IN NAAMAN’S
HOUSE

BY
MARIAN MacLEAN FINNEY

THE ABINGDON PRESS
NEW YORKCINCINNATI

Copyright, 1922, by
MARIAN MacLEAN FINNEY

Printed in the United States of America

TO
MY FRIENDS

“Other blessings may be taken away, but if we
have acquired a good friend, we have a blessing
which improves in value when all others fail.”

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
NEW ACQUAINTANCES

“I like not the maiden, Caleb. No good will come of taking in this daughter of strange people.”

“Thy words belie thy kind heart, Sarah. Thou wert willing to take under our care the child of my kinsman, even though estranged from his father’s house by his marriage. I fear, however,” and the man’s voice was troubled, “that we shall not be able to make her happy.”

“Make her happy!” broke in the woman’s indignant tones. “I fear that she will not be able to make herself useful. She hath not so far.” Then, more gently, “Yet is she welcome to all we can do for her now that she hath no kin save us, but I am fearful because her mother was of the natives of Canaan so that she hath not been instructed in the way of Jehovah. If she should have a wrong influence over our little Miriam!”

The woman in the doorway glanced over her shoulder at the scene within the dwelling where an animated conversation was in progress.

“Awake, Judith. I myself have awaked early. See, the door hath been opened and the fresh morning breezes blow sweet after the night-time when no air cometh in at all. Father hath almost finished leading out the animals. Did they bother thee last night with their stamping? Peradventure some wild animal was prowling about outside. Is it not a fine arrangement to have the mangers built between their part of the house and ours? And is it not comforting to know that at night and on stormy days they are safe under the same roof with us? Art thou still asleep?”

An older maiden sprang to her feet. “Who could sleep through thy chatter, Miriam? Thou makest more noise than the oxen and the asses and the cow and the calf all put together.” But a smile tempered the severity of the speech.

The younger and smaller maid laughed delightedly and stooping to the floor began to fold the thickly padded rug or quilt on which she had slept, depositing it in a nook in the wall apparently built for the purpose and keeping up a steady stream of talk designed to be informing to the new arrival.

“If our olive trees have a good crop this year, we are going to have curtains to hide the beds. Last year father built this wooden floor to raise our living room above the ground where the animals stay. It is cleaner and dryer now and ants and mice do not trouble us so much. Thinkest thou not we have a splendid home?”

Judith’s somewhat cool response caused Miriam to look at her in hurt surprise. The mother flashed a reassuring smile from her seat in the doorway, though never ceasing for a moment her skillful manipulation of a large sieve. It was tossed and shaken and every few minutes tilted sideways to allow a tiny shower of straws and dust to fall upon the ground. While Miriam took up the beds Judith was required to assist her aunt in grinding the newly sieved grain. With a steady, monotonous motion they worked the wooden handle of the mill back and forth, back and forth, never hastening but never stopping until at last the sound of the grinding became lower and lower and finally ceased, the whole grains of wheat having been crushed into a coarse powder between the upper and lower stones of the mill.

It did not take long for this to be made up into dough, patted into small, flat cakes, and baked quickly in the out-of-doors oven made of heated stones. By ten o’clock, as was usual in the Land of Israel, the morning repast was ready: hot bread, fresh milk, and to-day there were young onions dipped in salt. Had this been winter instead of spring, there might have been a handful of raisins or a few olives or the bread might possibly have been dipped in grape-syrup. This meal was always relished, however, for no other would be cooked until sunset. By the time it was finished the morning mists had rolled away, the sun had dried up the heavy dews of the night before, and the distant fields were calling to the husbandmen.

Linking her arm through Judith’s, Miriam guided the newcomer through the one long street of the village.

“Thou hast a beautiful name, Judith, almost as beautiful as thyself.”

“A Hittite name, Miriam, what thy people call ‘heathen,’ so it will not recommend me hereabouts, but thou art named for one of the great women of thy race.”

“Oh, not because she was great,” was the quick response, “but because she was useful and good. Knowest thou not how she cared for her baby brother, Moses, when she was just a little maid like me?”

The conversation was cut short by their arrival at a dwelling from whose open doorway voices floated out upon the balmy air.

“Thy father and I toiling and sacrificing for thee, our only child, and thou rebelling when we ask for appreciation and obedience!”

Another voice, choked with sobs, made answer: “Thou didst have no objection to Benjamin until Abner fancied me.”

“Dost thou add impudence to stubbornness? It is well thou hast thy father and me to see that thy folly doth not ruin thy young life.”

Catching sight of the two hesitating upon the threshold, the woman hastened to welcome them, then turned to the girl she had first addressed: “Wipe away thy tears and take thy water jar. See, Rachel, here is Miriam and her young kinswoman from the Plain of Sharon, a maiden of thine own age. Go with them and be diligent in thy task, but this time next year thy feet will take no such journeys nor thy hands be so employed, for thou shalt have servants to do thy bidding.”

The woman turned to her work and the three girls proceeded on their way, Miriam walking between the grief-stricken Rachel and the envious Judith, seeking to atone for the silence which had fallen upon each. Thus she began to speak in joyous enthusiasm:

“Now that the rains are over for the season, dost thou notice how sweet is the air? Every breeze bringeth the mingled scent of wild flowers which the hand of the Lord hath planted to delight the bees and us. Even from here we can tell what their faces will be like when we see them closer: anemones and poppies and wild tulips and arbutus and hosts of others. Even at night it is interesting here, for thou canst not tell whether thou wilt be awakened by the song of a nightingale or the howling of a wolf, and in the daytime, see!”

With a sweep of her arm she indicated the light-green garden patches and wheat-fields in the valley below them and the darker green of the olive groves and patches of oaks and pines nestling among the rugged gray hills on every side.

Neither of the girls commented and Miriam became silent.

At the foot of the path they were descending Judith paused to take breath. “To one who hath but lately come from the level plain along the seacoast, the mountains are wearying,” she remarked. “Why are thy cities perched upon the hilltops when thou must grow thy food in the valleys?”

As Rachel seemed disinclined to talk, Miriam took it upon herself to answer: “To be cool in summer and relieved from danger of flood in winter and safe from our enemies all the time. Knowest thou not how often the Syrians have swooped down upon us, like birds of prey, seeking that wherewith to enrich themselves?” Then, in tones of sympathy: “The path will not seem so steep when thou art used to it. For to-day do thou rest here and I will make two journeys to the spring, one for thee and one for me. Thou knowest we are commanded by our Law to be mindful of strangers because our people were strangers in the Land of Egypt, and I must remember how lonely I should feel to have to live where nobody knew or loved me even as thou.”

Judith, deeply touched, was affectionately declining Miriam’s offer of rest when a whoop startled alike the echoes and the girls and the mischievous face of a boy, somewhat older than Miriam, peeped from behind a rock.

“Nathan!” The exclamation was full of distress, and Miriam gazed at a shattered water jar at her feet. “Knowest thou not that jars cost wheat and sometimes olives? But,” soothingly, “never mind, the jar is not wasted, for these pieces will make drinking cups and these will do to carry coals in. They are splendid sherds. Hast thou noticed, Eli,” as a still older lad came hurrying toward them, “that no matter what is broken there is always something left?”

The entire party was busy picking up bits of pottery from the path, when a youngish man joined them, at sight of whom Rachel immediately called to mind an errand elsewhere and, with a whispered explanation to Miriam, promptly disappeared. While the newcomer was apparently known to the younger girl, her face did not light up with pleasure, although he addressed her gently.

Were they bound for the spring? He was going in the same direction. He had not met Judith before. So she was Miriam’s kinswoman from the Plain of Sharon where the roses grow. Then Sharon had sent her most beautiful rose to bloom near the Jordan! And these lads, he ought to know them. Fine, sturdy boys. Ah, Hannah’s children. He believed that they and their mother lived on a bit of his land. He had the pleasure, now and then, of doing them little favors. Of course he knew them, should probably know them better as time went on. Lads of excellent qualities indeed!

His soft voice trailed on and on. After the manner of the Orient, the man and bays walked ahead, the girls following.

So, thought Judith, this was Abner, the rich suitor for Rachel’s unwilling hand and she (Judith) the unwanted guest in an irksome home. If only their places might be reversed! But no hint of inward agitation appeared in her outward manner, nor, when the awe with which the boys had first regarded the newcomer had gradually changed into friendliness and the elder of the two had been beguiled into telling an original story, did she appear to do aught but listen.

He cast it in the form of a fable, after the manner of the young theological students of the day, the “Sons of the Prophet,” among whom his father had been numbered:

“Once there was a young ant who lived with a large colony of its relatives in the clean, warm earth. It had everything to make it happy, a good home and abundance of food, yet was it wroth, for its elders required it to work. ‘Come,’ said they, ‘lend thy strength to the task of carrying home this grain that we may live and not die when the wet winter sets in and there is no food to be had.’

“This little ant, however, who had never seen a wet winter, was rebellious and ran off to hide and sulk. Soon it saw a strange sight: men digging great holes in the fields and coating the floor and walls with a white substance. With his curiosity aroused, he went back to the spot day after day until the sun came out with great heat, the harvest passed and the threshed and winnowed grain was carefully stored in these underground chambers, the cavities being closed in such a way that thieves could not readily discover its hiding place.

“‘Ah,’ said the ant, ‘here is my opportunity. Once inside such a place as that, I should have no fear of cold or hunger, such as my elders are always trying to guard against. Naught would I have to do but eat, sleep and grow fat. Then should I be happy.’

