Part 7 (1/2)

Ben-hadad, the dark-eyed King of Syria, could no longer leap into his chariot and drive his swift horses through the fields as he used to do.

He could not draw the bow of steel or fling the heavy spear as far or as straight as the young men of his tribe, for he was getting old; and he had given up going with his warriors on their fighting across the Jordan, leaving it to his younger chieftains.

His home was in the beautiful town of Damascus, set in a land so rich and green with tapering trees, vineyards, and fields of gra.s.s, and watered with such delightful streams, that the Arabs, coming on their camels from the yellow sands of the hot desert, cried out, when they saw its white walls hung with green creepers, that it shone ”like a handful of pearls in a green cup.”

He ruled the tribes of Syria from that walled city, and in the spring-time of the year his chiefs gathered the young warriors to make up their minds where they should go to fight and plunder. Among the chiefs was Naaman the Syrian, a young man who led them out to battle when the king could not go, and had several times beaten their foes.

Sitting among his chiefs, with his royal spear in his hand, a band of gold round his brow, and rings of gold on his arms and legs, the old king talked with them about fighting the men of Israel, and gave them their orders; and best of all his warriors the king loved Naaman the Syrian.

Now when Naaman blew the king's horns and beat the king's drums up and down the country, calling the young men of the tribes for a raid across the Jordan, it was either to steal cattle and corn, or to capture slaves; and boys and girls were the slaves they liked best.

One day, when he returned from one of these slave-raids, Naaman brought back with him a little Jewish maid; and she looked so pretty with her dark eyes and ruddy cheeks that he gave her as a present to his Syrian wife, to wait upon her and run her messages. When her mistress washed her hands, the little maid held the basin on bended knee. When she dressed her dark hair, she held the comb and the oil, and the little pots of yellow dye for her nails and the black paint for her eyebrows.

When she went out, this little maid went also, in a little dress of scarlet, with a white kerchief on her dark head.

She learnt to love her mistress very much; and was sorry for her master, for he was troubled with the terrible sickness of leprosy, and she often wished he could be made well. One day she sighed, and said to her mistress,--

”Oh, I would to G.o.d that my master were with our prophet in Samaria!

then he would get better of his leprosy.”

She believed with all her heart that Elisha the prophet, like a clever doctor, could do something for him.

Now what she had said was told to Naaman, who told it to the king; and as they had both heard about Elisha, the wild prophet of Israel, the king told his favourite chief to go and see the wonderful man. And he also wrote a letter to Joram, the King of Israel, and gave it to Naaman to deliver; and this is what he wrote:--

”When this letter comes to thee, O King Joram, it is to tell thee that I have sent Naaman, my servant, for thee to heal him of his leprosy.”

Naaman folded the letter in his tunic, and filling a few small bags with silver and gold, and rolling up some bundles of new clothing, he put them into the wide saddle-bags of his camels as presents for the King of Israel. Then stepping into his chariot, he drove down the river valley, with his men clattering after him, and up the hills to Samaria on the watch-hill, where he delivered the letter.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Naaman at the house of Elisha.]

The King of Israel read it, and his chiefs saw that he was much troubled. Seizing his white tunic with both hands, he tore it from neck to hem--a sign of great grief--saying bitterly that _he_ was not able to heal people of leprosy, and that the powerful King of Syria was only seeking another cause to quarrel with him. What kings say and what kings do many tongues tell, and Elisha the prophet, who had a house in white-walled Samaria, heard about the king's grief, and sent his servant Gehazi to give him a message,--

”Why do you rend your clothes? Send the man to me!”