"Stretch it, brother, over thy head. I shall pin it down with stones
on either side. Now, unless some jackal dislodges these weights before
morning, ye will be safe covered from the cold. There! God never made
a man till He prepared him a cave to sleep under! I've never slept in
the open, yet. How is it with thee now, lady?"
He was down again before her with the red light of the great bed of
coals illuminating him with a glow that was almost an expression of
his charity.
She saw that he had the straight serious features of the Ishmaelite,
but lacked the fierce yet wondering gaze of the Arab. Aside from these
superior indications in his face there was nothing to separate him
from any other shepherd that ranged the mountainous pastures of
Palestine.
She, who all her life had never known anything but to expect the
tenderest of ministrations, was humbly surprised and grateful at the
free-handed generosity of the young stranger. Momus looked at him with
grudging approval.
"It is kindly shelter," she said finally with effort, "and it is warm.
You are very good to us!"
"But you have not eaten of my salt," he declared.
Momus showed interest. It had been long since the last meal in the
luxurious house of Costobarus. The boy in the meantime produced
unleavened loaves from the carry-all of sheepskin that hung over his
shoulders, and without explanation disappeared among his flock.
Presently he returned with a small skin of milk.
"We have goats in the flock," he said. "A shepherd can not live
without a goat. You do not know about shepherds," he added.
Laodice thought that she detected tactful inquiry in his last remark
and roused herself painfully to make due explanations to her host. But
he waved his hands at her, with the desert-man's courtesy which covers
fine points better than the greater ones.
"Eat my fare; I do not purchase thy history with salt and shelter," he
said, with a certain sublimity of honor.
Momus ate, and looked with growing grace at his young host. But
Laodice succeeded only in drinking the goat's milk and lapsed into
benumbed gazing at the red glow of fire that cast its warmth about
her. The shepherd talked on, attempting to interest her in something
other than her consuming sorrow.
"These be Christian sheep about you, friends," he said, "and I am a
Christian shepherd."
Momus sat up suddenly with a bit of the boy's bread arrested on its
way to his lips. He was eating the fare of an apostate, of a despised
Nazarene. The boy went on composedly.
"We are from Pella, the Christian city. We are, my sheep, my city and
I, the only secure people in all Judea. We, I and the sheep, have been
in the hills since the first new grass in February. We are many
leagues from home."