“Forthwith he watched his chance and slipped into a little opening just before the workmen closed it. Alas for his expectations, however, for where moth and rust could not flourish neither could an ant. In the stifling atmosphere he began to grow faint. Tortured in body with this nauseating sickness and in mind with the thought that he had brought all this trouble upon himself by his sloth and selfishness, he finally expired.”

Miriam, who had listened with rapt attention, now beamed upon Judith, who stifled a yawn. The next instant she clutched the younger maid’s arm. “See, Miriam, the little gorge below us is filled with innumerable gray shapes, and from the sound of a reed flute which ascends to us I perceive that it is a shepherd with his flock.”

They came nearer the objects pointed out. Miriam gave one look and a joyous little cry: “It can be no other than my brother, Benjamin, whom thou hast not met before, Judith. He giveth my father’s flock a drink below the spring where the water floweth still and quiet so they will not be frightened. See, he carrieth a lamb in his bosom. Is it not nice that men wear such long, loose garments belted in at the waist, so they can gather the fullness together wherewith to carry things?”

By this time they were near enough for greetings. Miriam bounded forward with an eager salutation for Benjamin and much compassion for the lamb. “See, Judith, it is all torn and bleeding, but its good shepherd hath anointed its wounds with oil and even put some on its head to comfort and refresh it.”

Judith listened and smiled. From under lids discreetly lowered she was conscious that both the very young man and the older one were stealing glances of approval at her.

“Peradventure,” she thought, “it may not be so uninteresting here after all.”

Abner also listened and smiled, making mental calculations. As he moved away there was on his face a look of resolution. “Why not?” he communed with himself. “Fine lads both and can become useful. The younger and sturdier can care for the young of the flock while my shepherds take their mothers out to graze. The elder hath a remarkable mind, coming as he doth of a family which combineth Israel’s piety and culture. He can be trained as a clerk. There is trading to be done and accounts to be kept. It should be regarded as a kindness to their mother. Let me see, how much doth she owe me? Yea, enough and more.”

Meanwhile Sarah had observed with surprise Rachel’s hasty return and now watched with some anxiety for Miriam and Judith.

“I tell thee, Caleb, friendship with a heathen bodeth no good.”

“Surely, Sarah, no harm can come from caring for the orphan and the needy as we are commanded in our Law,” and the man’s voice was almost harsh in its reproof.

“Seemeth to me it might depend somewhat upon the orphan,” murmured the woman, softly, “and my heart hath been strangely heavy since I first beheld this maiden.”

CHAPTER II
SURPRISES

Caleb’s face expressed entire approval as he looked after Judith, disappearing down the hill. “Thou seest, Sarah, that all this poor child needed was instruction in the way of righteousness.”

“And firmness to see that she walketh therein,” put in the wife.

“But she hath a willing mind, Sarah. Hast thou not noticed how, of late, she needeth no second bidding to go to the spring? She doth not even wait for Miriam to help; she watcheth to see when the jars need refilling and seeth to them most diligently.”

“Yea,” was the response, “and I have wondered what—” but Caleb, sighing, was already taking his way to the valley as Judith neared the spring.

A little smile played about her lips. “How strange it is,” she thought, “that Benjamin’s sheep need a drink of water and our jars must be refilled at exactly the same time every day!”

At that very moment Rachel, with a tiny reed basket of bread on her arm, started in the same direction.

“If I should see him while I feed the pigeons,” her face was rosy red, “and he might be somewhere near, although, of course, if I knew for certain I could not be so bold as to be there too—”

She entered a little gulch whose narrow walls constantly widened as one neared the spring. The air was sweet with aromatic shrubs. A bird hidden somewhere seemed about to burst its throat with melody. Insects buzzed a little song of content. As the girl appeared, a flock of wild pigeons rose from various resting places and circled around her with the familiarity of old friendship. Her thoughts, however, were elsewhere. Peeping through the bushes, she had seen Benjamin and Judith, laughing and talking together with all too evident enjoyment. For a moment—or was it several?—she seemed rooted to the spot with surprise, then, sick at heart, she had dropped down upon the coarse, green grass, grateful for the overhanging rocks and bushes which gave her safe concealment.

To think of Benjamin, who had never cared for any maid but herself! They had been childish sweethearts. Around her neck at this very instant was suspended from a grass-woven chain a bracelet of dried grasses which he had given her once when they played at a wedding. In a thousand ways since then and with a tenderness she could not doubt he had told her of his love. Had he not desired Caleb, his father, to ask her parents’ consent to their marriage? True it had been refused, Abner’s proposal having been received unexpectedly a day or so earlier, yet she and Benjamin had hoped against hope, and now—

But the pigeons were insistent. They pecked from her basket. They alighted upon her shoulders. They watched for the customary open handful of crumbs from which to eat. Mechanically, since they would not be denied, she fed them. Abner, passing along the brow of the hill, saw both tableaux. He stopped, looked, and passed on, pondering deeply.

“Rachel is the gentler, the sweeter,” he said to himself, “but this maid from Sharon is likewise pleasing. I wonder! Yea, I wonder!”

In a little while Judith started homeward, the smile still lingering. “What a frank, winning boy!” she meditated, “and not unambitious, either, but I do not envy his charming Rachel the hard work and self-denial she will have as a shepherd’s wife. Strange how she turneth from this man Abner, who hath treasures of oil and wine and grain; who hath men servants and maid servants.”

She stopped and gazed over field after field of barley and wheat, now almost ready for the harvest. “Had I but her opportunity!” She stamped her sandaled foot to the great peril of the water jar and its precious contents, but her rage soon spent itself and she became thoughtful. At last she drew a deep breath.

“Why not?” she asked herself. “Of course an Eastern woman may not decide whom she will marry, but there is no reason why she should not try to influence her fate somewhat,” and, quite calm again, even elated, she turned her face toward the home she found so irksome.

Scarcely had she passed when two young men crossed hastily the well-worn path and started to descend the steep sides of the gulch. Suddenly one placed a detaining hand on the other’s arm and they dropped down behind a sheltering bush, peering out and speaking guardedly.

“Seest thou anything, Isaac?”

“Naught do I see, Lemuel, but what one is apt to behold all the way from the Dead Sea to Damascus: a romantic little gorge and a pretty maiden feeding some wild pigeons. I thought thou hadst discovered something.”

His companion regarded him with amusement. “Something thou meanest, Isaac, to breed distrust or caution or care, whereas the ‘something’ was only satisfactory. Much hast thou to learn, or peradventure thou art over-fastidious. Knowest thou not that women were made to delight the hearts of men—that is, as long as they keep their youth and their faith in us, which is not long at the best—and that our journey hath been singularly barren of such interests as lovely maidens far from home?”

The information was received coldly. “Far from home, Lemuel, but not far from what, in this mountainous land, they call a ‘road,’ and not far from her city’s supply of water. This gorge doubtless containeth a spring or stream. As thou art aware, they have wells only in the lowlands. The maiden is therefore not far from protection even if I were absent.”

The other laughed sneeringly. “Thy bravery and thine honor doeth credit to thine house. Peradventure it will purchase thee promotion. It shall be reported to my lord N-a-a-m-m-m.”

A hand was placed firmly over his mouth. “Thy indiscretion will spoil our errand, which shall also be reported and to the same source.”

A not unmusical cry came echoing down the glen: “R- a- c- h- e- l.”

The girl with her head in her hands neither moved nor answered, but in a moment Miriam’s face peeped through the foliage and lighted up with relief.

“Everywhere have I searched for thee, Rachel, and Eli hath helped. He hath a new story, a splendid one. Dost thou not want to hear?”

Rachel gave a half-hearted assent and the two new arrivals threw themselves on the coarse green grass near Rachel, while Eli, smiling in response to Miriam’s eager encouragement, began the story she considered so wonderful:

“Once there was a cave which the hand of God had hollowed out of the limestone hills and in front of which he planted bushes to hide its mouth. At first the cave was happy enough, but after awhile it became envious of those in less lonely situations. Right in the midst of its discontent, however, along came a leopard who was pleased with this retired spot and brought up a family here.

“Next, there arrived a band of robbers who slew the wild animals and deposited themselves and their ill-gotten gains in the cave, hiding by day and sallying forth at night. At last some of the thieves were slain in a battle with honest travelers and the rest of the band fled.

“From that time on the cave-dwellers were of a better class. It became the abode of the hunted and oppressed. Our father David once took refuge here from the fury of King Saul, and many a troubled soul afterward, including the Man of God, Elijah. But its greatest usefulness came when Queen Jezebel established Baal-worship as the court religion of Israel and persecuted the prophets of the Lord.

“At this time Obadiah, the mayor of King Ahab’s court, hid herein fifty of the hundred prophets he saved from the queen’s vengeance, the cave being very commodious. Hereafter it was known as ‘the prophet’s cave,’ and of late years shepherds have kept provender always on hand so they may resort hither with their flocks when winter storms drive them from the hills.

“One day the cave, with the wisdom of years, was reviewing its history. ‘How foolish was I and ignorant,’ it thought, ‘to be dissatisfied with the place Jehovah had appointed me when I should not have been nearly so useful had I been on the highway, where I would have chosen to be.’”

The tale ended, Rachel praised it faintly, but the younger girl beamed delighted appreciation, watching Eli’s departing figure as long as she could see it.

“Doth he not make thee feel as if thou wert standing up on tiptoe all inside, Rachel?” she demanded. “Some day he is going to learn to read and write and become learned in the Law, as was his father, and go about the country teaching and prophesying.”

