I was handed over to the custody of a little man, with big, staring eyes, and a magnified head of hair that made him look like a gun-swab. This was Mr. Janks, the jailor.
He stood looking at me for some moments, swinging a bunch of keys on his finger, and then said, mournfully, “So, you’ve come, have you?” which made me think that he must have dreamed of my coming.
Then he took up a small lamp, and, after examining me from head to foot as if I were some strange animal, he gave vent to a dismal groan, and asked me if I was hungry.
Receiving a negative answer, he groaned again, and beckoned me to follow him.
He led the way along a damp and chilly stone corridor, lined with little iron doors, which I needed no one to tell me belonged to cells, and I followed him very readily. My previous notions of prison treatment included the immediate ironing of the culprit to the extent of several hundredweight, and, finding myself mistaken, my spirits rose accordingly.
He stopped before one of the little doors near the end of the corridor, and, opening it with a large key, ushered me into an apartment about eight feet square.
This was my cell. The walls and ceiling were whitewashed, and the only furniture was an iron bedstead, covered with two coarse, gray blankets.
Mr. Janks waved his keys around as if to welcome me to this abode, and then, instead of going out and leaving me to my reflections, he leaned up against the door and groaned once more.
“The wickedness of these boys!” he said, passing his hand through his hair, and apparently addressing the ceiling. “Why do they ever come here? Why did you come here?”
I hastened to explain that I did not come of my own accord, and so far from wishing to be in jail, if he would only have the kindness to open the door, I would promise him to make my exit, and never return.
“And so young!” continued Mr. Janks, without paying any attention to my remarks, and still apostrophizing the ceiling. “But it’s allus the way! The younger they are, the worse they are!”
Then he launched forth into a description of the number of bad boys who had passed through his hands, and endeavored to draw a parallel between their case and mine, but, I think, with poor success.
He kept up this monologue for at least ten minutes, while I sat on the couch and listened with anything but pleasurable emotions.
At the end of that time he came to a sudden stop, and went out slowly, groaning dismally.
When the sound of his footsteps had died away down the corridor, I surrendered myself to my thoughts. And how I did think!
What had been all my trouble compared to this?In prison!The thought was horrifying!
I felt now that I would not dare return home—for who would not shrink from me as a malefactor?
Besides, I was extremely dubious as to my impending fate. I was not afraid of being convicted of larceny, unless Mary Jane Robinson perjured herself; but I was desperately afraid of Mr. Barron.
I knew he took the Lancaster Examiner, and should he see my name in it, I felt certain he would pounce down on me, and then—well, something terrible would certainly happen.
The sky looked very dark and cloudy just then, and you may easily imagine how bitterly I regretted my foolishness in running away.
I lay awake for an hour or more thinking in this fashion, and then I fell into a fitful slumber.
How long I slept, I don’t know; but when I awoke it was with a strange feeling that I was not alone—that some one was in the cell with me.
I was wide awake in an instant, and my heart beat so loudly that I fancied I could hear it.
I listened intently, and presently heard a light “pitapat,” as if some one was walking across the floor; and while I was trying to muster up courage to call out, there was a sharp click, a flood of light illumined the cell, and I saw that the intruder was a man.
He was standing near the opposite wall, and in his hand he held a lighted wax taper, with the aid of which he was taking a survey of the room.
As he turned slowly around, I saw that he was young, rather good-looking, and well-dressed, and at the same time he saw me.
He started, and with an exclamation of alarm, dropped the taper.
In an instant, however, he recovered the taper and himself, and advanced toward me.
“Who are you?” he demanded. “And how did you get here?”
I related, in a few words, who I was and how I came to be incarcerated.
He laughed lightly when I had finished, and said:
“I suppose you wonder howIcame here. Look!”
I looked, and saw an aperture in the wall about two feet square.
“I came through that,” he said, laughing softly at my evident astonishment. “My cell is on the other side. Now, I am going to escape from this jail, and I want you to go with me.”
I know now that his reason was to prevent my giving an alarm; but I thought then that it was because he took pity on me.
