"And your worshippers—what of them?" I asked.
Her eyes grew sad. "After my father's death—his memory for a blessing!—the pilgrims fell off, and when the years passed without the miracle, his followers even here in Zloczszol began to weaken. And slowly a new generation arose, impatient and lax, which believed not in the faith of their forefathers and mocked my footsteps, saying, 'Behold! the dreamer cometh!' And then the black fire-monster came, whizzing daily to and fro on the steel lines and breathing out fumes of unfaith, and the young men said lo! there is our true Redeemer. Wherefore, as the years waxed and waned, until at last advancing Death threw his silver shadow on my hair, even the faithful grew to doubt, and they said, 'But a few short years more and death must claim her, her mission unfulfilled, and the lamp of Israel's hope shattered forever. Perchance it is we that have misunderstood the prophecies. Not here, not here, shall God's great miracle be wrought; this is not holy ground. "For the Lord dwelleth in Zion,"' they cried with the Prophets. Only on the sacred soil, outside of which God has never revealed himself, only in Palestine, they said, can Israel's Redeemer be born. As it is written, 'But upon Mount Zion shall be deliverance, and there shall be holiness.'
"Then these and the scoffers persuaded me, seeing that I waxed very old, and I sold my father's house—now grown of high value—to obtain the money for the journey, and I made ready to start for Jerusalem. There had been a whirlwind and a great snow the day before and I would have tarried, but they said I must arrive in the Holy City ere the eve of Chanukah. And putting off my shroud and my crown, seeing that only in Jerusalem I might be a bride, I trusted myself to the fire-monster, and a vast company went with me to the starting-place—both of those who believed that salvation was of Zion and those who scoffed. But the monster had scarcely crawled out under God's free heaven than God's hand lifted me up and those with me—for my blessedness covered them—and put us down very far off, while a great white thunder-bolt fell upon the building and upon the scoffers and upon those who had prated of Zion, and behold! they were not. The multitude of Moab was as straw trodden down for the dunghill, and the high fort of the fire-monster was brought down and laid low and brought to the ground, even to the dust. Then arose a great cry from all the town and the mountain, and a rending of garments and a weeping in sackcloth. And many returned to the faith in me, for God's hand has shown that here, and not elsewhere, is the miracle to be wrought. As it is written, word for word, in the twenty-fifth chapter of Isaiah:—
"'And He will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God shall wipe away tears from off all faces: and the rebuke of His people shall He take away from off all the earth: for the Lord hath spoken it. And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us: this is the Lord; we have waited for Him, we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation. For in this mountain shall the hand of the Lord rest, and Moab shall be trodden down under Him, even as straw is trodden down for the dunghill. And He shall spread forth His hands in the midst of them, as he that swimmeth spreadeth forth to swim: and He shall bring down their pride together with the spoils of their hands. And the fortress of the high fort of thy walls shall He bring down, lay low, and bring to the ground, even to the dust.'
"And here in this cedar of Lebanon, transplanted like Israel under the shadow of this alien mountain, the Lord has shot a bolt, for a sign to all that can read. And here I come daily to pray, and to await the divine moment."
She ceased, and her eyes turned to the now stainless heaven. And as I gazed upon her shining face it seemed to me that the fresh flowers and leaves of her crown, still wet with the dew, seen against that garment of death and the silver of decaying life, were symbolic of an undying, ever rejuvenescent hope.
IX
A last surprise awaited me. Bethulah now lived all alone in Yarchi's pine cottage, which the years had left untouched.
Whether accident or purpose settled her there I do not know, but my heart was overcharged with mingled emotion as I went up the garden the next day to pay her a farewell visit. The poppies flaunted riotously amid the neglected maize, but the cottage itself seemed tidy.
It was the season when the cold wrinkled lips of winter meet the first kiss of spring, and death is passing into resurrection. It was the hour when the chill shadows steal upon the sunlit day. In the sky was the shot purple of a rolling moor, merging into a glow of lovely green.