A pleasing light shone through the darkness of that nether world into
which Hiram had been so suddenly precipitated. The light was broken by
soft shadows, as of gently fluttering leaves. The brightness made his
eyeballs ache; the shadows soothed them, so that he could endure to
look. Great protecting arms were stretched above him. These assumed the
shapes of limbs of a terebinth-tree. Had he passed through the gloom of
Sheol into some brighter realm of life? Perhaps the Greeks were right in
their hope of the Isles of the Blessed, carpeted with perpetual verdure,
gemmed with flowers, and canopied with softest skies. To one of these
isles had his spirit floated? This could not be, for over him he clearly
saw a dead branch of the terebinth, and there could be no decay in that
happy world.
His illusions chased one another away, and were all gone when,
attempting to move, sharp pains tortured him, and inflicted him with
full consciousness that he was indeed in the body. He was lying upon a
couch, soft with feathery balsam tips, and covered with a wolf's skin.
This he could feel beneath his hands. He glanced about him. A low, but
long and rambling, black tent of goat's-hair cloth stood by, its nearest
end just at the edge of the shadow of the terebinth. The tent poles and
cross ropes were so arranged as to form a roof of three gables,
answering to the interior division into three compartments. Several rude
but substantially built huts were evidently used for storing provisions.
A stone enclosure served as a fold for sheep. Without these evidences of
more permanent occupation, the tent would have indicated a settlement of
those nomads who, with hereditary roving habits, have always lodged in
the lands east of the Great Sea; or of those inhabitants of towns who
adopt this mode of life during a portion of the year, that they may live
among their flocks and herds on the mountain slopes, or cultivate a
tract of rich meadow-land far away from their ordinary abodes.
Hiram had scarcely taken in so much of his surroundings, when he was
aware that a light form moved suddenly and silently away from his side.
He caught a glimpse of a white garment--the common dress of both sexes
alike among the simple peasants. Had his observation been more alert, he
would have detected a pair of most gracefully modelled feet, and limbs
bare almost to the knees; a head uncovered, except for the rich mass of
jet-black hair that was gathered loosely into a node at the back; a face
of exquisite contour, swarthy from exposure, but radiant with health and
kindliness.
"Father, he has waked!" rang out a sweet child-voice. And Hiram heard
it add, subdued by distance and anxious emotion:
"Father! He will live again, will he not?"
A voice, strong and deep, but kindly even to tenderness, responded:
"Jehovah be praised! I will come."
A heavily built man approached the couch under the terebinth. He was
slightly bowed with the years that had chronicled themselves by the gray
lines in the long beard which fell far down upon his bare breast. His
legs and arms were uncovered, and showed that strength had not deserted
the slightly shrunken muscles. His face, though weather-beaten and
wrinkled with cares as with years, was a beautiful one, beaming with
intelligence and soulfulness; one of those rare faces that fascinate
children, but can command men--such is the combination of affection and
dignity they reflect from the abiding disposition behind them. His eyes
were deep-set beneath heavy brows, and seemed the home of lofty and
generous sentiments, suggesting those crystal springs in shady dells
which good spirits have always been traditioned to inhabit.
"The Lord be with you, my son!" was the old man's hearty salutation, as
he came and looked down upon the stranger.
"Are you not able to talk?" he kindly inquired, noticing that Hiram made
no response, and unwilling to think his silence discourtesy, as it
would have been regarded had the one addressed been fully himself.
Hiram stared at the face of the old man, in painful effort at
recollection both of the questioner and of himself.
"Where am I?" he inquired, endeavoring to raise himself upon his elbow.
"Nay, be quiet, my son!" replied the other, laying him gently back upon
the couch. "It is enough for this day that you know you are safe, and
under the roof-tree of Ben Yusef."
"Ben Yusef? I do not know you." Hiram gazed intently at him, as if to
replenish from the intelligent face his own vanished power of thought.
"Ay, Ben Yusef, of the tribe of Judah. You are, indeed, a stranger, not
to know the tent of Ben Yusef, of Giscala."
"Giscala? In the Jews' land?"
"Ay, and in Galilee. You must have been badly hurt for so shapely a head
as yours to have been knocked out of its whereabouts. I had thought Ben
Yusef's tent as well known as yonder rocky pinnacle of Safed, which
guides travellers from afar. But who are you, my son?"
Hiram glanced at his own herdsman's clothes. He felt the coarse texture.
A tremor shook him, as if from the passing of some horrid dream. He
replied:
"I am what you see me."
"Nay, my son, thou shalt not bear false witness, even of thyself,"
replied Ben Yusef. "A shepherd's feet are not so easily torn as yours
have been. Your hair has the odor of ointments that are not of the
cattle-pens, and your hands are not hard in the spots where the
sling-strings cut. Besides, no sheep would have been so silly as to
venture into the crater of Giscala for you to seek them there. The dumb
beasts have fled from it for weeks past. The volcano is getting ready to
break out again, and the lightest-headed bird will not even fly over it.
Only a man driven by some demon to seek death would have plunged into it
as you did. Besides, your speech is not that of the herdsmen; nor, for
that matter, of any dwellers in the country about. It is that of the men
of the coast. Though we use the same tongue, there is as much difference
between our accents as there is difference between the grass that grows
on these spring-fed meadows and that of the salt marshes by the sea."
