mple, and the sons of Abraham are given but the alternative to defile
themselves or to die. The day of vengeance is at hand! may all the
enemies of Judah perish as that poor wretch has perished this night!"

Abishai sought for his dagger, and found it; he then left the scene of
his act of ruthless cruelty, with a conscience less troubled by so dark
a deed than it would have been had he rubbed corn between his hands on
the Sabbath, or neglected one of the washings prescribed by the
traditions of the elders.

CHAPTER V.

THE DREAM.

At sunrise on the following morning two women were seated on the
ground, in the back part of a small flat-roofed house, situated in a
very secluded spot amongst the hills, not a mile from Jerusalem. They
sat opposite to each other, engaged--after the manner of the East--in
grinding corn, by moving round, by means of handles, the upper
millstone upon the nether one.

The room in which they were, if room it could be termed, was a narrow
place on the ground-floor, partitioned off from a larger apartment, and
devoted to holding stores, and other such domestic uses. Here corn was
ground, rice sifted from the husk, and occasionally weaving carried on.
Large bunches of raisins hung on the walls, jars of olive-oil and honey
were neatly ranged on the floor; nor lacked there stores of millet,
lentiles, and dried figs, such being the food on which chiefly
subsisted the dwellers in that lonely home. A curtain, now drawn aside
divided this store-place from the larger front room, which opened to
the road in front. It had a door communicating with a small patch of
cultivated ground behind, in which were a few flowers tended by women's
hands, the fairest clustering round a bright little spring which gushed
from the hill on whose steepest side the small habitation seemed to
nestle.

One of the women, busy with the laborious task of grinding, was a
Hebrew servant, past the prime of her days, but still strong to work;
the other was fair and young, her delicate frame, her slender fingers,
looking little suited for manual labour. With a very sad countenance
and a heavy heart sat Zarah that morning at the millstone, engaged in
her monotonous task. It was not that she was unwilling to spend her
strength in humble toil, or that she murmured because her grandmother
Hadassah had no longer men-servants and but one maid-servant to do her
bidding. Zarah had too much of the spirit of a Ruth to shrink f