was hardly given before it was recalled. A small body of cavalry, not
move than six hundred in number, was sent in pursuit of the fugitives,
who were loaded with the plunder they had carried away from the
Egyptians. They were a disorganised and unwarlike multitude, consisting
partly of serfs, partly of women and children, partly of stragglers from
the armies of the Libyan and Mediterranean invaders. Six hundred men
were deemed sufficient either to destroy them or to reduce them once
more to captivity.

But the fugitives escaped as it were by miracle. A violent wind from the
east drove back the shallow waters at the head of the Gulf of Suez, by
the side of which they were encamped, and the Israelites passed dryshod
over the bed of "the sea." Before their pursuers could overtake them,
the wind had veered, and the waters returned on the Egyptian chariots.
The slaves were free at last, once more in the wilderness in which Isaac
had tended his flocks, and in contact with their kinsmen of Edom and
Midian.

Moses had led them out of Egypt, and Moses now became their lawgiver.
The laws which he gave them formed them into a nation, and laid the
foundations of the national faith. Henceforth they were to be a separate
people, bound together by the worship of one God, who had revealed
Himself to them under the name of Yahveh. First at Sinai, among the
mountains of Seir and Paran, and then at Kadesh-barnea, the modern 'Ain
Qadîs, the Mosaic legislation was promulgated. The first code was
compiled under the shadow of Mount Sinai; its provisions were
subsequently enlarged or modified by the waters of En-Mishat, "the
Spring of Judgment."

The Israelites lay hidden, as it were, in the desert for many long