"Abigail, you here!"
"Chamai, is it you?" she answered; and in an instant they were grasping each other's hands; and gazing in each other's eyes, they wept aloud.
As soon as Chamai had recovered his composure, he asked her by what strange chance it happened that she was on board a Phœnician vessel.
"Did you not know," she asked in return, "that the Philistines came down on Guedor, our native village, and carried me off to Askelon, and afterwards sold me to the Tyrians?"
"No," he said; "all this is new to me. I was away in the north, fighting against the King of Zobah, and since that time, have not been home."
It did not take Abigail long to regain all her wonted cheerfulness and vivacity; and she went on to tell how she had been purchased by the King of Tyre, and was now on her way to Egypt in attendance upon the Ionian lady, whom King Hiram had bought at the same time as herself, and whom he was now sending as a present to Pharaoh.
Chamai, in his turn, informed her that he was to be allowed to accompany us in our expedition, but was loud in expressing his regret that the voyage to Egypt would be so quickly over; he could have wished, he said, that it would take as long as his forefathers' wandering in the wilderness.
Touched by the incident of this mutual recognition, I invited the girl to sit down for a little while amongst us; and requested Hanno, who was acquainted with the Ionian dialect, to ask the lady to do the same. With a graceful obeisance, she took her seat on a cushion that was placed for her.
The evening meal proceeded pleasantly enough. Abigail and Chamai entertained us with the story of their attachment, relating how in the days of their early childhood they had tended goats together in their native pastures. I could not refrain from expressing my sorrow that they had met to be parted again so soon.