“Do you know, Dismas, your lamentations don’t amuse me?” said the other, supporting himself on his hands and knees like a four-footed beast.  “I have a more important matter on hand.  I’m hungry.”

Dismas jumped on his stone, and made ready for flight.  “If he’s hungry, he’s capable of killing and eating me.”

Barabbas had assumed a listening attitude, and his eagle eyes stared out into the desert.  A red banner was visible between the rocks and stones; it moved and came nearer.  It was a woman’s red garment.  She rode on an ass, and seen closer, carried a child in her arms.  A man, tired out, limped beside her, leading the ass.

“Dismas, there’s someone,” whispered Barabbas, grasping the handle of his weapon.  “Come, let’s hide behind the stone until they come up.”

“You’ll fall on those defenceless folk from an ambush?”

“And you’re going to help me,” said Barabbas coolly.

“We’ll take what we need for to-day, no more.  I’ll only help you so far, mark that.”

The little group came nearer.  The man and the ass waded deep in the sand, which in some places lay scantily over the rough stones, and in others had drifted into high heaps.  The guide was leading the animal quickly, for during this sunless day he had lost his bearings, but said nothing about it, in order not to make his wife anxious.  His eyes sought the right road.  They ought to reach the oasis of Descheme that day.  Now he saw two men standing on blocks of stone which reached up into the sky.

“Praised be God!” said Joseph of Nazareth, “these men will put me right.”

Before he had time to frame his question, they quickly descended.  One seized the ass’s bridle, the other grasped Joseph’s arm, and said:  “Give us what you have with you.”

The pale woman on the ass sent an imploring glance to Heaven.  The little child in her lap looked straight out of his clear eyes, and was not afraid.

“If you’ve bread with you, give it us,” said Dismas, who was holding the ass.

“Fool!” shouted Barabbas of the snub-nose, “everything they have belongs to us.  Whether we will give anything, that’s the question.  I will give you the most precious thing—­life.  Such a beautiful woman without life would be a horror.”

Dismas reached at the sack.

“Why are you doing that, brother?” said Barabbas.  “We’ll lead them to our castle.  The simoon may be blowing up.  There they’ll have shelter for the night.”

He tore the bridle from Dismas’s hand, and led the ass bearing the mother and child down between the stones to the cave, Joseph saw the men’s weapons, and followed gloomily.

When the shades of evening fell, and the desert was shut out and the sky dark, when the blocks of stone and the cone-shaped rocks resembled black monsters, the wanderers were settled in the depths of the cave.  The ass lay in front of it sleeping, his big head resting on the sand.  Near by lurked the robbers, and ate their plunder.