The silence and motionlessness of the sea imparted themselves to Hiram. The rush of events and the intense excitement of the past few days had almost exhausted the active energies of his mind. As the strained strings of an over-used lyre give no sound, so he seemed no longer able to respond to even the rude alarms of danger. He was fleeing now, not with any sense of fear, but solely with the momentum of past impulses, as the heart sometimes continues to throb and the lungs to heave when conscious life has ceased. He realized his own mental condition. He felt the moral inertia. He said to himself: "I believe I would not move if Egbalus pointed his sacrificial knife at my heart. I could walk into the arms of Moloch." He could understand somewhat how the priests succeeded in preparing their human victims for unhesitating obedience at the fatal moment. He saw how the will becomes paralyzed by the strain of the previous terror, and how the wretched devotees lose the susceptibility to recoil even at the steps of the altar, as the leaves of the sensitive-plant, frequently rubbed by the fingers, no longer shrink at the touch. In this condition of mind, the stillness of the sea was very congenial to Hiram. It invited him as a kindred spirit. Out upon its placid bosom he could rest, without the necessity of arousing himself every moment to pass judgment on things that appealed to his suspicion. There, too, after yielding himself for a while to the soothing influences that lulled the air and water, he could plan for the future, instead of taking his cue, as heretofore he had been compelled to do, from the movements of his pursuers. Should he go across the desert to Damascus? to the plains of Babylon? to the court at Susa, and throw himself beneath the protecting shadow of the Great King? to the solitude of the Sinaitic mountains? Or should he seek the coast of the Great Sea, and cross to Greece? Whither, when, with a few more turns, like those of the hunted fox, he shall have thrown the Baal-hounds off the scent? And Zillah! How her fair face shone in every bright thing he looked upon, and her frightened, agony-drawn features stared at him out of every gloomy object! There was so much to think about. And on the sea he could think. Perhaps Jehovah would help him think, or maybe speak to him. Such a beautiful lake as this must be sacred to him who is god of mountains and water and sky alike. Yonder where the sea blends with the distant shore, and the shore rises until it blends with the sky--surely that must be the meeting-place of earthly and heavenly influences, if gods ever commune with men.