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.
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