With my thoughts fluctuating between the extreme beauty of Mary Magdalen and the danger which Ethopus seemed to apprehend, I walked some distance without regarding my new companion.
When I did so, I was surprised and puzzled at his appearance. He was a young man of singularly handsome features, the only drawback being a nose which was a little too aquiline. His black hair curled in short ringlets close to his head, and his face was thoroughly bronzed by sun and tempest.
His dress was rather that of some foreigner attached to an a.s.syrian or Egyptian caravan, than the coa.r.s.e and simple clothing of a Hebrew servant.
And then there was something bold and free in his bearing, which precluded the idea that he was a menial either in character or condition.
"Are you engaged in my uncle"s service?" said I.
He shifted the heavy basket from one arm to the other, and made no reply.
I repeated my question in a louder tone; but he did not seem to hear me, looking straight ahead at the road before him.
"This handsome fellow is both deaf and dumb," said I to myself. "My uncle has a curious pa.s.sion for silent people."
Debarred the pleasure of conversation, I relapsed into reverie. I determined to make a use of this visit which my uncle little antic.i.p.ated.
I resolved to approach my father boldly, contagion or no contagion, and have an interview with him. I wanted to tell him of the neglected and unhappy condition of his children, of our increasing repugnance to Magistus, and of the indifference or treachery of Caiaphas. I wanted his advice. He could surely direct me to friends in the city, whose a.s.sistance might arrest our impending ruin.
Made happier by that resolution, as if it had already accomplished something, I let my mind revert back to the woman I saw at the gate, and a new cause of uneasiness arose as I reflected upon that accidental meeting.
Boyish and inexperienced as I was, I discovered something in the dress and manner of the early visitor, which whispered to me that she was not a suitable companion for my sisters. She certainly was not a domestic. Who could she be? What could she want at our house just after daybreak?
Perhaps she came to see Magistus on business. It was not the hour or the place for that. Perhaps she was one of the midnight revelers whom I heard singing and dancing in the bas.e.m.e.nt story of my uncle"s secluded residence. That idea startled me more than all. I determined to get back home by rapid walking before nightfall, and explore this disquieting mystery.
We had pa.s.sed over hill and dale through a highly-cultivated country, full of vineyards and gardens and orchards, full of sweet little villages and beautiful rural villas. This did not last long, and we turned in a south-easterly direction. The villages disappeared; the houses became more spa.r.s.e and humble; the trees became more stunted and bare; the rocks larger and the road more difficult. At the point where the highway leads down the steep hills toward Jericho and the plain of the Jordan, my guide turned suddenly due south into a rough, barren and wild country, where there was no road at all.
The sounds of life faded behind us. Vegetation almost wholly disappeared.
No animals were to be seen but a few goats far away browsing among the rocks. The birds seemed to refuse to accompany us further. The silence of the desert fell gradually upon us. This was the wilderness of Judea.
We were winding downward to the Salt Sea, that great watery waste, in whose silent deeps Sodom and Gomorrah lie buried; on whose sh.o.r.es stand bleak and desolate mountains full of sulphur springs; the gloom without the glory of nature; the home of wild beasts and lepers and robbers and demons; mountains fearful in their nakedness and solitude; evil genii guarding in stern silence the eternal sleep of the lost cities of the plain.
I grew uneasy and melancholy as we approached these famous and dangerous places. The taciturnity of my guide, together with an increasing shadow on his expressive face, magnified my apprehensions almost into fears. I felt my boyish weakness and inexperience by the side of this strong, rough, silent man of the wilderness, who now seemed to my excited imagination to have got into his native element, and to be a part of the lonely and supernatural region into which we had entered.
Our attention was suddenly drawn to a neighboring eminence by sounds of so strange a character, that it was impossible to say whether they were animal or human. Four lepers appeared in sight, almost naked, holding up their long, withered arms, and screeching out from their hoa.r.s.e throats and swollen lips their hideous cry,
"Unclean! unclean!"
I trembled at this sad spectacle and gazed intently, expecting and afraid to recognize my poor father in the group. My guide suddenly laid his hand upon my shoulder, and we both stood still. He then set the basket upon the ground, made signals to the lepers to approach, and drew me away from the spot. A horrible chorus of guttural thanks came up from the leprous creatures, who awaited our departure before pouncing upon the acceptable present.
"Oh, sir!" said I, resisting my guide, and forgetting that he was deaf and dumb, "you have given my father"s food to those unhappy wretches! Where is my father? Oh, take me to him!"
He stopped and looked me full in the face.
"Oh yes!" I continued, in a supplicating tone; "that basket has food and wine for my poor father, the leper, and a bouquet and a letter from Martha, and a pair of sandals from little Mary-"
Overcome with emotion I burst into tears.
The guide drew a deep sigh; and when I looked up into his face it was radiant with a sweet and benevolent expression. He had either heard me or he comprehended intuitively the nature of my distress. He shook his head and made a deprecating gesture with his hand. He then drew me off strongly, but so gently that I was partially rea.s.sured, and walked meekly at his side, overwhelmed with surprise and sorrow.
