The exit from the cavern through the city wall was very narrow, a mere crevice between the great stones which some earthquake, or possibly the stroke of some battering-ram, had dislodged.
"Let me look out, sister. I can see with my ears without pushing the bushes."
Caleb lifted himself to the aperture, and crawled into it, where he lay for a moment as still as a lizard. He suddenly slipped down again to his sister's side.
"A sentinel is passing. He is a big, awkward fellow, for I hear his feet roll on the little stones. Now he has gone. The soldiers are afraid to come among the bushes or close to the walls, because the cracks in the stones are full of little adders. But they never harm me."
"The Psalm reads," said Deborah, "'Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder.'"
"But," rejoined the lad, "I don't even tread on them. One day, though, I put my hand on one, and he didn't bite me. Maybe that is what the Lord means, too."
"Yes," replied his sister, "for Esaias says, 'The sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand in the cockatrice's den.' But that is to be when Jerusalem is redeemed by a new David. God grant that your safety from these reptiles may mean that glorious days are near at hand. The Deliverer must come. He must come. Maybe we shall see Him, Caleb."
So they talked in whispers while the aperture grew dim with approaching night.
Caleb and Deborah did not venture to come out of the old city quarry until darkness had fully fallen, and the ray of a star shot its salutation to them through the crevice. When they emerged they stood for a long time close to the wall, screened by the bushes.
"How large the stars look!" whispered Deborah. "They hang as in mid-air; the constellations like ear-rings and necklaces on the invisible angels. They seem nearer than the camp-fires and tent lanterns of the Greeks on the hills yonder. So let us trust Heaven's help is nearer to us than our enemies."