"But strangers have just passed by, and I think they had a boy with them, if you can come up with them." And the horsemen galloped on.

Meanwhile the fugitives from Nazareth had reached bad roads, and were tired and wretched.

Was not Jacob's favourite son also taken into Egypt just like this child?
What will become of this one?
They became aware of their pursuers galloping behind over the bare plain.

Not a tree, not a shrub which could afford them protection.

They took refuge in the cleft of a rock, but Joseph said: "What is the use of hiding?
They must have seen us." But as soon as they were well inside the dark hole, down came a spider from the mossy wall, summoned all her brood and her most distant relations in great haste, and they speedily spun a web over the opening, a web that was stronger than the iron railings in Solomon's temple, at the entrance to the Holy of Holies.