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.
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!”