A CUP OF COLD WATER.
"Then the beast is not thine own?"
"I have said that it belongs to Abu Ben Hesed, who dwells in the
wilderness of Shur. For this journey alone was it ours. I must return
it to its owner after that I have accomplished mine errand in yonder
city."
The man looked at the boy steadily for a full minute; a slight smile
curled the corners of his lips, but he turned his head so that the lad
should not see it. "And thy business in Jerusalem, what might it be?
Thou art perhaps a merchant seeking goodly pearls, or a purchaser of
slaves, or perhaps a pilgrim?"
"My business is naught to thee; I have asked of thee a question, wilt
thou care for the beast till I shall return? I will pay thee for it."
The man ran his eyes once more over the white dromedary, she shook
herself and all the silver bells of the bridle rang merrily. "I will
take care of her," he said, nodding his head once or twice and smiling
again broadly; "and when wilt thou be pleased to return?"
"This very day at evening, if I shall find the man I would see. His
name is Jesus. Canst thou tell me where to find him?"
"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 gods granted to be born
under a lucky star?"
"Assuredly!"
"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 shaggy 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 gods 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 gods, 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 lustily to the passers-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 shields.
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 ass 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 passers-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 God! 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 God," 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 sunshine,
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 gods, 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 God."
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."
So the lad told him all. How that their parents had passed into the
regions of the dead, leaving them alone; and how for many years he had
cared for his blind sister; of the man who would have sold them into
bondage, and how fleeing from before his face they had first heard of
the man who could heal blindness; of their awful journey in the
wilderness; of their deliverance from the vultures, and their escape
from the hand of Pagiel. When he ceased from speaking, the young man was
silent for a space.
"Of a surety," he said at length, "the Lord hath led thee." Then
raising his head he looked up into the dazzling blue of the sky.
"Thou who hast said, 'Lo, I am with thee alway even unto the end of the
world,' look now upon this child who hath sought thee for healing,
through weariness, and thirst, and pain, lo, these many days; and heal
her, I beseech thee, by the hand of thy servant, according to her great
faith."
Then stooping, while the lad held his breath with awe, he laid his hand
lightly, tenderly, upon the sightless eyes of Anat. "In the name of
Jesus Christ of Nazareth," he murmured, "receive thy sight."
And into the dark eyes of the maiden, erstwhile as irresponsive as
soulless jewels, there flashed a look of intelligence. She gazed
steadfastly into the eyes of the stranger.
"Art thou the man Jesus?" she whispered softly.
"Nay, my child," he answered, "I am but his servant Stephen."