"He cometh with a sword." And Samson-Solomon dreamed in the presence of the priestess and with wide-waking eyes.

"If He come," fared on the woman, "He may not bring a sword-so say Babylonian magi. Moreover, if so He came, then mightest thou, O most stiffnecked person, resist Him. Thou art a man set in all thy ways, and never a one can bend thee-so be thou like Him not."

"I shall like Messiah," said Samson, "I will worship Him. If He come or ere I die, I shall see Him in the flesh, will touch the border of His sacred garment with my fingers, listen to His holy words with these my very ears, and, when He biddeth me arise, I will kiss Him on each cheek.'

A horn sounded.

Gillul arose, saying: "Let us mount to the High Place. Come, let us mount."

They ascended with torches up the scarlet rocks, and went to a secret high place of Dusares.

There they extinguished their flames, for the rites to the god Dusares were ever to be performed beneath the quivering gods of heaven.

Took she that was priestess unto Dusares Samson of Cyrene up before the silent congregation, and set him before them by an unhewn stone that was sacred to Dusares. But the Jew said unto her, "I see not Trivialis"-for he thought alone of a great revenge on him that had been a scoffer at Adonai.

The priestess answered and said unto him, "Be content. Thou shalt see Trivialis." She laughed sweetly. "She

And she summoned a trembling father up before the congregation, who had with him a little child. Them twain set she down before the unhewn stone.1

Said she to the father, "This is December 25. What hast thou as a gift unto Dusares?"

Said he, "I have my child."

"Dost thou give him freely?" then asked she.

The father choked, and looked on his child weeping. Yet he said, "I do. I do give him freely."

Cried Gillul, "Hither, O priest of sacrifices."

A man robed in white came from an excavation in the mountain,

1 For the ritual employed in the worship of Dusares (Dhu 'sh-Sharā) see, among other authorities, Hastings, "Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics," I, pp. 663 and 665 (both columns); also Wellhausen, "Reste Arabischen Heidenthums," zweite Ausgabe, Berlin, 1897, pp. 48-51 and 101-147.

having in his hand a great blade. Whereat the child did scream and press his head against his father's bosom.

"Father!"

"What, O my son?"

"Lovest thou met"

"Assuredly, my son. I have always loved thee better than my own soul: thou art unto me first and last and only."

"Who then will be thy son, dear Father, when I am gone? Thou madest for me a little black tent. And who will be my mother's? Art thou sure that this is right, O my father?"

"It is right," said the father. "My son, it is very right. Dusares demandeth it."

"Dusares doth indeed demand it," said in a low, dead tone the white priest. And he signed to the congregation, which arose and began singing, that the god, Dusares, might be unable to hear the screaming of the child, and, being offended by this, reject the sacrifice.

The priest plucked up the child out of its father's bosom, and cut its throat, and the blood spouted.

And the father fell straight down on the rocky ground.

But the priest took blood upon his hand, and, smearing the stone with it, cried out above the congregation: "We come unto thee, Dusares! We come, we come."

And he moistened the soil about the stone with the blood of the child, and, digging a hole beneath the stone, did lay the child's body therein, and so buried it.

And the congregation (Philostephanus among them) left their places, and wildly marched around the stone, crying: "We come, Dusares! Great is Dusares! Holy is Dusares! We come, we come!"

Some did pass their hands both on and over the stone, some lay down and kissed it. All were barefoot, carrying, each, his shoes in his hands.

And Samson of Cyrene was deeply stirred in his soul.

Thought he, "Surely a sacrifice like this which I have seen, were acceptable to Adonai. And surely Adonai is in this stone, for else would a people which is mighty worship such a thing? But these do call Adonai by another name than do I—which is Dusares. And that is all the difference between them and me."

And he stripped him of his shoes, and took them in his hand, and marched with the other people round about the stone, crying "Great is Dusares!" And he felt of the stone, and lay on the ground and kissed the stone.

CHAPTER XVII

SIMON OF CYRENE

THE people went back to their places.

Then Gillul, priestess of Dusares, came hither again, and, taking a goblet of rich old wine, offered it to the Jew, saying: "Drink, and become as one with him we worship in the stone. Thou needest not to renounce Adonai.”

But he would not drink, saying: "Let me first kill Trivialis. Then will I drink either unto thee or unto Hell."

So she said, "See! How little it is thou wilt do for me and for Dusares! But I-behold thou me.

She threw her garments off. Even to perfect nakedness cast she them away.

And she ran to an elevated platform, and there, in honor of Dusares, danced and danced again.

And the people shouted wild acclaim. And Samson of Cyrene looked upon her grace with gladness.

But she, beholding, danced as never woman danced before, crying: "Is not my religion quite as good as thine, and any religion whatsoever quite as good as any other?"

And all the congregation cast their clothes aside, and wildly shrieked, and danced also.

