"I fought against the slaves with my bare hands, but they held me. I
called to Tamar, begging her to have pity on me, to speak for me, to
come with me. She looked up with her eyes like doves behind her veil,
but there was no knowledge of me in them. She laughed lazily, as if it
were a poor comedy, and flung a broken rose-branch in my face. Then the
silver cord was loosened within me, and my heart went out, and I
struggled no more. There was nothing in it.

"Afterward I found myself on the road with this flock. I led them past
Hebron into the south country, and so by the Vale of Eshcol, and over
many hills beyond the Pools of Solomon, until my feet brought me to
your fire. Here I rest on the way to nowhere."

He sat silent, and the four shepherds looked at him with amazement.

"It is a bitter tale," said Shama, "and you are a great sinner."

"I should be a fool not to know that," answered the sad shepherd, "but
the knowledge does me no good."

"You must repent," said Nathan, the youngest shepherd, in a friendly
voice.

"How can a man repent," answered the sad shepherd, "unless he has hope?
But I am sorry for everything, and most of all for living."

"Would you not live to kill the fox Herod?" cried Jotham fiercely.

"Why should I let him out of the trap," answered the sad shepherd. "Is
he not dying more slowly than I could kill him?"