heightened by his fevered brain, would be lost to him forever.

During the night he had firmly resolved to enter Pharaoh's army, that he
might remain near Tanis and Kasana; but though he had only half
comprehended Hosea's message, he could plainly discern that he intended
to turn his back upon Egypt and his high position and meant to take
Ephraim with him, should he make his escape. So he must renounce his
longing to see Kasana once more. But this thought was unbearable and
an inward voice whispered that, having neither father nor mother, he was
free to act according to his own will. His guardian, his dead father's
brother, in whose household he had grown up, had died not long before,
and no new guardian had been named because the lad was now past
childhood. He was destined at some future day to be one of the chiefs of
his proud tribe and until yesterday he had desired no better fate.

He had obeyed the impulse of his heart when, with the pride of a shepherd
prince, he had refused the priest's suggestion that he should become one
of Pharaoh's soldiers, but he now told himself that he had been childish
and foolish to reject a thing of which he was ignorant, nay, which had
ever been intentionally represented to him in a false and hateful light
in order to bind him more firmly to his own people.

The Egyptians had always been described as detestable enemies and
oppressors, yet how enchanting everything seemed in the house of the
first Egyptian warrior he had entered.

And Kasana!

What must she think of him, if he left Tanis without a word of greeting,
of farewell. Must it not grieve and wound him to remain in her memory a