A tall form stood in the doorway. It was Eli. At the words he came forward and bent over the figure on the pallet, his hot tears dropping on her face.
“The son who is without a mother shall care for the mother who is without a son. An hour ago my mother fell victim to the soldier’s sword.” He clinched his hands and drew a long, sobbing breath. “I will avenge thy daughter and my brother and my mother. For one thing only will I live henceforth: to follow into Syria those who are gone; to find them and to secure their ransom. Their sorrows shall be mine; their weeping shall be even as mine own, and woe unto him by whom they were taken!”
The woman seemed strangely excited. She rose unsteadily and tottered to the door. “I threw away that which would help thee to accomplish thy vow. It was a pearl, a pearl of great price which we brought from Jerusalem, meaning to give it to Miriam when she is older.”
Attempting to cross the threshold she fell, overborne by lack of nourishment, weariness and grief. Eli raised her with his one good arm and he and Judith again laid her on the bed. He lingered, speaking comforting words the while: “When it is fully light we will look for thy pearl. Fear not, it shall be found. Judith and I will seek—” but Judith was slipping hastily away.
“I go for firewood,” she explained, and partially closed the door behind her. Once outside and assured that Eli still sat beside her aunt, she sank to her knees and groped upon the ground. Handfuls of earth, sticks and stones, thorns and stinging ants rewarded her search, but she cared not. The sun rose higher and she lifted her head in smiling thankfulness. At last she rose, rejoicing, clutching something in her hand, hugging it to her bosom.
She was about to re-enter the house when, far below her, she espied the familiar figure of a man. In demonstrative Eastern fashion he was beating his breast and pouring dust upon his head, customs indicative of overwhelming sorrow. The girl suddenly changed her mind and went down the hill, passing the man but paying no attention to him. Half an hour later he passed her where she was industriously and demurely gathering brush. In the common calamity Eastern etiquette might well be disregarded. He stopped to speak to her as though she had been a man and an equal.
“Woe is me,” he began. “Gone are my flocks and herds; gone are my stores of wine and olives; gone is my newly garnered grain; naught remaineth but the bare fields wherewith to mock me while famine and sickness and death stare our village in the face.”
“Not to mock thee, my lord,” she replied, her voice low from nervousness and the fear of being overheard by some unsuspected passer-by, “not to mock thee do thy fields stare thee in the face, but to save us from the disasters thou dost mention.”
His tones held surprise and a certain amount of incredulity. “A prudent mind is thine, but long will it be until next harvest, and how shall we live until then?” He regarded her shrewdly while she made answer.
“In our house is a little food; in Hannah’s a little more; probably some remaineth in every dwelling. Do thou go quickly, my lord, gather up whatever there be and put it in thy storehouse. Then it shall be that day by day the people shall come unto thee for food and thou shalt apportion it, so-much and so-much for each person. Thus shall the gluttonous divide with him that hath little and so shall all be fed. Fear not, thou shalt plant and reap in due time. Hasten, my lord, the village waiteth upon thee.”