In his loft above the throng stood the king, purple with rage. The queen, in her place at his side, was staying his outstretched hand. Below at his right stood Rameses, the kingliest presence that ever graced a royal sitting. At the left of Meneptah, was Har-hat, complacent and serene. Out in the center of a generous space stood Moses. The great Hebrew was alone and isolated, but his personality was such that a throng could not have obscured him. In his massive physique was an insistent suggestion of immovability and superhuman strength; in the shape of his imperial head, there was illimitable capacity; in his face, the image of a nature commanding the entire range of feeling, from the finest to the fiercest. There was nothing of the occult in his atmosphere. His intense human force would have commanded, though Egypt had not known him as the emissary of God. As it was, when he moved the assembly swayed back as if blown by a wind. A motion of his hand sent a nervous start over the hall. The nearest courtiers seemed prepared to crouch. Meneptah did not win a glance from his court. Every eye, wide and expectant, was fixed upon the Israelite. The pale and troubled queen strove in vain. Meneptah thrust her aside and shaking his clenched hand at the solitary figure before him, ended the audience in a voice violent with fury. "Get thee from me! Take heed to thyself; see my face no more. For in that day thou seest my face, thou shalt die!" After the speech, the silence fell, deepened, grew ominous. None breathed, and the overwrought nerves of the court reached the limit of endurance. Then Moses answered. His tones were quiet, his voice full of a calm more terrifying than an outburst had been. "Thou hast spoken well," he said. "I will see thy face no more." Another breathless silence and he turned, the courtiers shrinking from his way, and passed out of the hall. At the doors, his eyes fell upon Seti. He made no sign of surprise. Indeed his glance seemed to indicate that he expected the prince. He raised his hand and extended it for a moment over the boy's head, and went forth. The strength went from Seti's limbs, the passion from his brain, and when Rameses with grim purpose in his face beckoned him, he obeyed meekly and prostrated himself before the angry king. [1] Zoan--The Hebrew name for Tanis. CHAPTER XXXIX BEFORE EGYPT'S THRONE The distance by highway between Memphis and Tanis was eighty miles, a little more than two days' journey by horseback. Masanath had required two weeks to accomplish that distance. She refused to travel except in the cool of the morning and of the afternoon; if she felt the fatigue of an hour's journey, she rested a day at the next town; she consulted astrologers, and moved forward only under propitious signs; she insisted on following the Nile until she was opposite Tanis, instead of taking the highway at On and continuing across the Delta.