All afternoon the east wind had been blowing, cold, bitter as aloes,
and a great cloud-bank raced after the sun westward, until only a
little space in the western horizon was clear where the sun went down.
The voices of the land were stilled, the minute thunder of the pigeons,
the whirring of crickets. Nor had the leaves of the trees their lively
murmur, but stood fast and flat, like set sails. One could hardly
believe that the winter was past and summer coming, for all was dreary,
dreary....
Against the great red mushroom of the setting sun, the last of the
homing caravan of Sheba showed. In the mind's eyes of the young king
and the old prophet as they stood by the unbeauty of stone and brick
and gray mortar that was the unfinished temple, they could see the
angry camels, the lumbering elephants, the dancing horses, the swinging
men, and the brown comeliness of the young queen's handmaidens, the
straight backs of her fighting men. And the wind from the east blew
through the land, blew through the heart of Solomon.... In a minute
now they would disappear over the desert's edge. All seemed somehow
tragical, like sailors leaving a great stricken ship, or glory passing
from the land of its abiding....
"Oh, Nathan," pleaded the young king, "tell me she lied. Tell me I
shall not have a thousand women and be a bitter, loose old man."
"O King, you shall find a virtuous woman. And her price will be far
above rubies."
"Will she be as kind as Sheba was?"
"She will arise while it is yet night, and give meat to her household,
and a portion to her maidens.... She will consider a field and buy it:
with the fruit of her hands she will plant a vineyard."
"Will she be as well-favored, as beautiful as--as Sheba was?"
"Favor is deceitful and beauty is vain; but a woman that feareth the
Lord, she shall be praised."
"I suppose so. I suppose--you are right, Nathan, but--" The last of
the caravan disappeared over the edge of the desert, and as though it
were accompanying them, being a friend to them, the sun disappeared,
too. A great coldness and darkness and dreariness came over the land,
so that Solomon looked up in surprise. There was no moon....