The boy’s eyes brightened and he drew in a sharp breath, but almost instantly the animation died and he looked at her sorrowfully.  It seemed that she read dissent and sympathy commingled in his gaze.  But he was a Christian; he could not believe and hope as she hoped.

“Can I do aught for you?” he asked disjointedly.

“Our duty is rather toward you, child,” she answered, suddenly arousing to the peril they might bring their free-handed host.  “We have newly come from a country where there is pestilence.”

But he smiled down on her uplifted face, with immense confidence.

“I am not afraid.  Besides, if I perish giving you comfort, I have done only as Jesus would have me do.”

“Who is Jesus?” Laodice asked.

The shepherd made a little sign and bent his knee.

“The Christ!” he responded.

Momus plucked quickly at Laodice’s sleeve and shook his head at her in an admonitory manner.  He had laid down his bread unfinished.  But the shepherd looked at him sympathetically.

“Never fear,” he said.  “It will not hurt her to hear about Him.  He makes Pella safe from armies.  Let her come there and see for herself.”

Laodice pressed his hand.

“I shall come,” she said.

He heaved a contented sigh—­contented with himself, contented with her promise to come.  Then he drew his hands away.

“The sheep are noisy; they will not let you sleep.  We shall go.”  Then as if afraid of her thanks he drew away, and halted at the threshold of the shelter.  Then the boy extended his hands with a gesture so solemn that both of his guests bowed their heads instinctively.

“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you for evermore.  Farewell,” he said in a half-whisper.

He was gone.

Presently the rush of little feet swept after him and his high, wild, youthful yell rang faintly in the distance.  The delicate crackling from the heated bed of coals was all that was heard in the sheltered wady roofed with skins.

For the second time within the past few hours, Laodice had met a Christian.  Both had helped her; both had blessed her.  And one was an old man and one was a child.

The interest of the recent interview and the excitement of the night slowly died away, leaving Laodice in the dead hopelessness of weary despair.  She lay down suddenly with her face against the warmed sand and wept.  Momus sat down beside her, covered her with a leopard skin taken from his own swarthy shoulders, and soothed her with awkward touches on cheek and hair, till her tears exhausted her and she slept.

Stealthily then the old man rolled up her own mantle and put it under her head and prepared to watch.  And then as he sat with his knee drawn up, his head bowed upon it, the weakness of slumber gradually stole away his watchfulness and his concern.

Some time later, before the deliberate dawn of a March day had put out the last of the greater stars, two men on horses descended the declivity just above the shelter of sheepskins and attracted by the dull glow of the fire drew up cautiously.