JOSHUA. 
 
 A BIBLICAL PICTURE. 
 
 BY GEOEGE EBERS. 
 
 AND 
 
 THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 
 
 A ROMANCE. 
 
 BY GEORGE EBERS. 
 
 -♦♦*- 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY, 
 
 L43 to 150 Worth Street. 
 
DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY 
 OF 
 
 GUSTAV BAUR. 
 
 G. 
 
I 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 When in the course of last winter I made up my mind to 
 finish this book and occupied myself in giving it the form 
 in which it is now offered to the public, I constantly bore 
 in mind the dear friend to whom I always intended to 
 dedicate it. Now, it is my sad privilege to inscribe it only 
 to the Manes of Gustav Baur, for death snatched him away 
 only a few months since. 
 
 Every one who had ever come into close communion with 
 him felt his death as an unspeakably bitter loss, not only 
 because his bright and cheerful nature and happy wit 
 brought light to the soul of his friends ; not only because 
 he was ready from the brimming stores of his abundant 
 knowledge to give freely to all who came into intellectual 
 contact with him ; but, above all, because the warm heart 
 which beamed through his eyes, made him feel the joy and 
 sorrow of others as his own, and throw himself into their 
 thoughts and feelings. Till my latest day I can never 
 forget how, in these latter years, infirm in body and over- 
 whelmed with the work of a professor and a member of the 
 Consistory, he would still constantly find his way to see 
 me, his yet more crippled friend. The hours it was then 
 my good fortune to spend in eager conversation with him, 
 were such as we " write down good," to quote old Horace, 
 whom he knew and loved so well. I have done so ; as I 
 gratefully recall them my friend's voice sounds in my ear 
 asking : "And what about the tale of the Exodus ?" 
 When I first told him that it was in the midst of the desert, 
 while following up the traces of the fugitive Hebrews, that 
 the idea had occurred to me of treating their wanderings 
 in a work of imagination, he expressed his approval with the 
 captivating eagerness which was characteristic of the man. 
 When, then, I developed the idea which I had first sketched 
 riding on a camel, he never was weary of encouraging me, 
 although he quite understood my hesitation and fully re- 
 cognized the difficulties which surrounded the execution of 
 my task. 
 
 This book, then, in a certain sense, is his, and the fact 
 that it can no longer be offered to him living, can never 
 
 Si791^04 
 
ii PREF. 1 < 7\ 
 
 be the subject of his subtle judgment, is one of the sorrows 
 which make it hard to accept with a good grace the ad- 
 vancing years which otherwise have brought so much that 
 is sweet. 
 
 He, who was one of the most famous, clear-sighted and 
 learned students of the Jiible and its exegesis of our day, 
 was familiar with all the critical labours which have been 
 published within the last few years in the field of Old 
 Testament criticism. He took up a determined attitude 
 against the views of a younger school who endeavor to ex- 
 punge the Exodus of the Israelites from the page of 
 history, and regard it as a later outcome of the myth-form- 
 ing spirit of the people ; a theory which he, like myself, 
 regarded as untenable. One of his sentences on this ques- 
 tion, dwells in my memory, to this effect : " If the events 
 recorded in the Second Book of Moses really never oc- 
 curred -a hypothesis I entirely reject — then no historical 
 event entailing equally important results need have hap- 
 pened anywhere or at any time. The story of the Exodus 
 has, for thousands of years, survived in the minds of num- 
 berless human beings as a real event, and has influenced 
 them as such. Hence it is no less certainly a part of his- 
 tory than the French Revolution and its results." 
 
 But in spite of such encouragement, for many years I 
 lacked courage to bring my tale of the Exodus to a con- 
 clusion, till, last winter, an unexpected request from abroad 
 prompted me to take it up again. I then carried it through 
 without interruption and with fresh spirit, and I may say 
 with rejuvenated delight in the perilous and yet fascinat- 
 ing theme. 
 
 The locality of the narrative, the scenery in which it 
 moves, I have described as exactly as possible from that 
 which I saw in Goshen and the Sinaitic peninsula, and it 
 will answer to the preconceptions of many a reader of 
 " Joshua." With regard to those parts of the story which I 
 have introduced on the ground of ancient Egyptian lore it 
 will be ditterent. They will surprise the novice, for few, per- 
 haps, have ever reflected as to how the events related in 
 the Bible from the Jewish point of view, may have effected 
 the Egyptians ; or what the political condition of the land 
 of the Pharaohs may have been when they bid the Israelites 
 depart. I have endeavored to depict these things as truly 
 
 as possible from the monumental records. For the portraits 
 
PREFACE. Hi 
 
 of the Hebrews mentioned in Scripture the Bible is the 
 best authority, and the character of the Pharaoh of the 
 Exodus is also painted from the Bible narrative ; it agrees 
 very remarkably with the remaining pictures of the weak 
 King Menephtah. From the history of a somewhat later 
 period I have borrowed and introduced the conspiracy of 
 Siptah ; the accession of Seti II. and the person of Aarsu 
 the Assyrian, who, according to the Harris Papyrus No. I. 
 (London) seized the reins of government after Siptah had 
 been proclaimed king. 
 
 Monsieur Naville's excavations have left no doubts as to 
 the position of Pithom, or Succoth. They brought to light 
 the fortified Storehouse of Pithom mentioned in the Bible ; 
 and as the narrative tells us that the Israelites rested 
 there, and then set forth again, it must be assumed that 
 they conquered the garrison of the building and took pos- 
 session of the contents of the vast granaries which may 
 be seen at this day. 
 
 In my work, published so long ago as 1868,* I already 
 pointed out that the Etham of the Bible was identical with 
 the Egyptian Khetam, that is to say, the line of fortresses 
 which protected the Isthmus of Suez from the attacks of 
 the peoples of the East, and my opinion has long since 
 been generally accepted. It fully explains the return of 
 the wanderers from Etham. 
 
 The Mount of the Lawgiving is, to me, the majestic peak 
 of Serbal, not the Sinai of the monks ; my reasons are fully 
 explained in my work on Sinai. f I have also endeavoured, 
 in the same book, to show that the resting placa called in 
 the Bible Dophkah, is identical with the abandoned mines 
 now called Wadi Maghara. 
 
 The writer has endeavoured by means of the actors in 
 his tale, their adventures and reflexions — in part the inven- 
 tion of his own fancy — to make the mighty destinies of the 
 people he has attempted to describe, more humanly real to 
 the sympathetic reader. If he has succeeded in this, with- 
 out seeming to dwarf the splendid narrative of the Bible, 
 he has attained his end ; if he has failed, he must rest 
 content with the pleasure and personal exaltation he has 
 enjoyed while composing the work. Georg Ebers. 
 
 Tutzing am Starnberger See. September, 1S89. 
 
 * Egypten und die Bucher Mose's. Leipzig, W. Engelmann. 
 I Durch Gosen nach Sinai. Leipzig, W. Engelmann. Second 
 Edition, 1882. 
 
GENERAL PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 TO THE 
 
 LIBRARY OF FOREIGN LITERATURE. 
 
 By THE EDITOR. 
 
 There is nothing in which the Anglo-Saxon world differs 
 more from the world of the Continent of Europe than in its 
 fiction. English and American readers are accustomed to 
 satisfy their curiosity with American and English novels, and 
 it is rarely indeed that we turn aside to learn something of 
 the interior life of those other countries the exterior scenery 
 of which is often so familiar to us. We climb the Alps, but 
 are content to know nothing of the pastoral romances of 
 Switzerland. We steam in and out of the picturesque fjords 
 of Norway, but never guess what deep speculation into life 
 and morals is made by the novelists of that sparsely peopled 
 but richly endowed nation. We stroll across the courts of 
 the Alhambra, we are listlessly rowed upon Venetian canals 
 and Lombard lakes. We hasten by night through the roaring 
 factories of Belgium, but never pause to inquire whether there 
 is now flourishing a Spanish, an Italian, a Flemish school of 
 fiction. Of Russian novels we have lately been taught to be- 
 come partly aware, but we do not ask ourselves whether Po- 
 land may not possess a Dostoieffsky and Portugal a Tolstoi. 
 Yet, as a matter of fact, there is no European country that 
 has not, within the last half century, felt the dew of revival 
 on the threshing-floor of its worn-out schools of romance. 
 Everywhere there has been shown by young men, endowed 
 with a talent for narrative, a vigorous determination to de- 
 vote themselves to a vivid and sympathetic interpretation of 
 nature and of man. In almost every language, too, this move- 
 ment has tended to display itself more and more in the direc- 
 tion of what is reported and less of what is created. Fancy 
 has seemed to these young novelists a poorer thing than ob- 
 servation, the world of dreams fainter than the world of men. 
 They have not been occupied mainly with what might be or 
 what should be, but with what is, and in spite of all their 
 
2 GENERAL PREFATORY .VOTE. 
 
 shortcomings they have combined I" produce a series of pict- 
 ures of existing society in each of their several countries 
 such as cannot fail to form au archive of documents invaluable 
 to futurity. 
 
 But to us they should be still more valuable. To travel in 
 a foreign country is but to touch its surface. Under the guid- 
 ance of a novelist of genius we penetrate to the secrets of a 
 nation, and talk the very language of its citizens. We may 
 go to Normandy summer after summer and know less of the 
 manner of life that proceeds under those gnarled orchards of 
 appledilossom than we learn from one tale of Guy de Mau- 
 passant's. The present series is intended to be a guide to the 
 inner geography of Europe. It presents to our readers a 
 series of spiritual Baedekers and Murrays. It will endeavor 
 to keep pace with every truly characteristic and vigorous e x- 
 pression of the novelist's art in each of the principal European 
 countries, presenting what is quite new, if it is also good, 
 side by siile with what is old, if it has not hitherto been pre- 
 sented to our public. That will be selected which gives with 
 most freshness ami variety the different aspects of continental 
 feeling, the only limits of selection being that a book shall be, 
 on the one hand, amusing, and on the other wholesome. 
 
 One difficulty which must be frankly faced is that of sub- 
 ject.. Life is now treated in fiction by every race but our own 
 with singular candor. The novelists of the Lutheran Isorth 
 are not more fully emancipateel from prejudice in this respect 
 than the novelists of the Catholic South. Everywhere in Eu- 
 rope a novel is looked upon now as an impersonal work, from 
 which the writer, as a mere observer, stands aloof, neither 
 blaming nor applaueling. Continental fiction has excluded, 
 in the main, from among the subjects of its attention, all but 
 those facts which are of common experience, and thus the 
 novelists having eletermineel to disdain nothing ami to repu- 
 diate nothing which is common to humanity ; much is freely 
 eliseaissed, even in the novels of Holland and of Denmark, 
 which our race is apt to treat with a much more gingerly elis- 
 cretietn. It is not difficult, however, we believe — it is certainly 
 not impossible — to discard all which may justly give offence 
 and yet to otter to an American puldie? as many of the master- 
 pieces oi European fiction as we can ever hope to see in- 
 clueh.-d in this library. It will be the endeavor of the editor 
 <e> search on all hands and in all language's for such be)oks as 
 combine the greatest Literary value with the most curious and 
 amusing equalities of manner and matter. 
 
 Emiusn Gosse. 
 
JOSHUA; 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 " Go down, grandfather. I will keep watch." 
 
 But the old man to whom the words were spoken shook 
 his shaven head. 
 
 " But up here you will get no rest." 
 
 " And the stars ? — or even below ; rest, in such times 
 as these ! Throw my cloak over me — rest in such a fear- 
 ful night ! " 
 
 " You are so cold ; and your hand and the instrument 
 shake." 
 
 " Then steady my arm." 
 
 The lad willingly obeyed the request; but after a short 
 space he exclaimed : " It is all in vain. Star after star is 
 swallowed up in black clouds. Ah, and the bitter cry of 
 the city comes up. Nay, it comes from our own house. I 
 am sick at heart, grandfather ; only feel how hot my head 
 is. Come down, perchance they need help." 
 
 " They are in the hands of the gods, and my place is here. 
 But there, there ! Eternal gods ! Look to the north across 
 the lake ! No, more to the westward. They come from 
 the city of the dead ! " 
 
 " Oh, grandfather, father, there ! " cried the youth, a 
 priestly neophyte, who was lending his aid to an elder 
 whose grandson he was, the chief astrologer of Amon- 
 Ra. 
 
 They were standing on the watchtower of the temple 
 of the god at Tanis, the capital of the Pharaohs, in the 
 north of the land of Goshen. As he spoke he drew away 
 his shoulder on which the old man was leaning. " There, 
 there ! Is the sea swallowing up the land ? Have the 
 clouds fallen on the earth to surge to and fro ? Oh, grand- 
 father, may the immortals have mercy ! the nether world 
 
4 JOSHUA. 
 
 is yawning ! The great serpent Apep is come forth from 
 the city of the dead ! It comes rolling past the temple. I 
 see it, I hear it ! The great Hebrew's threat is being 
 fulfilled ! Our race will be cut off from the earth. The 
 serpent ! Its head is set toward the southeast. It will 
 surely swallow up the young sun when it rises in the morn- 
 ing!" 
 
 The old man's eyes followed the direction of the youth's 
 finger, and he, too, could discern that a vast, black mass, 
 whose outline was lost in the darkness, came rolling through 
 the gloom, and he, too, heard with a shudder the creature's 
 low roar. 
 
 Both stood with eye and ear alert, staring into the night, 
 but the star-gazer's eye was fixed not upward, but down, 
 across the city to the distant sea and level plain. Over- 
 head all was silent, and yet not all at rest, for the wind 
 swept the dark clouds into shapeless masses in one place, 
 while in another it rent the gray shroud, and scattered them 
 far and wide. 
 
 The moon was not visible to mortal ken, but the clouds 
 played hide and seek with the bright southern stars, now 
 covering them, and now giving their rays free passage. And 
 as in the firmament, so on earth there was a constant 
 change from pallid light to blackest darkness. Now the 
 glitter of the heavenly bodies flashed brightly down on the 
 sea and estuary, on the polished granite sides of the 
 obelisks in the temple precincts and the gilt copper roof 
 of the king's airy palace ; and again, lake and river, the 
 sails in the harbor, the sanctuaries and streets of the ojty, 
 and the palm-strewn plain surrounding it were all lost in 
 gloom. 
 
 Objects which the eye tried to rest on vanished in an 
 instant, and it was the same with the sounds that met the 
 ear. For a while the silence would be as deep as though 
 all life, far and near, were hushed or dead, and then a 
 piercing shriek of woe rent the stillness of the night. And 
 then, broken by longer or shorter pauses, that roar was 
 heard which the youthful priest had taken for the voice 
 of the serpent of the nether world ; and to that the grand- 
 father and grandson listened with growing excitement. 
 , The dusky shape, whose ceaseless movements could be 
 clearly made out whenever the stars shot their beams be- 
 tween the striving clouds, had its beginning out by the city 
 
JOSHUA. 5 
 
 of the dead and the strangers' quarter. A sudden panic 
 had fallen on the old man as on the young one, but he was 
 quicker to recover himself, and his keen and practiced eye 
 soon discovered that it was not a single gigantic form which 
 was rising from the necropolis to cross the plain, but a 
 multitude of moving creatures who seemed to be surging 
 or swaying to and fro on the meadow land. Nor did the 
 hollow hum and wailing come up from one particular spot, 
 but was audible now nearer and now more remote. Anon 
 he fancied that it was rising from the bosom of the earth, 
 and then again that it fell from some airy height. 
 
 Fresh terror came upon the old astrologer. He seized 
 his grandson's hand in his right hand, and pointing with 
 his left to the city of the dead, he cried in a trembling 
 voice : " The dead are too many in number. The nether 
 world overflows, as the river does when its bed is too 
 narrow for the waters of the south. How they swarm and 
 sway and surge on ! How they part, hither and thither ! 
 These are the ghosts of the thousands whom black death 
 hath snatched away, blasted by the Hebrew's curse, and 
 sent unburied, unprotected from corruption, to descend the 
 rungs of the ladder which leads to the world without end." 
 
 " Yea, it is they ! " cried the other, in full belief. He 
 snatched his hand from the old man's grasp and struck his 
 fevered and burning brow, exclaiming, though hardly able 
 to speak for terror : " They — the damned ! The wind has 
 blown them to the sea, and its waters spew them out and 
 cast them on the land again, and the blessed earth rejects 
 them and drives them into the air. The pure ether of 
 Shoo flings them back to the ground, and now — look, 
 listen ! They are groaning as Siey seek the way to the 
 desert." 
 
 " To the fire ! " cried the elder. " Flame, purify them ; 
 water, cleanse them ! " 
 
 The youth joined in the old priest's form of exorcism, 
 and while they chanted it in unison, the trap door was 
 lifted which led to this observatory on the top of the 
 highest gate of the temple, and a priest of humble grade 
 cried to the old man : 
 
 "Cease thy labors. Who cares now for the stars of 
 heaven when all that has life is being darkened on 
 earth ? " 
 
 The old priest listened speechless, till the messenger 
 
6 'JOSHUA. 
 
 went on to say that it was the astrologer's wife who had 
 sent for him, and then he gasped out : 
 
 " llora? Is my son then likewise stricken ? " 
 
 The priest then bent his head, and both his hearers 
 wept bitterly, for the old man was bereft of his first-born 
 son, and the lad of a tender father. 
 
 But when the boy, trembling with fear, fell sick and 
 sorrowing on his grandfather's breast, the elder hastily 
 freed himself from his embrace and went to the trapdoor ; 
 for although the priest had announced himself as the 
 messenger of death, it needs more than the bare word of 
 another to persuade a father to give up all hope of life for 
 his child. The old man went quickly down the stone 
 stairs, through the lofty halls and wide courts of the temple ; 
 and the lad followed him, although his shaking knees could 
 scarcely carry his fevered frame. The blow which had 
 fallen within his own little circle had made the old man 
 forget the fearful portent which threatened the whole world 
 perhaps with ruin ; but the boy could not get rid of the 
 vision ; even when he had passed the first court, and was 
 in sight of the outermost pylons, to his terrified and 
 anxious soul it seemed as though the shadows of the 
 obelisks were spinning round, while the two stone statues 
 of King Rameses on the corner piers of the great gate beat 
 time with the crook in his hand. 
 
 At this the lad dropped fever-stricken on the ground. A 
 convulsion distorted his features and tossed his slender 
 frame to and fro in frantic spasms ; and the old man, 
 falling on his knees, while he guarded the curly head from 
 striking the hard stone flags, moaned in a low voice : " Now, 
 it has fallen on him." 
 
 Suddently he collected himself and shouted aloud for 
 help, but in vain, and again in vain. At last his voice fell ; 
 he sought consolation in prayer. Then he heard a sound 
 of voices from the avenue of sphinxes leading to the great 
 gate, and new hope revived in his heart. 
 
 Who could it be who was arriving at so late an hour? 
 
 Mingled with cries of grief the chanting of priests fell 
 on his ear, the tinkle and clatter of the metallic sistrum 
 shaken by holy women in honor of the god, and the 
 measured footfall of men praying as they marched on. 
 
 A solemn procession was approaching. The astrologer 
 raised his eyes, and after glancing at the double line of 
 
JOSHUA. . y 
 
 granite columns, colossal statues and obelisks in the great 
 court, looked up, in obedience to the habits of a lifetime, 
 at the starry heavens above, and in the.midst of his woe a 
 bitter smile parted his sunken lips, for the gods this night 
 lacked the honors that were their due. 
 
 For on this night — the first after the new moon in the 
 month of Pharmutee — the sanctuary in former years was 
 wont to be gay with garlands of flowers. At the dawn of 
 day after this moonless night the high festival of the spring 
 equinox should begin, and with it the harvest thanks- 
 giving. 
 
 At this "time a grand procession marched through the 
 city to the "river and harbor, as prescribed by the Book of 
 the Divine Birth of the Sun, in honor of the great goddess 
 Neith, of Rennoot, who bestows the gifts of the field, and 
 of Horus, at whose bidding the desert blooms ; but to-day 
 the silence of death reigned in the sanctuary, whose court- 
 yards should have been crowded at this hour with men, 
 women and children, bringing offerings to place on the 
 very spot where his grandson lay under the hand of death. 
 
 A broad beam of light suddenly fell into the vast court, 
 which till now had been but dimly lighted by a few lamps. 
 Could they be so mad as to think that the glad festival 
 might be held in spite of the nameless horrors of the past 
 night ? 
 
 Only the evening before, the priests in council had 
 determined that during this pitiless pestilence the temples 
 were to be left unadorned and processions to be prohibited. 
 By noon yesterday many had failed to attend because 
 the plague had fallen on their households, and the 
 terror had now come into this very sanctuary, while 
 he, who could read the stars, had been watching 
 them in their courses. Why else should it have been 
 deserted by the watchmen and other astrologers, who had 
 been with him at sunset, and whose duty it was to keep 
 vigil here all night ? 
 
 He turned once more to the suffering boy with tender 
 anxiety, but instantly started to his feet, for the gates 
 were opened wide, and the light of torches and lanterns 
 poured into the temple court. A glance at the sky showed 
 him that it was not long past midnight, and yet his fears 
 were surely well grounded — these must be the priests 
 crowding into the temple to prepare k for the harvest 
 festival. 
 
g JOSHUA* 
 
 Not so. 
 
 For when had they come to the sanctuary for this 
 purpose, chanting and in procession ? Nor were these all 
 servants of the divinity. The populace had joined them. 
 In that solemn litany he could hear the shrill wailing of 
 women mingled with wild cries of despair such as he had 
 never before, in the course of a lopg life, heard within 
 these consecrated walls. 
 
 Or did his senses deceive him ? Was it the groaning 
 horde of unresting souls which he had seen from the 
 observatory who were crowding into the sanctuary of 
 the god ? 
 
 Fresh horrors fell upon him ; he threw up his arms in 
 interdiction, and for a few moments repeated the formula 
 against the malice of evil spirits \ but he presently dropped 
 his hands, for he marked among the throng some friends 
 who yesterday, at any rate, had been in the land of the 
 living. Foremost, the tall figure of the second prophet of 
 the god ; then the women devoted to the service of Amon- 
 Ra, the singers and the holy fathers \ and when at last, 
 behind the astrologers and pastophoroi, he saw his son-in- 
 law, whose home had till yesterday been spared by the 
 plague, he took heart and spoke to him. But his voice 
 was drowned by the song and cries of the coming multitude. 
 
 The courtyard was now fully lighted; but every one was 
 so absorbed in his own sorrow that no one heeded the old 
 astrologer. He snatched the cloak off his own shivering 
 body to make a better pillow for the boy's tossing head, 
 and while he did so, with fatherly care, he could hear 
 among the chanting and wailing of the approaching crowd, 
 first, frantic curses on the Hebrews, through whom these 
 woes had fallen on Pharaoh and his people, and then, 
 again and again, the name of the heir to the crown, Prince 
 Rameses ; and the tone in which it was spoken, and the 
 formulas of mourning which were added, announced to all 
 who had ears to hear that the eyes of the first-born of the 
 king on his throne were also sealed in death. 
 
 As he gazed with growing anguish in his grandson's pale 
 face, the lamentations for the prince rang out afresh and 
 louder than ever, and a faint sense of satisfaction crept 
 into his soul at the impartiality of Death, who spared not 
 the sovereign on his throne any more than the beggar by 
 the wayside. 
 
JQSHUA. 9 
 
 He knew now what had brought this noisy throng to the 
 sanctuary. 
 
 He went forward with such haste as his old limbs would 
 allow to meet the column of mourners, but before he 
 could join them he saw the gatekeeper and his wife come 
 out of the gatehouse, bearing between them, on a mat, the 
 corpse of a boy. The husband held one end, his frail, tiny 
 wife held the other ; and the stalwart man had to stoop low 
 to keep their stiff burden in a horizontal position that it 
 might not slip down towards the woman. Three children 
 closed the melancholy party, and a little girl holding a 
 lantern led the way. 
 
 No one, perhaps, would have observed them, but that the 
 gatekeeper's wife shrieked forth her griefs so loudly and 
 shrilly that it was impossible not to hear her cries. The 
 second prophet of Amon turned to look, and then his compa- 
 nions ; the procession came to a standstill, and, as some 
 of the priests went nearer to the body, the father cried in 
 a loud voice : " Away, away from the plague-stricken ! 
 Our first-born is dead ! " 
 
 The mother, meanwhile, had snatched the lantern from 
 her little daughter, and, holding it so as to throw a light 
 on the face of the dead boy, she shrieked out : 
 
 " The god hath suffered it to come to pass. Yes, even 
 under our own roof. But it is not his will, but the curse 
 of the stranger in the land that has come over us and our 
 lives. Behold, this was the first-born ; and two temple 
 servants have likewise been taken. One is dead already ; 
 he is lying in our little room yonder ; and there — see, 
 there lies young Kamus, the grandson of Rameri, the star- 
 reader. We heard the old man calling and saw what was 
 happening, but who can hold another man's house up when 
 his own is falling about his ears ? Beware while it is yet 
 time, for the gods have opened even the temple gates to 
 the abomination, and if the whole world should perish I 
 should not be surprised, and never complain — certainly 
 not. My lords and priests, I am but a poor and humble 
 woman, but am I not in the right when I ask : Are our 
 gods asleep ? Has a magic spell bound them ? Or 
 what are they doing, and where are they, that they leave 
 us and our children in the power of the vile Hebrew 
 race?" 
 
io JOSHUA. 
 
 u Down with them ! Down with the strangers ! They 
 are magicians. Into the sea with Mesu,* the sorcerer!" 
 
 As an echo follows a cry, so did these imprecations follow 
 the woman's curse ; and Hornecht, the old astrologer's 
 son-in-law, captain of the archers, whose blood boiled over 
 at the sight of his dying, fair young nephew, brandished 
 his short sword, and cried in a frenzy of rage : " Follow 
 me, every man who has a heart ! At them ! Life for 
 life ! Ten Hebrews for each Egyptian whom their sorcerer 
 has killed ! " 
 
 A flock will rush into the fire if only the ram leads the 
 way, and the crowd flocked to follow the noble warrior. 
 The women pushed in front of the men, thronging the door- 
 way, and as the servants of the sanctuary hesitated till 
 they should know the opinion of the prophet of Amon, 
 their leader drew up in his majestic figure, and said deli- 
 berately : 
 
 (i All who wear priests' robes remain to pray with me. 
 The people are the instrument of heaven, and it is theirs to 
 repay. We stay here to pray for success to their ven- 
 geance." 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Baie, the second prophet of Amon, who acted as deputy 
 for the now infirm old head prophet and high priest Ruie, 
 withdrew into the holy of holies, and while the multitude 
 of the inferior ministers of the god proceeded to their 
 various duties, the infuriated crowd hurried through the 
 streets of the town to the strangers' quarter. 
 
 As a swollen torrent raging through a valley carries down 
 with it everything in its way, so the throng, as they rushed 
 to their revenge, compelled every one on their road to join 
 them. Every Egyptian from whom death had snatched 
 his nearest and dearest was ready to join the swelling tide, 
 and it grew till it numbered hundreds of thousands. Men, 
 women and children, slaves and free, borne on the wings 
 of their desire to wreak ruin and death on the detested 
 Hebrews, flew to the distant quarter where they dwelt. 
 
 * Mesu is the Egyptian form of the name of Moses. 
 
. JOSHUA. II 
 
 How this artisan had laid hold of a chopper or that 
 housewife had clutched an axe, they themselves scarcely 
 knew. They rushed on to kill and destroy, and they had 
 not sought the weapons they needed ; they had found 
 them ready to their hand. 
 
 The first they hoped to fall upon in their mad fury was 
 Nun, a venerable Hebrew, respected and beloved by many 
 —a man rich in herds, who had done much kindness to 
 the Egyptians ; but where hatred and revenge make them- 
 selves heard, gratitude stands shy and speechless in the 
 background. 
 
 His large estates lay, like the houses and huts of the 
 men of his race, in the strangers' quarter, to the west of 
 Tanis, and were the nearest of them all to the streets inha- 
 bited by the Egyptians themselves. 
 
 At this morning hour Nun's flocks and herds were wont 
 to be taken, first to water, and then to the pasture ; so the 
 large yard in front of his house would be full of cattle, farm 
 men and women, carts and field implements. The owner 
 himself commonly ordered the going of his beasts, and he 
 and his were to be the first victims of the popular rage. 
 
 The swiftest runners had already reached his spacious 
 farm, and among them Hornecht, the captain of the arch- 
 ers. There lay the house and buildings in the first bright 
 beams of the morning sun, and a brawny smith kicked 
 violently at the closed door; but there was no bolt, and it 
 flew open so readily that he had to clutch at the door post 
 to save himself from falling. Others pushed by him into 
 the courtyard, among them the archer chief. 
 
 But what was the meaning of this ? 
 
 Had some new charm been wrought to show the power 
 of Mesu, who had brought such terrible plagues already on 
 the land, and display the might of his god ? 
 
 The yard was empty, absolutely empty ; only in their 
 stalls lay a few cattle and sheep, slain because they had 
 suffered from injury, while a lame lamb hobbled away at 
 the sight of the intruders. Even the carts and barrows 
 had vanished. The groaning and bleating crowd, which 
 the star-gazer had taken to be the spirits of the damned, 
 was the host of the Hebrews, who had fled by night with 
 all their herds, under the guidance of Moses. 
 
 The leader dropped his sword, and it might have been 
 thought that the scene before him was to him an agreeable 
 
13 JOSHUA. 
 
 surprise ; but his companion, a scribe from the king's 
 treasury, looked round the deserted courtyard with the dis- 
 appointed air of a man who has been cheated. 
 
 The tide of passions and schemes which had risen high 
 during the night, ebbed under the broad light of day. 
 Even the soldier's easily-stirred ire had subsided to compa- 
 rative calm. The mob might have done their worst to the 
 other Hebrews, but not to Nun, whose son Hosea (Joshua) 
 had been his comrade in battle, one of the most esteemed 
 captains in the field, and a private friend of his own. If 
 Hornecht had foreseen that Nun's farmstead would be the 
 first spot to be attacked, he would never have led the mob 
 to their revenge, and once more in his life he bitterly rued 
 that he had been carried away by sudden wrath to forget 
 the calm demeanor which beseemed his years. And now, 
 while some of the crowd proceeded to rifle and pull down 
 Nun's deserted dwellings, men and women came running 
 in to say that no living soul was to be found in any of the 
 other houses near. Some had to tell of yelling cats squat- 
 ting on vacant hearths, of beasts past service found 
 slaughtered, and broken household gear, till at last the 
 angry crowd dragged forward a Hebrew with his family, 
 and a grey-haired, half-witted woman whom they had 
 hunted out among some straw. The old woman laughed 
 foolishly and said that her people had called her till they 
 were hoarse, but Mehela knew better; and as for walking, 
 walking forever, as her people meant to do, that she could 
 not ; her feet were too tender, and she had not even a pair 
 of sandals. 
 
 The man, a hideous Jew, whom few even of his own race 
 would have regarded with pity, declared, first with humi- 
 lity, bordering on servility, and then with the insolent 
 daring that was natural to him, that he had nothing to do 
 with the god of lies in whose name the impostor Moses 
 had tempted away his people, but that he and his wife and 
 child had always been friends with the Egyptians. As a 
 matter of fact he was known to many, being an usurer, and 
 when the rest of his tribe had taken up their staves he had 
 hidden himself, hoping to pursue his dishonest dealings 
 and come to no loss. 
 
 But some of his debtors were among the furious mob ; 
 and even without them he had not a chance for his life, for 
 he was the first object on which the excited multitude 
 
JOSHUA. 13 
 
 couid prorc that they were in earnest in their revenge. 
 They rushed on him with yells of rage, and in a few 
 minutes the bodies of the hapless wretch and his family 
 lay dead on the ground. No one knew who had done 
 the bloody deed ; too many had fallen on the victims 
 at once. 
 
 Others who had remained behind were dragged forth 
 from houses or hovels, and they were not a few, though 
 many had time to escape into the country. These all fell 
 victims to the wrath of the populace ; and while their 
 blood was flowing, axes were heaved, and doors and walls 
 were battered down with beams and posts to destroy the 
 dwellings of the detested race from the face of the earth. 
 
 The glowing embers which some furious women had 
 brought with them were extinguished and trodden out, for 
 the more prudent warned them of the danger which must 
 threaten their own adjoining dwellings and the whole city 
 of Tanis if the strangers' quarter were set in flames. 
 
 Thus the homes of the Hebrews were spared from fire, 
 but as the sun rose higher the site of the dwellings they 
 had deserted was wrapped in an impenetrable cloud of 
 white dust from the ruins, and on the spot where, but 
 yesterday, thousands of human beings had had a happy 
 home, and where vast herds had slaked their thirst by 
 fresh waters, nothing was now to be seen but heaps of 
 rubbish and stone, while broken timber and splintered 
 woodwork strewed the scorching soil. Dogs and cats, 
 abandoned by the fugitives, prowled among the ruins, and 
 were presently joined by the women and children who 
 herded in the beggars' hovels on the skirts of the neighbor- 
 ing necropolis, and who now, with their hands over their 
 mouths, poked among the choking dust and piles of 
 lumber for any vessels or broken victuals which the He- 
 brews might have left behind and the plunderers have over- 
 looked. 
 
 In the course of the afternoon Baie was borne in his 
 litter past the scene of devastation. He had not come 
 hither to feast his eyes on the sight of the ruins, but because 
 they lay in the nearest way from the city of the dead to his 
 own home. Nevertheless, a smile of satisfaction curled his 
 grave lips as he noted how thoroughly the populace had 
 done their work. What he himself had hoped to see had 
 not indeed been carried out ; the leader of the fugitives had 
 
14 JOSHUA. 
 
 evaded their revenge ; but hatred, though it is never 
 satiated, can be easily gratified. Even the smaller woes 
 of an enemy are joy, and the priest had just quitted the 
 mourning Pharaoh, and though he had not yet succeeded 
 in freeing him completely from the bonds laid upon him 
 by the Hebrew soothsayer, yet he had loosened them. 
 
 Three words had the proud, ambitious man murmured 
 to himself again and again — a man not wont to talk to him- 
 self — as he sat alone in the sanctuary, meditating on what 
 had happened and on what had to be done ; and those 
 three words were : " Bless me also ! " 
 
 It was Pharaoh who had spoken them, addressing the 
 petition to another; and that other not old Ruie, the pon- 
 tiff and high priest, nor Baie himself, the only men living 
 whose privilege it could be to bless the king ; no, but the 
 worst of the accursed, the stranger, the Hebrew Mesu, 
 whom he hated as he hated none other on earth. 
 
 " Bless me also ! " That pious entreaty, which springs 
 so confidingly from the human soul in anguish, had pierced 
 his soul like a dagger-thrust. He felt as though such a 
 prayer, addressed by such lips to such a man, had broken 
 the staff in the hand of the whole priesthood of Egypt, had 
 wrenched the panther skin from its shoulders, and cast a 
 stain on all the nation he loved. 
 
 He knew Mesu well for one of the wisest sages ever pro- 
 duced by the schools of Egypt ; he knew full well that 
 Pharaoh was spell bound by this man, who had grown up 
 in his house, and had been the friend of the great Rameses, 
 his father. He had seen the monarch pardon misdeeds in 
 Mesu which any other man, were he the highest in the 
 land, must have expiated with his life ; and how dear must 
 this Hebrew have been to Pharaoh — the sun-god on the 
 throne of the world — when he could compel the king, 
 standing by the death-bed of his son, to uplift his hands, to 
 him and implore him : " Bless me also." 
 
 All this he had told himself and weighed with due care, 
 and still he, Baie, could not, would not, yield to the power- 
 ful Hebrew. He had regarded it as his most urgent and 
 sacred duty to bring destruction on him and his whole race. 
 To fulfil that duty he would not have hesitated to lay hands 
 on the throne ; indeed, in his eyes, by the utterance of 
 that blasphemous entreaty, " Bless me also," Pharaoh 
 Menephtah *iad forfeited his right to the sovereignty. 
 
JOSHUA. 15 
 
 Moses was the murderer of Pharaoh's first-born, whereas 
 he himself and the venerable high priest of Anion held the 
 weal or woe of the deceased youth's soul in their hands. 
 And this weapon was a keen and a strong one, for he knew 
 how tender and irresolute was the king's heart. If the 
 high-priest of Anion — the only man who stood above him 
 — did not contravene him in some unaccountable fit of 
 senile caprice, it would be a small matter to reduce Pharaoh 
 to submission, but the vacillating monarch might repent 
 to-morrow of what he resolved to-day, if the Hebrew 
 should again succeed in coming between him and his 
 Egyptian counselors. Only this very day, on hearing the 
 name of Moses spoken in his presence, the degenerate son 
 of Rameses the Great had covered his face and quaked 
 like a frightened gazelle, and to-morrow he might curse 
 him and pronounce sentence of death against him. He 
 might perhaps be persuaded to do this ; but even then by 
 the day after he would very surely recall him and beseech 
 his blessing once more. 
 
 Away with such a monarch ! Down with the feeble 
 reed who sat on the throne, down to the very dust ! Baie 
 had found a fitting successor among the princes of the 
 blood royal, and when the time should come — when Ruie, 
 the high priest of Anion, should cross the boundary of the 
 time of life granted to man by the gods, and close his eyes 
 in death — then he, Baie himself, would fill his place ; a new 
 life should begin for Egypt, and Moses and his tribes were 
 doomed. 
 
 As the prophet thus meditated a pair of ravens fluttered 
 around his head, and then, croaking loudly, alighted on the 
 dusky ruins of one of the wrecked tenements. His eye 
 involuntarily followed their flight and perceived that they 
 had settled on the body of a dead Hebrew, half buried in 
 rubbish ; and again a smile stole over his cunning, defiant 
 features, a smile which the inferior priests who stood about 
 his litter could by no means interpret. 
 
JOSHUA. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Hornecht, captain of the bowmen, had by this time joined 
 company with the prophet. He was, indeed, in his con- 
 fidence, for the warrior likewise was one of the men of high 
 rank who had conspired to overthrow the reigning Pharaoh. 
 
 As they approached the ruined dwelling of Nun the 
 priest pointed to the heap of destruction and said : " The 
 man to whom this once belonged is the only Hebrew I 
 fain would spare. He was a man of worth, and his son 
 Joshua " 
 
 " He will be true to us," interrupted the captain. " Few 
 better men serve in the ranks of Pharaoh's armies, and," 
 he added, in a lower voice, <( I count on him in the day of 
 deliverance." 
 
 " Of that we will speak before fewer witnesses," replied 
 the other. " But I owe him a special debt of gratitude. 
 During the Libyan war — you know of it — I was betrayed 
 into the hands of the enemy, and Joshua, with his handful 
 of men, cut me a way of escape from the wild robbers." 
 Then, dropping his voice, he went on in his didactic man- 
 ner, as though he were making excuse for the mischief 
 before them. " Such is life here below ! When a whole 
 race of men incurs punishment, the evil falls on the guilt- 
 less with the guilty. Not even the gods can in such a case 
 divide the individual from the mob ; the visitation falls 
 even on the innocent beasts. Look at that flock of 
 pigeons hovering over the ruins ; they seek the dovecote 
 in vain. And that cat with her kittens ! Go, Bekie, and 
 rescue them ; it is our duty to preserve the sacred animals 
 from starving to death." 
 
 And this man, who had contemplated the destruction of 
 so many of his fellow-creatures with barbarous joy, took 
 the kindly care of the unreasoning brutes so much to heart 
 that he made the bearers stop, and looked on while the 
 servants caught the cats. But this was not so quickly 
 done as he had hoped, for the mother fled into the nearest 
 cellar opening, and the gap was so narrow as to prevent 
 
JOSHUA. 1 7 
 
 the men from following her. However, the youngest of 
 them all, a slim Nubian, undertook to fetch her out ; but 
 he had hardly looked down into the opening when he 
 started back and cried to his lord : 
 
 " A human being is lying there, and seems to be yet 
 alive. Yes, he beckons with his hand. It is a boy or a 
 youth, and certainly not a slave. His hair is long and 
 curly, and on his arm — for a sunbeam falls straight in — I 
 can see a broad gold band." 
 
 " One of the family of Nun, perhaps, who has been for- 
 gotten," said the warrior, and Baie eagerly added : " It is 
 the guidance of the gods ! The sacred beasts have led me 
 to the spot where I may do a service to the man to whom 
 I owe so much. Try and make your way in, Bekie, and 
 fetch the youth out." 
 
 The Nubian, meanwhile, had moved away a stone, which, 
 in its fall, had partly closed the entrance, and in a short 
 while he held up to his comrades a motionless young form, 
 which they lifted out into the open air and carried to a 
 well. There they soon brought him back to life with the 
 cool water. 
 
 As he recovered consciousness he rubbed his eyes, 
 looked about him in bewilderment as though he knew not 
 where he was, and then his head fell on his breast as if 
 overcome by grief and horror, and it could be seen that at 
 the back of his head the hair was matted with dark patches 
 of dried blood. 
 
 By the prophet's care the wound, which was deep, from 
 a stone which had fallen on the lad, was washed at the 
 well ; and when it was bound up he bid him get into his 
 own litter, which was screened from the sun. 
 
 The youth had arrived before sunrise, after a long walk 
 by night from Pithom, called by the Hebrews Succoth, to 
 bring a message to his grandfather, Nun, but finding the 
 place deserted he had lain down in one of the empty rooms 
 to rest awhile. Awakening at the uproar of the infuriated 
 Egyptians, and hearing the curses on his race, which rang 
 out on every side, he had fled to the cellar, and the falling 
 roof, although he had been hurt, had proved his salvation, 
 for the clouds of dust which had hidden everything as it 
 crashed down had concealed him from the sight of the 
 plunderers. 
 
 The priest gazed at him attentively, and though the 
 
1 8 JOSHUA. 
 
 youth was unwashed and pale, with a blood-stained band- 
 age around his head, he could see that the being he had 
 restored to life was a handsome, well-grown lad, on the 
 verge of manhood. Full of eager sympathy, he mollified 
 the stern gravity of his eye, and questioned him kindly as 
 to whence he came and what had brought him to Tanis, for 
 it was impossible to tell from the youth's features even of 
 what nation he might be. He might easily have passed 
 himself off as an Egyptian, but he quite frankly owned that 
 he was the grandson of Nun. He was eighteen years of 
 age, his name was Ephraim, like his ancestor the son of 
 Joseph, and he had come to see his grandfather. And he 
 spoke with an accent of steadfast self-respect and joy in 
 his illustrious descent. 
 
 When asked whether he had been the bearer of a message 
 he did not forthwith reply, but after collecting his thoughts 
 he looked fearlessly into the prophet's face and answered 
 frankly : 
 
 " Be you who you may, I have been taught to speak the 
 truth. You shall know, then, that I have another kinsman 
 dwelling in Tanis — Joshua, the son of Nun, who is a captain 
 in Pharaoh's army, and I have a message for him." 
 
 "And you shall know," replied the priest, "that it was 
 for the sake of that very Joshua that I lingered here and 
 bid my servants rescue you alive from that ruined house. 
 I owe him thanks ; and although the greater number of 
 your nation have done deeds worthy of the heaviest 
 punishment, yet for his noble sake you shall dwell among 
 us free and unharmed." 
 
 On this the boy looked up at the priest with a flash of 
 eager pride ; but before he could speak, Baie went on with 
 encouraging friendliness : 
 
 " I read in your eyes, my boy, if I am not mistaken, that 
 you are come to seek service under your Uncle Joshua in 
 Pharaoh's army. Your stature should make you skillful in 
 handling weapons, and you certainly cannot lack for 
 daring." 
 
 A smile of flattered vanity lighted up Ephraim's face, 
 and turning the broad gold bangle on his arm, perhaps 
 unconsciously, he eagerly replied : 
 
 " I am brave, my lord, and have proved it often in the 
 hunting-field. But at home there are cattle and sheep in 
 abundance, which I already call my own, and it seems to 
 
JOSHUA. 19 
 
 me a better lot to wander free and rule the shepherds, than 
 to do what others bid me." 
 
 "So, so," replied the priest. " Well, Joshua perhaps 
 will bring you to another and a better mind. To rule ! a 
 noble goal indeed for a youth ! The pity is that we who 
 have reached it are but servants, the more heavily-bur- 
 dened in proportion to the greater number of those who 
 obey us. You understand me, captain ; and you, boy, 
 will understand me later, when you have become such a 
 palm tree as your sapling growth promises. But time 
 presses. Who sent you hither to Joshua? " 
 
 The youth again looked down and hesitated ; but when 
 the prophet had broken in on his silence by saying, " And 
 that candor which you have been taught ? " he replied 
 firmly and decidedly : " I came to do pleasure to a woman 
 whom you know not. Let that suffice." 
 
 " A woman ! " echoed the prophet, and he cast an in- 
 quiring glance at Hornecht. " When a valiant warrior 
 and a fair woman seek each other the Hathors are wont 
 to intervene and use the binding * cords, but it ill be- 
 seems a minister of the divinity to play spectator to such 
 doings, so I inquire no further. Take this boy under your 
 protection, captain, and help him to carry his errand to 
 Rosea. The only question is whether he is yet returned.*' 
 
 " No," replied the soldier, " but this very day he and 
 10,000 men are expected at the armory." 
 
 " Then may the Hathors, who favor love-messages, bring 
 these two to a meeting no later than to-morrow ! " cried 
 the priest. But the youth broke in indignantly : " I bear 
 no love-message from one to the other ! " 
 
 And the priest, who was well pleased by his boldness, re- 
 plied gayly : " I had forgotten that I am speaking to a shep- 
 herd-prince." Then he added more gravely, " When you 
 shall have found Joshua give him greeting from me, and 
 say to him that Baie, the second prophet of Anion, whom lie 
 saved from the hand of the Libyans, believes that he is 
 paying some part of his debt by extending a protecting 
 hand over you, his nephew. You, bold youth, know not, 
 perhaps, that you were in other and greater danger than 
 that from your wound. The furious Egyptians would no 
 more have spared your life than would the choking dust 
 
 * The Hathors were the Egyptian love godde sses. They are often 
 depicted with cords in their hands. 
 
20 JOSHUA. 
 
 and falling houses. Bear that in mind, and tell Joshua, 
 moreover, from me, Baie, that I am sure that as soon as 
 he sees with his own eyes the misery wrought on the 
 house of Pharoah, to which he has sworn allegiance, and 
 with it on this city and on the whole land, by the magic 
 arts of one of your race, he will cut himself off in honor 
 from those cowards. For they have basely fled, after 
 slaying the best and dearest of those among whom they 
 have dwelt in peace, whose protection they have enjoyed, 
 and who for long years have given them work and fed 
 them abundantly. If I know him at all, as an honest man 
 he will turn his back on those who have sinned thus. 
 And you may tell him likewise, that the Hebrew officers and 
 fighting men under the captainship of Aarsu, the Syrian, 
 have already done so of their own free will. This day— and 
 Joshua will have heard the tidings from others — they 
 offered sacrifice, not only to their own gods, Baal and Set, 
 whom you, too, many of you, were wont to serve before 
 the vile magician, Mcsu, led you astray, but also to Father 
 Anion and the sacred nine of our eternal gods. And if 
 he will do likewise, he and I, hand in hand, will rise to 
 great power — of that he may be assured — and he is worthy 
 of it. The rest of the debt of gratitude I still owe him I 
 will find other means of paying, which as yet must remain 
 undiscovered. But you may promise your uncle from 
 me that I will take care of Nun, his worthy father, when 
 the vengeance of the gods and of Pharaoh overtakes the 
 other men of your nation. Already — tell him this likewise 
 — is the sword set, and judgment without mercy shall be 
 done on them. Tell him to ask himself what can fugitive 
 shepherds do against the might of that army of which he 
 himself is one of the captains ? Is your father yet alive, 
 my son ? " 
 
 " No ; he was borne out long since," replied Ephraim in 
 a broken voice. 
 
 Was it that the fever of his wound was too much for 
 him ? That the disgrace of belonging to a race who 
 could do such shameful deeds overpowered his young 
 soul? Or was the youth true to his people, and was it 
 wrath and indignation that made his cheek turn pale, then 
 red, and stirred up such turmoil in his soul that he could 
 hardly speak ? No matter. But it was clear that he was 
 no fit bearer of this message to his uncle, and the priest 
 
JOSHUA. i\ 
 
 signed to the captain to come with him under the shade of 
 a broad sycamore tree. The Hebrew must at any rate be 
 retained with the army ; he laid his hand on his friend's 
 shoulder, saying : " You know that it was my wife who 
 won you over to our great scheme. She serves it better 
 and with greater zeal than many a man, and while I admire 
 your daughter's beauty, she is full of praises of her win- 
 ning charm." 
 
 "And Kasana is to join the conspiracy?" exclaimed 
 the soldier in displeasure. 
 
 '• Not as an active partner, like my wife — of course not." 
 
 "She would hardly serve that end," replied the other in 
 a calmer tone, f< for she is like a child." 
 
 " And yet she may win over to our cause a man whose 
 goodwill appears to be inestimable." 
 
 "You mean Joshua?" asked Hornecht, and again his 
 brow grew black, while the prophet went on. 
 
 " And if I do ? Is he not a noble Hebrew, and can 
 you think it unworthy of the daughter of a warrior of 
 valor to give her hand to the man who, if our undertaking 
 prospers, will act as chief captain over all the troops of 
 the land ? " 
 
 " No, my lord," cried the archer. " But one of the 
 causes of my wrath against Pharaoh, and of my taking 
 part with Siptah, is that his mother was not of our nation, 
 while Egyptian blood flows in Siptah's veins. Now, the 
 mother determines a man's race, and Joshua's mother was 
 a Hebrew woman. I call him my friend ; I know how to 
 value his merits ; Kasana is well inclined to him " 
 
 " And yet you desire a greater son-in-law ? " interrupted 
 Baie. " How can our difficult enterprise prosper if those 
 who risk their lives in it think the very first sacrifice too 
 great? And your daughter, you say, is well inclined to 
 Joshua." 
 
 •'■' She was ; yes, truly," the soldier put in. "Yes, her 
 heart longed after him. But I brought her to obedience ; 
 she became the wife of another ; and now that she is 
 a widow shall I be the one to offer her to him whom I com- 
 pelled her to give up — the gods alone know how hardly ? 
 When was the like ever heard of in Egypt ? " 
 
 " Whenever the men and women by the Nile have so 
 far mastered themselves as to submit to necessity in 
 opposition to their own wishes, for the sake of a great 
 
22 joshva. 
 
 cause," replied the priest. " Think of these things. We 
 shall meet again this evening — you know where. Mean- 
 while will you give hospitality to Joshua's nephew and 
 bespeak your fair daughter's care, for he seems to need it 
 sorely." 
 
 In fact, hunger, thirst, loss of blood and a long struggle 
 against suffocation had broken Ephraim's youthful 
 strength. On the skirts of the necropolis, where litters 
 stood awaiting the convenience of visitors, he was placed 
 in one by himself and carried to his destination. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 There was mourning in the house of Hornecht, as in 
 every house in the city. The men had shaved their he^ds 
 and the women had strewn dust on their foreheads. The 
 captain's wife was long since dead, but his daughter and 
 her women met him with waving veils and loud wailing. 
 for their lord's brother-in-law was bereft both of his first- 
 born son and of his grandson ; and in how many houses of 
 their circle of friends had the plague claimed its victims. 
 
 However, the fainting youth demanded all the women's 
 care ; he was washed, and the deep wound in his head 
 was freshly bound up ; strong wine and food were se 4 
 before him, and then, refreshed and strengthened, he 
 followed at the bidding of his host's daughter. 
 
 The dust-stained and exhausted lad now stood revealed 
 as a handsome young fellow. His scented hair flowed in 
 long, waving locks from beneath the clean, white bandage, 
 and his elastic, sunburnt limbs were covered by Egyptian 
 garments embroidered with gold out of the wardrobe of 
 the captain's deceased son-in-law. He seemed pleased to 
 see himself in the handsome raiment, from which there 
 proceeded a fragrance of spikenard new to his experience, 
 for his black eyes brightly lighted up his well-cut features. 
 
 It was long since the captain's daughter had seen a 
 better-favored youth, and she herself was full of great and 
 lovely charm. After a brief married life with a man she 
 had never loved, Kasana, within a year, had come back 
 a widow to her father's house, where there was now no 
 mistress ; and the great wealth of which she had become 
 
JOSHUA. *3 
 
 possessed by her husband's death enabled her to bring 
 into the warrior's modest home the splendor and luxury 
 which to her had become a necessity. 
 
 Her father, who in many a contest had proved himself 
 a man of violent temper, now yielded to her will in all 
 things. In past time he had ruthlessly asserted his own, 
 and" had forced her at the age of fifteen into a marriage 
 with a man much older than herself. This he had done 
 because he had observed that Kasana's young heart was 
 set on Joshua, the man of war, and he deemed it beneath 
 him to accept the Hebrew, who at that time held no place 
 of honor in the army, as a son-in-law. An Egyptian 
 could but obey her father without demur when he chose 
 her a husband, and so Kasana had submitted, though dur- 
 ing the period of her betrothal she shed so many bitter 
 tears that the archer-captain was glad indeed when she 
 had done his bidding and given her hand to the husband 
 of his choice. 
 
 But even in her widowhood his daughter's heart clung 
 to the Hebrew ; for when the army was in the field she 
 never ceased to be anxious, and spent her days and nights 
 in troubled unrest. When tidings came from the front she 
 asked only concerning Joshua, and it was to her love for 
 him that Hornecht, with deep vexation, ascribed her 
 repeated rejection of suitor after suitor. As a widow she 
 had the right to dispose of her hand, and this gentle yield- 
 ing young creature would amaze her father by the abrupt 
 decisiveness with which she made her independence felt, 
 not alone to him and her suitors, but likewise to Prince 
 Siptah, whose cause her father had made his own. 
 
 This day Kasana expressed her satisfaction at Joshua's 
 home-coming so frankly and unreservedly, that the hot- 
 tempered man hastened out of the house lest he should be 
 led into some ill-considered act or speech. He left the 
 care of their young guest to his daughter and her faithful 
 nurse ; and how delightful to the lad's sensitive soul was 
 the effect of the warrior's home, with its lofty, airy rooms, 
 open colonnades and bright, richly-colored paintings ; its 
 artistic vessels and ornaments, soft couches and all-per- 
 vading fragrance. All this was new and strange to the 
 son of a pastoral patriarch, accustomed to live within 
 the bare, grey walls of a spacious, but perfectly grace- 
 less farm dwelling ; or # for months at a time in canvas 
 
24 JOSHUA. 
 
 tents, amid flocks and shepherds, and more often in the 
 open air than under a roof or shelter. He felt as 
 though by enchantment he had been transported to some 
 higher and more desirable world, and as though he became 
 it well in his splendid garb, with his oiled and per- 
 fumed curls and freshly-bathed limbs. Life, indeed, 
 was everywhere fair, even out in the fields among the 
 herds, or in the cool of the evening round the fire in 
 front of the tent, where the shepherds sang songs, and 
 the hunters told talcs of adventure, while the stars 
 shone brightly overhead. But hard and hated labor 
 had first to be done. Here it was a joy merely to 
 gaze and breathe; and when presently the curtain was 
 lifted and the young widow greeted him kindly and 
 made him sit down by her, now questioning him and 
 now listening sympathetically to his replies, he almost 
 fancied that he had lost his senses, as he had done 
 under the ruins in the cellar, and that the sweetest of 
 dreams was cheating him. 
 
 The feeling which now seemed to choke him, and again 
 and again hindered his utterance, was surely the excess of 
 bliss poured down upon him by great Astarte, the partner 
 of Baal, of whom he had heard many tales from the Phoe- 
 nician traders who supplied the shepherd settlers with 
 various good things, and of whom he was forbidden by 
 stern Miriam ever to speak at home. 
 
 His people had implanted in his young soul a hatred of 
 the Egyptians as the oppressors of his race ; but could they 
 be so evil, could he abhor a nation among whom there were 
 such beings to be found as the fair and gentle lady who 
 looked so softly and yet so warmly into his eyes ; whose 
 gaze set his blood in such swift motion that he could hardly 
 bear it, as he pressed his hand to his heart to still its wild 
 throbbing ? 
 
 There she sat opposite to him, on a stool covered with 
 a panther skin, and drew the wool from the distaff. He 
 had taken her fancy, and she had welcomed him warmly 
 because he was kin to the man she had loved from her 
 childhood. She believed she could trace a likeness in him 
 to Joshua, although the boy still lacked the gravity of the 
 man to whom she had given her young heart, when and 
 how she herself could not tell, for he had never sued for 
 her love. 
 
JOSHUA. 2$ 
 
 A lotos-flower was fastened into her well-arranged waving 
 black hair, and its stem lay in a graceful curve on her bent 
 neck, round which hung a mass of beautiful curls. When 
 she raised her eyes to look into his, it was as though two 
 deep wells opened before him to pour streams of bliss into 
 his young breast, and that slender hand, which spun the 
 yarn, he had already touched in greeting and held in his 
 own. 
 
 Presently she inquired of him concerning Joshua and the 
 woman who had sent him a message — whether she were 
 young and fair, and whether there were any tie of love 
 between her and his uncle. At this Ephraim laughed 
 aloud. For she who had sent him was so grave and stern 
 that the mere idea of her being capable of a tender emo- 
 tion roused his mirth. As to whether she were fair, he 
 had never given it a thought. 
 
 The young widow took this laughter as the most wel- 
 come reply she could hear, and with a sigh of relief she laid 
 aside the spindle she held and desired Ephraim to come 
 with her into the garden. 
 
 How sweet it was with scent and bloom, how well 
 trimmed were the beds, the paths, the arbors and the 
 pool ! The only pleasance of his simple home was a broad 
 courtyard devoid of ornament, full of pens for cattle and 
 sheep ; yet he knew that some day he would be ruler 
 over great possessions, for he was the only son and heir of 
 a rich father, and his mother was a daughter of the 
 wealthy Nun. The serving-men had told him all this 
 many a time, and it vexed his soul to see that his own 
 home was little better than the quarters for the captain's 
 slaves, which Kasana pointed out to him. 
 
 As they rambled through the garden she bid Ephraim 
 help her pluck some flowers, and when the basket which 
 he carried for her was full, she invited him to sit with her 
 in an arbor, and lend a hand in twining garlands. These 
 were offerings to the beloved dead. Her uncle and a 
 favorite cousin — somewhat like Ephraim himself — had 
 been snatched away during the past night by the pesti- 
 lence, which his folks had brought upon Tanis. 
 
 And from the street which ran along the garden wall the 
 wailing of women was incessantly heard, as they mourned 
 over the dead or bore a corpse to its burying; and, when 
 suddenly it rose louder and more woeful than before, she 
 
26 JOSHUA* 
 
 gently reproached him for all that the people of Tanis had 
 suffered for the sake of the Hebrews, and asked him if he 
 could deny that her nation had good reason to hate a 
 race that had brought such plagues upon it. 
 
 To this he found it difficult to answer discreetly, for he 
 had been told that it was the God of his people who had 
 stricken the Egyptians, to release His own from oppres- 
 sion and slavery, and he dare not deny or contemn his 
 own flesh and blood. So he was silent, that he might 
 neither lie nor blaspheme, but she gave him no peace, and 
 at last he made answer that all which ended in sorrow was 
 repugnant to him, but that his people had no power over 
 health and life, and that when a Hebrew was sick he very 
 commonly applied to an Egyptian leech. What had now- 
 come to pass was no doubt the act of the great Gcd of his 
 fathers, who was of more might than all other gods. He, 
 at any rate, was a Hebrew, and she might believe him 
 when he assured her that he was guiltless of the pestilent.-, 
 and that he would gladly call her uncle and cousin bo, .. to 
 life again if he had it in his power. Eor her sake he was 
 ready to do anything, even the hardest task. 
 
 She smiled on him sweetly and said : "Poor boy ! It 1 
 find a fault in you, it is only that you belong to a race to 
 whom patience and pity are alike unknown. Alas ! for 
 our hapless and beloved dead. They must even be de- 
 prived of the songs of lamentation of those who mourn for 
 them ; for the house where they lie is plague-stricken and 
 none may enter there." 
 
 She dried her eyes and said no more, but went on winn- 
 ing her garland ; but tear after tear rolled down her 
 cheeks. He knew not what more to say, and could only 
 hand her flowers and leaves. Whenever her hand chanced 
 to touch his. the blood coursed hotly through his veins. 
 His head and the wound began to ache violently, and now 
 and then he shivered. He felt that the fever was gaining 
 on him, as it had once before, when he had nearly lost his 
 life in the red sickness, but he was ashamed to confess it, 
 and held out against it. 
 
 When the sun was getting low the captain came .out into 
 the garden. He had already seen Joshua, and, although 
 he was sincerely glad to meet his trus'ced friend once mo.c, 
 he had been ill pleased and uneasy that, before all else, he 
 had made warm inquiry for his daughter. He did not 
 
JOSHUA. 27 
 
 conceal this from Kasana, but the glare of his eyes 
 revealed the dissatisfaction with which he greeted her from 
 the Hebrew. Then he turned to Ephraim, and told him 
 that Joshua with his host had halted outside the city by 
 reason of the plague. They were to pitch their tents with- 
 out its precincts, between Tanis and the sea. They must 
 presently go forth to the camp, and his uncle sent him 
 ^vord that he was to seek him there in his tent. 
 ' When he saw the lad helping his daughter to wind the 
 funeral wreaths he smiled, exclaiming: "Only this morn- 
 ing this young lordling longed to be free and a ruler all 
 his life, and now he has entered your service, Kasana. 
 Nay, do not blush, my young friend. And if either your 
 mistress cr your uncle can prevail upon you to become 
 one of us, and devote yourself to the noblest toil — that of 
 warrior — it will be well for you. Look at me ! For more 
 than forty years have I wielded the bow, and to this day 
 T '-eioice in my calling. I have to obey, to be sure, but I 
 nave- also to command, and the thousands that do my 
 Wddfeg are not sheep and beasts, but brave men. Con- 
 1: :■ matter once more. He would make a splendid 
 chief of the bowmen ; what do you say, Kasana?" 
 
 " Certainly," replied the lady, and she had it in her 
 mind to say more, but beyond the garden walk the measured 
 tread of approaching troops fell on the ear. The bright 
 blood mounted to her cheeks, her eyes glowed with a 
 ^ame which startled Ephraim, and, heedless of her father 
 her guest, she flew past the pool, across the. avenues and 
 flower beds, and up a turf-bank near the wall, to gaze with 
 eager eyes out into the road and on the armed host that 
 presently came past. 
 
 Joshua marched at its head in full armor. He turned 
 his grave face as he came by the captain's garden, and 
 when he saw Kasana he lowered his battle-axe in friendly 
 greeting. Ephraim had followed with the captain, who 
 had pointed out Joshua, and said : " A bright weapon like 
 that would well become you, too, and when the drum is 
 beating and pipe squeaking, while the standards ride 
 high overhead, a man marches as lightly as though he had 
 wings. To-day the martial music is silenced by reason of 
 the dreadful grief that the malignant Hebrew has brought 
 upon us. Joshua, indeed, is of his race ; yet, little as I can 
 overlook that fact, I must confess that he is a thorough 
 
28 JOSH I \ I 
 
 soldier and a model for the younger generation. Only teli 
 him what I think of him in this respect. Now, bid fare- 
 well at once to Kasana, and follow the troops ; the little 
 side gate in the wall is open." 
 
 As he spoke he turned to go back into the house, and 
 Ephraim held out his hand to bid the young woman fare- 
 well. She gave him hers, but instantly withdrew it, saying : 
 " How hot your hands. You are in a fever ! " 
 
 " Nay, nay," murmured the boy ; but even as he spoke 
 he dropped on his knees, and a cloud came over the suffer- 
 ing lad's soul, hunted as it had been from one emotion to 
 another. 
 
 Kasana was startled, but she at once recovered her pre- 
 sence of mind and proceeded to cool his brow and the top 
 of his head with water out of the adjacent pool. And as 
 she did so she looked anxiously in his face, and never had 
 his likeness to Joshua struck her so vividly. Yes, the man 
 she loved must have exactly resembled this youth when he 
 himself was a boy. Her heart beat faster, and as she sup- 
 ported his head in her hands she softly kissed him. 
 
 She thought he was unconscious, but the refreshing 
 moisture had recovered him from his brief swoon, and he 
 felt the touch with a sweet thrill, but kept his eyes shut, 
 and would have lain thus for a lifetime, with his head on 
 her bosom, in the hope that her lips might once more meet 
 his. Instead of kissing him again she called loudly for help. 
 At this he roused himself, gave one more passionate, fervid 
 look into herface, and before she could stop him, fled like 
 a strong man to the garden door, pushed it open and was 
 gone after the host. He caught up the rear, soon over- 
 took the others, and at last, finding himself by the captain's 
 side, he called to his uncle and announced himself by name. 
 At this Joshua, in joy and surprise, held out his arms ; but 
 almost before Ephraim could fall upon his neck he again 
 lost consciousness, and strong soldiers carried the lad into 
 the tent which the quarter-master had already pitched on 
 a sandhill by the lake. 
 
JOSHUA. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 It was midnight. A fire burned before Joshua's tent and 
 he sat alone beside it, gazing sadly and thoughtfully first 
 into the flames and then out into the distance. The lad 
 Ephraim was lying inside the tent on his uncle's camp 
 bed. 
 
 The leech who accompanied the troops had dre~scd the 
 youth's wound, and having given him a strengthening 
 draught bade him remain quiet, for he was alarmed at the 
 high fever that had fallen on him. 
 
 But Ephraim found not the rest the physician had ad- 
 vised. The image of Kasana now rose before his imagin- 
 ation and added fire to his already overheated blood. 
 Then his thoughts flew to the advice that he should become 
 a warrior like his uncle ; and it seemed to him reasonable, 
 because it promised him glory and honor, as he would 
 fain persuade himself, though in truth he desired to folk w 
 it because it would bring him nearer to her whom his soul 
 longed for. 
 
 Then again his pride rebelled when he thought of the 
 insult with which she and her father had branded those to 
 whom he belonged by blood and sympathy. He clinched 
 his fist as he remembered the ruined house of his grand- 
 father, whom he had always considered the worthiest of 
 men. Nor had he forgotten his message. Miriam had 
 said it over to him several times, and his clear memory 
 held it word for word \ also at intervals he had repeated 
 it over to himself as ht wandered on the lonely way to 
 Tanis. Now he endeavored to do so again, but before 
 he could get to the end, his mind carried him back to 
 thoughts of Kasana. The doctor had ordered Joshua to 
 forbid any talking, so when the patient tried to deliver 
 his message he bade him be silent. Then the soldier 
 smoothed his pillow as gently as a mother might, gave him 
 his medicine, and kissed him on the brow. 
 
 At last he sat down by the fire in front of the tent, and 
 only rose to give the youth a drink when the stars showed 
 him that an hour had passed. 
 
30 JOSHUA. 
 
 The flames lighted up Joshua's somewhat dark features, 
 .iiid showed them to be those of a man who had faced 
 many dangers, and had vanquished them by stern perse- 
 verance and prudent forethought. His black eyes wore 
 a domineering expression, and his full, tightly-closed 
 mouth gave evidence of a hot temper, but even more of 
 the iron will of a determined man. His broad-shouldered 
 frame leaned against a sheaf of spears set crossing each 
 other in the ground, and when he drew his powerful hand 
 through his thick black hair, or stroked his dark beard 
 while his eyes lighted up with wrath, it was plain that his 
 soul was seething, and that he stood on the threshold of 
 some great resolve. 
 
 As \et the lion rests, but when he springs up his enemies 
 must beware. 
 
 His soldiers had often compared their bold, strong- 
 willed leader, with his mane-like hair, to the king of beasts ; 
 and now as he shook his fist, and at the same time the 
 muscles of his brown arm swelled as though they would 
 burst the gold bands that surrounded them, bright flames 
 flashed from his eyes and he was an unapproachable and 
 awesome presence. 
 
 Out there in the west, whither he turned his gaze, lay 
 the city of the dead and the ruined strangers' quarters. A 
 few hours before, he had led his troops past his father's 
 dismantled house and on through the deserted town, round 
 which the ravens were flying. 
 
 In silence, for he was still on duty, he had passed it by, 
 and it was not until they had halted, that quarters might 
 
 found for his troops, that he learned the events of the 
 past night from Hornecht, the captain of the archers. 
 He had listened in silence and without moving a muscle 
 or asking one word of further information, and meanwhile 
 the soldiers had pitched their tents ; but scarcely had he 
 gone to rest when a iame girl, in spite of the threats of the 
 watch, forced her way in and besought him, in the name 
 of Eliab, one of the oldest slaves of his house, whose 
 granddaughter she was, to go with her to the old man. He 
 had been left behind, as feebleness and ill-health prevented 
 hi- wandering, and directly after the departure of his 
 people he and his wife had been brought on an ass to the 
 little cottage by the harbor which had been given to the 
 old servant by his generous master. 
 
JOSHUA. 31 
 
 The girl, too, had been left to look after the infirm 
 couple, and now the heart of the old slave was longing to 
 see once more the first-born of his lord, whom as a child 
 he had carried in his arms. He had bidden the girl tell 
 the captain that his father had promised that he, Joshua, 
 would leave the Egyptians and follow his people. The 
 people of Ephraim, yea, the whole race, had heard the 
 news with great rejoicing. The grandfather would give 
 him more news, for she herself had been nearly out of her 
 mind with trouble and anxiety. He would deserve the 
 richest blessings if he would only go with her. 
 
 The warrior perceived from the first that he must fulfil 
 this wish, but he had postponed the visit to the old man 
 until the next morning. The messenger, though in haste, 
 managed to inform him of several things that she had seen 
 or heard of from others. 
 
 At last she was gone. He made up the fire, and as 
 long as the flames blazed brightly he looked with a dark 
 and thoughtful gaze toward the west. It was not till they 
 had consumed the fuel, whose flame flickered feeble and 
 blue over the charred wood, that he fixed his eyes on the 
 embers and the flying sparks, and the longer he did so the 
 deeper and more insurmountable did he feel the discord 
 in his soul, which only yesterday had been set on a single 
 glorious man. 
 
 For a year and a half he had been far from home fighting 
 against Libyan rebels, and for fully ten months he had not 
 heard a word from his people. A few weeks since he had 
 been ordered home ; his heart beat with joy and hopeful- 
 ness, and he, a man of thirty, had felt a boy again as he 
 drew nearer and nearer to Tanis, the city of Rameses, 
 famed for its obelisks. 
 
 In a few hours he would once more behold his beloved 
 and worthy father, who had only after deep consideration 
 and discussion with his mother — now long since departed 
 in peace — allowed him to follow his own inclinations and 
 devote himself to military service and Pharaoh's army. : 
 This very day he had hoped to surprise him with the news 
 that he had been promoted above other and older captains 
 of Egyptian race. 
 
 The neglect which Nun had feared for his son had, 
 through the power of his presence, his valor, and, as he 
 modestly added, his good luck, been turned to advance- 
 
32 JOSHUA. 
 
 ment ; and yet he had not ceased to be a Hebrew. When 
 'k had felt the need of acknowledging a god with sacrifice 
 and prayer, he had worshiped Set, into whose sanctuary 
 his own father had led him as a child, and whom, at that 
 tinn. all die Semitic race in Goshen had worshiped. For 
 him, however, there was another god, and this was not the 
 Ci'd of his fathers, but the god who was confessed by all 
 those Egyptians who had received initiation, though he 
 remained hidden from the common people, who were not 
 able to comprehend him. It was not only the adepts that 
 knew him, but also most of those who were placed in the 
 service of the state and in the army — whether they were 
 ministers of the divinity or not. Every one, however, 
 knew what was meant when they spoke simply of " The 
 God," the "Sum of All," the " Creator of Himself," or of 
 the " Great One." Hymns praised him, epitaphs which 
 every one could read spoke of him, the only god, who 
 revealed himself in the world, who was co-existent and 
 co-equal with the universe, immanent in all creation, not 
 merely as life exists in the body of man, but as being him- 
 self the sum total of created things, the universe itself in 
 its perennial growth, decay and resurrection, himself 
 obeying the laws he had laid down. His essence, dwelling 
 in every part of himself, dwelt likewise in man; and, look 
 where he might, a mortal could perceive the presence and 
 action of the One. Without him nothing could be con- 
 ceived of, and thus he was one — like the God of his fathers. 
 Without him nothing could come into being nor any event 
 happen on earth. Thus, like the God of Israel, he was 
 almighty. Joshua had long been wont to think of these 
 gods as essentially the same, and differing only in name. 
 He who worshiped the one he deemed was the servant of 
 the other ; and so the captain of the host could, with a 
 clear conscience, have stood before his parent and have 
 told him that he had been as faithful to the God of his 
 people as he had been, as a warrior, in the service of the 
 king. 
 
 And there was something else which had made his heart 
 beat faster and more gladly as he saw from afar the pylons 
 and obelisks of Tanis, for in his endless marches across 
 the silent desert and in many a lonely camp-tent the image 
 had haunted his vision of a maiden of his own people, 
 whom he had first known as a strange child stirred by 
 
JOSHUA. 33 
 
 wondrous thoughts, and whom he had seen again as a 
 woman grown, unapproachable in her dignity and severe 
 beauty, not long before he had last led his host to the 
 Libyan war. She had come from Succoth to Tanis to his 
 mother's burial ; her image had been deeply stamped on 
 his heart, and his — he dared to hope — on hers. She had 
 now become a prophetess, hearing the voice of God. While 
 other daughters of Israel were strictly secluded, she had 
 asserted her freedom, even among men and in spite of her 
 hatred for the Egyptians, and for his place among them, 
 she had not concealed from Joshua that to part from him 
 was grief, and that she would never cease to think of him, 
 His wife, when he should wed, must be as strong and grave 
 as himself, and Miriam was both, and cast another and 
 brighter image, of which he once had loved to dream, 
 quite into the shade. 
 
 He was fond of children, and a sweeter child than 
 Kasana he had never seen, either in Egypt or in distant 
 lands. The sympathy with which this fair daughter of his 
 comrade-in-arms had watched his achievements and his 
 fortunes, and the modest, tender affection which the much- 
 courted young widow had since shown him, had brought 
 him much joy in times of peace. Before her marriage he 
 had thought of her as growing up to be his wife ; but her 
 union with another and her father's repeated declarations 
 that he would never give his daughter to wife to a foreigner, 
 had wounded his pride and cooled his ardor. Then he 
 had met Miriam, and she had inspired him with a fervent 
 desire to call her his own. And yet, though as he marched 
 homeward the thought of seeing Kasana once more had 
 been pleasing to him, he was well content that he no longer 
 wished to marry her, for it must have led to much vexation. 
 The Egyptians and Hebrews alike deemed it an abomina- 
 tion to eat at each other's table, or to use the same seats 
 or knives, and though as a fellow soldier he was accepted 
 as one of themselves, and had often heard the young 
 widow's father speak kindly of his people, still " the 
 strangers " were hateful in the sight of Hornecht and his 
 household. 
 
 In Miriam he had found the noblest helpmate. Would 
 that Kasana might make another happy. Henceforth she 
 could be no more to him than a delightful child, from whorA, 
 we look for nothing but the pleasure of her sweet presence, 
 
 2 
 
34 yosniA. 
 
 He had learned to ask nothing of her beyond a glad smile, 
 always at his service. Of Miriam he demanded herself, 
 in all her lofty beauty, for he had long enough endured 
 the loneliness of a camp life, and now that no mother's 
 arms were open to the home-comer, he felt the emptiness 
 of his single state. He longed once more to feel glad in 
 times of peace, when he laid down his arms after perils 
 and privations of every kind. It was his duty to take a 
 wife home to dwell under his father's roof, and to provide 
 that the noble race of which he was the only male 
 descendant should not die out. Ephraim was only his 
 sister's son. 
 
 His heart uplifted with such glad thoughts as these, he 
 had come back to Tanis, and had almost reached the goal 
 of his hopes and wishes, when behold ! there lay before 
 him, as it were, a field of corn destroyed by hail and swarms 
 of locusts. 
 
 And, as though in mockery, fate brought him first to what 
 had been the home of his fathers. Where the house had 
 once stood in which he had grown up, and for which his 
 heart had longed, there lay a dust-heap of ruins. Where 
 those near and dear to him had proudly watched him depart, 
 beggars were searching for booty in the rubbish. 
 
 Kasana's father was the first to hold out a hand to him 
 in Tanis, and instead of a glance of kindly welcome he had 
 from him nothing but a tale of woe that had cut him to the 
 heart. He had dreamed of fetching home a wife, and the 
 house in which she should have been mistress was level with 
 the earth. The father whose blessing he craved, and who 
 was to have rejoiced over his promotion, was by this time 
 far away, and the foe henceforth of the sovereign to whom 
 he himself owed his elevation. 
 
 It had been a proud thought that, in spite of his birth, 
 he had risen to power and dignity, and that now, as the 
 leader of a great army, he might indeed show of what great 
 deeds he was capable. There was no lack of schemes in 
 his fertile brain, plans which, if they had been ratified by 
 the authorities, might have led to good issues ; and now 
 he was in a position to carry them out at his own pleasure, 
 and he himself the motive power instead of the tool. All 
 this had roused a delightful exultation in his breast, aiid 
 had lent wings to his feet on the homeward march ; and 
 now, when he had reached the longed-for goal, was to turn 
 
JOSHUA. 35 
 
 back, to become the comrade of shepherds and masons ? 
 By birth, indeed, he belonged to them (and how hard a 
 fortune did that at this moment seem), though there was 
 no denying that they were now as alien to him as the 
 Libyans against whom he had taken the field. On almost 
 every point for which he cared he had nothing whatever in 
 common with them. To his father's question as to whether 
 he had returned still a Hebrew, he had believed he might 
 truly answer, yes ; but now he felt that it would be against 
 his will, a less than half-hearted adhesion. 
 
 His soul clung to the standards under which he had 
 marched to battle, and which he now might himself lead to 
 victory. Was it possible to tear himself from them, and 
 forfeit all he had won by his own merit? But had he not 
 heard from the grandchild of his old slave, Eliab, that his 
 people expected him to quit the army and follow them ? 
 A messenger must ere long arrive from his father. — and 
 among the Hebrews a son might not resist a parent's com- 
 mand. 
 
 Yet there was another to whom he owed strict obedience 
 — Pharaoh, to whom he had sworn that he would serve him 
 faithfully and follow his call without hesitation or reflection 
 through fire and water, by night or day. How many a 
 time had he stigmatized a soldier who should go over to 
 the foe or rebel against the orders of his chief as a wretch 
 devoid of honor, and many a one who had deserted from 
 his standard had perished shamefully on the gallows under 
 his own eye. And should he now commit the crime for 
 which he had scorned others or done them to death. He 
 was known for his swift- decisiveness throughout the array, 
 for even in the greatest straits he could arrive at the right 
 determination and reduce it to action ; but in this dark and 
 lonely hour he seemed to himself as a bending reed, as 
 helpless as a deserted orphan. 
 
 A gnawing rage against himself possessed him wholly, 
 and when he presently thrust his spearhead into the fire, so 
 that the glowing brands fell in and the sparks danced 
 brightly up into the night, it was fury at his own vacillating 
 min 1 that spurred his hand. 
 
 If t.ij events of the past night had called him to the 
 manly task of revenge, all hesitation and doubt would have 
 vanished, and his father's call would have determined him to 
 act ; but who had here been the victims of ill-usage? Be 
 
36 JOStlUA. 
 
 yond doubt the Egyptians, who had been bereft by Moses' 
 curse of thousands of precious lives, while his people had 
 escaped their vengeance by flight. To find the home of 
 his fathers destroyed by the Egyptians had, indeed, roused 
 his wrath ; but he saw no just cause for a bloody revenge 
 when lie reflected on the unutterable woe which had come 
 upon Pharaoh and his subjects through the Hebrews. 
 
 No. He had no revenge to take ; he could only look 
 upon himself as one who sees his father and mother in 
 danger of their lives, and knows that he cannot save both, 
 but if he risks his own life to rescue one the other must 
 certainly perish. If he obeyed the call of his people honor 
 was lost — that honor which he had kept as bright as the 
 brass of his helmet — and with it all he most hoped for 
 in life ; if he remained faithful to Pharaoh he was betray- 
 ing his own blood, his father's curse would darken the light 
 of all his days, and he must renounce all his fairest dreams 
 for the future ; for Miriam was a true daughter of her race, 
 and woe to him if her lofty soul could hate as bitterly as it 
 could fervently love. 
 
 Her image rose before his mind's eye, tall and beautiful, 
 but with a dark look and warning mien, as he sat gazing 
 across the dying fire out into the night; and his manly 
 pride surged up, and it seemed to him a mean thing to 
 throw away everything that is dear to the warrior's heart 
 for fear of a woman's wrath and blame. 
 
 " No, no," he murmured to himself, and the scale which 
 held duty, and love, and filial obedience, and the ties of 
 blood, suddenly kicked the beam. He was what he was 
 — the captain of ten thousand in the king's army. He had 
 sworn allegiance to him and to none other. His people ! 
 Let them run away if they chose from the Egyptians' yoke ! 
 He, Joshua, scorned flight. Bondage had lain heavy on 
 him j but as for him, the mightiest in the land had treated 
 him as their equal and held him worthy of honor. To 
 repay their goodwill with treason and desertion went 
 against him, and with a deep sigh he started to his feet, 
 feeling as though he had chosen rightly. A woman and a 
 weak desire for love to fill his heart should never lead him 
 to be false to grave duty and the highest aims of his exist- 
 ence. 
 
 " I remain," cried a loud voice in his breast. " My 
 father is wise and kind, and when he hears my reasons he 
 
JOSHUA. 37 
 
 will approve them, and instead of cursing he will bless me. 
 I will write to him, and the boy that Miriam sent to me 
 shall be my messenger." 
 
 A cry from the tent made him start ; looking at the stars 
 lie found he had neglected his duty toward the sick youth, 
 and went quickly to his bedside. 
 
 Ephraim was sitting up expecting him, and cried to him : 
 " I have been wanting you a long time. So much has 
 passed through my mind, and, above all, the message from 
 Miriam. Till I have delivered it I shall not find any rest, 
 so hear me now." 
 
 Joshua nodded to him, and after the youth had taken the 
 healing draught that he handed him, be began : 
 
 " Miriam, the daughter of Amram and Jochebed, sends 
 greeting to the son of Nun, of the tribe of Ephraim. Joshua, 
 or the Helper, is thy name, and the Lord thy God hath 
 chosen thee to be the helper of his people. And hence- 
 forth thou shaltbe called Joshua,* the Holpen of Jehovah. 
 For the God of her fathers, who is the God of thy fathers 
 also, hath spoken by Miriam, His handmaid, commanding 
 Ihee to be the shield and sword of thy people. In Him is 
 all power, and His promise is to strengthen thine arm that 
 He may smite the enemy." 
 
 The lad began in a low tone, but his voice gradually grew 
 stronger, and the last words rang out loud and solemn in 
 the silence of the night. 
 
 Thus had Miriam spoken to him, and had laid her hands 
 on his head and looked earnestly into his eyes with her 
 own, which were as black as the night, and as Ephraim 
 repeated them he had felt as though some secret power 
 compelled him to cry them aloud to Joshua, as he had heard 
 them from the mouth of the prophetess. Then he breathed 
 a sigh of relief, turned his face to the white canvas wall of 
 the tent, and said quietly : 
 
 " Now I will sleep." 
 
 But Joshua laid his hand on his shoulder and said in 
 commanding tones : " Say it again." 
 
 The lad did his bidding, but this time he repeated the 
 words unheedingly and in a low tone to himself. Then he 
 said imploringly : " Leave me to rest," put his hand under 
 his cheek and shut his eyes. 
 
 * More correctly Jehoshua. 
 
38 JOSHUA. 
 
 Joshua let him have his own way. He gently laid a fresh 
 wet bandage over his burning head, put out the light and 
 cast more logs on the dying fire outside ; but the keen, 
 resolute man did it all as in a dream. At last he sat down, 
 resting his elbows on his knees and his head on his hand, 
 with his eyes fixed on vacancy or gazing at the flames. 
 
 Who was this God who called him through Miriam to be, 
 by His aid, the sword and shield of his people. 
 
 He was to bear a new name, and to the Egyptians the 
 name was the man. " Honor to the name of Pharaoh ! " 
 not "to Pharaoh," was written in every inscription and 
 document ; and if henceforth he was to be called Joshua, 
 this involved a command to cast the old man off and to 
 become a new man. This, which Miriam had declared to 
 him as the will of the God of his fathers, was nothing less 
 than a bidding to cea^e to be an Egyptian, as his life had 
 made him, and become a Hebrew again, as he had been as 
 a boy. 
 
 How could he learn to act and feel as a Hebrew ? 
 
 And Miriam's message required him to go back to his 
 own tribe. The God of his nation, through her, bid him 
 to do what his father expected of him. Instead of the 
 Egyptian host, which he must make haste to forget, hence- 
 forth he should lead the sons of Israel when they went 
 forth to battle ; this was the meaning of her words ; and 
 when thathigh-souled maiden and prophetess declared that 
 it was God Himself who spoke by her mouth, it was no 
 vain boast; she was certainly obeying the voice of the 
 Most High. And now the image of the woman whom he 
 had dared to love appeared to him as unapproachably 
 sublime ; many things which he had heard in his childhood 
 of the God of Abraham and His promises, recurred to his 
 mind ; and the scale which till now had been the heavier 
 gradually rose. What had but just now seemed firmly 
 settled was no longer sure, and once more he stood face to 
 face with the fearful abyss which he fancied he had over- 
 leaped. 
 
 How loud and mighty was the call he had heard ! The 
 sound in his ears disturbed his clearness and peace of 
 mind. Instead of calmly weighing the matter as he had 
 done before, memories of his boyhood, which he had fancied 
 long since buried, lifted up their voices, and disconnected 
 flashes of thought confused his brain. 
 
► JOSHUA. 39 
 
 Sometimes he felt prompted to turn in prayer to the God 
 who called him, but as often as he made the attempt he 
 remembered the oath he must break, and the vast host he 
 must leave behind him to become the leader, no more of 
 a well-trained, brave, obedient troop of brothers in arms, 
 but of a miserable horde of cowardly serfs, and wild, 
 obstinate shepherds accustomed to the rule of oppression. 
 
 It was three hours past midnight. The men on guard 
 had been relieved, and he began to think of giving himself 
 a few hours' rest. He would think the matter out again 
 by daylight with his wonted rational decisiveness, which 
 now he felt he could not attain to. But as he entered the 
 tent, and Ephraim's steady breathing fell on his ear, in 
 fancy he heard again the lad's solemn delivery of his mes- 
 sage. It startled him, and he was about to repeat the 
 words to himself when he heard a tumult among the out- 
 posts, and a vehement dispute broke the stillness of the 
 night. 
 
 The interruption was welcome. He hurried out to 
 where the guards were posted. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Hoglah, the granddaughter of the old slave Eliab, had 
 come to entreat Joshua to go with her forthwith to see her 
 grandfather, whose strength had suddenly failed him, and 
 who, feeling death near at hand, could not die without 
 seeing him and blessing him once more. So the captain 
 bade her wait, and after assuring himself that Ephraim 
 slept peacefully, he charged a man he could trust to keep 
 watch over the lad, and went with Hoglah. 
 
 As she led the way she carried a small lantern, and when 
 the light fell on the girl's face and figure, he saw how ill- 
 favored she was, for slave's toil had bent the poor child's 
 back before its time. Her voice had the rough tones 
 which a woman's tongue often acquires when her strength 
 is too unsparingly taxed ; but all she said was loving and 
 kind. Joshua forgot her appearance as she told him that 
 she had a lover among the men who had gone forth, but 
 that she had remained behind with her grandparents, for 
 she could not bring herself to leave the old folks alone ; 
 
40 JOSHUA. 
 
 that as she was not fair to look upon, no man had coveted 
 her as his wife till Asser had come, and he did not look to 
 appearances, because he was hardworking, as she herself 
 was, and had expected that she would help to save his 
 earnings. I Ic would have been willing to stay behind with 
 her, but his father had commanded him to set out with 
 him ; so he had no choice, but must obey and part from 
 her forever. 
 
 The tale was simply told, and in a harsh accent, but it 
 struck to the heart of the man who, for his part, meant to 
 go his own way in opposition to his father. 
 
 As they presently came in sight of the harbor, and 
 Joshua looked down on the quays and the huge fortified 
 storehouses, built by the hands of his own people, he 
 thought once more of the gangs of ragged laborers whom 
 he had so often seen cringing before the Egyptian overseer, 
 or, again, fighting madly among themselves. He had 
 marked, too, that they did not hesitate to lie and cheat in 
 order to escape their toil, and how hard it was to compel 
 them to obey and do their duty ! 
 
 The more odious objects among these hapless hundreds 
 rose clearly before his mind ; and the thought that perhaps 
 his fate in the future might be to lead such a wretched 
 crew came over him as a disgrace which the humblest of 
 his subalterns, the captain of fifty, would fain be spared. 
 There were, of course, among the mercenaries of Pharaoh's 
 armies many Hebrews who had won a reputation for 
 courage and endurance, but they were all the sons of 
 owners of herds, or of men who had been shepherds. The 
 toiling multitudes whose clay hovels could be overturned 
 with a kick formed the greater mass of those to whom he 
 was bidden to return. 
 
 Firmly resolved to remain faithful to the oath which 
 bound him to the standard of the Egyptian host, and yet 
 stirred to the depths of his soul, he entered the slave's hut, 
 and his vexation was increased when he found the old 
 man sitting up and mixing some wine and water with his 
 own hand. So he had been brought away from his 
 nephew's bedside on a false pretense, and deprived of his 
 own night's rest that a slave, who, in his eyes, was scarcely 
 a man at all, should have his way. Here he himself was 
 the victim of a trick of that cunning selfishness which, in the 
 Egyptians' eyes, was the reproach of his people, and which, 
 
JOSHUA. 41 
 
 indeed, did not attract him to them. But the wrath of the 
 clear-sighted and upright man was soon appeased as he 
 saw the girl's unfeigned delight at her grandfather's rapid 
 recovery ; and he then learned from the aged wife that 
 Hoglah had hardly set out on her quest when they remem- 
 bered that they had some wine in the house, and after the 
 first draught her husband got better and better, though she 
 had before thought he had one foot already in the grave. 
 Now he was mixing some more of the blessed gift to 
 strengthen himself with a draught of it every now and 
 then. 
 
 Here the old man himself broke in, and said that he 
 owed this and much that was better to the goodness of 
 Nun, Joshua's father ; for besides this hut and wine and 
 meal for bread, he had given him a milch cow and likewise 
 an ass, on which he could ride out and take the air, and he 
 had left him his granddaughter and some silver, so that he 
 could look forward with contentment to their end, all the 
 more so as they had a patch of land behind the house, 
 which Hoglah would sow with radishes, onions and leeks 
 for their pottage. But best of all was the written deed 
 which made them and the girl free forever. Aye, Nun was 
 a true lord and father to his people ; and his good gifts 
 had brought with them the blessing of the Most High, for 
 immediately after the departure of the Hebrews, by the 
 help of Asser, Hoglah's betrothed, he and his wife had 
 been conveyed hither without any demur or difficulty. 
 
 " We old folks," the old woman added, " will die here. 
 But Asser has promised Hoglah to come back for her when 
 she has done her duty to her parents to the very last." 
 And turning to the girl she said in an encouraging tone : 
 " And it cannot be for much longer now." 
 
 At this Hoglah began to wipe her eyes with the skirt of 
 her blue gown, and cried : " Long, long may it be ! I 
 am young. I can wait." 
 
 Joshua heard these words, and it seemed to him as 
 though the poor, ill-favored, deserted girl was giving him 
 a iesson. 
 
 He had let the old folks talk on, but his time was 
 precious, and he now asked whether it was for any special 
 cause that Eliab had sent for him. 
 
 " I could not help sending," was the answer, " and not 
 only to ease the longing of my old heart, but because my 
 lord Nun had bidden me to do so* 
 
42 JOSHUA. 
 
 " Great and noble is thy manhood, and now art thou 
 become the hope of Israel ! Thy father, too, hath promised 
 the men and women of his house that after his death thou 
 shalt be their lord and their head. His speech was full of 
 thy glory, and great was the rejoicing when he declared 
 that thou wouldst follow the departing tribes. And I am 
 he whom my lord vouchsafed to command that, if thou 
 shouldst return before his messenger could reach thee, I 
 was to say that Nun, thy father, awaited his son. By 
 sunrise, or at latest by midday, thy people shall stay to 
 rest by Succoth. He would hide a writing in the hollow 
 syoamore before the house of Aminadab, which should tell 
 thee whither next they take their way. His blessing and 
 the blessing of our God be with thee in the way ! " 
 
 As the old man pronounced the last words Joshua bent 
 his head, as though an invisible hand were inviting him to 
 kneel. Then he thanked the old man, and asked in a 
 subdued voice whether all had been willing to obey the call 
 to quit house and home. 
 
 The old woman clasped her hands, exclaiming: " No, 
 no, my lord ; by no means. What a wailing and weeping 
 there was before they departed ! Many rebelled, others 
 escaped or sought some hole or corner in which to hide. 
 But in vain. In the house of our neighbor, Deuel — you 
 know him — his young wife had been lately brought to bed 
 with a boy, her first-born. How could the poor creature 
 set forth to wander? At first she wept bitterly, and her 
 husband blasphemed ; but there was no help for it. She 
 and her infant were laid in a cart, and as things went for- 
 ward they got over it, he and she both, like all the rest ; 
 even Phineas, who crept into a pigeon-house with his wife 
 and five children, and even old crippled Graveyard Ke/iah 
 — you remember her, Adonai — she had seen her father ..,.i' 
 mother die, her husband, and then five well-grown sons : 
 everything the Lord had given her to love, and had laid 
 them one after another in our graveyard ; and every 
 morning and evening she would go to the resting place, 
 and as she sat there on a log of wood which she had 
 rolled close to the tombstone her lips would always be 
 moving ; but what she muttered was not prayer ; no — I 
 have listened to her many a time when she did not heed 
 me — no ; she talked with the dead as if they could hear her 
 in the tomb, and could understand her speech like those 
 
JOSHUA. 43 
 
 who live in the light of the sun. She is nigh upon three- 
 score years old, and for three times seven years she has 
 been known to the folk about as Graveyard Keziah. It 
 was a senseless way she had, but for that very reason 
 perhaps it was doubly hard to her to give it up ; and she 
 would not go, but hid away behind the shrubs. When 
 Abiezer, the head of the house, dragged her forth, her 
 wailing was enough to make your heart ache. But when 
 it came to the last she plucked up courage and could not 
 bear to stay behind any more than the rest." 
 
 " What had come over the poor wretches ? What 
 possessed them ? " Joshua here broke in, interrupting the 
 old woman's flow of words ; for his fancy again pictured 
 the people that he ought to, nay, that he must, lead, as 
 surely as he held his father's blessing of price above alj 
 else ; and he saw them in all their misery. The old 
 woman started, and, fearing lest she might have angered 
 the first-born son of her master, this proud and lordly 
 warrior, she stammered out : 
 
 " What possessed them, my lord ? Aye, well — I am but 
 a poor, simple slave-woman ; but indeed, my lord, if you 
 had but seen them also " 
 
 " Well, what then ? " cried the soldier roughly and 
 impatiently ; for now, for the first time in his life, he found 
 himself compelled to act against his inclinations and con- 
 victions. 
 
 At this the old man tried to come to his wife's rescue, 
 saying timidly : 
 
 " Nay, my lord, tongue cannot tell of it nor the under- 
 standing conceive of it. It came upon Israel from the 
 L'ord, and even if I could describe how mightily He 
 
 worked in the souls of the people " 
 
 brteTry," said Joshua, " but my time is short. Then they 
 v.ere forced to depart? It was against their will that they 
 took up their staff? That they have followed Moses and 
 Aaron for some time past, as sheep follow the shepherd, is 
 known even to the Egyptians. And have these men, who 
 brought down the pestilence on so many innocent beings, 
 worked a miracle to blind the eyes of you and your wife 
 here?" 
 
 The old man lifted supplicating hands to the warrior, 
 and replied, much troubled, in a tone of humble entreaty : 
 f ( Oh, my lord, you are the first-born son of my master, the 
 
44 JOSHUA. 
 
 greatest and noblest of his house, and if you will you can 
 tread me in the dust like a beetle ; and yet will I lift up my 
 voice and say to you they have told you falsely. You have 
 been among strangers all this year, while mighty signs have 
 been wrought upon us. You were far from Zoan* as I 
 have heard when the people went forth. For any son of 
 our race who had beheld this thing would sooner that his 
 tongue should wither in his mouth than laugh to scorn the 
 mighty things which the Lord has vouchsafed to us to 
 behold. If you had patience, indeed, and could grant me 
 to tell the story " 
 
 "Speak," cried Joshua, amazed at the old man's fervor; 
 and Eliab thanked him with a glowing look, and cried : 
 
 "Ah ! would that Aaron, or Eleazar, or my lord Nun, 
 your father, were here ; or that the Most High would 
 grant me the gift of their speech ! But as it is, well. 
 And, indeed, meseems as though I saw and heard it all, 
 as though it were all happening again ; and yet how may I 
 tell it? But by God's help I will try." 
 
 He paused, and as Joshua saw that the old man's lips 
 and hands trembled, he himself reached him the cup, and 
 the old man thankfully emptied it to the bottom. Then 
 he began with half-closed eyes, and his wrinkled features 
 grew more keenly eager as he proceeded with his tale : 
 
 " What befell after that it became known what command 
 had come to the people my wife has already told you ; 
 and we, too, were among those who lost heart and mur- 
 mured. But last night we all who were of the house of 
 Nun were bidden to the feast — even the shepherds and 
 the slaves and the poor — and there we ate of roast lamb' 
 and fresh unleavened bread, and had plenty of wine, more 
 than usual at the harvest festival which begins on that 
 night, and which you yourself have often witnessed as a 
 boy. There we sat and enjoyed ourselves, and my lord, 
 your father, spoke words of encouragement and told us of 
 the God of our fathers and of the great things He had 
 done for his people. Now, said he, it was the Lord's will 
 that we should set forth and depart out of this land, where 
 we have borne contempt and bondage. This was no such 
 sacrifice as that for which Abraham had sharpened his 
 knife to shed the blood of his son Isaac withal, at the bid- 
 
 • The Hebrew name for Tanis. 
 
JOSHUA. 45 
 
 ding of the Most High, although it would fall hardly on 
 us to leave a home grown dear to us, and many an old 
 custom. Nay, it would at last bring much happiness on 
 us all. For, cried he, we were not to wander forth into 
 the unknown, but toward a lordly land which God himself 
 had set before us. He had promised us a new home 
 instead of this land of bondage, where we should dwell as 
 free men on fruitful meadows, and fine rich pastures where 
 a man and his household might be fed and their hearts 
 made glad. Just as a man must work hard to earn his 
 wage, so were we to endure a brief space of privation and 
 sorrow to earn that beautiful new home for ourselves and 
 our children, as the Lord had promised. A land of God 
 it must surely be, since it was the gift of the Most High. 
 
 "Thus he spoke, and thus he blessed us all; and pro- 
 mised that you, too, would shake the dust from off your 
 feet and join yourself to the people, and fight for them with 
 a strong arm, as an experienced warrior and an obedient 
 son. 
 
 " Hereupon we all shouted for joy, and when we were 
 all gathered in the market-place and found that all the 
 bondsmen had been able to escape from the overseers our 
 courage rose. Then came Aaron into our midst and stood 
 upon the salesman's bench, and all that my lord Nun had 
 spoken at the feast we now heard from his lips, and the 
 words he spoke sounded now like rolling thunder and now 
 like the sweet tones of the lute ; and we all knew that it 
 was the Lord our God who spoke by him, for he touched 
 the hearts even of the rebellious, so that they murmured 
 and complained no more. And when at last he proclaimed 
 to the multitude that no erring man, but the Lord God 
 Himself, would be our Captain ; when he described the 
 beauty of the promised land, whose gates he would open 
 before us, and where we should dwell as free and happy 
 men, released from all bondage, owing no obedience to any 
 but to the God of our fathers and those whom we may 
 choose for our leaders, it was as though every man there 
 was drunk with new wine, and as if the way that lay be- 
 fore them, instead of a barren track across the desert into 
 the unknown, led to a great feast spread for them by 
 the Most High Himself. Nay, and even those who had 
 not heard Aaron's words were likewise filled with marvel- 
 ous confidence, and men and women were all more cheer- 
 
46 JOSHUA. 
 
 ful and noisy than their wont at the harvest feast, for all 
 hearts overflown! with pure thankfulness. It even seized 
 the old folks. Old Elishama, the father of Nun, who is an 
 hundred years old, and, as you know, has long sat bent and 
 silent in his seat, rose up with a light in his eyes and spoke 
 fiery words. The spirit of the Lord had come upon him 
 as upon us all. 
 
 " I felt myself quite young again in body and soul ; and 
 as I passed by the carts which were made ready for their 
 departing I saw Elisheba with her babe in a litter, and she 
 looked as happy as on the day of her marriage, and pressed 
 her infant to her heart and blessed his lot in growing up in 
 the promised land and free. And her husband, Deuel, who 
 had blasphemed the loudest, swung his staff and kissed his 
 wife and child with tears of joy in his eyes, and shouted 
 for joy like a vintager at the pressing, when jars and wine 
 skins are too small to hold the blessing. The old woman, 
 too, Graveyard Keziah, who had torn herself away from 
 the tombs of her race, sat with other feeble folk in a char- 
 iot, and waved her veil and joined in the hymn of praise 
 which Elkanah and Abiasaph, the sons of Korah, had 
 begun. And thus they set forth. We who were left 
 behind fell into each other's arms, and knew not whether 
 the tears we shed flowed from our eyes for grief or for 
 overjoy at seeing the multitude of those we loved so glad 
 and full of hope. Thus it came to pass. 
 
 " Such torches were carried in front of the multitude, 
 seeming to light it up more brightly than the great blaze of 
 lamps which the Egyptians light up at the gates of the 
 temple to Neith ; and it was not till they were swallowed up 
 in the darkness that we set forth, so as not to keep Asser too 
 long behind the rest. As we made our way through the 
 night, the streets were full of the mourning cry of the citi- 
 zens, but we sang softly the hymn of the sons of Korah, 
 and great joy and peace fell upon us, for we knew that the 
 Lord our God would keep and lead His people." 
 
 Here the old man ceased, but his wife and the girl, who 
 had hearkened to him with eager eyes, drew closer to each 
 other, and without any word between them they both 
 together began the hymn of praise, and the old woman's 
 thin voice mingled with pathetic fervor with the harsh 
 tones of the girl, ennobled as they were with lofty enthu- 
 siasm. 
 
JOSHUA. 47 
 
 Joshua felt that it would be wicked to break in on this 
 overflow of full hearts, but the old man presently bade 
 them cease and looked up at his master's first-born son 
 with anxious inquiry in his grave features. 
 
 Had Joshua understood? 
 
 Had he made it plain to this warrior who served Pha- 
 raoh how that the Lord God Himself had ruled the souls 
 of His people at their departing ? 
 
 Was he so fallen away from his own nation and their 
 God, so led away by the Egyptians, that he would dare 
 to defy the wishes and commands of his own father ? 
 
 Was he, in whom they had set the highest hopes, a 
 deserter and lost to his own people ? 
 
 To these questions he might have no answer in words ; 
 but when Joshua took his horny old hand between his 
 own, and shook it as that of a friend when he bade him 
 farewell, his eyes glistening with moisture, and murmured, 
 " You shall hear of me ! " he felt that this was enough, and 
 overcome by vehement joy he kissed the soldier's arm and 
 clothing again and again. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Joshua returned to his tent with a bowed head. The 
 discord in his soul was resolved. He knew now what 
 burthen he must take up. His father called him and he 
 must obey. 
 
 And the God of his people ! As he listened to the 
 old man's tale all he had heard of that God in his 
 childhood now reawakened in his soul, and he knew now 
 that He was another than Set, the god of the Asiatics 
 in lower Egypt; another than the "One," the "Sum 
 of All," of the adepts. The prayer he had been wont 
 to say on going to rest, the story of the Creation which he 
 had never been weary of hearing, because it so plainly 
 showed how everything which existed in heaven and on 
 earth had gradually come into being till man came to take 
 possession of it and to enjoy it all ; the history of father 
 Abraham, of Isaac and Jacob, Esau and his own forefather 
 Joseph — how gladly had he hearkened to all this as it was 
 told him by the gentle mother who had borne him, by his 
 
48 yosnuA. 
 
 nurse, and his grandfather Elishama ; and yet he. seemed 
 long since to have forgotten it. But under his old slave's 
 humble roof he could have repeated the tale word for word, 
 and he now knew of a surety that there was indeed one God, 
 invisible, almighty, who had chosen Israel to be His own 
 people, and had promised to make them a great nation. 
 That which the Egyptian priesthood kept secret as the 
 greatest mystery was the common possession of his people ; 
 every beggar, every slave, might lift his hands in prayer 
 to the one invisible God who had revealed Himself to 
 Abraham and promised him great things. Over-wise 
 heads among the Egyptians, who had divined His exist- 
 tence, had overlaid His essence with the monstrous births 
 of their own imaginings and their own thoughts, and had 
 shrouded Him in a thick veil, and hidden Him from the 
 multitude. It was only among His chosen people that He 
 lived and shewed forth His power in its mighty and awful 
 greatness. 
 
 This God was not nature, though the initiated in the 
 temples confounded them ; no, the God of his fathers was 
 enthroned on high, above all created things and the visible 
 universe, above man, His last and most perfect work, 
 created in His own image ; and all creatures were subject 
 to His will. He, the King of Kings, ruled all that had life 
 with just severity ; and although He hid himself from the 
 sight of man who was His image, and was beyond man's 
 apprehension, yet was He a living, thinking, and active 
 Being even as men were, save that His term of life was 
 eternity, His mind was omniscience, His realm was 
 infinity. 
 
 And this God had instituted Himself the leader of His 
 people. There was no captain who could dare to defy 
 His power. If Miriam were not deceived by the Spirit of 
 prophecy, and if He had indeed called Joshua to be His 
 sword, how could he resist, or what higher place could he 
 fill on earth ? 
 
 And His people ; the rabble crowd of whom he had 
 thought with scorn, how transfigured they seemed by the 
 power of the Most High now that he had heard old Eliab's 
 tale ! Now he only longed to lead them ; and on his way 
 back to the camp he stayed his steps on a sandy knoll, from 
 whence he could see the limitless waters gleaming under 
 the lamps of heaven, and for the first time for many 
 
JOSHUA 4$ 
 
 long years uplifted his arms and eyes to the God whom he 
 had found again. 
 
 He began with a simple prayer which his mother had 
 taught him j but then he cried to the Lord as to a mighty 
 counselor, and besought Him with fervent entreaty to show 
 him the way in which he should walk without being 
 disobedient to his father, or breaking the oath he had 
 sworn to the king, or becoming a traitor in the eyes of 
 those to whom he owed so much. 
 
 " Thy people glorify Thee as the God of truth, punish- 
 ing those who break their oath ! " he cried. " How canst 
 Thou bid me to be faithless and to be false to the pledge 
 I have given ? All I am or can do is Thine, O Lord, and 
 I am ready to give my blood and my life for my brethren. 
 But rather than cast me into dishonor and perjury let me 
 die, and give the task Thou hast chosen me, Thy servant, 
 to do, to a free man bound by no oath ! " 
 
 Thus he prayed, and he felt as though he clasped in his 
 arms a friend whom he had accounted as lost. Then he 
 walked on in silence through the diminishing darkness, and, 
 as the grey dawn stole up, the high tide of passion ebbed 
 in his soul, and the clear-headed warrior could think 
 calmly. 
 
 He had vowed to do nothing against the will of his 
 father or his God ; but he was no less resolved never to 
 be a traitor and oath-breaker. What he had to do he now 
 saw plainly and clearly. He must quit Pharaoh's service, 
 and declare before the face of his superiors that, as a duti- 
 ful son, he must obey the commandments of his father, and 
 go forth to share his fortunes and the fortunes of his 
 people. 
 
 But he did not conceal from himself that his demand 
 might be refused ; that he might be kept back by force ; 
 and perhaps, if he persisted unmoved in his resolve, be 
 threatened with death, or, if it came to the worst, be hand- 
 ed over to the executioner. But even if this should be his 
 doom, if his deed cost him his life, he would have done 
 what was right, and his comrades in arms, whose esteem 
 was dear to him, would still think of him as their worthy 
 mate ; his father and Miriam would not be wroth with him ; 
 nay, but would mourn for the faithful son, the true man 
 who preferred death to treason. 
 
 Calm and elevated in spirit, he gave the watchword to 
 the sentry with proud composure, and went into his tent. 
 
SO JOSHUA. 
 
 Ephraim still lay sleeping and smiling as though wrapped 
 in sweet dreams. Joshua lay down on a mat near him 
 to seek strength for the hard day before him. His eyes 
 soon closed, and after sleeping an hour he awoke of his 
 own accord and called for his handsomest raiment, his hel- 
 met and gilt armor which lie was wont to wear only at 
 high festivals or in the king's presence. 
 
 Meanwhile Ephraim, too, awoke, gazed at his uncle from 
 head to foot with delighted curiosity as he stood before 
 him in stalwart manliness and shining warlike splendor, 
 and cried as he started up : 
 
 " It must be a fine thing to be dressed like that and feel 
 oneself the leader of thousands." 
 
 The elder man shrugged his shoulders and replied : 
 
 " Obey the Lord thy God, and give no man, whether 
 great or small, the right to regard you with anything but 
 respect, and then you may carry your head as high as the 
 proudest hero in his purple robe and gilt breast-plate." 
 
 " But you have done great things among the Egyptians," 
 the lad went on. " They hold you in high esteem — even 
 Hornecht the great captain, and his daughter Kasana." 
 
 " Do they? " said the warrior with a smile ; and he bid 
 his nephew to lie down and keep quiet ; for his brow, 
 though less burning than it had been the night before, was 
 still very hot. 
 
 " Do not go out of doors," Joshua added, " till the leech 
 has been to see you, and await my return." 
 
 " And will you be long away ? " asked the boy. 
 
 At this Joshua paused in thought, looked kindly in his 
 face and then gravely replied : 
 
 " The man who serves a master never knows how long 
 he may be detained." Then, changing his tone, he added 
 less emphatically : " To-day, this morning, I may perhaps 
 get through my business quickly and return in a few 
 hours. If it should not be so, if I should not be with you 
 by this evening, or early to-morrow morning, then," and he 
 laid his hand on the boy's shoulder, " then make your way 
 home as fast as you can. If when you reach Succoth the 
 people have gone on before you, look in the hollow syca- 
 more before the house of Aminadab and you will find a 
 letter which will tell you whither they have gone ; and 
 when you come up with them greet my father and my 
 grandfather Elishama, and likewise Miriam, and tell them 
 
JOSHUA. Ji 
 
 and all the people that Joshua will ever be mindful of the 
 commands of God and of his father. Henceforth he will be 
 called Joshua by all men — Joshua and not Hosea. Tell 
 this to Miriam first of all. Finally, say to them that if I 
 stay behind, if I am not allowed to follow them as I fain 
 would do, it is that the Most High hath dealt otherwise 
 with me, and hath broken the sword which He had chosen 
 before He had used it. Do you understand me, boy ? " 
 
 And Ephraim bowed his head and said : " You mean 
 that death alone can keep you from obeying the call of 
 God and your father's commands ? " 
 
 "That was my meaning," replied his uncle. " And if 
 they ask you why I have not stolen away from Pharaoh 
 and escaped from his power, answer that Joshua would 
 fain enter on his office as a true man unstained by perjury, 
 or, if it be God's will, to die true. Now rehearse the mes- 
 sage." 
 
 Ephraim obeyed, and his uncle's words must have sunk 
 deep into his soul, for he neither forgot nor altered a single 
 word ; but he had no sooner ended his task of repetition 
 than he seized Joshua's hand with vehement urgency, and 
 implored him to tell him whether he had indeed any fear 
 for his life. 
 
 At this the warrior clasped him in a loving embrace, and 
 assured him that he hoped that he had given him this mes- 
 sage only to be forgotten. 
 
 " Perhaps." he added, " they may try to keep me by 
 force ; but by God's help I shall soon be back with you 
 again, and we will ride forth together to Succoth." 
 
 He turned and went out without heeding his nephew's 
 questions, for he heard the sound of wheels without, and 
 two chariots with five horses came rapidly up to the tent 
 and stopped in front of the entrance. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Joshua was well acquainted with the men who stepped out 
 of the chariots ; they were the head chamberlain and one 
 of the king's chief scribes, and they had come to bid him 
 to the High Gate, as the palace of the Pharaohs was called. 
 No hesitancy or escape was possible, and he got into the 
 
$2 JOSHUA. 
 
 second chariot with the scribe, surprised indeed but no* 
 uneasy. Both officials wore mourning robes, and instead 
 of a white ostrich plume, the insignia of office, a black 
 plume fixed on the brow. The horses, too, and the runners 
 were decked with badges of the deepest woe ; and yet the 
 king's messenger seemed to be cheerful rather than 
 dejected, for the noble bird which they were charged to 
 bring into Pharaoh's presence had come out at their call j 
 and they had feared to find the nest deserted. 
 
 The long-limbed bays of royal breed carried the light 
 vehicles with the swiftness of the wind across the uneven 
 sandy way and the smooth high road beyond, towards the 
 palace. 
 
 Ephraim with youthful inquisitiveness had gone out of 
 the tent to see the unwonted scene that met his eyes. The 
 soldiers were well pleased that Pharaoh should have sent 
 his own chariots to fetch their captain, and he even felt 
 his vanity flattered when he saw his uncle drive away. 
 But he had not long the pleasure of watching him, for 
 thick clouds of dust soon hid the chariots from view. 
 
 The hot desert wind had risen which so often blows in 
 the Nile-valley during the spring months, and whereas all 
 night and in the morning the sky had been clearly blue, it 
 was now not clouded but veiled, as it were, with white 
 haze. 
 
 The sun looked down, a motionless globe, like a blind 
 eye above the heads of men, and the fierce heat it shed 
 seemed to have burnt up its beams which to-day were 
 invisible. The eye protected by the mist could look up 
 at it unhurt, and yet its scorching power was as great as 
 ever. The light breeze which commonly fanned the brow 
 in the early part of the day touched it now like the hot 
 breath of a raging beast of prey. It was loaded with the 
 fine scorching sand of the desert, and the pleasure of 
 breathing was turned to torture. The usually fragrant air 
 of a March-day in Egypt was now an oppression both to 
 man and beast, choking their lungs and seeming indeed to 
 weigh on the whole frame and check its joy in life. 
 
 The higher the pale and rayless orb rose in the sky, the 
 denser grew the mist, the heavier and swifter rolled the 
 sand clouds from the desert. 
 
 Ephraim still stood in front of the tent gazing at the 
 spot where Pharaoh's chariots had vanished in the dust. 
 
yosHUA. S3 
 
 His knees shook, but he attributed this to the wind sent 
 by Set-Typhon, at whose blowing even the strongest was 
 aware of a weight about his feet. 
 
 Joshua was gone, but he might return in a few hours, 
 and then he would be compelled to follow him to Succoth. 
 There the fair dreams and hopes which yesterday had 
 brought him, and whose bewitching charms his fever had 
 enhanced, would be lost to him for ever. 
 
 In the course of the night he had quite made up his 
 mind to enter Pharaoh's army, to the end that he might 
 remain near Tanis and Kasana; but although he had not 
 more than half understood Joshua's message, he could 
 clearly infer that he meant to turn his back on Egypt and 
 his high office, and that he counted on taking him, 
 Ephraim, with him, unless meanwhile he could make good 
 his escape. So then he must give up his desire to see 
 Kasana once more. But this thought was more than he 
 could endure, and a voice within whispered to him that he 
 had neither father nor mother, and was free to act as he 
 choose. His guardian, the brother of his deceased father, 
 in whose house he had been brought up, had died not long 
 since of an illness, and no new guardian had been 
 appointed to him, as he was now past childhood. He 
 was destined by-and-bye to become one of the chiefs of his 
 proud tribe, and until yesterday he had never wished for 
 anything better. 
 
 When, yesterday, he had rejected the priest's challenge 
 to become a warrior under Pharaoh, with the pride of a 
 shepherd-prince, he had followed the impulse of his heart ; 
 but now he said to himself that he had been foolish and 
 childish to reject a thing of which he knew nothing, which 
 had always and intentionally been represented to him in a 
 false and hideous light in order to attach him more closely 
 to his own people. The Egyptians, he had always been 
 told, were his enemies and oppressors ; and how delight- 
 ful, on the contrary, had everything seemed in the first 
 house of an Egyptian warrior which he had happened to 
 enter. 
 
 And Kasana ! What would she think of him if he 
 quitted Tanis without a word of greeting or leave-taking? 
 Would it not be a perpetual vexation. and regret to him 
 thai, he must dwell in her memory as a clumsy peasant 
 shepherd ? Indeed, it would be actually dishonest not to 
 
$ 4 JOSHVA. 
 
 restore the costly garments which she had lent him. Gra- 
 titude was accounted among the Hebrews, too, as the 
 holiest duty of a noble heart. He would be a hateful 
 wretch all his life long if he did not go to see her once 
 
 more. 
 
 Only he must make haste, for when Joshua should 
 return he must find him ready to set out. 
 
 He began forthwith to strap the sandals on his feet, but 
 he did it but slowly, and he could not understand what it 
 was that made everything so difficult to him to-day. 
 
 He crossed the camp unimpeded, the pylons and obel- 
 isks in front of the temples showed him the way, though 
 they seemed to quiver in the heated, sand-filled air, and he 
 presently came out on the broad road which led to the 
 town market-place. A panting Egyptian, whose ass was 
 carrying wine-skins to the camp, directed him on his way. 
 
 The path was deep in dust, and dust wrapped him as he 
 went ; the sun overhead poured a flood of fire down on his 
 bare head, and his wound again began to ache ; the sand 
 filled his eyes and mouth and stung his face and bare limbs. 
 He was overpowered by thirst, and more than once he was 
 forced to stop for his feet felt strangely heavy. At last he 
 reached a well, dug for wayfarers by a pious Egyptian, and 
 although it was graced with the image of a god, and Miriam 
 had taught him that it was an abomination to turn from the 
 way to such images, he drank nevertheless, drank again and 
 again, and thought he had never enjoyed such a refreshing 
 draught. 
 
 He got over his fear of losing his senses, as he had done 
 yesterday, and though his feet still dragged he walked on 
 briskly to the tempting goal. But presently his strength 
 again failed him, the sweat streamed from his brow, there 
 was a throbbing and hammering in the cut on his head, and 
 he felt as if his skull was being crushed in an iron fillet. 
 Now his usually keen sight was failing, for the things he 
 tried to see seemed to float in dancing dust, the horizon 
 rocked before his eyes j and suddenly he felt as though the 
 hard pavement had turned to a bog beneath his feet. Still, 
 all this troubled him little, for his fancy had never glowed 
 so brightly within him. The things he thought of rose 
 before'him with marvelous vividness. Image after image 
 stood before the wide-opened eyes of his soul, and not at 
 his bidding, but as if raised by a will outside himself. Now 
 
JOSHUA. 55 
 
 he beheld himself lying at Kasana's feet, his head fondly 
 laid on her lap while he gazed up into her lovely face — then 
 it was Joshua who stood before him in splendid armor, as 
 he had just now seen him, only more gorgeous, and in 
 ruddy fire-light instead of the dim light in the tent. Then 
 again all the finest oxen and rams of his herds passed in 
 front of him ; and mingling with all these, sentences of the 
 message he had learned passed though his mind, nay, he 
 fancied that they were being shouted in his ears ; but before 
 he could be quite sure of their meaning some new and 
 dazzling vision, or a loud, rushing sound filled his mind's 
 eye and ear. 
 
 And on he went tottering like one drunk, with the sweat 
 standing on his brow and a parched mouth. Now and 
 then he mechanically lifted his hand to wipe the dust from 
 his burning eyes, but he cared little that they failed to shew 
 him clearly what was passing around him, for nothing could 
 be more delightful than what he beheld when he looked 
 within. Every now and then, to be sure, he was conscious 
 of acute suffering, and he felt inclined to fling himself on 
 the ground in sheer exhaustion, but then again a strange 
 sense of relief kept him up. At last the delirium was 
 too much for him ; his head seemed growing and swelling 
 till it was as large as the head of the colossus he had seen 
 yesterday in front of a temple ; then it rose to the height 
 of the palm-trees by the road side, and at last it reached 
 the mist over the firmament, and higher and higher yet. 
 Then this head, which was still his head, was as wide as 
 the horizon, and he pressed his hands to his temples and 
 held his brow, for his neck and shoulders were too weak 
 to bear the burthen of so huge a head, till, possessed with 
 this madness, he shrieked aloud, his knees gave way, and 
 he sank senseless in the dust. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 At this same hour a chamberlain was leading Joshua into 
 the hall of audience. 
 
 Though subjects bidden to attend the king commonly 
 had hours to wait, the Hebrew's patience was put to no 
 severe test. At this time of deep mourning the spacious 
 
56 JOSHUA. 
 
 rooms of the palace, in which a gay and noisy throng were 
 wont to move, were as still as the grave ; for not the slaves 
 and sentries only, but many persons of superior rank in 
 immediate attendance on the royal pair, had lied from the 
 pestilence and escaped without leave. 
 
 1 1 1 re and there a solitary priest or official leaned against 
 a pillar or cowered on the ground, hiding his face in his 
 hands, while awaiting some command. Soldiers went 
 about trailing their arms and in silent brooding. Now and 
 then a few young priests in mourning robes stole through 
 the deserted rooms, and speechlessly swung the silver cen- 
 sers, which shed a pungent perfume of resin and junipers. 
 
 It was as though a terrible incubus weighed on the 
 palace and its inhabitants ; for, added to the loss of the 
 king's beloved son, which came home to many hearts, the 
 fear of death and the desert-wind had crushed the energies 
 of mind and body alike. 
 
 Here, under the shadow of the throne, where of yore all 
 eyes had glittered with hope, ambition, gratitude or fear, 
 devotion or hatred, Joshua saw to-day only bowed heads 
 and downcast looks. 
 
 Baie, alone, the second prophet of Anion, seemed un- 
 touched by sorrow, or the terrors of the night, or the 
 enervating influences of the day ; he greeted the captain 
 in the ante-chamber as frankly and cheerfully as ever, and 
 assured him, though in an undertone, that no one dreamed 
 of calling him to account for the sins of his people. But 
 when the Hebrew, of his own free will, acknowledged that 
 at the moment when he was sent for by the king he was 
 in the act of going to the superior captains of the army 
 to beseech them to release him from his service, the priest 
 interrupted him to remind him of the debt of gratitude 
 which he, Baie, owed to him. And he declared that, for 
 his part, he would do his utmost to keep him with the 
 army, and to prove to him that an Egyptian knew how to 
 honor faithful service without respect of persons or consi- 
 derations of birth, nay, even against Pharaoh's will ; and 
 of this he would presently speak with him in secret. 
 
 But the Hebrew had no time to reiterate his purpose, 
 for the head chamberlain interrupted them to lead Joshua 
 into the presence of the " kind god." * 
 
 An euphemistic title of the Pharaohs, 
 
JOSFTTTA. 57 
 
 Pharaoh awaited him in the smaller reception hall, 
 adjoining the royal apartments. It was a noble room, and 
 looked more spacious to-day than when, as usual, it was 
 filled with a crowd. Only a few courtiers and priests, with 
 some of the queen's ladies, formed a small group, all in 
 deep mourning, round the throne ; opposite the king, 
 squatting in a circle on the ground, were the king's coun- 
 cillors and scribes, wearing each his ostrich plume. 
 
 All wore badges of mourning, and the monotonous 
 chant of the wailing women, broken now and then by a 
 loud, shrill, tremulous outcry, came pealing out from the 
 inner rooms and found its way to the great hall, a token 
 that death had claimed a victim even in the palace. 
 
 The king and queen sat on a couch under a canopy of 
 black ; the throne itself was of ivory and gold. Instead 
 of their splendid state attire they were clad in dark robes, 
 and the royal wife and mother, who bewailed her first-born, 
 leaned motionless and with downcast head against her 
 husband's shoulder. 
 
 Pharaoh, too, kept his eyes fixed on the ground, as if 
 lost in a dream. The sceptre had fallen from his hand 
 and lay in his lap. 
 
 The queen had been torn from the corpse of her son, 
 which was now given over to the embalmers, and it was 
 not till she entered the audience hall that she had been 
 able to control her tears. But she had not thought of 
 resistance, for the unrelenting ceremonial of court life 
 made the queen's presence indispensable at any audience 
 of high importance. And to-day of all days she certainly 
 would fain have escaped, but that Pharaoh had command- 
 ed her to appear. She knew what counsel was to be 
 taken, and approved of it beforehand ; for she was wholly 
 possessed by her dread of the power of Mesu the Hebrew, 
 called by his own people Moses, and of his God, who had 
 brought such terrors on Egypt. Alas ! for she had other 
 children to lose, and she had known Mesu from his child- 
 hood, and knew in what high esteem the learning of this 
 stranger had been held by the great Rameses, her hus- 
 band's father and predecessor, who had brought him up 
 with his own sons. 
 
 Oh, if it were but possible to make terms with this man ! 
 But Mesu had departed with his people ; and she knew 
 his iron will, and that the terrible foe was armed not alone 
 
58 JOSHUA. 
 
 against Pharaoh's throats but even against her passionate 
 supplications. 
 
 Now she would meet Joshua ; and he, the son of Nun, 
 and the most noble of the Hebrews of Tanis, could succeed, 
 if any man could, in carrying out such measures as she and 
 her husband might think best for all parties, in concert 
 with Ruie, the venerable high priest and chief prophet of 
 Anion, the pontiff of all priesthood of Egypt, who com- 
 bined in his own person the dignities of chief judge, treas- 
 urer and viceroy of the realm, and who had come with the 
 court from Thebes t'o Tanis. 
 
 When she had been sent for to the audience chamber she 
 was winding a garland for the beloved dead, and lotos 
 flowers, larkspurs, mallow and willow leaves were handed 
 to her as she required them. They lay before her now on 
 a table and in her lap, but she felt paralyzed, and her 
 hand, as she put it forth, refused its service. 
 
 Ruie, the chief prophet of Anion, sat on his heels on a 
 mat to the left of the king ; he was a very old man, long 
 past his ninetieth year. A pair of shrewd eyes, shaded by 
 a pent-house of thick white eyebrows, looked out of his 
 brown face, which was as gnarled and wrinkled as a bark 
 of a rugged oak, like bright flowers from withered foliage, 
 and their brilliancy was startling in such a shrunken, hud- 
 dled, stooping figure. 
 
 This old man had long since left all active conduct of 
 affairs to the second prophet, Baie, but he clung stoutly to 
 his dignities, to his place at Pharaoh's side, and his seat in 
 the council ; and rarely as he spoke, his opinion more 
 often carried the day than that of the eloquent, fiery and 
 much younger second prophet. 
 
 Since the pestilence had invaded the palace the old man 
 had not quitted Pharaoh's side, yet he felt more alive than 
 usual to-day, for the desert wind, which made others lan- 
 guish, revived him. He was wont to shiver continually 
 in spite of the panther skin which covered his back and 
 shoulders, and the heat of the day warmed his sluggish old 
 blood. 
 
 The Hebrew Mesu had been his pupil, and never had 
 he had the guidance of a grander nature or the teaching 
 of a youth more richly graced with all the gifts of the 
 spirit. He had initiated the Hebrew into all the highest 
 mysteries, and had expected the greatest results for Egypt 
 
JOSHUA. 59 
 
 and the priesthood ; and when Mesu had one day slain an 
 overseer who was unmercifully flogging one of his fellow 
 Hebrews, and had fled into the desert, Ruie had bewailed 
 the rash deed as deeply as if his own son had committed 
 it and was to suffer the consequences. His intercession 
 had procured Mesu's pardon, but when Mesu had returned 
 to Egypt, and that change had been wrought in him which 
 his friends in the temple called his apostasy, he had caused 
 his old master a keener grief than by his flight. If Ruie 
 had been younger he would have hated the man who had 
 cheated his dearest hopes ; but the old priest, to whom 
 the human heart was as an open book, and whose sober 
 impartiality enabled him to put himself in the place of his 
 fellow-man, confessed to himself that it was his own fault 
 that he had failed to foresee this falling away. Education 
 and dogma had made of Mesu, the Plebrew, an Egyptian 
 priest after his own heart and pleasing to the divinity, but 
 when once he had raised his hand to defend one of his own 
 race against those to whom he had been allied only by 
 human agencies, he was lost to the Egyptians. He was 
 henceforth a true son of his people ; and whithersoever this 
 high-minded and strong-willed man might lead, others 
 must inevitably follow. 
 
 Aye, and the high priest knew full well what it was that 
 the apostate hoped to give to his people ; he had confessed 
 to Ruie himself that it was the faith in One God. Mesu 
 had denied that he was guilty of perjury, and had pledged 
 himself never to betray the mysteries to his people, but 
 only to lead them back to the God whom their forefathers 
 had served before Joseph and his kindred had ever come 
 into Egypt. The One God of the initiated was, no doubt, 
 in many respects like the God of the Hebrews, and that 
 was precisely what had reassured the ancient sage ; for he 
 knew by experience that the common folk would not be 
 content with a god, one and invisible, such as many of the 
 more advanced of his own disciples found it difficult to 
 conceive of. The men and women of the masses required 
 sensible images of everything of which they perceived the 
 effects in and about them, and this need the religion of the 
 Egyptians gratified. What comfort could a love-lorn maid 
 find in an invisible and creative Power governing the 
 course of the universe ? She would be drawn to the gentle 
 Hathor, who held in her beneficent grasp the cords which 
 
60 JOSHUA. 
 
 bind heart to heart, the fair and powerful goddess of pro- 
 creation before whom she could pour forth in full confi- 
 dence all that weighed on her soul. Or a mother who 
 longed to snatch a darling child from death — how could 
 her small sorrows concern the incomprehensible and 
 almighty Being who ruled the whole world? But Isis, the 
 gracious mother, who herself had wept in such deep 
 anguish, she could understand her grief ! And how often 
 in Egypt it was the wife who influenced her husband's 
 attitude to the gods ! 
 
 And the high priest had frequently seen Hebrew men 
 and women worshipping devoutly in the sanctuaries of 
 Egypt. Even if Mesu should succeed in persuading them 
 to acknowledge One God, he, the experienced old man, 
 foresaw with certainty that they would ere long turn away 
 from the invisible Spirit who must ever remain remote and 
 unreal to their apprehension, and flock back in hundreds 
 to the gods they could understand. 
 
 Now, Egypt was threatened with the loss of the husband- 
 men and brickmakers she so greatly needed. Still Ruie 
 believed he could lure them back. 
 
 " "When kind words will do the work let sword and bow 
 lie idle," he had said to his deputy, Baie, who had urged 
 that the fugitives should be pursued and slain. " We have 
 more corpses than enough already ; what we lack are 
 workers. Let us try to keep our hold on what we are so 
 likely to lose." 
 
 And this milder counsel had been quite after the heart 
 of Pharaoh, who had had enough of lamentation, and who 
 would have thought it less rash to go unarmed into a lion's 
 cage than to defy the terrible Hebrew any further. 
 
 So he had turned a deaf ear to the incitements of the 
 second prophet, whose decisive and energetic nature had 
 an influence all the more powerful as his own was irre- 
 solute, and had approved old Ruie's proposal that Joshua, 
 the man of war, should be sent to his people, to treat with 
 them in Pharaoh's name — a plan which had calmed his 
 fears and inspired him with new hopes. 
 
 Baie himself had at last agreed to this suggestion. It 
 gave him a further chance of undermining the throne he 
 hoped to overthrow ; and if once the Hebrews were re- 
 established in the land, Prince Siptah, in whose eyes no 
 punishment was too severe for the Hebrews, who hated 
 
JOSHUA. 61 
 
 him, might very probably seize the sceptre of the cowardly 
 Menephtah. But first the fugitives must be stopped, and 
 for this Joshua was the right man. No one, Baie thought, 
 was better fitted to win the confidence of an unsuspicious 
 soldier than Pharaoh himself and his royal wife. 
 
 The old high priest was on this point of the same 
 opinion, although he had nothing to do with the conspiracy ; 
 and thus the sovereigns had determined to interrupt the 
 lamentations for the dead and themselves speak with the 
 Hebrew. 
 
 Joshua fell on his face before their feet, and when he 
 rose the king's weary face was bent on him, sadly indeed, 
 but gracionsly. 
 
 The father who had lost his first-born son had, according 
 to custom, sacrificed his hair and beard to the razor. 
 They had formerly framed his face in glossy black, but near 
 twenty years of anxious rule had turned them grey, and 
 his figure had lost its upright bearing and had a languid, 
 senile stoop, though he was scarcely past fifty. His regular 
 features were still handsome, and there was something 
 pathetic in their melancholy softness, evidently incapable 
 of any severe tension, especially when a smile lent be- 
 witching charm to his mouth. The indolent deliberate- 
 ness of his movements scarcely detracted from the natural 
 dignity of his person, though his voice, which was agree- 
 able, generally had an exhausted and plaintive sound. He 
 was not born to rule ; thirteen brothers, older than he, 
 had died before the heirship to the throne had devolved 
 upon him, and he, meanwhile, as the handsomest youth in 
 all the land, the darling of the women and a light-hearted 
 favorite of fortune, had lived a life of unbroken enjoyment 
 till he had almost arrived at manhood. Then he had 
 succeeded his father, Rameses the Great ; and hardly had 
 he grasped the sceptre when the Libyans, with strong 
 allies, had rebelled against his rule. The veteran troops 
 and their captains, schooled in his father's wars, helped 
 him to conquer. But in the twenty years which had now 
 elapsed since his father's death his armies had rarely had 
 any rest, for rebellions had constantly to be quelled, now 
 in the East and now in the West ; and instead of dwelling 
 in Thebes, where he had spent many happy years, and 
 living in the most gorgeous of palaces, as he would fain 
 have done, enjoying the blessings of peace and the society 
 
fz JOSHUA. 
 
 of the illustrious students and poets who were at that time 
 to be found there, he was forced sometimes to lead his 
 armies into the field, and sometimes to reside at Tanis. 
 Thus only could he settle the difficulties that disturbed the 
 border province, and in this he yielded willingly to the coun- 
 sels of Ruic. In the later years of his father's reign the 
 national sanctuary at Thebes, and, consequently, its high 
 priest, had attained greater wealth and power than the 
 royal family, and it suited Mcnephtah's indolent nature to 
 be an instrument rather than a master, so long as he 
 abdicated none of the external honors due to Pharaoh. 
 These he guarded with a resolute care which he was inca- 
 pable of exerting when more serious matters demanded it. 
 
 The gracious condescension with which the king received 
 him gratified Joshua, and at the same time roused his 
 suspicions. However, he had the courage to declare 
 freely that he desired to be released from his office and 
 from the oath he had taken to his sovereign lord. 
 
 Pharaoh listened unmoved, and it was not till the soldier 
 had confessed that his father's commands had moved him 
 to take this step that Pharaoh signed to the high priest, 
 who then spoke in scarcely audible tones : 
 
 " A son who sacrifices greatness that he may continue 
 dutiful to his father must be one of the most faithful of 
 Pharaoh's servants. Go then, do the bidding of Nun. The 
 child of the sun, the lord of Upper and Lower Egypt, sets 
 you free. But on one condition, which I, as the minister 
 of his master, declare to you." 
 
 " And what is that ? " inquired Joshua. 
 
 And again the king signed to the old priest ; then he 
 sank back on the throne, while Ruie fixed his piercing eyes 
 on Joshua and went on : 
 
 " That which the Lord of both worlds requires of you by 
 my mouth is easy to fulfill. You must return, to be his 
 servant and one of us again, as soon as your people and 
 their chief, who brought such woe on this land, shall have 
 taken the hand of the divine son of the Sun which he vouch- 
 safes to hold forth to them in pardon, and shall have come 
 back under the shadow of his throne. Pie, of his divine 
 mercy, is ready to attach them to him and to his land again 
 with rich gifts, as soon as they come home from the dssert, 
 whither they are gone forth to sacrifice to their god. 
 Mark me well ! All the oppressions which weighed on the 
 
y JOSHUA. 63 
 
 people to whom you belong shall be lifted from them. The 
 divine King will make a new law granting them much free- 
 dom and many privileges, and all that we promise them 
 shall be written down and witnessed on our part and on 
 yours, as a new covenant binding on our children and our 
 children's children. Now when this shall have been done, 
 with an honest purpose to abide by it forever on our part, 
 and when your people shall have agreed to accept it, will 
 you then consent to be one of us once more ? " 
 
 " Take upon yourself the office of mediator," the queen 
 here broke in, in a low voice, and her sad eyes were fixed 
 beseechingly on the Hebrew's face. " I quail before Mesu's 
 wrath, and all that may be done shall be done to win back 
 his former friendship. Speak to him in my name, and re- 
 mind him of the days when I, Isis Nefert, would learn of 
 him the names of the plants I carried to him, and he taught 
 me and my sister their uses or their poisonous powers when 
 he came to see the queen, his second mother, in the 
 women's quarters. The wounds he has inflicted on our 
 hearts shall be forgiven and forgotten. Be our ambassador, 
 Joshua ; do not refuse our prayer ! " 
 
 " Such words from such gracious lips are a command," 
 replied the warrior, " and are sweet to the heart. I will be 
 mediator." 
 
 At this the old high priest nodded approval, and said : 
 " Then I hope that the fruit of this short hour may be a 
 long period of peace. But mark me. Where medicine 
 may avail we avoid the knife and cautery ; where there is 
 a bridge over the river a man does not rashly try to swim 
 through the whirlpool." 
 
 " Yes, verily, we will avoid the whirlpool," said the king, 
 and the queen repeated his words ; then she again fixed 
 her eyes on the flowers in her lap. 
 
 Then a formal council was held. 
 
 Three private scribes sat down on the ground, close to 
 the high priest, to enable them to hear his low tones, and 
 the interpreters and counselors, in their places, took out 
 their writing things, and, holding the papyrus in their left 
 hands, wrote with reeds or brushes, for nothing might 
 remain unrecorded which was discussed and decided in 
 Pharaoh's presence. Hardly a whisper was to be heard in 
 the hall while this went on ; the guards and courtiers 
 remained motionless in their places, and the royal couple 
 
«4 JOSHUA. 
 
 sat rigid and speechless, gazing into vacancy, as if in a 
 dream. 
 
 Neither Pharaoh nor his wife could possibly have caught 
 a word of the murmured colloquy of the speakers, but the 
 Egyptians never ended a sentence without glancing up at 
 the king, as if to make sure of his approval. Joshua, who 
 was accustomed to the scene, followed their example, 
 speaking like the Others in a subdued voice, and when 
 presently the voice of the second prophet, or of the chief 
 interpreter, sounded rather louder, Pharaoh raised his head 
 and repeated the high priest's last saying : " Where there 
 is a bridge over the river a man does not try to swim the 
 whirlpool," for this exactly expressed his wishes and the 
 queen's. No fighting. Peace with the Hebrews, and res- 
 pite from the wrath of their terrible leader and of his god, 
 without losing the thousand diligent hands of the fugitive 
 tribes. 
 
 Thus matters proceeded, and when the muttering of the 
 speakers and the scratching of the pens had gone on for 
 fully an hour, the queen was still sitting in the same atti- 
 tude \ but Pharaoh began to stir and raise his voice, for 
 he knew that the second prophet hated the man whose 
 blessing he had received and whose hostility filled him with 
 such dread, and he feared but he should be requiring some 
 impossible conditions of the envoy. 
 
