red the eagle until the trees below looked like
mere dots on the land. Swiftly flew the eagle over miles and miles of
desert until Bar Shalmon began to feel giddy. He was faint with hunger
and feared that he would not be able to retain his hold. All day the
bird flew without resting, across island and sea. No houses, no ships,
no human beings could be seen. Toward night, however, Bar Shalmon, to
his great joy, beheld the lights of a city surrounded by trees, and as
the eagle came near, he made a bold dive to the earth. Headlong he
plunged downward. He seemed to be hours in falling. At last he struck
a tree. The branches broke beneath the weight and force of his falling
body, and he continued to plunge downward. The branches tore his
clothes to shreds and bruised his body, but they broke his terrible
fall, and when at last he reached the ground he was not much hurt.

II

Bar Shalmon found himself on the outskirts of the city, and cautiously
he crept forward. To his intense relief, he saw that the first
building was a synagogue. The door, however, was locked. Weary, sore,
and weak with long fasting, Bar Shalmon sank down on the steps and
sobbed like a child.

Something touched him on the arm. He looked up. By the light of the
moon he saw a boy standing before him. Such a queer boy he was, too.
He had cloven feet, and his coat, if it was a coat, seemed to be made
in the shape of wings.

"_Ivri Onochi_," said Bar Shalmon, "I am a Hebrew."

"So am I," said the boy. "Follow me."

He walked in front with a strange hobble, and when they reached a
house at the back of the synagogue, he leaped from the ground,
spreading his coat wings as he did so, to a window about twenty feet
from the ground. The next moment a door opened, and Bar Shalmon, to
his surprise, saw that the boy had jumped straight through the window
down to the door which he had unfastened from the inside. The boy
motioned him to enter a room. He did so. An aged man, who he saw was a
rabbi, rose to greet him.

"Peace be with you," said the rabbi, and pointed to a seat. He clapped
his hand and immediately a table with food appeared before Bar
Shalmon. The latter was far too hungry to ask any questions just then,
and the rabbi was silent, too, while he ate. When he had finished, the
rabbi clapped his hands and the table vanished.

"Now tell me your story," said the rabbi.

Bar Shalmon did so.

"Alas! I am an unhappy man," he concluded. "I have been puni