CHAPTER I A STRANGER COMES TO TOWN

Tor was hungry. Hunger was a common experience in Tor’s short life; he merely tightened the dingy rags about his middle and continued to stare at the group of sparrows quarreling noisily in the red dust of the street. It had occurred to Tor that the life of a sparrow must be vastly pleasanter than that of a boy. “They find plenty to eat,” he told himself enviously, as he hugged his lean little body. With a sudden impulse the child flung a pebble into [pg 14]the midst of the belligerents. The birds shook the dust from their ruffled feathers with noisy clamor of dismay, darted into the bright air, and disappeared far above the tops of the tallest houses.

Tor laughed aloud as a second idea struggled with the first in his clouded brain; then he checked himself thoughtfully, and, winding his rags more closely about him, trotted noiselessly away down the street.

Chelluh, the blind beggar, for more years than one could count on the fingers of both hands the undisputed proprietor of a snug corner just within the Damascus gate, was shaking his brazen cup after his daily custom. The cup rattled bravely, for certain coins had already been dropped therein by the charitable.

“Have mercy, kind lords of Jerusalem; have mercy on the sorrows of one born [pg 15]blind!” chanted the beggar in his whining monotone. “Kind lords, beautiful ladies, only a denarius, I beseech of you, and may the blessings of heaven—” The blind man paused, his quick ear catching the sound of a hesitating footfall amid the hurrying steps which passed in and out at the open gate. “Now may Jove, Jehovah, and all lesser gods be gracious unto thee, noble sir,” he began.

On a sudden this professional plaint broke into a bellow of anger and alarm. “Help! Thieves! Murder!” he cried. “My money—my hard-earned money! Some one has stolen my money!” No one appearing to pay the slightest heed to his outcries, the beggar beat upon the ground in a very fury of impotent rage.

Tor, standing well out of range of the [pg 16]whirling staff, regarded the blind man with a pleased smile. For the moment he had quite forgotten that he was hungry. “Aha! my very good master,” he cried tauntingly, “and who is it who will fast to-day—ay, and perchance to-morrow!”

At sound of the shrill childish voice the beggar sprang to his feet with a vile imprecation. “Is it thou, spawn of the dust, who hast dared rob me?” he screamed, making a vicious rush in the direction of the voice. “Come hither, that I may break every bone of thy thieving body!”

“What if I choose not to be beaten?” inquired Tor, coolly evading the groping fingers of the beggar. “What if I will to exchange thy good coin for bread? Yesterday thou gav’st me naught save a beating; to-day I have had but a bellyful [pg 17]of curses. I tell thee I will serve thee no longer. May Jove, Jehovah, and all lesser gods be gracious unto thee!”

With this mocking farewell the boy darted away, and, being for the moment almost as unseeing as his late master by reason of the hunger which tore him urgently, ran straight into the arms of a man who had been curiously watching the scene from the shelter of an archway.

“Let me go!” shrieked Tor, striving with all his puny strength to writhe out of the powerful grasp of his captor. “Let me go, I say!” Then, like the little animal that he was, he twisted about and buried his sharp white teeth in the brown hand that held him.

“Ouf! verily thou art a wolf-whelp!” cried the stranger, lightly cuffing the child’s ears. “Hold hard, small one, till [pg 18]I find how thy matters lie with the fellow yonder.”

“Give the lad into the hand of his lawful master, and may heaven reward thee, noble sir,” cried Chelluh, making his way rapidly toward the two with the aid of his staff. “The boy is mine—alas, that I should have begotten such an undutiful one. Yet because of mine infirmity—I am helpless, as thou seest—yes, but give him into my hand and I will speedily requite him for robbing me of my last coin.”

“Didst thou steal his money, boy?” asked the stranger, stooping to look into the child’s pinched face.

“Yes,” said Tor, his big, bright eyes fixed upon the beggar in manifest terror. “I was hungry. Let me go or I will bite.”

“Ah, little dog, thy teeth shall be [pg 19]broken for that word,” mumbled the beggar, feeling after the child with a ferocious chuckle. “Give him to me—ah!”

“Not so fast, friend, not so fast,” said the stranger quietly, drawing the boy away from the grimy talons outstretched to seize him. “This is thy son, sayst thou? Why, then, is the child starving and naked, whilst thou art sleek and well covered? Why is he bruised and bleeding like the dog thou didst call him, whilst thou art whole?”

