far away. About me was a waste of broken country covered with rock and sand and thorny things, no sign of water, naught to eat for man or camel.
Could it be that in this peaceful quiet I faced my end? My mind was clearer than it had ever been before. My body now seemed of little importance. My parched and bleeding lips, my dry and swollen tongue, my empty stomach, all had lost their supreme importance of the day before.
I looked across into the uninviting distance and once again came to me the question, ‘Have I the soul of a slave or the soul of a free man?’ Then with clearness I realized that if I had the soul of a slave, I should give up, lie down in the desert and die, a fitting end for a runaway slave.
But if I had the soul of a free man, what then? Surely I would force my way back to Babylon, repay the people who had trusted me, bring happiness to my wife who had cared for me, bring peace and contentment to my parents.
‘Thy debts are thy enemies who have run thee out of Babylon,’ Sira had said. Yes, it was so. Why had I refused to stand my ground like a man? Why had I permitted my wife to go back to her father? Why had I been weak like a slave if I had not the soul of one?
Then a strange thing happened. All the world seemed to be of a different color as though I had been looking at it through a colored stone which had suddenly been removed. At last I saw the true values in life.
Die in the desert! Not I. With a new vision, I saw the things that I must do. First I would go back to Babylon and face every man to whom I owed an—45—
