Bethphage

“ Methinks the damsel should be conveyed through the streets of Bedford town otherwise than swinging to a saddle like a market-wife's butter-basket. But, Sir Knight, thou knowest far better than I how to treat a fair lady."
"I have it!" exclaimed De Breauté. "There is the horse-litter of my sister, in the which she sometimes is graciously permitted to go abroad, when her ailments allow her not to mount her palfrey. She is ever sickly, the woman. I will send to Bedford for it. Nay, I would go myself, could I trust my men to guard."
"Go thyself, if thou art so minded," replied the priest. ”

“ All the while, too, a great danger has to be avoided, for there is an enemy that sees in the booty brought by the Bembex to its young, a rich store for its own progeny. This enemy is a feeble, two-winged fly of the family Tachinidae and the genus Miltogramma; it hangs about the neighbourhood of the nests, and sooner or later finds its opportunity of descending on the prey the Bembex is carrying, choosing for its purpose a moment when the Bembex makes a brief delay just at the mouth of the burrow ”

“ We know that there is no fear in your heart, and that the White Eagle is very wise and good. Perhaps the Great Spirit will help you. If you slay the Mighty One we will know that we have been wrong, and that our fathers have been wrong, and we will accept the sign in the water."
Weak and shaking, the old man sat down and covered his face. One by one the chiefs stood up and spoke in the same vein. One by one they agreed that if Radisson and I should slay the Moose, they would accept the "sign in the water," for thus only could I represent the symbol of baptism to them. ”

“ At this moment of the return to the nest, I see nothing particular in the play of the antennæ. Without once letting go her prey, the Bembex scratches a little in front of her, at the very spot where she has alighted, gives a push with her head and straightway enters, with the Fly under her abdomen. The sand falls in, the door closes and the Wasp is at home.
It makes no difference that I have seen the Bembex return to her nest hundreds of times; it is always with fresh astonishment that I behold the keen-sighted insect find without hesitation a door whose presence there is nothing to indicate. ”

“ The Bembex attacks with an energy which would do honour to a bird of prey. To surprise one on the chase is no easy matter, and it would be useless to lay in a stock of patience and watch near the burrow, for the insect flies to a distance, and it is impossible to follow its rapid evolutions, and doubtless its manœuvres would be still unknown to me but for the help of an article from which I should assuredly never have expected a like service—namely, the umbrella which served me as a tent amid the sands of Issarts. ”

“ Not one will escape death.... Do you hear, my handsome prisoner?"
"All drowned!" murmured Berthoald, still under the dominion of a dull stupor; "all my companions drowned——"
"Oh, does not yet that new piece of confidential news wake you up?... Let us pass to another thing," and the abbess proceeded with a voice of ringing triumph: "Among the female slaves, taken from Languedoc, that your band brought in its train, there was a woman ... who will drown with the rest, and that woman," said Meroflede, emphasizing each word in the hope of each being a dagger in Berthoald's heart, "is—your—mother!" ”

“ For barely had I finished, when the darkness was split asunder by a musket-shot. The man beside Gib whirled about and fell into the fire.
"Scatter!" foamed Gib, raging. "Scatter and slay the White Eagle, fools! Out with the fire!"
The embers were dashed over the snows instantly, and under his rapid orders the band vanished. Two of them remained to lift me, and they carried me to the door of one of the lodges, a little apart from the rest. Gib flung away the flap, and by the light of the lodge-fire inside I saw the pale, frightened face of Ruth. ”

“ But, while the bird returns to a home on some inaccessible ledge of rock, with no difficulty to overcome but that of the weight and encumbrance of the captured prey, the Bembex has each time to undertake rough miner’s work and open up anew a gallery blocked and closed by the mere fact that the sand gives way as the insect proceeds. In that underground dwelling, the only room with steady walls is the spacious cell where the larva lives amid the remnants of its fortnight’s feast ”