 Still, all he said was again a repetition of the counsel as 
 to the bridge ; but his inquiring glance at the chief inter- 
 preter moved that official to assure him that all was 
 proceeding favorably. Joshua had merely demanded that 
 the overseers, who kept guard over the men at work, should 
 not, for the future, be watchmen of Libyan race, but He- 
 brews themselves, to be chosen by the elders of their people 
 under the sanction of the Egyptian government. 
 
 At this Pharaoh cast his look of anxious entreaty at Baie 
 and the other councillors. The second prophet only 
 shrugged his shoulders regretfully, and, feigning to defer 
 his own opinion to the divine wisdom of Pharaoh, conceded 
 this point to Joshua. The god enthroned on earth acknow- 
 ledged this submission with a grateful bow, for Baie's will 
 had often crossed his ; and then, when the herald or 
 rehearser had read aloud all the clauses of the treaty, 
 Joshua was required to take a solemn oath that he would 
 in any case come back to Tanis and report how his people 
 had received the king's advances. 
 
JOSHUA. 65 
 
 But the cautious warrior, who was well aware of all the 
 snares and traps with which the State was only too ready, 
 took this oath most unwillingly, and only when he had 
 obtained a written pledge that, whatever the issue, his free- 
 dom should be in no way interfered with as soon as he 
 could give them his word that he had done his part to in- 
 duce the leader of his people to accept these terms. 
 
 At last Pharaoh held out his hand for the captain to kiss, 
 and when he had also pressed to his lips the hem of the 
 queen's robe, Ruie signed to the monarch, who understood 
 that the moment was come when he should withdraw. 
 And he did so with goodwill and a sense of encouragement, 
 for he believed that he had acted for the best for his own 
 welfare and that of his people. 
 
 A bright radiance lighted up his handsome, languid 
 features, and when the queen rose and saw him smile, con- 
 tent, she did the same. At the door the king drew a 
 breath of relief, and turning to his wife he said : " If Joshua 
 does his errand well we shall get across the bridge." 
 
 " And not swim the whirlpool," replied the queen in the 
 same tone. 
 
 " And if the Hebrew captain can pacify Mesu," Pharaoh 
 went on, "and he persuades his people to remain in the 
 land " 
 
 " Then you must adopt this Joshua into the royal family. 
 He is well favored and of a lordly mien," his wife broke 
 in. 
 
 But at this Pharaoh suddenly abandoned his stooping 
 and indifferent attitude. 
 
 " Impossible ! " he eagerly exclaimed. " A Hebrew ! 
 If we raise him to be one of the 'friends,' or a fanbearer, 
 that is the highest he can hope for. In such matters it is 
 very difficult to avoid doing too much or too little ! " 
 
 As the royal couple went forward toward the private 
 apartments the wailing of the mourners fell more loudly on 
 the ear. Tears started afresh to the queen's eyes, while 
 Pharaoh continued to deliberate precisely what position in 
 the court Joshua might be allowed to fill if he succeeded in 
 his embassy. 
 
66 JOSHUA. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Joshua had now to hasten if he was to overtake the 
 Hebrews in time, for the further they had got on their way 
 the more difficult it might be to persuade Moses and the 
 heads of the tribes to return and accept the terms offered 
 them. 
 
 The events of this morning were to him so marvelous 
 that he regarded the issue as a dispensation of the god he 
 had found once more ; also he remembered the name of 
 Joshua, that is to say, " holpen of the Lord,'' which had 
 been laid upon him by Miriam's message, whereas he had 
 hitherto been called Hosea. He was willing to bear it, 
 although he felt it hard to deny the sovereign who had 
 raised him to honor. Many of his fellow-warriors had 
 assumed similar names, and his had proved itself nobly 
 true. Never had the help of God been more clearly with 
 him than it had been this day. He had gone into Pha- 
 raoh's palace in the expectation of losing his freedom or 
 being handed over to the executioner as soon as he de- 
 clared his wish to follow his people ; and how easily had 
 the ties been severed which bound him to Egypt. And 
 he had been charged with a task, in his eyes so great and 
 noble, that he could not forbear believing that the God of 
 his fathers had called him to fulfill it. 
 
 He loved Egypt. It was a glorious land. Where could 
 his people find a fairer dwelling place ? The conditions 
 only under which they had dwelt there had been intoler- 
 able. Better days were now before them. The Hebrews 
 were to be permitted to return to Goshen or to settle in 
 the lake-land west of the Nile, a district whose fertility was 
 well known to him. No one henceforth might compel 
 them to serfdom, and if they laid their hands to labor for 
 the State, Hebrews only were to be their taskmasters, and 
 not the hard and cruel stranger. That his people must re- 
 main subject to Pharaoh was a matter of course. Joseph, 
 Ephraim and his sons, Joshua's forefathers, had called 
 themselves so, and had been well content to be regarded 
 
JOSHUA. 67 
 
 as Egyptians. If his embassy came to a good end, the 
 elders of the tribes were to be allowed to rule the domestic 
 affairs of the people. Moses must be the chief ruler in the 
 new settlement, in spite of the second prophet's objections, 
 and he himself would be captain of the united force which 
 should defend its frontiers, and form fresh legions of those 
 Hebrew mercenaries who had already proved their valor 
 in many wars. Before he left the palace the second 
 prophet had given him several mysterious hints which had 
 remained unsolved, but from which he inferred that Baie 
 was big with portentous schemes, and proposed to give 
 him some important charge as soon as the conduct of the 
 State should fall from the hands of old Ruie into his own ; 
 perhaps the chief captaincy of the whole army of mercen- 
 aries, a post at present held by a Syrian named Aarsu. This 
 disturbed rather than gratified him ; but on the other hand 
 it was a great satisfaction to him to have made it a con- 
 dition that the eastern frontier should, every third year, be 
 thrown open to the Hebrews, that they might go forth to 
 the desert to offer sacrifices to their God. On this Moses 
 had insisted most strongly, for, as the law now stood, no 
 one was permitted to cross the eastern limit line, which 
 was fortified at all points, without the express consent of 
 the authorities. This concession to their great leader's 
 desires might perhaps gain his assent to a treaty so favor- 
 able to his people. 
 
 All through these transactions Joshua had felt keenly 
 how far he had been cut off from his tribe; he could not 
 even say what was the aim of this worship in the desert. 
 He had frankly confessed before Pharaoh's council that 
 he knew nothing of the complaints or demands of the 
 Hebrews, and he did so advisedly, reserving their right to 
 alter and amplify the proposals of which he was the bearer. 
 But what could the people or their chief hope for better? 
 
 The future lay before him full of hope for his nation and 
 himself. If the covenant should be concluded the time 
 would come for him to found a family, and the image of 
 Miriam rose before him in all its lofty beauty. The 
 thought of winning this noble woman was an intoxicating 
 one ; and he asked himself whether he were indeed worthy 
 of her, and if it were not too bold to sue for the possession 
 of this superb inspired maiden and prophetess. 
 
 He knew life well, and understood how little trust could 
 
68 JOSHUA. 
 
 be placed in the promises of the irresolute man for whose 
 weak hand the sceptre was too heavy. But he had taken 
 precautions, and if the elders of the people could only be 
 pacified, the covenant, clause by clause, would be graven 
 on metal tablets, like every other compact between Egypt 
 and a foreign nation, and hung up in the national temple 
 at Thebes, signed by Pharaoh and by the representatives of 
 his people. Such a document — as he had learnt from the 
 treaty of peace concluded with the Kheta — secured and 
 prolonged the brief "forever" of international compacts. 
 He had omitted nothing that might protect the Hebrews 
 against treason and faithlessness. 
 
 Never had Joshua felt stronger, more confident, more 
 glad of life, than when he once more stepped into Pharaoh's 
 chariot to take leave of his subalterns. Even Baie's mys- 
 terious hints and confessions did not disturb him, for he 
 was wont to leave the cares of the future to the future day ; 
 but in the camp a trouble awaited him which darkened 
 the present hour, for he there heard to his surprise, wrath, 
 and distress, that Ephraim had quitted the tent and stolen 
 away, telling no man whither. His hasty questions 
 elicited the fact that the lad had taken the road to Tanis, 
 so Joshua charged his faithful shield-bearer to seek the boy 
 out in the town, and if he found him to bid him follow his 
 uncle to Succoth. 
 
 Then, as soon as the captain had taken leave of his men, 
 he set forth, followed by his old squire. 
 
 It was a pleasure to him to see that the Adones* and 
 other inferior officers who had served with him, hard 
 warriors, with whom he had shared all he possessed in war 
 and peace, in peril and privation, so frankly showed their 
 grief at parting. The tears rolled down the brown cheeks 
 of many a man grown grey in battle as he shook hands 
 with him for the last time. Many a bearded lip was 
 pressed to the hem of his garment, or his feet, and the 
 shining coat of the Lybian charger which bore him through 
 the ranks with arched neck and eager prancing, though 
 firmly held in by his rider. His own eyes were moist for 
 the first time since his mother's death, as shouts of honest 
 regret and farewell wishes broke from the manly hearts of 
 his troops and echoed along the lines. Never had he felt 
 
 •Answering to our adjutants. 
 
JOSHUA. 69 
 
 so deeply as at this moment. How closely his heart was 
 knit to those men, and how precious to him was his noble 
 calling. 
 
 But the duty which lay before him was high and noble, 
 too ; and the God who had released him from his oath and 
 made his way plain to obey his father's behest, and yet be 
 true and faithful, would perhaps lead him back to his com- 
 rades in arms, whose farewell he could fancy still rang in 
 his ears when he was long since out of hearing. 
 
 Still, the full glory of the work intrusted to him — the 
 exalted frame of mind of a man who goes forth with a high 
 moral purpose to fulfill — a difficult task — the perfect bliss of 
 a lover who flies with well-grounded hopes to crown the 
 purest and dearest wish of his heart— did not wholly 
 possess him till he had left the town behind him and was 
 hastening, at a brisk trot, across the level plain dotted with 
 palm groves and pools that lay to the southeast. 
 
 So long as he had kept his horse at a moderate pace 
 along the streets of the town and about the harbor, his 
 mind was so full of the immediate past and of anxiety for 
 the missing youth that he had paid small heed to the scene 
 around him ; the numerous vessels lying at anchor, the 
 motley throng of ships' captains, merchants, sailors and 
 porters of the most diverse races of Africa and Western 
 Asia, who here sought their fortunes, or the officials, soldiers 
 and supplicants who had followed the court from Thebes 
 to Tanis. 
 
 And he had also failed to observe two men of higher 
 rank, though one of them, Hornecht, the captain of the 
 bowmen, had saluted him as he passed. They were 
 standing back under the gateway of the temple of Set for 
 shelter from a cloud of dust blown along the road by the 
 wind from the desert. And as the archer vainly endea- 
 vored to attract the rider's attention, Baie, his companion, 
 said to him : " It matters not ; he will learn soon enough 
 where his nephew has found refuge." 
 
 " By your command," replied the soldier. Then he 
 went on eagerly with what he had been saying : " The lad 
 looked like a lump of clay in the potters' shed when he 
 was brought in." 
 
 " And no wonder," interrupted the priest. " He had 
 been lying quite long enough in Typhon's dust. But what 
 did your steward want among the soldiers ? " 
 
7 o JOSHUA. 
 
 ''My Adon, wliom I had sent out last evening, brought 
 word that the poor lad was in a high fever, so Kasana 
 packed up some .wine and her nurse's balsam, and the old 
 woman went with them to the camp." 
 
 " To the boy or to the captain ? " asked the prophet, 
 with a cunning smile. 
 
 " To the sick lad," replied the soldier, decisively, with 
 an ominous frown. But he checked himself and went on, 
 apologetically : " Her heart is as soft as wax, and the 
 
 Hebrew boy — you saw him yesterday " 
 
 " A handsome fellow — quite after a woman's heart," 
 laughed the priest. ''And stroking the nephew down 
 cannot hurt the uncle." 
 
 "She can hardly have had that in her mind," said Hor- 
 necht sharply. " And the unembodied God of the Hebrews, 
 it would seem, is no less mindful of his own than the 
 immortals you serve, for when he led Hotepoo to the spot 
 the boy was very nigh unto death. And the old man 
 
 would have ridden past him, for the dust had already. " 
 
 " As you said, turned him into a lump of potter's clay. 
 But what then ? " 
 
 " Then the old man saw something golden gleam in the 
 grey mass." 
 
 "And for gold the stiffest back will bend." 
 "Aery true! So did my old man. The broad gold 
 bracelet, glittering in the sun, saved the boy's life once 
 more." 
 
 " And the best of it is that we have got him alive." 
 "Yes. I, too, was glad to see him open his eyes again. 
 He quickly got better and better, and the leech says he is 
 like a young cat and nothing will kill him. But he is in a high 
 fever and talks all sorts of nonsense in his ravings, which 
 even my daughter's old nurse, a woman from Ascalon, dees 
 not understand. But she believes she can distinguish 
 Kasana's name." 
 
 " A woman once more at the bottom of the mischief." 
 " Cease jesting, reverend father," replied the warrior, 
 and he bit his lip. "A decent widow and this downy- 
 cheeked boy ! " 
 
 " At his tender years," the priest went on, in the same 
 tone, " full-blown roses tempt young beetles more than 
 buds do, and in this case," he added, more gravely, 
 "nothing could be more fortunate. We have Joshua's 
 
JOSHUA. 71 
 
 nephew in our net, and now it is your part not to let him 
 escape the toils." 
 
 " You mean," cried the soldier, " that we are to keep 
 him a prisoner? " 
 
 " As you say." 
 
 u - But you esteem his uncle highly? " 
 
 " Certainly, but higher still the State." 
 
 " But this lad " 
 
 " He is a most welcome hostage. Joshua's sword was an 
 invaluable weapon ; but if the hand that wields it is 
 guided by that man whose power over greater men than 
 he we know too well " 
 
 "You mean Mesu, the Hebrew?" 
 
 " Joshua will wound us as deeply as heretofore our 
 enemies." 
 
 " But I heard you yourself say that he was incapable of 
 treachery." 
 
 " And I say so still ; and he has proved my words this 
 very day. It was simply to procure his release from the 
 oath of fealty that he this day put his head into the 
 crocodile's jaws. But if Joshua is a lion, in Mesu he will 
 find his tamer. That man is Egypt's arch foe, and my 
 gall rises only to think of him." 
 
 " The cries of woe within these gates are enough to 
 keep our hatred alive." 
 
 " And yet the feeble creature who fills the throne 
 postpones revenge and sends forth a pacificator." 
 
 " With your consent, I believe ? " 
 
 " Quite true," replied the priest, with a sardonic smile. 
 " We have sent him forth to build a bridge ! A bridge, for- 
 sooth ! The dried-up wisdom of an ancient sage recommends 
 it, and the notion is quite after the heart of that contemptible 
 son of a great father, who, for his part, never shrunk from 
 swimming the wildest whirlpool, specially when revenge 
 was in view. Well, Joshua may try to build it. If the 
 bridge over the torrent only brings him back to us, I will 
 give him a warm and sincere welcome. But Ave, who 
 alone have any spirit in Egypt, must make it our business 
 to see that as soon as this one man has recrossed to our 
 shore the piers shall give way under the tread of the leader 
 of his nation." 
 
 " Yes, yes. But I fear, that we should lose the captain, 
 if his people met the fate they deserve." 
 
ft JOSHUA. 
 
 " It may seem so." 
 
 " You are wiser than I." 
 
 " But, still, in this case you think I am mistaken." 
 
 " How could I make so bold ! " 
 
 " As a member of the Council of War it is your duty to 
 express your own opinion, and I regard it now as my part 
 to show you whither the road leads along which you have 
 come so far with bandaged eyes. Listen, then, and be 
 guided by what I tell you when it is your turn to speak in 
 the assembly. Ruie, the high priest, is very old." 
 
 " And you already exercise half his prerogatives." 
 
 " Would that he might soon lay down the rest of the 
 burden ! — Not for my own sake, I love a contest, but for 
 the welfare of our country. It has become a deeply- 
 rooted habit to accept as the language of wisdom all that 
 age decides and rules \ thus there are few among the 
 councillors who do not adhere to the old man, and yet his 
 statecraft, like himself, goes only on crutches. All that 
 is good gets lost in a fog under his weak and half-hearted 
 guidance." 
 
 " On this point you may count on my support," cried 
 the warrior. " I will lend both hands to overthrow the 
 dreamer on the throne and his senseless counselor." 
 
 At this the prophet laid his finger to his lip in warning, 
 went close up to his companion, and said in low, rapid 
 accents : " I am now expected at the palace, so hearken 
 only to this much : If Joshua effects a reconciliation, his 
 people, the guilty with the innocent, will all return, and 
 the guilty will be punished. Among the innocent we may 
 reckon the whole of Joshua's tribe, the tribe of Ephraim, 
 from old Nun, the father, down to the boy in your 
 house." 
 
 " They may be spared ; but as Mesu is a Hebrew, what- 
 ever is done to him " 
 
 " It will not be done in the open street ; and there is 
 never any difficulty about sowing the seeds of discord 
 between two men who have an equal right to rule in their 
 own circle. I will take care that Joshua shall wink at the 
 death of the other, and then Pharaoh, whether his name 
 be Menephtah or" (and here his voice fell to a murmur) 
 " or Siptah, shall raise him to such a giddy height- — for he 
 deserves it — that his bewildered eye will never see any- 
 thing we choose to hide from him. There is a dish of 
 
JOSHUA. 73 
 
 which no man can cease to eat who has once tasted it, and 
 that meat we shall serve him withal." 
 
 "A dish— meat?" 
 
 " Power, Hornecht. Immense power. As governor of 
 a province, or captain-general over all the mercenary troops 
 in Aarsu's place, he will beware of quarreling with us. I 
 know him. If we can but make him believe that Mesu 
 has done him a wrong — and that overbearing man will of 
 a certainty give us some ground — and if he can but be 
 convinced that the law prescribes such punishment as we 
 may inflict on the magician and the worst of his followers, 
 he will not merely consent, but approve." 
 
 " But if the embassy should fail ? " 
 
 " Still he will come back to us : for he never would 
 break an oath. But in the event of his being forcibly de- 
 tained by Mesu, who is capable of anything, the boy will 
 prove useful ; for Joshua loves him, his people set great 
 store by his life, and he is a son of one of their noblest 
 families. Pharaoh shall at any rate threaten the lad ; we, 
 on our part, will protect him, and that will bind us more 
 closely than ever to his uncle, and join him to those who 
 are wroth with the king." 
 
 " Admirable ! " 
 
 " And we shall yet more certainly gain our end if we 
 can bind him by yet another tie, and now I beseech you 
 to be calm, for you are too fiery for your years. In short, 
 our brother in arms, the man who saved my life, the best 
 warrior in all the army, and who consequently must rise 
 to the highest honors, must be your daughter's husband. 
 Kasana loves the Hebrew — that I know from my wife." 
 
 The frown once more knit the archer's brow and he 
 struggled painfully to be calm. He felt that he must sub- 
 due his aversion to calling this man his son-in-law ; for 
 indeed he liked and esteemed him, though he was averse 
 to his nationality. He could not, indeed, refrain from 
 muttering a curse, but his reply to the priest was calmer 
 and more reasonable than Baie had expected. If Kasana 
 was so possessed by demons as to be drawn to this 
 stranger, then she should have her way. But Joshua, as yet, 
 had not wooed her. "And," he added furiously, " by the red 
 god Set and his seventy fellows ! neither you nor any other 
 man shall ever move me to force my child, who has suitors 
 by the score, on a man who, though he calls himself our 
 
74 JOSHUA. 
 
 friend, has never yet found leisure to greet us in our own 
 house ! Taking charge of the lad is another matter, and I 
 will see that he does not escape." 
 
 " Very good, my friend," replied the priest, laying his 
 hand on his companion's shoulder. " You know how 
 highly I value Joshua, and if he should become your son- 
 in-law he will be the most important and indispensable of 
 all our colleagues, and then I fancy his nephew may grow 
 up to be a valiant officer in our army." 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 The midnight sky, sown with innumerable stars, spread 
 deeply and purely blue over the broad level of the eastern 
 delta and the town of Succoth, which the Egyptians called, 
 from its presiding deity, Pithom, or the city of Toom. 
 The March night was drawing to its close. White mists 
 floated above the canal, a work of the Hebrew bondsmen, 
 which intersected the plain and watered the pasture-land 
 and meadows which lay on all sides as far as the eye 
 could reach. To the east and north the horizon was 
 shrouded by the thick haze which rose from the broad 
 lakes by the isthmus. The hot, sandy, desert-wind, which 
 yesterday had blown over the thirsty grass ; the desert 
 border-land to the east, and the houses and tents of Suc- 
 coth, had died away during the night, and the chill hour 
 which in March precedes sunrise, even in Egypt, was very 
 perceptible. 
 
 Any one who had in former days arrived between mid- 
 night and dawn at the humble frontier town with its squalid 
 hovels of Nile-mud and modest farms and dwellings, could 
 not have recognized it now. Even its one important build- 
 ing besides the splendid temple of the god Toom, the 
 spacious and fortified storehouse, presented a strange 
 spectacle. The long, white, lime-washed walls gleamed as 
 usual through the dusk ; but it no longer towered in death- 
 like silence over the sleeping town ; all about it was stir 
 and bustle. It did duty as a fortress against the plunder- 
 ing tribes of Shasoos* who had made their way round the 
 
 Bedouins, whose nomad hordes swarmed in the desert adjoining 
 
 - ueaouins, wnose nomaa nornes swarmea in tne 
 Egypt on the east,, now regarded as belonging to Amu. 
 
JOSHUA. 73 
 
 outworks of the isthmus, and an Egyptian garrison dwelt 
 within its indestructible walls, which could easily be held 
 against very superior numbers. 
 
 This morning it might have been supposed that the sons 
 of the desert had taken it by storm ; but the men and 
 women who were so busy round the walls and on the broad 
 marble parapet of the. huge building were not Shasoos, but 
 Hebrews. With shouts and demonstrations of joy they 
 were taking possession of the thousands of measures of 
 wheat and barley, rye and doorah, lentils, dates and onions, 
 which they had found in those vast lofts, and had set to 
 work before sunrise to empty the storehouse and pack the 
 contents into sacks and pitchers and skins, into kneading- 
 troughs, jars and sheets, let down from the roof by cords 
 or carried up and down on ladders. 
 
 The chiefs of the tribes, indeed, took no part in the work, 
 but in spite of the early hour, children of all ages might 
 be seen, as busy as the rest, carrying as much as they 
 could lift in pots and bowls — their mothers' cooking 
 vessels. 
 
 Above, close to the open trap-doors of the lofts, into 
 which the stars shone down, and round the foot of the 
 ladders below, women held lanterns or torches to light the 
 others at their work. Flaring pitch-brands were burning 
 in front of the ponderous closed doors, and armed shep- 
 herds were pacing up and down in the light of the blaze. 
 When, now and again, there was a sound within as of a 
 stone thrown, or a kick against the brass-bound door, and 
 of threatening words in the Egyptian tongue, the Hebrews 
 outside were ready enough with words of mockery and 
 scorn. 
 
 On the day of the harvest festival, at the hour of the 
 first evening watch, certain swift runners had come to 
 Succoth and had announced to the sons of Israel who 
 dwelt there, and whose numbers were twentyfold as great 
 as those of the Egyptians, that they had started from 
 Tanis early that morning, that their people were to depart 
 thence that night, and that their kindred of Succoth were 
 to make ready to fly with them. At this there had been 
 great rejoicing among the Hebrews. They, like their 
 fellow Israelites of Tanis, had assembled together that 
 night of the new moon after the spring equinox, when the 
 harvest festival began, to a solemn feast ; and the heads 
 
76 JOSHUA. 
 
 of their households had declared to them that the day of 
 freedom was now at hand, and that the Lord was about to 
 lead them forth to the promised land. 
 
 Here, as at Tanis, many had been faint-hearted and 
 rebellious, and others had attempted to separate their lot 
 from that of the rest and so remain behind ; but here, too, 
 they had been carried away by the multitude. And as 
 Aaron and Nun had addressed the people at Tanis, so 
 lure Eleazar, the son of Aaron, and Nahshon and Hur, 
 the heads of the tribe of Judah, had done the same. And 
 Miriam, the maiden sister of Moses, had gone from house 
 to house, and with her glowing words had lighted and 
 fanned the flames of enthusiasm in the hearts of the men, 
 and persuaded the women that, with the morning's sun, a 
 day of gladness, plenty and freedom would dawn on them 
 and on their children. 
 
 Few had turned a deaf ear to the prophetess, and there 
 was something majestic and commanding in the presence 
 of this maiden, whose large black eyes, overarched by 
 thick, dark eyebrows which met in the middle, seemed to 
 read the hearts of those they gazed on, and to awe the 
 refractory with their grave gleam. 
 
 When the feast was over each household had retired to 
 rest with hopeful and uplifted hearts. But the next day 
 and the following night and dawn had changed everything. 
 It was as though the desert-wind had buried all courage 
 and confidence in the sand it swept before it. The dread 
 of wandering through the unknown had crept again into 
 every soul, and many a one who had brandished his staff 
 with the high spirit of enterprise, now clung obstinately to 
 the house of his fathers, to his well-tended garden plot, 
 and to the harvest in the fields, of which no more than 
 half was yet garnered. 
 
 The Egyptian garrison in the fortified stone house had 
 not indeed failed to observe that some unusual excitement 
 prevailed among the Hebrews, but they had ascribed it to 
 the harvest feast. The commander of the fort had heard 
 that Moses desired to lead his people forth into the 
 desert, there to sacrifice to their God, and he had asked 
 for reinforcements. But he knew nothing more, for till 
 the morning when the hot wind had arisen no Hebrew 
 had betrayed his brethren's purpose.. On that day, how- 
 ever, as the heat oppressed them more and more, the 
 
JOSHUA. 77 
 
 greater grew the dread of the terrified people of marching 
 ever onward through the scorching sandy and waterless 
 waste. This fearful day was but a foretaste of what lay 
 before them, and when toward midday the dust cloud was 
 yet dense, and the air more suffocating, a Hebrew dealer, 
 from whom the Egyptian soldiers would purchase small 
 wares, stole into the storehouse and instigated the captain 
 to hinder his fellow Hebrews from rushing to destruction. 
 
 Even among the better sort the voice of discontent had 
 been loud. Izehar and Michael and their sons, who dis- 
 liked the power of Moses and Aaron, had gone from one 
 to another and tried to incite them to call the elders 
 together again before they set forth, and ask them whether 
 it would not be wiser to make terms with the Egyptians. 
 
 While these malcontents had succeeded in assembling 
 many followers, and the traitor had gone to the captain of 
 the Egyptian garrison, two more runners had come in 
 with a message to say that the multitude of the Hebrew 
 fugitives would arrive at Succoth between midnight and 
 dawn. 
 
 Breathless and speechless, bathed in sweat and bleed- 
 ing at the mouth, the elder of the two messengers dropped 
 on the threshold of the house of Aminadab where Miriam 
 just now was dwelling. The exhausted men had to be 
 revived with wine and food before even the less weary one 
 could speak coherently ; and then, in a husky voice, but 
 overflowing with thankfulness and enthusiasm, he had told 
 all that had happened at their departing, and how that the 
 God of their fathers had filled all hearts with His spirit, 
 and infused fresh confidence into the most faint-hearted. 
 
 Miriam had listened with flashing eyes to this inspiring 
 tale, and then, flinging her veil about her head, she bade 
 the servants of the house, who had collected about the 
 runners, to gather all the people together under the syca- 
 more, whose broad boughs, the growth of a thousand years, 
 sheltered a wide space from the scorching sun. 
 
 The hot wind was still blowing, but the glad tidings 
 seemed to have broken its power over the spirits of men, 
 and thousands had come pouring out to assemble under 
 the sycamore. Miriam gave her hand to Eleazar, the son of 
 her brother Aaron, sprang on to the bench which stood 
 close to the huge, hollow trunk of the tree, and in a loud 
 voice prayed to the Lord, raising her hands and eyes to 
 Heaven, as though in ecstasy her eyes beheld Him. 
 
7 8 josiiua. v 
 
 Then she bade the messenger speak, and when he had 
 once more declared all that had befallen in Zoan, a loud 
 cry went up from the multitude. Then Eleazar, the son of 
 Aaron, described in glowing words all that the Lord had 
 done for his people and had promised to them and their 
 children, and their children's children. 
 
 Every word from the speaker's eager lips had fallen on 
 the hearts of his hearers like the fresh dew of morning on 
 parched grass. The believers had shouted greeting to him 
 and to Miriam, and the faint-hearted had found new wings 
 of hope. Izehar and Michael and their followers murmured 
 no more ; nay, most of them had caught the general en- 
 thusiasm, and when presently a Hebrew soldier of the 
 garrison stole out from the storehouse and revealed to them 
 that his chief had been informed of what was going forward, 
 Eleazar, Nahshon, Hurand some others had held a council 
 with the shepherds present, and had urged them in fiery 
 language to show now that they were men and not afraid 
 to fight, with God's mighty help, for their nation and its 
 freedom. There was no lack of axes, staves, sickles and 
 brazen pikes, of heavy poles and slings, the shepherds' 
 weapons against the beasts of the desert, though of bows 
 and arrows they had none. A strong force of powerful 
 herdsmen had collected round Hur, and they at once had 
 marched upon the Egyptian overseers who were in author- 
 ity over some hundreds of Hebrew bondsmen toiling at 
 the earthworks. 
 
 With the cry, " They are coming ! Down with the op- 
 pressors ! The Lord our God is our captain ! " they threw 
 themselves on the Libyan guard, scattered them abroad 
 and released the Hebrew laborers and stone-hewers. The 
 noble Nahshon had set the example of clasping one of the 
 hapless serfs as a brother to his heart, and then the others 
 embraced the men they had set free, and thus the shout : 
 " They are coming ! The Lord God of our fathers is our 
 captain ! " rang out far and wide. When at last the hand- 
 ful of shepherds had swollen to a thousand Hur had led 
 them on to meet the Egyptian warriors, whose numbers 
 were far inferior. 
 
 The garrison, indeed, was but a handful ; the Hebrew 
 host was now beyond counting. 
 
 The Egyptian archers had shot a flight of arrows, and 
 the slings of the stalwart Hebrews had sent a shower of 
 
JOSHUA. 79 
 
 deadly pebbles among the foremost of the foe, when a 
 trumpet-call was heard calling the party of soldiers back 
 into the shelter of the scarped walls and stout doors. The 
 Egyptian chief had judged the Hebrew force too great, and 
 his first duty was to hold the fort till reinforcements should 
 arrive. 
 
 But Hur had not been content with this first victory. 
 Success had fanned the courage of his followers as a new 
 breeze fans a smoldering fire ; whenever an Egyptian 
 showed himself on the roof of the storehouse a smooth 
 pebble hit him sharply from the sling of a shepherd marks- 
 man. By Nahshon's orders ladders were brought out. In 
 an instant the besiegers were swarming up the building on 
 all sides, and after a short and bloodless struggle the stores 
 were in the hands of the Hebrews. The Egyptians could 
 only keep possession of the adjoining stronghold. 
 
 Meanwhile the wind had fallen. The more furious of the 
 released bondsmen had piled straw, timber and brushwood 
 before the door of the little fort into which the Egyptians 
 had retired, and they could without difficulty have destroyed 
 the foe to the last man by fire ; but Hur, Nahshon and 
 the other wiser heads among the Hebrews had not permitted 
 the destruction of the victuals laid up in the great store- 
 house 
 
 It had, indeed, been no easy matter to keep the younger 
 men among the oppressed serfs from this deed of vengeance ; 
 but they all belonged to some family in the settlement, and 
 as Hur's prohibition was supported by the commands of 
 their parents, they were soon not merely pacified but ready 
 to help in distributing the contents of the granaries among 
 the households, and in loading them into carts or on to 
 beasts of burden, to be carried off by the fugitives. 
 
 All this took place by the flaming light of torches, and it 
 soon had assumed the character of an orgie, for neither 
 Nahshon nor Eleazar had been able to hinder the men and 
 women from opening the wine skins and jars. However, 
 they succeeded in saving the larger part of the precious 
 booty for the time of need, and although there, indeed, too 
 many were drunk, the strong juice of the grape and their 
 glee at securing so much plunder moved the multitude to 
 thankfulness. When at length Eleazar went among them 
 once more to speak to them of the Promised Land they 
 were ready to listen to him with uplifted hearts, and joined 
 in a hymn of praise started by Miriam. 
 
So JOSHUA. 
 
 As in Zoan the spirit of the Lord had fallen on the 
 people in the hour of their departing, so now in Succoth. 
 When some ancient men and women who had hidden them- 
 selves in the temple of Zoan heard the song of triumph, 
 they came forth and joined the rest, and packed up their 
 possessions with as much glad hope and confidence in the 
 God of their fathers as if they had never murmured at 
 departing. 
 
 As the stars faded, joy and excitement increased. Men 
 and women went out in troops on the road to Tanis to meet 
 their brethren. Many a father led his youthful son by the 
 hand, many a mother carried her infant on her arm : for 
 there were kindred to greet in the coming multitude, and 
 this day must bring some moments of solemn joy in which 
 all who were near and dear must share, and which even the 
 youngest child would remember when he himself had 
 children and grandchildren. 
 
 None sought his bed in the tent, hut or houses, for every 
 hand was needed to finish the work of packing. The crowd 
 of toilers in the storehouse had diminished, and most house- 
 holds were furnished with as much food as they could carry 
 away. 
 
 In front of the tents and hovels men and women, ready 
 to depart, were camping round hastily lighted fires, and in 
 the farm yards the cattle were being driven together, and 
 such beasts and sheep as were unfit to march were at once 
 slaughtered. Outside many of the houses men plied the 
 axe and hammer, and the sound of sawing was heard, for 
 litters and couches had to be hastily constructed for the 
 sick and feeble. Here, again, chariots and wagons were 
 still being loaded, and husbands had no small trouble with 
 their wives ; for it is always hard to forfeit a possession, 
 be it great or small, and a woman's heart often clings more 
 fondly to some worthless trifle than to the most precious 
 object she owns. When Rebecca was eager to carry away 
 the roughly-made cradle in which her infant died rather 
 than the beautiful ebony chest inlaid with ivory which her 
 husband had taken in pledge from an Egyptian, who could 
 blame her ? Lights shone from every window and tent 
 door, and torches or lanterns blazed from the roof of all the 
 better dwellings to welcome the coming host. 
 
 At the feast which had been held on the night of the 
 harvest festival not a table had lacked its lamb roast with 
 
JOSHUA. 81 
 
 fire, but in this hour of waiting the housewives again offered 
 such food as they had ready. 
 
 The narrow street of the little town was alive with stir; 
 the waning stars had never before looked down on such 
 joyful faces, such bright and eager eyes, such beaming looks 
 of hope and happy faith. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 When morning dawned all those who had not already 
 gone forth to greet the wanderers were gathered on the 
 roof of one of the largest houses in Succoth, where the 
 coming Hebrews were to make their first long halt. 
 
 Hurrying on before them fleet-footed men and boys, 
 one after another, arrived in the town. Aminadab's house 
 was their goal. It consisted of two buildings, one of which 
 was inhabited by Nahshon, the son of the owner, and his 
 family. In the other and larger part, besides the master 
 of the house and his wife, his son-in-law, Aaron, dwelt with 
 his wife, children and grandchildren, and also Miriam. 
 
 The old man, a prince of the tribe, who had given over 
 the duties connected with his position to his son Nahshon, 
 stretched out his trembling hands toward each messenger, 
 and listened to his story with sparkling eyes that were 
 nearly blinded by tears. He had persuaded his old wife 
 to sit in the armchair in which she was to be carried after 
 their people, so that she might become accustomed to it, 
 and for the same reason he was reclining in his. 
 
 When the old woman heard the messengers announce 
 that the glorious future that had been promised the people 
 was now within reach, her eyes sought her husband and 
 she cried : " Aye through Moses ! " For she held the 
 brother of her daughter's husband in high esteem, and it 
 pleased her to see his prophecies fulfilled. She looked 
 also with pride on Aaron, her son-in-law ; but above all 
 she loved Eleazar, her grandson, in whom she looked for- 
 ward to the development of a second Moses. She had 
 found Miriam, after the death of her parents, a very wel- 
 come house companion. But the warm-hearted old folks' 
 affection for the grave young maid never grew to parental 
 tenderness, and Elisheba, Aaron's busy wife, would not 
 
 6 
 
8a JOSHUA. 
 
 share the cares of the great household with Miriam; nor 
 did their son Nahshon's wife need her help, for she, indeed, 
 lived with her nearest of kin under their own roof. But 
 the old people were grateful to Miriam for her care of their 
 grandchild, Milcah, the daughter of Aaron and Elisheba, 
 whom a great misfortune had changed from a happy child 
 into a melancholy woman, for whom all joy was dead. A 
 few days after her marriage with a beloved husband he had 
 allowed himself, in a fit of wrath, to lift his hand against an 
 Egyptian tax-gatherer, who, when Pharaoh was passing 
 eastward by Succoth, wanted to drive off a large herd of his 
 finest oxen for the kitchen of the lord of two worlds. In 
 consequence of this self-redress the unfortunate man had 
 been taken as a State prisoner to work in the mines, and 
 it was well known that the convict there must perish, body 
 and soul, of torturing overwork. Through the influence 
 of Nun, Joshua's father, the prisoner's wife and household 
 were spared from sharing this punishment. She, however, 
 pined away more and more, and the only one who under- 
 stood the way to rouse the pale, silent wife from her 
 brooding was Miriam. To her had the deserted woman 
 attached herself, and she followed Miriam where she prac- 
 ticed the medical knowledge that she had learned, and 
 carried remedies and alms into the huts of the poor. 
 
 The last messengers, whom Aminadab and his wife re- 
 ceived on the roof, painted in dark colors the pain and mise- 
 ry of wandering of which he had been a witness, but when 
 a soft-hearted creature among them wept aloud at the great 
 sufferings the women and children had undergone during 
 the gale from the desert, and gloomily foretold for the future 
 horrors not less than those he so vividly remembered, the 
 old man spoke words of comfort to him, reminding him of 
 the almighty power of God. and of the force of habit, which 
 would also help them. His wrinkled face expressed sin- 
 cere hope, whereas in Miriam's beautiful but stern features 
 there was little expression of the religious trust of which 
 youth usually has more than age. 
 
 While the messengers went and came she did not stir 
 from the side of the old people, and left it to her sister-in- 
 law, Elisheba, and her serving maids to give refreshments 
 to the fatigued wanderers. She listened to them intently 
 and with deep-drawn breath, though it appeared to her 
 lhat all she learned forbode trouble. For she knew that 
 
yostiuA. %\ 
 
 only those who were attached to her brothers, the leaders 
 of the people, would have found their way into the house 
 that sheltered Aaron. 
 
 Now and then she would ask a question, as well as the old 
 man, and as she spoke the messengers, who heard her voice 
 for the first time, looked up at her in surprise, for it was 
 indeed sweet, though singularly deep. 
 
 After several runners had assured her, in answer to het 
 inquiry, that Joshua, the son of Nun, had not come with 
 the others, she dropped her head, and asked no more, 
 until pale Milcah, who followed her everywhere, cast a 
 beseeching looked from her black eyes and whispered 
 " Reuben," the name of her imprisoned husband. Then 
 the young girl kissed the lonely child and looked at her as 
 though she had neglected something, and asked the mes- 
 sengers with pressing eagerness if they had heard anything 
 of Reuben, who had been carried away to the mines. 
 But only one had heard from a released criminal that 
 Milcah's husband was alive in the copper mines in the dis- 
 trict of Beck, near Mt. Sinai. The news encouraged the 
 young prophetess to assure Milcah with vivid warmth that 
 when the people should march eastward they would cer- 
 tainly go to the mines to release the captive Hebrews 
 who were there. 
 
 These were good words, and Milcah, who was leaning on 
 the breast of her comforter, would gladly have heard more, 
 but those who were looking out into the distance from 
 Aminadab's roof were now in great excitement. From the 
 north came a dark cloud, and directly after a wonderful 
 mutteringpthen a loud roar, and lastly a thousand-voiced 
 cry and shout, with bellowing, neighing and bleating, such 
 as had never been heard before — and the multitudinous 
 and many-voiced mass of men and herds came rolling 
 along in that interminable stream which the astrologer's 
 grandson, when watching from the temple at Tanis, had 
 taken for the serpent from the nether world. 
 
 Even now, by the light of dawn, it was easy to mistake 
 it for an army of disembodied spirits driven from the 
 stronghold of the dead ; for a pale grey column of dust 
 reaching to the blue heavens swept before them, and no 
 single figure could be distinguished among the immense 
 swarming, noisy throng which was enveloped in the cloud. 
 Every now and again the sunbeams caught the metal point 
 
8 4 yosnuA. 
 
 of a iance or of a brass vessel with a bright gleam, and the 
 loud shout of one voice could be heard above the others. 
 
 Now the foremost waves of the stream had reached 
 Aminadab's court yard, in front of which lay a vast tract of 
 pasture lands. 
 
 Commands rang out, and the multitude halted and 
 parted like a mountain lake which, flooded in spring, over- 
 flows in brooks and tiny rills. However, the narrow 
 streams soon reunited, and, taking possession of the broad, 
 level pasture land now wet with morning dew, the proces- 
 sion of men and beasts settled down to rest, and there the 
 veil of dust that had hidden them presently vanished. 
 
 The road remained for some time wrapped in the cloud, 
 but in the meadows, men, women and children were to be 
 seen in the blaze of the rising sun, with oxen and asses, 
 sheep and goats, and in a little while tent after tent was 
 erected in the fields around Aminadab's and Nahshon's 
 houses. The cattle were penned in with hurdles ; poles 
 and stakes were driven into the hard ground, awnings 
 spread, cows fettered, herds of oxen and sheep driven to 
 water and fires lighted. Long files of women, carrying 
 jars on their heads which they balanced with easily and 
 beautifully-curved arms, passed by to the well behind the 
 old sycamore, or the bank of the nearest canal. 
 
 To-day, as on every other work day, a humped ox turned 
 the water wheel. It irrigated the land that the owner of 
 the oxen must leave on the morrow ; but the slave that 
 drove it thought not of the morrow, and, as no one hin- 
 dered him, worked on in the] stolid way he was used to, 
 watering the grass for the enemy into whose hands it would 
 fall. 
 
 It was a good hour before the wandering crowd had 
 all reached the camp, and Miriam, as she described to 
 Aminadab — whose eyes were no longer, strong enough to 
 see at a distance — what was going on down below, beheld 
 many a sight from which she would gladly have turned 
 away her eyes. 
 
 She dared not tell the old man openly all she saw, for it 
 would have destroyed his glad hopefulness. 
 
 She, who trusted with the whole ardor of an inspired 
 soul in the God of her fathers, had shared till yesterday the 
 confidence of the old man, although the Lord had certainly 
 granted her the fatal gift of seeing things and hearing 
 
JOSHUA. 85 
 
 Words no one else could comprehend. This generally took 
 place in her dreams, but also in lonely hours when she 
 fixed her mind in meditation on the past and the future. 
 
 The message from the Most High which Ephraim had 
 carried to Joshua in her name had come to her from 
 invisible lips as she sat under the sycamore, thinking of 
 the exodus, and of the man she had loved from her child- 
 hood ; and this very morning, between midnight and 
 dawn, as she lay under the venerable tree, overpowered by 
 fatigue, it seemed to her that she had again heard the same 
 voice. The words had vanished from her mind as she 
 woke, but she knew that they had been sad and ominous. 
 
 Vague as the warning had been, it still haunted her 
 painfully, and the cry which came up from the plain was 
 certainly no shout of joy at having happily reached their 
 brethren and the first stage of their wanderings, as the old 
 man at her side believed ; nay, it was the angry cry of 
 fierce, ungoverned men wrangling and fighting for a 
 pleasant spot in the meadow whereon to pitch their tents, 
 or for a good watering place for their beasts by the well or 
 on the banks of the rivulets. 
 
 Rage, disappointment and despair were heard in that 
 cry ; and presently, looking round for the spot whence it 
 rose the loudest, she beheld a woman's corpse borne along 
 by some bondsmen on a sheet of tent cloth, and a pale 
 babe, touched by the finger of death, which its father, a 
 wild-looking fellow, carried in one arm, while he shook his 
 clenched left hand, which was free, with threatening 
 gestures in the direction of her brothers. 
 
 And in a moment she saw an old man, bent with hard 
 labor, lift up his hand against Moses, whom he would have 
 struck to the ground if others had not dragged him away. 
 
 She could no longer bear to stay on the roof. Pale and 
 panting she flew out to the camp. Milcah followed her 
 closely, and wherever they met people belonging to Suc- 
 coth they were greeted with respect. The people of Zoan, 
 and those of Pha-gos, whom they met in the way, did not 
 know Miriam ; still, the prophetess' tall figure and noble 
 dignity made them move aside for her, or reply to her 
 questions. 
 
 Then she heard terrible and evil tidings, for the multi- 
 tude which had set forth so joyfully on the first day had 
 crept along in dejection and woe on the second. The hot 
 
86 yosnuA. 
 
 wind had broken the spirit and strength of many who had 
 started in high health, and other sick folks besides the 
 bondsman's wife and infant had fallen sick of fever from 
 the choking dust and scorching heat, and the speaker 
 pointed to a procession making its way to the Hebrew 
 burying place of Succoth. Nor were those who were being 
 borne to the rest whence there is no return women and 
 children only, or such as their kindred had brought away 
 sick rather than leave them behind ; but likewise men, who 
 only yesterday had been strong, and who had either sunk 
 under too heavy a burden or had heedlessly exposed them- 
 selves to the sun's rays as they drove their herds onward. 
 
 In one tent Miriam found a young mother, who lay 
 trembling with fever, and she bade Milcah go fetch her 
 case of medicines. The forlorn wife gladly and quickly 
 departed on this errand. On her way she stopped many 
 a passer-by to inquire timidly for her captive husband, but 
 she could get no news of him. Miriam, however, learned 
 from Nun, Joshua's father, that Eliab, thefreedman he had 
 left behind, had sent him word that his son was ready to 
 follow his people. She also heard that Ephraim had been 
 hurt and had found shelter in Joshua's tent. 
 
 Was the lad seriously ill, or what could it be that 
 detained his uncle in Tanis? The question filled Miriam's 
 heart with fresh anxiety, yet she dispensed help and com- 
 fort wherever it was possible with unflagging energy. 
 
 Old Nun's hearty greeting had cheered her, and no more 
 stalwart, kind, or more lovable old man could be imagined. 
 The mere sight of his noble head with its thick, snow-white 
 hair, and beard, and the bright eyes which sparkled with 
 youthful fire in the handsome face, had done her good, and 
 when he expressed his joy at seeing her once more in his 
 vivid and winning manner, pressing her to his heart and 
 kissing her brow, she told him that she had bidden his son, 
 in the name of the Lord, henceforth to bear the name of 
 Joshua, and had called upon him to be reunited to his 
 people and to be the captain of their host. Then she felt, 
 indeed, as though she had found a father in the place of 
 him she had lost, and applied herself with renewed vigor 
 to the stern duties which called her from every side. 
 
 Nor was it a small effort to the lofty-minded maiden to 
 devote herself with loving kindness to her fellow-creatures, 
 whose wild and coarse demeanor pained her soul. The 
 
r JOSHUA. 87 
 
 women, indeed, were glad of help, but to the men, who 
 had grown up under the overseer's whip, modesty and 
 consideration were unknown. Their minds were as 
 savage as their manners. As soon as they knew who she 
 was they reviled her because her brother had tempted them 
 forth to leave endurable woes and rush to a fearful fate ; 
 and as she heard their curses and blaspheming, and saw 
 the fierce black eyes that glittered in those brown faces all 
 hung about with rough, curling black hair and beard, her 
 heart shrank within her. And yet she was able to con- 
 trol her fear and aversion ; her pulses throbbed and she 
 was prepared for the worst, yet she did but commend the 
 men who were so repulsive to her to the God of their 
 fathers and His promises, though Womanly weakness 
 prompted her to flee. 
 
 Now, indeed, she understood what the sad, warning 
 voice forboded which she had heard under the sycamore, 
 and as she stood by the bed of a young mother sick unto 
 death she lifted up her hands and heart to the Most High, 
 and made a vow that she would dedicate all her powers to 
 fight against the faint-hearted want of faith and the wild 
 insubordination which threatened to bring her people into 
 great straits. The Lord Almighty had promised them a 
 fair land, and the short-sighted pride of a few erring ones 
 should not cheat them of it. And God himself could 
 hardly be wroth with a race which was content so long as 
 the bodies were supplied with the food they needed, and 
 which had endured scorn and blows as unresistingly as 
 cattle. The multitude did not yet understand that they 
 must live through the night of their present woes to be 
 worthy of the day which awaited them. 
 
 Her medicines seemed to relieve the sick woman, and 
 she quitted the tent in revived spirits to seek her bro- 
 thers. 
 
 In the camp matters were no better, and again she wit- 
 nessed many scenes which shocked her soul and made her 
 regret that she had brought with her the tender-hearted 
 Milcah. 
 
 Certain evil-doers among the bondsmen, who had laid 
 hands on the cattle and goods of others, had been caught 
 and tied up to a palm tree ; and the ravens which had 
 followed the tribes, and had found ample food by the way, 
 were already croaking greedily round the hastily contrived, 
 oaJlow.s tree. 
 
38 JOSHUA. 
 
 None knew who was judge or executioner of the 
 sentence ; but the owners who were assisting in the deed 
 thought themselves fully justified and gloried in it. With 
 hasty steps and averted head, Miriam drew the trembling 
 Milcah away and placed her in the charge of her uncle, 
 Nahshon, to be conducted home. Nahshon was just part- 
 ing from the man who shared with him the rank of prince 
 of the tribe of Judah. This was that same Hur who had 
 won the first victory against the Egyptians at the head of 
 the shepherds, and he now led the maiden with happy 
 pride toward a man and a youth — his son and grandson. 
 They had both been in the service of the Egyptians, and at 
 Memphis had worked as goldsmiths and brass founders to 
 Pharaoh. The elder, by reason of his skill, had received 
 the name of Uri, or the Great ; and the son of this father, 
 Hur's grandson, Bezaleel, was said to be more gifted even 
 than his father, though as yet hardly more than a youth. 
 
 Hur gazed at his child and grandchild with justifiable 
 pride, for although they had both risen to high esteen 
 among the Egyptians they had followed without demur at 
 their father's bidding, leaving behind them much to which 
 their hearts clung, and which bound them to Memphis, to 
 join the wandering people and share their uncertain fate. 
 
 Miriam warmly greeted the newcomers, and the men 
 before her, representatives of three generations, afforded 
 a picture on which no kindly eye could fail to rest with 
 pleasure. The grandfather was nigh on threescore, but 
 although there was much silver mingled with his ebony 
 black hair, he still held himself as straight as a young man, 
 and his thin, sharply-cut features revealed an unbending 
 determination, which sufficiently accounted for the readi- 
 ness with which his son and grandson had obeyed his call. 
 Uri, too, was a well-grown man, and Bezaleel a lad in whom 
 it could be seen that he had made good use of his nineteen 
 years, and could already stand firmly on his own feet. His 
 artist's eye sparkled with a peculiar light, and when 
 presently he and his father took leave of Miriam to pay 
 their respects to Caleb, their grandfather and greatgrand- 
 father, she heartily congratulated Hur, her brother's truest 
 friend, on having such descendants to keep up the noble 
 race. 
 
 At this Hur, taking her hand, exclaimed with a grateful 
 fervor, which sprang from his heart, and which was usually 
 
JOSHUA. 89 
 
 foreign to the stern, imperious nature of this chief of an 
 unruly tribe of herdsmen : " Yes, they have ever been 
 good and true and dutiful. God hath protected them and 
 granted me to see this joyful day. Now it lies with you 
 to make it a high feast day. You must long since have 
 seen that my eye was ever on you, and that you are dear 
 to my heart. I am a man, and you as a woman are 
 pledged to do all that is best for the people and their wel- 
 fare, and that constitutes a bond between us. But I would 
 fain be bound to you by a yet stronger tie, and whereas 
 your parents are dead, and I cannot go to Amram with 
 the bride gift in my hand and pay him for you, I ask 
 you of yourself in marriage, noble maiden. And before 
 you say me yea or nay let me tell you that my son and 
 grandson are ready to honor you as the head of our house as 
 they honor me, and that I have your brother's permission 
 to approach you as a suitor." 
 
 Miriam had listened to this proposal in speechless sur- 
 prise. She held the man who pleaded so warmly in high 
 esteem, and was well inclined toward him. Notwithstand- 
 ing his ripe age he stood before her in all the strength of 
 manhood and lofty dignity, and the beseeching of his 
 eyes, more wont to command, went to her soul. 
 
 But she looked for another with ardent longing, and her 
 only reply was a regretful shake of the head. 
 
 But this man, the head of his tribe, who was accus- 
 tomed to go straight to the end of anything he had 
 resolved upon, was not deterred by this silent rejection, 
 and went on more fervently than before : " Do not in one 
 moment overthrow the cherished hopes of many years ! 
 Is it my age that repels you ? " 
 
 And once more Miriam shook her head. But Hur 
 again spoke : 
 
 " That, indeed, was what troubled me, although in 
 strength and vigor I could measure myself against many a 
 younger man. And if you could but overlook your suitor's 
 grey hairs you might perhaps bring yourself to consider his 
 request. Of the truth and devotion of my suit I will say 
 nothing. No man sues to a woman at my age unless his 
 heart urges with great power. But there is another thing 
 which to me seems of no less weight. I would fain, as I 
 have said, take you home to my house. There it stands ; 
 it is strong and roomy enough ; but from to-morrow a 
 
90 JOSHUA. 
 
 tent must be our roof, a camp our dwelling place, and 
 wild deeds will be done there. Look only on the hapless 
 creatures they have bound to that palm tree. There is no 
 judge to try the accused : the hasty impulse of the people 
 i> their only law. No one is secure even of his life, least 
 of all a woman, however strong she may feel herself, who 
 casts in her lot widi those against whom the multitude 
 murmur. Your parents are dead, your brothers cannot 
 protect you, and if the multitude should lay hands on 
 them the stone over which you hoped to cross the flood 
 will drag you to the bottom." 
 
 " And if I were your wife, drag you with me," replied 
 Miriam, and her thick, black brows were gloomily knit. 
 
 " That danger I am prepared to face," answered Hur. 
 " Our lot is in the hands of the Lord ; mv faith is as firm 
 as yours, and behind me stands the whole tribe of Judah, 
 which follows me and Nahshon as a flock follows the 
 shepherd. Old Nun and the Ephraimites are faithful to 
 us, and if it came to the worst it would be our duty to 
 perish as God wills, or, after reaching the Promised Land, 
 to wait in patience for our latter end in faithful union, in 
 wealth and power." 
 
 At this Miriam looked him full and fearlessly in the 
 eyes, and laid her hand on his arm, saying : 
 
 " Such words are worthy of the man I have revered 
 from my childhood, the father of such sons. Yet I cannot 
 be your wife." 
 
 "You cannot ? " 
 
 " Nay, my lord, I cannot." 
 
 " A hard saying, but I must be content," replied Hur, 
 and he bowed his head sadly. 
 
 But Miriam went on : 
 
 " Nay, Hur, you have a right to ask the reason of my 
 refusal, and inasmuch as I honor you I owe you the simple 
 truth. My heart is set on another man of our people. I 
 first saw him while I was but a child. Like your son and 
 grandson, he joined himself to the Egyptians. But he, 
 like them, has heard the call of God and of his father, and 
 if he, like Uri and Bezaleel, has obeyed them, and still 
 desires to have me to wife, I will go to him if it be the 
 Lord's will, whom I serve and who grants me of 1 1 is g race 
 to hear His voice. But I will ever think thankfully of 
 jrou." As she spoke the girl's large eyes glistened through 
 
JOSHUA. 91 
 
 tears, and her grey-haired suitor's voice quivered as he 
 asked her shyly and hesitatingly : 
 
 " But if the man you wait for — I do not seek to know 
 his name — if he turns a deaf ear to the call that has gone 
 forth to him, if he refuses to throw in his lot with the 
 uncertain lot of his nation ? " 
 
 " That can never be ! " cried Miriam ; but a cold chill 
 ran through her veins, as Hur exclaimed : 
 
 " There is no never, no certainty save with God. And 
 if in spite of your high faith, things fall out other than 
 you expect — if the Lord deny you the desire which first 
 grew up in your heart when you were yet but a foolish 
 child ? " 
 
 " Then will He show me the right way by which He 
 hath led me until now." 
 
 " Well, well," said Hur, •' build on that foundation, and 
 if the man of your choice is worthy of you and becomes 
 your husband my soul shall rejoice without envy, if the 
 Lord shall bless your union. But if, indeed, God wills it 
 otherwise, and you shall crave a strong arm on which to 
 lean, here am I. The heart and the tent of Hur will be 
 ever open to you." 
 
 He hurried away. Miriam gazed after him, lost in 
 thought, till the proud and princely figure was out of 
 sight. 
 
 Then she made her way back toward the home of her 
 protectors ; but as she crossed the way leading to Tanis 
 she paused to look northward. The dust was laid and 
 the road could be traced far into the distance ; but he, the 
 one who should be riding toward her and toward his 
 people, was not in sight. It was with a heavy sigh and 
 drooping head that she went on her way, and the sound 
 of her brother Moses, deep voice made her start as she 
 reached the sycamore. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Aaron and Eleazar in stirring words had reminded the 
 murmuring disheartened people of the might and promises 
 of their God. Those who had stretched themselves out 
 quietly to their rest, after being refreshed by drink and food, 
 
9 2 JOSHUA. 
 
 found their lost confidence revived. The freed bond* 
 men remembered the cruel slavery and degrading blows 
 from which they had escaped, acknowledging, as the 
 others did, that it was by God's providence that Pharaoh 
 was not pursuing them. The rich supplies, which were 
 still being distributed from the plundered storehouse, con- 
 tributed not a little to reanimate their courage, and the 
 serfs and lepers — for they, for the most part, had marched 
 forth also, and were resting outside the camp — in short, 
 all those for whose maintenance Pharaoh had provided, 
 knew that for some time they were secure from need and 
 want. Nevertheless there was no lack of discontented 
 spirits, and now and then, without any one knowing who 
 had started the question, it was asked if it would not be 
 wiser to turn back and trust to Pharaoh's forgiveness. 
 Those who uttered it did so secretly, and had often to take 
 a sharp or threatening answer. 
 
 Miriam had come out to meet her brothers and shared 
 their anxiety. How quickly had the spirit of the people 
 been broken in this short march by the hot desert wind ! 
 How discontented, how distrustful, how hostile they had 
 shown themselves at the very first adversity. How 
 unbridled in following their own wild impulses ! 
 
 When they had been called together for prayer on the 
 way, a short time before sunrise, some had turned toward 
 the sun as it rose in the east, some had pulled out images 
 of the gods which they had brought with them, and others 
 again had fixed their eyes on the acacia trees by the road, 
 which were regarded as sacred to many of the provinces 
 by the Nile. What, indeed, could they know of the God 
 who had commanded them to leave so much behind them 
 and to carry such a burden ? Many of them were even 
 now quite disheartened, and as yet they had faced no real 
 danger, for Moses had purposed to lead his people by the 
 direct road to Philistia into the Promised Land of Pales- 
 tine, but their demeanor forced him to give up this place 
 and to think of another. 
 
 In order to reach the highway which connected Asia 
 and Africa, it was necessary to pass over the isthmus 
 which really divides rather than it unites the two conti- 
 nents ; but it was well defended from invaders, and the 
 way was secure from fugitives, partly by natural and 
 partly by artificial obstacles. A succession of deep lakes 
 
JOSHUA. 93 
 
 broke the level land, and where these did not check the 
 wanderers' march, strong fortifications towered up in 
 which lay Egyptian troops ready to fight. 
 
 Khetam, or, as the Israelites called it, Etham, was the 
 name of this range of forts, and the nearest and strongest 
 could be reached in a few hours by the tribes who were 
 marching from Succoth. 
 
 With the people full of the spirit of their God, inspired 
 and prepared for the worst, freed from their chains and 
 rejoicing in their newly gained liberty, rushing along 
 toward the Promised Land, Moses and the other leaders 
 with him had intended that, like a mountain torrent burst- 
 ing through dams and sluices, they should annihilate and 
 destroy all who came in their way. With this inspirited 
 throng, whose bold advances might achieve the highest 
 triumphs, and to whom cowardly retreat could have meant 
 nothing but death and destruction, they had expected to 
 overthrow the works of the Etham frontier like a pile of 
 brushwood. But now that a few short hours of weariness 
 and suffering had quenched the fire in their souls, now 
 that on every side could be seen for every happy, elated 
 man, two indifferent and five discontented or frightened, 
 the storming of the Etham lines would have cost streams 
 of blood and would have risked all that they had already 
 gained. 
 
 The conquest of the little garrison in the storehouse at 
 Pithom happened under such favorable circumstances as 
 they could not expect to occur again, and so the original 
 plan had to be altered and an attempt made to get round 
 the fortress. Instead of marching north-east the people 
 turned toward the south. 
 
 These things were discussed under the sycamore tree in 
 front of Aminadab's house, and Miriam listened, a mute 
 witness. 
 
 When the men held counsel, the women, and she also, 
 had to be silent, but she found it hard to hold her peace 
 when they came to the conclusion that they must avoid 
 attacking the forts, even if Joshua, the man skilled in war 
 and chosen by the Lord Himself to be the sword of Jeho- 
 vah, should return. 
 
 " Of what avail is the bravest leader when there is no 
 army to obey him ? " cried Nahshon, the son of Amina- 
 dab, and the rest h a d been of his opinion. 
 
g4 JOSHUA* 
 
 When at length the assembled elders parted Moses took 
 leave of his sister with brotherly tenderness. She knew 
 that he had it in his mind to go forth into fresh dangers. 
 and in the modest way she always used when she ventured 
 to speak to the man who, in body and mind, was so far 
 above all others, she told him of her fears. He looked 
 her in the face with kindly reproof, and with right hand 
 pointed to heaven. She understood him, and kissed his 
 hand with grateful warmth, saying: "Thou art under the 
 shield of the Most High, and I fear no longer." 
 
 lie pressed his lips to her brow, and taking her tablets 
 from her, wrote on them a few words and cast them into 
 the hollow stem of the sycamore. 
 
 •• For Hosea — nay, for Joshua," said he, " if he should 
 come while I am absent. The Lord hath great things for 
 him to do when he shall have learned to trust in Him rather 
 than in the mighty ones of die earth." 
 
 He quitted her ; but Aaron, who, as being the elder, 
 was the head of the family, remained with Miriam and told 
 her that a worthy man had asked for her to wife ; she 
 turned pale and answered : " I know it." 
 
 He looked her in the face much surprised, and went on 
 in a tone of grave warning : 
 
 " It must be as you will, but it would be well that you 
 should reflect that your heart belongs to God and to your 
 people ; the man whom you marry must be as ready as 
 yourself to serve them both, for two become one when 
 they are wed, and if the highest aim of one is as nought to 
 the' other they are no more one, but two. The voice of 
 the senses which called them together is presently silent, 
 and what remains is a gulf between them." 
 
 With these words he left her, and she, too, turned to 
 quit the assembly, for perhaps now, on the eve of their 
 departing, she might be needed in the house of which she 
 was an inmate ; but a new incident arose to keep her by 
 the sveamore, as if she were bound and fettered to it. 
 
 What could the packing matter, and the care for perish- 
 able treasure and worldly goods, when questions here were 
 raised which stirred her whole soul. There was Klisheba, 
 Nahshon's wife, and any housewife or slave woman could 
 do the home work ; here there were other matters to de- 
 cide, the weal or woe of the nation. 
 
 Certain men of the better sort from among the people 
 
JOSHUA. 95 
 
 had by this time joined themselves to the elders under the 
 sycamore, but Hur had depared with Moses. 
 
 Now Uri, the son of Hur, came into the group. He, as 
 a metal worker, but just come from Egypt, had at Mem- 
 phis had dealings with many about the court, and he had 
 heard that the king would be willing to relieve the Hebrews 
 of their heaviest burdens, and to grant them new privi- 
 leges, if only Moses would entreat the God he served to 
 be favorable to Pharaoh, and persuade the people to return 
 so soon as they should have sacrificed in the desert. So 
 the assembly now proceeded to discuss whether envoys 
 should not be sent to Tanis to treat once more with the 
 " High Gate." 
 
 This proposal, which he had not, indeed, dared to lay 
 before his father, had been made by Uri in all good faith 
 to the assembled elders, and he hoped that its acceptance 
 might save the Hebrews much suffering. But hardly had 
 he ended his very clear and persuasive speech when old 
 Nun, Joshua's father, who had with difficulty held his 
 peace, started up in wrath. 
 
 The old man's face, usually so cheerful, was crimson 
 with anger, and its deep hue was in strange contrast with 
 the thick, white hair which hung about it. Only a short 
 while since he had heard Moses reject similar proposals 
 with stern decision and the strongest arguments ; and now 
 must he hear them repeated. And by many signs of 
 approval on the part of those assembled he saw that the 
 great undertaking for which he, more than any one, had 
 staked and sacrificed his all, was imperilled. It was too 
 much for the vehement old man, and it was with a flashing 
 eye and threatening fists that he exclaimed : 
 
 " What words are these ? Shall we reknit the ends of 
 the cord which the Lord our God hath cut ? Are we to 
 tie it, do you say, with a knot so loose that it will hold 
 just so long as the present mood of an irresolute weakling, 
 who has broken his word to Moses and to us a score of 
 times ? Would you have us return into the cage from 
 which the Almighty hath released us by a miracle ? Are 
 we to stand before the Lord our God as false debtors ? 
 Shall we take the false gold which is offered us rather 
 than the royal treasure which He hath promised us ? Oh, 
 man ! You who have come from the Egyptian ! I would 
 I could " 
 
96 JOSHUA. 
 
 And the fierce old man shook his fist ; but before he 
 had spoken the threat which was on his lips he ceased and 
 his arm fell, for Gabriel, the elder of the tribe of Zebulon, 
 called out : 
 
 " Remember your own son, who at this day is still con- 
 tent to dwell among the enemies of Israel I" 
 
 The blow had told; but it was only for a moment that 
 the fiery patriarch's high spirit was quelled. Above the 
 hubbub of voices which rose in disapproval of Gabriel's 
 malice, and the lesser number who took part with him, 
 Nun's was heard : " It is by reason of the fact that, besides 
 the loss of the ten thousand acres of land which I have left 
 behind, I may, perchance, have also to sacrifice my noble 
 son in obedience to the word of the Lord, that I have a 
 right to speak my mind." His broad breast heaved sorrow- 
 fully as he spoke, and now his eyes, beneath their thick, 
 white brows, fell with a milder gleam on the son of Hur, 
 who had turned pale under this violent address, and he 
 went on : "This man is indeed a good son and obedient 
 to his father, and he, too, has made a sacrifice, for he has 
 come away from his work, in which he won great praise, 
 and from his home in Memphis, and the blessing of the 
 Lord rest upon him ! But inasmuch as he has obeyed that 
 bidding, he ought not to try to undo that which, by the 
 Lord's help, we have begun. And to you, Gabriel, I say 
 that my son is of a surety not content to dwell with the 
 enemy ; nay, that he will obey my voice and join himself 
 to us, even as Uri, the first-born son of Hur. Whatever 
 keeps him back, it is some good reason of which Joshua need 
 not be ashamed, nor I, his father. I know him. I trust 
 him for that ; and he who looks for aught else from him 
 will of a surety, by my son's dealings, sooner or later, be 
 shown to be a liar." 
 
 He ceased, pushing his white hair back from his heated 
 brow ; and as no more contradicted him he turned again 
 to the metal worker, saying with hearty kindness : " It was 
 not your meaning, Uri, which roused my ire. Your will is 
 good ; but you have measured the greatness and glory of 
 the God of our fathers by the standard of the false gods of 
 the Egyptians, who perish and revive again, and, as Aaron 
 has said, are but a small part of Him who is in all and 
 through all above all. Till Moses showed me the way I, 
 too, believed I was serving the Lord by slaying an ox, a 
 
JOSHUA. 97 
 
 lamb or a goose on an altar, as the Egyptians do, and 
 now, if your eyes are opened, as mine were by Moses, to 
 behold Him who rules the world and who hath chosen us 
 to be His people, you, like me and all of us — yea, and ere 
 long my own son — will feel the fire kindled for sacrifice in 
 your own hearts — a fire that never dies out, and consumes 
 everything which does not turn to love and truth and faith 
 and worship of Him. For the Lord hath promised us great 
 things by the word of His servant Moses : Redemption 
 from bondage, that we may be free lords and masters 
 henceforth on our own soil and in a fair land which is ours 
 and our children's forever ! We are on our way to this 
 gift, and whosoever would delay us on our way, or desires us 
 to return and crawl back into the net whose meshes of 
 brass we have burst asunder, counsels the people to become 
 as sheep who leap back into the fire from which they have 
 escaped. I am not wroth with you now, for I read in your 
 face that you know how greatly you have erred, but hereby 
 ye all shall know that I heard from the lips of Moses but a 
 few hours since that whosoever shall counsel a return or any 
 covenant with the Egyptians, he himself will accuse as 
 condemning the Lord Jehovah our God, and as the des- 
 troyer and foe of his people." 
 
 At this Uri went up to the old man, held out his hand, 
 and, deeply persuaded in his heart of the justice of his 
 reproof, exclaimed : " No dealings, no covenant with the 
 Egyptians ! And I am grateful to you, Nun, for having 
 opened my eyes. The hour is at hand when you, or 
 another who stands nearer to Him than I, shall teach me 
 to know more perfectly the God who is my God likewise." 
 
 Hereupon he went away with the old man, who leaned 
 his arm upon his shoulder. 
 
 Miriam had listened with breathless eagerness to Uri's 
 last appeal, and when he gave utterance to the wish to 
 know more perfectly the God of his fathers, her eyes shone 
 with inspired ecstasy. She felt that her spirit was full of 
 the greatness of the Most High, and that she had the gift of 
 speech wherewith to make known to others the knowledge 
 she herself possessed. But the custom of her people 
 required her to be silent. Her heart burned within her, and 
 when she had again mingled with the crowd, and assured 
 herself that Joshua was not yet come, as it was now dusk 
 she went up to the roof, there to sit with the others. 
 
 7 
 
9 8 yosmw. 
 
 None seemed to have missed her, not even poor, forlorn 
 Milcah, and she felt herself alone indeed in this house. If 
 Joshua might but come. If only she might find a strong 
 breast on which to lean, if this sense of being a stranger 
 among her kindred might have an end — this useless life 
 under the roof which she must call her home, although she 
 had never felt at home there ! 
 
 Moses and Aaron, her brothers, had departed, and had 
 taken with them Hur's grandson ; and she, who lived and 
 breathed only for her people and their well-being, had not 
 been found worthy to be told more particularly whither 
 they were faring, or to what end. Ah ! why had the 
 Almighty, to whom she had devoted herself, body and soul, 
 given her the spirit and mind of a man in the form of a 
 woman ? 
 
 She waited awhile as if to see whether, of all this circle 
 of kind hearts, her kith and kin, there was not one to love 
 her, listening to 'die chatter of old and young who sur- 
 rounded her ; but Eleazar's children gathered about their 
 grandparents, and she had never had the art of attracting 
 the little ones. Dame Elisheba was directing the slaves 
 who were putting the finishing touches to the baggage. 
 Milcah sat with a cat in her lap, gazing into vacancy, and 
 the bigger lads were out of doors. No one noticed her or 
 spoke to her. 
 
 Bitter sorrow fell upon her. After eating her supper 
 with the others, making a great effort not to cast the gloom 
 of her own dark mood over the happy excitement of the 
 children, who looked forward with great glee to their 
 departing, she felt she must get out into the free air. 
 
 Veiling her face closely, she crossed the camp alone. 
 But the scenes she saw there were ill-fitted to lift the burden 
 that weighed upon her. It was still astir, and although 
 here and there pious songs rang out, full of triumph and 
 hope, there was more quarreling to be heard, and rebellious 
 uproar. Whenever threats or reviling against her great 
 brothers met her ear she hastened forward, but she could 
 not run away from her anxiety as to what might happen at 
 sunrise, when the people were to set forth, if the malcon- 
 tents gained the upper hand. She knew that the multitude 
 must necessarily move onward ; still she had never been 
 able to subdue her fears of Pharaoh's mighty army. It was 
 personified to her in Joshua's heroic form. 1{ the Lord of 
 
JOSHUA. 99 
 
 Hosts Himself were not with the ranks of these « retched 
 bondsmen and shepherds who were squabbling and fighting 
 all about her, how should they be able to stand againsUhe 
 tried and well-armed troops of Egypt, with their chariots 
 and horses ? 
 
 She had heard that men had been placed on guard at 
 every part of the camp, and ordered to blow a blast on a 
 horn or drum or a metal plate in the event of the enemy's 
 approach, till the Hebrews should have come together at 
 the spot where the alarm should be first sounded. 
 
 She stood for some time listening for some such call, but 
 yet more eagerly for the hoofs of a solitary horse, the firm 
 tread and the deep voice of the warrior for whom she 
 longed. 
 
 Looking for him she made her way to the northern side 
 of the camp next the road to Tanis, where, too, by Moses' 
 order the larger portion of the fighting men had pitched 
 their tents. Here she had hoped to find nothing but con- 
 fidence ; but as she listened to the talk of the men-at-arms, 
 who sat in large parties round the watch-fires, she shuddered 
 to hear that Uri's counsel had reached even to them. 
 Many of them were husbands and fathers, had left a house 
 or a plot of land, a business or an office, and although 
 many spoke of the commands of the Lord, and of the fair 
 land promised them by God, others were minded to turn 
 back. She would gladly have gone among them and have 
 called upon these blind hearts to obey the bidding of the 
 Lord and of her brother. But here again she must keep 
 silence. However, she might at any rate listen, and she 
 was most tempted to linger where she might expect to hear 
 rebellious words and counsels. 
 
 There was a mysterious charm in this painful excitement. 
 She felt as though she had been robbed of a pleasure when 
 the fires died out, the men retired to rest and silence fell. 
 
 Now, for the last time, she gazed out on the way from 
 Tanis, but nothing stirred except the watch pacing to and 
 fro. 
 
 As yet she did not despair of Joshua's coming, for the 
 bidding she had sent him, in the full conviction that it was 
 the Lord Himself who had chosen her to deliver it, must 
 certainly have reached him ; now, however, as she read in 
 the stars that it was past midnight, she began to reflect 
 how many years he had dwelt among the Egyptians, and 
 
loo JOS Fir, 1. 
 
 that he might think it unworthy of a man to hearken to the 
 call of a woman, even when she spoke in the name of the 
 Most High. She had endured much humiliation this day ; 
 why should not this also be hanging over her ? To the man 
 she loved, likewise, she ought, perhaps, to have kept 
 silence, and have left it to her brothers to declare the 
 Lord's behests to him. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Much disturbed and grieved by such thoughts as these, 
 Miriam turned her steps homeward to retire to rest ; but 
 as she reached the threshold she stayed her steps and 
 listened once more, gazing northward whence Joshua must 
 come. Nothing was to be heard but the tramp of a 
 watchman and the voice of Hur, as he went the rounds 
 of the camp with a company of armed men. He, too, 
 had found it impossible to rest within. 
 
 The night was mild and bright with stars, the hour meet 
 for silent dreaming under the sycamore. Her seat was 
 vacant under the ancient tree, so, with a bowed head, she 
 made her way to the favorite spot which on the morrow 
 she must quit forever. But she had not reached the bench 
 when she suddenly stopped, raised her head, and pressed 
 her hand to her panting bosom. She had heard the tramp 
 of hoofs, she was sure of it, and the sound came from the 
 north. Were the chariots of Pharaoh hurrying down to 
 fall upon the Hebrew camp ? Should she shout to wake 
 the men-at-arms ? Or could it indeed be he whom she so 
 passionately longed for ? Yes, yes. It was the step of a 
 single horse, and it must be some new arrival, for there 
 was a stir among the tents, and clapping of hands and 
 shouts and eager talking came nearer and nearer as the 
 horseman approached. 
 
 It was Joshua, she felt certain. 
 
 That he should have ridden forth through the night and 
 torn asunder the ties which bound him to Pharaoh and his 
 brethren in arms was a proof of his obedience. Love had 
 steeled his will and lent speed to his steed, and the thanks 
 which love alone can give, the reward which love alone can 
 bestow, should no longer be withheld from him. He 
 
JOSHUA. 101 
 
 should learn in her arms that, though he had given up 
 much, it was to earn something sweeter and fairer. She 
 felt as though the night about her was as bright as noonday, 
 when her ear told her that the rider was making straight 
 for Aminadab's dwelling. By that she knew that it was 
 her call that had brought him to seek her before going to 
 his father, who had found a lodging in the empty, roomy 
 housa belonging to his grandson Ephraim. 
 
 Joshua would gladly have flown to her side as fast as his 
 horse could carry him, but it was not safe to ride at too 
 brisk a pace through the camp. Oh, how long the 
 minutes seemed till at last she saw the horseman, till he 
 leaped from the saddle, and his companion flung the reins 
 to another man who came behind. 
 
 It was, indeed, Joshua. But his comrade — whom she 
 saw quite plainly, and started at the sight — was Hur, the 
 very man who a few hours since had asked her to be his 
 wife. 
 
 There they stood, side by side in the starlight, the two 
 mer> ner suitors, their figures lighted up the blazing pine 
 torches which were still burning by the carts and litters 
 where they stood ready for the next morning's march. 
 
 The elder Hebrew, a splendid man, was much taller than 
 the younger and no less strongly built warrior, and the lord 
 of many herds held his head no less high than the Egyptian 
 hero. Both spoke with grave decision ; but her lover's 
 voice was the deeper and fuller. Now they were so close 
 to her that she could hear what they were saying. 
 
 Hur was telling the newcomer that Moses had gone 
 forth to reconnoitre, and Joshua expressed his regret, as 
 he had a matter of importance to discuss with him. 
 
 In that case he would have to set forth with them at 
 daybreak, Hur observed, for Moses thought to meet the 
 people on the way. Then he pointed to the house of 
 Miriam's protector, Aminadab, which lay in total darkness, 
 unbroken by a single twinkling light, and desired Joshua 
 to come with him and spend the remainder of the night 
 under his roof, for no doubt he would fain not rouse his 
 father at so late an hour. At this, as Miriam saw, her 
 friend hesitated and looked inquiringly up at the women's 
 rooms and the roof, and then, knowing whom he sought 
 and unable any longer to resist the impulse of her heart, 
 she went forward from under the shadow of the sycamore 
 
io2 JOSHUA. 
 
 and warmly bid Joshua welcome. He, too, scorned to 
 conceal the joy of his heart, and Hur, standing by, saw the 
 reunited pair clasp hands, at first in silence and then with 
 eager words of greeting. 
 
 "1 knew that you would come!" cried Miriam, and 
 Joshua replied with glad emotion : " That you might 
 easily know, O prophetess, for one of the voices that bid 
 me hither was your own.'' Then he added more calmly : 
 " I hoped to find your brother here with you, for I am the 
 bearer of a message of the greatest importance to him, to 
 us and to the people. I find all made ready for departing, 
 and I should be sorry if your venerable protectors were 
 roused from their rest and hurried forward to a perilous 
 adventure which it still seems possible to avert." 
 
 " You mean ? " asked Hur, and he came closer. 
 
 "I mean," replied Joshua, "that if Moses persists in 
 leading the multitude forth eastward, there will be much 
 useless bloodshed to-morrow, for I heard at Tanis that the 
 garrisons of Etham have orders not to let a single man 
 pass, much less this countless multitude, whose numbers 
 dismayed me as I rode through the camp. I know Apoo, 
 who commands the place, and the legions who serve under 
 him. There will be a fearful and fruitless butchery among 
 our unarmed and undisciplined tribes — in short I must 
 speak strongly to Moses, and immediately, to avert the 
 worst, before it is too late." 
 
 " We have not failed to fear all that you can warn us of," 
 replied Hur, " and it is expressly to avert it that Moses has 
 set forth on a perilous journey." 
 
 "Whither?" asked Joshua. 
 
 " That is the secret of the leaders of the people." 
 
 " Among them my father ? " 
 
 "No doubt, and I am ready to lead you to him. If he 
 thinks fit to inform you " 
 
 " If that is contrary to his duty he will be silent. Who 
 leads the marching host to-morrow ? " 
 
 " I do." 
 
 " You ? " cried Joshua in surprise, and the other quietly 
 replied : 
 
 " You are amazed that a shepherd should be so bold as 
 to lead an army, but the Lord God of Hosts, in whom we 
 put our trust, is indeed our captain, and I look for His 
 guidance." 
 

 JOSHUA. I03 
 
 " It is well," replied Joshua, "but I too believe that the 
 God of our fathers, who called me hither by the voice of 
 Miriam, has intrusted me with a message of great impor- 
 tance. I must find Moses before it is too late." 
 
 "You have been told that till to-morrow, or even till the 
 day after, he is beyond our reach, even mine. Will you 
 meanwhile speak with Aaron ? " 
 Is he in the camp ? " 
 
 No ; but we look for his return before the departing of 
 the people — that is to say, in a few hours." 
 
 " Has he the right of deciding questions of importance in 
 the absence of Moses ? " 
 
 " No ; he only delares to the people in eloquent words 
 that which his great brother commands." 
 
 At this the disappointed warrior gazed thoughtfully on 
 the ground ; but after a moment's reflection he eagerly 
 went on : " It is to Moses that the Lord our God declares 
 His will ; but to you, too, hi" noble, virgin sister, to you, 
 too, the Most High reveals himself." 
 
 "Oh, Joshua!" the prophetess broke in, lifting her 
 hands to him with an imploring and deprecating gesture ; 
 but the captain paid no heed to her interruption, and went 
 on in an earnest tone : " The Lord God charged you to 
 call me, His servant, back to His people. He commanded 
 you to give me the name I am to bear instead of that given 
 me by my father and mother, and which I have borne in 
 honor for thirty years. In obedience to your bidding I 
 have cast from me all that could make me great among 
 men. It was when I was in the way to face death in Egypt, 
 with my God and your image in my heart, that the message 
 came to me which I am here to deliver, and I therefore 
 believe that it was laid upon me by the Most High. I am 
 constrained to deliver it to the leader of the nation ; so, as 
 I cannot find Moses, I can do no better than to deliver it 
 to you, who, next to your brother, dwells nearest to God. 
 I pray you now to hear me ; but the words I have to speak 
 are not yet ripe for any third hearer. At this Hur drew 
 himself up. Breaking in on Joshua's speech he asked 
 Miriam whether it was her desire to hear what the son of 
 Nun should say without witnesses, and she replied in a 
 low voice, " Yes." 
 
 Hur turned to the warrior and said, with cold pride : 
 " I believe that Miriam knows the will of the Lord and 
 
104 JOSHUA. 
 
 likewise her brother's, and that she is aware of what beseems 
 a woman of Israel. If I am not mistaken it was under 
 this very tree that your own father, the venerable Nun, 
 repeated to my son Uri the only reply which Moses witf 
 give to the bearer of such message as yours." 
 
 " Do you know it, then ? " asked the soldier, sternly. 
 
 " No," replied the other, " but I guess its purport. See 
 here." He stooped with youthful agility, raised two large 
 stones so that they supported each other, rolled a few 
 smaller stones into a heap around them, and then, in 
 breathless eagerness, he spoke as follows : 
 
 "This heap shall he a witness between me and thee, 
 like the heap of Mizpah which Laban and Jacob made 
 when Laban called upon the Lord to watch between him 
 and Israel : so do I now, and I show thee this heap that 
 thou mayest remember it when we are absent one from 
 another. I lay my hand on this heap of stones, and I 
 declare that I, Hur, the son of Caleb and Ephratah, put 
 my trust in none other but only in the Lord, the God of 
 our fathers, and am ready to do His bidding by which He 
 calleth us out of the land of Pharaoh to the land which He 
 hath promised us. And thou, Joshua, the son of Nun, do 
 I ask, and the Lord our Godheareth thee : Dost thou look 
 for any help other than that of the God of Abraham, who 
 chose thy nation to be His own people ? Moreover, thou 
 shalt answer and say whether henceforth thou wilt hold 
 the Egyptians who oppressed us, and out of whose hand 
 the Lord our God hath promised to redeem us, as the foes 
 forever of thy God and thy people ? " 
 
 There was a dark look in the warrior's bearded face, and 
 he was inclined to kick down the heap of stones and 
 dismiss the overbold questioner with a wrathful reply ; but 
 Miriam had laid her hand on the top of the heap, and, 
 seizing his right hand, she cried : 
 
 " He inquires of thee in the sight of our God and Lord 
 who is our witness ! " 
 
 Joshua was able to control his wrath, and pressing the 
 maiden's hand as he held it he answered with due solemnity : 
 " He asks me, but I cannot answer him ; for ' yea ' and 
 ' nay ' say little in this case. Yet I call God to witness on 
 my part, and here by this heap of stones you, Miriam, 
 shall hear what I have in my mind and whercfor I am 
 come. And thou, Hur, see here ! Like thee I lay my hand 
 
JOSHUA. 105 
 
 on the heap and testify that I, Joshua, the son of Nun, put 
 my trust in none other but only in the Lord God of our 
 fathers. He shall stand between thee and me as a witness, 
 and decide whether my way is His way or the way of an 
 erring man. I will walk in His way as He hath declared it 
 to Moses and to this noble maiden. That I swear with an 
 oath, and to that God be my witness." 
 
 Hur had listened eagerly, and now, persuaded by the 
 gravity of Joshua's speech, he cried : 
 
 " The Lord our God hear mine oath ! And I, too, by 
 this heap, will take an oath ! 11' the hour should come 
 when, remembering this heap, thou shalt give the testimony 
 which thou hast refused me, no wrath henceforth shall 
 come between us; and if it be the will of the Lord I 
 will deliver into thy hands the leadership, for thou in many 
 wars hast learned more skill than I, who have ruled only 
 over herdsmen and flocks. And thou, Miriam, bear in 
 mind that this heap is a witness of the words you twain 
 shall speak here in the sight of God. Call to mind the 
 wrathful words we heard spoken under this tree by this 
 man's father ; yea, and I call God to witness that I would 
 have darkened the life of Uri, my beloved son, who is the 
 joy of my heart, if he had spoken to the people to persuade 
 them by the message which he delivered to us, for it would 
 have turned away those of little faith from their Cxod. 
 Remember this, maiden, and again hear this : If thou 
 needest me thou canst find me. The door I opened, come 
 what may, will never be shut." 
 
 And he turned away from Miriam and the soldier. 
 
 Something, they knew not what, had come over them. 
 He, who all through his long ride, beset with many dangers, 
 had longed with burning ardor for the moment which 
 should see him reunited to the maid he loved, stood look- 
 ing down in confusion and deep anxiety. Miriam, who, 
 at his approach, had been ready to bestow on him all that 
 a woman has of best and sweetest to reward truth and love 
 withal, had sunk on the ground in front of the awful heap 
 of stones close to the sycamore tree, and was pressing her 
 head against its old hollow trunk. 
 
io6 JOSHUA*, 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 For some time nothing was to be heard under the sycamore 
 but the young girl's low sobbing and the impatient step of 
 the warrior, who, while struggling for composure himself, 
 did not venture to address her. He could not fully 
 understand what this was that had suddenly come like a 
 mountain between him and the woman he loved. 
 
 He had learned from Hur's speech that Moses and his 
 own father had each, severally, rejected all mediation ; 
 and yet to him the promises he was empowered to make 
 seemed a grace and gift from Heaven. As yet none of his 
 nation had heard them, and if Moses were the man he 
 believed him, the Lord must of a surety open his eyes and 
 show him that He had chosen Joshua to guide the people 
 to a happier future : nor did he doubt that he could easily 
 win over his father, Nun. It was in full conviction that 
 he had again sworn that it was indeed the Most High who 
 had shown him this way ; and after thinking all this over 
 as Miriam at length rose, he went toward her with renewed 
 hope. The love in his heart prompted him to clasp her 
 in his arms ; but she drew back, and her voice, usually so 
 pure and full, sounded harsh and husky as she asked him 
 wherefore he had tarried so long, and what it was that he 
 purposed to reveal to her. 
 
 As she knelt under the sycamore she had not merely 
 been praying and struggling for composure ; she had 
 looked into her soul. She loved Joshua, but her heart 
 misgave her that he had some proposal to make such as 
 Uri's, and old Nun's wrathful words rang in her ears louder 
 than ever. Her fear lest her lover had gone astray into 
 an evil way, and Hur's startling proceedings, had lulled 
 the surges of her passion ; and her spirit, brought back to 
 calmer reflection, now craved above all else to know what 
 could so long have detained him whom she had sent for in 
 the name of the Lord, and wherefore he had come alone 
 without Ephraim. The clear sky, glorious with stars, 
 instead of looking down on the bliss of a pair of reunited 
 
JOSHUA. 107 
 
 lovers, was witness only to the anxious questioning of a 
 terrified woman and the impatient answers of a hot- 
 spirited and bitterly-disappointed man. He began by 
 urging his love, and that he had come to make her his wife, 
 but she, though she suffered him to hold her hand, im- 
 plored him to postpone his wooing, and to tell her first all 
 she wanted to know. 
 
 On his way hither he had heard news of Ephraim from 
 a fellow soldier from Tanis. He was therefore able to tell 
 her that he had gone into the town in disobedience to 
 orders, sick and weary as he was, and moved, it would 
 seem, by curiosity, and that he had found care and shelter 
 under a friendly roof. This, however, did not comfort 
 Miriam, who blamed herself as she thought of the 
 inexperienced and fatherless lad, who had grown up under 
 her own eyes, and whom she herself had sent forth among 
 strangers, as a guest under an Egyptian's roof. However, 
 Joshua assured her that he would take upon himself to 
 bring the boy back to his people, and when she still was 
 not satisfied he asked her whether he had indeed lost all 
 her trust and love. But she, instead of giving him a word 
 of comfort, began to question him further, desiring to know 
 what had delayed his coming, so he was forced to tell his 
 tale, though greatly disturbed and cut to the heart, begin- 
 ning in fact with the end of his story. 
 
 While she listened to him, leaning against the trunk of 
 the sycamore, he, distraught by love and impatience, paced 
 up and down, or else, hardly able to control himself, stood 
 close to her, face to face. At this moment nothing seemed 
 to him worthy to be clothed in speech but the passion and 
 the hopes which filled his being. Had he been convinced 
 that her heart was estranged from him he would have fled 
 from the camp as soon as he had unburdened his soul to 
 his father, and have ridden away into the unknown in 
 search of Moses. All he cared for was to win Miriam and 
 to keep clear of dishonor ; and important as the events 
 and hopes of the last few days had been, he answered her 
 questions hastily, and as though the matters involved were 
 but a light thing. He began his tale in broken sentences, 
 and the oftener she interrupted him the more impatient 
 he became and the deeper the frown which knit his 
 brows. 
 
 Joshua had been riding southward for some few hours, in 
 
108 JOSHUA. 
 
 high spirits and full of blossoming hopes, when shortly 
 before dusk he perceived a large crowd of men marching 
 on in front of him. At first he had taken them to be the 
 rear guard of the fugitive Hebrews, and he had hastened 
 his horse's pace. But before lie came up with the wan- 
 derers some peasant folk and drivers, leaving their carts 
 and beasts of burden in the lurch, had flown to met him 
 with loud shrieks and shouts of warning, telling him that 
 the troops in front were the multitude of lepers. And their 
 warning was but too well justified, for the first who met 
 him with the heart-breaking cry, " Unclean ! unclean ! " 
 bore the tokens of those who were a prey to the terrible 
 disease, their dull eyes staring at him from faces devoid of 
 eyebrows and covered with the white, scurfy dust peculiar 
 to leprosy. 
 
 Joshua presently recognized one and another of them, 
 among them here and there an Egyptian priest with shaven 
 head, and Hebrew men and women. He questioned them 
 with -the calm severity of a warrior chief, and learned that 
 they had come from the quarries opposite Memphis, their 
 place of exile on the eastern shore of the Nile. Certain 
 Hebrews among them had heard that their people had fled 
 from Egypt to seek a land which the Lord had promised 
 them. On this, many had determined to put their trust in 
 the mighty God of their fathers and to follow the wander- 
 ing tribes ; and the Egyptian priests even, whose affliction 
 had cast in their lot with the Hebrews, had set forth with 
 them, fixing on Succoth as the goal of their wanderings, 
 whither, as they heard, Moses was first to lead the people. 
 But every one who might have told them the road had fled 
 at their approach. Thus they had gone too far to the 
 northward, even almost as fas as the fortress of Tabnae. 
 It was at a mile from that place that Joshua had overtaken 
 them, and had counseled their leaders to return forthwith 
 and not to bring misfortune on the host of their brethren. 
 During their parley a company of Egyptian soldiers had 
 come out from the citadel to meet the lepers and clear the 
 road of their presence ; however, the captain, who knew 
 Joshua, had used no force, and the two warriors had 
 persuaded the leaders of the unclean to let themselves be 
 guided to the peninsula of Sinai, where there was already 
 a colony of lepers among the mountains, not far from the 
 mines. They had yielded to this proposal because Joshua 
 
JOSHUA. 109 
 
 had promised them that if the Israelites wandered eastward 
 they would visit them and receive all who should be 
 healed ; but even if the Hebrews remained in Egypt the 
 pure air of the desert would bring health to many sufferers, 
 and every one who recovered was free to return to his 
 people. 
 
 All this consumed much time ; and then other delays 
 had occurred, for as Joshua had been in such near neigh- 
 borhood to the lepers he had been compelled to go to 
 Tabnae, where he and the captain of the troops, who had 
 been with him, were sprinkled with the blood of birds, 
 clothed in clean linen, and obliged to go through certain 
 ceremonials which he himself had deemed necessary, and 
 which could only be performed in broad sunlight. His 
 squire had not been suffered to leave the citadel ; the soft- 
 hearted fellow, seeing a kinsman among the hapless 
 wretches, had clasped his hand. 
 
 The cause of this detention was saddening and sicken- 
 ing, and it was not till he had quitted Tabnae at noonday 
 and turned his face toward Succoth that the hope and joy 
 of seeing Miriam again, and of delivering so cheering a 
 message, had revived in Joshua's breast. 
 
 Never had his heart beat higher with glad anticipation 
 than as he rode on through the night, each step bringing 
 him nearer to his father and his beloved, and at his 
 journey's end, instead of the highest bliss, naught had he 
 found till now but the most cruel disappointment. 
 
 He had related his meeting with the lepers briefly and 
 reluctantly, although he had done, as he believed, what was 
 best for these hapless folk. Any one of his fellow-soldiers 
 would have had a word of praise for him, but she, whose 
 approbation was dearer to him than all else, pointed, as he 
 ended, to a certain spot in the camp, saying mournfully : 
 
 " They are of our blood ; our God is their God. The 
 lepers of Zoan, Phakos and Phibeseth followed the rest at 
 a reasonable distance, and their tents are pitched outside 
 the camp. Those of Succoth likewise — they are not many 
 — are to journey with them, and when the Lord promised 
 the people the land for which they longed it was to great 
 and small and poor alike, and, of a surety, to those poor 
 wretches who now are left in the hands of the enemy. 
 Would you not have done better to divide those of our 
 race from the Egyptians and bring them hither ? " 
 
no JOSHUA. 
 
 At this the soldier's manly pride rebelled, and his reply 
 was grave and stern. 
 
 " In war a man learns to sacrifice hundreds that he may- 
 save thousands. Even the shepherd removes the rotten 
 sheep to save the flock." 
 
 "Very true," replied the girl eagerly, "for the shepherd 
 is but a man, who knows no remedy against the evil. But 
 the Lord who hath called all His people will not suffer 
 them to come to harm through obedience." 
 
 "So women think!" retorted Joshua. "But the 
 counsels of compassion which move them must not be 
 suffered to weigh too heavily in those of men. You are 
 ready to follow the dictates of your heart, as indeed is 
 most fitting, so long as you do not forget what beseems 
 you and your sex. 
 
 Miriam's cheeks flushed crimson, for she felt the stab 
 that was hidden in this speech with a double pang, since 
 it was dealt by Joshua. How much had she this day been 
 forced to renounce for her sex's sake ? And now she 
 was to be made to feel that she was not his equal, that she 
 was but a woman. In the presence of the heap of stones 
 which Hur had built up, and on which her hand at this 
 moment rested, he had appealed to her judgment as 
 though she were one of the leaders of the people ; and 
 now he roughly set her in her place — her, who felt herself 
 second to no man in gifts and in spirit. 
 
 But he, too, had been wounded in his pride, and her 
 demeanor warned him that this hour would decide whether 
 in their future union he or she should get the mastery. He 
 stood up in front of her in all his pride and high determi- 
 nation — never, indeed, had she thought him so manly or 
 so desirable. Yet the instinct to fight for her injured 
 womanly dignity was stronger than any other impulse, and 
 finally it was she who broke the painful silence which had 
 followed his words of reproof. With a degree of composure 
 which she only achieved by the exertion of her utmost 
 power of will she began : 
 
 " But we are both forgetting what keeps us here at this 
 hour of the night. You were to reveal to me what brought 
 you hither, and to hear from my lips the judgment of the 
 Lord — not that of Miriam, the foolish woman." 
 
 " I had hoped to hear the voice of the maiden in whose 
 love I trusted," he gloomily replied. 
 
JOSHUA. in 
 
 " You shall hear it," she said, taking her hand from off 
 the heap of stones. " But it may befall that I cannot 
 consent to the judgment of the man whose power and 
 wisdom are so far greater than mine, and you have taught 
 me that you cannot brook a woman's contradiction — not 
 even mine." 
 
 "Miriam!" he exclaimed, reproachfully, but she went 
 on more vehemently : 
 
 " I have felt it deeply ; and as it would be the greatest 
 sorrow of my life to lose your heart, you must understand 
 me fully before you call upon me to pronounce judgment." 
 
 " But first hear my message." 
 
 " No — no ! " she eagerly replied. " The answer now 
 would die on my lips. First, let me tell you of the woman 
 who, though she has a loving heart, knows something 
 which she holds far above love. You smile ? And you 
 have a right to smile till you know that which I will reveal 
 to you." 
 
 "Speak, then ! " he broke in, in a tone which betrayed 
 how hard he felt it to keep patience. 
 
 " Thanks for that," she said, warmly. Then, leaning 
 against the tree trunk, while he sat down on the bench 
 and looked into her face and now on the ground, she 
 spoke : 
 
 " I have left childhood behind me, aye, and my youth 
 will soon be a thing of the past. While I was still but a 
 little child I was not very different from other girls. I 
 played with them, and although my mother taught me to 
 pray to the God of our fathers, still I was well content to 
 hear what other children would tell me of Isis. As often 
 as I could I would steal into her temple, buy spices and 
 strip my little garden for her; would pour oil on her altar 
 and offer her flowers. I was taller and stronger than 
 many maidens of my age, and the daughter of Amram to 
 boot, so that the others were ready enough to obey me 
 and do all I proposed. When I was eight years old we 
 moved hither from Zoan. Before I had found a playfellow 
 here you came to stay in the house of Gamaliel, your 
 sister's husband, to be healed of a wound from a Libyan's 
 lance. Do you remember that time, when you, a young 
 man, made a comrade of the little girl ? I fetched you all 
 you needed ; I chattered to you of all I knew, and you 
 told me tales of bloody fights and victory, and described 
 
H2 JOSHUA. 
 
 the splendid armor and the horses and chariots of the 
 soldiers. You showed me the ring you had won by your 
 valor, and when the wound in your breast was healed we 
 wandered about the meadows together. 
 
 '• Isis, whom you worshiped, had her temple here also, 
 and how often would I steal secretly into its courts to pray 
 for you and carry her my holiday cakes. I had heard so 
 much from you of Pharaoh and his magnificence, of the 
 Egyptians and their wisdom, skill and luxurious lives, that 
 my little heart longed to dwell among them in the capital; 
 it had moreover come to my ears that my brother Moses 
 had been treated with great kindness in the king's palace, 
 and had become a man held in high honor among the 
 priesthood. I could no longer be content with my own 
 folk, who seemed to me in all respects far behind the 
 Egyptians. 
 
 " Then came the parting from you, and as my little 
 heart was piously inclined, and looked for all good to 
 come from divine power, by whatever name it was called, 
 I prayed for Pharaoh and for his army with which you 
 were fighting. 
 
 " My mother would sometimes speak of the God of our 
 fathers as of a mighty Defense who had done great things 
 of old for His people, and she told me many fine tales of 
 Him ; still she herself often sacrificed in the temple of 
 Set, or carried clover flowers to the sacred bull of the 
 Sun-god. She had kind thoughts, too, of the Egyptians, 
 among whom our Moses, her pride and joy, had risen to 
 such high honor. 
 
 " Thus I came to be fifteen years old and lived happily 
 with the rest. In the evening, when the herdsmen had 
 come home, I sat round the fire with the young ones, and it 
 pleased me when the sons of the great owners preferred 
 me above the others and paid court to me ; but I rejected 
 them all, even the Egyptian captain who commanded the 
 guard in charge of the storehouse, for I always thought of 
 you, the companion of my childhood. The best I had to 
 give would not have seemed too much for a magic spell 
 which might have brought you to my side, when at high 
 festivals I danced and sang to the tambourine, and the 
 loudest praise was always for me. Whenever I sang before 
 others I thought of you, and as I did so I poured out all 
 that filled my heart as a lark might, so that my song was 
 
JOSHUA. II J 
 
 to you and not to the praise of the Most High, to whom it 
 was dedicated." 
 
 At this a fresh glow of passion possessed the man to 
 whom his beloved confessed such gladdening truth. He 
 sprang up and held out his arms to her, but she forbade 
 him with stern severity, that she herself might remain mis- 
 tress of the longing which threatened to be too much 
 for her. 
 
 Her deep voice had a different ring in it as she went on, 
 at first quickly and softly, but presently louder and more 
 impressively : 
 
 "And so I came to be eighteen, and I could endure Suc- 
 coth no longer. An unutterable yearning, not for you only, 
 came over my soul. Things that had formerly brought me 
 joy now seemed empty, and the monotony of my life here 
 in this remote frontier town, among flocks and herdsmen, 
 seemed to me dreary and wretched. 
 
 " Eleazar, Aaron's son, had taught me to read, and 
 brought me books full of tales which could never have been 
 true, but which nevertheless stirred my heart. Many of 
 them contained praises of the gods and ardent songs, such 
 as lovers sing one to another. These took deep hold on 
 me, and when I was alone in the evening or at mid-day, 
 when all was still and the shepherds and herdsmen were 
 away at pasture, I would rehearse these songs or invent 
 new, mostly hymns in praise of the Divinity, in honor of 
 Anion, with his ram's head, or of Isis, with the head of a 
 cow ; but often, too, of the Almighty Lord who revealed 
 Himself to Abraham, and of whom my mother spoke more 
 often as she grew older. And this was what I loved best 
 — to think in silence of such songs of praise, and wait for 
 visions in which I saw God's greatness and glory, or fair 
 angels and hideous demons. From a merry child I had 
 become a pensive maiden who let her life go as it might. 
 There was no one to warn or to hinder me ; my parents 
 were now dead, and I lived alone with my Aunt Rachel, a 
 misery to myself and no joy to any one else. Aaron, my 
 eldest brother, had gone to dwell with his father-in-law, 
 Aminadab, for the old home of Ararara, his inheritance, 
 was too small for him, and he had bestowed it on me. My 
 companions even avoided me, for all gladness had depart- 
 ed from me, and I looked down upon them in sinful scorn 
 because I could compose songs and see more in my 
 visions than ever they saw. 
 
1 1 4 JOSHUA. 
 
 " Now I was nineteen, and on the eve of my birthday, 
 
 which no one remembered save Milcah, Eleazar's daughter, 
 
 the Lord for the first time gave me a message. He 
 
 appeared in the form of an angel and bid me set the house 
 
 in order, for a guest was on the way whom I loved greatly. 
 
 " It was very early in the morning and I sat under this 
 tree ; so I went into the house, and with old Rachel's help 
 I set the house in order and made ready a bed, and pre- 
 pared a meal with wine and all that we welcome a guest 
 withal. But noon came, and the afternoon and the even- 
 ing became night, and the night morning again, and still I 
 waited for the guest. However, as the sun was getting 
 low that day the dogs began to bark loudly, and when I 
 went forth to the gate a tall man came hurrying toward me. 
 His hair was grey and in disorder, and he wore a priest's 
 white robe all in tatters. The dog shrank from him 
 whining, but I knew him for my brother Moses. 
 
 " Our meeting again after such a long time brought me 
 more fear than pleasure, for Moses was fleeing from his 
 pursuers because he had slain the overseer. But this you 
 know. 
 
 "Wrath still flashed from his sparkling eyes. He 
 appeared to me to resemble the god Set, and each of his 
 slow words was engraved on my mind as with a hammer 
 and chisel. He remained three times seven days and nights 
 under my roof, and since I was alone with him and deaf 
 Rachel — for he had to remain hidden— no one came be- 
 tween us, and he taught me to know Him who is the God 
 of our fathers. I listened to his burning words with fear 
 and trembling, and his weighty speech fell, as it seemed to 
 me, like rocks upon my breast when he impressed on me 
 what the Lord God expected of me, or when he described 
 the wrath and the greatness of Him whom no mind can com- 
 prehend, and whose name none may utter. Yes, when he 
 spoke of Him and of the Egyptian gods, it appeared as 
 though the God of Israel stood forth like a giant whose 
 brow touched the heavens ; while the other gods all 
 crouched at his feet in the dust like whimpering hounds. 
 
 " He also taught me that we alone, and no others, were 
 the Lord's chosen people. Now, for the first time, I was 
 rilled with pride that I was a scion of Abraham, and that 
 every Hebrew 'was my brother and every daughter of 
 Israel my sister. Now, too, I understood how cruelly 
 
JOSHUA. 1 15 
 
 those of my own kindred had been tortured and oppressed. 
 I had hitherto been blind to the anguish of my people, but 
 Moses opened my eyes and sowed the seeds of hatred in 
 my heart — a great hatred of the tyrants of my brethren \ 
 and from that hatred grew love for the oppressed. I 
 vowed that I would cling to my brother and wait on the 
 voice of the Lord, and, behold ! He did not tarry ; the 
 voice of Jehovah spoke to me as with tongues. 
 
 " About that time old Rachel died, and by Moses' desire 
 I did not live alone, but followed the bidding of Aaron and 
 Aminadab and became a guest under their roof. Still, even 
 then I lived a life apart. Nor did they hinder me ; and 
 this sycamore in their field became, as it were, my place. 
 It was under its shade that God bid me call thee and name 
 thee Holpen of Jehovah — and thou, Joshua, and no 
 longer Hosea, hast done the bidding of the Lord thy God 
 and of His prophetess ! " 
 
 At this point the soldier interrupted the damsel's tale, 
 to which he had listened earnestly, though with growing 
 disappointment. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " I obeyed you and the Lord God ! 
 What it cost me to do so you care not to inquire. You 
 have told all your story down to the present hour, but you 
 have nothing to say of the days you spent with us as our 
 guest at Tanis after my mother's death. Can you forget 
 what your eyes first told me there, and then your lips ? 
 Has the day of our parting vanished from your memory, 
 and the evening on the sea when you bid me set my hopes 
 on you and remember you ? Did the hatred which Moses 
 implanted in your heart exclude all else, even love? " 
 
 " Even love ? " cried Miriam, raising her tearful eyes to 
 his face. " Oh, no ! How could I ever forget that time, 
 the happiest of my life ? But from the day when Moses 
 came from the desert to redeem the people from bondage 
 by the command of the Lord — it was three months after 
 your departing — from that day I have lost all count of 
 years and months, days and nights." 
 
 " And you will forget this night ? " asked Joshua, 
 bitterly. 
 
 " Nay, not so," said Miriam, looking beseechingly in his 
 face. " The love which grew up in the child's heart and 
 
 did not fade in the girl's can never die " Here she 
 
 suddenly broke off, raised her hands and eyes to heaven as 
 
Ii6 JOSHUA. 
 
 if wrapt in ecstasy, and cried aloud : " Thou art nigh t» 
 me, great God Almighty, and canst read my heart ! Thou 
 knowcst wherefor Miriam counts no more by days and 
 years, and asks only to be Thy handmaid until Thou hast 
 granted to her people, who is this man's people, that 
 which Thou hast promised ! " 
 
 While the maiden was uttering this prayer, which came 
 from the very bottom of her heart, a light breeze had sprung 
 up, the herald of dawn, and the thick, leafy crown of the 
 sycamore tree whispered above her head. Joshua devoured 
 her tall, majestic figure with his eyes as she stood half 
 lighted and half shrouded in the doubtful gleam of dawn, 
 for the things he saw and heard seemed to him as a miracle. 
 The tidings of great joy to which she looked forward for 
 her people, and which must be accomplished before she 
 would allow herself to follow the desires of her heart, he 
 believed himself to be the bearer of in the name of the 
 Lord. Carried away by the high flight of her spirit, he 
 hastened to her side, seized her hand and cried with hope- 
 ful excitement : 
 
 " The hour has come when you may once more tell day 
 from night and hearken to the wishes of your heart. For 
 I, Joshua, no more Hosea, came at the message of the Lord, 
 and the message I bear brings new happiness to the people 
 whom I will learn to love as you love them, and, if it be the 
 will of the Most High, a new and better land." 
 
 Miriam's eyes flashed with gladness. Carried away by 
 thankful joy, she cried : 
 
 " Are you, then, come to lead us to the land Jehovah hath 
 promised us ? Oh, Lord, how great are Thy mercies ! He 
 — he comes as Thy messenger." 
 
 " Yea, he comes ; he is here ! " cried Joshua, rapturously, 
 and she did not prevent him as he clasped her to his breast. 
 With a thrill of joy she returned his ardent kis 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Frightened at her own weakness, Miriam presently freed 
 herself from her lover's arms, but she was ready to listen 
 with eager gladness to his tale of a fresh mercy vouchsafed 
 by the Most High, and his brief account of all he had done 
 and felt since he had received her call. 
 
JOSHUA. «7 
 
 First, he described how terribly he had been divided in 
 his mind ; how then he had found entire faith, and in 
 obedience to the God of his nation and to his father's appeal 
 had gone to the palace, facing the risk of imprisonment or 
 death, to be released of his oath. Next he told her how 
 graciously the mourning sovereigns had received him, and 
 how finally he had taken upon himself the office of appeal- 
 ing to the leader of his people and persuading him to take 
 the Hebrews only a short way into the desert, and then 
 bring them home again to Egypt, where a new and splendid 
 province should be granted them on the west of the Nile. 
 Henceforth no Egyptian overseer should oppress them; 
 their own elders should be permitted to rule them, and a 
 man of their own choosing should govern them. 
 
 To conclude, he observed that he himself was minded to 
 become the captain of the Hebrew fighting men, and also 
 to mediate and smooth matters between them and the 
 Egyptians whenever it might seem needful. Happily 
 united to her in that new home, he would extend his care 
 to the humblest of his brethren. On his way hither he had 
 felt as though, after a furious fight, the blasts of the trumpets 
 proclaimed victory. And, indeed, he had a right to believe 
 himself a messenger and ambassador from the Lord. 
 
 Here, however, he interrupted himself, for Miriam, who 
 at first had listened to him with anxious ears and flashing 
 eyes, had heard him, as he proceeded, with a more and 
 more anxious and troubled mien. And when he spoke of 
 his hope that they might together do much for their people, 
 she drew away her hand, gazed with terror into his hand- 
 some face glowing with glad excitement, and then cast down 
 her eyes as if striving for self-control. 
 
 Unsuspicious of what had moved her thus, he went closer 
 to her. He deemed that it was maidenly shyness that held 
 her silent at having yielded a first favor to the man she 
 loved. But when she shook her head disapprovingly at his 
 last words, announcing his commission as God's messenger, 
 he was almost beside himself with cruel disappointment, 
 and exclaimed vehemently : 
 
 " Then do you believe that the Lord hath defended me, 
 as by a miracle, against the wrath of the mighty, and given 
 me grace to win for His people, from the hand of the great 
 king, such boons as never before did the strong vouchsafe 
 to the weak, only to trifle with the happy trustfulness of a 
 man whom He Himself called to serve Him?" 
 
lit JOSHUA. 
 
 At this she interrupted him in awoful voice, with difficulty 
 restraining her tears : 
 
 " The strong to the weak ! If this is your thought you 
 force me to ask you in your own father's words : ' Who, 
 then, is the mightier, the Lord our God or that poor crea- 
 ture on the throne, whose first-born has perished at a sign 
 from the Most High as grass is cut down and withered ? ' 
 Oh, Hosea, Hosea ! " 
 
 " Nay, Joshua," he wildly exclaimed. " Do you refuse 
 me the name which your God bestowed on me ? I trusted 
 in His aid when I entered the palace of the great king ; I 
 sought redemption and release for the nation under God's 
 guidance, and I found them, and you — you " 
 
 " Moses and your father, aye, and all the faithful leaders 
 of Israel, sees no redemption at the hand of the Egyptians," 
 she replied, with fluttering breath. " All that they can 
 bestow must bring destruction on Israel ; the grass that we 
 have sown withers where the Egyptian treads. And you, 
 whose honest soul they have but mocked at, you are the 
 lure sent forth by the bird catcher to entice the birds into 
 the net. You are, as it were, the hammer in their hand 
 to rivet the fetters withal more firmly than ever, which we, 
 by God's help, have broken. With the eyes of the spirit I 
 see " 
 
 " Enough ! Too much ! " cried the warrior, grinding his 
 teeth with rage. " Hatred has clouded your clear soul. 
 .Mid if the bird catcher, as you would have it, is of a truth 
 using me as his lure, and mocked at me and led me astray, 
 it was from you, yes, you, that he has learned it. Encour- 
 aged by you I built on your love and faithfulness ; of you 
 I hoped everything. And that love — where is it? You 
 have spared me nothing that could wound me, and I, 
 likewise, will not spare myself, but confess the whole truth. 
 It is not alone because the God of my fathers bid me, but 
 because it was through you and my father that the call came 
 to me, that I obeyed. You aspire after a land in the far 
 unknown, promised by the Lord. I opened to my people 
 the way to a certain and happy home. Nor was it for 
 their sake, for what have my people ever done forme? 
 But above all, that I might dwell there with you, whom I 
 love, and with my old father, and you, whose cold heart 
 knows not love, with my kiss on your lips, you reject the 
 boon I offer out of hatred for the hand that has bestowed it 
 
JOSHUA. II 9 
 
 on me. All your thoughts and deeds have become as those 
 of a man, and all that other women prize most highly you 
 spuria from you with your foot ! " 
 
 At this Miriam could bear no more. She clasped her 
 hands over her quivering face, sobbing bitterly. 
 
 By this time the sleeping tribes were awakening in 
 the growing dawn. Serving men and women came forth 
 from the houses of Aminadab and Nahshon. All, as they 
 woke to a new day, made their way to the well or the 
 drinking-troughs, but she heeded them not. 
 
 How her heart had leaped and rejoiced when her lover 
 had declared to her that he had come to lead them to the 
 land which the Lord had promised to His people. She 
 had rested so gladly on his bosom, to know for a moment 
 that highest bliss, but how soon had it been turned to 
 cruel disappointment ! While the morning breeze had 
 rustled through the thick foliage of the sycamore, and 
 while Joshua was telling her of Pharaoh's promises to the 
 people, it had seemed to her that the voice of God in His 
 wrath was murmuring on the tree-tops, or that she heard 
 once more the angry speech of old Nun. He had stormed 
 at Uri like thunder and lightning, and wherein did 
 Joshua's proposals differ from Uri's ? 
 
 The people, as she had heard from Moses himself, were 
 lost if they failed in truth to their God and yielded to 
 Pharaoh's enticements. To ally herself with a man who 
 had come to undo all for which her brothers and his own 
 father had lived and struggled would be base treason. 
 And yet she loved Joshua, and instead of repulsing him 
 harshly, how willingly, ah, how gladly, would she again 
 have lain on the heart which, as she knew, longed for her 
 so ardently. 
 
 But the murmur in the boughs still went on. She could 
 fancy it was echoing Aaron's words of warning, and she 
 vowed to remain true, strong as the impulse was that drew 
 her to her lover. The whispering in the tree was of a 
 surety the voice of God, who had chosen her to be His 
 handmaid. When Joshua had declared in his passionate 
 excitement that the desire to possess her was what had 
 prompted him to action on behalf of the people who to 
 him were as indifferent as to her they were dear, she had 
 suddenly felt her heart stand still, and she could not for- 
 bear sobbing in her mental anguish. 
 
120 JOSHUA. 
 
 Heedless of Joshua or the awakening multitude, she 
 flung herself again at the foot of the sycamore, with arms 
 upraised to heaven, staring wide-eyed at the boughs, as 
 though expecting some fresh revelation. The morning 
 air sighed among the leaves, and suddenly it seemed as 
 though a bright radiance shone not only in her soul, but 
 all about her, as always happened when a vision was 
 granted to her prophetic eye. And in the midst of the 
 light, behold a figure, whose aspect terrified her while his 
 name was whispered by every trembling leaf; and the 
 name was not Joshua, but that of another whom her heart 
 could not desire. He stood in the blaze of glory before 
 her mind's eye, a tall, noble form, and, with a solemn ges- 
 ture, laid his hand on the heap of stones he had made. 
 
 Breathless with suspense she gazed at the vision ; and 
 yet she would gladly have closed her eyes to avoid seeing 
 it, and have shut her ears to the voice of the murmuring 
 sycamore. Suddenly the glory was extinct, the figure had 
 vanished, the voice of the leaves was hushed ; she saw 
 before her, in a ruddier glow, the figure of the only man 
 whose lips her own had ever kissed, sword in hand, rush- 
 ing on an invisible foe at the head of his father's herds- 
 men. The vision came and was gone as swiftly as a flash 
 of lightning ; and yet, even before it had vanished, she 
 knew all it meant to her. Tins man, whom she had 
 named Joshua, and who had every quality that could fit 
 him to be the guardian and leader of his people, should 
 not be led astray by love from the high task to which the 
 Lord had called him. None among the Hebrews should 
 hear the message he had brought, and thereby be turned 
 away from the perilous path on which they had entered. 
 Her duty was now as clear in her sight as the vanished 
 vision had been. And as though the Most High would 
 fain show her that she had understood rightly what the 
 vision demanded of her before she had risen from her 
 knees to announce to Joshua the sorrow to which she had 
 condemneo him and herself, she heard Hur's voice close 
 at hand bidding the crowd, which was gathering from all 
 sides, to form in order for their march. 
 
 The way of salvation from herself lay before her. 
 
 Joshua, meanwhile, had not ventured to intrude on her 
 devotions. He was wounded and angered to the depths 
 of his soul by her rejection. But gazing down on her he 
 
JOSHUA. 121 
 
 had seen ner tall frame shiver as with a sudden chill, her 
 eyes and hands uplifted as if spell-bound; and he had 
 understood that something great and sacred was stirring 
 in her soul which it would be a crime to disturb ; nay, he 
 had been- unable to resist an instinctive feeling that he was 
 a bold man who could desire a woman so closely one with 
 God. It would be bliss indeed to be lord of this sublime 
 creature, but at the same time hard to see her prefer 
 another, though it were the Almighty, so far above her 
 lover. 
 
 Men and beasts were already trooping in crowds past 
 the sycamore, and when at length Joshua decided that he 
 must speak to Miriam and remind her of the gathering 
 throng she rose, and turning to him spoke these vehement 
 words : 
 
 " I have spoken with the Lord, Joshua, and I now know 
 His will. Dost thou remember the words with which God 
 called thee ? " 
 
 He bowed his head and she went on : 
 
 " It is well. Then learn now what it is that the Most 
 High God hath said to thy father, and to Moses, and to 
 me. He will lead us forth from the land of Egypt, far, far 
 away, to a land where neither Pharaoh nor his rulers shall 
 have dominion over us, and He alone will be our King. 
 This is His will, and if thou desire to serve Him thou shalt 
 follow us, and, if we have need to fight, be captain over 
 the men of our people." 
 
 At this he beat his breast and cried in great trouble : 
 " I am bound by an oath to return home to Tanis to tell 
 Pharaoh how the leaders of the Hebrews have received the 
 message which I have brought to them. Yea, and even if 
 it should break my heart I cannot be forsworn." 
 
 " And rather shall mine break," Miriam moaned, " than 
 I break my vow to the Lord. We have chosen. And 
 here, in the presence of this heap of stones, all the ties are 
 cut which ever bound us ! " 
 
 At this he was beside himself ; he eagerly strove to 
 take her hand, but she repulsed him with an imperious 
 gesture, turned away and went forward towards the throng 
 of people who were crowding round the well with the cattle 
 and sheep. 
 
 Great and small respectfully made way for her as she 
 walked with proud dignity towards Ilur, who was giving 
 
122 JOSHUA. 
 
 orders to the shepherds. He came to meet her, and when 
 he had heard the promise she made him in an undertone lie 
 laid his hand on her head and said with grave solemnity : 
 '• May the Lord bless our union." 
 
 Then, hand in hand with the gray-haired man to whom 
 she had plighted her troth, Miriam turned to meet Joshua, 
 and nothing betrayed the deep agitation of her soul but the 
 fluttering rise and fall of her bosom, though her cheeks 
 were indeed pale ; her eyes were dry, and her demeanor 
 as unbending as ever. 
 
 She left it to Hur to tell the lover whom she had rejected, 
 now and forever, what she had done ; and when the 
 warrior heard it he started back as though a gulf had 
 yawned at his feet. 
 
 His lips were bloodless as he gazed at the unequally 
 matched pair. Scornful laughter seemed to him the only 
 fit answer for such an announcement, but Miriam's earnest 
 face helped him to suppress it, and to conceal his painful 
 agitation under some trivial speech. However, he felt 
 that he could not for long preserve the semblance of indif- 
 ference, so he bid Miriam farewell. He must, as he hastily 
 explained, greet his father, and request him to call a meet- 
 ing of the elders. 
 
 But before he had done speaking the quarreling herds- 
 men came crowding round Hur that he might decide what 
 place in the procession it behooved each tribe to take ; so 
 he went with them ; and as soon as Miriam found herself 
 alone with the soldier she said beseechingly, but in a low 
 voice and with imploring eyes : 
 
 "A hasty deed has broken the bonds that united us, 
 but a higher tie still holds us together. As I have given 
 up that which my heart held dearest, to be faithful to my 
 God and my people, so do thou sacrifice that to which thy 
 soul clings. Obey the Most High, who hath named thee 
 Joshua ! This hour hath changed our gladness to bitter 
 grief ; may the good of the people be its fruit ! Remain a 
 true son of the race which gave thee thy father and mother, 
 and be what the Lord hath called thee to be, a captain of 
 His people. 
 
 " If thou abide by the oath thou hast sworn to Pharaoh, 
 and reveal to the ciders the promises thou hast brought, 
 they will go over to thy side ; that I know full well. Few 
 "Will stand up against thee, but foremost of these few will 
 
JOSHUA. 123 
 
 be thine own father. I can hear him uplift his voice in 
 anger against his own beloved son ; and if thou' shut thine 
 ear even to his admonition, then the people will follow thee 
 instead of following the Lord, and thou wilt lead the 
 Israelites as a mighty man of valor. But, then, when the 
 day comes in which the Egyptian lets his promises fly to 
 the four winds, thou wilt see thy people more cruelly 
 oppressed than even heretofore, and when they turn aside 
 from the God of their fathers to worship the gods with the 
 heads of beasts the curse of thy father shall fall upon thee. 
 The wrath of the Most High shall be visited upon the fro- 
 ward, and despair shall be the lot of him who shall lead 
 the foolish folk astray after that the Lord hath chosen him 
 to be the captain of His people. I, a weak woman, the 
 handmaid of the Lord, and the damsel who loved thee 
 better than life — I cry unto thee, ' Beware of the curse of 
 thy father and the hand of the Lord ! Beware lest thou 
 lead the people into sin ! ' " 
 
 A slave girl here came out to Miriam to bid her go to 
 the old people, so she only added in a low voice : " One 
 word more. If thou wouldst prove thyself not less weak 
 than the woman whose opposition moved thee to anger, 
 renounce thine own will for the sake of the multitude of 
 thy brethren. Lay thine hand on this heap and swear to 
 mi—" 
 
 But the prophetess' voice failed her. Her hands felt 
 about vainly for some support, and with a cry she fell on 
 her knees close to Hur's heap of stones. Joshua hastened 
 to raise her, holding her in his strong arms, and at his call 
 some women hurried up and soon revived the fainting girl. 
 
 As she opened her eyes they wandered vaguely from one 
 to another, and it was not till her gaze fell on Joshua's 
 anxious face that she fully understood where she was and 
 what had happened. Then she hastily drank a deep 
 draught of the water which a shepherd woman offered her, 
 dried her eyes which were streaming with tears, sighed 
 bitterly, and with a wan smile said to Joshua : 
 
 " I am after all but a weak woman." 
 
 Then she went towards the house, but after walking a 
 few steps she turned round, signed to Joshua, and said : 
 
 " You see they are forming in ranks. They are about 
 to set forth. Are you still of the same mind? There is 
 yet time to call the ciders together." 
 
124 JOSHUA* 
 
 But he shook his head in denial, and, as lie met her eye 
 glistening with gratitude, lie softly replied: "I will ever 
 bear in mind this heap, and this hour, wife of Hur ! Greet 
 my father from me, and tell him that I love him. Tell 
 him, too, the name which his son is henceforth to hear by 
 the command of the Most High. In that name, which 
 promised me the help of the Lord, he shall put his trust 
 when he hears whither I go, to keep the oath I have sworn." 
 
 lie waved his hand to Miriam, and turned to go to the 
 > amp, where his horse had been fed and watered, but she 
 called after him : 
 
 " One last word. Moses left a letter for you in the 
 hollow of the tree." At this the warrior went to the 
 sycamore and read the message which the man of God had 
 left for him. 
 
 " ]>c steadfast and strong," was the brief injunction, and 
 Joshua raised his head and cried joyfully : " The words are 
 a comfort to my soul ; and if it is for the last time that we 
 have met, wife of Hur, if I now go to my death, be sure 
 that I shall know how to be steadfast and strong, even 
 unto the end. And do you do all you can for my old 
 father." 
 
 Herewith he sprang on horseback, and as he made his 
 way to Tanis, faithful to his oath, his soul was free from 
 fears, although he did not conceal from himself that he was, 
 riding forth to great peril. His highest hopes were 
 destroyed, and yet glad excitement struggled with the grief 
 in his soul. A new and glorious emotion had its birth 
 there, filling his whole being, and it was scarcely damped 
 though he had suffered a wound cruel enough to darken 
 the light of day to any other man. He had now a fixed 
 aim in life, and, besides this, he had the assurance that he 
 might hold himself as worthy as Hur or as any other man. 
 None could depose him from this high place but the 
 glorious twain to whom he would dedicate his blood and 
 his life : his God and his people. 
 
 He was amazed to discern how greatly-this new enthu- 
 siasm cast into the shade everything else that stirred in his 
 breast. Now and again, indeed, he bowed his head in 
 sorrow as he remembered his old father ; still, he had done 
 right in setting aside his longing to press him once more to 
 his heart. The old man would scarcely have understood 
 his motives, and it was better for them to separate without 
 meeting rather than in open dissension. 
 
JOSHUA. \*i 
 
 Sometimes it seemed to him as though all that had 
 happened could be but a dream ; and as he was still 
 intoxicated, as it were, by the agitations cf the last few 
 hours, his stalwart frame was but little conscious of the 
 fatigues he had gone through. At a well-known inn on the 
 road, where he found several warriors, and among them 
 certain captains well known to him, he at length allowed 
 himself and his horse to rest and eat; and as he rode on 
 refreshed, daily life asserted its rights. He passed various 
 companies of soldiers on their way to the city of Tanis, and 
 was informed that they were under orders tu join them- 
 selves there to the troops which he himself had brought 
 home from Libya. 
 
 At last he rode into the town, and as he went past the 
 temple of Anion he heard loud wailing, though he had 
 learned on his way that the pestilence was wellnigh at an 
 end. From many signs he gathered the fact which was 
 presently announced to him by some guards, the god's 
 high priest and first prophet, Ruie, had just died in the 
 90th year of his age, and Baie, the second prophet, who 
 had so warmly assured him of his friendship and gratitude, 
 and who counted on his co-operation in a dangerous 
 enterprise, was his successor — high priest and judge, seal- 
 bearer and treasurer; in short, the most powerful man in 
 the kingdom. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 " He whom Tchovah helps ! " murmured a chain-laden 
 prisoner with a bitter smile, as five days later, he, with 
 forty fellow-sufferers, was led through the triumphal arch 
 of Tanis toward the east. 
 
 Their destination was the mines on the peninsula of 
 Sinai, where fresh-forced laborers were needed. 
 
 The smile on the victim's face soon vanished ; then he 
 drew up his muscular form while his bearded lips muttered 
 the words : " Steadfast and strong ! " and he whispered to 
 the youth who was walking at his side, as though he 
 wished to convey to him some of the strength that he had 
 recovered : " Courage, Ephraim, courage ; look up and 
 not in the dust, come what may 1 " 
 
126 JOSHUA. 
 
 "Silence whilst marching!" cried one of the armed 
 Libyan guards who escorted the gang to the elder prisoner, 
 and he raised his whip with a menacing gesture. Joshua 
 was the man he threatened, and his companion was 
 Ephraim, who had been condemned to share his fate. 
 
 Every Egyptian child knew what this meant, for "Sena 
 me to the mines !" was this people's most dreadful impre- 
 cation, and no prisoner's lot was half so hard as that of the 
 condemned state criminal. 
 
 A series of frightful humiliations and hardships awaited 
 them at the mines. The: strength of the healthiest was 
 ruined by unheard-of over-work, and the exhausted victims 
 were forced to do things so far beyond their power that they 
 soon sank into the everlasting rest for which their martyred 
 souls had long pined. 
 
 Joshua's encouraging words had little effect on Ephraim ; 
 but when a few minutes later a chariot, shaded by an 
 umbrella, drove past the gang, and in it, behind the 
 charioteer and a matron, stood an elegant young woman, 
 he turned round quickly and gazed after the vehicle with 
 sparkling eyes, until the dust on the road hid it from sight. 
 
 The lady was thickly veiled, yet the youth thought that 
 he had recognized her for whose sake he had rushed into 
 peril, and whose lightest sign he would even now fly to 
 obey. And Ephraim had guessed correctly, for the young 
 lady in the chariot was Kasana, the daughter of the captain 
 of the archers ; the elder woman was her nurse. 
 
 On reaching a little temple on the road, near a thicket 
 of acacia, among which stood a well for the use of travelers, 
 after the chariot had left the prisoners at some distance 
 behind, Kasana begged the matron to wait. Then, 
 springing out lightly on the road, she walked to and fro 
 with a bowed head under the shadow of the trees until she 
 knew by a rolling cloud of dust that the criminals were 
 approaching. 
 
 Then, taking out of her garment some gold rings which 
 she had brought with her for the purpose, she went up to 
 the driver of the melancholy procession as he drew near on 
 an ass, and while she talked to him ami pointed to Joshua 
 the guard cast a stolen glance at the rings which had been 
 slipped into his hand. His modesty had only allowed him to 
 expect silver, and his face at once assumed a friendly and 
 courteous expression at the sight of their pleasing ycllov 
 glitter. 
 
JOSHUA. 127 
 
 Kis countenance certainly darkened again at the demand 
 Kasana made, but it brightened once more at a promise of 
 further largesse from the young widow. " Take the moles 
 to the well, men ! Let them drink ! They shall go fresh 
 and healthy underground ! " 
 
 Then he rode up to the prisoners and called to Joshua : 
 " You, who have yourself once ruled over many people, 
 seem to me more stiff-necked still than is good for you or 
 me. You, guards, look after the others. I will watch this 
 one ; I have a few words to say to him." 
 
 Then he clapped his hands as if he was driving poultry 
 from a garden, and whilst the prisoners drew water in the 
 buckets of the well, and, with their guards, rejoiced in the 
 refreshing drink, the leader led Joshua and Ephraim on one 
 side, for they could not be separated by reason of the chains 
 that bound them together by the ankles. They were soon 
 hidden from the others behind the little temple, and then 
 the driver sank down on a bench at a little distance, having 
 first, with a significant gesture, shown the two Hebrews 
 the bludgeon in his right hand, and pointed to the dogs 
 who were rubbing against his feet. 
 
 He kept his eyes open, too, during the conversation that 
 followed. They might say what they pleased ; he knew 
 his duty, and though he understood how to shut one eye 
 on a parting in return for good gold, for quite twenty 
 years, in spite of many attempts to escape amongst his 
 moles — as he called those condemned to the mines — not 
 one had ever succeeded in getting away. 
 
 This lovely woman was perhaps this fine fellow's 
 betrothed, for he had been told that Joshua had been com- 
 mander. But he had already called many noble birds 
 "moles," and if this veiled woman should contrive to slip 
 files or gold into the prisoner's hands so much the better; 
 this evening nothing on these two should be left unsearched, 
 not even the youth's black hair, which had been left unshorn 
 in the confusion that had taken place at the start of the 
 prisoners, for they had been sent off just before the depar- 
 ture of Pharaoh's army. 
 
 The subject of the woman's whispered negotiations with 
 the fallen captain remained unknown to the driver, but 
 from her sorrowful face and manner he inferred that she 
 had caused the ruin of this noble man. Oh! woman, 
 woman ! and that lad in chains ! The glances he cast at 
 
128 JOSHUA. 
 
 the slender creature were so ardent that she had to draw 
 her veil closer. But patience I Great Father Anion! 
 His moles were going»to a good school for modesty. 
 
 Now the woman removed her veil. She was beautiful ! 
 It must be hard to part with such a lovely creature ; and 
 now she cried so bitterly. 
 
 The rough guard's heart was touched as much as his 
 position would allow, and he could have struck the elder 
 prisoner with his whip, for was it not an outrage, having 
 such a lover, to stand like stone? At first the wretch did 
 not even stretch out a hand to the woman, who certainly 
 loved him ; whilst he, the guard, would have been glad to 
 see the two kiss and embrace. 
 
 Or was this beauty perhaps the warrior's wife, who had 
 deceived him? But no, no, how kindly he approached 
 her now. A father speaks like that to his child, but his 
 " mole " was much too young to have so old a daughter. 
 A riddle ! However, he did not care about the answer, 
 since it was in his power during the march to make the 
 most taciturn convict as frank as an open book. 
 
 And not alone the- simple driver of the gang, but every- 
 one might have wondered why this beautiful woman had 
 come out into the highway at early dawn to see an un- 
 fortunate man weighed down with chains. 
 
 Nothing but tormenting anxiety for the man she loved 
 could, have impelled Kasana to take this journey and 
 expose herself to scorn as a woman of no reputation. A 
 terrible fate awaited him ; her lively imagination had pic- 
 tured Joshua in the mines languishing, broken down, pining 
 away, and at last dying with a curse on her upon his lips. 
 
 On the evening of the day on which Ephraim, shivering 
 with high fever and half choked with dust, was carried 
 into their house, her father had informed her that in the 
 person of the young Hebrew she held a hostage which 
 would force Joshua to return to Tanis, and yield to the 
 wishes of the prophet Baie, with whom she knew her father 
 to be allied in a secret plot. He likewise confided to her 
 that not only were great distinctions and high honors to 
 be offered to Joshua, but also marriage with herself, to secure 
 his fidelity to Egypt and to a cause from which he, Hor- 
 necht, looked for great benefits to the country and to his 
 own kindred. This had filled her with high hopes of 
 ntlaining long-wished-for joys ; and as they sat near the 
 
JOSHUA. 129 
 
 little road-side temple, she now confessed this to the 
 prisoner with a drooping head and low sobs ; fur he was 
 now forever lost to her, and even if he could not return the 
 love she had felt for him since her childhood, he at any 
 rate would not hate her and condemn her unheard. 
 
 Joshua, indeed, listened to her willingly, and assured her 
 that nothing would gladden his heart more than that she 
 should clear herself from the reproach of being answer- 
 able for the terrible fate awaiting himself and the youth by 
 his side. 
 
 At this she sobbed aloud, and had to struggle to com- 
 pose herself before she could succeed in telling her story 
 with any degree of calmness. 
 
 Shortly after Joshua's departure the high priest had died, 
 and Baie, the second prophet of Anion, had succeeded him. 
 Things were then greatly altered; this man, the most 
 powerful in the land, stirred up Pharaoh to hatred against 
 the Hebrews and their leader, Moses, whom, till then, the 
 king and queen had protected and feared. He had also 
 persuaded the king to pursue the fugitive Hebrews, and 
 the army was at once ordered to go forth and compel them 
 to return. She immediately feared that Joshua would 
 certainly refuse to fight against those who were of his own 
 blood, and that it must anger him to be sent forth to sign 
 a contract which the Egyptians would begin to break 
 before they could know whether it had been accepted. 
 Then, when he had returned home, he himself knew only 
 too well how Pharaoh had treated him like a prisoner, and 
 had refused to admit him to his presence until he had 
 sworn to continue to lead the Egyptian troops, and 
 remain a faithful servant to the king. Still, Baie, the high 
 priest, had not forgotten that he had saved his life, and 
 was well disposed toward him and grateful ; and she knew 
 that he had hoped to entangle Joshua in the secret con- 
 spiracy in which her father also was implicated. It was 
 Baie, too, who had caused Pharaoh to release him from 
 fighting against his own nation on condition of his renew- 
 ing his oath of fidelity, to place him in command of the 
 foreign mercenaries, and to raise him to the high rank of 
 " Friend of the King" — but of course he must know all 
 this already, for the new high priest had with his own hand 
 set the tempting prospect before Joshua, who had rejected 
 it with firm and manly decision. Her father had in the 
 
 9 
 
i 3 o JOSHUA. 
 
 first instance been on his side, and for the first time had 
 entirely refrained from speaking with reproach of his 
 I [ebrew origin. 
 
 ( >n the third day after Joshua's return the captain of the 
 archers had gone out to speak with him, and since then 
 everything had gone wrong. He therefore must know 
 what it was that had turned the man of whom she dared 
 think no evil, since she was his daughter, from being a 
 friend into a mortal enemy. She looked inquiringly into 
 Joshua's face, and he was ready with his answer. The 
 captain had told him that he would be a welcome son- 
 in-law. 
 
 "And you," asked Kasana, looking anxiously at the 
 speaker. 
 
 " I," replied the prisoner, " could only say that you had 
 from your childhood been kind and dear to me, but that 
 nevertheless there was much to forbid my linking the fate 
 of any woman to mine." 
 
 At this Kasana's eyes flashed and she cried: "It is 
 because you love another — a woman of your own people — 
 the woman who sent Ephraim to you ! " 
 
 But Joshua shook his head and answered gently : " You 
 are in error, Kasana. The woman of whom you speak is 
 this day another man's wife." 
 
 " But then," cried the widow, with revived spirit, and 
 she looked at him with tender entreaty, " why — oh forgive 
 me — why did you repulse him so harshly ? " 
 
 " That was far from my purpose, dear child," he replied 
 warmly, laying his hand on her head. " I always have 
 thought of you with all the affection of which I am capable. 
 And though I could not, indeed, accede to his wish, it was 
 because the sternest necessity forbids me ever to look for- 
 ward to that peace and joy by my own hearth which other 
 men may strive for. If I had been a free man my life 
 would have been one of constant journeying and warfare." 
 
 " But how many men," Kasana put in, " wield the sword 
 and shield, indeed, but rejoice at their home-coming to 
 their wives, and the joys they find under their own roof? " 
 
 "Very true," said he sadly. " But the duties that call 
 me are such as the Egyptians know not of. I am the son 
 of my nation." 
 
 " And you propose to serve it? " said Kasana. " Oh ! 
 I quite understand you. But then — why did you return to 
 ranis? Why did you trust yourself in Pharaoh's power?" 
 
