Mary: The Queen of the House of David and Mother of Jesus / The Story of Her Life

The Teutonic Knight of Saint Mary, through all his changing fortunes from the time of his knighthood’s vow, preserved his moral integrity, his loyalty to the lofty pattern of life set forth by the Queenly exemplar, Mary, the mother of Jesus. Crusader days had so far improved his life as to make him the outspoken denouncer of all impurity of life. He thought his creed and his committal thereto complete. A change came over him. He that, in the storm of battle, had often cried as his law and his delight “Deus Vult,” “God wills,” now feared to seek to know, much less to do, that will. The intoxications of a new love were upon him; unconsciously he was suffering his queen to be veiled, eclipsed; and he yielded to the tide that swept him toward the Jewish maiden. Sometimes his conscience smote him, but he parleyed with it, called it a fool, or placated it by the assurance that this whole matter could be stopped any time at will. Like many another man, forgetting all else except that he was a refined animal, he passed away from the beacons of Bethlehem to the chambers of Imagery, the gods of Egypt. In chains of roses, though with many fine Christian sentiments on his lips, he went heart first, head first, into an utter committal of all his being to the possession of his enchanter. He expected to regard the laws of the land and society, but nothing more. He was led by his tempting spirit to Ramoth Gilead, now sometimes called Gerara or Gerash. There it was that Rizpah’s family took up its abode. With them, and of them, was Sir Charleroy, a welcome guest, his welcome secured by his own personal efforts to please, in part; but more through the finesse of Rizpah, who having promised to be a sister, was permitting her mind to wonder what he might become if only her friend were a Hebrew. Such day dreams were sinless, but impolitic if she really meant to keep herself free and painless, when the parting time came. But it so happens that the questions and problems of the heart are thrust ever on life when most responsive, least experienced. The wonder is not that so many decide them ill, but that youth so pressed, so ardent, so callow, as a whole decide so fairly well the master social problem. The life of Harrimai and his following was very Jewish at Gerash. There was an unusual amount of national pride evinced in that locality for the times. Sir Charleroy was interested deeply in the place because of its splendid ruins, he said, but as need not be explained, chiefly on account of its natural beauties amid which Rizpah was peerless. The Israelitish colony revered the place for its ancient part in Jewish history, and because they believed no Moslem invader had ever defiled the place. The knight and the Jewish father and daughter were in frequent companionship. They were becoming very intimate, meanwhile gaining power each to make the other eventually very miserable.

Rizpah was pushing out in a new experience to her. If she were enamored she did not fully know it. She only knew that the knight’s companionship was very delightful. If she had any misgivings as to the propriety of her course she silenced them by saying to herself: “Sir Charleroy has sworn to leave us forever when I say he shall. I can end this matter any time.” She thought she could, but the shield of her safety was already too heavy for her. She could not have said go, had she tried. Time deepened the perplexity by multiplying the enmeshings of the trio. The knight and Rizpah were much in each other’s society. They spoke of this as being a happy circumstance, as youths usually do. “We shall understand each other so well—too well to misunderstand.” Some of the Jewish young men were jealous and made some very natural remarks, under the circumstances, though the remarks were rather bitter with jealousy. The older people, some of them, anxious for an alliance by marriage with the rich and powerful Harrimai family, took up the undertone complaints of the young people of their race. Of course, the murmurings were cloaked with declarations that they were all for the sake of righteousness! Harrimai, in heart far from assured, was yet compelled to defend the two secretly loving, in order to defend his daughter’s fair fame. The two young people wore the armor of teacher and pupil; the young woman constantly bepraising the knight’s wondrous knowledge of the antiquities, etc., of all the out-of-the-way places they visited. So the meshes multiplied, though the caviling was in part silenced. As teacher and pupil they went on, and Harrimai knew, as did Sir Charleroy, that the relationship had its peril, as it existed between a man and woman who could love yet ought not to love. Rizpah did not at first know how easily a woman’s heart surrenders to a man to whom she is accustomed to look upward. In fact she drifted in a delight in all pertaining to the knight; her only outlook and watchfulness being toward her father. The way the latter at times keenly, silently observed her and the knight made her uneasy. She knew intuitively that not far away there was impending on her father’s part an investigation. She determined to delay, if not prevent it. One day she bounded into her father’s presence, aglow with enthusiasm over the wonders unfolded to her by Sir Charleroy during a visit to the ruins of Gerash’s temple of the sun. The old man was charmed by her description, and when she declared her intention to pursue her investigations beyond their city he hesitated to forbid.

“And now, father, I’m going to that old city of the Giants, Bozrah.”

The father, with an effort at firmness, dissuadingly replied:

“We may all go there, but not now. It is better to bide here quietly, until we learn that the perils of receding war have left assured peace.”

“Why, father, I’m not afraid!”

“I know it; so much the more need for me to be: these over-daring daughters need over-careful guardians. Some of us aged ones are suffered to tarry long from paradise, in order that we may see our darlings in the right path thither.”

“Give me my swift white dromedary and two attendants and I’ll defy the miserables who ambuscade along the way.”

Just then, there dashed toward them, over the oleander-fringed road which passed due north along the little river and across the city, a rider on panting steed.

“It’s the news runner!” said the patriarch.

“Shall we signal him?” she questioned.

“No, daughter, we will meet him yonder, where the two great streets cross. He will await me.”

When the father and daughter arrived, a crowd had already gathered about the horseman. Some pressed him for news, but he looked straight ahead at his horse, now slaking its thirst, and merely snapped out, “News? My beast is thirsty!”

When Harrimai drew near the rider saluted him and at once unfolded his budget: “Father, I’m this day from Bozrah. Its ruins are not ruined. All around there, and from there to here, the herds sleep in the shade, and the carrion birds that have so long been hovering around us for human food have fled back to Egypt and Europe and Hades!”

“Praised be the Father of Israel! I shall live then, as I prayed I might, to see the infidels slung out of our holy places!” So spoke the priest, and as he affectionately embraced some aged Israelites who gathered about him, the horseman responded:

“God reigns and Israel has peace.” He put spurs to his horse then, and dashed away across the river to spread to other hamlets the glorious news.

Next morning Rizpah, having carried her point, was ready to depart for Bozrah. She had taken silence on her father’s part for consent, and pursued her preparations as if it were so ordered. All things being ready she silenced protest by a good-by kiss.

“But daughter! What escort?”

“Ah,” she thought, “victory! I can go if well attended.” She continued aloud; “Perhaps Sir Charleroy’s Egyptian might attend me, since our servants are busy in the groves.” The maiden called to her Ichabod, who had found a home in Harrimai’s establishment, his identity hidden under the assumed name Huykos, a name from the Nile land, meaning “Shepherd King.” “I’ll take it,” said Ichabod, one day to Sir Charleroy, “that all unknown I may follow my pilgrim comrade and perhaps honor my new found ‘Shepherd King.’”

