and his wife too.  And his eyes examined the woman curiously, for he never saw so mean a thing before:  her small beady eyes were like a rat’s, and her skin was nearly as brown.  Twenty years of desert wandering leave them like mummies, he reflected; and the child, whom the mother enjoined to come forward and to speak winningly to the rich man, though in her early teens was as lean and brown and ugly as her mother.  Marauders they sometimes were, but now they seemed so poor that Joseph thought he could never have seen poverty before, and took pleasure in distributing figs amongst them.  Let them not see your money when you pay me, the innkeeper said, for half a shekel they would have my life, and many’s the time they’d have had it if Pilate, our governor, had not sent me a guard.  The twain spoke of the new procurator till Joseph mounted his mule.  I’ll see that none of them follow you, the innkeeper whispered; and Joseph rode away down the lower hills, alongside of precipices and through narrow defiles, following the path, which debouched at last on to a shallow valley full of loose stones and rocks.  I suppose the mule knows best, Joseph said, and he held the bridle loosely and watched the rain, regretting that the downpour should have begun in so exposed a place, but so convinced did the animal seem that the conduct of the journey should be left entirely to his judgment that it was vain to ask him to hasten his pace, and he continued to clamber down loose heaps of stones, seeking every byway unnecessarily, Joseph could not help thinking, but bringing his rider and himself safely, he was forced to admit, at the foot of the hills over against Jericho.  Another toiling ascent was begun, and Joseph felt a trickle of rain down his spine, while the mule seemed to debate with himself whether shelter was to be sought, and spying a rock a little way up the hillside he trotted straight to it and entered the cave—­the rock projected so far beyond a hill that it might be called a cave, and better shelter from the rain they could not have found.  A wonderful animal, thou’rt surely, knowing everything, Joseph said, and the mule shook the rain out of his long ears, and Joseph stood at the mouth of the cave, watching the rain falling and gathering into pools among the rocks, wondering the while if this land was cast away into desert by the power of the Almighty God because of the worship of the Golden Calf; and then remembering that it was cast into desert for the sins of the cities of the plain, he said:  how could I have thought else?  As soon as this rain ceases we will go up the defile and at the end of it the lake will lie before us deep down under the Moab mountains.  He remembered too that he would have to reach to the cenoby before the day was over, or else sleep in Jericho.

The sky seemed to be brightening:  at that moment he heard footsteps.  He was unarmed and the hills were infested by robbers.  The steps continued to approach....