"May the curse of the Most High rest upon them!" the stranger cried, shaking his fist.
He began to run in the direction of the open square used by the Israelites as a market-place. Nathan and Joel raced after him. The clamor of voices raised in bitter lamentation reached them. They found the square choked with a surging mass of men and women who clasped little children to their breasts, seeking to protect them. The rain beat in their faces and the gusty wind tossed their garments. Some called upon their God, raising their hands toward heaven. Others shrieked the names of their offspring who had already been torn from them. Every house in the quarter was filled with weeping and cries of despair. The priests of Baal went hither and thither, seizing their prey in the name of the law wherever they found it.
Nathan and Joel halted at the edge of the square. The priests were searching through the crowd, many of them concealing a tiny burden beneath their robes of office. Feeble wailings betrayed the nature of these bundles. They were the children of the Israelites, bound hand and foot for the sacrifice.
While the young men stood looking, one of the priests discovered a woman who crouched upon the ground with her face hidden in her dishevelled hair. He grasped her roughly by the shoulder and drew her back, disclosing the fact that she had been shielding her baby beneath her bosom. The child raised its dimpled hands and tried to touch its mother's wet cheeks. The priest seized them and tore the infant from her. She clutched the skirt of his robe and followed him on her knees through the mire, begging piteously for the child.
"You have so many already," she said, "and he is all I have! Surely Baal does not require my little one. He will be appeased. Give him back to me!"
The priest turned and struck her upturned face with his clenched hand. She uttered a cry of anguish and released his robe, falling back senseless to the earth.
An inarticulate sound burst from the lips of the man who had guided Nathan and Joel to the market-place.
"O Lord, my God!" he shouted, raising his hands to the leaden sky. "I had two children to be the staff and prop of my old age. Wilt Thou suffer them to be taken from me? We have remained faithful to Thee; is this to be our reward?"
Nathan was about to spring upon the guard that surrounded the priests before him when the tall figure of an old man strode into the square. His gaunt frame was clad in sackcloth, and his long white hair and beard were blown in the wind. He walked erect, without the aid of the staff which he carried in his hand. There was an air of authority and even of majesty in his bearing. The men and women nearest to him fell upon their knees and stretched their hands toward him in supplication. He did not glance at them and he seemed not to hear their prayers. His stern eyes swept the market-place and he spoke in a resonant voice that rose above the tumult and caused it to die away.
"Why do ye lament, men of Israel?" he cried. "Cease now your weeping and rejoice. For Tyre is fallen! Her hour is come!"