THE village or “city” of Hannathon in the Land of Israel saw startling changes as a result of the Syrian raid. Gone were the flocks and herds; gone were the stores of oil and wine; gone was the lately garnered grain, and they who had journeyed to Jerusalem to the feast returned to scant supplies. It was Eli who waited for them at the foot of the hill and broke the news to the little companies as they arrived, but Caleb, father of Miriam, came not.
“He tarrieth a day or two behind us,” said his friends, and Eli waited impatiently one day and a second and yet a third after the last of his townsmen had straggled up the hill. Then it was Sarah, and not Caleb, who met his view, riding dejectedly her faithful and weary beast and leading the other, on the back of which was bound something still and covered.
As Caleb had traveled, making what haste he could in pleasant anticipation of home and family, he had been set upon by thieves. He had not risen from the narrow, rocky road in which he had fallen from the blows of the robber band, but the timely arrival of other pilgrims had doubtless saved her from the same fate. They had dragged his body into a convenient cave while they tried frantically to restore breathing, but finding it quite useless they had bound the burden to the back of his patient ass and accompanied her to within sight of Hannathon.
In the pitiful horror of her tale Eli felt that his own was matched. If he could only spare her! But he could not, and told her as tenderly as possible. She listened numbly, without exclamation, without tears. It was as if brain and nerves had already borne more than they could take cognizance of. After a time he helped her up the hill, where Judith was waiting; waiting in dread of the displeasure she knew she merited, yet keyed up to defiance. There was, however, no harsh rebuke. In fact, Sarah seemed scarcely to recognize her as she leaned heavily upon Eli. Hastily Judith unrolled the thickly padded rug or quilt which served as a bed and the two laid her upon it. Without a word she turned her face to the wall and Eli beckoned the girl to the door, where he whispered the sad news concerning Caleb.
Later in the day a crowd of white-faced men and women laid the body reverently away and sealed the rocky tomb with a heavy stone. Sarah, on her bed, appeared unconscious of all that passed, and Judith would not leave her. After doing a hundred things which occurred to her as necessary for the bodily comfort of her kinswoman, the girl patiently watched the long night through, the one witness to Sarah’s dumb agony. Eli was, of course, with his mother. A neighbor, coming to offer her services, had said that Hannah might not live.
Mad fancies took possession of Judith that awful night. She had the feeling that every hour was a year and that, by morning, she would be an old, old woman. Again, she was a mother, brooding over a sick babe, and she stroked the head on the mattress and murmured soothing words. At other times she had a wild desire to shriek, to tear her hair, to stamp and rave, but in the presence of that awful stillness came peace. In the gray of the morning she opened the heavy front door and let in a stream of sweet, cool air. As she stood there her mind cleared.
There was something tangible about that long street with its flat-roofed houses, seen dimly through the mist; there was something tangible about that silvery rim rising higher and higher in the east and gradually dissipating the shadows; there was something tangible in the chill wind that swept over and around her. In a little while she would go for fuel. They would enjoy the warmth of a fire even if there was little to eat. As she turned back into the house Sarah broke her long silence. She was holding something in her hand and peering at it.
“Neither husband nor son,” she was saying in a voice very unlike her own, “but this—this—which can avail nothing; this for which hath been spent the earnings of years; this for which Caleb was slain and which was yet not found because I had hidden it; this which hath no power to avenge my daughter or to bring me back my loved ones or to do aught but torment with its impotency.”
Raising up on her elbow, she threw out of the door whatever it was she held in her hand, and lay back exhausted. After a moment she went on in that strangely rambling tone: “Neither husband nor son to avenge the captivity of my daughter; to—”
A tall form stood in the doorway. It was Eli. At the words he came forward and bent over the figure on the pallet, his hot tears dropping on her face.
“The son who is without a mother shall care for the mother who is without a son. An hour ago my mother fell victim to the soldier’s sword.” He clinched his hands and drew a long, sobbing breath. “I will avenge thy daughter and my brother and my mother. For one thing only will I live henceforth: to follow into Syria those who are gone; to find them and to secure their ransom. Their sorrows shall be mine; their weeping shall be even as mine own, and woe unto him by whom they were taken!”
The woman seemed strangely excited. She rose unsteadily and tottered to the door. “I threw away that which would help thee to accomplish thy vow. It was a pearl, a pearl of great price which we brought from Jerusalem, meaning to give it to Miriam when she is older.”
Attempting to cross the threshold she fell, overborne by lack of nourishment, weariness and grief. Eli raised her with his one good arm and he and Judith again laid her on the bed. He lingered, speaking comforting words the while: “When it is fully light we will look for thy pearl. Fear not, it shall be found. Judith and I will seek—” but Judith was slipping hastily away.
“I go for firewood,” she explained, and partially closed the door behind her. Once outside and assured that Eli still sat beside her aunt, she sank to her knees and groped upon the ground. Handfuls of earth, sticks and stones, thorns and stinging ants rewarded her search, but she cared not. The sun rose higher and she lifted her head in smiling thankfulness. At last she rose, rejoicing, clutching something in her hand, hugging it to her bosom.
She was about to re-enter the house when, far below her, she espied the familiar figure of a man. In demonstrative Eastern fashion he was beating his breast and pouring dust upon his head, customs indicative of overwhelming sorrow. The girl suddenly changed her mind and went down the hill, passing the man but paying no attention to him. Half an hour later he passed her where she was industriously and demurely gathering brush. In the common calamity Eastern etiquette might well be disregarded. He stopped to speak to her as though she had been a man and an equal.
