Then he added the blessing of the elders at the ancient marriage of Boaz and Ruth: "The Lord make the woman that is come into thy home like Rachel and Leah, which two did build the house of Israel." Then Ruth pushed aside the veil just enough to kiss her, and, holding the bride's cheeks between her hands, repeated the extravagant blessing the family of Rebekah used when they gave her to the patriarch Isaac: "Thou art our sister: be thou the mother of thousands of millions; and let thy seed possess the gate of those that hate them." The little crowd of peasants had in the meantime lighted flambeaux and small hand lamps. Elnathan marshalled them into a procession, which, making a detour over the hill-side, returned to the booth of Marduk. Here the couple entered. The crowd gathered under the terebinth, where, with feasting and songs, they made the night merry, until the east dropped its gray dawn upon them without a cloud--which they interpreted into a happy omen for the newly wedded--and, with a hundred shouted well-wishes to the merchant and his bride, they dispersed to their homes. The Persian officer rejoined his own company. The soldier from Sanballat, who carried a letter to Marduk from Manasseh, set out upon his return. "Captain Beto" seemed to forget the proprieties of the occasion, and made himself a companion of Marduk and his wife during almost all the first day of their wedded life. The three sat under the terebinth, or walked together over the hill; the devoted couple apparently as deeply interested in their visitor as in each other. Whether their interest in "Captain Beto's" talk was warranted or not, we must leave the reader to judge. He told of events in Phoenicia, some of which are recited in the next chapter. CHAPTER XXXII. After Ahimelek's horrid curses upon his daughter, he remained in a stupor during the day and night. When the morning broke, the servants found him sitting in a corner of his apartment in the inn of Gebal with his arms folded as if clasping some object, and talking incoherently: "Don't go, Zillah, my pretty one! There now! Sleep again! You will not hate your father when you grow to be a queen, will you? Kiss me again. A curse! a curse! a curse on him who will touch a hair of my Zillah! What are those men pushing with their poles? Save her! Give her to me, Layah!" Then followed a long period of weeping. Like a child, at last he cried himself to sleep. Late in the day he awoke. He was a changed man. His hair had grown perceptibly whiter. His face was ashen-hued. From middle life he had passed suddenly into senility and imbecility. The terrible excitement had seemingly burned out his brain. For some days he refused to leave Gebal. When at length he set out, and came to the river Adonis, he was held by some spell from crossing it. As his litter-bearers rested by the bank, he leaped from his carriage, and ran hither and thither, searching with wild eyes into every pool.