d hence are set
apart in all countries. But a country we must and shall have. The fact
that we still dream of our land shows that it is to be ours again.
Without a country we are dead. Without us the land is dead. It has
been waiting for us. Why has no other nation possessed it and
cultivated it?"

"Why? Why do the ducks go barefoot?" The German quoted the Yiddish
proverb with a sneer.

"The land waits for us," replied the young Russian fervidly, "so that
we may complete our mission. Jerusalem--whose very name means the
heritage of double Peace--must be the watch-tower of Peace on earth.
The nations shall be taught to compete neither with steel weapons nor
with gold, but with truth and purity. Every man shall be taught that
he exists for another man, else were men as the beasts. And thus at
last 'the knowledge of God shall cover the earth as the waters cover
the sea.'"

"If they would only remain covering the sea!" said the German
irreverently, as the spray of a wave swept over his mattress.

"Those who have lost this faith are no longer Jews," curtly replied
the Russian. "Without this hope the preservation of the Jewish race is
a superstition. Let the Jews be swallowed up in the nations--and me in
the sea. If I thought that Israel's hope was a lie I should jump
overboard."

The German shrugged his shoulders good-humoredly. "You and the
Egyptian woman are a pair."

At Alexandria, where some of the cargo and his Jewish
fellow-passengers were to be landed, Aaron was tantalized for days by
the quarantine, so that he must needs fret amid the musty odors long
after he had thought to tread the sacred streets of Jerusalem. But at
last he found himself making straight for the Holy Land; and one magic
day, the pilgrim, pallid and emaciated, gazed in pious joy upon the
gray line of rocks that changed gradually into terraces of red sloping
roofs overbrooded by a palm-tree. Jaffa! But a cruel, white sea still
rolled and roared betwixt him and these holy shores, guarded by the
rock of Andromeda and tumbling and leaping billows; and the ship lay
to outside the ancient harbor, while heavy boats rowed by stalwart
Arabs and Syrians, in red fez and girdle, clamored for the passengers.
Aaron was thrown unceremoniously over the ship's side at the favorable
moment when the boat leapt up to meet him; he fell into it, soused
with spray, but glowing at heart. As his boat pitched and tossed
along, a delicious smell of orange-blossom wa