THROUGH THE RED SEA
The voices of the storm found harmonious tones of different pitch and
swelled in glorious accord from the faintest breath of melody to an
almighty blast that stunned the senses with stupendous harmony. Then
the chord seemed to melt and lose itself in the wild dissonances of the
hurricane.
The turmoil of Israel began to subside, growing fainter, ceasing among
the ranks nearest the sea, failing toward the rear, dying away like a
sigh up and down the long encampment. The people that had been on
their knees rose slowly. The bleating of the flocks quieted into
stillness. Commotion ceased and Israel held its breath.
The Lawgiver had passed from among them, and those that followed him
with their eyes saw that he was moving toward the sea, seemingly at the
very limit of the outer radiance and still going on. First to one and
then to another, it became apparent that the extent of the illuminated
beach was widening. Hither and thither over the multitude the
intelligence ran, in whispers or by glances. Having showed his
neighbor each looked again. Ripple-worn sand, shells, barnacle-covered
rocks, slowly came within the pale of the radiance and Moses moved with
it. Eight stalwart Hebrews, bearing a funeral ark, shrouded with a
purple pall, fringed with gold, emerged from among the people and,
taking a place in front of the Lawgiver, walked confidently down the
sand toward the east.
The radiance progressed step by step. Wet rocks entered the glow,
lines of sea-weed, immense drifts of debris, the brink of a ledge, the
shadow before it, and then a sandy bottom.
A long line of old men, two abreast, the wind making the picture
awesome as it tossed their beards and gray robes, followed the
Lawgiver. After these several litters, borne by young men, proceeded
in imposing order.
Except for the raving of the tempest there was no sound in Israel.
A double file of camels with sumptuous housings moved with dignified
and unhasty tread after the litters. By this time, the foremost ranks
of the procession were some distance ahead, the limit of radiance just
in advance, and lighting with special tenderness the funeral ark. Here
were the bones of that noblest son of Jacob. Having brought Israel
into Egypt, Joseph was leading it forth again.
Pools, lighted by the ray, glowed like sheets of gold, darkling here
and there with shadow; long ledges of rock, bearded with deep-water
growth, sparkled rarely in the light; stretches of sodden sand, colored
with salts of the waters, and littered with curious fish-life, lay
between.
Where was the sea?
After the camels followed a score of mules, little and trim in contrast
to the tall shaggy beasts ahead of them. They were burden-bearing
animals, precious among Israel, for they were laden with the records of
the tribes, much treasure in jewels and fine stuffs, incense, writing
materials, and such things as the people would need, and were not to be
had from among them, or like to be found in the places to which they
might come. These passed and their drivers with them.
The next moment, Kenkenes was caught in the center of a rushing wave of
humanity. He fought off the consternation that threatened to seize him
and tried to care for himself, but a reed on the breast of the Nile at
flood could not have been more helpless. Behind Israel were the
Egyptians, ahead of it miraculous escape; the one impulse of the
multitude was flight. That any remembered his mate or his children,
his goods, his treasure or his cattle, was a marvel.
The foremost ranks, moving in directly behind the leaders, had adopted
their pace. Furthermore, as the advance-guard, they had a greater
sense of security, and before them was all the east open for flight.
Not so with the hindmost; they were near the dreaded place from which
the army would descend; ahead of them was a deliberate host; within
them, soul-consuming fear and panic. The rear rushed, the forward
ranks walked, and the center caught between was jammed into a compact
mass.
Neither halt nor escape was possible. Press as the hindmost might upon
those forward, the pace was slackened, instead of quickened. The
advance grew slower as it extended back through the ranks, for each
succeeding line lost a modicum in the length of the step, till at the
rear they were pushing hard and barely moving. No wonder they sobbed,
prayed, panted, surged, swayed and pressed. How they reviled the
snail-like leaders, not knowing that the sturdy pace lagged in the body
of the multitude. So they hasted and progressed only inch by inch.
After the first moment of battle against the human sea, Kenkenes
recognized the futility of resistance and suffered himself to be borne
along. There was no turning back now, had he been so disposed. He had
left behind him his purposes, unaccomplished.
He had received no explicit promise from Moses, and if he had given ear
to the doubts of his own reason, he might have been sorely afraid, much
troubled for Egypt and all he loved therein. But he went with the
multitude passively, even contentedly; he did not speculate how his God
would fight for him; his faith was perfect.
As for his presence with Israel, no one heeded him. Sometimes it came
his way to be helpful; an old man lost his feet and becoming
panic-stricken was soothed only when the young Egyptian put a strong
arm about him and held him till his feet touched earth again. Children
became heavy in the arms of parents and the little Hebrews had no fear
of the young man who carried them, a while, instead. But no one
stopped to take notice that this was an Egyptian, totally unlike those
among the "mixed multitude" that had come to join Israel; nor did any
wonder what a nobleman of the blood of the oppressors did among the
fleeing slaves. Indeed, if the host had any thought beyond the impulse
of self-preservation, it was only a dim realization that they were
walking over a most rocky, oozy and untender road and that the smell of
the sea was very strong about them.
In the early hours of the morning, having become so accustomed to the
roar of the wind and the sound of the moving multitude, Kenkenes ceased
to be conscious of it. Other sounds, which hours before would have
failed to reach his ears, became distinct. The crying of tired
children reached him, and he detected even snatches of talk among the
ranks some distance away from him. Thus a clamor of noise, secondary
in force, grew about him. Above it all, at last, came a sound that
would have made him halt if he could.
He tried to think it one of the many voices of the storm, but the
second time he heard it, he knew what it was.
Far to the rear, a trumpet-call, beautiful and spirited, rose upon the
air.
The Egyptian army was in pursuit!
Israel heard it, and crying aloud in its terror, swept forward, as if
the trumpet-call had commanded it. Kenkenes felt a quickening of
pulse, a momentary tremor, but no more.
He became conscious finally of a warmth penetrating his sandals. He
knew that he had been struggling up a slope for a long time, and now he
realized that he was again on the dry, sun-heated sand of the desert.
The multitude ceased to crowd, the pressure about him diminished; the
ranks began to widen to his left and right; the leaders halted
altogether, and though there was still much movement among the body and
rear of the host, people turned to look upon their neighbors.
The overhanging cloud parted from the eastern horizon, leaving a strip
of sky softly lighted by the coming morn. Without any preliminary
diminution of its force, the wind failed entirely.
Kenkenes, with many others, looked back and saw that the pillar,
illuminated, but no longer illuminating, had halted above a solitary
figure of seemingly super-human stature in the morning gray, standing
on an eminence, overlooking the sea.
The arm was uplifted and outstretched, tense and motionless.
From his superior height, Kenkenes saw, over the heads of the immense
concourse, two lines of foam riding like the wind across the sea-bed
toward each other. Between them was a great body of plunging horses;
overhead a forest of fluttering banners; and faint from the commotion
came shouts and wild notes of trumpets. Then the two lines of foam
smote against each other with a fearful rush and a muffled report like
the cannonading of surf. A mountain of water pitched high into the air
and collapsed in a vast froth, which spread abroad over the churning,
wallowing sea. The falling wind dashed a sheet of spray over the
silent host on the eastern shore. Sharp against the white foam, dark
objects and masses sank, arose, and sank again.
At that moment the sun thrust a broad shaft of light between the
horizon and the lifted cloud.
It discovered only the sea, raving and stormy, and afar to the west a
misty, vacant, lifeless line of shore.
"And the waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen, and
all the host of the Pharaoh that came into the sea after them; there
remained not so much as one of them."
So perished Har-hat and the flower of the Egyptian army.