How can I? A Hebrew! Were we to admit him among the 'friends' or
'fan-bearers' it would be the highest favor we could bestow! It is no
easy matter in such a case to choose between too great or too small a
recompense."

The farther the royal pair advanced toward the interior of the palace,
the louder rose the wailing voices of the mourning women. Tears once
more filled the eyes of the queen; but Pharaoh continued to ponder over
what office at court he could bestow on Hosea, should his mission prove
successful.

CHAPTER X.

Hosea was forced to hurry in order to overtake the tribes in time; for
the farther they proceeded, the harder it would be to induce Moses and
the leaders of the people to return and accept the treaty.

The events which had befallen him that morning seemed so strange that he
regarded them as a dispensation of the God whom he had found again; he
recollected, too, that the name "Joshua," "he who helps Jehovah," had
been received through Miriam's message. He would gladly bear it; for
though it was no easy matter to resign the name for which he had won
renown, still many of his comrades had done likewise. His new one was
attesting its truth grandly; never had God's help been more manifest to
him than this morning. He had entered Pharaoh's palace expecting to be
imprisoned or delivered over to the executioner, as soon as he insisted
upon following his people, and how speedily the bonds that held him
in the Egyptian army had been sundered. And he had been appointed to
discharge a task which seemed in his eyes so grand, so lofty, that he
was on the point of believing that the God of his fathers had summoned
him to perform it.

He loved Egypt. It was a fair country. Where could his people find a
more delightful home? It was only the circumstances under which they had
lived there which had been intolerable. Happier times were now in
store. The tribes were given the choice between returning to Goshen,
or settling on the lake land west of the Nile, with whose fertility and
ample supply of water he was well acquainted. No one would have a right
to reduce them to bondage, and whoever gave his labor to the service of
the state was to have for overseer no stern and cruel foreigner, but a
man of his own blood.

True, he knew that the Hebrews must remain under subjection to Pharaoh.
But had not Joseph, Ephraim, and his sons, Hosea's ancestors, been
called his subjects and lived content to be numbered among