Rachel put a hand to her head. “Let us go home,” she said, “I feel weak and ill. Peradventure it is the summer heat which hath come on so suddenly.” She staggered to her feet.

Miriam, at once all sympathy, put an arm around her friend’s waist and they took the steep path out of the gorge, the pigeons still circling around the empty basket. Only once did the smaller maid speak and that was just as they came opposite the hiding place of the two strangers.

“Thou knowest, Rachel, that Eli’s tale was a true one, being of our own prophet’s cave here in this very glen, thirty paces beyond the fallen sycamore tree, its mouth hidden by the sumac bushes. Thou wilt remember how oft we have been there.”

Rachel murmured an assent and they moved out of sight and hearing. The young men rose from their cramped positions.

“The very place, Lemuel, thanks to our small friend, though she knew not whom she was befriending. This night shall we abide there and mark the spot for future need. This is a rich little valley. To-morrow we separate, each taking the way determined aforetime,” and with swift steps they proceeded in the direction Miriam had indicated.

The perfumed breath of May lost its elusive sweetness and became burdened with the heat of June. The evening meal was over and the last faint radiance of sunset was swallowed up in darkness. Caleb closed and barred the heavy door against the summer breezes and the family spread their sleeping mats in preparation for rest.

Judith yawned audibly. “So glad am I that this tiresome day hath drawn to a close.”

Miriam was scandalized. “Glad that the Sabbath is over? And soon after sunrise one of the Sons of the Prophet came to instruct the city in the ways of Jehovah.”

“But,” insisted Judith, “I like not that long-haired Order of wayside preachers who shout and denounce and talk mysteries.”

Caleb felt it his duty to impart information. “Alas, the sacred Order is not what it was before King Ahab took unto himself the foreign Queen, Jezebel. A fine soldier and statesman was Ahab, and I doubt not he believed he benefited Israel by his alliance with our more cultured and enterprising neighbors, the Phœnicians. He thought much about the advantages of trade, as shown by his treaty with Ben-hadad, the Syrian king, whereby the merchants of Israel now have their own street in Damascus, the great capital city of Syria.

“Many good qualities had King Ahab, but a sorry day it was for Israel’s religion when he allowed Queen Jezebel a free hand to spread Baal-worship, even to the persecution of the prophets of the Lord. Hundreds were put to death; many fled to more peaceful homes, such as Egypt, and others still bowed the knee, not so much to the hated Baal as to the strong authority of the court. Fear threatened to destroy all that was purest and best in the land, but the Lord of Hosts hearkened to the distress of his people and granted deliverance by his prophet Elijah.

“Since then, and especially in these later years under Elijah’s successor, Elisha, the prophetic Guilds have been revived in the hope of spreading piety and some degree of learning among the people at large; they who have been exposed for so long to the pernicious teachings of the priests of Baal, as encouraged by that wicked woman, Jezebel.”

“But truly the service of Baal is much more joyous than thy worship of Jehovah with all thy strict observances and commandments,” said Judith, earnestly, “and why call Queen Jezebel ‘wicked’? It was but courteous to a foreigner to allow her to bring her own religion into her new home, and naturally she was anxious to spread the teachings in which she believed.”

In tones whose sternness was softened by pity, Caleb bade her hush. “Thou knowest not what thou sayest. The ‘wicked,’ through the pride of his heart, will not seek after the one true God. They care not to know the Law by which we, his chosen, are warned and in keeping of which there is great reward. It is well that thou shouldst understand clearly—”

A hubbub outside claimed attention. Faintly at first, and then nearer and nearer until it halted outside the very door, came the yelping and barking of dogs mingled with the sound of running footsteps, and voices.

Miriam crept to Sarah’s outstretched arms. “O mother,” in a frightened whisper, “thinkest thou the Syrians be upon us?”

The mother held her close. Caleb snatched up the goad ordinarily used for driving oxen, the sharply pointed end of which made a formidable weapon. From the darkness came a sound of labored breathing and a woman’s sobbing cry.

“Open, Caleb. It is only I, Hannah, and my children, Eli and Nathan, and the dogs rend us.”

As the door was thrown open to admit them she cried, mournfully, “Peace, peace be to thy home, though there be none in mine.”

She was almost incoherent with grief. “The word came to me but a little while before the Sabbath and I waited until the passing of the holy day to hurry to thee, my friends. The dogs mistook us for foes and pursued. In the darkness we stumbled oft and fell. Yea, we are bruised, but our bodies are less sore than our hearts, for Abner, my creditor, taketh my two sons, Eli and Nathan, to be bondmen for debt.

“Since my widowhood have I lived on his land. Oft hath he brought us food. Once, twice, thrice have I borrowed of him, so kind hath he seemed. Always he urged me to take more and yet more than I asked. Never once hath this shame seemed possible. Let us kneel in supplication to the God of our fathers.”

“Yea, Hannah, and I doubt not he will hear and answer. Abide thou with us for a time and to-morrow we will see if aught can be done.”

CHAPTER III
VISITORS

Over the peaceful Israelitish hills came the piping of a reed flute. Anyone familiar with the country would know that it was a shepherd, seeking to assure the flock of his continued presence that they might fear no evil, but to the young man, scarcely more than a boy, lying prone on his back in the shade of the bushes, it conveyed nothing at all, yet it was the only sound which persisted in his consciousness. He lived by it as much as did the sheep and goats. When the tune was blithe he saw sunlit fields and abundant harvests; shaded glens and cool, gurgling streams; a palace and a soldiers’ barracks; the face of an old, bedridden woman and a delicately pretty girl feeding pigeons in a romantic spot. When the notes were sad—as they frequently were—he defended this maid from some grave peril in which the odds were all against him.

There came a day, however, when he no longer raved in delirium, but looked upon his surroundings with recognition in his eyes. He tried to sit up, to reach a little water-bag that looked cool and comforting, but finding himself weighted down with a strange heaviness, contented himself with gazing around wonderingly. The sky seemed so near. No, it was not the sky. It was a covering of skins sewed together and stretched from one bush to another over him. Nothing else save the interminable flute which told his newly awakened senses that the shepherd was near. It was all so soothing, just lying there, and he was so unexpectedly weak, that he closed his eyes and sank into a deep and refreshing slumber.

When he awoke the canopy over his head had been removed and he gazed at the brilliant stars. Looking around, he decided that he must be inside of a sheepfold. By the moonlight he discerned roughly built stone walls on four sides. The open entrance was guarded by a recumbent shepherd, staff in hand, alert, watchful. One, two, three other figures he counted, evidently sleeping heavily beside great gray masses which he knew must be sheep. All at once a scream pierced the silence, a hideous, unearthly sound, and then a long, lithe body leaped over the wall.

The young man who observed these things knew instinctively that it was a mountain lion, tempted far from its rocky lair by hunger. He knew that the shepherds, instantly awakened, would give battle, and that they would be more than a match for any wild animal in search of food, but a sense of his own helplessness swept over him. He saw the terror of the sheep, the mangled body of a victim, heard the cry of its mother, and then a great wave of sickness shut out sight and sound. He had fainted from sheer weakness.

A little later he opened his eyes upon the troubled face of the shepherd—his shepherd, as he soon learned to call him in distinction from the others, who paid him but scant attention. It was a kindly, pleasant face, over-thoughtful perhaps but with health and youth written large under its tan. In the days that followed, the invalid found himself grasping at the strength and energy radiated by this personality, basking in his sunny smile, entertained and quite frequently instructed by his conversation, cheered and encouraged by his practical helpfulness.

If, however, the convalescent was pleased with the shepherd, how much more was the shepherd pleased with the convalescent! Moved at first merely by motives of pity and generosity, he soon took a delight in the presence of the stranger which was wholly inexplicable to himself. He had never met anyone—at least not a very young man like himself—who possessed such a fund of general information and seemed to have such mature judgment. He talked as one who had lived in cities and associated with those who had seen much of that world which was new and strange to this mountain lad who had spent his eager, responsive youth hand-in-hand with Toil and Responsibility, as youth often does in the East.

One day, under the shadow of a great rock which shielded them from the heat of the midsummer sun, they were talking. “How long sayest thou I have been here, Benjamin?”

“It is eight weeks, Isaac, since I found thee under the bushes yonder, sick with fever.”

“Then eight weeks hast thou cared for me, night and day. How knewest thou that I was not a robber, or, worse still, what thy countrymen despise most, a Syrian spy?” The tone was careless and breathed a laugh, but the speaker glanced searchingly at his companion, who, after a moment’s silence, replied quietly:

“I stopped but to consider thy pressing need, Isaac, for our Law commandeth us to regard the necessity of the stranger, but if I had thought further, the pack on thy back would have proclaimed thee a peddler, though thy stock be small. Likewise, thy pronunciation showeth that our tongue is native to thee and thou hast an Israelitish name.”

Isaac sighed and there sounded in it something of relief. “My mother was of thy nation,” he explained, “a captive in Syria, where she married my father, who was of Egyptian blood and a servant in the same house with herself. I am named for some of her people and she spoke to me always in her own language.” Then, hastily, as if he feared questions: “But for thee I might have died, an awful, burning death here in the wilderness, without even a drink of cold water to allay my thirst or a friend to save my body from the vultures.”

“Think not of it, Isaac. It is only thy departure on the morrow which saddeneth me. Caring for thee was as balm to a sore heart, better than all the aromatic herbs in Gilead.”

Isaac looked questioningly: “A woman?”

