Plauged

Chapter Three

     My father invited Msrah to dinner, I had enough of his foolishness, so I sat alone staring at my reflection in our garden pool. I thought about; the tale the old nurse told me, how moses could make hes own people suffer even more then they already have, granted the Israelites where only slaves, i thought how happy the Hebrew boy looked the previous night, he would not look so once heard of the labor ahead of him.  someone calling my name interrupted my thoughts. 

    "Dendara! I've been looking for you!" I turned to see my good friend Scamis, the maid servant of Pharaoh's Chief Wife.  

     "Scamis! how are you? I can not remember last I saw you!" 

    "I know,  I have so much to tell you!" the slender girl went on and on about the palace life. she boasted about the most "wonderful, beautiful, intelligent, man in all the world" and how he was building a house for them. she gossiped some more, Scamis has the biggest mouth in all of Egypt! "but here is something that tops all of this. Two old foreign men, a tall skinny one with a staff, and a muscular one, oh my gods the staff, but I am getting ahead of my self. These two men came to Pharaoh and demand to let the Israelites go! the tall skinny one, by the name of Aaron I believe, said, "The Lord God of Israel says, 'Let my people go they must hold a festival for me.' Pharaoh just laughed and said he knew no such 'God' and refused. Aaron claimed that ten plagues would fall on Egypt if he did not. Pharaoh simply got up calming and said firmly, the Israelites were numberous and hard workers, economically he could not let the go." 

   "But, Pharaoh of all people should understand the importance of festivals to the gods!" I exclaimed. Scamis casually plucked a flower from a lily pad. 

     "Dandra they are slaves their 'God' obviously is not on their side." she retorted. "Now, silence, I have not even got to the good part; Pharaoh challenged them to preform a miracle. so Aaron held out his staff and hit it against the ground and it instantly begun to change color it became the brightest red I have ever seen! as it got brighter it also became flexible and began to curl and twist once the transformation was complete Aaron had a neon snake wrapping around his arm." Scamis paused and watched my facial expression of total bewilderment! 

   "How is that not proof enough that their God is not powerful?" I said. Scamis shrugged, "Our magicians did the same trick. However something strange happened, once Aaron let his snake down and it devoured the magican's cobras!"

    "See!"

   "I have to admit magicains cannot top that. Pharaoh must have thought the same, I believe he is scared to, but scared or not He declared the Israelites where not to be given straw the following morning yet  still meet their dayly quota. Alittle harsh if you ask me. But like he said it is all thanks to Moses." she said.

    I gasped, "Did you say Moses?"