“One will be a meager escort daughter,” interposed Harrimai.

“Oh, fear for me nothing, father. I’ll quickly be at Bozrah, where there are Israelites not a few who will be proud to aid thy daughter.”

“No, daughter it must not be. I’ll call the young men from the vineyard, if thou must go.”

“Another victory,” her heart whispered; then quickly turning to Sir Charleroy she exclaimed, “My father must not call the workmen from their tasks; what sayst thou? Wilt serve us both by joining my body-guard, Ahasuerus? Come, to please my father?”

The knight had hoped for and expected the summons, so needed no urgency and was instantly preparing for the start.

Harrimai was not pleased by the arrangement, and yet he was forced to thank the knight for consenting. His native courtliness compelled this much, and Rizpah’s genius had precluded all gainsaying on his part. And so they rode away, Rizpah in a delight, which she could not clearly define; Sir Charleroy blinded already by the cry that at last led to giant Samson’s blinding, namely: “Get her for me.” Ichabod masked under his name, Huykos, followed after, knowing that the knight was captive to the maid and feeling very happy over the circumstance. As he rode, his mind ran forward to the wedding, and he laughed again and again at the witty things he imagined himself saying at that wedding. Suddenly the scene changed from one of careless delight to one filled with the frights of impending peril. At a turn in the road, from behind a wall, there rose up a company of Mamelukes. Rizpah saw them the instant her companion did and exclaimed, as she half turned her camel:

“Let’s race back to Gerash!”

But four dusky sentinels were behind them. They were surrounded.

“’Tis fight or flight, the latter futile,” whispered the knight. They paused, and Ichabod joined them. Sir Charleroy drawing his sword again spoke: “Comrade it’s a desperate chance; a dozen to two; but we have taken such before together!”

“Let the knight say a dozen to three,” exclaimed Rizpah, as she drew from the folds of her garments a saber before unseen and touched the edge expert-like with her thumb.

“Oh, brave, pure girl! I don’t fear death; I’d court it for thee, but”—Sir Charleroy paused and looked unutterable misery; then instantly recovering and emboldened by the danger that threatened to soon end all, he exclaimed:

“Rizpah, thou rememberest my knight-vow at Purim; thou shalt see how I’ll keep it; if I perish, remember I have loved thee as I never loved any other being.” The words were very vehement, but probably very true. Rizpah blushed, brushed a tear from her eyes and then, in the frankness that such an hour engenders, replied: “And I thee—” the rest was drowned in the wild shout of the Turks as they close about the three. But they had not counted upon such a reception as those two men and that one woman gave them. Ichabod fought like a roused mastiff, without a thought of fear for himself. He struck vehemently, but a calm settled smile was on his countenance. Sir Charleroy saw it and years after said, recalling the incident, “amidst the greatest perils there’s a wondrous peace to one who feels he is striking for God, close to the portals of death and judgment.” The knight himself fenced with the rapidity of lightning. Again and again by ones and twos and threes, the enemies charged down upon him, but he fought with the prowess of a crusader, the fire of a lover. Those parts had never before witnessed such splendid swordsmanship. As the attack had been sudden, so was its ending. Two Turks fell beneath Sir Charleroy’s weapon in quick succession, and a third fell under his own horse, which was desperately wounded by a sweeping blow from the knight. At the same, instant, almost, Ichabod and one of the foemen, whom he was engaging, fell in significant silence, while another struggled to drag Rizpah to his steed that he might make her captive. Sir Charleroy, wounded and faint, dealt the latter miscreant a staggering blow and the maiden, plucking a small dagger from the folds of her garment, finished with a single thrust her captor’s earthly career.

Those of the marauders that were able, in fright took flight, wheeling away more quickly than they had come.

“Rizpah, wilt thou go to Ich—Huykos? I can’t,” softly called out Sir Charleroy.

The maiden flew to the Jew’s side, but quickly started back, crying: “Oh, knight, come quickly! He’s dead!” Just then, looking back, a sudden horror fell upon her, for she saw Sir Charleroy half reclining against a rock, bleeding and pale. Like lightning she thought: “Both dead; I alone; home miles away; the Turks hovering near.”

But the thought of her own peril was only momentary, and after it there came more rapidly than can be written the thought that one dear as her life was dead, dead for her sake. Instantly, on feet that seemed winged, she was at Sir Charleroy’s side. All her being merged into one great, instant impulse to save her lover. Over him she bent, and with passionate sorrow tried with her garments to staunch the flow of blood. In the sincerity and frankness that the presence of death ever brings, she arose above all prudishness and impulsively kissed the cold lips of the knight. His eyes opened, and he faintly murmured:

“I’m so happy, dear Rizpah. I know now it is well.” A little later he murmured: “Flee now for home. Thou’lt reach it by sun down. Leave me. To tarry is to court a harem prison.”

“Hush,” impatiently responded she; “see this dagger?” and she held it close to his half-closed eyes. “My pious father gave it me when I was but a girl. He told me it might some time save me from dishonor. It did so to-day, once. If those black demons return, sure as my name is Rizpah, it will do so again, even though I turn it toward my own heart.”

“Better flee, my love.”

“Not ’till thou can’st go, too.”

“I may die.”

“Then, I’ll go into the shadow land with thee.”

The knight was silent. The pain of his wounds was forgotten in the joy of that lone companionship. But, after all, his mind, perturbed by the shock, the pain, the dangers, was unable to rest. He tried to say to himself the prayer of the dying crusader, but the words were confused. He could not remember many of them; those he remembered, seemed to be unwilling to go heavenward for mercy. Some way in the clearness of judgment as to simple right and wrong that comes to a mind on the confines of death, he found himself condemned. He was haunted by a vision that came to his mind first the day he decided against conviction, at all hazard, to follow the family of Rizpah and Harrimai to Gerash. The vision was that of the false prophet Zedekiah, making himself horns of iron, and with them appearing before the wicked King of Israel, Ahab, to proclaim, not the things of God, but the things the prophet knew would meet the desires of his royal master. The wounded often fall asleep; it’s nature’s way of recovering from a shock and of chaining pain in forgetfulness. Sir Charleroy knew not whether he was sleeping or not; but the vision passed in painful vividness over his mind. He heard the prophet’s voice saying: “Go up to Ramoth Gilead, and prosper.” Then he saw a true prophet of God standing nigh, with sorrowful countenance, and the face was that of the Madonna. The latter moaned in his ear, warningly; “Who shall persuade, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth Gilead? Then there came forth a spirit and said, I will persuade.”

