Up there in the covert of
the trees the girl in the silver tissue was resting from her perilous
and outlawed journey.
"We will eat here," the Maccabee said abruptly to Julian.
"Eat!" Julian exclaimed. "What?"
The Maccabee signed to the pack on Julian's horse. Julian dismounted,
shaking his head.
"What a savage appetite this travel in the untaught wilds of Judea
hath bred in you, my cousin! You, whom once a crust of bread and a cup
of wine would satisfy!"
But the Maccabee climbed out of the roadway and, finding a sheltered
spot behind a boulder, kicked together some of the dead weeds and
twigs and set fire to the heap with flint and steel. Then he lost
interest in the preparation of his comforts. He turned to look up at
the faint column of illumination in the little copse of cedars and
presently, stealthily, went that way.
It was a poor encampment that he came upon.
From the low-growing limbs of a couple of gnarly cedars, old Momus had
stretched the sheepskins which Joseph, the shepherd, had given them.
Three sides of the shelter were protected thus, and the fourth side
opened down-hill, with a low fire screening them from the mountain
wind. Within this inclosure, wrapped in the coarse mantle of her
servant, sat Laodice. She had raised her veil and its misty texture
flowed like a web of frost over her brilliant hair and framed her face
in cold vapor.
Pages:
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96