Joshua (Historical Novel). Georg Ebers
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eyes, he had received from him tidings that pierced his inmost heart. He had expected to bring home a wife, and the house where she was to reign as mistress was razed to the ground. The father, for whose blessing he longed, and who was to have been gladdened by his advancement, had journeyed far away and must henceforward be the foe of the sovereign to whom he owed his prosperity.
He had been proud of rising, despite his origin, to place and power. Now he would be able, as leader of a great host, to show the prowess of which he was capable. His inventive brain had never lacked schemes which, if executed by his superiors, would have had good results; now he could fulfil them according to his own will, and instead of the tool become the guiding power.
These reflections had awakened a keen sense of exultation in his breast and winged his steps on his homeward march and, now that he had reached the goal, so long desired, must he turn back to join the shepherds and builders to whom—it now seemed a sore misfortune—he belonged by the accident of birth and ancestry, though, denial was futile, he felt as utterly alien to the Hebrews as he was to the Libyans whom he had confronted on the battle-field. In almost every pursuit he valued, he had nothing in common with his people. He had believed he might truthfully answer yes to his father’s enquiry whether he had returned a Hebrew, yet he now felt it would be only a reluctant and half-hearted assent.
He clung with his whole soul to the standards beneath which he had gone to battle and might now himself lead to victory. Was it possible to wrench his heart from them, renounce what his own deeds had won? Yet Eliab’s granddaughter had told him that the Hebrews expected him to leave the army and join them. A message from his father must soon reach him—and among the Hebrews a son never opposed a parent’s command.
There was still another to whom implicit obedience was due, Pharaoh, to whom he had solemnly vowed loyal service, sworn to follow his summons without hesitation or demur, through fire and water, by day and night.
How often he had branded the soldier who deserted to the foe or rebelled against the orders of his commander as a base scoundrel and villain, and by his orders many a renegade from his standard had died a shameful death on the gallows under his own eyes. Was he now to commit the deed for which he had despised and killed others? His prompt decision was known throughout the army, how quickly in the most difficult situations he could resolve upon the right course and carry it into action; but during this dark and lonely hour of the night he seemed to himself a mere swaying reed, and felt as helpless as a forsaken orphan.
Wrath against himself preyed upon him, and when he thrust a spear into the flames, scattering the embers and sending a shower of bright sparks upward, it was rage at his own wavering will that guided his hand.
Had recent events imposed upon him the virile duty of vengeance, doubt and hesitation would have vanished and his father’s summons would have spurred him on to action; but who had been the heaviest sufferers here? Surely it was the Egyptians whom Moses’ curse had robbed of thousands of beloved lives, while the Hebrews had escaped their revenge by flight. His wrath had been kindled by the destruction of the Hebrews’ houses, but he saw no sufficient cause for a bloody revenge, when he remembered the unspeakable anguish inflicted upon Pharaoh and his subjects by the men of his own race.
Nay; he had nothing to avenge; he seemed to himself like a man who beholds his father and mother in mortal peril, owns that he cannot save both, yet knows that while staking his life to rescue one he must leave the other to perish. If he obeyed the summons of his people, he would lose his honor, which he had kept as untarnished as his brazen helm, and with it the highest goal of his life; if he remained loyal to Pharaoh and his oath, he must betray his own race, have all his future days darkened by his father’s curse, and resign the brightest dream he cherished; for Miriam was a true child of her people and he would be blest indeed if her lofty soul could be as ardent in love as it was bitter in hate.
Stately and beautiful, but with gloomy eyes and hand upraised in warning, her image rose before his mental vision as he sat gazing over the smouldering fire out into the darkness. And now the pride of his manhood rebelled, and it seemed base cowardice to cast aside, from dread of a woman’s wrath and censure, all that a warrior held most dear.
“Nay, nay,” he murmured, and the scale containing duty, love, and filial obedience suddenly kicked the beam. He was what he was—the leader of ten thousand men in Pharaoh’s army. He had vowed fealty to him—and to none other. Let his people fly from the Egyptian yoke, if they desired. He, Hosea, scorned flight. Bondage had sorely oppressed them, but the highest in the land had received him as an equal and held him worthy of the loftiest honor. To repay them with treachery and desertion was foreign to his nature and, drawing a long breath, he sprang to his feet with the conviction that he had chosen aright. A fair woman and the weak yearning of a loving heart should not make him a recreant to grave duties and the loftiest purposes of his life.
“I will stay!” cried a loud voice in his breast. “Father is wise and kind, and when he learns the reasons for my choice he will approve them and bless, instead of cursing me. I will write to him, and the boy Miriam sent me shall be the messenger.”
A call from the tent startled him and when, springing up, he glanced at the stars, he found that he had forgotten his duty to the suffering lad and hurried to his couch.
Ephraim was sitting up in his bed, watching for him, and exclaimed: “I have been waiting a long, long time to see you. So many thoughts crowd my brain and, above all, Miriam’s message. I can get no rest until I have delivered it—so listen now.”
Hosea nodded assent and, after drinking the healing potion handed to him, Ephraim began:
“Miriam the daughter of Amram and Jochebed greets the son of Nun the Ephraimite. Thy name is Hosea, ‘the Help,’ and the Lord our God hath chosen thee to be the helper of His people. But henceforward, by His command, thou shalt be called Joshua—[Jehoshua, he who helps Jehova]—the help of Jehovah; for through Miriam’s lips the God of her fathers, who is the God of thy fathers likewise, bids thee be the sword and buckler of thy people. In Him dwells all power, and he promises to steel thine arm that He may smite the foe.”
Ephraim had begun in a low voice, but gradually his tones grew more resonant and the last words rang loudly and solemnly through the stillness of the night.
Thus had Miriam uttered them, laying her hands on the lad’s head and gazing earnestly into his face with eyes deep and dark as night, and while repeating them he had felt as though some secret power were constraining him to shout them aloud to Hosea, just as he had heard them from the lips of the prophetess. Then, with a sigh of relief, he turned his face toward the canvas wall of the tent, saying quietly:
“Now I will go to sleep.”
But Hosea laid his hand on his shoulder, exclaiming imperiously: “Say it again.”
The youth obeyed, but this time he repeated the words in a low, careless tone, then saying beseechingly:
“Let me rest now,” put his hand under his cheek and closed his eyes.
Hosea let him have his way, carefully applied a fresh bandage to his burning head, extinguished the light, and flung more fuel on the smouldering fire outside; but the alert, resolute man performed every act as if in a dream. At last he sat down, and propping his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, stared alternately, now into vacancy, and anon into the flames.
Who was this God who summoned him through Miriam’s lips to be, under His guidance, the sword and shield of His people?
He was to be known by a new name, and in the minds of the Egyptians the name was everything “Honor to the name of Pharaoh,” not “Honor to Tharaoh” was spoken and written. And if henceforward he was to be called Joshua, the behest involved casting aside his former self, and becoming a new man.
The will of the God of his fathers announced to him by Miriam meant no less a thing than the command to transform himself from the Egyptian his life had made him, into the Hebrew he had been when a lad. He must learn to act and feel like an Israelite! Miriam’s summons called him back to his people. The God of his race, through her, commanded him to fulfil his father’s expectations. Instead of the Egyptian