Page:Folk-lore of the Holy Land.djvu/60

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FOLK-LORE OF THE HOLY LAND
36

money must be paid was spent by them in ceaseless prayer in the synagogue. About midnight they heard loud knocking at one of the gates of their quarter. Some of them went and trembling asked who it was who thus disturbed them. “A Friend,” was the reply. Still they dared not open. But the man without thrust his hand through the solid door and placed a large bag in a hole of the wall within. The arm was withdrawn again, and all was still. The bag was found to contain the exact sum in gold demanded by the pasha. The Jews next morning presented themselves before their oppressor and laid the money at his feet. At sight of the bag he blenched and asked how they came by it. They told their story, and he confessed that the bag and its contents had been his until the middle of last night, when, though his tent was straitly guarded, a sheykh in bright raiment had come in and taken it, threatening him with instant death if he moved or said a word. He knew that it was El-Khalil, come to rescue the Jews, and begged their pardon for his harsh exactions. The Jews of Hebron still show the hole in the wall in which the bag of money was placed by Ibrahim.


VI

LOT AND THE TREE OF THE CROSS

Our father Adam, on his death-bed, was so terrified at the thought of dissolution, that he sent his son, the patriarch Seth, to the gate of Paradise to beg the