illed his heart. Had
he been sure that hers was estranged he would have dashed away again,
after having revealed his whole soul to his father, and risked the ride
into unknown regions to seek Moses. To win Miriam and save himself from
perjury were his only desires, and momentous as had been his experiences
and expectations, during the last few days, he answered her questions
hastily, as if they concerned the most trivial things.

He began his narrative in hurried words, and the more frequently she
interrupted him, the more impatiently he bore it, the deeper grew the
lines in his forehead.

Hosea, accompanied by his attendant, had ridden southward several hours
full of gladsome courage and rich in budding hopes, when just before dusk
he saw a vast multitude moving in advance of him. At first he supposed he
had encountered the rear-guard of the migrating Hebrews, and had urged
his horse to greater speed. But, ere he overtook the wayfarers, some
peasants and carters who had abandoned their wains and beasts of burden
rushed past him with loud outcries and shouts of warning which told him
that the people moving in front were lepers. And the fugitives' warning
had been but too well founded; for the first, who turned with the
heart-rending cry: "Unclean! Unclean!" bore the signs of those attacked
by the fell disease, and from their distorted faces covered with white
dust and scurf, lustreless eyes, destitute of brows, gazed at him.

Hosea soon recognized individuals, here Egyptian priests with shaven
heads, yonder Hebrew men and women. With the stern composure of a
soldier, he questioned both and learned that they were marching from the
stone quarries opposite Memphis to their place of isolation on the
eastern shore of the Nile. Several of the Hebrews among them had heard
from their relatives that their people had left Egypt and gone to seek a
land which the Lord had promised them. Many had therefore resolved to put
their trust also in the mighty God of their fathers and follow the
wanderers; the Egyptian priests, bound to the Hebrews by the tie of a
common misfortune, had accompanied them, and fixed upon Succoth as the
goal of their journey, knowing that Moses intended to lead his people
there first. But every one who could have directed them on their way had
fled before them, so they had kept too far northward and wandered near
the fortress of Thabne. Hosea had met them a mile from this spot and
advised them to turn back,