young calf of the pastures should insure him safe passage!

But Laodice was still filled with the calamity of her loss.

"Hast seen a robber, here, along this road?" she asked.

"Many of them," was the prompt answer.

"With a chest of jewels?"

The boy shook his head.

"I never examined their booty," he said with perfect respect.

"Or then a woman riding one camel and leading another?"

"Never anything like that."

Laodice, with this hope gone, let her face fall into her hands.

"His fortune given freely to Israel," she groaned. "His whole life's
ambition reduced to material form for the help of his brethren--gone,
gone!"

The shepherd grew instantly distressed. He looked at Momus and asked
in a whisper what had happened. But the old servant signed to his lips
irritably, and stroked his young mistress' hair in a dumb effort to
comfort her. The silence grew painful. In his anxiety to relieve them,
he bethought him of their uncovered heads and houseless state.