Enraptured with her beauty, her perfect fulfilment of his needs, he
realized last the unlovely features of her presence. She balanced a
heavy water pitcher on her head and wore a rough surplice, more
decorous than the dress of the average bondwoman, but the habit of a
slave, nevertheless. He had halted directly in her path, and after a
moment's hesitancy she passed around him and went on.

Immediately Kenkenes recovered himself and with a few steps overtook
her. Without ceremony he transferred the heavy pitcher to his own
shoulder. The girl turned her perfect face, full of amazement, to him,
and a wave of color dyed it swiftly.

"Thy burden is heavy, maiden," was all he said.

The bulk of the jar on the farther shoulder made it necessary for him
to turn his face toward her, but she was uneasy under the intent gaze
of his level black eyes. She dropped behind him, but he slackened his
pace and kept beside her. For the moment he was no longer the man of
pulse and susceptibility but the artist. Therefore her thoughts and
sensations were apart from his concern. The unfamiliar perfection of
the Semitic countenance bewildered him. He took up his panegyric.
Never was a mortal countenance so near divine. And the sumptuousness
of her figure--its faultless curves and lines, its lissome roundness,
its young grace, the beauty of arm and neck and ankle! Ah! never did
anything entirely earthly dwell in so fair, so splendid a form.

As they neared the camp the girl spoke to him for the first time. He
recognized in her voice the same serene tone he had noted in his talk
with the Hebrew some days before.