The beggar bared his yellow teeth in a malevolent smile. “Why, herein is a marvel,” he said softly. “A noble stranger—for thy speech betrayeth thee, kind sir—come to Jerusalem for the passover, perchance, for love, for war—the gods alone know thine errand—but delaying his so honorable affairs, his so [pg 20]important business, to look to a blind beggar’s brat. Sacred fire, but I am bowed to the earth before thy most noble condescension, who am not worthy to touch the hem of thy honorable garment. I have said that the boy is mine. If he be hungry, if he be naked, if he be bruised—what is that to a stranger from Galilee? Truly, he is but a dog of the gutters, but even a dog hath eyes and may be useful to one in my misfortune.”

“Wilt thou that I give thee into the hand of thy father?” asked the Galilean of the child, who no longer struggled to free himself.

“The man is not my father,” mumbled Tor hopelessly. “He will kill me.”

“Thou liest, my son, after thy custom,” put in Chelluh, with a triumphant chuckle. “It is easy to kill—yes, and there is no one to say me nay—easy, but [pg 21]not profitable. I shall but chasten thee for thy profit as is enjoined upon every son of Abraham. Permit me to salute thee, most honorable stranger, ’tis already over long that we keep thee from thy business—my son and I.” And, leaning forward as if to humbly kiss the stranger’s robe, the beggar laid violent hands on the trembling child. “Oho! I have my fingers on thee at last, rat of the gutter. Come now, and we will settle our matters! Five denarii, it was. Brr—Veil of the temple! what now?”

The stranger had forcibly relaxed the clutch of the bony fingers. “Here is thy money,” he said, counting out from his broad palm the coins which the child passed over to him with a look of piteous appeal. “Five denarii, saidst thou. As for the lad, if he hath the proper love for thee he will doubtless return fast [pg 22]enough when thou art in kindlier temper; if not, thou art relieved of his keep. Come with me, boy, if thou wouldst eat.”

“Thou art a swine!” screamed the beggar. “Dost hear me, Galilean? A swine—swine—swine! Thy father, also, and the father of thy father, thy mother—sacred fire! Help! Help!”

The beggar lay sprawling in the dust, under a well-directed blow from the Galilean’s powerful fist. The stranger stood over him, breathing deep, his dark eyes flashing baleful fire. Then, shrugging his shoulders slightly and muttering certain strange words under his breath, he stooped, picked up the beggar quite gently, and set him in his place. “Here is thy staff, thy cup, and thy money, friend,” he said calmly, ignoring the torrent of imprecation which issued from [pg 23]the open month of the beggar like a foul stream. “My Master hath taught me that even such refuse as thou must be handled with love. But, hark ye, fellow, no man may defile the name of my mother and stand before Peter, the fisherman.”

The beggar strained his sightless eyes after the departing footfalls. “Peter, the fisherman,” he repeated with a ferocious smile. “Ah, most honorable and never-to-be-forgotten benefactor, I humbly thank thy noble honor for relating to me thy name. May, Jove, Jehovah, and all lesser deities enable me to suitably requite the man, and I will offer of my gains a sacrifice—a yearling lamb, no less. I will, I swear it.”

CHAPTER II A SPARROW FALLETH

The Galilean, having thus made for himself an enemy, plunged into one of the narrow streets leading toward the temple. He was still breathing deep, and thrust his pilgrim’s staff fiercely into the red dust of the gloomy thoroughfare. “Who am I that I should follow a prophet?” he demanded of himself angrily. “ ‘If thine enemy smite thee smite not thou again,’ saith my Master; and behold I have smitten a stranger and one born blind. Verily, I am glad that the Nazarene did not see me do it. Hold, I had forgotten the boy!” He stopped short and presently spied Tor’s [pg 25]small head running over with sunburnt curls peeping out from the shelter of a projecting archway. The boy’s wild, bright eyes met his own defiantly.

“Thou’lt not catch me a second time, Galilean.”

The man’s white teeth flashed in a quick answering smile. “He who is once bitten by a wolf’s whelp in future remembers and is content.”

“Did I bite thee to bleeding, Galilean?”

“Aye, verily, look thou at my hand.”

Tor laughed aloud. “It is well,” he said briefly.

“Nay, it is not well. ’Tis an evil thing for a child to bite like a dog. Wilt thou eat with me, small one?”

“I bite like a dog because I hate like a dog and hunger like a dog,” replied Tor slowly. “I stole from the beggar, [pg 26]and thou didst take the money from me by force. Which is better? Nay, Galilean, I will not eat with thee.”

