“Thou dost not let me make myself clear,” he said, gently, “but thou shalt know for thyself. And another sorrow I have unwittingly brought thee. At the same time that Rachel was taken by my band, Miriam was also captured, although I knew not she was thy sister.”
Benjamin lowered his staff, grief succeeding indignation. “And what of her? Tell me.”
“I have myself seen to her welfare, and my errand here is to tell thee of both maidens and to conduct thee to them that thou mayest assure thyself—”
Benjamin assented briefly. At that moment his keen ear detected the far-off bleat of a sheep. Guided by its cries, he made his way to it as quickly as possible and with his light, hooked rod disentangled its wool from the cruel thorns which caught and tore his own flesh meanwhile. Catching the forelegs together with one hand and the hindlegs with the other, he swung the exhausted animal over his shoulder and began retracing his steps. Isaac followed, a dozen times essaying to reopen the subject upon which he had come prepared to speak, and a dozen times being repulsed by the gloom in which Benjamin seemed wrapped.
They passed the sheepfold where inquiry had earlier been made and the shepherd raised his voice in a shout, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.”
Arriving at last whence they had started and the weary and injured animal tenderly cared for, Isaac and Benjamin took opposite sides of the fire, each preferring the company of his own bitter thoughts to conversation. A recumbent shepherd kept watch before the door of the fold. Two more slept. To use the tongue of Israel would have been to insure privacy to the message, but each waited for the other. If Isaac were sufficiently penitent, thought Benjamin, he would talk even though the words came falteringly. As it was, his errand was one of expediency and no real satisfaction would be gained by forcing from his lips details of the confession he should make voluntarily. If, thought Isaac, Benjamin wished to ask questions, he would answer them fully, but why give unasked information which was distorted and misunderstood as soon as uttered? And so, each nursing a sense of injury, the long night passed.
A couple of days were spent in making preparation for the care of the flock while Benjamin should be away, and the fourth they started for Damascus. At dawn a gentle rain was falling. The substitute shepherd was delighted. Since the flock must remain within shelter of the fold while the storm lasted, it were that much easier cared for. To the three whose horses stood waiting, the rain mattered not at all. Benjamin moved here and there, giving directions and making sure that all was well before his departure. Once he paused and took a sick lamb in his arms:
“I go to bring another,” he whispered, tenderly, “bruised and wounded as thou art, but her spirit, like thine, shall be healed with the oil of loving-kindness.”
An hour later he was riding across the rain-soaked plain, the other horseman a little in advance, the servant in the rear. The two foremost were quite unchanged, the one lost in the depths of profound irritation, the other in melancholy, and neither speaking save when their common errand made it necessary.