JOSHUA. 131 
 
 " Because I was pledged by a sacred oath, my child." 
 said lie kindly. 
 
 " An oath ! " she exclaimed. ' : A promise that puts 
 death and captivity between you and her whom you love, 
 and those whom you desire to serve ! Oh ! would that 
 you had never come back to this land of unrighteousness, 
 of treachery and ingratitude ! That oath will plunge many 
 into grief and weeping. Cut what does a man care for the 
 woe he brings on others ? You have spoilt all my joy in 
 life, hapless creature that I am ; and at home, among your 
 own people, you have a worthy father whose only son you 
 are. How often have I seen the noble old man with his 
 snow-white hair and Hashing eye? And you will be like 
 him if you attain to old age, as I used to think when I met 
 him by the harbor, or in the four-court of the High Gate, 
 when he was ordering his hinds to bring in his tribute of 
 beasts or woolly sheep to the receipt of custom. And now 
 his latter days are to be darkened by his son's perversity." 
 
 "And, now," corrected Joshua, "his son is going into 
 misery, loaded with fetters; still he may hold his head 
 high above those who have betrayed him. They, and 
 Pharaoh at their head, have forgotten that I have shed my 
 heart's blood for them on many a battle-field, and been 
 faithful to the king through every kind of danger. 
 Meuephtah has abandoned me, and with him his chief 
 minister, whose life I saved, and many another who once 
 called me friend ; they have deserted me and cast me out, 
 and this innocent lad with me. But, I tell you, woman, 
 those who have done this, those who have committed this 
 sin — one and all, shall " 
 
 "Curse, them not!" cred Kasana, and her cheeks 
 flushed scarlet. 
 
 But Joshua did not heed her prayer, but exclaimed : 
 " Should I be a man if I did not thirst for vengeance ? " 
 
 The young woman clung in terror to his arm and beseech- 
 ingly went on : 
 
 " How, indeed, can you forgive him ? Only do not 
 curse him, for it was out of love for me that my father 
 became your enemy. You know him wdl, and his hot 
 blood, which easily carries him to extremes in spite of his 
 years. He kept silence, even to me, of what he took as 
 an insult — for he has seen me courted by many suitors, 
 and I am precious above all else in his eyes. Sooner will 
 
r 3 2 JOSHUA. 
 
 Pharaoh forgive the rebel than my father will pardon the 
 man who scorns me, his dearest treasure. He came home 
 frantic with rage. Every word he spoke was abuse. Then 
 he could not bear to remain indoors, and he stormed out- 
 side as he had stormed within. At last, however, he would 
 have allowed himself to be pacified, as he often had done 
 before, if he had not met someone in the palace courts 
 who made it his business to pour oil on the flames. I 
 heard all this from the high priest's wife, for she, too, was 
 greatly troubled to think that she had brought evil upon 
 you, and her husband had already done everything in his 
 power to save you. She, who is as brave as a man, was 
 ready to second him and to open the door of your prison; 
 she has not forgotten that you saved her husband's life in 
 Libya. Ephraim's chains were to be struck off at the same 
 time as yours, and all was ready to enable you to escape." 
 
 " I know," replied Joshua gloomily. " And I would 
 return thanks to the God of my fathers if they spoke falsely 
 who told me that it was your doing, Kasana, that our 
 dungeon was locked on us more closely than ever." At 
 this the pretty heart-broken young creature exclaimed 
 vehemently: " And should I be here if that were true ? 
 Hatred indeed seethed in my soul, as in that of every 
 woman whose love is scorned ; but the ill-fortune which 
 befell you quickly changed my wrath into pity, and revived 
 the fires in my heart. As truly as I pray to be mercifully 
 judged after my death, I am innocent of this thing, and 
 never ceased to hope for your release. It was not until 
 last evening, when it was too late, that I learned that 
 Baie's attempt had failed. The high priest can do much, 
 but the very man whom he will not thwart is closely allied 
 to my father." 
 
 " You mean Pharaoh's nephew, Prince Siptah," inter- 
 rupted Joshua in great excitement. " They hinted to me 
 the plots they were weaving about him. The)- wanted to 
 set me in the place of Aarsu, the Syrian captain, if I would 
 but consent to let them work their will with my people and 
 renounce my own flesh and blood. Put rather would I 
 have died twenty deaths than stain myself with such trea- 
 son. Aarsu is far more fit for such dark schemes, though 
 at last he will betray them all. So far as I am concerned, 
 the prince has good reason to hate me." 
 
 At this Kasana put her hand over her mouth, pointing 
 
JOSHUA. 133 
 
 uneasily to Ephraim and the gaoler, and whispered : 
 " Spare my father ! The prince — whatever it was that 
 roused his enmity " 
 
 " He is seeking to tempt you, too, into his net, and he 
 has been told that you are in love with me," the warrior 
 broke in. But she only blushed, and bending her head in 
 assent went on : 
 
 " And for that reason Aarsu, whom he has taken into 
 the conspiracy, is bound to keep such close ward over you 
 and Ephraim." 
 
 "The Syrian's eyes are wide open," cried Joshua. " But 
 I believe you, and thank you heartily for coming to us 
 hapless wretches." 
 
 " And you will always think of poor Kasana without 
 wrath or hatred ? " 
 
 " Gladly, most gladly." 
 
 The young widow grasped the captive's hand with pas- 
 sionate agitation, and was about to press it to her lips, but 
 he drew it away ; and she said anxiously, gazing up at him 
 with tearful eyes : " Do you refuse me the favor which no 
 benefactor refuses to a beggar ? " Then she suddenly 
 started up, and exclaimed so loudly that the gaoler was 
 roused, and looked to see where the sun was : " But I tell 
 you, that the time will come when you will offer me that 
 hand to kiss. For when the messenger shall come from 
 Tanis to bring you and this lad the freedom you pine for, 
 it will be to Kasana that you will owe it ! " 
 
 The fair face glowed with the flush of eager anticipation, 
 and Joshua, seizing her hand, exclaimed : " Oh, if only you 
 might succeed in doing what your faithful soul desires ! 
 How can I bear to prevent your trying to alleviate the ter- 
 rible misfortune which fell upon this boy under your roof? 
 Still, as an honest man, I must tell you that I can never 
 more take service with the Egyptians ; come what may, I 
 shall henceforth forever belong, body and soul, to those 
 whom you persecute and despise, the nation and tribe into 
 which my mother bore me." 
 
 At this her lovely head dropped ; but she raised it again 
 immediately to say : " There is no one so high-souled and 
 honest as you, no one that I have ever known from my 
 childhood up. And when, among my own people, I fail to 
 find any man whom I may reverence, still I will remember 
 you, in whom everything is great, and true, and without 
 
l 3 4 JOSHUA. 
 
 spot. And if poor Kasana may succeed in setting you 
 free, do not despise her if you find her fallen away from 
 the virtue in which you left her; for the humiliation she 
 may have to endure, the shame she may be brought to — " 
 
 [oshua anxiously interrupted her. 
 
 " What are you about to do ? " he cried ; but he was not 
 to hear the answer, for the leader of the gang rose and 
 clapped his hands, crying out : " Now, on again, you moles, 
 on again, at once." 
 
 At this the warrior's heart was moved to deep regret. 
 Obedient to a hasty impulse he kissed the hapless 
 Kasana on her fair brow and hair, and whispered : " Leave 
 me to pine if our freedom is to cost you such degrada- 
 tion. We shall never, indeed, meet again ; for, come 
 what may, my life henceforth will be nothing but a struggle 
 and self-sacrifice. The night will close in on us darker 
 and darker; but, however black it may be, one star will 
 often shine on me and on this lad — the remembrance of 
 you, sweet child, my loving and faithful Kasana." He 
 pointed to Ephraim, and the youth pressed his lips, as if 
 beside himself, to the hand and arm of Kasana. who was 
 sobbing aloud. 
 
 " Come on ! " cried the driver once more, and with a 
 grateful grin for a fresh gift of money he helped the open- 
 handed lady into her chariot. 
 
 The horses started, fresh shouts were heard, the whip 
 cracked here and there on bare shoulders, a few yells of 
 anguish rose through the morning air, and the file of pri- 
 soners went off towards the east. The chains on the vic- 
 tims' feet stirred up the dust which shrouded the wanderers, 
 as grief, and hatred, and dread, clouded each separate soul 
 among them. 
 
 On they went, bent in gloomy brooding ; only Joshua 
 held his head erect. It was a comfort to him to know 
 that Kasana, the sweet creature he had loved as a child, 
 was innocent of his fate ; and when his spirit sank within 
 him he could revive it by repeating to himself the words 
 of Moses : " Steadfast and strong." 
 
JOSHUA. 135 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 At a long hour's distance beyond the little temple where 
 the prisoners had rested, the road leading southwards to 
 Succoth and Baal Zephon parted from that which led in a 
 south easterly direction, across the fortified frontier line, 
 to the isthmus and the mines. 
 
 Not long after the departure of the prisoners the army 
 gathered together to pursue the Hebrews had set forth 
 from the city of Rameses, and as the criminals had rested 
 some considerable time by the well, the troops had nearly 
 overtaken them. Thus they had not gone much further 
 when some pioneers rode up to clear the highway for the 
 approaching host. They ordered the gang of prisoners to 
 stand aside, and proceed no farther till the swift baggage 
 train containing Pharaoh's tents and household gear should 
 have passed them ; and, indeed, the king's chariot wheels 
 could already be heard. 
 
 The drivers were well content to be bidden to wait ; 
 they were in no hurry ; the day was hot, and if they were 
 late in reaching their journey's end it was the fault of the 
 army. To Joshua, too, the incident was agreeable, for his 
 young companion in chains had been staring before him 
 as if in delirium, and had answered his questions vaguely 
 or not at all, so that the older man was growing uneasy. 
 He knew full well how many of those condemned to forced 
 labor fell into madness or melancholy. And now a portion 
 of the host would march past them, and the sight was new 
 to the lad. and might rouse him from his dull moodiness. 
 There was by the roadside a sand hill overgrown by 
 tamarisk bushes, and to this the driver led his file of men. 
 He was stern, but not cruel, so he allowed his " moles " 
 to stretch themselves on the sand, for the march past 
 would be a long business. They had scarcely settled 
 themselves when the roll of wheels, the neighing of fiery 
 steeds, and shouts of command were heard, with now and 
 then the harsh bray of an ass. 
 
 As the foremost chariots approached, Ephraim inquired 
 
!3 6 JOSHUA. 
 
 whether Pharaoh were not coming ; but Joshua informed 
 him, with a smile, that when the king led forth his troops 
 to battle- first of all, immediately after the advanced guard, 
 the king's camp and furniture were sent on : for that 
 Pharaoh and his nobles liked to find their tents pitched 
 and the tables spread when the day's march was over, and 
 all, officers and men alike, were to rest for the night. 
 
 Joshua had not yet ceased speaking when a number of 
 empty tarts and asses free of burdens came past; they 
 were to carry the tribute of bread and meal, beasts and 
 birds, wine and beer ; to be paid by each village through 
 which the sovereign should pass. This had been levied 
 by the collectors the day before. Soon after came a com- 
 pany of warriors in chariots. Each small, two-wheeled 
 chariot, plated with bronze, was drawn by a pair of horses, 
 and in each stood a man and a charioteer. Large quivers 
 were attached to the breastworks of the chariots, and the 
 soldiers rested on their spears, or on their large bows. 
 They were protected against the missiles of the foe by shirts 
 covered with scale armor, or thickly padded coats of mail 
 under gayly colored tunics ; and by a helmet, as well as 
 by the breastwork of the chariot. These, whom Joshua 
 designated as the vanguard, went forward at an easy pace, 
 and were followed by a vast multitude of wagons and carts, 
 drawn by horses, mules, or oxen ; and with them were 
 whole herds of asses with towering loads on their backs. 
 Next he pointed out to his nephew the tall spars and poles, 
 and heavy rolls of rich stuffs which were to be used in 
 erecting the king's tent, and which were a burden for 
 several beasts ; the asses and the carts with the kitchen 
 utensils, and the camp smithies. With these came the 
 leeches, wardrobe-keepers, salve-makers, cooks, garland- 
 winders, attendants and slaves attached to the royal camp, 
 all mounted on asses driven by nimble runners. All these, 
 having so lately set out, were still fresh and in high spirits, 
 and those who noticed the prisoners flung many a sharp 
 jest at them, as is the Egyptian way, though several applied 
 a balm in the shape of an alms ; others, who said nothing, 
 sent a slave with a few fruits or some small gift, for he 
 who was free to-day might, on the morrow, be sent after 
 these poor wretches. The driver let this pass, and when 
 a slave whom Joshua had sold some time since for his 
 dishonesty shouted aloud " Rosea," and pointed to him 
 
JOSHUA. 137 
 
 with a malignant gesture, the good-hearted rough fellow 
 offered the insulted Hebrew a drink of wine out of his own 
 flask. 
 
 Ephraim, who had fared from Succoth on foot with a 
 staff in his hand, and a small wallet containing dried lamb's 
 flesh, bread, radishes, and dates, expressed his amazement 
 at the numberless men and things which one man required 
 for his comfort, and then sank into melancholy again until 
 his uncle roused him with some fresh explanation. 
 
 As soon as the camp baggage had gone by, the driver 
 wanted to start with his prisoners, but the king's pioneer 
 — the "opener of the way" — riding in front of the archers 
 of the guard, who came next, forbade it, as it ill-beseemed 
 criminals to mingle with the soldiers : so they remained 
 on their hillock and looked at the rest of the procession. 
 
 After the archers came the heavy infantry, carrying 
 shields of strong ox-hide so long as to cover the brawny 
 bearers from their feet almost to the chin ; and Joshua 
 told the boy that at night they were placed in a circle 
 round the king's camp, and so inclosed it, as it were, with 
 a fence. Besides their shields they carried a javelin, and 
 wore a short dagger-like sword or war sickle. When after 
 some thousands of these heavily armed men there followed 
 a troop of sling men, Ephraim spoke for the first time of 
 his own accord, exclaiming that such slings as the shepherds 
 had taught him to make were far better than those of the 
 soldiers ; and then, encouraged by his uncle, he told him, 
 so eagerly that the men lying about him listened to his 
 words, how he himself could slay not mere jackals, wolves, 
 and panthers with a stone from a sling, but even a vulture 
 on the wing. And meanwhile he asked the meaning of 
 the standards and the names of the different companies of 
 warriors. 
 
 Several divisions had already gone past when at last 
 another crowd of chariots came in sight, and the driver 
 cried aloud : " The kind god ! The lord of both worlds ! 
 Long life to him, health and happiness !" As he spoke 
 he fell on his knees in an attitude of adoration, and the 
 prisoners lay prostrate on their faces to kiss the ground, 
 holding themselves in readiness to join at the right 
 moment, at their gaoler's signal, in the cry, " All hail and 
 happiness ! " 
 
 But they still had long to wait before the expected 
 
138 JOSHUA. 
 
 monarch appeared. After the chariot-men came the body 
 guard, mercenaries of foreign nations wearing a peculiar 
 kind of helmet and long swords. They marched on foot, 
 and immediately behind them a vast multitude of priests 
 and scribes appeared, with a number of images of the gods. 
 Then again a company of guards, and at last Pharaoh and 
 his court. Foremost of them all was Baie, the high priest, 
 in a gilt war chariot drawn by splendid brown steeds. He- 
 had, in former days, led troops forth to battle, and had 
 taken the lead of this pursuing army at the bidding of the 
 gods, Avearing his priest's robes, indeed, but also the helmet 
 and battle-axe of a captain of the host. At last, close 
 behind Baie's chariot, came Pharaoh himself; but he did 
 not ride forth to battle in a war-chariot, as his bolder fore- 
 fathers had done, but preferred to be borne on his throne. 
 A magnificent canopy over his head screened him from 
 the scorching sun, and to the same end he was surrounded 
 by fan-bearers, carrying immense bunches of ostrich 
 feathers fastened at the end of long fan .ticks. 
 
 When Menephtah had fairly left the city and the gate of 
 victory behind him, and the triumphant shouts of the 
 populace had ceased to keep him awake, he had fallen 
 asleep ; and the spreading fans would have screened his 
 face and person from the eyes of the prisoners if their cries 
 of " Hail ! " had not been so loud as to rouse him and 
 cause him to turn his head toward them. But the gracious 
 wave of his hand showed that he had something else in 
 his mind than criminals, and before the voices of the 
 hapless convicts had died away his eyes were closed once 
 more. 
 
 Kphraim's dull brooding had given way to eager interest, 
 and when the king's gilt chariot came past empty, drawn 
 by the most splendid horses he had ever beheld, he broke 
 out in admiration. These noble beasts, their clever heads 
 crowned with ostrich plumes, and their harness glittering 
 with gold and precious stones, were indeed a sight to see. 
 The large gold quivers, studded with emeralds, at the sides 
 of the chariot, were full of arrows. The sleeping man, 
 whose feeble hand held the reins of government of a great 
 nation, the languid idler who shunned every sort of effort, 
 recovered his energies as soon as he was in the hunting 
 field, and he looked upon this expedition as a hunt on a 
 grand scale ; and, inasmuch as it seemed to him a royal 
 
JOSHUA. 139 
 
 sport to shoot his arrows at men instead of a brute game 
 — at men, too, of whom he had but lately been in mortal 
 dread — he had yielded to the high priest's behest and come 
 with the army. The expedition had been sent forth by 
 order of Anion, so he could now have no further cause to 
 fear the power of Mesu. When he should catch him he 
 would make him repent of having struck terror to the 
 heart of Pharaoh and his queen, and causing him to shed 
 so many tears ! 
 
 While Joshua was telling the youth from what Phoenician 
 city the gilt chariot had been brought, he suddenly felt his 
 wrist clutched by Ephraim, and heard him exclaim, " She 
 — she — look, it is she ! '' 
 
 The lad was crimson with blushes, nor was he mistaken, 
 for there, in the same traveling chariot in which she had 
 come to visit the prisoners, was Kasana, and many ladies 
 besides formed part of the court accompanying the expedi- 
 tion, which the captain of the foot soldiers, a brave old iron- 
 eater of the time of the Great Rameses, called a mere party 
 of pleasure. When the monarch went forth across the 
 desert to do battle in further Syria, Libya, and Ethiopia, 
 only a select party of women accompanied him, in curtained 
 vehicles, under the conduct of eunuchs ; but on this 
 occasion, though the queen had remained at home, Baie's 
 wife and some other women of rank had set the example of 
 going forth with the troops, and it had been a tempting 
 opportunity to many to enjoy the excitement of war with- 
 out running into danger. 
 
 Scarcely an hour since, Kasana had surprised her old 
 friend, the high priest's wife, by joining the rest, for only 
 yesterday nothing could persuade the young widow to go 
 forth with the host. Yielding to a sudden impulse, with- 
 out asking her father, and with so little preparation that 
 she had not the most necessary gear, she had overtaken 
 the army ; and it seemed as though the magnet which had 
 drawn her was a man whom she had hitherto avoided, albeit 
 he was no less a personage than Siptah, the king's 
 nephew. 
 
 As the cortege passed the sand-hill the prince was 
 standing by the fair young woman in her waiting-woman's 
 place, and interpreting to her with many a jest the symbo- 
 lism of the flowers in a nosegay, while Kasana declared it 
 could not have been intended for her, as not more than an 
 
i 4 o JOSHUA. 
 
 hour m'iii e she had had no idea of following the expedition. 
 Siptah, however, assured her that even at sunrise the 
 Hathors had revealed to him the happiness that was in 
 
 store for him, and that the interpretation of these flowers 
 proved it. A party of youthful courtiers, who had quitted 
 their chariots or litters, were walking by the side of her 
 carriage and taking part in the laughter and merry talk ; 
 the high priest's wife also put in a word now and again, for 
 her litter was borne close by Kasana. 
 
 All this had not escaped Joshua ; and as he saw Kasana 
 with the prince, whom she had hitherto detested, rapping 
 his hand with her fan with gay audacity, his brow darkened, 
 and he asked himself whether the young widow had not 
 been cruelly mocking him in his overthrow. But at this 
 moment the driver of the prison-gang caught sight of the 
 curl on Siptah's temple, which he wore as a badge of the 
 blood royal, and his loud cry of " Hail ! Hail ! " in which 
 the other guards and the prisoners joined, attracted the 
 attention of Kasana and her companion. They turned to 
 look at the tamarisk thicket whence it came, and then 
 Joshua could see that the young woman turned pale and, 
 with a hasty gesture, pointed to the group. She must have 
 given Siptah some behest, for the prince at first shrugged 
 his shoulders, but, after some delay and argument, half in 
 jest and half in earnest, he sprang from his chariot and 
 beckoned to the driver of the gang. 
 
 " Did these people gaze on the countenance of the kind 
 god, the lord of both worlds ? " he asked in a voice so 
 loud that Kasana must have heard him from the road ; and 
 when he received a hesitati»g answer he went on in haughty 
 tones : " No matter. At any rate they have seen mine, 
 and that of the fairest women, and if. by reason of that, 
 they hope for mercy they are justified. You know who I 
 am. Those who are chained together arc to be relieved of 
 their ankle-fetters ; " then signing to the head gaoler he 
 whispered in his ear : " but you must keep your eyes open 
 all the wider. That fellow close to the bush is that Joshua 
 who was a captain in Pharaoh's army. When I am at 
 home again come and tell me what has become of the man. 
 The more completely you can quiet him the deeper shall I 
 dip into my money-bag. Do you understand? " 
 
 The man bowed low and thought to himself: " 1 will 
 take good care, my prince, and see that no one takes 'he 
 
JOSHUA. 141 
 
 life of any of my moles. The greater these lords, the 
 stranger and more bloody arc their demands. How many 
 an one has come to me with a similar request. Siptah can 
 release the feet of these poor wretches, but he would load 
 my soul with a cowardly murder ! But he* has come to the 
 wrong man ! " Here, you fellows, bring the bag of tools 
 this way and strike the chains off these men's ankles." 
 
 Pharaoh's host moved on, and meanwhile the grinding 
 of files was heard on the hillock, the prisoners were freed 
 from their fetters, and then for security their arms were 
 tied. 
 
 Kasana had desired Prince Siptah to have the poor 
 creatures who were being led away to misery relieved at 
 any rate of their heavy foot-chains ; and she frankly con- 
 fessed that it was intolerable to her to sec an officer who 
 had so often been a guest in her own house so terribly 
 humiliated. The high priest's wife had seconded her 
 wish, and the prince had been forced to yield. Joshua 
 knew full well to whom he and Ephraim owed this respite, 
 and received it with thankful gladness. Walking was 
 made easier to him, but anxiety weighed him down more 
 heavily than ever. 
 
 The army which had marched past would suffice to 
 annihilate a foe ten times as great as the Hebrew force, to 
 the very last man. His nation, and with them his father 
 and Miriam, seemed doomed to a cruel death ; Miriam 
 who had wounded him so deeply, but to whom he owed it 
 that even in prison he had discerned the path which he 
 now saw was the only right one. However powerful the 
 God might be whose greatness the prophetess had so fer- 
 vently extolled, to whom, indeed, he himself had learned 
 to look up with fervent adoration ; the sweeping onslaught 
 of this vast host must inevitably and utterly destroy a troop 
 of unarmed and inexperienced herdsmen. This certainty, 
 which each fresh division, as it passed by, made more sure, 
 sank deep in his soul. Never in his life had he experienced 
 such anguish \ and that pain was intensified as he beheld 
 his own men — all well-known faces who had so lately 
 obeyed his word — under the orders of another. And it 
 was to slaughter his own kith and kin that they were now 
 marching to the field. This was a great grief, and Ephraim's 
 state likewise gave him cause for fresh anxiety, for since 
 Kasana's appearance and her intercession for him and his 
 
142 JOSHUA. 
 
 companion in misfortune he had relapsed into silence, and 
 gazed with wandering eyes either at the rear of the army or 
 
 into vacancy. Ephraim was now freed of his irons, and 
 Joshua asked the lad in an undertone whether he did not 
 feel a longing to .return to his people and to help them to 
 resist so mighty an armament, but Ephraim only replied : 
 " In the face of such a foe they have no choice ; they must 
 surrender. What indeed did we lack before our depart- 
 ing from Zoan ? You were a Hebrew, as they were, and 
 yet you rose to be a mighty captain among the Egyptians 
 until you obeyed Miriam's call. I should have acted 
 differently in your place." 
 
 " What would you have done ? " asked Joshua. 
 
 "What?" replied the boy, and the fiery young soul 
 blazed up in him. "What? I would have remained where 
 honor and fame were to be found, and everything that is 
 good. You might have been the greatest of the great, the 
 happiest of the happy ! I know it for certain, and you 
 chose otherwise." 
 
 " Because duty required it," said Joshua gravely ; " be- 
 cause I never more will serve any one but the people of 
 whose blood I am." 
 
 " The people ! " said the boy, contemptuously. " I know 
 the people, and you too have seen them at Succoth ! The 
 poor are abject creatures who cringe under the lash ; the 
 rich prize their beasts above everything on earth ; and 
 those who belong to the heads of tribes are always quar- 
 reling among themselves. Not one of them knows what is 
 pleasing to the eye and heart. I am one of the richest 
 of the nation, and yet I shudder to remember my father's 
 house which I have inherited, though it is one of the 
 largest and best. Those who have seen anything finer 
 cease to care for that." At this the veins swelled in 
 Joshua's brow, and he wrathfully reproved the lad who 
 could deny his own race, and fall away like a traitor to his 
 own tribe. 
 
 but the driver commanded silence, for Joshua had 
 raised his admonishing voice, and the defiant lad was well 
 pleased to obey ; and as they went on their way, whenever 
 his uncle looked reproachfully in his face, or asked him 
 whether he had thought better of it, he sulkily turned his 
 back and remained gloomily silent, till the first star had 
 risen, and, the pioneers having encamped on the waste foi 
 the night, their meagre fare was dealt out to them. 
 
JOSHUA. 143 
 
 Joshua dug out a bed in the san'd with his hands, and 
 kindly and skillfully helped his nephew to do the same. 
 Ephraim accepted his service in silence ; but presently, as 
 they lay side by side, and Joshua began to speak to the 
 boy of the God of his fathers in whose help they must put 
 their trust if they were not to perish of despair in the 
 mines, Ephraim interrupted him, saying in a low voice but 
 with fierce decisiveness : 
 
 " They shall never get me to the mines alive. Sooner 
 will I perish in the attempt to escape than die in such 
 misery ! " 
 
 Joshua whispered a word of warning in his ear, and 
 reminded him of his duty to his people. But Ephraim 
 only begged to be left to rest in peace. 
 
 Soon after, however, he lightly touched his uncle, and 
 asked in a low voice : 
 
 " What have they to do with Prince Siptah ? " 
 
 " I know not ; nothing good, that is certain. " 
 
 "And where is Aarsu, the Syrian, the commander of the 
 Asiatic mercenaries, your enemy who watches us with 
 such malignant zeal? I did not see him with the rest." 
 
 " He remains in Tanis with his troops." 
 
 " To guard the palace ? " 
 
 " Just so." 
 
 " Then he is captain over many, and Pharaoh trusts 
 him ? " 
 
 " Entirely, though he hardly deserves it." 
 
 " And he is a Syrian, and so also of our blood ? " 
 
 "At least he is nearer, to us than the Egyptians, as you 
 may know by his speech and features." 
 
 " I should have taken him for a Hebrew ; and yet, you 
 say he is one of the highest men in the army." 
 
 " And other Syrians and Libyans are captains of large 
 troops of mercenaries, and Ben Mazana, the herald, one of 
 the greatest men about the court, whom the Egyptians 
 have named ' Rameses in the Sanctuary of Ra,' is the son 
 of a Hebrew father." 
 
 " And he and the others are not looked down upon by 
 reason of their birth ? " 
 
 " It would scarcely be true to say as much as that. 
 But what is the aim of all your questions? " 
 
 " I could not sleep." 
 
 ;: And such thoughts as these came into your head? 
 
144 JOSHUA. 
 
 Nay, you have something definite in your mind, and, if I 
 guess it rightly, I am sorry. You wish to enter Pharaoh's 
 service." 
 
 After this there was a long silence between the two ; 
 then Ephraim spoke again, and, although he addressed 
 Joshua, he spoke rather as if to himself: 
 
 '' They will destroy all our nation, and those who escape 
 will fall into slavery and disgrace. By this time my house 
 is doomed to destruction, not a head of my great herds 
 will be left to me, and the gold and silver I have inherited, 
 and which is said to be a great sum, they will carry away 
 with them ; for it is in your father's keeping, and must fall 
 a booty into the hands of the Egyptians. And shall I, now 
 that I am free, go back to my people, and make bricks ? 
 Shall I bow my back to be flogged and ill-treated? " 
 
 Here Joshua exclaimed in an eager whisper : 
 
 " Call rather on the God of our fathers to protect and 
 deliver His people ; and if the Most High has determined 
 on the destruction of our nation then be a man, and learn 
 to hate with all the might of your young soul those who 
 have trodden them under foot. Flee to the Syrians, and 
 offer them the strength of your young arm ; give yourself 
 no rest till you have taken revenge on those who have 
 shed the blood of the Israelites, and cast you, innocent, 
 into bondage." 
 
 Then, again, there was silence, and nothing was to be 
 heard from where Ephraim lay but moans from an 
 oppressed heart. At length, however, Joshua heard him 
 murmur : 
 
 " We are no longer weighed down by chains, and could 
 I hate her who promised our release ? " 
 
 " Be grateful to Kasana, but hate her people," he whis- 
 pered in reply. And he heard the lad turn over in his 
 trough, and again he sighed and groaned. 
 
 It was past midnight; the growing moon stood high in 
 the sky, and Joshua, still sleepless, did not cease to listen 
 to his young companion ; but Ephraim spoke not. Still 
 sleep shunned him likewise, for Joshua heard him grinding 
 his teeth — or was it that some mice had wandered out to 
 this parched spot covered with dry brown grass, between 
 salt plains on one side and bare sand on the other, and 
 were gnawing the prisoners' hard bread ? This grinding and 
 gnawing must disturb the sleep even of those who most 
 
JOSHUA. 145 
 
 desire it, and Joshua, on the contrary, wished to keep 
 awake that he might open the eyes of his blinded nephew. 
 But he waited in vain for any sign of life on Ephraim's 
 part. 
 
 At last he was about to lay his hand on the boy's shoulder, 
 but he paused as he saw in the moonlight that Ephraim 
 was holding up his arm, although, before he lay down, 
 his wrist had been tied more tightly than before. Joshua 
 now understood that the noise which had puzzled him was 
 the gnawing of the lad's sharp teeth as he worked at the 
 knot of the cords ; so he sat up and looked first at the sky 
 and then round about him. He held his breath as he 
 watched the young fellow, and his heart throbbed painfully 
 — Ephraim meant to escape ! He had even achieved the 
 first step toward freedom. He hoped his good fortune 
 might follow him, but dreaded lest the fugitive might 
 set forth in the wrong direction. This boy was the 
 only child of his sister, a fatherless and motherless orphan, 
 so he had never had the advantage of those numberless 
 lessons and hints which only a mother can give, and which 
 a proud young spirit will take from none else. Strangers' 
 hands had trained the young tree, and it had grown 
 straight enough ; but a mother's love would have graced it 
 with carefully selected grafts. He had not grown up on 
 his parents' hearth, and that alone is the right home for 
 the young. What wonder, then, that he felt a stranger 
 among his own people ? 
 
 At such thoughts as these great pity came upon Joshua, 
 and with a consciousness of being deeply guilty in regard 
 to this gifted youth, who had fallen into captivity for his 
 sake when bearing a message to him. Still, strongly as he 
 felt prompted to warn him yet once more against treachery 
 and faithlessness, he would not do so for fear of imperiling 
 his enterprise. The least sound might attract the attention 
 of the men on watch, and he was now so much interested 
 in his attempt for liberty as though Ephraim were making 
 it by his instigation. So, instead of tormenting him with 
 useless admonitions, he kept his eyes and ears open ; his 
 knowledge of life had taught him that good advice is 
 oftener neglected than followed, and that personal 
 experience is the only irrefragable master. 
 
 Very soon his practiced eye discerned the path by which 
 Ephraim might escape if only fortune favored him. He 
 
 10 
 
146 JOSHUA. 
 
 gently spoke his name, and then his nephew softly replied : 
 " Uncle, I can untie the cord if you put out your hands; 
 mine are free." 
 
 At this Joshua's anxious face grew brighter. This bold- 
 spirited youth was a good fellow at heart ; lie was ready 
 to risk his own success for the sake of an older man who, 
 if he escaped with him, might only too probably hinder 
 him in the path which, in his youthful illusion, he hoped 
 might lead him to fortune. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Joshua looked cautiously about him. The sky was still 
 clear, though, if this north wind held, the clouds, which 
 seemed to be coming up from the sea, would soon over- 
 cast it. 
 
 The air was sultry, but the men on watch kept their 
 eyes open and relieved each other at regular intervals. 
 Their vigilance would be hard to evade ; but close to the 
 trough which formed Ephraim's bed, and which his uncle, 
 for their greater comfort, had dug by the side of his own, 
 on the gentle slope of a mound, a narrow rift widened 
 to a ravine, its edge gleaming in moonlight with veins of 
 white gypsum and sparkling ores. If the supple lad could 
 but slip unseen into this hollow, and creep along it as far 
 as the shores of yonder salt lake, overgrown with tall 
 mares-tail and a thicket of desert shrubs, under cover of 
 the gathering clouds he might succeed in his attempt. 
 
 Having come to this conclusion, Joshua next considered, 
 as calmly as though he were deciding on a route for his 
 troops, whether, if he had the use of his hands, he might 
 be able to follow Ephraim without imperiling the boy's 
 escape. But to this he could only find a negative \ for 
 one of the watch was close at hand, sitting or standing on 
 a higher point of the hillock, and in the bright moonlight 
 he could not fail to see every movement if the lad untied 
 his bonds. Moreover the clouds might perhaps have 
 covered the moon before this was accomplished, and thus 
 Ephraim might let the one favorable moment slip which 
 promised him release, and be led into danger on his ac- 
 count. He was the boy's natural protector, and would it 
 
JOSHUA. 147 
 
 not be base indeed to bar his way to freedom for the sake 
 of a doubtful prospect of escape for himself. 
 
 So he whispered to Ephraim : "I cannot go with you. 
 Glide alons; the rift to the right down to the salt lake. I 
 will keep an eye on the guards. As soon as the clouds 
 hide the moon and I cough, creep away. If you succeed, 
 fly to your people, greet my old father for me. assure him 
 of my love and truth, and tell him whither I am being 
 taken. Listen to his and Miriam's counsel ; it will be 
 good. Now the clouds are gathering about the moon — 
 not another word." 
 
 Ephraim persisted in imploring him in the softest 
 whisper to put forth his hands, but he bid him be silent, 
 and as soon as the moon was shrouded, and the watch, who 
 was pacing to and fro just at their head, had begun a con- 
 versation with the man who came to relieve him, Joshua 
 coughe.d gently, and then listened in the darkness with a 
 throbbing heart and bated breath. 
 
 First, he heard a slight rustle, and by the flare of the 
 fire on the top of the slope, which the drivers now mended 
 to keep off wild beasts, he saw that Ephraimi's bed was 
 deserted. 
 
 At this he breathed more easily, for the ravine must by 
 this time hide the boy, and when he listened more sharply 
 than before to catch a sound of creeping or slipping, he 
 could hear nothing but the guards talking and their heavy 
 footsteps. 
 
 Their voices reached his ear, but not the words they 
 spoke, so eagerly was he set on following the youth in his 
 flight. How agile and how cautious the fugitive must be 
 in his movements ! He must still be in the ravine. The 
 moon seemed to be struggling with the clouds, till for a 
 moment the silver disk victoriously rent the heavy, black 
 curtain winch hid it from the eyes of men, and the long, 
 bright shaft of li< r ht was mirrored in the motionless waters 
 of the salt lake ; Joshua could see everything that lay 
 below him, but he detected nothing which bore any 
 resemblance to a human figure. 
 
 Had the lad met with some obstacle in the dell? Was 
 he checked by a cliff or a gulf in its gloomy depths ? Or 
 — and at this thought his heart seemed to stand still- 
 had the abyss swallowed him up as he felt his way in the 
 darkness ? Now he longed to hear a sound, the very 
 
i 4 8 JOSHUA. 
 
 faintest, from the depths of the rift. This stillness was 
 fearful. 
 
 Ah ! sooner silence than this ! A clatter of falling 
 stones and slipping earth came up too loud now through 
 the still night. The moon, too, again peeped out from its 
 veil of clouds, and Joshua saw, down by the pool, a living 
 form which seemed that of a beast rather than of a man, 
 for it went along forefooted. And now the water splashed 
 up in glittering drops. The creature, whatever it was, had 
 plunged into the lake. And again the clouds hid the moon, 
 and all was dark. Joshua breathed more freely, saying to 
 himself that it was Ephraim whom he had seen, and that 
 the fugitive, come what might, had gained a good start on 
 his pursuers. 
 
 But the men were not sleeping nor deceived ; for, al- 
 though he cried out in order to mislead them : " a jackal ! " 
 a shrill whistle rang out awaking all the sleepers. In a 
 moment the driver of the gang was standing over him, a 
 burning torch in his hand, and he heaved a sigh of relief 
 when he saw his prisoner safe. It was not for nothing 
 that he had tied him with double cords, for he would have 
 been made to pay for it dearly if this man had escaped him. 
 
 But, while the driver was feeling the rope that bound the 
 Hebrew's wrists, the flare of the torch he held fell on 
 the fugitive's empty resting place. The cords he had 
 bitten through lay there yet, as if in mockery. The driver 
 picked them up, cast them at Joshua's feet, whistled 
 loudly again and again, and shouted : 
 
 " Gone ! Flown ! The Hebrew ! The young one ! " 
 
 And troubling himself no further about the elder prisoner, 
 he at once began the search. 
 
 Hoarse with rage, he gave his orders rapidly ; all were 
 clear, and all forthwith obeyed. While some of his men 
 collected the gang, counted them over, and bound them 
 together with cords, the leader, with the rest, and helped 
 by dogs, sought some trace of the fugitive. 
 
 Joshua saw him bring the beasts to snuff at the cords 
 Ephraim had gnawed through, and the place where he had 
 lain, and then they started direct for the ravine. He 
 breathed hard as he perceived that they lingered there some 
 little time, and at last, just as the moon again came through 
 the clouds, emerged on the shore and rushed clown to the 
 water's edge. He was glad that Ephraim had waded 
 
JOSHUA. 149 
 
 through it instead of running round it, for the dogs here 
 lost the scent, and many minutes slipped by while the 
 guards and the dogs, who poked their noses into every 
 footprint left by the runaway, made their way round 
 the shore to find the trace again. Then their loud tongue 
 told him that they had recovered the scent. But even if 
 they should track and run down the fugitive, the fettered 
 warrior need not now fear the worst, for Ephraim had a 
 long start of his pursuers ; still his heart beat fast, and 
 time seemed to stand still till the driver came back again 
 exhausted and unsuccessful. But though he, a man of mid- 
 dle age, could never have overtaken Ephraim, the two 
 youngest and swiftest of his men had been sent after him. 
 as he himself announced with scornful fury. 
 
 The man, before so good-natured, was entirely changed: 
 for he felt the lad's escape as a disgrace he could hardly 
 get over, nay, as a positive misfortune. 
 
 And the wretch who had tried to mislead him by crying 
 out " a jackal " was the fugitive's accomplice ! Loudly 
 did he curse Prince Siptah who had interfered in the duties 
 of his place. But it should not happen again, and he would 
 make his victims surfer for his misfortune ! The prisoners 
 were immediately loaded with chains again. Joshua was 
 coupled with an asthmatic old man, and the whole gang were 
 made to stand in a row, where the fire-light fell on them, 
 till daybreak. Joshua could make no reply to the ques- 
 tions put to him by his new companion in bonds ; he 
 awaited in painful suspense the return of the pursuers. 
 Meanwhile he strove to control his thoughts to prayer, 
 beseeching the Lord, who had promised to be his Helper, 
 on his own behalf and on that of his nephew. Often 
 enough, to be sure, he was interrupted by the driver, who 
 vented his wrath on him. 
 
 However, the man who had in his day commanded a 
 host submitted to all, and commanded himself to endure 
 whatever came like the inevitable discomfort of rain or 
 hail ; nay, it cost him some little effort to conceal his glad- 
 ness when the young runners who had been after Ephraim 
 came in after sunrise, breathless and with disordered hair, 
 bringing with them nothing but a dog with a broken 
 skull. 
 
 The driver could do no more, therefore, than advise the 
 soldiers in the first fort on the Etham frontier, which the 
 
150 JOSHUA. 
 
 prison-gang must now cross, of what had happened ; and 
 to this point the file of men were now led. 
 
 Since Ephraim's Gight all the men on guard had changed 
 their tone for a harder one. Yesterday the unhappy 
 wretches had been allowed to proceed at an easy pace ; 
 now they were hurried on as fast as possible. The day 
 was sultry, and the scorching sun struggled with the storm- 
 clouds, which were gathering in the north into dense 
 masses. Joshua's frame, inured to every kind of fatigue, 
 could resist the severity of this forced march, but his more 
 feeble companion, who had grown grey as a scribe, often 
 stumbled, and at length lay where he fell. At this the 
 driver saw the necessity of placing the sufferer on an ass, 
 and fettering Joshua to another companion. This was the 
 first man's brother, an overseer of the king's stables, a well- 
 grown Egyptian who was going to the mines for no other 
 excuse than that it was his misfortune to be the brother of 
 a state criminal. Linked to this sturdy mate walking was 
 much easier, and Joshua listened to him with sincere sym- 
 pathy, and tried to cheer him when, in a low voice, he 
 confided to him all his woes, lamenting sadly that he had 
 left a wife and child at home in want and misery. Two of 
 his children had died of the pestilence, and it weighed on his 
 heart that he had been prevented from caring for their 
 burial, for thus the two beings he had loved were lost to 
 him for ever, even in the other world. 
 
 At their second resting place the bereaved father spoke 
 more freely. His soul was consumed by thirst for revenge, 
 and he took it for granted that his companion felt the same, 
 seeing that he had fallen into disgrace from a high office. 
 The overseer of the stables had a sister-in-law who was one 
 of the ladies about Pharaoh's court, and through her and 
 her sister, his wife, he had been informed that a conspiracy 
 against the king was being hatched in the women's house.* 
 Aye, and he knew too who it was that the women purposed 
 to set in Menephtah's place. 
 
 As Joshua looked at him with an inquiring and doubt- 
 ful gaze his comrade whispered : 
 
 " Siptah, the king's nephew, and his noble mother are at 
 the head of the plot. If only I get free I will bear you in 
 mind ; and my sister-in-law is sure not to forget me." 
 
 * The liouse of the secluded ones; equivalent to the harem of the 
 Modern Moslem Egyptians 
 
JOSHUA. 151 
 
 He then desired to know what had brought the Hebrew 
 to the mines, and Joshua frankly told him who he was. 
 When the Egyptian heard that he was linked together with 
 an Hebrew, he tore madly at his chains and cursed his fate ; 
 however, his wrath presently died out before the amazing 
 coolness with which Joshua endured the hardest things, 
 and to Joshua himself il was a relief that his partner besieged 
 his ear less often with complaints and questions. 
 
 For whole hours he would walk on unmolested, and give 
 himself up wholly to his longing, to collecting his thoughts, 
 to giving himself a clear account of the terrible experiences 
 which his soul had gone through in the last few days, and 
 to making up his mind to his new and dreadful situation. 
 
 This silent meditation and introspection did him good; 
 and, when they again stopped for the night, he enjoyed 
 deep and refreshing sleep. 
 
 When he woke the stars were still bright in the western 
 sky, reminding him of the sycamore at Succoth. and the 
 all-important morning when his beloved had won him over 
 to serve her God. Above him spread the sparkling firma- 
 ment, and for the first time he was conscious of a budding 
 hope that the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth might 
 find some way and means of saving the people He had 
 called His own from the overwhelming host of the Egyp- 
 tians. 
 
 When he had thus fervently besought the Lord to spread 
 His protecting hand over the feeble tribes who, in obedience 
 to His word, had left so much behind them, and had so 
 confidently set forth for the remote unknown, he com- 
 mended his old father, whom he himself could not defend, 
 to His especial care, and his soul was filled with wondrous 
 peace. 
 
 The shouts of the men on guard, the rattle of fetters, his 
 wretched fellow-victims, everything about him kept him in 
 mind of the fate before him. He must henceforth toil day 
 and night in abject slavery, in a sweltering, choking cavern, 
 bereft of the joy of breathing the fresh air of heaven, or 
 of seeing the sunshine ; loaded with chains, flogged and 
 reviled, starving and athirst, in a gloomy monotony of 
 misery, agonizing alike to body and soul ; and yet not fc 
 a moment did he lose his confident trust that this fearful 
 fate was intended for any other rather than for him, and 
 that something would intervene to preserve him from it. 
 
752 josiiua. 
 
 On their further march eastward, which began at dawn, 
 he could only think of this confidence as folly, while l>e 
 strove to cling fast to it. and he succeeded. 
 
 Their way lay across the desert, and after a few hour.' 
 brisk march they reached the first fort, called " Soli's 
 Stronghold." In the clear air of the desert they hud seen 
 it for a long time, looking as though they could shoot an 
 arrow into it. It stood up from the bare, stony soil, 
 ungraced by a palm or a shrub, with its wooden stockade, 
 its ramparts, its scarped wall, its watch-tower looking 
 westward, with a broad, flat roof swarming with men at 
 arms. The garrison had been warned from Pithom that 
 the Hebrews were preparing to break through the frontier 
 lines on the isthmus, and the gang of prisoners with their 
 guards had been taken from a distance for the van of the 
 emigrant Israelites. 
 
 From the top of the huge bastions, which projected like 
 balconies from all sides of the scarped walls to prevent the 
 use of scaling ladders, soldiers were spying out between 
 the battlements at the approaching party ; but the archers 
 had replaced their arrows in the quivers, for it had at once 
 been perceived that the troop was a small one, and a run- 
 ner had delivered the pass from the military authorities, 
 desiring the captain of the garrison to permit the file of 
 prisoners to cross the frontier. The door in the palisade 
 was thrown upon to them, and the driver gave them leave 
 to stretch their limbs awhile on the hot pavement within. 
 From hence none could escape, even if the guard left them 
 to themselves; for the fence was too high to climb, and 
 arrows shot from the roof of the building or from the loop- 
 holes of the projecting battlements would overtake the run- 
 away. 
 
 It did not escape the warrior's eye that everything here 
 was in a state of preparation for resistance, as though it 
 were war-time. Every man was at his post, and guards 
 stood by the great metal gongs on the roof with heavy 
 mallets in their hands to beat an alarm at the approach of 
 the expected foe ; for, though there was not a tree or a 
 house to be seen as far as the eye could reach, the sound 
 would ring out to the next fort on the frontier line, and 
 warn the garrison, or bring them to the rescue. It was 
 not indeed a punishment, but a piece of ill-fortune to be 
 quartered in these isolated desert stations, and the chiefs 
 
josiiua. 153 
 
 of Pharaoh's army took care that the same companies 
 did not remain too lone at a lime in this wilderness. 
 
 Joshua himself had in former years commanded the most 
 southerly of these strongholds, known as Migdol of the 
 South ; for the name of Migdol was common to them all, 
 meaning in the Semitic tongue a fortress-tower. 
 
 Here his people were evidently still expected; nor could 
 he for a moment think that Moses would have led them back 
 into Egypt. Either they had lingered in Succoth, or they 
 had marched southwards ; but to the south lay the bitter 
 lakes and the Red Sea, and how should the Hebrew mul- 
 titude cross those deep waters ? Joshua's heart beat 
 anxiously as he reflected on this, and his fears were pre- 
 sently confirmed, for he heard the captain of the fortress 
 telling the driver of the gang that the Hebrews had come 
 some days since very near the frontier-line of defence, and 
 then had turned off to the southward. Since then, it would 
 seem that they had been wandering in the desert between 
 Pithom and the Red Sea. All this had forthwith been 
 reported at Tanis, but the king had been obliged to post 
 pone the departure of the army till after the seven first 
 days of deep mourning for the heir to the throne. This 
 delay might have given the Israelites an immense advan- 
 tage ; but a message had to-day come by a pigeon, announ- 
 cing that the foolish multitudewere encamped at Pihahiroth, 
 not far from die Red Sea, so that it would be an easy task 
 for the army to drive them into the waters like a herd of 
 cattle, for there was no escape in any other direction. 
 
 The driver had listened to this report with much satis- 
 faction, and he whispered a few words to the captain, 
 pointing at Joshua, who, for his part, had already recog- 
 nized the officer as a companion in arms who had served 
 under him as a centurian, and to whom he had shown much 
 kindness. It was painful to him to reveal himself in this 
 miserable plight to one who had been his subaltern, an4 
 who owed him a debt of obligation ; and as he looked at 
 him, the captain colored, shrugged his shoulders expres- 
 sively, as if to convey to Joshua his pity for his ill-fortune 
 and the impossibility of doing anything to mend it. Then 
 he said in a voice so loud that the Hebrew must hear him : 
 " I am forbidden by the rules to speak with your prisoners, 
 but I knew that man in better days, and I will send you 
 out some wine, which you will share with him, I beg." 
 
154 - JOSHUA. 
 
 When they presently went towards the gateway, the 
 driver remarking that Joshua was less deserving of such 
 favor than other and weaker mcu, inasmuch as he had 
 assisted the runaway of whom he had spoken to make his 
 escape, the captain pushed his fingers through his hair and 
 replied : " I could have wished to show him some kind- 
 ness, though, indeed, he owes me much already. But if 
 that is the case I had better keep my wine. And you have 
 rested quite long enough here ! " 
 
 The driver wrathfully roused his hapless gang to pro- 
 ceed on their way across the desert and onward to the 
 mines. 
 
 Joshua now walked with a bowed head. His spirits 
 rebelled against the ill-fortune which had led him to this 
 pass, driven across the desert, far from his people and his 
 father, who must be in great danger at this decisive and 
 fateful crisis. Under his guidance the Hebrews might 
 perhaps have found a way of escape ! He clenched his 
 fists with rage to think that his will as well as his body 
 was in chains ; and yet he would not lose heart ; and each 
 time that his reason told him that his people were lost, that 
 they must perish in this contest, his own name — the new 
 name bestowed on him by God — sounded in his ears, and 
 his hatred and scorn for everything Egyptian, fanned into 
 life by the young officer's base conduct, flamed up afresh. 
 
 His whole nature was in violent revolt, and as the 
 driver marked his burning cheeks and the lurid light in his 
 eye, he thought that even this strong fellow had become a 
 prey to the fever to which so many prisoners fell victims 
 on their way. 
 
 When, at sundown, the melancholy train encamped for 
 the night in the heart of the desert, Joshua's spirit still 
 seethed and surged within him, and the scene around him 
 matched well with the tumult in his soul. Again the black 
 clouds came up from the sea on the north wind, which 
 howled, and shrieked, and whirled clouds of burning sand 
 over the prisoners as they lay, till the lightning and thun- 
 der broke over them with a deluge of rain. A thick layer 
 of sand for their coverlet, pools and rivulets were now their 
 bed. Their keepers had bound them together by the arms 
 and legs, and as they stood, shivering and dripping, they 
 still held the ends of the ropes ; for the night was as black 
 as the fuel of the fires the storm had extinguished, and 
 
JOSHUA. 155 
 
 who could have followed a runaway through such darkness 
 and such weather? 
 
 But Joshua had no thoughts of flight. While the 
 Egyptians whimpered and quaked, believing that they 
 heard the angry voice of Set in the thunder, and while 
 blinding sheets of flame flared among the clouds, he felt 
 the near presence of that jealous God, whose rage he 
 shared, whose hatred was as his own. Here he stood, the 
 witness of His All-destroying power, and his breast swelled 
 with pride as he said to himself that he had been called to 
 wield the sword of the Lord of Lords. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 The storm which had risen at nightfall was still sweeping 
 over the peninsula. High waves beat in the central lakes, 
 and the Red Sea, which formed two creeks from the south, 
 like the horns of a snail, was tossing wildly. Further 
 north likewise, where Pharaoh's army had just encamped 
 under shelter of the Southern Migdol, the strongest of the 
 Etham frontier fortresses, the air was filled with sand by 
 the storm ; and in the quarters of the king and his nobles 
 hammers were kept constantly at work, driving the tent 
 pegs deeper into the ground ; for the brocades, cloth and 
 linen, of which Pharaoh's wandering residence and its sur- 
 roundings were formed, were so beaten by the wind that 
 they threatened to pull up the poles which supported them. 
 
 Black clouds hung in the north, yet the moon and stars 
 were often visible, and distant lightning frequently illumin- 
 ated the darkness. But dews of heaven still seemed to 
 shun this rainless tract of land, and fires burnt in every 
 direction round which thick circles of soldiers were gathered, 
 and, like a living screen from the storm, crowded together 
 for protection. The men on watch had trying work, for, 
 in spite of the north wind, the air was stifling, and con- 
 tinually blew gusts of sand full in their faces. 
 
 At the most northern gate of the camp only two 
 sentries walked to and fro, keeping a sharp lookout, but 
 they were sufficient ; for in consequence of the bad weather 
 it was a long time since anyone had appeared to demand 
 either admission or exit. At last, three hours after sunset 
 
156 JOSHUA. 
 
 a slender lad, half boy, half youth, appeared. He went, 
 with steady step, up to the watch, and, showing him a 
 messenger's token, asked the way to Prince Siptah's tent. 
 He looked as if he had had a difficult journey; his thick 
 black hair was disheveled, and his feet covered with dust 
 and caked in mud. Yet he roused no suspicions, for his 
 manner was independent and free, his messenger's pass 
 in perfect order, and the letter which he bore clearly 
 directed to the prince ; a scribe of the granary who was 
 sitting at the next fire, with other officers and vice-com- 
 mandants, confirmed the fact. 
 
 Since the youth's appearance pleased most of them, and 
 as he came from Tanis and perhaps brought news, he was 
 invited to take a place at the fire and to share their meal; 
 but he was in haste. 
 
 Thanking them, he refused, answered their questions 
 shortly and quickly, and asked one of the company to be 
 his guide. Immediately one of them put himself at his 
 disposal. But he was soon to learn that it was not easy 
 to achieve seeing a member of the royal household ; for 
 the tents of Pharaoh, his relations and dignitaries stood 
 apart in the very heart of the camp, enclosed by the shields 
 of the heavily armed foot-soldiers, and when he tried to 
 pass in he was referred from one to another, and his mes- 
 senger's token and the prince's letter were repeatedly 
 examined. His guide was also dismissed, and in his place 
 an official of high rank, known as " the eye and the ear of 
 the king," came forward, and .began to meddle with the 
 seal of the letter, but the bearer very decidedly demanded 
 the missive back ; and directly he had it in his hand once 
 more he went towards two tents, standing side by side and 
 shaken by the wind, which were pointed out to him as 
 those of Prince Siptah and Kasana, Hornecht's daughter, 
 for whom he also inquired. A chamberlain came out the 
 prince's tent, to whom he showed the letter he bore, 
 requesting him to conduct him to his lord ; but the official 
 having desired him to hand the letter to him instead of to 
 the prince, Ephraim, for he it was, consented to do so on 
 condition of the chamberlain's forthwith procuring him 
 admission to Kasana's presence. 
 
 The steward seemed most anxious to get the letter into 
 his own hands. After he had examined Ephraim from top 
 to toe, he asked him whether Kasana knew him, and wheD 
 
JOSHUA. 157 
 
 the other answered in the affirmative, and added that he 
 brought a verbal message for her, the Egyptian smiling 
 said, " Good, then ; but we must protect our carpets from 
 such feet, and you seem to me altogether exhausted and 
 in need of refreshment. Follow me ! " 
 
 Thereupon he led him into a little tent, before which an 
 old slave and another, who was still almost a child, sat by 
 the fire concluding their late meal with a bunch of garlic. 
 
 On seeing their master they sprang up ; he ordered the 
 old man to wash the messenger's feet, and the young one 
 to fetch, in his name, meat, bread and wine from the 
 prince's tent. He then took Ephraim into his own tent, 
 which was lighted by a lantern,, and asked him how it was 
 that he, who had looked so little like a serf or a common 
 fellow, had such a forlorn appearance. Then the messenger 
 answered that he had on his way bound up the wounds of 
 a severely injured man with his upper garment, so the 
 steward at once reached towards his packages and handed 
 him a wrapper of fine linen. 
 
 Ephraim's reply, which was very near the truth, was 
 given with such promptness, and sounded so genuine, that 
 it was believed ; and the steward's kindness so over- 
 whelmed him with gratitude that he made no objection, 
 when, with a practiced hand, and without damaging the 
 seal, he pressed the flexible roll of papyrus, bent the 
 separate layers apart, and, peeping in the opening, acquaint- 
 ed himself with the contents of the letter. At the same 
 time the burly courtier's eyes glistened brightly, and it 
 seemed to the youth that the man's face, which at first had 
 appeared to him with its comfortable fullness and rounded 
 smoothness the mirror of great good nature, had become 
 like that of a cat. 
 
 As soon as the steward had finished this operation, he 
 begged the boy to rest himself thoroughly, and he did not 
 return until Ephraim had bathed and stood with the new 
 linen cloth round his loins, his hair anointed and scented, 
 looking in the mirror, and in the act of putting a broad 
 gold hoop round his arm. 
 
 He had hesitated for some time, as he knew he was 
 about to face great dangers ; this bracelet, however, was 
 his only valuable possession, and he had taken great 
 trouble during his captivity to keep it hidden in his loin-cloth. 
 It might yet render him good service, but if he wore it it 
 
15* JOSHUA. 
 
 would attract attention to his person and increase his risk 
 of being recognized. But the image he saw reflected 
 in the mirror, his vanity, and the wish to find favor in 
 Kasana's eyes triumphed over prudence, and the costly 
 ornament was soon shining on his arm. The chamberlain 
 gazed with amazement at the transformation of the un- 
 kempt messenger in a proud looking youth, and the 
 question rose to his lips whether he were some kin to Kas- 
 ana, and when Ephraim replied in the negative, he asked to 
 what family he belonged. 
 
 At this, Ephraim stood for some time with downcast 
 eyes, and besought the Egyptian to excuse him from reply- 
 ing till he should have spoken to Kasana. The other 
 shook his head doubtingly as he looked at him, but he 
 urged him no further, for what he had discovered from the 
 letter was a secret which might cost all who knew it their 
 life, and the handsome young bearer must surely be the 
 son of some great man implicated in the plot of his master, 
 Prince Siptah. 
 
 The stout, well-fed courtier shivered at the thought; and 
 it was with a sympathetic qualm that he looked at this 
 blooming flower of humanity, so young to be mixed up in 
 such perilous schemes. His lord had so far only hinted at 
 the secret to him, so he could still cut himself adrift from 
 sharing his master's destiny. If he parted from him, he 
 might look forward to an old age of ease; but if he clung 
 to him, and if the prince's plot should come to a good issue, 
 to what heights might he not rise ! How terribly impor- 
 tant was the choice which he, the father of a large family, 
 was called upon to make ; the sweat stood on his brow, 
 and he was quite incapable of clear reflection, as he con- 
 ducted Ephraim to Kasana's tent and then hastened to his 
 master's. 
 
 All was still in the slight erection of wooden poles and 
 heavy, bright-colored stuffs which sheltered the fair widow. 
 It was with a beating heart that Ephraim approached the 
 entrance, and when at length he took courage and pushed 
 aside the curtain which was pegged to the ground, the wind 
 filling it like a sail, he saw a dark room opening on either 
 hand into another. That to the left was as dark as the 
 centre one ; but from the right, lights gleamed through the 
 seams in the canvas. 
 
 The tent was one of the long flat-roofed shape, in three 
 
JOSHUA. 1 59 
 
 compartments, such as he had often seen ; and in the 
 room whence the light proceeded, no doubt, was she to 
 whom he came. To avoid any further suspicions he must 
 overcome his timidity, and lie had already stooped to untie 
 the knot by which the curtain was held to the peg in the 
 ground, when that of the lighted compartment was raised, 
 and a woman's figure came into the dark entrance-room. 
 
 Was it she ? Should he venture to address her ? Yes, 
 he must. 
 
 He clenched his hands tightly, and with a deep breath 
 collected his courage, as though he were about to rush 
 upon a beast of prey prowling round a flock. Then he 
 pushed the curtain aside and was met with a cry from the 
 woman he had before observed ; and he soon recovered 
 his courage, for it was not Kasana but the waiting woman 
 who had come with her to see the prisoners, and had 
 accompanied her to the camp. She recognized him, too, 
 and stared at him as though he had risen from the dead. 
 They knew each other well ; for, the first time he had 
 been carried to Hornecht's house, it was she who had 
 prepared his bath and laid balsam on his wounds ; and on 
 the second occasion when they had been inmates under 
 the same roof, she and her mistress had nursed him. For 
 many an hour had they chatted together, and he knew 
 that she was fond of him, for as he lay half conscious, half 
 dazed with feverish dreams, she would soothe him with a 
 motherly touch, and, as he grew stronger, was never weary 
 of questioning him about his people, telling him that she 
 herself was a Syrian, of kindred blood to the Hebrews. 
 Indeed, his language was not altogether strange to her, for 
 it was as a woman of twenty that she had been brought 
 to Egypt with other prisoners by Rameses the Great. 
 Ephraim, she would say, reminded her of her one son 
 when he was younger. From this woman he had nothing 
 to fear ; he seized her hand, and said in a low voice that 
 he had escaped from his guards, and had come to ask 
 counsel of her mistress and herself. The word " escaped " 
 was enough to reassure the old woman, for spirits, as she 
 understood the word, were wont to put others to flight, but 
 not to flee. She stroked the lad's curls, and, before he had 
 finished speaking she had left him, hurrying off into the 
 other room to inform her mistress that he stood without. 
 In a few minutes Ephraim was in the presence of the 
 
i so joshua. 
 
 woman who had become the guiding star and warming 
 sun of his life. With flushing checks he gazed up at her 
 lovely features, and although it stabbed him to the heart 
 that, before she even vouchsafed him a greeting, she 
 inquired whether Joshua were with him, he forgot that 
 foolish pang as he noted with what kindness she looked at 
 him. And when she asked the strong woman whether she 
 did not think him looking fresh and well, and grown more 
 manly, he felt as though he was really taller and bigger, 
 and his heart beat higher than ever. She insisted on 
 knowing all that had happened to his uncle, down to the 
 smallest detail ; then after he had done her bidding, and 
 at last indulged his desire to speak of his own fortunes, 
 she interrupted him to consult with the older weman as to 
 how he might be sheltered from malignant eyes and fresh 
 dangers ; and the means were soon found. 
 
 First, with Ephraim's help, the nurse closed the first 
 entrance to the tent as completely as possible, and she 
 then showed him the dark room, into which he was to 
 vanish as quickly and noiselessly as possible whenever 
 she should give him a sign. 
 
 Kasana meanwhile had poured out a cup of wine for the 
 returned wanderer, and when he came in again with the 
 old woman, she bid him lie down on the giraffe skin at 
 her feet, and asked him herself how he had got away from 
 the watchmen, and what he looked to do in the future. 
 She must tell him, in the first instance, that her father had 
 remained at Tanis, so he need have no fear of being 
 recognized and betrayed by Hornecht. It was easy 
 enough to see and hear how glad she was at this meeting ; 
 nay, when Ephraim told her that it was in consequence of 
 Prince Siptah's orders that the prisoners should be unfet- 
 tered — which they owed solely to her — that he had been 
 able to make good his escape, she clapped her hands like 
 a child. But then her brow darkened, and she added 
 with a sigh, that Joshua should see how much a woman, 
 however weak, could sacrifice to attain the dearest wish 
 of her heart. Ephraim's assurance, that before he himself 
 stole away he had offered to release his uncle, met with 
 its meed of kind words ; and when she learned that Joshua 
 had refused his nephew's help in order that he might not 
 imperil the success of the plan he had suggested to him, 
 she exclaimed to her waiting woman, with tears in her 
 
JOSHUA. 161 
 
 eyes, that no one but he could act so nobly ; and she 
 listened eagerly to the rest of his tale, interrupting him 
 frequently with sympathetic questions. 
 
 So blissful a close to the fearful days and nights he had 
 just passed seemed to him as a beautiful dream, a bewil- 
 dering romance ; and he did not need the encouragement 
 of the cup she diligently filled for him to make him tell his 
 story with eager vivacity. With an eloquence altogether 
 new to him he described how, in the ravine, he had slipped 
 on a loose stone, and had fallen with it headlong to the 
 bottom. There he had thought that all was lost, for soon 
 after he had shaken himself clear of the rubbish in which 
 he was buried to hurry down to the salt lake, he had heard 
 the driver's whistle. However, from his childhood he had 
 always been a good runner, and he had learned in his 
 native fields how to read his bearings by the stars, so, 
 without looking to the right hand or the left, he had flown 
 on as fast as his feet would carry him to the south, always 
 to the south. Many times had he fallen in the dark over 
 stones or pits in the desert sand, but only to spring up 
 again and hurry on, rush on, to where he knew that she, 
 Kasana, was— she for whose sake he would unhesitatingly 
 cast to the winds all that wise heads could advise — she 
 for whom he was ready to give life and liberty. 
 
 How he found courage to make this confession he knew 
 not. Nor was he sobered by the rap she gave him with 
 her fan, or by the old woman's exclamation, " A boy like 
 that ! " No ; his beaming eyes only sought her gaze, as 
 they had done before, while he went on with his story. 
 
 He had hurled the dog which had come up with him 
 against a rock ; the other he had driven off by plunging a 
 stone at him till he retreated whining into a thicket. He 
 had seen nothing of any other pursuers neither that night 
 nor all the next day. At last he reached a high road and 
 came up with some country-folk, who told him which way 
 the king's army had marched. Then, about midday, being 
 overcome by fatigue, he had gone to sleep in the shade of 
 a sycamore, and when he woke the sun was near sinking. 
 He was dreadfully hungry, so he had pulled a few turnips 
 in a field as he passed by ; but the owner had immediately 
 come forward from a water course at hand, and it was with 
 difficulty that he had escaped from his pursuit. During 
 part of the next night he had kept to the high road, and 
 
 11 
 
1 62 JOSHUA. 
 
 had rested at last by a well on the way, for he knew that 
 wild beasts shun much frequented spots. After sunrise he 
 Bad set forth again, following the road the army had taken, 
 and had come upon its traces everywhere. Shortly before 
 noon, when he was quite exhausted and sick with fasting, 
 he came to a village lying close to the fertile tract watered 
 by the Seti canal, and had considered whether it would not 
 be well to sell his gold bracelet to purchase some good 
 nourishment, and keep some silver and copper coin for 
 future need ; but he had feared being taken for a thief and 
 cast into prison again, for the thorns had been his raiment, 
 and his sandals had long since dropped from his feet. He 
 had thought that his misery must move even the hard- 
 hearted to pity, so he had knocked at a door and begged, 
 bitter as it had been to him. However, he got nothing from 
 the peasant but a scornful admonition that such a strong 
 young fellow as he might work for his living, and leave 
 begging to the weak and old. A second had threatened 
 him with a thrashing ; however, when he had gone some 
 way further, feeling very crestfallen, a young woman, who 
 had seen him at the niggard's door, came after him and put 
 a cake of bread with a few dates into his hand, hastily 
 telling him that the village had been heavily taxed in the 
 course of Pharaoh's progress, or she would have given him 
 something better. No banquet had ever before tasted so 
 sweet to him as this unlooked-for gift, which he eat by the 
 next well ; but he did not confess to Kasana that it had 
 been embittered by the doubt as to whether he should obey 
 Joshua's counsel and return to his own people, or follow 
 his heart's desire which drew him to her. He had started 
 again, still undecided, but fate seemed to have taken the 
 matter into her own hands. After he had walked on about 
 half an hour longer, on reaching the edge of the desert he 
 had come upon a youth of about his own age, sitting by 
 the way side and moaning as he held one of his feet in 
 both hands. He had gone up to him at his call, and to 
 his surprise had recognized him as Hornecht's runner and 
 messenger, with whom he had often spoken. 
 
 " Apoo 1 our nimble Nubian ? " interrupted the lady ; and 
 Ephraim went on to tell her that this messenger had been 
 sent to carry a letter to Prince Siptah in all haste, and the 
 swift-footed lad, who was wont to outrun his master's 
 horses, would have flown like an arrow, and have reached 
 
JOSHUA. 163 
 
 his destination in two hours, if he had not trodden on a 
 fragment of broken glass, a bottle crushed by some chariot 
 wheel, and the cut was dreadfully deep. 
 
 "And you helped him?" asked Kasana. 
 
 "Could I do otherwise? " was the answer. "He had 
 half-bled to death already, and was as pale as a sheet. So 
 I carried him to the nearest canal and washed the gaping 
 wound, and applied some ointment he had with him." 
 
 " I put it in his pocket a year ago, in a small pot," said 
 the nurse, who, being easily moved, was wiping her eyes ; 
 and Ephraim confirmed the fact, for Apoo had mentioned 
 it with gratitude. Then he went on : 
 
 "And I tore my tunic into strips, and bound it up as 
 best I might. But he urged me all the while to make 
 haste, and held out the token and the roll which his master 
 had entrusted to him, and, knowing nothing of the mis- 
 fortunes which had befallen me, he charged me to carry 
 the letter to the prince in his stead. Oh ! how gladly I 
 undertook to do so, and the second mile was not ended 
 when I reached the camp. The letter is in the prince's hands 
 and here am I. I can see b) your face that you are well 
 pleased. As for me — so happy as I am to sit here at your 
 feet and gaze up at you, so thankful as I am to you for 
 having listened to me so patiently, surely no one ever was 
 in this world ! And if they put me in chains I will bear it 
 quietly if only you remain kind. My woes have been so 
 many ! I have neither father nor mother — no one to love 
 me. Only you. I love none but you, and you will not 
 repel me, will you? " 
 
 He spoke the last words like one in a frenzy. Carried 
 away by his passion, and incapable, after the terrible 
 strain of the last days and hours, of governing the over- 
 whelming storm of his feelings, the lad sobbed aloud. 
 He was scarcely past childhood yet, he had only himself 
 to trust to, he had been torn and severed from all that had 
 ever upheld and controlled him, and, like a young bird 
 taking refuge under its mother's wings, he hid his face in 
 Kasana's lap, weeping violently. 
 
 Deep compassion came over the tender-hearted young 
 woman, and her eyes, too, were moist. She gently laid her 
 hand on his hair ; and as she felt the shudder which ran 
 through the boy's whole frame, she raised his head in both 
 hands, kissed his forehead and cheeks, and smiling through 
 tears, as she looked into his face, said : 
 
1 64 JOSHUA. 
 
 " You poor, foolish boy ! Why should I not be kind, or 
 ever repel you ? Your uncle is the man dearest to me in 
 the world, and you are like his son. To serve him and 
 you I have already consented to do that which I had 
 always utterly loathed, refused. But now, come what 
 may, and whatever others may think or say of me, I will 
 not care if only I can succeed in doing that for which I 
 will give my life and all I hold most dear ! Only wait, 
 poor, vehement boy," and again she kissed his cheeks. 
 " I shall find a way for you, too ! Now, enough of this." 
 
 She spoke firmly, and the words were enough to check 
 the excited lad's excited mood. But suddenly she sprang 
 up, crying in terrified haste : " Fly, fly, begone instantly ! " 
 
 A man's footstep approaching the tent and a warning 
 word from the waiting woman had brought the brief com- 
 mand to Kasana's lips, and Ephraim's keen ear told him 
 what had roused her fears, and drove him forthwith into 
 the dark chamber, where he could satisfy himself that a 
 moment's hesitation would have betrayed him. The cur- 
 tain of the tent was lifted and a man walked straight 
 through the anteroom to the lighted apartment where 
 Kasana — for that, too, he could hear — greeted some new 
 guest only too warmly, and as though surprised at his 
 coming so late. 
 
 The waiting woman snatched up her own mantle to 
 throw over the lad's bare shoulders, and she whispered to 
 him : " Linger near the tent sometime before sunrise, but 
 do not come in till I call you if you love your life. You 
 have neither father nor mother, and my child Kasana— a 
 loving heart is hers, a heart of gold — she is the best of all 
 that is good ; but whether she is fit to guide a foolish 
 scapegrace who burns for her like dry straw is quite an- 
 other matter. As I listened to your story I thought of 
 many things, and as I mean well by you I will tell you 
 something : You have an uncle who is the noblest of men. 
 I know what men are, and so far my Kasana is right. Do 
 his bidding, it will be for your good. Obey him ! And if 
 his orders take you far from here and from Kasana, so 
 much the better for you. We walk in dangerous places, 
 and if it were not for Joshua's sake I should have done 
 everything in my power to hold her back. But for him — 
 well, I am an old woman, but for that man even I would go 
 through fire and water. I grieve more than I can say for 
 
JOSHUA. 1 65 
 
 that pure, sweet child, and for you who are so like what 
 my own son was ; but I say once more, obey your uncle, 
 boy, or you will come to an evil end, and that would be a 
 pity indeed ! " 
 
 Then, without waiting for a reply, she pushed him 
 towards one of the openings in the canvas wall of the tent, 
 and waited till Ephraim had wriggled out. Then she 
 dried her eyes and went back into the lighted room as 
 though by chance ; but Kasana and her belated visitor 
 had matters to discuss which allowed of no witness, and 
 her " dear child " only suffered her to light her own little 
 lamp at the three-armed candelabrum, and then sent her 
 to bed. 
 
 She submitted ; but in the darkened room, where her 
 bed stood not far from her mistress', she lay down, and 
 then, covering her face with her hands, wept in silence. 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 Ephraim crept round the tent he had quitted, pressing 
 one ear against the canvas wall. He very cautiously 
 undid a few stitches in one of the seams, and so could see 
 as well hear what was going on in the lady's sitting-room. 
 The storm kept every one within shelter who was not 
 compelled by service to turn out, and Ephraim had the 
 less reason to fear discovery because the spot where he 
 crouched was in deep shade. The old nurse's cloak was 
 wrapped about him, and though a shudder again and again 
 ran through his young limbs, it was bitter grief that 
 caused it and anguish of soul. 
 
 He saw Kasana's head resting on the breast of a prince, 
 a great and powerful lover, and the capricious false one 
 did not even forbid the bold suitor when his lips sought 
 hers for the kisses he desired. She owed no faith to 
 Ephraim indeed, but her heart was his uncle's ; she pre- 
 ferred him above all men, she had declared herself ready 
 to endure the worst to procure his freedom, and now he 
 saw with his own eyes that she was false and faithless, and 
 giving to another that which by right was Joshua's alone. 
 To Ephraim himself she had shown favor — the mere 
 crumbs which fell from Joshua's table, and even that, as he 
 
1 66 yosi/UA. 
 
 confessed with a blush, was a robbery from his uncle ; 
 and he felt himself injured, wounded and betrayed, and on 
 fire with jealousy in behalf of his uncle, whom he hon- 
 ored, nay, and loved, though he had contravened his 
 wishes. 
 
 And Joshua? He, like Ephraim himself, and like that 
 princely personage, like every one in short, must love her 
 in spite of his strange demeanor at the wayside well ; it 
 could not possibly be otherwise ; and she, safe from the 
 vengeance of the unhappy prisoner, was abandoning her- 
 self with cowardly baseness to the caresses of another ! 
 
 Siptah, as he had learnt from their last meeting, was his 
 uncle's foe ; and for him, of all men, she was betraying the 
 man she loved. Through the slit in the tent-cloth he 
 could see all that went on within, but he closed his eyes 
 to avoid seeing many things. More often, indeed, the 
 odious spectacle riveted his gaze with a mysterious spell, 
 and then he longed to tear the tent wider, to fell the loathed 
 foe, and speak words of stern reproof to the faithless 
 woman in Joshua's name. The fierce passion which had 
 possessed him was suddenly turned to hatred and scorn. 
 From the happiest of human beings, as he had deemed 
 himself, he had become the most miserable ; such a fall 
 from the highest bliss to the deepest woe, none before him, 
 he believed, had ever known. The old nurse had spoken 
 truly, there could be nothing in store for him at Kasana's 
 hands but misery and despair. Once he had started to fly, 
 but then the bewitching sound of her silvery laugh fell on 
 his ear, and a mysterious power held him rooted to the 
 spot to listen a little longer. 
 
 At first the rush of blood tingled so fiercely in his ears 
 that he was quite incapable of following the dialogue 
 within. By degrees, however, he had gathered the pur- 
 port of whole sentences, and now he lost not a word that 
 was spoken. It was indeed of the greatest interest, though 
 it enabled him to look into an abyss which seemed to 
 yawn at his feet. 
 
 Kasana by no means yielded to her audacious wooer on 
 every point, but this only drew him on to insist passion- 
 ately 011 her entire surrender, body and soul ; and what 
 he offered in return was indeed the highest reward — a place 
 as queen at his side on the throne of Egypt, for which he 
 was plotting. That much he distinctly uttered ; but all 
 
JOSHUA. 167 
 
 else was hard to follow ; for the vehement lover was in 
 haste, and frequently interrupted his incoherent sentences 
 to assure Kasana of his unalterable devotion, or to mollify 
 her when the audacity of his pretensions roused her fears 
 or her disgust. Presently he spoke of the letter which 
 Ephraim had brought, and after he had read it aloud and 
 explained it to her, the boy perceived, with slight shudder, 
 that he himself had now become an accomplice in the most 
 detestable of crimes. For a moment he felt prompted to 
 betray the traitors, and deliver them into the hands of the 
 sovereign whose overthrow they were plotting. But he 
 cast this idea from him, and only indulged in the comfort- 
 ing reflection — the first that had come to him during this 
 dreadful experience — that he held Kasana and her prince 
 in his clutch like beetles on a thread. This raised his 
 spirits and restored his lost confidence and courage. The 
 baser the schemes he now overheard, the greater and more 
 surely grew his recovered sense of the value of truth and 
 right. He remembered likewise an admonition of his 
 uncle's : " Give no man, great or small, cause to regard 
 you with anything but respect, and then you may hold 
 your head as high as the proudest hero in his purple tunic 
 and gilt breastplate." 
 
 As he lay trembling with fever on his bed in Kasana's 
 house he had repeated the words many times, but the 
 miseries of captivity had banished it from his mind. Not till 
 he found himself in the chamberlain's tent, when the slave 
 had held the mirror that he might see himself bathed and 
 anointed, had it recurred as a passing thought; but now 
 it wholly possessed his soul. And, strangely enough, the 
 royal traitor within the tent wore, in fact, a purple tunic 
 and gilt armor, and looked indeed a hero ; but he could 
 not hold his head high, for the deed he purposed could only 
 succeed in twilight secrecy ; it was like the work of the 
 loathsome mole which turns up the earth in darkness. The 
 hateful three, falsehood, treachery and perjury, were Sip- 
 tah's tools, and she whom he had chosen to be his accom- 
 plice was the woman — at the bottom of his soul he was 
 ashamed to own it — the woman for whose sake he had been 
 ready to sacrifice all he held sacred, worthy and dear. 
 
 These hideous things, which he had been taught to flee 
 from, were but the rungs of the ladder by which that 
 wicked man hoped to mount to high estate. Ephraim saw 
 it ; all the prince's plot lay before him as an open book. 
 
1 68 JOSHUA. 
 
 The roll the lad had brought to the camp had contained 
 three letters. One was from the conspirators in Tanis ; 
 the others from Siptah's mother. She wrote that she looked 
 for his speedy return, and informed him that Aarsu, the 
 Syrian, the captain of the foreign troops, now in charge of 
 the palace, and all in the women's house, were prepared 
 to hail him king. When the high priest of Araon, who was 
 at the same time the chief judge, high steward and keeper 
 of the seal, should proclaim him, he would be king, and 
 could mount the throne unopposed, for the palace was open 
 to him. If Pharaoh should return, the body-guards were 
 ready to take him prisoner and clear him out of the way 
 — as Siptah, who did not love half measures, had secretly 
 commanded, while Baie had voted for his being kept in 
 mild captivity. 
 
 The only thing to be feared was the premature reap- 
 pearance of Seti, Menephtah's younger son, now at 
 Thebes ; for now that his elder brother was dead, he had 
 become heir to the throne, and pigeons had arrived yester- 
 day with letters announcing that he was on his way. Thus 
 Siptah and the powerful priest who was to proclaim him 
 must make the best speed they could. 
 
 The necessary precautions had also been taken to pre- 
 vent any possible resistance on the part of the army ; as 
 soon as the Hebrews were destroyed, the larger portion of 
 the troops were to be withdrawn forthwith into the gar- 
 risons they had left ; the body-guard were attached to Sip- 
 tah, and the rest, who would escort the royal party back to 
 the capital, could, if it came to the worst, easily be over- 
 powered by Aarsu and his mercenaries. 
 
 " Nothing now remains for me to do," cried the prince, 
 stretching himself with evident enjoyment, like a man who 
 had successfully achieved a difficult undertaking, " but 
 to make my way back to Tanis with Baie a few hours 
 hence, to let myself be crowned and proclaimed in the 
 temple of Araon, and finally make my entry into the palace 
 of the Pharaohs. The rest is all a matter of course. Seti, 
 who is called the heir to the crown, is as weak a creature 
 as his father, and will bend to the accomplished fact, to 
 necessity and force. The captain of the body-guard will 
 take care that Menephtah never enters the palace again." 
 
 The prince's mother had written a second letter ad- 
 dressed to Pharaoh himself, to justify Siptah and the high 
 
JOSHUA. 169 
 
 priest in returning to the capital in all haste, without 
 exposing themselves to the imputation of cowardice in 
 leaving the army immediately before a battle. Although 
 she had never in her life been in better health, she declared, 
 with hypocritical prayers and lamentations, that her hours 
 were numbered, and implored the king to release her son 
 and Baie forthwith from their duties, that she might be 
 allowed to bless her only child before she died. She had 
 many sins on her conscience, and none but the high priest 
 had it in his power to intercede for her for the mercy of the 
 gods. Without his mediation she must depart in despair. 
 This letter, too, the vile traitor had read, and had pro- 
 nounced it a master-piece of woman's cunning, rubbing 
 his hands with glee as he spoke. 
 
 Treason, murder, dissimulation, base deceit, a mockery 
 of all the most sacred feelings, everything foul and mean, 
 were to be Siptah's aids to mounting the throne, and 
 though Kasana had wrung her hands and shed some tears 
 when he told her that Pharaoh was to be put out of the 
 way, she grew calmer as the prince represented to her 
 that her own father approved of what he had decided on 
 to save Egypt from the hand of the king who was bring- 
 ing the land to ruin. 
 
 The letter from the prince's mother to Pharaoh — the 
 mother who was spurring on her own son to ruthless 
 crime — was the last thing Ephraim stayed to hear ; for the 
 young Hebrew, accustomed to regard the bond between 
 parents and children as reverend and pure beyond all 
 others, was moved by it to such a sudden frenzy that he 
 raised his fist, and as he sprang away he muttered a word 
 of scorn and abuse. Thus he did not hear how Kasana 
 made the prince pledge his word that, if he rose to power, 
 he would grant her her first request. It should cost him 
 neither money norlands, and merely afford her the privilege 
 of showing mercy at the dictate of her heart, for events 
 were impending which must provoke the wrath of the gods, 
 and she only implored to be allowed to mitigate it. 
 
 Ephraim could not bear to see or to hear any more of this 
 revolting scene. Now, for the first time, he began to 
 understand what danger he had run of allowing himself to 
 be drawn into this slough, and becoming a lost and repro- 
 bate wretch ; but surely, he thought, he could never have 
 been so base, so abominable as these two. Once more he 
 
170 JOSHUA. 
 
 remembered his uncle's words, and he threw back his 
 haughty head, and his deep chest swelled as though he 
 would assure himself of his own unbroken strength; and 
 he said to himself, as he drew a deep breath, that he was 
 fit for better things than being wasted on a bad woman, 
 even if, like Kasana, she were the fairest and most bewitch- 
 ing creature under heaven. Away, away ! far from the 
 snare which might have led him to murder and every kind 
 of evil ! 
 
 Fully determined to return to his own people, he made 
 his way to the entrance to the camp ; but he had gone only 
 a few steps when he stopped, and a glance at the sky 
 showed him it was not more than two hours past midnight. 
 All was still. Only from the pen where the king's horses 
 were enclosed he heard now and then the rattle of harness 
 or the blow of a hoof. If he attempted at this hour to 
 make his escape he must certainly be detected and 
 detained ; prudence enjoined him to curb his impatience 
 for a little while, and as he looked about him his eye fell 
 on the chamberlain's tent, from which the old slave came 
 out to look for his master, who was still awaiting Siptah's 
 return in the prince's quarter. This old man had been 
 kind before to Ephraim, and he now with friendly urgency 
 bid him enter the tent and rest, for youth, said he, requires 
 sleep. Ephraim accepted the well-meant invitation, for he 
 now began to feel how badly his feet ached ; hardly had 
 he stretched himself on the mat — the old slave having 
 spread his own for him — when he felt as if his limbs 
 were dropping off; however, he thought he should here 
 have time and peace for reflection. 
 
 He began by thinking of the future and his uncle's in- 
 junctions. That he must forthwith rejoin his people was 
 quite clear, and if they escaped alive from Pharaoh's host, 
 Jet the rest do what they would, his first duty would be 
 collect his herdsmen, his servants and his younger friends, 
 and hasten at their head to the mines to strike off Joshua's 
 chains, and conduct him home to his old father and his 
 people who needed him so sorely. He fancied he could 
 see himself with his sling at his girdle and a battle-axe in 
 his hand marching on in front of the rest, when sleep over- 
 powered him, and wrapped the weary youth in oblivion so 
 deep and sweet that not even a dream approached his 
 pillow, and the old slave had to shake him in order to rouse 
 him at day-break. 
 
JOSHUA. 171 
 
 The camp was already astir : tents were being taken 
 down, asses and ox-carts loaded, horses combed and shod, 
 chariots cleaned, weapons and vessels polished, and the 
 first meal of the day distributed and eaten. Meanwhile 
 trumpet-calls rang out on one hand, words of command on 
 the other, and from the eastern side of the camp rose the 
 chant of priests devoutly greeting the new-born god of 
 day. 
 
 Active servants now brought out a gilt chariot in front 
 of the splendid purple tent next to Kasana's, and another 
 not less splendid followed. Prince Siptah and the high 
 priest had received permission from Pharaoh to return to 
 Tanis, at the desire of a dying woman. Shortly after 
 Ephraim took leave of the friendly slave, charging him to 
 return the cloak to Kasana's nurse, and to tell her that 
 the messenger had followed her advice and his uncle's. 
 Then he set forth on his journey. 
 
 He got out of the precincts of the Egyptian tents with- 
 out let or hindrance, and when he found himself out in the 
 desert he uttered the cry by which he was wont to collect 
 his shepherds in the pastures. The call rang out across 
 the wide plain, startling a sparrow-hawk which was spying 
 the distance from the top of a rock, and as the bird soared 
 up the lad felt as though, if he opened out his arms, 
 wings must sprout strong enough to bear him through the 
 air. Never had he felt so strong and agile, so light and 
 free ; and if the priest could at this moment have asked 
 whether he would become a captain over thousands in 
 Pharaoh's army, he would certainly have answered, as he 
 had done by Nun's ruined dwelling, that he asked no better 
 lot than that of a shepherd, free to govern his herds and 
 servants. He was an orphan, but'yet he had his people to 
 whom he belonged, and where they were was his home. 
 Like a traveler who, after long journeying, finds himself 
 near home, he now hastened his steps. 
 
 He had arrived at Tanis in the night of the new moon, 
 and the full disk which he now saw paling in the dawn was 
 the same as he had then gazed on ; but he felt as though 
 years had elapsed between his leave-taking of Miriam and 
 this day, for indeed a whole lifetime of new experience had 
 been crowded into these few days. He had come forth as 
 a boy; he was returning a man to his own folk, and, 
 thanks to the erents of this one dreadful night, he was the 
 
I 7 2 JOSHUA. 
 
 same as he had ever been, and could look boldly in the face 
 of each one whom he loved and looked up to with rever- 
 ence. 
 
 Nay, more. He would show the man whom he held high 
 above all others that he, Ephraim, might carry his head 
 erect. He would repay Joshua for what he had done for 
 him, by being content to remain in bonds and fetters in 
 order that his nephew might flee away as free as a bird. 
 
 He had walked above an hour when he came to a ruined 
 watch tower. He climbed up it, and from thence he 
 descried at no great distance, on the hither side of the 
 hill of Baal-Zephon which he had long seen towering 
 above the horizon, the gleaming waters of the northern 
 arm of the Red Se^ The storm was lulled, still he could 
 see from the swaying of the emerald surface that the sea 
 was not yet calm, and a few black piles of cloud on the 
 sky, which just now had been so clear, seemed to threaten 
 a gathering storm again. He looked about him on all 
 sides, wondering what the leaders of the people could be 
 thinking of it ; indeed, as Siptah had told Kasana, they 
 purposed to encamp between Pihahiroth, of which he now 
 saw the tents and huts close before him on the shore of the 
 canal of Seti, and the hill of Baal-Zephon. 
 
 Had Siptah spoken falsely? No, indeed! The base 
 traitor had this once departed from his habits. Between the 
 village and the lake, where the wind was whirling thin 
 pillars of smoke, his sharp eyes descried a multitude of 
 white objects looking like a distant flock of sheep, and 
 among and around them a strange stir and bustle on the 
 sand. This was the camp of the Israelites. 
 
 How small the space appeared which parted him from 
 them. But the nearer they seemed the greater was his 
 anxiety, as he reflected that this vast multitude, with its 
 womei. ind children, its herds and tents, could never 
 escape the mighty host which in a few hours must inevi- 
 tably fall upon them. His heart swelled within him as he 
 looked further afield ; for neither to the east, where 
 stretched a broad pool of water, nor to the south, where 
 the waves of the Red Sea were surging, nor to the north, 
 whence Pharaoh's army was marching down on them, was 
 there any way to fly. To the west lay the desert of 
 Etham, and if the wanderers turned thitherward they 
 would soon be on Egyptian soil, and the exodus would 
 
JOSHUA. 173 
 
 have been in vain. There was nothing for it but to give 
 battle, and as he thought of it his blood ran cold, for he 
 well knew the ill-armed, undisciplined forces of the 
 Hebrews, half wild and refractory, half cowardly and con- 
 temptible, and he had seen the march past of the num- 
 berless and well-equipped Egyptian army, with its strong 
 force of foot-soldiers and splendid war-chariots. 
 
 He now thought, as his uncle had thought, that the 
 Hebrews were doomed to certain destruction, unless the 
 God of their fathers should save them. Miriam had indeed 
 many a time, and again just before his departure, praised 
 that Almighty Lord and His glory with flashing eyes and 
 inspired words ; that God who had chosen his people 
 above all other people. The words of the prophetess had 
 filled his childish soul with vague terrors of this God's 
 immeasurable greatness and awful wrath. He had found it 
 easier to uplift his spirit to the Sun-god when his teacher, 
 a kind and genial Egyptian priest, had led him into the 
 temple at Pithom. As he grew older he had entirely 
 ceased to feel the need of turning to any god in prayer ; for 
 he craved nothing, and while other boys were still obedient 
 to their parents' will, the shepherds, who knew full well that 
 he was the owner of the flocks they tended, had called him 
 their lord, and, at first in jest but then in earnest, had done 
 him service as their master ; thus his independence had 
 been early fostered, and he had grown to be but a wrong- 
 headed lad. Healthy and strong, looked up to by men 
 older than himself, he was wholly self-sufficient, and felt 
 that others depended on him ; and as there was nothing he 
 liked so little as asking anything of any one, great or small, 
 it misliked him to pray even to a God who was so far and 
 so high above him. But at this moment, when the fearful 
 fate impending over his people weighed so heavily on his 
 heart, a sense came upon him that only this great and 
 mighty God could deliver them out of their fearful and 
 pressing peril ; that none could withstand this vast host 
 but only He in whose power it lay to break the heavens 
 and the earth in pieces. 
 
 And what was he that the Most High, whom Miriam and 
 Joshua had described as of such majesty, should care for 
 him ? But his people were many thousands, and God 
 had not scorned to make them His own, and. to promise 
 them great things. They were standing on the verge of 
 
174 JOSHUA. 
 
 destruction, and he, fresh from the evening's camp, was 
 perchance the only soul who understood how great was 
 their peril. 
 
 A conviction suddenly came over him that it was he, 
 therefore, above all others, whose task it must be to warn 
 the God of his fathers of the great danger which threatened 
 His people, and to beseech Him to save them ; He, caring 
 for the whole heaven and earth, the sun and the stars, had 
 perhaps forgotten them. The lad was still standing on the 
 top of the ruined tower, and from thence he uplifted his 
 arms and face to heaven. 
 
 To the north he saw the dark clouds, which he had 
 observed rising over the blue sky, suddenly part and roll 
 asunder on either hand. The wind which had died away 
 after sunrise now gained force and swiftness, and soon 
 rose to a storm again. It swept across the isthmus in 
 gusts which succeeded each other with increasing rapidity, 
 carrying before it dense pillars of yellow sand. 
 
 He must cry aloud, very loud, if He whom he entreated 
 was to hear him in high heaven, and with all the strength 
 of his young lungs he shouted against the storm : 
 
 " Adonai, Adonai ! Thou whose name is Jehovah, 
 Thou great God of my fathers, hearken unto me, Ephraim, 
 who am but young and of no account, and whom, inasmuch 
 as I am but naught, Thou had not remembered. For my- 
 self I ask not. But the people whom Thou hast called 
 Thine are in great straits. They have left their safe 
 dwellings and good pastures by reason that Thou hast 
 promised them a better and a fairer land, and that they 
 trusted in Thee and in Thy word. And now the host of 
 Pharaoh is drawing near, and it is so great that our people 
 can never withstand it. Believe me it is so, Eloi, my 
 Lord. For I have seen it, and have been in the midst 
 of it, and as surely as I stand here I know that the Egyp- 
 tians are too many for Thy people. Pharaoh's host will 
 trample them under foot as the hoof of the ox tramples the 
 grain on the threshing floor. And my nation, who are Thy 
 people, are encamped in a place where the warriors of 
 Pharaoh can cut them off from all sides, so that there is no 
 way left them by which they may escape ; not one, for I 
 have seen it from this spot. Hear me, O Adonai ! — But 
 canst Thou hear my cry, O Lord, in such a storm ? Yea, 
 purely Thou canst, for Thou art almighty, and if Thou hear 
 
JOSHUA. 175 
 
 me and understand, Thou raayest, if Thou wilt, behold with 
 Thine own eyes that I speak the truth. Then remember, 
 O Lord, and fulfill the promise Thou hast made to Thy 
 people by the mouth of Thy servant Moses. 
 
 " I have seen treason among the Egyptians, and murder, 
 and base cunning, and their doings have filled me, who am 
 but a simple lad, with rage and horror. And how shouldst 
 Thou, from whom all good things come, and whom Miriam 
 names as Truth itself, deal with us even as those accursed 
 ones do, and break Thy word and promise to Thy people 
 who trust in Thee? I know, O Lord Most High, that this 
 is far from Thee, and perhaps it is sin only to think of it. 
 Hear me, Adonai ! Behold and look to the north upon the 
 tents of Egypt, which by this hour are leaving their camp 
 and moving on ; look to the south upon the peril of Thy 
 people, and how that they have no way of escape, and save 
 and deliver them by the help of Thy might and great wis- 
 dom; for Thou hast promised them a new land, and if they 
 are utterly cut off how may they reach it ? " 
 
 Thus he ended this guileless, untutored prayer, but it 
 flowed from the depth of his heart. 
 
 Then he sprang away from the heap of ruins with wide 
 leaps, across the desert at his feet, and ran on towards the 
 south as swiftly as though he were again fleeing from 
 captivity. He felt the rushing blast from the north-east 
 driving him on, and thought how it would hasten the ad- 
 vance of Pharaoh's foot-soldiers. The leaders of his people 
 did not know perhaps how vast was the host which threat- 
 ened them, and under-estimated the danger of their position. 
 But he saw it, and could give them the fullest information. 
 But he must hasten, fly, and he felt as though in this race 
 before the storm his feet had really got wings. 
 
 He had soon reached the village of Pihahiroth, and, as he 
 fled through it without pausing for an instant, he perceived 
 that man and beast had deserted the tents and dwellings. 
 The inhabitants had no doubt found a place of refuge for 
 themselves and their belongings from the coming army, or 
 from the emigrant Hebrews. As he went on, the clouds 
 grew darker and darker — and rarely indeed was the sky 
 overcast here at mid-day — and the wilder blew the storm. 
 His thick hair flew about his hot head, his breath came 
 hard, still on he sped ; he felt as if his feet scarcely touched 
 the ground at all. 
 
176 yosnuA. 
 
 As he got nearer to the sea the blast howled and shrieked, 
 the waves, lashed to fury, beat in thunder on the rocks at 
 the foot of the hill of Baal-Zcphon. Now, within a short 
 hour after leaving the ruins, he had reached the first tents 
 of the encampment, and the familiar cry of " Unclean ! " 
 as well as the mourning garb of the people, whose disfigured 
 faces looked forth from the wreck of the tents beaten down 
 by the wind, told him that he had come upon the lepers' 
 quarters, placed by Moses outside the camp. Still, he was 
 in such haste that he did not make a circuit; but ran straight 
 on at his utmost speed. Nor did he pause till a tall palm 
 tree, uprooted by the blast, came to the ground so close to 
 him that its tuft of leaves swept him as it fell. 
 
 At last he was among the tents and penfolds of his own 
 tribe, and many of these had likewise been overturned. 
 
 He inquired of the first man he recognized for Nun, the 
 father of Joshua and of his deceased mother. He had 
 gone to the seashore with Moses and the elders of the 
 people, and Ephraim followed him thither, the moist salt 
 air refreshing him and cooling his brow. Yet he might not 
 immediately speak with him, so he collected his thoughts 
 and reserved his breath, while he watched the elders who 
 were in discussion with a party of gaily-clad Phoenician 
 boatmen. 
 
 He, being so much younger, was forbidden to disturb 
 the venerable leaders of the people in the council which 
 evidently had reference to the sea, for the Hebrews were 
 pointing to the head of the bay, and the Phoenicians waved 
 their hands now towards the mountain and now to the sea, 
 or the sky, or the north, whence came the still-increasing 
 storm. 
 
 A jutting wall sheltered the party of elders from the 
 hurricane, and yet they had great difficulty in keeping their 
 feet with the help of their staves and the stone-work be- 
 hind them. 
 
 At last the discussion came to an end ; the lad saw the 
 gigantically tall figure of Moses slowly and majestically go 
 down to the edge of the sea with some other leaders of the 
 Hebrews, while Nun, supported by one of his herdsmen, 
 toiled back against the wind to the camp with what speed 
 he might. He wore a mourning robe, and, whereas the 
 others looked glad and hopeful as they parted, his hand- 
 some face, with its crown and beard of white hair, wore a 
 
JOSHUA 177 
 
 look of crushing and heart-breaking grief. When Ephraim 
 spoke his name he raised his bent head, and, seeing the lad 
 before him, tottered backwards with surprise and misgiving, 
 clinging tightly to the stalwart arm which upheld him. 
 News had been sent to him of his son's and his grandson's 
 terrible fate from the freed slaves he had left behind him in 
 Tanis. The old man had rent his garments, had thrown 
 ashes on his head and put on mourning raiment, and broken 
 his heart for his beloved and noble son and his promising 
 young grandson. 
 
 Now Ephraim was before him in the flesh ; and when he 
 had laid his hand on the lad's shoulder, and kissed him 
 again and again, he inquired whether his son, too, was still 
 in the land of the living and remembered him and his 
 people. As soon as the youth had assured him that he 
 did, Nun laid his arm across his shoulders that he, his own 
 flesh and blood and no stranger, might shield him from the 
 violence of the storm. 
 
 He had a solemn and imperative duty to fulfill, from 
 which no man might hinder him, but when the eager youth 
 shouted in his ear above the roar of the hurricane, as they 
 went back to the camp, that he meant to gather together 
 his shepherds and the young men of his tribe to rescue 
 Hosea, who was now called Joshua, the patriarch's vehe- 
 ment vigor was stirred, and clasping his grandson to his 
 heart he exclaimed that, old as he was, yet was he not too 
 old to wield an axe and go forth with the young ones to 
 deliver his son. And his eyes flashed through tears, while, 
 with the arm that was free, he appealed to Heaven, crying : 
 
 " The God of my fathers in whom I have learned to trust 
 watches over the faithful ! Do you see the sand over there at 
 the head of the bay, the seaweed and shells ? Only an hour 
 ago that was covered by water, foaming waves were dan- 
 cing over the spot. That, boy, is the way deliverance lies ; 
 if this wind holds, the tide will ebb further still, so the Phoe- 
 nician seamen assure us. Their god of the north wind, 
 they say, is favorable to us, and their youths have lighted 
 a fire to the god up there on the heights of Baal-Zephon. 
 But we know that it is another God who hath opened a way 
 for us into the desert. We were in sore straits, my son !" 
 
 " Yes, grandfather," cried the boy. " You were as a lion 
 in a pitfall, and the Egyptian tent is mighty and uncon- 
 querable ; every man of that host have 1 seen march past, 
 
 1Z 
 
178 yosrruA. 
 
 from the first even to the last. I flew as fast as my feet 
 might bear me to tell you all how many heavy troops, 
 archers, horses and chariots." 
 
 "We know it, we know it," interrupted the old man. 
 " But here we are ! " and he pointed to a tent completely 
 blown in, which some serving men were endeavoring to 
 prop up, and close to it sat a very old Hebrew in a litter, 
 Elishama, the father of Nun, wrapped in many robes. 
 
 Nun eagerly spoke a few words to him, and led Ephraim 
 forward. And then, while the lad fell on his great-grand- 
 father's neck to be caressed and embraced, Nun spoke with 
 youthful spirit to the herdsmen and servants : 
 
 " Let the tent fall, men ! The storm has only done your 
 task for you ! Wrap the canvas about the poles, load the 
 carts and beasts. Hasten now, you Gad, Shammua, Jacob ; 
 help the others. The hour of our departing is at hand. 
 Each man make haste to harness the beasts, to saddle and 
 load the asses with all speed. The Lord hath opened a 
 way for us. In the name of the Lord, and by the com- 
 mands of Moses, each must make ready for departing. 
 Every man keep to the old order. We march first at the 
 head of the host ; then come the other tribes, and after 
 them the strangers ; last of all the lepers and unclean. 
 Rejoice, all ye people, for our God is working a great 
 wonder, and making the sea dry land for us, His chosen 
 people. Give thanks to Him while you labor, and entreat 
 Him from the bottom of your hearts that He will ever pro- 
 tect us. He who would not perish at the edge of the 
 sword, or be crushed under the wheels of Pharaoh's 
 chariots, let him put forth his strength and forget to rest. 
 We shall find rest as soon as we have escaped from this 
 peril. Give me the tent cloth ; I will roll it up myself. 
 And do your part, boy. See the children of Manasseh 
 yonder, they are packing and loading ! Well done, Ephraim, 
 you know how to use your hands ! But there is yet 
 much to be done. And my old head forgets. So much 
 has come upon me at once. Here, Raphu, you have 
 swift legs ; I took it upon me to give warning in the camp 
 of the strangers. Hasten to them, and bid them speed 
 their departing, that they be not too far behind the people 
 of Israel. Time is precious ! O Lord, our God, shelter 
 Thy people with Thy protecting hand, and drive the waters 
 further and further back with the storm which is Thy 
 
JOSHUA. 179 
 
 mighty breath ! Pray, each one of you, in your heart, 
 while you work. The Almighty and All knowing God, who 
 sees into your hearts, shall hear. That is too heavy a 
 burthen for you, Ephraim ; you will hurt yourself No ! 
 The boy is a strong boy ! Do as he does, and ye of Suc- 
 coth, rejoice in the strength of your young master ! " 
 
 The last words were addressed to Ephraim's shepherds, 
 serving men and women, most of whom had greeted him 
 in the midst of their toil, had kissed his hand or his arm, 
 and been glad at his home-coming. They were packing 
 and loading, folding and fitting, and getting the beasts 
 together which had been scared by the storm with many 
 blows and much outcry. 
 
 The men of Succoth were zealous to imitate their young 
 master, those from Tanis to serve their master's grandson ; 
 the other herd-owners and humbler folk of the tribe of 
 Ephraim, whose tents had clustered round that of Nun, their 
 elder, were all no less eager ; and yet it was some hours 
 before all the tents, the house-gear and the victuals for 
 man and beast had found a place in the carts or on the 
 beasts of burden, and the old, the sick, and the feeble were 
 laid in litters and chariots once more. 
 
 The wild wind now and then brought the sound of 
 Moses' deep voice, or Aaron's lighter tones, to the spot 
 where the Ephraimites were busy. Neither they nor the 
 sons of Judah needed this to spur them ; for Hur and 
 Nahshon commanded these last, and by the side of Hur 
 stood Miriam, his newly-wedded wife. With the other 
 tribes and the strangers it was otherwise ; and the stiff- 
 necked and cowardly conduct of their leaders had resulted 
 in much misery and confusion. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 It had been found to be impossible to break through the 
 frontier lines of Etham and follow the nearest road to 
 Palestine in a north-easterly direction ; and the second 
 plan proposed by Moses, that they should march round 
 Migdol of the South, had likewise failed, for spies had 
 reported that the garrison there had been strongly rein- 
 forced. Hereupon the multitude had assembled round the 
 
<&o JOSHUA. 
 
 man of God, and had declared that sooner would they 
 re cum home with all their families, and appeal to Pharaoh's 
 mercy, than suffer themselves, their wives and their child- 
 ren to be butchered. 
 
 For many days it had been necessary to keep them back, 
 but when fresh messengers brought word that Pharaoh was 
 running down on them with a mighty host, the time seemed 
 to be at hand when the Hebrews, who were now in the 
 greatest peril, must be urged to force their way onward. 
 Moses had exerted the full weight of his commanding indi- 
 viduality, and Aaron all the powers of his persuasive 
 eloquence, while old Nun and Hur had striven to infuse 
 some of their own fiery spirit into the rest. But the terri- 
 fying tidings had broken the last remnant of courage and 
 faith in most of the people, and they had already determined 
 to send word to Pharaoh of their repentance; but the mes- 
 senger whom they had despatched turned back, declaring 
 that the approaching army had orders not to spare a single 
 Hebrew, but to teach even those who should pray for 
 mercy at the point of the sword how Pharaoh would 
 punish those who, by their magic arts, had brought death 
 and misery on so many Egyptians. Thus had they learned 
 too late that their return would lead them to destruction 
 no less surely than a bold advance. But when, on this, 
 the fighting men led by Hur and Nun had proceeded 
 almost as far as Migdol of the South, they had turned and 
 fled at the loud blast of the Egyptian trumpets, and by 
 the time they returned to the camp, weary, dispirited and 
 wroth, fresh and exaggerated reports of the might of Pha- 
 raoh's host had been brought to the Hebrews, and mortal 
 fear and despair had fallen on even the bravest. Exhorta- 
 tion was cast to the winds ; threats were laughed to scorn ; 
 and the rebellious multitude had forced their leaders 
 onward till they had reached the shores of the Red Sea, and 
 its deep green waters compelled them to give up all further 
 flight to the southward. So the people had encamped be- 
 tween Pihahiroth and Baal-Zephon, and here, once more, 
 their chief had called upon them in the name of the God 
 of their fathers. In the face of certain destruction, 
 from which no human power could save them, they had 
 been brought to lift their eyes to Heaven again ; and in the 
 soul of Moses pity and sympathy had revived more 
 strongly for the hapless and much-tried people who had 
 
yosHUA. isi 
 
 come forth at his bidding. During the past night he had 
 gone up into the mountain of Baal-Zephon, and there, amid 
 the roaring of the storm and hissing flare of the lightning, 
 he had sought and found communion with the Lord. And 
 he had not wearied laying before Him the evil flight of his 
 people, and beseeching Him to deliver them. 
 
 In that same hour had Miriam, the wife of Hur, gone 
 down to the sea-shore to entreat the Lord likewise, under 
 a solitary palm tree, for still she felt herself His chosen 
 handmaid. She besought Him for the women and children, 
 whose trust in Him had brought them to this pass. And 
 she would fain have prayed for the friend of her youth 
 who was now pining in fearful captivity ; but as she fell on 
 her knees she could only say in a timid and broken voice : 
 
 " Forget not Thou Hosea, whom I at Thy word named 
 Joshua, albeit he hath been less obedient to Thy call 
 than Moses', my brother, or Hur, my husband ! Forget not, 
 either, young Ephraim, the grandson of Thy faithful servant 
 Nun." 
 
 Then she went back to her husband's tent, a chiefs 
 tent, while many a humbler man and many a poor terrified 
 woman of the people, outside their wretched shelter or lying 
 on a thin mat wet with tears, uplifted an anxious heart to 
 the God of their fathers, and commended to His care those 
 whom they loved best. Thus, in this night of sorest need, 
 the camp was a temple in which high and low, chief 
 and mother, master and slave, nay, even the afflicted leper, 
 sought and found the Lord. 
 
 At last the morning had dawned when Ephraim had 
 spoken his childlike prayer, shouting it down the storm, 
 and the sea was beginning to retire. 
 
 Then, when they beheld with their own eyes the miracle 
 which the Most High had wrought for His chosen people, 
 the most despairing and fearful became so many glad and 
 hopeful believers. Not among the sons of Ephraim only, 
 among all the tribes, nay, and the strangers and unclean, 
 their newly-awakened and joyful confidence moved each 
 one to prepare with all his strength for further journeying ; 
 and for the first time the multitude assembled without 
 strife or jealousy, without fighting, curses, and tears. 
 
 After sunset Moses, staff in hand, and Aaron, singing 
 and praying, led the way to the head of the gulf. The 
 storm, which was raging as wildly as ever, had swept back 
 
1 82 JOS ITU A. 
 
 the waters, and bore down the flames and smoke of the 
 torches which were carried at the head of each tribe, from 
 north-east to south-west. 
 
 Next to the two great leaders, on whom every eye was 
 fixed with eager anticipation, Nun marched with the 
 children of Ephraim. The sea-bottom on which they trod 
 was firm damp sand on which even the cattle could safely 
 cross as on a smooth highway, gently sloping towards the 
 sea. Ephraim, who was regarded by his elders as 
 the future head of his tribe, had, by his grandfather's 
 desire, undertaken to be careftd that the train of men and 
 beasts should not come to a standstill, and to this end he 
 had been entrusted with a chief's staff. The fishermen 
 who dwelt in the huts which clustered at the foot of Baal- 
 Zephon agreed with the Phoenician seamen in saying that 
 as soon as the moon had reached the zenith the waters 
 would rise again to their old place, so no delay could be 
 allowed. The lad gloried in the storm, and as his hair 
 blew about his face, and he fought against the wind while 
 he hurried to and fro in fulfillment of his tr.sk, this felt to 
 him as a foretaste of the great enterprise he had in his 
 mind. 
 
 Thus matters sped through the darkness which quickly 
 followed on the twilight. The strong smell of the fish left 
 on dry land was pleasanter to the youth, who now felt him- 
 self a man indeed, than the sweet fragrance of nard in 
 Kasana's tent. Once the thought of her flashed through 
 his mind ; but indeed, during these times, he had had no 
 time to think of her. His hands were quite full ; here the 
 seaweed must be cleared aside which a wave had left in 
 the way ; there the ram of a flock which hesitated to set 
 foot on the moist ground must be seized by the horns and 
 dragged forward, or the oxen and beasts of burthen driven 
 through a pool they were shy of. Many times he had to 
 lend a shoulder to lift a heavily laden cart of which the 
 wheels had sunk in the soft sand, and when, just as they 
 were starting on this strange and momentous journey, even 
 on the Egyptian shore, a dispute arose between two herds- 
 men as to which should have the lead, he promptly settled 
 by lot which was to go forward and which to follow. 
 Two little girls were crying and refusing to cross a pool 
 while their mother's arms were occupied with her infant; 
 he picked them' up with swift decision and carried them 
 
JOSHUA. 183 
 
 across the shallow lakelet ; and when a wheel came off one 
 of the wagons, he immediately had it dragged out of the 
 way, and by the light of the torches he made some of the 
 serfs who were least heavily loaded carry each a sack or a 
 bale, nay, and even the pieces of the broken vehicle. He 
 had comforting words for weeping women and children, 
 and if the flare of a torch showed him the face of some 
 youth of his own age, whose aid he hoped to secure for 
 liberating Joshua, he hinted to him in a few spirited words 
 that he had a bold deed in prospect which he proposed to 
 achieve with the help of his friend. 
 
 The incense bearers, who had hitherto led the way, on 
 this occasion closed the march, for the wind blowing from 
 the north-east would have driven the smoke in the face of 
 the people. They stood on the Egyptian shore, and soon 
 all the multitude had passed them by, excepting only the 
 strangers, and the lepers, who came last of all. The 
 foreigners were indeed a motley host, consisting of Asiatics 
 of Semitic blood, who were fleeing from the forced labor 
 and cruel punishments which were inflicted on them by 
 the law of Egypt ; of dealers, who had found buyers for 
 their wares among the thousands of wanderers, and even 
 of Shasoo shepherds who had been hindered from crossing 
 the frontier on their return home. With these Ephraim 
 had much trouble, for they refused to leave the dry land 
 until the lepers had been enjoined to remain at a greater 
 distance from them ; but even they were brought to sub- 
 mission by Ephraim, with the help of the chief of the tribe 
 of Benjamin, which marched last in front of them ; for he 
 warned them of the prophecy of the Phoenicians and fisher- 
 men, that the moon as it sank would bring the sea back 
 to its old bed. Finally, he persuaded the leader of the 
 lepers, an intelligent Egyptian, who had been a priest, 
 to maintain at least half the distance that was demanded. 
 
 Meanwhile the tempest continued to rage with increasing 
 fury ; the roar and long-drawn shrieks of the wind, mingling 
 with the thunder of the breakers and the duller moan of 
 the surf, drowned the shouts of command, the wailing of 
 the women, the bellowing and the bleating of the trem- 
 bling beasts and the whining of the dogs. Ephraim's voice 
 was audible only to those nearest to him ; many torches 
 were extinguished, and the rest kept alight with difficulty. 
 At length, when for one short space he had been walking 
 
184 JOSHUA. 
 
 behind the last of the lepers, going slowly to recover his 
 breath and get a little rest, he heard his name called from 
 the rear, and, turning round, beheld an old playmate who 
 was returning from spying the enemy, and who, seeing the 
 leader's staff in the lad's hand, shouted in his ear with 
 panting gasps that Pharaoh's chariots were coming on in 
 the van of the Egyptian host. He had left them by Piha- 
 hiroth, and if they had not waited to let the other troops 
 come up with them, they might at any moment overtake 
 the fugitives. Thereupon he again pressed forward to 
 reach the leaders of the multitude. Put Ephraim stood 
 still a moment in the middle of the way with his hand he.d 
 to his brow, and great anxiety came down on his soul. He 
 knew full well that the approaching army would overrun 
 the women and children whom he had just seen in all their 
 pathetic terror and helplessness, as a man treads down a 
 file of ants; and again, all his impulses urged him to 
 prayer, and from the depths of his oppressed heart the 
 imploring cry went up into the night — 
 
 " Eloi ! Eloi ! great God on high ! Thou knowest, for 
 I have told Thee, and Thine all-seeing eye must behold, in 
 spite of the blackness of the night, how sorely 1'hy people 
 are beset whom Thou hast promised to lead into a new 
 land. Remember Thy word, O Jehovah ! Be gracious 
 unto us, God Almighty ! Our foe is upon us with irresist- 
 ible might ! Stay his steps ! Save us ! Deliver the 
 women and the children ! Save us, and be merciful unto 
 us!" 
 
 As he prayed, he had fixed his eyes on high and had 
 espied the ruddy blaze of a fire on Baal-Zephon. This 
 had been lighted by the Phoenicians to propitiate the Baal 
 of the north wind in favor of the kindred race of Hebrews, 
 and against the hated Egyptian nation. 
 
 This was friendly ; but he put his trust in another God, 
 and as he glanced again at the vault of heaven, over which 
 the black rack raced and gathered and divided again, and 
 swept to and fro, he descried, between two parting clouds, 
 the silver beam of the full moon already at its meridian. 
 And fresh terrors came upon him, for he remembered the 
 predictions of the weather-wise seamen. If the flood 
 should at this moment return to its bed, his people were 
 doomed \ for, to the north of the gulf, where deep pools 
 lay amid rocks and slimy mud, there was no escape. If 
 
JOSHUA. 185 
 
 within an hour the waters should rise, the seed of Abra- 
 ham would cease from the face of the earth, as writing on 
 a wax tablet vanishes at the pressure of a warm hand. 
 
 But was not this people, doomed to destruction, the 
 same which the Lord had called to be His own ? And 
 could He give them into the hand of the enemy which was 
 His enemy also ? 
 
 No, a thousand times no ! 
 
 And the moon, which was to cause the disaster, had but 
 a short time since aided his flight and been his friend. He 
 could only hope and believe, and cling to his trust in 
 God. 
 
 And as yet nothing was lost, not a single soul. If it 
 came to the worst, the whole nation might not be de- 
 stroyed ; his own tribe, which led the way, least of all. By 
 this time many must have reached the further shore ; more, 
 perhaps, than he thought ; for the little bay was narrow, 
 and even the lepers, the last of the multitude, had already 
 gone some distance over the moist sand. 
 
 He lingered behind every one to listen for the coming 
 of the enemy's chariots. On the shore of the gulf heiaid 
 his ear to the ground ; and he could trust the sharpness 
 of his hearing, for in this attitude he had often detected 
 the distant tramp of beasts that had gone astray, or, when 
 out hunting, had heard the approach of a herd of antelopes 
 or gazelles. 
 
 He, being the last, was in the greatest danger, but what 
 matter for that ? How gladly would he have given his 
 young life to save the rest ! 
 
 Since he had carried a chief's staff he felt that he had 
 taken upon himself the duty of watching over his people ; 
 so he listened and listened, till at last he perceived a 
 scarce audible thrill in the earth and then a faint rumbling. 
 This was the foe ; this must be Pharaoh's chariots ; and 
 how swiftly were the proud steeds rushing on ! 
 
 He started to his feet as though a whip had stung him, 
 and flew onward to overtake the rest. 
 
 How oppressively sultry the air had become, in spite of 
 the raging gale which had extinguished so many of the 
 torches ! The clouds hid the moon, but the dancing fire 
 on the highest peak of Baal-Zephon shone broader and 
 brighter. The sparks which it cast up flew scurrying to 
 westward, for the wind was veering to the east. No 
 
iS6 JOSHUA. 
 
 sooner did he perceive this than he hastened back to the 
 youths who carried the censers behind the procession, and 
 commanded them, in breathless haste, to refill the copper 
 vessels, and take care that the vapor rose thick ; for he 
 said to himself, that the wind would blow it into the faces 
 of the horses and make them refractory, or stop them. 
 
 No means seemed to him too humble, every moment 
 gained was precious, and as soon as he had seen the smoke 
 from the censers was spreading in choking clouds over the 
 track left by the advancing multitude he ran on again, 
 warning the elders, as he came up with them, that Pha- 
 raoh's chariots were not far behind, and that the people 
 must hasten their march. Forthwith the hosts on foot, 
 the bearers, leaders and herdsmen, collected their strength 
 to proceed faster ; and although the wind was every 
 moment more decidedly against them, hindering their pro- 
 gress, they battled with it valiantly, and the fear of their 
 pursuers doubled their energies. 
 
 The lad was like a sheep-dog watching and driving the 
 flock, and the chiefs of the tribes looked kindly on him 
 wherever he was to be seen ; and as he made his way 
 among the marching host, fighting onwards against the 
 blast, the east wind brought a strange cry to his ears as 
 the reward of his efforts. The nearer he came to it the 
 louder it rose, and the more sure he was that it was a 
 shout of triumph and gladness, the first that had been 
 raised by Hebrew voices for many a long day. It revived 
 the youth like a cool draught after long thirst, and he 
 could not refrain from shouting aloud, and hailing those 
 behind with a cry of " Saved, saved ! " 
 
 Several of the tribes had already reached the eastern 
 shore of the gulf, and it was they who sent the shout of 
 joy which, witn the beacon fires they lighted along the 
 shore, gave the rear of the host fresh courage, and renewed 
 their flagging strength. By the light of the blaze he saw 
 the majestic figure of Moses on a hillock by the shore, 
 stretching out his staff towards the waters ; and this image 
 was stamped on his mind, as on that of every soul present, 
 great and small, more deeply than any other, and inflamed 
 the confidence in his heart. This man was verily the 
 friend of God, and so long as he should hold up his staff 
 the waves were spell-bound, and the Lord, by His servant, 
 forbade them to return ! 
 
JOSHUA. 187 
 
 Ephraim need no more appeal to the Most High ; this 
 was in the hands of His great and sublime servant. But 
 his own lesser duty of urging on one and another to the 
 goal he still must fulfill. 
 
 Back he flew to the lepers and the incense-bearers, and 
 to each division he shouted aloud : " Saved, saved ! Hasten 
 forward ! The rod of Moses holds the waters back ! Many 
 have reached the shore ! Praise the Lord ! Forward, 
 forward, and you too may join the song ! Fix your eyes 
 on those two red fires ! They were kindled by those who 
 are delivered; between them stands the servant of the 
 Lord uplifting his staff." 
 
 Then he again laid his ear to the ground, kneeling on 
 the wet sand, and he heard quite near the rattle of wheels 
 and the heavy tramp of horses. But even while he listened 
 the sound gradually ceased, and he heard nothing but the 
 howling of the storm and the ominous beating of the wild 
 waves, or a cry now and then borne down on the east 
 wind. 
 
 The chariots had reached the shore of the dry bed of 
 the gulf, and paused some little while, hesitating before 
 they started on so perilous a passage ; then suddenly the 
 Egyptian war cry rang out, and again he heard the rolling 
 wheels. It came on, more slowly than before, but yet 
 faster than the Israelites could march. 
 
 For the Egyptians, too, the way lay open ; but, though his 
 people had but a small start, he need no longer fear for them ; 
 all was not lost ; those who had reached the shore could 
 scatter themselves during the night among the mountain 
 solitudes, and ensconce themselves in spots where no 
 chariot nor horse could pursue them. Moses knew the 
 land in which he had long dwelt as a fugitive ; the only 
 thing now was to warn him of the approach of the foe. So 
 he charged a comrade of the tribe of Benjamin with the 
 message, and the distance was no longer very great, while 
 he himself still staid behind to watch the coming of the 
 host. Without stooping to listen, and in spite of the gale 
 which blew the sound from him, he could already hear the 
 clatter of the chariots and neighing of the horses. The 
 lepers, however, who likewise heard the noise, bewailed 
 and wept, fancying themselves already trodden under foot, 
 or swallowed by the cold dark waters ; for the way was 
 fast shrinking, and the sea was greedy to recover the 
 
1 88 JOSHUA. 
 
 ground it had abandoned. Man and beast were forced to 
 march in a narrow file, and while the hurrying troops 
 packed closer and closer they also stretched longer, and 
 precious moments were lost. Those who walked on the 
 right-hand side were wading through the encroaching 
 waves, in haste and terror, for already behind them they 
 could hear in the distance the Egyptian words of command. 
 
 But the enemy was evidently delayed, and Ephraim 
 easily understood what caused their diminished speed. 
 The ground grew softer at every step, and the narrow 
 wheels of the war chariots must sink deep in it, even to 
 the axles. 
 
 Under cover of the darkness he crept back as near as 
 he dared to the pursuing host, and he could hear now an 
 oath and now an angry order to use the lash more freely ; 
 and at last one driver saying to his neighbor : 
 
 " What cursed folly ! If they had suffered us to set out 
 before noon instead of waiting till the omens had been 
 read and Amon solemnly installed in the place of Baie, it 
 would have been an easy matter enough, and we should 
 have trapped them like a covey of quails. The high priest 
 has shown his valor on the field before this, and now he 
 gives up the leadership because a dying woman had touched 
 his heart ! " 
 
 " Siptah's mother ! " another put in. " Still, you are 
 right ; twenty princesses ought not to have turned him 
 from his duty to us. If he had staid by us we should not 
 have had to flay our jades alive, and at an hour, too, when 
 any prudent captain leaves his men to rest by the camp- 
 fires over their supper and their game of draughts. Go to 
 the horse's heads, man ! we are stuck in the sand again ! " 
 
 Thereupon a loud outcry arose behind the foremost 
 chariot, and Ephraim could hear another voice exclaiming : 
 " Get on there, if the horses die for it ! " 
 
 " If retreat were possible," said the chief captain of the 
 war chariots, a relative of Pharaoh's, " even now I would 
 turn about. But as it is we should all tumble over each 
 other. So forward, cost what it may ! We are close on 
 their heels. Halt ! Halt ! Curses on that pungent smoke ! 
 Ah ! wait, only wait, you dogs ! As soon as the road opens 
 out a little we will get round you, and may the gods shorten 
 my life by a day for every soul I leave alive ! Another 
 torch out ! I cannot see my hand before my face. A 
 
JOSHUA. 189 
 
 beggar's stick would be more to the purpose than a com- 
 mander's staff." 
 
 " And a gallows' rope about our necks instead of a gold 
 chain," cried another. " If only the moon would come 
 out ! It was because the horoscope promised that it would 
 shine full from evening till dawn that I voted for the late 
 march, turning night into day. If only it were not so 
 dark I " 
 
 But the sentence remained unfinished, for a blast, 
 rushing down from the south-eastern gorges of Baal-Zephon 
 like a roaring beast of prey, swept over the speakers, and 
 a leaping wave wetted Ephraim through and through. He 
 shook back his hair and dried his eyes as he recovered his 
 breath ; but behind a loud cry of terror went up from the 
 Egyptians, for the surge that had buc drenched him had 
 swept the foremost chariot into the sea. At this the lad 
 began to be alarmed for his people, and hefbw forward; 
 but as he started a flash of lightning showed him the gulf, 
 the mountain, and the shore. The thunder did not 
 immediately follow, but the storm now came nearer ; the 
 lightnings, instead of cutting zigzag across the sky, flared 
 in broad sheets through the darkness, and before they died 
 out the deafening crack of the thunder echoed among the 
 bare crags of the mountain-cliffs, and rolled in deep, angry 
 waves of sound to the shore and the head of the bay. Sea 
 and land, man and beast, all was flooded with the dazzling 
 glare each time the destroying clouds discharged their 
 bolts ; the surging waves and the air above them gleamed 
 in sulphurous yellow, through which the lightning blazed as 
 through an olive-tinted glass wall. Now, too, Ephraim 
 thought he discerned that the heaviest clouds were coming 
 up from the south and not from the north ; and presently, 
 by the lightning's gleam, he saw that behind him, here a 
 refractory team were plunging into the waves, there one 
 chariot was overturning another, and beyond these again 
 several were locked together to the destruction of the 
 drivers and men at arms, while tney checked the progress 
 of those which followed. 
 
 Still, on the whole, the enemy was advancing, and the 
 space dividing the fugitives from the pursuers grew no 
 wider. However, the confusion which prevailed among 
 the Egyptians was by this time so great that the cries of 
 terror of the fighting men and the encouraging shouts of 
 
190 JOSHUA. 
 
 the drivers waxed louder and louder, in the intervals 
 between the maddening roar of the thunder. But, black 
 as were the storm clouds to the south, fiercely as the wind 
 raged, the darkened heavens shed no water, and, though 
 the pilgrims were wet, it was not with rain, but with the 
 sparkling waves which darted higher and higher every 
 moment, washing up further and further over the dry sand 
 in the bay. The path was narrowing, the passing of the 
 multitude was at an end. The blaze of the beacons still 
 guided the frightened rear to the hoped-for goal, remind- 
 ing them that there stood Moses with the staff lent him by 
 God. Every step brought them nearer. 
 
 Presently a shout of triumph proclaimed that the tribe 
 of Benjamin had reached the shore, though they waded 
 through the foaming fringe of waters for some little dis- 
 tance. It had cost them unheard-of efforts to save the 
 cattle from the rising tide, to drag on the loaded carts, and 
 keep the flocks together ; but now they all stood in safety 
 in dry land. Only the strangers and lepers remained to 
 be rescued. The lepers, indeed, had not .flocks nor herds, 
 but the strangers had many, and the storm so terrified the 
 people, as well as the cattle, that they dared not plunge 
 into the water, which was now ankle deep. Ephraim, how- 
 ever, reached the land, and called to the herdsmen from 
 the shore to follow where he had passed, and under his 
 guidance they drove the herds forward. This was success- 
 ful \ the last man, and the last head of cattle, reached the 
 land of safety under the raging storm, and amid loud 
 shouts of joy. The lepers were forced to wade through 
 waves up to their knees and even to their girdles, and before 
 they had landed the gates of heaven were opened and the 
 rain fell in torrents. But they, too, were safe, and though 
 many a mother, who had been carrying her little one in her 
 arms or on her shoulder, fell on her knees on the shore ; 
 though many a hapless wretch who had been helping his 
 sturdier fellow-sufferers to drag a cart through the yielding 
 sands, or wade through the surf with a litter on his back, 
 felt his head throb with fever; still, they, too, had escaped 
 destruction. 
 
 They were to await further orders beyond a grove of 
 palms which stood on some rising ground about a group 
 of wells not far from the shore. The tribes had gone 
 further inland, to proceed on their way at a given signal ; 
 
yo's'ffua. 191 
 
 this was to take them m a south-easterly direction into the 
 mountain, where inhospitable rocks prohibited any pursuit 
 by a regular army or war chariots. 
 
 Hur had gathered his men about him, and they stood 
 armed with spears, slings, and short swords, ready to fall 
 on the foe who might venture to set foot on land. Men 
 and horses should be cut down and the chariots piled into 
 a high barrier, so as to erect a difficult obstacle in the way 
 of their pursuers. The beacons on the shore were so 
 diligently fed and screened, that neither the rain nor the 
 blast would extinguish them. They were to light the 
 herdsmen who were prepared to attack the chariots, and 
 old Nun, Hur and Ephraim stood at their head. But it 
 was in vain that they waited for the pursuers, and when 
 the youth was the first to see, by the glare of the beacon- 
 fires, that the way by which the fugitives had come was 
 now one with the broad level of the sea, and that the smoke 
 was driving to the north instead of the south-west — it was 
 about the hour of the first morning watch — a shout of 
 triumph burst from breasts overflowing with thankfulness 
 and joy : " Look at the flames ! The wind has changed ; 
 the sea is being carried northwards ! The waters have 
 swallowed up Pharaoh's host ! " 
 
 At this there was silence for a while in the multitude, 
 and then, suddenly, Nun's loud voice was heard : " He is 
 right, my children ! Vain is the strength of man ! O Lord 
 God ! How terrible and fearful are Thy judgments on 
 Thy foes ! " 
 
 Here he was interrupted by a loud outcry. But by the 
 wells, where Moses, greatly exhausted, was leaning 
 against a palm-tree with Aaron and many others about 
 him, the fact which Ephraim had first discerned was now 
 observed by the rest ; the glad and terrible tidings, 
 incredible but true, flew from mouth to mouth, and each 
 minute confirmed their certainty. Every eye glanced sky- 
 wards ; the black clouds were steadily sailing away to the 
 northward. The rain was ceasing ; instead of the angry 
 flashes and roar of thunder, a few pale gleams lighted up the 
 isthmus and the northern lakes, and to the south the sky 
 was clearing. At last the low moon looked out between 
 the banks of cloud ; its peaceful ray silvered the tall flanks 
 of Baal-Zephon and the shores of the gulf, now bathed once 
 more in dashing waves. The roaring and shrieking blast 
 
19* JOSHUA. 
 
 sank to a murmuring breeze from the south, and the waters, 
 which had been as a raging monster, besieging the rocks, 
 now lay quivering with broken strength at the stony base 
 of the mountain. 
 
 The sea spread a shroud, dark for a time, over those 
 hundreds of corpses ; but the pale moon, ere it set, took 
 care that the watery grave of a king and so many great 
 personages should not lack a splendid pall. His radiance 
 poured down on the waves that hid them, decking them 
 with a glorious embroidery of diamonds in silver setting. 
 Whilst the east grew bright and the sky was red with 
 dawn the tents were pitched ; yet there was little time for 
 a hasty morsel. Shortly after sunrise the chief called the 
 wandering people together, and as soon as they had 
 assembled at the springs Miriam swung the tambourine, 
 shook the circle of bells, and struck the calf-skin till they 
 sounded far and wide, and as she paced forth with a light 
 step, the women and maidens followed her, keeping rhyth- 
 mical time with the dance ; and she sang : 
 
 " I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed glori- 
 ously ; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the 
 sea. 
 
 " The Lord is my strength and song, and he is become 
 my salvation : he is my God, and I will prepare him an 
 habitation ; my father's God, and I will exalt him. 
 
 " Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath he cast into the 
 sea : his chosen captains also are drowned in the Red Sea. 
 
 " The depths have covered them : they sank into the bot- 
 tom as a stone. 
 
 " Thy right hand, O Lord, is become glorious in power : 
 thy right hand, O Lord, hath dashed in pieces the enemy. 
 
 " And in the greatness of thine excellency thou hast over- 
 thrown them that rose up against thee : thou sentest forth 
 thy wrath which consumed them as stubble. 
 
 " And with the blast of thy nostrils the waters were gath- 
 ered together, the floods stood upright as an heap, and the 
 depths were congealed in the heart of the sea. 
 
 " The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will 
 divide the spoil; my lust shall be satisfied upon them; 
 I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them. 
 
 " Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them ; 
 they sank as lead in the mighty waters. 
 
 " Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods ? 
 
JOSHUA. 193 
 
 " Who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, 
 doing wonders ? 
 
 " Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou 
 hast redeemed : thou hast guided them in thy strength 
 unto thy holy habitation." 
 
 Men and women alike joined in when she repeated the 
 cry : " I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed 
 gloriously ; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into 
 the sea." 
 
 This song and this solemn hour were never forgotten by 
 the Israelites ; and each one was full of his God, and of 
 glad, thankful hope for happier days. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 The song of praise had died away and the storm had 
 long since ceased ; yet the morning sky, which had been 
 red at dawn, was again covered with grey clouds, and a 
 strong wind still blew from the south-west disturbing the 
 lake, and shaking and rocking the crowns of palms which 
 stood by the wells. 
 
 The rescued people had extolled the Most High, and even 
 the coldest and most perverse had joined in Miriam's 
 hymn of praise, but, as the procession of dancers approached 
 the sea, many would have gladly left the ranks and have 
 hastened to the strand where many things attracted them. 
 Hundreds had now betaken themselves to the shore, where 
 the waves like generous robbers disgorged and washed up 
 on to the sand that which they had engulfed during the 
 night. 
 
 Nor did the women even allow the wind to hinder them, 
 for covetousness and revenge, the most powerful instincts 
 in the human breast, drew them to the shore. 
 
 Some new object appeared every moment to excite their 
 greed ; for here lay the corpse of a warrior, and there his 
 overthrown chariot in the sand. From this, if it had been 
 the possession of a great man, they tore the silver or golden 
 ornaments : from the owner they took his short sword or 
 battle-axe out of his girdle, and men and women of the 
 common class, slaves and slave women of the Hebrews, 
 and the strangers, robbed the bodies of their clasps and 
 
 T 3 
 
194 JOSHUA. 
 
 bracelets, which were of precious metal, or tore the rings 
 from the swollen fingers of the drowned. 
 
 The ravens which had followed the wanderers, and which 
 had disappeared during the storm, now returned, and were 
 striving, screeching against the wind, at least to maintain a 
 place on the booty, the scent of which had attracted them. 
 
 But far greedier than they, were the dregs of the wan- 
 dering host, and when the sea threw a costly article on 
 shore a wild cry was raised, and hard blows exchanged. 
 The leaders themselves kept back, for they considered 
 that the Hebrews had a right to the spoil; and if one of 
 them tried to prevent gross covetousness the people re- 
 fused to obey him. 
 
 What the Egyptians had so lately brought upon them 
 was so dreadful that it never entered the minds of the best 
 of them to restrain their thirst for revenge. Moreover, grey- 
 bearded men of high position, and women and mothers, 
 whose appearance bespoke a kindly disposition, drove 
 back the few unfortunates who had succeeded in reaching 
 the strand on the wreckage of the war-chariots and bag- 
 gage-wagons. With shepherds' crooks and travelers' 
 staves, knives and axes, or by throwing stones and spiteful 
 words, they forced them to release their hold on the float- 
 ing wood ; and the few who were still on land were driven 
 by the furious mob back into the sea which had spared 
 them in vain. 
 
 Their wrath was so great, and revenge such a sacred 
 duty, that none dreamed of the respect, compassion and 
 consideration due to misfortune ; not a- word that could 
 hint of magnanimity or pity, or even of the profit that 
 might be gained by saving the rescued to be slaves, or as 
 prisoners of war to be ransomed. 
 
 " Death to the arch-enemy ! " — " Destruction fall on 
 them!" — "Away with them!" — "Give them as food to 
 the fishes ! " — " You drove us and our children into the 
 sea, away with you into the salt waves ! " 
 
 These were the cries that were raised on every side and 
 which no one checked, not even Miriam and Ephraim, 
 who likewise had gone down to the shore to witness the 
 tragedy that was being enacted there. 
 
 Though the maiden was now the wife of Hur, her de- 
 meanor and character had been very little altered by her 
 marriage. The fate of the people and her relations with 
 
JOSHUA. 1 95 
 
 her God, whose prophetess she felt she was, were still her 
 highest thought ; and now that all she had hoped and 
 prayed for was being fulfilled, now that she had given 
 expression to the feelings of the faithful in song, march- 
 ing in front of the thankful multitude, she considered she 
 attained the summit of her existence. 
 
 Ephraim first had reminded her of Joshua, and while 
 she spoke with him of the prisoner she walked proudly 
 along like a queen, and answering the greetings of the 
 people with majestic dignity. Her eyes sparkled with 
 happiness, and her face wore only for a few minutes an 
 expression of pity when the youth told her of the hard- 
 ships he had endured with his uncle. Of course she still 
 remembered the man she had loved, but he was no longer 
 essential to the high aim of her life. 
 
 Ephraim had just mentioned the lovely Egyptian woman 
 who loved his uncle, and at whose petition the chains had 
 been taken off the prisoners, when a loud cry was raised 
 on a part of the shore where a great crowd had collected. 
 
 Howls of rage and cries of joy went up together, obviously 
 caused by the fact that the sea had thrown up something 
 particularly valuable on land. Curiosity attracted them 
 both to the spot ; and as Miriam's proud dignity caused 
 the people to stand aside, she soon caught sight of the body 
 of a traveling chariot which had lost its wheels, and of its 
 pitiable contents. The linen canopy which had screened 
 it was torn away, and lying on its floor were two elderly 
 Egyptian women ; a third, much younger, lay against the 
 back seat of this singular vehicle, which had thus become a 
 boat. The first two lay dead in the water that covered 
 the bottom of the carriage, and several Hebrew women 
 were in the act of tearing off the costly ornaments from 
 the throat and arms of one of them. The younger woman 
 had escaped death by a wonderful chance, and now she 
 was offering her very precious jewels to the Hebrew 
 women. At the same time, with pale, quivering lips and 
 slender, half-benumbed hands, she was promising the 
 robbers, in a soft, harmonious voice, to give them all she 
 had, and a handsome reward in money as well, if they 
 would spare her life. She was still so young, and she had 
 been kind, very kind, to a Hebrew. If they would but 
 hear her. This petition sounded affecting, though it was 
 interrupted so frequently with curses and groans that little 
 
196 JOSHUA. 
 
 of it was audible. Just as Miriam and Ephraim reached 
 the shore she screamed aloud, for a brutal woman tore the 
 gold snake from her ear. The Egyptian girl's cry of 
 anguish struck the youth like a sword thrust, and the 
 color left his face as he recognized Kasana's voice. 
 
