CHAPTER X.
AFTER EVE, ESTHER OR MARY?
“Still slowly passed the melancholy day,
And still the stranger wist not where to stray:
The world was sad—the Garden was a wild;
And man, the hermit, sighed—till woman smiled.”
—Milton.
The Israelites, along Jabbock, were all aglow with preparation for celebrating one of their feasts. Sir Charleroy and his comrade journeying along, in the early morning, were apprised of the advent of the festivities by the passing near them of a company of maidens, marching and chanting. The pilgrims drew apart and sequestered themselves behind a clump of nubt trees that they might observe, themselves unobserved, the graceful procession of singers.