“ The destruction of his band and the death of Gib seemed to have broken the old chief, and he had readily agreed to return home in peace and to lead no more war-parties into the Ghost Hills. Three of the foremost seats, however, were left empty out of respect, while from the top of the lodge was suspended the great pair of antlers which the giant moose had borne. The first who addressed the Council was Uchichak, when the calumet had been ceremoniously passed around, Brave Heart accepting it in silence. ”

“ Outside, under the stars, they returned as they had come, accompanied only by the two guards. When they approached the gate of the walled palace city, the girl looked up and drew a deep breath.
"It seems like a dream!" she said quietly. "We're not living in the common world of realities."
Ardzrouni laughed happily, and patted her hand, which lay on his arm.
"Delightfully true, dear lady! Shall I confess that I begin to prefer realities to dreams? Well, it is so. Even the eagle's blood finds kingship rather tiring, I assure you." ”

“ Then went Sir Bedivere thither; and when he came into the chapel, he saw where lay an hermit on the ground, near a tomb that was newly graven. "Sir," said Sir Bedivere, "what man is there buried that ye pray so near unto?" "Fair son," said the hermit, "I know not verily. But this night there came a number of ladies, and brought hither one dead, and prayed me to bury him." "Alas!" said Sir Bedivere, "that was my lord, King Arthur." Then Sir Bedivere swooned; and when he awoke he prayed the hermit he might abide with him, to live with fasting and prayers. "Ye are welcome," said the hermit. ”

“ So she lay as one without life, and the gentle squire was full of compassion when he saw her hurts, especially the wound which he himself had made with his hunting-spear, when the monster held her before him as a shield. And now Belphœbe, coming back from the cave, saw him looking at her, as it might be, in lover’s fashion, and a great pang of jealousy and anger moved in her heart. ”

“ As George rode through the blossoming forest, which Betsy's ancestor had bought from the Indians a century before, he must have had mingled emotions. There was the pleasure of the expectation of seeing Betsy again, mixed with the uncertainty of the outcome of his suit. Then too, he must have wondered if she would notice the scars on his face. While he had been in the Barbadoes, where he had accompanied his brother Lawrence in his fruitless search for health, George had contracted the smallpox which had left permanent scars on his face. ”

“ The Bembex, laden with game, alights with almost mathematical precision on the threshold of her door, which is blocked with sand and indistinguishable from the rest of the sandy expanse. Where my sight and recollection are at fault, their eyes and their memory possess a sureness that is very nearly infallible. One would think that insects had something more subtle than mere remembrance, a kind of intuition for places to which we have nothing similar, in short, an indefinable faculty which I call memory, failing any other expression to denote it. There can be no name for the unknown. ”

“ The way in which the Bembex, or Sand Wasp, provisions burrows by maternal foresight is much less mechanical than that of the Sphex. It is again Fabre who has described with most care the customs of this hymenopterous insect.78 It hollows out for each egg a chamber communicating with the air by a gallery, and performs this work with little care and very roughly. Less skilful than the others, it does not amass at once all the provisions which its larvæ will need during the period of evolution. When the offspring has absorbed the last prey brought, it is necessary to bring a new victim. ”

“ What, after all, is the Bembex looking for? Her larva, obviously. But, to get at that larva, she must enter the burrow; and, to enter that burrow, she must first of all [322] find the door. And it is in the search for this door that the mother persists, despite the wide-open gallery, despite the provisions, despite the grub, all exposed to view. At the moment she cares not that her house is in ruins and her family in danger; what she wants above all things is the familiar passage, the passage through the loose sand. Perish everything, dwelling and inmate, if this passage be not found! ”

“ The Bedouin, on the contrary, is a Nomad; his horizon is bounded by the desert or the mountain; his property is limited to his weapons, his horse, or his camel; he lives by pillage alone, and his ideas of religion and morality are of the vaguest possible description. A story is told of a Bedouin, convicted of murder and theft, having been asked by a Frenchman—"What would you say to God, if you were summoned to appear before Him?" ”

