"Do you hold to your resolution, my lady?" Layah asked, her voice trembling, scarcely making the words articulate. "Yes--at last! at last!" Layah threw herself on the ground at her mistress's feet. She remained for a while as one in prayer. At length, raising her face, she cried: "O my lady! have I influenced you to this decision? Tell me truly, as Astarte lives! as Baal-Hiram lives there in the sky! tell me, truly, have I led you?" "No, Layah, you have not. It was the covenant I made with him who was Adonai to me, my lord Hiram! my god Hiram, if Baal will! Baal will take us both. Hanno himself, and he is wisest of all the priests, assured me that we should not always be separated. I asked him directly if at the festival of Adonis I might not go to Hiram. He replied that in the lore of the priests such things are said to have occurred, and bade me be true to Hiram, and watch; and, furthermore, he gave me a sign of the divine will. But I may tell it to no one; not even to my faithful Layah." "If," said Layah, "I have not persuaded you to the deed, tell me now, before the gods, have I sought to dissuade you?" "No, my dear Layah, you too have been true to my lord Hiram. You have not hindered me from my holy sacrifice to him." "May I have my reward, then, from the hand of my mistress?" "Ask what you will, Layah." "Let me go with you, if merely human creatures may enter the world of the gods. Perhaps I can serve there. They have slaves there, have they not? The sky has flecks in it. Why may not I be with you? I know that Baal-Hiram will let me come with you." "No, no!" cried Zillah. "It must not be. If I live after my body is dead--and who can tell?--let me think of you as living here. I will come back often, and bless you; or I will watch over you as the moon gleams upon us. And if I do not live again, let there be one heart in this world to mourn for me. I have none other than thine, my dear Layah. My father does not love me, except for the riches I may bring him. To you I give these. See! This armlet was Hiram's gift. Let me put it on you. This necklace you shall wear. Do not deny me this favor, or I shall believe no one on earth loved me." The two women remained much of the night weeping, or in grief too deep for tears: Zillah prayerful and resolute, the comforter of her handmaiden; as if the poor girl's sorrow were for some other misery than that of her consoler. CHAPTER XXVI. With the dawn all was astir. From behind rocks and trees the curious stared as Zillah's litter was carried along. At every spot where the path widened, so as to allow them to gather in crowds, many people prostrated themselves as if before a sacred ark. The day was yet young when the denser throngs indicated the immediate vicinity of the holy place. The servants of Ahimelek had gone before Zillah and prepared her pavilion, so that when she stepped veiled from the litter she entered alone the seclusion of her own chamber.