Moon of Israel: A Tale of the ExodusHaggard, H. Rider (Henry Rider)
History
Moon of Israel: A Tale of the Exodus
Haggard, H. Rider (Henry Rider)
Exodus, The -- Fiction; Jews -- History -- To 70 A.D. -- Fiction
She did marry again, a merchant about whom she had cast her toils, and
in due course spent his wealth and brought him to ruin, after which he
ran away from her. As for her, she died of her evil habits in the third
year of the reign of Seti II. But, the gods be thanked she never knew
that the private scribe of Pharaoh’s chamber was that Ana who had
been her husband. Here I will end her story.
Now as I was passing down the Nile with a heart more heavy than the
great stone that served as anchor on the barge, we moored at dusk on
the third night by the side of a vessel that was sailing up Nile with a
strong northerly wind. On board this boat was an officer whom I had
known at the Court of Pharaoh Meneptah, travelling to Thebes on duty.
This man seemed so much afraid that I asked him if anything weighed
upon his mind. Then he took me aside into a palm grove upon the bank,
and seating himself on the pole whereby oxen turned a waterwheel, told
me that strange things were passing at Tanis.
It seemed that the Hebrew prophets had once more appeared before
Pharaoh, who since his accession had left the Israelites in peace, not
attacking them with the sword as Meneptah had wished to do, it was
thought through fear lest if he did so he should die as Meneptah died.
As before, they had put up their prayer that the people of the Hebrews
should be suffered to go to worship in the wilderness, and Pharaoh had
refused them. Then when he went down to sail upon the river early in
the morning of another day, they had met him and one of them struck the
water with his rod, and it had turned to blood. Whereon Ki and Kherheb
and his company also struck the water with their rods, and it turned to
blood. That was six days ago, and now this officer swore to me that the
blood was creeping up the Nile, a tale at which I laughed.
“Come then and see,” he said, and led me back to his boat, where
all the crew seemed as fearful as he was himself.
He took me forward to a great water jar that stood upon the prow and,
behold! it seemed to be full of blood, and in it was a fish dead,
and—stinking.
“This water,” said he, “I drew from the Nile with my own
hands, not five hours sail to the north. But now we have outsped the
blood, which follows after us,” and taking a lamp he held it over the
prow of the boat and I saw that all its planks were splashed as though
with blood.
“Be advised by me, learned scribe,” he added, “and fill every
jar and skin that you can gather with sweet water, lest to-morrow you
and your company should go thirsty,” and he laughed a very dreary
laugh.
Then we parted without more words, for neither of us knew what to say,
and about midnight he sailed on with the wind, taking his chance of
grounding on the sandbanks in the darkness.
For my part I did as he bade me, though my rowers who had not spoken
with his men, thought that I was mad to load up the barge with so much
water.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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