The City of Delight

Gathering up sticks, dead needles of cedar and last year's leaves, he

made a fire upon which he heaped fuel till it lighted up the near-by

slopes of the hills and roared jovially in the broad wind.

It was a pocket in the heart of high hills into which they had fled.

The bold, sure line of a Roman road divided it, cutting tyrannically

through the cowed hovels of the town as an arrow drives through a

flock of pigeons. On either side were the dim shapes of great rocks

and semi-recumbent cedars. Retiring into shadow were the darker

outlines of the surrounding circle of hills, rived by intervals of

black night where wadies entered. From their summits the flying arch

of the heavens sprang, printed with a few faint stars, but all

silvered with the flood-light of a moon cold and pure as the frost

itself. It was unsympathetic, aloof and wild--a cold place into which

to bring broken hearts to assume banishment from the comfort and

companionship of mankind.

Laodice slowly and with effort began to separate those belongings

which were to be laid upon the fire from those which were too

necessary to be burned. The woman alighted but, on offering to assist,

was warned away from the girl with a menacing gesture of Momus' great

arm. The stranger drew herself up suddenly with a wrath that she

hardly controlled but came no nearer Laodice. When the girl finally

finished her selection, the woman begged permission to attend to the

camels and getting the beasts on their feet led them together to be

tethered.

Laodice, assisted by Momus, took up the condemned supplies and flung

them one at a time upon the roaring fire. Little by little, with

growing reluctance, the heap of spare belongings was examined and

condemned, until finally only the garments they wore, the tents that

were to shelter them and the essential harness of the camels were

left. Then Momus drew from his wallet a fragment of aromatic gum and

cast it on the blaze. While it ignited and burned with great vapors of

penetrating incense, he unstrapped the precious casket, set it down

between his feet, stripped off his comfortable woolen tunic and passed

it through the volumes of white smoke piling up from the fire.

And while he stood thus a deft hand seized the casket from behind.

There was a sharp, warning cry from Laodice. The old man staggered

only a moment from the tripping that the wrench gave him, but in that

instant of hesitation the pillager vanished.

The old mute shouted the infuriated, half-animal yell of the dumb and

started in pursuit, but at his second step he saw the fleeter camel

swing down the declivity, at top-speed, with the other trailing with

difficulty at full length of its bridle behind. The next instant the

muffled beat of the padded hooves drummed the solid bed of the Roman

road, and the shapes of camels and fugitive were lost in blue darkness

beyond the town.