Her eyes wandered restlessly from one to another, and not until her glance rested on Joshua’s anxious face did she become conscious where she was and what she had done.  Then she hurriedly drank the water a shepherd’s wife handed to her, wiped the tears from her eyes, sighed painfully, and with a faint smile whispered to Joshua:  “I am but a weak woman after all.”

Then she walked toward the house, but after the first few steps turned, beckoned to the warrior, and said softly: 

“You see how they are forming into ranks.  They will soon begin to move.  Is your resolution still unshaken?  There is still time to call the elders.”

He shook his head, and as he met her tearful, grateful glance, answered gently: 

“I shall remember these stones and this hour, wife of Hur.  Greet my father for me and tell him that I love him.  Repeat to him also the name by which his son, according to the command of the Most High, will henceforth be called, that its promise of Jehovah’s aid may give him confidence when he hears whither I am going to keep the oath I have sworn.”

With these words he waved his hand to Miriam and turned toward the camp, where his horse had been fed and watered; but she called after him:  “Only one last word:  Moses left a message for you in the hollow trunk of the tree.”

Joshua turned back to the sycamore and read what the man of God had written for him.  “Be strong and steadfast” were the brief contents, and raising his head he joyfully exclaimed:  “Those words are balm to my soul.  We meet here for the last time, wife of Hur, and, if I go to my death, be sure that I shall know how to die strong and steadfast; but show my old father what kindness you can.”

He swung himself upon his horse and while trotting toward Tanis, faithful to his oath, his soul was free from fear, though he did not conceal from himself that he was going to meet great perils.  His fairest hopes were destroyed, yet deep grief struggled with glad exaltation.  A new and lofty emotion, which pervaded his whole being, had waked within him and was but slightly dimmed, though he had experienced a sorrow bitter enough to darken the light of any other man’s existence.  Naught could surpass the noble objects to which he intended to devote his blood and life—­his God and his people.  He perceived with amazement this new feeling which had power to thrust far into the background every other emotion of his breast—­even love.

True, his head often drooped sorrowfully when he thought of his old father; but he had done right in repressing the eager yearning to clasp him to his heart.  The old man would scarcely have understood his motives, and it was better for both to part without seeing each other rather than in open strife.

Often it seemed as though his experiences had been but a dream, and while he felt bewildered by the excitements of the last few hours, his strong frame was little wearied by the fatigues he had undergone.