GOOD TIDINGS OUT OF THE DESERT.
"I hear some one coming."
"How can that be, Anat? I see no one."
"It matters not, there is some one; I can hear the tinkle of the harness
bells, it is from the desert they come."
"A caravan thinkest thou, little one?" said Seth, looking with an
indulgent smile at the flushed face with its strange widely-opened dark
eyes.
"Nay," said the girl after a pause, shaking her head decidedly; "there
is but one--one on a swift dromedary."
"By Horus! thou art right, I see the man now, he is coming this way."
And shaking his tinkling cups, the lad darted away to meet the traveler.
"Water! Fresh cool water, the gift of God to the thirsty!" he cried
aloud. And the stranger, scorched by the withering breath of the
desert, gladly dismounted and drank deep of the proffered cup.
"God grant thee peace, whoever thou art!" he said in a low deep voice,
turning his piercing eyes upon the boy. "How doth it chance that thou
art here in the desert? Surely not many come this way. Why art thou not
rather plying thy trade in yonder city?" He felt in his wallet for a
coin as he spoke.
The boy flushed deeply and hung his head without answering.
"It is a happy chance for me that thou hadst the desert traveler in thy
thought," continued the stranger with a smile of singular sweetness,
"for I could no longer abide the brackish water of the march, and was
pushing ahead of the caravan with all possible speed for a draught from
a certain cool fountain that I know not far from here."
"The fountain of Kera?" said the boy, looking up.
"Even so, and it is of that I have just drunken? Ay, I thought so,
though it is many moons since I have tasted it." Stroking his long
beard thoughtfully, the stranger continued, "I shall wait here now till
the others come up, it will not be long. Who sits yonder in the shadow
of the rock?"
"My sister," replied the lad briefly. "She is blind," he added, moved
by a sudden impulse.
"Blind? Ah, the pity of it, the pity of it!" said the man, passing his
hand swiftly across his eyes. "Would to God"--then he broke off suddenly
and commanded his dromedary to lie down; the beast obeyed, moaning and
shaking his head. "He also smells water, yet hath he drunken his fill
yester eve. Be quiet, Neha! thou shalt again drink.--And the little one
is blind?"
"Yes, but she hath wonderful hearing," said Seth proudly. "She heard
the tinkle of thy harness bells before I saw thee."
"Yes, yes! I know, no one better, it was once so with me, but seeing is
also good. Thanks be to the Wonderful, the Prophet of Israel, I know
that now!"
The lad looked at the man in puzzled silence. They had now approached
the great rock, in the shadow of which the blind girl was sitting.
"Greetings to thee, little one!" said the stranger, sitting down in the
sand near the child and looking earnestly into her dark sightless eyes.
"Who is it that is speaking to me?"
"Do not fear, Anat, I am here," said Seth, quietly possessing himself of
one of the slender brown hands.
"I am not afraid; the voice is good."
"Where dwellest thou?" continued the stranger.
"We are even as the wild goats of the desert," said the boy bitterly,
"wandering among the rocks by day, and at night sleeping where the night
overtakes us."
"Surely thou art not alone in the world," urged the stranger, "thy
parents, where are they?"
"The Nile hath risen seven times now since they passed into the regions
of the dead," said Anat, raising her drooping head. "Many passed with
them by reason of a great sickness. I also was stricken, and afterward
mine eyes were darkened, not suddenly, but slowly even as the evening
deepens into the black night. It is always night now."
"Ah, yes!" said the stranger sighing, "a night wherein one hath strange
dreams, and where fear standeth by the pillow of sleep, and walks always
at the right hand in the waking hours."
"And thou alone carest for the little one?" he continued, fixing his
keen eyes upon the boy.
"I alone," said the boy proudly. "We dwelt among yonder hills, and I
plied my trade in the city below, but--" here he checked himself
suddenly, and looked suspiciously at his questioner. "Wilt thou not
break thy fast?" he said at length. "Thou art our guest."
The stranger bowed his head gravely, laying his hand upon his breast as
he did so. He understood.
Then Seth made haste and fetched from a neighboring crevice in the rock
dates and parched corn together with a gourd of water. Their guest ate
of the food, the lad also and the maiden.
