noted many a gesture of assent among the listeners, and saw
the whole great enterprise imperilled, the enterprise for whose success
he had himself risked and sacrificed more than any other man.

This was too much for the active old man who, with flashing eyes and hand
upraised in menace, burst forth "What do you mean? Are we to pick up the
ends of the rope the Lord our God has severed? Do you counsel us to
fasten it anew, with a looser knot, which will hold as long as the whim
of a vacillating weakling who has broken his promises to us and to Moses
a score of times? Do you wish to lead us back to the cage whence the
Almighty released us by a miracle? Are we to treat the Lord our God like
a bad debtor and prefer the spurious gold ring we are offered to the
royal treasures He promises? Oh, messenger from the Egyptians--I
would . . . ."

Here the hot-blooded grey-beard raised his clenched fist in menace but,
ere he had uttered the threat that hovered on his lips, he let his arm
fall; for Gabriel, the oldest member of the tribe of Zebulun, shouted:

"Remember your own son, who is to-day among the foes of his people."

The words struck home; yet they only dimmed the fiery old man's glad
self-reliance a moment and, amid the voices uttering disapproval of the
malicious Gabriel and the few who upheld the Zebulunite, he cried:

"And because I am perhaps in danger of losing, not only the ten thousand
acres of land I flung behind me, but a noble son, it is my right to speak
here."

His broad chest heaved with his labored breathing and his eyes, shadowed
by thick white brows, rested with a milder expression on the son of Hur,
whose face had paled at his vehement words, as he continued:

"Uri is a good and dutiful son to his father and has also been obliged to
make great sacrifices in leaving the place where his work was so much
praised and his own house in Memphis. The blessing of the Most High will
not fail him. But for the very reason that he has hitherto obeyed the
command, he must not now seek to destroy what we have commenced under the
guidance of the Most High. To you, Gabriel, I answer that my son probably
will not tarry among our foes, but obedient to my summons, will join us,
like Uri, the first-born of Hur. What still detains him is doubtless some
important matter of which Hosea will have as little cause to be ashamed
as I, his father. I know and trust him, and whoever expects aught else
will sooner or later, by my