He began with a little prayer his mother had taught him; then he cried
out to the Almighty as to a powerful counselor, imploring him with
fervent zeal to point out the way in which he should walk without being
disobedient to Him or to his father, or breaking the oath he had sworn to
Pharaoh and becoming a dishonored man in the eyes of those to whom he
owed so great a debt of gratitude.

"Thy chosen people praise Thee as the God of Truth, Who dost punish those
who forswear their oaths," he prayed. "How canst Thou command me to be
faithless and break the vow that I have made. Whatever I am, whatever I
may accomplish, belongs to Thee, Oh Mighty Lord, and I am ready to devote
my blood, my life to my people. But rather than render me a dishonored
and perjured man, take me away from earth and commit the work which Thou
hast chosen Thy servant to perform, to the hands of one who is bound by
no solemn oath."

So he prayed, and it seemed as if he clasped in his embrace a long-lost
friend. Then he walked on in silence through the vanishing dusk, and
when the first grey light of morning dawned, the flood of feeling ebbed,
and the clear-headed warrior regained his calmness of thought.

He had vowed to do nothing against the will of his father or his God, but
he was no less firmly resolved to be neither perjurer nor renegade. His
duty was clear and plain. He must leave Pharaoh's service, first telling
his superiors that, as a dutiful son, he must obey his father's commands,
and share his fate and that of his people.

Yet he did not conceal from himself that his request might be refused,
that he might be detained by force, nay, perchance, if he insisted on