"Never anything like that."
Laodice, with this hope gone, let her face fall into her hands.
"His fortune given freely to Israel," she groaned. "His whole life's
ambition reduced to material form for the help of his brethren--gone,
gone!"
The shepherd grew instantly distressed. He looked at Momus and asked
in a whisper what had happened. But the old servant signed to his lips
irritably, and stroked his young mistress' hair in a dumb effort to
comfort her. The silence grew painful. In his anxiety to relieve them,
he bethought him of their uncovered heads and houseless state.
"Do you live in the village; or do you camp near by?"
Momus shook his head. Laodice appreciated the boy's concern for them
but could not make an attempt to explain.
"Then," he offered promptly, "come have my fire and my rock. It is the
best rock in all these hills; and my tent," he added, showing the
skins that wrapped him. "I wear my tent; it saves my carrying it.
Indeed I do not need it; you may have it. Come!"
He spoke hurriedly, as if he would thrust his desire to comfort
between her and the wave of disconsolation that he felt was about to
cover her.
Old Momus, sensibly accepting the boy's suggestion as the wisest
course, raised Laodice and motioning the shepherd to lead on, led his
young mistress up the hill as the boy retraced his steps. The flood of
Syrian sheep turned back with him and followed bleating between the
urging of the sheep-dog, as the boy climbed.
On a slope to the west as a wady bent upon itself abruptly before it
debouched upon the hillside, there was a deep glow illuminating a
space in the depression. The shepherd dropped down out of sight. His
voice came over the shuffle and bleat of the sheep.
"Follow me; this is my house."
Momus led his mistress over to the wady. There the shepherd with
uplifted hands helped her down with the superior courtesy of a
householder offering hospitality. There was a red circle of fire in
the sandy bottom of the dry wady, and beside it was a flat boulder at
the foot of which were prints of the shepherd's sandals and, on the
bank behind it, the mark where his shoulders had comfortably rested.
He made no apology for the poverty of his entertainment; he had never
known anything better.
"Now, brother," he said busily to Momus, "if thou'lt lend me of thy
height, thou shalt have of my agility and we will set up a douar for
the lady."
With frank composure he stripped off the burden of skins that covered
him until he stood forth in a single hide of wool, with a tumble of
sheep pelts at his feet. In each one was a thorn preserved for use and
with these he pinned them all together, scrambled out on the bank,
emitting his startling cry at the sheep that obstructed his path. From
above he shouted down to Momus.