Never before had he been so eloquent as while describing how, in the
ravine, he had stepped on some loose stones and rolled head foremost down
into the chasm with them. On reaching the bottom he had believed that
all was lost; for soon after extricating himself from the rubbish that
had buried him, in order to hurry to the pool, he had heard the whistle
of the guards.

Yet he had been a good runner from his childhood, had learned in his
native pastures to guide himself by the light of the stars, so without
glancing to the right or to the left, he had hastened southward as fast
as his feet would carry him. Often in the darkness he had fallen over
stones or tripped in the hollows of the desert sand, but only to rise
again quickly and dash onward, onward toward the south, where he knew he
should find her, Kasana, her for whose sake he recklessly flung to the
winds what wiser-heads had counselled, her for whom he was ready to
sacrifice liberty and life.

Whence he derived the courage to confess this, he knew not, and neither
the blow from her fan, nor the warning exclamation of the nurse: "Just
look at the boy!" sobered him. Nay, his sparkling eyes sought hers still
mote frequently as he continued his story.

One of the hounds which attacked him he had flung against a rock, and the
other he pelted with stones till it fled howling into a thicket. He had
seen no other pursuers, either that night, or during the whole of the
next day. At last he again reached a travelled road and found country
people who told him which way Pharaoh's army had marched. At noon,
overwhelmed by fatigue, he had fallen asleep under the shade of a
sycamore, and when he awoke the sun was near its setting. He was very
hungry, so he took a few turnips from a neighboring field. But their