ore and more
anxious and troubled mien. When he at last spoke of making the people
happy as her husband, she withdrew her hand, gazed timidly at his manly
features, glowing with joyful excitement, and then as if striving to
maintain her calmness, fixed her eyes upon the ground.

Without suspecting what was passing in her mind, Hosea drew nearer. He
supposed that her tongue was paralyzed by maidenly shame at the first
token of favor she had bestowed upon a man. But when at his last words,
designating himself as the true messenger of God, she shook her head
disapprovingly, he burst forth again, almost incapable of self-control
in his sore disappointment:

"So you believe that the Lord has protected me by a miracle from the
wrath of the mightiest sovereign, and permitted me to obtain from his
powerful hand favors for my people, such as the stronger never grant to
the weaker, simply to trifle with the joyous confidence of a man whom he
Himself summoned to serve Him."

Miriam, struggling to force back her tears, answered in a hollow tone:
"The stronger to the weaker! If that is your opinion, you compel me to
ask, in the words of your own father: 'Who is the more powerful,
the Lord our God or the weakling on the throne, whose first-born son
withered like grass at a sign from the Most High. Oh, Hosea! Hosea!'"

"Joshua!" he interrupted fiercely. "Do you grudge me even the name your
God bestowed? I relied upon His help when I entered the palace of the
mighty king. I sought under God's guidance rescue and salvation for the
people, and I found them. But you, you...."

"Your father and Moses, nay, all the believing heads of the tribes,
see no salvation for us among the Egyptians," she answered, panting for
breath. "What they promise the Hebrews will be their ruin. The grass
sowed by us withers where their feet touch it! And you, whose honest
heart they deceive, are the whistler whom the bird-catcher uses to decoy
his feathered victims into the snare. They put the hammer into your hand
to rivet more firmly than before the chains which, with God's aid, we
have sundered. Before my mind's eye I perceive...."

"Too much!" replied the warrior, grinding his teeth with rage. "Hate
dims your clear intellect. If the bird-catcher really--what was your
comparison--if the bird-catcher really made me his whistler, deceived
and misled me, he might learn from you, ay, from you! Encouraged by
you, I relied upon your love and faith. From you