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Page 2
He had gone out stunned with amazement. He wondered so greatly that when
he at last sat down by the roadside under a fig-tree he sat in a dream.
He looked up at the blueness above him as he always did when he was
alone. His eyelids did not seem heavy when he lifted them to look at the
sky. The blueness and the billows of white clouds brought rest to him,
and made him forget what he was. The floating clouds were his only
friends. There was something--yes, there was something, he did not know
what. He wished he were a cloud himself, and could lose himself at last
in the blueness as the clouds did when they melted away. Surely the
blueness was the something.
The soft, dull pad of camel's feet approached upon the road without his
hearing them. He was not roused from his absorption until the camel
stopped its tread so near him that he started and looked up. It was
necessary that he should look up a long way. He was a deformed little
child, and the camel was a tall and splendid one, with rich trappings
and golden bells. The man it carried was dressed richly, and the
expression of his dark face was at once restless and curious. He was
bending down and staring at Zia as if he were something strange.
"What dost thou see, child?" he said at last, and he spoke almost in a
breathless whisper. "What art thou waiting for?"
Zia stumbled to his feet and held out his bag, frightened, because he
had never begged before and did not know how, and if he did not carry
back money and food, he would be horribly beaten again.
"Alms! alms!" he stammered. "Master--Lord--I beg for--for her who keeps
me. She is poor and old. Alms, great lord, for a woman who is old!"
The man with the restless face still stared. He spoke as if unaware that
he uttered words and as if he were afraid.
"The child's eyes!" he said. "I cannot pass him by! What is it? I must
not be held back. But the unearthly beauty of his eyes!" He caught his
breath as he spoke. And then he seemed to awaken as one struggling
against a spell.
"What is thy name?" he asked.
Zia also had lost his breath. What had the man meant when he spoke of
his eyes?
He told his name, but he could answer no further questions. He did not
know whose son he was; he had no home; of his mistress he knew only that
her name was Judith and that she lived on alms.
Even while he related these things he remembered his lesson, and,
dropping his eyelids, fixed his gaze on the camel's feet.
"Why dost thou cast thine eyes downward?" the man asked in a troubled
and intense voice.
Zia could not speak, being stricken with fear and the dumbness of
bewilderment. He stood quite silent, and as he lifted his eyes and let
them rest on the stranger's own, they became large with tears--big,
piteous tears.
"Why?" persisted the man, anxiously. "Is it because thou seest evil in
my soul?"
"No, no!" sobbed Zia. "One taught me to look away because I am hideous
and--my eyes--are evil."
"Evil!" said the stranger. "They have lied to thee." He was trembling as
he spoke. "A man who has been pondering on sin dare not pass their
beauty by. They draw him, and show him his own soul. Having seen them, I
must turn my camel's feet backward and go no farther on this road which
was to lead me to a black deed." He bent down, and dropped a purse into
the child's alms-bag, still staring at him and breathing hard. "They
have the look," he muttered, "of eyes that might behold the Messiah. Who
knows? Who knows?" And he turned his camel's head, still shuddering a
little, and he rode away back toward the place from which he had come.
There was gold in the purse he had given, and when Zia carried it back
to Judith, she snatched it from him and asked him many questions. She
made him repeat word for word all that had passed.
After that he was sent out to beg day after day, and in time he vaguely
understood
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