LITMIR.BIZ

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to be in, but if they had either to walk or to work on that day, they did not worry about it very much. But they kept the Law as far as they could, and, though they wandered away north into Phoenicia, they only preached in the Jewish villages or streets. They never thought of preaching to the Gentiles.

      By and by Nathan died suddenly, in the sun by the roadside, smiling, and Eleazar went on alone. But he was beginning to get more easily tired, and his beard was streaked with white; often he saw angels and other strange beings both by day and night. Sometimes he came back to villages where they had taught earlier, and people remembered them and welcomed him, but, so strong is the force of habit and every day, that few had changed their way of life much. If they had done so, they would usually form a little community rather apart from the rest of the village where they lived. So it was that Eleazar came back to a village in the hills near Beth Zanita and found just such a community; he was tired, and when they asked him to stay he said he would for a time, and then it seemed as though one of the angels gave him leave to stay for always. So he stayed.

      There were about twelve families in the community and most of the land had belonged to two or three of them, but now they held it all in common and all worked on it, digging, sowing, leading the water in little channels to the roots of the crops and then shutting it off, gathering fruit or grain. The boys herded the goats and sheep of the community and the women spun and wove and made pots, and once a week they all met and said the prayer and talked about what had to be done, and Eleazar or another spoke about the Kingdom; but mostly they asked him to tell them stories about Jesus-bar-Joseph, how He had looked and what He had said and, above all, what He had done in love or anger or doubt or eagerness. The children were dipped in running water for their purifying and rebirth, as soon as they were old enough to want it, and so were any adults who joined them. There was little money used, except what they needed for paying the yearly taxes.

      They were only ten miles or so from the sea, but it was out of sight behind the hills, and even when you got there the fishermen of Achzib were not friendly. So they got little news of the outside world. But one year all the villages heard something terrible. The Emperor of the Romans had decreed that his statue was to be set up and worshipped in Jerusalem, perhaps in the Temple, and two legions had been landed to force this thing on the people. It was the time of the autumn sowing, but no one could work; those who had swords brought them out and sharpened them; others had axes or metal-pointed hoes which would make spears; the streets were full of the crying of women. In the community they talked this way and that; it was the first time there had been very hard words and even blows, for some said that even this must be forgiven, and others said that the forgiving of enemies meant the enemies of one’s own village or at least nation, and that it never could have been said of the Gentiles. In the end nothing came of it, and the Emperor was killed in Rome and went to the everlasting fire and the Temple was safe, and in the community they went on saying the prayer, but it meant different things to some and to others.

      Things were unsettled after that, in Judaea and all about the coasts. Now and again some man would get followers and arm them and call himself King, and those who hated the Romans would follow him, and it would be weeks or even months before the legions could put down the rebellion. The flocks and the crops would suffer and it was bad for everyone. It was a difficult Province, and whenever anything went wrong there, the Jews in Alexandria and Asia Minor sent letters or deputations to Rome, for they never forgot their country. There were armed brigands, too, who frightened the small villages into giving them food, and sometimes raided them and even carried away women and children.

      One band of these brigands was often in the hills above Beth Zanita, and one winter they raided the community and carried off five children. There was no money to ransom them, and they were taken up the coast to Tyre. Two of them were girls, for whom there was always a market; they were sold at once. The other three were boys. Josias was a husky twelve year old who had fought them till he was beaten and tied down; he still seemed quite intractable, so he was sold to a dye-works where they could do with plenty of cheap boy-labour; he would last a year or two. Melchi was a strong boy too, and more easily frightened; he was sold as a house servant. The third, Manasses, was rather younger, a lovely little creature; he had not fought. At first he had cried a great deal, and then something out of the prayer had come back into his head, and he had really tried to forgive his enemies. They knew they could sell him well, and they kept him till they could get his price. The three boys promised one another, sobbing, that they would try to keep in touch. They would all say the prayer at the first and last light and think of one another, and perhaps … After the other two were sold, little Manasses spent some bad days. He remembered the community and tried now to think why it really was that his father and mother and the others were trying to live a different kind of life from the rest of the village. He thought of the stories old Eleazar used to tell and he turned them over in his mind. He wondered whether it had made any difference, his trying to forgive the brigands who had carried him off and hurt him; perhaps they had been kinder to the other two. Or perhaps it just hadn’t made any difference, but yet it was a good thing to do. Perhaps it made him, even by himself, nearer to the Kingdom. Though he felt far enough from it now, with no one in all Tyre to be his equal in trust and amity.

      He went on thinking about the Kingdom and never speaking about it for months and months, and twice a day he said the prayer and remembered the other two. He had been bought by a dealer who prepared slaves for a better market, and here he was taught miming and dancing, as well as Greek. They were quite kind to him and he learnt docilely; he was fond of music, though it often made him cry, even when he was moving in time to it. He had better food and no more fleas than at home; he was not allowed out in case he should run away, but he was not beaten or knocked about, because his body was very saleable. But they wanted him cheerful and at last someone asked him what would stop his moping; he told them he had two brothers and two sisters—in the community they were always brother and sister to one another—somewhere in Tyre, and he wanted to see them. But he did not know the names of the masters to whom the two little girls and Melchi had been sold, and no one was going to take much trouble about tracing them. He did know the name of the dye-works where Josias was, and one day his master went over and bought what seemed to him a very wretched, coughing, limping piece of cheap human material, its hands and face covered with the sores they mostly got in the Tyrian dye-works.

      Manasses fell on his master’s neck with an enthusiastic gratitude which made the old man feel quite silly, and set to work washing Josias’s sore hands and face; the sores healed in time, but left him slightly scarred, and he was always rather lame where a truck had gone over his foot. He would never be worth much and could only be used for rough work, but most of the fight had been knocked out of him. Lying in the straw at night with Manasses’s arms round him, Josias told about those months at the factory where a new boy was at everyone’s mercy, where it was no good trusting anyone or anything, where one was burnt with hot irons and splashed with hot acid of the dye-base, and worse—much worse—things he wouldn’t ever tell Manasses—things that no Jew—and he shuddered all over with the horror of it, poor little country boy who had not even heard much evil as a child.

      After a time Josias got well and strong enough to want to run away, but each boy was told what penalties that would involve for the other, and they were never allowed out together. There was more and stricter mime training for Manasses, and sometimes now he did his dancing to an audience. He might be sent out for an evening, petted and given sweets by Tyrian merchants, and sometimes by their wives, for he was young enough to be allowed in and out of the harems. Sometimes he was petted more than he liked, and once all the women in a harem stripped him and dressed him up in girls’ clothes and did his hair, which was now in long dark tresses, and painted his face like a bride’s, and everyone said things which made him stamp and scream with rage. It was not until a long time afterwards that he could forgive those fat, stupid, cruel women, jeering at him, holding him with sharp nails, touching him all over, till he couldn’t bear to be touched, even by Josias, for days afterwards. There were little henna marks all over his skin from the women’s fingers.

      The boys wondered whether these merchants made their money, and kept their wives, out of dye-factories: most likely. There was plenty of luxury industry of all kinds in Tyre, as well as shipping, and most of the big merchants had interests in other cities as well. They looked very fine, great, bearded,

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