Shouting to his brothers in his joy at finding them, Joseph urged on his camel; but no answering shout came back again, and his heart sank within him. His camel knelt on the ground, and leaping off its back, he turned to his nearest brother for the kiss of welcome; but a strong arm warded him off.
He turned to another in surprise, only to meet with the same cold dislike. He told them what his father had sent, and took out the presents from the camel-bags, giving them the old shepherd's kind messages. But it was all of no use. He could not make friends of these dark, bearded men, whose flashing eyes spoke only of their bitter hatred towards the young lad their brother.
Seizing him roughly, they stripped him of his coat of many colours, and leading him to a deep hole in the ground called a pit, they pushed him in. What would become of his dreams now?
"Let him die there of thirst and hunger," they said, as they turned to feast upon the good things the lad had brought to them with such a joyful heart.
Meanwhile Reuben had gone away, so as not to see his brother treated cruelly; and now the men feasted together in sullen silence, for they were by no means happy.
While they sat eating they watched a string of camels come over the hills to the north, and draw nearer and nearer across the plain; and before long they saw that the travellers were a band of merchants taking slaves and spices to the distant land of Egypt. Slaves! That was the very thing; and a flush came over the face of Judah as he said to his brothers,—
"What shall we gain if we kill our brother? Let us sell him to these men. Let us not harm him, for, after all, he is our brother."
So they helped Joseph out of the pit and showed him to the merchants, who saw that he was a handsome lad, such as would bring a good price in the slave-market in Egypt, where red-cheeked boys were of greater value than black boys of the desert; and they bought him for twenty silver pieces, which they counted out to Judah upon the ground.
Tied with a rope like a dog to his master's camel, Joseph was led away by the dusky merchants on their slow march to Egypt. They did not heed his cries and tears, for they bought and sold boys and girls, as other men bought and sold sheep and cattle, almost every day of their lives.
When night drew near, and Reuben came quietly towards the edge of the pit and called his young brother's name, he got no answer but the sighing of the wind in the grass. Believing that the lad was dead, Reuben tore his clothes in his grief, and ran quickly to his brothers' tents; but they hid the truth from him, and having dipped Joseph's tunic in the blood of a goat which they had killed, they brought it to his father.