The spirit was black-garbed, in a blood-spotted garment, and wore, as Sir Charleroy seemed to see the apparition, a scarlet crescent, and the knight thought of Astarte. He heard in his vision the beatings as of mighty wings, rising to flight, and tried to turn and see who the departing one was. It seemed as if the spirit of Astarte-like countenance transfixed him with a gaze, so he could not turn; but a loneliness and darkness, almost palpable, came over him, and he knew it was the Madonna-faced prophet that had departed. The knight started up as if to rise, but, awakening, found Rizpah’s restraining arms about him.

“Stay,” she soothingly said. “Thou art feverish, and too weak to rise. Thou’lt be better presently; the blood has ceased flowing.”

“Oh,” he groaned; “I had such a dream!”

Just then Rizpah beheld coming in the distance, from toward Gerash, a horseman, at rapid pace. Her first thought, “The enemy returns.” Her second brought her hand swiftly to her reeking dagger, as she soliloquized: “He’s only one, and I’m one; if but a woman.”

The rider drew nearer, and she was almost overcome with the revulsion from fear and despair; for the comer was Laconic, the “news runner.” He knew the maiden, and wheeling his steed to her side with his usual brevity, cried out:

“Why, didst thou kill both?”

“Shame on thee; ’twas the Arabs!”

“I thought so. I met two horsemen and two riderless steeds, galloping away down the road. I knew they’d been at some devilment.”

“Good runner, in the name of God, speed thee to Bozrah, or somewhere, for help, and bring it quickly.”

“Bring? not so; send. I come not ’till my set day!”

“Any thing; but hurry!”

“Hurry! Yes, hurry! I love hurry.”

He was away like an arrow, in his course. His steed leaped over one of the dead miscreants and Laconic shouted back: “Carrion dinners! Thank God!”

CHAPTER XIII.
FROM RAMOTH GILEAD TO DAMASCUS

For many days Sir Charleroy lay wounded at the house of the Patriarch Harrimai, and she for whom he had periled his life was his constant attendant. He sorely needed her services, and all Gerash, the priest included, conceded the fitness of Rizpah’s rendering the aid she was able to render. The maiden was all willing to minister, and as she ministered her interest in the man deepened. When she began to look up to him as her teacher before the battle with Mamelukes, she began a sort of worship; when she saw him fighting to the death in her behalf, her worship became an engrossing adoration. If there had been any thing more required in order to enlist all the affection of which her being was capable, these opportunities of administering to her suffering lover furnished it. As God loves because He has helped a needy one, so a woman’s heart easily flows out toward the object for whom she has performed pious services. On the other hand, Sir Charleroy was more and more enchanted, for there is life and charm beyond all description to the touch of the queen of a man’s heart when he is in trouble or pain.

Rizpah, in woman’s most queenly garb, the one appointed her at her creation, that of “help-mate,” was beautiful indeed, and queenly indeed, to the man whose heart had enthroned her. When alone, they treated each other with the frank, earnest tenderness, fitting as well as natural, to the betrothed. Though they did not admit it even to themselves, they had fully determined to be one, at all peril, in spite of any opposition, reason approving or disapproving. They often said to one another, “Our betrothal taking place at the very gates of death was therefore a very solemn one that nothing on earth can annul.” The sentiment was perfect and very agreeable; and with them a beautiful and agreeable sentiment became as controlling as if it were a revelation from heaven. In this, they were perfectly human. They even persuaded themselves of God’s favor, thanking Him for what they were pleased to call His Providence, namely the peril and long sickness leading to the betrothal and days of love-life together. They were right in conceding that God’s hand was in the battle; but they were impious in interpreting His Providence to be fully in accord with their desires. In this, too, they were very human. But there were shadows about them; for while at times they drifted along on prismatic tides of Lethean delights, there were other times when they remembered that there was to come a day of explanation, with probable following storms. Both were glad and sorry at once, in view of each day’s improvement of the knight’s physical condition. Convalescent, they both realized, meant a great change in their relationship; perhaps a long separation. Their anxiety was deepened by a change in the demeanor of Rizpah’s father. His eyes no longer questioningly followed the young people; but his words, uttered in tones of steelly coldness and very deliberately, bespoke discovery, conviction, conclusion and determination. One sentence often addressed to the lovers, was to them like the rumblings of an approaching, gathering storm. “Our friend is improving, and I’m very glad that he will be able soon to go to his own dear people.” The lovers discerned a peculiar emphasis on the words “I’m glad” and “his own dear people.” The politic priest, having read, as from an open book, the heart-secret of the young people, was awaiting with self-confidence an opportunity to confound them utterly. The crisis came one Sabbath morning, just after the morning meal of the convalescent. Harrimai had paid his usual visit and uttered his steelly sentences. This time the words seemed especially cruel to Rizpah, for she was nervous, indeed ill; the prolonged services and anxieties she had experienced of late were telling on her strength. As Harrimai departed, she gave way to a flood of tears. Rizpah was not wont to weep, nor was Sir Charleroy skilled in comforting; but both he and she were lovers, hence it seemed very natural to her frankly to pillow her head on the knight’s shoulder, and very natural to him to seek to comfort with a tenderness all new to him. Had one asked Rizpah if she were going back to babyishness, or forward toward heaven, she could not have answered. Had one asked the knight if he were becoming motherly, or turning priest, he could not have answered. He felt very tender, and his work of comforting seemed like an act of high piety. Both were glad of the tears which brought the joy of comforting and being comforted, then, there and that way. They were passing into a superb mood when quite unexpectedly to them, but quite expectedly to himself, Harrimai suddenly re-entered the apartment. He expected to surprise them and he did so, thoroughly. The scene following was exciting, dramatic and decisive.

Rizpah, with a slight scream, disengaged herself from Sir Charleroy’s embrace, and hid her face in her hands. The eyes of the knight and priest met; neither quailed; both remained for a few moments silent; but their fixed gaze said plainly enough, each to each, “We must have a settlement here and now!” Harrimai spoke first, addressing himself to his daughter: “Young woman, this conduct is immodest and disgraceful! In a Hebrew maiden, heaven defying! I’ll speak to thee further of this presently. Now, begone, and leave me to deal with this man!” Harrimai made arrogant by his profession and the implicit obedience he had been wont to receive from his followers, expected to fill the young people with dismay by the suddenness of his assault. But Rizpah, though young, was no tongue-tied spring, and Sir Charleroy of Gerash was still Sir Charleroy of Acre.

