It was high noon in the desert encampment. The shadows of the palms, which had boldly displayed themselves in the early cool of the morning, had gradually retreated before the triumphant progress of the sun, till now they lay a shrunken heap about the slender stems of the trees, which in their turn scarcely dared murmur to their children of the coming hours, when the burning tyrant overhead should again be brought low and the shadows reign triumphant. Through the shimmering air came the insistent voice of dropping water, telling over and over again of great depths of refreshing hid away in the secret places of the rock, safe from the thirsty ball of fire above, safe from the hungry sands which crept uneasily to and fro about the rocky margin of the fountain.

The camels crouched in the meagre shade, their large, heavy-lidded eyes half closed; they heard and understood both the faint murmur of the palms and the voice of the water; therefore were they silent, being satisfied. But from within the tent of goat\'s hair close at hand there came the sound of voices. "These men," grunted an old camel, "they be forever making a noise with their mouths; why cannot they be silent, and look and listen as do we?"

This is what the voices were saying:

"God is good, my husband, and as yet I have scarce had room in my soul for more than the sense of that goodness which hath snatched me from the jaws of death, and with life hath also restored to me the more precious treasure of thy love. Tell me how it chanced that thou hadst a hand in our rescue?"

"It is not unknown to thee, beloved, how that for many months my soul was a very hell of fear and remorse. I was blood-guilty; I knew that upon my head rested the blood of an innocent man; nay more, I knew in my inmost soul that my crime was yet more deadly--that I, even I, had condemned to an accursed death the very Son of God. Yes, I believed; but alas, it was even as the devils, who believe and tremble and yet--are devils still. I cast thee forth because thou didst also believe, I, black-hearted wretch that I was, did pronounce upon thee a curse, then my angel fled and the curse recoiled upon mine own head. I will not tell thee--I cannot--how I tried to strangle the ever-growing misery in my soul; how I flung myself, heart and strength, into the deadly persecutions against them that believed; all the while with the mean hope that the fire would drive thee back from the heavenly path which thou wast climbing into the black road down which I was plunging alone. I saw and gloried in the death of Stephen; I gloated over the agonies of them that suffered beneath the scourge; I outdid Saul of Tarsus in the work of denouncing men and women whose only crime it was to believe on God manifest in the flesh. There is a hell, for I have sojourned there.

"One day I was told that thou wast in prison; that on the morrow thou wouldst be scourged--stoned. Issachar himself told me, with an air of mock sympathy.

"\'She is less to me,\' I declared to him coldly, \'than the stones beneath my feet.\' But I lied when I said it. That night I begged Annas on my knees to have mercy.

"\'I will have mercy,\' he said. \'I will send a message to the woman within the hour,\' and he called Caleb. I waylaid the man, and offered him gold to show me the message; he showed it me.

"That night I went to my chamber resolved to die before the light of another day, but each time that I lifted the dagger to my breast something seemed to hold my hand. At last I flung it from me and sank upon my knees, crying aloud, \'God be merciful to me a sinner! God be merciful to me a sinner!\' Again and again I repeated the words till at last there came into my soul a great peace. God was merciful--I knew, I felt it; and then and there I made confession of all my guilt before him. \'I am guilty of the blood of him whom thou didst send to save me,\' I cried, \'yet he prayed in his last agony, saying, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.\'

"I rose up forgiven, and the morning dawned. \'I will go,\' I said, \'to the place where she is to suffer, and there before them all I will make confession of my guilt and my belief; then shall I die also.\'

"But when I had come to the place outside the Damascus Gate--very early, for I could not wait--I fell in with the man Ben Hesed, and because my soul was full even to overflowing, I told him all. \'I will die,\' I said, \'with them.\'

"\'Nay,\' he cried, \'rather must thou live, that thou mayest overlay the wickedness of the past with the pure gold of righteousness.\'

"Thou knowest the rest, beloved."

Then the voices ceased for a space, and the sound of the falling water again filled the stillness.

That evening when the shadows were displaying themselves once more in triumph, and the voice of the fountain had sunken to a low murmur because of the more insistent voices of the women who were filling their jars at its cool brim, Ben Hesed held converse with them whom he had snatched from death. Their talk was sweet and comforting, as of those whose feet had trod the margin of the river of death, from whose hither bank the traveler can hear faint echoes of the heavenly melodies of the redeemed, and where every breeze wafts the perfume of the blossoming tree of life.

"It is good to have been near death," said Mary of Nazareth, "because it is good to have touched the boundary of the life more abundant. There is no terror to them that believe on him that hath conquered death; \'he that believeth hath everlasting life.\'"

Afterward, while the day merged slowly into the night, they told Ben Hesed of all that happened to them since he had left them in Jerusalem; of the last days of Stephen, of his death and burial; of that stern enemy, Saul of Tarsus, and his unrelenting hatred of them that believed.

"Nay," said Anat, after a pause, "I know that he would have rejoiced truly had we but confessed as he bade us; there was a look in his eyes that was not all hatred; perchance God is leading him into peace by some sure way of his own, even as he led the Egyptian, Amu. Surely, God\'s ways are unsearchable."

"That is a true word," said Ben Hesed musingly. "But tell me of the Egyptian, Amu."

So Anat told him how that he had rescued Stephen from death by the sacrifice of his life, together with all the story of their own wrong at his hands. "I would that God had given him one more breath," said the girl sighing, "for then would he have told us the name of our mother\'s kindred."

Ben Hesed looked at the clear profile of the girl as she sat looking away into the afterglow which still burned dully at the horizon, and a haunting memory of the past suddenly awakened in his breast. "Hast thou aught that belonged to thy mother, maiden?" he said, and there was a strange thrill in his voice.

"I had anklets of wrought silver when I came out of Egypt," said Anat slowly, without turning her head; "also a necklace of coins; but when I was healed of my blindness I made an offering of these baubles to the Lord\'s poor. It was all that I had to give." Then she was silent for a moment. "I kept but one piece from the necklace; I thought that I should like that one small bit of my mother\'s past. It is a strange coin."

"Show it to me," said Ben Hesed.

Without a word Anat took from off her neck the slender chain of wrought silver, from which hung the one token that b............