If on the left they rise, or on the right!
Heed them who may, the will of Jove I own,
Who mortals and immortals rules alone!"[5]
"That is more in David's key," said the young Philistine harper, seeing that the poets had fallen to talk together again. "But how would it sound in one of the hymns on one of our feast-days?"
"Who mortals and immortals rules alone."
"How, indeed?" cried one of his young companions. "There would be more sense in what the priests say and sing, if each were not quarrelling for his own,—Dagon against Astarte, and Astarte against Dagon."
The old captain bent over, that the poets might not hear him, and whispered: "There it is that the Hebrews have so much more heart than we in such things. Miserable fellows though they are, so many of them, yet, when I have gone through their whole land with the caravans, the chances have been that any serious-minded man spoke of no God but this 'He' of David's."
"What is his name?"
"They do not know themselves, I believe."
"Well, as I said an hour ago, God's man or Dagon's man,—for those are good names enough for me,—I care little; but I should like to sing as that young fellow does."