of her two hands, which were not less expressively mobile than
her features. "Phoh! you are stronger and taller than all the Amalekite
lads down there, but you never try to measure yourself with them in
shooting with a bow and arrows or in throwing a spear!"

"If I only dared as much as I wish!" he interrupted, and flaming scarlet
mounted to his face, "I would be a match for ten of those lean rascals."

"I believe you," replied the girl, and her eager glance measured the
youth's broad breast and muscular arms with an expression of pride. "I
believe you, but why do you not dare? Are you the slave of that man up
there?"

"He is my father and besides--"

"What besides?" she cried, waving her hand as if to wave away a bat. "If
no bird ever flew away from the nest there would be a pretty swarm in it.
Look at my kids there--as long as they need their mother they run about
after her, but as soon as they can find their food alone they seek it
wherever they can find it, and I can tell you the yearlings there have
quite forgotten whether they sucked the yellow dam or the brown one. And
what great things does your father do for you?"

"Silence!" interrupted the youth with excited indignation. "The evil one
speaks through thee. Get thee from me, for I dare not hear that which I
dare not utter."

"Dare, dare, dare!" she sneered. "What do you dare then? not even to
listen!"

"At any rate not to what you have to say, you goblin!" he exclaimed
vehemently. "Your voice is hateful to me, and if I meet you again by the
well I will drive you away with stones."

While he spoke thus she stared speechless at him, the blood had left her
lips, and she clenched her small hands. He was about to pass her to fetch
some water, but she stepped into his path, and held him spell-bound with
the fixed gaze of her eyes. A cold chill ran through him when she asked
him with trembling lips and a smothered voice, "What harm have I done
you?"

"Leave me!" said he, and he raised his hand to push her away from the
water.

"You shall not touch me," she cried beside herself. "What harm have I
done you?"

"You know nothing of God," he answered, "and he who is not of God is of
the Devil."

"You do not say that of yourself," answered she, and her voice recovered
its tone of light mockery. "What they let you believe pulls the wires of
your tongue just as a hand pulls the strings of a puppet. Who told you
that I was of the Devil?"

"Why should I conce