a disconnected word reached her now and then. In a
state of desperate curiosity she returned to her cave.

A few minutes later a noise was heard by the two men in the outer cave;
and a little old woman in a grey shawl was seen to thrust a plank over
the chasm and totter across towards them.

Poor Beniah was horrified. He did not know what to do or say. Happily
he was one of those men whose feelings are never betrayed by their
faces.

The old woman hobbled forward and sat down on a stool close to them.
Looking up in their faces, she smiled and nodded.

In doing so she revealed the fact that, besides having contorted her
face into an unrecognisable shape, she had soiled it in several places
with streaks of charcoal and earth.

"Who is this?" asked Bladud in surprise. Before the old man could
reply, the old woman put her hand to her ear, and, looking up in the
prince's face, shouted, in tones that were so unlike to her own natural
voice that Beniah could scarce believe his ears--

"What say you, young man? Speak out; I'm very deaf."

With a benignant smile Bladud said that he had merely asked who she was.

"Haven't you got eyes, young man? Don't you see that I'm a little old
woman?"

"I see that," returned the prince, with a good-humoured laugh; "and I
fear you're a deaf old woman, too."

"Eh?" she said, advancing her head, with her hand up at the ear.

"You seem indeed to be extremely deaf," shouted the prince.

"What does he say?" demanded the old woman, turning to the Hebrew.

By this time Beniah had recovered his self-possession. Perceiving that
the maiden was bent on carrying out her _role_, and that he might as
well help her, he put his mouth close to her ear, and shouted in a voice
that bid fair to render her absolutely deaf--

"He says he thinks you are extremely deaf; so I think you had better
hold your tongue and let us go on with our conversation."

"Deaf, indeed!" returned the woman in a querulous tone; "so I am, though
I hear you well enough when you shout like that. Perhaps he'll be as
deaf as I am when he's as old. There's nothing like youth for pride and
impudence. But go on, never mind me."

"She's a poor creature who has sought refuge with me from her
persecutors," said Beniah, turning to the prince, while the old woman
fell to crooning a wild song in a low voice, accompanying the music--if
such it may be called--by a swaying motion of her body to and fro.

Seeing that she m