“I could make no atonement except by contradicting a score of years, and going to Bozrah! Now hear me finally; by the glory of God, alive, I’ll never go to Rizpah’s house!”
Miriamne felt that further persuasion would be futile. She made a last request, then.
“Will my father take me to the outskirts of that city? I’ll enter alone to comfort the woman who, notwithstanding her faults, I believe to be the noblest of mothers. She may not have a husband; she has a daughter.”
As the father and daughter rested at noon, not far from the Giant City, some days after the foregoing events, they beheld a single horseman from toward Bozrah speeding along the great southern highway.
“I think he’s a Jew and in peaceful pursuit. I’ll hail him,” said the knight, “in the language of Galilee.”
The rider, hearing the call, halted. Glancing about him he discovered the source of the call, and promptly reined his steed toward where the pilgrims were sitting. Instantly he began in short, quick sentences:
“Wonder; the face of a Frank, the garb of a Turk, the voice of a Jew! An old man, a young woman! A Moslem in company with his slave? No, she sits by his side! A harem favorite? No! She is not veiled! Ye do not look cunning enough for magicians, too cunning to be pilgrims; not pious enough, old man, to be a priest, and too pious-looking to be a robber.”
“True, Laconic,” said the knight, “I’m at no loss as to thee.”
“So it seems! But pray, Christian, Jewish, Druses, Turks, who are ye?”
“We’re pilgrims, good runner.”