"There is no song in me. Empty is my stomach, and look you," and she
pointed across the room to a pile of nets beside a wooden bench.
"There are three score rents to mend and the day is done." She turned
to the doorway and for a moment stood looking out, barefooted, meanly
clad and unkept, yet of comely form and with abundant dark hair falling
around an oval face of more than ordinary beauty. She sighed and
turned back into the room.

"Thou shalt eat," and the aged woman took bread from the oven and
placed it on a wooden table in the center of the room. "Sit thee down."

Sara sat down and glanced over the small table. "Bread and unseasoned
sop!" she exclaimed.

"And water," cheerfully added Grandmother Rachael, as she poured the
contents of a skin bottle into a pitcher.

After the washing of hands from a bowl on a stool at the table side,
the aged woman muttered thanks and the evening meal began.

"It goeth down hard," Sara complained.

"But it was not so in the days of our fathers," her companion reminded
her. "Then there was plenty and each man sat under his own vine and
fig tree, for by the law of Moses no man was allowed to collect usury,
so sayeth the Rabbi."

Hardly had the meal begun when, unnoticed by either of the women, a
fisherman entered. His muscular arms were uncovered; the short skirt
of his garment scarce reached his knees. His heavy dark hair was
pushed back from his forehead and the dying sunset falling over his
swarthy face and neck gave him the appearance of bronze. He stopped
behind Sara and spoke her name.

"It is the voice of Jael," she cried, looking back. "My Jael."

"And he hath brought a fish!" Grandmother Rachael exclaimed, laughing.
"The blessing of God on thee, my son Jael. Sit thee down and sup with
us."

"Thy hospitality exceedeth thy stores," he answered, "yet could I not
swallow food if thy table did groan with milk and honey."

"Thou art not sick?" Sara asked, concern in her voice.

"Nay, and yet have I a fever, the consuming fever of wrath, for again
hath the tax-gatherer been abroad. Robbed are our tables of fat, milk
and honey; lean are our bellies for food; stripped are our bodies of
covering. Yet doth the tax ever increase that Herod may add to his
vast stores. It is tax--tax--tax until at night the waves of the sea
beat against the shore calling 'Tax--tax,' and in the solitary places
the wild dogs bark 'Tax--tax,' and in the homes of the peasant the
c