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.
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