The youth paid no heed to these outbursts of wrath until he had laid Kasana’s head in the lap of Miriam, who had seated herself on the nearest sand-hill, and as the angry throng, the women in front of the men, pressed upon him, he again waved his dagger, crying:  “Back—­I command you.  Let all of the blood of Ephraim and Judah rally around me and Miriam, the wife of their chief!  That’s right, brothers, and woe betide any hand that touches her.  Do you shriek for vengeance?  Has it not been yours through yonder monster who murdered the poor defenceless one?  Do you want your victim’s jewels?  Well, well; they belong to you, and I will give you mine to boot, if you will leave the wife of Hur to care for this dying girl!”

With these words he bent over Kasana, took off the clasps and rings she still wore, and gave them to the greedy hands outstretched to seize them.  Lastly he stripped the broad gold circlet from his arm, and holding it aloft exclaimed: 

“Here is the promised payment.  If you will depart quietly and leave this woman to Miriam, I will give you the gold, and you can divide it among you.  If you thirst for more blood, come on; but I will keep the armlet.”

These words did not fail to produce their effect.  The furious women looked at the heavy broad gold armlet, then at the handsome youth, and the men of Judah and Ephraim who had gathered around him, and finally glanced enquiringly into one another’s faces.  At last the wife of a foreign trader cried: 

“Let him give us the gold, and we’ll leave the handsome young chief his bleeding sweetheart.”

To this decision the others agreed, and though the brickmaker’s infuriated wife, who thought as the avenger of her child she had done an act pleasing in the sight of God, and was upbraided for it as a murderess, reviled the youth with frantic gestures, she was dragged away by the crowd to the shore where they hoped to find more booty.

During this threatening transaction, Miriam had fearlessly examined Kasana’s wound and bound it up with skilful hands, The dagger which Prince Siptah had jestingly given the beautiful lady of his love, that she might not go to war defenceless, had inflicted a deep wound under the shoulder, and the blood had flowed so abundantly that the feeble spark of life threatened to die out at any moment.

But she still lived, and in this condition was borne to the tent of Nun, which was the nearest within reach.

The old chief had just been supplying weapons to the shepherds and youths whom Ephraim had summoned to go to the relief of the imprisoned Hosea, and had promised to join them, when the mournful procession approached.

As Kasana loved the handsome old man, the latter had for many years kept a place in his heart for Captain Homecht’s pretty daughter.