And I joyfully accepted his offer,although I couldn’t imagine how he was to manage it, and I made a remark to that effect.
“Easy enough,” he said. “You have only a lock on your door, while there’s a dozen bolts on mine. That’s why I dug through, expecting to find the cell empty. However, it is all right. Take off your shoes.”
I did so, and then my companion put out the lights, having first opened the door with what looked like a piece of wire.
Then he whispered to me to keep hold of his sleeve, step cautiously and not let my shoes fall, and then we moved out into the corridor, now black as Egypt.
My guide also seemed to be in his stocking feet; but where his shoes were I couldn’t imagine.
We moved along slowly, but steadily, my guide seeming to know the way, and presently he opened a door with only a slight creak, and then whispered in my ear:
“We are in the lodge. Don’t breathe.”
Again we moved on and again stopped, and from one or two sharp clicks I judged him to be trying to open another door.
Suddenly he drew me forward. I felt a rush of cold air, and the next instant I was out of jail.
“Wait!” said my companion.
And he closed the wicket gate, and locked it noiselessly.
“If they find the gate open, they’ll smell a rat,” he remarked. “Now then, my boy, come on.”
I kept closely by his side, and for half an hour we moved along, keeping in the shadow of the houses, until we reached the outskirts of the town.
“Now then,” said my companion, speaking for the first time, “put on your shoes.”
I did so, and very glad I was to do it. At the same time he reached down and drew off his stockings, and then I saw they had been drawn on over his boots.
Then he took my hand, and we walked along steadily and swiftly for an hour, until the lights of Lancaster had faded in the distance, and not until then did my companion fall into a walk and conversation.
“What did you say you were in for?” he asked.
“For nothing,” I answered, promptly.
This seemed to amuse him greatly.
“Of course not,” said he, after an outburst of laughter. “I never saw a prisoner in my life who wasn’t innocent!”
I attempted to explain, but he wouldn’t listen.
“No matter—it’s not my business. It was forgery with me—ten years at the least; and I couldn’t stand that, you know.”
“Certainly not,” said I, not knowing what else to say.
Then, by way of turning the conversation, I inquired how he came to be provided with tools to effect his escape.
He looked at me suspiciously for a moment, as if he suspected me of some hidden motive in asking the question, and then, apparently satisfied with the scrutiny, he informed me that his friends had sent him pies every day for two weeks past.
“Pies?” I exclaimed, in open-mouthed wonder.
“Yes, pies,” he said, gravely. “Don’t you see? Nothing but the crusts. Inside were keys, saws and a jimmy.”
“Ajimmy?”
“Yes—here it is. That came in four pies.”
He took from his coat-pocket four pieces of steel, and in an instant fitted them together into a bar about two feet in length.
“Not much to look at, is it?” said he; “but it is a crowbar, chisel, hammer and wrench, all in one. It only took me two nights to cut into your cell.”
“And how did you know your way out in the dark?” I asked.
“Because I came in that way, and I always keep my eyes open. Hello!”
“What’s the matter?” I asked, in some alarm, as he came to a sudden halt.
“Nothing much,” he answered; “only that I must leave you here. I don’t know where you are going, and I don’t propose to let you know where I am going. Besides, it is much harder to follow two than one, and there is no use of us both being captured.”
“Captured?” I repeated, in dismay. “Do you think the officers will follow us?”
“Do I think so? I know they will.”
I was so terrified that my teeth chattered, at this announcement, and he noticed it.
“Don’t get too scared, young one,” he added, consolingly. “They won’t look for you half as much as they will for me. If you travel right straight on, and keep out of their clutches for a week, you’ll be safe.”
“But I haven’t done anything,” I said, tremblingly.
“Oh, yes you have,” said he, with a laugh. “You have broken jail, and that means a year at least, if you’re caught.”
I was so overwhelmed at this dread piece of news that I could only lean up against a convenient fence and stare at him.
“Come, come!” he cried, impatiently, “brace up! They haven’t got you yet. If you go straight through this cornfield you will strike a road that will take you to Columbia. Good-by!”
Before I had time to reply, he had plunged into the woods on the right of the road, and I was left alone.
I was terribly alarmed, and lost no time in making my way through the cornfield; and when I found the road, I sped along it at a rapid gait. Fear lent me wings, and I fancied every bush an officer.
It was a warm but pleasant night, and the moon was just rising. I calculated that it must be about midnight, and I determined that I would put many a mile between me and Lancaster before daybreak.
So I set off at a dog-trot, and I kept it up until I saw the sun rising over the eastern hills.
By that time I must have gone about twenty miles, and I was completely tired out, and very glad to crawl into the shelter of some neighboring woods and lie down to rest.
Before I knew it I was asleep, and I did not awake until late in the afternoon.
I was stiff and sore, and at the same time ravenously hungry. The first two ailments wore away as I started again on my journey, but the latter increased until I determined to brave anything rather than suffer any longer.
The first house I came to was a small yellow frame, close to the road, with a yellow dog chained on the porch, and a woman frying ham in the kitchen.
“Please, ma’am,” said I.
“G’way!” said she. “Here, Tige!”
“Please, ma’am—”
“G’way, I say! We don’t want no tramps hookin’ everything they kin lay their hands on!”
“Please, ma’am,” I persisted, mildly, “I am not a tramp. I want something to eat”—the woman started to unchain the dog—“for which I am willing to pay.”
“Come right in,” said the woman, with a broad smile. “I declare I couldn’t have the heart to turn anybody away hungry. Tramps bother a person so that I get kinder suspicious, but I could see right away you were different from the general run.”
While she was talking she was busily engaged in setting the table with fried ham, potatoes, bread and butter and coffee, and I lost no time in falling to. I paid a quarter for it when I had finished, and got away as quickly as possible, as I feared the arrival of some of the men folks, who might have their suspicions aroused.
All that night I traveled on and slept in the woods again. Not to enter into particulars, it is sufficient to say that I kept this up for a week, until I found myself in the vicinity of Williamsport, and by that time I judged myself to be reasonably safe.
So I boldly entered that city in broad daylight, had a bath and my hair cut, a complete change of underclothing, and enjoyed a day of rest.
When I started out again, the next morning, I had recovered my usual spirits, and took to the road, determined to keep going as long as my money and strength held out. I had twenty-five dollars of the former and an unlimited supply of the latter.
All that day I tramped on steadily enough, buying both my dinner and supper for trifling sums; and, when night came on, I thought it would be just as well to camp in the woods again.
For that purpose I left the road, and, plunging into the forest on my left, I soon came to a secluded spot, near a ravine orgully, and there I made myself a bed of dry leaves.
On this I lay down, and was fast drifting into the Land of Nod, when I was aroused by a sound something like the rattling of tinware.
I promptly sat up and listened. Again I heard the rattling, and as it evidently come from the ravine, I arose and began an investigation.
Peering over the edge of the gully, I saw at the bottom, about fifteen feet below, a bright light, and the rattling sound again smote my ears.
By this time my curiosity was excited to the utmost, and, catching hold of a small sapling, I leaned far over the edge to observe the why and wherefor. As I did so, I felt the sapling giving away, and I made a desperate attempt to recover myself.
It was no use. Down went the sapling into the ravine and I along with it.
The sapling and I fell directly on a fire of branches, from which came the light at which I had been gazing.
I was slightly stunned, but I scrambled to my feet just as a heavy hand was laid on my collar, and a gruff voice said:
“Vell! here’s a precious go!”
I looked up, and saw that the voice and hand belonged to the same person—a short, stout man, with sallow complexion and glistening black eyes. His dress was a curious compound of broad, glazed hat and blue shift of a sailor and the flashy check vest and pantaloons of a peddler.
“Vere did you come from, anyhow,” he demanded, before I had finished my survey, “a-busting down on a chap vithout varning, and a smashing of his pots and kettles?”
“Pots and kettles?” I repeated, inquiringly.
