"Nay," she murmured reprovingly, "that is not a sight for me and thee. I have seen the smoke rising—that is all."
Naomi stared up at the great group of buildings—courts, halls, cloisters, terraces, and walls, topped by the splendid golden front of the Holy Place, in silent awe.
"If once I should lose sight of Aunt Miriam," she thought, "I might wander about here for days and days and never find her again."
And she took such a firm hold upon her aunt's cloak that she, feeling the tug, thought the little girl was impatient to move on.
"Yes, child, yes," said she. "We go down now into the Court of the Gentiles. Do thou and little Martha walk on ahead. Pick thy way carefully, for this flight of steps is steep."
The Court of the Gentiles was open to the men of all nations, since it was not strictly a part of the Temple. It was a sort of sacred market-place, and Naomi and little Martha, as they walked about, held tight to one another when they passed the pens of sheep and oxen destined to be burnt offerings, and which were restlessly shouldering one another and lowing and bleating as if in some way they sensed their approaching doom. Here the seller of doves and pigeons kept his cotes, for many a worshiper could not afford to buy a kid or a lamb. Here, too, were the booths and stalls of the moneychangers who did a brisk trade, since no coin might be offered in the Temple save the sacred shekel.
"Art thou ready at last to leave the Temple, child?" asked Aunt Miriam, coming up behind Naomi as she stood gazing in at a penful of young lambs. "Wilt thou be able to tell all this to Ezra, think you?"
Naomi nodded slowly. She was not listening to what her aunt said. She was wondering why at times the sheep looked so strangely blurred, and why little black specks seemed to dance before her eyes.
"Over there is a little lamb that looks like my Three Legs, Aunt Miriam," said she. "I am glad he is not here, shut up in one of these great pens, and to die, perhaps, before another day."