A heavily built man approached the couch under the terebinth. He was slightly bowed with the years that had chronicled themselves by the gray lines in the long beard which fell far down upon his bare breast. His legs and arms were uncovered, and showed that strength had not deserted the slightly shrunken muscles. His face, though weather-beaten and wrinkled with cares as with years, was a beautiful one, beaming with intelligence and soulfulness; one of those rare faces that fascinate children, but can command men--such is the combination of affection and dignity they reflect from the abiding disposition behind them. His eyes were deep-set beneath heavy brows, and seemed the home of lofty and generous sentiments, suggesting those crystal springs in shady dells which good spirits have always been traditioned to inhabit. "The Lord be with you, my son!" was the old man's hearty salutation, as he came and looked down upon the stranger. "Are you not able to talk?" he kindly inquired, noticing that Hiram made no response, and unwilling to think his silence discourtesy, as it would have been regarded had the one addressed been fully himself. Hiram stared at the face of the old man, in painful effort at recollection both of the questioner and of himself. "Where am I?" he inquired, endeavoring to raise himself upon his elbow. "Nay, be quiet, my son!" replied the other, laying him gently back upon the couch. "It is enough for this day that you know you are safe, and under the roof-tree of Ben Yusef." "Ben Yusef? I do not know you." Hiram gazed intently at him, as if to replenish from the intelligent face his own vanished power of thought. "Ay, Ben Yusef, of the tribe of Judah. You are, indeed, a stranger, not to know the tent of Ben Yusef, of Giscala." "Giscala? In the Jews' land?" "Ay, and in Galilee. You must have been badly hurt for so shapely a head as yours to have been knocked out of its whereabouts. I had thought Ben Yusef's tent as well known as yonder rocky pinnacle of Safed, which guides travellers from afar. But who are you, my son?" Hiram glanced at his own herdsman's clothes. He felt the coarse texture. A tremor shook him, as if from the passing of some horrid dream. He replied: "I am what you see me."