For answer he pointed indignantly to the ground, and then I saw what damage my descent had caused.
A rusty coffee-pot, a little dish and a skillet were scattered among the embers of the fire.
“That’s vot you did,” said he, resentfully. “Here vos I, a-cooking my supper and a-thinking of just nothink at all, when all of a suddent down you come, like a cannon-ball, and avay goes everythink! It was werry aggerwating because it was nearly done.”
“I assure you, sir,” said I, very contritely, “that I had no intention of falling on your fire or your supper.”
Then I explained the cause of my sudden descent, and wound up by offering to pay for the damage.
By this time the man had entirely recovered his temper—if he had ever lost it, which I very much doubt—and smiled kindly.
“Vell, vell, there ain’t much harm done except putting my supper back half an hour. Put up your money, my boy, and join me.”
Then he righted the utensils, and whistling a lively air, prepared the meal anew. And this he did with an adroitness that proved the task to be by no means an unusual one.
Within half an hour, he had made a pot of coffee, a pan of biscuits and a savory stew, and we were soon discussing this supper very amiably together.
After supper he washed out the dishes and utensils in a brook near by, and lying at full length on the ground, composed himself for a smoke.
All this time I had been regarding him in silence, but with considerable curiosity, and I had about made up my mind that he was a gipsy, on his way to join his tribe, when he startled me by saying, abruptly:
“Look ’ere!”
I intimated that I was all attention.
“Who are you?” he asked, bluntly.
“Jack Wood,” I answered, promptly, although a trifle nervously.
“My name is Miles Norris,” he rejoined, after a long pause. “I’m a wender of physics and knickknacs.”
“A doctor?”
“Not exactly,” he replied, rising on his elbow and winking at me significantly. “I cures people as hasn’t got nothink the matter vith ’em and thinks they has.”
This sentence was too deep for me to fathom, and on my intimating as much, he condescended to explain.
“I go round the country selling my own medicines, which is Norris’s Golden Balsam, wot cures all kinds of pains, cuts and bruises, whatsomedever theymay be; fifty cents a bottle, small bottles twenty-five. Then there’s the Lightning Toothache Drops, wot cures that hagonizing malady in one second, or money refunded—twenty-five cents a bottle. And finally, ’ere we ’ave the Great American Tooth Powder, which makes the blackest teeth vite in less’n no time, and makes the gums strong and ’elthy—ten cents a box. And each and every purchaser is presented vith a book containing fifty songs, all new and prime, free gratis and for nothink! Valk hup, ladies and gentlemen; who’ll ’ave another bottle?”
During this recital, Doctor Norris gradually assumed a professional demeanor, and near the close he rose to his feet, and gesticulated as if addressing a large audience.
But at the close he suddenly cooled down, and assuming his recumbent position, said, listlessly:
“Now you know me.”
“Certainly,” said I; “but then I do not see—”
“I hunderstand,” said he. “You don’t see no Balsam, nor Drops, nor Powder?”
“I do not.”
“And you vonder vere they are?”
“Yes.”
“Your surprise is werry natural,” said Doctor Norris, with great gravity. “I am out of those inwaluable medicines at present, but ven I get to my laboratory, I shall roll ’em out wholesale.”
“Then you make them?”
“In course. I couldn’t trust anybody else.”
Then, after a pause, he added, slowly:
“I don’t know but that I might let you into my secrets if— What did you say your name was?”
I repeated my alias, and told my fictitious history.
“So you ain’t got nothink to do?”
“Nothing.”
“How would you like to work for me?”
“Doing what?”
“Selling my medicines.”
“Done!” cried I, joyfully.
“Hold hup!” said he, quickly. “I ain’t quite certain. Can you patter?”
“Can I what?”
“Gab, I mean—talk? Are you good on that?”
“I think I am,” I answered, modestly.
“And ’ave you got plenty of cheek?”
“Oh, yes! Why?”
“Because you’ll need it. You wouldn’t be afraid to stand hup before a big crowd and blow away about the Balsam, or the Powder, nor yet the Drops—hey?”