After pa.s.sing over several rough ridges we turned into a deep ravine. The guide made me go in front. The pathway down this narrow gorge, this cleft between two mountains, was rough and dangerous. There were deep holes or pits upon one side, and frightfully overhanging rocks upon the other. It was so dark and precipitous in some places that I could scarcely believe we were not descending into the bowels of the earth. We suddenly emerged from this monstrous fissure on a little mound made by the soil washed down from above, and found ourselves on the sh.o.r.e of the Dead Sea.
I had never seen such an expanse of water before, and was charmed with the sight. Away to the left was the plain of the Jordan and the sacred river of that name, invisible at a distance among its reeds and rushes. Opposite arose the reddish-brown mountain chain which borders the sea on the west.
Far down to the right stretched a range of high hills of a bluish gray color. In front, and widening away to the south, lay the mighty surface of the sea, shining like a burnished mirror in the noon-day sun. A fine breeze was blowing; but there was only a faint ripple on the water, for its heavy salt waves can scarcely be stirred by the wind-like the soul of a wicked man, which cannot be moved by the Spirit of G.o.d.
I was recalled from that delicious reverie into which every one is transported by a view of the sea; for my guide pointed to a clump of stunted trees or rather large bushes near the beach. Half hidden by them was a tent of alternate white and red canvas, in front of which a large boat was drawn up on the sand. Two rough-looking fellows lay in the boat asleep. There was no human habitation anywhere about this lonely spot.
These people belonged on the other side of the sea. They were ready for flight in a moment. They were wild, roving, secretive, fugitive. They were engaged in some unlawful business. I had fallen into the hands of robbers.
These disquieting thoughts pa.s.sed through my mind as we approached the tent. Hearing our footsteps on the sand, the chief came out of it. He was tall and sinewy, a man of unusual weight and size. He was clad in a richly-embroidered crimson robe, with a splendid scimitar, jewel-hilted, at his side. A long beard, stained of a golden yellow by some vegetable dye, gave him a grotesque and never-to-be-forgotten appearance. All this barbaric ornament did not prevent me from recognizing the strange, coa.r.s.e man who held the long interview with Magistus two days before. Then he was disguised; now his character was apparent.
We stood before him. My guide made a low obeisance and said in a clear voice:
"Barabbas! I have obeyed your orders!"
My astonishment on discovering that my robber-guide was neither deaf nor dumb, was turned into another channel when Barabbas exclaimed:
"Well done! Bind him tightly with the old Persian. If Beltrezzor"s ransom does not arrive by sunrise, we will make way with them both together."
My uncle had betrayed me into the hands of the Ishmaelite to be murdered.
There could be no doubt that the atrocious a.s.sa.s.sin had taken every precaution to prevent escape or failure. Resistance was impossible. There were four men in sight, either one of whom could have overpowered me in a moment. My heart sank in despair when my guide led me behind the tent, and bound me securely to a little tree, without evincing the least remorse or care at his own part in this shameful and cowardly transaction.
I now surveyed my fellow-prisoner, who was tied to another tree close to me. His gray hair and beard showed that he had pa.s.sed considerably beyond the meridian of life. He had a serene and rather handsome face, full of thought and benevolence. Young and inexperienced as I was, I perceived by a kind of intuition that my companion in distress was a cultivated and superior man. He wore a rich Eastern robe and a bright-colored turban. He was smoking a long pipe curiously carved and twisted. He surveyed me quietly and nodded kindly to me, evidently pitying my childish terror and despair.
"We shall be murdered to-morrow!" I gasped.
"I learned a proverb in India," said the old man. "Brahma writes the destiny of every one on his skull. No man can read it"-and watching his smoke fade into air, he slowly continued, "and even the G.o.ds cannot avert it."
I was astonished at his coolness; but his fatalism did not console me.
"To die-to die!-to leave my poor sisters unprotected and to see them no more-Oh, it is horrible!"
"Not to be," said the Persian, in a voice of singular depth and sweetness, "not to be is better than to be; and not to have been is better than all."
In spite of myself and my fears, the calm and almost spiritual halo which seemed to surround this strange old man, began to quiet my agitation and to divert my thoughts from my impending fate.
"Are you a philosopher?" said I.
"I think," he replied; and drawing a long whiff from his pipe, he ill.u.s.trated his remark by lapsing into a profound reverie.
I contemplated this serene philosopher a long time in silence, and made up my mind that he must have a good many beautiful things to think about as he sat there, bound and under sentence of death, smoking so placidly upon the arid sh.o.r.e of that dreadful sea.
When he indicated, by knocking the ashes from his pipe, that he had ascended from the ocean of dreams into which he had dived, I asked him how he had fallen into the power of these miscreants.
"Speak evil of no one, my son! Leave wicked names to the wicked. These gentlemen live upon the road and in the wilderness. They pay special attention to travelers, to caravans, and to small and remote villages.
They cure some people of that chronic disease we call life, and they permit others to ransom themselves by large quant.i.ties of that evil thing we call money. They have set me down in the latter cla.s.s, and I am awaiting a remittance from a friend in Jerusalem."
"Suppose your friend is dead, or absent from the city, or cannot raise the sum required, or refuses to do it?"
He pointed to the sea, shrugging his shoulders, and exclaimed:
"What is written, is written."
When it was quite dark my guide of the morning brought us a little food.