black hovels walled with sun-baked mud. Every door was shut—its posts and lintel stained dark with blood.

But within those walls was a continual stir and business. The whole long day had been spent by the woman of the household in preparing for the night. Nothing she treasured or might need was to be left behind, except only what was too heavy or cumbersome to be carried away. When the lamb had been skinned and dressed and made ready, she set it down to roast at the fire, whose ruddy glow illumined the narrow walls.

Flat cakes and biscuits without yeast or leaven (for nothing that had any taint of corruption was to have any part in the feast) had already been kneaded and now were baking. Bitter herbs—wild lettuce, endive and nettle—for symbol of the long sufferings of Israel, had been gathered and cleansed for a salad. She did all that she had to do with the utmost care, having provided as far as possible only as much food as would be eaten that night, for no remnant of this sacred meal was to be left over until the following morning. Whatever remained unconsumed was to be burnt in the fire.

An hour before midnight, all was ready. The children of the house, who had been sent early to bed, were woken from sleep, and everyone within it, even the little ones but lately out of arms, gathered together to partake of the feast. In years gone by this moon-bright harvest festival had been held with rejoicings. They had sat down to eat, drink and be merry at leisure, and had for the time being almost forgotten their misery. There had been no need then for haste or secrecy.

But this—both the first breaking of their fast this fourteenth night of Spring, and their last anxious supper in the land of their captivity—was no ordinary feast. It was the most solemn hour in the long history of their race—a token that from that day forward Israel had dedicated its firstborn to the service of God. Since by his mercy, on this disastrous night for Egypt, the angel of death was to spare and pass over the people of all Israel, the feast was to be called the Feast of the Passover of the Lord. And his divine influence would be shed on all who took part in it, worn-out in body, deadened in soul, and brutalized though many of them were.

They ate standing, the men of the household with their girdles about their loins, their sandals on their feet, and staff in hand; the women and children in whatever clothes could be provided that would shield them against the cold of the night air in the darkness of the desert. Few words were spoken. Their hearts were too full for speech. They longed for, yet dreaded the ordeal that lay before them. These hovels, mean and squalid though they were, had been their homes. They were to see them no more. They pined for the tents of the wanderer, but they were to venture out into the dread unknown and on a pilgrimage from which there could be no turning back. Who could foresee what dangers and what foes were awaiting them in the drear wastes of the wilderness—the resort, as they had heard, of monstrous beasts and evil demons, with hollow voice and secret music, luring to destruction the unwary and the lost?

Yet there were few among them who did not steadfastly believe in the wisdom and genius of their great leader, or doubted that he had been divinely chosen to set them free. But Pharaoh was mighty and merciless. Death or maiming or torture was the punishment he meted out to his enemies who defied him. How many of their own harmless babes had the Nile swallowed up in its infested waters! And as they looked at their children gathered round them, an icy horror shook them at the thought of the judgment of God soon to be revealed against Egypt, which even the tyrant king himself could not escape.

Astonished at being roused from sleep at so late an hour and at sharing in a supper that seemed as strange and marvellous as a dream, the younger children in hushed voices questioned their father about what they did, and why they were going out in the middle of the night, and where they were going to.

He gathered them around him. It was a feast, he told them, which even they themselves had been expressly bidden to share in by the Lord God. He spoke to them of Canaan also, a little land lying between wilderness and sea, only fifteen days slow burdened journeying from north to south, only ten from east to west,