"He is better than daddy, and better than mammy. He fed me and patted my head, and saved me from Reb Moshe."
"Whose little boy are you?" asked Golda. Lejbele remained silent and kept on rocking his head. He evidently tried to collect his confused thoughts. Suddenly he raised his finger and pointed after the retreating figure of Meir, and said aloud:
"I am his."
And he laughed: but it was no longer the laugh of an idiot, only the expression of joy that he had found the way to clothe in words the thoughts of his loving little heart.
Golda looked in the direction where Meir had disappeared, and sighed heavily. Presently she rose, wrapped herself in a gray shawl, went half-way up the hill, and sat down under a dwarfed pine-tree. Perhaps she wanted to look down and watch his return from the woods. Her elbows resting on her knees—her face buried in her hands, she sat motionless, like a statue of sorrow; the black hair which covered her like a mantle, glittered and shone in the bright moonlight.
At the same time the low door of the Rabbi's hut was softly opened and Reb Moshe crept in, looking worn, ashamed and troubled. He squatted down near the fireplace and looked anxiously at Isaak Todros who sat in the open window, his eyes fixed on the sky.
"Rabbi!" he whispered timidly.
"Rabbi!" he said a little louder, "your servant will look guilty in your eyes—he has not brought the abominable writing. The storm was fearful, but his friends defended him; he resisted himself, and then a little child shielded him. The foolish people tore his clothes, beat, abused and stoned him; but did not take the writing from him."
"Nassi! your servant is ashamed and troubled; have mercy upon him, and do not punish him with the lightning of your eyes."
Todros, without taking his eyes from off the sky, said: