great
merchant, Hersh Ezofowich, Saul's father, had touched that writing."

"And what became of him?"

"The old people said that when he touched the papers serpents coiled
round his heart and bit him, so that he died young."

"And now young Meir has found that writing?"

"Yes, he has found it, and is going to read it before the people in
Bet-ha-Midrash after sunset."

Going to and fro amongst the people who exchanged the above opinions,
was Reb Moshe, the melamed. He appeared first in one street, then in
another; was seen in one court, and near another's window; always
listening intently; he smiled now and then and his eyes gleamed, but
he said nothing. When directly appealed to by people, and urged to
give an opinion, he shook his head gloomily and muttered
unintelligible sentences. He could not say anything, as he had not
spoken to the master yet, to whom, out of fanatical faith and mystic
personal attachment he had given himself up body and soul. Without
definite orders from the revered sage he dared not give an opinion or
settle things even in his own mind. He might unwittingly act against
his master's wish, or transgress any of the thousands of precepts;
though he knew them all by heart, yet he might fail to catch their
deeper meaning without the guiding spirit. The melamed was fully
conscious of his own wisdom, yet what did it mean in comparison with
the Rabbi's, whose mind pierced the very heavens? Jehovah looked upon
him with pleased eyes, and wondered how he could have created such a
perfect being as Rabbi Isaak Todros.

About noon, when his mind and ears were full of what he had heard, he
glided silently into the Rabbi's hut. He could not get the Rabbi's
ear at once, because he was conversing with an old man, whose dusty,
travel-stained garments showed that he had come a great distance; he
now stood leaning on his stick before the Rabbi, looking at him with
humble, and at the same time radiant, eyes.

"I dearly wished," he said, in a voice trembling with age and
emotion, "to go to Jerusalem to die in the land of our fathers; but I
am poor and have no money for the journey. Give me, O Rabbi, a
handful of the sand which they bring to you every year from there, so
that my grandchildren may scatter it upon my breast when the soul is
about to leave my body. With that handful of soil, I shall lie easier
in my grave."

The Rabbi took some white sand out of a carefully, wrapped-up bag and
gave it to the ol