ruby and his pearl to offer to the King. "For now at last," he said, "I
shall surely find him, though it be alone, and later than my brethren.
This is the place of which the Hebrew exile told me that the prophets
had spoken, and here I shall behold the rising of the great light. But I
must inquire about the visit of my brethren, and to what house the star
directed them, and to whom they presented their tribute."

The streets of the village seemed to be deserted, and Artaban wondered
whether the men had all gone up to the hill-pastures to bring down their
sheep. From the open door of a low stone cottage he heard the sound of a
woman's voice singing softly. He entered and found a young mother
hushing her baby to rest. She told him of the strangers from the far
East who had appeared in the village three days ago, and how they said
that a star had guided them to the place where Joseph of Nazareth was
lodging with his wife and her new-born child, and how they had paid
reverence to the child and given him many rich gifts.

"But the travellers disappeared again," she continued, "as suddenly as
they had come. We were afraid at the strangeness of their visit. We
could not understand it. The man of Nazareth took the babe and his
mother and fled away that same night secretly, and it was whispered that
they were going far away to Egypt. Ever since, there has been a spell
upon the village; something evil hangs over it. They say that the Roman
soldiers are coming from Jerusalem to force a new tax from us, and the
men have driven the flocks and herds far back among the hills, and
hidden themselves to escape it."

Artaban listened to her gentle, timid speech, and the child in her arms
looked up in his face and smiled, stretching out its rosy hands to grasp
at the winged circle of gold on his breast. His heart warmed to the