s, put
them in a sack, and I will fasten it to the beast Ishmael gave us.
Then take the child. We must away."

Mary pushed her long, soft, silky hair from her face. Her husband's
sudden decision, the departure in the middle of the night, made her
wonder, but she said not a word. She gathered together their scanty
possessions, took the sleeping child in her arms, and mounted the ass,
who pricked up his ears and thought what a day's work must be before
him since it began so terribly early. His former owner had not
pampered him; his short legs were firm and willing. They gave one last
grateful look at the cave, the stones of which were softer than the
hearts of the men of Bethlehem. Joseph took his stick and a leathern
strap and walked beside the ass, leading it, the ass which carried his
whole world and his heaven, and--the heaven of the whole world.

After going some way, they thought to rest under some palm-trees, not
far from Hebron. But the ass would not stop, and they let him have his
will. Then soldiers of Herod rode that way; they saw a brown-skinned
woman with a child sitting on the sand.

"Is it a boy?" they called to her.

"A girl," answered the woman. "But strangers have just passed by, and
I think they had a boy with them, if you can come up with them."

And the horsemen galloped on. Meanwhile the fugitives from Nazareth
had reached bad roads, and were tired and wretched. Was not Jacob's
favourite son also taken into Egypt just like this child? What will
become of this one? They became aware of their pursuers galloping
behind over the bare plain. Not a tree, not a shrub which could afford
them protection. They took refuge in the cleft of a rock, but Joseph
said: "What is the use of hiding? They must have seen us." But as
soon as they were well inside the dark hole, down came a spider from
the mossy wall, summoned all her brood and her most distant relations
in great haste, and they speedily spun a web over the opening, a web
that was stronger than the iron railings in Solomon's temple, at the
entrance to the Holy of Holies. Hardly was the weaving finished when
the knaves came riding up. One said: "They crept into the hole in the
rock."

"What!" shouted another, "no one could have crept in there since the
time of David the shepherd. Look at the thick cobwebs."

"That's true," they laughed, and straightway rode off.

An old man who seemed to have risen from the grave now stood before