With tolerant wonder, Sergius heard and said: "A strangely serious race you Hebrews are; I do not think I understand you yet. I shall be glad to-morrow, if so please Thee likewise, to renew this night's discourse." So they descended from the hill and slept. The herald Dawn, white-fingered, from the east Had signalled to the stars, 'He comes! He comes!' And these, veiling themselves from view with light, Had all into the unapparent deep Retired, and left the hemisphere of heaven, Late glowing with their fixed or wandering fires, One crystal hollow of pure space made void To be a fit pavilion for the sun, When forth from their encampment rode the twain, Fresh as the morning from the baths of sleep, And keen with hunger for the forward road. "The allotment of my tribe," said Saul--"my tribe Is Benjamin--in measure such, bare rock And rugged hill, hardly through age-long toil Of tilth so clothed as we have seen them clothed, In terrace above terrace of won soil, With verdure--that, we leave behind, to cross This day the fatter fields of Ephraim." Then Saul to Sergius rehearsed in short The tale of Hebrew history, how God, Having his fathers out of Egypt brought, With sign and wonder thence delivering them And hither led them through the parted sea, And past the smoking top of Sinai-- Touched by the finger of God to burn with fire And thunder and lighten more than man could bear To see or hear, in sanction of His law-- Had lastly parcelled out this land to them In portions by their tribes to be their rest.