iors, a rear-guard of the older ones, and send out chosen
bands of the former on reconnoitering expeditions was readily adopted.

He had a right to say that he was familiar with everything pertaining to
the guidance and defence of a large army. God Himself had entrusted him
with the chief command, and Moses, by sending him the monition to
be strong and steadfast, had confirmed the office. Hur, too, who now
possessed it, was willing to transfer it to him, and this man's promise
was inviolable, though he had omitted to repeat it in the presence of
the elders. Joshua was treated as if he held the chief command, and he
himself felt his own authority supreme.

After the assembly dispersed, Hur had invited him, spite of the late
hour, to go to his tent and the warrior accompanied him, for he desired
to talk with Miriam. He would show her, in her husband's presence, that
he had found the path which she had so zealously pointed out to him.

In the presence of another's wife the tender emotions of a Hebrew were
silent. Hur's consort must be made aware that he, Joshua, no longer
cherished any love for her. Even in his solitary hours, he had wholly
ceased to think of her.

He confessed that she was a noble, a majestic woman, but the very memory
of this grandeur now sent a chill through his veins.

Her actions, too, appeared in a new light. Nay, when at the summit of
the pass she had greeted him with a cold smile, he felt convinced that
they were utterly estranged from one another, and this feeling grew
stronger and stronger beside the blazing fire in the stately tent of the
chief, where they met a second time.

The rescued Reuben and his wife Milcah had deserted Miriam long before
and, during her lonely waiting, many thoughts had passed through her
mind which she meant to impress upon the man to whom she had granted so
much that its memory now weighed on her heart like a crime.

We are most ready to be angry with those to whom we have been unjust,
and this woman regarded the gift of her love as something so great, so
precious, that it behooved even the man whom she had rejected never to
cease to remember it with gratitude. But Joshua had boasted that he no
longer desired, even were she offered to him, the woman whom he had once
so fervently loved and clasped in his embrace. Nay, he had confirmed
this assertion by leisurely waiting, without seeking her.

At last he came, and in company with her husband, who was ready to cede