others excused her: the girl had been left on the shelf since (Blayq), and now she is angling for a bridegroom, and it is no concern of hers whether Christ died or lived. Tabitha was not eloquent, but she had motions more telling than speech for stirring and beguiling. A brown girl, passable of face, she kissed the cheek of the door with her full lips—an eloquent kiss—and saluted the venerable Father, who answered with a slight bend of the head; and without knowing it his voice rose, saying: “Give us this day our daily bread.” Then the shidyaq Zakariya and his band, gathered about the trunk of the oak, laughed; and our Father Timothaos took note, and sighed, praying God to cover him.

None but the small boys kissed his pure hands; he would grant them the divine blessing, which they received bareheaded, and furnish them with a smile that showed only on his brow, for his mouth is hidden behind a dense forest... And what harm if he smiled at these while at his prayers—the Lord said: Suffer the little children to come unto me.

Timothaos is the hero of his farces. He calls him Blayq even after the priesthood, and the priest goes wild; but he fears falling into his tongue, and so keeps silence, chafing. And Zakariya has no mercy on him at all. He knows him for a spinner of yarns, one who claims heroism yet dies of terror if a fly buzzes; so he invents for him exploits and violent adventures.

***

The people assembled and the choir prayer was raised. The Synaxarion told the tale of the trial, the scourging, and the crucifixion, and the moans of the old women and the sighs of the old men rose as though the blows were falling on their own skins. The lessons were read—chapters of Isaiah and Jeremiah and the rest—and at the last Father Timothaos singled out the shidyaq Zakariya for the reading of (the Praxis)—a chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. He read with great skill a chapter he had prepared since mid-afternoon: the story of that (disciple) who died at Jaffa, when Mar Boutros was called from Ludd—Lydda—expressly to raise her from the dead. And no sooner had Zakariya reached the passage—“and Boutros prayed and cried: Tabitha, arise! and she opened her eyes”—than Tabitha shrieked from among the women: “Would that you might never open your own! May his life be cut

short—how heavy his blood is! This, a shidyaq? This, a qandaq? This is a devil!”

Then everyone laughed, even the ancient priest. As for Zakariya—and such was his way—his gravity neither lifted nor lessened; he carried his chapter through to the end as though nothing at all had happened.

And Father Timothaos read several Gospels in a trembling voice, for the shock had been no light one. The prayer was ended, and the people dispersed in sorrow.

On Friday morning they vied in gathering flowers of every shape and color, and came to strew them at the feet of the cross set up at (the Royal Door). Toward noon they held the funeral and bore the bier three times round the nave of the sanctuary, then kissed it one by one in farewell. And the priest and the deacons buried it behind the altar, that it might rise on the third day, as it is written.

In the evening they came back and clustered about their priest. The Reverend seated himself upon a high stone, with Zakariya and his flock ringed around him. Talk moved along—the Friday prayer is a light one. The shidyaq Zakariya set about shearing the Reverend's kindly wool, scratching him just where it itched; and so he paraded the mem-ories of his youth, before his mother wrapped him in the robes of the holy degree. Someone mentioned the ringing of the bell, and Zakariya said: “Our Father Timothaos rang the bell of Mar Abra fifty rounds.”

The priest said: “And you speak truth, shidyaq—a hundred and twenty rounds with these two hands, and twenty more with my waist.”

One of them found it too much, and said: “Uff!” Said Zakariya: “Be quiet, you—I know better than you. Before my own eyes he snapped the chain of the guard of Dayr Qozhaya with a single squeeze. If I told you about the stone basin of Mar Sassine of Haqel, you would go mad. He played with two sixty-oqqa weights as with toys; and the wellhead stone of this church well of ours—had it a tongue, it would bear witness.” Then he turned to the priest and said: “By the life of your holiness, my master—tell them.”

The priest drew a breath and said: “I have forgotten; remind me, shidyaq.”

Said Zakariya: “The story of the ogre.”

“The story of the ogre—an ogre

who thought to lord it over us: I wrung his neck.”

“Go on, don't be bashful.”

“His head went into twenty pieces.”

“Great is your reward—the people were rid of his mischief.”

The people whispered among themselves: “Can the tales of the ogre be true?”

Zakariya heard, and began jeer-ing at them: “The priest tells us, and we say: true, true!” Then Zakariya turned to his company with that solemn, comical air of his—only his eyes spoke—and they all hung their heads, biting their lips. Then he turned his face toward the priest and said: “What ails you! Your stories tonight are scant. Don't change your custom.”

So the people gave ear to hear their priest's tales, believing that he devoured men whole. As for Father Jirjis, he began to puff and grumble and try to get his word in; his son would check him, and he would mutter and fall still.

Zakariya waited for something from the priest, and nothing came, so he said: “Hear the latest tale—this one is far greater than the tales we have heard.” The priest said: “Which one?” Zakariya answered: “The leopard that met you when you were coming back from... from the feast of Mar Nohra.” The priest laughed and said: “Your memory is good, shidyaq. I flung him down in the river, and when I had given him his fill of blows I pressed on his chest one press, and the blood gushed.”

Said one of them: “They say he threw you.”

“Threw me—poor thing! My own soul cast me down, and I had resolved to kill him; but I said: leave him, boy; do not bring a calamity upon your village. The affair happened in the village outlands.”

A thick word escaped the old priest; his son caught it up by rais-ing his voice and buried it... and the thread of the talk was not broken.

The innocent evening-talk passed on to the disciples of Christ, and the people marveled how they had turned coward and left the Savior in the hands of the Jews. They did not remember the bread and wine of the mystical supper: they kept not watch with him a single hour; they left him to weep alone in the garden; and Boutros, who had been accused and laid claim to manliness, denied him three times before cockcrow.

Their dispute grew hot until it