“And need not swim through the whirlpool,” the queen answered in the same tone.
“And if the chief succeeds in soothing Mesu, and induces the Hebrews to stay in the land,” Pharaoh added:
“Then you will enrol this Hosea—he looks noble and upright—among the kindred of the king,” Isisnefert interrupted.
But upon this Pharaoh drew up his languid, drooping figure, exclaiming eagerly:
“How can I? A Hebrew! Were we to admit him among the ‘friends’ or ‘fan-bearers’ it would be the highest favor we could bestow! It is no easy matter in such a case to choose between too great or too small a recompense.”
The farther the royal pair advanced toward the interior of the palace, the louder rose the wailing voices of the mourning women. Tears once more filled the eyes of the queen; but Pharaoh continued to ponder over what office at court he could bestow on Hosea, should his mission prove successful.
CHAPTER X.
Hosea was forced to hurry in order to overtake the tribes in time; for the farther they proceeded, the harder it would be to induce Moses and the leaders of the people to return and accept the treaty.
The events which had befallen him that morning seemed so strange that he regarded them as a dispensation of the God whom he had found again; he recollected, too, that the name “Joshua,” “he who helps Jehovah,” had been received through Miriam’s message. He would gladly bear it; for though it was no easy matter to resign the name for which he had won renown, still many of his comrades had done likewise. His new one was attesting its truth grandly; never had God’s help been more manifest to him than this morning. He had entered Pharaoh’s palace expecting to be imprisoned or delivered over to the executioner, as soon as he insisted upon following his people, and how speedily the bonds that held him in the Egyptian army had been sundered. And he had been appointed to discharge a task which seemed in his eyes so grand, so lofty, that he was on the point of believing that the God of his fathers had summoned him to perform it.