Jonah was let out of the whale in the North, near Arvad, and not far from Kadesh as a crow might fly, which is to say, over the coastal hills and then in a straight line across the jungles and the desert. This was the route he took as being the shortest way to Nineveh. He was in a hurry; he was impatient to begin his mission. He was filled with enthusiasm. How different from his flight to sea, this vigorous return across the land dry with the sun of midsummer. Now he marched with a firm and hurried step, his face darkly radiant with divine purpose, with pious anger. Yes, he would speak; Nineveh would hear him. Let them stone him if they liked, God would amply repay them for it. What glory. And this was all his, not hers, not for her sake; let her be proud of him if she liked; what did it matter any more? She would hear enough of it in Tyre; Jonah here, and Jonah there.... Yes, they would speak of it in Tyre. As he passed the wayside altars of the baalim with their pillars surmounted by horns of sacrifices, he smiled at them in derision. “You,” he said scornfully, “you ... what are you gods of, anyway?” At Kadesh he saw statues of the river deities, Chrysonhoa and Pegai. He spat in the dust before them; fortunately, no one was looking. In the sun of late afternoon their shadows pointed like great spears toward Nineveh. “Israel will hear my name again,” he thought proudly. The evergreen oaks of the hills gave way to the tamarisks of the Syrian jungles, and the palms and scrub of the desert. He slept the first night in the wilderness between Kadesh and Rehoboth. The jackals were silent, awed by the presence of lions among the rocks. Padding to and fro, the great beasts watched Jonah from afar, with eyes like flames. And Jonah dreamed of Deborah; when he awoke, he remembered her gentle smile. In the fresh light of early morning a mother goat divided her milk between the prophet and her ewe. “These are stirring times, Jonah,” she said; “angels are abroad in great numbers.” Recognizing a minor deity, Jonah blessed her and resumed his journey. At the end of the second day he began to pass the boundary stones of Assyria, set up to warn trespassers upon private property. Thinking them altars, Jonah cursed each one as he went by. The next day he passed kilns in which colored bricks were being baked. As far as he could see, the blue, green, and yellow bricks stood in rows on the red earth. That night he slept outside the gates of Nineveh. The city rose above him in the dark; he heard the sentries challenge on the walls.