The desert lay under a leaden sky. The yellow undulating sandy plain
was like a frozen sea that had no end, and so far as eye could see was
only bounded by the dark orb of heaven. Here and there, grey, cleft,
cone-shaped rocks and blunt-cornered stone boulders or blocks and
flat-topped stones not unlike a table rose out of the sand-ocean. Two
such stones were situated close together; one was partly covered by the
yellow quicksand, the other stood higher out of the ground. On each of
them lay a man stretched at full length. One, strong and sinewy, lay
on his face, supporting his black-bearded cheeks with his hands so that
his half-raised face could gaze over the barren plain. The other, a
smaller-made man, lay on his back, making a pillow of his arms, and
gazed at the gloomy sky. Both wore the Bedouin dress and were provided
with arms which were fastened into, or suspended from, their clothes.
Their woolly heads were protected by kerchiefs. Their complexion was
as brown as the bark of the pine-tree, their eyes big and sparkling,
their lips full and red. The one had a snub nose; the nose of the
other was long and thin. So do these men of the desert appear to my
mind's eye.
"Dismas," said the snub-nosed man, "What do you see in the sky?"
"Barabbas," replied the other, "what do you see in the desert?"
"Are you waiting for manna to fall from the sky?" said Barabbas. "Do
you know that I'm almost starved to death? I must go down to the
caravan route."
"Well, go. I'll to the oasis of Sheba," said Dismas.
"Dismas, I hate you," growled the other.
Dismas said nothing, and steadfastly looked at the sky, which had not
for a long while been so softly sunless as to-day.
"Since the day when you refused to help me hold up the caravan of
Orientals with my men, I have hated you. They had much frankincense
and precious spices and gold. With one blow we should have provided
ourselves with enough for many a long year. And you----"
"Wanderers who were seeking the Messiah! I do not attack such as
they," said Dismas.
"You, too, are seeking him, you pious highwayman."
"Of course, I seek him."
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed he of the snub-nose, pressing his pointed chin
into his hand. "The Messiah! the fairy-tale of dreaming old men. All
weak men dream and believe. Don't you see that when you have to strive
and struggle for your little bit of life there isn't time to wait for
the Messiah!"
"That's just what I've believed for many a year and day," answered
Dismas sadly. "I left my home to follow you; I've plundered men of
silks and precious stones here in the desert, and time has flown
nevertheless. All the treasure in the world cannot bid it stand still
for an hour; comfort only makes the days fly quicker. We should not
struggle for life, but hold it fast, for existence is a wondrous thing.
Oh, in vain--the days vanish. So I've determined to have nought to say
to the hours which pass, but to a time that endures for aye. And only
he whom God sends can bring such a time."
Barabbas pressed his face against the stone, and said with comfortable
conviction; "We've only the life we have; there's no other."
"If it was as you say," returned Dismas, "we must make this one life
great----"
"If there's no life to come," said Barabbas, "we must live this one
out. That is nature, and to deny it folly. No, I will enjoy my life.
Enjoyment is a duty."
"That is what bad men think," said Dismas.
"There are no bad men," exclaimed Barabbas, "and no good men either.
Friend, look at the lamb, he harms no one; he would rather be torn to
pieces by the lion than tear the lion to pieces himself. Is he good,
therefore? No, only weak. And the lion who kills and eats the lamb?
Is he bad, therefore? No, only strong. And so it is his right to
destroy the weak. Strength is the only virtue, and the only good deed
is to exterminate the weak."
When he made an end of speaking, the other turned his face towards him
and said: "What extraordinary words are those? I never heard such talk
before. In whose heart were such ideas born?"
"They were not born in the heart," said Barabbas. "The heart is dumb.
Dismas, if I must dwell in desert caves and do nothing, I must search
out and inquire. I break stones in pieces and search. I pull the
corpses of animals and men to pieces and inquire. And I find that
things are not as the old writings tell us. There's only one Messiah:
the truth. Man is an animal like any of the lower creatures--that is
the truth. Ha, ha, ha!"
A shudder went through Dismas's body. How he disliked this man! And
yet, on account of his companion's strong will, and through the habit
of years, he could not free himself. He had often fled away from him,
but had always come back. Now he stood up, lifted his arms to heaven,
and exclaimed: "Oh, Lord, in the holy heights, save me!"
"Invoke the stars," said Barabbas, with a scornful laugh. "You'll be
right then. They know nothing of you and your God. They're made of
common dust. They themselves, and all the beings on them, live in the
same base struggle as does our earth and everything on it. An enormous
dust-heap, swarming with vermin, that's all."
Dismas sat on his stone with folded hands, pale as a corpse.
"Barabbas, my comrade," he said at last, "it is your bad angel that
speaks."
