A few days later the Pharaoh was driving along the Nile, standing on his
chariot and followed by his court. He had gone forth to observe the
height of the flood, when in the centre of the road appeared, like two
phantoms, Aharon and Mosche. The king drew in his horses, the foam of
whose mouths was already flecking the breast of the tall, motionless old
man.
Mosche, with slow and solemn voice repeated his adjuration.
"Prove to me by some wonder the power of your god," answered the King,
"and I will grant your request."
Turning towards Aharon, who was a few steps behind him, Mosche said,
"Take thy rod, and stretch out thine hand upon the waters of Egypt, upon
their streams, upon their rivers, and upon their ponds, and upon all
their pools of water, that they may become blood; and that there may be
blood throughout all the land of Egypt, both in vessels of wood and in
vessels of stone."
Aharon lifted up his rod and smote the waters that were in the river.
The train of the Pharaoh awaited the result anxiously. The King, who had
a heart of brass within a breast of granite, smiled disdainfully,
trusting in the skill of his wise men to confound the foreign magicians.
As soon as the river had been smitten by the rod of the Hebrew,--the rod
which had been a serpent,--the waters began to turn muddy and to boil;
their mud colour was gradually changed; reddish tones began to mingle
with it; then the whole mass assumed a sombre purple colour, and the
Nile seemed a river of blood with scarlet waves that edged the banks
with rosy foam. It seemed to reflect a vast conflagration or a sky rayed
by lightning, but the atmosphere was calm, Thebes was not burning, and
the unchanging azure spread over the red stream, marked here and there
by the white bellies of dead fishes. The long crocodiles, using their
crooked paws, emerged from the river on to the bank, and the heavy
hippopotami, like blocks of rose granite covered with leprous, black
moss, fled through the reeds, or raised above the stream their mighty
heads, unable to breathe in that water of blood. The canals, the
fish-ponds, and the pools had all turned the same colour, and the
vessels full of water were red like the basins in which the blood of
victims is collected.