island,
the bridge in lessening perspective to the farther shore, and the
river below the bridge crowded with vessels, all swimming amidst
the dancing splendors of the early sun upon the rippling water.
There the servant left him with Esther.

The much shouting of laborers, and their beating and pounding,
did not disturb him any more than the tramping of people on the
bridge floor almost overhead, being as familiar to his ear as the
view before him to his eye, and therefore unnoticeable, except as
suggestions of profits in promise.

Esther sat on the arm of the chair nursing his hand, and waiting
his speech, which came at length in the calm way, the mighty will
having carried him back to himself.

"When the young man was speaking, Esther, I observed thee,
and thought thou wert won by him."

Her eyes fell as she replied,

"Speak you of faith, father, I believed him."

"In thy eyes, then, he is the lost son of the Prince Hur?"

"If he is not--" She hesitated.

"And if he is not, Esther?"

"I have been thy handmaiden, father, since my mother answered the
call of the Lord God; by thy side I have heard and seen thee deal
in wise ways with all manner of men seeking profit, holy and unholy;
and now I say, if indeed the young man be not the prince he claims
to be, then before me falsehood never played so well the part of
righteous truth."

"By the glory of Solomon, daughter, thou speakest earnestly.
Dost thou believe thy father his father's servant?"

"I understood him to ask of that as something he had but heard."

For a time Simonides' gaze swam among his swimming ships, though
they had no place in his mind.

"Well, thou art a good child, Esther, of genuine Jewish shrewdness,
and of years and strength to hear a sorrowful tale. Wherefore give
me heed, and I will tell you of myself, and of thy mother, and of
many things pertaining to the past not in thy knowledge or thy
dreams--things withheld from the persecuting Romans for a hope's
sake, and from thee that thy nature should grow towards the Lord
straight as the reed to the sun.... I was born in a tomb in the
valley of Hinnom, on the south side of Zion. My father and mother
were Hebrew bond-servants, tenders of the fig and olive trees
growing, with many vines, in the King's Garden hard by Siloam;
and in my boyhood I helped them. They were of the class bound
to serve forever. They sold me to the Prince Hur, then, next to
Herod the King, the richest man in Je