The City of Delight

"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and his comfort be with you, for

ever; amen. Farewell."

He was gone. Momus raised her in his arms and, lifting her into her

howdah, laid her tenderly on the improvised reclining seat that had

been made of the chair therein. In a twinkling the whole party had

mounted, and passed swiftly on toward Jerusalem. As they moved

forward, the strange woman murmured softly: "Two!"

Laodice's camel mounted the slope toward the east and stretched away

on a comparative level toward an immense white moon. Aquila's horse

kept up with the matchless speed of the tall camel only at times, and

Laodice, dully sensing that they were going at hot haste, realized

that a race was on between them and the pestilence. Momus was wielding

the goad for a run to the frosts.

A camel raced up beside Aquila.

"Look!" the woman said to him in a lowered tone, showing back over the

road by which they had come. Aquila turned in his saddle and looked.

Momus rose in his seat and looked. Behind them only one camel rocked

along in their wake. The other and its driver had disappeared.

"Deserted!" Aquila exclaimed under his breath.

"Three!" the woman said.

"A pest on your counting for a Charon's toll-taker!" Aquila whispered

savagely. "We will have no more of it!"

"No?" the woman said with a meaning that made the pagan shiver.

Momus laid goad about his camel.

The way continually ascended toward the east; the soil was no longer

sandy, but rocky; no longer given up to desolate gardens, but black

with groves of cedars and highland shrubs. They swung off a plateau

that would have ended in a cliff, down a shaly sheep-path into a wady.

Under the moonlight, the bottom was seen to be scarred with marks of

hoof and wheel. It debouched suddenly into a Roman road, straight,

level, magnificently built and running as a bird flies on to

Jerusalem.

The camel's gait increased. Momus settled himself in a securer

position and Laodice, careless of the outcome of this breathless

hurry, yielded herself to the careen of her howdah. At times, her

indifferent vision caught, through moonlit notches and gaps, glimpses

of great blue vapors, crowned with pale fire and piled in glorious

disorder low on the eastern horizon. They were the hills encompassing

Jerusalem. The stream of wind on her face cooled and drove stronger.

Aquila rode closer to her, his horse panting under the effort. His

face looked strange and distressed.

"Lady," he said in low tones, "necessity forces me to speak to you in

your grief; do not blame me for indifference to your desire to be

alone. But we must care for you, though in your heart this moment you

may resent a wish to live. But your father commanded me!"