Part 3

This woman was destined, under the leadings of Providence, to make a greater and more lasting impression on my soul than all others. And this was our first meeting: I a bashful boy; she a strange woman, too gaudily dressed, entering my father’s house at a strange hour. So two ships might pass each other on the Great Sea, merely exchanging signals of good-morning—ships destined long afterward to convoy each other beyond the Pillar of Hercules into the infinite unknown!

This woman was Mary Magdalen.

III.

_NIGHT BY THE DEAD SEA._

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 Assyrian or Egyptian caravan, than the coarse 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 passion 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 anticipated. 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 assistance 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 basement 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 passed 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 sparse 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 shores 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 hoarse 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 reassured, and walked meekly at his side, overwhelmed with surprise and sorrow.

After passing 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 shore 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 God.

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 passed 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, coarse 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 assassin 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 passed 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 gods 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 illustrated 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 shore 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 quantities of that evil thing we call money. They have set me down in the latter class, 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. The old Persian ate heartily, but I could barely taste it. The guide whispered in my ear, “Be silent and wakeful,” and departed.

“Now sleep, my son,” said my philosophic companion; “trust in God and sleep. Our angels and good genii befriend us most powerfully when asleep. When awake we scare them away by our villainous thoughts. Sleep.”

The whispered words of the guide had inspired me with a vague hope, and I preferred trusting to his advice rather than to the invisible guardians of our sleep. I was therefore silent and wakeful. The moon went down long before midnight.

The hours passed away slowly, slowly, marked only by the coming up of the white stars from behind the eastern hills; while the long minutes were told by the dead plash of the water against the beach.

There were feasting and drinking and singing in the tent of Barabbas. This was kept up until long after midnight. Then there was silence, and the loud snoring as of some one in a drunken sleep.

It became very dark. The voices of man and nature were hushed. The hours passed, and all things seemed to sleep except the stars which continued to climb the heavenly dome, and the sad, gray sea which pushed feebly against the desert beach, and myself cruelly orphaned and betrayed, thinking alternately of home and death.

“Death at sunrise!” I exclaimed, thinking aloud to myself.

“The sun has not risen,” whispered the Persian.

And Hope, the undying consoler within us, took courage at the words of the old man and at the slow-footed pace of the night; and thought it was long, long till the morning, and that the angel of Life might still come, and relieve from his awful watch the angel of Death.

An hour more of silence that could be felt, and of unutterable suspense—and a hand was laid softly upon my shoulder. The rope that bound me was disengaged, and my deliverer drew me stealthily along the beach, and away from the tent where Barabbas lay dreaming of plundered caravans and cruel uncles who enriched him for the murder of their nephews.

The guide did not speak until we stood on the mound at the mouth of the great ravine, where the Dead Sea first broke upon my sight.

“You are free,” he said. “You are a child, abused and betrayed. You shall not be murdered. Robber as I am, there is something in my heart which is touched by your sorrows. Go back to life, if not to happiness. God perhaps will deliver you from Magistus, as He has through me delivered you from Barabbas.”

“Come with me,” said I; “leave this wretched and dangerous life in the wilderness. Share our fate and fortune in Bethany.”

“Do not speak of it,” he answered; “it is impossible. Hasten on your journey, or all may be lost.”

“But,” said I, clinging to him, “Barabbas will kill you when he finds I have escaped.”

“No! I have contrived against that. I am cunning and I shall succeed.”

“The poor old Persian will be murdered!”

“No! He will be ransomed to-morrow. Away!” he continued excitedly; “a moment’s delay may be fatal. Away!”

“Stay!” said I, eagerly; “tell me the name of my benefactor, that I may repeat it in my prayers.”

“I have no name, no home. I am the Son of the Desert.”

He hurried softly away toward the tent, and I crept up the ravine in the darkness.

IV.

_IN THE WILDERNESS._

Afraid of the dark and fearful gorge, full of rocks and pitfalls and unseen dangers; afraid of the unpeopled desert which awaited me above; afraid of wild beasts, serpents, lepers and evil spirits; afraid of the silence and solitude of night by the Salt Sea; afraid of all things behind me and all before; I ascended cautiously and painfully the narrow path, if path it might be called, praying to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, for protection.

I, who had never been out of my father’s house at that hour of the night in my life, thus found myself amid a complication of circumstances which might have appalled the stoutest heart.

I had ascended two-thirds of the way, when my keen ear caught upon the night-wind the subdued but rough voices of several persons who were descending the ravine. My heart stood still and I almost fainted with affright. Fortunately, I remembered that I had just passed, a little lower down, a large side-fissure or chink in the great rock wall of the ravine. I went back with the utmost speed and caution, and got safely concealed in the black crevice before the objects of my terror came along.

They were no doubt some of the party of Barabbas, who were returning with or without the ransom of the old Persian. They were talking of ransom with oaths and laughter as they passed. I held my breath in suspense; nor did my heart recover its natural beat until they had descended a good distance, and their voices floated faintly upward like the mutterings of lost souls in some horrible abyss.