The words “dishonorable,” “immodest,” stung the maiden; sullenly, defiantly almost, she settled back in her seat and leaned toward the knight, as if to say, “I cast my lot with this man.” Her eyes plainly, angrily said to the man whom all her life hitherto she had reverently obeyed, “Now do thy worst.” It was impious, passionate, love going headlong from filial duty and religious instruction to the shrine of Astarte. The parent was chagrined at this unexpected repulse, but with his usual adroitness pretending not to notice it, he turned to the knight. “Stranger, this outrage excuses abruptness on my part; who art thou?”

Sir Charleroy arose from his hammock, the excitement and shock of the rencounter finishing his recovery, by rousing all the machineries of his system into normal activities.

“Sir Priest, I’ve nothing to conceal. I love the truth and this maiden too well to lie—I am a Christian knight.”

“I knew it; but thy confession shortens our parley. Now, ‘Christian knight,’ tell me why thou didst attempt to allure to thyself the affections of a mere girl; a Jewish maiden whom thou canst never hope to wed? Dost thou so pay our hospitality; setting at defiance parental authority and our Jewish laws? Dost thou under the favors of this house intrigue to quench all its light?”

“Thou brandst that girl and me with the epithet ‘dishonorable;’ and thou a priest! Men of thy holy calling should never slander, especially not their own kin and strangers.” The knight was livid, but not with fear.

“Can an Israelite slander Crusaders? these professors of high religion, these followers of an impostor, these enemies of my people, these practicers of intrigues, races, jousts, gluttonies and drunkenness; men whose sole serious business is murderous war? Tell me?”

The knight’s face flushed a little, but with complete self-control he replied:

“Some of my comrades have been unworthy men, ’tis true; but some Jews have fallen to every crime and violence. Have all fallen? Thou hast not, perhaps! Shall all be maligned for the few? What says Harrimai?”

“Thou art of those, who come to thrust us out of our land and thrust in here a hated creed!”

“I am of those who live to serve the needy and erring.”

“To the proof; I’ve heard from thy clans only of bloodshed.”

“Our order sprung up four hundred years ago, under the stirring appeals of religionists as pious and humane as thou; or any of thy kind since Aaron. We were begotten in a time when grim famine made the well-fed wondrous kind. Those hours that make men universally akin.”

“Go on; ‘Christian knight,’ I’d like a lesson of that sort.”

“Then remember Noah’s covenant of peace. On our banners often we have our spirit expressed by a dove flying toward a tempest-tossed ark; in the messenger’s beak an olive branch; around the whole the bow of promise.”

“Well what of all this?”

“The ark is the world; the rest is plain.”

“Oh, a charming theory,” sarcastically responded Harrimai.

“I wear it next my heart;” so saying the knight threw aside his cloak and drew from around his body a banner he had hitherto concealed. “See here, ‘chastity,’ ‘temperance,’ ‘courtesy.’ Our mottoes in peace or war! Women, children and pilgrims, in a word the needy the world around, are the wards of all true Christian knights!”

“Mottoes! words! Oh, yes, words! But then the Crusaders have used swords! Their words I’ll meet with words to their confounding, nor while I live will I forget their cruel weapons.” So saying the priest swept out of the sick chamber in manifest rage.

He returned in a moment, and with the self-command of wrath, conscious of power, said: “Thou wouldst make all men akin! Thou and thine are dreamers, the world thinks; to-day it laughs to scorn this bootless pursuit of a chimera. Leave us forthwith and in the peace that thou foundst here. When the kinship is reality, thou mayst come to us for further talk; ’till then remember thou art a Christian, I a Jew!”

“Thou art religious! Heavens! what a tender shepherd.”

Harrimai was very much angered, but he retorted with self-control; “Oh, yes, and the God of all hath seven garments. In creation, honor and glory; in providence, majesty; as lawgiver, might and whiteness; of spotless light when he appears as a Saviour. He is clad with zeal when he punishes, and with blood red when He revenges. I would be like Him. By the glory of God! thou follower of Nazereth’s Impostor, sooner than suffer thy blood to contaminate my family lines, I’d hew thee to pieces as Agag was hewn! Rizpah, thou knowest me; wed him and thou’lt be widowed, though carrying the unborn; though widow-hood broke thy heart. I’d rather a thousand times see thee lying dead by thy true Jewish mother than——.” The priest, in a tumult of fanatical passion mingled with the grief of offended pride, lacked for words to express the climax of his feelings; so covering his tearless eyes, as one weeping, he rushed out from those he had assailed. He persuaded himself that he had spoken all for the glory of God; the lovers thought of their solemn betrothal and their love which they were certain was as fine as any earth ever knew, and they felt that they were martyrs. Both sides appealed to God and in a spirit very ungodly, but very human, braced themselves for opposing war.

When the maiden became somewhat calm, Sir Charleroy found words to question:

“Harrimai cannot find heart to blast his idol’s happiness! He does not mean all he said?”

“Alas, he does. It’s part of the Patriarch’s religion to hate such as thou, as he does. He means more, if possible, than he spoke. Our people unveil the bosom and cover the mouth; thine cover the bosom and unveil the mouth. Ye talk, we burn.”

“Has pure love like ours no sanctity in his sight?”

“Alas, he can not believe any love pure that is between Gentile and Israelite. He was sneering at ours a few evenings ago, when he remarked as we were looking at the stars, ‘Hyperius or Venus of the evening is mistakenly called the star of love. Lucifer of the morning is the true emblem of most young love. It rises in maddening brightness, but fades out of sight very soon.’”

“Grim omen! We took Venus for our betrothal star; they say it is so bright at times that it casts a shadow. I feel its shadow now,” said the knight, meditating.

“Yes, shadows and shadows!” exclaimed Rizpah, with a flood of tears, and she swayed back and forth as she wept. She was driven by tempests of fear that made her ready to flee, and held by anchors of passionate loving that made her ready to brave all fears; therefore the swaying and weeping. At intervals the two communed and debated concerning the one all-engrossing theme, their future course.

“Rizpah,” comfortingly spoke the knight, “when in the greatest peril of our lives, we were drawn, by danger, closer to each other.” There was a glance of entreaty in her eyes as if to say, “Go save thy life and let the Jewish maiden die alone;” but the knight drew her to his bosom, and she responded by an embrace of passionate clinging.

“I go from Rizpah only at her command or death’s,” said the knight solemnly.

The maiden shuddered, and again passionately clung to her lover. He interpreted her action, and again comfortingly spoke:

“Fear not; earth has somewhere a refuge for us until death call us!”

“Somewhere? What, go away?”

“Yes. It is that or separation.”

