Stephen Part 13

"There be half a score of that name in the city. Dost thou mean Jesus Barabbas?" and the man laughed aloud, as if his thoughts afforded him secret pleasure.

"Is he a magician?" asked the lad eagerly.

"A magician? Dost thou mean a man whom the G.o.ds granted to be born under a lucky star?"

"a.s.suredly!"

"Then he is the man."

"What is thy name?" broke in a clear sweet voice.

"My name?" said the man looking startled, "Oh, 'tis thou, maiden. My name is Gestas, my pretty one. Why dost thou ask?"

"That we may find thee when we shall return from the city. Can this Jesus Barabbas of whom thou hast spoken heal blindness?"

"Art thou blind?"

"Yes I am blind; I would be healed, and I have heard that a man named Jesus can heal blindness."

The man looked soberly for a moment at her blank eyes, he opened his lips as if to speak, then scratching his s.h.a.ggy head reflectively, he again glanced at the white dromedary. "Go into the city," he said at length, "and ask for the man, some one will tell thee; I will care for the beast whilst thou art gone."

"Come, Anat, let us make haste," cried the lad joyfully. "We must find him at once."

So the two went away towards Jerusalem, which lay not far distant, its walls and towers gleaming as whitely as though no lurid shadow of destruction hung from the avenging heavens above it.

As for the man whose name was Gestas, he laughed aloud as he seized the stately Mirah by the bridle. "Truly the G.o.ds love me," he said. "This beast will bring a goodly sum," and he struck the white dromedary across the face with his staff in order to let her know that she had a new master.

"Yonder is a venerable man," said Seth to the blind girl, when the two had entered within the gate, and he ran forward and plucked the man by the sleeve.

"Canst thou tell me where to find the man Jesus, who can heal blindness?"

The old man turned upon the lad with blazing eyes. "Beggar!" he cried, "get thee gone! How dost thou dare pollute mine ears with that name?"

Seth stared at him in amaze as he strode onward, muttering angrily to himself, his snowy beard blowing over his shoulder in the light breeze.

"By the sacred Nile!" he exclaimed, "in what have I offended? Praise be to the G.o.ds, they have no such customs in Memphis. Well, I must even ask another."

Taking the blind girl once more by the hand, they walked a little further on. It was as yet early in the day, but the streets were alive with people hurrying to and fro. Merchants sitting comfortably at their stalls cried l.u.s.tily to the pa.s.sers-by to come buy of their goods; beggars whined out their piteous tales of woe, and displayed their gruesome deformities to the averted eyes of the hurrying crowd; water-carriers clinked their brazen cups and bawled loudly of the cooling draughts which they carried in the goat-skins upon their backs.

Once the two adventurers had to squeeze themselves back into an angle of the wall, while a platoon of Roman soldiers marched by, the sun glittering in dazzling splendor on their burnished s.h.i.+elds.

Seth's heart had suddenly grown heavy within him, though he could scarce have told the reason. He almost feared to ask the question which hovered upon his lips of any of these busy, indifferent-looking people.

Presently his eyes fell upon a blind man, feeling his way slowly along with a staff and whining out a dolorous cry for alms as he went. His heart sank lower still. "If there is a great magician who can heal blindness in this place," he thought, "why is not this man seeking him?"

Darting forward, he touched him upon the sleeve. "Canst thou tell me,"

he said timidly, "if there is a man called Jesus anywhere about--a man who can heal blindness?"

The beggar stopped short and turned his head. "There was such a man," he said, "but he is dead--crucified, three months since. I never found him," he added bitterly; "I came too late." Then he went on his way, and the boy heard his shrill voice rising and falling dismally adown the street. He stood still in the place where he was, staring stupidly after the man, the words "too late" still echoing in his ears.

"Curses upon thy stupid head! Why dost thou block the roadway?" And a smart blow across his cheek from the whip of a muleteer served to bring him to his senses. At the same moment he heard a cry from Anat; looking quickly around he saw her fall to the ground beneath the hoofs of the laden a.s.s which the man was driving.

With a shrill cry of fear the lad sprang forward, and dragged the girl out from among the confused tangle of men and animals, the muleteer shrieking curses upon him, the other pa.s.sers-by merely pausing an instant to stare curiously at the scene. No one offered to help him, and cold with fear he lifted the slender form in his arms.

There was a projecting arch near by, with a great doorway sunken deep into the wall of masonry, in the shelter of this he laid his burden down, and looked into the beloved face in a very agony of terror.

