“If return were possible,” said the commander of the chariot-soldiers, a relative of the king, “I would go back now.  But as matters are, one would tumble over the other.  So forward, whatever it may cost.  We are close on their heels.  Halt!  Halt!  That accursed stinging smoke!  Wait, you dogs!  As soon as the pathway widens, we’ll run you down with scant ceremony, and may the gods deprive me of a day of life for each one I spare!  Another torch out!  One can’t see one’s hand before one’s face!  At a time like this a beggar’s crutch would be better than a leader’s staff”

“And an executioner’s noose round the neck rather than a gold chain!” said another with a fierce oath.

“If the moon would only appear again!  Because the astrologers predicted that it would shine in full splendor from evening till morning, I myself advised the late departure, turning night into day.  If it were only lighter! . . . .”

But this sentence remained unfinished, for a gust of wind, bursting like a wild beast from the south-eastern ravine of Mount Baal-zephon, rushed upon the fugitives, and a high wave drenched Ephraim from head to foot.

Gasping for breath, he flung back his hair and wiped his eyes; but loud cries of terror rang from the lips of the Egyptians behind him; for the same wave that struck the youth had hurled the foremost chariots into the sea.

Ephraim began to fear for his people and, while running forward to join them again, a brilliant flash of lightning illumined the bay, Mount Baal-zephon, and every surrounding object.  The thunder was somewhat long in following, but the storm soon came nearer, and at last the lightning no longer flashed through the darkness in zigzag lines, but in shapeless sheets of flame, and ere they faded the deafening crash of the thunder pealed forth, reverberating in wild uproar amid the hard, rocky precipices of the rugged mountain, and dying away in deep, muttering echoes along the end of the bay and the shore.

Whenever the clouds, menacing destruction, discharged their lightnings, sea and land, human beings and animals, far and near, were illumined by the brilliant glare, while the waters and the sky above were tinged with a sulphurous yellow hue through which the vivid lightning shone and flamed as through a wall of yellow glass.

Ephraim now thought he perceived that the blackest thunder-clouds came from the south and not from the north, but the glare of the lightning showed behind him a span of frightened horses rushing into the sea, one chariot shattered against another, and farther on several jammed firmly together to the destruction of their occupants, while they barred the progress of others.

Yet the foe still advanced, and the space which separated pursued and pursuers did not increase.  But the confusion among the latter had become so great that the warriors’ cries of terror and their leaders’ shouts of encouragement and menace were distinctly heard whenever the fierce crashing of the thunder died away.