"Roads by Seabury Quinn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Quinn Seabury)

which from its freshness was evidently the ceremonial best

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that he was wont to wear on Sabbath to the synagogue. A
linen turban bound his head, and before his ears the unshorn
locks of "David-curls" hung down each side his face. His
clothes and bearing stamped him as a countryman or villager,
yet withal there was that simple dignity about him which has
been the heritage of self-respecting poverty since time began.
Unmindful of the battle that had taken place so near it,
the donkey cropped the short grass at the roadside in
somnolent content, indifferent alike to war's alarms and the
woman seated on the cushioned pillion strapped to its back.
The woman on the ass was barely past her girlhood, not more
than fifteen, Claus surmised as he looked appreciatively at her
clear-cut lovely features. Her face was perfect oval, her skin
like ivory, more pale than fair, her features were exquisite in
their purity of outline; a faultless nose, full, sweetly-curving
lips that had the indescribably lovely red of doves' feet, large
eyes as blue as the ocean of Claus's homeland and, in
harmony with all, a flood of golden hair which in the style
permitted Jewish brides fell unconfined beneath her veil down
to the pillion upon which she sat. Her gown was blue, as was
her over-mantle, and a veil and wimple of white linen framed
her features to perfection. Against her breast she held a tiny
infant bound round and round in Jewish fashion with layer on
layer of swaddling-clothes, and a single glance showed that
the mother's beauty and sweet purity were echoed in the
baby's face.


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"We are beholden to you, sir," the man thanked Claus
with simple courtesy. "Those men were seeking our son's life.
Only last night the Angel of the Lord forewarned me in a
dream to take the young child and its mother and flee from
Nazareth to Egypt, lest the soldiers of King Herod come upon
us unawares. I hear that they have murdered many little ones
whose parents had not warning from the Lord."
"Thou heard'st aright, old man," Claus answered grimly,
thinking of the widow woman's son. "Back in the village
yonder is the sound of lamentation. Rachael weeps for her
dead and will not be comforted. Howbeit," he looked
disdainfully upon the bodies in the road, "meseemeth I have