doubt Joshua's fitness for the Lord's call; for what benefited
those in the tents weakened the army whose command devolved upon his son
Uri and his associate in office Naashon.  The battle around the camp had
already lasted for hours and Moses had not ceased to pray with hands
uplifted toward heaven, when the Amalekites succeeded in gaining a
considerable vantage.

Then the leader of the Hebrews summoned his strength for a new and more
earnest appeal to the Most High; but the exhausted man's knees tottered
and his wearied arms fell.  But his soul had retained its energy, his
heart the desire not to cease pleading to the Ruler of Battles.

Moses was unwilling to remain inactive during this conflict and his
weapon was prayer.

Like a child who will not cease urging its mother until she grants what
it unselfishly beseeches for its brothers and sisters, he clung imploring
to the Omnipotent One, who had hitherto proved Himself a father to him
and to his people and wonderfully preserved them from the greatest
perils.

But his physical strength was exhausted, so he summoned his companions
who pushed forward a rock on which he seated himself, in order to assail
the heart of the Most High with fresh prayers.

There he sat and though his wearied limbs refused their service, his soul
was obedient and rose with all its fire to the Ruler of the destinies of
men.

But his arms grew more and more paralysed, and at last fell as if
weighted with lead; for years it had become a necessity to him to stretch
them heavenward when he appealed with all his fervor to God on high.

This his companions knew, and they fancied they perceived that whenever
the great leader's hands fell the sons of Amalek gained a fresh
advantage.

Therefore they eagerly supported his arms, one at the right side, the
other at the left, and though the mighty man could no longer lift his
voice in intelligible words, though his giant frame reeled to and fro,
and though more than once it seemed to him as if the stone which
supported him, the valley and the whole earth rocked, still his hands and
eyes remained uplifted.  Not a moment did he cease to call upon the Most
High till suddenly loud shouts of victory, which echoed clearly from the
rocky sides of the valley, rose from the direction of the camp.

Joshua had again appeared on the battle-field and, at the head of his
warriors, rushed with resistless energy upon the foe.

The battle now assumed a new aspect.

The result was still uncertain, and Moses could not cease uplifting his
heart and arms to heaven, but at last, at last this long final struggle
came to an end.  The ranks of the Amalekites wavered and finally,
scattered and disheartened, dashed toward the southern entrance of the
valley whence they had come.

There also cries were heard and from a thousand lips rang the glad shout:
"Jehovah our standard!  Victory!"  and again "Victory!"

Then the man of God removed his arms from the supporting shoulders of his
companions, swung them aloft freely and with renewed and wonderfully
invigorated strength shouted:

"I thank Thee, my God and my Lord!  Jehovah our standard!  The people are
saved!"

Then darkness veiled the eyes of the exhausted man.  But a little later
he again opened them and saw Ephraim, with the slingers and bowmen,
attack the body of Amalekites at the southern entrance of the valley,
while Joshua drove the main army of the sons of the desert toward their
retreating comrades.

Joshua had heard through some captives of a ravine which enabled good
climbers to reach a defile which led to the southern end of the battle-
field; and Ephraim, obedient to his command, had gone with the slingers
and bowmen along this difficult path to assail in the rear the last band
of foemen who were still capable of offering resistance.

Pressed, harassed from two sides, and disheartened, the sons of Amalek
gave up the conflict and now the Hebrews beheld how these sons of the
desert, who had grown up in this mountain region, understood how to use
their feet; for at a sign from their leader they spurred the dromedaries
and flew away like leaves blown by the wind.  Rough mountain heights
which seemed inaccessible to human beings they scaled on their hands and
feet like nimble lizards; many others escaped through the ravine which
the captured slaves had betrayed to Joshua.




CHAPTER XXVIII.

The larger portion of the Amalekites had perished or lay wounded on the
battle-field.  Joshua knew that the other desert tribes, according to
their custom, would abandon their defeated companions and return to their
own homes.

Yet it seemed probable that despair would give the routed warriors
courage not to let their oasis fall into the hands of the Hebrews without
striking a blow.

But Joshua's warriors were too much exhausted for it to be possible to
lead them onward at once.

He himself was bleeding from several slight wounds, and the exertions of
the last few days were making themselves felt even on his hardened frame.

Besides the sun, which when the battle began had just risen, was already
sinking to rest and should it prove necessary to force an entrance into
the oasis it was not advisable to fight in darkness.

What he and still more his brave warriors needed was rest until the grey
dawn of early morning.

He saw around him only glad faces, radiant with proud self-reliance, and
as he commanded the troops to disband, in order to celebrate the victory
in the camp with their relatives, each body that filed slowly and wearily
past him burst into cheers as fresh and resonant as though they had
forgotten the exhaustion which so short a time before had bowed every
head and burdened every foot.

"Hail to Joshua!  Hail to the victor!"  still echoed from the cliffs
after the last band had disappeared from his gaze.  But far more
distinctly the words with which Moses had thanked him rang in his soul.
They were:

"Thou bast proved thyself a true sword of the Most High, strong and
steadfast.  So long as the Lord is thy help and Jehovah is our standard,
we need fear no foes."

He fancied he still felt on his brow and hair the kiss of the mighty man
of God who had clasped him to his breast in the presence of all the
people, and it was no small thing to master the excitement which the
close of this momentous day awakened in him.

A strong desire to regain perfect self-possession ere he again mingled in
the jubilant throng and met his father, who shared every lofty emotion
that stirred his own soul, detained him on the battle-field.

It was a scene where dread and horror reigned; for all save himself who
lingered there were held by death or severe wounds.

The ravens which had followed the wanderers hovered above the corpses and
already ventured to swoop nearer to the richly-spread banquet.  The scent
of blood had lured the beasts of prey from the mountains and dens in the
rocks and their roaring and greedy growling were heard in all directions.

As darkness followed dusk lights began to flit over the blood-soaked
ground.  These were to aid the slaves and those who missed a relative to
distinguish friend from foe, the wounded from the dead; and many a groan
from the breast of some sorely-wounded man mingled with the croaking of
the sable birds, and the howls of the hungry jackals and hyenas, foxes
and panthers.

But Joshua was familiar with the horrors of the battle-field and did not
heed them.

Leaning against a rock, he saw the same stars rise which had shone upon
him before the tent in the camp at Tanis, when in the sorest conflict
with himself he confronted the most difficult decision of his life.

A month had passed since then, yet that brief span of time had witnessed
an unprecedented transformation of his whole inner and outward life.

What had seemed to him grand, lofty, and worthy of the exertion of all
his strength on that night when he sat before the tent where lay the
delirious Ephraim, to-day lay far behind him as idle and worthless.

He no longer cared for the honors, dignities and riches which the will of
the whimsical, weak king of a foreign people could bestow upon him.  What
to him was the well-ordered and disciplined army, among whose leaders be
had numbered himself with such joyous pride?

He could scarcely realize that there had been a time when he aspired to
nothing higher than to command more and still more thousands of
Egyptians, when his heart had swelled at the bestowal of a new title or
glittering badge of honor by those whom he held most unworthy of his
esteem.

From the Egyptians he had expected everything, from his own people
nothing.

That very night before his tent the great mass of the men of his own
blood had been repulsive to him as pitiful slaves languishing in
dishonorable, servile toil.  Even the better classes he had arrogantly
patronized; for they were but shepherds and as such contemptible to the
Egyptians, whose opinions he shared.

His own father was also the owner of herds and, though he held him in
high esteem, it was in spite of his position and only because his whole
character commanded reverence; because the superb old man's fiery vigor
won love from every one, and above all from him, his grateful son.

He had never ceased to gladly acknowledge his kinship to him, but in
other respects he had striven to so bear himself among his brothers-in-
arms that they should forget his origin and regard him in everything as
one of themselves.  His ancestress Asenath, the wife of Joseph, had been
an Egyptian and he had boasted of the fact.

And now,--to-day?

He would have made any one feel the weight of his wrath who reproached
him with being an Egyptian; and what at the last new moon he would only
too willingly have cast aside and concealed, as though it were a
disgrace, made him on the night of the next new moon whose stars were
just beginning to shine, raise his head with joyous pride.

What a lofty emotion it was to feel himself with just complacency the man
he really was!

His life and deeds as an Egyptian chief now seemed like a perpetual lie,
a constant desertion of his ideal.

His truthful nature exulted in the consciousness that the base denial and
concealment of his birth was at an end.

With joyous gratitude he felt that he was one of the people whom the Most
High preferred to all others, that he belonged to a community, whose
humblest members, nay even the children, could raise their hands in
prayer to the God whom the loftiest minds among the Egyptians surrounded
with the barriers of secrecy, because they considered their people too
feeble and dull of intellect to stand before His mighty grandeur and
comprehend it.