 The corpses by her were those of her nurse and of 
 Baie's wife. 
 
 Ephraim, almost beside himself, thrust aside the men 
 who separated him from the victim on one side and 
 hastened towards the remains of the chariot; sprang into 
 the sand bank at the foot of which the vehicle was 
 stranded, and cried, with burning cheeks and impetuous 
 passion : 
 
 " Back ! Woe to those who touch her ! " 
 
 But a Hebrew woman, the wife of a brickmaker, whose 
 child had died in frightful convulsions on the journey 
 through the sea, had already snatched the dagger from 
 Kasana's girdle and had stabbed her in the back, with 
 the cry : " That's for my little Ruth ! Wretch ! " 
 
 She raised the bloody poignard for a second blow; but 
 before she could strike her enemy again, Ephraim rushed 
 between them and wrenched away the knife. Then, stand- 
 ing in front of the hapless creature, he shouted in loud 
 menace : " Murderers and thieves ! If one of you dares 
 to touch her, his blood shall mingle with that of this 
 woman ! " With these words he fell on his knees by the side 
 of the bleeding victim, and, finding that she had lost con- 
 sciousness, he lifted her in his arms, and carried her to 
 Miriam. 
 
 The startled plunderers for a few minutes suffered him 
 to do as he would, but before he had gained his end, a cry 
 was raised of : " Vengeance, vengeance ! We found the 
 woman, and the body is ours alone." " How dare the 
 haughty Ephraimite call us robbers and murderers ? " 
 " When there is a chance of shedding Egyptian blood, it 
 shall flow ! " The Lord our God spares not, nor do we ! " 
 « Seize him ! " " Seize the girl ! " 
 
 But the lad paid no heed to this outbreak of rage till Ka- 
 sana's head was resting on Miriam's bosom, where she was 
 sitting on a sandnili near at hand, and then, as the angry 
 crowd rushed uron him, the women outstripping the men, he 
 once more flourished his dagger, crying : " Back ! Hold off ! 
 I tell you once more. If there are any men here of 
 
JOSHUA. 197 
 
 Ephraim or Judah, let them come to my side, or to Miri- 
 am's, the wife of their chief ! Well done, my brethren, and 
 woe to him who lays a hand on me ! Vengeance, do you 
 say ? Are you not avenged by that hyaena which has 
 murdered this poor defenceless creature ? Your victim's 
 jewels ? Well, well ; they are yours, and I will give you 
 my own into the bargain, so long as you leave the wife of 
 Hur free to care for the dying woman ! " 
 
 He bent over Kasana, took from her person all she had 
 about her of pins or rings, and placed them in the greedy 
 hands stretched out to receive them. Then he took the 
 broad gold band from his own arm, held it up, and cried : 
 " This is the promised ransom. Go back quietly and leave 
 this woman to Miriam, and you shall have it to share 
 among you. If you insist on blood, come on — but then, 
 I keep the bracelet ! " 
 
 These words did not fail in their effect. The angry 
 women looked first at the heavy, broad gold band, and 
 then at the splendid youth, and the men of Judah and 
 Ephraim who had rallied round him ; and then gazed 
 inquiringly at each other. At last the wife of a foreign 
 trader cried out : " Give us the gold, and we will leave 
 the wounded darling to the chiefs son ! " 
 
 The rest agreed to this decision, although the furious 
 brickmaker's wife, who meant to have done a deed pleas- 
 ing in the eyes of her god by avenging her child, and had, 
 in consequence, been accused as a murderess, still threat- 
 ened Ephraim with frenzied gestures till she was dragged 
 away to the shore by the crowd who hoped to find fresh 
 booty there. 
 
 Through all the tumult Miriam, without a qualm of fear, 
 had examined and bound up Kasana's wounds with a skill- 
 ful hand. The dagger, a gift in jest from Prince Siptah, 
 that his fair one might not go forth to battle unarmed, 
 had inflicted a deep stab under one shoulder, and she had 
 lost so much blood that the feeble flicker of life seemed to 
 die out at every breath. But she still lived, and she was 
 carried into Nun's tent, as being the nearest at hand. 
 
 The old chief had just been giving out weapons to the 
 herdsmen and youths gathered together by his grandson 
 to go forth to liberate his beloved son, and had promised 
 himself to join the expedition, when the melancholy party 
 reached the tent. If Kasana had admired the noble 
 
198 JOSHUA. 
 
 old man, so had Hur felt very kindly towards Hornecht's 
 lovely daughter in the by-gone years at Tanis. They had 
 never met without she giving him some pretty greeting, 
 and he would reply to her : " The Lord bless thee, child 1 " 
 or, " A happy day for an old man when he meets so sweet 
 a maid ! " Many years ago, while she still wore the curls 
 of a very young girl, he had even given her a lamb with 
 especially silky, snow-white wool, after he had concluded 
 a bargain with her father, exchanging some corn from 
 Hornecht's land for steers of his own famous breed. And 
 all his son had ever told him of Kasana had tended to en- 
 hance his regard for her. She seemed in his eyes the most 
 lovable of all the maidens of Tanis, and if she had been the 
 child of Hebrew parents it would have rejoiced him to see 
 her married to his son. 
 
 To find his favorite again in so pitiable a plight was so 
 great a grief to the old man that the tears ran down on his 
 snowy beard, and his voice shook when he saw the blood- 
 stained bandage about her shoulder. When she was laid 
 on his couch, and Nun had placed his medicine chest at 
 the prophetess' service, Miriam desired the men to leave 
 her alone with the sufferer ; and when she called them back 
 into the tent, she had revived Kasana with some drug and 
 bound her wound with greater care. With her hair 
 smoothly arranged and the blood all washed away, she lay 
 between fresh linen sheets like a sleeping child, hardly 
 looking as if she had attained woman's estate. And she 
 still breathed, though the blood had not returned to her 
 lips or cheeks, and it was not till she had again swallowed 
 the mixture which Miriam had prepared for her that she 
 opened her eyes. 
 
 At the foot of the bed stood the old man and his grand- 
 son, and each would fain have asked the other how it came 
 to pass that be could not refrain his tears as he looked into 
 the face of this stranger. 
 
 The conviction which Ephraim had so unexpectedly 
 gained, that Kasana was base and false-hearted, had revolted 
 him, and frightened him back into the right way which he 
 had left. Nevertheless, he had kept all he had overheard 
 in the tent locked in his own heart, and when he had told 
 his grandfather and Miriam that Kasana had interceded 
 kindly for the prisoners, and both had desired to learn 
 more from him, he had felt as a father might who had 
 
JOSHUA. I99 
 
 witnessed the crime of a beloved son, and not a word of 
 the horrors he had heard passed his lips. Now, he was 
 glad he had kept silence : for in spite of all he had seen 
 and heard, this pure and lovely creature was surely incap- 
 able of anything dishonorable. 
 
 Old Nun had never ceased to think of her as the sweet 
 child he had known so well, the apple of his eye and 
 joy of his heart. He looked down on the quivering fea- 
 tures with tender pity, and when at length she opened her 
 eyes, he smiled at her with fatherly affection. The light 
 in her eyes showed that she, too, at once recognized him 
 and Ephraim, but when she tried to nod her head to them 
 she was too weak. Still, her expressive face confessed 
 her surprise and pleasure ; and when Miriam, for the 
 third time, offered her the draught, and moistened her 
 brow with some strong essence, she looked from one to 
 another with her large eyes, and seeing their curious gaze 
 she was able to say in a low voice : " These wounds ache 
 
 so, and death Shall I die ? " They glanced inquiringly 
 
 at each other, and the men would very gla'dly have con- 
 cealed the dreadful truth, but she went on : " Oh, let me 
 know ; tell me the truth, I pray you ! " 
 
 And Miriam, who was kneeling on the ground by her 
 side, found courage to reply : " Yes, poor, young thing, 
 the wound is deep ; but all my art may do to save you 
 shall be done, to preserve your life as long as possible." 
 
 The words were spoken kindly and compassionately, and 
 yet the prophetess' deep voice seemed to jar on Kasana's 
 ear; her lips curled pitifully while Miriam spoke, and 
 when she ceased the sufferer closed her eyes and large 
 tears flowed down her cheeks. 
 
 Deep and anxious silence reigned till she opened her 
 eyes once more, and fixing them sadly on Miriam's face 
 asked, as if in amazement at something strange, " You, a 
 woman, are learned in the leech's art ? " 
 
 To which Miriam replied : " My God hath bidden me to 
 care for the sufferers among my people." 
 
 At this the dying woman's eyes sparkled uneasily, and 
 she exclaimed in a stronger voice, indeed with a vigor 
 which surprised her hearers : " You are Miriam, the 
 woman who sent for Joshua to go to her ; " and when 
 Miriam replied unhesitatingly and simply : " As you say," 
 Kasana went on : " And you are, indeed, of great and 
 
200 JOSHUA. 
 
 majestic beauty, and must be capable of great things ! 
 He obeyed your call, and you — you could nevertheless 
 marry another?" 
 
 And again the prophetess answered, but in a gloomier 
 tone : " As you say." 
 
 Then the dying woman closed her eyes again, and a 
 strange covert smile parted her lips. 
 
 But this was not? for long ; she became uneasy and rest- 
 less. The fingers of her little hands, her lips, :ven her 
 eyebrows, were never still, and her smooth narrow brow 
 was furrowed as though she had something weighing on 
 her brain. At length the trouble which disturbed her 
 peace found utterance, and she said in quavering accents : 
 
 " You are Ephraim, whom he loved as a son, and you 
 are Nun, the old man his father. There you stand, and 
 
 you will live, while I Oh, and it is so hard to leave the 
 
 light of day. Anubis will lead me before the judgment 
 
 seat of Osiris, my heart will be weighed, and then " 
 
 She shuddered violently, opening and closing her trem- 
 bling hands; but she soon recovered herself, and began to 
 speak once more. But Miriam positively forbade her as 
 it must hasten the end. 
 
 At this Kasana collected all her strength and exclaimed 
 quickly, and as loudly as she could, glancing at Miriam 
 from top to toe : " So you would hinder me from doing 
 what I must do ? You ! " There was an accent of con- 
 tempt in her tone ; but she no doubt felt that she must 
 husband her strength, for she went on more calmly, and 
 as if speaking to herself : " But I cannot depart thus — 
 not thus ! How it happened — why I did it all — I must 
 confess ; and I will not complain if only he may know 
 how it came to pass. Oh, Nun, good old Nun, who gave 
 me a lamb when I was yet but a child — I loved it so — 
 and you, Ephraim, my boy, I will tell you everything." 
 
 A painful cough here checked her utterance ; as soon 
 as she had recovered her breath she turned to Miriam 
 again and went on, in a voice so full of bitter aversion 
 that it startled those who knew her kindly nature : " It is 
 you — you, tall woman with a man's voice, and the learning 
 of a leech — you who beguiled him from Tanis, and from 
 me. He went and came and did your bidding. And you 
 — you became another man's wife — it must have been 
 after his coming; yes — for when Ephraim brought your 
 
JOSHUA. 201 
 
 message he spoke of you as a maiden. Whether it was a 
 grief to Joshua I know not. But another thing I know, 
 and that is that I have somewhat to confess before it is too 
 late. And none may hear it but those who love him, and 
 I — do you hear ? — I love him more than all else on earth ! 
 You ! you have a husband, and a God whose bidding 
 you zealously obey — as you yourself have said. What is 
 Joshua to you ? I beg you to leave us. Very few have I 
 met in my life to whom I could not feel kindly, but you I 
 — I cannot love, I know not why, — and if you remain near 
 me I cannot speak — and I must — and it hurts me so to 
 speak ! But before you go — you are a physician — tell me 
 one thing : I have so many things to say to him before I 
 die — will it kill me if I speak ? " 
 
 And again the prophetess found no reply but her brief, 
 " As you say," and her tone was one of stern warning. 
 
 Hesitating between the duty she owed to the sufferer as 
 her physician, and her desire not to contravene the wishes 
 of a dying creature, she glanced at old Nun, and reading 
 in his face a command to yield to Kasana's wish she bent 
 her head and quitted the tent. But as she stood outside 
 the poor soul's bitter words come home to her, and spoilt 
 the day that had begun so gloriously, aye, and many an 
 hour after ; and to the last she could never explain to her- 
 self how it was that in the presence of that hapless, dying 
 woman a feeling had possessed her that she was the 
 smaller, the inferior creature. 
 
 As soon as Kasana found herself alone with the grand- 
 father and grandson, and Ephraim had fallen on his knees 
 by the bedside, while the old man, after kissing her brow, 
 stood with his hoary head bent to hear her low tones, she 
 began again : 
 
 " Now I am easier. That tall woman — her knit black 
 brows — her eyes as dark as night — they are fiery indeed, 
 and yet so cold . . . that woman . . . Did Joshua love her, 
 father? Tell me. I do not ask out of idle curiosity." 
 
 " He honored her," replied the old man in some trouble, 
 " as do all our people. She is of a lofty spirit, and our God 
 vouchsafes to her to hear His voice. But you, sweet one, 
 were dear to him even as a child ; that I know." 
 
 A slight shudder ran through her frame. For a short 
 space she closed her eyes and a blissful smile lighted up 
 her face. This lasted so long that Nuil thought that 
 
202 . JOSHUA. 
 
 death had already claimed her, and he leaned over her, 
 listening to her breathing, with the draught in his hand. 
 She did not seem to see him ; but when at last she looked 
 up again, she put out her hand for the cup, drank from it, 
 and then went on : " I felt as though he were there before 
 me — Joshua himself. He wore his warrior's dress, as he 
 did the first time he took me on his arm. I was but a 
 little child, and I was afraid of him because he looked so 
 grave, and my nurse had told me that he had slain many 
 enemies. But I was happy when he came, and when he 
 went away I was sad. And years went on, and my love 
 for him grew as I grew. My young heart was so full of 
 him, so full . . . Yes, even when I was compelled to 
 marry another, and after I was a widow." The last words 
 were scarcely audible, and she rested a while before she 
 went on : " Joshua knows it well — only he does not know 
 how anxious I was when he was in the field, and how I 
 longed for him till he came home again. At last, at last, 
 he returned, and how glad I was to see him once more ! 
 But he himself! That woman — Ephraim told me — that 
 tall, proud woman bid him go to Pithom. Yet he came 
 back from thence, and then, O Nun. That was hardest 
 of all to bear — he refused my hand when my father offered 
 it That — ah, how it hurt me ! I can no more — give me 
 the cup again." 
 
 Her cheeks had colored slightly as she made this pain- 
 ful confession ; and the old man, perceiving how quickly 
 the efforts she was making were bringing her to the end, 
 begged her to be silent. But she insisted on making use 
 of what little time remained to her, and though a piercing 
 pain and tormenting short cough forced her to press her 
 hand to her bosom she went on : 
 
 " Then I hated him ; but not for long ; and I never 
 loved him more than when I went after the hapless 
 prisoner — you know, boy. And then came the dreadful, 
 horrible time, the shameful things — but he must know it 
 all that he may not despise me if he ever hears. I never 
 knew my mother, and there was no one to warn me . . . 
 Where shall I begin ? Prince Siptah — you know him, father 
 — the bad man who will soon be lord over Egypt. My father 
 is in a plot with him. Great gods ! I can speak no more ! " 
 
 Terror and despair were painted in her face 5 but 
 Ephraim broke in and confessed with tearful eyes and a 
 
JOSHUA. 203 
 
 trembling voice ail he had overheard by her tent that night, 
 and she confirmed it with assenting glances. When at 
 last he spoke of the high priest Baie's wife, whose body 
 had been thrown up on the strand by Kasana's side, she 
 interrupted him in a low voice, saying, " She devised it all. 
 She wanted her husband to be supreme in the land, and 
 govern even Pharaoh, for Siptah is no king's son." 
 
 " Aye," said the old man, only anxious to stop her 
 speaking and to help her to tell all she wished to make 
 known, " and as Baie raised him up, so can he overturn 
 him. He, even more surely than his predecessor, will be 
 the tool of the man who has made him king. I know 
 Aarsu, the Syrian, and, if I am not deceived, the time is 
 coming when he will aim at seizing the reins of power in 
 Egypt, torn as it will be by internal divisions, though he 
 and his mercenaries have so far helped others to snatch 
 them. But you, child, what prompted you to follow the 
 army and that profligate traitor ? " 
 
 Kasana's eyes gleamed more brightly again, for the 
 question led directly to the matter of which she desired to 
 speak, and she replied as clearly as her failing strength al- 
 lowed, " It was for your son's sake — for love of him — to 
 procure his release. Only the evening before I had re- 
 fused positively to go with Baie's wife. But when I had 
 seen Joshua once more by the well, and he — ah, he was 
 so kind at last, and kissed my brow ! And I saw him in 
 misery — alas, poor heart ! I saw the best of men doomed 
 to perish in disgrace and sickness. And when he went 
 onward with chains on his feet it suddenly struck me." 
 
 " Then, brave, foolish, misguided child that you are, you 
 determined to win the devotion of the future king in order 
 to secure the release of your friend, my son ? " 
 
 The dying woman smiled and said softly, " Yes, yes ; 
 for that and that alone. And I loathed the prince. And 
 the disgrace, the shame — horrible, horrible ! " 
 
 " So it was for my son's sake that you endured it all," 
 cried the old man interrupting her, and her hand which he 
 pressed to his lips was wet with his tears, while she turned 
 to Ephraim and sighed : " And I thought of this lad, too. 
 He is so young and the mines so terrible." 
 
 Again she shuddered. The boy covered her hand with 
 kisses while she looked tenderly in his face and his grand- 
 father's, and added : " Now all is well, and if the gods 
 grant him freedom " 
 
204 JOSHUA. 
 
 Here Ephraim broke in, " We are setting forth this very 
 day for the mines. I and my comrades and my grand- 
 father will drive his keepers to the four winds " 
 
 " And he shall learn from my own lips," said Nun, 
 " how truly Kasana loved him, and his whole life will be 
 too short to thank her for such a sacrifice." 
 
 His voice failed him. But every trace of trouble had 
 vanished from the dying woman's face, and she lay for 
 some time gazing upwards in silent contentment. But 
 then, by degrees, an anxious frown came on her brow, and 
 she softly gasped out : "It is well — yes, all is well — but 
 yet one thing. My body, unembalmed — with no holy 
 amulets " 
 
 And here Nun again interrupted her, saying : " As soon 
 as we have closed your eyes I will deliver it, safely 
 wrapped, to the Phoenician seaman who is close at hand, 
 that he may convey it to your father." 
 
 She tried to turn her head to thank him with a loving 
 glance ; but suddenly she clutched at her throat with both 
 hands, dark blood rose to her lips, a bright flame tinged 
 her cheeks and faded to dead white, and after a short and 
 painful struggle she sank back. Death had laid his hand 
 on the loving heart, and her face wore the look of a child's 
 whose mother has forgiven it some fault, and kissed it 
 before it fell asleep. 
 
 Nun closed her eyes, weeping as he did so ; Ephraim, 
 deeply moved, kissed the drooping lids ; and after a few 
 moments' silence the old man said : " I trouble myself 
 very little about the life beyond the grave, of which even 
 Moses knows nothing ; but one who lives as she has lived 
 must always survive in the faithful memory of those whom 
 she loved ; and she has done her part, it seems to me, to 
 attain immortality. We will dispose of her body according 
 to our promise, and then set forth to prove to him for 
 whom Kasana gave all she had to give, that we love him 
 no less well than the Egyptian woman." 
 
JOSHUA. 205 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 The prisoners were making their way but slowly to the 
 mines. Never in all his experience had the leader of the 
 gang known a worse journey through the desert, more 
 luckless in every way, or so beset with mishaps and hin- 
 drances. 
 
 One of his " moles," Ephraim, to wit, had made his 
 escape ; he had lost one of his faithful hounds ; and after 
 his gang had been terrified and drenched by such a storm 
 as scarcely befell once in five years in all that thirsty tract, 
 another overtook them on the following day — the same in 
 which Pharaoh and his host had perished — even more 
 violent and persistent than the first. The tempest had 
 stopped their march, and after this second deluge some of 
 his prisoners and men had sickened with fever from sleeping 
 on the wet ground in the open air. Even the Egyptian 
 asses, unaccustomed to the rain, had suffered from the 
 wetting, and the best had been left to die on the way. 
 
 At last they had been compelled to bury two of their 
 comrades in the sand, and three more were so ill that they 
 must be mounted on the asses that were left ; thus the 
 prisoners were forced to carry the provisions with which 
 the beasts had been laden. In all his twenty-five years' 
 experience such a thing had never before happened to 
 their guide, and he looked forward to severe reproof at 
 home. 
 
 All this had a bad effect on the man's temper, though he 
 was commonly regarded as the most lenient of his tribe, and 
 Joshua, as the accomplice of the audacious rascal whose 
 escape was the beginning of all these vexations, was the 
 chief victim of his wrath. Angry as he was, the leader 
 of the gang might perhaps have dealt more mercifully with 
 him if he had bewailed his lot like the man next behind 
 him, or cursed as loudly as his companion in chains, who 
 spent his breath in threats of a time coming when his 
 sister-in-law would be in attendance on Pharaoh, and she 
 would find some way to punish the man who had ill-treated 
 her dear sister's husband. 
 
aob JOSHUA. 
 
 But Joshua had made made up his mind to take all the 
 rough driver and his men could do to him with as cairn 
 submission as the scorching sun which had tortured him 
 many a time ere this during his marches across the desert, 
 under arms ; and his manly spirit and strong will helped 
 him to keep this resolution. When the driver loaded him 
 with a monstrous burthen, he collected all the strength of 
 his powerful muscles and tottered forward under it with- 
 out a rebellious word till his knees gave way ; and then 
 his tyrant would fly at him, snatch a few bales from off his 
 shoulders, and declare he knew all the wickedness of his 
 heart, and that all he hoped for was that he might have to 
 be left on the way and so bring his driver into further 
 trouble ; but he would not let his prisoners cheat him of 
 their lives when hands were needed in the mines. 
 
 Once the man inflicted a deep wound ; but he was 
 immediately most anxiously careful that it should be 
 healed ; gave him wine to strengthen him, and delayed the 
 caravan for half a day that he might rest. 
 
 He had not forgotten Prince Siptah's promise of a 
 splendid reward to the man who should bring him news of 
 his prisoner's death ; but he was an honest man, and it 
 was this very promise which prompted him to watch with 
 special care over Joshua's life ; for the consciousness of 
 having neglected his duty for any personal profit would 
 have spoiled his appetite for meat, drink and sleep, the 
 three blessings he most prized. Hence, though the 
 Hebrew had much to suffer, it was not beyond endurance ; 
 and it was a real pleasure to be able to lighten the woes of 
 his weaker comrades by exerting his own great strength. 
 
 He had resigned his fate to the God who had called him 
 to serve Him; but his service, he knew, was something 
 more than mere pious trust ; and day and night his mind 
 was set on flight. But the fetters which linked him to his 
 fellow- victim were so firmly riveted, and so carefully 
 examined and hammered night and morning, that any 
 attempt to escape must only have ended in more cruel 
 misery. 
 
 The prisoners were conducted first across a hilly country 
 and then towards a long range of mountains lying in front 
 of them, all they reached a desert tract where weather- 
 worn boulders of sandstone stood up at intervals from the 
 rocky ground. 
 
JOSHUA. 207 
 
 On the fifth evening the gang stopped to rest by a lofty- 
 mountain which nature seemed to have piled up out of flat 
 layers of stone ; and at sunrise, on the sixth morning, they 
 turned off down a valley leading to the mines. 
 
 They had overtaken no one since, on the first day, they 
 had come up with a messenger from the king's treasury. 
 They had, on the other hand, met several small caravans, 
 conveying malachite, turquoises and copper to Egypt, as 
 well as the green glass manufactured in the neighborhood 
 of the mines. 
 
 Among a party whom they met at the opening of the 
 gorge into which they diverged on this last day, were a 
 married couple, on their way homeward, having been 
 pardoned by the king. The driver pointed to them, to 
 raise the spirits of his exhausted " moles," but the sight of 
 them had quits an opposite effect ; for the man's unkempt 
 hair was already grey, though he was hardly past thirty, 
 his tall figure bent and haggard, and his bare back striped 
 with many scars and clotted blood, while his wife, who 
 had shared his fate, had gone blind. She sat huddled on 
 an ass in the brooding melancholy of mania ; and 
 although the prison gang, as they marched past, loudly 
 broke the silence of the desert, and her hearing was as 
 sharp as ever, she paid no heed to them, but stared un- 
 moved into vacancy. 
 
 The sight of these hapless wretches held up his own 
 hideous fate as clearly as a mirror before Joshua's eyes ; 
 for the first time he groaned aloud, and clasped his 
 hands over his face. This the driver noticed, and touched 
 by the horror of a man whose powers of endurance had 
 till now seemed indomitable, he cried to him : " But they 
 do not all return like this ; no indeed, not like this ! " 
 
 " Because they are even more utterly wretched," he 
 thought to himself, " but that poor fellow need not know 
 that. Next time I come this way I will remember to ask 
 for Joshua, for I shall be curious to know what will become 
 of such a bull of a man. The strongest and most deter- 
 mined often are the quickest to perish." 
 
 At this he flourished his whip over the heads of his gang 
 as if he were driving a team of horses, without touching 
 them, however. Then he pointed to a cloud of smoke 
 rising from behind a wall of rock on the right hand 
 and said • 
 
2o8 JOSHUA. 
 
 "There are the smelting furnaces ! We shall be in by 
 mid-day. There is no lack of fires here to cook our len- 
 tils, and a bit of sheep's flesh into the bargain ; for we are 
 keeping the kind god's birthday, the Son of Ra. Long 
 may he live ! Hail and good health to him !" 
 
 For half an hour longer they toiled along the dry bed of 
 a torrent, with high banks on each side ; after the storm a 
 roaring mountain stream had rushed down this gully to 
 the lower ground, and even now a few pools were exhaling 
 their moisture. When the melancholy train had made 
 their way round a steep shoulder of rock, on the top of 
 which stood a small Egyptian temple to Hathor and a con- 
 siderable number of grave-stones, they found themselves 
 close to a bend in the ravine which led to the gorge where 
 the mines lay. 
 
 Flags were waving from tall masts in front of the temple, 
 in honor of Pharaoh's birthday ; and when presently a 
 noise came up from the valley, usually so silent, of shouts, 
 ar>d tumult, and clatter, the driver expressed his opinion 
 that the high festival was being kept by the prisoners with 
 unwonted jollity, saying so to the other guards who had 
 paused to listen. 
 
 So they moved forward without delay ; but no man held 
 up his drooping head, for the noon-day sun was so relent- 
 lessly cruel, and the sides of the ravine, dazzling with the 
 glare, poured down such fierce heat, that it seemed as 
 though they were striving to outdo the smelting furnaces. 
 
 Though so near their journey's end the wanderers tot- 
 tered forward as if in sleep, and one alone held his breath 
 with excitement. As a war horse harnessed to a plough 
 arches his neck, and dilates his nostrils, while the fire 
 sparkles in his eye, so had Joshua drawn up his stooping 
 form in spite of the heavy sack across his shoulders, and 
 his flashing gaze turned to the spot whence the uproar 
 came which the driver supposed to be loud revelry. But 
 he, Joshua, knew better. He could never mistake the 
 sounds which he heard. It was the battle-cry of Egyptian 
 troops, the trumpet call to summon them to arms, the 
 clatter of weapons and shouting of hostile parties. 
 
 Ready at once for swift action, he addressed his comrade 
 in chains and whispered his commands : " The hour of 
 release is at hand. Keep your eyes open, but follow me 
 blindly." 
 
JOSHUA. 2og 
 
 At this the other, too, was greatly excited, and no sooner 
 had Joshua looked down the ravine than he said : " Now. 
 Be ready ! " 
 
 The first glance into the little gorge had revealed to him 
 a figure standing on the top of a cliff, and a noble head 
 framed in white hair. It was his father. He would have 
 known him among ten thousand, and from a much greater 
 distance. But he looked away from that beloved face for 
 a moment to glance at the driver of the gang who stood 
 still, startled and speechless ; and then, thinking that a 
 mutiny had broken out among the state-prisoners, with 
 quick presence of mind he cried in harsh accents to his 
 subordinates : 
 
 " Get behind our prisoners and kill any one who attempts 
 to escape." But hardly had the men done his bidding and 
 gone to the rear, when Joshua whispered to his companion : 
 " Now, down with him ! " 
 
 With these words the Hebrew, who, with his fellow cap- 
 tive, was at the head of the file, rushed on the driver, and 
 Joshua had seized his right arm and the other man his left, 
 before he was aware of it. 
 
 He was a stalwart fellow, and rage doubled his strength ; 
 he struggled wildly to free himself, but Joshua and his 
 comrade held him in a grip of iron. 
 
 One glance had been enough to show the captive war- 
 rior which way he must go to reach his own people. It 
 would have to pass a small force of Egyptian bowmen who 
 were shooting their arrows at the Hebrews on the opposite 
 side of the ravine ; but the enemy would not dare to turn 
 on them, for the sturdy form of the slave driver served to 
 screen them both, and he was easily recognizable by his 
 dress and weapons. " Hold up the chain with one hand," 
 said Joshua to his accomplice. " I can hold our living 
 shield. We must get up the shoulder of the hill crab- 
 fashion." 
 
 His companion obeyed, and when they came within 
 arrow-shot length of the foe they held their prisoner first 
 on one side, and then, walking backwards, between them- 
 selves and the Egyptians. Thus Joshua, shouting in ring- 
 ing tones : " The son of Nun is returning to his father 
 and his people ! " made his way, step by step, towards the 
 Hebrew fighting men. 
 
 None of the Egyptians who recognized the captain of the 
 
210 JOSHUA. 
 
 prison-gang had dared to let fly a shaft at the escaped 
 prisoners ; and now, from the top of the slope which the 
 fettered couple were climbing backwards, Joshua heard his 
 name called in joyful accents, and at the same moment 
 Ephraim and his company of youthful combatants came 
 flying down the hill to meet him. 
 
 To his astonishment the warrior saw in the hands of 
 every son of his people a large shield as of an Egyptian 
 foot-soldier, a sword, or a battle-axe. But many still wore 
 at their girdles the herdsman's sling and bag of pebbles. 
 
 Ephraim was their leader, and before he greeted his 
 uncle, he ranged his men in two ranks like a double wall 
 between Joshua and the enemy's archers. Not till then 
 did he give utterance to the joy of meeting ; and another 
 glad greeting followed his, for old Nun was safely led to 
 the wall of rock under cover of those large Egyptian 
 shields which the sea had cast on shore ; and then, under 
 shelter of the cliff, strong hands filed off the fetters which 
 bound Joshua and his comrade, while Ephraim, aided 
 by a few others, bound the driver captive. The unfortu- 
 nate officer had given up all resistance and let them do 
 what they would, passively resigned. Before they tied his 
 hands behind his back, he only begged to be allowed to 
 wipe his eyes, for the tears were coursing each other down 
 the stern man's cheeks and on to his grey beard ; tears of 
 vexation at finding himself outwitted and overpowered, 
 and unable to fulfill his duty. 
 
 The old Hebrew clasped his redeemed and only son to 
 his heart with passionate affection. Then, releasing him 
 from his embrace, he stepped back a few paces, and would 
 never have tired of feasting his eyes on Joshua, and of 
 hearing that, faithful to his God, he would henceforth 
 devote himself to the service of his people. 
 
 But it was not for long that they might allow themselves 
 to revel in the joy of this happy meeting ; the battle was 
 still to be won, and Nun, as a matter of course, transferred 
 his command to Joshua. 
 
 With thankful gladness, and yet not without a pang of 
 regret, Joshua heard of the end which had overtaken the 
 fine army among whose captains he had long been proud 
 to reckon himself; and he rejoiced to learn that another 
 company of armed shepherds had gone under the leader- 
 ship of Hur, Miriam's husband, to surprise the turquoise 
 
Joshua. 211 
 
 mines at Dophka, at about an hour's march further to the 
 south. If they were victorious they were to rejoin the 
 young men under Ephraim before sundown. 
 
 These ardent spirits were burning to fall upon the Egyp- 
 tians once more ; Joshua, who was prudent, and who had 
 reconnoitred the foe, had, indeed, no doubt that they 
 would succumb to the fierce herdsmen who far out- 
 numbered them. But he was anxious to avoid bloodshed 
 in this fight which was being waged for his sake, so he 
 desired Ephraim to cut him a plumy leaf from the nearest 
 palmtree, borrowed a shield, and went forward alone to 
 speak with the enemy, waving his symbol of peace. The 
 chief body of the Egyptians were guarding the entrance to 
 the mines, and, recognizing the token which invited a parley, 
 they desired their captain to meet Joshua. This officer 
 was nothing loth to grant the Hebrew an interview, but he 
 would first make himself acquainted with the contents of a 
 letter which had just been delivered to him, and which 
 must contain evil tidings, for that much could be gathered 
 from the messenger's demeanor, and from a few broken 
 but ominous words which he had murmured to his fellow 
 Egyptians. 
 
 While some of Pharaoh's soldiers fetched refreshment 
 for the exhausted and travel-stained runner, listening with 
 horror to the tidings he panted out in hoarse accents, the 
 officer read the letter. 
 
 His brow darkened, and when he had ended he clutched 
 the papyrus fiercely in his hand, for it announced nothing 
 less than the destruction of the army, the death of Pha- 
 raoh Menephtah, and, moreover, that his eldest surviving 
 son had been proclaimed and crowned as Seti the second ; 
 an attempt on the part of Prince Siptah to possess 
 himself of the throne having completely failed, this prince 
 had fled to the marsh-lands of the Delta, and the Syrian, 
 Aarsu, after deserting him and ranging himself on the side 
 of the new king, had been raised to the command of the 
 whole army of mercenaries. Baie, the high priest and 
 supreme judge, had been deprived of his offices by Seti II., 
 and banished from court. Those who had conspired with 
 Siptah were condemned, not to the copper mines, but to 
 the gold mines of Ethiopia. It was also reported that 
 several women attached to the family of the fugitive 
 usurper had been strangled, certainly his mother. Every 
 
212 yosiWA. 
 
 fighting-mall who could be spared from the mines was tc 
 return forthwith to Tanis, as there was need of men foi 
 the newly-constituted legions. 
 
 These tidings produced a great effect ; for, after Joshua 
 had communicated to the Egyptian captain the fact that 
 he, too, knew of the destruction of the Egyptian host, and 
 <.'\pected fresh reinforcements in a few hours, who had, 
 meanwhile, been sent to reduce Dophka, the Egyptian 
 surrendered to his imperious tone, and only sought favor- 
 able terms and leave to depart. He knew only too well 
 how weak was the forces in charge of the turquoise mines, 
 and he could look for no succor from head-quarters. 
 Besides this, the person of the envoy captivated his con- 
 fidence, so, after many excuses and threats, he confessed 
 himself satisfied with Joshua's permission to withdraw 
 the garrison unharmed, with their beasts of burthen and pro- 
 visions for the journey. This, to be sure, was not to be 
 granted till they had laid down their arms and shown the 
 Hebrews every entrance to the mines where prisoners 
 were working. 
 
 The young Hebrews proceeded forthwith to disarm 
 the Egyptians, who were more than twice their number, 
 and many a veteran's eye was moist, while many an one 
 broke his spear or nicked his arrows, cursing and swearing 
 the while ; and some of the older men who had formerly 
 served under Joshua, and now recognized him, raised their 
 fists and railed at him for a traitor. 
 
 It was always the refuse of the troops which was sent on 
 service in this wilderness ; most of the men were stamped 
 with traces of evil living, and their faces were hard and 
 cruel. On the banks of the Nile, those were carefully 
 chosen who made ruthless brutality to the helpless their 
 duty. 
 
 At last the mines were opened, and Joshua himselt seized 
 the miner's lamp and made his way into the sweltering 
 galleries where the state prisoners, naked and loaded with 
 fetters, were hewing out the copper ore. From a distance 
 he could hear the swallow-tailed picks hacking at the hard 
 rock. Then the miserable wailing of men and women in 
 torment fell on his ear, for barbarous drivers pursued 
 them into these depths and goaded the idlers to bestir 
 themselves. 
 
 This morning, as being Pharaoh's birthday, they had all 
 
JOSHUA. 213 
 
 been driven to the temple of Hathor, up on the cliff, to 
 pray for the king who had cast them into this uttermost 
 wretchedness ; and they would have enjoyed a respite 
 from labor till next morning if it had not been for the un- 
 expected arrival of the chief overseer which had compelled 
 them to return underground. Indeed, even the women 
 were all employed in digging, though, as a rule, their tasks 
 consisted only in crushing and sifting the ore which was 
 used in the manufacture of glass and of dye stuffs. 
 
 When the victims heard Joshua's footstep echoing from 
 the bare rock-wall, they feared lest some new torment 
 should be coming upon them, and their cries and lamen- 
 tations were heard on all sides. But the deliverer had 
 soon reached the first of the toilers, and the glad tidings, 
 that he had come to put an end to their wretched lot, were 
 soon repeated to the furthest depths of the caverns. Wild 
 shouts of joy filled the galleries long used to wailing and 
 tears ; but loud cries for help, gasping, groaning and a 
 death-rattle also fell on Joshua's ear, for one hot-headed 
 victim had turned on the driver of his gang and killed him 
 with a blow of his pick. His example fired the vengeance 
 of the others, and before they could be stopped the rest of 
 the overseers had met the same fate. Not without defend- 
 ing themselves, however, and many a prisoner lay dead by 
 the corpse of his tormentors. 
 
 In obedience to Joshua's call the liberated throng at 
 length made their way out to the light of day. Wild and 
 harsh indeed were their shouts, mingling with the clatter 
 of the chains they dragged behind them. And the most 
 hard-hearted among the Hebrews, when they saw this 
 troop of despairing wretches in the broad sunshine, shrank 
 from the sight. Many of these hapless creatures had, in 
 former times, enjoyed every earthly blessing in their own 
 homes, or in the king's palace ; had been loving fathers 
 and mothers ; had rejoiced in their power for good, and 
 had had their part in all the fruits which culture could 
 bestow on a gifted people ; and now their weak and blood- 
 shot eyes, though they glittered at first with the tears 
 brought into them by the sudden change from the night of 
 the caverns to the glare of the mid-day sun, presently 
 flashed with a wild and greedy gleam like those of starving 
 owls. 
 
 In their first bewilderment and consternation at the 
 
214 JOSHUA. 
 
 amazing change in their fortunes they tremulously struggled 
 for composure, and suffered the Hebrews, at Joshua's 
 bidding, to file off the fetters from their ankles ; but they 
 soon caught sight of the disarmed soldiers and overseers, 
 who were ranged under a wall of rock under the eye of 
 Ephraim and his followers, and a strange impulse came 
 over them. With a yell and a shriek for which there is no 
 name, and which no words could describe, they tore them- 
 selves away from the men who were trying to remove their 
 chains, and without a word or a sign of mutual agreement, 
 rushed with a common instinct, heedless of their metal 
 bonds, on the helpless wretches. Before the Hebrews 
 could stay them each fell on the one who had treated him 
 most cruelly ; and here a famished creature gripped the foe 
 who had been his master by the throat, while there a herd of 
 women, stripped of all clothing and horribly disfigured by 
 want and neglect, flew at the man who had most brutally 
 insulted, beaten and injured them, and wreaked their long- 
 repressed fury with tooth and nail. It was as though a 
 sudden flood of hatred had broken down the dam and was 
 ravening unchecked for its prey. 
 
 There was a frantic attack and defense, a fearful and 
 bloody struggle on the shifting red sandy soil, an ear- 
 splitting chorus of shrieks, wailing and yells ; indeed it 
 was hard to distinguish anything in the revolting medley 
 of men and women, which became more and more inex- 
 tricably tangled as it was aggravated on one side by the 
 wildest passions and a desire for revenge which was sheer 
 blood-thirstiness, and on the other by the dread of death 
 and strenuous instinct of self-defense. 
 
 Only a few of the prisoners had held back, and even 
 they shrieked encouragement to the rest, reviled the enemy 
 with excited vehemence, and shook their fists. The rage 
 with which the released victims now fell on their tormentors 
 was as unmeasured as the cruelty under which they had 
 suffered. 
 
 But it was Joshua who had disarmed the tyrants ; the}' 
 were therefore under his protection. He ordered his men 
 to separate the combatants, and if possible without blood- 
 shed ; this was no easy matter, and many a fresh deed of 
 horror was inevitable. At last it was done, and now it 
 could be seen how strangely passion had lent strength to 
 the most exhausted and wretched, for, though no weapons 
 
JOSHUA. 215 
 
 had been used in the struggle, not a few corpses lay on the 
 arena, and most of the guard l 1 and overseers were bleeding 
 from ugly wounds. 
 
 When peace once more reigned, Joshua demanded of the 
 captain of the little garrison a list of the prisoners in the 
 mines ; but he himself was wounded, and pointed to the 
 clerk of the works who had not been laid hands on. He 
 who had been their leech in case of need, and had always 
 treated them kindly, was a man of some age who had 
 known sorrow himself, and knowing what suffering means 
 had always been ready to alleviate it in others. 
 
 He very willingly read out the names of the captives, 
 among whom were several Hebrews, and after each had 
 answered to the call, most of them expressed themselves 
 ready to go with the departing tribes. 
 
 When at length the disarmed soldiers and guards set 
 forth on their homeward way, the driver who had brought 
 Joshua and his fellow-prisoners to the mines went up to 
 old Nun and his son with a crestfallen air, and begged to 
 be allowed to remain with them ; for no good could be in 
 store for him at home, and in all Egypt there was no god 
 so mighty as their God. He had not failed to observe 
 that Joshua, who had himself once been the captain of 
 thousands, had ever in the greatest straits uplifted his 
 hands to that God, and such fortitude as the Hebrew had 
 shown he had never before seen. Now, indeed, he saw and 
 knew that thSt mighty God had overwhelmed Pharaoh and 
 his host in the sea in order to save His people. Such a 
 God was after his own heart, and he desirecfnothing better 
 henceforth than to abide with those who served Him. 
 
 Joshua gladly consented to his joining himself to them, 
 and it was found that there were fifteen Hebrew prisoners, 
 among them, to Ephraim's great joy, Reuben, the husband 
 of Miriam's devoted and heart-broken ally, Milcah. His 
 reserved and taciturn manner had stood him in good 
 stead, and the hardships he had endured seemed to have 
 had little effect on his strong frame. 
 
 A triumphant sense of victory and the joy of success had 
 come over Ephraim and his youthful army ; but when the 
 sun had set, and no sign yet appeared of Hur and his 
 followers, Nun began to feel some alarm. Ephraim had 
 just declared his intention of sallying forth with some of his 
 comrades in search of tidings, when a messenger arrived 
 
ai6 JOSHUA. 
 
 announcing that Hur's fighting-men had lost courage on 
 beholding the efficient defense of the Egyptian stronghold. 
 Their leader had vainly urged them to storm it ; they had 
 shrunk from the venture, and if Nun could not go to their 
 support they must retire ingloriously. 
 
 It was at once determined to succor the timorous troop. 
 The Hebrews set forth in high spirits, and on their march 
 through the refreshing night Ephraim and Nun related to 
 Joshua how Kasana had been found and had died. All 
 she had desired them to tell the man she loved they now 
 made known to him, and it was with deep emotion that the 
 soldier heard it all, marching on in silent thought till they 
 reached Dophka, the valley of the turquoise mines, in the 
 midst of which towered the fortress, surrounded by the 
 huts of the captive miners. 
 
 Hur and his men remained in ambush in an adjoining 
 valley, and when Joshua had told off all the Hebrew force 
 into several divisions, assigning a task to each, at day- 
 break he gave the signal for the onslaught. The little 
 garrison was overpowered after a short struggle, and the 
 fortress seized. The Egyptians were disarmed, as those 
 at the copper mines had been, and sent homewards. The 
 prisoners were released, and the lepers, whose encamp- 
 ment was in another valley beyond the mines — and among 
 them those who had been sent hither by Joshua's desire — 
 were permitted to follow the conquerors at a fixed distance. 
 
 Joshua had succeeded where Hur had failed, and before 
 the younger men departed with Ephraim, their leader, old 
 Nun called them together, and with them returned thanks to 
 the Lord. Those likewise who were under Hur's command 
 joined in the thanksgiving, and when Joshua presently 
 appeared Ephraim and his comrade hailed him with loud 
 acclamations. 
 
 " Hail to our captain ! " was shouted again and again as 
 they went on their further way. " Hail to him whom the 
 Lord hath chosen to be His sword ! Him will we follow and 
 obey ; through him our God shall give us the victory ! " 
 
 Hur's followers also joined in the cry, nor did he forbid 
 them ; nay, he had thanked Joshua for storming the 
 stronghold, and expressed his gladness at seeing him free 
 once more. 
 
 When they set forth, Joshua, as the younger, drew back 
 to let the elder man take the lead ; but Hur had begged 
 
JOSHUA. 21 j 
 
 Nun, who was much older than himself, to march at the 
 head of the little host, although, after the escape of the 
 people on the shore of the Red Sea, he had been named the 
 chief captain of the Hebrew fighting-men by Moses and the 
 elders of the tribes. 
 
 Their way led them first through a level valley. Then they 
 mounted and crossed a pass over the ridge, this being the 
 only road by which there was any communication between 
 the mines and the Red Sea. The rocky scene was wild and 
 desolate, the path steep and hard to climb. Joshua's 
 aged father, who had spent his life in the plains of Goshen 
 and was unaccustomed to mountain-walking, was carried 
 by his son and grandson amid much glad shouting from 
 the others ; and Miriam's husband, who led his men in the 
 rear of Ephraim's troop of comrades, as he heard their joy- 
 ful cry climbed after them with a bowed head and eyes 
 fixed gloomily on the ground. 
 
 At the top they were to rest, waiting for the main body 
 of the Israelites who were to be led through the desert of 
 Sin towards Dophka. 
 
 From the top of the pass the victorious troop looked out 
 for the wandering tribes, but as yet nothing could be seen 
 of them. But as they gazed back on the mountain path by 
 which they had come, the scene was so grand and beautiful 
 that it attracted every eye. At their feet lay a cauldron- 
 shaped valley enclosed by high precipices, ravines, peaks 
 and pinnacles, here white like chalk, there raven-black, 
 grey and brown, red and green, growing as it were from 
 the sandy base and pointing to the deep-blue heaven, the 
 vault of dazzling light that bent over the desert unfiecked 
 by a cloud. 
 
 All was barren, desolate, silent, dead. Not a bladc 5 
 not the humblest growth clung to the sides of the many° 
 colored cliffs which shut in the sandy abyss. No bird, no 
 worm nor beetle even stirred in this still region hostile to 
 life. The eye could nowhere see anything to suggest 
 human existence, or the tilth and handiwork of man. God, 
 it seemed, had created this grand scene, unfit for any 
 earthly being, for Himself alone. The man who made his 
 way into these wilds trod a spot which the Most High 
 might have chosen for retreat and rest, like the silent and 
 unapproachable inner sanctuary of the temple. 
 
 The younger men had gazed speechless on the wondrous 
 
218 JOSHUA. 
 
 picture at their feet. Then they lay down on the ground, 
 or did their best to be serviceable to old Nun, who loved 
 the companionship of the young. He was soon reclining 
 in their midst under a hastily contrived awning, and 
 relating with sparkling eyes his son's achievements as 
 captain of the Egyptians. 
 
 Joshua and Hur, meanwhile, were standing together on 
 the highest point of the pass and gazing down into the 
 desolate valley of rocks, which, surrounded by columns 
 and pillars of God's own hewing, and vaulted over by the 
 blue dome of heaven, appeared to each as the most 
 stupendous of temples. 
 
 The elder kept his eyes fixed gloomily on the ground ; 
 but suddenly he broke the silence, saying : " It was at 
 Succoth that I built an heap and cried upon the Lord to 
 be witness between us two. But in this place, and in this 
 stillness, it seems to me that we are certain of His Presence 
 without sign or token." He raised his face to heaven and 
 went on : " And I lift up mine eyes to Thee, Adonai j I 
 send up my humble words to thee, O Jehovah, Thou God 
 of Abraham and our fathers, that Thou mayest again be 
 witness between me and this man whom Thou calledst to 
 be Thy servant and the sword in Thy right hand ! " 
 
 He spoke the words loudly, with eyes and hands up- 
 raised to Heaven. Then he turned to his companion and 
 said with solemn gravity : 
 
 "And I ask thee, Joshua, son of Nun, dost thou 
 remember the witness borne by thee and me by the stone 
 at Succoth ? " 
 
 " I do remember it," was the answer. " And in bitter 
 ill-fortune and great dangers I have learnt what the Most 
 High requires of me. I am ready to devote such strength 
 of soul and body as He hath vouchsafed to me to Him 
 alone, and to His people, which is my people. Joshua, 
 henceforth, be my name. I ask no further help, neither 
 from the Egyptians nor from any other strange folk, for it 
 was the Lord our God who gave me this name by the 
 mouth of thy wife." 
 
 Hereupon Hur broke in with earnest words : 
 
 " This is what I looked to hear ; and inasmuch as in this 
 place also the Most High is a witness between me and thee, 
 and heareth our present speech together here, lo, I fulfill 
 that which I have vowed. The elders of the tribes, and 
 
JOSHUA. 2I 9 
 
 Moses, the servant of the Lord, called me to be chief 
 captain over the fighting-men of Israel. But now thou 
 art Joshua, and hast sworn to serve none other but the 
 Lord our God. Likewise I know that, as the captain of 
 our host, thou canst do greater things than I, who have 
 grown grey tending herds, or than any other Hebrew, be he 
 who he may ; therefore do I perform my vow made at Suc- 
 coth. I will require of Moses, the servant of the Lord, and 
 of the elders of the people, that they give thee the office of 
 captain of the host. I leave the governance in thy hands ; 
 and inasmuch as I know that the Lord readeth the heart, _ 
 I hereby confess that I had evil thoughts of thee in mine. 
 But for the good of the people I will forget all strife between 
 us, and I give thee my right hand in token thereof ! " He 
 held out his hand as he spoke, and Joshua grasped it, re- 
 plying with generous frankness : 
 
 " These are the words of a man, and so likewise shall 
 mine be. For the people's sake, and the cause we both 
 serve, I accept the offered sacrifice. And inasmuch as 
 you solemnly called the Lord to witness, who likewise 
 heareth me, I will speak the truth in everything. The 
 office of captain of the host of Israel which you will lay 
 upon me, I was called to by the Lord Himself. The call 
 came to me by the mouth of Miriam, your wife, and mine 
 it is by right. Yet, that you should be willing to yield 
 your own dignity to me, I take as a noble deed ; for I know 
 full well how hard it is for a man to resign power, more 
 especially in favor of a younger man who is not dear to his 
 heart. This you have done, and I thank you. And I, too, 
 have had evil thoughts of you, for through you I lost an- 
 other blessing which a man finds it harder to give up than 
 his office — the love of a woman." 
 
 Hereupon the blood mounted to Hur's face, and he 
 exclaimed : {1 Miriam ! I never forced her to marry me. 
 Nay, without my paying for her even, after the manner of 
 our fathers, she became my wife of her own free will." 
 
 " I know it," replied Joshua calmly. " Still, another 
 than you had loved and wooed her longer and more fer- 
 vently, and the fires of jealousy burn fiercely. But have 
 no fears. If you were now to get a bill of divorce and 
 bring her to me, that I should open my arms and tent to 
 her, I should say : ' Wherefor, have you done this thing to 
 yourself and to me ? ' For I have just now learnt what the 
 
220 JOSHUA. 
 
 love of a woman is and can do, and I was mistaken when 
 I believed that she loved me as hotly as I loved her. Yes, 
 and in the course of my wanderings, with fetters on my 
 feet, in grief and misery. I vowed to myself that I would 
 devote all that is in me of the fire and force of love to no 
 single creature, but all to my people. Not even the love 
 of woman shall ever turn me away from the great duty I 
 have taken upon me. And as for your wife, I am as a 
 stranger to her, unless it be that she sends for me, as a 
 prophetess, to declare to me some new purpose of the 
 Lord." 
 
 And he, on his part, held out his hand, and as Hur took 
 it, a noise came up from the troop below, calling on the 
 head of the house of Judah and their newly-chosen captain, 
 for messengers were climbing the mountain-slope, waving 
 and pointing to the mighty clouds of dust which swept in 
 front of the coming multitude. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 The wanderers came nearer and nearer, and several of the 
 young fighting-men hastened forward to meet them. They 
 were no longer the jubilant host who had joined trium- 
 phantly in Miriam's hymn of praise ; no, they came slowly, 
 mournfully and deviously towards the mountain's foot. 
 They had to climb the pass from the steepest side ; and 
 how the bearers groaned, and the women and children 
 wailed ; how bitterly the drivers cursed as they urged the 
 beasts up the narrow, precipitous path, and how hoarse 
 were the voices of the men, parched with thirst, as they set 
 their shoulders to a cart to help the brutes that pulled it ! 
 
 These hordes, who, but a few days since, had so thank- 
 fully hailed the saving mercy of the Lord, looked, to 
 Joshua's eyes, like a beaten army. The way by which they 
 had travelled from their last resting-place, the camp by the 
 Red Sea, had been rough and waterless ; and to a people 
 who had grown up in the fertile plain of Lower Egypt, it 
 had been severe indeed and full of horrors. It had led 
 them into the heart of the barren highlands ; and at every 
 step their eyes, wont to gaze on wide and luxuriantly 
 green pastures, had fallen on narrow gorges and a naked 
 
JOSHUA. 221 
 
 wilderness. After passing tne entrance to the Baba valley, 
 as they made their way along it through the desert of Sin, 
 they had seen nothing but ravines hemmed in by cliffs. 
 A high mountain of the hue of death towered in awful 
 blackness above the rust-brown crags close at hand, and 
 the rocks had seemed to the wanderers like monstrous 
 piles raised by human hands ; the layers of square blocks 
 built up at equal distances stood open to the sky, and it 
 might have been fancied that the giant workmen, whose 
 hands had aided the Architect of the world, had been 
 dismissed before finishing their task, which in this solitude 
 need fear no prying eye, and which seemed not intended 
 to be the dwelling of any living creature. Walls of granite, 
 brown and grey, rose on each side of the path ; and in the 
 sand which covered it lay heaps of fragments of red por- 
 phyry and coal-black stones, looking as if they had been 
 broken by the hammer, or like chips of slag cast out from 
 the smelting furnace. Strangely-shaped masses of gleam- 
 ing green rock enclosed the small cauldron-shaped valleys 
 of the higher ground, which opened endlessly one out of 
 another. The mounting path cut them across, and many 
 a time, as the pilgrims entered one of these circular gorges, 
 the fear came upon them that the cliff beyond would com- 
 pel them to return. Their complaints and murmurs had 
 been heard, but presently the gap had come in sight 
 through which they reached another rocky amphitheatre. 
 
 On first quitting the encampment by the Red Sea they 
 had frequently passed clumps of acacia, and patches of a 
 fragrant desert-herb which the beasts had eaten with relish ; 
 but the further they went into the stony wilderness the drier 
 and hotter was the sandy soil, and at last the eye vainly 
 sought a tree or a green thing. 
 
 At Elim they had found sweet wells and the shade of 
 palms, and at the encampment by the Red Sea there had 
 been well-filled tanks, but in the desert of Sin they had 
 found no waters to quench their thirst withal, and by mid- 
 day it seemed as though malicious demons had cut off all 
 shade from the walls of rock, for in these cauldrons and 
 bowls of stone everything was scorching glare, and there 
 was no shelter anywhere from the burning sun. The last of 
 the water they had brought with them had been distributed 
 to man and beast at their last halting place, and when the 
 host set forth again in the morning, not a drop could be 
 
222 JOSHUA. 
 
 found to assuage their raging thirst. Then the old un- 
 believing spirit of discontent and rebellion had again come 
 over the Israelites. There was no end to the curses on 
 Moses and the elders who had brought them out of the 
 well-watered land of Egypt to such torment as this. How- 
 ever, when at last they had climbed the pass over the ridge, 
 their parched throats were too dry for any loud utterance 
 of complaint and cursing. 
 
 Old Nun's messengers, and the youths sent to meet 
 them by Ephraim and Hur, had already announced to them 
 that the smaller party had won a victory and set Joshua 
 and the rest of the prisoners free ; but their exhaustion 
 was so complete that even these glad tidings had affected 
 them but little, and brought no more than a faint smile to 
 the men's bearded lips, or a transient gleam of extinct 
 brightness to the women's dark eyes. Miriam even, with 
 Milcah, had remained with her tribe, and had not, as was 
 her wont, called the women together to return thanks to 
 the Almighty. 
 
 Reuben, the husband of her melancholy young compan- 
 ion, whose dread of disappointment would not even now 
 allow her to indulge in her new-born hope, was a silent, 
 uncommunicative man, and the first messenger did not 
 know for certain whether he were among the prisoners who 
 had been rescued. Milcah, nevertheless, became greatly 
 excited, and when Miriam desired her to have patience and 
 be still, she ran from one to another of her companions and 
 besieged them with questions. And since they could give 
 her no information as to the fate of him she loved and had 
 lost, she broke into loud sobs and fled back to the pro- 
 phetess. From her, indeed, she got small comfort, for 
 Miriam, looking fonvarc 1 to hailing her husband as con- 
 queror, and receiving the friend of her childhood rescued 
 and safe, had fallen into a brooding and anxious mood ; it 
 seemed as though some heavy burthen weighed on her soul. 
 
 As soon as he learnt that the attack on the mines had 
 proved successful and that Joshua was free, Moses had 
 quitted the host of the Hebrews. He had been told that 
 the Amalekites, a warlike race inhabiting the oasis at the 
 foot of Mount Sinai, were making ready to hinder the 
 advance of the exiles across their palmy and fertile island 
 in the desert. He had therefore set out with a handful of 
 picked men, to make his way across the range and recon- 
 
JOSHUA. 223 
 
 noitre the enemy, purposing to rejoin the Israelites between 
 Alush and Rephidim, which lay in the valley next before 
 the oasis. 
 
 Abidah, the chief of the tribe of Benjamin, with Hur and 
 Nun, on their return from the mines, as the heads of the 
 tribes of Judah and Ephraim, were to fill his place-andthat 
 of his companions. 
 
 Now, as the multitude came nearer to the pass they 
 must climb, Hur and some of the freed men went forward 
 to meet them ; one, especially, outstripping the rest, Reu- 
 ben, namely. Milcah's husband. And she on her part had 
 recognized him from afar, as she sped down the hillside, 
 and, in spite of Miriam's remonstrance, hurried forward as 
 far as to the midst of the tribe of Simeon, which marched 
 ahead of their own. And there, the sight of their meeting 
 had uplified many a dejected soul ; and when at length, 
 clinging closely together, they hastened back to Miriam, 
 as the prophetess gazed into her little friend's face she 
 thought a miracle had been wrought, for the pale lily had 
 been transformed to a blooming and glowing rose. And 
 her lips, which for so long she had scarcely ever opened 
 but for some request or brief reply, now were never still, 
 for how much she wanted to know, how much she had to 
 ask her taciturn husband, who had suffered such terrible 
 things ! They were a comely and joyful couple, and to 
 them their path lay not over bare rocks and parched 
 desert-tracks, but through a land of spring-flowers where 
 brooks murmured and birds sang. 
 
 And Miriam, who had done her utmost to cheer the 
 pining girl, rejoiced at the sight of their happiness. 
 
 Soon, however, every gleam of glad sympathy faded from 
 her face ; for while Reuben and Milcah walked on winged 
 feet, scarce seeming to tread the soil of the desert, she 
 marched on with bowed head weighed down by the thought 
 that she herself was alone to blame if no such happiness as 
 theirs was in prospect for her at this hour. She told herself 
 indeed that she had made a great sacrifice, pleasing in the 
 eyes of the Lord and worthy of great reward, in refusing 
 to hearken to the voice of her heart ; but nevertheless she 
 could not help remembering the Egyptian woman who had 
 forbidden her to account herself as one of those who truly 
 loved Joshua, and who herself had died so young for her 
 love's sake. 
 
2*4 JOSHUA. 
 
 She, Miriam, was alive ; she had killed the most ardent 
 desires of her heart; duty forbade her now to think with 
 ardent longing of the man who lingered on the mountain- 
 top, devoted wholly to the cause of his people and to the 
 God of his fathers, a free and noble soul, the future leader 
 perhaps of her nation's armies, and, if Moses would have 
 it so, the first and most influential among the Hebrews 
 next to himself — but lost, forever lost, to her. If only on 
 that fateful night she had followed the leading of hei 
 woman's heart and not that imperious call which placed 
 her above all other women, he would long since have 
 clasped her in his arms as Reuben held his poor, weak 
 Milcah, now so rich in joy and renewed strength. 
 
 What thoughts were these ! She must drive them down 
 to the deepest recesses of her heart and destroy them 
 utterly ; for her it was sin to long so passionately to :.ce 
 him again, and she wished that her husband were by her 
 side to protect her against herself and the forbidden 
 emotions of this dreadful hour. Hur, the prince of the 
 tribe of Judah, was her husband ; not the Egyptian 
 captain, the rescued captive. What could she henceforth 
 have to do with this son of Ephraim whom she had cast 
 off once for all ? Why should she now be aggrieved that 
 he did not hasten to meet her ; why should she cherish in 
 secret a foolish hope that it was some important duty 
 which withheld him on the mountain ? 
 
 She scarcely saw or heard what was going on around 
 her, and it was Milcah's cry of glad gratitude which 
 warned her of Hur's approach. He had waved her a 
 greeting from afar j but he was alone, without Joshua ; and 
 the fact that this was a pang to her— nay, that it went to 
 her heart — enraged her against herself. She held her 
 elderly husband in true esteem, and it was with no effort 
 that she welcomed him with affection. He replied to her 
 greeting with heartfelt warmth; and when she pointed to 
 the reunited pair and lauded him as a conqueror and the 
 deliverer of Reuben and his many fellow-victims, he 
 frankly confessed that the praise was not to him but to 
 Joshua, whom she herself had called in the name of the 
 Lord to be the captain of the army of Israel. 
 
 At this she turned pale, and, though the path led steeply 
 upward, she pressed her husband with urgent questions. 
 When she learnt that Joshua was resting on the ridge with 
 
yOSHUA. 225 
 
 his father and the young fighting-men, and drinking wine, 
 and that Hur had pledged himself to withdraw if Moses 
 should appoint Joshua to be captain of the host, her knit 
 brows darkened below her lofty brow, and with stern 
 severity she replied : 
 
 " You are my lord, and it ill-beseems me to resist your 
 will, even when you so far forget what is due to your 
 wife as to give way to the man who once dared to lift his 
 eyes to her." , 
 
 Hur eagerly broke in : 
 
 " But henceforth you are as a stranger to him ; and even 
 if I should give you a bill of divorce he would no longer 
 woo you." 
 
 "Indeed!" said she with a forced smile. " And is it 
 to him that you owe this announcement ? " 
 
 " He has devoted himself body and soul to the welfare 
 of the people and renounces the love of woman," replied 
 Hur. 
 
 But she exclaimed : " Renunciation is easy when de- 
 sire could bring nothing in its train but rejection and 
 disgrace. It is not he, who in our day of greatest need 
 sought help of the Egyptians — not he but you who ought 
 to be captain over the fighting-men of Israel — you alone 
 who led the Hebrews to their first victory at the store- 
 house of Succoth, and whom the Lord Himself by His 
 servant Moses, charged to lead the fighting-men of Israel ! " 
 
 At this Hur looked in some uneasiness at this woman 
 for whom a late but ardent love had glowed up in him, 
 and seeing her bosom heave and her cheeks flush red, he 
 knew not whether to ascribe it to the fatigue of climbing 
 or the lofty ambition of her aspiring soul, which she had 
 now transferred to the person of her husband. 
 
 He was, indeed, glad to think that she cared so much 
 more for him than for the younger and more heroic man 
 whose return caused him some anxiety ; still, he had 
 grown grey in the stern fulfillment of duty, and what he 
 thought it right to do no man could hinder his doing. To 
 the wife of his youth, whom he had buried many years 
 since, his merest sign had been a command, and from 
 Miriam he had as yet met with no contradiction. That 
 Joshua was the most fit to command the fighting-men was 
 beyond a doubt, and he replied, panting somewhat, for he, 
 too, found the ascent hard : " Your high esteem honor? 
 
 x 5 
 
22« JOSHUA. 
 
 and pleases me ; but although Moses and the elders have 
 promoted me, you must remember the Heap at Succoth, 
 and my vow. I bear it in mind and shall abide by it." 
 
 She looked aside and said no more till they had reached 
 the top. 
 
 The victorious youths hailed them from the summit 
 with loud acclamations. The joy of meeting, the pro- 
 visions they had won from the foe, and the good drink 
 which was sparingly measured out to revive those who 
 most needed it, raised the fallen courage of the exhausted 
 wanderers, and the thirsty multitude shortened their rest 
 on the ridge to reach Dophka all the sooner. They had 
 heard from Joshua that they would find there not only 
 some ruined tanks but also a hidden spring of whose exist- 
 ence he had been informed by the driver of the gang of 
 prisoners. 
 
 Their way now lay down hill. Haste is the watchword 
 when thirsty souls know that wells are within reach ; and 
 soon after sunset they arrived in the valley of turquoise 
 mines, where they encamped at the foot of the hill on 
 which the now ruined stronghold and store-houses of 
 Dophka had lately stood. The well, hidden in a grove of 
 acacia sacred to Hathor, was very soon discovered. Fires 
 were quickly lighted. The wavering hearts, which in the 
 desert of Sin had sunk almost to despair, now swelled 
 again with the love of life, with hope and thankful trust. 
 The fine acacia trees indeed were felled to open a way to 
 the spring whose refreshing waters worked the wondrous 
 change. 
 
 Joshua and Miriam had met on the ridge, but had only 
 had time for a brief greeting. Here, in the camp, they 
 were thrown together once more. 
 
 It was already late, for the elders had held long counsel 
 as to the measures to be taken for an unexpected attack 
 on the Amalekites. Nun and Joshua had joined the 
 assembly. The princely and reverend old man's son had 
 b;en gladly welcomed, and his counsel, that they should 
 form a vanguard of the younger men and a reserve of the 
 older warriors, was readily agreed to; they were also to 
 send small parties of picked men to spy out the enemy. 
 Joshua found himself in fact entrusted with everything 
 appertaining to the conduct and safety of a considerable 
 army. God Himself had chosen him to be their captain, 
 
JOSHUA. 227 
 
 and Moses, by leaving him that warning word to be 
 " steadfast and strong," had confirmed him in the office. 
 Hur, likewise, who as yet held the post, was ready to 
 resign it to him ; and of a surety that man would keep his 
 word, although he had not yet declared his purpose before 
 the elders. At any rate Joshua was treated as though he 
 were indeed the captain, and he felt himself their leader. 
 
 After the assembly of the elders had broken up, Hur 
 had desired Joshua to accompany him to his tent, notwith- 
 standing the lateness of the hour ; and the warrior had 
 consented, for indeed he desired to speak fully to Miriam. 
 He would fain prove to her in her husband's presence that 
 he had found the path which she had so zealously pointed 
 out to him. 
 
 The tenderest passions of a Hebrew must be dumb in 
 the presence of another man's wife. Miriam must know 
 full well that he had nothing more to. ask of her. Indeed, 
 he had entirely ceased, even in his hours of solitude, to 
 care or long for her. He confessed to himself that she 
 was a grand and queenly woman, but now he felt a chill 
 as he thought of that lofty dignity. 
 
 Nay, all her doings appeared to him now in a new light. 
 When she greeted him on the hill-top with a cold smile he 
 had felt convinced that henceforth they were strangers 
 indeed ; and as they sat by the blazing fire in front of the 
 elders' tent, where they now met again, this feeling grew 
 stronger and stronger. 
 
 Miriam had long since parted from Reuben and his 
 Milcah, and during her solitary waiting many thoughts had 
 crossed through her brain of what she would now make 
 this man feel — the man to whom in an hour of strong 
 excitement she opened the depths of her soul. 
 
 We are always most prone to be angry with those to 
 whom we have done a wrong, and a woman holds the gift 
 of her love as so great and precious that even the man she 
 afterwards rejects is to think of her with gratitude for ever 
 after. And Joshua had boasted that he had ceased to care 
 for her whom he had once ardently desired, and who had 
 confessed her love for him — yea, even if she were offered 
 to him. Aye, and he had proved his words, for he had 
 been content to wait with the others instead of coming to 
 meet her. 
 
 At last he came, and with him her husband who wa.s 
 
228 JOSHUA. 
 
 so ready to make way for him. But she was still here to 
 keep her eyes open in behalf of the too generous Hur. 
 
 The older man, to whose fate she had linked her own, 
 and whose faithful devotion touched her deeply, should 
 not be supplanted by any other man in the high place he 
 filled by right ; he must cling to it, if only because she did 
 not choose to be the wife of any man who could not assert 
 himself as the foremost of the Hebrews after her own 
 brothers. 
 
 Never had this much-venerated woman, who for her part 
 believed, too, in her own gift of prophecy, felt so bitter, so 
 sore and indignant. She did not own it to herself, but it 
 was as though the hatred which Moses had fired in her soul 
 against the Egyptians, and which no longer had an outlet, 
 needed some fresh object, and was now turned against 
 the only man she ever had loved. But a true woman 
 can make a show of friendship in word and demeanor 
 to any one, excepting those she scorns, and Miriam 
 received her belated guest with haughty but gracious 
 condescension, and begged him to give her further details 
 as to his captivity and release. But she called him by his 
 old name of Hosea, and when he perceived that this was 
 evidently intentional, he asked her whether she had for- 
 gotten that it was she herself who, as the messenger of the 
 Most High, had bidden him henceforth to call himself 
 Joshua. To this she replied — and her features assumed a 
 sharper gravjty of expression — that her memory was good, 
 but that she would fain forget the time he referred to. He 
 himself had rejected the name bestowed on him by the 
 Lord, inasmuch as he had preferred to seek the favor of 
 the Egyptian king rather than the help promised him by 
 God. She, faithful to her old habits, should continue to 
 call him Hosea. 
 
 The simple-hearted soldier was not prepared for such 
 a hostile tone ; however, he preserved a fittingly calm 
 demeanor, and replied with composure that he would but 
 rarely give her the opportunity of calling him by any 
 name. Those who were his friends found no difficulty in 
 learning to call him Joshua. 
 
 To this Miriam answered that she likewise would be 
 willing to do so if her husband agreed and he himself in- 
 sisted on it, for a man's name was but as a garment. 
 With offices and dignities it was another matter. 
 
JOSHUA. 229 
 
 When Joshua then declared that he had always believed 
 that it was God Himself who had called him by the voice 
 of His prophetess, herself, to be the captain of the hosts of 
 Israel, and that he conceded to no man, save only to Moses, 
 the right to deprive him of that office, Hur agreed with 
 him and offered him his hand. 
 
 At this Miriam threw off the self-control she had hitherto 
 preserved, and exclaimed with vehement defiance : 
 
 " In this I am not of your mind. You evaded the call 
 of the Most High ! Can you deny it? And inasmuch as 
 the Almighty found you at Pharaoh's footstool, instead of 
 at the head of His people, He deprived you of the office 
 to which He had raised you. He, Himself, the Mightiest 
 of Captains, commanded the wind and waves, and they 
 swallowed up the enemy. I sang a hymn of praise to the 
 Lord, and the people joined in my thanksgiving. And on 
 that same day God called another man than you to be chief 
 of the Hebrew host, and he, as you know, is my husband. 
 And although Hur indeed has never learnt the arts of 
 war, yet the Lord surely guides his arm; and who is it 
 that giveth the victory but the Lord Almighty ? My hus- 
 band, I tell you once again — my husband alone is the 
 captain, and though in his excess of generosity he for- 
 gets it, yet he will assert his right to his office when he 
 remembers whose hand it was that chose him ; and I, his 
 wife, life up my voice to bring it to his mind." 
 
 On this Joshua turned to go, to put an end to this un- 
 pleasant discussion, but Hur, very wroth at his wife's 
 interference between men, held him fast, assuring him 
 that he should abide by his renunciation. The wind might 
 blow away a woman's words of displeasure ; it must rest 
 with Moses to declare whom the Lord had chosen to be 
 captain of His people. 
 
 As he spoke Hur looked in his wife's face with stern 
 dignity, as warning her to reflect ; and this seeme'd to have 
 had the desired effect. Miriam turned first pale and then 
 deep scarlet, and she, too, detained their guest as though 
 she desired to make amends, beckoning him with a trem- 
 bling hand to come closer to her. 
 
 " Yet one thing I must say," she began with a deep 
 breath, " that you may not misunderstand me. I call every 
 man my friend who devotes himself to the cause of Israel, 
 and Hur has told me how much you purpose to sacrifice 
 
230 JOSHUA. 
 
 to our people. It was your confidence in Pharaoh's 
 clemency which came between us, and I know how to 
 Value your deep and decisive breach with the Egyptians. 
 Still, I only truly understood the greatness of your deed 
 when I learnt that it was not only life-long habit, but 
 another and stronger tie that bound you to the foe." 
 
 " What is the aim of such a speech ? " Joshua broke in, 
 feeling quite sure that she was laying some fresh arrow 
 to the bowstring intended to wound him. But she paid 
 no heed to the interruption, and went on with a defiant 
 sparkle in her eye which belied the moderation of her 
 tongue : 
 
 " After the guidance of the Lord had saved us from the 
 foe, the sea cast up on shore the fairest woman we had 
 seen for many a day. I bound up the wounds inflicted on 
 her by a Hebrew woman, and she then confessed that she 
 was full of love for you, and with her dying breath spoke 
 of you as the idol of her heart." 
 
 At this Joshua, deeply incensed, exclaimed : 
 " If this were all the truth, O wife of Hur, then my 
 father would have told me an untruth. For. as I learnt 
 from him, it was in the presence of those only who love 
 me that the hapless woman made the last confession ; not 
 before you. And she was wise to mistrust your presence, 
 for you would never have understood her ! " 
 
 He saw a suspicious smile play on Miriam's lips, but he 
 heeded it not and went on : " Your wit is — oh, ten times 
 keener than that poor child's ever was. But in your 
 heart, which once was open to such great things, there is 
 no room for love. It will grow old and cease to beat before 
 it has learned what love is ! Yea, in spite of your flashing 
 eyes I tell you this : you are indeed more than a woman ; 
 you are a prophetess, and I cannot boast of such grace. I 
 am no more than a man, and understand the use of the 
 sword better than looking into futurity, and nevertheless 
 I can foretell one thing : you will cherish the haired of me 
 which burns in your soul. You will even light up the 
 flame in your husband's heart and strive to fan it with 
 the utmost zeal, and I know why ! The fiery ambition 
 which possesses you will not suffer you to be happy as the 
 wife of a man who must stand second to any other. You 
 refuse to call me by the name you yourself gave me. But 
 if hatred and pride do not altogether choke the one feeling 
 
JOSHUA. 23 1 
 
 which unites us, namely, our love of our people, the day 
 will come when of your own free will you will approach 
 me and call me Joshua, unbidden, out of the fullness of 
 your heart." 
 
 With these words he bowed his head in brief farewell to 
 Miriam and her husband, and disappeared in the darkness. 
 
 Hur looked after him gloomily, and spoke not a word 
 till the footsteps of their departing guest had died away in 
 the silence of the night. Till this hour he had always looked 
 up to his wife with tender admiration, but now the wrath 
 he had restrained with difficulty knew no bounds. With 
 two long strides he came close to her ; she was even paler 
 than he, as she stood gazing into the fire like one dis- 
 traught. His voice had lost its rich metallic ring, and 
 sounded harsh and thin as he said : " I was so bold as to 
 woo a maiden who believed herself nearer to God than 
 other women, and now she is mine she makes me repent of 
 my audacity ! " 
 
 " Repent ? " She paused with white lips, and as she 
 looked up at him, a defiant glance sparkled in her black 
 eyes. He seized her hand with so firm a grip that it hurt 
 her, and went on as he had begun : " Yes, you make me 
 repent of it. Shame on me if I suffer this hour of degrada- 
 tion to be followed by such another ! " 
 
 She tried to wrench her hand free but he would not sur- 
 render it and went on : "I wooed and won you to be the 
 pride of my house. I believed I was sowing honor, I 
 have reaped dishonor — for what deeper disgrace may be- 
 fall a man than that the wife should have the mastery and 
 dare to wound the heart of his friend, whom hospitality 
 should protect, with hostile words. A woman, such as you 
 are not, a simple, right-minded wife, who could look back 
 on her husband's past life and think not merely of how he 
 may gain promotion because she desires to share his great- 
 ness — such a wife would not need to be reminded that 
 Hur, the man who is your husband, has earned dignities 
 and honors enough in the course of a long life to be able 
 to lay down some portion of them without losing by it. 
 Not he who is chief in command, but he who does most 
 from self-sacrificing love of his nature, is the greatest in 
 Jehovah's sight. You crave to stand aloof and be honored 
 by the crowd as the chosen handmaid of God. I do not 
 forbid it so long as you do not forget what your duty as a 
 
» 3 2 JOSHUA. 
 
 wife and mistress requires of you. To me, indeed, yol 
 also owe love, for you promised to love me on the day 
 when we were wed : howbeit, the human heart can only 
 give what it has to give ; and Joshua is right when he 
 says that the love which glows and gives warmth is far 
 from your cold soul." 
 
 He turned his back on her and withdrew into the dark- 
 ness of the tent ; she remained standing by the fire, the 
 flickering blaze lighting upher beautiful pallid features. She 
 set her teeth tightly and clenched her hands over her heav- 
 ing bosom as she gazed after her husband. He had stood 
 before her in the consciousness of his dignity, grey-haired, 
 tall and reverend, a worthy and princely leader of the 
 people. Each of his words had pierced her heart like a 
 spear thrust. The power of truth had weighed his speech, 
 and had held up a mirror to Miriam which showed her 
 an image from which she started in horror. Now she 
 longed to hasten after him, and beseech him to give her 
 again the love with which he had hitherto surrounded 
 her ; she, alone in the world, had gratefully acknowledged 
 that she felt that she could fully return the precious boon, 
 for she longed, ah, how ardently, to hear one kind and for- 
 giving word from his lips. Her own heart seemed to her 
 as a cornfield blighted by malignant mildew ; withered, 
 dried up and ruined, where all had been so fresh and 
 blossoming. 
 
 Her thoughts flew to the rich arable of Goshen which, 
 after bearing the richest crops, remained hard and parched 
 till the river rose to soften it again, and bring the seed 
 faid in its bosom to life and verdure. Thus was it with 
 her ; but she had cast the ripening ears into the fire, and 
 willfully built up a dam between the beneficent stream and 
 the dry land. 
 
 But there was yet time. She knew, indeed, that in one 
 thing he was unjust, that she was a woman like any other, 
 and capable of devoting herself with passionate ardor to 
 the man she loved. It depended only on her to prove this 
 to him and bring him to her arms. Just now, to be sure, 
 he had a right to regard her as hard and unfeeling ; for 
 there, where love was wont to bloom, a bitter spring had 
 risen which poisoned all it touched. 
 
 Was this the revenge taken by her heart whose ardenc 
 desires she had so heroically smothered? 
 
"JOSHUA. *33 
 
 God had scorned her most precious offering, it was im- 
 possible to doubt the fact. His presence no longer 
 uplifted her soul in visions of glory, and she could hardly 
 call herself His prophetess any longer. This sacrifice had 
 led her, who was truthful, to falsehood ; conscious of al- 
 ways desiring the right, she had hitherto lived at peace 
 with herself; now she suffered tortures of unrest. Since 
 that momentous step, nothing she cared for had smiled on 
 her, who had been so full of hope. She who had never 
 seen the woman for whom she need make way, had been 
 sent from the presence of a poor dying stranger. She had 
 always felt kindly to every one who loved her race and the 
 sacred cause of her people, and now she had insulted one 
 of their best and noblest champions with bitter wrath. 
 The poorest serf's wife could win the husband who loved 
 her to a closer union, and she had only estranged hers. 
 
 She had come to his hearth seeking only shelter from 
 the cold, but she had found unexpected warmth, and 
 his generosity and love had fallen on her aching soul like 
 balm. He could not, indeed, give her back what she had 
 lost, but he was a welcome substitute. And he now 
 believed her incapable of a tender emotion ; still, she 
 must have love to live, and no sacrifice would be too great 
 to win his back again. 
 
 But pride was no less a condition of her existence, and 
 each time she made up her mind to humble herself and 
 open her heart to her husband, a fear of degradation 
 checked her ; and there she stood, as though spell-bound, 
 till the brands at her feet fell over and died out, and dark- 
 ness surrounded her. 
 
 Then a strange fear fell upon her. 
 
 Two bats, which had come forth from the mines to 
 flutter around the fire, flew close to her face with a ghostly 
 stir. Everything prompted her to retire to the tent, to go 
 back to her husband ; and with sudden decision she went 
 into the spacious room, lighted by a lamp. But Hur was 
 not there, and a slave-girl who met her told her that he 
 had said he would remain with his son and grandson till it 
 was time to depart. 
 
 A sense of bitter woe fell upon her ; she lay down to rest, 
 more desolate and ashamed than she had ever felt since 
 her childhood. 
 
 A few hours later the camp was astir, and when, in the 
 
234 JOSHUA. 
 
 grey light of dawn, her husband entered the tent with a 
 brief greeting, her pride once more uplifted its head and 
 her reply was cold and demure. 
 
 He was not alone ; his son Uri followed him in. He 
 looked graver, too, than usual, for the men of Judah had 
 assembled at an early hour and besought him not to sur- 
 render the captaincy in favor of a man of another tribe 
 than theirs. 
 
 This had come upon him as a surprise. He could only 
 refer them to Moses, and the hope that their leader's 
 decision might be given against himself grew keener as his 
 young wife's resolute glance again roused his spirit to 
 opposition. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 With refreshed body and revived hearts the Hebrews set 
 forth again early on the following morning ; and by this 
 time, the little spring, which they had even dug deeper to 
 promote its flow, was for the time exhausted. They cared 
 the less that it refused to yield any water to carry on their 
 journey, because they expected to find some wells at 
 Alush. 
 
 The sun mounted the cloudless sky in radiant majesty. 
 Its splendor exerted its stirring influence on the hearts of 
 men even, and the rocks and yellow sandy soil shone as 
 brightly as the blue vault above. The pure aromatic air 
 of the desert, cooled by the hours of darkness, was so light 
 that it was a pleasure to breathe, and walking was 
 enjoyment. 
 
 The men showed firmer confidence, the women's eyes 
 flashed more brightly than for some time past, for the Lord 
 had shown once more that He was mindful of His people 
 in their need ; and fathers and mothers looked proudly on 
 their sons who had overpowered the enemy. In every 
 tribe some one had been welcomed home who had been 
 given up for lost, and it was a joyful duty to heal the 
 injuries inflicted by the hard labor of the mines. More- 
 over, Joshua's deliverance was a cause of rejoicing, not 
 alone among his own people, but throughout the multitude ; 
 and by all, excepting those of the tribe of Judah, he waj' 
 
JOSHUA. 235 
 
 now called by that new name, with full belief in the com- 
 forting promise conveyed by it. The young men who, 
 under him, had put the Egyptians to rout, told in their 
 tribes what sort of man Joshua was, how he thought of 
 everything, and put every one in the very place where he 
 could do best. The mere light of his eye as it fell on a 
 man fired his warlike ardor ; the foe quaked only to hear 
 him shout the battle-cry. 
 
 And those who spoke of old Nun, or of -the noble lad, 
 his grandson, did so with kindling glances. The high pre- 
 tensions of the tribe of Ephraim had often been a source 
 of disagreement, but on this occasion it was by common 
 consent allowed to march first. Only the men of Judah 
 were heard to murmur and complain. They must, no 
 doubt, have some serious ground of discontent, for Hur, 
 the prince of their tribe, and his wife walked on with 
 bowed heads as if oppressed by a heavy burthen, and those 
 who spoke with them had certainly better have chosen 
 some other opportunity. So long as the sun's rays still 
 fell aslant, there was a little shade cast by the sandstone 
 peaks which hemmed the path in on both sides, or stood 
 up in its midst, and when the sons of Korah began to sing 
 a hymn, old and young joined in ; Milcah, no longer 
 pallid, loudest and gladdest of all, and Reuben, her 
 released and happy husband. 
 
 The children picked up the golden fruits of the colocynth, 
 which fell from the now withered gourds above as if they 
 dropped from heaven, and brought them to their parents. 
 But they were as bitter as gall to eat, and a morose old 
 man of the tribe of Zebulon, who kept some of the stout 
 rinds to serve to hold salve, said : " Thus will this day be. 
 It has a fair seeming ; but when the sun is high and we 
 lack water we shall know its bitterness ! " 
 
 And his prophecy was only too soon fulfilled ; for the 
 path, after leaving the region of sand, went on through 
 rocky cliffs like walls of red brick and grey stone, up and 
 up, now at an easy slope and now very steep ; the sun, too, 
 mounted higher and higher, and the heat increased as the 
 hours went on. Never had its arrows fallen more cruelly 
 on the pilgrims, striking pitilessly on their unprotected 
 heads and necks. Here ' an old man and there a young 
 one sank to the ground under its fierce glow, or tottered 
 forward like one drunk, supported by his neighbors and 
 
a 3 6 JOSHUA. 
 
 clasping his hand to his brow. The blistered skin peeled 
 off their faces and hands, and there was not one whose 
 tongue and gums were not dried by the heat, or whose 
 newly-found courage it did not quell. 
 
 The beasts toiled sullenly forward with drooping heads 
 and heavy feet, or rolled rebelliously in the sand till the 
 herdsman's thong compelled them to collect their strength 
 for a fresh effort. 
 
 At noon the Israelites were allowed to halt, but there 
 was not a hand-breadth of shade to give them the reprieve 
 they sought ; and those who threw themselves down on 
 the ground found fresh torment instead of rest. Thus the 
 hapless wretches of their own accord set forth again soon 
 for the wells of Alush. 
 
 Until this day, as soon as the sun had passed the meridian 
 and begun to sink towards the west, the heat had abated, 
 and a fresher breeze had fanned their brows before the fall 
 of dusk, but here the rocks for hours gave out the heat 
 they had absorbed from the noon-tide sun, till at length a 
 faintly cooler breath came up from the sea on the west. At 
 the same time the vanguard, which, by Joshua's advice, 
 marched foremost, halted, and the whole multitude came 
 to a standstill. Men, women and children all fixed their 
 eyes and pointed with hands, sticks and crooks to the 
 same spot, for there, before them, a strange and novel 
 spectacle attracted their gaze. A shout of amazement 
 and delight broke from their parched and weary lips which 
 had long ceased to stir for speech ; it rapidly spread from 
 one division to the next, from tribe to tribe, to the lepers 
 that closed the train and the vanguard beyond. One and 
 another elbowed his neighbor and whispered a name 
 familiar to them all — that of the Holy Mountain where the 
 Lord had promised to Moses that he would lead His 
 people into a good and pleasant land flowing with milk 
 and honey. None had told the weary multitude that this 
 was the place, and yet they knew that they beheld Horeb 
 and the peak of Sinai, the most sacred summit of this 
 mass of granite. 
 
 Although but a mountain, yet was it the throne of the 
 Almighty God of their fathers ! 
 
 At this hour the whole sacred hill seemed, like the 
 burning bush out of which He had there spoken to His 
 chosen servant, to be steeped in fire. Its seven-peaked 
 
JOSHUA. 237 
 
 crown towered from afar, high above the hills and vales 
 that surrounded it, burning like an enormous ruby lighted 
 up by a blaze of glory in the clouds. 
 
 Such a sight none of them had ever beheld. But the 
 sun sank lower and lower, and disappeared in the sea 
 which the mountain hid from their view ; the glowing ruby 
 turned to solemn amethyst and then to the deep purple of 
 the violet ; but the people still gazed spell-bound on the 
 Holy Mount. Nay, even when the day-star had altogether 
 vanished, and only its reflection bordered the edge of a 
 long, level cloud with gleaming gold, they opened their 
 eyes the wider, for a man of the tribe of Benjamin, his 
 brain turned by the splendor of the scene, declared that 
 they beheld the trailing mantle of Jehovah, and those 
 about him to whom he pointed it out caught the pious 
 rapture. 
 
 For a little while the pilgrims had forgotten thirst and 
 exhaustion in watching the inspiring spectacle. But ere 
 long their high enthusiasm was turned to the deepest dis- 
 couragement, for when night fell, and after a short march 
 they reached the wells of Alush, it was discovered that 
 the desert tribe which had encamped here yesterday had 
 choked the spring, which at best was but brackish, with 
 stones and rubbish. 
 
 All the water they had carried with them had been used 
 before reaching Dophka, and the exhausted spring at the 
 mines had not sufficed to fill the skins. Thirst, which at 
 first had only dried their gums, now began to burn their 
 vitals. Their scorched throats could not swallow the solid 
 food of which they had abundance. On every side there 
 was nothing to be seen but heart-broken looks, and pitiable 
 or disgraceful scenes. Men and women storming, cursing, 
 weeping, and groaning, or else sunk in morose despair. 
 Some, whose wailing infants clamored for water, had 
 gathered round the choked well and were fighting for a 
 spot on the ground where they hoped to collect a few 
 drops of the precious fluid in a sherd. And the beasts 
 lowed and bleated so miserably that it cut their drivers to 
 the heart like a reproach. 
 
 Very few cared to exert themselves to pitch a tent. The 
 night was so warm, and the sooner they went forward the 
 better, for Moses had promised to join them again at a 
 spot but a few hours further on. He alone could help 
 
238 JOSHUA. 
 
 them ; it was his bounden duty to save man and beast 
 from perishing of drought. 
 
 If the God who had promised them such great things 
 left them to perish in the wilderness with all their little 
 ones, then the man in whose guidance they had put their 
 trust was a deceiver, and the God whose power and mercy 
 he was never weary of preaching to them was falser and 
 feebler than the idols with heads of men and beasts whom 
 they had worshiped in Egypt. Blasphemy and curses 
 were mingled with threats, and when Aaron came forth to 
 comfort the thirsty pilgrims with words of hope, many a 
 clenched fist was shaken at him. 
 
 Even Miriam was presently forbidden by her husband 
 to console the women with kindly speech, for a woman 
 whose sinking child clung dying to its mother's dried-up 
 breast had picked up a stone to fling, and the others had 
 followed her example. 
 
 Old Nun and his son were more fortunate. They were 
 both agreed that Joshua must fight whatever post Moses 
 might desire him to fill ; and Hur himself had led him 
 forth to the fighting-men, who had hailed him gladly. The 
 old man and his son both knew the secret of inspiring 
 courage. They spoke to the men of the well-watered 
 oasis of the Amalekites, which was now not far away, and 
 reminded them that the Lord Himself had provided the 
 weapons they held in their hands. Joshua assured them, 
 too, that they far out-numbered the warriors of the desert- 
 tribe. If their young men only showed themselves as brave 
 as they had been at Dophka and the coppermines, by 
 God's help they should win the victory. 
 
 Soon after midnight Joshua, after holding council with 
 the elders, bid the trumpets sound to call the fighting- 
 men together. He set them in ranks under the starlit 
 sky, appointed a leader to each division, and impressed on 
 each the hearing of the word of command he was to 
 obey. 
 
 They came at the call, half perishing with thirst; but 
 the fresh efforts to which their captain exhorted them 
 wonderfully revived their fainting energies ; as well as the 
 hope of victory and a precious reward, a plot of land, 
 namely, at the foot of the Holy Mountain, rich in wells 
 and palms. 
 
 Among the youths came Ephraim, giving life to the 
 
JOSHUA. 239 
 
 others by his own inexhaustible vigor. And now, when 
 the captain, to whom God had already proved that He 
 thought him worthy of the help which his name promised, 
 addressed the men, bidding them put their trust in the 
 Lord Almighty, it had quite a different effect from that 
 produced by Aaron, whose admonitions they had hearkened 
 to every day since they set out. 
 
 When Joshua had ended, a jubilant shout went up from 
 many young throats though parched with thirst : " Hail to 
 the captain ! You are our leader ; we will follow none 
 other ! " 
 
 Then he went on, gravely and decisively, to explain to 
 them that he was prepared to show to the utmost such 
 obedience as he required of them. He was ready to 
 march as the last man in the lowest place, if it should be 
 Moses' will. 
 
 The stars were still bright in a cloudless sky when a 
 cow-horn called the Hebrews to set forth again. A runner 
 had already been sent on to report to Moses of their evil 
 plight, and Ephraim had flown after him as soon as he was 
 free to do so. But throughout the morning's march 
 Joshua kept his troops in strict order, as though an 
 onslaught was to be expected. Meanwhile he took advan- 
 tage of every minute to teach the fighting-men and their 
 leaders something for the coming struggle, to note their 
 behavior, and close up their ranks. He thus kept them on 
 the alert till the stars began to pale. 
 
 Few indeed were the murmurs or complaints among the 
 fighting-men, but rebellion, curses and threats were all the 
 more rife among those who bore no weapons. Long before 
 dawn the cry was heard, more and more often, of " Down 
 with Moses! We will stone him when we find him!" 
 And indeed their knees were failing them for weariness, and 
 the misery of their wives and children was visible to 
 every eye. 
 
 Not a few, indeed, picked a piece of rock from the path 
 with a wild curse and flashing eye ; and at last the fury of 
 the multitude waxed so wild and reckless that Hur called a 
 council of the better disposed among the elders, and they 
 hastened on with the fighting-men of the tribe of Judah to 
 protect Moses, if it should come to the worst, by force of 
 arms against the rebels. Joshua took on himself the task of 
 keeping back the mutineers, who with curses and threats 
 
240 JOSHUA. 
 
 strove to outstrip the rest. When at last the sun rose in 
 blinding splendor, the march was no more than a struggle 
 onwards of enfeebled wretches. Even the men at 
 arms tottered forwards half-paralyzed. Still, when the 
 rebels tried to pass them, they did their duty and thrust 
 them back with spear and sword. The valley along which 
 they made their way was shut in on both sides by steep 
 walls of grey granite which glittered and sparkled strangely 
 as the slanting sunbeams fell on the fragments of quartz 
 thickly imbedded in the primaeval rock. By noon it would 
 be scorchingly hot again between these steep cliffs, in some 
 parts almost closing across the path ; as yet, however, they 
 lay in morning shade. And the beasts, at any rate, found 
 refreshment, for among the rocks in many places a succu- 
 lent aromatic plant afforded them pasture, and the shep- 
 herd boys, taking off their loin cloths, filled them with the 
 fodder in spite of their own exhaustion, to offer it to their 
 famishing favorites. 
 
 Thus they struggled on for less than an hour, when sud- 
 denly a loud shout of joy rang out, spreading from the fore- 
 most in the van to the last man in the long train. No one 
 had been told in so many words to what it owed its origin, 
 but every one knew it must mean that they had come upon 
 fresh water. Then Ephraim came flying back with the glad 
 tidings, and what a miracle it worked on the exhausted 
 wanderers ! 
 
 They pulled themselves up as though they had already 
 emptied the brimming jar at a deep draught, and struggled 
 forward at double speed. The ranks of fighting-men now 
 no longer hindered them, but hailed those of their tribe 
 who hastened past them with glad greetings. 
 
 Soon, however, the hurrying tide stopped of its own 
 accord ; for at the spot where refreshment was to be found 
 the foremost came to a standstill, and behind them the whole 
 multitude were checked more effectually than by moats 
 and walls. The toiling pilgrims had become a vast, dis- 
 orderly crowd, filling the whole valley. At last men and 
 women turned back carrying well-filled water jars in their 
 hands or on their heads, beckoning joyfully to their friends 
 with words of encouragement, and making their way 
 through the throng to their own families'; but the precious 
 fluid was snatched away from many before it could be con- 
 veyed to its destination. 
 
JOSHUA. 241 
 
 Joshua and his troop had made their way to the immediate 
 vicinity of the wells, to keep order among the thirsty peo- 
 ple. However, for some little time there was nothing for 
 it but patience, while the mighty men of the tribe of 
 Judah, who, with Hur at their head, had been the first to 
 reach the spot, wielded their axes, and strove with levers 
 hastily made out of the trunks of acacia trees to clear 
 away the huge boulders which strewed the path, and open 
 up the way to the spring which leapt forth from several rifts 
 in the rock. 
 
 At first it had flowed among a chaos of moss-grown blocks 
 of granite ; but presently they succeeded in directing the 
 flow of the precious fluid, and in checking the water by form- 
 ing a sort of tank where even the cattle could drink. Those 
 who had filled their jars had caught the water in its over- 
 flow from the hastily-contrived dam. Now the men whose 
 duty it was to watch the camp kept the throng off, so as to 
 give the water time to settle and clear in the large new 
 basin which it filled with amazing rapidity. 
 
 In sight actually of the blessing for which they had so 
 loudly clamored, it was easy now to have patience. They 
 had found the treasure ; all that was necessary was to 
 husband it. Not a word of discontent or complaint or 
 reviling was now to be heard ; many indeed looked abashed 
 and ashamed on this new mercy from the Most High. 
 
 Loud and jubilant voices were heard far and wide, 
 shouting and talking ; but the man of God who knew 
 every rock and valley, every pasture and spring of the 
 hills of Horeb better than any one, and who had again been 
 the instrument of such great blessing to his people, had 
 retired into a neighboring ravine, as if seeking refuge there 
 from the thanks and acclamations which rose louder and 
 spread further every moment, seeking peace and silence 
 above all things for his deeply-agitated spirit. 
 
 Presently hymns of thanksgiving to the Lord were to 
 be heard from the Hebrew multitude, who, refreshed and 
 revived, and overflowing with gratitude, were pitching their 
 camp with as much hope and confidence as ever they had 
 known. The sound of song, of happy laughter, jests and 
 encouraging cries, formed an accompaniment to the work 
 of putting up tents, and the encampment was rapidly 
 effected, as rapidly as if it had been raised from the earth 
 by a magic spell. 
 
 16 
 
242 JOSHUA. 
 
 The eyes of the young men flashed with martial ardor, 
 and many a beast shed its blood to make a feast. 
 
 Mothers, after doing their part by the hearth and 
 in the tent, led their little ones to the spring to show 
 them the spot where Moses with his staff had pointed 
 out the spring bubbling through the rift in the granite. 
 Many men likewise stood with hands and eyes raised 
 to Heaven round the place where Jehovah had shown 
 such grace to His people, and among them were not 
 a few of those murmurers who had picked up stones 
 wherewith to stone the servant of God. None doubted 
 that they here beheld the result of a great miracle. 
 The elders impressed on the little ones that they should 
 never forget this day or this water, and an old grand- 
 mother was wetting her grandchildren's brows at the 
 brink of the pool to ensure divine protection for them for 
 the rest of their lives. 
 
 Hope, thankfulness and the glow of trust prevailed on 
 all hands ; even the fear of the hostile Amalekites had 
 vanished, for what ill could come to him who put his trust 
 in the mercy of so omnipotent a Protector. 
 
 Joy was absent from one tent alone, and that the finest 
 of them — the tent of the head of the tribe of Judah. 
 Miriam sat among her women after distributing the mid- 
 day meal in silence to the men overflowing with grateful 
 enthusiasm ; she had heard from Milcah's husband Reuben 
 that Moses had made Joshua captain of the Hebrew tent 
 in the presence of all the elders. Hur, her husband, she 
 also was told, had expressed himself ready and glad to 
 renounce the dignity in favor of the son of Nun. 
 
 The prophetess had not chosen to join in the people's 
 song of praise ; when Milcah and her women had besought 
 her to go with them to the well, she had bidden them go 
 without her. She was now expecting her husband, and 
 wished to meet him alone ; she must show him that she 
 desired his forgiveness. But he did not come ; for, after 
 the council of the elders had broken up, he remained with 
 the new captain to help him to arrange his men, and this 
 he did as a subordinate, obedient to Hosea, who owed his 
 call and his name of Joshua to her. 
 
 Her waiting women, who had gathered about her, were 
 busy spinning ; but she could not endure this humble toil, 
 and while she sat with idle hands staring into vacancy the 
 
JOSHUA. 243 
 
 hours went slowly indeed. And at the same time her pur- 
 pose of humbling herself before her husband grew feebler. 
 She felt impelled to pray for strength to bow before the 
 man who was in truth her master ; but the prophetess, 
 usually so apt at fervent prayer, could not find the right vein 
 of devotion. If now and then she succeeded in collecting 
 her thoughts and uplifting her heart, something disturbed 
 her. Every fresh report which was brought to her from the 
 camp added to her displeasure. When at last dusk was 
 falling, a messenger came desiring her to have no care for 
 the men's evening meal, which had already been long 
 prepared and waiting; Hur, with his son and grandson, 
 were about to accept the bidding of Nun and Joshua to 
 share theirs. 
 
 At this she felt it hard to restrain her tears, and if she had 
 suffered them to flow unchecked they would have been the 
 bitter drops of wrath and wounded pride, not tears of 
 distress and regretful longing. 
 
 During the hours of the evening watch the warriors all 
 marched past her, and from rank to rank the cry re-echoed 
 of " Hail to Joshua ! " And those who repeated the watch- 
 word, " Steadfast and strong," did so in honor of the man 
 she once had loved, but now hated as she confessed to 
 herself. None but the men of his own tribe had honored 
 her husband with a special" cry. Was this their gratitude 
 for the generosity which had led him to abdicate the post, 
 to which he alone had a right, in favor of a younger man? 
 It cut her to the heart to see her husband so deposed ; but 
 it wounded her yet more to find that Hur could thus 
 abandon his lately wedded wife. 
 
 The evening meal at the door of the Ephraimites' tent 
 was a long one. A little before midnight she sent her 
 serving-women to bed, and lay down herself to wait till her 
 husband should return, to confess to him all that had 
 troubled and angered her, and what she most desired. 
 
 She thought that it would be easy to keep awake when 
 she was in such anguish of mind ; but the great fatigues 
 and strain of the last few days and nights had told upon 
 her, and, in the midst of a prayer for humility and the love 
 of her husband, she was overcome by sleep. At last, at 
 the hour of the first morning watch, when day was just 
 beginning to break, she was startled from her slumbers by 
 the sound of the trumpets giving warning of immediate 
 danger. 
 
244 JOSHUA. 
 
 She rose quickly, and, glancing at her husband's couch, 
 saw that it was empty ; still it had been used, and on the 
 sandy soil — for mats were spread only in the living-room — 
 she saw the traces of Hur's footsteps by her own bedside. 
 He must have stood close by her, and perhaps, while she 
 slept, have gazed tenderly down on her face. 
 
 This was indeed the truth \ her old slave-woman told 
 her so unasked. For after she had roused Hur she had 
 seen him carefully shading the lamp while he looked on 
 Miriam's face, and bent over her for some minutes, as 
 though he would have kissed her. 
 
 This was good hearing, and rejoiced the lonely wife so 
 greatly that she forgot her usual calm dignity and pressed 
 her lips to the wrinkled brow of the little bent old woman, 
 who had done service of yore to her parents. Then she 
 hastily bid her maids to braid her hair and dress her in a 
 holiday robe of light blue which Hur had given her, and 
 hastened forth to take leave of him. 
 
 Meanwhile the troops had formed in order. The tents 
 were being struck, and Miriam sought her husband for a 
 long time in vain. At last she found him ; but he was 
 deeply engaged in talk with Joshua, and, as she caught sight 
 of the captain, the prophetess shuddered with a sudden 
 chill, nor could she persuade herself to address the men. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 A hard battle must be fought, for, as the spies reported, 
 the Amalekites had been joined by other desert-tribes. 
 Nevertheless, the Israelites were still almost twice their 
 number ; but how far inferior in warlike skill were Joshua's 
 troops to their opponents, inured to battle and ambush. 
 The foe came up from the south, from the oasis at the foot 
 of the Sacred Mountain which was the primaeval home of 
 their race, their foster mother, their beloved, their all, and 
 to them well worth shedding the last drop for. 
 
 Joshua, now the captain, recognized by Moses and 
 all the people as leader of the Hebrew fighting-men, led 
 his newly-formed army to the widest portion of the valley, 
 as this allowed him to take the utmost advantage of their 
 superior numbers. The camp was removed by his orders, 
 
JOSHUA. 245 
 
 and pitched in a narrower place at the northern end of 
 the valley of Rephidim, in which the struggle must be 
 fought out, as this made it easier to defend the tents. He 
 left the command of the camp and of the men told off to 
 protect it to the prudent care of his father. 
 
 He had wished to leave Moses and all the elders of the 
 tribes safe, within the precincts of the camp, but their great 
 leader had gone forward with Hur and Aaron, and climbed 
 a peak of granite where they could look down upon the 
 fight. Thus the fighting-men could see Moses and his two 
 companions on the cliff which commanded the top of the 
 valley, and feel assured that the servant of the Lord would 
 not cease to beseech Him to spare them and give them the 
 victory. But every simple man in that host, and every 
 woman and old man in the camp, in that hour of peril 
 turned to the God of their fathers, and the rallying-cry 
 chosen by Joshua, " Jehovah, our Refuge," bound the 
 hearts of the warriors to the ruler of the battle, and 
 reminded the most faint-hearted and unskilled among 
 the fighting-men that he could not take a step nor deal a 
 blow, but the Lord would mark it. 
 
 The trumpets and cow-horns of the Hebrew host rang 
 out louder and louder, for the Amalekites were pouring 
 down on the level ground which was to be the field of 
 battle. 
 
 It was a strange scene for such a struggle, such as no 
 experienced captain would ever willingly have chosen, for 
 it was shut in on both sides by steep grey cliffs of granite 
 towering up to heaven. If the foe should win, the camp, 
 too, must be lost, and any benefit to be derived from know- 
 ledge of warfare must here be displayed within the smallest 
 conceivable space. To circumvent the enemy or surprise 
 him in flank seemed quite impossible ; but even the rocks 
 were turned to account by the leader, for wherever it was 
 possible he had made his best slingers and archers climb 
 up them to no great height, and instructed them to watch 
 for a sign at which they should mingle in the fight. 
 
 At the first glance Joshua perceived that he had not 
 overrated the foe, for those who began the battle were 
 bearded men, with clearly cut, manly faces, out of which 
 their black eyes glowed at the enemy with wild and blood- 
 thirsty hatred. And every man, like their leader himself, 
 a grey-haired man of many scars, was spare and supple of 
 
246 JOSHUA. 
 
 limb. They wielded ihe curved sabre, the javelin of heavy 
 sharpened wood, and the lance ornamented with a tuft of 
 camel's hair, like practiced warriors, and the war-cry rang 
 out loud, cruel and death-defying from the deep hearts of 
 these men, who felt that they must die or see their dearest 
 possession in the hands of the enemy. 
 
 At the first onslaught Joshua led forward the men 
 whom he had armed with the large Egyptian shields and 
 lances, and these, fired by their valiant leader, made a good 
 stand, particularly as the narrow defile into the field of 
 battle hindered their wild opponents from taking full 
 advantage of their superior numbers. But when the men 
 on foot presently withdrew, and a troop of warriors or 
 dromedaries rushed down on the Hebrews, many of them 
 were scared at the strange sight of these creatures, known 
 to them only by description. They cast away their shields 
 and fled with loud outcries, and wherever a gap was made 
 the riders drove in their dromedaries and thrust down at 
 the foe with their long sharp javelins. At this the herdsmen, 
 unused to such an attack, thought only of saving them- 
 selves, and many turned to fly, for sudden terror seized them 
 as they saw the flaming eyes, and heard the shrill, malignant 
 cry of the enraged Amalekite women, who had rushed into 
 the fight to add fuel to their husbands' courage and terrify 
 the enemy. They held on to the humped brutes by leathern 
 straps hanging down from the saddle, which they clutched 
 in their left hands, and allowed themselves to be dragged 
 whithersoever the riders went. Hatred seemed to have 
 steeled each female heart against fear of death, compassion 
 and womanly feeling; and the hideous cry of these 
 Megaeras broke the spirit of many a brave Hebrew. 
 
 But no sooner did their captain see them give way than 
 he took advantage of the disaster, and bid them retire and 
 allow the savage foe to enter the valley ; for he said to 
 himself that the superior numbers of his men could be 
 turned to better account as soon as they had the oppor- 
 tunity of pressing on the foe from both flanks as well as in 
 front, and when the slingers and archers could take their 
 part in the fight. 
 
 Ephraim and the bravest of his comrades, who remained 
 with him as runners, were now sent back to the northern 
 end of the valley, to tell the leaders of the ranks posted 
 there what Joshua proposed, and to order them to advance. 
 
JOSHUA. 247 
 
 The swift-footed shepherd lads vanished as nimbly as 
 gazelles ; and it soon was seen that their captain had hit 
 on the right plan ; for no sooner had the Amalekites 
 reached the middle of the valley than the Hebrews fell 
 upon them from all sides ; several who were bravely rush- 
 ing forward fell in the sand as they brandished the sword 
 or spear, hit by a round pebble or a sharp arrow from 
 sling or bow. 
 
 Moses, meanwhile, kept his place on the cliff overlooking 
 the battle-field, with Aaron and Hur. From thence he 
 watched the fight in which he, who had grown grey in 
 peaceful pursuits, could take part only with heart and soul. 
 Not a movement, not a sword raised or dropped among 
 friends or foes, escaped his keen eye ; but when the fray 
 had fairly begun, and the captain, with wise forethought, 
 had opened a way for the enemy into the midst of his own 
 fighting-men, Hur exclaimed to the grey-headed man of 
 God : " My wife, your sister's lofty spirit has indeed 
 discerned the truth. The son of Nun belies the call of the 
 Most High. AVhat is this ? We are the superior force, and 
 yet the enemy makes his way unhindered into the very 
 heart of our host. As the waters of the Red Sea stood 
 aside at the word of the Lord, so do our ranks, — and, as 
 it would seem, by their leader's bidding." 
 
 " Only to swallow up Amalek as the waves of the sea 
 swallowed up the Egyptians," was Moses' reply. _ 
 
 Then he lifted up his hands to Heaven and cried : 
 
 " Look down, Jehovah, on Thy people, who are in fresh 
 straits. Strengthen the arm and give sight to the eyes of 
 him whom Thou hast chosen to be Thy sword. Send him 
 the succor Thou didst promise him when Thou didst 
 name him Joshua instead of Hosea ! And if Thou dost 
 no more suffer him to prove himself steadfast and strong 
 as beseems the captain of Thy choice, then do Thou, with 
 the hosts of Heaven, set Thyself at the head of Thy people 
 that they may put their enemies to flight ! " 
 
 Thus the man of God besought the Lord with hands 
 lifted on high, and ceased not to entreat Jehovah and cry to 
 Him whose mighty will ruled His people ; and presently 
 Aaron whispered to him that the foe was hard beset, and 
 that the courage of the Israelites was proving itself nobly. 
 Joshua was now here and now there, and the ranks of the 
 enemy were visibly thinner, while those of the Hebrews 
 
248 JOSHUA. 
 
 seemed to multiply. And Hur confirmed this report, and 
 added that the untiring zeal and heroic contempt of death 
 of the son of Nun were beyond all praise. He had, as at 
 that moment, felled one of the wildest of the Amalekites 
 with his battle-axe. 
 
 At this Moses breathed more freely. His arms fell by 
 his side, and he eagerly watched the course of the fight 
 which was surging and raging, tossing and waving at his 
 feet. 
 
 The sun had by this time reached its noon, and shone 
 down on the combatants with scorching fires. The grey 
 granite walls of the valley glowed with intenser heat every 
 hour, and the sweat had long since stood on the brows 
 of the three men on the rock. What, then, must the 
 heat be below, adding to the labor of struggling and 
 wrestling ? How sorely must the wounds ache of the bleed- 
 ing wretches lying there in the sand ! 
 
 Moses felt it all as though he himself were suffering it, 
 for his immovably steadfast soul was rich in compassion, 
 and he bore this people, who were of his own flesh and 
 blood, and for whom he lived and labored, in his heart as 
 a father does his child. The wounds inflicted on his 
 brethren pained him ; yet his heart beat high with proud 
 gladness as he beheld how those whose cowardly subjection 
 had but a short while since so greatly fired his wrath had 
 learned the arts of attack and defence. Now one band of 
 young Hebrews after another rushed on the enemy with 
 loud cries of " Jehovah, our Refuge ! " 
 
 In Joshua's proud, heroic form he saw the posterity of 
 Israel as he dreamed and hoped it might be, and he now 
 no longer doubted that the Lord had indeed called Joshua to 
 be the captain of his people. Rarely had his large com- 
 manding look flashed more brightly than at this moment. 
 
 But what was that ? 
 
 A cry of horror broke from Aaron's lips, and Hur started 
 to his feet and gazed anxiously towards the north ; for 
 from the spot where the people's tents were pitched came 
 a fresh battle-cry, mingling with loud and lamentable 
 shrieks, not, as it seemed, from the men alone but from 
 women and children. The enemy had surprised the 
 camp. 
 
 A troop of the Amalekites had been detached from the 
 main body long before the battle had begun, and had 
 
JOSHUA. 249 
 
 made their way round by a mountain defile, known only to 
 themselves. 
 
 At this Hur thought of his young wife, and a vision rose 
 before Aaron's mind of Elisheba, his faithful spouse, of his 
 children and grandchildren ; and both with beseeching eyes 
 dumbly entreated Moses to allow them to fly to the rescue 
 of those dearest to them ; but the austere chief refused, 
 and kept them with him. 
 
 Then, again, standing up, he raised his heart and hands 
 once more to Heaven. With fervent prayer he cried to the 
 Lord, and ceased not his entreaties ; as the minutes went 
 on the more ardent was his beseeching, for all that the 
 Hebrew host had won they now seemed to be losing. 
 Every glance at the battle-field, everything his companions 
 told him, while, with spirit uplifted to the Lord his God, 
 he stood blind and deaf to the scene below, added to the 
 burden of his woes. 
 
 Joshua had placed himself at the head of a strong party 
 of men and withdrawn from the fray, and with him were 
 Bezaleel, Hur's grandson, Aholiab, his favorite comrade, 
 young Ephraim and Reuben, Milcah's husband. It was 
 with a heart full of blessing that Hur had marked them 
 retire, for they could only have quitted the fight in order 
 to succor the camp. He listened with eager ears to the 
 sounds from the north, as though he divined how deeply 
 he was interested in the broken cries and lamentations 
 which came up from the tents on the breeze. 
 
 Old Nun had taken up arms against the troop of Ama- 
 lekites who had fallen on the camp and had fought valiantly, 
 but when he perceived that the men whom Joshua had left 
 under his command could no longer stand against the 
 onslaught of the foe, he sent to crave reinforcement of the 
 captain. Joshua forthwith entrusted the further conduct 
 of the battle to Nahshon, the second chief of the tribe of 
 Judah, and to Uri, the son of Hur, who had distinguished 
 himself by his courage and forethought, and hastened with 
 other chosen men to help his father. 
 
 He had not lost a moment, and yet the fight was already 
 decided by the time he reached the scene of the struggle ; 
 for, as he approached the camp, the Amalekites had broken 
 through his father's line of defence, and cut him off from 
 the tents on which they were rushing. 
 
 First, then, Joshua rescued the brave old man from the 
 
250 JOSHUA. 
 
 foe, and next he had to drive the sons of the desert away 
 from the camp ; this gave rise to a sharp struggle, man to 
 man, and hand to hand, and he himself could be in but 
 one spot at a time, and must need leave it to the younger 
 fighting-men to act for themselves, each in his own place. 
 
 Here, too, he raised the cry, " Jehovah, our Refuge ! " 
 and rushed, shouting these words, into Ilur's tent, which 
 was the first to be seized by the enemy, and round which 
 the battle was fiercest. Many corpses already strewed the 
 ground at the entrance, and furious Amalekites were 
 struggling with a party of Hebrews, while from within 
 came wild screams of terror. 
 
 He sprang across the threshold with winged feet, and 
 beheld a spectacle which filled even the unflinching man 
 with terror, for, on the left of the large room it formed, 
 Hebrews and Amalekites were rolling on the blood-stained 
 mats in a furious struggle, white on the right he saw 
 Miriam and her waiting women, whose hands the men of 
 the desert had tied. The men had meant to carry them 
 off as precious plunder, but an Amalekite woman, frenzied 
 with hatred, revenge and jealousy, and eager to sacrifice 
 the strange woman to the flames, was blowing the brands 
 on the hearth, and, by waving the veil she had snatched 
 from Miriam's head, had fanned them to a considerable 
 blaze. 
 
 A fearful tumult filled the confined space as Joshua 
 rushed into the tent ; on one side the yells of the strug- 
 gling men, while on the other the prophetess' women 
 set up a succession of loud shrieks for rescue and deliver- 
 ance as soon as they saw him coming. Their mistress, 
 as pale as death, knelt at the feet of the Amalekite chief, 
 whose wife was threatening them with death by fire. She 
 stared at their deliverer as though a spirit had started out 
 of the earth before her eyes, and the scenes which followed 
 stamped themselves on Miriam's memory as a series 
 of horrible and disconnected, but never-to-be-forgotten 
 images. 
 
 First, the Amalekite chief who had bound her was a 
 strange but heroic figure. With his swarthy skin and high 
 hooked nose, he resembled an eagle 01 his native mountains j 
 his beard was black, his eyes were aflame. But ere long 
 he was to measure his strength with another — with the man 
 who once had been dear to her heart. She had often com* 
 
JOSHUA. 251 
 
 pared him with a Hon, but never had he seemed more like 
 the king of the desert. 
 
 They were both mighty men and strong. No one could 
 have predicted which of them must yield to the other, 
 which must win the victory ; and it was her fate to witness 
 the struggle, for already the fiery son of the desert had 
 shouted his war-cry and rushed upon the more cautious 
 Hebrew. 
 
 That no man may live if his heart stops beating for so 
 much as a minute every child must know, and yet Miriam 
 was certain that hers had stood still, rigid and turned to 
 stone, when the lion rushed into peril to destroy the eagle, 
 and the Amalekite's bright knife flashed forth, and she 
 saw the blood flowing from her champion's shoulder. 
 
 But then her heart began to beat again, nay, and faster 
 than ever before, for suddenly the lion-hearted warrior., 
 whom she had so lately hated with such hatred, was once 
 more, as by a miracle, the friend of her childhood again. 
 Love had waked up with the sound of trumpets and 
 cymbals, and marched in triumph into her heart, lately so 
 desolate and forlorn. All that had held them apart was 
 suddenly forgotten and buried, and never were more 
 fervent appeals addressed to the Most High than in the 
 brief prayer which went up from her agonized soul. And 
 as her pleading was fervent, so was it immediately an- 
 swered, for the eagle was down and his soaring for ever 
 ended under the superior strength of the lion. 
 
 All was dark for awhile before Miriam's eyes, and it was 
 as in a dream that she felt the cords which bound her 
 wrists and ankles cut by Ephraim. Then she soon recov- 
 ered consciousness, and beheld at her feet the bleeding 
 corpse of the vanquished chief, and in other parts of the 
 tent many bodies and wounded men, among them several 
 of her husband's slaves. By them, stalwart and victorious, 
 stood the brave fighting-men of her nation, with the noble 
 and reverend figure of Nun, and Joshua, whose wounds his 
 father was binding up. 
 
 This task she felt should have been hers, and hers alone ; 
 and deep grief and burning shame came over her as she 
 remembered how greatly she had sinned against this man. 
 She knew not how she could repay him, on whom she had 
 brought such deep sorrow, all she owed him. Her whole 
 heart longed *o hear some word of forgiveness from his lips ; 
 
252 JOSHUA. 
 
 and she went towards him on her knees across the blood- 
 stained ground ; but the prophetess eloquent lips were 
 dumb ; she could not find the right word, till suddenly the 
 imploring cry rose loud from her oppressed breast : 
 " Joshua ! O Joshua ! I have sinned against you indeed, 
 and will repent of it all my life long, but do not scorn my 
 thanks. Do not repel me from you, and, if you can, forgive 
 me ! " 
 
 She could not have uttered another word ; but then — and 
 this again she never forgot — his eyes had overflowed with 
 scalding tears, and he had raised her from the ground with 
 irresistible strength, and yet with a hand as gentle as a 
 mother's when her child has had a fall, and from his lips 
 came mild and friendly words, promising full forgiveness. 
 The mere pressure of his hand was enough to show her that 
 he was no longer wroth with her, as she heard his assur- 
 ance that the name of Joshua could not fall more sweetly 
 on his ear from any lips than from hers. 
 
 Then with the cry "Jehovah, our Refuge !" he turned 
 from her ; but his clear shout, and the enthusiastic battle- 
 cry of his followers rang in her ears long after. 
 
 At last all was still once more, and she only knew that 
 never before nor after had she wept so passionately or so 
 bitterly as in that hour. Moreover, she had made two 
 solemn vows to the God who had called her to be His 
 handmaid. But the two men whom they most concerned 
 were meanwhile in the thick of the tumult of battle. 
 
 One had led his men back from the rescued camp to 
 meet the foe once more ; the other, by the side of the leader 
 of the multitude, was watching the varying movements of 
 the still furious fight. 
 
 Joshua found his followers hardly pressed. In one place 
 they were giving way, in another they were making but a 
 half-hearted stand against the sons of the desert. Hur, too, 
 was looking down with increasing and double anxiety on 
 the course of the battle, for in the camp he pictured his 
 wife and father in peril, and below him his son. His fatherly 
 heart quaked when he beheld Uri giving way, but when he 
 made a fresh onslaught, and by a well-directed attack 
 broke the ranks of the enemy, he held up his head again, 
 and longed to be able to shout a word of praise that he 
 could hear. But what car could be sharp enough to hear 
 a single voice above the clatter of weapons and mingled 
 
JOSHUA, 255 
 
 battle-cries, the shrieking of the women and the wailing of 
 the wounded, the surly grunting of the camels, the blare of 
 trumpets and horns ? 
 
 And now the foremost of the Amalekites had forced 
 their way, like the thin end of a wedge, into the furthest 
 ranks of the Hebrews. If they should succeed in breaking 
 open a gap for those behind them, and effect a junction 
 with those who had attacked the camp, the battle was lost 
 and the fate of the Israelites was sealed ; for still another 
 horde of Amalekites were in reserve at the southern end of 
 the valley, who had not yet had any fighting, and who 
 seemed to be intended to Drotect the oasis from the foe in 
 the last extremity. 
 
 But here was a fresh surprise. 
 
 The men of the desert had made their way so far for- 
 ward that the slingers and bowmen could scarcely hit one of 
 them, and if these were not to remain idle they must be 
 ordered down to the scene of the struggle. 
 
 Hur might have called in vain to Uri to remember 
 these men and give them some fresh occupation, but sud- 
 denly a youth made his appearance, coming from the end 
 by the encampment, a lad as nimble as a mountain-goat, 
 scrambling and leaping from crag to crag. As soon as he 
 reached the first man he spoke to him, gave a signal to 
 those beyond, who again repeated it to the next, and 
 finally they all descended into the valley and climbed the 
 western cliff as far as a spot where some men were stand- 
 ing ; there they vanished as utterly as though the rocks 
 had swallowed them. The youth who led the slingers and 
 bowmen was Ephraim. A patch of shadow on the face of 
 the rock was, no doubt, the opening into a ravine, and 
 through this the men were to be led whom Joshua had sent 
 for to succor the camp. So thought Hur, and not he alone 
 but Aaron likewise, and again Hur began to doubt whe- 
 ther the Lord were indeed with Joshua, for the men who 
 were to be of use at the tents were lost to the troops which 
 it was now the duty of his son and of his comrade Nahshon 
 to command. 
 
 The fight round the camp had already lasted above an 
 hour, and Moses had not ceased to beseech the Lord with 
 hands uplifted to Heaven,when the Amalekites made a great 
 rush forward. At this the leader of his people collected all 
 his strength for a new appeal to the Almighty ; but he was 
 
254 JOSHUA. 
 
 much exhausted, his knees shook and his weary arms fell 
 by his sides. But his spirit had all its fire and his heart 
 all its fervent desire not to cease from entreating Him who 
 is the Ruler of battles. The leader of his people must not 
 be idle during the struggle, and his weapon was prayer. 
 Like a child which will not cense from beseeching its mother 
 till she has granted him that which it unselfishly demands 
 for its brethren, Moses importuned the Almighty, who 
 had hitherto shown Himself to be a Father to him and 
 the Hebrew folk, and saving them as by a miracle from 
 the greatest perils. 
 
 But his frame was faint, so he called on his companions, 
 and they pushed forward a block of stone on which he 
 might sit, while he besieged the heart of the Lord with 
 more and yet more prayers. There he sat ; and when his 
 weary limbs refused their service his soul still answered to 
 his call, and went up as in a flame to the Ruler of the des- 
 tinies of man. But his arms grew more and more feeble, 
 and dropped at last as if weighed down by heavy masses 
 of lead, although it had for years been his habit to raise 
 them heavenwards when he cried fervently to God on 
 high. 
 
 This his comrades knew, and they thought they had per- 
 ceived that, as often as their great chief's hands sank, the 
 sons of Amalek gained some new advantage. Then they 
 diligently held up his arms, the one on the right hand and 
 the other on the left ; and although the mighty man could 
 no longer appeal to Heaven in intelligible words, and his 
 giant's frame swayed to and fro, and more than once he 
 felt as though the stone on which he sat, the valley below 
 him and the whole world were in movement, still his eyes 
 and hands were raised on high. 
 
 Not for an instant did he cease calling on the Most 
 High till, on a sudden, from the camp there came up glad 
 shouts of victory, which echoed loudly from the rocky 
 walls of the gorge. Joshua had returned to th* field of 
 battle, and at the head of his troops rushed on the enemy 
 with irresistible fury. 
 
 From this moment the struggle assumed a new aspect. 
 The decision, indeed, was still doubtful. Moses, supported 
 on either side, dared not cease to uplift his heart and his 
 hands, but at last, at last, the final struggle was over. The 
 ranks of the Amalekites gave way, and presently they fled, 
 
JOSHUA. 255 
 
 broken and panic-stricken, to the northern pass by which 
 they had entered the valley. And even from thence the 
 cry came np from a thousand throats : " Jehovah, our 
 Refuge ! " " Victory ! Victory ! " 
 
 At this the man of God let his arms fall from the sup- 
 porting shoulders of his companions, stood up, tall and 
 strong, crying with renewed and wonderfully revived 
 energy : " I thank Thee, my God and Lord ! Jehovah, 
 our Refuge ! Thy people are saved ! " But then his sight 
 grew dark from exhaustion. 
 
 However, he presently looked up again, and saw 
 Ephraim pressing close on the Amalekites, who had taken 
 their stand at the southern defile, with his slingers and 
 bowmen, while Joshua drove the main body of the desert- 
 tribes backwards towards their vanquished brethren. 
 
 The captain had heard from a deserter of a pass by 
 which good climbers could reach a gorge leading out on 
 the northern end of the battle-field, and Ephraim, in obe- 
 dience to his command, had led the archers and slingers 
 along this difficult path, and fallen on the rear of the last 
 band of the enemy who could still have made any stand. 
 Thus attacked from both sides, their ranks thinned, and 
 their courage quelled, the sons of Amalek gave up the 
 struggle ; and now it was seen how these children of the 
 desert and dwellers among the highlands could use their 
 legs, for at a sign from their leader they first killed their 
 dromedaries, and then fled in all directions like feathers 
 scattered by the wind. They climbed steep cliffs which 
 looked inaccessible to man like the nimblest lizards, on 
 their hands and feet ; but a great many escaped by the 
 ravine which the deserter had betrayed to Joshua. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 The larger half of the Amalekites lay dead or wounded on 
 the field of battle, and the Hebrew captain knew that the 
 other desert tribes who had joined them had, as was their 
 custom, abandoned their slain, and would retire to their 
 own haunts. At the same time it was not impossible that 
 despair might give the fugitives courage not to allow their 
 oasis to fall into the hands of the Hebrews without a final 
 contest. 
 
256 JOSHUA. 
 
 However, Joshua's men were too much exhausted for it 
 to he possible to lead them any further at this moment. 
 He himself had lost some blood from several slight 
 wounds, and the great exertions of the last few days had 
 made their mark even on his iron frame. 
 
 Besides this, the sun, which had not long risen when the 
 strife began, was already sinking to rest, and if they were 
 to force their way through to the oasis it would not be 
 advisable to do battle in the dark. What he and, even 
 more, his brave followers most needed was rest till the 
 next day's dawn. 
 
 All about him he saw none but glad faces, beaming 
 with proud self-reliance, and when he dismissed the 
 ranks to retire to the camp and rejoice with those dear 
 to them over the victory, the troops, which had marched 
 past wearily and slowly, broke out in shouts of joy, as 
 clear and glad as though they had quite forgotten the 
 fatigues which had bowed their heads and weighted their 
 feet. 
 
 " Hail to Joshua ! Hail to the Conqueror ! " re-echoed 
 from cliff to cliff long after the last of the troops was lost 
 to sight. But more clearly still did the words ring in his 
 heart in which Moses had thanked him, for they had 
 been •: " Verily as the sword of the Most High, steadfast 
 and strong, hast thou fought the fight. So long as the 
 Lord is thy Helper and Jehovah our Refuge, we need fear 
 no enemies ! " 
 
 He fancied he still could feel on his brow and head the 
 kiss of the great leader, the man of God, who had clasped 
 him to his heart before all the people, and it was not a 
 smalfthing to control the violent agitation which disturbed 
 him at the end of this all-important day. 
 
 A strong desire to stand clear in his own eyes before 
 mingling with the jubilant throng, or meeting his father, 
 to whom a share in every great emotion that stirred his 
 soul was due, prompted him to linger on the field of 
 battle. This was now a scene where gloom and horror held 
 sway, for those who lingered here besides himself were 
 detained by death or mortal wounds. 
 
 The ravens which had followed the pilgrims were soar- 
 ing above the bodies, and already venturing to settle on the 
 rich banquet spread before them. The scent of blood had 
 brought the beasts of prey out of their coverts in the hills 
 
JOSHUA. 257 
 
 and rocks, and their greedy howl or bark was to be heard 
 on every side. 
 
 Then when darkness followed on dusk, lights began to 
 flit about over the blood-drenched ground. They guided 
 the slaves and those who missed one dear to them to dis- 
 criminate between friend and foe, the wounded and the 
 dead ; and many a cry of anguish from those who were 
 badly hurt rose up amid the croaking of the birds of prey 
 and the yells of the ravening jackals and hyaenas, foxes 
 and tiger-cats. 
 
 But Joshua knew the horrors of a battle-field and feared 
 them not. Leaning against a rock he saw the same stars 
 rise as had shone on him outside his tent in the camp by 
 Tanis, when he stood divided against himself, face to face 
 with the hardest decision in his life. Since then a month 
 only had gone by, but that short space of time had 
 witnessed an incredible change in his whole inner and outer 
 life. All that had seemed great and splendid to him that 
 night, as he sat outside the tent in which Ephraim lay in 
 his fever, all that he had then deemed worthy of his most 
 strenuous effort, now lay far behind him, vain and worth- 
 less. He cared no longer for the honors and dignities 
 with which the caprice of the weak and arbitrary king of a 
 strange nation could make him great and rich. What to 
 him now was the well-armed and disciplined army among 
 whose captains he had numbered himself with such glad 
 pride? 
 
 He could scarcely believe that there had been a time 
 when he had aspired to nothing higher than to command 
 more and yet more thousands of Egyptian soldiers ; when 
 his heart had beat high at the prospect of a new title or a 
 mark of honor conferred by men whom, for the most part, 
 he could not regard as worthy of his esteem. He had 
 looked for everything from the Egyptians, for nothing from 
 his own nation. For that night in the camp he had thought 
 with repulsion of the great mass of the people who were 
 of his own blood, as miserable slaves, perishing in degrading 
 servitude. He had looked down in his pride even on the 
 noblest of them, for they were but herdsmen, and as such 
 held in contempt by the Egyptians whose feelings he 
 shared. 
 
 His own father, indeed, was an owner of beasts, and 
 though he held him in high veneration, this was in spite of 
 
 17 
 
258 JOSHUA. 
 
 his position, this was because his whole nature commanded 
 respect, bi cause the vigorous old man, with youthful fire, 
 won the love of all men, and, above all, that of his grateful 
 son. lie had never ceased to acknowledge him gladly, 
 but in all other matters he had striven so to conduct him- 
 self among his brethren in arms that they should forget 
 his origin, and regard him in all respects as one of them 
 selves. His ancestress, Ascnath, the wife of Joseph, had 
 been an Egyptian, and of this he had always been proud. 
 
 But now — to-night? 
 
 Now he would have made the man who called him an 
 Egyptian feel his wrath ; and all which, at the last new 
 moon, he would have cast from him and hidden away as 
 though it were a disgrace, at this next new moon, which, 
 like the last, rose in a star-lit sky, made him hold his head 
 high with pride and joy. 
 
 How grand a thought it was that he had a right to pride 
 himself on being what he was ! What a standing lie, what 
 an infinite treason would his life and doings as an Egyptian 
 captain appear to him now ! His upright, spirit rejoiced 
 in the consciousness that this was an aid to that unworthy 
 denial and concealment of his own blood. He felt with 
 glad thankfulness that he was one of the people whom the 
 Most High had chosen before all others ; that he belonged 
 to a congregation of whom, even the humblest, nay, and 
 every child, lifted up his hands in prayer to the God whom 
 the loftiest spirits among the Egyptians veiled in the nar- 
 rowest mystery, because they thought the common folk 
 too weak and too dull-witted to stand before His might 
 and greatness, or to comprehend them. 
 
 And this, the One and only God, before whom the 
 motley crowd of Egyptian gods sank into nothingness, 
 this God had chosen him, the son of Nun, out of the 
 thousands of the nation, to be the leader and protector of 
 His chosen people, and had given him a name, pledging 
 Himself to be his Helper. To obey his God and to 
 devote his blood and life, under His guidance, to His 
 people, seemed to him as lofty an aim as any man ever 
 kept in view. His black eyes flashed more brightly as he 
 thought of it. His heart seemed too small for all the love 
 with which he would now make up to his brethren for his 
 shortcomings towards them in former years. 
 
 He had, indeed, lost a noble and lovely woman whom 
 
JOSHUA. 259 
 
 he had hoped to win, and she was the wife of another ; 
 but this did not at all trouble the happy enthusiasm which 
 possessed his soul ; he had ceased to desire her for his 
 own, high as her image still stood in his heart. At this 
 moment he thought of her with calm gratitude ; for, as he 
 confessed to himself, his new life had begun on that deci- 
 sive night when Miriam had set him the example of 
 sacrificing everything, even what she held dearest, for God 
 and the Hebrew people. 
 
 In so far as the prophetess had sinned against him he 
 had blotted it all from his memory, for he was wont to 
 forget when he had forgiven. At this moment he felt only 
 how much he owed her. Like some noble tree uplifting 
 its head to heaven, where two hostile countries join and 
 touch, so he stood between his former and his present life ; 
 and although love was laid in a grave, still he and she 
 could never cease to strive hand in hand for the same end, 
 and to walk in the same way. 
 
 He looked back once more on the period which he had 
 just passed through, and he could say to himself that in a 
 very short time, and under his leadership, a crowd of 
 wretched serfs had become valiant warriors. They had 
 already learned to obey promptly in the field, and to be 
 justly proud of victory. And every new success must im- 
 prove them. To-day, even, it seemed to him not merely 
 desirable but perfectly possible to conquer a new country 
 at their head, a home which they would love and call their 
 own. where they might dwell in freedom and welfare, and 
 become such men of valor as, by good training, he hoped 
 to make them. 
 
 Thus, among the horrors of the battle-field, under the 
 moonless night, gladness, as the radiance of day, shone in 
 his soul, and with the words, " God and my people ! "and 
 a thankful upward glance at the starry vault, he quitted 
 the corpse-strewn valley of death with a triumphant step, 
 as though he were marching over palms and flowers cast in 
 his victorious path by a thankful throng. 
 
260 JOSHUA 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 In the camp he found all astir. Fires were blazing in 
 front of the tents, and around them sat joyful groups, 
 while many a beast was slain, either as a thank-offering or 
 for an evening feast. Wherever Joshua went he was 
 hailed with glad acclamations ; but he failed to find his 
 father, for Nun had accepted Hur's bidding, and it was 
 outside his tent that the son embraced the old man, ra- 
 diant with thankful pride. And the belated guest was 
 welcomed by Miriam and her husband in a way which 
 gladdened his heart ; Hur gave him his hand with hearty 
 frankness, while she bowed reverently before him, and her 
 eyes beamed with joy and gratitude. 
 
 Before he sat down, Hur led him aside, ordered a slave 
 who had just slaughtered a calf to divide it in two parts, 
 and, pointing to it, said : — 
 
 " You have done great things for the people and for me, 
 son of Nun, and my life is too short for the gratitude you 
 have laid on me and on my wife. If you can forget die 
 bitter words which troubled our peace at Dophka — and 
 you say you have forgotten them — let us henceforth dwell 
 in unity as brothers in one cause, and stand up for each 
 other in joy and sorrow, in peril and in need. The cap- 
 taincy henceforth belongs to you alone, Joshua, and to 
 none other; and the people all rejoice thereat, and, most 
 of all, so do I and my wife. And if you share my desire 
 that we should henceforth live in the bonds of brother- 
 hood, come with me, and after the custom of our fathers we 
 will walk together between the two halves of this slaugh- 
 tered beast." 
 
 And Joshua gladly did his bidding ; Miriam was the 
 first to join in the loud approval which old Nun began, 
 and she did so with ardent vehemence ; for it was she 
 who, after humbling herself before her husband, whose 
 love she had now quite won back, had suggested to him to 
 invite Joshua to this treaty of brotherhood which was now 
 ratified. All this had cost her no pang ; for the two vows 
 
JOSHUA. 261 
 
 to which she had pledged herself after that the son of Nun, 
 whom she now was ready to call Joshua, had saved her 
 from the hand of the foe were about to be fulfilled, and she 
 felt that it was in a happy hour that she had made them. 
 
 The feeling, new to her, that she was a woman even as 
 other women are, gave to her whole person a gentleness 
 which had hitherto been foreign to her, and this won her 
 the love of her husband, whose full worth she had learnt 
 during the bitter time when he had opened his heart to 
 her. 
 
 At the very hour when Hur and Joshua were sealing the 
 bond of brotherhood, another faithful pair had met again 
 whom sacred duty had torn asunder, for while the friends 
 were still enjoying their meal in front of Hur's tent, three 
 persons desired permission to speak with Nun, their lord 
 and master. These were the old freed woman, who had re- 
 mained behind in Tanis, with her daughter and Asser, from 
 whom Hoglah had parted to stay with her feeble parents. 
 
 Old Eliab, the father, had soon died, and then the mother 
 and daughter had set forth to follow their people through 
 unspeakable fatigues, the old woman riding her husband's 
 ass. Nun received the faithful souls with joy, and in the 
 same hour gave Hoglah to Asser to wife. Thus this blood- 
 stained day had brought blessing to many ; and yet it was 
 fated to end with a harsh discord. 
 
 So long as the fires blazed in the camp there was always 
 some stir going forward, and throughout their wanderings 
 hither no evening had passed without some quarrel and 
 bloody fray. Wounds and death-blows had been the fre- 
 quent result when one who had been insulted revenged 
 himself on his adversary, when some dishonest rascal 'had 
 seized the property of another, or refused to fulfill the 
 obligations he had contracted. 
 
 In these cases it had often been a hard matter to make 
 the peace and bring the criminal to a reckoning, for the 
 refractory refused to acknowledge any man, be he who he 
 might, as a judge over them. Those who fancied them- 
 selves injured banded together with others, and tried to 
 right themselves by force. 
 