"I was blind," said the stranger at length rising, "and I was healed of
my blindness by the great prophet of Israel. They call him Jesus."
"Where dwells he?"
"In Jerusalem, far away beyond the wilderness," and he pointed towards
the desert from which he had just come.
"Dost thou return thither?"
"Not many days hence, when I shall have sold my goods and loaded my
camels. I shall not forget thy hospitality; when I again pass this way
fetch me water, my son, and hear what I shall say to thee. Maiden, I
salute thee! Farewell." And he sprang upon his beast and was gone in a
swift cloud of dust toward the slow-moving caravan, which crawled like a
snake over the yellow wastes of the desert.
Seth did not run with his water-bottles and his tinkling cups to meet
them, as was his wont. He sat silent in the shadow of the great rock,
thinking.
Anat also was silent for a time, then she said timidly: "I would that I
too might see the man of blessing, he who dwells beyond the wilderness
and hath power to restore sight to the blind. There is no one in the
land of Egypt who can do the like."
"We have no treasure to give him; would he not say to us, 'Where then is
thy gold, or thy precious stones, or thy beasts of burden, before I
shall do this thing for thee?' Thou knowest not the ways of magicians;
I know, for I have heard, yet is there no magician in all Egypt who can
cure blindness."
Anat sighed. "I have my mother's necklace," she said at length, laying
her hand upon the string of coins about her neck. "Some of them are of
gold and very heavy." Then she caught her breath with a half sob. "The
men--yesterday--they would have sold us. I--yes, I would be a slave if
only I might see!"
"I will be a slave, and thou shalt have thine eyes together with thy
freedom," cried Seth, starting to his feet. "I will say to the man,
give thou sight to these eyes and I am thy bondman from henceforth and
forever. I will serve thee with my heart's blood."
"I also will serve him, for I will not leave thee, my brother; but how
shall we pass the wilderness?"
"There are many caravans passing through," said the lad, looking with
troubled eyes into the distance, "but the way is long and we have no
beast."
"The stranger who ate of our bread, will he not take us to that far
country?"
"It may be----" began Seth, then he stopped suddenly--Anat had grasped
his arm convulsively, her face pallid to the lips.
"The voices!" she gasped. "I hear them, they will sell us into bondage!
Let us hide, quick!"
Without a word the lad hurried her into a narrow cleft in the rocks not
far distant. Here, tugging with all his strength at a broad stone which
was half buried in the drifting sand, he at length succeeded in pulling
it aside. The opening disclosed a flight of steps cut in the solid
rock, winding down into impenetrable darkness. From the depths there
ascended a stifling odor of resin and spices.
The girl drew back gasping, "Not here!" she said faintly. "I am afraid;
I cannot go further, it is the breath of the dead."
The lad hesitated an instant; he too heard the sound of voices and the
tinkling of harness bells. "Listen," he whispered, "I know not the
voices, but thou knowest."
"Yes, yes! it is the voice; I will go anywhere to escape."
The tinkling sound and the slow steps of the beasts of burden became
momently louder, together with the harsh tones of a human voice.
"'Tis a fool's errand, Besa; thou hast lost what little wit the gods
gave thee in thy tumble of yesterday. By Sechet! I have not yet done
laughing to think of the way the little hell-witch served thee!"
"Who could know that the beggar understood Greek!"
"Pooh! that is nothing; no one better than the beggars, they whine for
every man's gold in his own tongue. Ha, ha! 'Thou shouldst have
perfumed garlands,' saidst thou with tongue as smooth as Sesame oil;
then I saw only a flying bundle of red cloth. Besa was gone. Ha, ha!"
"Why didst thou not seize her, fool?" snarled the other, grinding his
teeth. "I will find her should I look a lifetime, if only to twist that
little singing throat of hers."
"That shalt thou not do, friend; that singing throat is gold and it is
mine. Come, we will go back; they are not here."
"What is this?" said Besa triumphantly, dismounting from his ass and
holding up a brilliant bit of striped drapery; "this, or one like it,
was on the girl's neck yesterday."
Amu, for so was the other man called, made no reply: he was looking
fixedly into a narrow cleft of the rocks. Presently he too dismounted.
"Some one has been here," he said, pointing to the fresh footmarks in
the sand which had drifted deep into the opening.