The shepherd assented. “From childhood have I had no thought save of her and for her. When I could make her a home, I desired my father to ask her in marriage of her parents, as is our custom. At first they were willing, as I had believed, but their consent was refused, the maiden being pleasing to a man of greater means. Yet was she true to me. I had it from her own lips and through the mouth of my little sister, Miriam, of whom I have before spoken to thee. All at once the maiden changed. Deaf, dumb, and blind did she become to all that concerned me, and when I would see her they said she was sick, which I cannot believe, and I had to come away without a word of explanation. It troubleth me.”

To Isaac, more worldly wise, the reason was plain. “She favoreth the other,” he said, “and thou shouldst not cherish the memory of one who hath treated thee with contempt. Canst thou not think of someone else, Benjamin?”

The shepherd laughed in a mirthless way. “None to fill her place, Isaac; nor is it of another she thinketh. Nay! One there was who always appeared at the spring when I was waiting for my beloved. She was a clever, amusing maid, but a life with her would be like living on honey without any bread.”

Isaac nodded in comprehension. “The same have I felt toward all the maidens I ever met save one. Once, as I traveled with my pack, I was able to avert a danger she knew not of, and her face hath been in my memory ever since. I have not wished to dislodge it. She fed wild pigeons, I recall, in a romantic little gorge.”

A silence fell between them, each, with fine feeling, unwilling to ask for details not volunteered.

The next day, at parting, Isaac took from his own arm a heavy bracelet of gold and clasped it around Benjamin’s. “Not for its value,” he insisted, when the shepherd demurred, “but as a covenant of lasting friendship ’twixt thee and me. As thou hast saved my life so doth it belong to thee or thine if in aught I can ever serve thee.”

The next minute Benjamin was alone. At the turn of the road Isaac looked back and waved his hand in farewell and the shepherd, with a sigh, turned to his sheep and his constant thoughts of Rachel. He did not know that at that very hour events of considerable importance to both of them were taking place in the little “city” of their nativity.

Noontime, whose brightness had no power to dispel the sorrow which hung over Caleb’s household, saw Judith slipping, with a shudder, out of its gloomy portal. Abner was coming up the hill as she started to descend it. She answered his pleasant greeting with assumed diffidence.

“I hasten, my lord, desiring to spend a time with Rachel, who, as thou knowest, hath spent these eight weeks and more in the house and mostly on her bed, suffering from a mysterious sickness none dareth yet to name. Save that she hath long been secretly betrothed to my kinsman, Benjamin, who taketh his sheep to the hills, we know not where, and that her parents are very wroth—yet because thou hast looked with favor upon the maid would I warn thee—”

“I thank thee,” he said, slowly, his face somewhat paler than usual, and the two hurried their separate ways.

In strange contradiction to such solicitude, however, Judith did not visit Rachel. She rarely did. It was Miriam who sat by her friend’s side telling her of Hannah’s plight.

“There is not enough grain and olive oil in the whole city to satisfy Abner’s claim and save Eli and Nathan from bondage, nor will he wait for the next barley and wheat to be harvested. As for grapes and olives, they will not be ripe for months. Father hath tried to shame Abner, but he saith he is grieved to be so misunderstood; that Hannah should be grateful to him for taking upon himself the burden of her sons’ support.”

Apparently, Rachel was not in a mood for conversation. The younger girl gazed at her in great dejection for a few minutes and a tear splashed down on her hand. “It would be easier to bear other people’s troubles, Rachel, if one could help. I am going to bathe thy feverish face and hands and take down thy hair. Thou shalt hold the little mirror of polished bronze that Ezekiel, thy kinsman in Damascus, sent thee.” Suiting the action to the word she went on talking: “Damascus must be a very great city, peradventure almost twice as large as ours. Father hath told me about the war between Israel and Syria and the treaty of peace, so that Syrian merchants may come to Israel and a street hath been set aside in Damascus in which our people may dwell.”

Rachel seemed to take no more interest in foreign affairs than in those at home, but the little maid was not discouraged. “Thou art more comfortable now. Thou hast been sick ever since that day the heat overcame thee in the gorge when thou wert feeding the pigeons, but thou dost not have to go on being miserable. Thou knowest, the Lord is thy strength and song. I am going to see how Hannah doeth and remind her of this. She abode with us through the night, but now she is in her own house. First, though, I shall sing thee to sleep. Thou seest I have brought my timbrel. Then will I steal softly away.”

Having made good her word, Miriam was about to depart when the kindly voice of Rachel’s mother detained her: “Stay, Miriam, yet a moment and take to Hannah this little pot of oil. The gift is not much to her that dwelleth in the house of sorrow, but it carrieth a message of sympathy.”

Halfway to her destination Miriam met Judith. “I have been seeking for thee,” said the older girl. “Knowest thou that we have a guest, a man? He hath come from a distance in the heat and dust, and I have been to draw cool, fresh water wherewith to bathe his hands and feet and so refresh him while thy mother prepareth a meal to set before him.”

Miriam hazarded a few guesses as to the identity of their visitor, but Judith shook her head. “It is none whom thou hast mentioned, but who it is I know not. He weareth a mantle.”

“Then he is one of the prophets.”

“Nay, for he is bald and the prophets wear long hair. Neither hath he the appearance of a fanatic, as do they. Rather, he seemeth like some well-to-do man of the cities, peradventure a merchant. His speech is gracious and gentle and he carrieth a walking stick like any serious-minded, elderly gentleman. He is attended by a younger man and thy father did him great obeisance. Also—”

But Judith was alone. Miriam was running like some wild thing straight to Hannah’s house. Out of breath she stumbled over the threshold and thrust the pot of oil into the woman’s hands.

“Hannah—Hannah—the Man of God hath come, my lord Elisha, and even now sitteth at meat in our house. Do thou go quickly. Thy husband was of his young men. Do thou tell him about Abner taking Eli and Nathan as bondmen for debt. Jehovah hath sent him that as God hath been thy strength, he shall now be thy song. Hasten, Hannah,” but Hannah was already gone.

Twenty-four hours later Miriam, wild with excitement, paused on the threshold of Rachel’s house. Within were voices and while she hesitated as to whether or not to enter, she heard the message.

Abner had sent his friend, after the manner of the East, to speak on the subject of his betrothal to Rachel, not to bring the customary gifts and make necessary arrangements, but to do the rather unusual thing: to withdraw his previous proposal on the plea of her ill-health. The affair was conducted with elaborate civilities on the part of both the emissary and Rachel’s parents, hiding the contempt of the one and the rage of the other.

It was a very awed little Miriam but one with shining eyes who held Rachel’s hand a few minutes after the messenger had departed. “Art thou not glad?” she whispered.

The older girl nodded slightly, aware of her mother’s frown.

“And Benjamin will be so happy,” Miriam declared, but Rachel sighed.

“He thinketh no more upon me,” she said, and refused to be comforted.

The general gloom of the household was soon overborne, however, by the tidings Miriam had brought. At the feet of the prophet Hannah had knelt in supplication and he had had compassion upon her distress.

“At his command,” recited Miriam, joyfully, “we borrowed from our neighbors all the empty vessels possible, then she and Eli and Nathan went into their own house and shut the door. Eli told me what happened. From the little pot of oil thy mother sent by me, Hannah filled all those vessels! Then came she again to the Man of God, who was still in our house, and he instructed her what next to do. Now she hath gone to sell the oil and pay Abner. Yet will there be something left, for I heard my lord Elisha say unto her, ‘Live thou and thy children of the rest.’”

When the happy comments had died away Miriam stroked her friend’s hair. “Why dost thou not ask to be healed, Rachel? Let us go to the Man of God.”

But Rachel shook her head. “I must not ask for what I do not want, Miriam, and when Benjamin no longer thinketh upon me, why should I desire to get well?”

CHAPTER IV
CAPTIVES

Autumn had come to the Land of Israel. The sun had just lifted a shining face, but in more than one city the inhabitants had been long astir. Before all the more important abodes stood asses, saddled and laden with water-skin and leather provision bag as if for a journey. In a little while could be seen broken lines of riders, singly or in groups, wending their way in slow and dignified fashion on these same sure-footed animals, over the narrow threads of rocky roads which traversed hill and vale. All faces were turned in one direction—Jerusalem. The master of the house was on his way to the Feast of Tabernacles, or the Feast of the Ingathering, as it was sometimes called.

The air had in it a hint of frost, being too chill for rain, but nobody minded, certainly not a misty-eyed little maid who was walking with her two travelers to the brow of the hill.

“I believe thou art glad to see us go, Miriam,” said Caleb, teasingly.

“Oh, very glad, father. It is right thou shouldst appear before the Lord with thine offerings, for he hath dealt bountifully with us, and I am glad thou canst take mother to visit her kindred. Long hath it been since she hath seen them, and it will make her so happy, but”—the voice trembled a little—“I would be gladder if this were the day thou wert coming home.”

Her parents exchanged glances.

“Thou knowest that the olive trees had a good crop and the vineyard. Likewise the flock hath been profitable and thou art thinking of the nose-ring we shall bring thee, or was it anklets thou didst choose?”

“I am much more concerned as to her conduct, Caleb, than I am as to her ornaments,” put in Sarah, hastily. “Remember, Miriam, I shall expect thee to behave thyself wisely, in a perfect way.”

“Yea, mother, but when thou and father art gone, how will I know what is wise and perfect?”

Sarah regarded her severely. “The Law of the Lord is perfect. See that thou keep it. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. Remember it. The commandment of the Lord is right, enlightening the eyes. Meditate upon it. There is no chance for a mistake if God is in all thy thoughts. Miriam, wilt thou keep the Lord alway before thy face?”