 On this festive evening Hur and his guests at first heard 
 only such a noise as every one was accustomed to hear. 
 But presently, when besides the wild uproar a glare of 
 light flared up close to them, the chiefs began to fear for 
 
262 JOSHUA. 
 
 the safety of the camp, so they rose up to put an end to 
 the turmoil, and found themselves in the presence of a 
 spectacle which filled some with rage and horror and others 
 with grief. 
 
 The triumph of victory had turned the heads of the mul- 
 titude. They felt prompted to give expression to their 
 gratitude to the god, and with a vivid remembrance of the 
 horrible worship of their native land a party of Phoeni- 
 cians among the strangers in the camp had lighted a great 
 fire to their god Moloch, and were almost in the act of 
 flinging an Amalekite into the flames as an offering pleasing 
 in his eyes. Close at hand the Israelites had set up a clay 
 image of the Egyptian god Set., which one of his Hebrew 
 devotees had brought with him as a charm to protect his 
 family, placing it on a tall pillar of wood. Hundreds were 
 dancing round it, and singing in triumph. Their worship 
 could not have been more fervent, nor the rapture of their 
 souls more eager, if they had desired to pay the God of 
 their fathers the thanksgiving which was I lis due. 
 
 Soon after his return to the camp, Aaron had assembled 
 the people to sing praises and glorify the Lord ; but the 
 need for seeing an image of the God to which they might 
 uplift their souls after the manner to which they had so 
 long been accustomed had proved so strong in many of them 
 that the mere sight of the clay idols had sufficed to bring 
 them to their knees, and turn their hearts from the true 
 God. 
 
 At the sight of the worshipers of Moloch, who had 
 already bound their victim, ready to cast him into the 
 flames, Joshua was very wroth, and when in their dark- 
 ness they refused to hear him, he bid the trumpet sound, 
 and by the help of the young fighting-men, who obeyed him 
 blindly, and to whom the strangers were anything rather 
 than dear, he drove them without bloodshed back to their 
 own quarter of the camp. 
 
 The Hebrews yielded to the urgent exhortations of old 
 Nun, Hur and Nahshon, and repented of their sin, which 
 Was aggravated by ingratitude. But even they took it 
 amiss when the fiery old man broke the images they prized 
 so dearly, and if it had not been for the love they bore his 
 son and grandson, and for the honor due to his white hairs, 
 many a hand would have been lifted against him. 
 
 Moses had retired into solitude, as was his wont, after 
 
JOSHUA. 263 
 
 each peril, which by the grace of the Almighty came to a 
 good issue ; and the tears rose to Miriam's eyes when she 
 thought of the grief it must cause her noble brother to hear 
 the tidings of such a falling away and such deep unthank- 
 fulness. A dark shadow had fallen even on Joshua's glad 
 and confident mood. He lay sleepless on a mat in his 
 father's tent, looking back on the past. His warrior's soul 
 was strengthened by the thought that a single almighty and 
 unerring Power ruled the universe and the lives of men, 
 and required unfailing obedience from all created things. 
 Every glance at the order of nature and of life showed him 
 that all things depended on one infinitely great and mighty 
 Being, and rose up, moved, or lay down to rest at sign 
 from Him. To him, the captain of a puny army, his God 
 was the supreme and wise Captain, the only Leader who 
 was always sure of the victory. How great was the sin of 
 insulting such a Lord, and of going after strange gods in 
 return for his mercies ! And this was what the Israelites 
 had done before his very eyes ; and as he recalled to his 
 memory the doings which had compelled his intervention, 
 the question arose in his mind, how might they be protected 
 against the wrath of the Most High, and how could the eyes 
 of the darkened multitude be opened to His wondrous 
 heart and soul-inspiring greatness ? 
 
 But he found no answer and saw no remedy, as he 
 pictured to himself the perversity and rebellious spirit pre- 
 vailing in the camp, which threatened to bring evil on his 
 people. 
 
 He had succeeded in reducing the fighting-men to 
 obedience. As soon as the trumpet sounded, and he made 
 his appearance in battle-array at the head of his troops, 
 their stiff-necked will gave way to his. Was there nothing, 
 then, which, in the peaceful round of every-day life, could 
 keep them within the bounds which, under Egyptian rule, 
 made life safe for even the humblest and weakest, and 
 protected them against the high-handed and power- 
 ful? Meditating on these things, he watched till dawn 
 was near, and as the stars began to set he sprung up 
 and bid the trumpets sound; and to-day, as yesterday, 
 they assembled without a murmur, and in full numbers. 
 He was soon- marching at the head of his troops through 
 the narrow gorge, and after they had gone forward for 
 about an hour, in silence and in darkness, they were 
 
264 JOSHUA. 
 
 refreshed by the cooler air which precedes the day. Dawn 
 began to spread in the cast, the sky grew paler, and 
 the glowing splendors of sunrise solemnly and grandly 
 rose above the majestic mass of the Holy Mountain. It 
 lay spread out before the pilgrims, almost tangibly close 
 and clear, with its brown crags, precipices and ravines \ 
 towering above them rose its seven-peaked crown, round 
 which a pair of eagles were soaring, their broad wings 
 bathed in a golden glory, in the light of the new-born day. 
 
 And again, as at Alush, a pious thrill brought the march- 
 ing host to a standstill, while each one, from the first to 
 the last, raised his hands in silent adoration and prayer. 
 
 Then the warriors went on with hearts uplifted, one gaily 
 calling to another in glad excitement as some pretty little 
 brown birds flew to meet them, twittering loudly, an assur- 
 ance that fresh water must be near. Hardly half an hour 
 further on they saw the blue-green foliage of a tamarisk- 
 brake, and above it tall palms, and heard at last the sweetest 
 sound that ever falls on the listening ear in the desert, the 
 babbling of a running stream. This encouraged them 
 greatly, and the mighty form of the peak of Sinai, * its heaven- 
 kissing head veiled in blue mist, filled the souls of these 
 men, dwellers until now in the level meads of Goshen, with 
 devout amazement. 
 
 They now proceeded with caution, for the remnant of 
 the stricken Amalekites might be lurking in ambush. But 
 there was no foe to be seen or heard ; and the only traces 
 the Hebrews found of the sons of the desert and their 
 thirst for revenge were their ruined houses, the fine palms 
 felled and prone, and the garden-ground destroyed. 
 
 They were forced to clear the slender trunks out of their 
 path that they might not check the advance of the Hebrew 
 multitude ; and when this task was done, Joshua went 
 down through a defile leading to the brook in the valley, 
 and up the nearest boulder of the mountain, to look about 
 him. far and near, for the enemy. 
 
 The mountain-path led over masses of granite veined 
 
 * Now called Serbal ; not the Sinai of the monks which, in my 
 opinion, was not supposed to be the mountain of the law-giving till the 
 time of Justinian. A full exposition of the view that Serbal is the 
 Sinai of Scripture, which was first put. forward by Lepsius, and in which 
 other writers agree, may be found in a volume, entitled (in German), 
 '■ Through Goshen to Sinai," by Dr. G. Ebers. 
 
JOSHUA. 265 
 
 with green diorite, rising steeply till it ended high above 
 the plain of the oasis, at a plateau where, by a clear spring, 
 green shrubs of delicate mountain-flowers graced the wil- 
 derness. 
 
 ■ Here he paused to rest, and looking round he discerned 
 in the shadow of an overhanging rock a tall figure gazing 
 at the ground. 
 
 It was Moses. 
 
 The course of his reflections had so completely rapt 
 him from his present surroundings that he did not perceive 
 Joshua's approach, and the warrior reverently kept silence 
 for fear of disturbing the man of God, waiting patiently 
 till he raised his bearded face, and greeted him with 
 dignity and kindness. 
 
 Side by side they gazed down into the oasis and the 
 desolate rocky ravines at their feet. Even a tiny strip of 
 the Red Sea, which bathes the western foot of the moun- 
 tains, gleamed like an emerald in the distance. And their 
 talk was of the people, and of the greatness and power of 
 the God who had brought them so far with such wondrous 
 works ; and as they looked to the northward they could 
 see the endless train of the pilgrims, slowly making their 
 way along the devious way of the defile towards the oasis. 
 
 Thus did Joshua open his heart to the man of God, and 
 told him all he had thought and wondered during the past 
 sleepless night, finding no answer. 
 
 The prophet listened to him with composure, and then 
 replied in a deep hesitating voice and in broken sentences : 
 
 " Insubordination in the camp — yes ; it is ruining the 
 people. But the Lord of Might has left it in these hands 
 to dash them to pieces. Woe to those who rebel. That 
 Power, as stupendous as this mountain, and as immovable 
 as its foundation rock — they must feel it ! " Here the 
 angry speech of Moses ceased. After they had stood for 
 a while looking into the distance, Joshua broke the silence 
 by inquiring : " And what is that Power called ? " 
 
 And the answer came clear and strong from the bearded 
 lips of the man of God : " The Law," and he pointed with 
 his staff to the top of the peak. 
 
 Then, with a gesture of farewell, he quitted his com- 
 panion. 
 
 Joshua, still looking out, perceived some dark shadows 
 moving to and fro on the yellow sand of the valleys. 
 
266 JOSHUA. 
 
 These were the remnant of the Amalckites seeking a new 
 spot where they might dwell. 
 
 For a short time he kept his eye on them, and when he 
 had assured himself that they were moving away from the 
 oasis, he returned pensive to the valley. 
 
 " The Law," he repeated to himself again and again. 
 
 Yes, that was what the exiles lacked. Its severity 
 might be the one thing capable of forming the tribes which 
 had fled from bondage into a nation worthy of the God 
 who had chosen them before all the other peoples of the 
 earth. 
 
 1 lere the captain's reflections were broken off, for the 
 voices of men, the bellowing and bleating of herds and 
 flocks, the barking of dog and the noise of hammers came 
 up to him from the oasis. The tents were being pitched, 
 a work of peace in which his aid was not needed. He lay 
 down in the shade of a thick tamarisk shrub above which a 
 tall palm towered proudly, and thankfully stretched his 
 limbs in the consciousness that henceforth the people 
 would be amply cared for, in war by his good.sword, in peace 
 by the Law. This was much, this raised his hopes ; but no 
 — this could not be all, could not be the end of everything. 
 The longer he meditated, the more deeply he felt that this 
 did not satisfy him for the mass of beings down there whom 
 he bore in his heart as his brethren and sisters. 
 
 His broad brow darkened again, and, startled out of his 
 rest by these new doubts, he sadly shook his head. No, 
 and again no ! The Law could not afford the people who 
 had grown so dear to him all he desired for them. Some- 
 thing else was needful to make their future lot as noble 
 and fair as he had dreamed it might be on his way to the 
 mines. 
 
 But what was that something, what was its name ? 
 
 And now he began to rack his brain to find out; but 
 while, with closed eyes, he allowed his thoughts to 
 wander to those other nations whom he had seen in war 
 and in peace, to discover what the one thing was still lack- 
 ing to the Hebrew folk, sleep fell on him, and in a dream 
 he saw Miriam and another lovelier form resembling Kasana 
 as he had often seen her Hying to meet him, a pure and 
 innocent child, and after her ran the white lamb which his 
 father had given his favorite years since. The two figures 
 each offered him a gift, and bid him chose one or the other. 
 
JOSHUA. 267 
 
 In Miriam's hands was a heavy gold plate, and on the top 
 of it in letters of flame he saw written, " The Law." She 
 held it forth to him with gloomy gravity. The child offered 
 him a drooping palm-leaf, such as he had often carried in 
 token of truce. 
 
 The sight of the table of the law filled him with pious 
 awe ; but the palm branch waved invitingly in his eyes, 
 and he seized it quickly. Hardly had he grasped it when 
 the figure of the prophetess vanished into thin air, like a 
 mist wafted away by the morning breeze. He gazed in 
 anxious surprise at the spot where she had stood, amazed 
 and uneasy at the strange choice he had made, though 
 feeling that he had decided rightly. 
 
 Then he asked the child what her gift might signify to him 
 and the people. At this she signed to him,pointing to the dis- 
 tance, and spoke three words, in a gentle sweet voice which 
 went to his heart. But strive as he might to seize their 
 meaning he could not succeed, and when he desired the 
 vision to interpret them he awoke at the sound of his own 
 voice, and made his way back to the camp, disappointed 
 and puzzled. 
 
 In later days he often sought again to remember these 
 words, but always in vain. 
 
 The whole force of his body and soul he devoted to the 
 Hebrew folk ; but his nephew Ephraim, as a powerful 
 prince of his tribe, well worthy of the honor he achieved, 
 founded a house in Israel. Through him old Nun saw 
 great-grandchildren growing up who promised enduring 
 posterity to his noble race. 
 
 The rest of Joshua's active life, and how he conquered a 
 new home for his people, is a well-known tale. 
 
 And there, in the land of promise, many hundred years 
 later, was another Joshua born who brought to all mankind 
 the gifts which the son of Nun vainly sought for the 
 children of Israel. In the three words spoken by the child, 
 and which the captain of the host failed to interpret, were 
 " Love, Mercy and Redemption ! " 
 
 THE END. 
 
THE BUKGOIWEICS VIFE - 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The spring of 1574 a. d. had come earlier than usual in the 
 Netherlands. The sky was blue, gnats sported in the sun- 
 light, white-winged butterflies clung to the fresh, golden-hued 
 flowers, and near one of the canals which cut the broad plain 
 stood a stork snapping after a bulky frog: the poor fellow was 
 soon struggling in the red bill of his enemy. One gulp — the 
 lively leaper had disappeared; his captor had spread his wings 
 and flown upward. Over gardens and orchards filled with 
 blossoming trees and surrounded by beds of flowers laid out 
 after an exact pattern, over gayly painted summer-arbors, and 
 the city, with its fortresses and towers, over the narrow houses, 
 with their high, pointed gables, the neatly kept streets bor- 
 dered on either side by elms, poplars and linden, by the wil- 
 lows in their fresh spring green, flew the bird. At last he 
 dropped upon the ridge-pole of a tiled roof into his strongly 
 built nest. 
 
 After generously making over his booty to the brooding 
 mother-bird, he perched himself upon his right leg and looked 
 down reflectively over the city whose red tiles lay glittering 
 beneath him on the velvet carpet of the green meadow. 
 
 For many years he had known fair Leyden, the glory of 
 Holland, and was familiar with the various branches of the 
 Rhine, which divided the city into numerous islands, and was 
 spanned by as many stone bridges as there are days in five 
 months of the year; but truly, since his last flight southward, 
 it was greatly changed. What had become of the gay pleas- 
 ure-houses and fruit-hedges of the citizens? Where were the 
 wooden frames over which the weavers were accustomed to 
 spread their many-colored fabrics? Whatever vegetable growth 
 or breast-high structure built by human hands had broken the 
 uniformity of the plain outside the city walls and fortresses 
 had utterly disappeared. And beyond these, in the fowler's 
 favorite resort, strange brown and black circles seemed sown 
 ou the meadows. 
 
8 TITE BURGOMASTER'S "WIFE. 
 
 Tn October of the previous year, soon after the stork had left 
 the land, a Spanish host had encamped lure, and only a few 
 hours before the return of the winged wanderer on tins first 
 day of spring, the besiegers of Leyden had given over their 
 fruitless effort. 
 
 The sterile spots in the midst of the luxurious verdure 
 marked the place of their camp, and the blaek lines their ex- 
 tinguished fires. 
 
 The threatened citizens breathed freely again. The busy, 
 easy-going population had straightway forgotten their annoy- 
 ance — for the early spring was very lovely — and never does 
 existence seem more desirable than when surrounded by the 
 delights of that season. 
 
 A new and better time seemed to have opened, not only for 
 nature, but for man. The troops stationed within the city for 
 its defense, and whose experience there had been dismal, had 
 received their discharge two days before, and gone out amid song 
 and demonstrations of joy. The carpenter's ax now glistened 
 in the sunshine before the red walls and towers and gates, to 
 repair and to reconstruct; the cattle pastured peacefully again 
 around the city walls; the neglected gardens were diligently 
 prepared for planting the seed. Upon the streets and in the 
 houses a thousand hands were now busy, which until very 
 lately had been occupied with weapons of defense upon the 
 walls and towers; and old people sat quietly before the doors, 
 warming their backs in the sunshine. 
 
 On this 1 8th day of April, one could see in Leyden but few 
 discontented faces, though many impatient ones. He who 
 wished to find the latter had but to enter a room of the High- 
 School building, where now, as noon approached, many a boy 
 looked more eagerly through the open windows than toward 
 the lips of his teacher. 
 
 But on one side of the large hall, where the older boys were 
 assembled, no such feeling was manifest. The sun shone upon 
 their books and copies, the spring called them as enticingly as 
 the others, but a mightier influence held their youthful spirits. 
 Forty bright eyes were fixed intently upon the face of a beard- 
 ed man who was addressing them. Even the wild Jan Mulder 
 had dropped the knife, with which he was carving the excel- 
 lent representation of a ham upon the desk before him, to 
 listen. 
 
 As the hour of noon struck from St. Peter's Church, close 
 by, and also from the tower of the state house, the smaller 
 boys rushed noisily from the building. 
 
 But, strangely enough, the patience of the older ones was 
 
THE BURGOMASTERS WIFE. 9 
 
 not exhausted. They must certainly be listening to something 
 outside the ordinary range of their school exercises. The man 
 who stood before them was not their usual teacher, but the 
 town clerk, Van Hout, who had for to-day taken the place of 
 the master and preacher, Vertroot, detained by sickness. 
 
 During the striking of noon-day, he had closed his book, 
 and now said: " Suspendo lectionem. Hey, Jan Mulder, how 
 would you translate my ' suspendere '?" 
 
 " To hang," answered the boy. 
 
 "To hang!" laughed Van Hout. "You, perhaps, on a 
 hook; but why hang a lesson? Adrian van der Werff — " 
 
 The person addressed rose quickly and said: " ' Suspendere 
 lectionem ' means to break up the hour.'" 
 
 " Good; and if we wished to hang Jan Mulder, how would 
 you express that?" 
 
 " Patibidare, ad patibidum," cried all the scholars. 
 
 The features of Van Hout, just now relaxed by a smile, be- 
 came grave. He drew a deep breath, and said : ' ' Patibulo ' 
 is a bad Latin word, and your ancestors who occupied these 
 seats understood its significance even less than you. Now 
 every child in the Netherlands knows it; for Alva has im- 
 pressed its meaning upon us. More than eighteen thousand 
 brave citizens have come to the gallows through Ms ' ad pati- 
 bulum.' " 
 
 With these words he drew the girdle closer about his black 
 waistcoat, stepped nearer to the foremost row of benches, and 
 bending his stout body, said, with deepening emotion : 
 
 " This is enough for to-day, boys. It will be no matter if 
 you forget the word we have just learned. But there is one 
 thing you must keep in memory. The fatherland above all 
 else! Leonidas and his three hundred Spartans will not have 
 died in vain, so long as there are men ready to follow his exam- 
 ple. Your turn will come. I am not given to boasting, and 
 only say the thing that is true. We Hollanders have fifty 
 times three hundred martyrs ready to come forward for the 
 defense of our native land. Stormy times develop firm men, 
 and boys also. TJlrich yonder, at the head of this class, would 
 do honor to his nickname 'Lowing/ 'Here Persian and 
 there Greek ' was the word in olden time; but our cry is: 
 'Here Netherlands and there Spain Y And truly the proud 
 Darius never raged in Greece, as King Philip in Holland. 
 Among the flowers which bloom in the human heart the Span- 
 ish have sown hatred — the poison-hemlock — I feel it within, 
 my own heart, and so do you; and we shall continue to recog- 
 nize it. But do not misunderstand me. ' Here Spam, there 
 
10 THE BURGOMASTERS WIFE. 
 
 Holland!' is the cry; and not ' Rome against the Reformation!' 
 Ei ery Eaith may be right in the sight of the Lord, if a man be 
 striving honestly and earnestly to follow Christ. At the 
 throne of Eeaven, the question will not be whether a man is 
 Papist, Oalvinist, or Lutheran, but what has he done, and 
 what tried to do? Respect every man's faith; but you have a 
 light to despise him who makes common cause with the op- 
 pressors of his fatherland. Now let us all pray silently, and 
 then go home." 
 
 The scholars rose. Van Hout wiped the perspiration from 
 his forehead and said, timidly, while the boys were gathering 
 up their books, and pens, and pencils, as if excusing himself to 
 his own thoughts: 
 
 " What I have said to you does not exactly come under the 
 head of school exercises; but though you may occupy these 
 benches a while longer, boys, you will sooner or later be called 
 on to. act as combatants in this strife. Lowing, please remain; 
 I have something to say to you. " 
 
 The master slowly turned his back, and the boys rushed 
 into the open air. 
 
 In a corner of the open space behind St. Peter's Church, 
 seldom disturbed by passers-by, but where the sound of music 
 from the organ inside came as an appropriate accompaniment, 
 they stopped to hold a council respecting a common game for 
 the afternoon. After the speech just heard from the secre- 
 tary, it was only natural that this game should be a contest. 
 So that the only question before this impromptu council was 
 as to the arrangement of details. 
 
 It was quickly decided that instead of Greeks and Persians, 
 the contestants should personate patriots and Spaniards. But 
 when the burgomaster's son, Adrian van der Werff, a boy of 
 fourteen years, tried to divide the host, and in a rather authori- 
 tative manner ordered Paul van Swieten and Klaus Dirkson to 
 personate Spaniards, a violent opposition arose; and the un- 
 fortunate circumstance became apparent that no one was will- 
 ing to take the part of Spanish or Italian soldiers. Each boy 
 wished some one else to play Oastilian, but to fight himself 
 under the flag of the Netherlands. But friend and enemy be- 
 longed this time to the same group, and the heroic courage of 
 the Hollanders needed the actual presence of Spaniards to 
 rouse its enthusiasm. 
 
 The youthful spirits soon became excited; the cheeks of the 
 contestants began to glow — here and there fists were raised 
 threateningly, and it became evident that instead of battling 
 the enemies of their country, a cruel civil war was portending. 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 11 
 
 And, in truth, these merry fellows were poorly qualified to 
 play the part of the gloomy, obstinate soldiers of King Philip. 
 
 Among them all one could find very few with brown, and 
 only one with black hair and dark eyes. This was Adam 
 Baersdorp, whose father, like Van der Werff % was one of the 
 patriotic leaders. When he, too, declined to play the Spaniard, 
 some one cried out: 
 
 " So you do not wish to? Yet my father says yours is half 
 a Glipper,* and a whole Papist, besides." 
 
 At these words young Baersdorp flung his books to the 
 ground, and rushed, with doubled fist, upon his accuser. But 
 Adrian van der Werff stepped quickly between them, exclaim- 
 ing: " Shame on you, Cornelius. If any other one here so 
 disgraces himself, I shall stop his mouth. Catholics are Chris- 
 tians as well as we. You have just heard that from the secre- 
 tary, and my father says the same thing. Will you play Span- 
 iard, Adam? Yes or no?" 
 
 "No," answered Adam, decisively. "And if any one 
 again — " 
 
 " You can quarrel afterward if you wish," broke in Adrian, 
 and good-humoredly gathered up the books of the excited 
 Baersdoip and handed them to him, saying, with decision: " I 
 am Spanish to-day. Who will join me?" 
 
 " I, and I, and I, in spite of all," cried one after another, 
 and the division would in this way have been quietly conclud- 
 ed, had not the attention of the boys been attracted in a new 
 direction. 
 
 A young gentleman, followed by a black servant, came along 
 the street, directly toward the group. He also was a Nether- 
 lander, yet had little in common with the school-boys, except 
 age, a red and white complexion, and haughty blue eyes. 
 Every step bore witness that he felt himself important, and 
 the negro in gay livery who walked behind, carrying a few 
 articles just purchased, ludicrously imitated his gait. His head 
 was thrown back further than his master's, whose free motion 
 was hindered by a stiff Spanish ruff. 
 
 " There comes Wibisma, the monkey," said one of the boys, 
 pointing. 
 
 All eyes turned toward the new-comer, and examined with 
 a kind of scorn his velvet hat adorned with a plume, the 
 stuffed and quilted waistcoat of red satin, the broad puffing of 
 his short brown breeches, and the scarlet silk stockings that 
 clung to his well-shaped legs. 
 
 * Name given to those sympathizing with Spain. 
 
12 THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 
 
 " The monkey," repented Paul van Swieten. " lie follows 
 ilic cardinal, and affects red." 
 
 " And as Spanish as if straight from Madrid/' cried another; 
 while a third added: 
 
 "The Wibismas were certainly not here while bread was 
 scarce among us." 
 
 " The Wibismas are all Glipj^ers." 
 
 " Aim! 1 hey presume to strut around here in velvet and silk/' 
 said Adrian. " Just look at the black fellow, whom the red- 
 legged stork has brought to Leyden." 
 
 A loud laugh ran through the group; and when he came 
 nearer,, Paul van Swieten asked, in a nasal tone: " How did 
 deserting suit, and how are all things in Spain, Herr Glipper?" 
 
 The youth tossed back his head, and the negro followed his 
 example, when Adrian cried in his ear: 
 
 " Little Glipper, tell me — for how many pieces of silver did 
 Judas sell his Lord?" 
 
 The young Matenesse van Wibisma made an involuntary 
 motion, but controlled himself, until Jan Mulder stejDjjed in 
 his way, holding his cloth cap, adorned with a cock's feather, 
 under his chin like a beggar, and with mock humility asked: 
 " Please give me a penny to buy an indulgence for our tom- 
 cat, Herr Grandee; he stole a calf's leg yesterday from the 
 butcher — " 
 
 "Out of the way/' cried the exasperated youth, and tried 
 to push Mulder aside with the back of his hand. 
 
 "Don't touch him, Glipper!" exclaimed the boys, with 
 threatening gestures. 
 
 " Then let me alone," answered Wibisma. " I sought no 
 quarrel with any one — least of all, with you. " 
 
 " Why not with us?" asked Adrian, vexed by the cool con- 
 tempt of the last words. 
 
 The youth turned away, shrugging his shoulders. But 
 Adrian cried out: " Because the fine dress of Spain suits you 
 better than our waistcoats of Leyden cloth — " 
 
 Here Adrian stopped, for Jan Mulder slipped behind the 
 youth, and struck down his hat with a book, and cried out, 
 while Nicolas van Wibisma was trying to free his eyes from 
 the covering: 
 
 " Now the hat is firm, Herr Grandee; you might keep it on 
 in presence of the king." 
 
 The hands of the negro were filled with packages, and the 
 nobleman did not summon him to help, knowing his cowardice, 
 and feeling himself strong enough alone. 
 
 There was a costly clasp upon the hat which he had received 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 13 
 
 as a gift upon his seventeenth birthday, but he quite forgot 
 this as he threw it one side and doubled his arms as for a 
 wrestling match, asking, with glowing cheeks, and in an em- 
 phatic tone: " Who did that?^ 
 
 Jan Mulder had slipped back into the circle of his compan- 
 ions, and instead of coming forward boldly, said, with a laugh: 
 ' ' The challenger, Glipper. We want to play blind-man's buff. ' ' 
 
 Nicolas could no longer restrain himself, and addressed the 
 crowd in his wrath as " cowardly beggars." 
 
 Scarcely had he uttered the word, when Paul van Swieten 
 flung his grammar, bound in swine's leather, at the breast of 
 Wibisma. 
 
 His example was followed by others, and books flew from all 
 directions at the legs and shoulders of the young nobleman. 
 Bewildered, and covering his face with his hands, he retreated 
 to the wall of the church and stood ready to plunge upon his 
 enemies. The stiff Spanish ruff fettered him no longer. He 
 looked his antagonists boldly in the face, stretched his limbs, 
 strengthened by the presence of much knightly exercise, and, 
 with a true Netherland oath, sprung upon Adrian, who chanced 
 to be nearest. 
 
 After a short struggle the burgomaster's son was lying on 
 the ground — but now the other boys, who had not ceased the 
 cry of " Glipper!" laid hands upon the youth as he knelt above 
 his victim. 
 
 Nicolas turned bravely, but the odds were against him. 
 Losing self-control, he drew a dagger from his girdle. Two 
 of the sjDectators threw themselves upon him and succeeded in 
 wrenching away the weapon, which fell upon the pavement. 
 But in its fall, the sharp edge scratched the arm of Paul van 
 Swieten, and blood began to flow. 
 
 Up to this time the notes of the organ within the church 
 had been heard above the cries of the boys and the terror- 
 stricken howl of the negro. But the music suddenly ceased; 
 the musician ap2?eared at a side door, and with one glance took 
 in the situation, and understood the cause of the tumult which 
 had disturbed his practice. At first he was frightened, but his 
 handsome face, framed in by a full beard, soon wore a smile, 
 yet the words and gestures by means of which he separated the 
 contestants were earnest. 
 
 The school-boys were well acquainted with Wilhelm Cor- 
 neliussohn, and the dozen years of difference in age gave him 
 the right to interfere. No hand was raised against Nicolas, 
 but all gathered round the musician to enter accusation and to 
 excuse themselves. 
 
14 THE BURGOMASTER'S WTFE. 
 
 Paul van Rwietcn's wound was slight, though he stood a lit- 
 tle apart from his comrades, binding a strip of linen around 
 the burning spot in the flesh; but curiosity as to the issue of 
 the contest was stronger than his care for the wound. 
 
 When the work of the peace-maker was nearly accomplished, 
 Paul van Swieten cried out in a tone of warning to his com- 
 rades, ] minting at the same time in the direction of the school- 
 house: ''There comes llerr van Nordwyk. Let the (Hipper 
 go, or there'll be trouble," and ran quickly around the church. 
 Several boys followed, but the new-comer, before whom they 
 were retreating, had a good pair of legs, and knew how to use 
 them. 
 
 " Stop, boys/' he cried, in a commanding tone. " What 
 is going on here?" 
 
 Every one in Leyden respected this brave and cultivated 
 young nobleman, so the boys who had not followed Paul im- 
 mediately stopped where they were until Herr van Nordwyk 
 came up. 
 
 With a peculiar sparkle in his shrewd eyes, and a fine smile, 
 he cried out: " What has happened here, Master Wilhelm? Is 
 the utterance of the disciples of Minerva not in harmony with 
 your organ-practice, or has — but, by all the colors of the rain- 
 bow, this is Matenesse, the young Wibisma. And how the fel- 
 low looks! A brawl in the very shadow of the church — and 
 you here, Adrian! and you, Master Wilhelm!" 
 
 "I have just separated them," answered the latter, care- 
 lessly, straightening his cuffs the meanwhile. 
 
 " Gently, I suppose, but with emphasis, as at the organ/' 
 replied the officer, with a laugh. " Who began the quarrel? 
 You, Nicolas, or the others?" 
 
 Nicolas, agitated, angry, and ashamed, could find no words 
 in which to reply. But Adrian, stepping forward, said: " We 
 have been wrestling. Do not condemn us for it, Herr Janus!" 
 
 Nicolas gave his antagonist a look of gratitude. But Herr 
 van Nordwyk, Jan- van der Does, or, by the scholarly title he 
 himself preferred, Janus Dousa, was not satisfied with this 
 representation, and cried out: "Patience! patience! Your 
 appearance is suspicious, Master Adrian; come nearer, and 
 tell me ' atrekeos,' the exact truth of this affair." 
 
 Adrian did as he was bidden in a fair and honorable manner, 
 neither overstating nor withholding the actual facts. 
 
 "Hem!" exclaimed Dousa, after the boy had finished. "It 
 is a bad case. Neil her party is free from blame. Your cause 
 would appear better without that knife, my fine young man; 
 and as to you, Adrian, and you, you chubby-cheeked clowns, 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 15 
 
 who — There comes the rector. If he catches you, you will 
 see nothing beyond four walls this fine day. I should be sorry 
 for that." 
 
 The " chubby-cheeked clowns " understood his significant 
 gesture, and scampered around the church without waiting to 
 take leave, like a flock of pigeons pursued by a hawk. As 
 soon as they disappeared, the officer came nearer to young 
 Nicolas, saying: " This is a bad affair. But what is right for 
 them is fair for you, too. Go home as quickly as possible. 
 Are you the guest of your aunt?' 
 
 " Yes, sir," answered the youth. 
 
 " Is your father also in the city?" 
 
 He was silent. 
 
 " Then he does not wish to be seen?" 
 
 Nicolas nodded, and Dousa added: " Leyden is open to all 
 Hollanders, even to you. But if you will go about as the page 
 of King Philip, and your old comrades choose to show their 
 contempt, you must take the consequences. There lies your 
 dagger, my young friend, and your hat. Take them both, 
 and remember that such a weapon is no plaything. In one 
 thoughtless moment many a one has ruined his whole life. 
 The superior numbers pressing upon you may excuse you in 
 this case. But how can you go home now, in this torn waist- 
 coat, without disgrace?" 
 
 " My cloak is in the church," said the musician. " I will 
 give it to the youth. " 
 
 " Good, Master Wilhelm," answered Dousa. " Wait here 
 till it comes, my young man, and then go home. I wish the 
 time might return when your father would care for my greet- 
 ing. Do you know why it is no longer agreeable to him?" 
 
 "No, sir." 
 
 " Then I will tell you. Because he likes Spam and I re- 
 main a Netherlander." 
 
 " We are Hollanders as well as you," returned Nicolas, with 
 glowing cheeks. 
 
 " Hardly," said Dousa, carelessly, laying his hand upon his 
 sharp chin, and was trying to add a kinder word, when the 
 youth cried out, passionately: 
 
 " Herr van Nordwyk, take back the ' hardly.' ' 
 
 Dousa looked surprised, and a smile came to his lips as he 
 replied : 
 
 " You please me, Master Nicolas, and I shall rejoice if you 
 prove yourself a true Hollander. But here comes Master 
 Wilhelm with the cloak. Give me your hand — no, not this, 
 the other. " 
 
1(> THE BURGOMASTERS WIFE. 
 
 Nicolas hesitated, but Janus took the right hand of the boy 
 in both hifl own, and bi'iiding his stately figure, whispered in 
 his ear, so lightly that the musician could not hear: 
 
 " Before we separate, take tliis word from one who means 
 well toward you. Chains, even though they be golden, drag 
 downward; but freedom gives wings. You are pleased now 
 with their glitter, but our swords are striking upon the Span- 
 ish chains, I believe, with good effect. Think upon my words, 
 and, if you choose, repeat them to your father/' 
 
 Janus Dousa turned his back upon the youth, nodded to 
 the musician, and went his way. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The young Adrian hastened up a street that had received 
 its name from his ancestors. He gave little heed either to the 
 lindens which lined it, whose green leaves were just bursting 
 their buds, or to the birds, twittering as they built their nests 
 in the hospitable branches; for his only thought was to reach 
 home as quickly as possible. At one end of a bridge s]:>anning 
 the Achtergracht, he stood hesitatingly before a stately house, 
 scarcely daring to raise the knocker and let it fall upon the 
 polished plate beneath the bolt, for he anticipated no pleasant 
 welcome. His waistcoat was out of order from wrestling with 
 his stronger antagonist. The torn neck-gear had been removed 
 to his pocket, and the new violet-colored stockings had fared 
 so badly in their contact with the pavement as to show more 
 of the knee than was quite agreeable to himself. The pea- 
 cock's feather on his velvet cap might be replaced, but the 
 damage to waistcoat and hose was far more serious. 
 
 The boy was sincerely sorry, for his father had strictly 
 charged him to be careful of liis clothes, in order to save the 
 pennies; for there was scarcity at this time in the great house 
 with its three doors, and the same number of gables, with 
 their ornamental volutes — and its six windows in each story 
 looking so proudly down upon the Werff Street. 
 
 The office of burgomaster brought in very little, and the 
 trade in chamois and other skins, inherited from the grand- 
 father, had fallen sadly behind, for the father had so many 
 other interests — things that occupied not only his thoughts, 
 his time and his skill, but every spare penny also. 
 
 So Adrian had nothing pleasant to expect from the father, 
 and still less from Fran Barbara, his aunt. But the boy cared 
 less for the displeasure of both these than for the reproachful 
 look in the eyes of the young wife, whom for scarce twelve 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 1? 
 
 months lie had called " mother/' and who was only six years 
 his senior. 
 
 She never uttered an unkind word, but his waywardness of 
 ill-humor vanished away before her beauty and her quiet, lady- 
 like bearing. 
 
 Whether he loved her, he could scarcely have told, but she 
 seemed to him like a good fairy of whom tales are told — he 
 thought of her as being too tender and line and gracious for a 
 plain citizen's house. Her smile made him happy, and when 
 she was sad, which was not often, his heart ached. Good 
 heavens! surely she would not receive him kindly should she 
 see his waistcoat, and the torn ruffles in his pocket, and the 
 unfortunate stockings! 
 
 Then he heard a ringing of bells. 
 
 The meal -time had long passed, and the father never waited. 
 Whoever came late must go without, unless, perchance, Aunt 
 Barbara should take compassion. 
 
 But of what use this delay? 
 
 Adrian roused his courage, bit his lips, pressed his hand 
 more firmly over the contents of his pocket, and let the 
 knocker drop vigorously upon the plate beneath. 
 
 Trautchen, the old maid, opened the door, and in the dimly 
 lighted entrance-hall, where the bales of leather were packed 
 together, saw nothing of his disordered dress. 
 
 The dining-room was open, and, for a wonder, the meal 
 stood untouched upon the table — the father must have been 
 detained longer than usual at the court house. Adrian 
 rushed hastily up the stairs to his little chamber under the 
 gable, dressed himself neatly, and had. taken his place at the 
 table before the blessing had been asked. At some fortunate 
 moment he hoped to persuade Aunt Barbara or Trautchen to 
 repair the unfortunate garments. 
 
 Adrian began with a good appetite, but soon grew heavy at 
 heart, for his father was silent and thoughtful, as during those 
 days when the city was in danger from the besiegers. 
 
 The boy's young step-mother sat opposite her husband, and 
 looked often into the earnest face of Peter van cler Werff, hop- 
 ing to meet a kindly glance. But after each vain attempt she 
 would brush the golden blonde hair from her forehead and 
 throw back her beautiful head, or bite her lip, as she looked 
 down silently into her plate. 
 
 To the questions of Aunt Barbara: " What was done at the 
 council?" ' Has the money been collected for the new bell?" 
 " Did you make over the lease of the meadow to Jacob van 
 Sloten?" he gave short and evasive replies. 
 
18 THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 
 
 Tin' linn man sitting at Lis table in silence, and with eye- 
 brows drawn together, taking at Erst ;i Eew mouthf uls, and 
 then nothing at all, did not seem like one swayed by idle 
 caprice. While tlu' family, including the servants, were still 
 eating, he rose suddenly, and while pressing his folded hands 
 upon his head, said, with almost a groan: "I can stay no 
 longer. Please return the thanks, Maria. And Janke, go to 
 the council house and inquire if" the messenger is come." 
 
 'The servant, who obeyed instantly, was a great, broad-shoul- 
 dered Frisian, yet he readied only to the forehead of his mas- 
 ter. 
 
 Without a parting salute, Peter van der Werff turned his 
 back upon the company and opened the door into his work- 
 room, locked it behind him, and took his seat before a great 
 oaken writing-table, on which lay piles of papers and letters, 
 held down by heavy leaden weights, and began to turn over the 
 latest records. For a quarter of an hour he tried in vain to 
 fix his attention upon what was before him. Then he crossed 
 his arms for support over the open carved chair-back, and 
 contemplated the wood-work of the ceiling. But in a few min- 
 utes he pushed the chair away with his foot and walked to the 
 window, the small panes of which, in their casing of lead, in 
 spite of their neatly polished faces, gave but narrow outlook 
 upon the street. Yet the burgomaster seemed to find there 
 what he sought, for he hastily raised the sash, and cried out 
 to the servant who was approaching: 
 
 " Look up, Janke. Has he come?" 
 
 The Frisian shook his head — the window was closed again; 
 but a few moments later the burgomaster seized his hat, which 
 hung against the wall between a few horse-pistols and a simple 
 stout sword, under the picture of a young woman, making the 
 only break in the bare wall. The restlessness which tortured 
 him made it impossible to remain longer in the house. 
 
 He determined to have his horse saddled and ride to meet 
 the expected messenger. 
 
 But as he was leaving the room he stopped thoughtfully, and 
 then went back to the writing-table to sign a few papers which 
 were needed at the council house, as he considered that it 
 might be late before his return home. 
 
 While thus engaged, the door behind him opened softly, and 
 the fresh sand upon the floor creaked under a light footstep. 
 The young wife, twenty-four years younger, and with the air 
 of a timid maiden, stood beside her husband, yet did not vent- 
 ure to claim his attention. 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 19 
 
 Quietly waiting until one paper was signed, she said, with a 
 faint blush: 
 
 "It is I, Peter." 
 
 " Good, my child," he answered, shortly, turning to the 
 next paper. 
 
 "Peter," she cried again, more earnestly, yet still with 
 timidity, " I have something to say to you." 
 
 Van der Werff turned his head toward her with a kindly 
 look, but answered: 
 
 " Now, child, you see I am very busy and just going out." 
 
 " But, Peter," she returned, something like anger sparkling 
 in her eyes and a shadow of complaint in her voice, " we have 
 not spoken together to-day. My heart is very full, and what I 
 want to tell you may — that is, ought surely — " 
 
 " When I come home, Maria, not now," said her husband 
 interrupting her, in a tone half impatient, half imploring. 
 " First the city and the land, then the love." 
 
 Maria threw back her head and said : 
 
 " You have said that since the first day of our marriage." 
 
 "And unfortunately it must remain so until the end is 
 reached," he answered with firmness. 
 
 The blood rose to her delicate cheek, and with cpiickened 
 breath she said, quickly, yet with decision : 
 
 " Truly I have learned that word since your wooing, but 
 I am my father's daughter, and never contradicted it; yet now 
 it suits us no more, for it ought to run, ' All for the land, and 
 nothing at all for the wife. ' " 
 
 Van der Werff laid down his pen, and turned square toward 
 his wife. Her slender figure seemed to have grown larger, 
 and tears were swimming in her proud blue eyes. She was a 
 companion created by God expressly for him, and him alone, 
 and his heart was moved. He stretched both hands toward 
 the beloved being, saying, in a tone of heartfelt frankness: 
 
 " You know how it is; my heart is unchangeable, and bet- 
 ter times are coming. " 
 
 " When will they come?" asked Maria, gloomily. 
 
 " Soon," answered her husband, firmly — " soon; if all give 
 willingly what the fatherland claims. " 
 
 With these words the young wife drew her hands away from 
 those of her husband, for the door had opened, and Fran Bar- 
 bara called from the threshold to her brother: 
 
 " Herr Matenesse van Wibisma, the Glipper, is in the hall, 
 and wishes to speak with you." 
 ._" Show him up," returned the burgomaster, in a tone of 
 
20 the burgomaster's wife. 
 
 annoyance. As they were again alone lie asked Lis wife, 
 quickly: 
 
 " Will you practice forbearance, and help me?" 
 
 She nodded, and tried to smile, yet he saw that she was not 
 satisfied, and, since that gave him pain, he extended his hand 
 once more to her and said : 
 
 " Better times will come, in which I shall he more to you 
 than to-day. What did you wish to say to me?" 
 
 " Whether you know or not, it has nothing to do with the 
 state. " 
 
 " But for yourself. Raise your head, and look at me. Be 
 quick, love, for they are already on the stairs." 
 
 " It is not worth saying. Just one year ago — To-day we 
 ought to celebrate our wedding — " 
 
 Our wedding-day!" he exclaimed, clapping his hands. 
 " Surely this is the 17th of April, and I had forgotten it!" 
 
 He drew her affectionately toward himself as the door opened 
 and Adrian led the baron into the room. 
 
 Van der Werff bowed politely to this unusual guest, and 
 said to his wife, who retreated, blushing: 
 
 " My heartiest congratulations! T will come to you after- 
 ward. Adrian, we celebrate to-day our wedding festival, as 
 you know. " 
 
 The boy was slipping quietly out, for he suspected that this 
 visit of the titled man foreboded nothing of good for himself. 
 In the hall he stopped thoughtfully for a moment, then seizing 
 his cap, devoid of a feather, hastened out. There he found 
 his school comrades drawn up in order of battle with sticks 
 and staves. He was eager to have his share in the sport; yet 
 at this moment he slipped away unobserved by them into the 
 Zyl court, thence to follow the course of a canal that extended 
 to the river Rhine, sometimes stooping, sometimes on his knees. 
 So soon as he had filled his cap with the white, blue, and yel- 
 low flowers, he sat down upon a stone and tied them into a 
 nosegay, with which he ran back to the house. 
 
 On a bench near the door sat his little six-year-old sister, 
 with the maid. He gave her the flowers, which till now he 
 had hidden beliind him, saying: " Take them, Elizabeth dear, 
 to the mother. This is her wedding-day, and you must give 
 her, too, congratulations from both of us. " 
 
 The child rose, and the old servant said: 
 
 " Dear Adrian, you are a good boy." 
 
 " Do you mean so?" he asked, all the sins of the forenoon 
 recurring to his thoughts. But unhappily he could not feel 
 penitent; and his eyes had a roguish sparkle as he touched the 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 21 
 
 shoulder of the woman, and whispered in her ear: " There 
 has been some hair pulled to-day, Trautchen. Under the bed 
 in my room are my waistcoat and stockings. No one can 
 mend as well as you." 
 
 The maid raised her finger threateningly, but he turned 
 nimbly and ran out by the Zyl door, this time to lead the 
 Spanish against the Netherlander 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The burgomaster resigned his chair to the nobleman, while 
 he himself leaned, half sitting, against the writing-table, listen- 
 ing impatiently to his guest. 
 
 " Before I speak of weightier things," began Herr Matenesse 
 van Wibisma, " I wish to appeal to you, as a man of upright- 
 ness, against the injustice shown my family in this city." 
 
 " Go on," begged the burgomaster, and the knight related 
 shortly, and with unconcealed wrath, the experience of his son 
 near St. Peter's Church. 
 
 " I will acquaint the rector with this vexatious affair," an- 
 swered Van der Werff, " and the offender shall be dealt with 
 according to law and equity. But forgive me, noble sir. if I 
 ask whether it be known what started the quarrel?" 
 
 Herr Matenesse van Wibisma looked astonished, and an- 
 swered proudly: 
 
 " You have heard my son's account of it." 
 
 " One should in justice hear both sides," returned Van der 
 Werff, carelessly. " That is an old Netherlandish custom. " 
 
 " My son bears my name, and speaks the truth." 
 
 "All our boys do the same, whether called Leendert, or 
 Adrian, or Gerritt, and I suggest that you send your young 
 gentleman to the examination in the school." 
 
 "That will not happen," returned the knight, with decis- 
 ion. " Had I thought this a matter belonging to the rector, 
 I should have sought him and not you, Herr Peter. My son 
 has his own tutor, and he was not attacked in your school, 
 which he has outgrown, being almost seventeen, but on the 
 open street, for whose safety you as burgomaster are responsi- 
 ble." 
 
 " Very well, then, enter your complaint, lead the young 
 man before the justice, summon your witnesses, and let the 
 law take its course. But, sir," added Van der Werff, con- 
 trolling his impatience, " were you not once young yourself? 
 Have you entirely forgotten the quarrels under the castle? 
 What pleasure could it give you to see these unlucky wights 
 
22 THE BUEGOMASTEB'S WIFE. 
 
 put into tho dungeon for a couple of days in tins pleasant 
 weather? The prisoners will find some amusement inside as 
 well as outside, and their parents will be the only sufferers." 
 
 The last words were so friendly and good-humored that 
 they did not fail of their effect on the baron. He was a man 
 of hasty temper, but whose agreeable and genuinely Nether- 
 landish features exjiressed anything but harshness. 
 
 " If you speak in such a tone," he answered, laughing, " we 
 shall the more easily come to an agreement. But let me say 
 this: had the quarrel risen in sport or boyish dispute, I would 
 not waste my words; but when the children take upon them- 
 selves to attack with violence and contempt those who differ 
 from them in opinion, it should not pass without reproof. 
 The boys shouted that silly word after the young gentleman — " 
 
 " It is certainly a disgrace/' broke in Van der Werff \ " a 
 very ugly name by which our people designate the enemies of 
 their freedom. " 
 
 The baron rose, and stood erect before the burgomaster. 
 
 " Who has told you/' he cried, striking upon his broad 
 breast, covered with a quilted silk doublet, " that we are in- 
 different to the freedom of Holland? We wish as earnestly as 
 you do to restore it to the states, but in other and more 
 gradual methods than the Orange — " 
 
 "Whether your ways are crooked or straight," returned 
 Van der Werff, ' ' this is not the place to discuss. But this I 
 know: they are by-ways. " 
 
 " They ought to lead to the heart of Philip, your king, as 
 well as ours." 
 
 " Yes, if he only had that which we in Holland call a 
 heart," returned Peter van der, Werff, with a bitter smile. 
 
 But Wibisma threw back his head, with a violent gesture, 
 and said, as reproachfully: 
 
 " Herr Burgomaster, you are sj^eaking of the anointed prince 
 to whom I have sworn fealty." 
 
 " Baron Matenesse," answered Van der Werff, with intense 
 earnestness of voice, straightening himself meanwhile, folding 
 his arms, and looking the nobleman squarely in the eye, " I 
 speak of the oppressor, whose bloody Council declares all 
 Netherlander, and you with the rest, criminals worthy of 
 death, who through Alva, his destroying devil, has burned, 
 hung, or beheaded ten thousand honest men, despoiled another 
 ten thousand of their goods, and hunted them out of the land. 
 I speak of the reckless tyrant — " 
 
 * Enough," cried the knight, laying his hand upon the hilt 
 of his sword. " Who gives you the right — " 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 23 
 
 " "Would you ask who gives mo the right so to speak?" broke 
 in Herr Peter, with a dark, searching look into the eyes of the 
 baron. " I have no need to couceal it. This right came to 
 me through the dumb lips of my brave father, beheaded for 
 his faith — this right came through the arbitrary sentence, 
 which, without any pretext of law, despoiled me and my 
 brother of our estates — this right is mine through the broken 
 oath of the Spaniards, the torn charter of our country, the 
 needs of the poor, brave, abused people, who will go to de- 
 struction unless we rescue them.'" 
 
 " You can not rescue them," answered Wibisma, in a cool 
 tone. ' You will only plunge the reeling crowd more certain- 
 ly into the chasm, and perish with them. " 
 
 " We have cast our lot. Perhaps we may bring rescue, 
 perhaps we may go with them to destruction." 
 
 ' That you say, and yet you have just linked a young, love- 
 ly wife to your fate. " 
 
 : ' Herr Baron, you have crossed my threshold as an accuser 
 of the burgomaster, and not at all as a guest or a friend. ' ' 
 
 " You are right; but I came in good faith to warn the chief 
 magistrate of this fair and unhappy city. You have escaped 
 one tempest, but new and more fearful storms are gathering 
 about your heads. " 
 
 " We fear them not. " 
 
 " Not even now?" 
 
 " "With good reason, less than ever." 
 
 " Then you do not know that the brother of the prince — " 
 
 " Louis of Nassau attacked the Spaniards on the 14th, and 
 our cause stands well." 
 
 " In the beginning it certainly was not discouraging. " 
 
 " The messenger, who yesterday evening — " 
 
 " Ours came this morning." 
 
 " This morning, do you say? Go on." 
 
 " The army of the prince was beaten on the Mook Heath, 
 and entirely scattered. Even Louis of Nassau was left there. " 
 
 Van der Werff clinched the writing-table, while the fresh 
 color left cheek and brow, and with the faint question: "Is 
 Louis really dead?" his mouth was painfully contracted. 
 
 " Dead/' answered the baron, firmly and sadly. " We 
 were enemies, but Louis was a lordly youth. We bewail him 
 together — " 
 
 " Dead! William's favorite dead!" murmured the burgo- 
 master, as in a dream. But he quickly roused himself, and 
 said, firmly: " Forgive me, noble sir. The hours hasten. I 
 must to the court house." 
 
21 TI7E BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 
 
 " Ami there, in spite of my message, you will continue to 
 uphold rebellion?" 
 
 " Yes, tterr, bo surely as I am a Hollander." 
 
 "Do not forget the fate of Haarlem." 
 
 " I remember the resistance of its citizens, and the rescued 
 Alkmaar." 
 
 " Man, man," cried the "baron, " by all that is sacred, I en- 
 treat you to be advised by me!" 
 
 " Enough, Herr Baron, I must to the court house." 
 
 " Only one word more. I know well that you call us ' Clip- 
 pers,' 'deserters/ but, as I hope for God's mercy, you mis- 
 judge us. No, Herr Peter, I am no traitor. I love this land, 
 and the brave, industrious people, as warmly as you do, for its 
 blood flows also in my veins. I have signed the compromise. 
 Here I am baron. Do I look like a Judas or a Spaniard? 
 Can you blame me that I hold to the oath I have taken? 
 "When have the Netherlander sworn falsely? You, the friend 
 of Orange, have promised to allow every man the right to his 
 own faith, and I will not question it. I hold firmly to the old 
 Church. I am a Catholic, and shall remain such. But in 
 this hour I frankly confess that I hate, as you do, the Inquisi- 
 tion and the bloody deeds of Alva. They belong as little to 
 our faith as the iconoclasm of yours. I love, as you do, the 
 freedom of our home, and to win that back is my effort as 
 truly as it is yours. But how can our little province with- 
 stand the mightiest kingdom of the world? Though we may 
 conquer, once, twice, thrice, a stronger host will always take 
 the place of the one that was beaten. We shall gain nothing 
 by might, but much through submission and prudent negotia- 
 tion. Philip's treasury is empty, and he needs his troops else- 
 where. Well, then, let us make use of his embarrassment, 
 and compel him to restore freedom to every jilace that sub- 
 mits. And with the treasures we have laid by we will buy 
 back out of his hand the rights he has gained by conflict. 
 You will find me and my fellow-believers to have open hands. 
 But your voice has great influence in the Council. You are 
 the friend of Orange, and if you could persuade him — " 
 
 " To what, noble sir?" 
 
 " To make a treaty with us. In Madrid they appreciate 
 his importance, and fear him. We would make full forgive- 
 ness for him and his comrades our first condition. King 
 Philip, I know, would take him again into favor — " 
 
 " Into his arms, to strangle him," returned the burgomas- 
 ter, with emphasis. 'Have you forgotten the falsi- promises 
 0/ pardon, the fate of Egmont and Horn, the noble Montigny, 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 25 
 
 and the other lords? They ventured, and found themselves 
 in the den of a tiger. What we purchase to-day will surely 
 be taken from us to-morrow, for what oath is sacred to Philip? 
 I am no statesman, but this I know, were he to restore our 
 rights, there is one liberty he will never permit — the one with- 
 out which life is not worth living." 
 
 " What is that, Herr Peter?" 
 
 " The one to believe what the heart prompts. According 
 to your own estimates you mean honestly, noble sir; but you 
 trust the Spaniard; we trust him not, and even if we could, 
 we should be betrayed. You have nothing to fear for your 
 faith; we have everything. You believe the number of troojss, 
 the power of gold, will insure success in the conflict; we com- 
 fort ourselves with the hope that God will help to final victory 
 the just cause of a courageous people ready to suffer a thou- 
 sand deaths for their freedom. That is my opinion, and that 
 I shall assert in the Council." 
 
 " No, Master Peter; no, you can not, and you dare not!" 
 
 " What I can do may be little, but what I dare is written 
 within, and according to that I shall act." 
 
 " So then you will follow your feelings instead of your judg- 
 ment, and nothing but evil will come of it. Consider, man, 
 the last hope of the Orange party has just been broken on 
 Mook Heath." 
 
 " True, my lord, and on that account we must use the mo- 
 ments not to talk but to act." 
 
 " That I ought to say to myself also, Herr Burgomaster, for 
 there are still many friends of the king in Leyden who must 
 be persuaded not to follow you blindly to the sacrifice." 
 
 At these words Van der Werff stepped a little backward, 
 and said, coldly and in a tone of authority: 
 
 "As guardian of the safety of this city, I command you to 
 leave Leyden immediately. If you are found within the walls 
 after noon to-morrow, I shall order the officers to take you 
 over the border." 
 
 The baron left without a salute. So soon as the door closed 
 behind him, Van der Werff flung himself into the arm-chair, 
 and buried his face in his hands. When he rose again, great 
 tear-drops had fallen upon the paper through his fingers. 
 With a bitter smile he wiped the tears away, murmuring: 
 "Dead! dead!" The image of the brave, heroic youth, the 
 skillful mediator, the favorite of William of Orange was before 
 him, and he could but ask what effect this fresh blow might 
 have on the prince, whom he loved and revered as the savior 
 of his hind, as the wisest and most unselfish of men. William's 
 
26 THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 
 
 sorrow gave liim as much pain as if it wore his own, and the 
 blow to their freedom must be heavy — it might prove fatal. 
 
 But he allowed only a short period to the indulgence of 
 grief, for now the whole energy of his nature must be sum- 
 moned to meet the emergency, to ward off the threatening 
 consequences of Louis's defeat, and to contrive new materials 
 for the conflict. With contracted eyebrows he walked thought- 
 fully up and down the apartment, and did not hear the open- 
 ing of the door, or notice the entrance of his wife, until she 
 came toward him, calling his name. 
 
 She held in her hand a irdvt of the flowers sent her by 
 Adrian, while the remainder were fastened to her dress. 
 
 " Take these," she said, holding out the nosegay. " Adrian, 
 the dear boy, gathered them, and you know their significance. " 
 
 He accepted the messengers of spring gladly, inhaled their 
 fragrance, then clasjued Maria to his breast, jDressed a long 
 kiss upon her brow, and said, sadly: 
 
 " This, then, is the celebration of our first wedding anni- 
 versary. Poor wife! Perhaps the Glipper was right, and it 
 might have been wiser and better had I not linked your fate 
 to mine." 
 
 " Peter/' she cried, reproachfully, " why do vou have such 
 thoughts?" 
 
 "Louis of Nassau has fallen," he murmured gloomily; 
 " his army broken." 
 
 "Oh! oh!" she cried, clasjring her hands in terror; but he 
 continued : 
 
 "It was our last venture. The treasury is empty, and 
 where we can find fresh means — what may come now — I 
 beg, Maria, that you will leave me alone. If we do not use 
 the present, if we do not find the right way now, things will 
 not, can not go well." With these words he flung the flowers 
 on the table, seized a paper, and motioned her away. 
 
 The heart of the wife had been full as she entered the room. 
 She had expected so much joy in this hour, and now she stood 
 lonely, though so close beside hiin — helpless, ashamed, and 
 wounded. 
 
 Maria had grown up in the midst of this contest for freedom, 
 and knew how to appreciate the serious nature of the news he 
 had just received. During the wooing, he had told her that 
 she must expect a life of danger and disturbance at his side; 
 yet she had joyfully gone to the altar with this brave fighter 
 for the good cause, for she hoped to become the sympathizer 
 in his cares and contests. And now? What could she be to 
 him? W T hat would he receive from her? What was he per- 
 
TflE burgomaster's wife. 2? 
 
 mitting her to share of his anxiety even on their wedding-day? 
 There she stood, with a heart that shrunk from saying she 
 would as gladly help him to bear sorrow and privation as pros- 
 perity and honor. 
 
 So soon as he had found what he sought, he seized his hat, 
 but noticing her pale face and disappointed look, his heart 
 was touched— he longed to give expression to the great and 
 warm love he felt; but in this hour, with the grief and the 
 burden of care upon his beart, he could not. So he only held 
 out both hands toward her, and said, heartily: 
 
 " Surely you know what you are to me, Maria, but if you 
 do not, I shall tell you in the evening. I must go now while 
 the members of the Council are together, or a whole day will 
 be lost, and at this juncture we must save the moments. 
 You see how it is, Maria. ' ' 
 
 The young wife cast her eyes on the floor. She would glad- 
 ly have flung herself upon his breast, but injured pride for- 
 bade, and some secret influence held back her hands, that she 
 could not place them within his outstretched ones. 
 
 " Farewell," she said, sullenly. 
 
 He cried, reproachfully: " Maria, this surely is not the day 
 for pouting. Come, and show yourself my sensible wife." 
 
 But she hesitated, and he, hearing four o'clock strike, which 
 marked the time for the Council to disperse, left the room, 
 without looking again toward her. 
 
 The nosegay lay still on the writing-table — she saw it, and 
 with difficulty held back her tears. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A crowd of citizens were gathered before the court house, 
 for the news of Louis of Nassau's defeat had spread rapidly 
 through the eighteen divisions of the city, and everybody 
 wanted to learn the details, and to express his sorrow and 
 anxiety, and hear what measures the Council would jH-opose in 
 the emergency. 
 
 Two messengers, alas! had confirmed the tidings brought 
 by Baron Matenesse van Wibisma. Louis was dead, his brother 
 Henry missing, and the army destroyed. 
 
 Presently the city clerk, Jan van Hout, who had instructed 
 the school-boys on the same morning, appeared at a window, 
 and spoke to the citizens of the blow struck at the freedom of 
 the land, and exhorted them with pithy eloquence to uphold the 
 good cause by the devotion of their lives and property. Loud 
 applause followed this speech. 
 
28 the burgomaster's wife. 
 
 Gay caps and plumed hats were swung in the air, sticks and 
 swords were nourished, and the women and children, who 
 crowded in among the men, waved their handkerchiefs and 
 made their shriller voices heard above those of the citizens. 
 
 The members of the valiant city guard had gathered to com- 
 mission their captain to assure the assembled Council that the 
 " Schutterig " would devote every drop of blood and all their 
 worldly goods to William of Orange; and that they chose to 
 die for Holland rather than live under the tyranny of Spain. 
 Among them one could see many thoughtful and troubled 
 fares; for these men, who filled their ranks according to vol- 
 untary choice, were strongly attached to the Prince of Orange. 
 His sorrow touched them, and the needs of the land rent their 
 hearts. 
 
 So soon as the four burgomasters, the eight sheriffs, and the 
 members of the Council present showed themselves at the win- 
 dow, hundreds struck into the " Geusenlied,"* which had 
 already been started by a few single voices; and as, with the 
 going down of the sun, the easy-going people scattered and 
 went away, singly, or by twos and threes, arm in arm, toward 
 the houses of entertainment, in order, through a fresh drink, 
 to strengthen their confidence in the coming of better days, 
 and drive away some natural cares, one might have thought a 
 victory were being celebrated in the market-place of Leyden 
 and its neighboring streets. These patriotic cries, and the 
 " Geusenlied " so vigorously poured forth, proved that these 
 hundreds of Hollandish throats were in condition to rend the 
 air with still more powerful tones. 
 
 This observation had been made by three well-dressed citi- 
 zens walking through the street, past the Blue Stone; the 
 eldest of whom said to his companions: » 
 
 " Now they brag, and shout, and fancy themselves strong, 
 but we shall hear a different song pretty soon/' 
 
 " God forbid the worst!" exclaimed one of the others; " but 
 the Spaniards are surely coming again, and in my district I 
 know some who will not lend their voices for resistance." 
 
 " They are right, a thousand times right. Requesens is no 
 Alva, and if we commend ourselves to the mercy of the 
 king—" 
 
 " Then there would be no more blood spilled, and all would 
 go for the best." 
 
 "I prefer Holland to Spain," said the third; " but after 
 
 * Beggars' Hymn. 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIPE. 29 
 
 Mook Heath the day for resistance is past. Orange may be a 
 grand prince, but the shirt comes nearer to me than the coat." 
 
 " And, in fact, it is only for him that we are throwing our 
 lives and goods into the game." 
 
 " So my wife said yesterday." 
 
 " He does not help the trade, at least. Believe me, many 
 think as we do. Were this not so, that ' Geusenlied '■ would, 
 have been louder." 
 
 " For every three clever peoj)le there always five fools," said 
 the older citizen. " I have been very careful to keep my 
 mouth shut. " 
 
 " And what is there so wonderful about this cry of freedom? 
 Alva has burned the Bible readers, De la Marc hangs the 
 priests. My wife likes to go to mass, but she goes secretly, as 
 if doing something wrong. 
 
 "We stick to the old faith, too." 
 
 "It's faith here, and faith there," said the third speaker. 
 " We are Calvinists, but I am tired of throwing my earnings 
 into the jaws of Orange, and it can not give me pleasure to see 
 the poles before the Cow Gate, where my stuff hangs, pulled 
 down again, before the yarn has had time to dry." 
 
 ''Let us only keep together," advised the elder. "The 
 people do not trust themselves to say what they really think, 
 and every ragged, penniless fellow wants to play hero. But I 
 tell you, there are sensible men enough in each district, and 
 even in the Council and among the burgomasters. " 
 
 " Hush!" whispered one of the citizens, " there comes Van 
 der Werff, with the city clerk and the young Baron van der 
 Does. They are the worst of all." 
 
 The three so-named came along the street, conversing ear- 
 nestly in low tones. 
 
 " My uncle is right, Master Peter," said Jan van der Does, 
 the same tall man who in the morning had sent Nicolas van 
 Wibisma home with such a good lesson. 
 
 " There is no other way. You must seek the prince and 
 consult him. " 
 
 " I must certainly, and will go early in the morning." 
 
 " Do not wait until morning," broke in Van Hout; "the 
 prince travels rapidly, and if you do not find him in Delft — " 
 
 "Go on before me," begged Van der Werff. " You have 
 the record of our session. " 
 
 " I can not; but how is it that your good- will fails for the 
 first time to-day? — you who are the friend of the prince." 
 
 ' ' You are right, Jan, and ought to know what keeps me 
 back." 
 
30 the burgomaster's wipe. 
 
 " If it bo anything in which a friend can help, here he 
 stands," said Heir van Nordwyk. 
 
 Van der Werff took cordially the hand he offered, and re- 
 plied, laughing: 
 
 "No, llerr, no. You know my young wife. This is the 
 anniversary of our wedding-day, and amid all tue anxieties I 
 disgracefully forgot it." 
 
 '* That is hard," said Van Ilout, softly. But he straight- 
 ened himself directly, and added: " Yet, were I in your place, 
 I would go, in spite of Mistress Maria. " 
 
 " Would you go on /his day?" 
 
 " Yes, for to-morrow may be too late. "Who can tell how 
 soon our egress may be embarrassed, and before we come to 
 extremities, we ought to know the intentions of the prince, 
 lie is the head, we are the hands. You, Herr, stand nearer to 
 him than any of us." 
 
 " God knows how gladly I would carry a good word to him 
 in this sad hour, but to-day it can not well be. The messenger 
 has ridden forward on my bay horse. " 
 
 " Then take my chestnut, which is swifter," said Janus 
 Dousa, and Van der Werff answered at once: 
 
 " Thanks, Herr, I will have it brought early to-morrow 
 morning." 
 
 A flush rose to the face of Van Hout as he cried out: 
 
 " Send me the chestnut steed, my friend, if the burgomaster 
 permits. " 
 
 " No, send him to me," broke in Peter, composedly. 
 " What must be, must be. I ride to-day." 
 
 Van Hout's manly face glowed, and while he seized the hand 
 of the burgomaster, said, in a tone of joy: " Thanks, Herr 
 IVter, I meant no offense. You know my temper. If the 
 time seem long to your young wife, send her to mine." 
 
 " Or to mine," added Dousa. " It is curious what a differ- 
 ence there is between the two words ' may ' and ' ought/ The 
 freer and better a man becomes, so much the surer is the first 
 to become the servant of the second." 
 
 " And yet I wager, Herr Peter, that your wife will change 
 the meaning of those words to-day and believe that you have 
 offended grievously against the ' ought/ These are bad times 
 for the ' may. ' " 
 
 Van der Werff nodded acquiescently, and then in brief words 
 recapitulated "what he should say to the prince. Before his 
 Aouse the three men parted company. 
 
 " Tell the prince/ said Van Hout, as he took leave, " that 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 31 
 
 we are ready for the worst. We shall hold on and venture 
 all." 
 
 Janus Dousa measured with his eyes the two men before 
 him., his lip quivered, as was his habit when any strong emo- 
 tion stirred him, and an expression of joy and confidence light- 
 ened his face, as he said : 
 
 " We three shall hold on, and stand firmly. The tyrant 
 may break our necks, but he can never make them bow. 
 Body and soul, money and goods — whatever is valuable, or 
 dear, we resign all for this highest good. " 
 
 " Yes," said Van der Werff, earnestly, and Van Hout add- 
 ed, with ardor: 
 
 " Yes, yes, and three times yes." 
 
 For a moment these men of united purposes held their 
 hands clasped together. A silent oath bound them in that 
 hour, and as then Herr von Nordwyk went one way, and Van 
 Hout another, the citizens who met them fancied they had 
 suddenly increased in stature. 
 
 Without any delay the burgomaster went to the room of his 
 wife, only to learn that she had gone out with her sister. The 
 maid brought in a light, and he examined the wards of his 
 pistols, buckled on the old sword, and laid together a few nec- 
 essary articles into the pockets of his saddle. Then he walked 
 up and down, filled with thoughts upon his mission. 
 
 The steed of Herr van Nordwyk stamped impatiently on the 
 pavement of the court, and the evening star shone over the 
 roof. 
 
 When the burgomaster came out, he found only Adrian, 
 but not his wife. So he commissioned the boy to give heartiest 
 greeting to his mother, and say to her that he was forced to 
 seek the prince immediately, on urgent business. The little 
 Elizabeth was already in her night-dress; but the old servant 
 brought her out in a feather coverlet, and he kissed the sweet 
 face which smiled out of the singular wrapping, pressed his 
 lips on the forehead of Adrian, and repeated the message for 
 his wife, then rode off down the Marenclorj) Street. 
 
 Two women came toward him as he passed Saint Stephen's 
 cloister, coming from the Rhineburg gate. He did not notice 
 them; but the younger one threw back her head-covering to 
 look after him, and seizing the wrist of her comjDanion, said, 
 quickly: " That was Peter." 
 
 Frau Barbara looked up and answered: "It is well that I 
 am not timid. Let my arm go. Do you mean the rider just 
 now trotting along St. Ursula's Lane?" 
 
 " Yes, it is Peter." 
 
32 the burgomaster's wife. 
 
 " Nonsense, child. The boy has shorter legs than that great 
 camel, and Peter never goes out at this hour." 
 
 "But it was he." 
 
 " God forbid. At night one easily mistakes a linden for a 
 beech. It would be fine in him not to come home to-night." 
 
 Fran Barbara uttered the last sentence unguardedly, for sho 
 had up to this time shrewdly avoided the appearance of suspect- 
 ing that all was not as it should be between Maria and her hus- 
 band, although it was quite clear to her. She wasaclever wom- 
 an, who had known much of the world, and did not undervalue 
 her brother's importance in public affairs; and even went so 
 far as to believe that excepting the Prince of Orange, no per- 
 son on earth could more skillfully lead the cause of freedom 
 than Peter; but she felt that he did not treat his wife proper- 
 ly, and, as a just woman, silently took part against him. 
 
 For a time the two walked on in silence. At length the 
 widow said: " Perhaps the j:»rince has summoned Peter. At 
 this time, and after such a blow, one can not tell. So you 
 may have been right." 
 
 " It was certainly he," said Maria. 
 
 " Poor fellow," returned her companion. " That must be 
 a hard task for him. Much honor, much labor! But you 
 have no reason to let your head droop, for your husband will 
 return to-morrow, or the next day. But I — look at me, 
 Maria, I walk straight through life, doing my duty cheerfully. 
 My cheeks are red, I have a good appetite, and still I have 
 been forced to give up all I held most dear. For ten years I 
 have been a widow. My Gretchen has been married away from 
 me, and Wilhelm I sent myself to sea with the ' Beggars. ' 
 Any hour may take him from me, for his life is one of danger. 
 What has a widow, except her only son? And yet I gave him 
 to his land. That is harder than to see a man ride off on his 
 marriage anniversary, who surely has not gone for his own 
 pleasure. " 
 
 " We are at home," said Maria, knocking; and as Trautchen 
 opened the door, Barbara asked: " Is your master at home?" 
 
 The answer was " No," as she had expected. Trautchen 
 brought in the supper, but conversation did not go beyond the 
 necessary questions and answers. 
 
 After Maria had hurriedly asked the blessing, she turned to 
 Barbara, expressing the wish to retire on account of headache. 
 
 " Go to rest," answered the widow; " I shall sleep in the 
 next room, and will leave the door open. In darkness and 
 silence, strange fancies sometimes come." 
 , Maria kissed her sister with honest warmth, and laid herself 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 33 
 
 down; but she could find no sleep, and tossed restlessly from 
 eide to side until midnight. Hearing Barbara cough in the 
 next room, she sat up and asked: 
 
 " Sister-in-law, are you asleep?" 
 
 " No, child; are you unwell?" 
 
 " Not that; but I am so troubled and tormented with bad 
 thoughts — " 
 
 Barbara lighted a candle, and going into Maria's sleeping- 
 room, sat down on the edge of the bed. It touched her heart 
 to see this young, lovely being lying so troubled and lonely on 
 her white pillow; and she could not refrain from stroking the 
 hair away from her forehead, and kissing her fair cheek. 
 Maria looked gratefully into her clear blue eyes, and said, im- 
 ploringly: 
 
 " I want to ask you something." 
 
 " Very well." 
 
 " But you must answer me honestly." 
 
 " That is asking a good deal." 
 
 " I know that you are honest, but sometimes — " 
 
 " Out with your question!" 
 
 " Did Peter live happily with his first wife?" 
 
 "Yes, child, certainly." 
 
 " Could you not have been mistaken?" 
 
 " Surely not, in this case! But why do you have such 
 thoughts? The Scripture says: ' Let the dead bury then- 
 dead. ' Now turn over and try to sleep. " 
 
 Barbara went back to her own room; but hours passed be- 
 fore Maria found the slumber she sought. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Ox the next morning two horsemen, in neat uniform, stood 
 before a stately house on the Nobel Street, near the market- 
 place, while a third led a couple of roan steeds of vigorous 
 build up and down. 
 
 A stable-boy held by the bridle a long-maned, gayly adorned 
 pony, evidently designed to carry the young negro who stood 
 in the door-way, and with a frightful rolling of the eyes and 
 gnashing of his white teeth kept back the street-boys who 
 ventured too near. 
 
 "Why do they delay?" exclaimed one of the horsemen. 
 " The rain will not wait long to-day." 
 
 " That is certain," returned the other. " The sky is gray- 
 as my old felt, and before we reach the forest we shall get it." 
 
 " It is very misty already." 
 
 2 
 
3-4 THE BUBGOMASTEB'B WIFE. 
 
 " I do not like this cold, damp weather." 
 
 " Yesterday was much better." 
 
 " Buckle the thips over the pistol-holsters more securely. 
 The portmanteau behind the saddle is not straight. That is 
 right. Did the cook fill the flask?" 
 
 " With brown Spanish. It is tucked in there." 
 
 " Then let it pour. If a man be wet inside, he can better 
 bear outside dampness. " 
 
 " Bring up the horses; I hear the gentlemen. " 
 The horseman was not mistaken, for before his fellow had 
 succeeded in bringing the larger roan to his place, the voice of 
 Hen van Wibisma was heard issuing from the wide entrance- 
 hall, as well as that of young Nicolas, his son. Both were ex- 
 changing words of leave-taking with a young girl whose voice 
 was deeper-toned than that of the youth. 
 
 As the elder gentleman wound his hand in the mane of the 
 steed, and raised his foot toward the stirrup, the girl slipped 
 through the door, and, laying her hand on Wibisma's arm, 
 said: 
 
 " Another word with you, uncle, but with you alone." 
 The baron, still holding his horse by the mane, replied, with 
 a complaisant smile: 
 
 "If it be not too ponderous for the roan. A secret from 
 such a mouth has weight." 
 
 With tins he held his ear toward his niece; but she showed 
 no inclination to whisper, for she came no nearer, but said, 
 half aloud, in the Italian language: 
 
 " Please tell father that I can not stay here." 
 
 " But, Henrika!" 
 
 " Tell him I will do it on no condition!" 
 
 " The aunt will not let you go." 
 
 " Do not waste words. I shall not stay." 
 
 " I will communicate this to him, though in somewhat 
 milder form, if you please." 
 
 " As you choose. Say, also, that I ask him to send for me. 
 If he does not wish himself to enter this nest of heretics — for 
 which I could not blame him — he can send horses, or the 
 coach." 
 
 " And your reasons?" 
 
 " I will not burden you more heavily. Make haste, or the 
 saddle will be wet before you are off." 
 
 " Shall I also promise a letter to Hoogstraten?" 
 
 " No. Such things need not be written. It is quite unnec- 
 essary. Tell my father I can not stay with aimt, and want to 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S "WIFE. 35 
 
 go home. Adieu, Nico! The riding-boots, and green waist- 
 coat are much more becoming to you than the silken finery. " 
 
 And the girl threw a kiss to the youth, who had long ago 
 swung himself into the saddle, and hastened back into the 
 house. Her uncle shrugged his shoulders, mounted the horse, 
 wrapped the dark-colored mantle more closely about his shoul- 
 ders, nodded to Nicolas, and they rode forward together. 
 
 So long as their way led through the city streets, not a word 
 was spoken; but at the gate, Wibisma said: 
 
 " Henrika is tired of Leyden, and wishes to go back to her 
 father." 
 
 " It can not be very easy to live with aunt," answered the 
 
 youth. 
 
 " She is old and sick, and her life is joyless." 
 
 "But she must once have been handsome, though now so 
 
 different. But her eyes are like those in the portrait, and then 
 
 she is so rich. " 
 
 " That does not make one happy.'" 
 
 " But why has she never married?" 
 
 " It was certainly not the fault of the men," returned the 
 baron, shrugging his shoulders." 
 
 " Why, then, did she not enter a convent?" 
 
 " Women's hearts are harder to understand than are your 
 Greek books. That you will learn by experience. What took 
 place between you and her as I came out?" 
 
 " There, just look," answered the boy, taking the bridle 
 between his teeth and drawing Ins glove. " She put this ring 
 on my finger." 
 
 A noble emerald! She rarely parts with such things." 
 At first she offered me another, saying it was to make up 
 for the thumps I received yesterday for my loyalty to the king. 
 Was not that droll?" 
 
 " More than droll, I should say." 
 
 " It was against nature to receive a gift as a reward for my 
 bruises, so I quickly drew my hand back and said the Burger 
 boys had taken yours home with them, and in return for that 
 I would accept the ring. " 
 
 " That was right, Nico." 
 
 " She said the same thing, laid the little ring back in the 
 casket, found another, and here it is." 
 
 " A costly jewel," muttered the baron; and thought within 
 himself: " This gift is a good omen. He and the Hoogstratens 
 are her nearest heirs, and if that foolish girl does not stay with 
 her, it may be — " 
 
 
3G the bubgomasteb's wife. 
 
 But his speculations were suddenly broken off, for Nicolas 
 exclaimed: 
 
 " Sere comes the rain! Does not the mist over the meadow 
 yonder look as il" the clouds had dropped from the sk\ ? I am 
 shivering with cold." 
 
 " Draw your mantle closer." 
 
 "' How it rains and hails! One would believe winter were 
 come again. The water in Che ditches is black, and yonder — . 
 just look — what is that?" 
 
 Beside the road was a small tavern, before which stood a 
 single tall elm. whose trunk, straight and bare as a mast, 
 reached the roof before spreading into branches. 
 
 Upon one of the highest of these, still bare of foliage, was a 
 Hag in the colors of the House of Orange, and from another 
 hung a great doll, looking like a man dressed in black. From 
 a third there dangled an old hat, and on still another appeared 
 a placard, on which, in great black letters, that the rain had 
 already begun to obscure, was written: 
 
 " ' Long life to Orange and death to the Spaniard.' 
 Such is Peter Quatgelat's welcome. " 
 
 This grotesquely adorned tree was an unattractive object in 
 the cold gray fog of this April morning. 
 
 Near to this doll, which swung to and fro in the wind, the 
 ravens had stationed themselves, and seemed to regard it as a 
 hanging man. They must have been very stupid birds, for 
 during all the years that the Spaniards had ruled in Holland, 
 the places of execution had never been vacant. Perhaps they 
 only croaked in vexation, still they remained on the tree. 
 
 There was something shocking and repulsive in this cari- 
 cature of the gallows, especially as contrasted with the gay 
 adornments; and one could but think also of the venturesome 
 agility necessary in arranging it. 
 
 But Nicolas laughed aloud, and pointing upward, asked: 
 
 " What kind of fruit hangs on those branches?" 
 
 But in the next instant he felt himself shuddering, for a 
 raven, perched upon the black figure, was pecking at it with 
 his strong bill, and the two swung back and forth together like 
 a pendulum. 
 
 " What does that mad thing signify?" asked the baron, 
 turning to the servant who rode behind him — a bold and ob- 
 servant fellow. 
 
 " It's some kind of tavern sign," was the reply. " Yester- 
 day, when the sun shone on it, it was comical; but to-day— ° 
 b-r-r — it's ugly!" 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 37 
 
 The eyes of the nobleman were not sharp enough to make 
 out the words on the placard; but as Nicolas read them aloud 
 he inwardly uttered a curse, and turning again to the servant, 
 asked: "And does that silly nonsense attract guests for this 
 rascally landlord?" 
 
 " Yes, sir; and by my soul, yesterday, before the raven 
 brood were there, it was devilish droll — one couldn't look at it 
 without laughing. Half Leyden was out here — there was such 
 a crowd, 'twas hard to get through. On the grass-plot yonder 
 all was life and noise. Bagpipes and fiddles never ceased for a 
 moment. And the jolly crowd shouted. My ears haven't got 
 over it yet. 'Twas play and dance, play and dance. The 
 youug fellows flung their brown and blue and red-stockinged 
 legs into the air, in answer to the fiddle, and the coat-tails 
 flew. With a girl on one arm, and the beer-mug high over 
 their heads, until the foam flew, all were whirling. They 
 screamed and shouted as if every buttercup in the meadow 
 had turned into a golden florin. But to-day — Sacred Florian! 
 this is a rain!" 
 
 " It Avill be good for the things up there," cried the baron. 
 " In such a torrent the tinder grows damp, or I would draw 
 out the pistols and shoot down that shabby liberty-cap and the 
 colored rags from that tree." 
 
 " Yonder was the dancing-place," remarked the servant, 
 pointing to the trampled sod. 
 
 "These people are possessed, perfectly possessed!" ex- 
 claimed the baron. " To-day all dancing and jubilation; to- 
 morrow the wind will shake the hat and the flag from the tree, 
 and instead of the black doll, they'll come themselves to the 
 gallows. Be quiet, roan! quiet! This half frightens the 
 horse. Unstrap the portmanteau, Gerritt, and give a wrap 
 to the young gentleman." 
 
 ' Instantly, sir. But would it not be better that you go 
 under shelter until the shower is over? Sacred Florian ! Look 
 at the ice in that horse's mane! The pieces are as large as a 
 pigeon's egg. There are two horses already under the shed, 
 and Quatgelat's beer is not bad. " 
 
 The nobleman looked inquiringly at his son, who said: " Let 
 us go in. We shall reach the Hague early enough. Only see 
 how the poor Balthazar's teeth chatter. Henrika said he was 
 only a white fellow painted black; but if she could see how fast 
 the color holds in this weather, she would take the word 
 back." 
 
 Herr van Wibisma turned his dripping, steaming, fright- 
 
3S THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 
 
 ened horse toward the shed, and after a few moments crossed 
 the threshold of the beer-house in company with his son. 
 
 CHARTER VI. 
 
 Warm air, saturated with the odors of beer and of cooking, 
 met the senses of the travelers as they entered the low guest- 
 room, dimly lighted on two sides by windows which were 
 scarcely more than loopholes. The beer-house itself resembled 
 the cabin of a ship. Floor, ceiling, the tables and chairs were 
 of the same dark-brown wood, and the side walls were fur- 
 nished with beds arranged like berths. 
 
 The host came forward to meet his guests with fawning ob- 
 sequiousness, and led them to the open chimney-place, where a 
 fire of peat was burning, which served the threefold purpose 
 of warming the air, of partly lighting the gloomy space, and 
 of roasting three fowls suspended about it on slender iron 
 sjrikes. 
 
 As the new guests approached the fire, the old wife, who was 
 watching the fowls, rose from her seat, letting a white cat 
 slide from her lap to the floor; and the host flung some gar- 
 ments which were hanging upon a coivple of chairs to dry to 
 07ie side, putting in their place the dripping mantles of the 
 baron and his son. While the elder Wibisma ordered a warm- 
 ing drink for himself and his company, Nicolas led the negro 
 to the fire. The shivering fellow cowered near the ashes, 
 holding now his wet feet, shod in red morocco, and now his 
 chilled fingers toward the blaze. Father and son took their 
 places beside a table, over which the maid spread a linen cloth. 
 
 The baron could scarcely refrain from calling their landlord 
 — an obsequious, pock-marked dwarf, whose clothing was of 
 exactly the same color as the wood-work of the room — to ac- 
 count for the odious decoration of the tree, but forbore, un- 
 willing to enter upon a quarrel in such a place, especially be- 
 cause there sat near to his own table two citizens of Leyden, 
 with one of whom he was acquainted. 
 
 When Nicolas looked around the room, he nudged his fa- 
 ther, and asked, in low tones: 
 
 " Have you noticed the men yonder? The younger — the 
 one just now raising the cover of his mug — is the organist 
 who rescued me from the boys yesterday, and lent me his 
 cloak." 
 
 " The one yonder?" asked the baron. " He is a fine-look- 
 ing young man, who might be taken for an artist, or some- 
 thing of that sort. Hey, landlord, who is the young man with 
 
THE BURGOMASTERS WIPE. 39 
 
 great eyes, and brown locks, talking with the fencing-master 
 Allertssohn?" 
 
 'It is Herr Wilhelm, younger son of Cornelius, the tax- 
 receiver — a player, or musician, as they call it." 
 
 " Eh, eh I" cried the baron. " His father was an old Ley- 
 den acquaintance. He was a good, a most excellent man, un- 
 til this nonsense about freedom turned the heads of people. 
 The young man has a very pleasant face. There is something 
 pure in its expression; something that's hard to define. What 
 do you think, Nico? Is it not like our holy Sebastian? Shall 
 I speak to him, and thank him for his kindness?" 
 
 The baron did not wait his son's answer — whom he loved 
 to treat as an equal — and rose at once to express his kindly 
 feeling toward the musician; but an unexpected obstacle pre- 
 vented the carrying out of this laudable intention. The man 
 whom the baron had called Allertssohn became aware, to his 
 great vexation, that the outside garments of the Glippers 
 were hanging before the fire, while his own and that of his 
 companion had been flung upon a bench, and, just as the baron 
 rose, he pushed back his chair violently, leaning his arms on 
 the edge of the table, and turning his martial countenance with 
 abrupt jerks from the host to the nobleman, cried aloud: 
 
 " Peter Quatgelat — if you — who gave you, you shabby hunch- 
 back, the right to throw our cloaks into a corner?" 
 
 "Yours, Herr Captain," stammered the host, "were 
 already — " 
 
 " Hold your tongue, you fawning sneak," thundered the 
 other, in so loud a tone and in such excitement that the long 
 gray mustache on his upper lip swayed back and forth and 
 the beard on his chin trembled. " Hold your tongue. We 
 know better. Court is paid here to noblemen's mantles. 
 They are of Spanish cut, and very becoming to Glippers. 
 Good Dutch cloth is thrown into the corner. Ho! ho! Broth- 
 er Crooklegs, we'll have you out on parade." 
 
 " I beg you, noble captain — " 
 
 " I blow upon your ' noble;' you not-at-all-noble, you lump 
 of clay! ' First come, first served,' is the law in Holland, and 
 has been since the days of Adam and Eve. Prick up your 
 ears, Crooklegs! If my ' noble ' cloak, and that of Herr Wil- 
 helm are not back in their old places before I count twenty, 
 something will happen that you will not like. One — two — ■ 
 three—" 
 
 The landlord cast an anxious, questioning glance at the 
 nobleman, and when he said distinctly, shrugging his shoul- 
 ders, " Surely there is room for more than two cloaks beforo 
 
40 THE BUKOOMASTElt's WIjfK. 
 
 the fire," Quatgelat took the over-garments of the Leydeners 
 from the bench, and hung them upon two chairs, which he 
 pushed up to the fire. "While this was being done the fen- 
 cing-master counted slowly. When he reached twenty the 
 landlord had completed the task, but the excited captain gave 
 him no rest, and said: 
 
 " Now for our reckoning, man. Wind and rain are not 
 agreeable, but I know worse company. There's room enough 
 before the fire for four cloaks, and in Holland for all the ani- 
 mals in Noah's Ark, except for the Spaniards and their con- 
 federates. Pfui, all my bile is disturbed. Come with me to 
 the horses, Herr Wilhelm, or some misfortune will happen. " 
 
 With these last words the fencing-master fastened his promi- 
 nent eyes, which, even in commonest things, had the expres- 
 sion of looking at something remarkable, angrily upon the 
 nobleman. 
 
 But he did not seem to notice the threatening words, and, as 
 the fencing-master left the room, went quietly and with 
 dignified bearing toward the musician, bowed politely, and 
 thanked him for the kindness he had shown his son on the 
 preceding day. 
 
 " You are certainly under no obligation to me," answered 
 Wilhelm Corneliussohu. " I stood by the young man, be- 
 cause it looks badly to see one person attacked by many." 
 
 " Permit me to applaud your sentiment," returned the 
 baron. 
 
 " Sentiment!" repeated the musician, with a slight smile, 
 drumming on the table. 
 
 The baron followed silently for a little while the motion of 
 his fingers, then, stepping nearer to the young man, asked: 
 " Must then everything be dragged into this political quar- 
 rel?" 
 
 " Yes," answered Wilhelm, firmly, turning his face with a 
 quick motion toward the elder man. " In these times, yes, 
 and twenty times yes. It would not be well for you to discuss 
 sentiments with me, Herr Matenesse." 
 
 " Each one," returned the knight, '•' holds his own to be 
 right, of course; but he should show respect to those of 
 ol hers." 
 
 " No, sir," broke in the musician. " Tn these days there 
 is for us but one sentiment. I wish nothing to do with Hol- 
 landers who differ from us; not even to drink at the same 
 table. Pardon me, sir, hut my traveling companion is, as you 
 have unfortunately learned, of irascible blood, and does not 
 like to wait. " 
 
THE BF RGOM ASTER'S WIFE. 41 
 
 With that he bowed slightly, waved his hand to Nicolas, 
 went to the fire-place and took the half-dried cloak on his arm, 
 threw a gold piece on the counter, took a covered cage, in 
 which birds were fluttering, into his hand, and left the room. 
 The baron looked after him in silence. The simple, outspoken 
 words and abrupt departure of the young man awoke within 
 him painful emotions. He believed himself to be wishing the 
 right, and yet, in this moment, the feeling would come that 
 something like a stain rested on the cause he represented. 
 
 It is always easier to be sought than to be shunned, and so 
 an expression of deep annoyance rested on the affable features 
 of the nobleman as he turned again to his son. 
 
 Nicolas had not lost a word of the organist, and the blood 
 had departed from his ruddy cheek, when forced to see that 
 this man, toward whom his heart was strongly attracted, turned 
 his back upon his father, as upon a dishonorable person, with 
 whom he did not like to associate. The words of Janus Dousa 
 on the day before returned with great force to his memory, 
 and as the baron again took his place opposite, the boy raised 
 his eyes to him, and asked timidly, but with a touching sin- 
 cerity : 
 
 "Father, what does this mean? Are they then all wrong 
 who prefer to be Dutch rather than Spanish?''' 
 
 Wibisma looked at his son in astonishment and disapproval, 
 and because he had felt his own confidence shaken even for a 
 moment, and since a blustering word often renders good ser- 
 vice where possibility or will is lacking to combat with reason, 
 he cried out, more harshly than for years he had spoken to 
 his favorite son: 
 
 " Are you, too, beginning to swallow the bait with which 
 the Orange party entice simpletons? Another such word, and 
 I will show you how one treats conceited young prigs. See 
 here, landlord, what is that foppery out on the tree yonder?" 
 
 " The j>eople, baron, the Leyden fools, not I, your grace, 
 are to blame for that nuisance. When the soldiers who had 
 been stationed in the city during the siege were discharged, 
 they tricked out the tree in this disgraceful style. I keep this 
 house as tenant of the elder Baron van der Does, and dare not 
 have opinions of my own — for one must live — but so truly as I 
 hope to die hapj)y, I am loyal to King Philip. " 
 
 " Till the Leydeners come again," returned Wibisma, bit- 
 terly. " Did you keep this house during the siege?" 
 
 " Yes, sir; the gracious Spanish lords found no fault with 
 me, and if you do not despise the services of a poor mau, my 
 gracious sir, I am at your disposal." 
 
42 THE BURGOMASTER'S Will. 
 
 " So," murmured the baron, and looked attentively at the 
 ugly figure of the landlord, out of whose small eyes glittered 
 intense cunning. Then, turning to Nicolas, he said: 
 " Amuse yourself with the blackbirds in the window yonder. 
 I have something to say to our host." 
 
 The youth ran immediately, and while, instead of looking 
 at the birds, he followed with "his eyes the two men so ardently 
 devoted to the liberty of Holland, as they rode along the road 
 to Delft, he recalled the figure of the chains which drag down- 
 ward, and in fancy he saw the glittering of that which King 
 Philip had cast about his father. Involuntarily, lie turned to 
 look at him. He stood whispering with the landlord, with 
 one hand on his shoulder. Was it right for him to hold such 
 intercourse with a person whom at the bottom of his heart he 
 must despise? Or must he really — and he shuddered, for the 
 word " traitor," that one of the school-boys had shouted into 
 his ear during the contest beside the church, came to his 
 thoughts. 
 
 As the rain subsided, the travelers left the inn. The baron 
 allowed the ugly landlord to kiss his hand at parting, but 
 Nicolas would not permit his touch. During their ride to the 
 Hague few words were exchanged between father and son. 
 
 But the organist and fencing-master on their way to Delft 
 were less disposed to silence. 
 
 Wilhelm suggested modestly, as became the younger man, 
 that his companion had given too lively expression to his hos- 
 tile feelings toward Wibisma. 
 
 " You are quite right," returned Allertssohn, which name 
 his friends shortened to"Allerts." "That blood! oh, that 
 blood! You don't suspect, Herr Wilhelm. But we will let 
 that go." 
 
 " No, go on, master." 
 
 " You will think no better of me if I do. " 
 
 " Then let us talk of something else." 
 
 " No, Wilhelm. I am not ashamed of myself, and no one 
 would take me for a timid hare." 
 
 The musician laughed, and exclaimed : 
 
 " You a timid hare! How many Spaniards has your Bres- 
 cian sword brought down?" 
 
 " More stabbed than cut down, sir," answered the other. 
 " Were the devil to challenge me 1 should ask: ' Foils, sir, or 
 Spanish swords?' But there is one I am afraid of, and that is 
 at the same time, my best and my worst friend, a Nether- 
 lander like you, and that you may know him, he is the man 
 riding beside you. Yes, sir, when I am in a rage, when my 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 43 
 
 beard begins to tremble, then the little Sense I have flies off as 
 quickly as your doves do when you let them loose. You don't 
 know me, Wilhelm. " 
 
 " Is that so, master? How often then must one see you in 
 command and visit you at the fencing-school?" 
 
 " Pshaw! there I am quiet as the water in yonder ditch; but 
 when something goes against my inward convictions — how 
 shall I explain it to you, shortly and concisely, without any 
 figure of speech?" 
 
 "Goon." 
 
 " As, for example, when I must let pass the hypocrite we 
 met, as if he were the Baron Upright. " 
 
 " That vexes you greatly." 
 
 " Vexes? No. Then I am as savage as a tiger, and I dare 
 not allow myself — . Eoland, my former self, who might 
 well—" 
 
 " Master, master, your beard begins to tremble again?" 
 
 " What might the Glippers have fancied when their most 
 noble cloaks — " 
 
 " The landlord had removed yours and mine with his own 
 hand from the fire." 
 
 " What did I care? But the crook-legged monkey did it to 
 flatter the Spanish sycoj)hant. That enraged me — that I 
 could not bear." 
 
 " You did not restrain your rage, and I was surprised to see 
 how patiently the baron bore your invectives." 
 
 " That was just it, that was it," cried the fencing-master, 
 and his beard began to tremble violently. " That was what 
 drove me out of the den — that made me take to my heels. 
 Eoland, my former self — " 
 
 " I do not understand you, master." 
 
 " No? But how should you? I will explain myself. See 
 here, young man ; when you are as old as I am you will have 
 learned by experience. There are few thoroughly sound trees 
 in a forest, seldom a horse without defect, not many swords 
 free from blemish, scarcely a man who has lived forty years 
 without some secret grief. One gnaws slowly, another is a 
 sharp torment — and mine — mine — Would you like to cast a 
 glance in here?" The fencing-master struck upon his broad 
 breast, and then, without awaiting the answer of his com- 
 panion, went on: " You know me and my life, Herr Wilhelm. 
 What I do is only knightly work. My whole being is devoted 
 to the sword. Do you know a better weapon or a surer hand 
 than mine? Are my soldiers obedient? Have I been careful 
 of my own life in the conflict behind the red walls and towers 
 
14 Tin-: B1 i;<.o.\iaktkk's WIPE. 
 
 yonder? No, by my Roland,, former self, no, and a thousand 
 times no." 
 
 "Who denies that, Master Allerts? But tell me, what do 
 you mean by the cry, ' Poland, my former self?' " 
 
 " Some other time, Wilhelm, but you must not interrupt 
 me now. llear rather the end as to where the worm hides 
 within me. To repeal, what I do and practice is knightly 
 work, yet when a Wibisrua, who learned from my father to 
 use the sword, meets me so inopportunely, and stirs all my 
 bile, I ask what would he do were I to challenge him? He 
 would only laugh and ask: ' What will the passage cost, ]\I r. 
 Fencing-master Allerts? Have you well-polished rapiers?' 
 Perhaps he would give no answer at all, and how he would act 
 we have just had an example. His glance slipped by me like 
 an eel, and he had wax in his ears. Whether 1 should revile, 
 or a cur were barking at his heels, is all the same to him. 
 Had only a Renneberg, or a Brederode been in my place, how 
 quickly would the "Wibisma sword have leaped from its scab- 
 bard, for he understands fighting, and is no coward. But 1? 
 No man likes to be slapped in the face, but so surely as my 
 father was a good man, even the worst insult were easier to 
 bear than the consciousness of being thought too mean even to 
 offer an affront. You see, Wilhelm, when the Glipper looked 
 beyond me — " 
 
 " Then your beard lost its composure." 
 " You joke, but you do not know — " 
 " Ah, Herr Allerts, I understand you well." 
 " Then do you comprehend why I took myself and my sword 
 out of the way so quickly?" 
 
 " Perfectly, but I pray you to wait a moment. The doves 
 in here are fluttering so anxiously they must want air." 
 
 The fencing-master drew rein, and asked, while Wilhelm 
 took the dripping cover from the little cage, which he carried 
 between himself and the neck of his horse: 
 
 " How can a man bother himself with such delicate creat- 
 ures? But if you want to shorten the time given to music, 
 for the sake of the feathered folk, then tame falcons; that is 
 a knightly occupation and I can teach you." 
 
 "Leave my doves in peace," answered Wilhelm. "They 
 are not so delicate as one might think, and in many a war, 
 which is certainly chivalrous sport, they have shown them- 
 selves useful. Remember Haarlem. It is beginning to rain 
 again. If only my cloak were not quite so scanty I should 
 like to cover the birds. " 
 
THE BtJUGOMASTEu'S WIPE. 45 
 
 tc You do indeed look in it like Goliath in the garments of 
 
 r>a7id." 
 
 " This is my school-boy cloak; the other I lent yesterday to 
 
 young Wibisma. " 
 
 " The Spanish green-peak?" 
 
 " I have already told you the squabble among the boys." 
 
 " Yes, and the green monkey kept your cloak?" 
 
 " You brought me away, and would not wait. It was 
 
 probably returned soon after we left. " 
 
 " And the gracious Herr expected thanks because the youth 
 
 accepted it?" 
 
 " No, no, the baron expressed his gratitude." 
 
 " But that does not make your cape any longer. Take my 
 
 cloak, Wilhelm; I have no doves to shelter, and my skin is 
 
 thicker than yours. " 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 A second and a third rainy day followed the first. White 
 fog and gray mist hung low over the meadows. The cold, 
 damp, north-west wind drove the clouds together and darkened 
 the heavens. Little streams descended from the steep roofs 
 of Leyden to the streets; the water in the moats and canals 
 became turbid and swollen to the very edge of the banks. 
 Dripping men and women hastened past one another without 
 any exchange of greeting; while even the pair of storks pressed 
 closer together in their nest, with a memory of the warm 
 south, and mourning their too early return to the cool and 
 damp plains of Holland. 
 
 People of gloomy temperament were anxious as to what 
 might be coming. As the fresh blades in the grain-fields, so 
 did fear grow in the hearts of many citizens. Conversation, 
 which sounded anything but hopeful, was heard in some of the 
 beer-shops; while in others, continued resistance was denounced 
 as folly, or actual desertion of the cause of the prince and of 
 liberty was demanded. 
 
 Whoever in these days sought a joyous face in Leyden might 
 look long in vain. Least of all was it to be expected in the 
 house of the Burgomaster van der Werff. 
 
 Three days had now passed since the sudden departure of 
 Peter. Yes, it was almost noon of the fourth, and still he had 
 not returned, and no word of explanation, or of friendly re- 
 membrance had been received by his family. 
 
 Maria had arrayed herself in a dress of some light-blue 
 fabric, with Mechlin lace in the square neck, for this w» a «* 
 
46 the r.rnnoMAsTcu's wife. 
 
 favorite dress with her husband, and to-day she felt sure he 
 would come. The spray of wall-flower on her breast had been 
 cut from the growing plant in the window of her chamber, and 
 Barbara had assisted in the dressing of her abundant hair. 
 
 It wanted but one hour of noon \\ lien the slight, delicate fig- 
 ure of the young wife entered the work-room of the burgo- 
 master, with a white dusting-cloth in her hand. She went 
 first to the window, over the panes of which the rain was fall- 
 ing in manifold serpentine streams, to press her face against 
 it, and to look down into the deserted street. Water stood be- 
 tween the smooth red bricks of the pavement. A porter, clat- 
 tering along in heavy wooden shoes — a maid, with head closely 
 wrapped, hurried swiftly past; a cobbler's buy. with a pair of 
 tall boots over his shoulder, sprung from puddle to puddle, 
 carefully avoiding the dry spots — but no rider was in sight. 
 It was unnaturally still on the street, and in the house she 
 heard only the pelting of the rain. Without first hearing a 
 hoof -beat, Maria dared not expect her husband, but she did 
 not peer into the distance. She only looked down dreamily 
 into the street, and at the incessant rain. 
 
 The room had been carefully warmed for the return of a 
 drenched traveler, but through the cracks in the window-frames 
 Maria felt the. draughts of cold air. She shivered, and as she 
 shrunk back into the half dim space, it seemed to her thai it 
 would always remain in twilight — that there could be no more 
 clear sunshine. 
 
 Some little time elapsed before she remembered her object 
 in coming to the room. But then she passed her duster over 
 the writing-table, the piles of papers, and whatever else the 
 room contained. 
 
 At length she came to the pistols, which Peter had not taken 
 upon his journey. Over these hung, at a considerable height, 
 the portrait of her husband's first wife. This was in greater 
 need of the improving hand than the weapons, for Maria had 
 always shrunk from touching it. To-day she summoned her 
 courage, and placing herself in position to see it distinctly, 
 she gazed with intcntness at the youthful features of the wom- 
 an with whom Peter had been happy. She felt herself strange- 
 ly attracted by the brown eyes which looked from the pleasant 
 face. 
 
 Yes, the woman above there seemed contented, almost arro- 
 gantly so. 
 
 How much more, perhaps, had Peter given his first wife 
 
 than he had to her? This thought cut her to the heart, and 
 
 ' without moving her lips, she put a series of questions to the 
 
THE Bt RGOMASTEE'S WIFE. 47 
 
 dumb portrait, which looked down upon her with an expres- 
 sion of such serene satisfaction from its plain frame. Once 
 the full lips seemed to quiver and the eyes to move. A cold 
 tremor seized her blood, and she felt frightened, but still could 
 not tear herself away from the picture. With wide-open eyes 
 she stared upward, motionless, but with quickened breath and 
 keener gaze. 
 
 Upon the high forehead of the departed Eva lay a shadow. 
 Had the painter intended thus to represent a faint expression 
 of trouble or anxiety? Or was it only a gathering of dust? 
 She drew a chair before the picture and placed her foot upon 
 the seat. In doing this she was obliged to lift her dress. 
 Blushing as if some other than the painted eye looked down 
 upon her, she drew it modestly over the white stocking, and 
 sprung with a quick motion into the chair. Now she stood 
 eye to eye with the portrait, and carried the cloth in her trem- 
 bling hand over the forehead of Eva, and wiped the shadow 
 from the rosy flesh. She blew the dust from the frame and 
 the canvas, and noticed the signature of the artist, to whom 
 the painting owed its existence. 
 
 ■' Artjen, of Leyden/' was the name, and his careful hand 
 had finished with punctilious exactness the minutest details. 
 She recognized the silver chain and the blue turquois on the 
 plump neck — for Peter had given her these when a bride, and 
 she had worn them at the altar — but the little cross of dia- 
 monds suspended from the middle she had never seen. The 
 gold buckle at Eva's girdle had belonged to herself since her 
 last birthday, but the dull points were so badly bent they 
 would scarcely pierce the thick ribbon. 
 
 "She had all these things when they were new," said Maria 
 to herself. " But what do I care for the ornaments? It is the 
 heart — the heart. How much love did she leave in Peter's 
 heart!"" Involuntarily these words repeated themselves over 
 and over to her inward ear, and she was forced to exercise 
 much self-control not to weep. 
 
 ' If he would only come!" was the loud cry in her heavily 
 foreboding heart. 
 
 Without her notice the door opened. Barbara entered and 
 called her name with a kindly reproof. Maria was startled, 
 and said, blushing: 
 
 " Please give me your hand. I want to get down. I have 
 finished. The dust was a disgrace." 
 
 As she again stood upon the floor, the widow exclaimed: 
 
 " Hear me, sister-in-law — hear me, child — " Barbara was 
 interrupted by a loud knocking at the house door, and Maria 
 
48 tiie uurgomaster's wife. 
 
 harried to the window, where she was followed by the widow, 
 who. after a hasty glance into the street, exclaimed: 
 
 " That is Wilhelm Corneliussohn, the musician. lie has 
 been to Delft. I heard this from his mother. Perhaps he 
 brings news from Peter. I will send him up to you, but he 
 shall first tell me his errand below. If you want me, you will 
 find me with Elizabeth. She is flushed, and lias pain in her 
 eyes. She may have some eruption, or a fever." 
 
 Barbara left the room. Maria pressed her hand over her 
 naming cheeks and walked slowly up and down until there 
 was a knock on the door, and the musician entered. After 
 the first words of greeting, the young wife asked: 
 
 '" Did you see my husband in Delft?" 
 
 "Yes, indeed," answered Wilhelm; "on the evening of 
 day before vesterdav." 
 
 "Then tell me— " 
 
 " Instantly. I bring you a whole package of messages. 
 First from your mother. " 
 
 " Is she well?" 
 
 "Yes, well and cheery. So, too, is the worthy Doctor 
 Groot." 
 
 " And my husband?" 
 
 " I found him with the doctor. Herr Groot sends you his 
 best wishes. There w r as a musical entertainment at his house, 
 both yesterday and the day before. He has always the latest 
 Italian novelties, and if we only had those motets — " 
 
 " Afterward, Herr Wilhelm. First you ought to tell me 
 what my husband — " 
 
 " The burgomaster came to the doctor with a commission 
 from the prince. He was in haste, and he could not wait for 
 the singing. It went off finely. And you need have no doubt 
 as to the tabulature. If only you, with your excellent 
 
 voice — " 
 
 " I beg you, Master W T ilhelm." 
 
 " No, worthy lady, you should not hesitate. Herr Groot 
 said that when you were a girl, no one in Delft could carry the 
 tenor like you, and if you and the noble Frau van Nordwyk, 
 and Herr van Aken's eldest daughter — " 
 
 " But, dear Master Wilhelm," cried Maria, with growing 
 impatience, " I am not asking about your motets and tabu- 
 latures, but after my husband." 
 
 Wilhelm looked into the face of the } r oung wife, half aston- 
 ished ami half frightened. Then he shook his head, laughing 
 at his own awkwardness, and said, with good-natured peni- 
 tence: 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 49 
 
 " It is true that little things appear unduly important to 
 us when our own souls are filled with them. One word about 
 your absent husband would be more acceptable to your ears 
 than all my music. I should have thought of that sooner. 
 But now — the burgomaster is well, and has much intercourse 
 with the prince. Yesterday forenoon, before he left for Dor- 
 trecht, he gave me this letter, and charged me to place it in 
 your hands, with his warmest greeting." 
 
 With these words, Wilhelm gave her a letter, which she took 
 quickly from his hand, sajring: 
 
 " Do not be affronted, Herr Wilhelm, but we will discuss 
 your motet to-morrow, or at any other time which may suit 
 you; but to-day — " 
 
 " To-day you must give your time to this letter/' broke in 
 Wilhelm. " That is only natural. The messenger has dis- 
 charged his commission, and the music-master will try his fort- 
 une with those notes at another time." 
 
 As soon as the young man had gone, Maria went to her own 
 room, and sat down by the window to open with hasty hand 
 the letter of her husband and to read: 
 
 "My beloved and faithful W t ife, — Master Wilhelm 
 Corneliussohu, of Leyden, will deliver this letter. I am well, 
 but' it was a sore trial to leave you on the anniversary of our 
 wedding-day. The weather is very unpleasant. I found the 
 prince in deep affliction, but we do not give up hope, and if 
 the dear God help, and each one does his duty, all may yet be 
 well. I must go to-day to Dortrecht. What I have to do 
 there is important. Have patience, for it may be yet several 
 days before I can return home. 
 
 " Should any messenger from the Council inquire, give him 
 the papers which lie on the right-hand side of my writing- 
 table, under the smaller leaden tablet. 
 
 " Greeting to Barbara and the children. If money is 
 needed, ask Secretary von Hout for the balance of accounts 
 due to me; he knows about it. Should you feel lonely, visit 
 his wife, or Frau van Nordwyk. They would be glad to see 
 you. Buy flour, butter, cheese, and smoked meats whenever 
 there is opportunity. One knows not what may come. Take 
 counsel of Barbara! Trusting in your obedience, 
 
 " Your faithful husband, 
 "Peter Adrianssohn van der Werff." 
 
 Maria read this letter at first hurriedly, then slowly, scan- 
 ning sentence by sentence. Disappointed, grieved, wounded, 
 6he refolded it, and — she knew not why— snatched the wall- 
 
00 THE BUEGOMASTEE'S WIFE. 
 
 flowers from her dress, and threw them into the box of peat 
 beside the chimney. 
 
 Then she opened her chest, and taking from it a neatly 
 carved casket, she placed it upon the table, opened, and laid 
 tlic letter of her husband inside. Long after it had found its 
 place among the other papers, Maria stood in the same spot, 
 gazing thoughtfully at the contents of the box. At length she 
 laid her hand on the cover to close it, but still delayed, and 
 took up a package of letters which, with a few gold and silver 
 coins, gifts of her god-parents, some modest trinkets, and a 
 withered rose, lay at the bottom. 
 
 Thereupon she drew a chair to the table and began to read. 
 The writing of these letters she knew well. 
 
 They had been written by a noble and promising youth to 
 her sister, his betrothed bride, and were dated at Jena, where 
 he had gone to pursue his legal studies. Every word breathed 
 the ardent longing of the lover, every line expressed the pas- 
 sion which filled the heart of the writer. Sometimes the prose 
 of this young scholar, who, as a pupil of Dr. Groot in Delft, 
 had learned to love her sister while scarcely more than a child, 
 rose to quite exalted strains. While she read, Maria recalled 
 the lovely face of Jacoba and that of the enthusiastic bride- 
 groom. She remembered the joyous wedding, and the impetu- 
 ous young nobleman, the gifted friend of her brother-in-law, 
 who had come into Holland as his groomsman, and who, at 
 parting, had given her the rose lying now in her treasure- 
 casket. 
 
 No voice had ever rung so musically in her ears, and from 
 no other mouth had come such poetical language. Never had 
 eyes so brilliant looked into hers as those of this young Thur- 
 ingian nobleman. 
 
 After the wedding, Georg van Dornburg had returned home, 
 and the young married pair went to Haarlem. 
 
 She had never heard again from the stranger, and the voices 
 of her sister and her brother-in-law were soon hushed forever. 
 Like most of the residents of Haarlem, they had met death 
 through the Spanish destroyer at the capture of this noble but 
 hapless city. Nothing remained of this dear sister but her 
 own faithful memories and the letters of her betrothed bride- 
 groom. 
 
 These spoke love — the true, exalted love, which can speak 
 with an angel's tongue, or move mountains. There lay her 
 husband's letter. Poor epistle! She avoided opening it again 
 as she replaced the treasured mementoes in the casket; and 
 yet her heart beat high as she thought of Peter. She knew, 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 51 
 
 too, that she loved him, and that his faithful heart belonged 
 to her. Still, she was not satisfied or happy, for he showed 
 her only tenderness, and a sort of fatherly affection, and she 
 wanted to be loved in another way. 
 
 The pupil, yes, the friend of the learned Groot, who had 
 grown up in familiar intercourse with cultivated men, and the 
 enthusiastic patriot, was conscious that she was capable of be- 
 ing far more to her husband than he asked of her. 
 
 She had not expected gushing sentiment or high-flown com- 
 pliments from this earnest, practical man, but she had believed 
 he would understand and appreciate all that was high and 
 noble in her, and permit her to share his struggles and be the 
 companion of his thoughts and feelings. That it had proved 
 otherwise was freshly evident from the barren letter just re- 
 ceived. He had been a trusted friend of her father, who was 
 no more among the living. Her deceased brother-in-law also 
 had attached himself with all the enthusiasm of youth to Van 
 der Werff, the matured champion of freedom. When he had 
 spoken of him to Maria, it had been in terms of warmest love 
 and admiration. 
 
 Soon after the decease of her father and the violent end of 
 the youthful pair, Peter had come to Delft, and had expressed 
 his sympathy, and offered consolation in such hearty, vigorous 
 words, that they had seemed an anchor to hold her soul firm 
 in this time of need. 
 
 The brave Leydener came often to Delft, and was always a 
 guest in the house of Dr. Groot. While the gentlemen con- 
 sulted together, Maria was permitted to fill their glasses and 
 hear their discussions. 
 
 Words flew back and forth, and often seemed to her neither 
 clear nor wise, but those of Van der Werff were always sensi- 
 ble, and a child might have understood his direct, plain speech. 
 He seemed to her like an oak-tree among swaying willows. 
 She had been aware of several journeys that he undertook, at 
 the peril of his life, in the service of the prince and for the 
 cause of his country, and had awaited their result with an anx- 
 ious heart. 
 
 More than once in those clays had the thought occurred to 
 her that it would be delightful to be borne through life on the 
 strong arms of this steadfast man; and when the strong arm 
 was offered, she had accepted it as gladly and proudly as the 
 squire whom a king summons to be dubbed a knight. As she 
 now recalled those past days, how vividly rose the memory of 
 the hopes which filled her soul as she followed him to Leyden. 
 
 Her newly wedded husband had promised., not a May month, 
 
52 THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 
 
 but a full summer and autumn, at his side. Now she recalled 
 this figure of speech, and the entirely different experience 
 which the anion with him had brought to this day. 
 
 Storm, tumult, conflict, an endless alternation from labori- 
 ous work to excessive weariness — this was his life, his being, 
 the life he had called her to share, without allowing her any 
 part in his cares and labors. 
 
 This must not, could not, go on. All that had made life 
 fair in the house of her parents utterly failed here. Music and 
 poetry, which had elevated her nature there, refined conversa- 
 tion in which her spirit had developed — they could not be 
 found here. Barbara's good sense could not make up for 
 their loss. She would willingly have given up all for the 
 complete love of her husband; but how could that be secured? 
 
 With bitter emotions she replaced the casket in the chest, 
 and obeyed the call to dinner, but found at the great table 
 only Adrian and the servants, for Barbara Avas with Elizabeth. 
 
 Never before had she realized herself so desolate, so isolated, 
 so useless. What could she do here? Barbara ruled in 
 kitchen and cellar, while she — she only stood in the way of her 
 husband's duties to city and to country. 
 
 Such were her thoughts, when she again heard the knocker 
 at the house door. Looking from the window she saw the 
 physician. Elizabeth had grown worse, and she, her mother, 
 had not even inquired for the little one. 
 
 " The children, the children!" she exclaimed to herself; " I 
 promised Peter to treat them as if they were my own;" and 
 her heart grew lighter as she added: " I will fulfill what I have 
 undertaken." 
 
 In joyful excitement, she went to the dimly lighted sick- 
 room, closing the door hastily as she entered. Dr. Bontius 
 looked up with a warning glance, and Barbara said: " Gently, 
 gently; Elizabeth has fallen asleep." 
 
 Maria approached the bed, but the physician motioned her 
 back with the question: 
 
 " Have you had the purple fever?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Then you ought not to come again into this room. Where 
 Barbara is nurse no other help is needed." 
 
 The burgomaster's wife made no reply, but returned to the 
 passage. Her heart was unutterably heavy, for she seemed a 
 stranger in the house of her husband. She longed to be in 
 the open air, and winding a wrap about her head, she de- 
 scended the stairs, to find the odor of leather rising from the 
 bales piled in the broad hall of the lower floor, which before 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 53 
 
 she had scarcely noticed, quite intolerable. She longed for 
 her mother, her friends in Delft, and the quiet, pleasant 
 home. For the first time she ventured to call herself unhappy, 
 and while with downcast eyes making her way through the 
 street, against the wind, contended in vain against some mys- 
 terious power which forced her .to ask why all had resulted so 
 different from her hopes and anticipations. 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 After the musician left the house of the burgomaster, he 
 went to that of the aunt of the young Baron Matenesse van 
 Wibisma, to get the cloak which had not yet been returned to 
 him. He was not over-fastidious about his dress, yet felt glad 
 that the rain was keeping people at home, for the outgrown 
 garment at present upon his shoulders was far from attract- 
 ive. 
 
 Of this he was specially conscious in the spacious vestibule 
 of the spinster Hoogstraten, where the steward Belotti received 
 him as condescendingly as though he were a beggar. But the 
 Neapolitan, whose use of the vigorous Dutch sounded like the 
 hoarse rattling of a singer who had taken cold, struck a differ- 
 ent note when Wilhelm quietly explained to him in good 
 Italian the purpose of his coming. The arrogant manner of 
 the servant dissolved instantly under the pleasant sound of his 
 mother-tongue — transformed into active and ready devotion. 
 He was now disposed to talk with Wilhelm about his home, 
 but the latter gave him a brief command to fetch the cloak. 
 Belotti led him politely into a small room at the side of the 
 large vestibule, removed his cloak, and ran upstairs. 
 
 As the moments went by, and at last a full quarter of an 
 hour had passed without the ajniearance f either servant or 
 cloak, the young man lost his usual patience, and thrummed 
 on the leaden window casement, which was in threatening 
 peril when the door opened. Wilhelm was conscious of this, 
 yet kept on thrumming with increased vehemence in order k) 
 show the Italian that he was tired of waiting. But his fingers 
 were quickly withdrawn when the clear, girlish voice behind 
 him said, in excellent Dutch: 
 
 " Have you finished your battle-song, sir? Belotti is bring- 
 ing your cloak." 
 
 Wilhelm had turned around, and looked in utter surprise 
 and bewilderment into the face of the young lady of noble 
 rank who stood before him. The features were not strange — 
 still, the years do not make even a goddess younger and the 
 
54 Tin: BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 
 
 daughters <>f men increase in stature — but the lady he thought 
 he saw before him was one well known in Rome, and never 
 forgotten. Yet she must have been older and taller than the 
 girl who bo much resembled her, and who .seemed to find no 
 amusement in the surprised and searching glance of the young 
 man: for she nodded to the steward with a proud gesture, and 
 said in Italian: "Give the gentleman his cloak, Belotti, and 
 say that I came to ask pardon for your negligence. " 
 
 Benrikavan I loogstrateii turned to leave after "uttering these 
 words, but Wilhelm took two quick steps after her, and cried: 
 
 " Not so, noble lady; I am the one to ask pardon. But if 
 you have ever been surprised by a resemblance — " 
 
 '"Anything but looking like other people/' cried the girl, 
 with a gesture of scorn. 
 
 " Ah, fraulein, and yet — " 
 
 " Let it pass/' broke in Henrika, in so irritated a tone that 
 the musician looked at her in surprise. " One sheep looks 
 like every other, and out of a hundred peasants twenty will 
 have the same face. All wares sold by the dozen are cheap." 
 
 As soon as Wilhelm heard some reasons brought forward, he 
 recovered his usual quiet manner, and answered, modestly: 
 
 " But nature sets the most beautiful things in pairs. Think 
 of the eyes in the face of the Madonna, — " 
 
 " Are you a Catholic?" 
 
 " A Calvinist, noble lady." 
 
 " And devoted to the cause of the prince?" 
 
 " Say rather to the cause of liberty." 
 
 " That accounts for the thrumming of the battle-song." 
 
 " It was at first a gentle gavotte, but impatience quickened 
 the time. I am a musician, lady." 
 
 " But probably no drummer. Alas for the window-panes!" 
 
 " It is an instrument like any other, and in playing, people 
 of our sort try to give exact expression to what we feel." 
 
 " Accept my thanks for not having broken them to pieces." 
 
 " That would not have been harmonious, fraulien, and art 
 ceases when discord begins." 
 
 " Do you consider the song which was inside your cloak — it 
 fell upon the ground and Nico picked it up — to be harmony 
 or discord?" 
 
 " This one, or that?" 
 
 " I mean the ' Beggar's Song.' " 
 
 " It is wild, but no more discordant than the roaring of a 
 Btorm. " 
 
 " It is repulsive, coarse, exasperating." 
 
 " I consider it strong and of inirjetuous power." 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 55 
 
 " And this other melody?" 
 
 " Spare me your opinion. I have myself composed it. Do 
 you read music, noble fraulein?" 
 
 "A little." 
 
 " And has my attempt displeased you?" 
 
 " Not exactly; but I find doleful strains in this choral, as in 
 all the Calvinistic hymns." 
 
 " That depends upon how they are executed." 
 
 " They seem arranged for the voices of shop-keepers' wives 
 and washer-women in your chapels." 
 
 " Every song, if it be sincerely felt, will give wings to the 
 soul of the simple folk who use it, and what thus ascends from 
 the inmost depths of the heart, to the dear Lord unto whom 
 they are addressed, will not displease Him. And then — " 
 
 "Goon." 
 
 " And if these notes are worthy of preservation, it may prove 
 that some time an incomparable choir — " 
 
 " Will sing them under your leadership, do you mean?" 
 
 " No, fraulein; they have fulfilled their mission when once 
 executed in a noble manner. I might well desire to be among 
 the singers, but this wish stands far behind the other." 
 
 " How modest!" 
 
 " I believe myself to have anticipated the best reward in 
 their creation." 
 
 Henrika looked at the artist with interest, and said, with a 
 softer inflection: "1 am sorry for you, master. I will not 
 deny that your melody pleases me; it speaks to the heart in 
 many places, but how they will spoil it in your churches! 
 Your heresy destroys art. The works of the great painters are 
 to you an abomination, and music, which has attained such ex- 
 cellence in the Netherlands, will soon meet no better fate.'" 
 
 " I dare believe the contrary." 
 
 " You are wrong, master, you are wrong; for if your cause 
 conquer — which may the Virgin forbid! — there will soon be 
 nothing in Holland but warehouses, workshops, and barren 
 meeting-houses, from which at length all singing and organ 
 music will be banished." 
 
 "Far from it, fraulein. Athens became the home of art 
 only after securing its liberty through the Persian war. " 
 
 " Athens and Leyden!" she exclaimed, with scorn. " Owls 
 there are, to be sure, in the tower of Pancratius. But where 
 shall we find the Minerva?" While Henrika laughed, rather 
 than spoke, these words, a shrill female voice was heard call- 
 ing her name for the third time. She broke off in the midst 
 of her sentence to say: " I must go. I will keep these notes." 
 
5G THE BUR&OM ASTER'S WIFE. 
 
 " You will lienor me by accepting them, and will you allow 
 me t<> bring others?" 
 
 " Henrika!" Bounded again from the staircase, and she an- 
 swered, hastily: " Trust whatever you please to Belotti; but 
 soon, as I shall not be here much longer." 
 
 Wilhelm looked after Henrika. She moved as rapidly and 
 with the same sell-possession, through the broad hall and up 
 the stairway, as she had exhibited in her sjjeech, and again he 
 was vividly reminded of his friend in liome. 
 
 The eyes of the old Italian also followed Henrika, and as she 
 disappeared at the last turning of the stairs, he shrugged his 
 shoulders, and, turning to the musician, said, with an expres- 
 sion of respectful sympathy: " Something is wrong with the 
 fraulein — always in a passion, always like a loaded pistol, and 
 then that terrible headache. It was not so before we came 
 here." 
 
 " Is the fraulein suffering?" 
 
 " My lady will not acknowledge it/' rej^lied the servant. 
 " But what we see, the waiting-maid and I, that we see — 
 changing from red to white, no rest in the night, and scarce- 
 ly eating so much as a chicken's wing and a leaf of salad." 
 
 " Does the physician share your anxiety?" 
 
 " The physician? Doctor Fleuriel is no longer here. He 
 moved to Ghent when the Spaniards took possession, and since 
 that my gracious lady allows only the barber, who can open a 
 vein. The physicians here are all devoted to the Prince of 
 Orange, and are heretics. There is the call again! I will 
 send the cloak to your house; and if you ever feel like amus- 
 ing yourself with my language, knock at the door. These 
 calls — these unending calls! The fraulein suffers from them 
 too." 
 
 "When Wilhelm returned to the street he found it raining 
 only slightly. The clouds were scattering, and from one }:>atch 
 of blue sky the sun shot fiery beams into Nobel Street. A 
 rainbow appeared above the roof, but to-day the musician had 
 no eyes for its beauty. The hot sunlight on the wet street 
 gave him no pleasure. These acute rays gave no hope of con- 
 tinued fair weather; " they drew rain. " All that surrounded 
 him seemed confusion. A fair image, preserved in the most 
 sacred shrine of memory, and which he only allowed himself 
 to gaze upon at rare moments, seemed crowded upon by an- 
 other. His real diamond was in danger of being exchanged for 
 a stone of whose worth he knew nothing. Into the old pure 
 harmony another note had been introduced, similar, and yet 
 of feebler melody. How could he now recall the image of Isa- 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 57 
 
 bella without thining of Henrika? At any rate he had not 
 heard the fraulein sing, and so the remembrance of Isabella's 
 songs was undisturbed. He blamed himself because, yield- 
 ing to an emotion of vanity, he had promised to send other 
 songs to this proud girl of Spanish sympathies. 
 
 He had met Herr Matenesse van Wibisma rudely, on ac- 
 count of his opinions, but sought to press himself upon one 
 who derided what he held sacred, because she was a woman, 
 and it was sweet to hear his creations praised by fair lips. 
 " Hercules throws down the club, and seats himself beside 
 the distaff when Omphale beckons; and the fair Esther and the 
 daughter of Herodias " came involuntarily to his thoughts. 
 He was greatly disturbed, and longed for his quiet chamber in 
 the gable, beside the dove-cote. 
 
 " Something unpleasant has happened to him in Delft," 
 thought the father. 
 
 " Why does he not relish the roast flounders to-day?" asked 
 his mother, as he sat with them at the table. 
 
 Each was conscious that something weighed upon the pride 
 and darling of their house, but did not inquire into the 
 "what" and the "how"; for they new the moods which 
 sometimes held him by the half day. 
 
 After Wilhelm had fed his doves, he went to his chamber, 
 and for awhile walked restlessly up and down. There he seized 
 his violin, and made a medley of all the tunes he had learned 
 from Isabella. Seldom did his music alternate so rapidly be- 
 tween storm and pathos; and his mother, who was in the 
 kitchen, hearing it, drove the twirling-stick faster and faster, 
 then plunged into the tough dough, and muttered, as she 
 rubbed her hands upon her apron: " How it moans and shouts! 
 May it relieve him, for God's sake; but catgut is dear, and it 
 will certainly cost him a couple of strings." 
 
 Toward evening Wilhelm was compelled to take part in the 
 drill of a shooting company to which he belonged. His troop 
 was ordered to mount guard at the Hoogewoort Gate. As he 
 marched with them through Noble Street, he heard the low 
 clear voice of a woman singing in the Hoogstraten house. He 
 listened, and shuddering to notice how much Henrika's voice 
 — for she alone could have been the singer — was like Isabelle's, 
 he commanded the drummer to beat the drum. 
 
 On the next morning, a servant from the Hoogstraten house 
 brought a note to Wilhelm, requesting him in brief words to 
 appear in the Noble Street, exactly at two o'clock, neither 
 earlier nor later. He did not wish to say " yes;" he could not 
 say " no," and so betook himself to the place at the proper 
 
58 T11K BURGOMASTER'S "WIFE. 
 
 time. Henrika awaited him in tlic .side room, near the en- 
 trance. She was more serious than the day before, while deeper 
 shadows under her eyes and the glowing red of her cheeks 
 reminded Wilhelm of I te I otti's anxiety for her health. 
 
 After exchanging civilities, she said, abruptly: "I must 
 speak to you. sit down. Briefly, the manner of your meet- 
 ing me yesterday awakened some strange thoughts. I must 
 strongly resemble some woman whom you met in Italy. It 
 may perhaps be one very nearly related to me, of whom I have 
 lost trace. Answer me honestly, for I am actuated by no idle 
 curiosity. Where did you meet her?" 
 
 "In Lugano. We traveled together to Milan, and after- 
 ward I found her in Rome, and for months saw her daily." 
 
 " Then you must have known her well. Do you find the 
 same resemblance upon meeting me a second time?" 
 
 " It is most striking." 
 
 " Then I must have a double. Is this land her home?" 
 
 " She called herself an Italian, but she understood Dutch, 
 for she often turned over my books, and followed the conversa- 
 tions I held with young artists from my own land. I believe 
 she is a German of noble family." 
 
 " Probably an adventuress. And her name?" 
 * " Isabella — but I think no one has the right to call her an 
 adventuress." 
 
 " Was she married?" 
 
 " There was something matronly in her majestic bearing, 
 still I never heard her speak of a husband. The old Italian 
 woman, her duenna, always called her Donna Isabella, yet she 
 had scarcely any more knowledge of her antecedents than I. " 
 
 " Was that good or evil?" 
 
 " Xothing at all, noble'lady. " 
 
 " And what did she do in Rome?" 
 
 " She practiced the art of song, of which she was mistress. 
 But she had not ceased to study, and made great progress in 
 Rome. I was permitted to instruct her in the science of coun- 
 terpoints." 
 
 Did she appear in public as a singer?" 
 
 " Yes, and no. A foreign prelate of high rank was her 
 patron, and his recommendation opened all doors — even the 
 Palestrina. Prominent parts in the church music were in- 
 trusted to her, and she did not refuse to sing in noble houses, 
 but never for pecuniary profit. I know this, for she would 
 not allow any one else to play her accompaniments. She liked 
 my playing, and so through her I was introduced into the 
 houses of many people of rank." 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 59 
 
 " Was she rich?" 
 
 " No, fraulein. She had handsome dresses and brilliant 
 jewels, still was forced to economize. From time to time she 
 received money by way of Florence, but the gold pieces slipped 
 easily through her fingers; for, though she lived unpretentious- 
 ly, and eat scarcely enough to sustain a bird, while her delicate 
 health called for more substantial nourishment, yet she was 
 lavish to extravagance when she saw poor artists in need; and 
 she knew most of them, for she did not hesitate to sit with 
 them at their wine in my company. " 
 
 " With painters and men devoted to music?" 
 
 " Mere artists of high character. At times she surpassed 
 them all in her overflowing good humor." 
 
 " At times?" 
 
 " Yes, only at times; for she had periods of despondency; 
 but as rain and sunshine on an A]n*il day, so complete despair 
 alternated with light-hearted mirth. " 
 
 " A strange being. Do you know what became of her at 
 last?" 
 
 "No, fraulein; one evening she received a missive from 
 Milan, which must have brought bad news, for the next day 
 she vanished without a word of farewell. " 
 
 " And did you not attempt to follow her?" . 
 
 Wilhelm blushed, and said, constrainedly: 
 
 " I had no right to do so; and soon after she went away I 
 fell sick — sick almost unto death." 
 
 " Did you love her?" 
 
 " Gracious fraulein, I must beg you — " 
 
 " You loved her! And did she love you in return?" 
 
 " We met only yesterday, Fraulein Hoogstraten. " 
 
 "Pardon me! But if you regard my wishes, we have not 
 seen each other for the last time, although my double is cei - 
 tainly some other than the lady I had in mind. " 
 
 " I hope to meet you again. As you perceive, that calling 
 never ends. You have wakened an interest in your singular 
 friend, and at some other time must tell me more of her. 
 Only this question : Can I, as a modest girl, speak of her with 
 you without shame?" 
 
 " Certainly, unless you object to a lady who has no other 
 protector than herself. " 
 
 "And you— do you not forget yourself?" cried Henrika, 
 and left the room. The musician walked thoughtfully home- 
 ward. Was Isabella a relative of this fraulein? He had 
 acquainted Henrika with most of the external circumstances 
 familiar to himself, and had already perhaps given her the same 
 
60 THE BTTRGOMASTEEt'S WIFE. 
 
 right to consider Isabella an adventuress which had been as- 
 Bumed in Roma This word pained him, and the question of 
 Henri ka if he loved the stranger seemed intrusive and unbe- 
 coming. Yes, he had been ardently attached to her; it had 
 been a sore trial to be nothing more to her than a companion 
 and trusted friend. It hail cost him conilict enough to hide 
 his sentiments; he would certainly have declared them, but 
 for the fear of rejection and of ridicule. The old heart 
 wounds bled afresh as he recalled the time when she left Rome 
 so suddenly, without a word of leave-taking. After a long 
 and severe sickness, he had returned pale and with clipped 
 wings to his home — and many weary months passed before he 
 found again any true joy in his work. 
 
 At first her memory had stirred only emotions of bitterness, 
 but now, through quiet and persevering effort, he had suc- 
 ceeded, not in forgetting, but in extracting the sting from the 
 pure and choice delight of remembrance. To-day, the old 
 struggle began anew, but he was not disposed to surrender, 
 and he did not forbid himself to call up Isabella's image, in 
 its full glory, before his soul. 
 
 Henrika went back to her aunt, deeply moved. Was this 
 adventuress of whom Wilhelm had told her, the only being 
 whom she loved with the full intensity of her ardent nature? 
 Was Isabella her lost sister? 
 
 There was much against the supposition, still it might be 
 possible. She tormented herself with questions, and the less 
 quiet allowed her by her aunt, so much the more insupporta- 
 ble grew the pain in her head, and the more distinctly she felt 
 that the fever, against whose depressing influence she had 
 struggled for many days, would overmaster her. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 On the evening of the third day following Wilhelm's inter- 
 view with Henrika, he chanced to pass the Hoogstraten house. 
 Before reaching there he had seen two men, preceded by a 
 servant with a lantern, crossing the causeway toward the 
 house. Wilhelm became attentive to their movements. The 
 servant lifted the knocker. As light from the lantern fell 
 upon their faces, he saw that they were strangers. The elder, 
 a man of small, elegant figure, wearing a pointed hat and short 
 black velvet mantle, was the Abbe Picard, a gay Parisian, 
 who had come to Leyden ten years before to teach French in 
 aristocratic families. He would also have been Wilhelm's in- 
 structor, but that his father, the court tax-collector, would 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 61 
 
 have nothing to do with the witty abbe, who was reported to 
 have left his beloved France on account of some dishonorable 
 transactions, and Herr Cornelius suspected him of being a 
 Spanish spy. The other gentleman, a gray-headed man of 
 medium height and excessive corjmlence, and whose fur-bor- 
 dered cloak had consumed much cloth, was Signor Lamperi, 
 an agent of the great Italian house of Bonvisi, in Antwerp, who 
 came to Leyden every year with the storks and swallows for a 
 few weeks of business, and as an inexhaustible retailer of jokes 
 was a welcome guest in every drinking-shop. 
 
 A third gentleman joined the two latter before they entered 
 the house, preceded by two servants carrying lanterns. A 
 broad mantle enveloped his stately figure, and he, too, stood on 
 the threshold of old age. This man was no stranger to Wil- 
 helm, for the popish Monseigneur Gloria, who frequently came 
 to Leyden from Haarlem, was a patron of music, and had 
 given him valuable letters of recommendation on his return 
 from Italy, in spite of his heretical opinions. 
 
 Willie! m passed the house as the door closed upon these 
 three gentlemen. The steward Belotti had told him on the 
 previous day that Henrika seemed very unwell; but the en- 
 trance of visitors suggested probable improvement. The first 
 story of the Hoogstraten house was brilliantly lighted ; in the 
 second, a faint, steady gleam ajnpeared at one window, but she 
 for whom it was burning sat uneasily, with feverish cheeks 
 and eyes, beside a clumsy table, pressing her forehead against 
 the marble. Henrika was entirely alone in this wide, lofty 
 apartment. Behind curtains of heavily gilded brocade stood, 
 her bed, a huge structure of astonishing breadth. The other 
 articles of furniture were large, and of faded splendor. Every 
 chair and table might have been taken as relics from a ban- 
 queting-hall. Nothing necessary was wanting in the room, yet 
 there was no air of comfort, and nothing to suggest that it was 
 occupied by a young girl, except a large gilded harp, lying on 
 a stiffly cushioned couch, near the fire-place. Henrika's head 
 was burning, while her feet were chilled as they rested on the 
 gayly decorated stucco of the floor, unprotected by a carpet, 
 although her lower limbs were warmly wrapped. 
 
 Soon after the three men had entered the house of her aunt, 
 a female figure ascended the stairs leading from the first to the 
 second story. Henrika's excited senses perceived the light fall 
 of the velvet shoe and the rustling of the silken train, long 
 before the person approaching reached her room, and with 
 quickened breath she .sat erect. A wrinkled hand opened the 
 door without knocking, and the old Fraulein van Hoogstraten 
 
62 THE BURGOMASTER 8 WIFE. 
 
 stood before her niece. Thia superannuated dame must once 
 have been handsome, but at this time her appearance was 
 peculiar and unpleasant. Her meager, stooping figure was 
 arrayed in a Long-trained dress of rose-colored silk, while the 
 
 small head was lost in the ruff, a lace tower of monstrous pro- 
 portions. Over her sallow neck, exposed by the cut of the 
 waist, hung long chains of pearls and precious stones, and above 
 the artificial red blonde Venetian curls waved a bunch of 
 feathers set oif by a knot of light-blue velvet. Heavy per- 
 fumes loaded the atmosphere about her person, wdiich perhaps 
 were oppressive to her own senses, for the large glittering fan 
 she carried was kept in perpetual motion, and became violent- 
 ly accelerated when Henrika, in answer to her curt, " Quick, 
 quick!" said decisively: " No, aunt." 
 
 The old lady could not have mistaken the refusal, yet she 
 only repeated, " Quick, quick!" in more emphatic tones, add- 
 ing, as an important reason: " The monseigneur has come, and 
 wants to hear you. " 
 
 " I am much honored/' replied Henrika; " but how often 
 do I need to repeat that I shall not go?" 
 
 " May one ask wdiy not, my fairest?" 
 
 " Because I am not in condition for your society, because my 
 head aches and my eyes are burning, because I can not sing 
 to-day, and because — because — I beg you, leave me in 
 peace." 
 
 The old lady dropped her fan, and answered, coolly: 
 
 " Were you singing two hours ago, or not?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Then the headache is not very bad, and Denise can dress 
 you. " 
 
 " If she comes I shall send her away. When I tried the 
 harp a little while ago, it was in the hope that it might drive 
 away the pain. It did relieve me for a few moments, but now 
 it throbs harder than ever. " 
 
 " Mere subterfuge!" 
 
 " Believe what you choose. And if I were at this moment 
 sound as a squirrel in the forest, I would not go down to your 
 gentlemen. I shall stay here. Now you know. You have 
 my word for it, and I am a Hoogstratcn, as well as you." 
 
 Henrika had risen, and a glowing fire flashed in the eyes 
 that met her tormentor. The old lady set her fan again in 
 motion, and her protruding chin trembled. She said, short- 
 ly: " Your word of honor! Then you will not?" 
 
 " Certainly not," replied the girl, with disrespectful em- 
 phasis. 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 63 
 
 " Everyone wants his own way," said the old woman, turn- 
 ing toward the door. " What is too pronounced, is too pro- 
 nounced. Your father will not thank you for this." 
 
 With these words Fraulein Hoogstraten gathered up her 
 long train and approached the door. There she paused and 
 glanced once more inquiringly toward her niece. Henrika cer- 
 tainly remarked the hesitation of her aunt, but turned her 
 back deliberately without regarding the covert threat. 
 
 As soon as the door closed, she sunk back into her chair, 
 leaned her head again upon the marble, and remained thus a 
 long time. Then she rose as suddenly as though in answer to 
 a pressing call, flung back the cover of her trunk, and heaped 
 the various articles of apparel which came in her way upon 
 the floor, rising again only when she had found a few sheets of 
 writing-paper, brought with other possessions from her fa- 
 ther's castle. 
 
 As she rose from the kneeling posture, a dizziness seized her, 
 but she resolutely kept her footing and laid her paper, with a 
 note-book and a large inkstand which had stood in the room 
 for several days, upon the table and sat down before it. Lean- 
 ing back in her chair, she began to write. The book which 
 served as a desk, lay upon her knee, and the writing-paper on 
 the book. With the creaking and hesitating goose-quill she 
 made large, stiff characters on the white paper. Henrika was 
 not unused to writing, but to-day it must have been a hard 
 task, for her forehead was dripping with perspiration, her lips 
 drawn in by pain, and so often as she finished a few lines her 
 eyes would close, or she took long draughts from the water- 
 pitcher at her side. 
 
 The silence reigning in this great room was frequently 
 broken by sounds that rose from the dining-room. Clinking 
 of glasses, shrill tittering, loud, deep laughter, single strains 
 of a dissolute love-song, patriotic cheers, and then the sharp 
 crash of breaking glass came confusedly to her ears. She 
 could not avoid hearing these sounds, but they irritated her, 
 and she ground her white teeth together. Still, she did not 
 lay aside her pen. 
 
 That whicli she wrote was in disjointed, almost incompre- 
 hensible sentences, and without apparent connection. 
 
 Sometimes there were long gaps, then she repeated a single 
 word two or three times. The letter might have been written 
 by an insane person, yet from every line and pen-stroke 
 breathed the same passionate longing. 
 
 " Away from here! Away from this woman, and this 
 house!" 
 
64 THE BURGOMASTER'S wife. 
 
 The letter was addressed to her father, whom she begged to 
 deliver her from her present position, to come and take her 
 away, or to send for her. 
 
 Her uncle, Matenesse van Wibisma, she said, must have 
 been u careless messenger. lie had himself probably enjoyed 
 the evening receptions which were loathsome to her. She tie- 
 dared her determination to go out into the world, searching 
 for her sister, should her father insist on her remaining here. 
 Then followed a description of her aunt and her aunt's manner 
 of life. The picture of her days and nights in this house 
 was a confused mixture of great and small trials, and set off 
 in glaring colors the humiliations to which she had been ex- 
 posed. 
 
 There had often been carousing and wanton frivolity. Ilcn- 
 rika had been forced into the society of her aunt's guests — 
 elderly French and Italian men of loose morals. 
 
 While describing these assemblies, the blood mounted more 
 hotly into her already flushed cheeks, and the pen-strokes be- 
 came longer and less intelligible. The stories of the abbe, 
 which amused her aunt, and at which the Italian screamed, 
 and the monseigneur smilingly condemned with a light shake 
 of the head, were so shamefully bold that she would have felt 
 herself defiled in repeating them. 
 
 Was she a modest girl or not? 
 
 Bather would she die of hunger and thirst than be again in 
 such company. When the dining-room was empty, other ex- 
 orbitant demands were made upon Henrika, for then the aunt, 
 who could not bear to be left alone, was sick and wretched, 
 and she was compelled to nurse her. That she gladly min- 
 istered to the suffering, she wrote, was proved by her efforts 
 for the children sick of small-pox in the village; but when her 
 aunt could not sleep, she must keep watch beside her, hold 
 her hand, and listen to her moaning, whining, and praying, 
 or cursing of herself and the treacherous world, sometimes un- 
 til the morning dawned. She had come into this house strong 
 and vigorous, yet so much that was loathsome, irritating, and 
 oppressive had been heaped upon her as to affect her health. 
 
 The girl wrote on until midnight, the characters gradually 
 becoming more indistinct, the lines more crooked, and with the 
 last words, " Oh, my poor head! You see I am losing my 
 senses. Please, my dear, stern father, take me horn". I ha 1 e 
 also perhaps heard something of Anna," her eyes grew dim, 
 the pen dropped from her hand, and she fell back senseless into 
 her chair. 
 
 And there she lay, until the last laugh and rattle of glasses 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 65 
 
 had died away in the room beneath, and the guests of her aunt 
 had left the house. Denise, the maid, noticing the light in 
 the girl's room, came in, and after a vain attempt to rouse 
 her, called her mistress. 
 
 Following Denise up the stairs, Fraulein van Hoogstraten 
 muttered, " How tedious! She has dropped asleep, and noth- 
 ing more. Down-stairs with us she would have been wakeful 
 and merry enough. Sluggish blood. ' People of butter/ 
 King Philip used to say. That mad Lamperi was ill-bred this 
 evening, and the abbe said things — things — " 
 
 Wine had sent its sparkle into the eyes of the old woman, 
 and her fan waved rapidly back and forth, to cool her glowing 
 cheeks. When she reached Henrika, she called to her, shook 
 and sprinkled her from the smelling-bottle that hung at her 
 belt. In sjiite of her efforts, her niece only murmured unin- 
 telligible words, and she ordered Denise to bring her medicine- 
 chest. During the absence of the maid, Fraulein van Hoog- 
 straten noticed Henrika's letter, and read page after page, 
 with growing wrath; but at length threw it on the floor, and 
 shook her niece to rouse her once more in vain. 
 
 Meanwhile Belotti, apprised of Henrika's condition, and be- 
 cause much devoted to this young lady, took upon himself the 
 responsibility of sending for a physician, and in place of the 
 exiled priest of the house, called the chaplain Damianus. 
 Then he betook himself to the sick-chamber. 
 
 Before he crossed the threshold, the old dame called out: 
 
 " What do you say now, Belotti? Sickness in the house — 
 that may be contagious. Perhaps even the plague — " 
 
 " It seems to be only a fever," returned the Italian, quietly. 
 " Come, Denise. Together we can carry the young lady to 
 her bed. The physician will come soon." 
 
 " The physician!" exclaimed the old dame, striking upon 
 the marble with her fan. ' Who permitted you, Belotti — ' ' 
 
 " We are Christians," broke in the servant, and not with- 
 out dignity. 
 
 " Very well," cried the old lady, "do what you will, call 
 whom you please; but Henrika can not stay here. Contagion 
 in the house— the plague — a black tablet — " 
 
 " Excellenza disturbs herself quite unnecessarily. Let us 
 first hear the ojrinion of the physician." 
 
 " I will not hear it. I do not want plague or small-pox. 
 Go down directly, Belotti, and prepare the sedan-chair. The 
 old cavalier chamber in the wing is empty." 
 
 But, excellenza, it is musty, and so damp that the north 
 wall is covered with mo'-'k" 
 a 
 
66 THF I'l rgomastbb's wife. 
 
 ' Then lei it be aired and cleaned. What means this delay? 
 You are bo obey. Do you understand me, sir?" 
 
 " The cavalier chamber is not a fit place for the sick niece 
 of my gracious lady/' answered Belotti, respectfully, but 
 firmly. 
 
 'Is not? And what do you know about it?" asked the 
 lady. contemptuously. ' Go down, Denise, and send uj) the 
 sedan-chair. Have you anything more to say, Belotti?" 
 
 " Fes, padrona," answered the Italian, with a trembling 
 voice. " I beg excellenza to discharge me." 
 
 " Discharge you from service?" 
 
 " A\'ilh excellenza J s permission — yes, from service." 
 
 The old woman quailed a little, clasped her fan firmly with 
 both hands, and said: 
 
 " You are squeamish, Belotti. " 
 
 1 No, gracious lady; but I am old, and fear I may have 
 the misfortune to fall sick in this house some day." 
 
 The fraulien shrugged her shoulders, and turning to the 
 maid, said: "The sedan-chair, Denise. You are discharged, 
 Belotti." 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 A glorious morning followed the night in which sickness 
 and suffering had found its way into the Hoogstraten man- 
 sion. The stork, now better satisfied with Holland, flew with 
 a loud joyous clacking over the sunny meadows. It was one 
 of those rare days in April that seem sent to prove that the 
 widely sung praises of May, her successor, are too profuse, 
 while her own charms are not sufficiently appreciated. April 
 can boast of giving birth to the spring, while her blooming 
 heir strengthens its vigor and unfolds its beauty. 
 
 It was Sunday, and whoever, on such a day, while the bells 
 are ringing, strolls through the sunny paths cf the flowery 
 meadows, over which countless cattle, woolly sheep, and idle 
 horses are grazing, and meets the peasants in their neat Sun- 
 day clothes with their wives, whose brightly polished bands of 
 gold shine under their snow-white lace caps, solemn citizens 
 in gala dress, and happy children released from school, might 
 well fancy that nature also puts on a holiday suit of clear 
 green and delicate blue, with flowers of fairer hue than she 
 wears on the work-days. A festive spirit seemed to animate 
 the citizens, who, either on foot or in great open wagons, or 
 on the Rhine in gayly painted boats, were making excursions, 
 to enjoy with wives and children the country bread, yellow 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 67 
 
 butter, and fresh cheese, milk and cooling beer during the 
 leisure hours of the day of rest. 
 
 The musician Wilhelm had long ago finished his organ play- 
 ing in the church; but instead of wandering with his comrades 
 into the country, he devoted the hours of rest to longer jour- 
 neys, such as render shoes quite unnecessary. 
 
 These led him on swift-winged flights beyond the level plains 
 of his native land over the hills and valleys of Germany, 
 and beyond the Alpine peaks into Italy. A place propitious 
 for such forgetf ulness of present surroundings and flight into 
 the past stood ready. During his absence in Italy, his brothers 
 Ulrich and Johannes, who were also musicians but who recog- 
 nized without envy the superior gifts of Wilhelm, and were 
 ready to assist him, had arranged and furnished for him a room 
 in the narrow side of the steep roof, from which a broad door 
 opened upon a small balcony. On this stood a wooden bench, 
 where Wilhelm liked to sit and watch the flight of his pigeons, 
 or gaze dreamily into the distance, or when disposed to work, 
 listen to the tones which arranged themselves for his inward 
 ear. A charming prospect offered itself from this highest 
 point of the house which had an open situation; the view was 
 almost as extensive as that from the top of the citadel — the 
 old Roman tower in the heart of Leyden. 
 
 Like a spider in its web, Wilhelm/ s native city lay in the 
 midst of the countless canals and arms of the sea that intersect 
 the plain. The red brick walls, washed by a dark strip of 
 water, encircled the charming place as a band surrounds the 
 head of a maiden. And in a wider and more broken circle 
 the redoubts and bulwarks resembled a garland of loosely 
 woven thorns. Between the defensive works and the city walls 
 browsed the cattle belonging to the citizens, and on the outer 
 side lay villages and hamlets. 
 
 Looking toward the north, on this clear April day, one could 
 distinguish the Haarlem Sea; on the west, beyond the leafy 
 domes of the Haager forest, lay the dunes, which nature has 
 heaped up to jorotect the land from the rushing waves. Firm 
 and impregnable seemed this long chain of hillocks, opposing 
 the inroads of the sea as Alfen, Leyderdorp, and Valkenburg, 
 the three fortresses upon the Rhine, confront hostile armies. 
 
 The Rhine! Wilhelm looked down at the shallow, indolent 
 stream, and likened it to a deposed king, who, having lost 
 power and greatness, divides the possessions remaining to him 
 among the little circle of his adherents. 
 
 The musician knew well the lordly undivided German 
 Rhine, and often in fancy followed its course southward, but 
 
CS THE BTJRG0MA8TER*fl UIFE. 
 
 oftencr still a dream carried him in one mighty leap to the 
 Lake of Lugano, that pearl of the Western Alps; and when he 
 thought of that ami the Mediterranean Sea, emerald green 
 ami azure blue and golden light shone before his inner eye, and 
 in smh boms all his musings were transformed into harmony 
 and music And then bis journey from Lugano to Milan! 
 Eude and overcrowded bad been the vehicle which bore him to 
 the city of Leonardo, but in it he had met Isabella. 
 
 And Rome! Rome! that noble, never-to-be-forgotten city, 
 where one is lifted « mt of himself to gather vigor and spiritual 
 power — but which makes us wretched with longing when it 
 lies behind us. 
 
 By the Tiber, Wilhelm had first learned what true art, his 
 own lordly art, was. A new world had here opened before 
 him, in the society of Isabella; but a sharp frost had passed 
 over the blossoms that had unfolded in Rome; he knew they 
 were blasted, and could never come to fruit. Yet to-day he 
 recalled her image in its fresh beauty, and, instead of a vision 
 of lost love, he saw his gracious friend, and dreamed of a 
 heaven blue as turquois or cyanite; of slender columns and 
 bubbling fountains, of olive groves and marble statues, of 
 cool church aisles and glancing villas, of ardent eyes and 
 sparkling wine, of enchanting choirs and Isabella's song. 
 
 The doves which cooed and clucked in the cote beside him, 
 flying in and out, were now quite free to go and come as they 
 pleased, for their guardian neither saw nor heard them. 
 
 The fencing-master, Allertssohn, came up the ladder to this 
 w r atch-tower, but Wilhelm first noticed him when he stood at 
 his side on the balcony, and greeted him with his deep voice. 
 " Where have we been, Herr Wilhelm? In this cloth-weaving 
 Leyden. Ko. More probably with the goddess of music on 
 Olympus, or wherever she holds her court." 
 
 " Rightly guessed," replied Wilhelm, tossing back the hair 
 from his brow. " I have been making her a visit, and she 
 sends you her greeting." 
 
 " Give her mine in return/' said the visitor; " but she is 
 not one of my familiar acquaintances. Drinking suits my 
 throat better than song. Will you allow me?" 
 
 The fencing-master took the beer-mug whish the mother of 
 Wilhelm freshly filled every day, and placed in the chamber of 
 her darling, and took a long draught. Then wiping his beard, 
 he said: 
 
 "That lias done me good, and I needed it. The people 
 wanted to go out for pleasure, and omit the drill; but we 
 forced them to it, young Van Warmond, Duivenvoorde and I. 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 69 
 
 Who knows how soon we may have to show what we are able 
 to do! By Roland, my former self! such imprudence is like a 
 club, against which Florentine rapiers can do nothing, with 
 their fine tierce and carte. My wheat has been beaten down 
 by hail." 
 
 " Then let it be, and see if the barley and clover stand any 
 better," answered Wilhelm, cheerfully; throwing some grains 
 of wheat and oats toward a large pigeon that had alighted on 
 the parapet of his watch-tower. 
 
 " It eats, and yet what is it good for?" cried Allertssohn, 
 looking at the dove. " Herr van Warmond, a young fellow 
 after God's own heart, has just brought me two falcons ; would 
 you like to see how I tame them?" 
 
 " No, captain; between my music and my doves I have 
 enough to do." 
 
 " The long-necked one yonder is a ludicrous fellow." 
 
 "And where do you think he came from? There he goes 
 now, with the others. Watch him a little, and then give me 
 your opinion. " 
 
 "Ask King Solomon; he was wonclrously familiar with 
 birds." 
 
 " Keep your eye on him, you will soon see." 
 
 " The fellow has a stiff neck, and carries his head pretty 
 high." 
 
 " And his beak?" 
 
 " Curved, almost like a hawk's! Zounds! what is the 
 creature trying to do with his sprawling toes? Look out, 
 bandit! He'll peck your little cloves to death. True as I 
 live, the saucy thing must be a Spanish rascal!" 
 
 " You have guessed right. It is a Spanish dove, which has 
 come to me; but I can not endure it, and drive it away, for I 
 keep only a few pair of the same sort, and try to improve 
 them. Whoever tries to raise several varieties in the same 
 cote will accomplish nothing. " 
 
 " That is worth thinking of. But I think you have not 
 chosen the handsomest species. " 
 
 " No, sir, what you see here is a mixture of carrier and 
 tumbler; the breed of Antwerp carriers — bluish, reddish, mot- 
 tled. I do not care for the colors, but they must have large 
 wings, with broad quills on the flag feathers; above all, mus- 
 cular strength. This one here — wait, I will catch him — is one 
 of my best flyers. Just try to lift his pinion. " 
 
 " God knows the little fellow has marrow in his bones! 
 How the little wing pinches! the falcons are not much 
 Stronger." 
 
70 the burgomaster's wife. 
 
 (I 
 
 It's ,-i leader, too, who can find the way alone." 
 
 " Why do you keep no white tumblers? I should think the 
 eye might follow their ilight longest/' 
 
 " Because it, is with doves exaetly as with men. He who is 
 conspicuous becomes a mark for envy and hostility, and birds 
 of | MTV pounce first upon the white tumblers. I tell you, 
 master, one with eyes in his head can learn much in a dove- 
 cote about the descendants of Adam and Eve." 
 
 " There are quarreling and kissing up there just as in Ley- 
 den." 
 
 " Exactly the same, captain. If I mate an old dove with 
 one much younger it seldom turns out well. "When the male 
 is in love, he knows how to make as many compliments to his 
 sweetheart as the finest gallant to his lady-love. And do you 
 know what the cai-esses mean? The wooer brings food to his 
 darling, that means he tries to win her with gifts. Then 
 comes the wedding, and they build a nest. If there be young 
 birds, they feed them together in harmony. The aristocratic 
 doves brood poorly, and we put their eggs under the commoner 
 varieties." 
 
 " Those are the noble ladies who have nurses for their 
 babies." 
 
 " Un mated doves often make trouble among the mated." 
 
 " Accept the lesson, young man, and beware of becoming 
 an old bachelor. I have nothing against the girl, though, who 
 remains unmarried, for I have found many lovely good souls 
 among them." 
 
 " 80 have I, but some poor specimens also, just as it is here 
 in the dove-cote. In general, my pets make happy marriages; 
 but if it does come to sejwation — " 
 
 " Which of them is to blame?" 
 
 " In nine cases out of ten it is the little wife." 
 
 " By Roland, my former self! it is exactly so among men," 
 cried the fencing-master, clapping his hands. 
 
 " What is this about your Roland, Herr Allerts? You 
 promised me lately — but who is coming up the ladder?" 
 
 " I hear your mother. " 
 
 " She brings a visitor. I know that voice, and yet — wait, it 
 is the steward of old Fraulein von Hoogstraten. " 
 
 " Of Nobel Street? Let me go, Wilhelm, for this Glipper 
 set— " 
 
 " Wait a little; there is room for only one on the ladder," 
 na id the musician, holding out his hand to help Relotti up the 
 last round into his room. 
 
 " Spaniards and Sjjanish sympathizers/ ' muttered the fenc- 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S "WIFE. 71 
 
 ing-master as he went out, crying, as he descended the ladder: 
 "I will stay below until the air is pure again/' 
 
 The handsome and usually smooth face was covered to-day 
 with a stubbly beard, and the old man looked troubled and 
 worn, as he began to tell Wilhelm what had occurred in the 
 house of his mistress since the previous evening. 
 
 " Hot-blooded people," said the Italian, " may grow weaker 
 with advancing years, but not more serene. I could not stand 
 by and see the poor angel, for she is not far from the' throne 
 of the Virgin, treated like a sick dog who is driven out into 
 the court-yard; so I took my leave." 
 
 " That does you honor, but just now is a little out of place. 
 And have they really carried the young lady into the damp 
 room?" 
 
 " No, sir. Father Damianus came and made the old excel- 
 lenza understand what the Holy Virgin expects from a Chris- 
 tian, and when the padrona, in spite of this, tried to carry out 
 her will, the holy man spoke in such sharp and severe lan- 
 guage that she yielded. Now the signorina lies in her bed, 
 with glowing cheeks and wandering words." 
 
 " And who nurses her?" 
 
 " It is on account of the physician that I came to you, sir, 
 for Doctor de Bont, who came without delay, when I called 
 him, was treated so badly by the excellenza that he turned his 
 back upon her shortly, and told me at the house door he 
 should not come again. " 
 
 Wilhelm shook his head, but the Italian went on: 
 
 " There are other physicians in Leyden, but Father Dami- 
 anus says De Bont, or Bontius, as they call him, is the most 
 skillful and scientific of all, and since the old excellenza her- 
 self had an attack about noon, and certainly can not be so soon 
 out of her bed, the way is free, and Father Damianus said he 
 would go for Doctor Bontius, if necessary. But since you are 
 a native of the city, and not a stranger to the signorina, I 
 would spare the father the refusal he might receive from an 
 enemy of our holy Church. The poor man has enough to bear 
 from scoffers and good-for-nothiug boys when he goes through 
 the streets with the consecrated host. " 
 
 " But, you know, any interference with the practice of his 
 calling is strictly forbidden." 
 
 " Yet he can not show himself on the street without being 
 derided. Neither of us can change the world, my dear sir. 
 So long as the Church held the power in her hand, she burned 
 and quartered you, and now that you have it, our priests are 
 scorned and persecuted. " 
 
72 the burgomaster's wife. 
 
 " Against law and order of the magistrates." 
 
 "You can not restrain the people, and Father Damianus is 
 a land) who bears all patiently — just as good a Christian as 
 many saints to whom candles are consecrated. Do you know 
 the doctor?" 
 
 "A little, by sight." 
 
 " Oh, then, go to him, sir, for the sake of the young lady," 
 cried the old man with much feeling. " It is in your power 
 to rescue a human life, a fair young human life;" and tears 
 glittered in his eyes. 
 
 As Wilhelm laid his hand upon his arm, and said kindly: 
 " I will -try," the fencing-master called at the door: " Your 
 conference continues too long for me. I will come another 
 time." 
 
 " No, master, come up a moment. This man here has come 
 for the sake of a poor, sick girl, wdio is now lyin^ helpless and 
 alone, for her aunt, the old Fraulein van Hoogstraten, has 
 driven Doctor de Bont from her bedside because he is a Cal- 
 vinist." 
 
 " From the bedside of a sick girl?" 
 
 " It was contemptible enough, but now the old lady herself 
 has been taken down." 
 
 "Bravo!" cried the fencing-master, clapping his hands. 
 
 " If the (God save us!) is not afraid of the woman, and 
 
 wants to fetch her, I'll pay the post-horses. But the girl — 
 the sick girl?" 
 
 " This man here is begging me to persuade De Bout to visit 
 her again. Are you on friendly terms with him?" 
 
 " I was, Wilhelm — I was; but — last Friday we had a sharp 
 contest about the new steel cap; and now the learned demi- 
 god will expect aj)ologies from me; but — to sound retreat — 
 that is not in my line." 
 
 " Oh, dear sir," cried Belotti, with touching earnestness. 
 " The poor child lies helpless in a high fever. If Heaven has 
 blessed you with children — " 
 
 " Hush, old man," returned the fencing-master, stroking 
 the gray hair of Belotti, in a friendly manner. " My children 
 are surely nothing to you, but we will do what we can for the 
 sick girl. Farewell, till w r e meet again, sirs. By Roland, my 
 former self! what may one not live through? Hemp is still 
 cheap in Holland, and yet such a monster lives in the very 
 midst of us to be as old as a raven!" 
 
 With these words he descended the ladder, and took his way 
 along the street, thinking over what he could say to Dr. Bon- 
 tius, with a look on his face as if he had wormwood in his 
 
THE BUJtGOai ASTER'S WIFE. 73 
 
 mouth; yet his eyes and bearded lips smiled. His learned 
 friend made the apology easy, and when Belotti reached home 
 he found the doctor at the bedside of the sick girl. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Dame Elizabeth van" Nordwyk and the town secretary's 
 wife, Dame van Hout, had each separately pressed the burgo- 
 master's wife to go with her into the country and enjoy the 
 fine spring Sunday ; still, and in spite of Barbara's persuasion, 
 the young wife could not be induced to accept their invitations. 
 
 Eight days had passed since her husband's dej^arture — eight 
 days that had dragged their weary length from morning till 
 night as dully as the torpid stream in one of the ditches that 
 intersect the Dutch fields creeps down to join the river. Sleep 
 loves to visit the pillow of youth, and it had returned even to 
 hers; but with the dawn her discontent came back, her unrest, 
 and the unsatisfied craving to which sleep had brought a mer- 
 ciful truce. She felt that this was not as it should be, and 
 that her father would have blamed her if he could have seen 
 her thus. 
 
 There are some women who are ashamed to wear rosy cheeks 
 and to own to a frank enjoyment of existence — who cherish a 
 dismal satisfaction in the sense of grief and suffering. But 
 Maria was assuredly not one of these. She would thankfully 
 have been happy,' and she left no means untried to recover her 
 lost cheerfulness. With the honest purpose of doing her duty 
 she went back to Lisa's bedside, but the child was fast recov- 
 ering, and always called for Barbara, Adrian, or Trautchen 
 as soon as she found herself alone with Maria. Then she tried 
 to read, but the few books she had brought from Delft she 
 knew too well, and her thoughts would wander into their own 
 channel before she could fix them on the old familiar page. 
 Wilhelm had brought the new motet, and she tried to sing it 
 through; but music requires the whole heart and mind of those 
 who would benefit by its gifts, and refused to afford her either 
 consolation or pleasure while her spirit was absent, busied with 
 other things. 
 
 When she helped Adrian with his tasks her patience failed 
 much sooner than it had been wont. On the first market-day 
 she sallied out with Trautchen, to obey her husband's com- 
 mands and to make purchases; and while she moved among 
 the crowd from place to place, where the different wares and 
 provisions were put out for sale — here meat, there fish, here 
 again vegetables — while on every side the venders called and 
 
74 THE BURGOMASTER'S WIPE. 
 
 clamored to her: " Here, dame, this way;" and " Here, dame, 
 I have the thing you want!" — she forgot for the time the 
 trouble that weighed upon her. With revived energies she set 
 to work to taste meal and pease and smell at dried fish; and 
 felt it a point of honor to select them well; Barbara should see 
 she knew how to market. The crowd was dense in every part, 
 for the town authorities had issued a proclamation that, in 
 view of the threatening danger, every household should lay in 
 an abundant stock of provisions on every market-day; but even 
 those who were buying up food stuffs with a view to retailing 
 them later, made way for the burgomaster's pretty young wife, 
 and this flattered and pleased her. 
 
 She returned home with a bright face, happy to have done 
 her best, and went straight to Barbara in the kitchen. Peter's 
 kind-hearted sister had of course observed how heavy the poor 
 young wife's heart was, and she had been glad to see her set 
 out on her marketing expedition. Choosing and chaffering 
 would divert her thoughts from their melancholy channel. 
 But the prudent housewife (who credited Maria with every 
 virtue but the capacity for shrewd and careful housewifery) 
 took the precaution of warning Trautchen not to lay in too 
 great a stock of provisions. When the demand on a market is 
 double and treble the supply, prices rapidly rise, and thus it 
 came to pass that, when Maria told the widow how much she 
 had paid for this or that necessary article, Barbara could do 
 nothing but exclaim: "But, child, that is dreadfully dear!" 
 or: " Such prices will make beggars of us!" 
 
 These exclamations — most of them, under the circumstances, 
 wholly unreasonable— annoyed and hurt Maria; still peace with 
 her sister-in-law was dear to her; hard as it was to submit to 
 injustice, it was not in her nature to express her vexation in 
 angry words,- and it would have been a painful effort. So she 
 only said, with some irritation: "I can only beg you to ask 
 other people what they had to pay, and then scold me if vou 
 think it just!" 
 
 And with these words she left the kitchen. 
 
 " But I am not scolding you, child!" cried Barbara. 
 
 But Maria would not hear. She hastily went upstairs, and 
 locked herself into her own room. All her satisfaction Mas 
 dashed again. 
 
 On Sunday she went to church. After dinner she filled a 
 linen satchel with small provisions for Adrian, who was going 
 on a boating excursion with some friends, and then she seated 
 herself by the window in her own room. Well-dressed citizens 
 — among them several members of the town council — came 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 75 
 
 down the street with their wives and children in Sunday array. 
 Young girls with flowers in their tuckers passed in twos and 
 threes over the bridge across the Gracht to join the dancers 
 at a village outside the Zyl Gate. They walked primly along 
 in silence, and with downcast eyes; but many a cheek was 
 tinged with a blush, and more then one rosy mouth parted in 
 an irresistible smile, when the young men who followed in the 
 wake of the demure damsels — as gay and devious themselves 
 as the gulls that flutter after a ship— broke out into some saucy 
 jest, or whispered a word to one which no third person was 
 meant to overhear. 
 
 Each and all, as they streamed toward the Zyl Gate, seemed 
 careless and content; and it could be seen in every face that 
 all looked forward to happy hours out in the sunny fields and 
 under the open sky. Even to Maria the pleasure that attract- 
 ed them seemed sweet and desirable; but what part had she 
 with these gay folks— she with an aching heart among stran- 
 gers? The shadows of the houses seemed to her darker than 
 usual, the air of the town more oppressive; and she felt as if 
 the spring had come for all men, great and small, old and 
 young, excepting herself alone. 
 
 The masts and trees by the banks of the Achter Gracht were 
 already beginning to cast longer shadows, and the golden mist 
 that hung above the roofs was taking a tender pink tinge, 
 when Maria heard approaching hoofs. She drew herself stiitly 
 up and her heart beat violently. She would receive Peter 
 somewhat differently from her wont; she must be frank with 
 him and show him what she felt, and that matters could not 
 go on in this way; and she was still seeking words in which to 
 express what she had to say when the horse stopped before the 
 door. Sne went to the window and saw her husband fling him- 
 self from the saddle and look eagerly up at her room. Sbe 
 would not send him a greeting, but her heart drew her to him; 
 all discontent, every grudging thought was forgotten, and with 
 winged steps she flew along the corridor to the head of the 
 stairs. He had come into the hall, and she called his name. 
 
 " Maria, child, is that you?" he cried out, and, trembling 
 like a lover, he rushed up the stairs, met her on the top step, 
 and clasped her with passionate tenderness to his heart. 
 
 " At last, at last, I have you again!" he said, joyfully, kiss- 
 ing her eyes and soft hair. She had elasped her arms tightly 
 round his neck, but he gently released himself, and while he 
 held her in his own he asked: " Are Barbara and Adrian at 
 home?" 
 
 She shook her head. He smiled, and stoorjing down lifted 
 
76 THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 
 
 her up like ;i child, and carried her into his study. Just as 
 some fine tree standing by a burning house is caught at last by 
 the flames, (hough men have tried to save it by pouring cold 
 water over it, so her cherished determination to receive him 
 coolly was vanquished by the warmth of his affection. She 
 was heartily happy to have him near her again, and quite 
 ready to believe him when, with tender words, he told her how 
 bitterly he had felt their separation, how much he had missed 
 her, and how her inutge had always stood plainly before his 
 fancy, though generally he had no capacity for recalling an 
 absent face. 
 
 How warmly, how convincingly, he could assure her of his 
 devotion! She was still a happy woman, and she did not try 
 to restrain the full expression of her happiness. 
 
 Adrian and Barbara soon came in, and then, at supper, how 
 much there was to tell! Peter had had many adventures on 
 his journey, and had come home with renewed hopes; the lad 
 had done well at school, and Elizabeth's illness was already a 
 danger of the past which had ended well. Barbara was radiant 
 with satisfaction, for everything seemed to be on the b^piest 
 footing between her brother and his wife. So the sweet April 
 evening passed happily by. 
 
 The next morning, as Maria jilaited her hair with black vel- 
 vet ribbons, she felt glad and thankful, for she had found 
 courage to tell Peter that she longed to have a greater part in 
 his anxieties than he had hitherto allowed her, and he had met 
 her with full consent. Now, she hoped, a broader and worthier 
 life was about to begin for her; to-day he was to tell her all he 
 had arranged and carried out with the prince at Dortrecht, for 
 till this moment not a word on this subject had passed his lips. 
 
 Barbara, who was bustling about the kitchen, and just then 
 tryiug to capture three young fowls with a view to their in- 
 stant execution, granted them a brief respite, and even threw 
 a handful of barley into the coop, as she heard her sister-in- 
 law come singing down the stairs. The fragmentary bars of 
 Wilhelm's new madrigal sounded as sweetly in her ears, and 
 as full of promise, as the song of the nightingale when the 
 husbandman first hears it after a long winter. Spring-time 
 had come into the house again, and her kind round face shone 
 smiling and unclouded out of her big cap, like a sunflower in 
 the midst of its green leaves, as she exclaimed to Maria: 
 
 " This is a good day for you, child; we will melt down the 
 butter to keep, and salt the bacon." 
 
 it sounded as pleasant as an invitation to Paradise, and 
 Maria gladly helped in the work, which they began without 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 77 
 
 delay. When the widow's hands were busy her tongue was 
 never still, and her curiosity was not a little excited as to what 
 might have passed between Peter and his young wife. 
 
 She soon skillfully brought the conversation round to the re- 
 turned traveler, and then, as if by chance, out came the ques- 
 tion: 
 
 "And has he given you any sufficient reasons for setting 
 out on his wedding-day?" 
 
 ' ' Of course I knew he could not stay. " 
 
 " Of course not — of course not! But if you make yourself 
 out green the goats will eat you. It does not do to put up 
 with too much from a man. Give and take, I say. An in- 
 justice done you is as good as hard cash in married life, and 
 you ought to get a good calf for your money. " 
 
 " I do not want to drive a bargain with Peter; and if one 
 thing and another did weigh on my mind, after such a long 
 separation I was glad to forget it." 
 
 ' ' A damp truss of hay is enough to spoil a whole stack, 
 and when a hare has got into your cabbage-garden you had 
 better catch it. You should never nurse up a thing that wor- 
 ries you, but have it out in broad daylight. That is what a 
 man has a tongue for, and yesterday was the day when you 
 ought to have made a clean breast of everything that troubled 
 you." 
 
 " But he was so glad to get home; and, besides, what makes 
 you think I am unhappy?" 
 
 " Unhappy? Who said so?" 
 
 Maria colored, and the widow took up a knife and opened 
 the hen-coop. 
 
 Trautchen was helping the two housewives in their work in 
 the kitchen; but she was often interrupted, for the door- 
 knocker never rested that morning, and the visitors must have 
 brought anything rather than pleasing news to the burgomas- 
 ter, for his deep, angry tones were often audible even in the 
 kitchen. 
 
 His longest interview was with the town clerk, Van Hout, 
 who came to him not merely to learn his news and report prog- 
 ress, but with a serious list of conrplaints to make. It was a 
 singular scene when these two men, who so far exceeded their 
 fellow-citizens not only in physical presence and in moral dig- 
 nity, but in enthusiastic devotion to the cause of freedom, 
 mutually expressed and explained their views and their com- 
 mon sense of dissatisfaction. Van Hout, fiery, eager, and 
 imaginative, led the duet; Van der Werff, deliberate and reti- 
 cent, took the second with anxious earnestness. 
 
78 THE BURGOMASTEr/S WIFE. 
 
 There was much dissatisfaction among the elders and 
 authorities of the town, the wealthy old families and the great 
 weavers and brewers; for with them life, possessions, and posi- 
 tion were more precious than religion and liberty; while the 
 
 poor man, who painfully earned bread for his family in the 
 sweat of his brow, was cheerfully resolved to shed his blood 
 and sacrifice his all for the good cause. Thus there were end- 
 less difficulties to be met and dealt with. Every shed or 
 scaffolding, the tenter-frames and wood-work of all kinds 
 which might serve to shelter or conceal a man, must be laid 
 level with the earth, as already every garden-house and build- 
 ing near the city walls had been razed to the ground. A great 
 deal of newly erected wood-work had indeed been removed, 
 but the richer owners were those who held out longest against 
 laying the ax to them. New earth-works had been begun round 
 the strong fort of Valkenburg, but part of the land which 
 the laborers had to dig out belonged to a brewer, who asked 
 enormous compensation for the injury to his fields. During 
 the former siege, which had been raised in March, paper money 
 had been issued — circular pieces of pasteboard — with the lion 
 of the Netherlands on one side, and the motto: " Hcec liber- 
 tatis ergo ;" and, on the other, the arms of the city, with the 
 Avords: " Gott behilte Leyden" (God protect Leyden). This 
 paper coinage ought to have been by this time exchanged for 
 metal money or an equivalent in corn, but certain well-to-do 
 speculators had chosen to hold over a quantity of the pieces, 
 and were trying to force up their value. 
 
 Demands of every kind and from all sides were made on the 
 burgomaster's time and attention; and at the same time he 
 had his own interests to consider, for all intercourse with the 
 outer world might at any moment be cut off, and it was indis- 
 pensable that he should settle a variety of matters with his 
 business agent in Hamburg. He must in any case lose great- 
 ly, but he would leave nothing undone to secure what might 
 yet be saved for his wife and children. 
 
 These he now saw but seldom; he thought he had amply re- 
 deemed the promise he had made to Maria on his return home, 
 when he shortly answered her questions, or, of his own accord, 
 brieily informed her: 
 
 " We had warm work to-day at the town hall;" or, " The 
 exchanging of the siege tokens has given rise to greater diffi- 
 culties than we had expected. " 
 
 The kindly ''raving for confidence given and received was 
 unknown to him; and his first wife had been perfectly content 
 and happy when, in peaceful times, he had sat silent by her 
 
THE BUKGOMASTEK'S WIFE. 79 
 
 side, called her his dearest treasure, played with his children, or 
 praised her waffle* and the Sunday joint. His trade in leather 
 and public affairs had been his business; the kitchen and the 
 nursery had been hers. What they had in common was the 
 certainty of each other's affection, their children, and the re- 
 spectability, dignity, and ownership of the house. 
 
 Maria wanted something more, and he was very ready to 
 give it, but when in the evening she pressed the overtired 
 burgomaster with questions which he was accustomed to hear 
 only from men, he put her off till easier times for the answers, 
 or even fell asleep in the middle of her eager questionings. 
 She saw how overburdened he was — how unrestingly he toiled; 
 but why, then, did he not throw some of the labor and care on 
 to other shoulders? 
 
 One fine day he went with her out into the country. She 
 took the opportunity of representing to him that he owed it to 
 himself and to her to allow himself more rest. He listened 
 to her patiently, and when she had come to an end of her en- 
 treaties and warnings, he took her hand in his, and said : 
 
 ' You have seen Master Marnix St. Aldegronde, have you 
 not? and you know all that our cause owes to him. Do you 
 know his favorite motto?" 
 
 She bowed her head, and answered, softly: " Eepos ail- 
 leurs." 
 
 ' We can rest elsewhere, " he repeated, gravely. 
 
 She shivered, and withdrawing her hand from his arm, she 
 could not help thinking: " Elsewhere! not here, then — that is 
 plain. Peace and happiness can not dwell here!" She did 
 not speak the words, but she could not get them out of her 
 head. 
 
 CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 The Nobel Street was still enough in those early days of 
 spring, and the house of the Hoogstratens was stillest of all. 
 The road-way in front of it had been strewn with straw and 
 sand, in obedience to Dr. de Bont's orders and those of the old 
 lady's business adviser, for she was very ill. The windows 
 were closely curtained, and a pad of cloth had been tied under 
 the door-knocker. The door itself was left ajar, and close 
 within sat a servant to give information to all who should call 
 or ask admission. It was a morning early in May, when Wil- 
 helm Corneliussolm and Janus Dousa turned into the Nobel 
 Street. The two men were in eager conversation, but as they 
 
80 TITE BURGOMASTER'S "WIFE. 
 
 approached the Band-strewn spot they at first lowered their 
 tones, and presently were silent. 
 
 " This is the carpet spread for the feet of the all-conqueror 
 Death," said the baron; "let us hope he will only lower his 
 torch onee before this house, and that he may eonfer the honor 
 oil the old -woman, little as she is worthy of it. Do not stay 
 too long in the infected house, Master Wilhelm." 
 
 The organist softly opened the door; the servant bowed to 
 him without speaking, and went at once to call Belotti, for the 
 " player " had already been more than once to call upon the 
 steward, lie went into the little room where he was accus- 
 tomed to wait, and there, for the first time, he found another 
 visitor, and certainly in a strange position. Father Damianns 
 was sitting in an arm-chair, bolt upright, but with his head 
 sunk on one side, and fast asleep. The priest was a man of 
 nearer forty than thirty, and his face, which was fringed with 
 a thin, light-colored beard, was as pink and white as a child's. 
 A scanty line of pale-yellow hair edged his wide tonsure, and 
 the sleeper's fingers, which had dropped on to his lap, held a 
 rosary of olive-wood beads, browned by incessant use. A sweet 
 and gentle smile curved his half-open lips. 
 
 " This mild-looking saint in his womanly robes does not look 
 as if he had much grij> in him," thought Wilhelm. "And 
 yet his big hands are horny, as if they had done some hard 
 work." 
 
 When Belotti came into the room and saw the sleeping 
 priest, he carefully pushed a cushion under his head, and beck- 
 oned to Wilhelm to follow him out into the hall. 
 
 " Let us leave him to get a little rest," said the Italian. 
 " He had been sitting by the padrona's bedside since midday 
 yesterday till about two hours ago. Most of the time i En 
 knows nothing of what is going on around her, but whenever 
 she recovers consciousness she asks for spiritual consolation. 
 Still, she will not receive the last sacraments, for she will not ad- 
 mit that she can be near her end. Every now and then, when 
 the pain is worst, she asks in the greatest alarm whether every- 
 thing is ready in case of need, for she is terrified at the thought 
 of dying without extreme unction." 
 
 " And how is Mistress Henrika?" 
 
 "A very little better." 
 
 At this moment the priest came out of the side room; Belotti 
 reverently kissed his hand, ami Wilhelm bowed respectfully. 
 
 "I fell asleep," said Damianns. simply, but in a less deep 
 voice than it wa natural to expect from his stalwart build and 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 81 
 
 broad chest. " I will read mass, visit my sick, and return as 
 soon as possible. Have you thought better of it, Belotti?" 
 
 "It is of no use, father; it will not do. I gave notice to 
 quit on the first of May; this is the eighth, and here I am still 
 — I would not leave the house, for I am a Christian! But 
 now, the ladies have a good doctor to take care of them; Sister 
 Gonzaga knows her duties; you yourself deserve a jilace among 
 . the martyrs in Paradise for your devotion to them; so I may 
 tie up my bundle and be off without having a sin on my con- 
 science. " 
 
 " No — do not go, Belotti," said the priest, earnestly, " or, 
 if you persist in going your own way, at least do not boast of 
 being a Christian." 
 
 " You will staj^," cried Wilhelm, " if it is only for the sake 
 of the young lady whom you love so well." 
 
 Belotti shook his head, and answered calmly: 
 
 " No, master, you can add nothing to what the reverend 
 father put before me yesterday. My mind is made up, and I 
 shall go; but, as I value your good opinion and the reverend 
 father's, I would beg you to do me the favor of listening to 
 what I have to say. I have seen two-and-sixty years, and an 
 old horse and an old servant stand a long time in the market 
 waiting for a buyer. In Brussels I might find a place where a 
 Catholic steward was needed who knows his business, but my 
 old heart longs to see Naples once more — I can not tell ycu 
 how wearily. You, young master, have seen our blue sea and 
 sky; and I long for them, no doubt, but still more for other 
 and smaller things. It has been a great happiness to me that 
 I have been able to speak my own tongue to you, Master Wil- 
 helm, and to you, reverend father; but there is a country where 
 every one speaks as I do. There is a little village at the foot 
 of Vesuvius — merciful Heaven! why, many a man might be 
 afraid to stay in it, even half an hour, when the mountain 
 grumbles and thunders, and ashes fall in showers, and hot lava 
 in fiery streams. Well, the houses there are not so neatly 
 built, and the window-panes do not shine so clean as they do 
 here-in your country. I am almost afraid that there is hardly 
 a pane of glass in all Resina, but the children do not freeze 
 there any more than they do with you. Lord! wbat would a 
 Ley den housewife say to our village street? Poles covered 
 with vines, branches of fig, and washing of all colors on the 
 roofs, out of the windows, and all over the rickety balconies; 
 orange and lemon-trees loaded with golden fruits in the little 
 garden-plots, where there are no straight paths and neatly 
 edged beds. Everything grows higgledy-piggledy, anyhow. 
 
82 THE Bl RG03IASTEK S WIFE. 
 
 And Ilic hoys, in their rags, which no tailor ever darned or 
 patched, scramble about on the white walls that hedge in the 
 vineyards; and the little girls, whose mothers sit combing their 
 hair outside the front door, are not so pink and white and 
 gpick and span clean as Dutch children, and yet I should like 
 to Bee their little brown fares and Mark heads once more, with 
 their bright, dark eyes; and I long to end my days in the tum- 
 ble-down old home among my nephews and nieces and rela- 
 tions, in the warm sunshine, free from toil and care." 
 
 The old man's .heeks glowed as he spoke, and his black 
 eyes Hashed with a fire which till now the cold northern air 
 and long years of servitude seemed to have extinguished. 
 Then, as neither the priest nor the organist at once spoke 
 when he paused, he went on: 
 
 " Monseigneur Gloria is going to Italy at once, and I can go 
 with him as courier as far as Rome. Thence I shall easily 
 reach Naples, and I can live there at ease on the interest of 
 my savings. My future master starts on the loth, and by the 
 12th I must be in Antwerp, where I am to join him." 
 
 The priest and the musician glanced at each other. >Vil- 
 helm had not the heart to oppose the steward's purpose, but 
 Damiauus did not hesitate; he laid his hand on the old man's 
 shoulder, saying: 
 
 " If you stay here only a few weeks longer, Belotti, you will 
 win the only real peace — I mean the peace of a good con- 
 science. Those who are faithful unto death are promised the 
 crown of life. When these evil times are past and over you 
 will easily find means of making your way homeward smoothly 
 and pleasantly. We shall meet again at noon, Belotti; if be- 
 fore that my aid is needed, send for me; old Ambersius knows 
 where to find me. The blessing of God be with you— and if 
 you will accept it at my hands, with you too, Master W il- 
 helm." 
 
 The priest left the house, and the steward said, with a sigh: 
 
 " So he will force me, willy-nilly, to do as he wishes. He 
 abuses his power over men's souls. I am no saint, and what 
 he expects of me — ' ' 
 
 " Is what is right," interrupted Wilhelm, boldly. 
 
 "Ah! but you do not know what it is to throw away the 
 fondest hope of a long and troubled life, as if it were no more 
 than an old shoe. And for what, I ask you, and for whom? 
 Do you know my mistress? I tell yon. master. I have gone 
 through things in this house, and seen things your young spirit 
 can not even dream of, and could never conceive of as possible. 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 83 
 
 But the young mistress — you are in love with her, Master 
 Wilhelni? Am I right or no?" 
 
 " No, you are mistaken, Belotti. " 
 
 " Eeally, truly? Then, for your sake, I am glad; for you are 
 an humble artist, and the signorina bears the proud name of 
 Hoogstraten, which is saying everything. Do you know the 
 young lady's father?" 
 
 "No." _ 
 
 " There is a race — a race! Did you ever hear the history of 
 our signorina's elder sister?" 
 
 " Had Henrika an elder sister?" 
 
 " Yes, master, and when I remember her — Picture to your- 
 self our signorina exactly, only taller, more stately, and hand- 
 somer. " 
 
 " Isabella!" exclaimed the musician. A suspicion which 
 had haunted him ever since his conversation with Henrika 
 seemed suddenly confirmed as fact; he seized the steward's 
 arm so hastily and unexpectedly that the old man shrunk back 
 as the musician exclaimed: 
 
 " What do you know of her? I entreat you, Belotti, tell 
 me everything. " 
 
 The old man glanced toward the stairs, and then, shaking 
 his head, replied: 
 
 " There is some mistake. There never was an Isabella in 
 the family to my knowledge; but I am at your service all the 
 same. Call again after sundown, only do not expect to hear a 
 pleasant tale." 
 
 Twilight had scarcely deepened into night when the musician 
 betook himself again to the Hoogstratens' house. The little 
 room was unoccupied, but he had not long to wait for Belotti. 
 The old man set an elegant tray by the light on the table, 
 with a flagon of wine and a glass; and when he had reported 
 on the state of the two invalids, offered the musician a seat 
 with elaborate politeness. Wilhelm having asked him why he 
 had not brought a glass for himself too, he replied: 
 
 " I never drink anything but water — but I will take the lib- 
 erty to sit down. The footman has fled from the house, and 
 the whole day I am running up and down-stairs; it has tired 
 my old* legs till they ache, and there is no peace to be hoped 
 for this night again. " 
 
 The room was lighted by a single taper; Belotti, leaning far 
 back in his arm-chair, slowly parted and raised his hands as he 
 began: " Well, then — as I said this morning, the Hoogstratens 
 are a strange race. In most places the children of the same 
 parents often turn out very different; but in your little coiui- 
 
84 THE BURGOMASTER'S 'WIFE. 
 
 try, which has its own peculiar tongue, and a good many other 
 things peculiar to it, besides— as you will not deny— every old 
 family has its strongly marked individuality. I ought to 
 know, for I have been in and out of many a noble house in 
 Holland. Every race has its own spirit and its own peculiar 
 ways. Even when, saving your presence, there is a crack in 
 the upper story, it is seldom confined to a single member of a 
 fan lily. My mistress has more of her French mother's ways — 
 But I was to tell you about the signorina, and I am wandering 
 too far. " 
 
 " No, Belotti, not at all; there is plenty of time, and I am 
 glad to hear all you tell me; but first you must answer me one 
 question. " 
 
 " Eh, master, how red your cheeks are! You met my sign- 
 orina in Italy?" 
 
 " I believe so, Belotti." 
 
 "Ah, then, to be sure!— those who had seen her once did 
 not easily forget her. And what is it you want to know?" 
 
 " First of all the lady's name." 
 
 "Anna." 
 
 " And not Isabella as well?" 
 
 " No, master; she was always called Anna." 
 
 " And when did she leave Hollaud?" 
 
 " Stop — it was four years next Easter." 
 
 " Is her hair black, brown, fair?" 
 
 "I told you, exactly like Mistress Henrika's. But what 
 lady could riot dye her hair black, brown, or fair? I think we 
 should come straighter to the point if you would allow me to 
 ask you a question. Has the lady of whom you speak a large 
 half-moon scar close under her hair in the middle of her fore- 
 head?" 
 
 " That settles it," said Wilhelm, starting up. " As a child 
 she fell against some weapon of her father's. " 
 
 " Quite the contrary, sir. The Baron van Hoogstraten's 
 pistol-butt struck his sweet daughter's face. How horrified 
 you look! My God! I have seen worse things than that in 
 this house. And now it is my turn again: In what town in 
 Italy did you meet the signorina?" 
 
 " In Eome, alone and under an assumed name: Isabella — a 
 Butch girl! I implore you, Belotti, go on with your story; I 
 will not interrupt you again. What could the child have done 
 that her own father — " 
 
 " Of all the mad Hoogstratens, the baron is the wildest. In 
 Italy you may have met his match; here in your country you 
 would look a long time before you found such another whirl- 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 85 
 
 wind. Still, you must not think he is a bad-natured man; 
 only a single word that goes against the grain, a mere sidelong 
 glance is enough to put him beside himself, and then he will 
 do things that a man repents as soon as they have happened. 
 With regard to the scar on his daughter's face, it fell out thus: 
 She was but a child, and of course she was not allowed to 
 touch a gun with the tips of her fingers, still she would do it 
 whenever she had a chance, and once a pistol went off and the 
 bullet struck the baron's best hunting-dog. Her father heard 
 the shot, and when he saw the dog lying dead, and the pistol 
 at the child's feet, he snatched it up and hit her with the heavy 
 butt end." 
 
 A child — his own daughter!" cried Wilhelm, furious. 
 ' Well, you see, there are various sorts of men," Belotti 
 went oji. " Some — and you no doubt are one of them — con- 
 sider carefully before they s]3eak or act; others think a long 
 time, and when they have made up their minds there is a 
 great How of words but very little done; but a third sort; — and 
 the Hoogstratens at their head — head deep on deed, and when 
 they reflect at all it is mostly when they have acted and done 
 with it. Then if they find they have done wrong, pride comes 
 in and forbids their confessing it, or making it good or retract- 
 ing it. And so one misery is piled on another; but it does not 
 hurt them, and what with wine and gambling, and tourna- 
 ments and hunting, they soon forget it all. They have no lack 
 of debts, but they leave it to the creditors to look after them, 
 and they find places at court or in the army for their younger 
 sons, who inherit no estate; for the girls, thank God! so long 
 as they belong to our Holy Church there is no lack of con- 
 vents; and then for boys and girls alike there is something to 
 hope for from aunts and other relations who die childless." 
 
 " You paint the picture in dark colors." 
 ' But they are the true ones, and exactly represent the 
 baron; to be sure he had no need to keep his estates intact for 
 a son, since his wife brought him no boys. He met her at the 
 court of Brussels — she was a native of Parma. " 
 
 " Did you know her?" 
 
 " She was dead before I entered the padrona's service. The 
 two young ladies grew up without any mother. I have told 
 how the baron could get into a passion even with them, but he 
 was very fond of them, and could never make up his mind to 
 let either of them go into a convent. Often and often he could 
 not help feeling — a t least so he used to say in conversation with 
 my mistress— that there might bo a more fitting home for a 
 young girl of rank than his castle, where life was rough 
 
86 THE ISURGOM \ II I;' WIVE. 
 
 enough in all way-, and a1 Lasi be sent his eldest daughter to 
 u>. My mist ress could not, a.- a rule, endure any young girl 
 
 near her, but Mistress Anna was one of our nearest relatives; 
 and I know that she had, in fact, invited her of her own free 
 will. I can Bee her now — the signorina — as she was at sixteen; 
 a sweeter creature, Master Wilhelm, my old eyes never saw 
 before nor since; and yet she was never twice the same. I 
 have seen her as soft as Flanders velvet, and then at other 
 times she would storm and rave like one of your November 
 storms here. She was always as lovely as a new-blown rose, 
 and having been brought up by her mother's old waiting- 
 woman — a native of Lugano — while the priest who taught her 
 came from Pisa, and was famous for his knowledge of music, 
 she spoke my language exactly like a Tuscan child, neither 
 better nor worse, and was a proficient in music. Well! you 
 yourself have heard her singing and her bar}) and lute playing; 
 but you must know that all the ladies of the Iloogstraten fam- 
 ily, with the single exception of my old mistress, have a par- 
 ticular talent for your art. In the summer-time we used to 
 live in (hat pretty country house which Mas pulled down be- 
 fore the siege of the Dutch party — and very little right they 
 had to do so in my opinion. There we had many grand visit- 
 ors riding out to us; we kept open house, and where there is a 
 well-spread table to be found, and a fair damsel, like our sign- 
 orina, knights of every degree are sure not to be far off. 
 Among them there was a certain very illustrious personage of 
 middle age, the Marquis d'Avennes, whom the padrona ex- 
 ]}ressly invited there. No prince could be more attentively re- 
 ceived; but this was natural, as his mother was a relative of 
 my mistress: you must know that on her mother's side she was 
 of Norman extraction. The Marquis d'Avennes was a fine 
 gentleman, and no mistake, still he was elegant rather than 
 manly. Before long he was madly in love with Mistress Anna, 
 and formally proposed for her hand. The aunt favored his 
 suit, and the baron simply said: ' You have got to take him. ' 
 He woidd hear of no refusal. And indeed other fathers in his 
 position do not ask their daughters' ojiinion when a suitable 
 husband comes forward. So the signorina was betrothed to 
 the marquis, but the padrona said very decidedly that her 
 ni' i e was too young to be married just yet, and she persuaded 
 the baron — whom she could turn and twist as the shoeing' 
 smith manages a foal — to put oil' the marriage till after Faster. 
 During the wilder they would see about the preparations; and 
 the marquis had to accept the condition of waiting for another 
 six months. He rode oil to France again, with the betrothal 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIPE. 8? 
 
 ring on his finger. His betrothed never shed the smallest tear 
 at parting, and before the very eyes of her waiting-woman, 
 who told me of it, she pulled off her ring and tossed it into 
 her jewelry-tray. She did not dare to oppose her father, but 
 she did not conceal her opinion of the marquis from her aunt, 
 who, though she had favored the marquis's suit, let her talk 
 as she pleased. There had been high words between the old 
 lady and the young one many a time before that, and though 
 the padrona had had good reason to clip the wild hawk's 
 wings, and to teach her what was becoming in a noble's daugh- 
 ter, still the signorina was justified in complaining of all the 
 exactions by which her aunt sj)oiled the happiness of her young 
 life. It grieves me, master, to disturb the confidence of your 
 age, but those who have kept their eyes open as they grow old, 
 have seen men who take pleasure in tormenting their fellows 
 — nay, to whom it is a necessity of existence. At the same 
 time, it comforts me to believe that no one is spiteful for 
 spite's sake; nay, I have often found that the worst impulses 
 — how can I express it? — that the worst impulses proceed from 
 their counterpart, the exaggerated practice of the noblest virt- 
 ues of which they are, as it were, the wrong side, or the very 
 mockery. I have seen green envy come of a noble ambition, 
 base greed come of honest zeal, and mad hate come of tender 
 passion. My mistress when she was young could love faith- 
 fully and truly; but she was shamefully betrayed, and now 
 she is a prey to grudging spite, not against any particular per- 
 son, but against life in general; and a noble spirit of constancy 
 has been turned to an obstinate tenacity of her evil purposes. 
 What I mean, and how it all happened, you will understand if 
 you hear my story to the end. As winter came on, I was in- 
 trusted with the task of going to Brussels and there setting up 
 a new house on the most splendid scale; the ladies were to fol- 
 low me shortly. It is just four years ago. The Duke of Alva 
 was then living at Brussels as viceroy, and that grand person- 
 age held my mistress in high esteem; indeed he had twice done 
 her the honor of coming to visit her, and his chief officers 
 were always in and out of our house. Among them was Don 
 Luis d'Avila, a nobleman of an ancient house, who was one 
 of the duke's prime favorites. He, like the marquis, was past 
 his first youth, but he was a man of a very different stamp. 
 He was tall, and as strong as if he had been made of ham- 
 mered steel — a gambler, and at the same time a swordsman of 
 irresistible skill, and desperately quarrelsome; still, there was 
 something in bis Hashing eye and fine voice which had a mys- 
 terious charm and nower over women. Dozens of adventures 
 
88 THE BURGOMASTER'S WTFE. 
 
 attributed to him were told in the servants' hall, and half of 
 them at least were founded on facts; that came to my certain 
 
 knowledge at a later time. But you would be mistaken it' you 
 were to picture to yourself this heart-breaking lady-killer as a 
 gay and curly hero of romance whom every damsel danced 
 forth to meet, offering him her heart and her hand. Don 
 Luis was a grave-looking man. with a pale face and short-cut 
 hair, who never wore any but dark clothes, and whose sword- 
 hilt even, instead of being of gold or silver, was of sonic black 
 metal. He was more like an image of death than of love. 
 Perhaps it was that which made him irresistible, for we arc all 
 born to death, and no suitor is so sure to win as lie. My mis- 
 tress was at first not disposed to like him, but that soon 
 changed, and by the new year he was admitted to her little 
 supper-parties. He came whenever he was invited, but he 
 never had a word, or a look, or a greeting for the young mis- 
 tress. It was only when the signorina sung to them that he 
 would go up to her and make sharp remarks as to what hi' did 
 not like in her performance. He often sun-- himself, and then 
 he would commonly choose the same songs as the Lady Anna 
 sung, as if to show her how much better he could do it. Thus 
 things went on till the carnival. On Shrove Tuesday the 
 padrona gave a splendid party, and I, as controlling all the 
 servants, was standing just behind the signorina and Don Luis 
 — the padrona had for a long time always given him the place 
 next to her niece — when I noticed that their hands had met 
 under the table, and remained clasped for some little time. 
 This troubled me so much that I was hardly able to keep up 
 the attention which was indispensable on such au occasion; ami 
 next morning, when my mistress sent for me to settle accounts, 
 I considered it my duty to remark that, notwithstanding she 
 was betrothed to the marquis, Don Luis d'Avila's courtship 
 did not seem to be displeasing to the Signorina Anna. She 
 let me speak to the end, but when I began to repeat some of 
 the things that folks said about the Spaniard, she flew into a 
 passion and showed me the door. A trusted servant often sees 
 and hears more than his masters think, and I was on the best 
 terms, too, with the padrona's foster-sister; she is dead now, 
 but at that time Susanna knew everything that concerned my 
 mistress. Things were evidently in a bad way for the marquis, 
 away in France; for whenever the padrona spoke of him it 
 was always with a laugh which we knew well, and which boded 
 no one any good; still she frequently wrote to him and to his 
 mother, and letters from Rochebruii came to us. To be sure, 
 she and Don Luis had more than one private inter) iew. Dur- 
 
THE BURGOMASTER^ WIFE. 89 
 
 ing Lent a messenger came from the baron, with the an- 
 nouncement that on Easter-day he should arrive at Brussels 
 from Haarlem, and the marquis from Chateau Eochebrun; 
 and on Holy Thursday I was commanded to have the private 
 chapel of the house decorated with flowers, to order post- 
 horses, and what not. On Good Friday, on the very day of 
 our Lord's crucifixion — I would to God that what I tell you 
 were not the truth — on Good Friday the signorina was dressed 
 very early in her bridal dress; Don Luis appeared, all in black, 
 as proud and gloomy as ever, and before sunrise, by the light 
 of tapers, on a cold, damp morning — it is as fresh in my mind 
 as if it were yesterday — the Castilian was married to my sign- 
 orina. The padrona, a Spanish officer, and myself, were the 
 witnesses. By seven in the morning the coach was at the 
 door, and after it was packed Don Luis gave me a little coffer 
 to put into the carriage. I knew that chest well, and it was 
 heavy; the padrona was accustomed to keep gold coin in it. 
 By Easter-day all Brussels knew that Don Luis d'Avila hud 
 carried off the beautiful Anna van Hoogstraten, having met 
 her affianced bridegroom at Hal on his way to Brussels, on 
 the morning of that Holy Thursday — hardly twenty-four 
 hours before the marriage — and run him through in a duel. 
 How the baron stormed when he arrived is a thing never 
 to be forgotten. The padrona refused to see him, and gave 
 out that she was ill, but she was as well as she ever has been 
 in these latter years of her life." 
 
 " And could you ever account for your mistress's mysterious 
 conduct?''' asked Wilhelm. 
 
 " Yes, master; the reasons were as clear as the day. But it 
 is getting late — I must make my story short. Indeed I have 
 not much to tell you as to the details, but it had all happened 
 long before, when I was but a child. Susanna, it is true, told 
 me a great deal that would be well worth repeating. My mis- 
 tress's mother was a Chevraux, and the padrona herself had 
 passed her years with her aunt on her mother's side, who spent 
 every winter in Paris. It was in the time of his late majesty, 
 King Francis, and, as you know, that great monarch was a 
 gallant gentleman — a bold chevalier, of whom they used to 
 say that he had broken as many hearts as he had lances. 
 Well, my mistress, who at that time was young and handsome, 
 was one of the ladies of the court, and the king had shown her 
 many distinguished marks of favor. But the lady knew how 
 to guard her honor, for she had before found her knight in the 
 brave Marquis d'Avennes, to whom she was faithfully devoted, 
 and for whom she spent many a night in bitter tears; for, 
 
90 THE BtJRGOMA&Tl R*8 WTFE. 
 
 ' like master like man,' and though for five years the marquis 
 wore my lady's colors and did her the Bervice of true knight, 
 his eyes and his hearl wandered far and wide. However, lie 
 always returned to his allegiance, and as the sixth year was 
 
 a p| Hunching, the Chevranx family began to press llie marquis 
 to bring this game to an end and to think of marriage. Tin- 
 padrona began to make her preparations, and Susanna herself 
 was present when she consulted the marquis as to whether she 
 should keep her estates and castles in Holland or sell them. 
 Still the wedding was put off. The marquis had to go with 
 his regiment into Italy, and my lady lived iu constant alarm 
 on his account, for the French fared but badly in my country 
 at that time, and news was often months in coming. At last, 
 however, he came home, and there he found in the Hotel 
 Chevraux a young cousin of the padrona's, whom he had left 
 a child, just growing up into a lovely girl. The rest you can 
 guess; the rosebud Hortense pleased the marquis infinitely 
 better than the Dutch lady, who was now five-and-twenty. The 
 Chevraux were noble, but desperately in debt, and the suitor, 
 during his absence in Italy, had fallen heir to a splendid fort- 
 une from an uncle, so of course he did not ask in vain. My 
 mistress returned to Holland. Her father challenged the mar- 
 quis, but no blood was shed, and the Lord of Avenues was 
 joined in holy matrimony to Hortense de Chevraux. It was 
 their son who was Signorina Anna's helpless bridegroom. Do 
 you see, Master Wilhelm? For half a lifetime she had nursed 
 and gloated over her old grudge; to satisfy it she sold her own 
 flesh and blood to that assassin, Don Luis, and in payment she 
 w r as able to revenge herself on the mother, by the death of her 
 only son, for the grief she had borne for years for her sake." 
 
 The musician rolled up the handkerchief with which he had 
 wiped his brow into a tight ball, and then asked, gloomily: 
 
 " What did you ever hear of Mistress Anna after that?" 
 
 " But little," replied Belotti. " The baron cast her out of 
 his heart even, and always called Henrika his only daughter. 
 Happiness rarely seeks out those who are burdened with a fa- 
 ther's curse, and it certainly never lighted upon her. Don 
 Luis, they say, was degraded in military rank for some mis- 
 demeanor, and who knows what became of the poor, lovely 
 girl! The Padrona used to send her money sometimes to 
 Italy, through Signor Lamperi, and by way of Florence; but 
 for the last few months I have heard nothing of her at all." 
 
 "One question more, Belotti," said Wilhelm. "After all 
 that had happened t<> his elder daughter in your mistress's 
 house, how could the baron trust Henrika also to her care?" 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 91 
 
 " Money — a mere question of money. To keep his castle 
 and not to sacrifice his estates he sold his child. Yes, sir, 
 sold her as if she had been a horse, and the baron did not part 
 with her for nothing, I can tell you. Drink, master, you look 
 but badly." 
 
 "It is nothing/' said Wilhelm, " and the fresh air will do 
 me good. Thank you for your story, Belotti." 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 Dame van" der Werff, the burgomaster's wife, was busy 
 on the afternoon of the sixteenth of May looking through the 
 contents of certain cupboards and shelves. Her husband was 
 at the town couucil, but he had told her that toward evening 
 Master Dietrich van Bronkhorst, the prince's commissioner, 
 the seigneurs of Nordwyk, uncle and nejmew, Van Hout, the 
 town secretary, and some other magnates of the city and 
 friends of freedom, were to meet at his house for a private con- 
 sultation. It was Maria's part to provide a good supper, with 
 wine and all such necessaries. 
 
 This little excitement had cheered and brightened the young 
 wife. It was delightful to have the opportunity for once of 
 playing the hostess in something of the spirit of her early home; 
 and how long it was since she had enjoyed the pleasure of hear- 
 ing any earnest and purposeful talk! Visitors she had in 
 plenty, to be sure; all the gossips and relations of her hus- 
 band's family, who were civil to her, and who came to see Bar- 
 bara, constantly begged her to make herself at home with 
 them; but though many of them made friendly advances, and. 
 were women that she could not fail to respect for their estima- 
 ble qualities, there was not one who attracted her warmer lik- 
 ing. Indeed, though there was little enough of amusement 
 or variety in her life, Maria had a real horror of their visits, 
 and endured them only as an inevitable evil. These worthy 
 matrons were all very much older than herself; and as they 
 sat there, eating cakes and fruit, and drinking spiced wine, 
 spinning, knitting, or knotting — talking of the evil times of 
 the siege, of nursing children and managing servants, of wash- 
 ing and of soap-boiling, or sitting in judgment on the number- 
 less incomprehensible and never quite to be approved deeds 
 which their neighbors' wives were supposed, to have done, to 
 be doing, or to be about to do — the young wife grew sick at 
 heart, and her lonely bedroom seemed a peaceful haven of rest. 
 
 It was only when the woes of the country were discussed, and 
 the sacred duty of enduring a second time, if need should be, 
 
02 THE BURGOMASTERS WIFE. 
 
 every pain and privation for I'lvnlmn's sake, that she could 
 find anything to say, and then she gladly listened to the stout- 
 hearted dames, who, it was easy to see, were in earnest in all 
 they said; but when mere idle chatter went on for hours at a 
 time, it 1m , ,ime at last positive suffering. Still, she dared not 
 escape; she must sit it out till the last gossip had taken her 
 leave, for Barbara had given her a friendly word of warning, 
 when she had once or twice ventured to withdraw early, and 
 had told her frankly that she had had some difficulty in de- 
 fending her against the charge of pride, airs, and bad man- 
 ners. 
 
 " Such neighborly chat," said the widow, " is cheering, and 
 keeps up one's spirits; and those who choose to be the first to 
 quit a party of friendly gossips may well pray God keep them 
 from being ill spoken of behind their backs." 
 
 There was one woman in Leyden after Maria's own heart — 
 this was the wife of Van Hout; but she was very rarely to be 
 seen, for though she looked delicate and refined, she had to 
 work early and late to keep her children and her house in 
 order, for times were not easy with the town clerk. 
 
 However, on this May day Maria went with a lighter step 
 and heart than for many a day past, first to the side-board 
 shelves where the table crockery was arranged, and then to the 
 cupboard where their silver plate was kept: and all the best 
 of their household possessions were soon in their place, bright 
 and shining, with not a speck of dust, on white linen napkins 
 trimmed with lace. She picked out what she needed, but a 
 great deal of the pewter, glass, and earthenware was not at all 
 what she liked; for it did not match, or had been replaced at 
 hap-hazard, and in many articles there were dents, bends, or 
 cracks. 
 
 When her mother had begun to buy her daughter's house- 
 hold chattels, Peter had expressed a wish that in these hard 
 times the money might be laid by, and nothing bought that 
 was not really necessary; his house, he said, was well supplied 
 with every kind of furniture, and he wovdd think it a sin to 
 spend money on even a plate. And in point of fact there was 
 nothing wanting on the shelves or in the cupboards, only she 
 had not chosen it and brought it home herself — it was hers, no 
 doubt, and yet it was not her very own; and the worst of it 
 was that her eyes, accustomed to prettier and better things, 
 could not be satisfied with these dull, scratched pewter plates, 
 these coarsely and gaudily painted jugs, mugs, and cups. Even 
 the glasses were too thick, and not to her mind; and as she 
 looked them through, and selected what was necessary, she 
 
THE BURGOMASTER S "WIFE. 93 
 
 could not help thinking of other young married women, her 
 friends, who, with eyes glistening with pride and satisfaction, 
 had displayed their shining new pewter and glass as if each 
 piece were an elaborate and precious work of art. However, 
 with what she had under her hand, she could contrive to lay 
 her table prettily and neatly. 
 
 Before dinner she had gone with Adrian to their garden on 
 the town wall and cut some flowers, and had gathered a bunch 
 of tall grasses in the fields outside the gates. These gifts of 
 the spring she had arranged with care in vases, mingling them 
 with peacock's feathers, and she was pleased to see that even 
 the clumsiest jar acquired a graceful aspect when she had 
 wreathed it with creepers. Adrian looked on in astonishment; 
 it would not have surprised him if under her hand the dingy 
 dining-room had turned to a hall of crystal" and mother-of- 
 pearl. 
 
 Just as she had done laying the table Peter came in for a 
 minute. Before his guests came he was going to ride out to 
 the Fort at Valkenburg, with the Captain Allertssohn, Janus 
 Dousa, and some others, to inspect the redoubts. As he 
 passed through the dining-room he waved his hand to his wife, 
 and, just glancing at the table, he said: 
 
 " All that set out was quite unnecessary, and above all the 
 flowers. We are to meet for grave discussion, and you have 
 laid a wedding-supper. " But then, seeing Maria cast down 
 her eyes, he added, kindly: " But have it so — I do not care," 
 and quitted the room. 
 
 Maria stood undecided before her handiwork. Bitter feel- 
 ings were rising up in her once more, and she had put out her 
 hand to disarrange one particularly pretty nosegay, when 
 Adrian looked up at her with wide eyes, and said, in an im- 
 ploring tone: 
 
 " No, mother, do not — you must not; it looks so sweet and 
 pretty." 
 
 Maria smiled and stroked the lad's curly head, then she took 
 two cakes out of a dish and gave them to him. 
 
 " There," she said, " one for you and the other for Liesa; 
 I will leave the flowers as they are." 
 
 Adrian ran off with the sweetmeats, while she looked at the 
 table once more, and thought to herself: 
 
 " Peter never wants anything but just what is necessary, 
 but that can not be everything in the world, or God would 
 have made all birds with gray feathers." 
 
 She went to help Barbara in the kitchen, and when all was 
 done went into her own room. There she rearranged her hair, 
 
04 the burgomaster's wrFE. 
 
 put a new starched ruff around her throat, and a neatly plaited 
 lack tucker in the front of her bodice. Still, she kept on her 
 every -day dress, since her husband did not wish that the meet- 
 ing should have any aspect of festivity. Just as she was put- 
 ting the last gold pin into her hair, and was wondering whether 
 Councilor van Bronkhorst — as representing the Prince of 
 Orange — or the venerable Baron of Nordwyk should fill the 
 place of honor at table, Trautchen knocked at her door, and 
 told her that Dr. Bontius wanted to speak to the master on 
 business of pressing importance. The maid bad informed the 
 doctor that her master had gone out riding, but he would not 
 be put off, and had said that then he would speak with the 
 mistress. 
 
 Maria hastened to her husband's study; the physician 
 seemed in a great hurry. Instead of any mere formal greet- 
 ing, he simply lifted the gold knob of his cane to the brim of 
 his hat — without which he never was seen, even by the side of 
 a sick-bed— and. asked, shortly and hastily: 
 
 " When will Master Peter return?" 
 
 " In about an hour/' said Maria. " Take a seat, doctor." 
 
 " Some other time — I can not wait so long for your hus- 
 band. But, after all, you might come with me without wait- 
 ing for his consent. " 
 
 " No doubt; but we are expecting company." 
 
 " Very true; if I find time I will come in again; but the 
 gentlemen can get on without me, while you are absolutely 
 indispensable to the jjoor creature I want you to come to." 
 
 ' But I do not in the least know of whom you are speak- 
 ing." 
 
 No? Well, to a person who is sick and suffering, and 
 that is enough for you to know at present. " 
 
 " And you think I could — " 
 
 " You could, more than you have any idea of. Barbara 
 reigns in the kitchen, and besides, you ought to give succor to 
 the sick. " 
 
 " But, doctor—" 
 
 " Make haste, I must beg of you, for my time is short. Will 
 you be of use — yes or no?" 
 
 The door into the dining-room stood open; Maria glanced 
 round at the neatly spread table, and all the pleasure she had 
 hoped for this evening recurred to her mind. But as the phy- 
 sician turned to go, she held him back and said: 
 
 "I will come." 
 
 Maria knew the ways of this abrupt but perfectly unselfish 
 and learned man. Without waiting for his answer, she ran to 
 
THE BUEGOMASTEE's WIFE. 95 
 
 fetch her kerchief, and led the way down-stairs. As they 
 passed the kitchen the doctor called out to Barbara: 
 
 " Tell Master Peter that I have carried off his wife to nurse 
 young Mistress van Hoogstraten in the Nobel Street." 
 
 Maria could hardly keep up with the doctor's hasty strides, 
 and found it difficult to understand what he said, as he told 
 her in fragmentary sentences that the whole " brood of Clip- 
 pers " — the Hoogstratens — had left the town; that the old 
 aunt was dead; that all the servants had fled for fear of the 
 plague, of which there was not the smallest danger; and that 
 Henrika was left lying there wholly deserted. She had had a 
 severe attack of fever, but now for some days had been steadily 
 mending. 
 
 " : Misfortune, " said he, "has made itself at home in the 
 Glippers' nest. The reaper conferred a boon on the old wom- 
 an by carrying her off. The French waiting-woman, a feeble 
 creature, held out bravely; but after sitting up a few nights 
 she broke down, and would have been taken to St. Katha- 
 rine's Hospital, but the old Italian steward, who is not a bad 
 man, set his face against it, and had her taken to the house of 
 a Catholic washerwoman, where he went, too, to take care of 
 her. No one is left in the deserted house to attend to the 
 young lady but Sister Gonzaga, a good little nun, one of the 
 three sisters who are allowed to remain as inmates of the old 
 cloister near your- house; but the worthy old woman, as a 
 crowning misfortune, this morning, while heating a bath, 
 scalded her hand. The Roman Catholic priest has remained 
 unharmed and faithful at his post; but what can he do in 
 nursing a sick girl? You can see now why I came to fetch 
 you. You can not, and ought not, to devote yourself per- 
 manently to nursing a stranger; but if this young girl is to 
 continue to improve without a drawback, she must for the 
 present see some face about her to which she may attach her- 
 self, and God has blessed you with just such a one. Let the 
 sick girl see you and look at you; talk to her, and if you are 
 the woman I take you for — But here we are at our journey's 
 end." 
 
 The air in the dimly lighted hall of the Hoogstratens was 
 heavy with a strong musky odor. The doctor had announced 
 the old lady's death at the town hall as soon as it had taken 
 
 Elace, so an armed guard marched up and down the hall to 
 eep watch, and he informed the doctor that the town clerk, 
 Van Hout, had already been to the house with his subordi- 
 nates, and had sealed up everything. 
 As they went up the stairs, Maria started and laid her hand 
 
06 the burgomaster's -wife. 
 
 on her companion's arm, for through an open door on the first* 
 floor she saw, in the dim light, a shape, an ill-defined form, 
 moving about with strange gestures — now here, now there, 
 first rising, and then stooping — -and it was with an ill-assured 
 voice that she inquired of the doctor, as she pointed to it with 
 her finger: 
 
 " Wnat is that?" 
 
 The doctor, like her, had stood still, and seeing the strange 
 form to which she pointed, he himself started back a step. 
 But the cool-headed man at once perceived the true nature of 
 the bogey form, and going forward, he called out, smiling: 
 
 ' What in the world are you doing there on the ground, 
 Father Daniianus?" 
 
 ''lam scouring the boards," said the priest, coolly. 
 
 " What will you do next?" said the doctor, indignantly. 
 
 ■ You are too good for house-maid's work, reverend father; 
 
 besides, there is money enough in this house without any 
 
 owner, and to-morrow we can find as many scrubbers as we 
 
 can want." 
 
 " But not to-day, doctor, and the young lady positively can 
 not remain any longer in the room upstairs. You yourself 
 prescribed sleep, and Sister Gonzaga tells me that there, with 
 the body in the very next room, she will not close her eyes. " 
 
 " Then the lawyer's servants might have carried her, bed 
 and all, into the old lady's sitting-room — that is a pretty 
 room." 
 
 " But that was sealed up, and so were all the other good 
 rooms on this floor. The people from the town hall were very 
 obliging, and they inquired for women to scrub, but the poor 
 creatures are frightened at the plague. " 
 
 " That sort of panic grows like bind- weed," said the doctor; 
 " no one sows it, and when once it has taken root, who can 
 eradicate it?" 
 
 " Xot you nor I," answered the priest. " "Well, then, the 
 young lady must be brought into this room; but it looked 
 dreadfully uncomfortable, so I set to work at once to clean it. 
 It will be the better for the invalid, and the exercise will do 
 me no harm." 
 
 As he spoke the priest rose, and noticing Maria, he went on : 
 
 ' You have brought a new nurse for her? That is well. 
 Sister Gonzaga needs no praise of mine, for you know her 
 well; but I am quite sure that Mistress Henrika will not en- 
 dure her much longer about her person; and so far as I am 
 concerned, as soon as the funeral is over I must quit this 
 house." 
 
THE BUEOOMASTEK/S WIFE. 97 
 
 " You have indeed done your part; but what do you mean 
 with regard to Sister Gonzaga?" said the doctor, angrily. 
 " She, poor old thing, even with her maimed hand, is far better 
 than — What can have happened?" 
 
 The priest came close up to him, and with a hasty side 
 glance at the new-comer he whispered : 
 
 "But she speaks dreadfully through her nose, and the 
 young mistress told me that she could not bear to hear her 
 talk — that I was to keep her out of the way." 
 
 Dr. Bontius stood thoughtful for a moment, and then he 
 said : 
 
 " There are eyes which can not endure any bright light, and 
 so there may likewise be certain tones which are intolerable to 
 an over-excited ear. Now, dame, you have been kept waiting 
 too long. Please to come with me. ' ' 
 
 It was by this time dark; the curtains had been drawn in the 
 sick-room, and a little lamp burning behind a screen shed but 
 a feeble light. The doctor went up to the bed, felt Henrika's 
 pulse, prepared her in a few words to see the stranger he. had 
 brought with him, and then took the lamp to see how his 
 patient was looking. Maria saw a pale, finely cut face, out of 
 which gazed a pair of dark eyes, that looked all the larger and 
 brighter from contrast with the sick girl's hollow cheeks and 
 pinched features. As the old sister replaced the lamp behind 
 the shade, the doctor said: 
 
 " Very good indeed. Now, Sister Gonzaga, go and lie down 
 and change the bandage on your hand/' and he beckoned to 
 Dame Maria to corns nearer. Henrika's face touched Maria 
 strangely. She was handsome, no doubt, but the large eyes 
 and firmly closed lips struck the young woman as singular 
 rather than attractive. However, she obeyed the physician's 
 orders, went up to the bedside, and said kindly that she had 
 been glad to come to keep her company for a little while, and 
 do anything she might wish. Henrika started up in bed. 
 
 " That is well!" she exclaimed, with a deep breath of relief. 
 " Thank you, doctor; a human voice again at last! If you 
 wish to please me, Dame van der Werff, you have only to go 
 on talking to me — never mind what about. Please to come 
 and sit down here. What with Sister Gonzaga's nursing, your 
 voice and the doctor's — what shall I call it? — the doctor's en- 
 couragement, I shall find no difficulty in being nursed into 
 sound health again. " 
 
 "Very good, very good!" murmured the leech. ' Our 
 worthy Gonzaga's burns are not serious, and she will remain 
 with you; but by and by ; when it is time for you to go to sleep, 
 
 4 
 
98 Tin: burgomaster's wife. 
 
 you shall be carried away from here. If you, Dame Maria, 
 can slay here for an hour, thai will be enough for to-day. I 
 
 will go to your house and send the man to fetch you with a 
 lantern." 
 
 WImii the two women were left alone, Maria said: 
 ' You seem to care very much about the tone of a voice; I 
 do so myself, indeed more than I ought, But then I have 
 never gone through a very bad illness — " 
 
 " This is the first I have ever had," replied I Ienrika. " But 
 now I know how it feels to be obliged to submit to whatever is 
 done to you, whether you like it or not, and to feel twice as 
 acutely everything that one most loathes. It is better to die 
 than to live suffering.'" 
 
 " Your aunt is dead," said Maria, in sympathetic tones. 
 ' Yes, early this morning. We had little in common but 
 the tie of blood. " 
 
 " Are your parents yet alive?" 
 
 " Only my father; but why do you ask?" 
 
 " He will be glad to hear of your recovery. Doctor Bontius 
 says you will get perfectly well." 
 
 ' I have no doubt of it," said Henrika, confidently; and 
 then she went on in a low voice to herself, not heeding Maria: 
 ' There is one pleasant thing to look forward to. "When I am 
 well again I can — Do you love music?" 
 
 "Yes, sweet mistress." 
 
 ' ' And not for a pastime merely, but because you feel that 
 you can not live without it. " 
 
 ' You must keep quiet, mistress. Music! Yes, I believe 
 my life would be much sadder than it is without it." 
 
 " Do you sing?" 
 
 " 1 seldom have the opportunity here, but as a girl, in Delft, 
 we used to sing every day. " 
 
 " You took the first, of course?" 
 
 " Yes, mistress." 
 
 " Oh! leave out mistress, and call me Henrika." 
 
 " With all my heart, if you will agree to call me Maria, or 
 at any rate, Dame Maria. " 
 
 '' I will try. Do not you think we might practice a good 
 many pieces together?" 
 
 Just now Sister Gonzaga came into the room and announced 
 that the wife of the receiver-general, Cornelius van "Nierop, 
 had come to inquire whether she could do the sick lady any 
 pleasure or service. 
 
 ' What does she mean?" said Henrika, pettishly; "I do 
 not know the woman," 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 99 
 
 " She is the mother of Wilhelm, the organist," the young 
 woman explained. 
 
 " Oh!" cried the girl. " May I have her in, Maria?" But 
 Maria shook her head, and answered decidedly: " No, Mis- 
 tress Henrika; more than one visitor at present would not be 
 good for you, and besides — " 
 
 " Well!" 
 
 " She is a kind, true-hearted woman, but I am afraid her 
 rough ways and heavy step and loud voice would do you no 
 good. Let me go and ask her what she has come for. " 
 
 " Well, thank her kindly, and tell her to carry my remem- 
 brances to her son. I am not generally so susceptible — but I 
 see you understand me, and such strong food, I believe, would 
 hardly be good for me yet." 
 
 Maria had executed her commission, and had been sitting 
 for some time longer with Henrika, when Dame van Hout was 
 announced; her husband, who had been present when the seals 
 were put on the doors and drawers in the house of the dead, 
 had told her of the forlorn position of the sick girl, and she 
 had come to see in what way she might perhaps be of use to 
 her. 
 
 " You might see her, no doubt," said Maria, " for you could 
 not fail to like her; but then, again, you have had enough for 
 to-day. Now, try to sleep. I will go home with the town 
 clerk's wife, and I will come again to-morrow, and, if you 
 would like it — " 
 
 " Come; oh, yes, come!" cried the girl. "But you had 
 something else to say?" 
 
 " I would make so bold, Mistress Henrika; you ought not to 
 remain in this dismal house; there is room and to spare in 
 ours. Be our guest till the baron, your father — " 
 
 " Oh, yes! take me with you," cried the convalescent, and 
 her eyes glistened with eager tears; " take me away from this, 
 only take me away — I will thank you as long as I live!" 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 It was many weeks since Maria had run upstairs with so joy- 
 ful a step. She could almost have sung for joy, but she was 
 still a little uneasy, for perhaps her husband might not quite 
 approve of her freedom in asking a stranger to his house, still 
 more one who was sick, and an adherent of the Spaniards to 
 boot. 
 
 As she passed the dining-room door, she heard the voices of 
 men talking within. Peter was now speaking; his rich, deep 
 
100 THE BUBQ0MASTER , 8 "WIFE. 
 
 toues fell on her ear, and she said to herself that Henrika would 
 like to hear them. In a few minutes she entered the room to 
 welcome her husband's guests, who were also her own. Hap- 
 py excitement, and her hasty walk in the still mild air of the 
 May evening following a warm day, had colored her cheeks; 
 and as she went into the room with a modest and respectful 
 courtesy, through which her pleasure at receiving such worthy 
 is was very apparent, she looked so sweet and gracious a 
 creature that none of the party could fail to he attracted by 
 her. The elder Van der Does slapjied Peter on the shoulder, 
 and then clapped his hands together, as much as to say: " You 
 have chosen well, my friend;" and Janus, the younger, gayly 
 whispered to Van Hout, who, like himself, was a Latin 
 scholar: 
 
 " Oculi sunt in amove duces." 
 
 Captain Allertssohn started to his feet and raised his hand 
 in military salute while Van Bronkhorst, the prince's repre- 
 sentative, expressed his sentiments in a courtly bow; Dr. 
 Bontius smiled with the satisfied look of a man who has suc- 
 ceeded in a bold stroke of business; and Peter, proud and 
 pleased, tried to attract his wife's attention to himself. In 
 this, however, he could not succeed, for Maria, perceiving her- 
 self to be the center of so much observation, with a heightened 
 blush cast down her eyes, while she said, with more decision 
 than could have been expected from her bashful demeanor: 
 
 " You are heartily welcome, gentlemen; my greeting comes 
 late, but I assure you it is from no lack of good-will that I did 
 not offer it earlier. " 
 
 " I can testify to that," said Dr. Bontius, rising and shak- 
 ing Maria's hand more warmly than he had ever done before. 
 Then, nodding to Peter, he said to the assembled party: 
 " You will give the burgomaster leave of absence for a min- 
 ute or two?" 
 
 He withdrew with the couple, and no sooner were they out- 
 side the door than he exclaimed: 
 
 " You have invited another guest into your house, Dame 
 van der Werff! Not another drop of malmsey will I drink if 
 I have guessed wrongly. " 
 
 " How did you know that?" said Maria, gayly. 
 
 " I can read it in your face." 
 
 " And the young lady shall be heartily welcome for my 
 part," added Peter. 
 
 " How do you know anything about it?" asked Maria. 
 
 " Well, the doctor did not keep his expectations hidden un- 
 der a bushel." 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 101 
 
 "It is quite true; she is very ready to come to us, and to- 
 morrow — 
 
 " To-morrow! I will have her brought here this very even- 
 ing/' said Van der Werff. 
 
 ' This evening! nay, it is too late; by this time perhaps she 
 is asleep; these gentlemen are here, and our spare bed — " 
 Maria broke off, looking doubtfully and disapprovingly, first at 
 the doctor and then at her husband. 
 
 " Make yourself easy, child," said Peter. " The doctor has 
 already ordered a covered litter from the hospital; Jan and a 
 town sergeant will carry it; and Barbara, who has finished her 
 work in the kitchen, is now actually arranging her own room 
 to receive the sick girl." 
 
 ' Besides/' added the leech, " when she is here she will 
 probably be able to sleep again. And her high-mightiness 
 will infinitely prefer to be carried through the streets in the 
 dark, and unrecognized." 
 
 " Yes, yes/' said Maria, disappointed, " that is true, no 
 doubt; but I had intended — It is not well to be in too great 
 a hurry about anything. " 
 
 " But you are glad to have Mistress Henrika as our guest?" 
 asked Peter. 
 
 " To be sure 1 am." 
 
 ' Then we will take no half measures, but do all we can for 
 her, and do it at once. . There is Barbara beckoning you. The 
 litter is come, doctor; go and lead the procession, and God be 
 with you; but do not let us have to wait for you too long." 
 
 The burgomaster returned to his friends, and De Bout went 
 down-stairs. Maria followed him; in the hall he laid his hand 
 on her arm, and asked her: 
 
 " Now, would you like me to tell you once more what I 
 think of you?" 
 
 ' No!" said the young woman in a half-joking tone, through 
 which, however, the disappointment she felt could be detected. 
 " No! you have taught me that you are a man quite capable 
 of marring some of my greatest pleasures. " 
 
 ' I procure you others in their place/' said the physician, 
 laughing, as he went down the steps. 
 
 The doctor was one of Van der Werff 's oldest friends, and 
 he had found much to object to in the burgomaster's marriage 
 with a woman so much younger than himself, and in such evil 
 times as these; but on this occasion he had been fully satisfied 
 with the burgomaster's choice. 
 
 Maria returned to her guests, whose glasses she filled, and 
 pledged them in wine,, ami she then syenl to her sister-in-law's 
 
102 THE BUKOOM ASTER'S WIFE. 
 
 room to 1h'1|> to arrange everything for the best for the expected 
 visitor. She did so with a good will, but she still felt as if she 
 could have set to work with greater satisfaction early next 
 morning. 
 
 Barbara's large and airy room looked out on the court-yard. 
 Nothing could there be heard of the conversation in the din- 
 ing-room, and yet the discussion was by no means devoid of 
 excitement among men who, though the same purpose ani- 
 mated them all, were of ten disagreed as to the best ways and 
 means of achieving a happy issue. There they sat, those brave 
 sons of a narrow country, the stalwart leaders of a common- 
 wealth, poor alike in numbers and in means of defense, but 
 which had taken upon itself to defy the mightiest empire and 
 the most powerful armies of that age. They knew full well 
 that the clouds which for weeks had lowered in the distance 
 were gathering faster and faster, and packing as they rose to 
 hurl a fearful tempest upon Leyden. Indeed, Van der Werff 
 had invited his colleagues expressly because a letter from the 
 prince, addressed to himself and to Van Bronkhorst, contained 
 the news that King Philip's regent had communicated to the 
 Maestro del Campo Valdez his majesty's commands that Ley- 
 den should be a second time invested and reduced to subjec- 
 tion. They knew that William of Orange could not collect an 
 army in less than a month at soonest, and bring it up to 
 divert the besieging forces or to relieve the town; they had 
 already learned how little they could count on the Queen of 
 England and the Protestant princes of Germany, and the ap- 
 palling fate of the neighboring town of Haarlem — a stronger 
 place than Leyden — rose as a ghastly warning before their 
 eyes. Still, they were conscious of suffering in a noble cause: 
 they trusted confidently in the prince's good faith, heroism, 
 and statecraft; they were ready to die rather than to sell them- 
 selves body and soul to the Spanish tyrant. Their faith, too, 
 was strong and deep in the justice of God, and each felt a 
 cheerful confidence in his own stanch manliness. 
 
 And verily the men who sat round that table, which a wom- 
 an's hand had graciously decked with flowers, who proved so 
 valiant in em]:>tying the cajmcious glasses with heavy knobs on 
 their ringed stems, that jar after jar of Van der Werff's 
 malmsey and Rhine wine came up from the cellar depths — the 
 men who hewed breaches in the towering pastries and sub- 
 stantial joints, more juicy and nutritious than any other past- 
 ures can produce — these men did not look as if pale terror had 
 brought them together. 
 
 A hat is the badge of liberty, and a free man keeps his hat 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 103 
 
 OH; so the burgomaster's guests sat at table with their heads 
 covered: and how becoming to the venerable Lord of Nor- 
 dwyk, with his hale, fresh face, and to the shrewd and thought- 
 ful countenance of his nephew, Janus Dousa, were their tall, 
 plaited bonnets of dark-red velvet, with a thick curled feather 
 trimming; how handsome Jan van Duivenvoorde, the young 
 Seigneur of Warmond, looked with his waving locks beneath 
 his broad-brimmed hat, in which there waved a blue and 
 orange ostrich plume — the colors of the prince! How full of 
 health and of character were the faces collected round the 
 table! Hardly one was devoid of a fresh, bright color; and 
 robust vitality, clear, good sense, immovable resolve, and iron 
 tenacity spoke in many a blue eye. Even the members of 
 the Council, in their black dress, and who were well suited in 
 their plaited ruffs or their smooth white neckcloths, did not 
 look as if the dust of archives had dulled their vigor, while the 
 mustache of one and the square or flowing beard of another 
 gave them a manly aspect. Each was cheerfully ready to 
 sacrifice himself and all he owned for a supreme moral gain, 
 and yet each looked as though his foothold on life were stead- 
 fast and sure; there was no sign of over-exaltation in those 
 wise and gravely thoughtful faces; a trace of it perhaps 
 sparkled in the eyes of the young Lord of Warmond, and 
 Janus Dousa' s gaze now and then had an absorbed look, as if 
 turned inward to seek some hidden vein of thought, and in 
 such moments his sharply cut but irregular features acquired 
 a singular charm. 
 
 The ponderous and overstout person of Van Bronkhorst 
 usurped a large space; his body was indeed unwieldy to move, 
 but in his round, closely cropped head sparkled a pair of 
 prominent eyes, which announced indomitable obstinacy of 
 purpose. 
 
 The brightly lighted table round which such a noble hand- 
 ful had met offered a gay and handsome show. The yellow 
 buff jerkins worn by the Baron van Warmond, by Mulder, the 
 colonel, and by Allertssohn, the captain of the town forces, 
 and the gay hues of the silk scarfs they tied across them, with 
 the bright red coat of brave Dirk Smaling, stood out in pleas- 
 ing contrast to the black garments of Parson Verstroot, of the 
 burgomaster himself, of the town clerk, and of their fellow- 
 councilors. The purple suit of the prince's envoy, and the 
 dark tints of the fur-trimmed cloaks worn by the Seigneurs of 
 Nordwyk and Montfoort blended agreeably and harmoniously 
 with the lighter and darker hues. All that was sad or gloomy 
 seemed banished far enough from this motley-colored and ani- 
 
104 THE IU'ROOMA.-TKIj's WIFE. 
 
 mated assembly; their speech was free and eager, and tli 
 
 Voices were steady and deep. 
 
 I mi i the peril was already at their gates. Every day might 
 bring the Spaniards down upon Leyden. Many preparations 
 had already been made; the outworks of Alfen and the sluices 
 of Gouda were defended by their English allies; the fort of 
 Yalkenburg had been strengthened and garrisoned by British 
 soldiers; the town forces, the municipal watch, and the vol- 
 unteers were ail efficiently drilled. They did not wish to have 
 any foreign troops inside the town walls, for during the last 
 Biege they had been more of a burden than a help, and a 
 storming of the town, protected' as it was by moat, ramparts, 
 and bastions, was hardly to be feared. 
 
 What at this moment agitated the assembly most was a re- 
 port brought to them by the town clerk. The wealthy Baers- 
 dorp, one of the four burgomasters of the town, and the 
 greatest corn dealer in Leyden, had undertaken to purchase 
 for the authorities a very considerable quantity of bread-stuffs. 
 Several ship-loads of wheat and rye had been delivered by him 
 on the previous day, but a quarter of the supplies ordered by 
 him was still lacking. He frankly confessed that he had given 
 no definite and final order for them, because he was ex])ecting 
 a fall in the price of corn in the Eotterdam and Amsterdam 
 markets, the prosjDects of the harvest being particularly 
 favorable, thinking, too, there would still be some weeks to 
 spare before the town was again invaded. 
 
 Van Hout was furious, but two of the four burgomasters de- 
 fended their colleague Baersdorp. The old Herr van Nordwyk 
 agreed with the town clerk. 
 
 " With all due respect to your office, Master Peter," he ex- 
 claimed, " your three colleagues are of that kind of friends to 
 whom an open foe is far preferable." 
 
 " The Herr van Noyelles," interrupted Mulder, " wrote in 
 his time to the prince himself a good and true word when lie 
 said that such men were only fit for the gallows. " 
 
 " And the gallows for them," added Allertssohn, " so long 
 as hempen rope and a traitor's neck are made for each other." 
 
 " Traitors! nay," said Van der Werff, decidedly. " Call 
 them dastardly if you will — say they are greedy and mean- 
 but none of them is a Judas." 
 
 " You are right, Master Peter, for that they are not, and 
 perhaps even cowardice has no part in their conduct," said 
 the elder Van der Does. " Any one who has eyes to see and 
 ears to hear, knows how the feeling tends among the men of 
 the old city families, who were held over the font with the idea 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 105 
 
 that they must be future councilors; and I am not speaking 
 of the Leyden men alone, but of those of Delft and Gouda, of 
 Rotterdam and Dortrecht. Sixty out of every hundred bend 
 with a good grace to Spanish tyranny, renouncing even their 
 liberty of conscience, so long as their personal freedom and 
 rights are guaranteed to them. "Whether in church sermons 
 are preached or masses chanted — whether they are governed 
 by a Dutchman or a Spaniard — are secondary considerations. 
 Of course, I except those who are present; you, my masters, 
 would not be here if you were like-minded with those of whom 
 I speak." 
 
 Thank you for that exception," said Dirk Smaling; " but, 
 with all respect for your judgment, you have painted them 
 with dark colors. May I ask you, now, does not the nobility 
 cling to its rights and liberties?" 
 
 " Undoubtedly, Master Dirk, though they commonly date 
 from an earlier time than yours," answered the other. " But, 
 you see, the noble needs a sovereign ; he is an extinct star when 
 the sun that lends him light does not shine upon him. I, and 
 all the nobles who with me have sworn allegiance to the Prince 
 of Orange, feel that he and none other must be our cen- 
 tral sun — he who is one of us, who knows us, loves us, and 
 understands us; not Philip, who knows nothing of our minds 
 and manners, who is a stranger in the land, and who abhors 
 us. We will uphold William with life and land, for, as I have 
 said, we need a sun — that is to say, a monarch. But the towns 
 think that they can shine by their own light, and are in them- 
 selves stars to the world. They feel, no doubt, that in these 
 evil days of warfare they need a leader, and that they can find 
 none better, wiser, or more trustworthy than Orange; but if 
 it should come to pass — and God grant it may — that the 
 Spanish yoke should be broken, then even great William's rule 
 will seem burdensome and oppressive, for they themselves too 
 greatly relish the game of governing. To put it shortly, the 
 towns endure a monarch, the nobles gather round him and de- 
 mand him. No good issue can come of it until nobles, citi- 
 zens, and peasants alike learn to yield to him, and combine 
 to fight under his captaincy for the chief blessings of life. " 
 
 " Very true," said Van Hout. " The well-affected nobles, 
 both here and in the other towns, may set the example; but 
 the people — the poor and laboring population — who knew well 
 enough, too, what it must cost them — who have, thank God, 
 not yet lost their strong love for what you call the chief bless- 
 ings of life — they only ask to be and to remain Dutch; they 
 curse the Spanish butchers with genuine hatred; they insist on 
 
106 THE BURGOMASTER'S V\'TFE. 
 
 Berving God as their spirit prompts them, and on believing 
 what their heart dictates; they call the prince their Father 
 William. Wait awhile. As soon as necessity presses, the poor 
 and bumble will stand firm, when the great and wealthy trem- 
 ble and fall away and deny the good cause." 
 
 •• They are to be trusted," said Van der Werff — "im- 
 plicitly trusted." 
 
 " And knowing them as I do," cried Van Hout, " come 
 what may, we shall tide through it by God's help." 
 
 Janus Dousa sat looking into his glass. Now, throwing his 
 head back, he said, with a hasty movement of his hand : 
 
 ' It is strange that these men, who fight a hand-to-hand 
 battle with life, and whose uneducated minds move only in the 
 groove traced by each day's needs, are the readiest to sacrifice 
 their little all for spiritual blessings." 
 
 " True," said the minister; " ' Blessed are the poor in spirit, 
 for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.' It is wonderful to see 
 how the poor and unlearned are able to value the blessings of 
 faith, freedom, and fatherland more highly than the vain 
 goods of this world — the golden calf round which the nations 
 crowd to worship." 
 
 " Well, the men of my standing are not being flattered this 
 evening," said Dirk Smaling, " but I would ask you to con- 
 sider this point in our favor. We are playing a dangerous 
 game for high stakes; and those who possess most put the lion's 
 share into the pool." 
 
 " Not so," interrupted Van Hout. " The highest stake 
 that any of us can risk on the throw of the dice is life, and that 
 is equally dear to both rich and poor. There are those who will 
 hesitate to risk it — I will wager that I know them. They have 
 no simple motto or humble sign over their door, but a haughty 
 coat of arms. Wait a little while and we shall see." 
 
 " Wait and we shall see," said Van der Werff; " but at this 
 moment there are more pressing things to attend to. The day 
 after to-morrow is Ascension-day, and the great yearly fair 
 will begin. Yesterday and the day before, more than one 
 stranger with merchandise and peddler with his pack passed 
 through our gates. Now, shall we allow the booths to be 
 erected, or put off the fair till another time? If the enemy 
 sweeps down upon us, there will be terrible confusion, and we 
 may perhaps throw a valuable booty into his hands. I ask 
 your opinion, masters all." 
 
 " We ought to protect the traders, and put off the fair," 
 said Dirk van Montfoort. 
 
 " Nay, my lord," said Van Hout, " for if we forbid it wq 
 
She btjrgom aster's wife. 10? 
 
 deprive the smaller dealers of their little profits, and so damp 
 their spirits beforehand." 
 
 " Let them have their festival," cried Janus Dousa. " We 
 ought not to pay the coming misery the compliment of cloud- 
 ing the happy present by anticipating it. If you want to be 
 wise, follow the counsels of my Horace." 
 
 " ' Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof/ saith the Script- 
 ure," added the parson; and Allertssohn exclaimed: 
 
 "By Heaven! yes, my soldiers and the town watch and 
 militia must have their procession round the town. In full 
 glory of arms and armor, too, when bright eyes smile at them, 
 old folks greet them, and children shout and run in front of 
 them — that is when a soldier first learns to pride himself on 
 the trade of arms. " 
 
 So it was decided to let the yearly market take place. 
 
 While these and other questions were being decided in earnest 
 conclave, Henrika had been comfortably and affectionately in- 
 stalled in Barbara's pretty room. When she was asleep, Maria 
 once more went to see her guests; but she did not now join 
 them at table, for by this time their faces were heated, and 
 they no longer spoke in order, each in his turn, but each ad- 
 dressed the other confusedly, saying just what came first. Van 
 der Werff was talking to Van Hout and the envoy as to the 
 corn to be brought into the town; Janus Dousa and the Seign- 
 eur of Warmond were discussing a poem which Van Hout 
 had recited at the last meeting of the literary society of the 
 Eederyke; the elder Van der Does was disputing with the 
 minister over the new church practices; and the brawny cap- 
 tain — in front of whom stood a vast drinking-horn that he had 
 drained to the last drop — had leaned his forehead on Mulder's 
 shoulder, and, as was his custom when wine had made him 
 happy, shed a flood of bitter tears. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 On the following day, after the sitting of the council, Burgo- 
 master van der Werff, Mr. Secretary van Hout, and a notary 
 with two clerks, proceeded to the house in the Nobel Street, 
 to settle matters as to the property of old Mistress van Hoog- 
 straten. The elders of the town had decided to confiscate the 
 deserted dwelling of the traitorous Glippers, and to apply the 
 wealth it might contain to the uses of the common cause. 
 The old lady's antagonistic sentiments were well known, and 
 as her nearest relatives, the Barons van Hoogstraten and Mate- 
 nesse van Wibisma, had been outlawed from Leyden, the town 
 
108 THE BTTROOMASTEtt's WIFE. 
 
 had every right to administer the inheritance. It was quite to 
 be expected that none but acknowledged (nippers would be 
 mentioned in the will of the deceased, and if this should prove 
 to be the case, the municipality would use the capital and 
 estates, spending the interest until such time as the runagates 
 miirht be brought to a better mind, and the authorities feel 
 just itied by their conduct in opening the city gates to them 
 once more. Such of them as even then persisted in adhering 
 to the Spaniards, and setting themselves against the cause of 
 liberty, would sacrifice their share of the inheritance to the 
 town forever. Such a procedure was nothing new, and King 
 Philip had learned to practice it to his own benefit; for not 
 only had the property of innumerable innocent and expatriated 
 citizens, or voluntary exiles for the new form of faith been 
 confiscated to his advantage, but even the possessions of many 
 a good Catholic patriot. To men who had so long suffered as 
 the anvil, it was a pleasant change to play the hammer: and 
 if they did not always then show themselves moderate and 
 dignified, they had the excuse of having suffered treatment a 
 hundred times more rigorous and cruel at the hands of the 
 Spaniards. It would have been unchristian to repay evil with 
 equal evil; but hard blows were dealt, though only in return, 
 it is true, for more deadly strokes, and the Glippers were not 
 wantonly murdered. 
 
 At the door of the house of death the members of the town 
 council found Wilhelm Cornell ussohn and his mother, who had 
 come once more to offer Henrika a friendly reception and 
 shelter in their home. The worthy wife of the receiver-gen- 
 eral, who at first had refused to extend any neighborly love to 
 the Clipper's daughter, now was much aggrieved, when she 
 had come on pious acts intent, to have missed the opportunity, 
 and expressed her feelings to that effect in her own rough 
 fashion. 
 
 In the hall stood Belotti, no longer in the splendor of silk 
 hose and the satin-bordered cloth doublet of the house-steward, 
 but in the plain dark dress of a citizen. He had told the 
 musician and Peter that for the present he should remain in 
 Leyden, as he could not reconcile it to his conscience to desert 
 the sick waiting- woman Denise at such a pinch; but other 
 things contributed to detain him, and above all — though he 
 could not bear to confess it — the feeling, confirmed by the 
 habits of years, of inseparable connection with the house of 
 Hoogstraten. That his account-books were in good order, the 
 charge d'affaires had duly certified, and had readily paid him 
 his dues. His savings were safely laid out, and as he had 
 
THE burgomaster's wipe. 109 
 
 always been temperate, and had never touched the interest, \h 
 had accumulated with the capital to a handsome round sum. 
 Nothing really held him to Leyden, but he felt he could not 
 quit it till all had been finally wound up in the house over 
 which he had ruled so long. 
 
 Every day he had inquired after the health of the two ladies, 
 and after the death of his mistress, although Denise was by 
 this time mending, he lingered in Leyden, regarding it as his 
 duty to pay her the last honors at her funeral. 
 
 The town officials were well pleased to find Belotti on the 
 spot. The notary had managed his little money matters for 
 him for some time, and esteemed him as a thoroughly honest 
 man; and he now desired him to serve as a guide to himself 
 and his fellow officials. It was first of all necessary that they 
 should find the old lady's will; it was certain that such a docu- 
 ment must exist, for it had been in the notary's keeping up to 
 the day following Henrika's first attack of fever, when the old 
 lady, wishing to make some alterations in it, had asked for it 
 back. He could give no information as to its contents, for it 
 was not himself but his senior, who was dead, and whose busi- 
 ness he had inherited, who had drawn up the document. 
 
 The steward led the gentlemen first through the dwelling- 
 rooms and bis mistress's little sitting-room, but though the 
 desks, chests and cupboards were thoroughly searched, and 
 they came upon letters, money, and valuables in numerous 
 drawers and boxes, no will was found. 
 
 The men of law were of ojjinion that it might have been laid 
 by in some secret drawer, and sent one of the clerks off to fetch 
 a locksmith. Belotti let him go, but he was listening attent- 
 ively the while to the low chant which fell upon his ear from 
 his mistress's bedroom, where her body was still lying. That, 
 he knew, was the j)lace where the will was most likely to be 
 found, but he was, above all, anxious to have the priests un- 
 disturbed in their office of prayer for his dead mistress. As 
 soon as all was silent again he bade the gentlemen follow him. 
 The lofty room with a coved ceiling into which he led them 
 was full of incense. At the further end of it stood a large bed- 
 stead, above which a sort of tent of embroidered silk curtains 
 rose as high as the ceiling; in the middle of the room was the 
 bier on which lay the deceased lady, her face covered with a 
 linen handkerchief trimmed with lace. Her slender but still 
 plump hands were folded on her breast; between them was a 
 much-worn rosary. A handsome coverlid concealed all her 
 person, and on the middle of it lay a crucifix finely carved in 
 ivory. 
 
110 THE BUfeQOiJASTER*S WIPE. 
 
 The visitors bowed in silence before the corpse as they and 
 Belotti went closer, but at the sight of his padrona's hands, so 
 long familiar to him, the poor old man's heart seemed to burst 
 in a convulsive sob. He knelt down by the bier and pressed his 
 lips to i lir cold, white fingers, while a warm tear — the only tear 
 sh<d over this woman's death — fell on the hands now forever 
 clinched and still. The burgomaster and his companions did 
 not disturb him, but left him to press his brow to the wooden 
 coffin and put ujd a short and silent prayer. When he bad 
 risen, and when an elderly priest in canonicals had left the 
 room, Father Damianus signed to an acolyte who was standing 
 with him in the background, and they, with Belotti's help, 
 laid the lid upon the coffin. Then the priest said, turning to 
 Van der WerfiE: 
 
 " We propose to carry the mistress to her grave at midnight, 
 bo that no scandal may arise." 
 
 "That is well/' replied the burgomaster. "And, come 
 what may, you may be sure we shall not ex]Del you from the 
 town. If, indeed, you prefer to join the Spaniards — " 
 
 But Damianus shook his head. 
 
 "No, master," he interrupted, decidedly; " I was born in 
 Utrecht, and I pray earnestly for the freedom of Holland." 
 
 " Good, good!" cried the town clerk. "That is a good 
 word — an admirable word. Give me your hand, Master 
 Priest." 
 
 " With all my heart; and so long as your motto ' Hcec liber- 
 tat is ergo ' does not degenerate into ' Hcec religionis ergo,' I 
 shall never change that word." 
 
 " A free country and liberty of conscience for all, including 
 you and yours," said the burgomaster — " that is what we aim 
 at. Doctor Bontius has spoken of you to me, reverend sir; 
 you cared bravely for the dead who lies here. Bury her after 
 the manner of your Church; we have come to administer the 
 worldly possessions she has left behind her. This little coffer 
 perhaps contains her will." 
 
 " IS'o, master," replied the priest. " When she first fell ill 
 she opened the sealed document in my presence, and now and 
 then, as she felt better, added a few lines to it. An hour be- 
 fore she died she desired that the notary should be fetched, but 
 before it could be done she was gone. I could not stay con- 
 stantly with the corpse, so I laid the deed in the linen chest,' 
 here is the key." 
 
 The will was at once found. The burgomaster calmly 
 opened it and read it aloud, while the notary and the town 
 clerk looked over his shoulder. The property was to be divided 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE." Ill 
 
 between certain churches and convents — in which masses were 
 to be said for the soul of the testatrix — and her nearest rela- 
 tives; Belotti and Denise were remembered with small legacies. 
 
 "As it happens/' cried Van Hout, "this document is a 
 mere sheet of waste-paper." 
 
 "It is of no value whatever/' added the notary, " since it 
 was removed from my keeping for the declared purpose of be- 
 ing altered and nullified. But turn the sheet over, Master 
 Peter. Here, on the back, there is a great deal more to 
 read." 
 
 The task before them was not a light one, for the sick wom- 
 an had scribbled short notes all over the blank side of the 
 paper, above and below, here and there, memoranda, as it 
 seemed, for the drawing up of a fresh will. -Quite at the top 
 her trembling hand had drawn a cross, and beneath it the 
 words, " Pray for us! Our holy Church is all in all." 
 
 Lower down was written " Nico. I like the lad. The cas- 
 tle on the Dunes. Ten thousand gold gulden in money. To 
 be settled on him alone. His father is not to touch it. Ex- 
 plain clearly why he is disinherited. Van Vliet of Haarlem 
 was the man whose daughter my cousin had privately married 
 and deserted, under miserable pretenses, to marry another 
 woman. Though he may have forgotten it, it remains in my 
 memory, and I wish him joy of it. Nico must maik it well; 
 false love is poison. It has spoiled my life — spoiled it ut- 
 terly." 
 
 The word " spoiled " was written again and again, many 
 times, and the last time, to finish the sentence, the sick wom- 
 an had flourished her pen round it in curls and spirals. Down 
 the right margin of the sheet were a series of short memo- 
 randa. 
 
 ; ' Anna, ten thousand gulden. Settled on her, or they will 
 fall into the hand of that bird of prey, D'Avila. 
 
 " Henri ka three times as much. Her father may pay it out 
 of what he owes me. Where he gets it is his affair. That 
 will square accounts between us. 
 
 " Belotti has behaved badly. He is passed over. 
 
 " Denise may have what I intended for her." 
 
 Then, in the middle of the sheet, was written in a large 
 hand this sentence, with a sort of frame of double and treble 
 strokes: 
 
 ' The ebony casket with the arms of Hoogstraten and 
 D'Avila on the top is to be sent to the widow of the Marquis 
 d'Avennes. She is to be found at Chateau Rochebrun, in 
 Normandy." 
 
112 THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 
 
 The three men who had deciphered these notes looked at 
 each other in silence, till Van Ilout exclaimed: 
 
 " What a wild compound of spite and of womanly weak- 
 ness! However hard and cold woman's heart may seem, still 
 you will always find frost flowers if no other blossom blows 
 there." 
 
 • " I am sorry for young Mistress van Hoogstratcn, who is now 
 at your house, Master Peter," said the notary. " It would 
 be easier to strike fire out of rye-bread than to wring such a 
 sum from that old ne'er-do-weel, the baron. The daughter 
 comes off badly for the father's sake — that I call true parental 
 conduct." 
 
 " And what may there be in the ebony casket?" asked the 
 notary. 
 
 " There it stands," said Van Hout. "Hand it over, Be- 
 lotti." 
 
 ' We must open it," said the lawyer, " for perhaps she was 
 trying to send her best things out of the country." 
 
 ' Open it, against the express wishes of the deceased?" 
 asked Van der Werff. 
 
 " Certainly," cried the notary. " We were sent here to 
 take information as to the property she has left. The lid is 
 locked down. Take a pick-lock, master: that will soon open 
 it." 
 
 But the jrienipotentiaries found no valuables in the box — 
 nothing but letters of various dates; and these were not many. 
 Those at the bottom — old and very yellow — contained j)rotesta- 
 tions of love from the Marquis d'Avennes; the later ones were 
 short, and signed Don Luis d'Avila. Van Hout, wdio under- 
 stood the Castilian Spanish in which they were written, read 
 them hastily through. As he came to the end, he exclaimed, 
 in wrathful excitement: 
 
 ' Here we have the key to a piece of foul play! Do you re- 
 member the attention that was excited four years ago by a duel 
 in which the Marquis d'Avennes fell a victim to a Spanish 
 ruffian? In this letter the miserable braggart writes — but it is 
 worth while to translate it to you. The first part of the note 
 is of no importance, but here it begins: 'And since I have 
 now been so hapj)y as to cross swords with the marquis and to 
 kill him — not without joeril of my own life — a fate which he 
 seems to have richly deserved since he had so greatly incurred 
 your displeasure, the conditions you imposed upon me are sat- 
 isfied, and 1 hope to-morrow to receive from your favor my 
 sweet reward. Tell Donna Anna, my adored bride, that as 
 early as possible to-morrow morning I wdl lead her to the 
 
THE BUKGOMASTEB'S WIFE. 113 
 
 altar, for the D'Avennes are an influential family, and my life 
 will hardly be safe even to-morrow. For the rest, I hope I 
 may count on the good feeling and generosity of my gracious 
 friend.'" 
 
 Van Hout tossed the paper on to the table. ' Look, " he 
 said, " what a pretty hand the villain writes! And, by God! 
 the lady to whom this death-thrust was to be sent is no doubt 
 the mother of the luckless marquis whom the Spanish assassin 
 ran through the body. " 
 
 " Yes, master," Belotti threw in; "I can confirm your sus- 
 picion. The marquise was the wife of the man who had broken 
 faith with Mistress van Hoogstraten in her youth. She who 
 lies there, at rest at last, saw many a sun rise and set before 
 her revenge was complete." 
 
 "Throw all the rubbish into the fire, " cried Van Hout, 
 j^assionately. 
 
 " No," replied Peter; " we will not send the letters away, 
 but we will keep them among the archives. The mills of God 
 grind slowly, and who can tell of what use these old letters 
 may be yet? Van Hout nodded assent, and said, as he put the 
 papers in order again: 
 
 " I think that the fortune of the deceased lady must un- 
 doubtedly belong to the town. " 
 
 " The prince can settle that," replied Van der Werff. 
 " How long were you in your mistress's service, Belotti?" 
 
 " Fifteen years." 
 
 " Well, remain a little longer in Leyden, for I believe that 
 you may count on getting the legacy which she originally in- 
 tended for you. I will represent your claims. " 
 
 Within a few hours after the nocturnal obsequies of the old 
 lady, Baron Matenesse van Wibisma and Nicolas, his son, made 
 their appearance at the town gate, but they were refused ad- 
 mission, although they both craved it on the ground of their 
 relative's death. Henrika's father made no such attempt, for 
 he had ridden to Cologne a few days before to be present at a 
 tourney. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 On the 26th of May — Ascension-day — a joyous peal of bells 
 rang out between noon and one o'clock announcing the open- 
 ing of the great fair. The old procession round the outside of 
 the town walls had long since given place to a church festival, 
 
114 THE Bl RGOMABTER'S WTFE. 
 
 but the aame of " Ommegang " * was stil] inseparable from 
 
 the Ascension-tide Fair, and various little processions still took 
 place at thf opening of the annual market, even now that the 
 reformed faith was in the ascendant. In Catholic times the 
 cross had always been carried in a solemn procession through 
 the st reets, followed by the whole population of Leyden; but 
 now the town banners and standards, with the colors of the 
 House of Orange, led the van, followed by the nobles on horse- 
 back, the town officials in full dress, the ministers in long 
 black robes, and the volunteers in their richest array of arms, 
 the guilds with their emblems displayed on swaying poles and 
 cross bars, and then the long and happy files of school-chil- 
 dren. The very poorest managed to buy something new for 
 the little ones on this day of the year, and the mothers never 
 took greater pains in plaiting the little girls' long tails than 
 for the j)rocession at the Ascension Fair. Many a stuiver was 
 spent — in spite of the hard times — out of a very scanty store, 
 in buying fresh ribbons or new shoes for the children, or for 
 smart-colored cajjs for the boys and brightly dyed hose. The 
 cheerful spring sun shone again in the sleekly combed hair of 
 the girls, while the tall lads, and even the little ABC boys, 
 turned out smarter than the flowers in the Baron of Mont- 
 foort's garden, as the procession marched past it. Each one 
 had stuck some greenery with the feather in his hat, and the 
 smaller the little man the bigger his bunch was. There was 
 no lack of busy chatter and joyful shouting, for every child as 
 it passed its parents' house called to its mother — for the women 
 sta} r ed at home — to its grand-dame, to the servants; and as 
 soon as one set up a shout a number of others joined in. Nor 
 did their seniors keep silence when the procession came by the 
 town hall, the school of arms, the guild-halls, or the residence 
 of some popular favorite; and the general hubbub was in- 
 creased and encouraged by the chiming of bells, the huzzas of 
 the boatmen on the two branches of the Rhine and on the 
 canals, the bands of town musicians at the corners of the 
 streets, the rattle of musketry and the thunder of cannon 
 which the constable of the towm and his artillerymen were firing 
 off from the Burcht. They were gay doings in the bright 
 spring, and these jolly folks seemed to be cradling themselves 
 in reckless security of enjoyment, prosperity, and peace. How 
 blue the sky was! how warm and bright the sunshine! 
 
 Among the members of the town council, indeed, there were 
 grave and anxious faces; but the trade guilds and bands of 
 
 * Omgang=°Germ. Unigang — a march rozmd. 
 
THE BITRGOM ASTER'S WIFE. 115 
 
 children that followed them did not observe this, so the jollifi- 
 cation went on without interruption till the churches had 
 swallowed up the holiday-makers, and there, indeed, from the 
 pulpits, words of earnest warning were spoken, apt to make 
 many a soul pause to reflect. 
 
 But three tenses of life belong to man — the past belongs to 
 old age, the present to the young, and the f ututre to child- 
 hood. What did the youths and maidens of Leyden care on 
 this great yearly fair day and holiday for the danger that was 
 so close? Each one who could to-day coax a coin for a fairing 
 out of parent or godfather — or, if not to-day, for the linen fair 
 on Friday and the following days — nay, each one who had 
 merely eyes to see with and ears to hear with and a nose to 
 smell with, went wandering with others through the rows of 
 booths, stood to stare at the camel and the dancing bear, or 
 gaze into the open taverns, where not young men and maidens 
 only, but their jolly elders swung round in the dance to the 
 music of bagpipe, clarionet, and fiddle; or tasted sjDice-nuts 
 and other sweetmeats with the attentive gravity of connois- 
 seurs, or followed the sound of the trumpet by which a negro 
 attracted a crowd round a quack doctor. 
 
 Adrian van der Werff lounged about, day after day, with his 
 comrades or alone, gazing at the splendors of the fair, and 
 now and again feeling his leather purse with a satisfied sense 
 of wealth as it hung at his girdle; for it contained several 
 stivers given to him by different persons — his father, 
 mother, Aunt Barbara, and his godmother. Young Cap- 
 tain van Duivenvoorde, his very particular friend, on whose 
 tall horse he had more than once been allowed to ride, had 
 taken him three times into a waffle-baker's booth that he might 
 eat his fill; and thus, even on the Tuesday after Ascension- 
 day, his little capital was but slightly diminished. He pro- 
 posed to buy something very nice with it, something worth 
 having — a long horseman's sword, or a cross-bow, or perhaps 
 — but this he regarded as a base temptation — the large ginger- 
 bread cake all over almonds which stood as a sign or trophy in 
 the booth of a pastry-cook from Delft. To be sure he and 
 Elizabeth both might feast for a week on that gigantic cake 
 if they husbanded it, and thrift is an excellent virtue. At any 
 rate, something must be saved to buy " broedertjes," those 
 excellent fairing-cakes,* which were made and baked in many 
 oi the booths under the eyes of the passers-by. 
 
 On that Tuesday afternoon, his way led him past a stall 
 
 * Made of buckwheat. 
 
116 THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 
 
 famous for Rotterdam broedertjes. In front of the slightly 
 constructed wooden shanty, made smart with mirrors and 
 gayly painted images, a buxom and tidy woman in the prime 
 of life sat on a long-legged arm-chair that raised her high 
 above the by-standers, while with wonderful rapidity and skill 
 she poured a thin white batter, which she dipped out of a large 
 earthenware pan, on to certain hot iron plates full of little 
 pits or receptacles. These stood on a level with her knees, 
 which were comfortably straddled apart. Her attendant, as 
 prompt as thought, turned the tempting dainties with a fork, 
 as they quickly browned in their hot metal beds, and when 
 they were done laid them delicately on little plates. A waiter 
 prepared them for the consumer by laying a noble lump of 
 gold-colored butter on the top of each steaming hea]3 of little 
 cakes. An extraordinary delicious smell, reminding him only 
 too strongly of former joys, rose from the oven; and Adrian's 
 lingers were already counting the contents of his purse, when 
 the negro's trumpet rang out, and the quack doctor's chariot 
 drew up exactly in front of the stall. 
 
 The far-famed Dr. Morpurgo was a tall man, dressed all in 
 scarlet, with a thin, square, coal-black beard, which hung low 
 over his breast. His demeanor was measured and haughty; 
 the bows and gestures with which he greeted the assembled 
 crowd were affable and courteous. As soon as a sufficient num- 
 ber of curious folks had gathered round his chariot, which was 
 covered with boxes and vials, he began to address them in 
 broken Dutch, interspersed with several foreign words. 
 
 He praised the mercy of Providence >.ho created the mar- 
 vels of man's organism. In that, said he, all was wisely 
 ordered and planned for the best, but in one respect still, nat- 
 ure must confess herself at fault before the tribunal of the 
 learned. 
 
 " Do you know now where the fault lies, my masters and 
 mistresses?" he asked. 
 
 " In the stomach," cried a merry barber's apprentice, 
 " which is empty every day sooner than it ought to be." 
 
 " Right, my son!" answered the quack, graciously. " But 
 nature has provided for its replenishment by that vast portal 
 out of which your answer came so glibly. Your teeth are the 
 bungling part of the work. They come with pain, they wear 
 out before their time, and while they last torment their 
 owners unless they are duly cared for. But art has correctives 
 for nature. Look at this little box — " and he went on to sing 
 the praises of his tooth-powder and of his elixir against the 
 toothache. Then he went on to speak of the head, and de- 
 
THE BUKGOMASTEK'S WIFE. 117 
 
 scribed in vivid colors the many pains to which it was liable. 
 But these, too, were remediable, certain to be cured, if you only 
 had money to buy his great secret. It was to be had for a 
 mere song, and he who would risk a trifling sum was certain 
 to be able to rid himself even of the very worst headache as 
 easily as if he swept it away with a broom. 
 
 Adrian listened •open-mouthed to the boastful leech. The 
 most delightful fragrance was wafted toward him from the 
 iiot baking-plate in front of the broedertje stall, and he would 
 have enjoyed a plateful of fresh cakes with all his heart. In- 
 deed, the jolly pastry-cook even beckoned him with a nourish 
 of her ladle, but he shut his hand more tightly over his purse, 
 and fixed his eyes on the quack, whose vehicle was by this time 
 surrounded by several men and women buying his tinctures 
 and mixtures. 
 
 At home Henrika was lying sick; he had twice been taken 
 up to see her, and her handsome pale face and large dark eyes 
 had filled his heart with compassion. Her deep, clear tones, 
 too, when she had addressed a few words to him, were strange 
 and unfamiliar, and had sunk into his soul. One morning he 
 had been told that she had arrived, and from that time his 
 mother had rarely been visible, while the house had been kept 
 quieter than usual; every one trod softly and spoke in lowered 
 tones, knocked gently at the window instead of raj^ping with 
 the knocker, and whenever Liesa or he laughed aloud or heed- 
 lessly jumped up or down-stairs, out would come Barbara, or 
 his mother, or Trautchen, and whisper: "Hush, children; 
 Mistress Henrika has a headache." 
 
 Now there, in the leech's chariot, stood numberless vials 
 which promised to cure this pain, and the famous Morpurgo 
 seemed to be a very sensible man, not poking his fun and jokes 
 like other quack doctors; and he heard the wife of Wilhelm 
 Peterssohu, the baker, who was standing near him, and whom 
 he knew, tell her comjjanion that the leech's remedies were 
 good, for that they had cured her sister-in-law very promptly 
 of a bad rash in her face. 
 
 This remark brought the lad's thoughts to a decision. A 
 ra])id vision of the long sword, the cross-bow, the gingerbread, 
 and the savory buckwheat-cakes, crossed his mind, it is true; 
 but he thrust them aside by a determined effort, held his 
 breath that he might not smell the insidious perfume of the 
 broedertjes, and stepped quickly up to the leech's cart. There 
 he untied his purse from his girdle, shook the contents into his 
 hand, and held them out to the doctor, who had fixed his eyes 
 
118 THE BUBGOMASTBB'S AVIFE. 
 
 with a benevolent gaze on this unwonted purchaser, and asked 
 him " it' that was enough?" 
 
 " What for?" 
 
 •• For the medicine to cure headache." 
 
 The nostrum-seller spread the little coins out with his fore- 
 finger <m the palm of Adrian's hand, and answered, gravely: 
 " No, my lad; but I am always ready to promote the cause of 
 learning. You have a great deal to learn*yet at school, and- 
 headaches are a hinderance. Here are the drops, and for you 
 I will give these instructions as to another great secret of mine 
 into the bargain. " 
 
 Adrian hastily wrapped the little vial the leech had given 
 him in the piece of printed paper, clasped his dearly hought 
 treasure in Ins hand, and ran home. On his way he was 
 stopped by Captain AUertssohn, who came up to him with the 
 organist. 
 
 " Have you seen my Andreas, Master Scapegrace?" he asked 
 the boy. 
 
 " He was standing by the Rassenburg with the musicians, 
 listening to them," said Adrian, wriggling himself from the 
 tall captain's grasp and vanishing in the crowd. 
 
 " A nimble rascal," said the soldier. " So my boy is with 
 the musicians again. His head is full of nothing but your art. 
 He would far rather pipe a tune on a comb than comb his hair 
 with it, and he uses every leaf and reed he picks up as a flute. . 
 He makes triangles out of broken blades, and not a saucepan 
 is safe from his drumming — in short, the young vagabond has 
 sing-song on the brain; he wants to be a town musician or 
 something of the kind/' 
 
 " That is right — that is right!" exclaimed Wilhelm, eager- 
 ly; " he has a good ear and is the best singer in the choir." 
 
 " Well, we must think it over," replied the captain; " and 
 you, if any one, can tell me what is to be got out of your line 
 of art. If you have time this evening, Master Wilhelm, join 
 me in the watch; I should like to have a talk with you. .But 
 you will not find me before ten. To-day I. have had that spasm 
 in mv throat, and on such occasions — by Roland, my former 
 self—" 
 
 He cleared his throat loudly and violently. 
 
 " I am at your service,'* answered Wilhelm, " for the night 
 is long; but now and here I will not let you go till I know what 
 all tin's is about Roland and your former self." 
 
 "' By all means; but there is not much to tell, and perhaps 
 yon will hardly understand it. But come in here — a stoup of 
 beer will help on the story, and a man's legs rebel when they 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 119 
 
 have not been allowed their dues of rest for four nights run- 
 ning. " 
 
 When the two men were seated opposite each other in the 
 tavern parlor, the fencing-master parted Ins mustache over his 
 lips and began: 
 
 ''It is — how long ago? — well, we will say a good fifteen 
 years since I one day had occasion to ride to Haarlem with the 
 host of the Exchange Inn, who, as you know, is a learned 
 man, and choke-full of all sorts of old-world lore and Latin 
 books; he is a very pleasant man to talk to. Presently the 
 conversation turned on the way in which often in life, when 
 something occurs to you for the first time, you have a feeling 
 as though the same thing had happened to you once before, 
 and Aquanus said that this is easily explained since the soul of 
 man is indestructible — a sort of immortal, airy bird. As long 
 as we live it remains with lis, but when it is all over with us it 
 flies away, and is rewarded or punished according to its deserts; 
 but after many hundred years, which to the Almighty are no 
 more than the minutes it takes me to empty this cool tankard 
 — bring another, tapster — the merciful Father sets it free, and 
 then it finds a home in some new-born child. This made me 
 laugh, but he did not care for that, and went on to speak of 
 some ancient heathen, a most wondrous wise-head in his time, 
 who knew for certain that his soul had formerly taken up its 
 quarters in the body of a mighty hero. This same heathen re- 
 membered exactly where, during his former life, he had hung 
 up his shield, and told his fellow sages. So they sent for it, 
 and there they found the buckler, and on it the initials of the 
 two names which had been those of the wise man hundreds of 
 years before, during his life as a soldier. That staggered me, 
 for you see, master — now, do not laugh — before that, some- 
 thing had happened to me just like the experience of that old 
 heathen. I had not many books, and from a child upward 
 had already read the same one again and again. I inherited it 
 from my late father, and it is not a printed book, but a writ- 
 ten one; I will show it you some day — it contains the history 
 of Eoland the brave. Often and often as I have sat buried in 
 that glorious and veracious history, my cheeks have tingled, as 
 red as live coal, and I will own to you as I did to Aquanus, if 
 I am not much mistaken I have sat at table with King Charles, 
 and fought in Eoland 's chain-mill in tournaments and battles. 
 I feel that I have seen Marsille, tbe Paynim king; and once, 
 when I was reading the story of how Eoland blew bis horn at 
 Eoncevalles till the battle was ended, I was seized with a pain 
 in my throat, as if it would burst, and at the same time I knew 
 
120 THE BURGOMASTER'S Will-. 
 
 that I had felt bhal pain at some other long -past time. And 
 when 1 told Aquanus all this exactly, he exclaimed that there 
 could I"' do doubi that my son] had previously existed as thai 
 of Roland, or, in other words, that in a former life 1 actually 
 was that noble knight.*' 
 
 The musician gazed at the speaker in astonishment. 
 
 " And do you really believe Unit, captain?" he asked. 
 
 "Wherefore not?" replied the other; "with God nothing 
 is impossible. At first I laughed in the host's face myself, bul 
 his words stuck in my mind, and when 1 read the old story 
 through once more — I need not hurt my eyes over it, for at 
 every line I know what the next will be — I could not help ask- 
 ing myself — in short, master, my soul certainly did once live 
 in Roland's body, and therefore I call him my former self. In 
 the course of years I have got into the habit of swearing by 
 him. Folly, you think, perhaps, but I know what I know. 
 Now, I must be going. To-night we will talk further, but of 
 other things; after all, master, each of us has a tile off if we 
 did but know it, and. mine at any rate gives my neighbors no 
 trouble. Besides, I only confess it to a good friend, and stran- 
 gers who once ask me what I mean by my ' former self ' rarely 
 ask a second time. The reckoning, tapster — There is that 
 spasm again. I must see that the towers are pnyperlv manned, 
 and stir up the outj^osts to keep their eyes open. If you turn 
 out under arms perhaps you will save yourself a walk; I will 
 answer for nothing to-day. You w r ill have to pass by the New 
 Rhine,* so just step into my house and tell my good wife not 
 to wait supper for me. And. yet — no, I will do it myself. 
 There is something in the air to-day, as you will see before 
 long, for I have my Roncevalles throat again." 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 In a large guard-room, not very far from the Burcht, and 
 which had been erected during the former siege — now raised 
 some two months since — a party of town guards and volunteers 
 were sitting in groups, now that the sun had set, plying the 
 tankard Avhile they chatted, or passing the time in card-play- 
 ing by the dim light of a few lean tallow candles. The bow- 
 window, where the officers' table stood, was somewhat better 
 lighted. Wilhelm, who in obedience to his friend's hint had 
 put on his uniform as an .ensign of the city forces, took his 
 seat at a vacant table soon after the town clock had tolled ten. 
 
 * The name of a branch of the Rhine and of the houses on the quay. 
 
THE BURGOMASTERS WIFE. 121 
 
 "While he was giving his order to the tapster to bring him a 
 stoup of beer, the captain made his appearance, and with him 
 the Baron van Warmond, the same who had taken part in the 
 privy council at Van dei^Werff's, and who, two years since, 
 had valiantly won his captain's sash at the taking of Brill — the 
 son of one of the noblest and richest houses in Holland, and of 
 a mother who had borne the name of Egmont. As he came 
 into the oriel, he drew his hand, hidden in a long fencing- 
 glove, away from tlie captain's arm, and exclaimed, shouting 
 down the musician's order: 
 
 " Nothing of the sort, man! The little cask of golden 
 Wurzburg Stein wine can not be empty yet, and we will see 
 the bottom of it this night. What do you say, captain?" 
 
 "Ay, it will lighten the cask and not overweight us," re- 
 plied the other. Good-evening, Master Wilhelm; punctual- 
 ity becomes a soldier. The men are beginning to understand 
 what has to be done; I have posted them so that their eyes 
 command every point of the compass. They are to be relieved 
 every hour, and between whiles I myself will see that all is 
 well. This is good liquor, Jonker. All honor to the man who 
 melts down his father's gold into such a noble fluid. The first 
 glass to the prince!" 
 
 The three men clinked their glasses, and ere long clinked 
 them again to the freedom of Holland and the prosperity of 
 the good town of Leyden. Then their talk took a jovial turn, 
 though duty was not forgotten, for at the end of half an hour 
 the captain rose to cast an eye himself into the distance and 
 rouse the attention of the watch. When he presently returned 
 to the bow-window, Wilhelm and his companion were convers- 
 ing so eagerly that they did not at once observe his presence. 
 The musician was expatiating on Italy, and Allertssohn heard 
 him impetuously run on: 
 
 " Any one who has once seen it can never forget it, and 
 when I sit up there among my pigeons my thoughts only too 
 often fly after them, and my eyes cease to see our broad, uni- 
 form flats of green and our cloudy gray skies. " 
 
 " Ho, ho! Master Wilhelm," the captain broke in, as he 
 threw himself into his arm-chair and stretched his booted legs 
 out in front of him. " Ho, ho! this time I have caught you 
 riding your pet hobby. Italy, and again Italy! Well, I know 
 Lombardy, for I have been to Brescia, and brought back some 
 good steel blades, too, for the prince and other of our seigneurs. 
 Then I crossed the wild Apennines to Florence, to seek for 
 finely wrought armor. From Leghorn I went by sea to 
 Genoa, and there I procured gold and silver filigree work for 
 
122 THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 
 
 hangers and sword-hilts. The truth is the truth, and the 
 Bwarthy rascals can work: but the country — the country — by 
 Roland, my former soli'! how any man can prefer it to ours 
 beats my comprehension." • 
 
 " Holland is our mother/' interrupted the young baron. 
 "As dutiful sons we think her the best of women, but still 
 there is no shame in confessing that there are handsomer ones 
 on the face of the earth." 
 