She knew that full well. But to flee from home with the knight, the alternative presented to her mind, startled her. At first thought it seemed a reckless, perilous, unfilial, God-defying act; then it seemed attractive because so daring. A tumult of arguments questionings, fears and yearnings mingled in her mind. She had never learned to arrange arguments, pro and con, judicially. What woman whose feelings were aroused ever did that?

He pressed on her flight, enforcing each reason presented with an affectionate embrace; her tongue spoke not, but her embraces replied to each of his. She had a conscience, and it asserted itself until she placated it by a half formed resolution to be very prudent and do nothing rashly. The resolution comforted her at first; then she began to follow it, mentally, to its sequence. She thought of her father praising her piety as her purpose was disclosed. Something within, coming like a voice from her heart, mockingly whispered “Go on.” She pursued the meditations, and heard, in imagination, her neighbors praising her as a martyr of love for faith’s sake. Again the mocking inner voice said, “Go on.” Again her thoughts moved forward until she saw that conscience was driving her to separation from Sir Charleroy; in a word, making her walk in a funeral procession, her own dead heart on the bier. The thought made her shudder and recoil; then the knight’s arms encircled her more closely than before. Again and again she took the foregoing mental journey, again and again recoiled, shuddering from the alternative of separation from her lover, and at each recoil felt his grateful embrace. Each time she traversed the mental course the journey toward duty by the privation of love seemed more onerous. Distaste was followed by repugnance; then utter weariness. At last, utterly wretched, her purposes and perceptions fell into hopeless confusion, and she exclaimed “Charleroy, Charleroy, save me!”

The knight was at a loss to divine fully her meaning, yet tenderly he answered:

“Save Rizpah? She knows I’d do that in death’s teeth!”

“Oh, Charleroy, ’tis not death, but life, that I fear. How shall I live?”

Quickly he ejaculated:

“With me, forever, and safe!”

The maiden remembering many an admonition she had heard concerning the inconstancy of lovers, yet driven forward by the all-abandoning love of her woman’s heart, gave voice to all she felt and feared in one vehement interrogation:

“Oh, Charleroy, if I forsake all for my love of thee shall I ever be discarded by——?”

The knight interpreted her meaning in advance, and answered by an embrace that was all-assuring. He was rejoiced beyond words, for he knew full well that hesitation and questionings like hers were on the rim of full surrender. Suddenly he became very serious and felt that peculiar glow that came over him the day of his departure from England when the bishop blessed him. He appreciated in a measure the responsibility following such a committal of another’s life to himself as Rizpah was making, and he embraced her with an anxious reverence, such as a pietist feels clasping an ideal of his God. It was well for both that the man was thus impressed by the committal of that maiden of her soul and body to his pilotage. Pity the woman who reaches the extremity Rizpah had reached if her conqueror be not white-souled and sincere.

Rizpah an incarnation of passion, a wreath of lotus flowers on a sea of delight, tossed by the winds, borne by the tides, surrendered all thoughts that might disturb, that she might enjoy what she had embraced as her fate to the full.

Sir Charleroy constantly prayed within himself, “My mother’s God help me to deal as purely with my sacred charge as I would with the Virgin Patron of my knightly order, were she here now to seek my knightly services.” The prayer was effectual, for the Knight sincerely sought to make it so.

Decisive action followed this interview between the lovers. That very night they fled together from Gerash, and with only one trusty servant; after many vicissitudes they reached Damascus. For a time Rizpah placated her conscience by asserting that she would not consent to the wedding ceremonial until it could have her father’s approval, or that of some Jewish Rabbi. Finding it impossible to obtain these, she irresolutely suggested the advisability of delaying until some change, quite vaguely apprehended, might come. But there were two Rizpah’s—one that wanted to be a faithful Jewess, and one that wanted only and constantly a darling idol. Sir Charleroy sided with the latter; it was two to one, and the one surrendered. Ere long a Christian missionary at Damascus sealed the vows. They confided their story to him, as if to ask his advice as to what they had best do, but with the impetuosity of lovers they had decided their course before they asked advice, and did not even ask it until they had pledged their vows before this priest. But it was a balm to conscience to ask advice. And the Sacrist answered them briefly: “Venus and Mercury, fabled deities of love and wisdom. They are much alike in the firmament, and revolve in orbits in accord with the earth’s. Methinks it is wisdom to love in the earth. But, children, Venus sets sooner than Mercury; see to it that you make it your wisdom to love as long as you go round with the world.” Then they both said “Amen.” For a moment Sir Charleroy heard within him that impressive sound as of the beating of mighty, departing wings. He dragged his attention quickly from the introspection to gaze into the eyes of his bride. He was glad that a Christian priest had prayed for a blessing upon himself and her, but all sophistry aside, the truth remained. Astarte’s was the presiding spirit at that wedding.

CHAPTER XIV.
THE THEATER OF GIANTS.

For a brief period the delightful seasons, the famed rivers, the stately surrounding mountains, the paradisiacal plains, the antiquities, the pleasure gardens and palaces of the city of Damascus, whose name by interpretation is “change,” offered sought-for gratification to the knight and his bride. Harrimai died suddenly after the elopement of his child, the only person on earth whom he truly loved, the only one that had ever successfully defied his mandates. He had purposed disinheriting her for her act, but before he could execute that purpose, death disinherited him. Some said that he died of a broken heart; the physicians said he was taken off by a fit; Sir Charleroy said he died because his proud will was crossed. Rizpah inherited a fortune that helped both her and her husband to forget the old priest’s maledictions by enabling them to enjoy all there was to be enjoyed in Damascus, “the eye of the East.” They gave up unreservedly to pleasure, and centered the world more and more in themselves. Sir Charleroy did this easily, reasoning that, having had so many pains, he was entitled to compensating pleasures. He heard from England; and the news was to the effect that there had been changes and changes in his native land. Many of those he once knew, including his mother, were dead; and he himself was forgotten as dead. Sententiously, bitterly he summed up his feelings: “They thought me dead, and, my mother and her fortune being gone, did not care to find out whether I was dead or not; therefore let them think as they thought.” Rizpah feared the lashings of conscience, and, having given up every thing once dear to enter the life she had, courted forgetfulness of the past, pleasure for the present. The two had within themselves exuberant youth, a wealth of possibilities of happiness; the elements that, like the abundance of the volcano, paints the sky gorgeously when rising heavenward; like it, in the downward course, followed by darkness and disaster. The two, differing in almost every thing but fervor of temperament, were in accord in pursuit of change; they persuaded themselves that they were growing to be like each other, when they were only exalting the one thing, love of excitement, in which they were alike.

