, and
ingratitude! To how many hearts this vow will bring grief and tears! But
what do you men care for the suffering you inflict on others? You have
spoiled all the pleasure of life for my hapless self, and among your own
people dwells a noble father whose only son you are. How often I have
seen the dear old man, the stately figure with sparkling eyes and
snow-white hair. So would you look when you, too, had reached a ripe
old age, as I said to myself, when I met him at the harbor, or in the
fore-court of the palace, directing the shepherds who were driving the
cattle and fleecy sheep to the tax-receiver's table. And now his son's
obstinacy must embitter every day of his old age."

"Now," replied Joshua, "he has a son who is going, laden with chains, to
endure a life of misery, but who can hold his head higher than those who
betrayed him. They, and Pharaoh at their head, have forgotten that he
has shed his heart's blood for them on many a battlefield, and kept
faith with the king at every peril. Menephtah, his vice-roy and chief,
whose life I saved, and many who formerly called me friend, have
abandoned and hurled me and this guiltless boy into wretchedness, but
those who have done this, woman, who have committed this crime, may they
all...."

"Do not curse them!" interrupted Kasana with glowing cheeks.

But Joshua, unheeding her entreaty, exclaimed "Should I be a man, if I
forgot vengeance?"

The young widow clung anxiously to his arm, gasping in beseeching
accents:

"How could you forgive him? Only you must not curse him; for my father
became your foe through love for me. You know his hot blood, which so
easily carries him to extremes, despite his years. He concealed from
me what he regarded as an insult; for he saw many woo me, and I am his
greatest treasure. Pharaoh can pardon rebels more easily than my
father can forgive the man who disdained his jewel. He behaved like one
possessed when he returned. Every word he uttered was an invective. He
could not endure to stay at home and raged just as furiously elsewhere.
But no doubt he would have calmed himself at last, as he so often did
before, had not some one who desired to pour oil on the flames met him
in the fore-court of the palace. I learned all this from Bai's wife;
for she, too, repents what she did to injure you; her husband used every
effort to save you. She, who is as brave as any man, was ready to aid
him and open the door of your prison; for she has