“Yea, mother.”

“And thou wilt not be turned aside to the right hand nor to the left, no matter what influence is brought to bear upon thee?” Sarah glanced apprehensively back at Judith, standing in the open door.

“Nay, mother.”

They had come to the place of parting, Caleb walking ahead, leading the two asses. Judith could not hear what was said, but she could see that the farewells were lingering and affectionate. A great wave of longing for her own parents swept over her and she turned into the house to avoid the unsympathetic and the curious. She did not know, therefore, that when the travelers were quite hidden from sight in the distance, Miriam sank upon the ground in a little heap of wretchedness.

Neither did Judith nor anyone else guess that at that very moment the mother was nervously fingering the bridle of her beast. “Long have I wanted to take this journey, Caleb, but it were easier to talk of than to do. I will go back. I cannot leave the little maid.”

“Nonsense, Sarah,” and a stranger would have noticed that Caleb’s voice was none too steady, although he affected cheerfulness. “It will do thee much good to have a visit among thy kindred.”

“But thinkest thou all will go well while we are away?” Sarah was still hesitant.

“How could they go ill with Hannah to stay with Miriam and Judith, and Eli and Nathan to see to the animals? Besides, we shall be gone but a few days. They will be sorry to see us return, for youth joyeth with youth. Mount, I pray thee, and let us be going, for our pace will be slow at the best.”

Reluctantly she yielded to his entreaties, but with many a backward glance and an anxiety which seemed wholly unwarranted.

Along the path they had just traversed came Rachel and gathered Miriam in her arms. “I feared to find thee so, little maid,” she comforted. “Nay,” compassionately, “thou must not weep. And if thou wilt dry thine eyes I will tell thee a secret so dear it hath not been whispered before.”

It was a rosy and radiant Rachel who was speaking now. “Knowest thou that when Benjamin came home a few days ago he told me something that made me very happy? And when he cometh next time we are to be publicly betrothed. My parents have consented and I have my wedding veil. We must go back to thy dwelling now, but some day, when there is none to see but thee, I shall try it on.”

She raised the limp figure and, talking of the future to divert the thoughts of her grief-stricken little friend, guided her along the well-known path toward home.

At about the same hour, somewhere out on the Israelitish hills, a shepherd was leading his flock northward under pressure of military escort. His face was sullen, but all at once he laughed: “It took three and more coming to take captive one shepherd of Israel. These Syrian dogs!” He laughed again, contemptuously. The soldier nearest, understanding the intent if not the words, struck him with the broadside of his short sword, and the shepherd laughed no more.

The monotony of merely going forward was relieved a little later by the passing of a band of horsemen, coming south. The shepherd listened apathetically to what was evidently, although he understood not a word, an exchange of civilities and compliments upon the capture of so large and fine a flock. He glanced carelessly at the gayly bedecked horse of the leader and then at the man himself. It was a young man, and all at once the shepherd’s indifference vanished. He had the face of a friend! Undoubtedly he and his flock would soon be free.

Running forward quickly, he knelt and threw up one arm, exposing to view a broad gold bracelet of exquisite design, by that movement plainly seeking recognition. The young officer appeared startled for an instant, then he assumed an air of unconcern and with careless farewells to the soldier-escort of the flock, he and his men rode on.

The shepherd crimsoned at the rebuff. “I could swear that were Isaac,” he muttered, “even to the pallor of his recent illness. Thus hath he kept his pledge, a promise he made voluntarily. So would a viper repay the fool who warmed it by his fire!”

Turning, he found himself the object of mockery and ridicule. Unfortunately, he allowed rage to get the better of discretion. He was captured, but not conquered. With a swift movement he struck one of his tormentors a stinging blow full in the face, but a fellow soldier used his ever ready spear, and after that, Benjamin the shepherd went his way limping.

It was the next day that Miriam was helping Hannah make butter. That is to say, a goatskin bag, nearly full of milk, was suspended out of doors from the center of three crossed poles, and they were shaking and beating it with great regularity and violence. In due course of time a product not at all resembling the butter to which we are accustomed rewarded their labors. With a sigh, the moist and dripping bag was carried into the house and hung in the coolest spot possible that its curdled contents might ferment and be used, as needed, to give relish to otherwise dry bread.

The task finished, Hannah betook herself to her own home to be gone an hour or two. Miriam, left alone, dropped down in the doorway. All day she had been unaccountably heavy of spirit, “not sick,” she had told Hannah in answer to a solicitous inquiry, “but just not glad of anything.”

Was it only yesterday her parents had started on their journey? It seemed like a week. And what strange sights they must be seeing now! Very strange indeed could they have seen through Miriam’s eyes, for her thoughts were soon jumbled by the sprites of Dreamland. When she awoke the afternoon shadows were lengthening. Hannah had not returned, and where was Judith? If she were late, Hannah would be sure to tell father and mother and they would be displeased. Why did she not come?

Miriam was dismayed, then came a thought, the horror of which sent her running to the top of the hill, where the path began to descend to the valley below: suppose Judith had been bitten by a viper out of the brushwood she had gone to gather for fuel! She was nowhere in sight, although she had been absent since a little after noon. Slowly Miriam walked down the hill, gazing long and searchingly in all directions until she stood in the silence and loneliness of the deserted fields. How find anybody or anything among those rank grasses, grown taller than herself now that the harvests were over? Yet at that very instant Judith must be lying among them somewhere, sick perhaps unto death.

Running hither and thither and thoroughly alarmed, Miriam essayed calling. The third time her hail was answered, but not in the way she had expected. Not Judith but Nathan—Nathan, pale and frightened; Nathan, entreating her silence but speaking himself in hoarse, excited whispers.

“Hush, Miriam, the valley is full of soldiers!”

She was amazed, incredulous, and he indignant at her unbelief. “Thinkest thou, Miriam, I know not a soldier when I see one?” he panted as they ran. “Was not every man covered from neck to thigh, back and front, with his breast-plate of bronze scales? Did not each wear a helmet and carry a shield on his left arm and a buckler[1] slung from his girdle? Some had long and heavy spears; some, bows and arrows and some had slings, with the stones for them in bags around their necks.”

“But, Nathan,” suggested Miriam, weakly, “peradventure our king passeth this way with his bodyguard.”

“Would our king rob Abner’s storehouses in the field? Nay, and these have not Israelitish faces. Besides, they came on horses which they have left at the head of the valley, and thou shouldst know that horses mean war. Canst thou not run faster, Miriam? We must warn quickly mother and the city.”

The little maid’s face blanched. “I must find Judith. Do thou go on and I—” Nathan’s remonstrances were cut short by the sudden appearance, out of the tall grass, of a man dressed just as the lad had described. He laid a detaining hand on each, addressing them in their own language, but his pronunciation showed that it was acquired.

“This time to-morrow,” pointing to the village on the hilltop, “our archers will have bent their bows and made ready their arrows and sent fire and destruction into the midst of thy city. None shall be left alive save such as we take into captivity.”

Miriam wrung her hands and wept, but Nathan spoke defiantly, with passion in his tones: “Thou knowest not that we of Israel, especially we of the tribe of Zebulon, fight long and hard, jeoparding our lives unto the death.”

An evil smile distorted the man’s features. “Thinkest thou we know not that thy men are away at the feast in Jerusalem? To-morrow this time thy land shall be desolate from Jerusalem northward, and we will take captive thy flocks and thy herds—”

The speaker was interrupted by the arrival of another soldier, dressed much the same, but the more elaborate ornamentation of his shield, and his richly decorated helmet with its crest, denoted a higher rank. All this, however, was quite lost upon Nathan and Miriam. They noted only that he was very young—older than Eli, perhaps, but doubtless younger than Benjamin—that he bent upon them a look not in the least malevolent, as was that of their captor, and that when he spoke to them, also in their own tongue, his speech was as free from foreign accent as their own. Apparently, he had authority, for at a word, the first soldier withdrew.

“I happened to overhear,” he told the children. “Fear not nor believe what Lemuel hath said. He was but teasing thee. Our men went no farther south than the Valley of Jezreel, which is a long way north of Jerusalem, and we have not come to make war upon the people but only to take foodstuffs.”

The two gazed at him doubtfully. “Peradventure,” sobbed Miriam, “when thou art asleep the other soldier will do these terrible things.”

The young man laughed, a mirthful laugh. “Lemuel? Nay, he could not. We have but a few men and,” with some little pride, “I have been given charge of this band.”

He glanced at the rapidly declining sun and his next words were more decisive. “See, it is almost sunset. We did not come to take prisoners, but thou wilt understand that I cannot let thee go home to give the alarm, and afterward thou wilt prefer Syria to Israel.”

Miriam was distressed anew.

The young captain reasoned gently: “To-night thy household will think thou art with friends somewhere, but they cannot seek thee in the darkness, among the half-wild, scavenger dogs that roam thy villages at night. By dawn they will have other matters to engage their attention. Thou wilt go with me now to our encampment in the gorge by the spring. Come,” to Miriam, “thou shalt have a corner of the prophet’s cave all to thyself to-night with a leopard’s skin for a covering. Thou wilt like that, for it was given me by the best man I ever knew, a shepherd of Israel. And thou,” turning to Nathan, “shalt have the opposite corner, but I have only one leopard skin and that is for the little maid.”

There was something very attractive, very sincere in his address. He seemed to understand their terror, their distrust.