Damascus, naturally, in time, became uninteresting and vapid to them both. They wore it out; they wanted new scenes. They heard that a caravan of Mohammedan pilgrims was to pass through their city on the way to Mecca to procure besim balm and holy chaplets, and promptly determined to journey with it; but not to Mecca. The caravan was to pass through Bashan, and the two excitement-seekers desired to visit the latter land of wonders. They readily garbed themselves as Mohammedans, though once they would have loathed such garbing as a defilement. They desired company toward Bashan, and since the time they defied their consciences in order to be wedded to each other, their consciences had been wont to be very submissive in the face of their desires. They explained to themselves the absence of qualms of conscience in the face of a pretense of being Moslems, as the result of a growth toward liberality on their part. The explanation made them comfortably complacent, although the fact was that they had passed far beyond liberalism toward nothingism.

Passing Musmeth and Khubat of the Argob, they tarried after a time at Edrei, just inside the shore line of that mysterious black, lava sea, the Lejah. They were in a country where nature, art and desolation had done their greatest. Following a passing impulse seemed to them to have brought them thither, but one believing in God’s constant providence will readily believe that they were led thither as to a school. There were omen and prophecy confronting them. These fervent souls had gone from hymen’s altar filled with romancings, under a glow of prismatic auroras, never pausing to perceive that from each wedding time there winds a troop of serious years burdened with many a commonplace duty. Their love had been volcanic, their impulses ecstatic, their aims toward things filled with commotion. The wine in their cup was to leave dregs; after the fire there was to be ashes, and it was fitting that they contemplated a specimen of great desolation and dreariness, the result of great fires and great storms. So they were within that wonder of the world, three hundred and fifty square miles of awful plain, filled with ruined towns and cities. Heaved up here and there by jutting basalt rocks, the plain seemed filled with black ice-bergs; ridged at intervals the plain suggested an ocean wave-tossed. Therein is many a cave and cranny place, fit abode for the wild beast or robber; fit abode for ghosts, if one seeks to believe there are such. But therein were only a few green spots, oases, to bid the traveler welcome. Ere long the knight and his consort wore out the Lejah, and, in so doing, in part, wore out themselves. They had a fullness of the pleasure of the kind which lacks recreation. As it was, they stayed there longer than it was well for them to stay.

Rizpah, the passion flower of Gerash, experiencing the supreme exaction of womanhood now, began to droop. Months spent in pursuit of excitement, the great change in her manner of life, as well as the oppressive desolations of her surroundings, had drawn heavily upon her resources physically. Reaction after exaltation, and nervous discord after nervous tension are natural results, always.

The knight discerned the change of temper, and as an anxious novice went about correcting the matter. He knew little concerning woman, except that love of her intoxicates; delighting in the intoxication he sought to stimulate Rizpah’s flagging energies by pushing her onward into the feverish brilliancy that was so delightful to himself. It was an attempt to cure physical impoverishment by the renewal of its causes. She was at times complacent, because incompetent to resist; passive, because enervated. He was most selfish, though not realizing the fact, when trying to be most tender. In fact, the twain were on the rim of a test period in their married life and being unskilled in its common places, unfitted to stand the test. Sir Charleroy had recourse to the only physician he deemed adequate; one whom on account of his dress he called “Old Sheepskin.” This was a guide, with a motly group of Druses assistants, and an unpronouncible name.

“Come, Rizpah, ‘Old Sheepskin Jacket’ has put on his red tunic and leathern girdle to carry us a camel voyage in-sea; if we do not give the man a job he’ll fall to stealing again.”

Rizpah languidly shook her head.

“But we must patronize the man to keep up what little honesty he has, and he has some. He told me but yesterday he’d rather work than rob—though the pay be less, so is the danger less.”

The knight was telling the truth as well as trying to be facetious.

Again Rizpah replied with a weary shake of the head, her hands rising deprecatingly, then falling into her lap as if almost nerveless.

“But, Rizpah, while we are here we ought to fully explore the changeless cities of this dead, black, lava sea. There are none other like this on earth! ’Tis nature’s desperate effort to outrun phantasmagoria.”

Rizpah shook her head and waved her hands; this time vehemently, as if to repel a horror.

“What? A fixed no?”

“No more excursions into this counterpart of hades for me.”

“Well, so be it to-day, at least,” with surrendering tones, the knight replied.

“To-day? All days! Oh, God, remove me from this nightmare!”

So exclaiming, the woman covered her eyes, shuddered and wept hysterically.

Sir Charleroy was almost overcome with sudden amazement. The tears, the terror, the complete change before him, were beyond his comprehension. After a time he again spoke: “Why, this is a sudden freak or frenzy. I thought Rizpah fascinated here!”

“I’ve had my notice from the dread spirits that infest the place to go! Didst thou note what dark and threatening clouds dipped down like vultures upon me when we were last there?” vehemently Rizpah replied.

“I only saw a threatening of rain that came not. It seldom rains in the Lejah.”

“There was rain enough in my poor, shivering, weeping heart!”

“But, I wonder, Rizpah, thou didst not tell me of these feelings before!”

“I could not confide then; I was too jealous!”

“Jealous? What a word! But of whom, me?”

“I can never forget that thy union with me has made thee alien to thy people and in part neglectful of the faith for which thou didst once fight bravely. I can not forget that the Teutonic knight was the devotee of a bepraised Lady Mary. I thought of this that black day, and I felt as if those dry, grim clouds were her frowns. It was thou, my Christian husband, who named the Lejah, ‘Tartarus,’ and it has been such for some time to me. Its sight has constantly burned me with remorse! That day it seemed to me thy Mary pitied thee and blamed me! I writhed under the thought! I, for a moment, hated her. I felt like climbing some height, and, club in hand with defiant curses, challenging her right to have a finer care of thee than I have. I’d have done it, if thou hadst not been here to laugh at the folly of my frenzy. Ah, husband, if she is or was all that thou dost depict her, she can not love me, and thou must contrast us to my disparagement. I can not forget that thou wert a Christian soldier; sworn to war for her and her son; now thou art wedded to me, a daughter of her and His persecutors!”

“Why, Rizpah, thy changing moods are appalling; thou dost beat the magicians who conjure up the dead, since thou dost create out of nothing the most hideous ghosts to haunt thyself—Maya! Maya!”

“Oh, yes, I know ‘Maya,’ wife of Brahm, by interpretation ‘illusion.’ A myth, as a gibe, has a sharp point, effective because so difficult to parry. But, alas, ridicule, though it easily tear to pieces delusion, is powerless to disperse the gloom that sits in a soul as mine.”

“I’ll not ridicule my Rizpah, but I would bring her light.”

“Ah? That is, resurrect the peace thou didst murder?”

