The Story of the Other Wise Man | Page 9

with bloody hands and
dripping swords. At the sight of the stranger in his imposing dress they
hesitated with surprise. The captain of the band approached the
threshold to thrust him aside. But Artaban did not stir. His face was as
calm as though he were watching the stars, and in his eyes there burned
that steady radiance before which even the half-tamed hunting leopard
shrinks, and the fierce blood-hound pauses in his leap. He held the
soldier silently for an instant, and then said in a low voice:
[Illustration - "There is none here save me."]
"I am all alone in this place, and I am waiting to give this jewel to the
prudent captain who will leave me in peace."
He showed the ruby, glistening in the hollow of his hand like a great
drop of blood.
The captain was amazed at the splendor of the gem. The pupils of his
eyes expanded with desire, and the hard lines of greed wrinkled around
his lips. He stretched out his hand and took the ruby.
"March on!" he cried to his men, "there is no child here. The house is
still."
The clamor and the clang of arms passed down the street as the

headlong fury of the chase sweeps by the secret covert where the
trembling deer is hidden. Artaban re-entered the cottage. He turned his
face to the east and prayed:
"God of truth, forgive my sin! I have said the thing that is not, to save
the life of a child. And two of my gifts are gone. I have spent for man
that which was meant for God. Shall I ever be worthy to see the face of
the King?"
But the voice of the woman, weeping for joy in the shadow behind him,
said very gently:
"Because thou hast saved the life of my little one, may the Lord bless
thee and keep thee; the Lord make His face to shine upon thee and be
gracious unto thee; the Lord lift up His countenance upon thee and give
thee peace."

IN THE HIDDEN WAY OF SORROW
Then again there was a silence in the Hall of Dreams, deeper and more
mysterious than the first interval, and I understood that the years of
Artaban were flowing very swiftly under the stillness of that clinging
fog, and I caught only a glimpse, here and there, of the river of his life
shining through the shadows that concealed its course.
I saw him moving among the throngs of men in populous Egypt,
seeking everywhere for traces of the household that had come down
from Bethlehem, and finding them under the spreading sycamore-trees
of Heliopolis, and beneath the walls of the Roman fortress of New
Babylon beside the Nile--traces so faint and dim that they vanished
before him continually, as footprints on the hard river-sand glisten for a
moment with moisture and then disappear.
I saw him again at the foot of the pyramids, which lifted their sharp
points into the intense saffron glow of the sunset sky, changeless
monuments of the perishable glory and the imperishable hope of man.
He looked up into the vast countenance of the crouching Sphinx and

vainly tried to read the meaning of the calm eyes and smiling mouth.
Was it, indeed, the mockery of all effort and all aspiration, as Tigranes
had said--the cruel jest of a riddle that has no answer, a search that
never can succeed? Or was there a touch of pity and encouragement in
that inscrutable smile--a promise that even the defeated should attain a
victory, and the disappointed should discover a prize, and the ignorant
should be made wise, and the blind should see, and the wandering
should come into the haven at last?
I saw him again in an obscure house of Alexandria, taking counsel with
a Hebrew rabbi. The venerable man, bending over the rolls of
parchment on which the prophecies of Israel were written, read aloud
the pathetic words which foretold the sufferings of the promised
Messiah--the despised and rejected of men, the man of sorrows and the
acquaintance of grief.
"And remember, my son," said he, fixing his deep-set eyes upon the
face of Artaban, "the King whom you are seeking is not to be found in
a palace, nor among the rich and powerful. If the light of the world and
the glory of Israel had been appointed to come with the greatness of
earthly splendor, it must have appeared long ago. For no son of
Abraham will ever again rival the power which Joseph had in the
palaces of Egypt, or the magnificence of Solomon throned between the
lions in Jerusalem. But the light for which the world is waiting is a new
light, the glory that shall rise out of