‘But where is this Egyptian?’ said their father. ‘Why have you let him go? Haste, now, and bring him in, that I myself may thank him and that he may eat with us.’ They went out gladly and brought Moses in.

Moses supped with them that evening, and talked with Jethro late, and slept in his house. The days went by, and still he stayed on as Jethro’s guest. The seven daughters of the priest never wearied of listening as he talked with their father of the wonders of Egypt, its prodigious funeral pyramids reared up by kings of bygone dynasties in the sands of the desert, the solemn temples to its gods, its lore and magic and learning, and the splendours of the City of the Sun. He spoke of the Pharaoh, too, that now sat upon the throne, and of his victories and conquests. And their hearts melted with pity as he recounted the woes of his fellow-countrymen.

At length Jethro persuaded his guest to go no further, but remain with them and become one of his household. Moses was well-content to do so, though at times he was sick for home and pined to return to his own land and to his own people. But he knew that the vengeance of Pharaoh against any who had angered and defied him never faltered or slept, and that to go back was to die.

And Jethro gave Moses his daughter Zipporah in marriage. Two sons were born to him. To his first- born Moses gave the name of Gershom, which means a Stranger, for he himself was a sojourner in a strange land. The other he named Eliezer, which means the Help of God, for in the day of his need God had delivered him from the vengeance of Pharaoh.

The years that Moses spent in the household of his father-in-law in the country of the Midianites—a people who in time to come were to be one of the fiercest enemies of Israel—were serene and happy. He was never to see their like again.

Now in the process of time the king of Egypt died, and his embalmed body with all pomp and ceremony was laid to rest in the innermost chamber of the secret tomb which he had himself caused to be hewn out of the rock in the desolate valley of the dead. And his son reigned in his stead.

This Pharaoh, who was advanced in age when he came to the throne, had neither the courage nor the sagacity of his father. He was treacherous and boastful, stubborn and crafty. The Hebrews soon had cause to hate and fear him, for he was as pitiless as he was weak. They groaned under burdens too heavy to be borne, and their cry went up to God to deliver them.

And God heard their cries. He remembered the covenant and bond of peace that he had made with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and he took compassion upon them. And though they knew it not, the long years of their affliction in Egypt were nearly at an end.

At the approach of summer, when the rains were over and gone, and the sun burned hot in the sky, the grass-land in the region of Midian where lived Jethro the priest began to dry up and wither. And, as was usual at this season, Moses, who had charge of Jethro’s flock, led his sheep far back across the wilderness to the lower uplands of the sacred mountain called Horeb, or Sinai. It was a region of vast steeps of naked rock, an inhuman silent solitude; its crags bleached with sun and tempest, its stones burnished by sharp winds and drifts of sand. Few living creatures roved in the gaunt shadow of these prodigious peaks of granite, only the wild goat found a footing there. And flights of birds could be seen on high winging across to Arabia. But Moses by nature had ever been at peace in solitude; his thoughts were his own full company at need. Here, the thin mountain turf was still green and sweet; and he stayed for many days in these desolate uplands, stark and affrighting even to those whose home was the wilderness, his dogs and sheep his only company.

The silence around him stilled mind and heart. Yet he longed for news of those he loved and from whom he had been separated so many years. The wrongs of Israel had never throughout these years of exile ceased to grieve and trouble him.