and solitary in their habits, or secret and timid. When this was done, Noah’s three sons went each his own way according as their father had directed them, to entice or snare or drive into the places prepared for them the living creatures they had in mind. From least to greatest they knew their ways and natures, and where to seek them, and how to tame and persuade them to submit themselves into their keeping, both the timorous and delicate and the fierce and strong.

So day by day and week by week they gathered together two of every kind of living thing that roved around them or dwelt beneath the blue of heaven in the sweet winds and rains and dews, throughout the region of valley, plain and mountain, lying in a wide circuit around the place wherein they had built the ark. Mate with mate they brought them in, and fed them and kept them secure and in good liking, lion and lioness, leopard and leopardess, the stag and his doe, the fox and his vixen, horse and mare, bull and cow, ram and ewe, boar and sow, the wide-browed elephant and his mate, the gazelle and the hare, the coney of the sands, the antelope of the rocks, sheep and goat, the crafty cat, the gnawing rat, and the dark-delighting mouse. All these and countless others they assembled in the resorts that had been prepared for them, making ready for the day of the entering-in. The birds of the air, too, of every kind and feather, shape and song, from the eagle of noonday to the little wren—the gentle pelican, the blue-mooned peacock, the cuckoo and the thrush; all these and every living thing besides—where Noah and his sons had bestowed them, and in quarters best fitting for their ways and natures—awaited the day of the entering in.

The ark was set in the midst, and busy continually was the whole household of Noah. Twilight descended; and they rested from their labours. The absent ones returned to the camp. The cries and callings of the four-footed creatures, and the birds’ shrill sweet evensong ceased beneath the stars in the hush of the plain around them, where darkness enclosed them in. All was still.

And sleep enfolded them, renewing life and strength in wayworn foot and weary limb. Only the nightingale poured on into the starry dark a song of delight, that yet seemed to echo with grief and exile.

Strangers sometimes came that way, men with their hunting-dogs—and of great stature and faced like the hawk; keen and ferocious. Noah greeted them with civility and offered them food and drink. But when he solemnly warned them of the horror and destruction that were soon to come upon the earth, they merely mocked at him. They surveyed with their hard bright eyes the great clumsy wooden ship that lay casting its vast shadow on the grass beside it in the light of the sun, then turned their heads and stared insolently into his face as if into that of a man without wits, or with a mind ridden by the haggard deceits of insanity.

They spurned his gifts, jeered at his warnings, and went their way, blinded in their folly even to the changes and strange appearances in the heavens and in the scene around them that were revealing themselves before their very eyes.

The weather darkened; winds wailing in the vacancy of space rose up and fell again. Vast flights of birds showed themselves in the skies of daybreak and sunset. There came a restlessness and fearfulness among the wild things of the earth. They were seen prowling in places where they had never ventured before, drawing near to the dwellings of man as if for refuge, and driven away with blows and curses. The radiance even of noonday became sad and sickly, though but little cloud was to be discerned in the firmament. In the midst of night strange lamentations, as if from bodily wanderers, broke the stillness. The pitch-black ark, its timbered roof glistening in the wan light, lay heavily on ground cracked in all directions in the windy heat of the day, for the earth was stark with drought, and the great door in its side gaped wide.

And the word of the Lord God came to Noah, bidding him go into the ark and take into it all the living creatures that were to be saved alive from destruction. So Noah and his three sons made a bridge of timber of a strength that would bear the tread of the mightiest beasts then on earth. This they laid between the door of the ark and firm ground; then each according to its kind, every living creature which they had