I assured him that the prospect did not dismay me in the least.
My companion then brought the conversation to a conclusion very summarily.
“Then, Jack Wood,” said he, “you’re my man!”
Then he rolled over and went to sleep, and although somewhat astonished at the suddenness of the doctor’s resolution, I thought his action a good one, andIrolled over and went to sleep, also.
I awoke at sunrise, or rather Doctor Norris awoke me by a vigorous dig in the ribs with the point of his boot, and told me that breakfast was ready. I arose at once, washed my face, combed my hair, and then astonished the doctor by the vigor of my appetite.
During the meal he confided to me his plans for the future. He had laid out a route through Butler and Beaver counties to the State line, and thence through Ohio until winter set in.
“I make enough in summer to lay hup in winter,” he explained. “It’s an ’ealthy and hinvigorating life, and I like it. I’ve traveled over nearly all the States between the Atlantic and the Mississippi, ’ave ’ad my hups and downs, and I wouldn’t change places with a king.”
I rather doubted whether the doctor knew very much about kings, that he could afford to speak so positively, but I felt that it would be neither polite nor prudent to disagree with him.
“I dare say I shall like the life very well,” I said, quietly. “But—what am I expected to do?”
“You’ll be my assistant,” said the doctor, in a lofty voice, as if he was announcing my appointment to a cabinet position.
Then he went into details, and explained that I was to assist him in concocting and selling the wonderful remedies of which he was the inventor.
This duty included filling bottles, pasting on labels, carrying his baggage, making his fires, and several other minor matters which he could not recall just then.
“Ve’ll camp out like this most of the time,” he added. “Hotels is hexpensive, and I never stops at ’em, unless it’s raining or I’m going to sell in the town. You von’t mind that, vill you?”
I was more than delighted at the prospect, and I said so.
“This man,” I told myself, “is evidently a great traveler, and he is going West. If I stick to him my fortune is made.”
It did not take the doctor long to pack up his traps, and, dividing them between us, we journeyed along very agreeably.
When we arrived in Butler we went to a hotel, and there, in the seclusion of our room, the doctor manufactured three dozen bottles of the balsam, as many of the toothache drops and twice as many boxes of the tooth-powder.
At this distance of time I cannot recall the ingredients of these justly celebrated remedies, but I can cheerfully testify to their harmlessness.
The balsam was composed of two or three simple aromatic oils, the toothache drops was merely a diluted essence of the oil of cloves, and the wonderful tooth-powder chalk powdered and scented.
The labels for the various compounds the doctor carried in his oilcloth bag, and the bottles, boxes and various ingredients he purchased at the village drug stores.
I am almost ashamed to tell you what enormous profits he made on his sales, and will only mention that he once told me that the bottle and label formed nine-tenths of the cost of the Golden Balsam, which retailed at one dollar.
In these days the streetvenderof physic is an ordinary sight, but a quarter of a century ago he was almost unknown outside of the largest cities.
After being a month in the company of Doctor Norris I easily understood why he followed such a life. In the town of Butler two days’ sales netted him sixty dollars, and he made nearly as much in Beaver.
He was not always so successful, but, taking one week with another, I judged that he cleared at least fifty dollars, which was a bank president’s salary in those days.
His methods were such as are in use among this class of gentry all the world over.
Having prepared his stock in trade, he would gravely walk down the main street, followed by your humble servant.
Halting on the most prominent corner, he and I would arrange the boxes and bottles in attractive pyramids on the top of a box or a barrel, taking as much time as possible, so as to attract the attention of the passers-by.
Having achieved this object, the doctor would mount on a soap-box, so as to raise himself above the crowd, and begin his harangue.
He always began gravely, and not until he had made several sales did he venture on a joke or a witticism, although he had a plentiful stock of cheap wit, such as crowds delight in.
