IN THE DESERT ENCAMPMENT.
"Thou mayest fetch the lad and the maiden and set them in my presence.
I would question them of this thing."
The woman bowed herself humbly before her lord and retired; presently
she returned, leading by the hand a slight figure clad in the shapeless
blue gown of an Egyptian peasant girl. Behind lagged with unwilling
feet a half-grown lad.
Abu Ben Hesed fixed his piercing eyes upon the twain. "Thou mayest go
till I shall call thee," he said to the woman. She lingered yet a
moment to whisper, "The maid is blind, my lord!"
"Come hither, my son," said Ben Hesed after a short survey of his two
guests, "and tell me how it befell that thou wast in the desert alone?
Didst thou know," he added somewhat severely, "that thou wast brought to
the borders of the encampment only that thou mightest be buried safe
from the vultures? Had not one of the women discerned signs of life,
when no other eye could see it, thou wouldst even now be sleeping
beneath the sand."
The boy shuddered slightly; he opened his lips as though to speak, but
the girl broke out impetuously:
"I alone am in fault," she cried. "It was I who would not listen to my
brother when he said, 'we shall perish by the way if we go forth into
the wilderness.' It is true," she continued, turning to the lad, "folly
dwelleth in the heart of a woman. I am minded to let thee beat me. I
have deserved it."
Abu Ben Hesed smiled in the midst of his great beard, but the smile
looked also out of his eyes, so that the lad was emboldened to speak.
"We fled before the face of an enemy," he said, looking squarely into
the bright eyes of the man before him. "He would have made slaves of us
in the city; death in the wilderness is better."
"Thou hast spoken a word of wisdom when thou hast so said, my son,"
cried Ben Hesed, his eyes flashing. "And who is it that would have
caged the wild eaglets of the desert?"
"I know not," replied the lad. "I saw not the man, I only heard him
speak. We were hidden in the abiding place of the dead; he would have
shut us up there to perish, but Sechet smote him in the act and we left
him on his face in the sand."
"Thou art Egyptian," said Ben Hesed after a pause. "How comes it that
thou canst speak the tongue of the desert?"
"It was my mother's language; my father was a Greek."
"Where then are thy parents?"
"Dead, many years dead," said the boy looking down, and digging his bare
toes into the hot sand. A single tear rolled swiftly down his brown
cheek.
Ben Hesed saw it, his keen eyes softened. "No longer shalt thou look
for a place to bide in safety from thine enemy," he said gently. "Where
else should the young eaglets fly but to the nest of their kind? Thou
art safe here, my children."
"Thou art good," replied the lad simply; "but--my sister is blind."
"I am not ignorant of that, my son," said Ben Hesed with a stately
inclination of his head. "There is no need that she labor with her
hands. Plenty dwells within the borders of my land, though it be not the
plenty of Egypt; there is no lack of either flesh nor bread, nor yet of
the milk of many herds. Thou art strong, son, and thou shalt labor as
becomes a man; the maid shall dwell with the women. Go now in peace,
and think of thy past distresses no more," and he waved his hand in
token of dismissal.
"Come, Anat," said the lad, drawing her gently away. "It is impossible
for us to repay thee thy goodness," he added, lingering wistfully.
"Yet--"
"There is no need," said Ben Hesed, a slight shade of impatience in his
tone. "Go now, my son will tell thee of thy duties."
"Nay, brother, do not hold me, I must tell him," cried Anat. "We cannot
remain here."
"How now, damsel, art thou not satisfied with what thou hast received at
my hands?" and Ben Hesed drew his bushy brows together with the look
before which his wives, his children and his tribe were wont to tremble.
Seth also trembled. "I pray thee, my lord," he said, instinctively
bowing himself almost to the ground, "that thou wilt not deal harshly
with the maid, my sister. She is blind, and we were seeking a great
magician who can heal blindness by a word. Thou knowest that it is an
evil thing not to look upon the sun, and upon the stars, and upon the
faces of one's kind."
Ben Hesed was silent for a moment. He looked keenly into the lad's
flushed face. "It is in Egypt that the magicians dwell," he said at
length. "Hast thou not heard how Moses, the mighty man of God, fetched
out the Israelites with a strong hand from among the Egyptians; how he
worked marvels also and great plagues with the rod of God, and the
magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments, save certain things
which they could not do?"
"I know not Moses," said the boy, shaking his head. "Though I have
heard many marvels of the great gods of the Greeks and Romans also. Yet
is there no magician in Egypt who can cure blindness, for the land is
full of it."
"And wherefore didst thou look for this magician in the wilderness?"
"The man said that he dwelt beyond the wilderness and that his name was
Jesus," said Anat in her low, sweet voice. "I have not forgotten the
name, Jesus. He healed the man, he will also heal me if only I can find
him."