But when the priestess had left off dancing, she came and stood anigh the Jew, gazing upon that man with eyes full of ancient dreams.

And a swift fire ran about his body, his nostrils dilated, a wide roaring filled his ears. He reached his mighty arms out unto her. But she pushed him back, crying: "Not till thou hast drunken. Little wilt thou do either for me or for Dusares, thou Jew."

And she took and offered him wine a second time.

He drank.

She offered him yet another goblet. But he said, "What! Shall a Jew become a-drunken? By the splendor of Jehovah- By my very people-"

The air began to grow sluggish, to turn thick, to be a mere suffocating power. All that passed about him was floating into a dream. As he knew that he was falling, he struggled into great repentance, thinking dimly: "Lord, let me live, that I may punish many evil-doers, and fall no more from thy righteousness." But he knew not truly when he fell.

And she had a number of strong men carry the body aside. And she accompanied it.

Then gloated she above it, saying: "Thou, therefore, which would teach many nations, teach thou thyself. Professing to be wise, thou hast become a fool."

She jerked the locket from his neck, crying: "Ophidion, at length I have secured for thee the precious theca thou hast so long desired."

Came in her mind an image of Ophidion, the only man which held in his grip her heart. But also she was glad in her soul that a god of her own country had come to triumph in this matter. "Thou, Ophidion, great and bright and beautiful as thou art, and in every way admirable, thou hast yet no pride at all in Petra, as have I. Thou art too much of the world at large-so much of space thou needest for the play of thy great abilities.-But, though I triumph with the triumph of my country's god, yet thou alone it is I worship, not Dusares. With all my blood and all my bones I worship thee, as doth Dusares him that is thy master, even Satan."

Now, all this while Ophidion was in a corner of far-off Spain, laughing at the love which Gillul bore unto him, and swearing by all the blood which had ever been shed on the stone of Dusares, that he would use this woman to his advantage. "And when I have done with her, I will cast her away, and she shall be unto me only laughter and a by-word."

But Gillul took the locket from the sleeping Jew, and having long endeavored with it, opened it.

But behold, there were no pearls contained in it at all. Whereat she raged for a long time, vainly.

Yet she found in the locket a little parchment, rolled up in a very tiny scroll. And having unrolled the scroll, she first beheld the genealogy of the Jew, and, after that, these words: "The rightful name of the bearer of this locket, it is therefore Samson, which is also Solomon, for behold he is a marvel both of bodily strength and endurance and also of wisdom and of peace. And he is truly entitled to the priesthood at Jerusalem."

And she hid the parchment in her own bosom, laughing scornfully, and saying: "Ophidion, I will do much better than merely to send the locket and the parchment unto thee. I will also fool the Jew."

She wrote therefore on another piece of parchment (and without any genealogy): "The rightful name of the bearer of this locket, it is Simon (or 'favorable hearing'). For behold, he hath given his

favors freely to priestesses both of adultery and of blood. He is therefore nowise entitled to the priesthood at Jerusalem."

Then rolled she the newer parchment into a scroll, as it were the old one, and placed it in the locket, and closed the locket tight again, and placed the chain thereof about the neck of Samson-so that, haply, he, finding the locket still upon his bosom when he again awoke, might fondle it and be satisfied.

CHAPTER XVIII

ABADDONE

On the morning of the morrow, Samson, awakening, attempted to rise. But his limbs were weak and weary. He lay at a little distance from Petra, in a wilderness of rocks.

Then he remembered all that had happened till he had drunken the wine.

Said he, "Accursed be idolatry forevermore. Accursed be all worshippers of beasts and of stones and of images, and doers of all manner of uncleanness and of murder in the names of gods. Accursed be ye and your iniquities, all of you. Accursed be idolatry forever, and all that have to do with it, world without end."

After a time he managed to rise, yet fared but a little distance, and, for the weakness of his limbs, fell down into the shadow of a mighty rock, where, once more, he slept, and sorrowfully dreamed.

And he thought (as he dreamed) that he sate again on the rock before the house of Gillul. The horn sounded. She gat her up to go unto the High Place of Dusares. But Samson, not arising, said unto her: "Hold! I do remember that, in the weary hours of sleep last night I dreamed a dream as concerning my father's steward, Trivialis. I dreamed, and behold I thought that the man had attempted to rob me as I lay on my couch, courting slumber. I believed he had taken the locket which thou dost see upon my breast, and in which are the sure credentials of my priesthood. So I quickly rose, and smote him that he fell. Dying, cried he: 'Forgive.'

"And behold! as I sought to open the poor clasped fingers, they held no locket, but only a venomous serpent which truly it was that the steward of my father had taken from my breast."

""Twas but a dream," saith Gillul.

"Aye, but there is ofttime truth in visions. For when the soul, slumbering, beginneth to play with the long day's relics of reality—” Then brake she in upon him, "Art thou a fool? What would