Far below them the panic-stricken remnants of the Amorite host were fleeing for safety to the cities of the Maritime Plain. The battle proper was over; the one duty left to the army of Israel was to overtake and destroy those remnants before they could gain shelter. But the narrative continues. "The sun stayed in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day." This statement evidently implies much more than the mere darkening of the sun by storm-clouds. For its interpretation we must return to the remaining incidents of the day. These are soon told. Joshua pursued the Amorites to Makkedah, twenty-seven miles from Gibeon by the route taken. There the five kings had hidden themselves in a cave. A guard was placed to watch the cave; the Israelites continued the pursuit for an undefined distance farther; returned to Makkedah and took it by assault; brought the kings out of their cave, and hanged them. "And it came to pass at the time of the going down of the sun, that Joshua commanded, and they took them down off the trees, and cast them into the cave wherein they had hidden themselves, and laid great stones on the mouth of the cave, unto this very day." All these events--the pursuit for twenty-seven miles and more, the taking of Makkedah and the hanging of the kings--took place between noon and the going down of the sun, an interval whose normal length, for that latitude and at that time of the year, was about seven hours. This is an abnormal feat. It is true that a single trained pedestrian might traverse the twenty-seven and odd miles, and still have time to take part in an assault on a town and to watch an execution. But it is an altogether different thing when we come to a large army. It is well known that the speed with which a body of men can move diminishes with the number. A company can march faster than a regiment; a regiment than a brigade; a brigade than an army corps. But for a large force thirty miles in the entire day is heavy work. "Thus Sir Archibald Hunter's division, in its march through Bechuanaland to the relief of Mafeking, starting at four in the morning, went on till seven or eight at night, covering as many as thirty miles a day at times." Joshua's achievement was a march fully as long as any of General Hunter's, but it was accomplished in less than seven hours instead of from fifteen to sixteen, and it followed straight on from a march seventeen hours in length which had ended in a battle. In all, between one sunset and the next he had marched between fifty and sixty miles besides fighting a battle and taking a town.