He put out a finger and touched the
face. It was cold.
"Thy son?"
"They stoned him with these stones. His wife stood by."
"The Syrians?"
"The Syrians. They went northward before noon, taking her. The plain
is otherwise burnt than on the day when I sought across it for his sake
to Carmel."
"Well did King David entreat the hand of the Lord rather than the hand
of man. I had not heard of thy son's marrying."
"Five years ago he went down with a gift to Philistia, to them that
sheltered us in the famine. He brought back this woman."
"She betrayed him?"
"He heard her speak with a Syrian, and fled up the hill. From the
little window in the wall--see, it smokes yet--she called and pointed
after him. And they ran and overtook him. With this iron they fastened
him, and with these stones they stoned him. Man of God, I am thinking
that God was wiser than thou or I."
The old man stood musing, and touched the heap of stones gently, stone
after stone, with the end of his staff.
"He was wiser."
_Cling--cling--clink!_
Miriam had taken up a stone, and with it was hammering feebly,
impotently, upon the rivets in the iron band.
As the sun dropped below Carmel the prophet cast down his staff and
stretched out two groping hands to help her.
"ONCE ABOARD THE LUGGER"
Early last Fall there died in Troy an old man and his wife.
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