f wine and could not walk steadily.

King Nimrod was awakened from his sleep, and his magicians appeared
before him.

"O King, live for ever," said the chief, by way of salute. "Grave
indeed is the news that has led us to disturb thee in thy slumbers.
This night a son has been born unto thy officer, Terah, and with the
coming of the dawn a warning has appeared to us in the skies. I, the
chief of thy magicians, did observe a brilliant star rise in the east
and dart across the heavens and swallow four smaller stars."

"We observed it, too," said the other magicians.

"And what means this?" inquired the king.

"It means," said the chief magician, mysteriously, "that this
star-child will destroy other children, that his descendants will
conquer thine. Take warning. Purchase this child from thy officer,
Terah, and slay it so that it may not grow up a danger to thee."

"Thy advice pleases me," said the cruel king.

In vain Terah protested. King Nimrod would not disregard the warning
of his magicians, but he consented to give Terah three days in which
to deliver up the child. Sad at heart Terah returned home, and on the
second day told his wife the terrible news.

"We must not allow our little son, Abraham, to be slain," she said.
"If he is to become great he must live. I have a plan. King Nimrod
will not be satisfied unless a child is slain. Therefore, take thou
the child of a slave to him and tell him it is Abraham. He will not
know the difference. And so that the trick shall not be discovered,
take our child away and hide it for a time."

Terah thought this an excellent idea, and he carried it out. The sick
child of a slave, which was born only a few hours before Abraham, was
taken to King Nimrod who killed it with his own hands, and Terah's
little boy was secretly carried by his nurse to a cave in a forest.
There Abraham was carefully nurtured and brought up.

From time to time Abraham was visited by his father and mother, and
not until he was ten years old did they think it safe to bring him
from the cave in the forest to their home. Even then they deemed it
best to be careful. Their elder son, Haran, was a maker of idols and
Abraham became his helper without Haran being told it was his brother.

Abraham, the star-child, was a strange little boy. He did not believe
in the idols.

"I worship the sun by day and the moon and the stars by night," he
said to Haran.

"There are times when you cannot see the sun