daring to think of himself any more, he jumped to his feet: I must tell
my servant that I shall start soon after daybreak.




CHAP. XVI.


And on his arrival in Jerusalem Joseph stood for a moment before his
camel thanking the beast for his great, rocking stride, which has given
me, he said, respite from thinking for two whole days and part of two
nights. But I cannot be always on the back of a camel, he continued, and
must now rely on my business to help me to forget; and he strove to
apply his mind to every count that came before him, but in the middle of
every one his thoughts would fly away to Galilee, and the merchant
waiting to receive the provisions he had come to fetch wondered of what
the young man was thinking, and the cause of the melancholy that was in
his face.

He was still less master of his thoughts when he sat alone, his ledger
before him; and finding he could not add up the figures, he would
abandon himself without restraint to his grief; and very often it was so
deep that when the clerk opened the door it took Joseph some moments to
remember that he was in his counting-house; and when the clerk spoke of
the camel-drivers that were waiting in the yard behind the
counting-house for orders, it was only by an effort of will that he
collected his thoughts sufficiently to realise that the yard was still
there, and that a caravan was waiting for orders to return to Jericho.
The orders were forgotten on the way to the yard, and the clerk had to