the son of Aaron, and the distinguished heads of the tribe of Judah, Hur
and Naashon, had addressed the multitude, as Aaron and Nun had done in
the city of Rameses. But Miriam, the virgin, the sister of Moses, had
gone from house to house, everywhere awakening the fire of enthusiasm in
men's hearts, and telling the women that the morrow's sun would usher
in for them and their children a new day of happiness, prosperity, and
freedom.

Few had been deaf to the appeals of the prophetess; there was an air of
majesty, which compelled obedience, in the bearing of this maiden, whose
large black eyes, surmounted by heavy dark eye-brows, which met in the
middle, pierced the hearts of those on whom her gaze was bent and seemed
to threaten the rebellious with their gloomy radiance.

The members of every household went to rest after the festival with
hearts uplifted and full of hope. But what a change had passed over them
during the second day, the night that followed it, and the next morning!
It seemed as though the desert wind had buried all their courage and
confidence in the dust it swept before it. The dread of going forth to
face an unknown future had stolen into every heart, and many a man who
had waved his staff full of trust and joyful enterprise was now held, as
if with clamps and fetters, to his well-tilled garden, the home of
his ancestors, and the harvest in the fields, which had just been half
gathered.

The Egyptian garrison in the fortified store-house had not failed to
notice that the Hebrews were under some special excitement, but they
supposed it due to the harvest festival. The commander of the garrison
had learned that Moses desired to lead his people into the wilderness to
offer sacrifices to their God, and had asked for a reinforcement. But he
knew nothing more; for until the morning when the desert wind blew, no
Hebrew had disclosed the plans of his kindred. But the more sorely the
heat of the day oppressed them, the greater became the dread of the
faint-hearted of the pilgrimage through the hot, dusty, waterless
desert. The terrible day had given them a foretaste of what was
impending and when, toward noon, the dust grew thicker, the air more
and more oppressive, a Hebrew trader, from whom the Egyptian soldiers
purchased goods, stole into the store-house to ask the commander to
prevent his people from rushing to their doom.

Even among the leaders the voices of malcontents had grown loud. Asarja
and Mic