“Show me one wound my hand has made and I’ll abjectly beg all pardons, attempt any atonement!”

“Dost thou, knight, remember the ruins of the Christian church of Saint George, at Edrei?”

“Certainly.”

“And thy conversation there?”

“Yes, that Saint George was England’s patron saint famed for having slain the dragon which imperiled a king’s daughter.”

“More thou didst say; thou didst expatiate on the princess, saying her name was Alexandra, meaning, ‘friend of mankind’; further, thou saidst there was a queenly woman by name, Mary, daughter of the King of Kings, friend beyond all women of humanity, for whom every true knight was willing to be a Saint George.”

“True enough; but to what purport now is this reminiscence?”

“Thou saidst Saint George was loyal to the death to his faith, and died a martyr!”

“True again. What of it?”

“Was the Teutonic knight thinking of himself as a martyr because wed to a Jewess? I followed thy thoughts, though they were not all spoken. How naturally that day thou didst tell me of thy visions which thou hadst between Gerash and Bozrah when wounded nigh to death. The English saint, knight, very loyal to creed, rebuked in his dreams, by the beating of mighty wings, the departing of his heart’s rose! Oh, why didst thou not tell me this before it was too late! I would have helped thee escape the ingenuous Jewess Thou didst awaken then with dread bleeding, to find thyself pillowed upon the bosom of a simple-hearted loving girl; I now awaken, wounded indeed, but with none to staunch the wounding! Why, de Griffin, didst thou keep this secret so long? Why unfold it now?”

“I’d be the Saint George of Rizpah and slay her dragon, gloom.”

“Poor comfort to offer since the gloom is beyond thy powers! Flout my mood as thou mayst; what use? I vainly denounce it. Thou hast had thy dream; now I’m having mine. I’ll not mock thy insights; thou canst not by bantering jeer change mine. My Lejah omens assure me that I’m to have a rain of tears and more; some way thy Mary will be their cause.”

“Rizpah errs; the queen I revere was a living epistle of good will; her character the joy and inspiration of all women, especially of those in tribulation. But enough! Rizpah, being a Jew, should abhor the necromancy of omens!”

“Jew! Ah, yes; I was once! But the valiant English knight lured me into his Christian love and my race’s hate. I had once the luxurious faith of a pious girl; all feeling, all flowers; too young to reason, but young enough to love the good and beautiful unto salvation. The knight poisoned the blossoms before they ripened by the acids of ridicule! There is a loss beyond repair and a bitter memory, that of a broken promise; under our love-star thou didst swear thou wouldst never lightly treat my believing. Venus has set, Mercury is rising; but wisdom brings a burning glare. The promise that the knight failed to keep was made when I was, he said his idol; now I’m only his wife!”

“Rizpah exchanges the glory of the rose for the bitter gray of the wormwood.”

“I’m thy handiwork; now mock the result, if to do so comforts thee.”

“My handiwork!”

“Yes, fool!”

“These words are awful.”

“I think so and I hate them; though I can not check them. I hate my temper and even myself when in such present moods. De Griffin, pray as thou didst never pray before, that I do not learn to hate thee. I pity thee, because I’ve some love left.”

“Pity?”

“Yes, when I imagine thee wriggling beneath the malignant detestation of which I know I shall soon be capable.”

“My wife, in God’s dear name, banish these moods! They are impious, unnatural; the crisis of thy being falsely accuses thy heart. Be calm!”

“Calm? ‘Be calm!’ Very good; calm me, please, if thou canst. Oh, why didst thou make me thus?”

“The God of all peace forgive me if I did, Rizpah.”

“Thou wert the elder and shouldst have known?”

“What?”

“That to unsettle a woman’s faith, if she be such as I, is to let loose a bundle of blind vagaries and to tumble her, like a drifting wreck, on unknown shores.”

“Oh, wife, as thou hopest for heaven and lovest our unborn child, restrain these moods. Thou’lt mark the one to be, with germs of all evil; for such outbursts of mothers re-act with awful effect upon their offspring. Thou knowest how the old nurse, at Damascus, killed a babe in an instant, merely by giving it her breast after she had yielded to an outbreak of passion. Such tempers hurl poison through all the being!”

“Alas, knight, that all this prudence ever comes just a little too late!”

“What could I have done better?”

“Left the little maid of Harrimai’s home free from thy enchantments and to the quiet of her people’s state.”

“But I loved thee so. That atones for all.”

“Thou thoughtst thou lovedst, but ’twas my form which fascinated thee, not my mind nor soul!” Rizpah’s face became ashen pale, her eyes had a far-off gaze and were steelly, as she began plaintively to repeat the words, “‘There were giants in the earth.... They saw the daughters of men, Adamish, that they were fair and they took them for wives of all they chose, and they bore children and it repented the Lord that He had made man, for He saw that the wickedness was great in the earth.’ Thou wast my giant-lofty. Thou stolest my heart and body. Now for a flood to punish the sin, and my tears are already its first droppings.”

“We are wed; shall we not now make the best of it? Even when into this mystic alliance unmated lives converge, they can still with wisdom extract from it at least peace. Go fervently, firmly, back to the faiths of thy girlhood; become again all thou wert, except that thou be ever mine.”

“Ah, ha! how little, after all, thou knowest of woman’s heart? Thou wouldst command it do and be; and go and come, wouldst thou? Thinkst thou, thou canst make such heart as mine wild with the strange intoxications of unholy fire, filling the brain above it with all the clouds, weird longings, doubtings and misgivings, that fume up from that fire, and then send that heart back without a compass, chart, sail or helm, to find the haven? Send it lashed by remorse part of the time, part of the time half dead to all feeling, and all the time blind, to hunt up lost creeds.”

“But God provided an ark; let us ask Him to aid us build one in a home, with happy parents and happy children. Thou readst to me, but yesterday, the Prophets’ beautiful description of a lamp burning with oil supplied from two palm trees; one on either side. I’ll interpret; the trees are parents, the lamp the light of home, manifest in posterity, reproduction; a prophecy of the resurrection.”

“Beautiful mysticism. But the giantesque men rose to play at lust, just beside Sinai of the law.”

“Not so I, the Teutonic knight, now the husband. Rizpah; thy desperate misery appeals to all my manhood. I swear to thee I’d turn my heart’s blood into the oil to cause our home to glow with the serene light of holy happiness.”

“Words, words; how sad, because so beautiful, yet so vain!”

“Oh Rizpah,” cried the knight, too anxious to be angry, though the woman’s words were stinging, “thy looks startle me! Pray God to rest and hold thy worried soul.”