Hiram showed evident alarm at these suspicions, and made an effort to
rise, that he might venture another flight. The old man gently, yet
strongly, restrained him, and placed his head again upon the bolster as
he added, kindly:
"Nay, then, do not speak if the truth is not for my ears. Ben Yusef's
tree is broad enough to shadow both you and your secret."
"But I must not burden your hospitality," said Hiram.
Ben Yusef knit his brows in evident displeasure, but quickly rejoined,
with a smile:
"You shall not burden, but bless me, my son. Our patriarch Job said,
'The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me.' And never
saw I man that was nearer perishing than you."
The old man raised his eyes reverently to heaven as he added:
"The Lord deal with me and mine as I deal with this stranger!"
It was the merriest of voices that interrupted this conversation:
"Abba!"
The syllables flowed with all the sweetness of bird notes, charged with
the tenderness and fulness of human love.
"Abba! Abba!"
"Yes, my child."
"Shall I bring the drink?"
"Bring it."
The girl balanced a large jar upon her left hand, supporting it by the
graceful shaft of her forearm, which in turn rested upon her right hand.
The weight of the jar brought the muscles of her arms into graceful
prominence, and her easy motion betokened that agile strength which is
seldom displayed except by those whose freedom of life, as among
peasants of mountain regions, makes work easy and exhilarating.
"The _leben_ is all of the big goat's milk, and, with the leaven in it
since yesternight, should be strong and quickening. Shall I give the
drink?"
"No, my child. Haste with the supper. Elnathan will soon be in from the
fields, and as hungry as Esau. Haste, and the memory of thy mother
bless thee!"
As Ben Yusef watched his daughter retiring to the tent, a lusty halloo
rang through the air, and a form appeared upon the hill-top. It seemed
gigantic, so large a portion did it cut from the glowing western sky
beyond; and, though it diminished as it approached, it still showed a
strong, thick-set, over-tall fellow, in the first flush of manhood, the
down on his chin hardly consistent with the gnarled muscles upon his
legs and arms. He came at once to where Hiram lay, and accosted him with
a good-natured familiarity which, though rough, did not conceal the
essence of gentility that lay beneath it. He took Hiram's hand into his
own, and pressed it as if feeling for the fitful pulse.
"I knew you would come to life rapidly when once you started. Judging
from your running last night, you have wind enough to outstrip the death
angel. I was yonder, watching the crater, when you dashed by me. You
made a streak of light through the darkness as a flitting ghost does. I
thought you must be Elijah, showing the other prophets how he ran when
Jezebel and the priests of Baal were after him; and I believe you would
not have stopped short of Beersheba if you had not tumbled into the
crater. Couldn't you see it, or smell it, or feel it? Perhaps you had
drunk too much leben among the sheep-boys in the mountains. They make it
there strong enough to whirl a man's head off; but I never knew it to
make one's legs fly as yours did."
"Hush, Elnathan!" interrupted the old man. "Your tongue runs faster
than our guest's legs ever did, and makes as great blunders. What news
from the mouth of Sheol, for the brimstone on your garments tells you
have been there?"
"The volcano has been less active to-day, father; but neighbors Isaac
and Hosea both think it will break out anew. They remember how it was
years ago. The big mound is like the whale with Jonah in his belly. It
only wants a little more tickling with the fire to vomit forth."
"Have you watched it all day?"
"No. As this poor fellow could not tell us what he was running from, I
have been searching back on the path he came; but I can find nothing to
harm one." He lowered his voice. "The fellow must have been crazed. No
sane man would put that dirty shirt over so trim a body, or wear his
hair, which is curled like that of a gallant from Tyre, under the filthy
cap I found by him. I think he is from Tyre. They were to have had a
great sacrifice--some say of the king himself. This man looks like some
courtier who has gone daft with excitement. He surely thought the
volcano fire was under some sacrifice to Moloch, for I heard him cry, as
he fell, 'Moloch! Mercy!'"
"Do not breathe that thought, Elnathan," said Ben Yusef. "He is to us
only what he seems. The Lord has been merciful to him. In Israel's land
his secret belongs only to himself and our God. I charge you, Elnathan,
by the Lord God of Abraham, who spared Isaac on Moriah, that you speak
not your thought."
The night grew chill. Ben Yusef and his son carried the couch and the
sick man under the shelter of the tent. Hiram was exhausted by his
excited wakefulness, and soon fell into a slumber, during which the
little household partook of their evening meal.
When he awoke he was conscious of the presence of the young girl alone,
who sat under the lamp that hung at the doorway of the tent, and who
answered his every movement with a look towards him. Ben Yusef and
Elnathan sat without. A neighbor joined them. As he was approaching the
tent, Hiram heard the father enjoin his son to make no mention of their
stranger guest.
"He does not come to us as the angels came to Father Abraham at his tent
door," said Elnathan.
"Who knows what form angels take?" replied the elder. "The angels came
to Abraham's tent hungry and thirsty; why should not one come to us as a
sick and wounded man?"
"From the way the volcano is acting," said Elnathan, pausing to listen
to the rumbling earth, "I think he has come as the angels came to Lot in
Sodom before the Lord destroyed that place with fire and brimstone.
Maybe our guest will startle us before morning with the cry, 'Flee to
the mountain!'"
They rose and welcomed their neighbor, with whom they conversed until
late in the night, for the imminence of danger from the volcano
suggested watchfulness.