“Woe is me,” he began. “Gone are my flocks and herds; gone are my stores of wine and olives; gone is my newly garnered grain; naught remaineth but the bare fields wherewith to mock me while famine and sickness and death stare our village in the face.”
“Not to mock thee, my lord,” she replied, her voice low from nervousness and the fear of being overheard by some unsuspected passer-by, “not to mock thee do thy fields stare thee in the face, but to save us from the disasters thou dost mention.”
His tones held surprise and a certain amount of incredulity. “A prudent mind is thine, but long will it be until next harvest, and how shall we live until then?” He regarded her shrewdly while she made answer.
“In our house is a little food; in Hannah’s a little more; probably some remaineth in every dwelling. Do thou go quickly, my lord, gather up whatever there be and put it in thy storehouse. Then it shall be that day by day the people shall come unto thee for food and thou shalt apportion it, so-much and so-much for each person. Thus shall the gluttonous divide with him that hath little and so shall all be fed. Fear not, thou shalt plant and reap in due time. Hasten, my lord, the village waiteth upon thee.”
In his eyes was frank admiration. “Wise are thy words and quickly will I do as thou sayest, but how thinkest thou I can plant without seed and reap with nothing wherewith to sow?”
Judith’s hand opened and trembling a little she held before his dazzled eyes the pearl she had just found: “A jewel, my lord, given unto me by my father and kept hidden until now. Do thou take it and go unto other cities and buy seed. So shalt thou and I and the village be saved from death and thy prosperity come again. Only, I pray thee, tell no one whence came the pearl.”
She paused, a world of entreaty in her manner. He assented, his hand clutching the jewel, but his eyes fastened upon her.
“Most discreet art thou of all the women of Israel and long hath my soul cleaved unto thee. I will do as thou sayest, and when I return it shall be, if thou thinkest well, that I shall ask for thee at the hands of thy kinswoman, Sarah, and thou shalt be my wife.”
Judith stooped without haste and picked up her bundle of brush. “Yea, my lord,” she murmured, preparing to leave him and dropping her eyelids to hide an exultant gleam, “thy servant shall be obedient unto thy wishes in the matter.”
Halfway up the hill she paused and looked back. He was diligently examining the pearl. Her lip curled slightly.
“Thy soul cleaveth unto me, thou sayest? Nay, for hereabouts they say thou hast none.” She laughed to herself. “When a faithless Israelite taketh unto himself a wife who is a ‘heathen’ they who know us will say that no worse fate could come to either. And when the two who are most despised form an alliance, each should know that there is no friend save in the other.”
The sun had risen fully when Judith returned to the house. Eli, groping unavailingly upon the ground, drew her aside for a whispered word. “No pearl can I find and she had not strength to throw it far. Thinkest thou she had the jewel but in a dream? Thinkest thou that sorrow hath affected her mind?”
The girl drew a breath of relief and letting fall the brush pretended to assist him in the search. “Yea,” she assented with apparent reluctance, “surely it is as thou sayest, and she but dreamed. As if she would cast away a valuable pearl! Nay, but thou hast spoken the truth,” and sighing heavily she passed into the house.
Adah, wife of Naaman, was slightly indisposed. Restlessly she tossed on her silken pillow, wooing in vain the sleep which came fitfully and with disturbing dreams. Her attendant had departed on some errand when through the open door there stole a small shadow. Softly it moved about the room for a few moments, touching this and changing that, then it came and stood over the fair form of the mistress of this magnificent home. It stooped, straightened up as if considering, then bent hastily and kissed gently each eyelid. The eyes flew open in bewilderment and at the same moment a delighted little voice exclaimed:
“I knew it would. It never faileth. I have been looking at thee for a long time through the open door and thou wert so restless I thought it better to wake thee up entirely while I give thee a fresh, cool pillow,” suiting the action to the word, “then will I kiss each eyelid again and thou wilt go straight to sleep. Dost thou notice how I have propped these other pillows to shut out the light, and drawn the curtains so they will sway with the breeze and make thee think thou art breathing the sweet air of the courtyard? There, I have smoothed thy robes and thou wilt be much more comfortable. Now, a kiss here—and one on this eye—nay, open them not; thou must not get too wide awake, for I have not time to sing thee to sleep to-day. There—sh—sh!”
The object of these unexpected attentions drew a satisfied sigh. It was pleasant to be put so entirely at ease without having to think about it at all. The others fussed so and it grew monotonous to be giving directions continually. She had never been taken possession of in just this way before. Everybody else—even Milcah—was so irritatingly anxious to be dignified and proper. There was nothing disrespectful in these quiet tones. It merely showed sense. A moment later there floated through her drowsy consciousness the startling intelligence that this must be the little maid of Israel whom she had so dreaded until “trained.” Taking care not to open the eyes so surprisingly closed, the lady murmured a command to stay right there lest she should want something farther.
“I should like to,” Miriam answered serenely, “but thou hast everything thou wilt need for quite awhile because thou wilt be asleep. I have to take my timbrel now and sing to Milcah’s mother. She is much, much older than thou and needeth me much, much more, but I will come again to see thee when I can spare the time,” with which cheerful assurance Miriam betook herself off with the gladness of being at last wanted.
Her newest acquaintance, so unceremoniously disobeyed for the sake of duty, lay there smiling and then—to her own amazement as she thought about it afterward—actually went to sleep as she was bidden and awoke refreshed, as the little maid had said. She awoke too with a delightful sensation of anticipation, wondering how and when this astonishing child would keep her promise of another visit. Nay, she would not send for her lest it mar the charming spontaneity of the occasion and, had Miriam but known of this, she might also have known that Adah was not accustomed to looking forward with pleasure. To her, life had become a weary round of sameness with dread calamity as its certain goal.