In the middle of the night, under the round moon, the Children of Israel started on their journey. The fathers and mothers carried the babies, the boys and girls ran and danced beside them, and they drove their flocks and herds before them. And as they went, they talked about the ten plagues, and especially about the last and worst of all, when the firstborn died in every house in Egypt. “Except our houses,” they said. “God passed over our houses, and saved our lives, and brought us out.” And they said, “We must keep the memory of this night forever. When we have a land of our own, and are settled there, then every year when the spring is green and the moon is shining full, we will have a supper of roast lamb and bread unleavened, such as we had to-night, and when the children say, ‘Why do we have this supper and eat unleavened bread?’ we will reply, ‘Children, this is the feast of the Lord’s Passover, when He passed over our houses, and saved us from our slavery in Egypt.’” So they journeyed all that night and all the next day. But in the meantime, the Egyptians had begun to recover from their fear. “Yes,” they said, “we have indeed been stricken by a fearful pestilence. There is hardly a house in which there is not one dead. And Moses says that this is a punishment upon us because we would not let the Children of Israel go. But we are not so sure of that. How do we know that the Children of Israel or their God had anything to do with it? We were foolish to be frightened and let them go. Now there is nobody left to do our work. All our carpenters and masons, all our brick-makers and bricklayers, all our hired men, have gone away: and all our cooks and washerwomen have gone with them. What shall we do? Come, let us go after them, and bring them back.” And Pharaoh sent for his chariot in which he rode when he went to war, and ordered his captains to bring up six hundred other chariots, the best that there were in Egypt. And there was a great clattering of horses’ hoofs, and a great clashing of swords and battle-axes, in the street before the king’s palace. And Pharaoh came out, and away they went, as fast as they could go, after the Children of Israel.