And this one sole God, before whom all the whole motley world of Egyptian
divinities sank into insignificance, had chosen him, the son of Nun, from
among the thousands of his race to be the champion and defender of His
chosen people and bestowed on him a name that assured him of His aid.

No man, he thought, had ever had a loftier aim than, obedient to his God
and under His protection, to devote his blood and life to the service of
his own people.  His black eyes sparkled more brightly and joyously as he
thought of it.  His heart seemed too small to contain all the love with
which he wished to make amends to his brothers for his sins against them
in former years.

True, he had lost to another a grand and noble woman whom he had hoped to
make his own; but this did not in the least sadden the joyous enthusiasm
of his soul; for he had long ceased to desire her as his wife, high as
her image still stood in his mind.  He now thought of her with quiet
gratitude only; for he willingly admitted that his new life had begun on
the decisive night when Miriam set him the example of sacrificing
everything, even the dearest object of love, to God and the people.

Miriam's sins against him were effaced from his memory; for he was wont
to forget what he had forgiven.  Now he felt only the grandeur of what he
owed her.  Like a magnificent tree, towering skyward on the frontier of
two hostile countries, she stood between his past and his present life.
Though love was buried, he and Miriam could never cease to walk hand in
hand over the same road toward the same destination.

As he again surveyed the events of the past, he could truly say that
under his leadership pitiful bondmen had speedily become brave warriors
In the field they had been willing and obedient and, after the victory,
behaved with manliness.  And they could not fail to improve with each
fresh success.  To-day it seemed to him not only desirable, but quite
possible, to win in battle at their head a land which they could love and
where, in freedom and prosperity, they could become the able men he
desired to make them.

Amid the horrors of the battle-field in the moonless night joy as bright
as day entered his heart and with the low exclamation: "God and my
people!" and a grateful glance upward to the starry firmament he left the
corpse-strewn valley of death like a conqueror walking over palms and
flowers scattered by a grateful people on the path of victory.




CONCLUSION.

There was an active stir in the camp.

Fires surrounded by groups of happy human beings were burning in front of
the tents, and many a beast was slain, here as a thank-offering, yonder
for the festal supper.

Wherever Joshua appeared glad cheers greeted him; but he did not find his
father, for the latter had accepted an invitation from Hur, so it was
before the prince of Judah's tent that the son embraced the old man, who
was radiant with grateful joy.

Ere Joshua sat down Hur beckoned him aside, ordered a slave who had just
killed a calf to divide it into two pieces and pointing to it, said:

"You have accomplished great deeds for the people and for me, son of Nun,
and my life is too short for the gratitude which is your due from my wife
and myself.  If you can forget the bitter words which clouded our peace
at Dophkah--and you say you have done so--let us in future keep together
like brothers and stand by each other in joy and grief, in need and
peril.  The chief command henceforth belongs to you alone, Joshua, and to
no other, and this is a source of joy to the whole people, above all to
my wife and to me.  So if you share my wish to form a brotherhood, walk
with me, according to the custom of our fathers, between the halves of
this slaughtered animal."

Joshua willingly accepted this invitation, and Miriam was the first to
join in the loud acclamations of approval commenced by the grey-haired
Nun.  She did so with eager zeal; for it was she who had inspired her
husband, before whom she had humbled herself, and whose love she now once
more possessed, with the idea of inviting Joshua to the alliance both had
now concluded.

This had not been difficult for her; for the two vows she had made after
the son of Nun, whom she now gladly called "Joshua," had saved her from
the hand of the foe were already approaching fulfilment, and she felt
that she had resolved upon them in a happy hour.

The new and pleasant sensation of being a woman, like any other woman,
lent her whole nature a gentleness hitherto foreign to it, and this
retained the love of the husband whose full value she had learned to know
during the sad time in which he had shut his heart against her.

In the self-same hour which made Hur and Joshua brothers, a pair of
faithful lovers who had been sundered by sacred duties were once more
united; for while the friends were still feasting before the tent of Hur,
three of the people asked permission to speak to Nun, their master.
These were the old freedwoman, who had remained in Tanis, her
granddaughter Hogla and Assir, the latter's betrothed husband, from whom
the girl had parted to nurse her grandparents.

Hoary Eliab had soon died, and the grandmother and Hogla--the former on
the old man's ass--had followed the Hebrews amid unspeakable
difficulties.

Nun welcomed the faithful couple with joy and gave Hogla to Assir for his
wife.

So this blood-stained day had brought blessings to many, yet it was to
end with a shrill discord.

