Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: July 28, 2025
After him came a veritable avalanche of Syrian sheep, scrambling to right and left as they parted behind Momus and Laodice and eddying around the young shepherd who stopped at seeing the pair. His yell died away at once, though the effort of sliding down a frozen, rocky slope had not interfered with a single note.
Where is Laodice?" he inquired. Then his wife who had stood aside spoke. "She is not yet prepared," she explained unreadily. "She needs a frieze cloak " Costobarus broke in by beckoning his wife to one side, where the servants could not hear him say compassionately, "Let there be no delay for small things, Hannah. Let us haste, for Laodice is going on the Lord's business."
That this young calf of the pastures should insure him safe passage! But Laodice was still filled with the calamity of her loss. "Hast seen a robber, here, along this road?" she asked. "Many of them," was the prompt answer. "With a chest of jewels?" The boy shook his head. "I never examined their booty," he said with perfect respect. "Or then a woman riding one camel and leading another?"
Here was an opportunity for Laodice either as a disappointed adventuress or as a supplanted wife, to take revenge by exposing this pair of conspirators pledged to undermine the Gischalan. But the girl had no such thought. "I am Laodice," she said unreadily. "What history I have belongs to another. What future shall be mine depends on others. I wait."
"I am he," he said evenly. "Then," Laodice said, "I am she whom thou hast expected." Philadelphus smiled and dropped his head as if in thought. "One always expects the pleasurable," he essayed, "but at times one does not recognize it when it comes. Who art thou, lady?" "Pestilence, war and the evil devices of men have desolated me," she said coldly. "I have only a name. I am Laodice."
Her lashes were so long, and he knew that her lips were as cool as the heart of a melon; but that husband of hers knew better than he! And he, grandson of the just Maccabee, allied by marriage to the noble line of Costobarus through his daughter, Laodice, the bride with the greatest dowry in Judea, had staked his soul on the toss of a coin and had lost it!
The strange woman who had stood her ground was heard to say in a low voice, half lost in the muffling of her wrappings: "One!" Momus drove on leisurely and Laodice, knowing that she must not look, slipped down in her place and wrapped her vitta over her face. Pestilence was riding with them. After a long time, Costobarus' camel ambled up beside hers, and she ventured to uncover her eyes.
"Yet," Amaryllis added presently in a brighter tone, "there is much that is sweet in the life of a woman." Laodice played with the tassels of her girdle and did not look up. What was all this to lead to? "I have spoken to Philadelphus about you," the Greek continued. "He has no doubt of this woman who hath established her claim to his name by proofs but without the manner of the wife he expected.
The delicate crackling from the heated bed of coals was all that was heard in the sheltered wady roofed with skins. For the second time within the past few hours, Laodice had met a Christian. Both had helped her; both had blessed her. And one was an old man and one was a child.
Both these brothers did Antiochus vehemently oppose, but presently died; for when he was come as an auxiliary to Laodice, queen of the Gileadites, when she was making war against the Parthians, and he was fighting courageously, he fell, while Demetrius and Philip governed Syria, as hath been elsewhere related.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking