"Try," Hosea broke in, "but my time is brief. So they were compelled to
depart, and set forth reluctantly on their wanderings. Even the
Egyptians have long known that they obeyed the bidding of Moses and Aaron
as the sheep follow the shepherd. Have those who brought the terrible
pestilence on so many guiltless human beings also wrought the miracle of
blinding the minds of you and of your wife?"

The old man stretched out his hands to the soldier, and answered in a
troubled voice and a tone of the most humble entreaty:

"Oh, my lord, you are my master's first-born son, the greatest and
loftiest of your race, if it is your pleasure you can trample me into the
dust like a beetle, yet I must lift up my voice and say: 'You have heard
false tales!' You were away in foreign lands when mighty things were
done in our midst, and far from Zoan,--[The Hebrew name for Tanis]--as I
hear, when the exodus took place. Any son of our people who witnessed it
would rather his tongue should wither than mock at the marvels the Lord
permitted him to behold. Ah, if you had patience to suffer me to tell
the tale. . . ."

"Speak on!" cried Hosea, astonished at the old man's solemn fervor.
Eliab thanked him with an ardent glance, exclaiming:

"Oh, would that Aaron, or Eleasar, or my lord your father were here in my
stead, or would that Jehovah would bestow on me the might of their
eloquence! But be it as it is! True, I imagine I can again see and hear
everything as though it were happening once more before my eyes, but how
am I to describe it? How can such things be given in words? Yet, with
God's assistance, I will try."