While the fires in the camp were burning, loud voices were heard, and
during the whole journey not an evening had passed without strife and
sanguinary quarrels.

Wounds and fatal blows had often been given when an offended man revenged
himself on his enemy, or a dishonest one seized the property of others or
denied the obligations he had sworn to fulfil.

In such cases it had been difficult to restore peace and call the
criminals to account; for the refractory refused to recognize any one as
judge.  Whoever felt himself injured banded with others, and strove to
obtain justice by force.

On that festal evening Hur and his guests at first failed to notice the
uproar to which every one was accustomed.  But when close at hand, amid
the fiercest yells, a bright glare of light arose, the chiefs began to
fear for the safety of the camp, and rising to put an end to the
disturbance, they became witnesses of a scene which filled some with
wrath and horror, and the others with grief.

The rapture of victory had intoxicated the multitude.

They longed to express their gratitude to the deity, and in vivid
remembrance of the cruel worship of their home, a band of Phoenicians
among the strangers had kindled a huge fire to their Moloch and were in
the act of hurling into the flames several Amalekite captives as the most
welcome sacrifice to their god.

Close beside it the Israelites had erected on a tall wooden pillar a clay
image of the Egyptian god Seth, which one of his Hebrew worshippers had
brought with him to protect himself and his family.

Directly after their return to the camp Aaron had assembled the people to
sing hymns of praise and offer prayers of thanksgiving; but to many the
necessity of beholding, in the old-fashioned way, an image of the god to
whom they were to uplift their souls, had been so strong that the mere
sight of the clay idol had sufficed to bring them to their knees, and
turn them from the true God.

At the sight of the servants of Moloch, who were already binding the
human victims to hurl them into the flames, Joshua was seized with wrath
and, when the deluded men resisted, he ordered the trumpets to be sounded
and with his young men who blindly obeyed him and were by no means
friendly to the strangers, drove them back, without bloodshed, to their
quarters in the camp.

The impressive warnings of old Nun, Hur, and Naashon diverted the Hebrews
from the crime which ingratitude made doubly culpable.  Yet many of the
latter found it hard to control themselves when the fiery old man
shattered the idol which was dear to them, and had it not been for the
love cherished for him, his son, and his grandson, and the respect due
his snow-white hair, many a hand would doubtless have been raised against
him.

Moses had retired to a solitary place, as was his wont after every great
danger from which the mercy of the Most High brought deliverance, and
tears filled Miriam's eyes as she thought of the grief which the tidings
of such apostasy and ingratitude would cause her noble brother.

A gloomy shadow had also darkened Joshua's joyous confidence.  He lay
sleepless on the mat in his father's tent, reviewing the past.

His warrior-soul was elevated by the thought that a single, omnipotent,
never-erring Power guided the universe and the lives of men and exacted
implicit obedience from the whole creation.  Every glance at nature and
life showed him that everything depended upon One infinitely great and
powerful Being, at whose sign all creatures rose, moved, or sank to rest.

To him, the chief of a little army, his God was the highest and most far-
sighted of rulers, the only One, who was always certain of victory.

What a crime it was to offend such a Lord and repay His benefits with
apostasy!

Yet the people had committed before his eyes this heinous sin and, as he
recalled to mind the events which had compelled him to interpose, the
question arose how they were to be protected from the wrath of the Most
High, how the eyes of the dull multitude could be opened to His wonderful
grandeur, which expanded the heart and the soul.

But he found no answer, saw no expedient, when he reflected upon the
lawlessness and rebellion in the camp, which threatened to be fatal to
his people.

He had succeeded in making his soldiers obedient.  As soon as the
trumpets summoned them, and he himself in full armor appeared at the head
of his men, they yielded their own obstinate wills to his.  Was there
then nothing that could keep them, during peaceful daily life, within the
bounds which in Egypt secured the existence of the meanest and weakest
human beings and protected them from the attacks of those who were bolder
and stronger?

Amid such reflections he remained awake until early morning; when the
stars set, he started up, ordered the trumpets to be sounded, and as on
the preceding days, the new-made troops assembled without opposition and
in full force.

He was soon marching at their head through the narrow, rocky valley, and
after moving silently an hour through the gloom the warriors enjoyed the
refreshing coolness which precedes the young day.

Then the grey light of early dawn glimmered in the east, the sky began to
brighten, and in the glowing splendor of the blushing morning rose
solemnly in giant majesty the form of the sacred mountain.

