The following evening, late, they reached the plain. The wilderness
lay behind them, and in front, beyond the green darkness of the
trees, they knew the starlight was gleaming on the Dead Sea. The
heat down here was suffocating, and their weary feet moved on
slowly through the village--a collection of a few white flat-roofed
houses, which are all that now mark the spot where stood once the
rich, mighty city of Jericho. In the last house shone a light, and
Esther led Nicholas towards it.
Solomon was waiting for them, and had prepared for them his best
upper room--a little narrow apartment, with windows facing towards
the sea--where supper was laid, and opening from this a tiny
sleeping chamber. A swinging lamp hung over the centre table, and
Solomon's younger brother waited on them. Esther, with the dust of
the road washed from her skin, looked very fair, sitting under the
light of the lamp, her eyes glowing with the mysterious fires of
love and joy, and the two Jews sat listening to her eagerly as she
talked to them, telling them the news of her family and friends in
Jerusalem.
"If I could only go up to the city," sighed the younger man. "But I
cannot walk, and I have no horse," and he grew sullen and dejected
and said no more, while the elder continued to ask and be answered
a hundred questions about the life and doings of the city.
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