all all see the salvation of
the Lord and our sins shall be forgiven us. All Israel shall rejoice.
Aye, even stout Solomon also," added Ezra grimly. "The Kingdom of God
will come, and the Messiah will rule in righteousness, and he shall put
our enemies to flight. No longer then will we pay tribute to the Emperor
Caesar Augustus at Rome. No longer will we tolerate the wicked King Herod
in our city of Jerusalem. And the Roman eagle that hangs above our
Temple gates will be torn down and trampled under foot."

Ezra spoke warmly. He had been well taught in school and synagogue, and
had listened carefully to his father and his friends as they talked in
the market-place and elsewhere.

"Oh, I would that the Messiah would come quickly," said Naomi
wistfully. "And if he can make me see, he can make lame Enoch straight.
I would that Enoch's old grandmother had not died and that he had not
gone so far away to live as Jericho. I miss him."

"Think now of this new numbering of all the world," went on Ezra, whose
heart burned within him at the wrongs of his nation. "Every man must
travel to the town whence his family sprang, whether he live near or far
and whether or no he be rich enough to stand a journey. And why? Because
the Emperor at Rome has ordered so. I stood in the market-place when the
Roman heralds with their trumpets summoned all Bethlehem thither, and
told of this new enrollment and of the taxing to follow. I saw the black
looks and heard the muttering, but did any man speak out? Nay--afeard of
the short sword the Roman soldier carries. Oh, aye, I am afeard of it
myself," admitted Ezra indulgently; "but when the Messiah cometh things
will not be so."

"Mother says that many have already traveled to Bethlehem to be
enrolled," said Naomi, "and that we shall have a houseful when the
caravan from Nazareth comes in. I would fain be a help to her just now
and not a trouble, but I can do nothing at all, nothing, only keep out
of the way." And the tears rolled down poor Naomi's cheeks.

"Do not cry," said Ezra pitifully, and with a patience wonderful in a
boy of his years. "We all love thee, Naomi, better than if thou hadst
the sharp sight of an eagle. Come, greedy one," he went on, pulling at
Michmash's bridle. "Wilt thou eat all night? Come!"

They stood upon a hill that looked toward the north, and as Ezra waited
for lazy little Michmash to finish his mouthful, his eye caught a line
of tiny black figures perhaps a mile