The foremost ranks, moving in directly behind the leaders, had adopted their pace.  Furthermore, as the advance-guard, they had a greater sense of security, and before them was all the east open for flight.  Not so with the hindmost; they were near the dreaded place from which the army would descend; ahead of them was a deliberate host; within them, soul-consuming fear and panic.  The rear rushed, the forward ranks walked, and the center caught between was jammed into a compact mass.

Neither halt nor escape was possible.  Press as the hindmost might upon those forward, the pace was slackened, instead of quickened.  The advance grew slower as it extended back through the ranks, for each succeeding line lost a modicum in the length of the step, till at the rear they were pushing hard and barely moving.  No wonder they sobbed, prayed, panted, surged, swayed and pressed.  How they reviled the snail-like leaders, not knowing that the sturdy pace lagged in the body of the multitude.  So they hasted and progressed only inch by inch.

After the first moment of battle against the human sea, Kenkenes recognized the futility of resistance and suffered himself to be borne along.  There was no turning back now, had he been so disposed.  He had left behind him his purposes, unaccomplished.

He had received no explicit promise from Moses, and if he had given ear to the doubts of his own reason, he might have been sorely afraid, much troubled for Egypt and all he loved therein.  But he went with the multitude passively, even contentedly; he did not speculate how his God would fight for him; his faith was perfect.

As for his presence with Israel, no one heeded him.  Sometimes it came his way to be helpful; an old man lost his feet and becoming panic-stricken was soothed only when the young Egyptian put a strong arm about him and held him till his feet touched earth again.  Children became heavy in the arms of parents and the little Hebrews had no fear of the young man who carried them, a while, instead.  But no one stopped to take notice that this was an Egyptian, totally unlike those among the “mixed multitude” that had come to join Israel; nor did any wonder what a nobleman of the blood of the oppressors did among the fleeing slaves.  Indeed, if the host had any thought beyond the impulse of self-preservation, it was only a dim realization that they were walking over a most rocky, oozy and untender road and that the smell of the sea was very strong about them.

In the early hours of the morning, having become so accustomed to the roar of the wind and the sound of the moving multitude, Kenkenes ceased to be conscious of it.  Other sounds, which hours before would have failed to reach his ears, became distinct.  The crying of tired children reached him, and he detected even snatches of talk among the ranks some distance away from him.  Thus a clamor of noise, secondary in force, grew about him.  Above it all, at last, came a sound that would have made him halt if he could.