This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an entire meal of them. D.W.]
JOSHUA
By Georg Ebers
Volume 5.
CHAPTER XXIV.
The prisoners of state who were being transported to the mines made slow progress. Even the experienced captain of the guards had never had a more toilsome trip or one more full of annoyances, obstacles, and mishaps.
One of his moles, Ephraim, had escaped; he had lost his faithful hounds, and after his troop had been terrified and drenched by a storm such as scarcely occurred in these desert regions once in five years, a second had burst the next evening—the one which brought destruction on Pharaoh's army—and this had been still more violent and lasting.
The storm had delayed the march and, after the last cloud-burst, several convicts and guards had been attacked by fever owing to their wet night- quarters in the open air. The Egyptian asses, too, who were unused to rain, had suffered and some of the best had been left on the road.
Finally they had been obliged to bury two dead prisoners, and place three who were dangerously ill on the remaining asses; and the other prisoners were laden with the stores hitherto carried by the beasts of burden. This was the first time such a thing had happened during the leader's service of five and twenty years, and he expected severe reproofs.