h men worship
under the name of gods."

The Egyptian uttered an exclamation of surprise.

"Whence did you obtain such a belief as this?" he asked.

Amuba was silent.

"It must have been from Ameres himself," the noble went on, seeing
that the lad was reluctant to answer. "I knew him well, and also that
he carried to an extreme the knowledge he had gained. But how came it
that he should speak of such matters to you--a slave?"

"My master was good enough to make me a companion and friend to his
son rather than a servant to him," Amuba replied, "partly because he
thought that I should lead him to a more active life, which he needed,
for he was overstudious; partly because I had high rank in my own
country, of which my father was the king. But he never spoke of this
matter until after the accident of the cat. My friend Chebron was
utterly cast down at the sin that he thought he had committed, and
would at once have denounced himself, preferring death to living with
such a burden upon his mind. Then his father, seeing that his whole
life would be imbittered, and that he would probably be forced to fly
from Egypt and dwell in some other land, told him the belief which he
himself held. I believed this all the more readily because I had heard
much the same from an Israelite maiden who served my master's
daughter."

Again Amuba's listener uttered an exclamation of surprise.

"I knew not," he said, after a pause, "that there was an Israelite who
still adhered to the religion of their ancestors."

"The maiden told me that for the most part they had taken to the
worship of the Egyptians, and indeed, so far as she knew, she was the
last who clung to the old belief. She had been brought up by a
great-grandfather who had been driven from his people and forced to
dwell apart because he reproached them for having forsaken their God,
and he instructed her in the faith he held, which was that there was
but one God over all the earth."

"Do you know who I am?" the noble asked abruptly.

"I know that you are one of the princes of the land, my lord, for I
have seen you in a procession following closely behind the king with
his sons and other princes."

"I also am an Israelite. It seems strange to you, doubtless," he went
on, as Amuba started in astonishment at hearing a prince of Egypt
declare himself as belonging to the hated race. "Many years ago, at
the time I was an infant, there was a great persecution of the
Israelites,