The stranger sat down upon a stone with an air of indifference. “I am hungry,” he said, and, producing a brown loaf and a handful of olives from his pouch, began to eat.

Little by little the child crept nearer. Presently he stretched out one puny hand and snatched a fragment of bread which the man carelessly let fall.

“Ah, thou?” said the Galilean, with an air of surprise, and let fall another bit. Later he placed a large piece of the bread on the stone at his side and looked away at the tops of the houses.

“Does the hand that bleeds hurt thee over much, stranger?” inquired a small voice at his elbow.

“Does a hand that is wounded to bleed[pg 27]ing hurt?” repeated the Galilean gravely. “Verily, the smart is grievous; art satisfied?”

“Why didst thou hold me when I would not?” inquired the child. “Was my doing any business of thine?”

The man shrugged his shoulders. “Nay,” he replied doggedly, “it was not. Moreover, I should have been attending to the beam in mine own eye. I have been taught to forbear quarreling—even for a just cause. I am already punished, and shall be punished again. ‘Bray a fool in a mortar,’ sayeth the wise Solomon, ‘yet will his folly not depart from him.’ Such a fool am I.”

“Who told thee it was an evil thing to fight, Galilean?” asked the boy curiously. He was sitting quite confidently now at the stranger’s side, munching bread and olives. “I say it is not evil—[pg 28]that is, unless one is beaten. Then, indeed, it is evil. But one may always curse another. I have learned divers strong curses—ay, I am able to curse a man or a beast in many tongues.”

“I have a Master, one Jesus of Nazareth,” said the Galilean slowly. “He tells me that I must allow a man who has smitten me on one cheek to smite the other also.”

“Of course, after thou hast smitten thine enemy soundly, he will smite thee again, if he is able. Is thy Master a gladiator?”

“God forbid!” murmured the Galilean. He stared thoughtfully at the famished child, who was devouring the last crumbs of bread. “Art thou filled?” he asked.

Tor shrugged his thin shoulders. “Is the dry bed of Kedron filled with a single [pg 29]shower?” he inquired tersely. “I have eaten. I—” He stopped short and fixed his bright eyes on the Galilean’s hurt hand, which he had thrust into a fold of his tunic. “Let me see it,” he added timidly.

“Wherefore; wouldst thou again whet thy teeth on me?”

Tor shook his head. “It hurts me, also, now that I have eaten thy bread,” he faltered. Then to the immense astonishment of the man, he burst into a passion of weeping, his rough head bowed upon his scarred knees. An evil-looking dog which had been hungrily watching the scene from an angle in the wall skulked rapidly toward the child, and thrust his lean carcass between the two; the Galilean sprang to his feet with a muttered imprecation and threatening up-raised staff.

“Stop!” cried Tor, in sudden fury. “’Tis my dog. ’Tis Baladan. Thou shalt not strike him!”

The man looked on in horrified amazement while the child wound his thin arms about the shaggy neck of the brute, murmuring gently, “See, here is yet a bit of bread for thee, good Baladan. Eat, my friend, eat, it is good bread.”

The dog licked the child’s bare feet and whined his delight. “Didst thou not know, boy, that dogs are unclean and evil brutes?” demanded the Galilean with an air of profound disgust. “Nay, thou art thyself unclean and evil, and I must away to my Master.” He turned his back upon the child and strode away, his head bent, his eyes fixed gloomily upon the ground.

Tor watched him furtively. Then, with a word to the dog, which obediently [pg 31]slunk back into his chosen lair, he trotted noiselessly after the man. “I will see where the stranger goes,” he told himself.

The child had not followed the Galilean far when the dull rumbling of chariot-wheels and the sharp crack of a whip warned him out of the narrow thoroughfare. He flattened himself against a convenient wall and stared greedily at the sight. This could be no less than a Roman official of high rank; the boy knew it right well; his eyes roved eagerly over the rich appointments of the chariot, and fastened inquiringly on the frowning face of the man who guided the plunging horses. A second man stood at the driver’s side, a man wearing a tunic and toga richly bordered with the imperial purple.

Tor drew his breath sharply in pleased [pg 32]astonishment. Then he saw that the chariot was hotly pursued by a crowd of gamins like himself.

“’Tis the Roman Pilate himself,” he chuckled, “and perchance he will presently cast out coin like grain from the fat pouch at his girdle.”

A shrill cry burst from the child’s lips as he joined the rabble at the chariot-wheels. To run, to shout, to feel the glad thud of the falling coin; to wrestle fiercely in the dust, to arise victorious, to eat and drink the fruits of conquest—this was no new thing to Tor. And what, indeed, was the random sting of a Roman lash—even when it chanced to fall on naked limbs or shoulders—to the glory of the chase?

