Chapter 4

Half an hour before sunset she found them, acres of them it seemed, seated singly or in pairs or by families in a close-nibbled sheep pasture on the high-banked shore of the Jordan. They were busy with their supper, which they had been foresighted enough to bring with them. Fara stopped a little way apart from the area where most of the pack-animals were tethered, hung Saidi’s bridle on the pommel of the saddle, loosed the girths, adjusted a stout halter, buckled on a well-filled feed-bag, and staked out the tired filly for a hard-earned rest.

Strolling forward among the groups of people, she sat down near a good-looking family—father, mother, two half-grown boys, and a pretty girl of her own age. The girl turned her head toward Fara and smiled shyly. Her father instantly muttered an inaudible command and his daughter, with some reluctance, left her place and wedged in between her parents. Fara was amused. She unwrapped her parcel of food and made a leisurely survey of the great multitude. It was a strangely quiet crowd. There was a low, inarticulate rumble of subdued conversation, but all faces were sober, pensive, and there was no laughter to be heard anywhere. A gentle but insistent, one-sided argument was in progress near by. The mother of the adjacent family was pleading earnestly with her husband. Yielding to her importunity he nodded at length, and their well-favoured daughter rose to resume the place where she had sat before. Her long black hair, unbound, was spread out covering her shoulders and back, and she seemed troubled about it. Turning to Fara with a smile she offered her a sweet roll, which was accepted gratefully.

‘My hair looks untidy,’ said the girl. ‘It’s wet. I was baptized.’

‘It’s beautiful,’ said Fara gallantly. ‘How did you say it got wet?’

‘The great prophet was baptizing this afternoon.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t know,’ confessed Fara. ‘What does that mean—baptizing? This is my first time here.’

‘The prophet leads us into the river and pushes us down under the water. That washes away our sins—and we are clean.’

‘And very wet, I suppose,’ remarked Fara sympathetically.

The girl’s full lips parted in a slow, reluctant smile that displayed the tips of beautiful teeth. Unable to think of an appropriate rejoinder to this dry drollery on a solemn occasion, she suddenly sobered and nodded her head.

Nothing further was said for a while, Fara regretting that she had spoken flippantly, the pretty Jewess, her face averted, apparently wishing she knew how to explain the cleansing she had had in the Jordan.

‘I cannot think that you have been so very sinful,’ ventured Fara gently.

‘We are all sinful,’ murmured the girl in a lugubrious imitation of experienced piety.