XVIII
HIGH PRIEST! HIGH DEVIL!
Deborah threw off her coarse garment, and before the mirror of polished brass—in which many generations of women had been made conscious of the beauty for which their family was famous—she arranged her hair as decorously as its brief length permitted, supplementing its lost beauty with a band of pearls which she discovered in the great carved wooden chest. Her arms were now as sun-stained as those of a Bedouin maiden from the tribes beyond Jordan, and made goodly contrast with the silver bracelets which once scarcely rivalled the whiteness of her skin. She donned an embroidered bodice and outer robe of white linen, and put on the sandals with the golden-threaded strings binding the ankles, such as she had often worn.
"Once more I am the daughter of Elkiah."
A momentary flush of pride answered the reflection in the mirror.
She pushed it from her, and sat with folded hands upon the couch.
"A hypocrite! What better am I than that brazen mistress of Apollonius? Oh, God, must I do this? A spy in the house of my father? Lord, lead me. Save me from wrong-doing. Yet is it not Thy will?"
"What is it, sister?" asked Caleb, who was now awakened by Deborah's soliloquy. He stretched out his hands to her, but shrank back as he felt the strange texture of her robe.
"We are home again, my dear. Come, you must wear your pretty clothes."
While dressing Caleb neither of them spoke, for their attention was drawn to loud voices which sounded from the adjacent chamber.