 " What! you blow the same trumpet?" exclaimed the cap- 
 tain, angrily, pushing his glass further on the table. " And 
 were you ever on the other side of the Alps, may I ask?" 
 
 " Ko, never; but all the same — " 
 
 " All the same, you are ready to believe the daubers of the 
 painters' guild, whose eyes are bewitched by a patch of blue sea 
 or sky; or your musical folks, whose heads are turned by a 
 sweet voice or pathetic fiddling; but you will be wise, I tell 
 you, to listen for once to a cool-headed man." 
 
 " Speak on, captain." 
 
 " Good; and the man who can find me out in a word of un- 
 truth may make me pay his reckoning to the day of doom. I 
 will begin at the very beginning. First of all you have to get 
 over those horrible mountains, the Alps; there you see barren 
 desert rocks, sheets of cold snow, and icy roaring torrents on 
 which you can never float a boat. Instead of watering the 
 meadqws, the perverse stream flings stones up on to the banks. 
 Then you come down again into the jDlain, and there, I must 
 confess, everything grows in plenty. I was there in the month 
 of June, and I had a good laugh at the tiny jilots of land 
 planted with little trees to serve as props for the vines. It 
 looked ]3retty enough — but the heat, Jonker — the heat spoils 
 all enjoyment; then the dirt in the inns, the vermin, and the 
 shocking things one hears of the brutes on two legs, who, for 
 filthy lucre, are ready at any time to spill Christian blood in 
 the dark. If your throat is dry and your tongue parched, not 
 a drop of cool beer can you get, nothing but fiery wine — and 
 the dust, masters, the fearful dust! So far as the Bresca 
 blades are concerned, all honor to them! But the feather was 
 stolen out of my hat in the inn there, and the host eat onions 
 as if they were cakes. And may I j^erish if a single piece of 
 good, wholesome beef, such as my old woman serves me up 
 every day — and we do not live like jDrinces neither — ever came 
 between my teeth! Then the butter, Jonker — the butter! We 
 burn oil in our [amps and use it to grease the door-hinges 
 when they creak, but the Italians use it to cook their fish and 
 fowls in — bah, horrid!" 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 133 
 
 "Mind what you are saying, captain/*' cried Wilhelm, " or 
 I shall take you at your word, and you will have to pay my 
 reckonings as long as I live. The oil of the olive is a pure and 
 delicate condiment. " 
 
 " For those that like it. I prefer Dutch butter. Olive oil 
 is good enough for cleaning steel blades, but for baking and 
 frying butter is the right thing, and there's an end of the mat- 
 ter. Just ask your worthy mother to fry her pancakes and 
 flounders in oil — why, she would stare at you. However, hear 
 me further. From Lombardy I went to Bologna, and then 
 crossed the wild Apennines. First up for a time, then sud- 
 denly down again : and there is a strange satisfaction — which 
 in our country, thank God! we never enjoy — in sticking to 
 your saddle as you go down-hill. To the right and left are tall 
 cliffs like walls. In those narrow valleys you can hardly 
 breathe: as to looking abroad, you cannot do it, for whichever 
 way you turn, there are the hideous mountains close to your 
 nose. It is my belief that the Almighty piled up these heaps 
 after Adam's fall, as a punishment to mankind, and that on 
 the sixth day of creation the earth was a level plain. 
 
 " It was then* August, and when the noonday sun beat upon 
 the rocky wall it was simply enough to kill you; it is a mira- 
 cle to me that I do not at this minute sit before you utterly 
 baked and dried ivp. Then that famous blue sky of Italy — it 
 is always the same. We have seen it heie too in this country, 
 and it is varied by lovely clouds. There are few things here 
 in Holland that I like better than those very clouds of ours.. 
 Well, when at last the Apennines lay behind me, I came to 
 the famous city of Florence." 
 
 " And could not that even meet with your approbation?" 
 asked the musician. 
 
 " No, master; it has many grand and proud palaces and 
 gorgeous churches, and no lack of silk and velvet everywhere, 
 and their manufacture of cloth, too, is splendid; but still I 
 was not happy, master — I was not happy in your Florence: 
 principally by reason of the heat, but I found everything very 
 different from what I had expected. In the first place, there 
 is the Arno! why, it is perfectly ridiculous! a thing to laugh 
 at is that river! Do you know what it is like? Why, for all 
 the world like the gutters which stand in a stone-mason's yard 
 after a heavy storm of rain, and trickle between the splinters 
 and blocks of hewn stone." 
 
 " Beware, captain — the reckoning!" 
 
 "I mean a stone-mason's yard on a very large scale, and 
 tolerably wide gutters. Can you contradict me when I say that 
 
1H THE BURGOMASTER^ "WIFE. 
 
 Arno is a shallow, narrow thread of water, only lit to float 
 canoe? And it serves to ornament abroad plain of 
 graj pebbles- very much as thai gold Cringe of the Jonkcr's 
 gauni lit. " 
 
 " You saw it at the end of a sultry summer," replied Wil- 
 helm; " it is very different in the spring. " 
 
 •' May be, hut I beg you only to think of the Rhine and the 
 Maas, and our other big rivers, or even the Marne and the 
 Drecht, and the whole host of little ones. They are full all 
 the year round, and bear fine large ships. Level and trust- 
 worthy — that is the rule in our country: one thing one day 
 and another the next is the way in Italy. And it is just the 
 same with their sword-jilay and fencing." 
 
 " But the Italians carry dangerous weapons," said Van 
 Warmond. 
 
 " So they do; but they leap here and there — have no steadi- 
 ness. I have a right to speak, for I lodged with Torelli. a 
 1'el low-swordsman, and the first fencer iu the town. As to the 
 meals they gave me, the less said the better; macaroni to-day, 
 ma jaroni to-morrow, a couple of drum-sticks of a fowl, e basla. 
 Many a time have I strapped my belt tighter after dinner. So 
 far as the art of fence is concerned, Torelli, to be sure, is no 
 bungler; but even he jumps and srjrings about too much. In 
 a pass with him you must keep your eyes open, but if once I 
 can engage his blade and put in my carte tierce and longe in 
 seconde, he is done for. " 
 
 "A fine botte!" said the young baron; "I have found it 
 very serviceable." 
 
 " I know, I know," said the captain, eagerly; " you silenced 
 that French ruffian with it at I\amur. There is that grip at 
 my throat again! There is something in the air to-day, my 
 masters — there must be something in the air." 
 
 The fencing-master clutched at the front of his ruff with his 
 left hand, while with his right hand he set his glass on the 
 (able. He had often before done so with far less care, but on 
 this occasion the glass flew into a thousand pieces. 
 
 "It does not matter," cried the baron. "Here, boy — 
 another glass for the captain." 
 
 The fencing-master pushed his chair back from the table, 
 ami said, as he contemplated the shards of green glass, but in 
 an altered voice, and to himself rather than to his companions: 
 
 " Ay, ay — it will be in good earnest too! smashed into a 
 thousand pieces. Well, God's will be done! I know where 
 my place is." 
 
 " Why, master," interrupted Van Warmond, reproachfully, 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S "WIFE. 125 
 
 as he filled up the new glass, " what maggots are there? Be- 
 fore the skirmish at Brill I jumped out of the boat with a leap; 
 as I did so I broke my sword. I soon found another, but it 
 passed through my mind, ' To-day will be the end of me' — 
 and here I sit to this day, and hope to empty many a rummer 
 with you yet." 
 
 " It is past," said the soldier, raising his hat and wiping his 
 brow with the back of his hand. ' Every man's hour must 
 strike once, and if mine is at hand so be it. My family will 
 not starve. The house on the New Rhine is a freehold, and if 
 they do not inherit much else, at any rate I can leave them an 
 honest name and true friends. My second boy, the young 
 musician — you will keep your eye on him, Wilhelm, I know. 
 No man is indispensable to the world's progress, and if Heaven 
 recalls me from, my command, the young Baron of Nordwyk, 
 Jan van der Does, can fill my place. You, Van Warmond, 
 are in your right place where you are, and the good cause will 
 come to a happy issue without my help." 
 
 The organist listened with astonishment to the softened 
 tones of the strange man's voice, but the Jonker lifted his 
 glass, exclaiming: 
 
 " What dismal thoughts over a cheerful glass! You are the 
 loser by it, captain. Take up your glass again and drink my 
 toast: ' Long live the noble art of fence and your botte: carte, 
 tierce, and longe in seconde.' " 
 
 " Long live the art — ay, and the botte," answered the cap- 
 tain. " Many hundreds of noble gentlemen use the sword in 
 this land, and the man who sits before you taught them to use 
 it according to rule. Many a one has my botte served well 
 in a duel, while I, Andreas, their master, have cut and thrust, 
 parried and longed thousands of times, and always with buttons 
 on the foils and against a -padded doublet. But no man has 
 ever stood up> to me in a duel outside the city walls, or faced 
 me in single combat in battle, often as I have pressed a leader 
 of the foe. This Brescia blade has run through more than one 
 (Spanish gorget; but the art that I teach you, gentlemen, the 
 art I love and to which I have devoted my life, I have never 
 had the chance of putting into serious practice. This is hard 
 to bear, my masters; and if merciful Heaven is disjaosed to 
 vouchsafe a crowning mercy to a poor man who has been no 
 worse than his neighbors before He calls him away, He will 
 grant me yet once to cross my sword, in real and earnest single 
 combat, and let me try my botte for life or death against a 
 worthy adversary. If God Almighty grants me that — " 
 
 But the fencing-master had not finished his sentence when 
 
126 THE BURGOMASTER'S "WIFE. 
 
 6 in;in ai arms flung open fchedoorand shouted into the guard- 
 room: 
 
 " The lighl is up at Leyerdorp!" 
 
 At these words Allertssohn sprung to his feet, trembling 
 with excitement like a boy, drew himself up, settled his arms 
 and strappings, and drew down his sash as he cried: 
 
 • To the Burcht, bugler, and sound the assembly. Captain 
 van Duivenvoorde, collect your volunteers; place yourself at 
 the Hoogewoerde Gate with four companies ready to attack if 
 the fight comes near to the city walls. The constable will 
 to your being provided with tinder. Our strength on the bas- 
 tions must be doubled. You, Klaas, go at once and tell the 
 bell-ringer of St. Pancras; he must toll an alarm to warn the 
 folks who have come in for the fair. Give me your hand, 
 Jonker — you, I know, will be at your post; you, Master Wil- 
 helm — " 
 
 "I am coming with you/' said the musician, decidedly. 
 ''Do not refuse me; I have sat still long enough, and am 
 suffocating in here. " 
 
 Wilhelm's cheeks were glowing, and so fierce and sinister a 
 gleam sparkled in his eyes that Van Warmond looked with as- 
 tonishment at his friend, usually so calm, while the captain 
 exclaimed : 
 
 ' Well, then, join the first company under my ensign. You 
 do not look as if you were in the humor for jesting, and we are 
 in earnest this night — ay, in bloody earnest!" 
 
 Allertssohn went out of the house with a resolute step, spoke 
 a few short and determined words to Ms men, ordered the 
 drummers to beat a reveille as they marched through the 
 streets of the town, to rouse the visitors to the fair, and then 
 placed himself at the head of his little company of tried men, 
 and led them by the New Rhine. The moon shone brightly 
 down on the silent streets, was reflected from the black surface 
 of the river, and flooded the tall, peaked gables of the narrow 
 houses Avith its silver fight. The brisk step of the soldiers 
 echoed hollow from the walls through the stilly night, and the 
 vibration from the sharp rattle of the drums made the window- 
 panes ring again. 
 
 No merry children trotted on in front of the warriors with 
 paper flags and wooden swords; there were no saucy maidens 
 or proud mothers to follow them; no veteran to recall the by- 
 gone time when he, too, had borne arms— on tins occasion there 
 Mas none of all this. As the little troop— silent, and set on 
 the rigor of battle— reached Allertssohn 's house, the tower 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 127 
 
 clock struck midnight in slow and solemn tones, and at the 
 same instant the tocsin of St. Pancras tolled the alarm. 
 
 On the first-floor of the fencing-master's house a window 
 was thrust open, at which the face of his wife appeared. An 
 anxious married life with her eccentric husband had early aged 
 the pretty face of his Eva, but the soft moonlight beautified 
 her faded features. The rattle of her husband's drum was a 
 well-known sound, but when she saw him marching past while 
 the sinister toll of the alarm-bell shook the air, she was seized 
 with terror, and could hardly utter the words as she tried to 
 call out: " Husband — Andreas, what is the matter, Andreas?" 
 
 He did not hear her, for the roll of the drums, the trample 
 of the soldiers' feet on the pavement, and the warning peal 
 from the church tower, drowned her voice. But he saw her, 
 and a strange feeling came over him; her face, wrapped in a 
 white kerchief, and glorified by the moonlight, looked sweeter 
 than he had ever seen it since the days of their wooing, and 
 he felt so young and bold and chivalrously defiant as he 
 marched to danger that he drew himself up and swaggered 
 past in precise time to the beat of the drums, and, like some 
 young lover, waved her a kiss with his left hand, while with 
 his right he lowered the point of his sword. 
 
 The warlike roll and the flying standard had driven every 
 gloomy thought out of his head. Thus they marched on as 
 far as the Gansoord. There a cart was standing, which served 
 as the night quarters of some travelers who had been roused 
 by the tocsin, and who were now hastily collecting and pack- 
 ing their property; an old woman was grumbling and bewail- 
 ing herself as she harnessed a gaunt horse to the shafts, and a 
 lamentable little voice called persistently out of the small win- 
 dow, whimpering: "Mother, mother," and then for variety: 
 "Father, father." 
 
 The captain heard the child's wail; the smile faded from his 
 lips, and he walked less proudly. But then, turning to his 
 men, he shouted in a loud voice: "Forward!" Wilhelm was 
 marching close behind him, and at a sign from him took his 
 place by his side; and the captain, as he mended his pace 
 again, took the organist's arm, and said, in a low voice: 
 
 " You will take the youngster to teach, will you not?" 
 
 " Yes, captain." 
 
 " That is well; you will meet with your reward," replied 
 the other; then brandishing his sword, he shouted: " Freedom 
 for Holland! Death to the Spaniard, and long live the Prince 
 of Orange!" 
 
128 THE burgomaster's wife. 
 
 The men heartily joined in the cry, and they marched at a 
 (prick Btep out of the Hoogewoerde Gate toward Leyerdorp. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Adrian flew home with his vial, and in his delight at hav- 
 ing brought a cure for Mistress Henrika he forgot all about 
 the .sick lady's headache, and knocked loudly at the front 
 door. Barbara admitted him with a by no means flattering 
 welcome; but he was so full of the joy of possessing his dearly 
 purchased treasure that he boldly interrupted his aunt's angry 
 scolding, exclaiming, with vehement confidence in the con- 
 sciousness of so good a cause: 
 
 ' But you will see — you will see. I have something here 
 for the lady. Where is mother?" 
 
 Barbara saw the boy had come home bent on some delight- 
 ful errand which prevented his thinking of anything else, and 
 his fresh and radiant boyish face was so pleasant to look upon 
 that she forgot to scold him, and said, with a good-natured 
 smile: 
 
 " You make me quite curious; what can you be in such a 
 hurry about?" 
 
 " I have bought something; is mother upstairs?" 
 
 " Yes, to be sure; but show me what you have got." 
 
 " Some medicine; infallible, I tell you. A remedy for head- 
 ache. " 
 
 " A cure for headache?" said the widow, puzzled; " who 
 can have taken you in with that story?" 
 
 ' Taken me in!" said the boy, laughing; " I bought it quite 
 cheap." 
 
 " Show it to me, child," said Barbara, trying to seize the 
 vial; but Adrian started back and hid his treasure behind him, 
 exclaiming: 
 
 " No, aunt; I will take it to mother myself." 
 ' What next?" exclaimed the aunt. " Were there ever such 
 doings? A donkey dances on a slack rope, and now a school- 
 boy meddles with the leech's practice! Show me the thing 
 this moment. Quack medicines, indeed — we want them truly!" 
 
 "Quack medicines!" retorted Adrian, indignantly. "It 
 cost me all my fairing stivers, and it is very good medicine. " 
 
 During this little contest Dr. Bontius and the mistress of the 
 house came down-stairs together. He overheard the boy's last 
 words, and asked, sternly: 
 
 ' Where did you get the stuff?" 
 
 And he grasped the boy's hand — for Adrian did not dare to 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 129 
 
 resist the grave physician — took the vial and the printed 
 notice, and, as Adrian shortly rejflied: 
 
 " From Doctor Morpurgo," he said, in a tone of annoyance: 
 
 " The decoction is good to throw away; but take care not 
 to poison the fishes with it; and the stuff cost half a gulden! 
 You are a man of substance, Master Adrian. Next time you 
 have any superfluous capital you may lend it to me." 
 
 This sjDeech dashed the boy's innocent happiness, but it did 
 not convince his judgment, and with a defiant wriggle he 
 turned his back on the doctor. Barbara felt for him, under- 
 standing what was passing in his mind; and she whispered in 
 deprecation to the doctor and her sister-in-law: 
 
 'It was the whole of his fairing money — to help the sick 
 lady." 
 
 Maria went toward the disappointed lad, drew his curly head 
 to her side and kissed his forehead in silence, while the doctor 
 read the printed notice. Then, as gravely as ever, and with- 
 out moving a muscle of his face, he went on: 
 
 " Still, Morpurgo is not so bad as he might be. The medi- 
 cine he here prescribes might, after all, do our patient good." 
 
 Adrian had been nearer crying than laughing; he now 
 breathed a sigh of relief, but he clung tightly to his step- 
 mother's hand, while he once more faced the doctor and list- 
 ened eagerly as De Bout went on: 
 
 " Two parts of buckbean, one part of peppermint, and half 
 a part of valerian — the last especially for women — infused in 
 boiling water. Drink a cupful cold, night and morning. Not 
 bad — really not at all bad; you have hit uj>on a good prescrip- 
 tion, my little colleague. However, I had something else to 
 say to you: my boys are going this evening to see the English 
 riders, and they will be very glad of your company if you will 
 go with them. You may begin with this, infusion at once." 
 The doctor bowed to the women and went out. Barbara fol- 
 lowed him into the street. 
 
 " Are you in earnest about the prescription?" she asked. 
 
 " Certainly, certainly," said the leech. " My grandmother 
 was very fond of using this mixture as a cure for the headache, 
 and she was a very shrewd woman — take it morning and 
 evening, and keep quiet after it." 
 
 Henrika was lodged in a fresh and prettily furnished room. 
 The windows looked upon the quiet court-yard, planted with 
 trees, and on the further side stood the leather factory. She 
 was now allowed to sit up part of each day, propped with pil- 
 lows, in an easy-chair. Her soundly healthy nature was reas- 
 serting itself; she was still weak, no doubt, and a pain on one 
 
130 THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 
 
 side of her head made her miserable sometimes for whole days 
 and nights. Dame van der Werff's gentle and thoughtful 
 
 f>resence did her good, and she liked to have Barbara about 
 ler too. with her fresh, wholesome face, and her simple, care- 
 ful, prompt ways. 
 
 When Maria told her of Adrian's purchase she was moved 
 to tears; however, to the boy himself she concealed her grate- 
 ful feeling under a certain mockery, and greeted him with the 
 exclamation: 
 
 " Ah! my preserver — come closer and give me your hand." 
 And after that she would constantly call him her preserver; 
 or, as she liked mixing Italian words with her Dutch, " Sal- 
 vatore," or " Signor Salvatore." She always had a fancy for 
 tailing the jieople she had to do with by some name of her own 
 devising; thus she would call Barbara, whose name she could 
 not endure, Babetta; and little, fragile, lovely Elizabeth, 
 whom she was always delighted to have with her, she named 
 the Elf. Only the burgomaster's wife kept her own name of 
 Dame Maria; and when one day in jest she asked the reason 
 of such an oversight, Henrika replied that her name exactly 
 suited her, and that if she had been named Martha she would 
 probably have called her Maria. 
 
 This was a good and painless day with the convalescent, and 
 when, in the evening, Adrian had gone to see the English rid- 
 ing, and the scent of the blossoming limes and the pale light 
 of the moon found their way in at her open window, she 
 begged Barbara not to bring a lamp, but asked Maria to come 
 to sit with her and chat in the dim light. From talking of 
 Adrian and Elizabeth they wandered into speaking of their own 
 childhood. Henrika had grown up among her father's boon 
 companions, amid the clatter of glasses and the cries of hunts- 
 men; Maria had lived in a sober citizen's house, and what each 
 could tell was to the other like news from another world. 
 
 " It was easy enough for you to grow up into a tall, white 
 lily as you are now," said Henrika. " But I may thank the 
 saints that I did no worse than I have done; for Ave grew up 
 just like weeds; and, indeed, if I had not always loved singing, 
 and if the chaplain had not been such an excellent musician, I 
 should appear before you worse than I am. When will the 
 doctor let me hear you sing?" 
 
 " Some day next week; but you must not raise your expecta- 
 tions too highly. You have too high an opinion of me in 
 everything. Remember the saying about still waters; here 
 they are often far less pleasant at the bottom than you would 
 expect from the surface. " 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 131 
 
 . " Ah, but you have learned to keep the surface calm when 
 the depths are stirred, and I have not. Here a strange peace 
 has come over me; whether I owe it to my illness or to the 
 atmosphere that breathes in this house 1 know not; but how 
 long is it since here in my heart there was a turmoil like the 
 sea, when the hissing waves tumble into dark abysses and the 
 sea-mews scream and the fishermen's wives pray on the strand? 
 Now the waters are still. But do not be too terrified if some 
 day the storm were to begin anew." 
 
 Maria took the excited girl's hands and held them in her 
 own. 
 
 "Gently; be calm, Henrika!" she said; " you must think 
 of nothing now but of getting well. And I will confess one 
 thing: I believe that every burden is easier to be borne when — 
 like the sea of which you speak — the sufferer can toss it impa- 
 tiently to the surface. With me one trouble gets heaped upon 
 another; they lie, as it were, buried in the sand." 
 
 " Till the wind blows and sweeps them away. I do not 
 want to be a prophet of evil, but some day, you will see, you 
 will remember my words. What a wild, reckless creature I 
 have been ! Then, in a single day, my very soul was turned 
 upside down. " 
 
 " Did some false love wound your heart?" asked Maria, 
 diffidently. 
 
 "No; it was only what I felt from false love in others," 
 said Henrika with a bitter laugh. " When I was a child my 
 heart was easily fluttered, I do not know how often. First I 
 felt far more than mere respect for the one-eyed chaplain, our 
 music-master, and laid fresh flowers in the window for him 
 every morning, but he never noticed them. Then — I may 
 have been about fifteen — I returned the adoring glances of a 
 page of Count Brederode's; but he tried once to be tender, and 
 felt my riding-whip for his pains. The next was a tall young 
 baron, who would have married me when I was scarce sixteen, 
 but he was even deeper in debt than my father, and so was 
 shown the door. I did not shed a tear for him: and when, 
 two months later, at a tourney at Brussels, I saw Don Fad- 
 rifjue, the great Alva's son, I thought I loved him as no lady 
 had ever loved her Amidis, although we never got any further 
 than looking at each other. Then that storm burst of which 
 I spoke, and there was an end of all philandering. Some day 
 I will tell you more about it all; I need not hold my tongue, 
 for it was no secret. Did you ever hear of my sister? No? 
 She was older than I, and a more perfect creature God never 
 created — and she sung ! She went to live with my aunt who 
 
132 TITK BUEGOMASTER'S WIFE. 
 
 is just dead, and then — But I must not excite myself for. 
 nothing. Jn short, the man die loved with all her heart left 
 her in misery, and my father cursed her and would not put 
 out even a- linger to save her. I never knew my mother, but 
 while I had Anna I never missed her. Her fate opened my 
 eyes to the Mays of men. During these last years many a one 
 has wanted to marry me, hut I had no confidence in them, 
 much less love; for f will have nothing more to do with love." 
 " Till love finds you napping one day/' replied Maria. 
 " But it would be wrong to discuss such things with you now, 
 for it excites you, and that will not do. " 
 
 " Oh, yes, it does one good to unburden one's heart now 
 and then. Did you never love any one but your husband?" 
 
 " Loved — no, Henrika; I never truly loved any one but 
 him." 
 
 " And your heart really waited to see the burgomaster be- 
 fore it beat any quicker?" 
 
 " No; before that there had been times when it was not 
 altogether calm. I was brought up among pleasant and intel- 
 ligent men, young and old, and naturally I cared more for 
 some than for others. " 
 
 " Ay — and for one most of all." 
 
 " I will not deny it. When my sister was married, a friend 
 of my brother-in-law's, a young German nobleman, came to 
 the wedding and remained with us some weeks. I liked him 
 very much; indeed, to this day I think kindly of him." 
 
 " And have you never heard of him since?" 
 
 ; ' No; and who can tell what has become of him? My 
 brother-in-law expected great things of him, and he certainly 
 was a rarely gifted creature; but he was recklessly daring — a 
 constant anxiety to his mother, I am sure." 
 
 " You must tell me more about him." 
 
 " To what end, Henrika?" 
 
 " I will not talk any more, but I should like to sit here and 
 breathe the scent of the limes, and listen — only listen. ' ' 
 
 " No, you must go to bed now. I will help you, and when 
 you have been alone and quiet for an hour, I will return. " 
 
 " You make me obey you, but when my preserver comes in 
 bring him up to me; he must tell me all about the English 
 riders. Here comes Dame Babetta with his potion — I "will 
 take it regularly, you will see." 
 
 The lad came in late, for he had been enjoying all the de- 
 lights of the fair with the doctor's children; his visit to Hen- 
 rika, therefore, was strictly limited. His father he did not 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 133 
 
 see at all, for Van der Werff was gone to a nocturnal meeting 
 at the house of the commissary, Van Bronkhorst. 
 
 On the next day the fair would be at an end, school would 
 begin again, and Adrian had intended to finish his holiday 
 task this evening. But the English horse-riding had come in 
 the way, and he could not possibly appear before the master 
 without his exercise. This he frankly confessed to his step- 
 mother, and she cleared a place for him on the table where she 
 sat sewing, and helped out the young scholar with many a 
 word or rule which she had learned as a child with her brother. 
 
 It wanted but half an hour of midnight when Barbara came 
 in and said : 
 
 " Now, that must do. To-morrow early, before school, you 
 must finish what is wanting. " 
 
 Without waiting for Maria to reply, she closed the boy's 
 books and pushed them together. She was in the very act of 
 doing this when the room seemed to shake from a violent 
 knocking at the house door. Maria threw down her work and 
 started from her seat, while Barbara exclaimed : 
 
 " In Heaven's name what is that?" And Adrian flew into 
 his father's room and flung open the window. The women 
 hastily followed, and before they could question the disturber 
 of the peace, a deep voice called up to them: 
 
 " Open the door! I must come in." 
 
 " "What is the matter?" asked Barbara, who perceived in 
 the moonlight that it was a soldier. " We can not hear our- 
 selves speak; stoj) that knocking." 
 
 " Call the burgomaster," cried the messenger, who had 
 knocked without ceasing. "Make haste, you women; the 
 Spaniards are coming." 
 
 Barbara gave a loud scream and clasped her hands. Maria 
 turned pale, but did not lose her presence of mind. 
 
 " The master is not at home," she replied, " but he shall be 
 sent for. Quick, Adrian — run and tell your father." 
 
 The boy rushed down-stairs, and in the hall met Trautchen 
 and the man-servant, who had jumped out of bed and hastily 
 thrown on some clothes. The old woman was now endeavor- 
 ing, with trembling hands, to unfasten the door. The man 
 pushed her aside, and as soon as the door creaked on its hinges 
 Adrian flew out, and ran as if for a wager toward Van Bronk- 
 horst's house. He reached it before any of the other mes- 
 sengers, made his way through the open door into the dining- 
 room, and breathlessly shouted to the party who were sitting 
 in council over their wine: 
 
 " The Spaniards are here," 
 
134 Tin: burgomaster's wife. 
 
 The men hurriedly rose from their seats. One proposed to 
 hasten to the Burcht, another to the town hall, and in the ex- 
 citement of the momenl they could come to no coherent deris- 
 ion; only Peter van der TVerff remained calm, and when 
 Allertssohn's messenger had come in and told them that the 
 captain and his men were by this time on their way i<> Leyder- 
 dorp, the burgomaster pointed out that their first care must 
 be directed to the people who had come into the town for the 
 fair. He and Van Hunt undertook the duty, and before long 
 Adrian was standing with the two men amid the rushing tide 
 of humanity roused from sleep by the brazen voice from the 
 St. Pancras tower. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 ADRIAN'S work for that night was not yet ended, for his 
 father did not forbid his following him to the town hall. He 
 tlun charged him to go and tell his mother that he should be 
 detained there till morning, and that any persons desiring to 
 speak with him after the next hour or so were to be directed 
 by the man-servant to seek him in the wood market by the 
 Rhine. His mother then sent the boy back again to ask 
 whether his father would not have his cloak or something to 
 cat, or wine, or some other refreshment. The lad executed 
 these errands with eager zeal, for, as he made his way through 
 the crowds which choked the narrow streets, he felt more im- 
 portant than he had ever felt before; he, too, had official duty 
 to fulfill, and at night, too, when other boys were in bed am! 
 aslee]}, particularly his own comrades, who certainly would not 
 have been allowed to be abroad at such an hour. 
 
 Besides, an exciting time might be counted on, with tuck of 
 drum, blare of trumpets, rattle of musketry, and roar of 
 camion; he felt that the game of Dutch and Spaniards was 
 going to be played in earnest and on a grand scale. All the 
 manly vigor of his age suddenly sprung into vitality, and when 
 now and then he could elbow his way through the throng to 
 some quiet space, he hurried onward, and sung out as cheerily 
 as if it were some joyful announcement: 
 
 " Here they come; the Spaniards are here;" or: "Hanni- 
 bal ante portas." 
 
 After he had learned, on his second visit to the town-hall, 
 that his father needed nothing, and would send one of the 
 ushers if he wanted anything, he considered himself released 
 from duty and at liberty to indulge his curiosity. 
 
 First he went to the English horse-riding. The tent in 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 135 
 
 which the performances had been given had vanished from the 
 face of the earth, and men and women, shouting and scream- 
 ing, were rolling up huge pieces of canvas, tying up bales, and 
 harnessing the restive horses in couples; the scene was lighted 
 by the dull flare of torches and the white moonbeams, showing 
 him a large four-wheeled wagon-house, and on the narrow steps 
 that led up to its door a little girl i:i very poor clothing, who 
 was crying bitterly. Could this be the rosy cherub who, flut- 
 tering round on a snow-white horse, had appeared to him some 
 beatific creature from a fairer world? A scolding old woman 
 came and lifted the child into the little house upon wheels, 
 and Adrian went on his way, following the jn-ess of men. Then 
 he saw Dr. Morpurgo on a bony nag, riding behind his chariot, 
 no longer in scarlet, but in a suit of dark cloth. The negro 
 was brutally urging the mule which dragged the vehicle, but 
 his master did not seem to have lost his usual calm self posses- 
 sion. His stock was of small value, and their lordships the 
 Spaniards had no reason to deprive him of his head, or of the 
 tongue by which he earned more than he needed. 
 
 Adrian followed in his wake as far as the long rows of booths 
 in the Breede Street, and there he saw scenes which quelled his 
 high spirits, and by degrees made him understand that mat- 
 ters were indeed serious and fit to make men's hearts quail. 
 He still could laugh as he looked on at the doings of the ginger- 
 bread-maker and the yarn-seller, who had been partners in a 
 stall, for in their first alarm they had tossed their parcels of 
 goods each into the other's chests, just as they came to hand, 
 and could now sort their respective belongings. But a poor 
 woman who sold Delft crockery at a corner stall moved him to 
 compassion, for a heavy wagon from Gouda, loaded with large 
 bales, had completely wrecked her frail booth, and she was 
 wringing her hands over the ruined possessions, which repre- 
 sented all the fortunes of herself and her children, while the 
 wagon-driver, never heeding her, cracked his whip to encour- 
 age his team. A little girl, who had got herself lost, and was 
 being led along by a kind-hearted citizen's wife, was howling 
 lamentably. A rope-dancer, who had been robbed in the 
 press of his little tin box and his small fortune in pence, wan- 
 dered about vainly seeking a guardian of the peace. A cob- 
 bler thrust and stamped his stock of riding-boots and slippers 
 and hanks of hempen thread into a wooden packing-case, 
 while his wife tore her hair, and, instead of helping him, 
 shrieked at him: " I knew it! I told him so, you simpleton — 
 you wiseacre — you blockhead! They will come and take 
 everything away from us!" 
 
J3G THE BURGOMASTERS WTFE. 
 
 At the turning into the narrow street which leads to the 
 bridge by the Church of the Holy Virgin, nasi the house of the 
 AuBsendelfts, a number of high-piled cans had got lucked, and 
 in their alarm the drivers, instead of getting down and retell- 
 ing help, lei I to scolding each other, including the women and 
 children, who had lain down on the top of the loads. Their 
 cries and Lamentations were heard afar, hut even they were 
 presently drowned, ior at the north end of the alley a danc- 
 ing bear had broken loose, and put every one to flight that 
 happened to be near. Shrieking and hallooing, the terrified 
 mob fled from the beast down the street, sweeping others be- 
 fore them who did not know the original cause of the stampede, 
 and thinking only of the dominant terror, shouted: " The 
 Spaniards! the Spaniards!" Everything that stood in the way 
 of this Hying rout was overturned on the sjwt. A child, stand- 
 ing by a basket-maker's cart which had been upset, fell under 
 the feet of the people close by Adrian, who had ensconced 
 himself in a door-way; but he could do nothing to help the lit- 
 tle fellow, for he was tightly squeezed into his corner, and 
 just then his attention was diverted to a new object, for Janus 
 'jDouser appeared on the scene, mounted on horseback. He 
 rode toward the panic-stricken crowd, and above the cry of 
 " The Spaniards, the Spaniards!" he shouted, in piercing 
 tones: " Peace — be quiet, good folks! The enemy is not here 
 yet. Go to the Rhine — go to the river! There are ships and 
 barges there for all strangers. There are no Spaniards there; 
 do you hear? no Spaniards at all." 
 
 The baron drew up just in front of Adrian, for his horse 
 could get no further, but chafed and fretted under his rider, 
 whose proclamation had' but little effect; and it was not till 
 hundreds of flying people had hurried past him that the scared 
 crowd grew thinner. The bear from which they had fled had 
 long since been recaptured by some brewer's men and led back 
 to his owner. The town watch now appeared, with Van der 
 Werff at their head; and the boy followed them unobserved as 
 far as the timber market on the southern bank of the Rhine. 
 There he was met by another bustling swarm, for numbers of 
 dealers had assembled there to stow their goods on board ship. 
 Men and women were scrambling among the bales and cases 
 which were being rolled or pitched into the barges. A woman 
 and child with a rope-maker's barrow had been pushed into 
 the water, and the loudest turmoil had centered round them; 
 but the burgomaster was on the spot at the right moment, 
 directed the rescue of the drowning wretches, and did his 
 utmost to reduce the confusion to order. The watch were 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 137 
 
 ordered only to allow the fugitives to pass on to the boats which 
 were starting for the towns they belonged to; two gangways 
 were thrown across to each barge — one for goods, one for pas- 
 sengers; and the town criers were ordered to proclaim — and it 
 was in fact prescribed by law — that at the sound of the alarm- 
 bell all the inhabitants of the town should retire within doors, 
 and not appear in the streets under a severe penalty. All the 
 town gates might be opened for the exit of vehicles, with the 
 exception of the Hoogewoerde Gate, which led to Leyderdoryj. 
 Thus, presently the streets were cleared, the crowd reduced to 
 order, and by the time Adrian reached home and dawn was 
 breaking the town was almost as quiet as on ordinary nights. 
 
 His mother and Barbara had been anxious about him; how- 
 ever, he was able to tell them he had seen his father, who had 
 quelled the tumult under his very eyes. Even while he was 
 still speaking they heard gunshots, and this excited the lad to 
 such a pitch that all he asked was to run out again; but his 
 mother held him back, and he had to submit to go up to his 
 room. Still he would not go to bed, but clambered up to the 
 highest loft in the gable of the warehouse at the back, and 
 there, through the opening which was used for hauling up the 
 bales of leather, he could look to the east, where firing was 
 still to be heard. He could, however, see nothing but the rosy 
 dawn and thin clouds of smoke which floated upward, tinged, 
 with the glow of the coming sun. Presently, as nothing new 
 was to be seen, his eyes closed; he fell asleep by the open win- 
 dow, and dreamed of a bloody battle and of the English riders. 
 He slept so soundly that he did not hear the clatter of wheels, 
 which before long came up from the court-yard below. It was 
 caused by the carts of various dealers from neighboring towns, 
 who preferred leaving their property in the threatened city to 
 risking its conveyance through the invading Spanish troops, 
 and Master Peter had permitted some of these to deposit their 
 goods on his premises. The carts were to be admitted through 
 the outbuildings and workshops, and such wares as might 
 suffer from exposure to the weather were to be put under shel- 
 ter, in the course of the day, in the large rooms on the ground- 
 floor. 
 
 At midnight Maria had gone to Henrika to reassure her; 
 but the convalescent had betrayed no sort of anxiety, and 
 when she heard that tbe Spanish were marching on the town, 
 a bright gleam of satisfaction sparkled in her eyes. Maria saw 
 it and tinned away; she refrained from speaking the sharp 
 words that rose to her lips, and merely bidding the girl good- 
 night, she left the room. 
 
138 TJIK burgomaster's wife. 
 
 Henrika looked after her thoughtfully, and then sat up in 
 bed. for on Buch a nighl sleep was out of the question. The 
 alarm-bell of St. Pancras's tower did not cease, and more than 
 
 once a door slanuned; she heard voiees below, and presently 
 
 distant tiring. Noises and murmurs which she could assign to 
 no definite cause crowded on her ear, and as the day grew 
 
 there, was ceaseless bustle under her window and in the house 
 that was usually so still. Her impatience and curiosity in- 
 creased every minute, and she listened so eagerly that her head 
 began to ache again; but she could only catch a few words, 
 and those not distinctly. Had the town surrendered to the 
 Spaniards? Had some of King Philip's soldiers found quarters 
 in the burgomaster's house? Her blood boiled for a moment 
 when she thought of the triumph of the Castilians and the 
 humiliation of her native land; .but then again a pleasanter 
 excitement came over her, for in fancy she saw the bare walls 
 of the churches, which had been stripped of every ornament, 
 once more decorated by art; chanting processions march through 
 the streets, and high mass celebrated by priests in splendid 
 robes before newly decked altars, with fine music, incense, and 
 the tinkling of tuueful bells. She expected that the Spanish 
 rule should restore an Established Church, in which she could 
 pray in her own way and relieve her soul by confession. All 
 through her former life she had known no secure foothold, no 
 sure hold-fast but her religion. A most worthy priest had been 
 her teacher, and. he had clone his utmost to impress upon her 
 that the new doctrines threatened to destroy all the mystical 
 solemnities of life, all craving for beauty, every ideal aspiration 
 of the human soul, and even art itself; and so Henrika wished 
 that her country might be Sj)anish and Catholic rather than 
 free from the foreign yoke— though she hated it — at the cost 
 of being Calvinist. 
 
 By degrees the noise in the court-yard died away; but as the 
 first beams of day fell upon her window-pane the stir below 
 began again, busier and louder than ever. Heavy shoes clat- 
 tered on the pavement, and among the confusion of voices she 
 fancied she could recognize those of Maria and Barbara. Yes, 
 she was not mistaken; that cry of dismay was certainly ut- 
 tered by her friend, and it was followed by tones of bitter 
 lamentation in a man's voice, and loud sobs. Some bad news 
 must have reached her friends, for certainly the woman she 
 heard weeping so violently was worthy Dame Babetta. 
 
 She longed to be up; on the table by her bed, with some 
 vials and glasses, and the night-lamp and tinder-box, stood a 
 little bell, whose lightest tinkle had hitherto never failed to 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 139 
 
 bring her nurses to her at once. Three times Henrika rung 
 it, and again and yet again, but no one came. Her hasty 
 blood rose, and, half in impatience and vexation, half in curiosity 
 and sympathy, she slipped on her shoes and her wrapper. 
 Then she went to the seat which stood on the step by the win- 
 dow, opened the casement, and looked down on the group close 
 below. No one noticed her, for the men who had collected 
 and who looked mournful, and the women all in tears — among 
 them Maria and Barbara — were listening with every mark of 
 sympathy to the eager speech of a young man, and had no eyes 
 nor ears for anything else. Henrika recognized the speaker 
 as Wilhelm, the organist, but only by his voice, for the hel- 
 met that covered his curls, and his cuirass stained with blood, 
 gave the unpretending musician a warlike, nay, a heroic as- 
 pect. 
 
 He was already far advanced in his narrative when Henrika, 
 though unperceived, became one of his audience. 
 
 " Yes, master," he said, in answer to some question from 
 the burgomaster, " we were following them, but suddenly they 
 vanished into the village again, and all was quiet. It would 
 have been sheer madness to think of storming the houses, so 
 we kejDt close; but at about two o'clock we heard shots in the 
 neighborhood of Leyderdorp. ' The Baron van Warmond has 
 forced his way out!' cried the captain, as he led us in the 
 direction of the firing. That was just what the Spaniards 
 wanted, for long before we had reached the spot, in the gloam- 
 ing, a company of Castilians jumped up from a ditch with 
 white shrouds over their armor, fell upon their knees, mut- 
 tered a Pater Noster, shouted Sant Jago, and rushed upon us. 
 We had seen them in time, however, so the halberdiers could 
 have their pikes ready, and the musketeers could lay their 
 matchlocks down on the ground. So the Spaniards met with 
 a warm reception, and four of them fell in the attack. We 
 were stronger in numbers than they were, and their captain 
 retreated in good order to their ditch. There they remained, 
 for their work was done; they were only to detain us, and then 
 leave us to be cut off by a stronger corps. We were too weak 
 to drive them out of their position, and when it was growing 
 light in the east and still they would not come out, our captain 
 went toward them with a white handkerchief displayed and 
 the drummer playing, and called to them in Italian, of which 
 he had learned a little in Lombard y, that he wished the gentle- 
 men a very good-morning, and if there should be among them 
 an officer with a grain of honor in his composition, he might 
 come forth and cross swords with a captain who wished for th« 
 
J40 THE BURGOMASTEB'fl WIPE. 
 
 opportunity. He pledged his word that his men should look 
 on al the duel without interfering, be the issue what it might. 
 On this two shots were fired from the ditch, and the bullets 
 barely missed our poor master. We shouted to him to save 
 his own life, bu1 he did oofc stir, only shouted to them that 
 they were milk-sops and assassins like their king. 
 
 *• Meanwhile it had become pretty light; we could hear them 
 talking in their ambush, and just as Allertssohn was about to 
 turn on his heel, an officer leaped up on to the hank and cried 
 out: ' Stand, braggart, and hold your own!' The captain 
 drew his Brescia blade, bowed to his antagonist just as if he 
 were in the fencing-ground, tried his steel, and measured it 
 with the Spaniard's. He was a lean-made man and very tall, 
 and, as it soon appeared, a dangerous swordsman. He whisked 
 round our captain with cuts, thrusts, and feints, but Allerts- 
 sohn kept quite cool, and at first confined himself to panying. 
 Then he engaged the Spaniard's hladein carte, as his opponent 
 parried followed in tierce, and then, as quick as lightning with 
 a longe in seeonde, such as he alone knew how to deal, the 
 Castilian fell on his knees, for the Brescia blade was through 
 his lungs, and in a few seconds he was dead. No sooner was 
 he stretched on the grass than the Spaniards rushed out on us 
 again, hut we drove them back once more, carrying the dead 
 body with us. So proud and gay as at that moment was our 
 captain never seen. You, Jonker van Warmond, can easily 
 guess the reason. He had at last done justice to his famous 
 hotte in single combat for life or death with an opponent of 
 equal skill; he said to me that the morning had brought him 
 luck, and ordered us to surround the ditch and take the enemy 
 in flank. But hardly had we began to move when the expect- 
 ed corps marched out of Leyderdorp. Their loud ' Sant J ago ' 
 rung out afar, and at the same time our old foe jumped out of 
 the ditch and renewed the onslaught. Allertssohn rushed 
 upon them, but he never reached them. Ah! master, I shall 
 never forget it — a bullet brought him to the ground by my 
 side. It must have pierced his heart, for he said never a word 
 but: ' Take care of the boy!' and then he stretched out his 
 long limbs and was dead. We wanted to bring him away, but 
 we were pressed by numbers, and it was as much as we could 
 do to retire in miserable disorder within cover of the guns of 
 the Jonker's volunteers. The Spaniards dared not pursue us 
 so far. So here we are. The body of the Castilian is lying in 
 the towei- by the Hoogewoerde Gate. Here are the papers w r e 
 found upon him, and here is his ring; he had a proud coat of 
 arms for his signet." 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 141 
 
 Peter van der Werff took the letter-case in his hand and 
 glanced through the contents; then he said: 
 
 " His name was Don Luis d'Avila. " 
 
 But he said no more, for his wife had just observed Hen- 
 rika's head stretched far out of the window, and, startled to 
 see her, called out in dismay: 
 
 "Mistress! for Heaven's sake, mistress, what are you do- 
 ing?" 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Dame van der Werff was anxious on Henrika's account, 
 but the young lady nodded to her with unwonted cheerfulness, 
 and met her mild remonstrances with the assurance that the 
 fine morning had done her good. Providence, she said, was 
 just in its dealings, and if it were true that confidence in re- 
 covery was a help to the physician, Dr. Bontius would now 
 have an easy patient to deal with. The Spaniard whom Al- 
 lertssohn had killed could be none other than the wretch who 
 had dragged Anna into misery. Maria left her, astonished 
 but quite easy about her, and went to tell her husband how she 
 had found the invalid, and of the connection which — as it 
 would seem — had existed between the dead Spanish officer and 
 Henrika and her sister. Peter listened to her with only half 
 his attention, and as soon as Barbara had brought him a fresh- 
 ly plaited rouff, he interrupted his wife in the midst of her 
 story by handing her the Castilian's letter-case and saying: 
 
 " There, let her convince herself; and give me the portfolio 
 back this evening. I am not likely to be home to dinner; in 
 the course of the day you will try to see poor Allertssohn's 
 widow?" 
 
 " Of course I will," she said, eagerly; " and whom will you 
 put in his place?" 
 
 " That the prince must decide." 
 
 " And have you thought of any way of keeping up com- 
 munications with Delft, in spite of the enemy?" 
 
 " On your mother's account?" 
 
 " Not for that alone. Rotterdam also lies to the south of 
 us. Now, from Haarlem and Amsterdam — from the north, 
 in short — we have nothing to look for, for everything is in the 
 hands of the Spaniards." 
 
 " I will procure you a seat at the Council of War. What 
 makes you so wondrous wise?" 
 
 "Well, everyone must have his own thoughts, and it is 
 surely quite natural that, with you, I should look into the f ut- 
 
142 THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 
 
 are with my eyes open rather than blindfold. Have they 
 availed themselves of the English regiment to secure the works 
 by the old canal? The Kaak, too, is an important point." 
 
 Peter Looked at his wife with astonishment^ and the feeling 
 came over him which troubles an unready writer when some 
 one unexpectedly looks over his shoulder. She hud hit upon 
 a blot, a serious and momentous oversight, which, to be .sure, 
 did not wholly rest with him; but, as he certainly did not 
 choose to be answerable to her, and perhaps would have found 
 it difficult to justify himself, he did not reply, and simply say- 
 ing: " These are men's affairs — till this evening/' lie went 
 past Barbara and toward the door. 
 
 Maria did not know how she found courage, but before he 
 had laid his hand on the lock she had collected herself suffi- 
 ciently to call out to him: 
 
 " Will you leave me so, Peter? Is that fair? What did you 
 promise me on your return from your journey to see the 
 prince?" 
 
 " I know — I know," he said, impatiently. "But no man 
 can serve two masters, and in these anxious days I entreat you 
 not to trouble me with questions and matters that do not con- 
 cern you. To manage the affairs of the town is my business; 
 you have your sick friend, the children, the poor — be satisfied 
 with these." 
 
 And without waiting for an answer he left the room, while 
 she looked after him, silent and motionless. Barbara gazed 
 at her for a moment anxiously, but without sjjeaking. Then 
 she busied herself with the papers on her brother's writing- 
 table, muttering half to herself, but still turning to her sister- 
 in-law: 
 
 . " These are bad times indeed, and each of us may thank 
 God that he has not such a burden to bear as Peter. He is re- 
 sponsible for everything, and with a hundred-weight tied to each 
 leg, who could dance lightly, I wonder? A better heart beats 
 in no man's breast, and not an honester soul lives. How the 
 market-folk blessed his foresight! It is in a storm that you 
 know the pilot's worth, and when the fray was at the thickest 
 Peter Mas greatest. He knows full well what lies before him, 
 but these last weeks have made him years older. We must 
 overlook a great deal, I think." 
 
 Maria nodded assent, and Barbara quitted the room ; but in 
 a few minutes she returned and said, kindly: 
 
 " You look but poorly, child; just come and lie down 
 awhile. An hour's sleep is better than three meals, and a 
 night like last night is bound to leave its traces at your age. 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 1-43 
 
 The sun shines so brightly that I have drawn the curtains over 
 the windows, and I have made your bed. Now, be reasonable 
 and do as you are bid.'' 
 
 With these words she took Maria's baud and drew her away. 
 Maria did not resist, and although when she was alone she 
 could not keep back her tears, she was soon overmastered by 
 sleep. 
 
 She woke greatly refreshed, and, having changed her dress, 
 she betook herself about noon to Allertssohn's house. Her 
 heart was heavy, and self-pity had once more taken possession 
 of her. Eva, " Peter's daughter," the fencing-master's 
 widow, a quiet, humble creature, whom she hardly knew by 
 sight, refused to be seen; she was weeping alone in her room, 
 but at the house Maria found the musician, who was trying to 
 speak words of comfort to the son of his lost friend, and had 
 promised to take him under his own teaching and make a good 
 musician of him. Dame van der Werff sent up a message 
 begging the widow to see her the following day, and then she 
 and Wilhelm left the house. The street was full of citizens, 
 apprentices, and women, standing together in knots and dis- 
 cussing the events of the night and the imminent danger: and 
 MariaVas several times interrupted as she was telling Wil- 
 helm who the fallen Spaniard was, and that Henrika wished to 
 speak with him — the musician — as soon as possible, for then- 
 progress was checked, now by a company of volunteers or a 
 troop of the town guard on their way to relieve the watch -on 
 the bastions and walls, and now by cannon that was being 
 transported. Was it the anticipation of coming events, or was 
 it the rattle of drums and the trumpet blast, that so agitated 
 her companion as to make him clasp his forehead in his hands, 
 and more than once compel her to beg him to moderate his 
 pace? And there was something unusual and constrained in 
 his voice as he told her, in answer to her questions, that the 
 Spaniards had come by the Amstel, the Drecht, and the 
 Bi-aasemer, by ship, and so into the Rhine, and then landed at 
 Leyderdorj). 
 
 He was interrupted in his explanation by a mounted mes- 
 srnge'r wearing the prince's colors, and followed by a crowd, 
 not merely of children, but of hurrying men, eager to reach 
 the town hall as soon as he; but as soon as the throng was 
 past Maria began again to ply her companion with questions. 
 The warlike turmoil, the firing— audible in the distance — the 
 gaudy uniforms of the soldiers, which were everywhere con- 
 spicuous instead of the sober suits of the citizens — all worked 
 her up to a high pitch of excitement, and all that she heard 
 
144 THE BIROOMASTER'S "WIFE. 
 
 IViini Wilhelm was little calculated to soothe it. The chief 
 strength of the Spaniards was posted on the road to the Hague. 
 The Blockade of the town was already begun, but the enemy 
 could hardly make it complete, for the English auxiliaries who 
 were to defend the new fort at Valkenburg, the village of 
 Alfen, and the sluices of Gonda, were entirely to be relied on. 
 Wilhelm himself had seen the English forces, their command- 
 ers. Colonel Chester and Captain GensfQrth, and was full of 
 the praises of their splendid equipment and handsome appear- 
 ance. 
 
 At her own door Maria was about to take leave of her com- 
 panion, but he begged to be allowed to speak with Mistress 
 Henrika at once, and could hardly be persuaded that he must 
 have patience until the physician had given his consent. 
 
 At dinner, Adrian — who was always ready to chatter when 
 his father was not present at the meal — told them of all he 
 had himself seen, as well as the news and rumors he had been 
 able to pick up at school or in the streets; and his communi- 
 cativeness was not a little encouraged by his mother's eager 
 questions. 
 
 A great unrest had fallen upon the burgomaster's wife. 
 Her enthusiasm in the cause of freedom — a cause to which 
 those nearest and dearest to her had fallen victims — blazed up 
 anew, and wrath against the oppressors of her country seethed 
 hotly in her breast. This tender, maidenly souled woman, in 
 daily life so reserved, so incapable of loud or bitter utterance 
 of feeling, was now capable of mounting the ramparts, and, 
 like Kenau Hasselaar of Haarlem, of facing the foe as stoutly 
 as the men. Her wounded pride and all the emotions which, 
 only an hour since, had weighed upon her spirit, sunk into 
 nothingness as compared with her sympathy for her country's 
 cause. Inspired with new courage for life, she went up to Hen- 
 rika's room, and, after lighting the lamp, as it was by this 
 time growing dark, she sat down to write to her mother; this 
 she had postponed doing since the sick girl's arrival, and the 
 communication with Deli'i might at any moment be cut off. 
 As she read the letter through before closing it, she felt satis- 
 fied with it and with herself, for it breathed brave confidence 
 in the triumph of the good cause, and expressed fully and 
 freely how cheerfully ready she herself was to suffer the worst 
 that might befall. 
 
 Barbara had already gone to bed when Peter at last came in. 
 He was so tired out that he could hardly touch the food that 
 had been kept ready for him. While he was trying to eat he 
 confirmed all that Maria had already heard from the musician, 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 145 
 
 and was gentle and affectionate; but his looks grieved her, for 
 she remembered Barbara's allusion to the heavy burden he had 
 to bear. This evening, for the first time, she saw two deep 
 lines which care had engraved between his eyes and mouth, 
 and filled with tender solicitude, she went up behind him, laid 
 her hands on his cheeks, and kissed his forehead. He started 
 slightly, and grasping her slender hand so tightly that she 
 almost winced, pressed it to his lips and eyes, where he held it 
 for some minutes. At last he rose and led the way to bed, bid 
 her an affectionate good-night, and lay down. By the time 
 she was ready he was sleeping heavily; utter weariness had 
 overpowered him instantly. But neither of them could sleep 
 calmly that night, and as often as she woke she heard him 
 sighing and moaning. She would not stir for fear of scaring 
 away the sleep he so sorely needed, and twice she even held 
 her breath as she heard him muttering to himself. Once he 
 said in a low voice: "It is too much, too much," and then 
 again: " If only I can bear it!" 
 
 When she awoke in the morning he had already quitted the 
 room and was gone to the town council. At noon he returned 
 with the news that the Spaniards had entered the Hague, and 
 had been hailed and Avelcomed there by the miserable rene- 
 gades. The stanch patriots and the Gueux had, happily, had 
 time enough to escape to Delft, for the heroic Nikolas Ruich- 
 haver had succeeded in keeping the enemy in check for some 
 time at Geestburg. The western side was still open, and the 
 Valkenburg, newly fortified and garrisoned by the English, 
 would not be easily stormed. At Alfen, to the east, the other 
 British auxiliaries lay to the rear of the Spaniards. 
 
 The burgomaster told her all this unquestioned; still, not so 
 fully and naturally as he would have done to men. He paused 
 in his speech many times and gazed into his plate. It was 
 evidently an effort to him to speak of such matters as he was 
 used to discuss only with his colleagues, before women, chil- 
 dren, and servants. Maria listened to him attentively, but she 
 modestly restrained her own observations, and only encouraged 
 him to talk by affectionate glances and sympathetic exclama- 
 tions, while Barbara rashly plied him with one question after 
 another. 
 
 They had nearly finished their meal when the Jonker van 
 Warmond entered the room unannounced, and begged the 
 burgomaster to come with him at once, as Colonel Chester 
 was standing at the "White Gate with a detachment of the En- 
 glish troops, and craved to be admitted to the town. At this 
 
1 k; the burgomaster's "WIFE. 
 
 news, refer angrily sei his tankard down on the table, started 
 up and left the room, leaving Van Warmond (o follow. 
 
 Late in the afternoon the house of the Van der Werffs was 
 full of visiters. The gossips came in to discuss the proceed- 
 ings ;ii the White Gate with Dame Barbara; Burgomatser van 
 Swieten's wife had learned from her husband himself thai the 
 English had surrendered the fine new Eort of Valkenburg, and 
 taken to their heels at the mere sight of the Spaniards. The 
 enemy had marched across the dunes to Nbrdwyk, and it would 
 have been quite easy for the British to hold so strong a posi- 
 tion. The English were now demanding to be let into the 
 town itself; but Dame van Hout asserted that the members of 
 the Council, more especially Van der Werff and her husband, 
 were doing their utmost to prevent this. All the women very 
 decidedly expressed their objection to see five hundred more 
 food-consumers quartered in the town, and blamed the prince's 
 commissary, who was said to hold opposite views, and to wish 
 that the gates should be opened to the English contingent. 
 Dame van Swieten, meanwhile, had sat in silence, playing with 
 the cat and listening to the others, but she now said, with an 
 n lTppfpd sniilo * 
 
 " Believe me, it will be all the same whether we admit our 
 foreign allies or not; for before the raspberries are ripe in the 
 garden all idea of resistance will be at an end." 
 ' Maria, who was offering them cakes and spiced wine, at 
 these words set her tray on the table and said: 
 
 "Is that your wish, Dame Magtelt?" 
 
 " It is my wish/' was the very decided answer; " and many 
 sensible people wish the same. Resistance is impossible against 
 such overpowering numbers; the sooner we appeal to the 
 king's clemency, the more surely will it be extended to us." 
 
 The other women listened speechless to the utterances of the 
 audacious Magtelt, but Maria stepped toward her and answered 
 wrathf ully : 
 
 " Whoever says that has only to go over at once to the 
 Spaniards— whoever says that, desires nothing but the dis- 
 grace of the town and of the country — whoever says that — " 
 ' Magtelt interrupted Maria with a forced laugh, exclaiming: 
 " Indeed, Dame Precocity! And are you going to take your 
 seniors to task? And is it usual to attack a visitor in this 
 
 fierce way?" 
 
 "Usual or not," retorted the other, " I will never allow 
 such words to be spoken in my house; and if it were from my 
 own sister's lips I would say: Go, you are no friend of mine!" 
 
 Maria's voice trembled, and with outstretched arm she 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 147 
 
 pointed to the door. Dame Magtelt struggled to be calm, but 
 as she quitted the room she could find no further utterance 
 than : 
 
 " Never mind! never mind! But you will never see me here 
 again. " 
 
 Barbara followed the offended lady, and those who remained 
 sat with their eyes in their laps; but Wilhelm's mother was 
 delighted. 
 
 " Well done, little woman! well done!" she exclaimed. 
 Friendly Dame van Hout put her arm round the young wom- 
 an and kissed her forehead, whispering at the same time : 
 
 There, turn your back on the others and wipe your eyes/ 3 
 
 .. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 A story is told of a condemned criminal who was cast by a 
 barbarous tyrant into a dungeon of ingenious construction. 
 Each day the walls of his cell shrunk in extent, each day they 
 closed in upon the helpless wretch, till he gave up the ghost 
 in despair, and his prison became his grave. In the same way 
 the iron circle of Spanish regiments was every hour drawn 
 more tightly and closely round the walls of Leyden; and if at 
 last they should succeed in breaking the resistance of their vic- 
 tims a fate more hideous and relentless than that which had 
 overtaken that prisoner would overwhelm the town. The 
 blockade which Valdez, King Philip's field-marshal, and his 
 skillful lieutenant, Don Ayala, had effected in little more than 
 two days was now almost complete; the outpost of Valken- 
 burg, which had been so carefully strengthened, was in posses- 
 sion of the enemy; and the danger had altogether swept down 
 upon them far more swiftly and irresistibly than the most de- 
 spondent of the inhabitants had conceived possible. If Leyden 
 should be taken, its buildings would fall a prey to the flames 
 and to rapine; its men would be butchered; its women dis- 
 honored. The fate of other places and the character of the 
 ►Spaniards were only too sure a warranty for that. 
 
 It was impossible to think of the guardian genius of the busy 
 town otherwise than as sitting under a sinister sky with a 
 gloomy frown and anxious eyes, and yet the scene by the White 
 Gate on that very afternoon was as gay and bright as though 
 some spring-tide festival were being closed by a gorgeous 
 spectacle. Wherever standing room was to be found on the 
 walls, as far as to St. Katharine's tower, they were densely 
 thronged with men, women and children. The old ramparts 
 looked like the closely packed amphitheater round an arena, 
 
14.8 the burgomaster's wife. 
 
 and the busy hum of the many-voiced and inquisitive crowd 
 was audible Ear below in the heart of the town. 
 
 It is a merciful dispensation which enables men thus to revel 
 in a brief gleam of sunshine breaking through ominous clouds. 
 The apprentices and workmen, the women and children, 
 perched up there on the walls forgot all about the immediate 
 danger, and feasted their eyes on the splendid accouterments 
 of the English soldiers, who looked up at them from outside, 
 audaciously nodding and smiling at the girls, though some, no 
 doubt with graver mien, looked forward to the issue of the 
 negotiations now going on within the walls. 
 
 Now the White Gate was thrown open. Commissary van 
 Bronkhorst, Van dcr Werff, Van Hout, and other leaders of 
 the little commonwealth escorted the English colonel and stall' 
 over the bridge. The Englishman seemed boiling over with 
 indignation, and more than once laid liis hand upon his sword- 
 hilt while the Leydeners sjooke to him, and they finally took 
 leave of him with jjrofound bows, to which he returned a mere 
 haughty wave of his hand. The citizens returned into the 
 town, the gates swung to, the old lock creaked, the outer bars 
 — strong iron-shod beams — fell into their sockets, the chains 
 on the draw-bridge rattled loudly and ominously, and the as- 
 sembled multitude understood that the English were excluded 
 from the city. 
 
 Loud huzzas, mingled with many an expression of aversion, 
 rang through the air. " Long live Orange!" shouted the boys, 
 among whom were Adrian and the dead fencing-master's son; 
 the women waved their handkerchiefs, and all eyes were fixed 
 on the English. A loud trumpet blast was heard; the 
 mounted officers of the English force rode forward to meet 
 their colonel, and held a short council of war with him, inter- 
 rupted, however, by the violent speech of some few of their 
 number, and soon after a signal was sounded; the soldiers 
 hastily formed in ranks, and man}^ a one as he turned away 
 threatened the town with his fist. The guns and halberts, 
 which had been neatly piled, were snatched up by their owners, 
 and, guided by the sound of drums and trunrpets, the chaos 
 fell into order. Individuals formed lines; lines multiplied into 
 companies; the gaudy standards were raised and flaunted on 
 the evening breeze; and with loud huzzas the whole force 
 marched off along the Iihine to the south-west, where the 
 Spanish outposts were placed; and the Leyden lads joined 
 heartily in the shouts of the English. 
 
 Allertssohn's orphan, Andreas, had begun to shout, too, with 
 a will; but catching sight of a tall officer marching proudly 
 
THE BUEGOMASTEK's WIFE. 149 
 
 ahead of his ensign, his voice failed him, and covering his eyes 
 with his hand he ran home to his mother. His companions 
 did not observe him, for the sinking sun was so dazzlingly mir- 
 rored in the cuirasses and helmets, the trumpets rang out so 
 jollily, the officers' horses pranced so bravery under their riders, 
 the gaudy feathers and flags and the smoke of the burning 
 slow matches borrowed such glorious hues from the ruddy set- 
 ting sun, that all eyes and ears were spell-bound by the scene. 
 
 But suddenly a new excitement attracted the attention of 
 old and .young. Thirty -six English soldiers, and among them 
 some officers, had remained behind the others, and now came 
 irp to the gates. Once more the lock ground and shrieked 
 and the chains rattled. The little party were admitted and 
 made welcome at the entrance to the Nordeinde by Van Bronk- 
 horst and the burgomaster. 
 
 Every one on the wall had expected that a fray between the 
 retreating British and the Spaniards would now be fought un- 
 der their very eyes. But, far from this, before the first ranks 
 had reached the Spanish outposts they saw the slow matches 
 tossed away, the flags lowered, and as night fell and the gos- 
 sips and sight-seers dispersed, they learned that the English 
 had deserted the good cause and gone over to the Spaniards. 
 The six-and-thirty who were admitted into the town were the 
 little handful who had refused to yield to this traitorous council. 
 
 It now became Van Hout's task to find quarters for Captain 
 Cromwell and his stanch followers, British and Dutch. 
 
 Van der Werff went home with Van Bronkhorst, and their 
 words though not loud were vehement. The commissary de- 
 clared that the prince would be very irate at the dismissal of 
 the English, since he laid great stress, and with justice, on 
 Queen Elizabeth's countenancing the cause of their freedom, 
 and that the burgomaster and his supporters had done it but 
 ill service that day. This Van der Werff denied, since the one 
 thing to be thought of was the preservation of Leyden. If it 
 should fall, Delft, Gouda, and Rotterdam were lost, and all 
 further efforts to win freedom for Holland must be vain. 
 ISTow, five hundred valiant trenchermen must help to exhaust 
 their already slender stock of provisions. They had done their 
 utmost to give their refusal a courteous form, and the English 
 had had the choice of encamping under the protection of the 
 cannon mounted on the city walls. 
 
 When the men parted neither had convinced the other, still 
 each was perfectly sure of hi coll igue's fidelity and conscien- 
 tious purpose. 
 
 As they parted, Peter said; 
 
150 Till: burgomaster's wife. 
 
 "The town secretary ought to represent the reasons for our 
 determination to the prince in a clear and convincing docu- 
 
 iimiii and no man can do it bo well— and his excellency can 
 not fail to approve of them; on that you may rely." 
 
 ■• Lei us aope so," replied Van Bronkhorst. lint remem- 
 ber thai we shall soon be sitting inside these walls like im- 
 prisoned felons under lock ami key, ami that by i lie day after 
 to-morrow m> messenger may lie able t<> reach him." 
 
 '• \'an 1 ImiL has the pen of a ready writer." 
 
 " And to-morrow morning a proclamation is to be read, in 
 which we advise all women, old men and children to quit the 
 (own — all, in short, who may consume provisions without 
 helping in (he defense. They can reach Delft without danger, 
 for that road is still open." 
 
 " Very good," said Peter; "and indeed many women and 
 girls have already started, as I learn.'' 
 
 "'That is well!" exclaimed the commissary. "We are 
 piloting an ill-found ship in a stormy sea, and if I had a 
 daughter at home I know well enough what 1 should do. 
 Farewell for the present, master. I wonder what is happening 
 at Alien; I hear no firing now. " 
 
 The darkness has interrupted the fighting." 
 We must hope for the best to-morrow, and if those wdio 
 are outside all surrender together, we in here will neither waver 
 nor yield." 
 
 " We will hold out to the last/' said Peter, resolutely. 
 
 " To the last — and, by God's helj"), to a happy issue." 
 
 " Amen," said Peter, grasping his friend's hand and turn- 
 ing homeward. 
 
 On the steps he met Barbara. She wanted to call Maria, 
 who was up with Henrika, but he would not have it, and took 
 to walking up and down his room; his lips were pinched and set, 
 as if he were suffering some great physical pain. AVhcn he 
 presently heard his wife's voice, in the eating-room, he col- 
 lected himself by a strong effort, went to the door and slowly 
 opened it. 
 
 " Are you at home? And here was I quietly sitting and spin- 
 ning!" she exclaimed, in surprise. 
 
 " Yes, child. Come in here to me — I want to speak to 
 you." 
 
 " For God's sake, Peter, what has happened? You speak 
 so strangely ami look so white!" 
 
 "I am not ill, but matters are serious — fearfully serious^ 
 Maria." 
 
 " It is true, then, the enemy — " 
 
 tt 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 151 
 
 " They have gained enormous advantages yesterday and to- 
 day — But pray do not interrupt me now if you love me, for 
 what I have to say to you is not easily said; it is hard, very 
 hard, to speak. How shall I begin? How can I express my- 
 self so that you may understand exactly what I mean? You 
 see, my child, I brought you into my home out of a snug and 
 hapj>y little nest. What I had to offer you was but little, and, 
 in truth, you expected to find more. I know — I know you are 
 not satisfied. " 
 
 " But it would be so easy for you to satisfy me." 
 " Nay, Maria, you are mistaken. In these terrible times 
 only one thing claims my thoughts, and everything beside or 
 beyond that — everything that diverts my mind — is wrong. 
 And yet at this very time one consideration paralyzes my 
 courage and shakes my resolution; it is my fear of what your 
 fate may be. For who knows what may be in store for us? 
 and so I must speak — I must tear my very heart out and tell 
 you that I wish — Wish! Good God, is there no other word 
 to express what I feel?" 
 
 " Speak, Peter — say it and do not torture me so," cried 
 Maria, gazing terrified into her husband's face; it could be no 
 small matter that could make so resolute and plain-speaking 
 a man hesitate and beat about the bush. " 
 
 The burgomaster controlled himself and began afresh: 
 " You are right; there is no use in postponing what must at 
 last be said. We decided to-day in council that all women and 
 girls should be enjoined to leave the town. The road to Delft 
 is still open, but by the day after to-morrow it may be so no 
 longer, and later — what may happen later who can tell? If no 
 succor arrive and provisions run short, there will be no choice 
 left but to open the gates to the foe, and then, Maria, you can 
 imagine what the end will be. The Bhine and the canals will 
 run purple with the blood that will pour into them, and they 
 will reflect the flames of such a conflagration as was never seen. 
 Woe to the men., and ten times woe to the women, on whom 
 the fury of the conquerors shall fall! And you — you, the wife 
 of the man who has persuaded thousands to revolt against 
 King Philip — the wife of the proscribed rebel who within these 
 walls is the leader of the rebels — " 
 
 At these words Maria had opened her eyes widely, and she 
 interrupted her husband by asking : 
 
 " Are you trying to test how far my courage will hold out?" 
 "No, Maria; I know you will stand firm, and would look 
 even death in the face without a tremor, as your sister did be- 
 fore you. But I — how can I bear the thought of seeing you 
 
152 THE BTJBGOMASTER'e WIFE. 
 
 fall into (lif hands of our accursed butchers? My terrors for 
 you, my intolerable fears, would cripple my firm resolve at 
 some decisive moment, and so — I must say it — " 
 
 Maria had listened thus far in silence; she knew what he re. 
 quired of her. But now stepping close up to him, she inter- 
 rupted him by Baying firmly, nay, imperiously : 
 
 No more, not another word — do you understand? I will 
 not hear another word!" 
 
 "Maria!" 
 
 " Be silent — it is my turn now. What! to escape your own 
 terrors you would turn your wife out of the house; your fears 
 will maim your courage, you say. And will anxiety in my 
 absence confirm it, do you think? And if you love me, you 
 must surely feel — " 
 
 "If I love you, Maria?" 
 
 "Well, well. But you have quite forgotten to consider 
 what my feelings will he in exile since I love you too. I am 
 your wife. We swore to each other at the altar that nothing 
 should part us. Have you forgotten it? Have I not made 
 your children my own? Have I not taught them to be glad 
 to call me mother? Yes or no?" 
 
 " Yes, Maria — a hundred times yes." 
 
 " And can you find the heart to abandon me to the cruel 
 mercy of anxious absence? Will you compel me to break the 
 most sacred oaths? Can you bear to part me from the chil- 
 dren? You think me too mean and poor a creature to suffer 
 famine and death for the sacred cause w T hich is as much mine 
 as it is yours! You like to call me ' child/ but I can be strong 
 too, and, come what may, I shall not shed a tear. You are 
 the husband and must command, I am the wife and will obey. 
 Shall I go? Or shall I stay? I await 3-our answer. " 
 
 Her voice shook as she ended; and he, deeply agitated, ex- 
 claimed : 
 
 " Stay, stay, Maria! Come — come and forgive me." 
 
 He took her hand and said again : 
 
 " Come, come!" 
 
 But she drew away her hand and shrunk back a little, say- 
 ing: 
 
 " Leave me, Peter; I can not just now; I must have a little 
 time to get over it." 
 
 His arms fell by his side and he looked sorrowfully into her 
 eyes; but she turned on her heel and left the room without 
 speaking, lie did not follow her. but returned to his work, 
 endeavoring to give due consideration to a variety of matters 
 relating to his office; but his thoughts constantly reverted to 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 153 
 
 Maria. His love weighed upon his soul as if it were a sin; he 
 thought of himself as he might of an express messenger who 
 should linger by the way to pluck flowers and waste precious 
 time and neglect the business he was charged with in such 
 idle dalliance. His heart was unutterably heavy and sad, and 
 he felt it almost as a relief when, shortly before midnight, the 
 bell of St. Pancras tolled out its boding knell of evil. In a 
 supreme moment he knew that he should think and feel noth- 
 ing but what duty demanded of him, so he took his hat from 
 its peg with revived energy and left the house with a firm step. 
 
 In the street he met the Baron van Duivenvoorde, who re- 
 quested his company at the White Gate, where some English 
 had again made their appearance; a handful, these, of brave 
 allies who had defended Alfen and the Gouda sluices in fierce 
 and bloody fight, until their gunpowder had run short and they 
 had been compelled either to yield or to save themselves by 
 flight. The burgomaster went with the soldier, and the gates 
 were opened to the brave warriors. There were not more than 
 twenty of them, and among them were a Dutch captain, Van 
 der Laen, and a young officer who was a German. Peter gave 
 orders that they should for this night be quartered in the 
 town hall, and with the guards at the gate; to-morrow they 
 should be suitably billeted in the citizens' houses. Janus 
 Dousa invited the Dutch officer to make himself at home with 
 the best his house could offer, and the German went to the 
 Exchange Inn. All were required to wait upon the burgo- 
 master next day at noon, to have their quarters assigned to 
 them and be enrolled in different companies of volunteers. 
 
 The alarm-bell had also broken the women's rest in the house 
 of Van der Werff ; Barbara had gone straight to Maria, and 
 not till they had ascertained the cause of the tolling and had 
 satisfied Henrika did they return each to her own room. Even 
 then Maria could not sleep; her husband's proposition that 
 they should part in the danger that threatened them had 
 raised a turmoil that pervaded her whole being, and had 
 wounded her deeply. She felt deposed, set aside, and if not 
 misunderstood, at any rate but half understood by the man for 
 whose sake alone she rejoiced to recognize in herself some lofty 
 aim and magnanimous enthusiasm. What pleasure has a blind 
 man in the charms of a lovely wife? of what value to her were 
 the rich treasures of feeling that lay buried in her breast if he 
 neither saw them nor cared to find them? " Show him, tell 
 him how lofty your soul can be," her love advised; but wom- 
 anly pride came in and whispered: " Do not force it ujdoii him 
 if he scorns to see it." 
 
154 the burgomaster's wife. 
 
 Thus the hours dragged by, and brought her neither sleep 
 nor peace, nor even the wisli to forget the humiliation she had 
 Buffered. At las! Peter came into the room,~very softly and 
 carefully, bo as uot to wake her. She pretended to be asleep, 
 
 but she could still see him with half-shut eyes. The light fell 
 on his face, and the deep lines she had already noticed were 
 marked as dark furrows of shadow between his eyes and mouth. 
 They gave his face a stamp of stern and gnawing anxiety, and 
 Maria remembered how, the night before, he had muttered in 
 his sleep, " Too hard!" and " If only I can bear it!" Then 
 he came to her bedside and stood there for some time, but she 
 could not see him then, for she kept her eyes tightly closed; 
 still the softened glance of tenderness with which he had come 
 to look down upon her did not escape her. It dwelt in her 
 " mind's eye," and she fancied that she could feel that he 
 gazed at her lovingly and was praying for her as for a child. 
 ' Sleep had long since overpowered her husband when she still 
 lay wide awake in the early dawn. For his love's sake she 
 must need forgive him much, but she could not yet forget the 
 blow he had dealt her pride. " A toy," she thought to her- 
 self, " a gem, a work of art — such things as these a man be- 
 stows in safety when danger threatens; but his ax or his bread, 
 his sword or his talisman, in short, anything that is indis- 
 pensable to his existence, that he does not part with till 
 death." She was not indispensable to him, not a necessity of 
 life. If she had yielded to his wish and left him, then — then 
 indeed — 
 
 But here the current of her thoughts was checked, for the 
 question for the first time occurred to her: Would he really 
 have missed your helping hand — your encouraging words? 
 And she turned over uneasily while her heart beat fast as she 
 confessed to herself that she had done but little to smooth the 
 thorny way for him. And a dim perception rose up to tor- 
 ment her, that it was not by his fault alone that she had failed 
 to find perfect hapjmiess by his side. Nay, did not her former 
 conduct justify him in expecting hinderance rather than help 
 and encouragement from her in the desperate danger that 
 threatened them? 
 
 Full of an earnest desire to judge herself clearly and justly, 
 she sat up propped against the pillows and passed all her 
 former life in review. Her mother had in her youth been a 
 Catholic, and had often told her how free and light she had 
 felt after confiding all that could trouble a maidf '" conscience 
 to a third person pledged to secrecy, and after receiving from 
 the lips of a minister of God the assurance that now, im 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 155 
 
 doubtedly forgiven, she might begin a new life. "It is more 
 difficult for us now," her mother had said before her first com- 
 munion, " for we of the reformed faith stand face to face with 
 God, and must make our peace with Him ourselves before we 
 approach the Table of the Lord. And no doubt that is all- 
 sufficient; for when, without cloak or concealment, we confess 
 everything that weighs upon our conscience, be it in thought 
 or deed, to the Almighty Judge, and honestly repent, we are 
 assured of pardon through the Redeemer's blood. " 
 
 Maria now strove earnestly to attain to this inward confes- 
 sion, and sternly and uncompromisingly examined her past 
 conduct. Yes, she saw much in herself that was unconverted; 
 she had expected much and given little. She acknowledged 
 her guilt, and henceforth amendment was to begin. After 
 this self-conviction her heart was lighter, and when at last she 
 turned her back on the growing daylight in the hope of find- 
 ing sleejD, she thought with pleasant anticipation of the loving 
 greeting she would give her husband in the morning; but she 
 was soon fast asleep, and when she woke her husband had 
 long since left the house. 
 
 As usual, she set to work to put her husband's sitting-room 
 in order before doing anything else, and as she passed the por- 
 trait of the lost Eva she cast a kindly glance up at her. On 
 the writing-table lay a Bible, the only book her husband ever 
 read that had not a direct bearing on his official work. Bar- 
 bara, too, would sometimes seek consolation and edification 
 from the same source, but she more commonly used it as an 
 oracle in cases of doubt — opening it at random, and reading 
 the passage on which her finger fell. This generally suggested 
 its own interpretation, and she commonly, though not invaria- 
 bly, acted irpon it. This very day, in fact, she had disobeyed 
 such an indication; for in answer to a question as to whether 
 she still might venture, in sjoite of the Spanish blockade of the 
 town, to send a sack of creature comforts of various kinds to 
 her son, the Gueux, at sea, she had lighted on these words of 
 the prophet Jeremiah, " Their flocks and their tents shall 
 they take away, and they shall take to themselves their cur- 
 tains, and all their vessels, and their camels;" and, neverthe- 
 less, the package had been given in charge early that morning 
 to a widow, who, in obedience to the order in council, was 
 leaving for Delft with her grown-up daughters. The good 
 things might certainly reach Rotterdam, and what mother does 
 not hope for a miracle in her child's behalf? 
 
 Before putting the Bible into its place, Maria opened it at 
 the nineteenth chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians, 
 
15G the burgomaster's tyife. 
 
 which discourses of charity, and which was a particular favorite 
 with her. There it is written, " Charity suffereth long and is 
 kind: charity envieth not;" and again it "beareth all things, 
 believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things." 
 To be kind and long-sunering, to hope and endure all things, 
 this was the duty that love required 01 her. 
 
 Just as she had closed the book and was about to go up to 
 Henrika, Barbara announced Janus Dousa. Tlie young noble- 
 man had od his breast-plate and a gorget, and looked far more 
 like a soldier than a sage or a poet. He had vainly sought 
 Peter at the town hall, and had come hoping to find him at 
 home. One of the messengers that had been sent to the 
 prince had returned from Dortrecht with a letter winch ap- 
 pointed Dousa to the post vacated by the death of Allertssohn, 
 and he was not only to be the captain of the town guard hut 
 commandant of all the forces. He had accepted the call with 
 cheerful alacrity, and begged Maria to announce it to her hus- 
 band. 
 
 "Pray accept my best wishes," said the young woman; 
 "but what now becomes of your motto, 'Ante Annia 
 Muscat'" 
 
 " I must alter it a little and say, ' Omnia ante Musas.' " 
 
 '' And do you understand that gibberish, child?" said Bar- 
 bara. 
 
 " The Muses must have leave of absence for the present," 
 Maria gayly replied to the young man's remark. Janus was 
 amused at the prompt reply. 
 
 'How gay and pleased you look!" be exclaimed. "In 
 these hard times a cheerful face is a rare sight." 
 
 Maria colored, hardly knowing how to take the young 
 baron's remark, for he was a man who could disguise blame 
 under a jest; but she replied, with frank sincerity: 
 
 " Do not think me frivolous or indifferent, Jonker. I 
 know what grave times these are; but I have just gone 
 through a private self-examination, and I found much to 
 blame in my conscience; but, on the other hand, I have a 
 sincere purpose of replacing it by something better. " 
 
 ' Well and good!" replied Dousa. " I knew that in your 
 schools at Delft you had attached yourself to my friends the 
 Ancients. ' Know thyself ' was the highest teaching of the 
 Greeks, and you very wisely obey it. All silent confession — 
 all aspiration after self-purification — must begin with self- 
 knowledge; and if in the processwe find things which are little 
 flattering to the beloved '1' — if we have the courage to see 
 ourselves as hideous as we see others — " 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 157 
 
 " Then we are horrified, and have already taken the first 
 step toward something better. " 
 
 Nay, good dame; then we are already standing on a 
 higher level. After many hours of deep reflection, Socrates 
 confessed — do you know what?" 
 
 " Yes; that he. knew nothing. Well, I made quicker work 
 of coming to the same conclusion/' 
 
 " And the Christian learns it at school," said Barbara, anx- 
 ious to have her share in the conversation. " All knowledge 
 is but in part." 
 
 " And we are all sinners," added Dousa. "It is easy to 
 say, good mother; and it is easy to believe it when it applies 
 to other folks. ' He is a sinner ' is soon pronounced, but ' I 
 am a sinner ' sticks in the throat; and he who can own it in 
 anguish in the stillness of his chamber will find some white 
 feathers of an angel's jnnions mingling with the blackness of 
 the devil's wings. Forgive me! but these are clays when every- 
 thing a man says or thinks is bitter earnest. Mars is with us, 
 and the gentle Muses are silent. Greet your husband from 
 me, and tell him that Allertssohn's body has been brought in, 
 and that he will be buried to-morrow." 
 
 Van der Does departed, and Maria, after visiting her patient, 
 whom she found well and cheerful, sent Adrian and Elizabeth 
 into the garden by the walls to gather flowers and greenery, 
 that she might weave them into garlands for the bier of the 
 brave captain. Meanwhile, she herself went to visit his widow. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXII. 
 
 The burgomaster's wife returned home shortly before din- 
 ner. Outside her house she found a motley assembly of 
 bearded and mustachioed warriors, who were endeavoring to 
 make themselves understood in English by two or three of the 
 town watch, and who, when these functionaries saluted Dame 
 Maria, followed their example, respectfully raising their hands 
 to their helmets. 
 
 She returned their greeting civilly, and entered the hall, into 
 which the midday sun was pouring through the door, which 
 stood wide open. Peter had assigned quarters to these English 
 soldiers, and, after consulting with the now commandant, Jan 
 van der Does, had appointed them to companies. They were 
 now evidently waiting for some of their comrades, for when 
 the young woman put her foot on the lowest steji and looked 
 up, she saw that at the top of the narrow stairs her way was 
 barred by the tall figure of a soldier. His back was toward 
 
158 TITT BTJBGOHASTEB'S WIFE. 
 
 her, and lie was showing Elizabeth hia dark velvet beretta, 
 decorated with what a herald would call an '* embattled 
 border," above which waved a handsome, light-blue ostrich 
 feather. The child seemed to have made great friends with 
 tlic soldier, for although he was refusing her something, the 
 little girl was laughing happily. Maria stood undecided for a 
 moment, but as the child made a snatch at the gay head-gear 
 and Bel it on her own curls, she thought she ought to cheek 
 her, and called up to her: 
 
 " But, Elizabeth, that is not a plaything!" 
 
 The soldier turned round, stood puzzled for a moment, 
 shaded his eyes with his hand, and then leaped down the steps 
 to meet Dame van der Werff. She had started back in sur- 
 prise; however, he gave her no time for reflection, but held out 
 both his hands, and cried eagerly, with delight sparkling In 
 his eyes: " Maria! Mistress Maria! You here? This is a day 
 of good fortune." 
 
 The young woman had at once recognized the soldier, and 
 ])iit her hand frankly into his, but not altogether without con- 
 fusion. The soldier's clear blue eyes sought to meet hers, but 
 she looked down and said: 
 
 " I am not as I was then — the girl is now the mistress of a 
 family. " 
 
 " The mistress of a family! How dignified that sounds. 
 And yet — and yet you are still Mistress Maria. Not a hair has 
 altered. At the wedding at Delft you held your head down in 
 just the same way — lifted your hands, cast down your eyes, 
 and always had that same lovely blush." 
 
 The tone and accent in which he spoke, with a gay freedom 
 that was almost boyish, had something in them which attracted 
 Maria as much as his confident manner annoyed her. She 
 raised her head with a hasty impulse, looked steadily in the 
 young officer's handsome face, and said, with some dignity: 
 
 " You see only the outside, Baron von Dornburg. Within, 
 three years have wrought great changes. ' ' 
 
 "Baron von Dornburg!" he repeated, shaking his long. 
 curly hair; " in Delft I w r as Jonker Georg. Things must 
 have gone very differently with us, fair dame; for see, my 
 mustache has grown considerably — though not very long; I 
 am broader than I was; and the sun has burned my pink and 
 white boy's face to a good brown; in short, my outer man is 
 greatly changed, but here — within — nothing has altered from 
 what it was three years since. " 
 
 Maria felt the blood mounting again to her cheeks, but she 
 was determined not to blush, and answered hastily: 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 159 
 
 ' To stand still is to go backward, so you have lost three 
 good years, Baron von Dornburg." 
 
 The officer gazed at Maria in astonishment, and then said, 
 more gravely than before : 
 
 ' Your play of wit strikes home more than you think; I had 
 hoped to find you in Delft again, but we ran short of ammu- 
 nition in Alfen and the Spaniards may reach your native town 
 sooner than we shall. A happy fate has thrown you in my 
 way here; but — let me be frank — when I hope and wish a 
 thing, my fancy brings it visibly before my eyes, and I hear it 
 with my ears; and whenever I have thought of our meeting 
 again I have dreamed that you might put both your hands into 
 mine — that you would greet me, not with sharp words, but 
 would say: ' Do you still remember those we have lost? Was 
 I not your companion in some happy by-gone hours, and our 
 Leonhard's closest friend?' And then I fancied that when I 
 should answer: ' Yes, indeed; I have never forgotten them!' 
 the soft fire of your eyes — ah! now I may thank you! I see 
 those bright stars twinkling through the crystal moisture. 
 You are not so much altered as you fancy, Dame Maria; and 
 if I remember the past in all loyalty, can you blame me?" 
 
 " Certainly not," she answered, warmly; " and now that 
 you speak thus to me, I will gladly call you Jonker Georg 
 again, and invite you, as my friend and Leonhard's, into our 
 house. " 
 
 ' That is well, and I am glad of it," he said, eagerly. " I 
 have so much to ask you; and as to myself — Good heavens! I 
 wish I had less to tell. " 
 
 ' Have you seen my husband?" asked Maria. 
 ' I do not know a soul in Leyden," he replied, " excepting 
 the learned and hospitable host of my inn and the Doge of 
 this many-ditched and many-bridged little Venice." He 
 pointed up the stairs, and Maria colored as she answered: 
 " The Burgomaster van der Werff is my husband." 
 The young man was silent for a minute; then he said, hastily: 
 ' He received me most kindly. And that sweet little elf?" 
 
 ' She is his child by a former marriage, but mine too now 
 What makes you call her an elf?" 
 
 " Because she looks as if she had been born among white 
 blossoms in the moonlight, and because the reflection of the 
 morning glow, from which the elfs flee away, tinged her cheeks 
 when 1 caught sight of her." 
 
 ' She has had that name given her already," said Maria. 
 '•' Now, may I take you up to my husband?" 
 
IGO the burgomaster's wife. 
 
 "j> 
 
 Not at present, Dame van der WerfT, for I must look after 
 my men oul there, but to-morrow, if you will allow me." 
 
 •• 1 will (ell my husband all about you. Till to-morrow, 
 then, Jonker Georg." 
 
 Maria found the steaming dishes standing on the dhmer- 
 table, but the family had waited I'm- her. Mushed with her 
 walk iii the midday sun, and excited by her unexpected meet- 
 ing with the young German, she opened her husband's study 
 dour, exclaiming, as she went in: 
 
 " Forgive me! I was detained. It is very late, I am 
 afraid." 
 
 " We were very willing to wait," he said, kindly, and going 
 up to her. Suddenly all her new resolutions rushed into her 
 mind, and for the first time since their marriage she raised her 
 husband's hand to her lips. He smilingly withdrew it, kissed 
 her forehead, and then said: 
 
 " It is good to have you here — very good." 
 
 " Ay, is it not?" she said, with a playful gesture of reproof. 
 " But now we are all at home, and dinner is waiting." 
 
 "Come along, then," she exclaimed, brightly. "Do you 
 know whom I met below on the steps?" 
 
 " Some English soldiers." 
 
 " Yes, but with them the Jonker von Dornburg." 
 
 " He has been to see me. A smart young fellow with a very 
 winning frankness; a German from the Protestant provinces. " 
 
 " And Leonhard's dearest friend. Ho you not remember? 
 I must surely have told you about him. Our visitor at the 
 time of Jacoba's wedding.-" 
 
 "To be sure, Jonker Georg! It was he who before that 
 broke that vicious bay horse for the prince's equerry." 
 
 " That was a bold adventure," said Maria, with a deep 
 breath. 
 
 "The bay goes capitally to this day," answered Peter. 
 " Leonhard thought that with all his talents and accomplish- 
 ments the baron might lift the world off its axis — I remember 
 it very well — and now the poor fellow has to sit still within 
 ilie.se walls and let us feed him. How did he happen to join 
 the English and come out here?" 
 
 " I do not know; he only told me he had had many advent- 
 ures." 
 
 " That I can well believe. He is living at the Exchange 
 Inn; but perhaps we can find a room for him in the side-wing 
 across the court-yard. " 
 
 "No, Peter!" she exclaimed, hastily; "there is not any 
 room there in fit order." 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 161 
 
 " That we will see later. Ask him to dine with us to-mor- 
 row, at any rate, and he may be able to tell us something. 
 There is good stuff in the Jonker; he begged me not to let him 
 remain idle, but always to make him of use in some service. 
 Jan van der Docs will soon find the right place for him, for 
 our new commandant can see what men are made of." 
 
 Barbara now joined in the conversation, and Peter, although 
 it was but a work-day, ordered up a flagon of wine instead of 
 beer as usual, and this day a thing happened which had not 
 occurred for weeks. The master of the house remained at 
 table with his family a full quarter of an hour after the re- 
 mains of the dinner had been removed, and told them of the 
 rapid movements of the Spaniards, of the miserable fate of the 
 renegade English who had been disarmed and sent off in de- 
 tachments, of the resistance at Alfen, to the very death, by the 
 company to which Jonker Georg belonged, and of another 
 severe battle in which Don Gaytan, the best of Valdez's officers 
 and his very right hand, was said to have been killed. Mes- 
 sengers could still come and go by the road to Delft, but by 
 to-morrow, it was said, that too would be occupied by the 
 enemy. Whenever he spoke he addressed himself to Maria, 
 excepting when Barbara directly questioned him, aud when at 
 last he rose from table, he ordered that a good joint should be 
 roasted for the morrow in honor of the guest he himself in- 
 tended to invite. Hardly had he closed the door of his room 
 when tiny Elizabeth flew to Maria, and, clasping her knees with 
 her arms, looked up and asked her: 
 
 " Say, little mother; Jonker Georg is the tall captain with 
 a blue feather who ran down-stairs so fast to meet you?" 
 
 "Yes, child." 
 
 "And he is coming to dinner to-morrow! Adrian, he is 
 coming!" 
 
 She clapped her hands with delight, and ran to Barbara, 
 shouting once more: 
 
 " Aunt Barbel, do you hear? he is coming!" 
 
 " Blue feather and all!" answered her aunt. 
 
 " Yes, and he has curly hair — long curls like Assendelft's 
 little Clara. May I go up to Cousin Henrika?" 
 
 " By and by, perhaps," said Maria. " But now, children, 
 bring me your flowers, and separate them neatly from the green 
 sprays. Trautchen will bring us some hoo})s and thread, and 
 we will make the wreaths." 
 
 Jonker Georg' s words, that it was a lucky day, seemed like- 
 ly to come true; for the young hostess found Henrika in good 
 spirits and free from pain. She had the doctor's leave to walk 
 
162 THE BUBGOMABTEB'S WIFE. 
 
 u]> and down the room, and had been Bitting for a long time 
 al the open window; she had enjoyed a chicken, and when 
 Maria entered the room was resting, in the delicious .sen so of 
 growing strength, in her well-stuffed easy-chair. Her friend 
 congratulated her on her improved looks, and told her how 
 pleased she was with her appearance. 
 
 " I can return the compliment," replied Henrika. " You 
 look as bright as good hick itself, What has happened to 
 please yon?" 
 
 " Me? Oh, my husband was more cheerful than usual, and 
 had a great deal to tell ns at dinner. But 1 only came just to 
 ask after you; good-bye again for the present. The children 
 and I have a melancholy task in hand." 
 
 " The children!'' What can the Elf and Signer Salvatore 
 have to do with anything melancholy?" 
 
 *' Allertssohn, the poor captain, is to be buried to-morrow, 
 and we are going to twine some wreaths for the coffin." 
 
 " To twine wreaths! Oh, I could show you how to do that. 
 Here, Trautchen, take away my plate and call the children. " 
 
 The maid did as she was desired, but Maria anxiously re- 
 marked : 
 
 " You are trying to do too much again, Henrika." 
 
 " I? To-morrow I shall sing. It is all my preserver's potion; 
 it works wonders, I tell you. Have you enough flowers and 
 oak sprays?" 
 
 " I should think so!" 
 
 As Maria spoke the door or>ened, and Elizabeth came softly 
 into the room, treading on tiptoe as she had been enjoined; 
 she came up to Henrika and let her kiss her, and then ex- 
 claimed, eagerly: 
 
 " Cousin Henrika — do you know — Jonker Georg, with his 
 blue feather, is coming again to-morrow to have dinner with 
 us?" 
 
 " Jonker Georg?" asked the girl. 
 
 Maria answered for the child, saying, in some confusion: 
 
 " Baron von Dornburg, an officer who came into the city 
 with the English. I told you of him — a German — an old 
 acquaintance of mine. Go, Liesa, and sort the flowers with 
 Adrian; I will come in a few minutes and help you." 
 
 " But up here — in Cousin Henrika's room!" entreated the 
 child. 
 
 "Yes, my Elf, here; and mother and I will make the 
 loveliest wreath you ever saw in your life." 
 
 The child ran off, and in her delight forgot to shut the door 
 gently. 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 163 
 
 Maria sat looking out of the window; her friend watched 
 her in silence for some minutes, and at last exclaimed: 
 
 " One word, Dame Maria! What is going on down there in 
 the court-yard? Nothing! And what has become of your 
 bright looks all of a sudden? You do not usually have swarms 
 of guests in your house; why, then, did you wait for Elizabeth 
 to tell me of Jonker Georg's arrival — the German, your friend 
 of former days?" 
 
 " Oh, Henrika, drop the question!" 
 
 " No, no — do you know what I think? I believe the whirl- 
 wind of war has blown that young madcap to your doors with 
 whom you spent so many delightful hours at the time of your 
 sister's wedding. Now, am I right or wrong? You need not 
 blush so scarlet." 
 
 "It is he," Maria answered, gravely. "But, if you love 
 me, forget all that I told you about him; or at any rate deny 
 yourself the idle pleasure of alluding to it, for if you do you 
 will hurt me very much. " 
 
 " How should I? you are the wife of another man." 
 
 " Of a man I love and honor, who trusts me entirely, and 
 who himself invited the baron into his house. I liked the 
 young man and admired his talents, and was sorry and anx- 
 ious when he risked his life as if it were a mere leaf flung upon 
 the current of a river." 
 
 " And now that you have seen him again, Maria — " 
 
 " Now I know what my duty is. Only let it be your care 
 that my peace of mind in doing it is not disturbed by your idle 
 words." 
 
 " Certainly it shall not be, Maria. Still, I am curious about 
 this young knight and his singing. Unfortunately, we shall 
 not have the opportunity of being together much longer. I 
 must go home." 
 
 " The doctor will not let you travel yet." 
 
 " It is all the same; I shall go as soon as I feel well enough. 
 My father is forbidden to enter the town, but your husband can 
 do much, and I must speak with him." 
 
 " Will you see him to-morrow?" 
 
 " The sooner the better, for he is your husband, and the very 
 ground here seems to burn under my feet." 
 
 " Oh!" Maria exclaimed. 
 
 "It sounds very dismal, I know," said Henrika. "But 
 need I tell you that it is hard to leave you? However, I am 
 not gone yet. But my sister Anna is now a widow — thank 
 God! I might say, though she is in want and entirely forlorn. 
 
164 THE burgomaster's wife. 
 
 I must see my father, to speak to him about her, and quit this 
 quiel haven to go oul into the storm." 
 
 " My husband shall come to you," said Maria. 
 
 " That is well. Now, children, come in; lay the flowers on 
 that table. You, Elfling, sit down prettily on the stool; and 
 you, Salvatore, hand me the flowers. Bat what is this? I 
 really believe the young rascal has been anointing his curls 
 with scented oil — in my honor! Thanks, my preserver! We 
 do not want the hoops just yet; first we must make little 
 bunches, and then we will tie them to the wood with some 
 greenery. Now, sing' a song as we work, Maria. The first; 
 but I can bear it to-day." 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 Half Leyden had followed the gallant captain to the grave, 
 and among the soldiers who paid this last mark of respect to 
 the brave man was Georg von Dornburg. After the funeral, 
 Wilhelm took the son of his deeply regretted and worthy com- 
 rade home to his own house. 
 
 Van der Werff, though after the solemn ceremony was over 
 he found much waiting to be done, would not sacrifice the din- 
 ner hour, as he expected the German. He sat as usual at the 
 head of his table; the baron sat on one side of it, between him 
 and Maria, and opposite to Barbara and the children. The 
 widow was never tired of gazing at the young man's fresh, 
 bright face, for there was something frank and honest in the 
 Jonker's eyes which reminded her of her son, though her Wil- 
 helm was not to be compared to their guest in point of good 
 looks. 
 
 Many a question had already been asked and answered as 
 they eat, and many a tender reminiscence revived, when Peter, 
 after the table had been cleared and a fresh jug of better wine 
 brought in, filled the Jonker's glass and then lifted his own. 
 
 " We will drink this glass," said he, with a glance of sincere 
 regard and welcome at Georg, " to the triumph of the good 
 cause for which you, of your own free will, have drawn the 
 sword. Thank you for your hearty response — even drinking 
 is an art, and one of which the Germans are masters. " 
 
 " It is to be learned in various places, and not last nor least 
 at the University of Jena. " 
 
 " All honor to the doctors and professors who turn out such 
 proficients in it as my late brother-in-law, and, to judge from 
 the present instance, as you yourself." 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 165 
 
 " Nay, Leonhard was my superior in the ars bilendi— but 
 ah, how long ago!'' 
 
 "Youth is not generally easily satisfied," replied Peter, 
 " but in the matter of years it is apt to call them many when 
 old folks think them but few. To be sure, many events may 
 have been crowded into the last years of your life. I can still 
 spare a little time, and as we are so comfortably seated and 
 all here together for once, you might relate to us now— unless 
 you would rather be silent on the subject — how you came to 
 quit your distant home and find yourself in Holland, and why 
 you left your Greek and Latin to march under the English 
 flag." 
 
 "Yes, indeed," added Maria, with frank ease; "you owe 
 me such an account of yourself. Say grace, children, and be 
 off with you. " 
 
 Adrian looked beseechingly first at his mother and then at 
 his father, and as neither of them forbade their remaining, he 
 drew his chair close up to his little sister's, and with their 
 heads close together and wide-open eyes, they listened to the 
 Jonker as he told his story, at first with some indifference, but 
 with increasing eagerness as he went on. 
 
 " You know I am a native of Thuringia, a mountainous 
 province in the heart of Germany. Our town lies in a pretty 
 valley through which a river tumbles with many windings. 
 "Wooded mountains — not so high as the giants of Switzerland, 
 but not small ones either — inclose the little dale, their bases 
 checkered with fields and meadows and their heights covered 
 with firs which, like the huntsman, are dressed in green the 
 whole year round. In winter, to be sure, the snow covers 
 them in a shroud of sparkling white, but when spring returns 
 the firs put forth young shoots as fresh and tender as the 
 sprouting buds of your oaks and beeches; and then it is in the 
 meadows by the stream and under soft warm breezes that the 
 snow appears; for the fruit trees bloom one after another, and 
 when the wind blows the gleaming pale blossoms fly before it 
 like white flakes, and fall on the gay flowers in the grass and 
 on the clear surface of the stream. There are bare cliffs, too, 
 on many of the higher parts of the mountains, and where they 
 stand up, steep and inaccessible, our forefathers have built 
 fortresses to protect themselves against the incursions of their 
 foes. Our castle stands on a ridge in the midst of the valley 
 of the Saale. There I was born, there I played away my early 
 years, learned to read the Bible and to use my pen. There 
 was plenty of hunting in the forests, and we had good horses 
 in the stable, and I was a wild child and rarely went to school 
 
166 TIIE BUBGOlf ASTER'S WIFE. 
 
 of my own free will; our venerable master Lorenz hud to catch 
 me first when he wanted me. My sisters and Hans, the 
 youngest of us— he was only three years younger than I was — 
 were submissive enough; I had an older brother, too, and yet, 
 as I may say, I had not; for hardly had hie 1 nurd begun to 
 show when our sovereign duke appointed him squire "to the 
 Hitter von Brand, and he was sent to Spain to buy Andalusian 
 horses. Johann Friedrich's father, of happy memory, had 
 learned their value in Madrid after the battle of Mnhlberg. 
 Ludwig was a fine young fellow when he went, and even then 
 he could break in the wildest horse. It was a bitter grief to 
 our parents to think of him as dead, but years went by, and as 
 neither he nor his master ever was seen again, we had to give 
 them up for lost. Only my mother never would believe it, 
 and was always expecting him to come home. My father 
 called me the future baron and his heir. When I was old 
 enough to have lost my boy's voice, and could construe Cicero 
 after a fashion, I was sent to the high school at Jena to study 
 law, with a view to becoming a member of the Imperial Coun- 
 cil, in accordance with the wishes of my uncle the chancellor. 
 Oh, Jena! beloved Jena! There are certain delicious days in 
 May and June when only the lightest clouds float in the sky, 
 and every leaf is so green, every flower so fresh and bright, 
 that one might think — and perhaps they fancy it themselves — 
 that they could never fade and fall; well, in the life of a man 
 — at any rate of a German — the happy time when he is a stu- 
 dent answers to those delightful days in spring. You can be- 
 lieve it, I dare say, for Leonhard must have told you much 
 about Jena. He knew how to combine work with pleasure; 
 I, on the contrary, learned little on the wooden forms, for, 
 truth to tell, I rarely sat on them, aiid the dust of books had 
 no chance of choking my lungs; but I read Ariosto again and 
 again. I was a diligent student of music, and in some of my 
 wildest fits of excitement I wrote many songs, to my own great 
 satisfaction. A man learns to use his sword, too, in Jena, and 
 I should have liked to cross swords once with your famous 
 feneer Allertssohn, of whom I have heard you speak. Leon- 
 hard was older than I, and he had attained the dignity of Mas- 
 ter of Laws before I had got far into the Pandects. But we 
 were always one in heart and soul, and so it happened that I 
 came to Holland with him to his wedding. Ah! that was ;i 
 time! Our doctors of theology at Jena have squabbled heartily 
 as to where on earth (lie garden of Paradise may have been. 
 But I always thought them a parcel of fools, for, said I, there 
 is but one Eden, and that is in Holland; and the sweetest 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 167 
 
 roses the dew ever falls on in the early morning sunshine blos- 
 som in Delft." 
 
 As he spoke, Georg shook his long curls, and then suddenly 
 paused in some confusion, but as no one interrupted him, and 
 he caught sight of Barbara's eager face and the children's 
 flush of excitement, he went on again, less fervidly: 
 
 " So I went home again, and had to learn for the first time 
 that the sunniest days in our life often end in a storm. I 
 found my father ill, and a very few days after my return he 
 closed his eyes forever. I had never before seen any one die; 
 and the first, the very first, was my father." 
 
 Von Dornburg paused, deeply moved, and passed his hand 
 across his eyes. 
 
 "Your father!" said Barbara, breaking the silence in a 
 voice of genuine sympathy; " if one may judge of a tree by its 
 fruit, he must have been a splendid man. " 
 
 The young man looked up again at these words, and his eyes 
 sparkled as he said: 
 
 " Take all that is noble and combine it to form the tall and 
 handsome figure of a man, and you will have the image of my 
 father; and if I could only describe my mother — " 
 
 " She is still alive?" asked Peter. 
 
 "Please God!" cried the Jonker. "But for the last two 
 months I have heard nothing of my family; it is very hard. 
 Flowers grow by every road-side, and I like my work as a 
 soldier, but it is often a great trouble to me to get so little 
 news from home. Oh, if one were but a bird, or a sunbeam, 
 or a wandering star, if it were only for an instant, for the 
 winking of an eye, I could then see how things are with those 
 at home, and lift up my soul in thankfulness, or if — But I will 
 not think of that. At this very moment the trees are blos- 
 soming and the flowers sj)ringing in a thousand meadows in 
 the valley of the Saale, exactly as they are doing here, and as 
 they did two years since when I left home for the second time. 
 After my father's death I was his heir, but neither hunting, 
 nor riding to court, nor singing, nor the clink of the glass 
 could please me. I went about as if half asleep, and I felt as 
 if I had no right to be happy without my father. Then one 
 day — just two years ago — a messenger brought a letter from 
 Weimar, which had arrived with dispatches from Italy to his 
 most serene highness our duke, and this contained news no less 
 important than that our lost brother Ludwig was still alive, 
 but sick in an hospital at Bergamo. A good sister had written 
 for him, and we now learned that he had been taken prisoner 
 by pirates on the voyage from Valencia to Livorno, and car- 
 
1(18 tttt: bttegomastee's wtfe. 
 
 jried of! to Tunis. All the sufferings he had Uiere endured, 
 ami all ihf dangers he had gone through, before he at last suc- 
 ceeded in escaping, you may perhaps care to hear some day. 
 
 He had got to Italy on hoard a (ienoese galley; he had then 
 dragged himself on foot as far as Bergamo, hut he could get no 
 further, and was now lying ill — dying, perhaps — among 
 strangers, though kind-hearted ones. 1 set out without delay, 
 and did not spare my horse on the way to Bergamo; and 
 though there was much that was strange and beautiful to be 
 seen by the way, I took little pleasure in it all, for the thought- 
 of my dying brother always and everywhere saddened my mood 
 and spoiled my enjoj'mcnt. Every running stream seemed to 
 urge me to haste, and the mountain wall rose before me like 
 an" ominous barrier in my way. Once on the other side of the 
 St. Grothard my spirits rose, and as I rode down from Bellin- 
 zova to the Lake of Lugano, and the mirror-like waters lay 
 spread out in front of the town, smiling up at me like a bright 
 blue eye, I forgot my anxiety for awhile and waved my hat 
 and sung a snatch of a song. At Bergamo I found my brother, 
 alive indeed, but utterly broken in mind and body — wasted, 
 and without any care or wish to bear the burden of life any 
 longer. He had, however, been in good hands, and in the 
 course of a few weeks we were able to travel home — this time 
 we took the beautiful road through the Tyrol. Ludwig's 
 strength increased daily, but the wings of his spirit had been 
 broken and crippled by suffering. For years he had been 
 digging in the fierce sunshine, or carrying burdens with fetters 
 on his ankles. His master, the Ritter Brand, had soon suc- 
 cumbed to his dreadful fate, and Ludwig had forgotten alike 
 how to laugh or to cry in Tunis; and who shall say which we 
 can best dispense with? Even when he saw his mother again 
 he could not shed a tear, and yet his whole body trembled with 
 emotion, and his heart, too, you may be sure. He is still mas- 
 ter at our castle; but he is an old man in the prime of his 
 years, and though he gets on very well in his daily life, he 
 can not bear the sight of a strange face. I had quite a battle 
 with him, for by right and law the castle and land belong to 
 him as the eldest, and he wanted to give up his rights and put 
 me in his place. When he gained over my mother to his side, 
 and my uncle and brothers and sisters endeavored to persuade 
 me to do as he wished, I remained firm. I will have nothing 
 to do with what does not concern me, and our next brother 
 Wolfgang is grown up, and can quite well take my place when 
 necessary. At last, when I had had too much of entreaties 
 and arguments, I saddled my horse and again rode off into 
 
THE BUKGOMASTEK'S WIFE. 169 
 
 the world. My mother could hardly bear to let me go; but I 
 had tasted the joys of a wandering life, and rode off as if I 
 were starting to be married. Indeed, to be perfectly honest, 
 I gave up the castle and estate as an onerous burden. As free 
 once more as the winds and clouds, I took the same road as I 
 had ridden along with Leonhard, for a war after my own heart 
 was being fought in your country, and my future lot was to 
 depend on my sword. At Cologne I placed myself under the 
 standard of Louis of Nassau, and I fought with him at Mook 
 Heath — fought till not a man could stand his ground any 
 longer. My horse was killed, my buff coat torn, my knapsack 
 lost, and hardly anything was left to me but a stout heart and 
 a hope for better days. These soon dawned, for Captain Gens- 
 fort invited me to join the English troops. I was his ensign, 
 and at Alfen I stood by his side till our last charge of powder 
 was spent. How things went after that you know. " 
 
 " And Captain van der Laen," Peter put in, " has told us 
 that he owes his life to you. You fought like a lion." 
 
 " Well, it was warm work, no doubt, by the fort, and yet 
 neither I nor my horse had a hair singed; and this time I 
 brought away my knapsack and all my baggage. Fortune, 
 like a mother, loves her graceless children best, and so she has 
 brought me to you and yours, burgomaster. " 
 
 " I can only beg you," said Peter, " to account yourself as 
 one of my family; we have two pleasant rooms across the 
 court-yard, and they shall be set in order for you if you like to 
 make use of them." 
 
 "With jDleasure," said the baron; and Peter, offering him 
 his hand, went on : 
 
 " My duties call me away, but you can tell the women what 
 you will require and when you think you will take possession. 
 The sooner the better, so far as we are concerned. Is it not 
 so, Maria?" 
 
 " Indeed you are very welcome, Jonker Georg. Now I must 
 go and see the invalid we are nursing here; Barbara will attend 
 to your wishes. " 
 
 And Maria, taking her husband's hand, quitted the room 
 with him. The widow, left alone with their visitor, did her 
 best to find out all she could wish for, and then followed her 
 sister-in-law, whom she found with Henrika. 
 
 " Ah!" she exclaimed, clasping her hands, " that is a man 
 indeed! Mistress Henrika, I am an old woman, and I can tell 
 you I never yet saw such another. Brave, tender, and then so 
 handsome! When fortune bestows her gifts she does it in 
 
170 THE BTJBGOMASTEB'S WTEE. 
 
 bushels, and 'he that hath, to him shall it he given.' True 
 words — golden words, these!" 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 Peter had promised Ilenrika that he would petition the 
 Council to provide her with an escort. It was a hard wrench 
 to leave the burgomaster's house. Maria's sweet nature had 
 done her good; she felt as if her respect for her sex generally 
 had risen in her society. Yesterday, too, Maria had sung to 
 her, and her voice was like everything else about her. Every 
 note was juire and clear as a bell, and it was a grief to her that 
 for the present she was forbidden to join her voice to her 
 friend's in part-singing. She was sorry, too, to leave the chil- 
 dren. Still, go she must, if only for Anna's sake; for her 
 father was not to be moved by anything she could say by let- 
 ter. If she had written her ajapeal for forgiveness for his out- 
 cast child, he would scarcely have read it to the end. By 
 speech at some favorable moment she might be more likely to 
 touch him; she must speak to him, though she shuddered at 
 the thought of her life at home in his castle, particularly as 
 she could but confess to herself that she was anything rather 
 than indisjDensable to her father. To secure a fortune, he had 
 delivered her over to a hell on earth existence with her aunt ; 
 while she was lying sick unto death he had gone off to a tour- 
 ney; and a letter she had received from him only yesterday 
 contained nothing but the information that he had been out- 
 lawed from the town, and an injunction to jn'oceed forthwith 
 to the house of Baron de Heuter, at the Hague. Inclosed in 
 it there was a safe conduct from Valdez, the S]ianish com- 
 mander-in-chief, requiring all King Philip's officers and men 
 at arms to care for her safety. The burgomaster had jn'oposcd 
 that she should be carried in a litter, escorted by a flag of truce 
 as far as the Spanish lines, and the doctor raised no further 
 objections to her setting out. She hoped to start this very 
 day. 
 
 She was sitting dreaming in the bow-window that looked out 
 upon the court-yard. Some of the windows of the side build- 
 ings to the east were set wide open; Trautchen must have got 
 up early, for she came out of the rooms which had been made 
 ready for the baron, followed by a young girl carrying a 
 quantity of pails and cleaning apparatus. Then Game Janke 
 with a large easy-chair on his head, and Elizabeth called out 
 to him: 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 171 
 
 " That is Aunt Barbel's grandfather's chair. What will she 
 sleep in now of an afternoon?" 
 
 Henrika heard the question, and her thoughts turned to 
 the worthy old woman, Babetta," who had such warm and 
 tender feelings, and then to Maria, and to the man who was 
 presently to take up his quarters in those rooms. Did not the 
 old tie which had bound the burgomaster's wife to the hand- 
 some Jonker still hold them together by a few slender threads? 
 She shuddered to think of it. Poor Master Peter! poor Maria! 
 Was she doing right to leave the young woman, who had held 
 out a hand at her utmost need, at this very juncture? And 
 yet how much less near to her was this stranger than her be- 
 loved sister! Every day she allowed herself to spend in this 
 peaceful retreat had seemed to her to be stolen from Anna, 
 ever since she had found a letter addressed to her husband — 
 the only one she had read of those contained in D' Avila's port- 
 folio — in which she told him that she was ill, and that she and 
 her child were in absolute want. 
 
 Here help was needed indeed, and none but she could 
 give it. 
 
 She packed her things with Maria's and Barbara's assistance; 
 by midday all was ready for the start, and she would not be 
 hindered from dining to-day for the first time with the family 
 in the eating-room. Peter was not coming home to dinner, 
 so she sat in his place, and tried to conceal the grief and pain 
 that filled her soul under forced and noisy gayety. As even- 
 ing came on, Maria and the children went up to her room with 
 her, and she made them bring up a harp that she might sing. 
 At first her deep voice failed her on many notes, but just as 
 snow when it is slipping down a mountain slope to the plain 
 below falls slowly at first, pausing as it glides, but quickly 
 grows in mass and force, and gains solidity and roundness, so 
 her low tones gradually swelled in fullness and enchanting 
 power, and when at length she leaned the harp against the 
 wall and sunk exhausted on her chair, Maria seized her hand, 
 and said, with deep emotion : 
 
 " Henrika, stay with us." 
 
 'I must not," answered the girl. "Besides, you are 
 enough for each other. Shall I take you with me, children?" 
 
 Adrian looked down, puzzled; but Elizabeth flung herself 
 into Henrika's lap, exclaiming: 
 
 " Where are you going to? Oh, stay — do stay with us!" 
 
 There was a tap at the door, and Peter came into the room. 
 It was easy to see at once that he brought no good tidings. 
 The council had refused his application. Van Bronkhorst had 
 
172 Till: burgomaster's wife. 
 
 been almost unanimously supported when lie proposed that 
 Mistress Benrika van Boogstraten, as being related to one of 
 the most distinguished adherents of the Spaniards among the 
 
 nobles of Holland, should be detained within the walls of the 
 town. It' they should he driven to surrender, though her pres- 
 ence would scarcely protect them against fire and sword, it 
 might secure some consideration for the leaders. 
 
 Peter's objection had met with no attention, and he now 
 honestly told Henrika of the battle he had fought for her, and 
 begged her to take patience and to be content to remain in his 
 house as a most welcome guest. 
 
 She interrupted him with many vehement expressions of in- 
 dignation and wrath, but presently grew calmer. 
 
 " You!" she cried, " you — -yes, I will gladly stay with you 
 — but you know what it is that this base act of violence pre- 
 vents my doing. Besides, to be a prisoner — to live on for 
 weeks, months, without mass and without confession! Still, 
 first and last, good heavens! what wdl become of my unhappy 
 sister?" 
 
 Maria looked pathetically at her husband, and Peter said: 
 
 " If you are pining for the consolations of your religion, I 
 will send Father Damianus to you, and you can hear mass at 
 the Carmelite Sisters', hard by, as often as you please. We 
 are not fighting against your faith, only for the free exercise 
 of every creed, and the whole town is open to you. My wife 
 can better help you to bear your trouble about your sister than 
 I can; but allow me to assure you, once for all, that M'henever 
 and however I may be able to help you, I will do it, and not 
 with words alone." 
 
 As he spoke he held out his hand to Henrika, who gave him 
 hers, saying as she did so: 
 
 " I owe you many thanks, and know it well, but let me beg 
 you to leave me now, and give me till to-morrow to tliink it 
 over." 
 
 " Is there no hope of changing the decision of the Council?" 
 Maria asked. 
 
 " No, certainly; none." 
 
 " Well, then/' she said, firmly, " you must remain with us. 
 The thought of your sister does not trouble you alone, but 
 disturbs me too. Let us first consider what can be done for 
 her. How about the roads to Delft?" 
 
 " They are cut off, and by to-morrow or the day after not 
 a soul will be able to pass." 
 
 " Then collect your ideas, Henrika, and let us try whatever 
 is still left open to us. " 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 1?3 
 
 Then began questions and discussion, and Henrika gazed in 
 astonishment at the gentle young wife, for she, with unfailing 
 decisiveness and acumen, took the lead in their consultation. 
 It seemed finally that the surest way would be to send a trust- 
 worthy messenger that very day with some money to Anna 
 d'Avila, to bring her, if jwssible, back to Holland. The burgo- 
 master expressed himself willing to advance out of his own 
 pocket a portion of the legacy left to Henrika's sister by their 
 aunt, which, though sequestrated for the present, was certain 
 to be paid ultimately, and he took his guest's gratitude very 
 unaffectedly. 
 
 But whom could they send? Henrika thought of Wilhelm 
 the organist, since he was already a friend of her sister's. 
 
 " But he is under arms," said the burgomaster. " I know 
 him well. In this time of peril he will certainly not quit the 
 town; not for his own mother!" 
 
 "But I know the right person," said Maria; " we will send 
 Jonker Georg. " 
 
 " That is well thought of!" cried Peter. "We shall find 
 him at his inn at this hour. I must go to see Van Hout, and 
 he lives close to the Exchange Inn. I will send the German 
 to you; my time is limited, and fair ladies can do more to per- 
 suade a young fellow than an elderly man ever can. Now, 
 farewell, mistress, and once more I say, we are happy in hav- 
 ing you for our guest." 
 
 When the burgomaster had left the room, Henrika spoke: 
 
 " How quickly everything has come about, and how differ- 
 ently from what I had expected! I love you — I am grateful 
 to you; but to be a prisoner, a prisoner! The walls will seem 
 to close in upon me and the ceiling to crush me. Ought I to 
 be glad, ought I to despair? I know not. You, Maria, have 
 great influence over the baron; tell him about Anna; appeal 
 to his feelings, and if he would indeed set out it would be the 
 best thing for us both." 
 
 " For you and your sister, you mean," said Maria, with an 
 evasive gesture of her hand. " Here is the lamp; when Jon- 
 ker Georg comes you shall see me again." 
 
 Maria withdrew to her own room, and threw herself on a 
 couch, but she soon started up again, and began walking rest- 
 lessly up and down. Presently she flung up her arms, her 
 hands clasped in supplication, and cried aloud: 
 
 "Oh, he must go — he must go! Merciful God! loving, 
 pitiful Father in heaven, send him every happiness, every 
 blessing, but leave mo my peace of mind. Take him away; 
 lead him far, far away from hence." 
 
174 the burgomaster's wife. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 The Exchange Inn stood in the Breede Street, and was a 
 fine tall house with a large court-yard, in which a number of 
 vehicles were standing. To the left of the entrance was a 
 large room, not elosed by any door, but entered through a high 
 anhway. Here sat the drivers and other folks of that class 
 over their beer or wine, making no objection when mine host's 
 cocks and hens perched on the benches, or even flew uj) on to 
 the table; here, by the wide hearth-place, vegetables were 
 washed, and boiling and roasting were performed; here, not 
 uncommonly, the stout hostess was compelled to call in the 
 assistance of her buxom maids and the tapster when her cus- 
 tomers fell to fisticuffs, or a toper had had too much good 
 liquor. Here, too, tobacco was smoked — a newly imported 
 fashion — only, it is true, by a few sailors who had served on 
 board Spanish vessels; but Dame van A ken could not bear the 
 pungent vapor, and kept the window open, where blossoming 
 pinks and tall balsams stood, and cages hung with bright- 
 colored goldfinches. 
 
 On the opposite side of the entrance there were two closed 
 rooms. Over the door of the first, neatly carved in wood, was 
 this line from Horace: 
 
 " Ille terrarum mihi praeter omnes 
 Angulus ridet." 
 
 To this room, which was long and narrow, only a few guests 
 of distinction were admitted; it was paneled with wood 
 throughout, and from the center of the richly carved ceiling a 
 quaint picture in gaudy coloring looked down, representing the 
 host of the inn. The worthy man, with a clean-shaved face, 
 tightly closed lips, and a nose so straight that it might have 
 served as a guide for its owner's etching-needle, sat on a 
 throne, dressed as a Roman warrior, while Vulcan and 
 Bacchus, Minerva and Pomona offered him gifts. Klaus 
 van Aken, or, as he much preferred to be called, Nikola us 
 Aquanus, was indeed a remarkable man, who had been well 
 endowed by more than one of the Olymjnan powers, and who, 
 besides attending to his business, devoted himself zealously to 
 learning, and to more than one branch of art. He was a 
 clever silversmith, a die-cutter and engraver of considerable 
 skill, and at the same time a great connoisseur in coins, and a 
 diligent student and collector of antiquities. His little inn 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 175 
 
 parlor was at the same time a museum; on the shelves which 
 ran all round it were rare and curious objects of every kind in 
 great numbers, and admirably arranged: old tankards and 
 jugs; coins, large and small; gems in carefully locked glass 
 cases; antique lamps in clay and bronze; fragments of stone in 
 ancient Eoman inscriptions; Italian and Greek terra-cottas; 
 carved marbles that he had picked up among ruins in Italy — 
 such as the head of a faun, an arm, a foot, and other frag- 
 ments of antique statuary; a fine enameled reliquary of Byzan- 
 tine workmanship; and another, also enamel, from Limoges. 
 Part of a Roman breastplate and a piece of mosaic from some 
 Roman bath were here, too, and among these antiquities stood 
 some slender Venetian glasses, pine-cones, and ostrich eggs. 
 Such another inn room was hardly to be found in all Holland, 
 and the. wine, too, was exceptionally good, which was served 
 to the guests by a neat waitress, and poured out of quaintly 
 formed flagons into finely wrought glasses. In this room, too, 
 Master Aquanus was wont to entertain his guests himself; in 
 that on the opposite side his wife ruled the roast. 
 
 This evening the " Angulus," as the pretty parlor was very 
 commonly called, was as yet scantily occupied, for the sun had 
 only just set; the candles, however, were already lighted. 
 They were fixed on tall, three-branched iron candlesticks of 
 which every portion — from the slender shaft to the curved, 
 twisted and intertwining tendrils — had been wrought by the 
 careful hand of Aquanus himself. Two or three elderly men 
 were sitting at a table over their wine; at another were Captain 
 van der Lane, a valiant Hollander in the English service, who 
 had come into the town with the other defenders of Alfen, 
 Wilhelm the musician, Jonker Georg, and the host of the inn, 
 on whom he had been billeted. 
 
 ' It is a real pleasure to meet with a man like you, Jonker," 
 said Aquanus; " you have traveled with your eyes open, and 
 what you tell me of Brescia excites my curiosity. I should 
 like to have that inscription. " 
 
 'I will bring it to you/' replied the baron; "for if the 
 Spaniards do not send me off into the other world, I shall cer- 
 tainly cross the Alps again some day. Have you not found 
 Roman antiquities here and there in your own country?" 
 
 1 Yes, baron; by the Roomburg Canal, on the site perhaps 
 of the ancient Praetorium, and at Katwyk. Near Voorburg 
 the Forum Hadriani probably stood ; and from thence came 
 the breastplate which I showed you. " 
 
 ; ' An old, battered thing, half eaten away by verdigris," 
 exclaimed Georg, " and yet what thoughts rise up in our 
 
17G THE BUBGOMASTEB'S "WIFE. 
 
 minds al the .-- I^rl 1 1 of it! Some Roman armorer may have 
 wroughi it for the wandering Caesar himself! "When I see that 
 old armor all Rome and its legions Beem to rise before my eyes. 
 Happy is he who, like you. Master Wilhelm, has seen the 
 Tiber, and there gazed backward from the present to the 
 heroic age!" 
 
 " J should gladly visit Italy again in your company/' re- 
 plied Wilhelm. 
 
 " And I in yours." 
 
 " First, we must secure our freedom," said the musician. 
 " If we succeed in that, every man will be his own master once 
 more, and then — why should I conceal it? — nothing will tie 
 me to Leyden. " 
 
 " Your organ? And your father?" asked Aquanus. 
 
 " My brothers are content to sit here in the warm family 
 nest," replied "Wilhelm. " But I feel something stirring and 
 driving in me — " 
 
 " Ay, we find rushing streams and stagnant waters on the 
 face of the earth," interrupted Georg, " and in heaven there 
 are fixed stars, while the planets can not cease from wander- 
 ing. So it is among men; some, like plants, love their native 
 spot better than any other, while we, again, are birds of pass- 
 age. "Well, I like our sort best. To be sure, you need not go 
 so far as Italy to hear fine singing. I heard just now a voice 
 > — such a voice — " 
 
 " "Where? you make me quite curious." 
 
 " In the court-yard of Van der Werff's house." 
 
 " It is the burgomaster's wife." 
 
 " Oh, no; her voice is quite different. " 
 
 The captain had risen as he spoke, and was looking at his 
 host's treasures and curiosities, and he now paused in front of 
 a circular panel on which the head of an ox was sketched in 
 charcoal with extraordinary freedom, boldness, and truth. 
 
 " You have a fine head of cattle here," he said to Aquanus. 
 
 " Ay, and no less a man drew it than Frans Floris," replied 
 Aquanus. "He came here once from Brussels, and called 
 upon our Master Artjen. But the old man was out, so Floris 
 took a piece of charcoal and drew this sketch with it. As soon 
 as Artjen came in and saw the ox's head he exclaimed: ' That 
 Mas Frans Floris or the devil!' This story — but here comes 
 his worship the burgomaster. You are welcome, Master Peter! 
 This is a rare honor." 
 
 All the company rose and greeted Van der WerfE with re- 
 spect, while Georg sjjrung up and offered him his seat. Peter 
 accepted it, and sat down for a few minutes and drank a glass 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 177 
 
 of wine, and then signed to the baron to come with him into 
 the street. There he briefly begged him to go to his — Van der 
 Werff 's — house, for a communication of importance was await- 
 ing him there; and then the burgomaster went on to Van 
 Hout's house, which was close at hand. 
 
 Georg went as he was requested, in a mood of grave excite- 
 ment. The " communication " could hardly come from any 
 one but Maria, and what could she require of him at so late an 
 hour? Had his worthy friend begun to regret having offered 
 him rooms in his own house? He was to have taken possession 
 of his new quarters early next morning — perhaps he was to be 
 apprised of their change of purpose before it should be too 
 late. Maria's manner when they had met was different from 
 what it had formerly been — there was no doubt of that; but it 
 was very natural that it should be. He had dreamed, it is 
 true, of a very different meeting — ay, far different ! He had 
 come to Holland to uphold the good cause of the Prince of 
 Orange; still he would have turned his horse's head toward 
 Italy the beloved, instead of northward, if he had not hoped to 
 find in Holland the woman he had never forgotten, and whom 
 he had never ceased to long to see once more. Now she was 
 the wife of another — of a man who had shown him kindness 
 and had treated him with simple confidence. To tear the love 
 out of his heart was impossible; but he owed it to her husband 
 and to his own honor that he should stand firm, should 
 smother every idea of making her his own and be satisfied 
 merely to see her — this at least he must try to carry out. 
 
 All this he had told himself, and more than once; and yet 
 he was conscious of treading a plank over an abyss, and that 
 with an unsteady foot, when she met him at the dining-room 
 door, and he felt how cold and tremulous her hand was as she 
 took his. 
 
 She led the way, and he followed her in silence to Henrika's 
 room. Henrika greeted him Avith a friendly nod; both the 
 women hesitated to speak the first words. He, however, after 
 glancing round him, perceived that the room they were in 
 faced the court-yard, and said eagerly: 
 
 " I was down below there just before sunset looking at my 
 new quarters, and I heard here — up here in this room — a voice 
 singing — and ah, what singing! At first I did not know what 
 was coming, for the notes were husky, dull, and broken; but 
 then it made its way like a lava stream through ashes. I coind 
 almost wish many griefs to a singer who can lament in such 
 tones. ' ' 
 
 " You must make acquaintance witk the singer/' said Maria 3 
 
178 THE ]JU ROOM ASTER'S WIFE. 
 
 turning to the girl: "Mistress Henrika van Iloogstratcn, our 
 dear ami esteemed guest." 
 
 " And it was you who were singing?" asked Georg. 
 
 " Arc you surprised?" said Henrika. " It is true my voice 
 has kept an its strength better than my body, which is weak- 
 ened by a long illness. I can feel how hollow my eyes must 
 look, and how pale my cheeks must be. Singing no doubt 
 eases pain, but I have long enough had to do without that con- 
 solation. For weeks not a note have I sung, and now my heart 
 is so heavy that I could cry rather than sing. ' What does 
 that matter to me?' no doubt you are thinking; but Maria 
 encourages me to ask of you a really unheard-of knightly 
 service." 
 
 " Speak, speak," cried Georg, eagerly. "If Dame Maria 
 claims it, and if I can do anything to serve you, gracious mis- 
 tress, here I stand — command me as you will. " 
 
 Henrika did not shun his open gaze. 
 
 " You must hear first," she said, " what it is that I require. 
 And to begin with, you must submit to listen to a short his- 
 tory. But I am still very weak, and have tried my strength 
 to-day rather severely; Maria must speak for me." 
 
 The young woman fulfilled the task quietly and clearly, 
 ending with these words: 
 
 " I myself thought of the messenger we need — it must be 
 you, Jonker Georg." 
 
 Henrika had not once interrupted her friend's narrative, but 
 she now added, with eager warmth: 
 
 " I never saw you till to-day, but I trust you entirely. Only 
 a few hours since black was my color, but if you will indeed 
 be my true knight I will choose green, bright green, for I shall 
 begin to be hopeful again. Will you venture on this ride for 
 me?" Georg had sat till now with his eyes cast down to the 
 ground; he now raised his head, saying: 
 
 " If I can get leave I place myself at your disposal; but my 
 lady's color is blue, and I can wear no other." Henrika "s lips 
 twitched a little, but the young man went on: " Captain van 
 der Laen is my superior officer. I will go and speak with him 
 at once. " 
 
 " And if he says no?" Maria asked. Henrika intercepted 
 the answer. 
 
 "In that case," she said, proudly, "I Mould beg you to 
 send Wilhelm the musician to see ma" 
 
 Georg bowed and went off to bis inn. 
 
 As soon as the two women were alone, Henrika asked: 
 
 " Do you know who is the lady of the Baron von Dornburg?" 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 179 
 
 "How. should I?" said Maria. " But now give yourself a 
 little rest, mistress. As soon as the Jonker returns I will 
 bring him up to you." 
 
 She left the room and sat down with Barbara to her spin- 
 ning-wheel; it was long before Georg returned. At last, about 
 midnight, he came back; not alone, however, but with two 
 companions. It was not within the captain's power to give 
 him leave for so many weeks — for the journey to Lugano 
 would take a long time; but the baron had at once gone to 
 consult with Wilhelm, and he had hit upon the right man for 
 the task. The musician had soon come to an understanding 
 with him, and had brought him with him without delay. It 
 was Belotti, the old major-domo. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 By noon on the following day there was a great stir on the 
 spacious shooting-ground — still known as the Doelen — lying 
 not far from the White Gate, between the Bapenburg and the 
 town wall; for the town council had decreed that every citizen 
 and inhabitant, without exception, whether poor or rich, hum- 
 ble or noble, should there take a solemn oath to remain faith- 
 ful and devoted to the prince and the good cause. 
 
 Under a clump of noble lime-trees, and dressed in holiday 
 attire, stood the prince's representative, Van Bronkhorst, the 
 burgomaster Van der Werff, and two recorders, before whom 
 the vast concourse of men, old, middle-aged, and young alike 
 were each to swear in turn. The solemn ceremony had not 
 yet begun, when Janus Dousa, in full uniform as commandant, 
 with his breastplate over his buff leather gorget and his helmet 
 on his head, came up, arm in arm with Van Hout, to Van der 
 AVerff and Van Bronkhorst. 
 
 ' Here we see the same thing again!" he said. " Of the 
 working-men and common townsfolk not a man is absent, but 
 the gentlefolk in velvet and fur are poorly presented. " 
 
 "They ought to be here by this time!" cried the town 
 clerk, angrily. 
 
 ' What good will forced oaths do us?" asked the burgo- 
 master. " Those who care for freedom must fight for free- 
 dom. However, this day will show us in whom we may put 
 our trust." 
 
 ' JSot a man of the town guard is missing," said Van 
 Bronkhorst. " That is good to see. But what is going on in 
 the lime-tree?" 
 
180 the burgomaster's wife. 
 
 The friends looked up and spied Adrian, who was rocking 
 in a bongh of the tree, a hidden spectator of the scene. 
 
 " That boy must need he everywhere," cried Peter. " Come 
 down, you imp of mischief! You are the very person I want." 
 
 The lad hung by his hands to a branch, and let himself drop 
 on to his feet, and then came to stand before his Father with a 
 woe-hegone expression of rueful penitence, which he could put 
 on on occasion, Peter, however, did not scold him, but de- 
 sired him to run home to his mother, and tell her that it was 
 no longer possible to send Belotti in safety through the Span- 
 ish lines, and also that Father Damianus had promised him to 
 visit Mistress Henrika in the course of the day. 
 
 " Make haste, hoy," he added; " and yon, town watchmen, 
 keeji every one away from these trees, for the spot where men 
 shall swear such an oatli is holy ground. The ministers, I see, 
 have seated themselves out there by the butts; they may come 
 forward. Will you have the goodness to invite them to do so, 
 Master van Hout? Dominie Vertroot will give us a discourse, 
 and then I myself should like to exhort the citizens to do their 
 duty in a few words." 
 
 Van Hout went as he was requested, hut before he had 
 reached the preachers where they sat, Van Warmond met him 
 and informed him that an envoy, a smart young fellow, had 
 arrived and requested to parley. He was now at the White 
 Gate, and had a letter to deliver. 
 
 " From the general in command?" 
 
 "I do not know; but the youngster is a Dutchman, and I 
 fancy that I know him. " 
 
 " Bring him in; but he must be content to wait till the citi- 
 zens have sworn. Then he may go and tell Valdez what he has 
 seen and heard. It will be a good thing for the Castilians to 
 know from the first what we really mean." 
 
 The Jonker went, and by the time he returned with Nicolas 
 van Wibisma— for he was the envoy — Dominie Vertroot's ear- 
 nest exhortation was ended and Van der Werff was addressing 
 the people. The sacred fire of enthusiasm glowed in his eye, 
 and the words he spoke in his deep and powerful tones to the 
 assembled confederates, though few and simple, found their 
 way straight to the hearts of his hearers. Nicolas, too, listened 
 to his speech with a beating heart, and he felt as if the stal- 
 wart, earnest man standing under the lime-tree spoke to him 
 and him alone when, at the close, he raised his voice and ex- 
 claimed, with a look of inspiration: 
 
 " And now, come what may! A brave man, one of us, has 
 said this very day, ' We will not yield so long as we have an 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 181 
 
 arm left on our body wherewith to put food in our mouths and 
 to wield the sword. ' If we are all of this mind, twenty Span- 
 ish armies will meet death outside these walls. The freedom 
 of Holland hangs on Leyden; if we waver and fail rather than 
 face the dearth which to-day only threatens us, but which, ere 
 long, will clutch us and torture us, our children will say of 
 us: ' The men of Leyden were blind cowards. It is through 
 their fault that the name of Hollander is esteemed no more 
 highly than that of any useful slave.' But if we hold out 
 faithfully, and resist these dark invaders to the last man and 
 to our last morsel of food, they will remember us with tears, 
 and rejoice as they say : ' To them we owe it that our brave, 
 industrious, and happy nation can proudly hold its own with 
 other nations, and need no longer suiter the foul cuckoo to 
 dwell in its nest.' Whoever prizes honor, whoever is not a de- 
 generate son and a traitor to his father's house, whoever loves 
 to be free rather than a slave — before he raises his hand in at- 
 testation before God, let him shout with me: ' Long live our 
 guardian genius, the Prince of Orange, and Holland's free- 
 dom!' " 
 
 " Long live Orange!" shouted and roared hundreds of loud, 
 manly voices, five times, ten times, after the burgomaster. 
 The high constable fired oil the mortars, which had been 
 placed for the purpose near the butts; drums rolled, and trum- 
 pet-calls sounded through the air; bells rung out over the 
 heads of the excited throng from every tower in the town, and 
 the clamor never ceased till the prince's commissary gave the 
 signal for the ceremony of taking the oath to begin. 
 
 The various guilds and the armed defenders of the town 
 came up in companies to the lime-trees. There they held up 
 their hands to swear, vehemently, no doubt, but with quiet 
 dignity — nay, with devout uplifting of their minds; and those 
 who clasped hands did it with fervent purpose. Hour after 
 hour went by before all had registered their oath; and many a 
 group who had gone up to swear together under the lime-tree 
 pledged themselves a second time to each other out in the ex- 
 ercising ground, with a silent and mutual pressure. 
 
