“The surest way to attain our object will be by forging still another chain.  In short—­now I beg you to be quiet, your temper is far too hot for your grey hairs—­in short, our Hebrew brother-in-arms, the saviour of my life, the ablest man in the army, who is certain to win the highest place, must be your son-in-law.  Kasana’s heart is his—­my wife has told me so.”  Hornecht frowned again, and struggled painfully to control his anger.  He perceived that he must overcome his objection to giving his daughter to the man whose birth he scorned, much as he liked and esteemed his character.  He could not refrain from uttering an oath under his breath, but his answer to the prophet was more calm and sensible than the latter had anticipated.  If Kasana was so possessed by demons that this stranger infatuated her, let her have her will.  But Hosea had not yet sued for her.

“By the red god Seth, and his seventy companions,” he added wrathfully, “neither you, nor any one shall induce me to offer my daughter, who has twenty suitors, to a man who terms himself our friend, yet finds no leisure to greet us in our own house!  To keep fast hold of the lad is another thing, I will see to that.”

CHAPTER XI.

The midnight heavens, decked with countless stars, spanned with their cloudless azure vault the flat plains of the eastern Delta and the city of Succoth, called by the Egyptians, from their sanctuary, the place of the god Tum, or Pithom.

The March night was drawing toward its end, pallid mists floated over the canal, the work of Hebrew bondmen which, as far as the eye could reach, intersected the plain, watering the fields and pastures along its course.

Eastward and southward the sky was shrouded by dense veils of mist that rose from the large lakes and from the narrow estuaries that ran far up into the isthmus.  The hot and dusty desert wind, which the day before had swept over the parched grass and the tents and houses of Succoth, had subsided at nightfall; and the cool atmosphere which in March, even in Egypt, precedes the approach of dawn, made itself felt.

Whoever had formerly entered, between midnight and morning, the humble frontier hamlet with its shepherd tents, wretched hovels of Nile mud, and by no means handsome farms and dwellings, would scarcely have recognized it now.  Even the one noticeable building in the place—­besides the stately temple of the sungod Turn—­the large fortified store-house, presented at this hour an unfamiliar aspect.  Its long white-washed walls, it is true, glimmered through the gloom as distinctly as ever, but instead of towering—­as usual at this time—­mute and lifeless above the slumbering town—­the most active bustle was going on within and around it.  It was intended also as a defense against the predatory hordes of the Shasu,

     [Bedouins, who dwelt as nomads in the desert adjacent to Egypt, now
     regarded as part of Asia.]