"Anat! Anat!" he cried, bending over her. But there was no answer; the peach-like bloom of the brown cheeks had changed to a curious dusky pallor, the fringed lids had fallen over the sightless eyes, the slender hands were cold.

"Anat! Anat!" he repeated in a frenzy. "Awake!" and he shook her by the arm, scarce knowing what he did. "My G.o.d! if she is dead!"

Just then with a harsh sound of rusty hinges the great door behind them swung open, and a turbaned head peered cautiously out. The lad started to his feet with sudden hope. "Kind sir!" he said beseechingly. "My sister hath been grievously hurt; nay, I know not if she be alive. Wilt thou give me a cup of water that I may try and bring back her soul?"

The man looked at him coldly. "This is the house of G.o.d," he said.

"'Tis not meet that its threshold be defiled with that which is dead, 'tis an abomination in the sight of Jehovah. Get thee hence, the hour for prayer draweth nigh."

"Nay, but I beseech thee, by the love of Isis! Give me but a cup--a small cup of water!"

"Get thee hence!" said the man with a gesture of abhorrence. "There is naught here for such as thou," and he made as though he would have pushed the senseless form of the blind girl into the street with his foot.

Seth's eyes blazed. "The curses of Sechet light upon thee!" he cried fiercely; "thou hast the withered heart of a mummy a thousand years dead!" Then he caught up his burden once more and fled away, the furious imprecations of the Jew sounding in his ears.

Hurrying blindly forward, he neither knew nor cared whither he was going, but he became conscious after a few moments that he had come into a quieter place. With a dim sense of relief he once more laid the limp figure down upon the pavement; this time, to his great joy, he heard a faint sound. She was trying to speak. He kneeled at her side and lifted her head to his knees. "Water! Water!" she moaned feebly.

He looked distractedly about him. The long narrow street was suffocatingly hot, on either side of it stretched blank walls of rough-hewn masonry, pierced occasionally with a deep-set door; two or three dogs skulked in the black shadow of an archway near by, and a flock of swallows swooped back and forth in the dazzling suns.h.i.+ne, crying out to each other with wild sweetness, but there was no human being in sight. He could hear the distant cries of the venders, and the shouts of the muleteers from the busy street which he had just left. It seemed to him presently, as he listened, that somewhere near by he could hear the cool tinkle of a fountain; he looked up, from the top of the wall above his head there fluttered a glimmer of green leaves. There must be--there was a garden there, and water, he was sure of it. He sprang up, and laying Anat's head carefully down, pulled impatiently at the bell which hung at the side of one of the sunken doorways. After a long delay, every minute of which seemed a separate eternity to the boy, a panel in the door swung open, and the head of a man was thrust out.

"What wilt thou?" he said in a surly tone, as his eye fell upon the boy.

"Water! for the love of all the G.o.ds, water! my----"

"What dost thou mean, fellow," interrupted the man, scowling, "by coming to the palace of the High Priest for water? The public fountains are for such as thou." And without further ado he shut the door with a decisive clap.

Seth stood for a moment as if stunned, then he threw himself down upon the hot stones with a smothered cry of despair, and bowed his head upon his knees. After what seemed a long time a touch upon his shoulder aroused him, he looked up dully, his eyes red with weeping.

"What aileth thee, lad?"

He stared at the face of his questioner without answering. It was like no other face he had ever seen, and yet, strangely enough, something in the dark eyes brought back to him the dim memory of his mother. The young man--for it was a young man who had spoken--repeated his question, and this time the lad answered.

"My sister hath been trampled upon by a beast of burden. She is dying for water, no one will help me, my bottle is empty, and I know not where to find a fountain."

But the stranger did not wait to hear all, he was already sprinkling the face of the girl, who had again lapsed into unconsciousness.

"She is not much hurt," he said at length. "See, she is reviving already." And indeed under his skilful ministrations the color had begun to return to the cheeks and lips of the injured girl.

"But she is blind," said Seth, looking up wistfully into the face of the young man, "and we have come from Egypt, seeking for the man Jesus who can heal such. A beggar told me that he was dead, but it is not true?"

The face of the stranger glowed with a smile so angelic that the lad involuntarily cried out with wonder.

"Nay," he cried, "he is not dead, he liveth forever more at the right hand of G.o.d."

Then he fixed his eyes upon the lad. "Tell me," he said gravely, "all that hath befallen thee, and how it is that ye seek Jesus in this far country."