“Put up thy jewels into thy bosom. Very dear unto her mistress is the maid, and the sum thou canst offer tempts me not. Nay, for I would tell thee—”
With one dismayed look at his brother Eli spoke again with calm finality: “Then one thing more do we bring my lord, all that we have to give. Let, I pray thee, thy servants remain as thy bondmen and let the maid return to Israel and to the mother who yearneth for her.”
The younger brother now advanced, prostrating himself and echoing Eli’s request: “Let Nathan and Eli serve thee as thou seest fit, but let not the maid remain in captivity.”
Frank admiration beamed from Naaman’s countenance. “Nay, not as bondmen shalt thou remain in this house, but as guests. Meat and drink shall be set before thee and changes of raiment shall be brought. Thou shalt see the maid and have audience with her mistress. Much of gratitude and affection do we owe Miriam, and if it please my wife to let her go into Israel, naught of what thou hast offered would we take, but a gift should she carry in her hand. Already hath request for the maiden’s freedom been made by my well-beloved servant, Isaac, and—”
Toward the gate they had entered flitted a smiling maiden, attended by an older woman and a maid servant. She stopped to pick a flower from the courtyard garden. Two women passed and she spoke to each, not with familiar chat, but with pleasant authority, both hurrying off to do her bidding. As the three entered a chariot which was in waiting and to which she was assisted with every mark of respect, she turned her head and the visitors saw that it was the gorgeously appareled maiden they had once supposed to be the daughter of the house.
“Behold,” said Naaman, “the maid whom thou seekest. She goeth—”
A rush of faintness caused Eli to lean heavily upon his brother. It was not this Miriam for whose sake they had toiled and suffered, but a Miriam poor and abused and possibly degraded. Upon the stone floor of the courtyard Eli fell. It was the tragedy of an unnecessary sacrifice.
CHAPTER XXI
TIDINGS
Somewhere out on the Syrian hills a mother caressed her babe. “Awakest thou, little one? Knowest thou that when thine eyes open it is as if sunrise had come and when thou closest them again it is as sunset?”
The exultation went out of her face, but the tenderness remained in her voice. “To think, joy of my life, that thou shalt never know thine own people! Never shall the eyes of thy father’s father or thy mother’s mother behold thy sweetness and delight in thee.”