Close at hand and distinctly visible it towered before the Hebrews with
its brown masses of rock, cliffs, and chasms, while above the seven peaks
of its summit hovered a pair of eagles on whose broad pinions the young
day cast a shimmering golden glow.

A thrill of pious awe made the whole band halt as they had before Alush,
and every man, from the first rank to the last, in mute devotion raised
his hands to pray.

Then they moved on with hearts uplifted, and one shouted joyously to
another as some pretty dark birds flew twittering toward them, a sign of
the neighborhood of fresh water.

They had scarcely marched half an hour longer when they beheld the
bluish-green foliage of tamarisk bushes and the towering palm-trees; at
last, the most welcome of all sounds in the wilderness fell on their
listening ears--the ripple of flowing water.


This cheered their hearts, and the majestic spectacle of Mount Sinai,
whose heaven-touching summit was now concealed by a veil of blue mist,
filled with devout amazement the souls of the men who had grown up on the
flat plains of Goshen.

[The mountain known at the present day as Serbal, not the Sinai of
the monks which in our opinion was first declared in the reign of
Justinian to be the mount whence the laws were given.  The detailed
reasons for our opinion that Serbal is the Sinai of the Scriptures,
which Lepsius expressed before its and others share with us may be
found in our works: "Durch Gosen zum Sinai, aus dem Wanderbuch and
der Bibliothek."  2 Aufl.  Leipzig.  1882.  Wilh. Engelmann.]

They pressed cautiously forward; for the remainder of the defeated
Amalekites might be lying in ambush.  But no foe was seen or heard, and
the Hebrews found some tokens of the thirst for vengeance of the sons of
the wilderness in their ruined houses, the superb palm-trees felled, and
little gardens destroyed.  It was necessary now to remove from the road
the slender trunks with their huge leafy crowns, that they might not
impede the progress of the people; and, when this work was done, Joshua
ascended through a ravine which led to the brook in the valley, up to the
first terrace of the mountain, that he might gaze around him far and near
for a view of the enemy.

The steep pathway led past masses of red granite, intersected by veins of
greenish diorite, until he reached a level plateau high above the oasis,
where, beside a clear spring, green bushes and delicate mountain flowers
adorned the barren wilderness.

Here he intended to rest and, as he gazed around him, he perceived in the
shadow of an overhanging cliff a man's tall figure.

It was Moses.

The flight of his thoughts had rapt him so far away from the present and
his surroundings, that he did not perceive Joshua's approach, and the
latter was restrained by respectful awe from approaching the man of God.

He waited patiently till the latter raised his bearded face and greeted
him with friendly dignity.

Then they gazed together at the oasis and the desolate stony valleys of
the mountain region at their feet.  The emerald waters of a small portion
of the Red Sea, which washed the western slope of the mountain, also
glittered beneath them.

Meanwhile they talked of the people and the greatness and omnipotence of
the God who had so wonderfully guided them, and as they looked northward,
they beheld the endlessly long stream of Hebrews, which, following the
curves of the rocky valley, was surging slowly toward the oasis.

Then Joshua opened his heart to the man of God and told him the questions
he had asked himself during the past sleepless night, and to which he had
found no answer.  The latter listened quietly, and in deep, faltering
tones answered in broken sentences:

"The lawlessness in the camp--ay, it is ruining the people!  But the Lord
placed the power to destroy it in our hands.  Woe betide him who resists.
They must feel this power, which is as sublime as yonder mountain, as
immovable as its solid rock."

Then Moses' wrathful words ceased.

After both had gazed silently into vacancy a long time, Joshua broke the
silence by asking:

"And what is the name of this power?"

Loudly and firmly from the bearded lips of the man of God rang the words;

"THE LAW!"

He pointed with his staff to the summit of the mountain.

Then, waving his hand to his companion, he left him.  Joshua completed
his search for the foe and saw on the yellow sands of the valley dark
figures moving to and fro.

They were the remnants of the defeated Amalekite bands seeking new
abodes.

He watched them a short time and, after convincing himself that they were
quitting the oasis, he thoughtfully returned to the valley.

"The law!"  he repeated again and again.

Ay, that was what the wandering tribes lacked.  It was doubtless reserved
for its severity to transform the hordes which had escaped bondage into a
people worthy of the God who preferred them above the other nations of
the earth.

Here the chief's reflections were interrupted; for human voices, the
lowing and bleating of herds, the barking of dogs, and the heavy blows of
hammers rose to his ears from the oasis.

They were pitching the tents, a work of peace, for which no one needed