Page:Apocryphal Gospels and Other Documents Relating to the History of Christ.djvu/311

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THE ARABIC GOSPEL OF THE INFANCY.
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to my lady, lady Mary, and said, O my lady, see what my rival hath done to my son, and how she hath thrust him into the well; it is impossible that she should not sometime destroy him. Lady Mary said to her, God will avenge thee upon her. Afterwards when her rival went to draw water at the well, her feet became entangled in the rope and she fell into the well. Men came to draw her out indeed, but they found her head bruised and her bones broken. So she died a bad death, and that saying was fulfilled in her, — They dug a well deep, but they fell into the pit which they had prepared.[1]

CHAPTER XXX.

Another woman there had two sons who fell sick, and one died but the other lived: so his mother took him up and, weeping, brought him to my lady, lady Mary, and said, O my lady, help and succour me. For I had two sons, one of whom I have now buried, but the other is nigh unto death. See how I will beg and pray to God. And she began to say, O Lord, thou art kind and merciful and good; thou gavest me two sons, but since thou hast taken one of them away, leave me at least this one. Therefore lady Mary, seeing the violence of her weeping pitied her, and said, Put thy son in my son's bed and cover him

  1. Ps. vii. 15; lvii. 6.