"Does she sleep sound?" he asked of Nehushta, pointing to Miriam.
"Like the dead."
Then, after another whispered conference, the pair of them crept round
the angle of the rock. Bidding Nehushta follow them, they lifted the
sleeping Miriam, and carried her between them through a dense growth of
shrubs to another rock. Here they moved some grass and pushed aside a
stone, revealing a hole not much larger than a jackal would make. Into
this the brother entered, heels first. Then Nehushta, by his directions,
taking the feet of the senseless Miriam, with her help he bore her into
the hole, that opened presently into a wide passage. Last of all Ithiel,
having lifted the grasses which their feet had trodden, followed them,
pulling the stone back to its place, and cutting off the light. Once
more they were in darkness, but this did not seem to trouble the
brethren, for again lifting Miriam, they went forward a distance of
thirty or forty paces, Nehushta holding on to Ithiel's robe. Now, at
length, the cold air of this cave, or perhaps its deep gloom and the
motion, awoke Miriam from her swoon-like sleep. She struggled in their
hands, and would have cried out, had not Nehushta bade her to be silent.
"Where am I?" she said.
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