The morning found the fugitive by the Sea of Galilee. Massive ruins
lined the road along its western and northern shores. These were the
memorials of the days before the Babylonian captivity. Blocks of stone,
pretentious in size and over-ornamentation, evidently dated from the age
of the great Solomon. Other blocks were inferior imitations of these,
and were made, doubtless, in the times of the later kings. Within the
foundations of an ancient palace were loose stone cabins, belonging to
the poor inhabitants, who gained a precarious living by adding to the
scanty yield of the ground the better gleaning of the sea. Here and
there clumsy fishing-boats, drawn upon the beach or floating idly on the
water, told of the decadence of the arts and enterprise that had marked
preceding times. Only nature was untouched by the degenerating
influences of the age; and, fair as upon the day of its creation, lay
the water, unrippled by the slightest breeze, mirroring the deep blue of
the sky, like an immense piece of lapis-lazuli, in the setting of the
encircling mountains.
The silence and motionlessness of the sea imparted themselves to Hiram.
The rush of events and the intense excitement of the past few days had
almost exhausted the active energies of his mind. As the strained
strings of an over-used lyre give no sound, so he seemed no longer able
to respond to even the rude alarms of danger. He was fleeing now, not
with any sense of fear, but solely with the momentum of past impulses,
as the heart sometimes continues to throb and the lungs to heave when
conscious life has ceased. He realized his own mental condition. He felt
the moral inertia. He said to himself: "I believe I would not move if
Egbalus pointed his sacrificial knife at my heart. I could walk into the
arms of Moloch." He could understand somewhat how the priests succeeded
in preparing their human victims for unhesitating obedience at the fatal
moment. He saw how the will becomes paralyzed by the strain of the
previous terror, and how the wretched devotees lose the susceptibility
to recoil even at the steps of the altar, as the leaves of the
sensitive-plant, frequently rubbed by the fingers, no longer shrink at
the touch.
In this condition of mind, the stillness of the sea was very congenial
to Hiram. It invited him as a kindred spirit. Out upon its placid bosom
he could rest, without the necessity of arousing himself every moment to
pass judgment on things that appealed to his suspicion. There, too,
after yielding himself for a while to the soothing influences that
lulled the air and water, he could plan for the future, instead of
taking his cue, as heretofore he had been compelled to do, from the
movements of his pursuers. Should he go across the desert to Damascus?
to the plains of Babylon? to the court at Susa, and throw himself
beneath the protecting shadow of the Great King? to the solitude of the
Sinaitic mountains? Or should he seek the coast of the Great Sea, and
cross to Greece? Whither, when, with a few more turns, like those of the
hunted fox, he shall have thrown the Baal-hounds off the scent?
And Zillah! How her fair face shone in every bright thing he looked
upon, and her frightened, agony-drawn features stared at him out of
every gloomy object! There was so much to think about. And on the sea he
could think. Perhaps Jehovah would help him think, or maybe speak to
him. Such a beautiful lake as this must be sacred to him who is god of
mountains and water and sky alike. Yonder where the sea blends with the
distant shore, and the shore rises until it blends with the sky--surely
that must be the meeting-place of earthly and heavenly influences, if
gods ever commune with men.
Musing thus, he observed a fisherman's hut near by. One wall had once
belonged to some palatial structure; the others were made of such broken
stones as a man might carry from the heap of ruins that lay about it.
The doorway of the hut was faced on the one side with a column of
marble; on the other, with a polished slab of granite. In front of the
hut was an oven; the half of a huge porphyry vase, inverted, served for
the fire-back, and gave direction to the draught. On some coals a woman
was broiling fish. On a flat stone, lying half in the fire, and covered
with ashes, a man was baking thin sheets of yellow dough, to be
subsequently rolled into loaves of bread. Several others were lounging
near, sleeping and bedraggled with the fishing of the past night. They
welcomed Hiram with a grunted salâm.
"Peace be to you!"
"Peace!" "Peace!" said one and another, scarcely raising their eyes, as
if the apparition of a Persian soldier were too common to awaken
interest. An elderly man, coming from the hut, eyed the new-comer more
attentively.
"Another man from the coast of the Great Sea, eh! Our Persian masters
are hiring Phoenicians to be soldiers as well as sailors. But it takes
more than change of skin to make a wolf of a fox; and a man from the
coast can never pass with me for one from beyond the desert. The west
wind blows you fellows inland as it does the salt-water gnats. But sit
by, and the Lord bless you! especially if your purse is lined with
darics."
Though this speech was not assuring, Hiram, with his recent memories,
could not distrust a Jew. He gave his entertainers some good-natured
repartee, though their words had cut far deeper than they knew.
"Stranger!" said one, "tell us your story of that miracle at Tyre."
"I have not heard from Tyre for many a day," replied Hiram. "I am in the
king's business, and have been going up and down in your land for a
time. What was the miracle?"
"Ha! ha! Think of old Benjamin telling the news to a Phoenician who
boasts that he knows everything! Why, they were going to offer up some
prince or other--or was it a priest, Ephraim? No matter which. Well! the
gods saved them the trouble. The sun grew bigger and bigger, and came
down nearer and nearer, until he opened his mouth and swallowed up
prince, priests, and five-score attendants. I would not believe it but
that Ephraim here, who had drunk plenty of leben that same day, says he
saw the sun come bobbing down at him while fishing on the lake."
Hiram surprised himself at the heartiness with which he laughed at the
story, and matched it with one he pretended to have heard some Jews
relate as belonging to their national traditions. "Your great general,
Joshua, one day was taken with a chill in the midst of a battle. He
could not even give the commands, but only chattered with the cold. Then
he bethought him to order the sun to come down and hang just over his
head. It floated there like a red-hot shield until he had killed every
man among the enemy. But who told you of the miracle at Tyre?"
"Why," said Benjamin, "the priests themselves. Two were along here
yesterday."
"They were not priests," said Ephraim.
"They were, though," rejoined Benjamin. "Mother Eve once mistook a snake
for an honest creature; but I know a snake's wriggle and a priest's
wriggle, in whatever disguise they may be. You could not be a priest of
Baal if you tried, stranger. Your face is too honest. But those fellows
yesterday--at least one of them--could not cast his priest's skin,
though he was dressed like a merchant. He looked as if he wanted to
glide down under the stones there, as they say the Baalite priests live
half the time in the vaults under their temples, pulling strings to make
their gods move, and talking up through holes to answer the prayers of
the silly people."
"What were they doing here in the Jews' land?" asked Hiram.
"They said they were searching for a young Tyrian who had fallen heir to
a fortune, who was travelling hereabouts, and did not know his good
luck. May be you are the happy man."
"I wish I were," replied Hiram, "if for no other reason than to get rid
of a very disagreeable journey. I must cross the lake at once, and go as
far away as Bozrah. The king's business keeps one as lively as a flea. I
must have a boat."
"You have only to pick it out; we have enough lazy fellows to sail it,"
replied Benjamin, rising and looking along a row of boats.
"I would go alone," said Hiram. "I can leave with you the price of the
boat against my getting wrecked, or being swallowed by this terrific sun
of yours, whose heat must make him thirsty enough to drink up your
little sea."
"Despise not its littleness," replied the Jew. "It is as strong as the
very dragon in the sky when it gets to rolling and writhing under the
Lord's frown."
"A Phoenician can tame any sea 'twixt Tyre and Tartesus. The heaviest
winds that roar over Galilee would be only as the song of a sea-bird to
a sailor on the main," said Hiram.
"Leave, then, your money, and sail it or sink with it, as you like,"
replied the rough fisherman.