 Nicolas van Wibisma sat in silence by one of the shooting 
 stands, just in front of the scene of the ceremony; his letter 
 lay on his knees, and his heart swelled with sad and bitter feel- 
 ing. Gladly could he have wept aloud, and have torn his 
 father's missive across. Gladly would he have flown to join 
 the noble Lord of Mxmtfoori and the venerable Herr van der 
 Does, as he saw them stand hand in hand to swear, and have 
 
182 Till' BURGOMASTER'S wife. 
 
 taken the oath himself. Ee Longed to cry out to the brave 
 burgomaster as be stood under the Lime-trees; 
 
 " I — ] ;mi no degenerate smi, nor a traitor to my fathers 
 house! I will never be a slave; I will not, be a Spaniard. I 
 am a I mtchman as much as you. " 
 
 But In' did not, stir, he did not, speak; ho sat motionless till 
 all was over, and Jonk< r van Wannond led him up to the lime- 
 tree. There the (own clerk and the two Barons \an der Noes 
 had joined the officials, who received the oath. Nicolas bowed 
 Low, and Bilently handed his father's letter to the burgomaster; 
 Van <\rv Werff opened it, and. after reading it, handed it, to 
 the others; then he said, turning to Nicolas: 
 
 " Wait here, Jonker. Your father urges us to surrender 
 the town to the Spaniards, and promises us the king's clem- 
 ency. You can have no doubt as to what the answer will be 
 after what you have witnessed here." 
 
 " There is hut one possible answer/' said Van flout, in the 
 middle of reading; " tear the thing up, and say nothing." 
 
 " Eide home, and God be with you!" added Janus Dousa. 
 " But stay — I will give you something for the Spanish com- 
 mander-in-chief." 
 
 " Then you vouchsafe no reply to my father's letter?" 
 asked Nicolas. 
 
 " None, Jonker. We wish to have no dealings with Baron 
 Matenesse," replied Van Bronkhorst. " So far as you your- 
 self are concerned, you can go home or remain here — that is 
 as you please. " 
 
 " Go to see your cousin, Jonka," said Dousa, kindly. ' It 
 will be an hour yet before I have found paper and pens and 
 wax to seal my letter; and Mistress van Hoogstraten will be 
 glad to hear of her father from you." 
 
 "Yes; if you like to go, my house is open to you, young 
 gentleman," added the burgomaster. 
 
 Nicolas hesitated for an instant, and then said, hastily: 
 
 " Yes; take me to her." 
 
 Baron van Warmond undertook to escort him, and when 
 they had reached the street known as the Nordeinde, Nicolas 
 asked him: 
 
 "You are the Jonker van Duivenvoorde, Baron of War- 
 mond?" 
 
 "lam." 
 
 " And you were with the Gueux when they took Brill from 
 the Spaniards?" 
 
 " I had that good fortune." 
 
(( 
 
 THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 383 
 
 " And yet yours is a fine old title; and there were other 
 nobles, too, among the Gueux?" 
 
 " To be sure; and do you suppose it is any discredit to us to 
 have' a heart that beats true for the home of our fathers? My 
 ancestors, like yours, were noble before a Spaniard ever trod 
 our soil/' 
 
 But King Philip rules us as our legitimate sovereign. " 
 Alas! and it is for that very reason we submit to his re- 
 gent, the prince, who governs in his name. The perjured 
 ruffian needs a protector. Ask any questions you please; I 
 am ready to answer." 
 
 Nicolas, however, did not respond to this challenge, and 
 walked by his escort in silence till they reached the Achter- 
 gracht. There he stopped short, eagerly seized the soldier's 
 arm, and said, in broken sentences and in a low voice: 
 
 " My heart is bursting — I must speak to some one! I want 
 to be a Hollander; I hate the Spaniards. I learned to know 
 them at Leyderdorp and at the Hague. They paid no heed to 
 me, as I was only a lad; and they did not know I understood 
 their language. So my eyes were opened! Whenever they 
 speak of us it is with scorn and contempt. I know everything 
 that Alva and Yargas did here; and I heard from the very lijjs 
 of the Spaniards themselves that they long to annihilate and 
 exterminate us. If I only could do as I wish — and if it were 
 not for my father I know what I would do! But my brain is 
 in a whirl, and the burgomaster's speech put me almost beside 
 myself. Tell him, Jonker, I beg you tell him, that I hate the 
 Spaniards, and that it is my pride to be a Dutchman." 
 
 They had meanwhile gone on their way again, and as they 
 got nearer and nearer to the burgomaster's house, the young 
 officer, who had listened with pleased surprise to the lad's pro- 
 fession, said to him: 
 
 " You are carved out of sound timber, Jonker, and are 
 walking in the right way. Only bear Master Peter's words in 
 mind, and reflect on what history teaches you. Whose names 
 are those that are written on the most splendid pages of the 
 great book of the fate of nations — the tyrants and those who 
 have obeyed them slavishly with eye-service, or the men who 
 have lived and died for freedom? Hold up your head ! This 
 struggle will probably last longer than either of us, and yoy 
 have ample time before you for fighting on the right side. A 
 noble should serve his liege, but he ought never to become the 
 slave of a monarch — least of all of a stranger and the enemy 
 of his nation. Here we are! In an hour I will come and 
 escort you back; give me your hand, and for the future I 
 
184 Tin: BUROOttASVER's "wife. 
 
 should like to call you by your Christian name, my brave 
 Nico!" 
 
 " Do si)!"' cried the lad; "and you will not scud anyone to 
 escort me, will you? I want to talk further with you." 
 
 The Jonker was received at the house of the Van der AWrfl's 
 by Barbara. Henri ka could not see him at that instant, for 
 Father Damianus was with her, so he had to wait in the din- 
 ing-room till the priest came down. Nicolas knew him very 
 well, and in former years had confessed to him from time to 
 time. After he had greeted the worthy man, and answered 
 his inquiry as to why he was there, he went on at once, and 
 hurriedly: 
 
 " Father, forgive me — but there is something on my mind! 
 You are a saintly man, and you must know. Is it a sin for a 
 Hollander to rebel against the Spaniards — is it wrong when a 
 Dutchman resolves to be and to remain what God himself has 
 made him? I can not believe it." 
 
 " Neither can I believe it," replied Damianus, in his sinrple 
 fashion. " He who clings to our Holy Church — he w T ho loves 
 his neighbor, and tries to do right, may in all confidence be a 
 true-hearted Dutchman, and pray and fight for his country's 
 freedom." 
 
 "Oh!" gasped Nicolas, with a flashing glance. 
 
 " For, after all," Damianus went on more eagerly, " we 
 were good Catholics here, and lived piously and in the fear of 
 God before a Spaniard ever came into the land. And why 
 should it not be so again? The Almighty divided the nations 
 because He thought good that each nation should live its own 
 life, and grow in knowledge to its own salvation and to His 
 glory, and not that the stronger should have the right to torture 
 and oppress the weaker. Now, just suppose that my lord your 
 father should go out w T alking, and a Spanish grandee should 
 leap upon his shoulders and Hog him and spur him as though 
 he were his riding-horse. It would be an evil day for the 
 Spaniard! Then in the place of Baron Matenesse say Holland, 
 ami in that of the grandee say powerful Spain, and you will 
 see what I think of the matter. Nothing is left to us but to 
 throw off the oppressor. The Holy Church will not suffer by 
 that: God has established it, and it will stand firm whether 
 King Philip rules here or another. Now you know my views; 
 am I right or am I wrong in thinking you are tired of the 
 name of (Hipper, my brave Jonker?" 
 
 " You are right, Father Damianus. a thousand times right. 
 It is not a sin to hope to see Holland free." 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 185 
 
 " And who told you that it was?" 
 " Canon Bermont and our chaplain." 
 
 " Then oh this, which is but a temporal question, our opin- 
 ions differ. Render unto God the things that are God's, and 
 
 hold your own in the place in which God has set you. When 
 your beard is grown, if you feel bound to fight for the liberties 
 of Holland, do so in all confidence. For such a sin I, for one, 
 will readily grant you absolution." 
 
 Henrika was rejoiced to see the bright and happy-looking 
 lad once more. Nicolas had to tell her all his news of ber 
 father and his, and why he had come to Leyden. When she 
 heard that he was about to return within an hour, a good idea 
 struck her with reference to Belotti's errand, which she was 
 just then chiefly concerned with. She told Nicolas of the pro- 
 ject she had in view, and begged him to conduct the steward 
 through the Spanish lines and as far as the Hague; and Wlb- 
 isma was not merely willing to do it, but promised her that 
 when the old man returned he would find means to let her 
 know. 
 
 At the end of an hour the boy bade her farewell, and as he 
 was once more crossing the Achtergracht with Van Warmond, 
 he gayly asked him: 
 
 And how can I get to join the Gueux?" 
 
 " You?" said the baron, astonished. 
 
 " Yes," said the lad, eagerly. "I shall soon be eighteen 
 years old, and then — wait, only wait — you shall hear of me 
 again. " 
 
 " Well said, Nicolas, and well done!" said his companion. 
 " Let us be Dutch nobles and noble Dutchmen forever!" 
 
 Three hours later the young Baron Matenesse van Wibisma 
 rode into the Hague, followed by Belotti, who had known him 
 and loved him from a child. He brought nothing for his 
 father but a neatly folded and carefully sealed letter which 
 Janus Dousa had given him, charging him with a meaning 
 smile to deliver it from the municipality of Leyden to the 
 " Maestre del Campo Valdez," and which contained nothing 
 but a line from Dionysius Cato, elaborately written in an ele- 
 gant hand on a large sheet of paper: 
 
 " Fistula dulce canit volucrcm dum decipit ancops." 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 The first week of June had passed and half the second; the 
 beautiful sunny days were now over, and many customers 
 
186 tttt: burgomaster's wtfe. 
 
 crowded into the Angulusof the Exchange Inn as evening fell; 
 it was mug in there, though the sea-wind might howl and the 
 tain fall iii torrents, splashing on the pavement outside. The 
 Spanish besiegers encircled the town like a wall of iron. Each 
 man IVlt himself ;i fellow-prisoner with the rest, and clung 
 more closely to those whose situations and sentiments were I lie 
 same as his own. Business and traffic were at a standstill; 
 inactivity and anxiety weighed like lead on the spirits of the. 
 inhabitants, and those who wanted to hurry on the weary and 
 lagging hours to a swifter flight, or refresh their oppressed 
 souls, resorted to the taverns, where they could give expression 
 to their own hopes and fears, and hear what others felt and 
 thought of their common sutTerings. 
 
 Every table in the Angulus was occupied, and any one who 
 wanted to be heard by a neighbor sitting even at a short dis- 
 tance had to raise his voice considerably, for a separate discus- 
 sion was being carried on at each table; while here, there, and 
 everywhere, the bustling serving - wench was shouted for; 
 glasses were clinking, and the metal lids clinked on the tops 
 of the stout earthenware jugs. 
 
 But loudest of all was a discussion that was being carried on 
 at a round table at the further end of the long narrow room. 
 Six officers were seated at it, and among them Georg von 
 Dornburg. Captain van der Laen, his superior officer, whose 
 career had been really that of a hero, was entertaining the 
 company by relating in a loud, deep voice many extraordinary 
 and amusing stories of his adventures by land and sea, Colonel 
 Mulder constantly interrupting him and capping each hardly 
 credible anecdote with a similar but absolutely iinpossible story, 
 and grinning as he did so. Van Duivenvoorcle interfered as 
 peacemaker when the captain — who was conscious of adhering 
 pretty closely to facts — indignantly repelled the older officer's 
 jesting insinuations. Lieutenant Cromwell, a grave man with 
 a broad round head and straight lank hair, who had come to 
 Holland to fight for the reformed faith, took little part in the 
 talk, speaking only a few words of very broken Dutch. Georg 
 leaned back in his chair with his legs stretched out, and sat 
 silent, staring into the air. 
 
 Master Aquanus, the host, went from one table to another, 
 and when presently he came to that at which the officers were 
 sitting, he stood still in front of the young Thuringian and 
 said : 
 
 "Well, Jonker, and whither are your thought- flown? You 
 are nnt yourself at all these last i'ew days. What possesses 
 
 you?" 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 187 
 
 Georg started upright, stretched himself like a man waking 
 from sleep, and answered, good-humoredly : 
 
 " In idleness one soon falls into dreamy ways." 
 
 " His cage is too small for him/' interrupted Van der Laen. 
 " If this goes on much longer we shall all have the staggers, 
 like sheep. " 
 
 " Or get as stiff as that brass idol on the mantel-shelf," 
 added the colonel. 
 
 " We heard the same complaints in the first siege," said the 
 host, " but the Herr van Noyelles drank down his discontent, 
 and emptied many a cask of my best liquor. " 
 
 " Tell these gentlemen how he paid you," cried Mulder. 
 
 " There hangs the note, framed and glazed," laughed 
 Aq nanus. "Instead of sending me money he wrote those 
 lines : 
 
 " ' My worthy friend, I owe you many a kindly turn, 
 But if from me you hope for hard coin in return, 
 Tis vain — so ere I leave this town that I have stayed in, 
 Instead of filthy wage 
 Take this fair written page — 
 Paper is legal tender now in Leyden.' " 
 
 " Capital!" cried the Jonker van Warmond. " And it was 
 you who cut the die for the paper coinage!" 
 
 " To be sure! The Herr von Noyelles's inaction cost me a 
 good deal. Now you have twice tried to make a move." 
 
 "Silence, silence! For Heaven's sake, say nothing of our 
 first sortie," cried the captain. " It was a well-planned at- 
 tempt, which failed disgracefully because its leader must lay 
 himself down to sleep like a mole! Was there ever such a case 
 heard of before?" 
 
 " 13ut the second came to a better issue," said Aquanus. 
 " Three hundred hams, a hundred tuns of beer, butter, and 
 ammunition, and the basest of spies into the bargain — a booty 
 worth taking, at any rate." 
 
 " And yet that was a failure too!" cried Van der Laen. 
 " Why, we might have cut away and towed in all the provision 
 ships on the Leyden Lake! And the Kaak — to think of that 
 island fort being in the hands of the enemy!" 
 
 " But our men fought bravely," said the captain. 
 
 " Ay, there are some of the devil's own among them," said 
 Van der Laen, laughing. " One of them ran a Spaniard 
 through, and m the midst of the fighting stopped to draw off 
 his red hose and pull them on his own legs." 
 
 " I know the man," said the host; " his name is Van Keu- 
 len, there he is, sitting down near the beer-tap, and telling aK 
 
1S8 TTTE BTTRGOMASTEIt'S WTFE. 
 
 Bortfl of queer random stories to the other folks. Tie is a per- 
 fect <laiv-ili\ il mid with a fare like a satyr. But we have our 
 joys too! Think of the defeat of Chevraux and the Gueux's 
 victory at VTissingen, on the Scheldt." 
 
 ' To our brave Admiral Boisot and the valiant army of the 
 Gueux!" cried Van der Laen, clinking his glass against the 
 colonel's. Mulder in his turn raised his glass to the young 
 Karon, who, however, was once more lost in reverie and took 
 no notice of the action. 
 
 k " Well, Jonker von Dornburg," exclaimed the colonel, 
 irritably, " it takes you a long time to respond to a pledge." 
 Georg started. 
 
 'A pledge!" he said, hastily; "to be sure. I drink to 
 you, colonel." And as he spoke he took irp his goblet, 
 emptied it at a draught, rang it with his nail, and set it down 
 again on the table. 
 
 ' Well done!" cried the old officer, and Aquanus remarked: 
 
 " He learned that at college; study makes a man thirsty;" 
 and he cast a kindly and anxious glance at the young German. 
 Then be looked toward the door, which opened to admit the 
 musician. The host went forward, to meet him. 
 
 " I do not like the looks of the German Jonker," he whis- 
 pered to the new-comer. " Our singing lark has become a 
 moping owl. What is the matter with him?" 
 
 "He is home-sick; he gets no news from his people; and 
 then he thinks of this trap into which war has flung him in his 
 pursuit of fame and glory. He will soon be himself again. " 
 
 ' I hope so," replied Van Aken; " so green a sapling must 
 surely soon spring straight again when it has been bent to the 
 ground; you must help him up; he is a splendid young fel- 
 low." 
 
 At this moment a customer called the host, and the musi- 
 cian sat down with the officers and began a conversation with 
 Georg in a low tone that was completely drowned in the loud 
 confusion of other voices and sounds. 
 
 Wilhelm had just come from the Van der Wcrffs, where he 
 had learned that the next day but one, the 14th of June, was 
 the burgomaster's birthday. Adrian had told Henrika, who 
 had repeated it to him. The worthy man was to be surprised 
 in the early morning with some music and singing. 
 
 ' Capital!" Georg interrupted bis friend; " she will do the 
 tbing to perfection. 
 
 " Not she alone; the burgomaster's wife will help too. At 
 first she steadily refused; but when 1 proposed a pretty madri- 
 g'il, she gave in, and is to take the first treble." 
 
THE BURGOMASTER S WIFE. 189 
 
 " The first treble?" said the Jonker, eagerly. " I am at 
 your service too, of course; let us go — have you the copy at 
 your house?" 
 
 No, Jonker, I have just left it with the ladies — but early 
 
 . . 
 
 )} 
 
 to-morrow morning. 
 
 "To-morrow morning you practice! That tankard is for 
 me, pretty Dortchen! To your good health, Colonel Mulder! 
 Captain Duivenvoorde, here is to your new company of horse, 
 and may I ride many a jolly mile by your side!" 
 
 Thp German's eyes had regained their bright and lively 
 sjaarkle, and Van der Laen went on to say: 
 
 " The ' Sea Gueux ' will utterly destroy the Spanish fleet," 
 he shouted, vehemently. " To the sea, gentlemen, to the sea. 
 Cast your cause upon the waters! that is the best way. Shout 
 down the storm, grapple, and board; fight man to man and 
 hand to hand on the enemy's deck! Strike and conquer or go 
 to the bottom with the foe!" 
 
 "Here is to your good luck, Jonker!" cried the colonel. 
 " Storm and thunder! but we can find a place for a man like 
 you. " 
 
 " Now you are yourself again," said Wilhelm, turning to 
 his friend. " Here is to the health of those you love at 
 home." 
 
 "Two glasses for once," exclaimed Georg. "To those I 
 love at home, to all love's joys and sorrows, to the women we 
 love, each and all! War is a pastime, and love is life! Let 
 our wounds bleed, and our hearts break into a thousand pieces. 
 Laurels grow on the battle-field, and love weaves wreaths of 
 roses — roses with thorns, to be sure, but still lovely roses! 
 Away with you— no one shall drink out of you again!" And 
 with a heightened color, he flung the glass into a corner of the 
 room, where it was dashed into fragments. His companions 
 shouted in chorus, but Lieutenant Cromwell rose and quietly 
 quitted the room, while Aquanus even shook his shrewd head 
 doubtfully. 
 
 It seemed as if fire had been poured into the young man's 
 spirit and his soul had taken wings. His long curls were 
 tossed in disorder round his handsome head, as he leaned back 
 in his chair, with his gorget unlaced, and flung keen jests and 
 gay fancies into the midst of his comrades' sober talk. Wil- 
 helm heard him, now with astonishment, and then again with 
 anxiety. Day had long since dawned when the musician and 
 his friend left the tavern; Colonel Mulder looked after him, 
 and exclaimed to the others, who still remained: 
 
 " That madcap wag has the very devil in him." 
 
190 THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 
 
 The madrigal in three parts was practiced Unit morning at 
 the burgomaster's bouse, while Van der WerfE himself was sit- 
 ting as president <>f the Council. Georg stood between Maria 
 and Benrika. So long as their conductor had to correct their 
 
 mistakes and suggest repetitions, the little chorus were in the 
 best of spirits, and more than once Barbara, in the next room, 
 heard them laughing merrily; but when all had mastered their 
 parts, and the madrigal was to be performed without a mis- 
 take, the two women grew graver. Marie never took her ey< s 
 off the page, and her voice had rarely sounded so emotional 
 and so sweetly pure. Georg accommodated his singing to 
 hers, and whenever he looked up from the notes his eyes were 
 fixed on her face. Henri ka tried to meet his glance, but 
 always in vain; she wanted to divert his attention from the 
 young wife, and at the same time it nettled her that she should 
 remain unnoticed. She longed and strove to outdo Maria, 
 and all the passionate vehemence of her nature rang in her 
 voice. Her fire and spirit carried away the others; Maria's 
 treble sounded brightly and joyously above the full tones of 
 the German, while Henrika's deep notes flowed on, strong and 
 jubilant. The musician, delighted and flattered, beat time, 
 and as he listened to the rich sweetness of Henrika's voice, 
 cradled his fancy in tender memories of her sister. 
 
 When the serenade was finished, he cried out : ' ' Once more !" 
 The contest between the two young women began again, and 
 this time the Jonker's eye met Maria's; she hastily laid down 
 her music, and stejjping out of the little group, she said: 
 
 ' We know the madrigal. To-morrow morning early, Mas- 
 ter Wilhelm; my time is precious." 
 
 ' What a pity!" said the organist; " it was going so splen- 
 didly, and there were only a few bars more to the end." 
 
 But Maria was already leaving the room, and only replied: 
 " Till to-morrow morning. " 
 
 The musician thanked Hcnrika in warm terms for her s])len- 
 did singing, and Georg politely did the same. When they were 
 gone, Qenrika began to pace the room with a hasty step, strik- 
 ing one little fist with passionate defiance against her other 
 hand. 
 
 On the morning of the master's birthday the singers were 
 up betimes; but Peter himself had risen with the sun, for he 
 had to look through certain proposals and measures which had 
 to be made ready before the sitting of the Council. 
 
 Nothing was further from his mind than the recollection of 
 his birthday, and when the little chorus struck up in the din- 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 191 
 
 ing-room, he thumped at the door with his hand and called 
 
 out: 
 
 " We are very busy here; you must find some other place 
 for your sing-song. " The performance of the madrigal ceased, 
 and Barbara observed: 
 
 "A man who is picking apples docs not trouble himself 
 about a fishing-net. It does not strike him that it is his birth- 
 day. Let the children go in to him first." 
 
 Maria led Adrian and Elizabeth into her husband's study. 
 Each held a nosegay, and Maria had dressed the little girl so 
 prettily that in her white frock she really looked like a sweet 
 Elflmg. Now, at last, Peter understood what the singing had 
 meant. He embraced the trio who had come to congratulate 
 him, and when the madrigal was started once more he placed 
 himself opposite to listen. The performance, to be sure, was 
 not half so good as the rehearsal had been, for Maria sung too 
 softly, and not so clearly as before, and in spite of Wilhelm's 
 energetic time-beating they could not recover the fire and 
 swing that had carried it through the day before. 
 
 "Capital! excellent!'' said Peter, when the voices ceased; 
 " well conceived and well executed — a delightful birthday sur- 
 prise." He then shook each performer by the hand, with a 
 few kind words, and as he took the Jonker's, he said: "You 
 have dropped upon us from heaven in these cruel times. A 
 home even among strangers is better than none, and that you 
 have here, and welcome." 
 
 Georg was looking at the floor, but at the burgomaster's 
 last words he raised his eyes to the speaker's. How honestly, 
 how kindly and frankly they gazed into his own! He was 
 overcome by a strange emotion, and without reflecting, with- 
 out knowing what he did, he laid his hand on Peter's arm 
 and hid his face on his shoulder. 
 
 Van der Werff passed his hand over the young man's waving 
 hair, and said, with a kind smile: 
 
 " Like Leonhard, wife; just what our Leonhard was! We 
 will all meet again at a dinner to-day; you too, Van Hout, 
 not forgetting your good wife." 
 
 At dinner-time Maria distributed the party so that she need 
 not look at Georg; he was placed next to Dame van Hout and 
 opposite to Henrika and the musician. At first he was silent 
 and embarrassed, but Henrika gave him no peace, and when 
 once he had been led into answering her questions he was soon 
 carried away by her vehement vivacity, and gave full play to 
 his merry wit. Nor was she behindhand in the sport; her eyes 
 flashed, and in her growing eagerness to measure her wit with 
 
192 THE burgomaster's wife. 
 
 his, she strove to cap every jest and every repartee. She 
 drank no wine, but her own How of words seemed to intoxicate 
 her, and she bo entirely absorbed the baron's attention that he 
 had no time to address a word to any one else. Indeed,, when 
 he once did so, she abruptly interrupted him and compelled 
 him to turn to her again. This insistence annoyed him; and 
 while it vexed him it decided his defiant spirit, and he pro- 
 voked EEenrika to the wildest assertions, which he met by 
 others not less extravagant. 
 
 Maria meanwhile listened to the young girl in blank aston- 
 ishment, and there was something that displeased her in the 
 baron's demeanor to the young lady. Peter paid little heed to 
 her, for he was talking with Van I lout of certain letters re- 
 ceived from Glippers, counseling the town to surrender, of 
 which three had already reached them; and they were also dis- 
 cussing the wavering opinions of sonic of the members of the 
 Council and the execution of a spy who had been taken. 
 
 Wilhelm, whose neighbor had hardly vouchsafed him a word, 
 was now listening to the conversation of the older men, and 
 remarked that he himself had known the traitor; he was the 
 keeper of a tavern where he once had met the Baron Matenesse 
 van Wibisma. 
 
 " Xow the secret is out!" exclaimed the town clerk. " In 
 Quatgelat's pocket I found a scrap of paper, and the writing 
 on it was damnably like the baron's. Quatgelat was to get in- 
 formation as to the amount of provisions left in Leyden." 
 
 "They are a pair!" cried the burgomaster. "But, alas! 
 he might have carried only too gratifying a report to Valdez. 
 Our own inquiries have not proved comforting; to be sure, the 
 returns are not yet precise and complete. " 
 
 " That we might leave to the women to do within the next 
 few days." 
 
 "To women?" cried Peter, aghast. 
 
 " Yes, to us," said the town clerk's wife. " Why should 
 we sit idle when we might prove ourselves of use?" 
 
 " Allow us to do something," exclaimed Maria. " We long 
 as earnestly as you to do something in the service of the great 
 cause." 
 
 " And believe me," added Dame van Hout, " we shall be 
 more readily admitted to inspect the contents of lofts and cel- 
 lars than ushers and men at arms, of whom the citizens' wives 
 would be afraid." 
 
 "Women in the service of 'the town!" said Peter, doubt- 
 fully. " To be frank with you — but the proposal shall be duly 
 considered — Mistress Ilenrika is in high spirits to-day." 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 193 
 
 Maria glanced with some displeasure at Henrika, who was 
 leaning far across the table. She was showing the Jonker a 
 ring, and said, laughing: 
 
 " Do you not know what the emblem means? A serpent 
 with its fangs set in its own tail." 
 
 " Yes," said Georg, " it is the symbol of self-torment." 
 
 " (Jood, good! But it has another meaning, and you should 
 mark it well, Sir Knight. Do you know what is meant by 
 eternity and eternal constancy?" 
 
 " No, mistress. In Jena we are not taught to think of such 
 deep matters." 
 
 " Of course not. Your teachers are men. Men and con- 
 stancy! — eternal fidelity!" 
 
 " And was Delilah, who betrayed Samson to the Philistines, 
 a man or a woman?" asked Van Hout. 
 
 " She was a woman- — the exception that j:>roves the rule. Is 
 it not so, Maria?" But the burgomaster's wife did not an- 
 swer; she only nodded in silence, then she pushed her chair 
 impatiently from the table, and the meal was at an end. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 Dayr and weeks had slipped away; a hot August had fol- 
 lowed July, and now August was near its close. The Spaniards 
 still invested Leyden, and the town was now a prison indeed. 
 The soldiers and armed citizens did their duty dully and 
 wearily; at the town hall there was plenty to be done, no doubt, 
 but the labors of the authorities were all sad and painful, for 
 no message reached them from the prince or the states general 
 to encourage their hopes, and all they found to discuss and de- 
 cide referred to the threatened famine and that hideous at- 
 tendant of war, the pestilence, which had invaded Leyden hand 
 in hand with starvation. Added to this, the number of the 
 malcontents increased from week to week. The adherents of 
 the old order of things uplifted their voices louder and louder, 
 and many a friend of freedom, seeing those dear to him sicken 
 and perish, joined the Spanish party and clamored for (he sur- 
 render of the city. The children still went to school as they 
 had always done, and still met in their play-grounds, but the 
 merry audacity of former days only now and then flickered into 
 life; and what had become of the boys' rosy cheeks and the 
 girls' fair round arms? The poor tightened their belts, and 
 the scrap of bread which was doled out to each by the town 
 authorities no longer sufficed to satisfy hunger or keep body 
 and soul together. 
 
194 THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 
 
 Jonker Georg had now lung been an inmate of the Van tier 
 WernV house. On the morning of the twenty-ninth of August 
 he was returning home from a walk; he carried a cross-bow in 
 
 his hand and a game-bag slung across his shoulder; he did not 
 as usual go upstairs, hut went into the kitchen to Dame Bar- 
 bara. The widow welcomed him with a friendly nod; her gray 
 eves twinkled as brightly as ever, but her jolly round i'aee was 
 narrower, and a melancholy line had set itself at the corners 
 of her pinched lips. 
 
 "Well, what have you brought us to-day?" she asked the 
 young man. Georg laughed as he emptied his hag. 
 
 " A fat woodcock, and besides that four larks; you know." 
 
 " Poor little sparrows. But what sort of creature is this — ■ 
 no head, no feet, and carefully plucked! Jonker, Jonker, this 
 is very suspicious. ' ' 
 
 " It will all go into the jiot; never mind what it is called!" 
 
 " But yet — who knows what it may have fattened on; and 
 the Lord did not create every creature fit for man's food." 
 
 " I told you just now; it is a short-billed woodcock, a genu- 
 ine corvus." 
 
 " Corvus? Oh! that is all right. I was afraid of the thing 
 — these feathers here under the wing — merciful God! Is it 
 not a raven?" 
 
 " It is a corvus, as I have told you. Lay the bird in vinegar 
 and stew it with a little spice, and it will taste for all the world 
 like an ordinary woodcock. Wild duck are not to be got every 
 day as they were lately, and the small birds are as scarce as 
 roses at Christmas. Every boy is on the watch with his bow 
 and arrows, and in every court-yard they are being caught with 
 sieves and limed twigs. They are fast being exterminated, 
 but here and there one has escaped. How is the Elfling?" 
 
 "Do not call her so," cried the widow. "Do, I entreat 
 you, give her her Christian name. She is as white as this cloth, 
 and since yesterday she has refused to take the milk we have 
 got her every day at an immense cost. God knows what will 
 come of it. Look at that cabbage-stalk; that was half a 
 stiver! And those wretched bones — I should have thought 
 them too bad to throw to a dog once, and now the whole house 
 must make shift to dine off them. For supper I can stew 
 some shreds of ham with wine, and make some porridge. And 
 that for a giant like Peter! where he gets his strength from, 
 God alone knows. But indeed he looks but the shadow of 
 himself. Maria needs no more than a bird; but Adrian, poor 
 boy, often leaves the table with tears in his eyes, and yet he 
 often breaks a piece of bread of! his thin slice for Elizabeth, 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 195 
 
 that I know. It is pitiable to see. And yet we can only say: 
 Cut your coat according to your cloth — necessity knows no 
 law, and save if you would have. The day before yesterday 
 we again sent in an account of what we have left, as others 
 did, and to-morrow we must give in to the common stock 
 everything that is over and above what we require for a fort- 
 night; and Peter will not let us keep back even a bag of meal; 
 and after that what will happen, what will become of us? — 
 merciful Heaven \" 
 
 The widow burst out sobbing as she spoke, and went on in a 
 voice choked by tears. " How do you keep up your strength? 
 This miserable scrap of meat at your age is like a drop of 
 water on a hot stone. " 
 
 ' Master van Aken gives me what he can spare out of his 
 rations in addition to my own. I shall do very well — but what 
 I saw to-day down at the tailor's who is mending some clothes 
 for me — " 
 
 " Yes?" 
 
 " Two of his children have died of hunger." 
 
 "And at the weaver's," added Barbara, crying. "Such 
 decent folks as they are, too. The young wife lay in only four 
 days ago, and this morning mother and child are both dead of 
 weakness— gone out like a candle that has burned down to the 
 end. At Peterssohn's, the cloth-maker, the father and all five 
 children are dead of the pestilence. If that is not pitiable — " 
 
 [' There — tell me no more," said Georg, with a shudder. 
 " I. must go now to exercise the men in the court-yard." 
 
 : 'And that! — what good does that do? The Spaniards do 
 not attack us; they leave that to the skeleton fiends. Your 
 drill makes you hungry, and the miserable starvelings you have 
 enlisted can hardly move their own limbs." 
 
 " You are wrong, mother, quite wrong," replied the young 
 man. " Activity and exercise keep them going. When the 
 Jonker van Nordwyk asked me to drill them in the place of 
 poor Captain Allertssohn, he knew what he was about." 
 
 1 You are thinking of the saying that a plowshare never 
 rusts. Perhaps you are right; but before you go, drink a 
 mouthful of liquor. We are still well off for wine. Well, at 
 any rate when folks are kept employed they do not mutiny like 
 those miserable volunteers the day before yesterday. Thank 
 God we are quit of them!" While the widow was filling a 
 glass, the musician's worthy mother, Dame van Mierop, came 
 into the kitchen and greeted Barbara and the baron. She car- 
 ried a little parcel wrapped in cloth, which she clasped tightly 
 to her bosom. Her person was still tolerably substantial, but 
 
196 the burgomaster's wife. 
 
 her .am jilt 1 dimensions, which only a few months ago she had 
 carried with honest pride, now seemed a burden which op- 
 pressed her. She took her parcel in her right hand, and hold- 
 ing it out, she said: 
 
 I have something here for your Elizabeth. My "Wilhelni, 
 like a good soul as he is — : ' but here she paused and withdrew 
 her gift; she had observed the Jonker's plucked bird, and she 
 went on, in an altered tone: "But I see you have a pigeon 
 already — so much the better. The town clerk's little girl is 
 beginning to sicken too. Till to-morrow — God willing." 
 
 She turned to go, but the Jonker held her back, and said: 
 
 " You are mistaken, most worthy dame. I shot that bird 
 to-day; and I will confess now, mother — my corvus is a miser- 
 able raven." 
 
 "I thought as much!" cried the widow. "Abominable 
 carrion!" But she poked her finger against the bird's breast, 
 and added, reflectively: "Still, there is some flesh on the 
 breast." 
 
 " A raven!" cried the receiver-general's wife, clasping her 
 hands in horror. "But to be sure, the cats and dogs have 
 long since twirled on many a spit and found their way into 
 many a stew-pan. There is the pigeon for you." 
 
 Barbara unwraj)ped the precious morsel as tenderly as if it 
 might break under her hand, and gazed at it quite lovingly, 
 as she felt its weight, and the worthy donor went on: 
 
 " This is the fourth already that my son has killed, and he 
 says it was a good flier too. He himself sent it expressly for 
 Elizabeth. Stuff it nicely with a light paste — not too stiff and 
 a very little sweetened. That is what the little ones like; and 
 it is sure to do her good, for it was given with real good will. 
 But put it out of sight, for when one has known the poor little 
 thing so well it grieves one to see it dead. " 
 
 " May God reward you!" cried Barbara, wringing the good 
 woman's hand. " Oh, these are awful times!" 
 
 " But still there is always something to be thankful for." 
 
 " Certainly, for it is still worse in hell," retorted the widow. 
 
 " Nay — do not speak so sinfully," said the old woman, 
 gravely, " for you have but one sick child in your house. Is 
 Dame Maria within?" 
 
 " She is in the w T ork-rooms, giving the people a little meat 
 out of wdiat we can spare. Arc you as badly oil' for meals as 
 we are? There are still cows to be seen in the fields, but the 
 corn has vanished as if it had been swept away; there was not 
 a measure for sale in the market. Will you take a glass of 
 wine, friend Van Mierop? And shall I fetch my sister-in-law?" 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 197 
 
 " I will go and find her myself. The prices in the market 
 are quite beyond endurance. We can not stand them at all; 
 but she will bring the folks to reason." 
 
 " The dealers in the market?" asked Georg. 
 
 " Yes, Baron von Dornburg, yes. That gentle woman can 
 do things you would never believe of her. The day before yes- 
 terday, when the authorities wanted to find out what store of 
 provisions still remained in each house, I and the others found 
 the people very ill pleased, and several, in fact, showed us the 
 door. And she went to the roughest and rudest, and they 
 opened their cellars and store-rooms to her, as the waves of the 
 sea parted before the children of Israel. How she managed it 
 God only knows, but no one could resist her." 
 
 Georg drew a deep breath and left the kitchen. In the 
 court-yard he found some of the town guard, with a few volun- 
 teers and soldiers belonging to the town watch, with whom he 
 was about to practice fencing. Van der Werff had lent his 
 court-yard for the purpose, and certainly there was not in all 
 Leyden a man better fitted to take the place of the valorous 
 Allertssohn than the young German baron. 
 
 But Barbara was right; his pivpils looked lean and wretched 
 enough; still, many a man among them had learned to wield 
 his sword right well from their deceased master, and put his 
 whole soul into his work. In the middle of the court-yard 
 stood a dummy stuffed with tow and covered with leather, 
 which had on its left side a red patch in the form of a heart. 
 On this the unskilled were made to practice, to steady their 
 hand and eye; the rest stood in pairs, face to face, and fought 
 their bloodless duels under the baron's directions with blunted 
 rapiers. 
 
 The young man had been feeling very limp and feeble when 
 he first came into the kitchen, for he had left the larger half 
 of his day's rations at the unfortunate tailor's; but Barbara's 
 wine had done him good, and he pulled himself together and 
 went out boldly and resolutely to meet his pupils. He flung 
 his ruff on to a bench, tightened up his belt, and was soon 
 standing in his shirt-sleeves in front of the soldiers. 
 
 No sooner had he spoken his first word of command than 
 Henrika's bow-window was shut with an angry rattle. It had 
 often been thrown open on former occasions when the fencing 
 practice had begun; indeed, she had not been too coy to clap 
 her hands now and then or shout: "Well done!" But this 
 was long since; for some weeks past she had not had a word or 
 a glance for the baron. She bad never before treated any 
 man as she had him, nor taken so much trouble to win even a 
 
198 THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 
 
 prince's good graces. And he? At first he had taken it very 
 coolly, and afterward he hud taken more and more pains to 
 avoid her. Her pride was deeply wounded; her mission to 
 keep him out of Maria's way was long since forgotten; and, 
 indeed, something — she knew not what — had risen up and 
 stood between her and the young wife. Not a day passed 
 without her having occasion to meet the Jonker; and of this 
 she was glad, for it gave her the opportunity of showing him 
 that she was indifferent to him — nay, that she would rather 
 not see him. Her imprisonment within the walls weighed 
 heavily on her, and she longed beyond all utterance to be free 
 — in the open country — in the woods. Nevertheless she never 
 expressed a wish to leave the town, for Georg was in Leyden, 
 and he filled her mind sleeping and waking. To-day she loved 
 him, to-morrow she hated him, and both with all the vehe- 
 mence of her passionate nature. She often thought of her sis- 
 ter, and put up many a prayer for her. To win the favor of 
 Heaven by good works, as well as to dissipate the tedium of 
 life, she helped the Carmelite Sisters, who lived in the little 
 old convent close to the Van der Werffs' house, to nurse the 
 sick whom they had benevolently taken under their roof, and 
 even went with Sister Gonzaga to the houses of the richer 
 Catholics to collect their alms for the little hospital. But she 
 did all this without any cheerful devotedness; sometimes with 
 fevered zeal and then again indifferently; sometimes she would 
 even neglect it for days. She had become to the last degree 
 irritable; but after carrying everything with such a high hand 
 as to be quite unendurable one day, the next day she would be 
 depressed and melancholy, though she never thought of asking 
 forgiveness of those whom she had offended. 
 
 At the present moment she stood behind her window looking 
 at Georg, who was rushing at the leather man with flying lea]3S, 
 and piercing his red heart through and through with his 
 sword. The soldiers gave loud expression to their admiration; 
 even Henrika's eyes glanced approval, but they suddenly lost 
 their fire, and she turned on her heel as she saw Maria come 
 out of the warehouses and with downcast eyes cross the court- 
 yard in front of the fencers. 
 
 The young woman was paler than of yore, but her clear 
 blue eye looked out on the world with more independence and 
 determination. She had learned to go her own way and had 
 sought and found many onerous duties in the service of the 
 town and of the poor. In many a wild heart-struggle she had 
 won the field, but the battle was not yet over; that she felt 
 keenly as often as Georg's way and hers happened to cross. 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 199 
 
 She avoided him whenever it was possible, for she did not con- 
 ceal from herself that any attempt to live with him on equal 
 terms as a friend and a brother could be nothing else but the 
 first step toward the abyss. He honestly did his best to second 
 her efforts, with infinite self-control; and of this she was grate- 
 fully conscious, for she stood heart to heart with her husband 
 on the ship of their united life; she would have no other pilot 
 but Peter, nor was there any terror in the thought of founder- 
 ing with him. And yet, and yet — Georg was the mountain of 
 lodestone which attracted her to its side, and which she must 
 diligently avoid to save the whole craft from shipwreck. 
 
 To-day she had made it her business in the workshops to 
 ask each worker how he was getting on, and pictures of the 
 utmost misery had been brought before her. The brave folks 
 knew that the surrender of the town might put an end to their 
 sufferings, but for faith aud freedom's sake they were resigned 
 to hold out, and bore their hardsl^s as an inevitable mis- 
 fortune. 
 
 In the hall Maria met Wilhelm's mother, and she promised 
 her that in the course of the clay she would speak to the town 
 clerk's wife on the subject of the exorbitant demands of the 
 market-folk; then she went to poor little Elizabeth's room, 
 and found the child sitting pale and exhausted in her little 
 chair. Her best doll had been lying in her lap in the same 
 position for more than an hour, for her hands and spirit were 
 too feeble to play with the toy. Trautchen brought her in a 
 cupful of fresh milk; the supjfiy had not yet altogether failed, 
 for a considerable number of cows still grazed outside the walls 
 within range of the cannon; but the child would not drink it, 
 and cried before she could at last be persuaded to sip a few 
 drops. 
 
 While Maria was coaxing the little girl, Peter came into the 
 room. The fine, tall man, the very ideal of a respectable 
 burgher, who was wont to pay some attention, too, to the dignity 
 of his outward appearance, now looked neglected; his brown 
 hair hung over his forehead, his thick beard — usually so clean- 
 ly defined — now sj)reacl a thin unshaven border of lighter color 
 over his cheeks; his doublet was too wide for him, and his 
 hose did not cling neatly as they used, but hung in creases on 
 his sturdy legs. 
 
 He waved his hand languidly to his wife, and going up to 
 the child he stood looking at her for some time in silence, but 
 with pathetic tenderness. The child turned her sweet little 
 face toward him and tried to smile at him, but the smile faded 
 on her lips, and she looked down again dully at the doll. He 
 
200 TTTF, BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 
 
 bent down and lifted her up in his arms, called lier name, and 
 kised her pale cheeks. The child gently stroked his beard, 
 and said, feebly: 
 
 " Put me down again, father; it makes me giddy to be held 
 so high ui)." 
 
 His eyes were moist as he gently set her down in her little 
 chair again. Then he quitted the room and went to his own 
 study. Maria followed him. 
 
 " Nothing yet from the prince or the states general?" she 
 asked. 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders, but said nothing. 
 
 " But they will not, they can not forget us," cried his wife, 
 eagerly. 
 
 " We are dying, and they leave us to die," he said, gloomily. 
 
 " No, no, they have pierced the dykes. I know, I am sure, 
 they will relieve us." 
 
 " Yes, when it is too late. One misfortune comes upon an- 
 other, miseries are heaped upon us, and on whom do the curses 
 of the starving folks fall? On me, on me, and on no one but 
 me." 
 
 " Nay, you have the prince's representative to stand by 
 yon." 
 
 Peter smiled bitterly. 
 
 " He took to his bed yesterday," he said. " The plague, 
 Bontius says. I am alone to bear it all. " 
 
 " We bear it with you," said Maria. " In dearth now, and 
 then in hunger, as we pledged ourselves." 
 
 " And worse than that! Our last flour was baked to-day. 
 There is no more bread anywhere. " 
 
 " We still have cattle and horses." 
 
 "It will be their turn next; it was settled to-day; two 
 pounds with bone to every four souls. Bread gone, cows gone, 
 milk gone. And then what will happen? Mothers, infants, 
 sick folks — and our Elizabeth — " 
 
 The burgomaster pressed his hands to his temples and 
 groaned; but Maria said: "Courage, Peter; courage. Cling 
 only to one thing; one thing never cease to hold fast by — 
 hope. " 
 
 " Hope!" he said, scornfully; " hope!" 
 
 " To cease to hope," she went on, " means despair. De- 
 spair in our case means opening the gates, and opening th& 
 gates means — " 
 
 " Who thinks of opening the gates? Who speaks of sur- 
 render?" he interrupted, wratlifully. " We will stand firm — 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 201 
 
 still, still — There is tlie letter-case; give it to the mes- 
 senger. " 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 Elizabeth had eaten a scrap of the roast pigeon, the first 
 solid food for several clays, and there was as much joy in the 
 burgomaster's house as though some great piece of good fort- 
 uue had befallen the family. Adrian ran across to the work- 
 shops, and told all the work-people. Peter drew himself up 
 more bravely as he went to the town hall, and Maria, being 
 obliged to go out, went round to the good dame who had 
 brought the bird to tell her what a good effect her son's gift 
 had had. 
 
 Tears ran down the good woman's flabby cheeks as she list- 
 ened to Dame Maria's report. She kissed her, exclaiming: 
 
 " Ah, our Wilhelm — my "Wilhelm! I wish he were at home 
 at this moment; but I will call his father. But, to be sure, 
 he is out too, at the town hall. What was I thinking of? 
 Hark, dame, listen! what is that?" 
 
 The old lady's speech had been interrupted by the pealing 
 of bells and booming of cannon; she hastily threw open the 
 window, exclaiming: 
 
 " It is the bell of St. Pan eras, and not an alarm-bell! Hark, 
 firing and joyful chimes! Something good must have hap- 
 pened — well, we wanted it! Ulrich, Ulrich! Come back at once 
 and tell us the news. Great and merciful Father, merciful 
 God! send us relief! If it should be there already!" 
 
 The women waited in the utmost excitement; at last Ulrich, 
 Wilhelm's brother, came back, and told them that the messen- 
 gers sent from Delft had succeeded in making their way 
 through the enemy's ranks, and had brought a letter from the 
 states general. Van Hout had read it to the people from a 
 window of the town hall. The states general praised the con- 
 duct and steadfastness of the town, and informed them that, 
 notwithstanding the injury it must entail on thousands of land- 
 holders, the dykes were being pierced. 
 
 The sea was in fact already flooding the country, and the 
 messengers had themselves seen the vessels which were to 
 bring relief. Before long the land round Leyden would be 
 under water, and the rising flood must compel the Spanish 
 army to evacuate their position. ' Better a drowned land than 
 a lost land!" This stern motto had decided the votes as to 
 resorting to this extreme measure, and it might be confidently 
 expected that those who had staked so much already would 
 
202 TTTE BTJBGOkASTER'S WIFE, 
 
 shrink from no sacrifice to save Leyden. The two women 
 shook hands with happy excitement; the peal of bells rung 
 cheerily out, and Bhol after shoi shook the rattling windows. 
 
 It was growing dark as Maria made her way homeward. It 
 was long since she had fell so light-hearted. The black tablets 
 on the plague-stricken houses looked lessdismal; the sharpened 
 faces less pitiable than before, for succor was at hand for all. 
 Their tenacious fidelity would be rewarded; the cause of free- 
 dom would triumph. 
 
 Her feet seemed winged as she walked down the Breedo 
 Street. Thousands of townsfolk were assembled there to see 
 and to hear what they might dare to hope, or what there was 
 still to fear. The town musicians — an important institution 
 in every Dutch or German town in those times — were posted 
 at the corners of the streets, and playing with inspiriting 
 energy, while the chant of the Gueux mingled with the sound 
 of pipes and trunrpets and the shouts of the excited inhal ti- 
 tan ts. But there were, too, several groups of well-dressed citi- 
 zens and their wives, who had collected on purpose to mock 
 loudly and unblushingly at the cheerful strains and the deluded 
 simpletons who allowed themselves to be cheated by empty 
 promises. Where was the relief? "What could such a handful 
 of Gueux as, at best, the prince could command and bring up, 
 do against the tremendous force the king had set down to be- 
 leaguer Leyden? And as to flooding the country — the plain 
 on which the town stood was too high for the water ever to 
 reach it. The peasants had been ruined without helping the 
 townsfolk. There was but one way of escape — to trust to the 
 king's clemency. 
 
 What good will freedom do us?" cried a brewer, whose 
 grain had long since been confiscated with that of all his guild, 
 and who had been unable to brew any new beer. " What good 
 will freedom do us when we are all cold in our graves? Every 
 well-meaning man follow me to the town hall, and insist on 
 surrender before it is too late." 
 
 "Surrender! Trust to the king's grace!" a score or so of 
 citizens shouted in chorus. 
 
 " Ay, first we must live, and then comes the question of 
 free or Spanish — Calvinist or Papist!" shouted a master 
 weaver. I am going to the town hall!" 
 
 " You are very right, good folks," said Burgomaster Baers- 
 dorp, who was coming toward them from the town hall, in a 
 splendid cloak bordered with sable, and who had heard the 
 last speech; "but be warned! to-day the more credulous are 
 beginning to be hopeful again, and the time is ill-chosen for 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 203 
 
 urging your views, however reasonable. Wait a few days 
 longer, and if relief has not then arrived, assert your opinion 
 loudly. I will speak a word on your side, and many another 
 good man, too, in the Council. We have nothing hut kindness 
 and mercy to look for from Valdez. To resist the king was a 
 foolish game from the first, and to fight against famine, pesti- 
 lence, and death is sinful madness. God be with you, good 
 people!" 
 
 The burgomaster is right/' said a dyer. 
 : ' And Van Swieten and Norden think as he does; but Mas- 
 ter Peter holds his seat by the prince's favor. The Spaniards 
 may save us, but he loses his head when they march in ! Die 
 we may, if die we must, so long as he and his live on the fat 
 of the land and are satisfied. " 
 
 : ' There goes his wife," said the master weaver, pointing to 
 Maria; " how well content she looks! The buff -leather trade 
 must bo thriving. Hi! Dame Burgomistress! hi! Carry our 
 service to your husband, and tell him that his life is no doubt 
 precious, but that ours, after all, is not a mere wisp of straw. " 
 
 "Yes, and tell him too," shouted a cattle-dealer, who did 
 not look as if he had suffered much yet from hunger, " tell 
 him that oxen are good to kill, and the more the better, but 
 that the good folks of Leyden — " 
 
 The speaker did not finish his sentence, for Master Aquanus 
 had spied from the Angulus what was happening to the 
 burgomaster's wife, and he had come out of his inn, and was 
 now standing among the malcontents. 
 
 "Shame upon you!" he exclaimed, "for attacking a re- 
 spectable lady in the street. Is this the Leyden fashion ! Take 
 my hand, Dame Maria, and if I hear another word of abuse I 
 will call the town watch. I know you. The gallows still 
 stands by the Blue Stone, where Master van Bronkhorst had it 
 set up for such as you. Which of you would like to handsel 
 it?" 
 
 The men to whom this was addressed were not the bravest 
 'of their sex, and not another word was uttered as Aquanus led 
 the young woman into the shelter of the Exchange Inn. The 
 host's wife and daughter received Maria in their own rooms, 
 which stood apart from the hostelry, and begged her to rest 
 there till the throng should have dispersed. But Maria was 
 anxious to get home, and when she explained that she must 
 proceed at once, Van Aken offered his escort. 
 
 In the hall of the inn Von Dornburg was standing, and he 
 was about to retire with a respectful bow, when Aquanus called 
 him to speak with him. 
 
204 THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 
 
 "We are very busy here," lie said, "for many a man is 
 treating himself to a glass in a honor of 1 lie good news. Do not 
 take ii amiss, dame, but the Jonker "will take yon home <piite 
 as safely as I could; and you, Baron von Dornburg — " 
 
 " 1 am yours to command/" replied Georg; and he and the 
 young wife weiit out into the street. 
 
 For some minutes they walked on side by side in silence, 
 each fancying they could hear the other's heart beat. At last 
 the Jonker drew a deeper breath and sj)oke. 
 
 " Three long, long months have gone by since I came. 
 Have I been brave, Maria?" 
 
 "Yes, Georg." 
 
 " But you can never imagine what it has cost me to keep 
 my aching heart in chains, to guard my words, and blind my 
 eyes. Once, only once, Maria, I must speak — " 
 
 " Never!" she interrupted him with resolute entreaty. 
 " Never! I know how nobly you have struggled; do not now 
 weakly lose the glory of victory." 
 
 " Oh, hear me, Maria! this once only, hear me!" 
 
 " And what good will it do you to burden my soul with hear- 
 ing your burning words? There is but one man living who 
 may tell me that he loves me; and what I ought not to hear 
 you ought not to say." 
 
 " Ought not?" he said, in a tone of gentle reproach; and 
 then he went on, gloomily and bitterly: You are right, very 
 right. Even speech is forbidden me; my life must flow on 
 forever a stream of lead, and whatever may grow or blossom 
 on the banks must be scentless and colorless. The golden sun- 
 light is shrouded from me by clouds; all joys lie pale and dead 
 in my heart; and all that ever delighted me is now mere 
 emptiness and vanity. Do you even recognize in me the care- 
 less fellow that I once was?" 
 
 " Nay, try once more to be happy; try for my sake." 
 
 "It is past and gone," he murmured sadly. " You saw 
 me at Delft, but you never really knew me. My eyes were like 
 a pair of magical mirrors, in which every object that is re- 
 flected is beautified and transfigured; and they had their re- 
 ward, for wherever they turned they met kindly glances. My 
 heart could then embrace the whole world, and it beat so high 
 and so lightly! Sometimes I was quite beside myself, and did 
 not know which way to turn for sheer joyousness and vitality; I 
 felt as though, like a cannon that bursts with being over- 
 charged, I must fly into a thousand pieces — only not scattered 
 about the world, but straight up to heaven at once. It was 
 happiness, and yet it was a pain. Ah! I have felt it in Delft 
 
THE -nURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 205 
 
 a score of times when you have been sweet and kind to me! 
 And now, now! I still have wings — I still could fly — hut I 
 crawl about like a snail — for you will have it so. '' 
 
 " I will not have it so," answered Maria; " you are very 
 dear to me; that I may frankly confess, and to see you as you 
 are now is a great grief to me. And now, if you have any re- 
 gard for me — and I know full well that you have — I implore 
 you, cease to inflict such misery on me. You are very dear to 
 me; I have said it, and it has to be said, that all may be clear 
 between us. You are dear to me as the sweet by-gone days of 
 my youth are, as sweet dreams are, as a strain of delicious 
 music is, which soothes and refreshes our soul when we hear 
 or remember it; but you are no more to me, and you never 
 can be. You are dear to me, and I wish that you should re- 
 main so, and you can only remain so by keeping the oath 
 which you have sworn." 
 
 " Sworn?" said Georg; " sworn?" 
 
 " Yes, sworn/' repeated Maria, standing still, " on my hus- 
 band's breast on his birthday, after we had been singing. Ee- 
 member it well! you swore then an unspoken vow; I know it 
 no less certainly than that I swore to be faithful to my hus- 
 band at the altar. If you can give me the lie, do so." 
 
 Georg shook his head and answered with growing vehe- 
 mence : 
 
 " You read my soul; our hearts know each other like two 
 trusted friends — as the earth sees the moon and the moon the 
 earth. What would one be without the other? Why, why 
 should they be parted? Have you walked along a lane 
 through a wood? There are two ruts running side by side, 
 and never crossing, never meeting. They are kept asunder 
 by the axle-tree, as we are by our vows." 
 
 " Say, rather, by our honor." 
 
 " By our honor. But presently you come to a spot where 
 the road ends, at a plantation or a charcoal heap, and there 
 the ruts cut across each other; well, at this hour I feel my path 
 has come to an abrupt end. I can not go on any further like 
 this; I can not — the horses will run away into the thicket, and 
 the chariot will be wrecked on the roots and rocks." 
 
 "And with it our honor. Not another word; come, we 
 must walk faster. Do you see the lights in the windows? 
 Every one wants to show that he rejoices at the good news, 
 and our house must not remain in darkness." 
 
 " Do not hurry so; Barbara will take care of that; and we 
 so soon must part. And you know you said that I was dear 
 to you." 
 
206 THE -BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 
 
 " Do not torture me!" pleaded the young wife, pathetically. 
 
 " I do not wish to torture you, Maria, but you must at least, 
 
 hear me. It was in earnest — in b lemu earnest — that I 
 
 pledged myself to that vow 1 swore in silence, and 1 had 
 hoped to redeem it by death. You heard how I thing myself, 
 like a madman, into the midst of the Spaniards, at the storm- 
 ing of the fort of Boschhuizen, in Jul}'. Your ribbon — the 
 blue ribbon of Delft, that ribbon of heaven's own blue— flut- 
 tered from my shoulder-knot as I rushed upon the swords and 
 spears. But 1 was not to die; I came safely out of the melee. 
 Oh, Maria, for that oath's sake I have suffered torments un- 
 utterable! Release me from it; let me once — only this once — 
 tell you, Maria — " 
 
 " Stop, Georg; say no more!" she hastily implored him. " I 
 will not— I must not hear you; not to-day nor to-morrow — 
 never, never; through all eternity, never!" 
 
 " Once- — for once I will — I must tell you that I love you; 
 that my life and salvation — my peace and honor — " 
 
 " Cease, Jonker von Dornburg; do not speak another word. 
 There is our house; you are our guest. If you say a single 
 word more such as those last to the wife of your friend — " 
 
 " Maria, Maria! stay; do not knock. How can you so heart- 
 lessly wreck the whole happiness of a human life — " 
 
 But the door was opened, and Maria stood on the threshold. 
 Georg stood opposite to her for a moment, stretching out his 
 hand as craving hers to save him, and he said, desperately : 
 
 "Rejected — thrust out to death and desolation! Maria, 
 Maria, why have you done this?" 
 
 She put her hand into his. 
 
 " That we may remain worthy of each other," she said. 
 
 She wrenched her cold hand from his clasp and went into 
 the house; but he wandered for hours through the illuminated 
 streets like a drunken man, and at last flung himself on to 
 his bed with an aching brain. On a little table by his side lay 
 a note-book; he took it up, and with trembling lingers began 
 to write. Many times his pencil stood still, or he lay sighing 
 deeply and gazing into vacancy. At last he threw the book 
 aside, and watched uneasily for the morning. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 Soon" after sunrise Georg sprung from his bed, pulled out 
 his knapsack and began to fill it with his few possessions; but 
 the note-book was not packed in with the rest. It was still 
 quite early when the organist came into the court-yard with 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 207 
 
 the first of the workmen coming to their work. The Jonker 
 saw him, and went to meet him at the gate. The musician's 
 face showed but slight traces of the famine, but his whole 
 frame quivered with agitation, and his color came and went as, 
 unhesitatingly and in breathless haste, he related the object of 
 his early visit to the burgomaster's house. 
 
 A Spanish envoy had brought in letters the day before to 
 Van der Werff, shortly after the arrival of the prince's mes- 
 senger. One of these letters was from young Nicolas Mate- 
 nesse, and contained merely the information that Henrika's 
 sister had reached Leyderdorp with Belotti, and had found a 
 home, for the time, at a farm belonging to the elder Baron 
 van Wibisma. She was very ill, and longed to see her sister. 
 The burgomaster had given this letter to Henrika, and she had 
 at once hastened off to Wilhelm, to entreat him to help her to 
 quit the town, and to escort her himself as far as the Spanish 
 lines. 
 
 "Wilhelm had a hard battle to fight; no sacrifice seemed to 
 him too great if he could only see Anna once more; and what 
 the messengers had succeeded in doing, he surely could do. 
 But ought he to help the one hostage for the authorities of the 
 town to make her escape — ought he to cheat the gate-keepers 
 and desert his post? Since the day when Henrika had ap- 
 pealed to him to fetch her sister from Lugano to Holland, 
 Georg had been fully informed as to her whole history; and he 
 knew, too, how the musician's heart was engaged in the mat- 
 ter. 
 
 " I must, and yet I must not!" cried Wilhelm. " I have 
 l^assed a terrible night; put yourself in my place or in Mis- 
 tress Henrika's I" 
 
 " Ask for leave till to-morrow," said Georg, decidedly. 
 " When it is dark, I will conduct Henrika with you outside 
 the town. Only she must solemnly promise to return to it if 
 it is at last surrendered. So far as I am concerned, I am no 
 longer pledged to serve under the English flag: four weeks 
 since we had leave granted us to enlist in the service of the 
 Netherlands. One word to Captain van der Laen and I am 
 my own master." 
 
 " Thank you very heartily! But Mistress Henrika strictly 
 forbids my availing myself of your services. " 
 
 " Folly! I am going with you, and when we have reached 
 our destination I shall cut my way through to join the Gueux. 
 The Council will not grieve at our departing, for when Henrika 
 and I are outside, there will be two mouths less to fill in Ley- 
 den. The sky is overcast; we may hope for a dark night. 
 
208 THE BURGOMASTER'S wife. 
 
 Van Duivcnvoorde is captain of the watch at the Hoogewoerde 
 Gate. He knows us both, and will let us pass out; I will 
 speak to him. Is the farm far in the village? 
 
 " No; quite at the beginning, on the road to Leyden." 
 
 " Very good; we will meet again at four o'clock at the Ex- 
 change Inn." 
 
 " But Henrika— " 
 
 " It will be soon enough if she is told who her companions 
 are when she is at the gate." 
 
 When Georg betook himself at the appointed time to the 
 Exchange Inn he was informed that Henrika had received 
 yet another letter from Nicolas, who had himself given it to 
 the courier. It contained only these words: 
 
 ' Until midnight the Spanish pass-word is ' Lepanto. ' 
 Your father shall be told to-day that Anna is here." 
 
 When they had finally agreed to set out by the Hoogewoerde 
 Gate at nine that evening, Georg went to his captain and to 
 the Commandant Van der Does, and procured from the former 
 the leave of absence he required, and from Janus Dousa a let- 
 ter to his friend Admiral Boisot. When he told his men that 
 he was about to leave the town and to join the Gueux, they all 
 declared that they would follow him, and live or die with him, 
 and it was only with great difficulty that he persuaded them 
 to remain behind. 
 
 As he passed the town hall he slackened his pace: the burgo- 
 master was always to be found there at this hour. Ought he 
 to quit Leyden without taking leave of him? No, no; and yet 
 since the day before he felt he had lost all right to look him 
 boldly in the face; he dreaded meeting him, and he felt an 
 alien and an outcast. So he hurried past the town hall, say- 
 ing to himself: "And if I do leave him without a word of 
 farewell, what do I owe him? I must pay for his kindness 
 with pain and anguish — perhaps even with my life. Maria 
 loved me before she loved him, and ere I go she shall know 
 what she is and will forever be to me." 
 
 It was dusk when he went back to his room; he desired the 
 man-servant to carry his knajisack to Captain van Duiven- 
 voorde, on guard at the Hoogewoerde Gate, and, placing his 
 note-book inside the breast of his doublet, he went into the 
 dwelling-house to bid adieu to Maria. He went up the steps, 
 trembling with excitement, and paused when he readied the 
 upper stair-landing. His heart beat so violently that he could 
 hardly breathe. He did not know at which door to knock, and 
 was oppressed with a vague dread. There he stood as if 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 209 
 
 paralyzed for some few minutes; then he pulled himself to- 
 gether, shook himself, and muttered to himself, " "What a 
 coward I am!" In an instant he had opened the door into the 
 dining-room, and went in. Adrian was sitting at the table, 
 with his books before him, by the light of a pine torch. Georg 
 asked him where his mother was. 
 
 " She is spinning in the parlor," said the boy. 
 
 " Go and fetch her; I have something of importance to tell 
 her. " 
 
 Adrian went, and returned with the message that Jonker 
 Georg might wait in his father's sitting-room. 
 
 " Where is Barbara?" asked Georg. 
 
 " "With Elizabeth." The baron nodded, and took to pacing 
 up and down by the long table, thinking to himself: " I can 
 not go thus; I must speak out from the bottom of my heart. 
 Once, only once more, I will hear her tell me that she loves 
 me. I will — I will. It may be dishonorable — it may be base; 
 I will atone for it — atone for it with my life." While the 
 young man walked about the room, Adrian was packing his 
 books together, and could not help exclaiming: 
 
 " Why, Jonker, how badly you look to-day! It is enough 
 to frighten one. Mother is in the next room; I hear the tin- 
 der-box snap; she is getting a light." 
 
 " Have you time for a message?" asked Georg. 
 
 " Yes; I have done." 
 
 " Then run to Wilhelm Corneliussohn, and tell him every- 
 thing is settled. We are to meet at nine — punctually at 
 nine." 
 
 " At the inn?" asked the lad. 
 " No, no; he knows; only make haste." 
 Adrian was on the point of starting, but Georg beckoned 
 him to come close, and asked him in a whisper:. 
 " Can you hold your tongue?" 
 " As mute as a fish. " 
 
 " I am going to slip out of the town to-night, and perhaps I 
 may never come back." 
 
 " You, Jonker — to-night?" asked the boy. 
 
 " Yes, dear fellow. Come here and give me a kiss at part- 
 ing. Keep this little ring as a remembrance. " The boy gave 
 and took the kiss, and slipped the ring on to his finger; and 
 his eyes were full of tears as he said: 
 
 " And you really mean it? Yes; we are hungry here! God 
 
 knows I would go with you, if it were not for Elizabeth and 
 mother. When will you come back?" 
 
210 THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 
 
 " "Who can tell, my lad? Do not forget to love me, do yon 
 hear? — to love me truly! Now, be on" with you." 
 
 Adrian Hew down-stairs, and in another minute Georg was 
 standing in Peter's room, face to face with Maria. The shut- 
 ters were closed, and there were two tapers burning in the 
 branched candlestick on the table. 
 
 " Thank you a thousand times for coming to speak to me," 
 said he. " You passed judgment on me yesterday, and to- 
 day—" 
 
 " I know what has brought you here," she replied, gently. 
 " Henrika has bade me good-bye, and I can not detain her. 
 She does not wish that you should accompany her, but Master 
 Wilhelm has told me about it. You are come to say fare- 
 well." 
 
 " Yes, Maria — farewell forever." 
 
 " Nay, please God, we shall meet again. I know what it is 
 that is driving you out of this jjlace. You are right, Georg, 
 good and noble; and if anything can soften a parting it is that 
 we may remember each other without a pang of bitterness. 
 Y'ou will not forget us, and — as you well know — your memory 
 will live here among great and small — in all your hearts — " 
 
 " And in yours too, Maria?" 
 
 " In mine too." 
 
 " Cling to it, cherish it; and when this hapless dust, which 
 to-day still lives, and breathes, and loves, and is desperate, has 
 been swe])t out of your path by the whirlwind, grant it still a 
 green spot in your remembrance." 
 
 Maria shuddered, for deep desperation indeed glowed in the 
 dull fire of his eyes, and full of agonizing fears she cried out: 
 
 " What are you planning, Georg — for Christ's sake, what 
 are you thinking of doing?" 
 
 " Nothing wrong," he said, dully. " Nothing violent. 
 But we birds do not all pipe the same tune. Happy is he who 
 slips on through the 3 r ears with tepid blood and lukewarm joys; 
 but my blood courses in hotter haste, and when my soul has 
 once clasped an idea with its poulp-like arms, it can never 
 relinquish its hold but in death. I am going, never to return; 
 but you and my devotion I carry with me to the battle, to the 
 grave. I am going — I am going — " 
 
 But, Georg, we must not part thus — " 
 
 Then bid me stay. Only say: 'Here am I, and T pity 
 you.' But do not encourage the abjecl wretch whom yen have 
 blinded, to look up, to open his eyes, and rejoice in the beauties 
 of creation! And you stand there, trembling, hesitating, with- 
 
 (( mi 
 
THE P.lKtiOM ASTER'S WIFE. 211 
 
 oat a word for the man who loves you, for the man — the 
 man — " 
 
 The young man's voice was choked with emotion; he 
 pressed his hand to his forehead and groaned. Then he 
 seemed to collect his thoughts, and he went on, in a low and 
 sorrowful voice: " I am here to tell you once more how my 
 heart is unchangeably fixed on this one thought. I meant to 
 have spoken words of sweeter meaning, hut pain and regret 
 infuse their bitterness into everything I can say. Take this 
 little book; I have written it all — everything that my heart 
 longed to utter, and for which ordinary words have no lan- 
 guage — in the form of verse. Read these pages, Maria, and if 
 they can rouse any response in your soul, keep them. The 
 honeysuckle in your garden needs a trellis to help it to grow 
 and blossom, and these poor songs may serve as a supjjort 
 round which your remembrance of me, when I am gone, may 
 clasp its tendrils and fondly cling. Eead — yes, read, and then 
 once mory say you love me, or else send me away from you." 
 
 '' Give it me," Maria said; and she opened the book with a 
 trembling hand. 
 
 He drew back a little way, but his breath came quickly and 
 his eyes followed hers as she read. 
 
 She began with the last song but one. He had written it 
 shortly after he had come in the evening before, and it ran as 
 follows: 
 
 " Joyous bustle fills the town, 
 
 In the windows lights are gleaming, 
 Through the highways to and fro 
 
 Happy, busy crowds are streaming. 
 Could such joys but last forever! 
 
 Last forever? Brief delight! 
 Dead the lights — love finds no answer — 
 
 Past and gone that festal night." 
 
 The last poem of all Georg had hastily written during the 
 night, and in it he bewailed his hapless fate. Once — at least 
 once — she must and should hear him; he would write an ap- 
 peal ^uch as she had never listened to before. 8he had read 
 the first set of verses in silence with her eyes only, but now she 
 moved her lips and read quickly and in a low voice, but still 
 audibly: 
 
 " Now should it sound like solemn thunder pealing, 
 Then soft as flutes through sweet May moonlight stealing; 
 Anon storm Heaven in jubilant elation 
 Or sob like Philomel in desolation. 
 And this my song, perennial and undying, 
 Shall rouse mankind to listen to my sighing, 
 
2V2 THE BTTBGOMASTEB'S WIFE. 
 
 Resound through earth's deep caves and secret places, 
 Beyond our grosser air through skyey spaces, 
 Throughout the universe— an invocation 
 Waking weird echoes from the whole creation. 
 Those echoes, swelling to a suppliant choir, 
 Shall pray thee hear and answer my desire. 
 Ev'n when the ivy o'er my grave is creeping, 
 That magic strain* of Binging, sighing, weeping, 
 Shall still be heard, and pierce the tomb's dark portal, 
 A mighty song, insistant and immortal." 
 
 Maria read on; her heart beat faster and her breath came 
 quicker, and by the time she had got to the last words tears 
 had started to her eyes, and she had lifted the book with both 
 hands, prepared to fling it from her and throw her arms round 
 the writer's neck. He, meanwhile, had stood in front of her 
 as if spellbound, and listened with ravishment to the soaring 
 flight of his own verse. Quivering with passion, he yet con- 
 trolled himself till she had read the last word, raised her eves 
 from the page, and held the book aloft; but then all his self- 
 command was blown to the winds, and he vehemently ex- 
 claimed: "Maria, sweetest wifely woman — the only wom- 
 
 an—" 
 
 Wifely?" The word found a questioning, warning echo 
 in her own soul, and she felt as if an icy cold hand had been 
 laid upon her heart. The intoxicating fumes suddenly lifted, 
 and as she saw him before her, his arms open, his eyes full of 
 flame, she shrunk back, sobered to an intense horror of him 
 and of herself. Instead of tossing the book aside and rushing 
 to meet him, she tore it across and said, proudly: " Here are 
 your verses, Jonker von Dornburg; take them with you.' 3 
 And she added in gentler tones, but with a dignity that she 
 recovered with some effort: "I can remember you without 
 this book. We both have let ourselves dream; now let us 
 wake! Farewell. I will pray God to protect you. Give me 
 your hand, Georg, and when you return we shall welcome you 
 to our house as a friend." 
 
 As she spoke, she turned away and merely assented with a 
 silent bow, when he cried after her: 
 
 " It is all over — all over!" 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 Geoeg went down the stairs like a man who had been 
 stunned: the two halves of the note-book, in which, ever since 
 the wedding at Delft, he had been in the habit of writing 
 verses addressed to Maria, lay in his hand. A bright blaze in 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S "WIFE. 213 
 
 the kitchen lighted up the hall; he followed its guidance, and 
 before he even returned Barbara's friendly greeting, he went 
 straight up to the hearth and flung the leaves which contained 
 the pure and fragrant emanations of a sweet and tender blos- 
 som into the flames. " Oho, Jonker!" cried the widow. " A 
 quick fire is not good for all meat; what are you burning 
 there?" 
 
 ; ' Only some nonsense — some papers," he said. " Be easy; 
 the worst they could do would be to weep and put the fire out. 
 Now they are ashes. There go the sparks in procession 
 through the charred, black paper. How pretty! they come 
 out aud vanish again like a funeral train with torches in a 
 pitch-black night. Sleep soundly, poor children — sleep in 
 peace, poor little poems. Look, mother, they curl up and 
 Writhe almost convulsively, as if it hurt them to be burned.-" 
 
 ' What things to say!" interrupted the widow, as she poked 
 the burned volume into the fire with the tongs, and then she 
 added, as she tapped her forehead : ' ' Many a time have I felt 
 truly sorry for you. High-sounding words, like those of the 
 Psalms, are not for every-day use and our kitchen. If you 
 belonged to me you would often hear a piece of my mind. 
 Remember the proverb, ' Slow and steady wins the race.' " 
 
 ' Good advice to a traveler," said Georg, holding out his 
 hand to Barbara. "Farewell, good mother. I can not stay 
 here any longer: in half an hour's time I shall have turned 
 my back on this town." 
 
 " You are going then! Well, as you think best; or are you 
 taking Mistress Henrika in tow? A noble's son and a noble's 
 daughter! Like to like; but no, there has never been any- 
 thing between you two. She has a good heart, but I could 
 wish you something better than a papistical turncoat. " 
 
 " Then Henrika has told you — " 
 
 " She has this moment left me. Well, well, she has her 
 own kith and kin out there; and for us it is difficult to divide 
 a plurn into a dozen mouthf uls. I wished her God-speed with 
 sincere good will — but you, Georg, you — " 
 
 " I shall conduct her out of the town, and then — you can 
 not blame me — I shall go over to the Gueux. " 
 
 " To the Gueux! That is a very different thing; that is 
 right. There you will be in the very place for you. Boldly 
 conceived, Jouker, and bravely planned! Give me your hand; 
 and if you should meet my boy — he commands a ship of his 
 own. Good heavens! what a good idea — you can wait a min- 
 ute longer? Trautchen, come here. Upstairs in the painted 
 chest are the worsted hose 1 knitted for him. Make haste and 
 
214 THE BCUQOMASTER'S WIFE. 
 
 fetch ih in. Be may want them in the wet autumn weather 
 and ;ii sea. You will take them for me?" 
 
 " Willi all tin 1 pleasure in life: ami let me thank you for all 
 your kindness; you have been like a dear, kind mother to 
 inc." He took the willow's hand, and neither of Ihem at- 
 n mpted to conceal how dear each was to the other, and how 
 bitter the parting was. The maid-servant had given him the 
 knitted hose, and as I hey said good-bye, many tears ran down 
 on lo them, and Barbara, remarking that they were wet before 
 they were rained on, shook them dry and gave them to the 
 Jonker. 
 
 The night was dark, hut still and even sultry; the travelers 
 were met at the Hoogewoerde Gate by Van Duivenvoorde; an 
 old corporal of the watch carried a lantern before him and 
 opened the gate. The captain embraced his brave and valued 
 comrade, Uornburg; a very few words of farewell or God- 
 Bpeed were spoken under the w T alls of the fortified gate-way, 
 and the three refugees were outside and free. 
 
 For some time they walked in silence through the darkness: 
 Wilhelni knew the way and went first; the baron kept close to 
 Henrika s side. All was silent excepting that from time to 
 time they heard a w T ord of command, from the ramparts, the 
 toll of the tower-clock, or the bark of a dog. Henrika had 
 recognized Georg by the light of the lantern, and when, pres- 
 ently, Wilhelni stopped to ascertain whether there was any 
 water in the ditches across which he wanted to lead his com- 
 panions, she observed in a low voice: 
 
 " I did not count upon your escort, Jonker." 
 
 " I knew that, but 1, like you, wished to leave the town.' 3 
 
 " And you will have the benefit of our knowledge of the 
 pass-word. Well, then, remain with us." 
 
 " Until I see you in safety, mistress." 
 
 " The walls of Leyden are already standing between you and 
 the danger from which you arc Hying. " 
 
 " I do not understand you." 
 
 " So much the better." • 
 
 Wilhelm turned round and begged his companions to be 
 6ilent. Without another word they went on until they reached 
 the high-road, which they had hitherto avoided, close in front 
 of the Spanish camp. 
 
 A Spanish sentinel challenged them. "Lepanto," said 
 Wilhelni, and without let or hindrance they went forward into 
 the camp. 
 
 A coach with four horses, a sort of ark hung between two 
 very small fore wheels and two gigantic hind wheels, went slow- 
 
THE BURGOMASTER^ WIFE. 215 
 
 ly past them. It was conveying Mistress Magdalena Moons, 
 the daughter of a highly respected family of Dutch— all high 
 in office — back to the Hague, from paying a visit to her ad- 
 mirer, the commander-in-chief, who subsequently became her 
 husband. Indeed, there were plenty of women hi the camp, 
 so Henrika's presence there attracted no attention. A few 
 •wretched camp followers sat at the doors of the tents mending 
 the soldiers' clothes, while outside one of the officer's tents 
 were a party of over-dressed hussies throwing dice and drinking 
 with their comj^anions. Behind the commander's quarters 
 there was a bright, illuminated spot, where, nnder a canopy, 
 several confessionals and an altar had been erected. On the 
 altar stood lighted tapers, and over it swung a silver lam]), 
 while a steady stream of dark figures flowed to the confes- 
 sionals — Spanish warriors, whose figures could be distinguished 
 as the light of the tapers fell on their helmets and breast- 
 plates. 
 
 The low chanting of the priests and the murmur of peni- 
 tents and worshipers were drowned by the loud tones of the 
 boozing German mercenaries, the neighing and stamping of 
 chargers, and the laughter of the officers and their women; 
 but the shrill tinkle of the mass-bell was heard now and again 
 in brisk vibration above the hubbub of the camp. When they 
 reached the village, the pass-word once more worked its charm, 
 and they gained the first houses unchecked. 
 
 " Here we are," said TVilhelm, with a sigh of relief. " Take 
 advantage of the darkness, Jonker, and go on at once till you 
 have left the Spaniards behind you." 
 
 " No, my friend, you are still among them, and I have a 
 fancy to share your danger. I will return with you to Leyden, 
 and then try to reach JJelft; meanwhile, I will stay here and 
 watch and warn you in case of need. " 
 
 " Nay, let us part here, Georg; it may be hours before I re- 
 turn. " 
 
 * 
 
 I have time — horribly too much time. I will wait. There, 
 the door is opened." And he laid his hand on his sword, but 
 he soon left hold of it, for it was Belotti who came out to them 
 and greeted his signorina. Henrika followed him into the 
 house, and there stood talking with him in low tones till Georg 
 spoke to her once more. 
 
 " Mistress van Hoogstraten," he said, " I may surely hope 
 that you will at any rate bid me God-speed?" 
 
 " Farewell, Baron van Dornburg," she replied, coolly; but 
 she went a step toward him. Georg, too, went forward to 
 meet her, and held out his hand. She hesitated a moment, 
 
816 THE Bl li(iO.M ASTER'S WIFE. 
 
 then she gave him hers, and asked, so softly that he only could 
 hear her: 
 
 " You love Maria?" 
 
 "What! am I to confess?" 
 
 " Do not refuse me this Last and first request. If you know 
 how to be generous, answer me frankly; I will not betray you. 
 Do you love Dame van der Werff?" 
 
 " 5Tes, mistress. " 
 
 llenrika drew a deep breath, and asked again: 
 
 " And you are rushing out into the storm in order to forget 
 her?" 
 
 " No, madame." 
 
 " Tell me, then, why you have come out of Leyden?" 
 
 " To meet the death that becomes a soldier." 
 
 She went close ujj to him, and exclaimed, in a tone of scorn 
 that cut Georg to the heart: 
 
 " And you too! It falls upon all — knights and maidens, 
 wives and widows — it spares none. Sorrow, and still no end 
 of sorrow. Farewell, Georg. We may laugh at each other, 
 or weep for each other, just as suits our mood. A heart pierced 
 with seven swords— a picture full of meaning. Let us each 
 wear a blood-red scarf instead of green and blue. Give me 
 your hand once more, and God be with you!" 
 
 Henrika beckoned to the musician, and together they fol- 
 lowed Belotti up the steep and narrow stair. 
 
 Wilhelm was then let in a small room, beyond which was a 
 second, in which a handsome little boy of three was playing 
 with an old Italian nurse. In a third room, which, like all 
 the others in the farm-house, was so low that a tall man could 
 hardly stand upright in it, Henrika's sister was lying on a 
 large bed, above which a canopy, after the fashion of a bal- 
 dachino, was supported on four little pillars. Pine torches 
 shed a feeble light in the large cavernous room. Their orange- 
 colored flare was lost under the canopy, and the sufferer's face 
 was hardly recognizable. Henrika just nodded to the Italian 
 woman and the child as she passed through the room, and 
 hastening into the one beyond, flew up to the bed, and, falling 
 on her knees, clasped her sister jaassionately hi her arms and 
 covered her cheeks with fervent kisses. 
 
 She could say nothing but " Anna, Anna!" and the sicV 
 woman had no words but " Henrika." This lasted for some 
 minutes; then the girl sprung to her feet, took down a pine 
 torch, and held it so us to light up her long-lost sister's feat- 
 iihcs. How pale and thin they were! But she was still beau- 
 tif ul-^-still the same as ever. A strange mixture of pleasure 
 
THE • BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 217 
 
 and paiu took jwssession of Heurika; all that had been hard 
 and cold in her nature seemed to warm and melt, and the re- 
 lief of tears, which she had not known for many a long day, 
 came back to her iu that hour. 
 
 By degrees this spring-tide of feeling began to ebb, and 
 the confusion of loving appeals and broken phrases settled 
 down into orderly question and answer. When Anna was in- 
 formed that the musician Wilhelm had escorted her sister she 
 expressed a wish to see him, and as he came up to her bed- 
 side she held out both hands to welcome him. 
 
 " Ah, master, master!" she exclaimed, " in what a state do 
 you see me once more! Henrika, this is the best of men, the 
 only disinterested friend I have ever known hi this world. " 
 
 How painfully agitating were the next few hours! Belotti 
 and the old Italian nurse would now and again take up the tale 
 to relieve their suffering, mistress, and by degrees Henrika and 
 Wilhelm had before them the complete picture of a life that 
 had been disastrously wrecked, though worthy of a better 
 fate. Fear, anxiety, and agonizing doubt had tormented 
 Anna from the very first day when she had become the wife 
 of the reckless adventurer and gambler who had succeededin 
 dazzling her young and inexperienced heart. To a brief in- 
 toxication had succeeded a terrible sobering and reaction. Her 
 first child was still an infant at the breast when Don Luis, with 
 unheard-of baseness, desired her to go with him to the house 
 of a certain notorious Marchesa, in whose disreputable gam- 
 bling salon he had for months spent evening after evening and 
 night after night. She had indignantly refused to comply, but 
 he had coolly insisted and threatened. Then the blood of the 
 Hoogstratens had asserted itself, and she had fled at once, and 
 without a word of parting, to Lugano. There her child had 
 found a home with an old serving-woman of her mother's, 
 while she had gone to Eome, not as an adventuress, but firmly 
 bent on a worthy aim. She purposed to cultivate her musical 
 talents in the new school of Palestrina and Nannhii, and so 
 acquire the power of bringing up her boy by the exercise of 
 her art, independently of his father and of her own family, 
 who had never troubled themselves as to her fate. She was 
 venturing everything; still a definite hope lay before her, for 
 an eminent prelate, a great patron of music, to whom she had 
 letters of introduction from Brussels, and who knew her voice, 
 had promised to procure for her, when she should return, an 
 appointment to teach singing in a convent for the education of 
 young girls of rank at Milan. This appointment was in his 
 
218 THE BlKOOMAsTK.l's WIFE. 
 
 hands, and the worthy pries! also tools care, before she set out, 
 to provide her with letters to his friends in the Eternal City. 
 
 Her abrupt departure from Rome had been prompted by 
 hearing that Don Luis had found their boy and carried him 
 off. She could not part with her child, and not finding her 
 husband in Milan, she followed his track, and at lasi joined 
 him in Naples. D'Aviia restored the boy to her, but not till 
 she had declared herself willing to surrender to him the allow- 
 ance which she was still receiving from her aunt. The long 
 journey, with its agitations and hardships, had exhausted her 
 strength, and she returned to Milan, crushed and ill. 
 
 Her patron had taken care to keep the appointment as sing- 
 ing mistress open for her; but she could fulfill the duties which 
 the lady superintendent of the convent required of her only for 
 a very short time; her illness rapidly increased, and a bad 
 cough spoiled her voice. Then she went back to Lugano once 
 more, and here tried to indemnify her poor and honest friends 
 by selling her jewels; but ere long the generous and high- 
 minded artist was reduced to dependence on the charity of a 
 waiting-woman. Until about six months previously she had 
 not suffered actual want; but her good nurse's husband had 
 died, and they lived in anxious care for their daily bread; then 
 a mother's love had broken Anna's pride — she wrote to her 
 father the letter of a penitent daughter crushed by misery, but 
 she received no answer. At last the poor creature, ill herself 
 and perishing with her child, had stooped to the extreme of 
 humiliation; she had implored the man, whom she could never 
 think of but with horror and contempt, not to leave his child 
 to grow up a beggar. The letter containing this cry of despair 
 had reached l)on Luis in Holland very shortly before his 
 death. From him no help was to be hoped for; but Belotti 
 had come, and now at least she was at home; her sister and 
 her friend were standing by her side, and Henrika even en- 
 couraged her to hope for her father's forgiveness. 
 
 It was past midnight, and Georg was still waiting below for 
 his comrade's return. The noise and bustle of the camp were 
 beginning to die away, and the lantern which had lighted up 
 the large lower room of the farm-house was now burning low. 
 The German had no fellow-occupant but instruments of tilth, 
 harness, and stores of vegetables and grain piled up against 
 the walls, and he was in no mood even to cast a glance round 
 him at these various objects. There was no gleam of pleasure 
 for him far or near; he felt humiliated, guilty, weary of his 
 life. His self-respect lay in the dust, and be saw before him 
 a gray and joyless future, full of bitterness and vain regret. 
 
THE BURGOMASTER* S "WIFE. 219 
 
 He had nothing left to wish for but an early end to it all; and 
 yet, now and then, a smiling picture of his distant home rose 
 before his fancy, but it vanished as he remembered the digni- 
 fied figure of the burgomaster, his own horrible weakness of 
 purpose, and the repulse he had suffered. He was full of an 
 intense spite against himself, and longed with vehement im- 
 patience for the rattle of arms, the thunder of cannon, arid the 
 mad struggle of man to man. The time slipped by without 
 his heeding it, but presently his famished vitals began to crave 
 agonizingly for food. There were turnips in plenty lying by 
 the wall, and he ate one after another till he began to enjoy a 
 long-forgotten sense of repletion. Then he sat down on the 
 dough-trough to consider how he might succeed in making his 
 way to the Gueux. He knew neither how nor where to find 
 them, but woe to the man who should try to oppose him ! His 
 arm and sword were strong, and there were Spaniards enough 
 at hand who might happen to feel them both. His impatience 
 was becoming intolerable, and it was a welcome diversion when 
 he heard steps approaching, and a man entered the house-place. 
 He had set his back against the wall, holding his sword with 
 his arms crossed, and he now shouted a loud " Halt!" to the 
 late comer. He, on his part, drew his sword, and when Georg 
 asked him, in imperious tones, what he wanted there, he an- 
 swered, in a youthful voice, but with pride and determination: 
 
 " I might ask you that! I am at home here in my father's 
 house. " 
 
 " Ah!" exclaimed Dornburg, smiling, for by the dim light 
 of the lantern he had recognized the speaker. " If you are 
 young Matenesse van Wibisima you have nothing to fear from 
 me." 
 
 
 1 am; but what brings you out here to-night, sword in 
 hand, on our premises?" 
 
 "lam warming the wall for my own pleasure — or if you 
 want to know the truth, I am on guard. " 
 
 " In our house?" 
 
 " Yes, Jonker. There is some one upstairs with your cous- 
 in who has no wish to be surprised by the Spaniards. But you 
 go up in peace; I have heard from Captain van Duivenvoorde 
 what a brave youth you are." 
 
 "From War mond!" exclaimed Nicolas, excitedly. "Tell 
 me what brings you here and who you are." 
 
 " A soldier in the cause of freedom— a German, Georg von 
 Dornburg." 
 
 "Oh! wait here awhile, pray. I will return quite sooii. 
 Do you know whether Mistress van Hoogstrulen — " 
 
220 THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 
 
 "She is up there," replied Georg, pointing upward. 
 Nicolas new upstairs with a few long strides, and culling hit 
 cousin, told her in hot haste that her father had had a had fall 
 from his horse out hunting, and was lying much hurt. He 
 had broken out in furious language when Nicolas had first 
 spoken to him of Anna, but presently had of his own accord 
 asked him to tell all he knew of her, and had even attempted 
 to come from his bed to see her. He might actually have suc- 
 ceeded in getting up, but his strength had failed him. If his 
 father could come to see her next day, she might tell him that 
 she craved to be forgiven; her father was quite ready to do 
 what he considered his duty in the matter. 
 
 Nicolas evaded all Henrika's questions, and only inquired 
 briefly as to Anna's health and about the friend from Leyden 
 of whom Georg had spoken. AVhen he heard it was the 
 organist, he entreated her to warn him to return to the town 
 in good time and under his escort; then he took a hasty leave 
 and ran down-stairs again. 
 
 Wilhelm very soon joined him, and Henrika was coming 
 down with him to see Georg once more, but no sooner did she 
 hear his voice than she turned defiantly on her heel and re- 
 turned to her sister. 
 
 The musician found the baron and Nicolas in eager colloquy. 
 ' Nay, nay," Dornburg was saying, feelingly, " my way can 
 never be yours." 
 
 " I am eighteen now." 
 
 ' It is not that, it is not that. I have seen you behave 
 bravely before now, and your will is as resolute as a man's; 
 but life has flowers in store for you yet, please God, and sweet 
 ones too. You are just setting out, and your sword will win 
 you fame and good fortune yet for yourself and your country 
 in freedom and contentment; while I, on the other hand, I — 
 give me your hand and promise solemnly — " 
 
 " My hand is yours, but I can promise nothing. With yon 
 or without you I am going to join the Gueux. " 
 
 Georg looked in the brave lad's face with kindly approba- 
 tion. 
 
 " Is your mother alive?" he said, gently. 
 "No, Jonker." 
 
 Come along men. We shall each find what we look for 
 among the Gueux." 
 
 Nicolas grasped the hand that Georg held out to him, and 
 Wilhelm, going up to the young fellow.' said: 
 
 " I expected no less of you after the scenes by the church 
 and in Quatgelat's tavern." 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 221 
 
 "It was you who first opened my eyes," cried Nicolas. 
 " Now, come; we will go straight across the camp; they all 
 know me. " 
 
 On the road the lad kept close to Georg, and when the Ger- 
 man remarked that he would have a hard battle to fight with 
 his father, he replied: 
 
 " I know it, and it grieves me, grieves me deeply; but I can 
 not act differently. The word traitor shall never cling to our 
 
 name. " 
 
 Your cousin Matenesse, Seigneur of Riviere, is likewise 
 devoted to the good cause. ' ' 
 
 " But my father is of a different mind. He has the heart 
 to hope good things of the Spaniards. Of the Spaniards! — ah! 
 I have come to know them well these last few months! A 
 brave Leyden lad — you must know him well by his nickname 
 of Leeuw (the lion), which he well deserved — was taken pris- 
 oner by them in fair fight. I shudder when I think of it; 
 they hung him up head downward and tortured him to death. 
 I was by, and not a word of what they said did I lose : ' If all 
 Holland could be treated in the same way, the land and the 
 people alike. ' That is what they wish. And I hear these 
 things every day of my life. No treatment is too foul for us, 
 and the king feels just the same as the men do. But some 
 one else may serve a master who tortures and scorns us; not 
 I. My holy religion is eternal and indestructible. If it is 
 held in detestation by many of the Gueux I do not care, if only 
 they will help me to break the Spanish fetters." 
 
 Talking thus, they traversed the Spanish camp, where by 
 this time all were sunk in sleep; then they came upon a Ger- 
 man company of infantry who were still drinking noisily. At 
 the further end of the camp a market-dealer and his wife were 
 collecting the remains of their wares. 
 
 Wilhelm had walked in silence behind his two companions, 
 for his heart was stirred with deep emotion; pain and pleas- 
 ure struggled in him for the mastery, and he was intoxicated 
 with exalted feeling; but in front of the market-booth he sud- 
 denly pulled up and pointed to some loaves which were being 
 tossed one after the other into a bread-box. Hunger, too, was 
 a living fact — a too living and powerful fact — in the town 
 yonder, and it was n<3t surprising that Wilhelm should go uf 
 to the market-folk and buy their last ham and all the loaves 
 they had left. Nicolas laughed to see him carrying the bread 
 under his arm, bul < U org said: 
 
 " You have never yet looked famine in the face. Junker. 
 These loaves are medicine for the worst sickness known." 
 
Tr: the burgomaster's wife. 
 
 When they reached the gate, <icorg had the captain roused, 
 and announced to him that Nicolas, too, was for the future 
 one of the Gueux. Duivenvoorde wished the boy God-speed, 
 and offered him sonic money that he might supply himself in 
 Delfi with various necessaries and have something^to live on 
 for a week or two; but Nicolas refused his comrades offer, for 
 he had at his girdle a purse full of gold pieces. A jeweler at 
 the Hague had given them to him yesterday as the price of his 
 aunt's emerald ring. He showed this treasure to the captain, 
 and then exclaimed: 
 
 " Now, onward, Jonker von Dornburg. I know where we 
 shall find them, and you. Captain van Duivenvoorde, tell the 
 burgomaster and Janus Dousa what has become of me." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. • 
 
 A week had gone by since Henrika's escape — seven dread- 
 ful days of famine. Maria had heard from Wilhelm that 
 young Matenesse had accompanied Georg to join the Gueux; 
 that was well. That turbulent torrent was in its proper place, 
 flowing with the wild, roaring, rushing stream. She wished 
 him success, life, and happiness; but, strange to say, since the 
 moment when she had torn his jioems in twain, her remem- 
 brance of him had sunk as completely into the background as 
 in the days before the Spaniards had beleaguered the town 
 Indeed, after that crowning victory over herself, and after 
 parting from the baron, the young wife had felt a rjeculiar and 
 unusual contentment in the midst of her sorrows and anx- 
 ieties. She had judged herself sternly, and the intrinsic light 
 of the purest diamond is never visible in all its beauty till it 
 has suffered under the hand of the cutter. She felt thankfully 
 glad that she could now look Peter freely in the face and give 
 expression to her love for him, and ask his love in return. It 
 is true that, under the pressure of his trouble, he hardly 
 seemed to notice her and her care for him, but she felt, all the 
 same, that much that she could say and do comforted and 
 pleased him. The young woman did not suffer keenly from 
 the dearth of food, while it told severely on Barbara and sore- 
 ly weakened her strong frame. She would sit dejected in front 
 of the tireless hearth and empty jtans, and no longer took the 
 trouble to quill or plait her deep-frilled cap and ruff. It was 
 now Maria's part to raise her courage, and to remind her of 
 her son, the captain of the Sea Gueux, who might before long 
 be at Leyden with the relieving forces. 
 
 On the Gth of September the burgomaster's wife was going 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 223 
 
 home from 'an early walk. Autumn mists thickened the air, 
 and a sea-breeze drove the fine damp spray through the streets. 
 The dripping trees had long since been stripped of their leaves, 
 not by wind and weather, but by men, women and children, 
 who had carried off the caterpillars' food as vegetables for 
 their own pot. In the Schagen Steeg Maria saw Adrian and 
 overtook him; the lad was slouching wearily along, and count- 
 ing aloud as he went. His mother called to him, and asked 
 him why he was not at school, and what he was doing. 
 
 " I am counting," said he; "I have got as far as nine." 
 
 " Nine?" 
 
 " Nine bodies I have met; the master has dismissed us from 
 school for Magister Dirks is dead, and to-day we were but 
 thirteen. There, they are bringing another this way." 
 
 Maria drew her kerchief more closely over her face, and went 
 on. A tall, narrow house stood on the left hand, in which a 
 shoemaker lived, a man of merry wit, over whose door hung 
 two doggerel inscriptions. The first was as follows: 
 
 " Here, flat below and round above, 
 Are shoes for every buyer; 
 If David does not find them fit, 
 Perhaps they'll suit Goliath." 
 
 And the other: 
 
 " When Israel walked in the desert of yore, 
 Through forty years' wanderings the same shoes he wore; 
 But if "nowadays we could make them as strong, 
 The shoemaker's trade would not thrive very long." 
 
 It was on the back ridge of his roof that we saw the stork's 
 nest — it was now empty. The red-billed visitors did not usu- 
 ally fly southward so early ill the autumn, and a few still were 
 left in Leyden, standing meditatively on the roofs. What 
 could have become of the worthy cobbler's favored guests? 
 Yesterday morning their host, who was wont, on their arrival 
 in March, to help to secure the nest that brought good luck to 
 the roof on which it was built— yesterday morning he had 
 stolen up to the gable, and with his cross-bow had shot down 
 first the mother bird and then her mate as he flew home. It 
 had gone hard with him to do such a thing, and during the com- 
 mission of the deed his wife had sat weeping in the kitchen; 
 but when the cravings of famine are gnawing a man's vitals, 
 and when he sees those dearest to him dying of want, he can 
 not stop to think of old affections or future good fortune, but 
 seeks some immediate succor. But the storks were sacrificed 
 too late, for the shoemaker's son, his nearly full-grown ap- 
 
824 the bubgomasteb's wife. 
 
 prentice, had that night closed his eyes forever. Loud lamen- 
 tations Eel] on Maria% ear from the open shop door, and Adrian 
 
 observed : 
 
 " Jakoh is dead and Mabel will not last long. This morn- 
 ing their father was shouting curses after me on account of my 
 father. Be was the cause, he said, of everybody's perishing. 
 
 Is there no bread again to-day, mother? Barbel has some bis- 
 cuit left, and I feel so badly/ As for that endless meat, I can 
 not get it down." 
 
 " Perhaps to-day we may be able to find a morsel. But we 
 have to be very saving with the bread, child/' 
 
 In the hall of their own house they found a servant dressed 
 in black; he had come to announce the death of the prince's 
 commissary., Dietrich van Bronkhorst. Last night — Sunday 
 evening — the jolague had cut off the strong man in his prime. 
 
 Maria knew, as she heard of this terrible loss, that hence- 
 forth the whole responsibility of whatever might happen would 
 fall on her husband's shoulders. She had heard, too, that a 
 letter had arrived from Valclez, in which he pledged his word 
 as a nobleman that if the town would only surrender to the 
 king's mercy it should be spared, and especially to giant free 
 departure to her husband with Van der Does and the other in- 
 stigators to resistance. The Spanish forces should be with- 
 drawn, and Leyden garrisoned with only a few German troops. 
 He invited Van der Werff and the Seigneur of Xordwyk to 
 Leyderdorp as mediators, and whatever the issue, even if the 
 negotiations came to nothing, he promised to send them home 
 unharmed, under a safe conduct. Finally Maria knew, too, 
 that her husband had called together, for this very day, an ex- 
 traordinary meeting of the Council, the law officers, and all 
 the chief men of the town, as well as the principal citizens. 
 But none of this had come to her knowledge directly from 
 Peter himself; she had heard it from the town clerk's wife and 
 other friendly gossips. 
 
 A great change had come over her husband in these last few 
 days. He went and came, pale and gloomy; in his own house 
 lie' kept aloof from the family, silent, and consuming himself, 
 as it were, in his own sorrow. When his wife, obeying the 
 impulse of her heart, tried to speak some words of encourage- 
 ment, he dismissed her shortly and impatiently. Night brought 
 him no sleep, and he left his bed before dawn to walk restli 
 ly up and down the house, to go to look at his little girl, who 
 could no longer show that she recognized him even but by a 
 feeble smile. 
 
 As soou as Maria reached home she went at once to the 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 225 
 
 child's room, and there found Dr. Bontius. He shook his 
 head gravely as she entered the room, and told her that all 
 must soon be over with the frail little creature. In the first 
 months of the famine her digestion had been utterly under- 
 mined; now the stomach refused to do its work, and it was 
 hopeless to think of saving her. 
 
 " She must live — she must not die!" cried Maria, beside her- 
 self, and as determined to be hopeful as a real mother, who 
 can not conceive of the possibility that such a blow can fall 
 upon her as the loss of her child, even when the little heart 
 has already ceased to beat and the clear eyes are dim and clos- 
 ing. " Lisa, Lisa, look at me. Take a little of this nice milk 
 — just a few drops. Tiny Elizabeth, you must not leave us." 
 
 Peter had come into the room unobserved and had heard 
 her last words. With choked pulses he looked down at his 
 darling, and his broad shoulders shook as he said to the doctor 
 in husky tones: " Will she die?" 
 
 " Yes, old friend, I think so! But hold up your head; you 
 have still much left to you. Van Loo has lost all five from 
 the plague." 
 
 Peter shuddered violently; then he left the room, his head 
 sunk on his breast, and without noticing Maria, Bontius .fol- 
 lowed him into his study and laid his hand on his arm. 
 
 " The scrap of life that is left to us is being made bitter 
 enough, Peter," said he. " Barbara tells me they laid a corpse 
 at your door this morning." 
 
 ' Yes. As I went out the ghastly face greeted me — it was 
 that of a young lad. The lives that death reaps they lay on 
 my soul. Whichever way I look — the dead! whatever I hear 
 — curses! Have I the right to dispose of so many lives?. By 
 day and by night I see nothing before my eyes but sorrow and. 
 death — and yet, Lord! Lord! save me from going mad." 
 Peter clasped his hands on his forehead as he spoke, and Bon- 
 tius could find no word of consolation. 
 
 " And I," he exclaimed, " I myself! My wife and the little 
 one are down with the fever, and I am on my feet day and 
 night — not to heal the sick and suffering, but to see them die. 
 All that we have learned in years of weary toil is a mere 
 mockery in these days, and yet the poor creatures sigh hope- 
 fully as soon as I feel their pulse. But things can not go on 
 like this; it is impossible. Seventy deaths the day before yes- 
 terday, eighty-six yesterday, and among them two of my own 
 colleagues. ' ' 
 
 " And no jirospect of any improvement?" 
 
 " To-morrow the ninety will be a hundred, and the one hun- 
 
TIIE BtJJR lER'S WIFE. 
 
 dred will soon mount up to two — three — four — five; till at last 
 there will bo one man left, and no one even to bury him." 
 
 "The plague-stricken houses arc closed, and we still have 
 cattle and horses." 
 
 '" But the contagion exhales through doors and shutters, and 
 since the last, bread and the Last malt-cake were given out, and 
 men have nothing left to live on but meat, meat, and nothing 
 but meat — and onlyamorsel of that each day — sickness breaks 
 out constantly in forms never before heard of, described in no 
 books, and for which no cure has yet been found. This pour- 
 ing water into bottomless jars is too much for me; my brain 
 is no steadier than yours. Farewell, till to-morrow. " 
 
 " To-day, to-day — you will come to the meeting at the town 
 hall?" 
 
 " Not I, indeed! Do what you feel you can answer for: I 
 follow my own calling, which at present means closing men's 
 eyes and certifying their death. If this goes on much longer 
 there will be nothing else to do by way of medical practice." 
 
 ' ' To put it plainlv : In my place you would treat with Val- 
 dez." 
 
 " In your place? Nay, I am not you; I am a leech — one 
 whose duty it is to wage battle against death and suffering. 
 Since Bronkhorst's death you are at the head of affairs in the 
 town. Find a scrap of bread no bigger than half your hand 
 to eat with the meat, or else — I love my country and its 
 liberties as well as any other man — or else — " 
 
 " Or else?" 
 
 ' ' Or else leave death to reap his harvest. You are no phy- 
 sician." 
 
 Bontius nodded to his friend, and left him. The burgomas- 
 ter stood, passing his fingers through his hair and staring out 
 of the window, till presently Barbara came into the room, and, 
 laying his official dress on a chair, asked him with affected 
 calm: 
 
 " May I give Adrian some of the last biscuit that is left: 
 His stomach turns against the meat. He is lying on his bed 
 all doubled up." 
 
 Peter turned paler, and said, dully: 
 
 " Yes, give it him, and send for the doctor." 
 
 " Maria and Bontius are with him." 
 
 The burgomaster changed his dress with a feeling of aversion 
 toward each separate garment. He hated the rich garb ot 
 office as he did the functions which entitled him to wear it, 
 and which, till within the last few weeks, he had exercised with 
 so much self-confidence and satisfaction. 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 227 
 
 Before leaving the house he went to see Adrian. The lad 
 was lying in Barbara's room, complaining of horrible pains, 
 and asking whether he, too, must die. Peter shook his head, 
 but Maria kissed him, and said: 
 
 "No, no, certainly not." 
 
 The burgomaster had no time to linger; his wife called to 
 him to wait as he went through the anteroom, but he hurried 
 down the stairs without hearing what she had to say to him, 
 and she returned to Adrian's bedside. As she held the boy's 
 clammy hand, she thought with a pang of the swift death that 
 had overtaken so many of his companions; she thought of 
 sweet little Elizabeth, and her fancy followed Peter to the 
 Council, and heard his firm voice contending for resistance till 
 the last pound of meat was gone and the last man left stand- 
 ing; and, indeed, she was ready to stand by him, though she 
 knew what it must come to; patient endurance for freedom's 
 sake, or, if God should so will it, a martyr's death in the cause 
 — to die as Jacoba and Leonhard had died, and Peter's noble 
 father! 
 
 So the weary hours went by one after another. When Adrian 
 began to feel better she went back to the little one, who lay 
 white and indifferent, fading through twilight into the dark- 
 ness of death, and only now and then lifting her little hand to 
 her dry lips. 
 
 Poor, sweet, fading bud of human life; how closely it had 
 grown to her heart, how impossible it seemed to bear to lose 
 it. With streaming eyes she pressed her brow against her 
 clasped hands as they rested upon the head-board of the little 
 bed, and prayed with passionate fervor that God would spare 
 this child and save its life. And not once only, but again and 
 again. But at last, when the half-glazed eyes of the dying child 
 no longer met her own, her hands dropped into her lap and 
 her thoughts reverted to her husband, to the town council, to 
 the fate of the town, and to the words: " Save Leyden, and 
 Holland is saved; Leyden lost, and all is lost!" 
 
 The woful day faded into twilight, and the twilight sunk 
 into night. Trautchen brought the lamp, and at last she heard 
 Peter's footfall on the stairs. It must be he— and yet it could 
 not be he, for he never dragged himself up the steps so heavily. 
 The door of the study opened — yes, it was himself. 
 
 What could have happened, what had been decided by the 
 citizens? With an anxious qualm she bade Trautchen stay 
 with the little girl, and she went to her husband. 
 
 Peter was sitting in front of his writing-table in his burgo- 
 master's dress and with his hat on. His face was hidden in 
 
228 THE bubgomasteb's wife. 
 
 his folded arms, the two-branched candlestick stood lighted on 
 the table. He taw nothing, heard nothing; and when she 
 present I\ railed him by bis name be stalled violently, stood 
 bolt upright, and flung his hat angrily on to the table. His 
 hair was in disorder, bis gaze unsteady, and in the dull flicker- 
 ing light of the candles his face was as gray as that of a 
 corpse. 
 
 " What do you want?" he asked, shortly, in a hoarse voice; 
 but for some moments she could not answer— her tongue 
 seemed paralyzed with terror. At last she spoke. 
 
 " What has happened?" she said, and her voice betrayed 
 her anguish. 
 
 " The beginning of the end," he said gloomily. 
 
 " They have outvoted you!" cried the young woman. 
 " Baersdorp and the rest of the cowards want to treat!" 
 
 He drew himself up. 
 
 " Beware of what you say," he cried, in loud and threaten- 
 ing tones. " A man who holds out till his children die, and 
 corpses bar the way to his own house door, who is responsible 
 for a thousand deaths, who for weeks has been loaded with 
 curses, and who for more than four months has hoped for suc- 
 cor, who, look where he will, sees nothing but unutterable and 
 constantly increasing wretchedness and then feels that he can 
 no longer thrust back the saving hand held out even by the 
 
 foe—" 
 
 " He is a coward, a traitor, and breaks the solemn oath he 
 
 has sworn!" 
 
 " Maria V* thundered Peter, going close up to her with a 
 threatening glare. 
 
 She stood still, drawn up to her full height, and pointing 
 her finger at him, as she went on with keen asperity, though 
 her voice trembled: 
 
 " You— you voted with Baersdorp! You, Peter van der 
 Werff— you! You nave ^ one tnis > tne prince's friend, the 
 guardian and providence of this brave town; you, the man to 
 whom the citizens pledged their word— the son of the martyr, 
 the champion of freedom!" 
 
 " Say no more!" he interrupted, quivering with shame and 
 rage. " Do you know what it is to bear the burden of this 
 woe that cries to Heaven, in the sight of God and man?" 
 
 " I do, I do, and again I say, I do. It is to bind your heart 
 to the rack and wheel in order to save Holland and her free- 
 dom! That is what it is! Great God! great Godl You are 
 lost indeed; you are making terms with Valde/J" 
 
 \>> 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 229 
 
 a 
 
 And if I were?" said the burgomaster with a haughty 
 wave of his hand as if to dismiss the question. 
 
 Maria fixed' her eyes on his. and exclaimed, with clear de- 
 cision : 
 
 "Then it would be my turn to say: Go to Delft, go to 
 Delft; we want other men here.'' 
 
 Van der Werff turned paler and looked down at the floor, 
 while she stood facing him with a frank and fearless gaze. 
 The light fell full on her glowing countenance, and as he 
 raised his eyes once more to hers he felt that the woman who 
 stood before him was that same Maria, who, as his bride, had 
 sworn to share suffering and danger with him, and stand stead- 
 fast to the end in the struggle for freedom; he felt that his 
 " child " Maria had grown up to his own level, ay, and be- 
 yond it; he recognized for the first time in the high-souled 
 woman before him his ally in the fight, a worthy helpmate in 
 trouble and in danger. An overpowering yearning, an eager 
 aspiration such as he had never before felt, surged and seethed 
 within him, and drew him to her, and found utterance in 
 words. 
 
 "Maria!" he cried, "Maria my wife, my guardian angel! 
 We have indeed WTitten to Valdez, but it is yet time; nothing 
 as yet binds me, and with you, with you by my side, I can 
 stand firm to the end." 
 
 And in the middle of this day of anguish her heart over- 
 flowed with the flood of this new, unhoped-for, and unutter- 
 able joy. As she flung herself on his breast, she exclaimed: 
 ' ' And 1 with you — one with you ! forever, through this strug- 
 gle, and in love beyond the grave V 
 
 CHAPTER XXX1H. 
 
 Peter felt like a man under a charm. Courage and en- 
 thusiasm once more filled his soul, for they overflowed in an 
 unfailing stream from the brave and confident spirit of his 
 wife. Under the 23ressure of the fearful responsibility he bore 
 and the urgency of his fellow-citizens, he had agreed in the 
 Council to write to Valdez and crave a safe-conduct for an 
 envoy to be sent to the states general and the Prince of 
 Orange, to beg them to release the perishing city from its oath. 
 Valdez sjiared no effort to incite the burgomaster to further 
 negotiations, but Van der Werff stood firm, and the demand 
 for release from the sacred duty of resistance never left the 
 town. Both the Van der Does, the town clerk, the Jonker 
 van Warmond, and other stanch men, who, at the great gen- 
 
330 the burgomasteb's wife. 
 
 eral meeting had opposed all negotiations with the enemy, now 
 ranged themselves on his side against their fellow-officials and 
 the town council, who, with the exception of seven only of 
 their number, perseveringly and violently insisted on the dis- 
 cussion of terms. 
 
 Adrian soon got better, but the doctor's predictions were 
 terribly fulfilled; for hunger and pestilence vied with each 
 oilier m their hideous fury, and destroyed nearly half the in- 
 habitants of the thriving town. And yet, deep as the gloom 
 m;i>. and dark as was the horizon, in the midst of all this cruel 
 misery there were moments when a bright ray of sunshine fell 
 on these suffering souls, and Hope unfurled her green stand- 
 ard. On the morning of the eleventh of September the towns- 
 folk of Leyden rose from their beds more radiantly joyful than 
 a bride roused on her wedding-day by the songs of her maiden 
 companions, for in the distance the loud and persistent thun- 
 der of cannon could be heard, and the sky was dyed with crim- 
 son; to the south-west of the town there must be villages in 
 flames, and each house, each granary, that sunk into ashes, 
 burying the hopes of honest men, was a beacon of promise to 
 the despairing Leydeners. 
 
 The Gueux were approaching! 
 
 There, out there, where the cannon thundered and the hori- 
 zon glowed, was the land-scheiding 3 the dike, which for centu- 
 ries had stoutly protected the plain of Leyden against the 
 incursions of the waves, and which now stopped the advance 
 of the fleet that was to bring them life. 
 
 " Fall, sheltering wall! Eise, storms, and thou sea, ingulf 
 thy prey! Destroy the peasant's wealth, ruin our fields and 
 pastures, but drown the foe or drive him hence!" 
 
 Thus sung Janus Dousa, thus cried Peter's soul, thus prayed 
 Maria, and with her thousands of men and women. 
 
 But the blaze in the distance died awa} r , the firing was 
 silent. A second day went by, a third, a fourth; no messenger 
 came, no ship of the Gueux was to be seen, and the lake lay 
 motionless; while another awful power grew and stalked 
 through the city with secret, stealthy, and omnipotent force — 
 Death, with its gaunt helpmates I despair and Famine. Silent- 
 ly and at night the dead were carried to their graves, that the 
 survivors might share their slender ration undiminished. From 
 house to house the Angel of Death winged his way and laid 
 his hand at last on little Elizabeth, kissing her closed eyes as 
 she slept in the noiseless night. 
 
 The faint-hearted and those who sided with the Spaniards 
 assembled in mobs, one of which even made its way into the 
 
the burgomaster's wife. 231 
 
 council-room, clamoring for bread. But there was not a 
 crumb left in the stores, the authorities had nothing left to 
 give but a morsel of cow or horse-flesh, or hides — soaked and 
 salted hides. 
 
 On one of these days of dire extremity, Van der Werff was 
 going down the Breede Street; he paid no heed to the fact that 
 a crowd of desperate men and women were following him with 
 threats and abuse, but as he turned a corner to go to Van 
 Hout's house he suddenly found himself surrounded. A pale 
 woman, with a child in lier arms at its last gasp, flung herself 
 before him, holding the dying infant up to him, and crying in 
 a hollow, feeble voice: 
 
 " Is it not enough, is it not enough? Look here, see this — 
 it is the third! It is enough, enough!" 
 
 " Enough, enough! Bread, bread— give us bread!" thun- 
 dered and growled all round him, and stones and missiles were 
 lifted to throw, while a carpenter whom he knew, and who 
 had always stood by the good cause, stepped close up to him, 
 and said deliberately, in a deep voice: 
 
 " We can bear it no longer. We have patiently endured 
 famine and suffering to defy the Spaniards and to defend our 
 Bible, but to fight with certain death is sheer madness." 
 
 Peter stood still, shocked and silent, and looked at the 
 mother, the child, the stalwart working-man, and the shriek- 
 ing, threatening wretches. The common woe which was crush- 
 ing them and so many starving creatures burdened his soul 
 with tenfold weight. Anguish unutterable clutched his heart, 
 and he longed to open his arms and embrace them all as fel- 
 low-sufferers and brethren in a future and nobler existence. 
 He looked from one to another deeply moved; then pressing 
 his hands to his breast he thus addressed the crowd that 
 thronged round him: 
 
 " Here I stand. I have sworn to remain faithful, and you 
 swore it with me. I will never break my oath, but I can die! 
 If my death can do you any good, here I am! Bread 1 have 
 none, but here is my body — take it; kill me, and tear me in 
 pieces. Here I stand, and I will never break my oath." 
 
 The carpenter's head fell on his breast. Come, good 
 folks," he said; " God's will be done. We have sworn." 
 
 The burgomaster passed on calmly to his friend's house. 
 Dame van Hout had watched the whole scene from a window, 
 and that same day she related it to Maria, and her eyes sparkled 
 with enthusiasm as she added: 
 
 " I never saw a man so supremely great as he was at thai 
 moment. It is well for us that he commands within thesu 
 
THE Hi KiioMAsi'Kii's WIPE. 
 
 walls; this deed will be remembered by our children and our 
 children's children. " 
 
 They have, indeed, kept his memory green in faithful re- 
 mi'inbniuce. 
 
 During the night which followed the day when the b urge- 
 master had held himself so bravely, a letter arrived from tho 
 prince, full of cheerful and encouraging news. Their illus- 
 trious chief was well again and straining every nerve to save 
 his brave town of Leyden. The Gueux bad pierced the land- 
 scheiding; the ships were advancing; help was approaching; 
 and the devoted men who brought the letter had, with their 
 own eyes, seen the fleet that was bringing supplies and the 
 champions of freedom, fired with zeal and valor for the strug- 
 gle. The two Van der Does were nominated in the same let- 
 ter to represent the prince in the place of Van Bronkhorst. 
 Van der Werff no longer stood alone; and when, next morn- 
 ing, " Father William's " letter was read to the populace, and 
 the messenger's errand became generally known, the spirits 
 and confidence of the long-suffering towns-folk rose like with- 
 ered grass under refreshing showers. 
 
 But there were still weary weeks of terror and misery to be 
 gone through. In the last days of September they had to kill 
 the cows, which till then had been spared for the benefit of 
 the children and women in child-bed; and then — what next? 
 Succor was at hand, for the sky was often red, and the air 
 shook with the thunder of distant cannon; but the east wind 
 blew steadily and held back the water which let in upon the 
 land; and the ships which were trying to reach the town need- 
 ed a high flood-tide. 
 
 Of all the messengers they sent forth not one returned; 
 nothing was certain but their hideous, cruel, and increasing 
 misery. 
 
 At last Barbara had succumbed, and was complaining of 
 prostration and loathing for every kind of food. Maria re- 
 membered the roast pigeon which had been so welcome to their 
 little lost Elizabeth, and she went to the musician to ask him 
 whether he could bear to sacrifice another of his pets to save 
 her sister-in-law. 
 
 She was received by his mother, who was sitting languid and 
 feeble in an easy-chair. She could still walk, it is true, but all 
 this anxiety and extreme want bad brought on a strange shak- 
 ing palsy in her hand. To Maria's question she shook her 
 head and replied: "Ask him yourself, lie has had to keep 
 the poor little creatures shut up, for if they had been seen they 
 Would have been shot down long since by the starving people. 
 
THE BUKGOMASTEk's WIFE. 233 
 
 He still has three; the rest have flown off with various letters, 
 but have uever come back. Thank God! say I, for the scrap 
 of food he still has by him is better in the pot than in their 
 crops. Would you believe it? A fortnight since he paid fifty 
 gulden out of his savings for half a sack of pease, and God only 
 knows where he got them then. Ullrich, take Dame van der 
 Werff up to speak to Wilhelm. I would spare you the stairs, 
 but he is watching up there for the pigeons he has sent out, 
 and will not come down even to meals; and God knows they 
 are not worth coming down to. " 
 
 The day was clear and sunny. Wilhelm was standing on 
 his balcony, and looking out over the green, well-watered plain 
 that stretched before him to the south. Behind him sat the 
 captain's orphan son, Andreas, writing music; but his atten- 
 tion was not very steady, for, whenever he had finished a line, 
 he sat gazing into the air and watching, like his master, for 
 the expected pigeons. He was not very much the worse for 
 the dearth, for a certain portion of the pigeons' food had fallen 
 to his share with his small allowance of meat. 
 
 Wilhelm was as much surprised as honored by Maria's visit, 
 and promised to grant her request; but it was plain that he 
 did not find it an easy matter to say "Yes." The young 
 woman went out on to the balcony with him, and he showed 
 her that to the south, where formerly nothing had been visible 
 but miles of green, there was a hue — a long, level margin — 
 above which hovered a filmy mist. The noonday sun seemed 
 to saturate the pale vapor with light and draw it upward. It 
 was the water that was pouring in through the cuts in the 
 dikes; and the long black patches which might be seen mov- 
 ing on its shore must be the Spanish troops and herds of cattle 
 which were being driven into the outermost forts, villages, and 
 hamlets, by the encroching tide. The land-scheiding itself was 
 out of sight, but the Gueux had already cut through that. If 
 the fleet could only reach the Zoetermeer Lake, and from 
 thence — 
 
 But Wilhelm suddenly broke off in his explanation, for An- 
 dreas sprung up, throwing down his stool and shouting : 
 
 "It is coming — the pigeon! By Roland, my former self, 
 there it is!" 
 
 It was the first time that Wilhelm had ever heard the 
 father's favorite cry from the lips of the son; something must 
 have excited him strangely; and in fact he was not mistaken, 
 for the speck which his sharp eyes had espied cutting through 
 the air was no longer a speck but already an object of dis- 
 cernible form — a bird — a pigeon. 
 
234 THE Blll'oM ASTER'S WIFE. 
 
 Wilhelm snatched up a banner that lay on the balcony, and 
 waved it more joyfully than ever a victor waved his flag after 
 \rinning a battle. There came the pigeon: it settled, slipped 
 
 into the dove-cote, and in another minute the musician ap- 
 peared with a tiny letter in his hand. 
 
 " To the burgomaster — quick!" cried Wilhelm. " Carry it 
 at once to your husband, dear dame, and finish what the 
 pigeon has begun. God be praised ! they are already at North 
 Aa. This will save, the poor folks from despair: and one 
 thing more, you shall have a bird to cook; but take this corn 
 too — barley-meal porridge is the very best remedy in Barbara's 
 condition; I have tried it." 
 
 In the evening, and after the organist had communicated 
 the good news to his parents, he ordered that the blue pigeon 
 with a white breast should be killed. ' ' Make an end of it 
 outside," he said: " I can not bear to see it done." 
 
 Andreas soon came in with the dead pigeon: his lips were 
 red, and Wilhelm could guess the reason, but he could not 
 scold the famishing boy, and only said : 
 
 " Faugh! you ferret!" 
 
 Next morning, quite early, another pigeon flew in. The letters 
 that they had brought were read out from the window of the 
 town hall, and the courage of the Le}*deners, now in the utmost 
 extremity of misery, once more flickered into life and helped 
 them to endure the worst. One of the letters was to Van der 
 Werff, the other to Janus Dousa: they spoke of confidence and 
 hope; and the prince — the faithful rock of their freedom, the 
 friend and leader of the nation — the prince was well and strong 
 again, and had himself been to see the ships which were being 
 sent to relieve the town. Salvation was so near — but the 
 north-east wind would not change and the waters did not rise 
 
 On the Burcht and other elevated sjwts stood the citizens, 
 soldiers, town-councilors, and women in great numbers, all 
 gazing into the distance. A thousand hands were uplifted in 
 fervent prayer, and all eyes were fixed in fervent expectation 
 and agonizing longing on the southern horizon; but the line of 
 water did not advance, and the sun broke brightly through 
 the mists of the autumn morning as if in mockery, tempered 
 the keen air, and sunk to rest in the evening in a fiery glow 
 and far-reaching shafts of golden light. A cloudless blue sky 
 overarched the town with pitiless calm, and decked itself at 
 night with myriads of bright stars. 
 
 On the morning of the 29th, however, the mists seemed to 
 pack more solidly together, the grass was dewless, a fog rose, 
 the sharp air was tempered to a dull mildness, and the great 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. £35 
 
 clouds grew dense and gathered blackness. Then a light 
 hreeze rose and rustled in the leafless branches, and suddenly 
 a gust of wind swept over the heads of the watching crowd. 
 It was followed by a second and a third, and at last the gale 
 whistled and roared, and a howling storm whirled through the 
 town, sweeping the tiles from the roofs, bending the fruit-trees 
 in the gardens and the young elms and lime-trees in the 
 streets; tearing down the banners which the boys had stuck up 
 on the walls, in defiance of the Spaniards; lashing the dull 
 waters of the canals and the moat. And now — for the Lord 
 forsaketh not His own — the weather-cock veered, the blast 
 came down from the north-west and drove the spring-tide in 
 the storm-tossed sea up the mouth of the Maas; none could see 
 it, but the seamen shouted out the news, and it was caught up 
 and passed on from one to another. The stream was forced 
 violently up its channel and over its banks, rushing through 
 the cuttings made in the dikes made to admit it, and through 
 the yawning sluice-gates, and bearing on its mighty shoulders 
 the shijDS that bore relief. Eage, rage, thou storm; beat down, 
 thou lashing rain; rush on, ye floods; destroy the land, ingulf 
 the houses and farms! Thousands are waiting to welcome you 
 on the walls and towers of Leyden. They see in you the 
 avenging and saving hosts of the Lord, and rejoice and hail 
 you with shouts. 
 
 For two successive days the burgomaster — with Maria and 
 Adrian, and the families of Van der Does and Van Hout — has 
 remained, with brief intervals, among the towns-people, who 
 are watching from the Burcht or the Cow Gate; and even Bar- 
 bara, though hardly recovered, will not be kept at home, for 
 hojoe has done more to revive her than the barley-meal porridge 
 and the lean pigeon; she has dragged herself up to the musi- 
 cian's eyrie, for every one must see the advancing waters, as 
 the earth gives place to them — see the moisture trickle through 
 the grass, collect in puddles, pools, lakes, till at last it is a 
 broad level, beaten by the thrashing rain into bubbles that 
 break into rings and vanish. Every one wants to see with his 
 own eyes how the Spaniards hurry hither and thither, like 
 sheep fleeing before a wolf. Every one must hear for himself 
 the thunder of the Gueux's cannon, the rattle of their arque- 
 buses and musketry; men and women alike rejoice more in 
 the storm which threatens to sweep them away than in the 
 softest zephyr; and the drenching rain that soaks them is more 
 delightful than the sunlighted showers of spring. 
 
 Beyond the stronghold of Lammen, defended by some hun- 
 dred Spanish soldiers, and the tower of Croonesteyn, a keen 
 
036" THE BTJIIGOJIASTEK'S WIEE. 
 
 eye could now detect the ships of the Gueux. All Thursday 
 and Friday Wilhelm had Looked in vain for a pigeon, but on 
 Saturday his besf carrier came home. It bore a letter from 
 Admiral Boisot, begging that the men at arms [eft in the town 
 would make a sortie on the Friday, and throw themselves upon 
 Lammen. The storm had carried the bird out of its track; 
 it had arrived a day too late. However, on the Saturday even- 
 ing Janus Dousa and Captain van der Laen prepared to" move. 
 All who could bear arms were called out early on Sunday 
 morning. A hapless, pale, and diminished force gathered at 
 their commanders' call; but none would be missing, and all 
 were prepared to yield up their lives for the rescue of the town 
 and of those dear to them. 
 
 The storm had moderated; the firing had ceased; the night 
 was warm and dark. Not an eye was closed, and those who, 
 for a few moments, were overcome by sleep were startled and 
 alarmed by strange and mysterious noises. Wilhelm sat up 
 on his balcony, looking and listening toward the south. Now 
 a light gust of wind would whistle round the tall house, now a 
 shout, a cry, a trumpet-call rang through the silent night; 
 and presently there was a crash and roar out by the Cow Gate, 
 as though an earthquake had shaken the foundations of part 
 of the town and hurled it to the ground. There was not a star 
 in the sky, but in the neighborhood of Lammen dancing lights 
 moved in regular rows across the black darkness. It was an 
 ominous and terrible night. 
 
 At dawn it was seen that a part of the town wall by the Cow 
 Gate had fallen in, and a cry of joy went up to Heaven at the 
 sight of the breach, which was no longer a source of danger, 
 while the joyful news flew through the streets and alleys. 
 Men and women, old men and children, sick and sound, 
 came out of the houses, crowding down to the Cow Gate; now 
 the fleet of the Gueux was to be seen rapidly coming nearer, 
 and the town carpenter, Thomassohn, with some others, was 
 tearing up the piles with which the Spaniards had barred the 
 Vliet, till at last the first ship, and then a second and a third, 
 was close under the walls. The wild-looking, hairy sailors — 
 men with deeply scarred, fierce, sunburned faces, which for 
 years had felt no touch of salt water but the sea spray — were 
 laughing to the citizens and crying and sobbing like children; 
 while they threw them up loaves and good things long un- 
 known to them, which the }Joor creatures on the wall eat and 
 eat, and could not even find a word of thanks. And then the 
 chiefs arrived and met; Admiral Boisot fell into the arms of 
 Van der Does and the burgomaster, and Van Duykenburg into 
 
THE BC'RGOMASTER's WIFE. 23? 
 
 those of his mother, old Barbara, and many a Leydener hugged 
 the liberators he had never set eyes on till this hour. Many, 
 many a tear was shed, and thousands of hearts overflowed, and 
 the Sunday bells rang out louder and clearer than was their 
 wont, bidding the rescuer and the rescued alike to church and 
 prayer. The wide vault of the sanctuary was too narrow for 
 the worshipers, and when the preacher, Corneliussohn — filling 
 the place of the- worthy Vertroot, who had fallen ill himself 
 while tending so many sufferers — exhorted the devout to 
 thanksgiving, his words had long been anticipated, for at the 
 very first sounds of the organ the thousands who crowded the 
 church in every part had been fired to offer up, as with one 
 voice, thanks — thanks, and again fervent thanks! 
 
 Pater Damianus, too, returned thanks to God in the little 
 chapel of the Carmelite Sisters, and with him Nicolas van 
 Wibisma and many another Catholic, to whom freedom and 
 his fatherland were dear. 
 
 After church, Adrian, with a piece of bread in one hand and 
 his shoes in the other, waded at the head of his school-fellows 
 across the higher meadows, which were all under water, as far 
 as Leyderdor]}, to see the deserted Spanish camp. There stood 
 the handsome tent of the commander-in-chief; over the bed- 
 stead hung a map of the Ehineland, which had been drawn by 
 Beeldsnyder, a Dutchman, for the destruction of his own coun- 
 trymen. The boys stood gazing at it, and a Gueux, who had 
 once sat at a desk, and who now looked like a sea-bear, went 
 up to them. 
 
 "See here, lads," he said, "here is the land-scheiding. 
 We cut through that first, but that was only half our task. 
 We were checked at the Greenway, and here at the third dike 
 — the Voorweg they call it — we found too hard a nut to crack; 
 we could not get through any way. So back we had to go 
 again, a long round by Zeegwaert and through the canal here, 
 where we had a hard tussle, to North Aa. The Zoetermeer 
 Lake was now behind us, but the water was too shallow, and 
 we could get no further. Have you seen the great ' Ark of 
 Delft '? It is a huge vessel, and is not moved by oars but by 
 wheels, which turn and push it on through the water; you will 
 like to see it. At last the Lord sent the storm and the spring- 
 tide, and the ships had water enough to float them. At the 
 Kirk way wc again had hot work, but we got to Lammen the 
 day before yesterday. Many a brave man had already fallen 
 on both sides, but when we got to Lammen, we nil thought we 
 were to fight it out in good earnest. Early this morning we 
 meant to storm the fort, but when day dawned all was awfully 
 
838 THE BURGO.MASTKlt's -WIPE. 
 
 Btdl] iii the nest, and there was an uncanny sultriness in the air. 
 Then we thought to ourselves: ' It is all over with Leyden; 
 hunger has been too much for them!' But nothing of the 
 kind! Y<ni are made of sterner stuff; and a hoy came wading 
 «»ii( to the ship — about as big as one of you — and said that in 
 the night he had seen a long train of lights come out of the 
 i'<»rt and march away. At first we would not believe him, but 
 the boy was right. The crabs had found the water too hot for 
 them, and the lights the youngster had seen were the slow 
 matches of the Spaniards. Look, children, there is Lam- 
 men — " 
 
 Adrian and his companions had gone quite close up to the 
 map and had interrupted the seaman's story with a loud laugh. 
 
 " What have you found there, curly pate?" asked the 
 Gueux. 
 
 " Look here, look here! the great Valdez has immortalized 
 himself; and here is his name too! Our head-master would 
 make him wear a dunce's cap, for he writes: ' Castelli parvi ! 
 Vale civitas, calcic Castelli parvi ; relicti estis propter aquam 
 et non per vim inimicorum.' Oh, what an ass! Castelli 
 parvi. !" 
 
 " And what does all that mean?" asked the sailor. 
 
 "Farewell, Leyden, farewell, ye little Castelli! you are 
 abandoned because of the waters and not because of the strength 
 of the enemy. ' Parvi Castelli !' I must tell mother of that. " 
 
 On Monday William of Orange arrived at Leyden and took 
 up his quarters in the Baron of Montfoort's house. The peo- 
 ple hailed their Father William " with great rejoicing; and 
 the indefatigable champion of the freedom of the Netherlands, 
 in the midst of the satisfaction and triumph that surrounded 
 him, busied himself for the further prosperity of the town. 
 At a later jDeriod he rewarded the stanch endurance of its in- 
 habitants with a truly glorious monument of their victory — the 
 University of Leyden. It served to arouse and cherish in the 
 busy town, and throughout the land which had so long lain 
 bleeding under the horrors of war, that lofty spirit whose 
 struggles and labors are their own reward, and which sets 
 eternal blessings far above temporal ones. That tree of which 
 the seed was sown at the moment of escape from utter misery, 
 and in the very midst of warfare and suffering, has borne 
 splendid fruits for mankind, and bears them still, and, please 
 God! will nourish for many a century yet. 
 
 On the 26th of July, 1581, seven years after the relief of 
 Leyden, Holland and Zealand, whose political independence 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S "WIFE. 239 
 
 had already been established for six years, declared at the 
 Hague their formal separation from Spain. "William of 
 Orange had hitherto ruled as Stadhouder, or regent, under 
 King Philip, and had even carried on the war against him in 
 his own name. Nay, the charter of foundation of the uni- 
 versity— a document which, in spite of the grave purpose which 
 dictated it, may be designated as an unsurpassed masterpiece 
 of subtle political irony — was put into the mouth of King- 
 Philip by his viceroy; and it is amusing to read in this legal 
 deed that the gloomy bigot in the Escurial has, after mature 
 deliberation, agreed with his dear and faithful cousin, William 
 of Orange, to found a free school and university on grounds 
 which it is quite certain the king must have held in the great- 
 est abhorrence. 
 
 On the 24th of July this mockery had been quashed, and 
 Philip formally deposed. The prince no longer wielded the 
 government in the name of the king, but in that of the states 
 general. 
 
 Three days later the event was celebrated by a splendid ban- 
 quet in Van der Werff 's house. 
 
 The windows of the dining-room stood open, and the fresh 
 air of the summer night fanned the heated brows of the guests 
 who had met round the burgomaster's table. These were all 
 his best and most intimate friends: Janus Dousa; Van Hout; 
 the learned Dr. Grotius of Delft, wdio, to Maria's great joy, 
 had been invited to Leyden as a professor, and who had this 
 year been chosen rector, or warden, of the new university: our 
 learned acquaintance, the inn-keeper Aquanus; Dr. Bontius, 
 now professor of medicine at the* college, and others. The 
 musician Wilhelm was present, too, but not alone; for with 
 him was his handsome and charming wife, Anna d'Avila, 
 whom he had lately brought home from Italy. He had now 
 for some years bcrne the name of Van Duivenbode — " pigeon 
 messenger," the state having granted him this well-earned 
 surname and a coat of arms — on a field argent, three pigeons 
 azure, and two keys crossed. 
 
 With the full consent of the prince, the bequests of old Mis- 
 tress van Hoogstraten to her relations and servants had been 
 recognized, and Wilhelm and his wife were now living in a 
 handsome new house — with a dove-cote attached — where Maria 
 took part in many a madrigal, although the four children she 
 had brought her husband left her now but little time. The 
 musician had plenty to tell Adrian of Pome and of his sister- 
 in-law, Henrika; and Adrian was now a fine young man, who 
 had studied at the university, and was ere long to be made a 
 
240 THE BURGOMASTER'S WTFE. 
 
 membei of the town council. Belotti had followed Henrika 
 to Italy after the death of her father, who had consented to 
 
 Bee and bless Anna once more, and there she lived as superior 
 of a secular order who cultivated music with special zeal. 
 
 Barbara was not among the guests, for she found enough to 
 occupy her in the kitchen. Her wide cap frills were goffered 
 now with an almost coquettish elaboration, and the confident 
 satisfaction with which she ruled Trautchen and the other two 
 serving-maids amply proved that all went well in Peter's 
 household and business. 
 
 And it was really worth while to take some extra trouble for 
 the guests they had upstairs. The Jonker van Warmond was 
 among them, and a place of honor was kept for him between 
 Dr. Grotius and Janus Dousa, the chief curator of the uni- 
 versity; for he had risen to be a great personage and a power- 
 ful statesman, who had had great difficulty in making time to 
 come from the Hague with his young colleague, Nicolas van 
 Wibisma, to take part in the festivity. But he was as lively 
 and eager as ever as he pledged Master Aquanus, exclaiming:. 
 
 " To the memory of old times and our friend Georg von 
 Dornburg!" 
 
 ' : With all my heart/' replied the inn-keeper. " It is a long 
 time since we heard any tidings of his daring deeds and 
 travels." 
 
 "Very naturally. The fermenting liquor has settled and 
 cleared itself. Dornburg is in the English service again, and 
 a month ago I met him in London, a British naval officer. 
 His squadron is now on the way to Venice. But he still thinks 
 of all here with affection, a*nd bade me greet you. You would 
 hardly recognize our favorite of other days in the resj)ected 
 and imperious commander, at once so calm and so jovial. 
 How often would his soaring- genius bear him high above our 
 heads, and how sad it was to see him gloomily dreaming over 
 his secret sorrows!" 
 
 " I saw the Jonker formerly in Delft," said Grotius. " Such 
 soaring spirits are apt to fly too high, and then to have a fall ; 
 but if they can only harness themselves to the car of work and 
 duty, they have a force that may move heavy burdens and 
 conquer the greatest difficulties with happy ease." 
 
 Meanwhile Adrian, at a sign from his father, had risen to 
 his feet and filled the glasses of the company with the best 
 wine he had. The " Hoch " which the burgomaster gave out 
 was in honor of the prince, and Janus Dousa supplemented it 
 with one for the independence and freedom of their native 
 Jand. Van Hout filled a glass to the memory of their days of 
 
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE. 241 
 
 suffering and of the wonderful rescue of the town. Every one 
 responded vehemently to this, and when their cheers had died 
 away, Aquanus said: 
 
 " Who does not thankfully remember that Sunday, October 
 the 3d! But when I look back on the misery that preceded it 
 my very heart stands still to this day." 
 
 Peter took his wife's hand and pressed it tenderly, as he said 
 to her in a low voice: 
 
 " And yet it was then, on the bitterest day of my life, that 
 I found my dearest blessing. " 
 
 "And I also!" she replied, with a grateful look into his 
 honest eyes. 
 
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JOSHUA 
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 WIFE