On the third day they reached the sea of Galilee, where the party halted, while Manasseh saw that his charge was safely under the tent of Ben Yusef, and presumably made all necessary inquiries into the genealogies of the house of that worthy. The record which he showed to the Persian was long enough to have carried the family back, not only to the days of the Captivity, but to the life of the great patriarch Yusef himself.
Slowly the hours dragged while Zillah awaited the coming of Hiram. Elnathan was as faithful to his charge as the huge mastiff was to the care of little Ruth; and there was very similar communication between them. The young Jew's eyes searched all the paths over the hills that converged at the family tent; his ear was quick to detect any approaching step; and he eagerly ran to meet every one coming, lest some interloper should spy out the strange guest. Then from a distance he would watch the Phoenician lady as she walked, or sat under the great terebinth. The part he had taken in her rescue had reacted in a strong fascination for her. How many romances he wove about this beautiful woman!--a different one for almost every hour, but all terminating in her flight, and all involving himself as in some form her protector. He had felt a sort of proprietorship in her destiny, as he did in that of Marduk since he had saved his life at the old crater; yet it was a proprietorship of absolute unselfishness, of obligation to cherish and guard, such as a father feels in his child.
Beyond that, Elnathan could not go. To admire Zillah's loveliness, of which he now and then caught a glimpse, seemed unlawful for him; for that belonged to her lover alone. He scarcely ventured to speak to her, lest his words might be a sort of profanation. He could only wonder and watch. She was his queen, and every fibre of his soul thrilled with loyalty.
Old Ben Yusef had much the same feeling as his son; but his curiosity was absorbed in his tenderness. Tears came into his eyes as he looked upon Zillah's face, now shadowed with trouble, now ecstatic with yearning. That there had been some barrier to her union with Marduk was enough to revive memories of his own early life, when his now buried Lyda, an alien from Israel, had cast her lot with his. His tent-home, the home of an outcast from the family of Judah, was itself a memorial of the triumph of love over traditionary proprieties; and it seemed as if the God who had blessed his married life had now sent this Phoenician maiden to his care.