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10 Phares was wont to remark to one or another of his more impressionable companions, when they voiced their astonishment at the exceptional good grace of their ill-famed neighbors; “we have honey on our hands, and therefore the bears of Edom are so assiduously following in our wake.”

“Yea, we have honey on our hands!” Rachor now ejaculated reminiscently to himself, as he was bounding over the mounds in the bed of the hollow straightway towards Merob. “Today,” he continued querulously, “today they tried to plunder the hive, and we had to crack the skulls of some of them to wean the bandits of their thievish lusts. Merob, down on thy belly!”

Merob reluctantly went down with an evident desire of turning over on its side, away from Rachor, to prevent an immediate inspection of the basket. But Rachor tore away the canopy, and while fumbling with the lid of the basket, plaintively and anxiously called the girl's name: “Aseneth, are you unhurt? Aseneth, are you here?”—But Aseneth was gone.

Rachor swayed and reeled, and would have dropped to the ground had he not held himself up by grasping the edge of the rack to which Aseneth’s litter was strapped. For some time he was unable to give vent to his feelings otherwise than by his heavy and hissing breathing, which was relieved in due time by a broken succession of howls and screeches as fierce and terrible as those of a trapped wolf. And then, seized with a fit of rage, he fell to belaboring the harmless Merob with his cudgel. But the dumb beast was little minded to suffer the unreasoning wrath of its master. It leaped to its feet, with all its awkwardness and bulk,