Joshua and the other captives; but their discouragement had become so
great that even this good news made little change, and only a flitting
smile on the bearded lips of the men, or a sudden flash of the old light
in the dark eyes of the women appeared.

Miriam, accompanied by melancholy Milcah, had remained with her
companions instead of, as usual, calling upon the women to thank the Most
High.

Reuben, the husband of her sorrowful ward whom fear of disappointment
still deterred from yielding to his newly-awakened hopes, was a quiet,
reticent man, so the first messenger did not know whether he was among
the liberated prisoners. But great excitement overpowered Milcah and,
when Miriam bade her be patient, she hurried from one playmate to another
assailing them with urgent questions. When even the last could give her
no information concerning the husband she had loved and lost, she burst
into loud sobs and fled back to the prophetess. But she received little
consolation, for the woman who was expecting to greet her own husband as
a conqueror and see the rescued friend of her childhood, was absent-
minded and troubled, as if some heavy burden oppressed her soul.

Moses had left the tribes as soon as he learned that the attack upon the
mines had succeeded and Joshua was rescued; for it had been reported that
the warlike Amalekites, who dwelt in the oasis at the foot of Mt. Sinai,
were preparing to resist the Hebrews' passage through their well-watered
tract in the wilderness with its wealth of palms. Accompanied by a few
picked men he set off across the mountains in quest of tidings, expecting
to join his people between Alush and Rephidim in the valley before the
oasis.