CHAPTER XI.
THE FEAST OF PURIM.
Stealthily Ichabod, followed by Sir Charleroy, approached the place from which the trumpet call had sounded. The foliage was dense, the necessary way somewhat winding, and these circumstances, together with the fact that it was expedient to move with great caution, made the progress of the explorers very slow. The last ray of day had faded, sung away by the evening bird and insect chorusers, whose concert strains, like the vanishing notes of æolian harps swept by dying breezes, were now blending, without a line to mark the place of transition, into the lull of the night. Nature’s lullaby to tired, drowsy life. It was a witching hour in the woods, and the scene that lay just beyond the pilgrims in an opening by Jabbock was an enchantment. The river, reflecting the moon rays and the lights of torches borne by many intermingling feasters, flowed silently along like a stream of mingled silver and fire, while tree and shrub along its sides, as green as green could be, bore as fruits lights of many colors. In the opening, surrounded by beacons, banners and the lamp-bearing trees, the beauty as well as the center of all was a magnificent patriarchal tent, made of costly materials. About the pavilion were mounds of earth, elevated upon high tripods, seven in all, in symbols of the seven temple candle-sticks. On each mound there blazed a fire fed by resinous faggots, and the lights of the fires falling upon the folds of the tent, caught up here and there by bands of blue and gold, made the whole glisten like jeweled silk.
“Hallelujah,” with suppressed joy, exclaimed Ichabod, “the tabernacle of God with men!”
“Hush, rash man, and watch!” rebukingly replied Sir Charleroy.
“Watch? Why, my soul is in my eyes. I’m as one famished for years smelling a feast!”
As they looked on the beautiful scene, they perceived that the front of the pavilion was lifted up and stretched forward as a canopy over an altar, richly decorated with twined olive branches and blood-red blossoms. A little way off, and yet partly encircling the altar, were little walnut trees, each tree having on its branches glistening lamps, half hidden by wreaths of hollyhocks and asters.
The moon sank behind the hills; the night darkened, but the fires and lamps burned still more brightly.
“It’s like fairy-land, Jew,” after little, spake Sir Charleroy.
“More beautiful, knight. Wait and see.”