After him came a veritable avalanche of Syrian sheep, scrambling to right and left as they parted behind Momus and Laodice and eddying around the young shepherd who stopped at seeing the pair.  His yell died away at once, though the effort of sliding down a frozen, rocky slope had not interfered with a single note.

He might well have been a young satyr, fresh from the groves of Achaia, with his big, serious mouth and its range of glittering teeth, his shining deer-like eyes, wide apart, his faun curls low on his forehead, his big head set on a short neck, his shoulders yet childish, his slim brown body half smothered in skins, half bare as he was born, his large hard hand gripping a crook of horn and wood.  His gaze at Momus was frank with boyish curiosity.  His bright eyes plainly remarked on the oddity of the old servant’s appearance.  Having catalogued old Momus as worthy of further inspection, he looked then at Laodice.  Under the lowering moon and the listless effort of coming day, her unmantled dress of silver tissue made of her a moon-spirit, banished out of her world of pallor and solitude.  Before her splendid young beauty, pale with distress and weariness, he was not abashed.  His simple eyes studied her with equal frankness, but with an admiration beyond words.

Feeling somehow that his sudden appearance might have distressed her, he said finally: 

“Go on, lady, or stay as it pleases you.  I will not hurt you.”

Momus’ shoulders submerged his ears in an indignant shrug.  That this young calf of the pastures should insure him safe passage!

But Laodice was still filled with the calamity of her loss.

“Hast seen a robber, here, along this road?” she asked.

“Many of them,” was the prompt answer.

“With a chest of jewels?”

The boy shook his head.

“I never examined their booty,” he said with perfect respect.

“Or then a woman riding one camel and leading another?”

“Never anything like that.”

Laodice, with this hope gone, let her face fall into her hands.

“His fortune given freely to Israel,” she groaned.  “His whole life’s ambition reduced to material form for the help of his brethren—­gone, gone!”

The shepherd grew instantly distressed.  He looked at Momus and asked in a whisper what had happened.  But the old servant signed to his lips irritably, and stroked his young mistress’ hair in a dumb effort to comfort her.  The silence grew painful.  In his anxiety to relieve them, he bethought him of their uncovered heads and houseless state.

“Do you live in the village; or do you camp near by?”

Momus shook his head.  Laodice appreciated the boy’s concern for them but could not make an attempt to explain.

“Then,” he offered promptly, “come have my fire and my rock.  It is the best rock in all these hills; and my tent,” he added, showing the skins that wrapped him.  “I wear my tent; it saves my carrying it.  Indeed I do not need it; you may have it.  Come!”