"Why don't you praise him, Dismas? Why don't you shout for joy? My
message has redeemed you. You think because you've attacked, slain,
and plundered unsuspecting travellers that everlasting hell must be
your portion. My strong message does away with hell. Do you see that?"
The other replied: "I heard a prophet in the wilderness cry that a man
whom God had damned could be saved by repentance. Your damnation,
Barabbas, never! No Almighty God! Everything a dry, swarming
dust-heap, and no escape! Frightful, frightful!"
"Do you know, Dismas, your lamentations don't amuse me?" said the
other, supporting himself on his hands and knees like a four-footed
beast. "I have a more important matter on hand. I'm hungry."
Dismas jumped on his stone, and made ready for flight. "If he's
hungry, he's capable of killing and eating me."
Barabbas had assumed a listening attitude, and his eagle eyes stared
out into the desert. A red banner was visible between the rocks and
stones; it moved and came nearer. It was a woman's red garment. She
rode on an ass, and seen closer, carried a child in her arms. A man,
tired out, limped beside her, leading the ass.
"Dismas, there's someone," whispered Barabbas, grasping the handle of
his weapon. "Come, let's hide behind the stone until they come up."
"You'll fall on those defenceless folk from an ambush?"
"And you're going to help me," said Barabbas coolly.
"We'll take what we need for to-day, no more. I'll only help you so
far, mark that."
The little group came nearer. The man and the ass waded deep in the
sand, which in some places lay scantily over the rough stones, and in
others had drifted into high heaps. The guide was leading the animal
quickly, for during this sunless day he had lost his bearings, but said
nothing about it, in order not to make his wife anxious. His eyes
sought the right road. They ought to reach the oasis of Descheme that
day. Now he saw two men standing on blocks of stone which reached up
into the sky.
"Praised be God!" said Joseph of Nazareth, "these men will put me
right."
Before he had time to frame his question, they quickly descended. One
seized the ass's bridle, the other grasped Joseph's arm, and said:
"Give us what you have with you."
The pale woman on the ass sent an imploring glance to Heaven. The
little child in her lap looked straight out of his clear eyes, and was
not afraid.
"If you've bread with you, give it us," said Dismas, who was holding
the ass.
"Fool!" shouted Barabbas of the snub-nose, "everything they have
belongs to us. Whether we will give anything, that's the question. I
will give you the most precious thing--life. Such a beautiful woman
without life would be a horror."
Dismas reached at the sack.
"Why are you doing that, brother?" said Barabbas. "We'll lead them to
our castle. The simoon may be blowing up. There they'll have shelter
for the night."
He tore the bridle from Dismas's hand, and led the ass bearing the
mother and child down between the stones to the cave, Joseph saw the
men's weapons, and followed gloomily.
When the shades of evening fell, and the desert was shut out and the
sky dark, when the blocks of stone and the cone-shaped rocks resembled
black monsters, the wanderers were settled in the depths of the cave.
The ass lay in front of it sleeping, his big head resting on the sand.
Near by lurked the robbers, and ate their plunder.
"Now we'll share our guests in brotherly fashion," said Barabbas. "You
shall have the old man and the child."
"They are father, mother, and child," replied Dismas; "they belong
together, we will protect them."
"Brother," said Barabbas, who was in high good humour at the ease of
the capture, "your dice. We'll throw for them. First, for the ass."
"Right, Barabbas."
He threw the eight-cornered stone with the black marks, and it fell on
his outspread cloak. The ass was his.
"Now for the father and son!"
"Right, Barabbas."
The dice fell. Barabbas rejoiced. Dismas was winner.
"A third time for the woman!"
"Right, Barabbas."
He threw the dice; they fell on his cloak.
"What is that? The dice have no marks! Dismas, stop this joke!
You've changed the dice."
When he took them up in his hand the black marks were there again all
right. They drew a second and a third time. As before the dice had no
marks when they fell.
"What does it mean, Dismas? The dice are blind."
"I think it's you who are blind, Barabbas," laughed Dismas. "Here,
drink these drops, and then lie down and sleep."
The strong man soon rolled on to the sand beside the ass, and snored
loudly.
Then Dismas crawled into the cave and woke the strangers, in order to
get them away from the libertine. For he dared not venture a trial of
strength with Barabbas. He had some trouble with Joseph, but at last
they were beneath the starry sky, Mary and the child on the ass, Joseph
leading it. Dismas walked in front in order to show them the way.
They went slowly through the darkness; no one spoke a word. Dismas was
sunk in thought. Past days, when he had rested like this child in his
mother's arms and his father had led them over the Arabian desert, rose
before him. Many a holy saying of the prophets had echoed through his
robber life and would not be silenced.
After they had waded through the sand and clambered over the rocks for
hours, a golden band of light shone in the east. The bushes and trees
of the oasis of Descheme stood out against it.
