The Bronze Bow - Elizabeth George Speare [32]
"How will you know it?" Daniel asked.
"I thought of that. If you could mark some sign on the wall—"
"A bow!" Thacia exclaimed. "You know—from the Song of David you read last night!"
"The bronze bow," Daniel exclaimed, pleased that Thacia too had remembered. "Will you read that part again, Joel?"
"I didn't bring the scroll," Joel said, "but I know it by heart." He leaned back against the wall.
"—God is my strong refuge,
and has made my way safe.
He made my feet like hinds' feet,
and set me secure on the heights.
He trains my hands for war,
so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze."
"It couldn't really be bronze," said Daniel, puzzled. "The strongest man could not bend a bow of bronze."
"Perhaps just the tips were metal," Joel suggested.
"No," Thacia spoke. "I think it was really bronze. I think David meant a bow that a man couldn't bend—that when God strengthens us we can do something that seems impossible."
"Perhaps," said Joel. "You do have an imagination, Thace!" He went on with the Song of David.
"Thou hast given me the shield of thy salvation..."
"Oh dear," Thacia broke in, dismayed. "I just remembered. Father asked me to play for his guests tonight."
"Then we must go," said Joel quickly, gathering up the scroll of Enoch. "Father likes to have Thace play the harp for him," he explained, seeing Daniel's bewilderment.
Daniel looked at Thacia. "I have never heard a harp," he said.
"Then I'll bring it and play for you tomorrow," she promised. "No—not on the Sabbath. But I won't forget."
"Do you want us to leave the light, Daniel?"
"No," said Daniel. "I'm used to the dark."
They crept along the passage, the light flickering and vanishing altogether. Then, very faintly, came the whispered words, "Goodnight, Daniel." This time he was certain he had heard them.
He lay in the darkness, and it seemed that a warmth and light still glowed all around him. Together, Joel had said. Three of us together. And Thacia was not against him.
He trains my hands for war,
so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze...
He could see the shining bow, the bow that no man could bend with his own strength alone.
Suddenly he sat up. It came to him that Joel had given him the answer to his most urgent question. It was time for him to leave this place. For two days, without their knowing, he had tested his strength, pacing back and forth in the narrow passage. Joel would try to keep him. Better simply to go. They would be horrified that he had chosen the Sabbath, when a man could walk no more than two thousand cubits from his home. But the Law was for the wealthy, for the scholars, not for the poor. By now he had broken so many points of the Law that he was beyond all redemption. What matter if he broke one more?
Toward morning, when he was sure that all the household would be asleep, he crawled along the passage. His fingers discovered a latch, and the little service door swung inward. He eased himself through the narrow slot, into the street, pulled himself to his feet, and made his way through the city toward the mountain.
I would like to have heard that harp, he thought once. But he put that behind him. Instead he repeated the Song of David.
He has made my feet like hinds' feet
And set me secure on the heights.
All the same, he would like to know how a harp sounded.
8
DANIEL HAD OVERESTIMATED his strength. Long before he reached the mountain he knew that he had left the shelter of Joel's passageway too soon. Toiling up hill under a merciless sun, he had to stop so often that it was late afternoon before he came to the steep zigzag rise up the cliff. He was not sure he could make it.
Suddenly it seemed to his wavering sight that one of the dark boulders high on the cliff detached itself from the rest and rolled toward him. Samson came leaping down the trail to kneel at his feet. Then, when Daniel tried to speak and no sound would come, the big man rose swiftly, lifted the boy in his great arms, and carried him gently up the trail to the cave.
Samson did not allow