“Friend,” Isaiah spoke hoarsely, “do not mock me if you wish to live.”
“By Ramman!” swore the Babylonian, not a little fearful, “I think you are in earnest.” He pushed in the door of a little sleeping chamber, and waved the lamp, sending a wan flicker around, that now hid, now revealed, all the room.
“Behold!”
Dagan pointed downward, where a mattress was spread upon the floor and on it the form of one sleeping. And as they looked, there was a rustle upon the pallet, two little hands unclasped across the breast, while Dagan saw that again the Hebrew was trembling.
“Dagan,” commanded Isaiah, still hoarsely, “set the light upon the floor and get you hence.” Which injunction, the schoolmaster, being a wise as well as a kindly man, hastened to obey.
“Shaphat,” said Isaiah, later that same night, in another chamber of the house, “tell me the story of your flight with the Lady Ruth, for I would not suffer her to speak long, but bade her go back to rest.”
Whereupon a young man, who had been dozing in a dark corner, shuffled to his feet; but he would not look Isaiah in the eye.
“Ah, lord,” stammered the fellow, “who I am to tell my master,—I on whose head rests untold guilt? Who will believe, though I swear by every god? Even these Babylonians, if they know me, will cry ‘bricks for the perjurer,’ and will pelt me in their streets.”
“And well you say,” muttered Dagan, who stood by,—“the servant who robbed so kind a lord as Daniel, then conspired with that viper Gudea to work his death. By Marduk!” and he turned to Isaiah, “I will not trust him; no, not till cockcrow! If he has saved the Lady Ruth, it is but to serve some dark and hidden end. He knows your secret. Let him never quit this house alive!”
The renegado cowered at Isaiah’s feet. “Woe!” he groaned, “I am undone utterly; accursed on earth, and accursed in heaven! If such is the wrath of man, what is not God and His just and holy anger?”