chosen, we and no other. Then for the first time I was filled with pride
at being a descendant of Abraham, and every Hebrew seemed a brother,
every daughter of Israel a sister. Now, too, I perceived how cruelly my
people had been enslaved and tortured. I had been blind to their
suffering, but Moses opened my eyes and sowed in my heart hate, intense
hate of their oppressors, and from this hate sprang love for the victims.
I vowed to follow my brother and await the summons of my God. And lo, he
did not tarry and Jehovah's voice spoke to me as with tongues.

"Old Rachel died. At Moses' bidding I gave up my solitary life and
accepted the invitation of Aaron and Amminadab.

"So I became a guest in their household, yet led a separate life among
them all. They did not interfere with me, and the sycamore here on their
land became my special property. Beneath its shadow God commanded me to
summon you and bestow on you the name "Help of Jehovah"--and you, no
longer Hosea, but Joshua, will obey the mandate of God and His
prophetess."

Here the warrior interrupted the maiden's words, to which he had listened
earnestly, yet with increasing disappointment:

"Ay, I have obeyed you and the Most High. But what it cost me you
disdain to ask. Your story has reached the present time, yet you have
made no mention of the days following my mother's death, during which you
were our guest in Tanis. Have you forgotten what first your eyes and
then your lips confessed? Have the day of your departure and the evening
on the sea, when you bade me hope for and remember you, quite vanished
from your memory? Did the hatred Moses implanted in your heart kill love
as well as every other feeling?"