Ben Hesed fingered his beard for a time in silence. "What manner of man
Was he that told thee of this thing?" he said at length.
"He came out of the desert on a swift dromedary," replied Seth. "He was
of great stature and his beard descended upon his breast. I gave him to
drink of my goat-skin. He said, moreover, that the magician dwelt at
Jerusalem."
"A year ago I went up to the Holy City," said Ben Hesed, "that I might
offer sacrifices in the temple. I care not to go again. God is a God
of the wilderness; he answers also in the wilderness. Of the rocks of
the desert have I builded me an altar, even as did Abraham in the days
of old. Jerusalem is desolate and her holy places are waste. Why should
I go any more into a temple which is daily defiled by the feet of wicked
men?" The voice of the speaker shook with passion as he said the last
words. Then his head dropped upon his breast and his lips moved, though
no sound came from them. The children waited before him in silence, not
daring to move.
After what seemed to her a long time, Anat allowed a long-drawn sigh to
escape her, by way of a delicate reminder of their presence. "Thou wast
in Jerusalem?" she ventured timidly.
Ben Hesed looked up; something in the flower-like beauty and innocence
of the child-face, guarded by its pathetic, unseeing eyes, moved him
strangely. The gloom lifted from his brow.
"I was in Jerusalem," he said gravely, "and I saw this man Jesus with
mine own eyes."
Anat clasped her hands joyfully. "Ah! then thou canst tell us of him.
Dost thou think that he would heal me? I have no money nor treasure to
give him, except this," and she laid her fingers on the necklace of
coins.
"He would not ask thee for treasure, my child," said Ben Hesed, "for I
saw him heal a beggar, who lay upon his bed unable to move, and the man
gave him no reward. I came away from Jerusalem in that same hour and
saw him no more. I have thought since that sometime I will again seek
for him, though I need not to be healed."
"It is a good word that thou hast given to us," said Anat in a tone of
joyful conviction; "and now wilt thou further give a handful of parched
corn that we may eat by the way. My brother will fill the goat-skin
with water, and we will depart."
"Art thou not afraid of the vultures, little one?" asked Ben Hesed with
a grave smile. "And how will the flint of the desert bruise those
tender feet of thine now that thy beast is dead."
Seth looked depressed. "We cannot go," he said at length, "my goat-skin
is not sufficient, and we do not know the way."
"Nay, but we must go!" cried Anat impetuously. "I care not for the
vultures, and we have already come a great distance. Did I whine or
complain when we thirsted?"
"Thou didst not; but could I bear again to see thee sink to the earth,
thy tongue like a parched leaf within thy mouth? And the vultures--thou
could'st not see them, but it was horrible--horrible! They stared at us
with their red eyes, they waited for us to die. I kept up as long as I
was able and drove them away, then did I call aloud upon the god of the
land to save us; after that I hid our faces, and waited for Anubis to
take us."
"The God of the land heard thee, boy," said Ben Hesed solemnly, "for he
is not a god like to the gods of the Egyptians. He saved thee, even as
he saved the child Ishmael, whom Abraham cast forth into the desert to
die. In the desert also did the child Ishmael remain; and God made out
of him a great nation which hath ruled over the wilderness until this
day. Ay! and shall rule as long as the desert itself remains, for his
word is from everlasting to everlasting. Listen now to what I shall say
unto thee: thou shalt go in search of this man Jesus, for I believe that
he is able to do this thing whereof thou hast spoken. I will send thee
to the borders of Judaea with food and water and beasts of burden also,
that ye perish not by the way; after that shall ye with ease find
Jerusalem, for the way is not long and the land is fertile. Enter freely
into the villages and ask for bread, the inhabitants will not say thee
nay. And when the maid shall be healed of her blindness, perchance thou
wilt again remember the wilderness; return if thou wilt. To-morrow
shalt thou set forth."
"I will return, my lord," said the lad, "and by all the gods of the
sacred Nile, I swear unto thee that hereafter I will serve thee as a
bondman during the years of my life--if it be thy will; because thou
hast saved us from death, and because of all thy goodness unto us."
"Nay, rather, thou shalt be to me in the place of my son Eri, whom God
hath taken from me," said Ben Hesed. "Go now in peace, and rest until
the morning."
So the two were feasted that night, because that they had found favor in
the eyes of Ben Hesed. And afterward they slept soundly in the tent of
goat's hair, beneath the striped blanket with which they had hidden
themselves from the fierce eyes of vultures. And Seth dreamed that he
had grown to be a man, and that he was riding upon a swift horse, the
wild desert winds blowing in his face, and he laughed aloud in his dream
for joy. But to the blind girl came a gentler vision of one who laid a
healing hand upon her sightless eyes, and behold! she saw the face of
him that had healed her, but it was not the face of a mortal, for upon
it shone a light beyond the light of the sun.