For a moment the prophet did not speak and Naaman waited anxiously. His was not a nature which could practice deception or tolerate it in others, yet between his own religious convictions and his official duties as a member of the Syrian Court was a great gulf fixed. Elisha’s answer fell upon his hungry heart like a refreshing shower on parched ground.
“It is well. Go thou in peace.”
The great soldier prostrated himself before the seer, who politely bade him rise, and their farewells over—those long farewells of the Orient—the Syrian embassy turned its face homeward, wondering greatly at what it had seen and heard.
Through the gate of the house just left peered a frowning face. Gehazi, servant to the prophet, had regarded his master’s decision concerning the gift with some displeasure. True, Elisha was not poor, but to allow wealth to pass as lightly through his fingers as a man openeth his hand and droppeth seed in sowing time! But stay, should not his own services be rewarded with a little, a very little indeed, of what this foreigner was reluctantly carrying away? His eyes, lighted with cupidity, grew cautious as they searched the apartments within for trace of his master. In a moment he had shut the gate softly and stepped outside.
Isaac, hearing behind them the footsteps of a runner, looked backward curiously, checking his horse. Naaman, hearing at the same moment, commanded his charioteer to stop while he dismounted. Walking a few steps toward the runner, whom he perceived to be the prophet’s servant, he greeted him anxiously.
“Is all well?”
The man reassured him. “All is well, but my master hath sent me, saying, ‘Behold even now there be come to me from Mount Ephraim two young men of the Sons of the Prophet. Give them, I pray thee, a talent of silver and two changes of garments.’”
In answer to this request, Naaman generously insisted upon giving more than was desired: “Be content, take two talents,” and although Gehazi objected with well simulated humility there was in his tones no such decisive finality as had been present in the voice of his master.
Calling two of the servants, Naaman saw to it that they bore before the messenger the heavy silver, cut and weighed, and the two changes of fine raiment. Well satisfied that at least something of all he had taken had been accepted, the Syrian captain reentered his chariot and the party waited for the return of the burden bearers. Isaac looked after the trio questioningly.
“There be many Sons of the Prophet,” he reasoned with himself, “would their leader, the Man of God, honor two above the rest? Nay, it seemeth not so to me. Somehow I like not this man Gehazi. Never once, in all of our dealings, hath he looked my master or me straight in the eye!”