“Pray? I have tried, often of late, to pray, but I do not know how. I fear thou hast stolen even that power from me! Ugh! the last time I prayed, my words seemed like black cormorants rising with loads of carrion; then falling struck dead by the sun, into great black caves, such as abound in our Lejah hell! I heard my words flung back at me in mockery. Pray? I dare not, lest God strike me dead for a hypocrite and a heretic!”

“But my poor, dear wife,” soothingly said Sir Charleroy, “He is merciful.”

“Oh, yes, to the good and the faithful; I’m neither! I gave Him up for a man, as the Adamish men gave him up for women. I madest thou my God, and now have none other; for He of the heavens is very holy, but very jealous!”

“Rizpah, Rizpah, do not thus give way to these wild imaginations.”

“Give way? Alas, all is already given away; soul and body were on an idolatrous altar long ago. I’m buried in the ashes!”

“But Rizpah, trust my love: I’ll help thee back to peace and usefulness.”

“Bah! the masculine great I——”

“Heavens! woman, is there any love in a heart that so hurls javelins?”

“I don’t know! I suppose so, for I pity thee.”

“Pity me?”

“Yes; when I think as I do at times, that thy wife is turning into a devil, a very devil! Sir Charleroy de Griffin, knight of St. Mary, dost hear me? A devil, a raging devil, and one that will pity while she assails.” The last sentence was almost screamed, then the woman fell on the rug of their apartment and wept convulsively. After a little there was the silence of exhaustion, of chagrin, of shame. Sir Charleroy stood by the prostrate form and with words half commanding said: “Let us ride out a little way.” He was trying a new strategy.

“No, no, no! Thou’lt take me to the Lejah, and I shall see that dread omen again.”

“What?” As he questioned he raised the woman tenderly from the floor.

“The lava desert, in long rolling waves, black and drear.”

“Ah, Rizpah, thou knowest that it was only thy unreined fancy, heated by morbid broodings, that changed the eternally-fixed furrows of the plain, overshadowed by running clouds into threatening billows! God and the sun are above all clouds and behind every anxious heart. Look up; look in, until thy soul finds Him; then the horror of darkness will die away.”

“Oh, how thy comfortings hurt me, because I do not believe in thee, nor believe thee! Thou sayst that thou didst abandon thy Christian, perfect queen of women, for me. I know thou must be chagrined at the bad exchange! I can not honor nor trust the faithfulness of one so fickle. No matter for that, but what comes after is worse. Those black sky-drapings were over the Lejah that day because I was there. I know—I know there’s a tide of sorrow rolling toward me. I see it as I saw those black, serpent-like, lava waves. But, oh, the suspense! It’s awful; let the worst come if only soon!” The knight, sworn to protect helpless women, saw himself disarmed and powerless to aid the one woman of earth for whom he would have died.

Two giants at bay in Giant Land, where another mold of gianthood had died leaving nothing but monuments to attest the greatness of the failure. The two knew only this, that they were very miserable and powerless, by any means accustomed, to extricate themselves.

Sir Charleroy wished and wished, in his soul, that his patron saint and queen of women would appear and tell both what to do. He unconsciously was turning his mind’s eye in the right direction. Husband and wife both believed there was a right way, a pattern of right, and an ideal of heaven, but they could not lay hold of them. Giant, crusader and husband, each in turn strove in his day at the same spot, and at the same point failed.

Sir Charleroy, in mind, went out along a strangely beset line of thinking. Sometimes he pitied himself, and that brought the balm of conceit. He remembered it was a fine thing to be a martyr, forgetting that some, rewardless, suffer as sinners. Sometimes he heard those beatings of mighty wings, as if some wondrous holy one were departing. Then he became very penitent and full of the entreatings of prayer. Either mood was brief enough to him not yet converted; a very Peter in vacillations. Whether he would finally follow the beating wings or sit down nigh to the gates of certain insanity, the gates that those who over-much pity themselves are sure to reach, was the issue in his life then. The bugles of war call few to the heroism of the field, but millions are daily called by God’s bugle to the better achievements which make for glory amid the duties of common life. That latter bugle was calling him, but he was slow to obey, or understand even.

The events recorded in the foregoing pages roused Sir Charleroy to an anxious effort to do something to change the currents of his wife’s thoughts. Necessity quickened his discernment, and though he had had but little experience in dealing with those ill in the body or mind, he quickly concluded that a change of place and a change of pursuit would be beneficial. In truth, his own feelings attested this much. He himself was weary of the pursuit of excitement as a sole and constant occupation.

“Shall we leave the Lejah, Rizpah?” he questioned, a few days after the outbreak before mentioned.

“Yes, I say!—I’m leaving it! See here,” and she pointed to her cheeks, once ruddy, now haggard. “Oh, Charleroy, take me away or death will!”

“Enough! We’ll go. But where?”

“Any place under heaven; say the word and I’ll run out of the place instantly, leaving all here.”

“What, our effects!”

“Any thing to get away. I feel like a child approached by some monster terror, hour by hour! For days I’ve been transfixed by my fear or I would have run away, even alone, before this. Now thy words break the spell! Come, let us go before I’m overcome again!”

“There, now, be calm. No more of this undue nervousness. We’ll go, and soon. What says Rizpah to Bozrah, southward of Bashan?”

“Yes, to Bozrah; historic Bozrah!” and the face of the woman brightened as she went on: “It was the fairy land of my youth. I’ve wanted to go there since I was a wee little thing, scarce able to walk.” Then the woman unbent and talked with the rapture of a child:

“Oh; I’ve wanted to see Bozrah all my life, since the days when my old nurse used to talk me to sleep with stories of Og and his bedstead nine cubits long, and how our little Hebrew, Moses, overcame those Rephaim.”

“Thy prophets and psalmists, as well as thy nurses, were wont to go into rapturous descriptions of the lofty oaks, loftier mountains, ragged plains, marvelous pastures and goodly herds of the Hauran and Trachonitis.”

Rizpah continued in gleeful strain: “Oh, those herds; if I can’t see old Og, I’d like to see the famous bulls of Bashan! Show me something huge, no matter how huge, if alive and not black! I’m becoming infatuated with the strong and the large. If ever I lose my soul it will be by worshiping, pagan-like, something mightier than I can imagine; of body or muscle. Yes, yes, I’ll be a thorough pagan since I can not be a Jew nor a Christian! Now, I forewarn thee.” So saying she laughed merrily. The knight was rejoiced to hear the musical, natural laughter again, and encouraged the play of her wit, which attested a mind unbending to rest.

“Woman-like, adoring the huge when the grand can not be found. Thank God, the giants are all dead; there are none at Bozrah, at least. I’ll not fear the little dirty Arabs, or pigmy Druses as supplanters.”