"I am Joseph! Is my father indeed alive?"
The men gazed at him in amazement. What would this terrible Egyptian do next? Who was this who knew about their brother whom they had sold into slavery? They were dumb with wonder.
"Come nearer to me, I beg of you," he pleaded. It was the voice of Joseph that rang in their ears. They came nearer, and gazed up at the great man. These cheeks were too ruddy for an Egyptian, and these brown eyes—were they not the eyes of Joseph!
"I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into Egypt!" he cried. They could no longer doubt that he spoke the truth to them; and as they came forward he clasped them in his arms one by one, weeping for very joy. Then seeing in their eyes the deep sorrow for their past unkindness, he added,—
"Be not grieved nor angry that you sold me into Egypt, for it was God who sent me hither to save many lives in the years of famine. I am lord of the king's palace and ruler of all Egypt."
Then he took his wondering brothers home with him to stay in his fine house, where his Egyptian wife and their little children lived; and after a time he sent them away, laden with presents, and with wagons to bring down their children and their old father Jacob into Egypt. For they were all to come down, he said, and live in the golden and fruitful land of Goshen, and he would watch over them there.
THE CHILD MOSES.
I.
Jacob and his sons stayed in Egypt until the old man died. Then Joseph carried his body back to Hebron in a great funeral procession, and having buried him beside his wife, who had been dead for a long time, came back again to Egypt.