I was now afraid to start again lest I should meet another detachment of the robbers. I waited a long time, listening intently. It suddenly occurred to me that when the robbers reached the tent of Barabbas, my escape would be discovered, and the swiftest runners despatched to overtake me. This thought brought the cold drops to my forehead; and I hurried breathless all the way up the ravine, actually thinking that I heard the footsteps of men behind me, and voices calling my name.

Escaped from the robbers, I fell into the arms of the desert. I could have extricated myself from the new danger if the sun had been shining. But the day rose dark and cloudy, and I could not tell whether I was going east or west, north or south. I failed to recognize any of the spots we had passed the day before. I walked rapidly up and down the bare hills, over the rough gullies and through the sandy hollows. After some hours of this exhausting travel, both mind and body being on the stretch, I was shocked on discovering that I had been moving in a circle, and was near the mouth of the ravine again.

I would have stretched myself upon some rock in despair; but my dangerous proximity to Barabbas and his men, revived my fears and gave supernatural strength to my body. I fled away as fast as I could over new hills and gullies and sandy bottoms. It must have been two or three hours after noon, when I reached a hill overlooking a deep, narrow valley, the dry bed of some nameless brook, which, in the rainy season, poured along over the sands its little tribute to the sea. Thoroughly exhausted with hunger, thirst, fatigue, loss of sleep, fear and despair, I lay down upon the hillside. Lost in the wilderness, thinking of the still worse conditions of my father and sisters, my misery was too deep for tears. A strange torpor crept over my senses, and I fell into that profound slumber in which the weary are strengthened and the sorrowful comforted.

When I awoke, the setting sun, just freed from clouds, was shining in my face.

How life-giving, faith-giving, hope-giving is a sight of the sun, wrapping his mantle of softened glory about him, and descending trustfully to sleep in the kingdom of night, assured that Aurora will open duly her palace of pearl, and his golden chariot with its fiery steeds issue forth in the morning!

So does the Soul sink only to rise; sleep only to wake; die only to live: ever changing in state, ever the same in substance.

I was thus drawing new vigor from the rays of the sun, when a voice of heavenly sweetness broke upon my ear, a voice chanting this beautiful Scripture:

“As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, So panteth my soul after thee, O God! My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: When shall I come and appear before God?”

“Are there angels as well as demons in the desert?” said I, to myself.

A jutting brow of the hill concealed from me the source whence these sounds appeared to issue. I arose and advanced to explore the mystery. Rounding the intervening slope, I saw a young man seated upon a stone at the mouth of a large cavern. His quick eye detected me in a moment, and he advanced to meet me. He wore a single garment wrought of the finest camel’s hair, which was secured about his waist by a leathern girdle. Simple toilet! But when you looked at his fine head with its long black hair curling about his bare neck, and his beautiful oval face soft as a girl’s, full of all saintly thoughts and heavenly emotions, you knew that you were in the presence of one who was clad interiorly in fine linen and purple.

“Good sir,” said I, “behold an unhappy youth, who has just escaped death by robbers, and is lost in this terrible wilderness!”

“One must have lived long in the desert to find his way out of it such a dark day as this. It will be clear to-morrow, and I will pilot you into the great highway. Meantime you are welcome to my poor hospitalities—a cave for roof, a bed of skins, water to drink, wild honey and locusts to eat; that is all.”

“I gladly accept your offer; and were your proffered gifts still more humble, they would be sanctified by the light of brotherly love you throw upon them.”

I seated myself on the stone while he went into the cave and brought forth his simple food and drink, of which I partook heartily.

“To whom am I indebted for this kind reception?” I inquired, as I finished my meal.

“I am John,” he answered, “the son of Zacharias; and I dwell in the desert until the time of my showing unto Israel.”

A deep human groan from the interior of the cavern now startled me, and I sprang from my seat.

“What is that?” I exclaimed.

“My poor old patient has awakened. I must go and examine him.”

“He takes in the sick as well as the wandering,” said I to myself. “Surely the angels must protect him in some peculiar manner.”

John came forward again with an anxious countenance. “Alas!” said he, “the old man has rapidly changed. He fell into a soft slumber an hour ago, but he is now plainly dying. I knew he was very ill, for he has raved all day about his children and some magicians who wish to destroy them.”

At these words a fearful tremor seized me. I could not speak. I sprang past the young man, and in a moment was kneeling at the side of my father! I seized his withered hand and covered it with kisses.

“My father! my father! Do you not know your son, your only son?”

The young hermit looked on in tears.

The old man slowly opened his eyes and cast a bewildered look, first at me, and then at John.

“Yes—you are angels,” he said, “who have come to welcome my spirit into paradise.”

He breathed heavily. I sank down weeping. John came forward with a little basin of water. “There is no time to be lost,” said he in a low tone.

“Do you believe in God, and in Moses his lawgiver, and in the prophets his servants?”

“I do! I do!” said the old man, eagerly.

“Do you repent of your sins, and pray for the Holy Spirit to guide you?”

“I do! and God be merciful to a miserable sinner!”

“Then I baptize you with water, the emblem of purification,—and in the name of the Lord, the only God, into his spiritual Church and into the hope of immortal life.”