Here Dismas left the wanderers to their safe road, in order to return
to the cave. When he turned back with good wishes for the rest of
their journey, he was met by a look from the child's shining eyes. The
beaming glance terrified him with the terror of wonderment. Never
before had child or man looked at him with look so grateful, so
glowing, so loving as this boy, his pretty curly head turned towards
him, his hands stretched out in form of a cross, as if he wished to
embrace him. Dismas's limbs trembled as if a flash of lightning had
fallen at his side, and yet it was only a child's eyes. Holding his
head with both hands, he fled, without knowing why he fled, for he
would rather have fallen on his knees before the wondrous child. But
something like a judgment seemed to thrust him forth, back into the
horror of the desert.
For three days our fugitives rested in the oasis. Mary liked to sit on
the grass under an olive-tree near the spring, and let the boy stretch
his little soft arms to pluck a flower. He reached it, but did not
break it from its stem; he only stroked it with his soft fingers.
And when the child fell asleep in the flowers, his mother kneeled
before him and looked at him. And she gazed and gazed at him, and
could not turn her face from him. Then she bent down and took one
little plump, soft hand and shut it into hers so that only the
finger-tips could be seen, and she lifted them to her mouth and kissed
them, and could not cease kissing the white, childish hands, the tears
running down her cheeks the while. And with her large dark eyes she
looked out into the empty air--afraid of pursuers.
Joseph walked up and down near at hand between the trees and shrubs,
but always kept mother and child in view. He was gathering dates for
their further travels.
And now new faces rise before me as they wander farther into the barren
desert, swept by the simoon, parched by the rays of the sun. Mary is
full of peace, and wraps the child in her cloak so that he rests like a
pearl in its shell. He nestles against her warm breast and sucks his
fill. Whenever Joseph begins to be afraid, he feels the angel's wing
fanning his face. And then he is full of courage and leads his loved
ones past hissing snakes and roaring lions.
After many days they reached a fertile valley lying between rocky
hills; a clear stream flowed through it. They rested under a hedge of
thorns, and looked at a terribly wild mountain that rose high above the
rest. It was bare and rocky from top to bottom, and deep clefts
divided it in its whole length, so that the mountain seemed to be
formed of upright blocks of stone, which looked like the fingers of two
giant hands placed one on the other. A hermit was feeding his goat in
the meadow, and Joseph went up to him and asked the name of the
remarkable mountain.
"You are travelling through the district, and you don't know the
mountain?" said the hermit. "If you are a Jew, incline your face to
the earth and kiss it. It is the spot where eternity floated down from
Sinai."
"That--the Mountain of the Law?"
"See how it stretches forth its fingers swearing. As true as God
lives!"
Joseph bowed down and kissed the ground. Mary looked at the stony
mountain with a thrill of awe. Little Jesus slept in the shade of the
thorn-bush. The threatening rock and the lovely child. There dark
menaces, and here----?
Joseph tried to picture to himself the scene when Moses, on the summit
of the mountain, received the tables of stone from Jehovah. Then a
cloud slowly covered the mountain top as if to veil the secret. Joseph
was ashamed of his presumption and kept silence. Before he departed he
cut a bough from the thorn-bush and pulled off the leaves and twigs, so
that it formed a pilgrim's staff for the rest of the journey. They
were always meeting new dangers. And one day a hunter of the desert
came running after them. They were not frightened of his tiger skin,
but of what he had to tell them. If they had come from Judaea with
their boy, they had better hasten into the land of Egypt, for Herod's
men were on their track. So they had no rest until at last they came
to the land of the Pharaohs. But one day they found themselves not on
its frontier, but on the seashore. They were dumb with astonishment.
There lay the sea, its waves dashing against the black, jagged cliffs,
and beyond them was a smooth, level plain as far as the eye could see.
Once in the past fugitives had stood on the other side of the sea,
their enemies behind them. And Joseph lifted up his arms and called
upon the God of his forefathers to divide the waters of the sea once
again and make a passage for them. Belief in the God of ancestors is
strong. He appealed also to his ancestors themselves and entreated
them to come to his assistance, for are we not one with them and strong
in the same faith? But the sea lay in calm repose and divided not.
Six horsemen came riding over the sand, shouting for joy at the thought
of their reward, when they saw those they had so long pursued standing
by the water, unable to proceed farther. Quickly they approached the
shore, and were about to let fly the stones from their slings against
the couple who had the little King of the Jews with them, when they saw
the fugitives descend the wave-dashed cliffs and go out upon the
surface of the sea. The man led the ass on which sat the woman with
the child, and just as they passed over the sand of the desert, with
even steps, they passed over the waters of the sea.
Their pursuers rode after them in blind rage, urged their horses into
the sea, and were the first to reach--not Egypt, but the other world.