It was but a miserable hut of mud and reeds, standing a few leagues without the walls of a city which Sarchedon had heretofore visited as a conqueror—a city of palms and palaces, stately in its long avenues of sphinxes, gaudy in the variegated paintings of its brick-built walls, thronged with a dense population, glittering in a profusion of luxury, dedicated to its tutelary deity the Cat.
Somewhat removed from the bounteous river, on the rise and fall of which depended their fertility and even their existence, the adjacent fields were irrigated with all the skill that science and experience could suggest. Their surface—moistened judiciously by canals, ditches, and water-furrows—was alive with a thousand husbandmen. Hoes were plying, buckets swinging, shrill voices rose on the serene air, and lean arms gesticulated with a vehemence ill-proportioned to the amount of labour accomplished or the importance of the subject discussed. All seemed bustle, plenty, and prosperity, save in the huts of these poor Israelites, that stood apart, types of the loathing in which their inhabitants were held by a people with whom, in the days of famine long ago, their fathers had come to dwell.
Lighting down from his beast, Sadoc bade his guest welcome, somewhat mournfully, to so squalid a home. Then turning to the dark-eyed youth who had run out to take the ass's bridle in his hand, he asked eagerly,
"And the river, my son—how many cubits hath it risen?"
"Fifteen cubits, O my father!" replied the other, bowing himself in reverence, and kissing the hem of the old man's dusty travel-worn skirt.
"Praise be to our God!" ejaculated Sadoc; "we shall not then suffer famine added to hard labour and heavy blows. And thy mother, thy brethren? Is it well with them? Bid them fetch water for his feet, and a morsel of bread to comfort the heart of this stranger, who hath come to abide within our gates."
Whatever might have been wanting in luxuries, Sarchedon found amply made up for by the good-will with which his host's family applied themselves to promote the comfort of their guest. The daughter of the house, a tender little maiden yet far off womanhood, brought water for his feet, and was not to be dissuaded from washing, drying, and chafing them with her own hands. The young men lost no time in choosing from the fold a kid to kill, dress, and set on the table forthwith. Barley-bread was furnished by the mother, with butter, dried locusts, and a piece of wild honey-comb. Fresh water stood to cool in jars of Egyptian earthenware; nor was a skin of good wine wanting to crown the humble meal; for Sadoc was an elder of his people, and a man of mark, even amongst the haughty conquerors by whom they were oppressed.
When it had somewhat warmed his heart, the old man seemed to brace himself for a confession that had weighed on his mind ever since he lifted the wounded Assyrian on his own beast, and resolved to bring him home with him into the land of his captivity. Filling his guest's cup, he bade him observe the shadows of declining day and the crimson of sunset, tinging the solemn face of a gigantic sphinx in marble, visible from the window of their hut.
"My son," said he, "our people will be called to their tasks at dawn. Not a male of the Israelites must be absent, when the servant of Pharaoh beckons with his whip to count us, family by family, and man by man. Our dwellings are searched, our very sick are summoned. There is but one master who claims precedence of the Egyptian, and his name is Death. My son, it is out of my power to conceal you here. Look around, and satisfy yourself. You must cast in your lot with us, as though you belonged to our people; and I will account for you as an Israelite who has made his escape with me from our captivity in Babylon the Great."
"I would not willingly bring danger on your household," answered Sarchedon, "but I pray you remember that I am wont to handle bow and spear. My fingers are not skilled to use mattock, hoe, and trowel; my nature, too, does not calmly brook chiding, and refuses altogether to abide blows."