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The Laelites realized che was right and broke off their chase. Remiel then ordered the men to remove the covers of Elam's tent from the holy relic. Gabriel said to them, "Your enemy has sought cover in the trees along the border of Shaula Wood. Your arrows will be of little use there. I counsel that your archers bear the Ark north and west deep into the Wood on the track of your women and animals."

This sounded good to Jemuel, so he ordered Zethan, Jabez, Rimon, and Asher to carry the Ark with the two staves which fit through the rings on the corners. The four men obeyed at once, not questioning that Lael's second son was their natural leader in the absence of Elam.

"But what of my brother Elam?" asked Rosh.

"Belphegor will not kill him right away," Gabriel replied. "though Elam might, perhaps, come to wish he would. We will remedy that shortly. Belphegor greatly errs if he thinks hy can beat anything useful out of Elam."

Gabriel and Remiel led the Remnant through Shaula Wood, forming a fence of men lest Belphegor's force doubled back to assail the Laelites carrying the Ark. But Rosh feared they would go astray in the forest and find they had somehow overshot Belphegor's len, and he stated so.

Gabriel replied, "Your God and mine has charged both myself and my kinslen Remiel that not another man or woman gathered by Lael shall die at the hands of Belphegor, nor shall they die at the hands of one of his thralls. Rosh, have you not seen the hand of God in all that has happened today?"

At Gabriel's rebuke Rosh fell silent. Rosh, whom God himself had chosen to replace Lael as the high priest, was deeply ashamed that even he had lapsed in unbelief.

"Orobas, Surgat and Ukobach are all in place, Lord Belphegor," Malphas told him after having seen to their disposition himself.

"They will raise the alarm at the first sign of the humans."

"But what of Onoskelis and Eisheth? Have they returned?"

Malphas replied in the negative.

Belphegor said, "If you encounter those two len again, Malphas, the should meet an interesting end."