The Little Hunchback Zia | Page 9

light. The new-born hand lay still.
He did not know how long he knelt. He did not know that the woman leaned toward him, scarce drawing breath, her wondrous eyes resting upon him as if she waited for a sign. Even as she so gazed she beheld it, and spoke, whispering as in awed prayer:
"Go forth and cleanse thy flesh in running water," she said. "Go forth."
He moved, he rose, he stood upright--the hunchback Zia who had never stood upright before! His body was straight, his limbs were strong. He looked upon his hands, and there was no blemish or spot to be seen!
"I am made whole!" he cried in ecstasy so wild that his boy's voice rang and echoed in the cave's hollowed roof. "I am made whole!"
"Go forth," she said softly. "Go forth and give praise."
He turned and went into the dawning day. He stood swaying, and heard himself sob forth a rapturous cry of prayer. His flesh was fresh and pure; he stood erect and tall. He was as others whom God had not cursed. The light! the light! He stretched forth his arms to the morning sky.
Some shepherds roughly clothed in the skins of lambs and kids were climbing the hill toward the cave. They carried their crooks, and they talked eagerly as though in wonderment at some strange thing which had befallen them, looking up at the heavens, and one pointed with his crook.
"Surely it draws nearer, the star!" he said. "Look!"
As they passed a thicket where a brook flowed through the trees a fair boy came forth, cleansed, fresh, and radiant as if he had but just bathed in its clear waters. It was the boy Zia.
"Who is this one?" said the oldest shepherd,
"How beautiful he is! How the light shines on him! He looks like a king's son."
[Illustration with caption: "'How beautiful he is!'"--Page 54]
And as they passed, they made obeisance to him.

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