The man who held the whip plied it vigorously before and behind with loud imprecations in an unknown tongue, [pg 33]while he who wore the imperial purple stared frowningly into vacancy, his hands clasped loosely behind his back.

Tor’s swift feet gained on the chariot. “Hail, great Pilate!” he shouted impudently, “art deaf? art blind? art palsied? Give us now of the temple treasure! Ay—give! give!”

The Roman’s dull eyes flashed baleful fire. The fact that he had attempted to seize large sums from the temple treasuries, and that the Jews hated him for it, was no secret in Jerusalem. But must the very gamins of the street taunt him with the fact? He snatched the lash from the driver and plied it himself with a practiced hand.

Tor fell back with a shriek of keenest agony.

The chariot and the rabble swept on and disappeared, leaving the child [pg 34]writhing on the pavement like a wounded animal.

The whip, fringed cruelly with glistening barbs of steel, had lashed him full across the eyes.

CHAPTER III THE MAN WHO OPENED HIS EYES

To Tor, groaning in the wordless anguish of his hurts, came a soft inquiring touch on his heaving shoulders. Led by that kind instinct which guides all wounded creatures, the child had crawled away and hidden himself from unfriendly eyes in the mouth of a ruinous sewer hard by. Here he had lain long hours, exhausted with agony. The dog snuffed the small huddled figure from head to foot with short, anxious whines. Then he fell to industriously licking the one limp brown hand which crept out from beneath the ragged tunic.

“Baladan,” whispered Tor, and shrieked aloud with the intolerable smart of rising tears in his blinded eyes.

The shriek, faint as it was, reached the ears of a second boy, who was searching carefully from side to side of the gloomy little thoroughfare. “’Tis thou, Tor,” he exclaimed, stooping to stare in at the sewer’s mouth. “Art bad hurt?”

“Oh, Dan, the accursed lash of the Roman smote my eyes,” groaned the child, and sputtered out some strange maledictions in the Egyptian tongue, which he had learned from his late master.

The second boy pursed up his coarse lips into a soft whistle of comprehension. Then he bent down and stared briefly into the drooped face of the half-delirious sufferer. “Body of Bacchus!” [pg 37]he murmured, smiting his bare thigh with closed fist. “One more blind beggar in Jerusalem.” Then raising his fingers to his lips he gave vent to a shrill cry of summons. It was promptly answered by the soft thud of a water-carrier’s feet and the loud tinkle of his brazen cups.

“Give him to drink,” commanded Dan, indicating Tor with a grimy forefinger. “The poor fool hath brought ill-fortune upon himself. ’Tis the evil eye of a surety.” With that he produced a copper coin, which the water-carrier acknowledged with a cup of water from the goat-skin on his back.

“I will come again at sunset and give him to drink,” said the water-carrier, with a sidelong glance of fear and pity. Then the two departed, leaving Tor to his misery.

How the child lived through the days and weeks that followed only Baladan knew. The dog warmed his master’s pinched body at night, keeping at bay other prowling beasts of the pariah race which ranged the deserted streets, as lawless and almost as fierce as wolves.

He even fed him, more than once bringing fragments of bread and fish, stolen from a vender’s stall at the imminent peril of his life. Occasionally the friendly water-carrier visited the suffering boy, and the little wild children of the street, swarming like sparrows in the streets of Jerusalem, shared their infrequent crusts with him.

By slow degrees the anguish of his wounds grew less poignant. The cruelly disfigured eyes were indeed wholly darkened, but they ceased to send burning shafts of fire to the tortured brain. The [pg 39]child slept fitfully, ate what he could get, and one day even smiled. This when Baladan brought him a meatless bone, laying it down at his feet with extravagant expressions of satisfaction. “Nay, good Baladan,” murmured Tor, patting his friend’s shaggy coat; “indeed I am not hungry to-day. Eat, dear beast,” and he thrust the bone into the dog’s mouth, and closed his sharp teeth upon it. Baladan understood, and the two rested together in the sunshine with something like real content.

The charitable water-carrier had bestowed one of his brazen cups upon the blind boy, and this with his ruined eyes became his stock in trade. Little by little he learned to send forth the dolorous plaint of the blind mendicant. After a time he could find his way from place to place with the aid of the dog. And so [pg 40]it came to pass that there was one more blind beggar in Jerusalem.