Page:Legends of Old Testament Characters.djvu/279

XXXII.] As the siege protracted itself through nine years, Kikannos fell ill and died.

Then the chief captains of his army assembled, and determined to elect a king, who might carry on the siege with energy, and reduce the city with speed, for they were weary of the long investment. So they elected Moses to be their king, and they threw off their garments and folded them, and made thereof a throne, and set Moses thereon, and blew their trumpets, and cried "God save King Moses!"

And they gave him the widow of Kikannos to wife, and costly gifts of gold and silver and precious stones were brought to him, but all these he laid aside in the treasury. This took place 157 years after Jacob and his sons came down into Egypt, when Moses was aged twenty-seven years.

On the seventh day after his coronation came the captains and officers before him, and besought of him counsel, how the city might be taken. Then said Moses, "Nine years have ye invested it, and it is not yet in your power. Follow my advice, and in nine days it shall be yours."

They said, "Speak, and we will obey."

Then Moses gave this advice, "Make it known in the camp that all the soldiers go into the woods, and bring me storks' nests as many as they can find."

So they obeyed, and young storks innumerable were brought to him. Then he said, "Keep them fasting till I give you word, and he who gives to a stork food, though it were but a crumb of bread, or a grain of corn, he shall be slain, and all that he hath shall become the king's property, and his house shall be made a dung-heap."

So the storks were kept fasting. And on the third day the king said, "Let the birds go."

Then the storks flew into the air, and they spied the serpents on the fourth side of the city, and they fell upon them, and the serpents fled, and they were killed and eaten by the storks or ever they reached their holes, and not a serpent remained. Then said Moses, "March into the city and take it."

And the army entered the city, and not one man fell of the king's army, but they slew all that opposed them.

Thus Moses had brought the Ethiopian army into possession of the capital. The grateful people placed the crown upon his head, and the queen of Kikannos gave him her hand