She turned a wondering face toward Judith, but her question was answered when a tall youth and a maiden, the first of the party to reach the top of the hill, paused to take breath after the steep climb. With true Eastern hospitality Sarah rose and tottered feebly toward them. A moment more and Eli’s voice sounded in her ears and Miriam’s arms were around her. Another moment and Benjamin was bending over her. She looked in bewildered fashion from one to the other as if scarce comprehending. At last she smiled upon them.
“Judith,” she called, “Judith, come thou. My children must be all together,” and closed her eyes with a little sigh of contentment.
“Then Rachel must be here also,” said Benjamin, drawing her toward him as she held the babe.
“And Nathan too,” put in Eli, taking his brother by the arm.
Among them all they carried Sarah to her old home and, without one backward glance, the happy, chattering group entered, leaving a lone figure upon the hilltop.
It was a strange sight to be seen in Israel, that soldier in splendid Syrian dress, lingering there. He noted the village straggling up the unpaved street, the tender green of growing things in the valley beneath, the low cloud of dust hovering over the sheepfold. Memory was likewise busy. He recalled Miriam’s joy in Eli’s coming to Damascus, her unwonted gayety since they had started for the Land of Israel, her present absorption in her mother. Yet could aught else be expected? Reasoning with himself, excusing her, striving to stifle the pain of her thoughtlessness, he descended the hill to the encampment of the soldiers.
“Yea,” he said mournfully to himself, “we have lost our little maid,” and then, again, with heart-sick despair, “I have lost my little maid.”
CHAPTER XXIV
WAITING
In the House of Abner the usual household scenes mocked the sorrowing man who beheld them. “Empty, empty, empty!” he moaned. “My Rose of Sharon have I plucked from its stem and cast aside. Ah, woe is my portion!”
Striding down the village street long before the morning mists had faded, he paused in front of Sarah’s house, thereby startling a beautiful girl in foreign raiment who had just stepped over the threshold and surprising himself scarcely less. Then he recalled the conversation of his excited servants the day before, tidings which had been unheeded in his own grief. This must be Miriam!