Another thing: When he spoke in public he used excellent English, and the cockney dialect entirely disappeared. He never explained this to me, but I suppose he was like an actor on the stage when addressing a crowd.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he would say, in calm and measured tones, “Shakespeare has said, ‘Throw physic to the dogs; I’ll none of it!’ and he was right. Medicinal drugs are pernicious, even when given by a practiced physician, but when administered by quacks, it is little short of murder. Now, in my medicines I do not give you strange and deadly drugs. The articles I use are all known to you” (this was strictly true), “the mode of preparation only being a secret. No pain, no danger in their use, absolutely harmless to the smallest child, yet so powerful that the most deadly ailments yield to their power.”
Thus the doctor talked on for fifteen minutes, taking the crowd into his confidence in a learned and fatherly way, until some fellow bashfully thrust forward a coin, and then the money rolled in.
The doctor was now in his element; he was witty, he cracked jokes, he told stories, and even indulged in snatches of song, and he rarely failed to hold his audience until his stock was exhausted.
This operation sometimes consumed three or four hours, and sometimes his eloquence was wasted. But at all times he was cheerful and polite, and good and bad fortune seemed alike to him.
I thought then, and I still think, that he was a remarkable man; and I am sure that he treated me very kindly. He paid me a very liberal salary of ten dollars a month, and whenever he had an unusually good day, gave me an extra dollar.
All of this money I carefully stowed away in my belt for a rainy day, which I felt sure would come. And my experience did not deceive me.
After leaving Pennsylvania, we traveled through the small towns of Ohio until near the middle of December, as it was a very open winter, and it was nearly Christmas before the cold and snow drove us into winter quarters in Toledo.
The doctor intended to treat himself to a three months’ rest, and for that purpose hired two rooms and kept bachelor’s hall, and invited me to keep him company.
I received no wages; but as he was to bear all expenses, I willingly agreed to the arrangement.
These three months were absolutely uneventful, and about the first of April we started out again.
The doctor had laid out a new route for this season. We traveled across country by stage to Keokuk, Iowa, intending to travel up the river as far as St. Paul, and then work eastward thorough Wisconsin and Michigan, and close the season at Detroit.
But we never carried out our programme. My cruel fate pursued me—or was it punishment for my foolishness?—and at Davenport I was once more cast adrift.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
According to Jewish tradition, it was seven days after the Passover that the Israelites passed over the Red Sea.
Before they left they were directed by God to ask (not “borrow,” as it is in our version) of the Egyptians jewels of silver and gold, and other articles that would be of service to them.
It was customary thus on the eve of a journey, or at the close of a term of service, to ask gifts. The practice corresponded to the asking ofbackshish, still so common in the East.
The Egyptians, it seemed, readily and generously granted the request of the Israelites and supplied them abundantly. Thus, in some slight measure, they made return for the long years of unrequited service which the Hebrews had rendered to Egypt’s land and Egypt’s king.
While the Egyptians were bewailing their dead, the children of Israel, having finished hurriedly their Passover feast, started on their journey of escape. Leaving Rameses, the western part of Goshen, they assembled at Succoth—“place of tents”—so called because it was a camping place for caravans going east, then and now. They were, perhaps, four days gathering at this spot, about two millions of people all told.
The next point which they reached was Etham. This was a district of country just on the edge of the desert. From this point there were three routes to Palestine. The Israelites, by divine direction, took the most southern.
They were at first surprised at this order of march; but it was the only safe one for them. The most northern would have taken them right through the country of the warlike and hostile Philistines, and the middle route (after passing the great wall which stretched from Pelusium on the Mediterranean Sea to the Gulf of Suez) would have brought them right out upon the desert.
Several days had elapsed since the Israelites started on their flight. Pharaoh already missed them. His important works were brought to a standstill; there was no one to make or handle bricks, and the loss of so large and so efficient a body of workers was severely felt.
A reaction takes place in the mind of the king; he charges himself with folly in letting the people go, and resolves to pursue them. He learns, also, that they have not yet got out of the land of Egypt, and he thinks that by the fact that they have turned south, and not gone directly to the east, they are confused, and he plans to catch them when they are hemmed in by the mountains and the sea.