“Be not afraid,” he said, “thou shalt be well treated. If not, it will be because thou dost not treat us well. To-night we encamp. To-morrow we start for Damascus, but thou shalt both have good care all the way. Isaac pledgeth thee his word!”

CHAPTER V
JOURNEYING

When dawn came Miriam was in a heavy slumber. Strange surroundings, terror, and grief had taken as large a part in keeping her long awake as her bed on the hard floor or the chill dampness of the cave. She was still sobbing. The young captain bent over her pityingly for an instant and tucked in the leopard’s skin to keep her warm, then, leaving a guard at the door, he and the rest of his men departed upon their errand. When she awoke she discerned Nathan’s sullen face in the half light, and it aroused her to an immediate comprehension of their plight.

He whispered to her: “Thinkest thou I shall go to Damascus a captive? Did the Man of God save me from bondage in my own country only to go into worse in a heathen land? Nay, but I shall escape, and when I am gone be not anxious for me nor unhappy for thyself. I shall come back to my mother and Eli, and some day we shall rescue thee. Do thou put confidence in my words. Look here.”

He bared his arm and shoulder and with gentle fingers she touched the welts and bruises, exclaiming compassionately.

He was still unconquered, defiant. “The soldiers gave these to me.”

“But not when thou wert good and obedient, Nathan.”

“Nay,” he admitted, and fell into a shamefaced silence.

She considered a moment. “It seemeth to me, Nathan, there be times when we cannot help what we do, only how we do. Dost thou not remember how our father Joseph was sold into bondage in Egypt? If he had refused to make himself useful or been unfaithful in his tasks—”

Nathan placed his fingers warningly on his lips and Miriam ceased speaking as the soldiers swarmed into the cave, so putting an end to conversation.

Breakfast had long been over for the men, but in the hurry of departure the youthful commander did not forget a handful of raisins and dried figs, together with some parched corn, for his small prisoners. He insisted that they eat, then, taking the hand of each, they left the prophet’s cave, turned their backs upon the gorge, and walked leisurely the valley road to its head, where the animals awaited them.

“Hast thou ever been on a horse, little maid?”

“I never saw one but once. That was when the king’s messenger passed this way.”

“I shall have to set thee in front of me, on my horse. He will go faster than an ass but not so fast as a camel at top speed, and in six days, or maybe seven, we shall be in Damascus. We travel slowly to accommodate our speed to that of our beasts of burden, heavily laden with stores from thy rich little valley. The lad will be on another horse in front of one of the men, but they are rough and boisterous. Wouldst thou not rather ride with me?”

Without waiting for assent he lifted her gently to the back of the animal, gave a few directions to his men, and the column began to move. There was no saddle and she found herself slipping. She grasped desperately at the horse’s mane, but Isaac had anticipated this and held her firmly with one arm.

“It will be easier when thou art more used to riding,” he comforted, “but I will not let thee fall.”

A long, last look at the village on the hillside and then, with eyes that saw not for tears and a heart that seemed to weigh much more than her sturdy little body, Miriam left behind all that was dear to her and began the journey into a far country.

An hour later a maiden climbed slowly and painfully the steep path up from the valley. At the top she met a woman with horrible cuts across the face and body, weak from loss of blood and leaning on the shoulder of a lad whose right arm hung useless at his side.

“Art thou hurt, Judith?”

“Nay, Hannah, but if thou hadst fled from one terror to another ever since yesterday afternoon when I first beheld the soldiers coming up the valley, and had finally lain concealed for hours, not daring to move lest thou be discovered, chilled by the heavy night dews, stiff and cramped, frightened and lacking food, thou also wouldst walk with difficulty.”

Eli was horrified, reproachful: “Thou knewest the Syrians were upon us and madest no effort to warn the city? We might have put up a better defense or saved some of our supplies by hiding them. As it is, many have suffered, a few even unto death.”

He paused and looked shudderingly at a swiftly approaching cloud which darkened the air, then quickly drew his mother inside the nearest house. “The vultures descend, having scented their prey from afar, yet few were slain and they only because of desperate resistance. The pale young man, scarce older than I, who seemed to command the party, had his men well under control. He reproved the soldier who smote thee, mother, and stooped over thee with horror in his eyes, himself tying the cloth which saved thee from bleeding to death and which I could not tie with one hand. I could love him were he other than a heathen and a robber!”

Turning to Judith, who had followed them, his voice became stern: “Knowest thou that famine stareth us in the face—and thou mightest have saved it?”

The girl’s tones were aggrieved: “Gladly would I have borne tidings, Eli, if I could have done so with safety, but I should have been captured. They have taken Nathan and Miriam, and a veiled maiden rideth in the rear who somehow reminded me of Rachel.”

Hannah clasped Judith’s arm: “Thou sawest Nathan and Miriam? Tell me—” and Judith, who had seen and heard almost everything of the eventful hours just past, told the story.

Meanwhile Miriam had left the village-crowned hills, the fertile valleys, the scattered oak groves; crossed a tree-studded, grassy meadow, a tangle of ferns and brushwood, and descended a gorge in the midst of which tumbled and roared and foamed a stream. The atmosphere seemed heavy with a heat not derived from the sun.

“Hast thou seen the Jordan before, little maid?”

Her answer was lost in the confusion of fording the river. At a place sufficiently shallow the horses were led down the steep and slippery bank, alarmed the moment their feet rested in the soft mud; terrified on reaching the shingly bottom to feel the swift tug of the current and the coldness of the rapid waters; cold after their enforced dip and taking quickly and easily the cliffs and steppes to the broad plateau above, which seemed the higher because of the depression of the Jordan Valley. The wind swept chill out of the snow-covered mountains to the north, toward which they were turning their faces, but after the heaviness of the valley they had just left, the air was exhilarating and fragrant with herbage.

“We are east of the Jordan now, little maid,” explained the young captain. “Seest thou how much easier it is to travel? It will be fairly level all the way into Damascus. Thou wilt see continual passing to and fro; much cattle and many camels and asses, and people that will look strange to thee, but fear not.”

He smiled at her reassuringly, but her eyes held a far-away look of inexpressible sadness, at sight of which he became silent.

On the sixth night of the encampment, Isaac was decidedly out of sorts. Several things had gone wrong and the party was much overdue. There had first been trouble among the pack-animals. This adjusted, it had been found that one of the soldiers, whose wounds had been thought of little consequence, had grown rapidly worse, and, lastly, their boy-captive had escaped. The veiled woman was gone likewise, but that mattered little.

In a retired spot, somewhat removed from the noises of the camp, they had spread a goat’s-hair tent and built a fire at a little distance so that its light would not play unpleasantly upon the features so soon to be relaxed in death. Isaac, who had taken the care of the sick man upon himself, watched alone save for Miriam, who lay asleep in one corner of the tent. For six days now he had been solicitous for her comfort, not from any personal interest but as a matter of war economics. It would be awkward if fright or cold or hardship should result in her illness and they so far from Damascus. On her part, the little maid was losing her fear of this young man, who treated her with no unkindness or lack of gentle consideration.

Lost in thought, he sat gazing moodily into the fire. Odd about the woman! Doubtless she had now joined herself to some one of the caravans they were constantly passing. Lemuel had described her as a camp hanger-on, and her veil was evidence of her loose moral character, since neither matron nor maid of good repute at that period went veiled save at marriage or while journeying, yet for six days she had shown every sign of shrinking timidity, and he had seen to it that she was treated with respect. He had asked Nathan if he knew her, but the boy had replied sullenly in the negative without turning his head. He had asked the little maid, but her eyes had been full of tears. For several reasons it had not seemed best to allow speech between the captives, and so the mystery had remained.

He had not himself questioned her, being irritated that she rode the horse he had brought for the maiden whose face had been in his memory ever since that day he saw her feeding pigeons in the gorge. He had meant to show special leniency to her family and thus secure their consent to a marriage, scorning to take her an unwilling captive; to force her into an alliance she would abhor, a sin of which certain other captains he could name had been guilty. However, the maid could not be found and he bothered his brain with a thousand conjectures.

That very day a puzzling circumstance had occurred. While searching for the fugitive lad, Isaac had caught the flutter of a garment and followed it straight to its hiding place. He had not found the boy, but this woman had knelt before him, clasping her hands—wondrously pretty hands, he had noticed—and in a voice remarkably soft and sweet had besought him to leave her. He had hesitated, and then Chivalry had gone out to succor Distress. Planting himself in front of her retreat until the last of his men had passed, he had followed them without one backward glance.

Thinking about it now, a doubt of Lemuel’s tale came to his mind for the first time. The veil might be explained away, but not that refinement of voice, not—a movement by the fire attracted his attention. He stared incredulously, for there, hovering over the blaze, was the girl of his dreams. It could be no other than the face he had carried in his memory all these months. Stranger even than the apparition, she had been the veiled woman, for the garment’s tatters were even now drawn tightly about her shivering form. Behind the girl somebody appeared and clutched her by the arm. It was a boy—the boy—but Isaac did not move. Nathan’s alarm exhibited itself in his voice.

“I awoke and missed thee. Rachel, knowest thou not that whosoever hath kindled this fire is not far off?” He scanned the darkness anxiously, but the outlines of the tent were not visible where it lay, outside the pale of the firelight. “Come, Rachel. Hast thou no fear?”

Her tones were the same low, musical ones he had heard that day: “I was so cold, Nathan, so cold. I watched a long time and saw no one, the soldiers from whom we escaped being some distance away as thou knowest, and I became persuaded that if any but an angel had built this fire it could be none other than a friend. Even now I feel it so.”

