The eighth was locusts; these the Egyptians fried, and laid by in store to serve them for food; but when the west wind came to blow the locusts away, it blew away also those that had been pickled and laid by for future consumption.[503] The ninth plague was darkness. The tenth was the death of the first-born. The Book of Jasher says that, the Egyptians having closed their doors and windows against the plagues of flies, and locusts, and lice, God sent the sea-monster Silinoth, a huge polypus with arms ten cubits long, and the beast climbed upon the roofs and broke them up, and let down its slimy arms, and unlatched all the doors and windows, and threw them open for the flies and locusts and lice to enter.[504] But the Mohammedans give a different order to the signs:—(1) the rod changed into a serpent; (2) the whitened hand; (3) the famine; (4) a deluge, the Nile rose over the land so that every man stood in water up to his neck; (5) locusts; (6) anommals,—these are two-legged animals smaller than locusts; (7) blood; (8) frogs; (9) every green thing throughout the land, all fruit, all grain, eggs, and everything in the houses were turned to stone.[505] After the plague of the darkness, Pharaoh resolved on a general massacre of all the children of the Hebrews. The Mussulmans put the temporary petrifaction of all in the land in the place of the darkness. The Book of Exodus says that during the darkness “_they saw not one another, neither rose any from his place_;” but the Arabs say that they were turned to stone. Here might be seen a petrified man with a balance in his hand sitting in the bazaar; there, another stone man counting out money; and the porters at the palace were congealed to marble with their swords in their hands.[506] But others say that this was a separate plague, and that the darkness followed it. And now Gabriel took on him the form of a servant of the king, and he went before him and asked him what was his desire. “That vile liar Moses deserves death,” said Pharaoh. “How shall I slay him?” asked Gabriel. “Let him be cast into the water.” “Give me a written order,” said the angel. Pharaoh did so. Then Gabriel went to Moses and told him that the time was come when he was to leave Egypt with all the people, for the measure of the iniquity of Pharaoh was filled up, and the Lord would destroy him with a signal overthrow. 5. THE PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA. The Israelites had made their preparations to depart out of Egypt a month before the call came to escape. And when all was ready, Moses called together the elders of the people and said to them, “When Joseph died, he ordered his descendants to take up his bones, or ever they went out of the land, and to bear them to the cave of Machpelah, where lie the bones of his father Jacob. Where are the bones of Joseph?” The elders answered him, “We do not know.”