The elders spake yet again to Bar Noemi.
"Bar Noemi, son of a strange land, below thee is the waste of waters, above thee is the waste of sky, answer now, who is the God that can help thee in this wilderness?"
"Jehovah!" answered Bar Noemi.
"Then Jehovah stand thee by," said the elders; whereupon they stripped Bar Noemi's ship of sails, helm, and every instrument which enables the mariner to find or make his way on the ocean. Then they bade the bride return to her father at Carthage. But, clinging to her husband's breast, Byssenia said she would liefer remain in the stormy sea, and would not forsake in the hour of danger him to whom she had plighted her troth.
"Then may Jehovah help thee," answered the elders; and with that they quitted Bar Noemi's vessel, and, drawing back the bridges, left the bridal ship there in the open sea, without sails or helm, devoted to the tempest, abandoned to the waves.
CHAPTER III
DERELICT
On the becalmed ocean lies the forsaken ship, without sails, without helm, drawn to one side by its own weight, not a single black point of land, not a single white sail anywhere visible along the vast horizon. And in the midst of this desolation stands Bar Noemi and his doomed crew. But Bar Noemi has said that even in this desolation dwells the Lord God, who rules over the heavens and the waters.
And behold! as he prays there with outstretched arms, a dove comes flying from the west on rapid wing, and alights upon the topmast. Never had man seen such a dove before. Her feathers were of green, merging here and there into pearly grey, the wide-extended tail was gold-coloured, and sewn with stars like the tail of a peacock, and her neck was striped with glowing purple.
Bar Noemi took some rice in the palm of his hand and held it in the air, and behold! to every one's astonishment, the wonderful bird flew from the masthead on to the mariner's hand, and began to peck up the grains of rice one by one, uttering each time the soft cooing note of the wild dove, whereupon she flew back to the masthead, and remained there till evening.