Nevertheless, the boy’s entreaties were not to be denied and after a time she allowed herself to be led away to their place of concealment. Isaac noted its direction. He was sick at heart. To think he had had the opportunity he craved and had not known it. He could have saved her these hardships and had not done so. And then a savage joy possessed him. She was his beyond all power of interference. He knew her hiding place, but he would be careful not to frighten her by any vehemence of word or action. He would treat her gently, as was due the maiden who would be acceptable in the great house he called “home.” He would first provide for her comfort and teach her to trust him, then, when he offered her honorable marriage, she would accept gladly, gratefully. It was all so simple. Perhaps it had been best, after all, that things had turned out this way instead of—

A little hand was suddenly slipped into his and a little voice cried excitedly: “I saw them by the fire: Rachel, the maid to whom my brother Benjamin is betrothed, and Nathan. Was it not nice she had her wedding veil to cover herself before all these strange, rough men? But Benjamin keepeth my father’s flock out on the hills of Israel and knoweth not how it fareth with Rachel. Wilt thou send him word?”

The soldier was stunned. He gazed at Miriam stupidly for a moment, for several moments. At last he seized her face between his hands and held it where the firelight shone full upon it. “Thy name, little maid,” he commanded, sharply.

“Miriam, daughter of Caleb.”

He fell back a pace, repeating the words as if to recall memories: “Miriam, daughter of Caleb ... thy brother keeping his father’s flock on the hills of Israel.... Benjamin, sayest thou?... Thy village Hannathon, whose outgoing is the Valley of Jiptha-el.... Benjamin! Ah, strangely familiar hath thy appearance been to me. I wondered whom thou didst remind me of. And now that I recall it, not only have I heard thy name but I have seen thee. Thou wert the little maid with Rachel in the gorge, and there was a lad older than Nathan. ‘Eli,’ his brother, sayest thou? And I have taken captive Benjamin’s sister! Would that I had known it six days ago!”

He resumed his old position near the door of the tent, his head buried in his hands. “And this maiden, Rachel—Benjamin’s betrothed? Nay, it cannot be.”

But Miriam said it was; said it with so much detail he could not doubt; said it with a calm matter-of-factness that was torture unspeakable to the listener, who was ill with disappointment; rebellious at the thought of failure in that which he had resolved; stubbornly determined to admit no defeat as long as there was one ray of hope. At last, finding him quite unresponsive, Miriam crept away to her leopard’s skin bed and sobbed herself to sleep, not knowing that he was so young and inexperienced and pain so new and strange that he knew not how to meet it.

That night he fought the hardest battle of his life, a battle not with flesh and blood, which were easier to overcome, but with his own undisciplined spirit, and in the gray of the morning, as he watched a life embark on the Great Unknown, the better part of him won. When Miriam awoke he greeted her with the friendly smile she had come to expect. They would be on the march very soon, he said, but before they started perhaps they had better talk over something he had in mind, and then they fell to planning together for the relief of the wayfarers, Rachel and Nathan.

CHAPTER VI
DAMASCUS

The ninth day, shortly after noon, Isaac’s company neared Damascus. They traveled slowly, carrying the dead body of their comrade, but not too slowly for Miriam, to whom grief for the past and uncertainty as to the future loomed larger than the delights of new experiences. They paused a moment on the heights above and looked down upon the city.

Isaac pointed with pride: “Seest thou, little maid, that the buildings, crowded so closely together and all covered with gray plaster, make Damascus look like a pearl. It is a pearl set in emeralds, for it lieth in the midst of fragrant gardens and shady orchards which entirely surround it, and in which thou mayest travel for hours on hours before reaching the desert. All this is wrought by our two good friends, the River Abana and the River Pharpar, which hath made Damascus possible. Without them this would be but desert sands. The Pharpar flows through the plains to the south of us, but the Abana, like a faithful servant to her mistress, the Queen of Cities, washes off the dust of her feet. Every street and every dwelling hath its marble fountain supplied by the Abana’s cold and sparkling waters. Freely doth it flow for rich and poor alike. Thou shalt see its wonders and its beauty.”

He touched his horse and they moved on, leaving the exhilarating air of the hills, traversing roads which lay between fascinating vistas of garden and orchard, such as he had described, and finally entering the great, crowded gate. To Miriam the city presented more perils than the wilderness. The bustle of the streets appeared like confusion; the gayly colored garments everywhere looked odd, even fantastic, while the cries of the merchandise vendors and the constant din of conversation in many voices and many languages were bewildering. She drew closer to the young captain, imploring, fearful.

He smiled reassuringly. “We stop here, nay, not to dismount but only to leave the men. This is the ‘barracks’ where I live when I am not at home, but thou and I go further.”

She grew faint with apprehension. Was she now to be sold as a slave? But what else could one expect in this terrible heathen city?

They were taking the “farther ride” of which he had spoken. “Seest thou this splendid temple, little maid? Notice its magnificence and its vast size. It is the House of Rimmon, the sun-god of the Syrians. Nay, not my god. If I believe at all, and sometimes I wonder how it is possible to know which god is the true one among so many, it is Jehovah, whom I was taught to worship even as thou, my mother being a captive from the Land of Israel like thee.”

He had not meant to bring that pained expression to Miriam’s face. All at once he noticed how small she was and how forlorn. His voice became soothing. “I am taking thee to the house where she went, where she grew up and married my father, who was chief steward there and an Egyptian. I was born in that house and call it ‘home’ even yet, for I am much with my master. It is the House of Naaman, commander-in-chief of the armies of Syria. I think thou wilt wait upon his wife, Adah. My sister, Milcah, hath a position of authority among the female servants, and if she seemeth to thee at first somewhat severe, thou must remember that she hath much care, so much that her heart hath great ado to show itself. But peradventure” (questioningly) “thou wouldst enjoy a Quest for the Hidden Heart?”

Her answer was prevented by their arrival at the largest abode Miriam had ever seen, and the next hour was a very trying one. She did not meet the mistress she was to serve. Instead, she was taken straight to Milcah, the soldier’s sister, the Lady of the Hidden Heart, whose welcome was critical rather than cordial. After a little while Isaac bade her good-by for the present, holding her hand tightly.

“Thou wilt be happy here, and I will come often to see how thou doest. Thou must feel free to tell me everything, just as thou wouldst talk with thy brother, Benjamin.”

But she would not let him depart. She was in an agony of terror, clinging to him and begging him piteously not to leave her.

He was perplexed and distressed. Stooping, he caressed her; took her in his arms and attempted to soothe her in quite a big-brother fashion; told her about his debt to Benjamin, which he should repay to her; reassured her about the kindness of those among whom he had brought her; promised to come every day; tried to divert her attention to the fountain in the peaceful courtyard and the other beauties around them; sought to arouse her courage and inspire hope. After a time she became calm and suffered him to leave, but before going he had a few sharp words with his sister, Milcah, who had looked on coldly, impatiently, at these proceedings.

“As if I had naught to do but act as child’s nurse! Assuredly she will be well treated. Hath anything else ever been known in the House of Naaman?”

With this ungracious promise he had to be content, but never before had he taken his way to the barracks with such a heavy heart. He paused two or three times and looked back, as if debating whether or not to return, but finally went on. Meanwhile, with expedition and no waste of sympathy, Miriam was bathed, under Milcah’s direction, and dressed in garments hastily adapted for the purpose out of those intended for a much larger maid. The rest of the afternoon time dragged. Miriam, very forlorn indeed, was yet very brave, as she had promised Isaac to be. She expected to be put to work immediately, to be given tasks that would try her strength and patience to the utmost, but, apparently, there was nothing for her to do.

Venturing into the courtyard, she observed that if the dwelling looked large on the outside, it was immense within and sheltered a household so numerous that the arrival of one more made no difference whatever. Somewhat later she had her supper, a bounteous meal that she could not swallow for the lump in her throat, and then Milcah sent her to bed in a large room with several of the maid servants. It was a softer bed than any she had ever known, but not one of ease. She lay there thinking, thinking until the intolerable pain in her throat was at last relieved by tears, but she was careful to smother the sobs lest she disturb those whose regular breathing told her they were asleep. She could reach out her hand and touch them, they were so near, yet she was alone, quite, quite alone! No one cared about her except, strangely enough, the soldier who had brought her hither! If she could only cuddle down in her mother’s arms, or her father’s! Oh, the sobs would not be stifled! What if the Lady of the Hidden Heart should hear?

As if in answer to this despairing cry, Milcah stood, looking down upon her. “Exactly what I feared,” she commented, “and to-morrow no work will be done because the sound of thy weeping to-night will go forth to disturb the household. Thus is mischief wrought by a brother’s thoughtlessness. Do thou come into the room with me, and if thou must weep, none will be distressed, for much care maketh me always wakeful.”

Not unkindly though entirely without tenderness, Miriam was assisted to make the change, but the fountain of tears seemed frozen. For the rest of the night she lay with wide-open eyes, staring but unseeing, sick to the very soul. Yet did she not suffer alone. From his comparatively hard couch over in the barracks, Isaac all at once sprang up, alert, listening. Noiselessly he crossed the room, opened a door, and stepped out into the starlight. Still were the voices of traffic and people which had so terrified Miriam that day. The city slumbered. He looked across roof after roof to two which towered above the others, ghostlike in the whiteness of their plastered exteriors. One was the palace, the other the House of Naaman.

