Musing thus, he observed a fisherman's hut near by. One wall had once belonged to some palatial structure; the others were made of such broken stones as a man might carry from the heap of ruins that lay about it. The doorway of the hut was faced on the one side with a column of marble; on the other, with a polished slab of granite. In front of the hut was an oven; the half of a huge porphyry vase, inverted, served for the fire-back, and gave direction to the draught. On some coals a woman was broiling fish. On a flat stone, lying half in the fire, and covered with ashes, a man was baking thin sheets of yellow dough, to be subsequently rolled into loaves of bread. Several others were lounging near, sleeping and bedraggled with the fishing of the past night. They welcomed Hiram with a grunted salâm. "Peace be to you!" "Peace!" "Peace!" said one and another, scarcely raising their eyes, as if the apparition of a Persian soldier were too common to awaken interest. An elderly man, coming from the hut, eyed the new-comer more attentively. "Another man from the coast of the Great Sea, eh! Our Persian masters are hiring Phoenicians to be soldiers as well as sailors. But it takes more than change of skin to make a wolf of a fox; and a man from the coast can never pass with me for one from beyond the desert. The west wind blows you fellows inland as it does the salt-water gnats. But sit by, and the Lord bless you! especially if your purse is lined with darics." Though this speech was not assuring, Hiram, with his recent memories, could not distrust a Jew. He gave his entertainers some good-natured repartee, though their words had cut far deeper than they knew. "Stranger!" said one, "tell us your story of that miracle at Tyre." "I have not heard from Tyre for many a day," replied Hiram. "I am in the king's business, and have been going up and down in your land for a time. What was the miracle?" "Ha! ha! Think of old Benjamin telling the news to a Phoenician who boasts that he knows everything! Why, they were going to offer up some prince or other--or was it a priest, Ephraim? No matter which. Well! the gods saved them the trouble. The sun grew bigger and bigger, and came down nearer and nearer, until he opened his mouth and swallowed up prince, priests, and five-score attendants. I would not believe it but that Ephraim here, who had drunk plenty of leben that same day, says he saw the sun come bobbing down at him while fishing on the lake."