Page 349 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

themselves the sons of Abraham, whom the Canaanites vagu 1
knew as a mythical Amorite hero, or sometimes, to make it mo 7

complicated, the children of Israel. At one time this tribe had
been wealthy, controlling much of the landward trade between
Egypt and Palestine, though they had never ceased to be sheep­
herders, nor had they mixed overmuch with the Egyptians

But during the reprisals that followed the death of the infidel
king, Akhenaten, nearly seventy years ago, they had suffered
severely. For Akhenaten had forsworn his gods and proclaimed

that there was only one god. And apparently these sons of Israel
had the same unreasonable belief in a single god, and had been
tarred with Akhenaten’s brush. Anyway, they had been heavily

fined and made subject to forced labor in the public works
projects, just as though they were ordinary bondsmen. And they
hadn’t liked it.

The sergeants of the company that had stayed behind in
Ascalon, leaning over the tavern table as they listened to their
comrades who had been on the task force, signaled for more beer,
and the barmaids hung around to hear the rest of the story.

Well, the returned sergeants went on, there would probably
have been no trouble if it hadn’t been for a firebrand with a
touch of religious mania, a young Egyptianized Israeli called

Moses. He had been well brought up; it was even said that he
had been adopted by one of King Seti’s daughters, but he had
got into a scrape and had had to spend some years in exile among

the shepherd tribes of Sinai. And he had got the idea that the
sons of Israel would be better off a little farther away from Egyp­

tian jurisdiction.
The authorities in Egypt had naturally refused permission
for the tribe to change its grazing grounds, but there had been
the usual red-tape tangle, with every official countermanding the

last. Then to cap it all, the peasants had got the idea that last
year’s poor inundation, followed by the locust plague and wide­
spread epidemics, was all the fault of Moses, who claimed to have

some sort of supernatural powers anyway. There had been a tense
situation, until suddenly the tribe had decamped without per
mission. And before breaking camp, they had raided the neig -

boring villages and carried off considerable booty.