With six hundred of his swiftest chariots he at once sets out after them, leaving orders, doubtless, for other chariots as well as foot soldiers to follow as soon as possible.
The Israelites were in the greatest alarm; there was no visible means of escape. They could go no further south, for the mountains were in front of them; they could not turn to the right for the same reason; the Egyptians were in their rear, and the Red Sea was before them. They were in a trap. This is what Pharaoh expected. The strategy on which he had reckoned (ver. 3) had worked admirably.
“And the angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them; and the pillar of the cloud went from before their face, and stood behind them:
“And it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel: and it was a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light by night to these: so that the one came not near the other all the night.”
It is singular that this blind king should so soon forget that there was a God in Israel, and that he was to come into collision again with that Being who had so often foiled, and finally, in the death of the first-born, had utterly crushed him.
But none are so blind or so heedless as the obstinate and the unbelieving. It will be seen that the battle that is soon to follow will end as before—in the defeatof Pharaoh, and, as some think, his death.
We have in this “angel of God” the same being that we have met so often before, who talked familiarly with Abraham and Jacob. He is the one who afterward came in the form of the flesh, and is called Christ.
This time His symbol was a cloud, and at night a pillar of fire. In such a large host as that of the children of Israel were at this time, it would be necessary that there be some elevated central object, so that those of the people scattered widely, in caring for the flocks and other like services, should not lose the location of the camp.
Some such arrangement was early found important in caravans crossing the deserts, so that it was customary to carry a round grate with fire, held aloft on a pole. The ancient Persians and some other nations carried a sacred fire in silver altars before their armies.
At night this cloud over the camp of the Israelites was illumined by some strong internal fire, so that the host dwelt amid the darkness of the desert as in a city brightly lighted. It was a marvelous miracle.
This cloud now changed its position as the Egyptians came near to the Israelites. It stood between the two hosts. Over the Egyptians it was a dense fog that cut off all their vision so that they could not tell what the Israelites were doing, while to the latter it was as though it had caught and held the rays of the setting sun, and poured a brilliant glory all over and through their encampment. The Egyptians, thinking that the rising sun will disperse the fog, wait for morning.
“And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided.
“And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon dry ground: and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left.”
crossing the Red Sea
While the Egyptians were thus waiting, the Israelites were busy; they were making the best use of their time. They were making their escape by the way last of all thought possible—even the bottom of the sea!
The crossing was made in the neighborhood of what are now called the BitterLakes. This was then most probably the head of the Red Sea.
It was at a time of the year when the tide would help the action of the wind. If there were shoals or flats at the place where the crossing is supposed to have occurred, as there are now at Suez, the wind and the tide clearing a passage there would leave deep water on both sides of the passage-way, and this most probably is the meaning of the expression that the waters were a wall to them on either side.
“They were a defense; not necessarily perpendicular cliffs, as they were often pictured. God could make the water stand in precipices if He should so choose, and such a conception is more impressive to the imagination, but it is certain that the language of the text may mean simply that the water was a protection on the right and on the left flanks of the host. Thus, in Nahum 3:8, No (Thebes) is said to have the sea (the broad Nile) for the rampart and a wall—that is, a defense, a protection against enemies. It is true that in poetical passages the waters are said to have stood ’as a heap’ (Exod. 15:8; Psa. 78:13); but so they are also, in the same style, said to have been ’congealed in the heart of the sea,’ and the peaks of the trembling Horeb are said to have ’skipped like rams, and the little hills like lambs’ (Psa. 114:4). Of course these expressions are not to be literally and prosaically interpreted.”
The wind thus prevailed all night, to keep the passage open until all the Israelites had crossed and the pursuing Egyptians had got well into the sea.
“And the Egyptians pursued, and went in after them to the midst of the sea, even all Pharaoh’s horses, his chariots and his horsemen.
“And it came to pass that in the morning watch the Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians.
“And took off their chariot wheels, that they drave them heavily; so that the Egyptians said, Let us flee from the face of Israel; for the Lord fighteth for them against the Egyptians.”
