“Master,” cried the penitent, the big drops on his cheeks, “your words are precious beyond seven talents of gold. Yet have I not sinned beyond the Lord God’s mercy?” “You have not if by your future deeds you atone as in you lies. And now I am hearkening.” Whereupon, with many groans and protests of sorrow, Shaphat told how, after the trial, and his almost forced exposure of Gudea’s infamy, he had rushed away and hid himself in the vilest quarters of the city, amongst the bargemen and sailors. Often he meditated slaying himself, but the fear of the angry Jehovah passed his fear even of his stinging conscience. Daniel lay in his prison, and Shaphat knew that up to the last moment he had been consenting to the “civil-minister’s” misfortune. His own scanty means were soon ended. Avil-Marduk was his enemy, and desired his arrest. As a last recourse, Shaphat hired himself to a band of nondescript Arab caravan merchants, who were about to set forth for Egypt. Perchance, he vainly argued, he would find that the goad of memory might not follow to the strange Nile country, and he could commence life there afresh. But on the day after setting forth, while the caravan halted in a village, lo! after the manner already told, the Amorite bandit came with his three captives, nor was Shaphat long in recognizing. And then began his new agony. Well he knew that Ruth was all Binit protested,—worth her weight in silver to any who might deliver her to the king. And first he resolved to tell his employers that Binit’s ragings were indeed truth, and they had great prize. But the serpent of guile brought him yet darker thoughts. Why should he not flee away with the Jewess herself, deliver her to Belshazzar, claim the royal reward, and drown his remorse in the delights of riches? It was with this thought uppermost that he suffered himself to drift into new falsehoods when the leader of the caravan questioned him as to their youngest captive. All that day he adhered to his black purpose, and the delays which prevented the advance of the caravan were largely of his contriving. In the evening, as soon as the camp grew still, he filched a bag of money from an Arab and prepared to make off. The flight was not difficult. Ruth obeyed him implicitly when he promised he would conduct her back to safety. They wandered onward toward the city until the Jewess’s feet were so weary she could trudge no more, and she slumbered out the remainder of the night in a farmer’s stack, while Shaphat remained on guard to beat off the wild dogs and jackals. In the morning he contrived to purchase some millet bread in a village, and they plodded southward.