sound! And so near. From far across the valley, toward the village of the South Midians, Eshbaal had heard a similar sound, though faintly from afar, the night before. Four times it had broken the silence of the valley and no more. Eshbaal had heard it and so had his fellows in the village of Ehja , the son of Noah.
Lafayette Smith seized the kid before it could wriggle free, and despite its struggles he slung it across his shoulder and started back toward the waiting girls.
'He didn't miss it!' exclaimed Jezebel. 'I knew he wouldn't,' and she went down to meet him, with Lady Barbara, perplexed, following in her wake.
'Splendid!' cried the English girl as they came closer. 'You really did shoot one, didn't you? I was sure you missed.'
'I did miss,' admitted Lafayette ruefully.
'But how did you get it?'
'If I must admit it,' explained the man, 'I sat on it. As a matter of fact it got me.'
'Well, anyway, you have it,' she said.
'And it will be a whole lot better eating than the one I missed,' he assured them. 'That one was terribly thin and very old.'
'How cute it is,' said Jezebel.
'Don't,' cried Lady Barbara. 'We mustn't think of that. Just remember that we are starving.'
'Where shall we eat it?' asked Smith.
'Right here,' replied the English girl. 'There is plenty of deadwood around these trees. Have you matches?'
'Yes. Now you two look the other way while I do my duty. I wish I'd hit the old one now. This is like murdering a baby.'
Upon the opposite side of the forest Eshbaal was once again experiencing surprise, for suddenly the goats for which he had been searching came stampeding toward him.
'The strange noise frightened them,' soliloquized Eshbaal. 'Perhaps it is a miracle. The goats for which I have searched all day have been made to return unto me.'
As they dashed past, the trained eye of the shepherd took note of them. There were not many goats in the bunch that had strayed, so he had no difficulty in counting them. A kid was missing. Being a shepherd there was nothing for Eshbaal to do but set forth in search of the missing one. He advanced cautiously, alert because of the noise he had heard.
Eshbaal was a short, stocky man with blue eyes and a wealth of blond hair and beard. His features were regular and handsome in a primitive, savage way. His single garment, fashioned from a goat skin, left his right arm entirely free, nor did it impede his legs, since it fell not to his knees. He carried a club and a rude knife.
Lady Barbara took charge of the culinary activities after Lafayette had butchered the kid and admitted that, beyond hard boiling eggs, his knowledge of cooking was too sketchy to warrant serious mention. 'And anyway,' he said, 'we haven't any eggs.'
Following the directions of the English girl, Smith cut a number of chops from the carcass; and these the three grilled on pointed sticks that Lady Barbara had had him cut from a nearby tree.
'How long will it take to cook them?' demanded Smith. 'I could eat mine raw. I could eat the whole kid raw, for that matter, in one sitting and have room left for the old nanny I missed.'
'We'll eat only enough to keep us going,' said Lady Barbara; 'then we'll wrap the rest in the skin and take it with us. If we're careful, this should keep us alive for three or four days.'
'Of course you're right,' admitted Lafayette . 'You always are.'
'You can have a big meal this time,' she told him, 'because you've been longer without food than we.'
'You have had nothing for a long time, Barbara,' said Jezebel. 'I am the one who needs the least.'
'We all need it now,' said Lafayette . 'Let's have a good meal this time, get back our strength, and then ration the balance so that it will last several days. Maybe I will sit on something else before this is gone.'
They all laughed; and presently the chops were done, and the three fell to upon them. 'Like starving Armenians,' was the simile Smith suggested.
Occupied with the delightful business of appeasing wolfish hunger, none of them saw Eshbaal halt behind a tree and observe them. Jezebel he recognized for what she was, and a sudden fire lighted his blue eyes. The others were enigmas to him—especially their strange apparel.
Of one thing Eshbaal was convinced. He had found his lost kid and there was wrath in his heart. For just a moment he watched the three; then he glided back into the forest until he was out of their sight, when he broke into a run.
The meal finished, Smith wrapped the remainder of the carcass in the skin of the kid; and the three again took up their search for the fissure.
An hour passed and then another. Still their efforts were not crowned with success. They saw no opening in the stern, forbidding face of the escarpment, nor did they see the slinking figures creeping steadily nearer and nearer—a score of stocky, yellow haired men led by Eshbaal, the Shepherd.
'We must have passed it,' said Smith at last. 'It just cannot be this far south,' yet only a hundred yards farther on lay the illusive opening into the great fissure.
'We shall have to hunt for some other way out of the valley then,' said Lady Barbara. 'There is a place farther south that Jezebel and I used to see from the mouth of our cave where the cliff looked as though it might be scaled.'
'Let's have a try at it then,' said Smith. 'Say, look there!' he pointed toward the north.
'What is it? Where?' demanded Jezebel.
'I thought I saw a man's head behind that rock,' said Smith. 'Yes, there he is again. Lord, look at 'em. They're all around.'
Eshbaal and his fellows, realizing that they were discovered, came into the open, advancing slowly toward the three.
'The men of North Midian!' exclaimed Jezebel. 'Are they not beautiful!'
'What shall we do?' demanded Lady Barbara. 'We must not let them take us.'
'We'll see what they want,' said Smith. 'They may not be unfriendly. Anyway, we couldn't escape them by running. They would overtake us in no time. Get behind me, and if they show any signs of attacking I'll shoot a few of them.'
'Perhaps you had better go out and sit on them,' suggested Lady Barbara, wearily.
'I am sorry,' said Smith, 'that my marksmanship is so poor; but, unfortunately perhaps, it never occurred to my parents to train me in the gentle art of murder. I realize now that they erred and that my education has been sadly neglected. I am only a school teacher, and in teaching the young intellect to shoot I have failed to learn to do so myself.'
'I didn't intend to be nasty,' said Lady Barbara, who detected in the irony of the man's reply a suggestion of wounded pride. 'Please forgive me.'
The North Midians were advancing cautiously, halting occasionally for brief, whispered conferences. Presently one of them spoke, addressing the three. 'Who are you?' he demanded. 'What do you in the land of Midian ?'
'Can you understand him?' asked Smith, over his shoulder.
'Yes,' replied both girls simultaneously.
'He speaks the same language as Jezebel's people,' explained Lady Barbara. 'He wants to know who we are and what we are doing here.'
'You talk to him, Lady Barbara,' said Smith.
The English girl stepped forward. 'We are strangers in Midian,' she said. 'We are lost. All we wish is to get out of your country.'
'There is no way out of Midian,' replied the man. 'You have killed a kid belonging to Eshbaal. For that you must be punished. You must come with us.'
'We were starving,' explained Lady Barbara. 'If we could pay for the kid we would gladly do so. Let us go in peace.'
The Midians held another whispered conference, after which their spokesman addressed the three again. 'You must come with us,' he said, 'the women at least if the man will go away we will not harm you, we do not
