For this mist Miriam was thankful,
since had the sun shone hotly she knew not how she would have lived
through another day. Already she grew very weak, who had suffered so
much and eaten so little, and whose only drink had been the dew, but she
felt that while the mist hid the sun her life would bide with her.
To others also this mist was welcome. Under cover of it Caleb approached
the gateway, and although he could not ascend it, as the doors were
locked and guarded, he cast on to its roof so cleverly, that it fell
almost at Miriam's feet, a linen bag in which was a leathern bottle
containing wine and water, and with it a mouldy crust of bread,
doubtless all that he could find, or buy, or steal. Kneeling down,
Miriam loosed the string of the bag with her teeth and devoured the
crust of bread, again returning thanks that Caleb had been moved to this
thought. But from the bottle she could not drink, for her hands being
bound behind her, she was able neither to lift it nor to untie the thong
that made fast its neck. Therefore, as, notwithstanding the dew which
she had lapped, she needed drink sorely and longed also for the use of
her hands to protect herself from the tormenting attacks of stinging
gnats and carrion flies, she set herself to try to free them.
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