ide and
her lover, Laban, on the other, like a prisoner between two guards. I
thought she looked unhappy, but her foot seemed to be well again; at
least she moved without limping.

I stopped to salute her, but Laban scowled and hurried her away. Jabez
stayed behind and fell into talk with me. He told me that she was
recovered of her hurt, but that there had been trouble between her and
Laban because of all that happened on that evening when she came by it,
ending in his encounter with the captain.

"This young man seems to be of a jealous nature," I said, "one who will
make a harsh husband for any woman."

"Yes, learned scribe, jealousy has been his curse from youth as it is
with so many of our people, and I thank God that I am not the woman whom
he is to marry."

"Why, then, do you suffer her to marry him, Jabez?"

"Because her father affianced her to this lion's whelp when she was
scarce more than a child, and among us that is a bond hard to break.
For my own part," he added, dropping his voice, and glancing round with
shifting eyes, "I should like to see my niece in some different place
to that of the wife of Laban. With her great beauty and wit, she might
become anything--anything if she had opportunity. But under our laws,
even if Laban died, as might happen to so violent a man, she could wed
no one who is not a Hebrew."

"I thought she told us that her mother was a Syrian."

"That is so, Scribe Ana. She was a beautiful captive of war whom Nathan
came to love and made his wife, and the daughter takes after her. Still
she is Hebrew and of the Hebrew faith and congregation. Had it not been
so, she might have shone like a star, nay, like the very moon after
which she is named, perhaps in the court of Pharaoh himself."

"As the great queen Taia did, she who changed the religion of Egypt to
the worship of one god in a bygone generation," I suggested.

"I have heard of her, Scribe Ana. She was a wondrous woman, beautiful
too by her statues. Would that you Egyptians could find such another
to turn your hearts to a purer faith and to soften them towards us poor
aliens. When does his Highness leave the land of Goshen?"

"At sunrise on the third day from this."

"Provision will be needed for the journey, much provision for so large a
train. I deal in sheep and other foodstuffs, Scribe Ana."

"I will mention the matter to his Highness and to the Vizier, Jabez."

"I thank you, Scribe, and will in waiting at the