speedily extended to the inmost
depths of the mines.

Wild exultation filled the galleries which were wont to witness only
sorrowful moans and burning tears; yet loud cries for help, piteous
wailings, groans, and the death-rattle reached Joshua's ear; for a
hot-blooded man had rushed upon the overseer most hated and felled him
with his pick-axe. His example quickly inflamed the others' thirst for
vengeance and, ere it could be prevented, the same fate overtook the
other officials. But they had defended themselves and the corpse of many
a prisoner strewed the ground beside their tormentors.

Obeying Joshua's call, the liberated multitude at last emerged into the
light of day. Savage and fierce were the outcries which blended in
sinister discord with the rattling of the chains they dragged after them.
Even the most fearless among the Hebrews shrank in horror as they beheld
the throng of hapless sufferers in the full radiance of the sunlight; for
the dazzled, reddened eyes of the unfortunate sufferers,--many of whom
had formerly enjoyed in their own homes or at the king's court every
earthly blessing; who had been tender mothers and fathers, rejoiced in
doing good, and shared all the blessings of the civilization of a richly
gifted people,--these dazzled eyes which at first glittered through tears
caused by the swift transition from the darkness of the mines to the
glare of the noon-day sun, soon sparkled as fiercely and greedily as
those of starving owls.

At first, overwhelmed by the singular change in their destiny, they
struggled for composure and did not resist the Hebrews, who, at Joshua's
signal, began to file the fetters from their ankles; but when they
perceived the disarmed soldiers and overseers who, guarded by Ephraim and
his companions, were ranged at the base of a cliff, a strange excitement
overpowered them. Amid shrieks and yells which no name can designate, no
words describe, they broke from those who were trying to remove their
fetters and, though no glance or word had been exchanged between them,
obeyed the same terrible impulse, and unheeding the chains that burdened
them, rushed upon the defenceless Egyptians. Before the Hebrews could
prevent it, each threw himself upon the one who had inflicted the worst
suffering upon him; and here might be seen an emaciated man clutching the
throat of his stronger foe, yonder a band of nude women horribly
disfigured by want and neglect, rush upon the man who had m