A long, long while he stood there, then he returned to his bed, laughing softly. “I grow fanciful,” he said to himself. “I dreamed I heard the sobbing of the little maid. As if I could at this distance, or as if she were weeping when she hath doubtless been asleep these many hours!”

Yet for some reason the soldier slept but fitfully the remainder of the night. Into his passive brain swarmed long-forgotten tales he had heard at his mother’s knee: tales of her captivity; of her loneliness and home-sickness; but because he had known her only in days of contentment and prosperity, they had seemed to him but as tales. Now he understood. With features drawn as if in pain he groaned: “If only, ah, if only!”

In the morning he went home very early, only to find that the little maid was too weak and ill to rise.

His sister spoke her mind without reserve. “I am not pleased, Isaac, that thou shouldst have brought this child hither. She will be much trouble and little help. We can do nothing now except endure it, but I hope thou wilt never take captive another maid.”

He promised fervently, and Milcah surveyed his retreating form with great satisfaction. “When I talk to Isaac,” she told herself, “always can I cause him to see the right, and no other woman hath such influence with him—so far.”

It was truly a wonderful house to which Miriam had come. In the first place it had no front door. The outside was just a blank wall of gray plaster with a few small openings, very high up, and instead of a door there was a gate: a large, highly ornamented, metal gate at which a keeper always stood. From this you will understand that none of the rooms looked out upon the street save through those little, latticed openings above everybody’s heads, the real doors and windows being on the other side (the inside), where they opened upon a wide veranda and then upon a square courtyard. You could stand in one doorway, for example, and see rows and rows of rooms facing the four sides of this courtyard but not opening into each other.

You might think you would miss seeing the street, but how could you when the courtyard had its fountain and grass and flowers and trees and even birds? All of the courtyards were pretty and peaceful, even that where the animals were kept, the word “all” being used advisedly, for while most houses had one court or two or three at most, this one had seven. You would get lost trying to find your way about. The rooms were large and high, and so clean and well furnished! On three sides were low and wide benches, where you sat in the daytime and slept at night on the soft cushions and thick mattresses which were never put away. There was nothing else in these apartments, but, of course, there was nothing else to want except the queer little pans containing lighted wood or charcoal which would be brought in when it was cold.

The portion of the building set aside for the use of the master and mistress and their guests had not more but only more elegant furniture. Here the courtyard was paved with marble and inside the apartments the low and wide benches were made of carved cedar inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl and tortoise-shell in intricate designs. Here the cushions were covered with beautifully colored silks, the mattresses with heavier material, and there were curtains of silk and linen and rugs spread down to walk upon. Miriam, surveying this magnificence surreptitiously, decided that while it was quite right and proper in such a place and for such a purpose, it was entirely unnecessary for the rest of the household. With the rooms and verandas all floored and kept so clean, who would need carpets? And there were almost no ants or mice! As for cushions, silk would not wear nearly so long, she was sure, as the sheepskin and goatskin stuffed with wool which were so plentiful in the other apartments. The master, Naaman, must be very rich to maintain such a splendid dwelling. It was awe-inspiring just to contemplate its glories.

Out of doors it was even more interesting. You could go up a stone staircase in the corner of one of the courts and come out on the roof. You need not be afraid. There was no danger. It was only one story high—although that was very high indeed—and the roof was flat. Besides, the wall built around the edge would keep you from falling. You could see so much and so far! You could look down into the narrow and crowded streets of Damascus itself, where brilliantly garbed throngs were constantly coming and going on interminable errands, and beyond that to miles of verdure and swamp land and several swift, silvery streams, offshoots of the Pharpar and the Abana, and beyond that still to the long, low-lying bluish-purple hills and the dun-colored desert. It would be just according to your mood whether or not your gaze returned to Damascus and fastened itself upon the one other building more pretentious than this: the palace where dwelt King Ben-hadad and his court, and then wandered off to the three great gates of Damascus, through which many entered and some never returned.

There were numerous people in the household of Naaman, almost as many, she was sure, as lived in a whole “city” in Israel, so it was not strange they should have different languages. How very dissimilar each individual was from the other! Odd that we should all have eyes and ears and noses and mouths and hair and yet no two look alike! The only person of the entire household whose ways and speech were the least familiar was Milcah, sister to the young soldier who had brought her hither, and Milcah was much, much older than her brother and much, much harder to please.

Isaac’s daily visits and trifling gifts of fruit or flowers, at first received listlessly, gradually acquired greater value in Miriam’s eyes until they were the only bright spots on an otherwise monotonous horizon. The marvels of her new home had no charms for her at first. They dawned upon her gradually as, day after day, with wan face and lagging footsteps, and in response to Isaac’s encouragement, she roamed through the big house, smiling wistfully upon those who were often too busy to smile in response. She was not resentful. The hurt came in the fact that they were absorbed in their own affairs, in which she had no part. And in Hannathon she had been so necessary!

CHAPTER VII
WAYFARERS

The western or southwestern gate of Damascus, that which looked toward Israel and Egypt, had seen much coming and going of late. Varied features and varied dispositions, people large and small, old and young, bond and free, soldiers and civilians, on all manner of business and pleasure they had passed, but never a couple more likely to attract attention than the maiden and the boy who now approached. There was something inexpressibly gentle and refined in her appearance which contrasted oddly with her tattered garments and the leopard’s skin drawn closely around her. The boy seemed more fitted for the wilderness and the hardships they had evidently endured.

They were talking low and eagerly. “Thinkest thou, Rachel,” with a touch of scorn, “that the Lord would send an angel in these times and to us as he did to our fathers?”

She was sweetly reasonable. “Then how dost thou explain the fire with no one near it the night when I thought I should die with the cold; and this leopard’s skin we found next morning near the embers; and the food—so much we have had enough and to spare; and the water-skin filled with life-giving water for which we thirsted; and even these strips of cloth to bind up our bleeding feet, cut on the sharp rocks, bruised on the rough road? Nay, no matter what thou sayest, Nathan, I have learned that Jehovah is merciful and gracious, full of loving-kindness and tender mercies with which we have been surrounded. Indeed, now that our perils are nearly over, I feel that all I have gone through hath been but a spiritual experience. The Lord hath been my strength, just as Miriam told me, and he is about to become my song. Soon we shall reach the home of my kinsman, Ezekiel, where we shall not only be safe and well cared for ourselves, but he will know what to do concerning Miriam.”

“Look out, Rachel!” Nathan was glaring after a man with a heavy load who had stumbled against them. “A good thing it is that the road is straight and smooth. Keep thou close to me and watch thy steps.”

They had need to. As they proceeded the travel increased. They were jostled; they jumped quickly out of the way of those who rode, only to be pushed in another direction by those who walked; they met frowns and ill-natured remarks and, what was harder to bear, smiles and unmistakable jests. They had about concluded that Might rather than Right was the rule of the highway when their opinion was confirmed. As they came within the shadow of the city gates, but before they could enter, they were espied by a gay party, looking for sport.

By the very simple device of joining hands, a circle was formed around the two unfortunates and they were thus entirely at the will of their tormentors. Nathan’s rage and Rachel’s entreaties merely added to the amusement. The circle advanced and retreated, dragging its victims along with it. They were mimicked with exaggerated pantomime. They were forced into ridiculous and undignified postures. One, bolder or more facetious than the rest, indulged in hair-pulling and pinching.

The roars of laughter attracted the attention of passers-by, who joined the gathering, some to jeer and encourage, others to inquire and protest. The crowd grew, the noise increased, the road was obstructed and, trying to force a passage, many came to angry arguments and finally to blows. The excitement was quelled only by the arrival of soldiers, who finally hurried to the scene and in no gentle manner dispersed the mob. To Rachel, bruised and humiliated, this was a welcome relief. She did not notice the curious gaze of the soldiers, the changing expression on the face of one, nor that another looked at her intently for a moment, then, urging his horse to full speed, set off in the direction of the House of Naaman.

Nathan, with wits sharpened by terror, lost none of these things nor a host of others, and hastily came to the conclusion that their deliverance was cause only for additional fear. He clutched Rachel’s hand: “We must go back as we came. Hearest thou? We cannot go into the city to-day. Dost thou not see that these are the soldiers from whom we escaped? They will know me and guess whom thou art, even without thy veil.”

He was violently pulling backward; the crowd, so long detained and anxious to make up for lost time, surging forward. As well try to stem the Jordan with bare hands! They were swept apart, and before Rachel realized it, she stood within the portals of Damascus, dismayed and alone. With Miriam in captivity and Nathan lost, it was more than ever imperative that she find Ezekiel and that without delay, but how? She stood at one side of the busy footway, anxiously waiting to see if Nathan would join her. When he did not and she found herself again attracting attention, she singled out one in the hurrying throng and appealed to him timidly: “Canst thou direct me to the House of Ezekiel in the street of the merchants of Israel?”

The man looked at her, shook his head, and answered in a language she did not understand. Others she tried, but with no better success. They were not unkind, merely uncomprehending—and indifferent. Peradventure if she walked along slowly, constantly seeking, constantly asking, she might—she must—somewhere discover one of her own people, or at least one whose speech was the same as her own. Already the sun was casting long shadows and with a sinking heart Rachel proceeded on her way, never seeing a soldier who followed her cautiously and at a safe distance. He also watched the sun. At last he approached near enough to hear her question, put now not so much with timidity as with desperation. He addressed her in her own tongue: “I know the man thou seekest. Thou hast but to come with me.”

Although his pronunciation was distinctly bad, she turned with pleasure at the words, but at sight of the speaker she shrank back, shivering.