Surrounded by darkness and enveloped by the fog, the Egyptians did not know that they were rushing into the midst of the sea. It is not said that Pharaoh went in, and yet as the post of the king is usually represented on the ancient monuments as leading his soldiers—marching at their head—it may be, as some think, that his chariot led those six hundred chariots, and that he perished with them.
“The chariots of Egypt were very famous. According to Diodorus Siculus, Rameses II had twenty-seven thousand in his army. The processes of manufacture of chariots and harness are fully illustrated by existing sculptures, in which also are represented the chariots used by neighboring nations.”—Rev. H. W. Phillot.
At this point the movements of the Egyptians are very much impeded. Shortly after midnight, the fog changed into astorm cloud, blazing with lightning and growling with thunder. This was terrifying to the Egyptians in the extreme, as they were not accustomed to thunderstorms, and scarcely ever saw rain.
“Showers of rain also came down from the sky, and dreadful thunder and lightning, with flashes of fire. Thunderbolts also were darted upon them; nor was there anything which God sends upon men as indications of His wrath which did not happen at this time.”—Josephus.
Psalms 77:15-20 refers to this storm. Although the Israelites went through dry-shod, the pursuing chariots sank in the mire, were buried in the sand, and in some cases the wheels were wrenched off, so that the superstitious Egyptians recognized the fact that the God of Israel was fighting against them. They therefore began to retreat. In the meantime the children of Israel had an abundance of time to make good their escape.
“Before the captivity, the night (between sunset and sunrise) was divided by the Israelites into three watches—the first watch, the middle watch and the morning watch. It appears that the Israelites had the space of two watches, at least (or eight hours), for effecting their passage.”—Murphy.
“And the Lord said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand over the sea, that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots and upon their horsemen.
“And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to his strength when the morning appeared; and the Egyptians fled against it, and the Lord overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea.
“And the waters returned, and covered the chariots, and the horsemen, and all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them; there remained not so much as one of them.”
After the fugitives had safely gained the farther shore, and while the Egyptians were still struggling in the middle of the passage, through the gray of the dawn they saw the majestic form of Moses rise upon the opposite bank. They saw him stretch forth that terrible rod—that rod which had left so many deep scars upon the fair land of Egypt—and immediately the wind ceased, its strong pressure was relaxed, the sudden swell of the tide caught the waters, and they, as if impatient of restraint, leaped again to their wonted channel, burying the hopeless and helpless enemy.
“A sudden cessation of the wind at sunrise, coinciding with a spring tide (it was full moon), would immediately convert the low, flat sand-banks, first into a quicksand, and then into a mass of waters, in a time far less than would suffice for the escape of a single chariot or horseman loaded with heavy corselet.”—Canon Cook.
The destruction was as complete as it was sudden. Not one escaped. The disaster was overwhelming, crushing. The Egyptians never again disturbed the Israelites during all their after wanderings.
“But the children of Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea; and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand and on their left.
“Thus the Lord saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the seashore.
“And Israel saw that great work which the Lord did upon the Egyptians; and the people feared the Lord, and believed the Lord, and his servant Moses.”
There was only one explanation of this event, and that was the Lord wrought it. There could be no room in the mind of any of the children of Israel to doubt that God was with them. Repeatedly had they seen their enemies baffled and discomfited; now they saw them destroyed. What folly to contend with such a God! Would it be possible for these people thus delivered ever to doubt God? ever to distrust Him? ever to disobey Him? It would seem not.
They had every reason to believe Him, to be grateful to Him, to love and serve Him devotedly. Without lifting a finger, they, an unarmed people, with not a soldier in all their ranks, nor a weapon worthy the name, had triumphed over a chosen detachment of the finest army in the world at that time, led, too, by a king who was familiar with battles and accustomed to victories.
Josephus says that, after the passage of the sea by the Israelites, a west wind set in, which (assisted by the current) drove the bodies of the drowned Egyptians to the eastern side of the gulf, where many of them were cast up upon the shore. In this way, Moses, according to him, obtained weapons and armor for a considerable number of Israelites.