“ He summoned up, however, his usual solemnity, and in the preremptory tone of authority, commanded the ladies, instantly, to leave the bath. Whilst he was issuing these mandates, the young Nouronihar, daughter of the emir, who was as sprightly as an antelope, and full of wanton gaiety, beckoned one of her slaves to let down the great swing which was suspended to the ceiling by cords of silk: and whilst this was doing, winked to her companions in the bath: who, chagrined to be forced from so soothing a state of indolence, began to twist and entangle their hair to plague and detain Bababalouk ”

“ Heracleon, Nonnus and Beza are referred to in defense of Bethany; and among moderns, Mill, Simon and others, are quoted by Wolf on the same side. Campbell and Bloomfield also defend this view. Scultetus, Grotius and Casaubon, argue in favor of Bethabara. Lightfoot makes a long argument to prove that Bethany, the true reading, means not any village or particular spot of that name, but the province or tract, called ♦Batanea, lying beyond the Jordan, in the northern part of its course,――a conjecture hardly supported by the structure of the word, nor by the opinion of any other writer. ”

“ The old woman knocked at the door, and, without entering, she handed Giroflée some fresh fruit which they were very pleased to have to eat; and then they went to bed. But, as soon as day dawned, Désirée took again the shape and form of a White Hind.
Now Becafigue was in the very same wood, and came to the hut where the old woman lived. He begged her to give him something for his master to eat; but the old woman told him that if his master spent the night in the forest, harm would surely happen to him, because it was full of wild animals. ”

“ He raised her hand to his lips, bowing, and turned to his horse. He scarcely remembered more than that he rode off with a wave of his hand; his brain was in a wild riot of thought. It was a moral certainty that Abel Grigg had no right to wear that golden eagle, and in fact knew nothing about it—where, then, had Kathleen Grigg's eagle come from?
"'Just a bauble,' eh?" muttered Norton, his lips tightening in anger. "Friend Grigg, I would be pleased to have you repeat those words to me! By thunder, you'd learn something about the Revolution in a confounded hurry!" ”

“ There is a tribe of Athabasca that go by the name of Beaver Indians. From the tenets of their religion, I am told that, when laying under any malediction, bewichisms, or conceive themselves so, they make a vow that the first animal they shall kill they will do so. They do not fail, but immediately proceed in quest of another which, by this diabolical action, they think they will soon find and kill. They do not touch the animal afterwards, as those beasts among the Crees and Sauteux do, but leave it lay as a sacrifice. ”

“ She mounted, with a thrill of mystery and intrigue tingling in her veins.
As the four came into the temple, a priest met them. He made a swift gesture and led them into a side chamber, then through a number of empty rooms. They halted at last in a small, bare apartment where a single lantern burned. The priest turned to them, and Ardzrouni removed the wide bonnet that half concealed his face. At sight of those proud, fierce lineaments the priest bowed low; then his hand went out to the lantern and the room was plunged into darkness. ”

“ Many hundred species of the different families can be found, when they are patiently searched for in the shady places to which they are confined. It is vain to look for the Geodephaga, or carnivorous beetles, under stones, or anywhere, indeed, in open, sunny places. The terrestrial forms of this interesting family, which abound in England and temperate countries generally, are scarce in the neighbourhood of Pará, in fact, I met with only four or five species ”

“ For, when my bonds had been removed, Ruth took from its skin wrappings a little book and showed it to me.
"I found this in the lodge," she said slowly. "Look upon the title-page, Davie, and see if I have been dreaming or not. It seems very hard to believe."
The book was a little leather-bound Bible. As the Cree woman put a flare of birch on the fire, I held it to the light and opened it. There in faded ink were words written, and I copy them from the Book which lies before me as I write. ”

“ Hurry misplaced is hindrance. If Beth had given Sir George some one of the little things which she had written in sheer exuberance of thought and feeling, without hampering hopes of doing anything with them, he would have been very differently impressed; but, even as it was, what she had given him was as full of promise as it was full of faults, and he was convinced that he had not been mistaken in her, especially when he found that Ideala thought even better of her prospects than he did. ”