The Harlot by The Side of The Road: Forbidden Tales of The Bible Read Online Free PDF

behind the house, full of wine and grain and oil in earthenware vessels. They sat down at the table and dined in silence on the food that had been left behind. The two young women ate and drank sparingly, but Lot poured himself generous portions of wine from one of the jars that he found in the storehouse. Then he claimed a large bed that had belonged to the master of the house, wrapped himself in the dusty bedding, and fell into a deep sleep while his daughters searched out some blankets and made up their beds on the floor.
    Neither daughter slept soundly. Nightfall came early, if only because the day was turned into twilight by the bilious clouds that boiled up out of Sodom and drifted overhead. All the while, they were afflicted by the stench on the wind that blew from the direction of Sodom, the greasy smoke and the settling ash that was carried along with it, and the occasional rumbles and shocks that could be felt before they were heard.
    If one of Lot’s daughters succeeded in drifting off to sleep, she wouldawake with a start at a sound that seemed to come now from the street outside, now from the roof, now from the very next room. Yet if one of them rose and peered out, she found the courtyard of the house and the street beyond utterly empty. And when they found their father in the kitchen the next morning, already swigging a bottle of wine, they discovered that he, too, had been stirred by these ghostly sounds.
    “I swear the place is haunted,” he said. “We will not stay here another night.”
    “But where will we go?” his older daughter asked mournfully. “Sodom is destroyed, and everyone with it. Even our poor mother!”
    Lot considered for a moment, took another long pull on the bottle, and then nodded.
    “The mountain,” he announced in a voice that struck his daughters as almost cheerful.
    No one spoke of it, but Lot’s younger daughter thought to supply the little band of survivors with a few supplies from the house. When at last they trudged out of town, she pulled along a wooden cart loaded with skins full of water, sacks of flour, and a few sealed clay jars, some filled with wine, some with oil. Her sister carried a bundle of blankets and cloaks on her back. Lot led the way, wielding only a long wooden staff that he had found by the threshold of the house.
    Once they cleared the last stand of date palms and joined the road out of town, they began to see the aftermath of what had happened on the day their mother was turned into a pillar of salt. Corpses of men, women, and children could be seen here and there along the roadside and in greater numbers at the crossroads. Their packs and carts were broken and overturned, their household goods scattered in the sand. Their animals had fled, and the hot wind was already turning their remains into mummies.
    At the crossroads, Lot and his daughters kept their eyes down to avoid even a glimpse in the direction of Sodom, and turned instead toward the low range of ash-gray mountains on the horizon. The highest one, studded with crags and peaks, seemed only a short distance off, but they would have to cross a vast expanse of cracked hardpan and sharp stones before they reached the place of refuge promised to them by the strangers.

     
    Lot’s younger daughter soon showed herself to be adept at finding food and water and shelter even in the forbidding reaches of the hill country. She scouted out a cave where they spread their bedding and stored their provisions. She caught small animals in a snare fashioned out of twigs and strips of cloth torn from her own clothing. She found a desert plant that was prickly on the outside but sweet and wet on the inside. As she grew braver, she explored the rocky peaks above the cave, and she found a hidden canyon that offered a stand of date palms and a spring of water deep inside a grotto. It was then she realized that, even if the rest of the world had been blasted into salt ash, they would not die after all.
    “We