Baffled for that day, Caleb continued his
inquiries on the next, taking a fresh supply of vegetables, which he
purchased from the same peasant, to another body of soldiers camping in
the Valley of Himnon. So he went on from day to day searching the
troops which surrounded the city, and working from the Valley of Himnon
northwards along the Valley of the Kedron, till on the tenth day he came
to a little hospital camp pitched on the slope of the hill opposite to
the ruin which once had been the Golden Gate. Here, while proffering his
vegetables, he fell into talk with the cook who was sent to chaffer with
him.
"Ah!" said the cook handling the basket with satisfaction, "it is a
pity, friend, that you did not bring this stuff here a while ago when
we wanted it sorely and found it hard to come by in this barren,
sword-wasted land."
"Why?" asked Caleb carelessly.
"Oh! because of a prisoner we had here, a girl whose sufferings had made
her sick in mind and body, and whose appetite I never knew how to tempt,
for she turned from meat, and ever asked for fish, of which, of course,
we had none, or failing that, for green food and fruits."
"What were her name and story?" asked Caleb.
"As for her name I know it not.
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