The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander | Page 5

his chief officer, or vizier."
[Illustration: "'TIME OF ABRAHAM!' I EXCLAIMED."]
I sprang from my chair. "Time of Abraham!" I exclaimed. "This is
simply--"
"No; it is not," he interrupted, and speaking in perfect good humor. "I
beg you will sit down and listen to me. What I have to say to you is not
nearly so wonderful as the nature and power of electricity."
I obeyed; he had touched me on a tender spot, for I am an electrician,
and can appreciate the wonderful.
"There has been a great deal of discussion," he continued, "in regard to
the peculiar title given to Alexander, but the appellation 'two-horned'
has frequently been used in ancient times. You know Michelangelo
gave two horns to Moses; but he misunderstood the tradition he had
heard, and furnished the prophet with real horns. Alexander wore his
hair arranged over his forehead in the shape of two protruding horns.
This was simply a symbol of high authority; as the bull is monarch of
the herd, so was he monarch among men. He was the first to use this
symbol, although it was imitated afterward by various Eastern
potentates.
"As I have said, Alexander was a man of enterprise, and it had come to

his knowledge that there existed somewhere a certain spring the waters
of which would confer immortality upon any descendant of Shem who
should drink of them, and he started out to find this spring. I traveled
with him for more than a year. It was on this journey that he visited
Abraham when the latter was building the great edifice which the
Mohammedans claim as their holy temple, the Kaaba.
"It was more than a month after we had parted from Abraham that I,
being in advance of the rest of the company, noticed a little pool in the
shade of a rock, and being very warm and thirsty, I got down on my
hands and knees, and putting my face to the water, drank of it. I drank
heartily, and when I raised my head, I saw, to my amazement, that there
was not a drop of water left in the spring. Now it so happened that
when Alexander came to this spot, he stopped, and having regarded the
little hollow under the rock, together with its surroundings, he
dismounted and stood by it. He called me, and said: 'According to all
the descriptions I have read, this might have been the spring of
immortality for which I have been searching; but it cannot be such now,
for there is no water in it.' Then he stooped down and looked carefully
at the hollow. 'There has been water here,' said he, 'and that not long
ago, for the ground is wet.'
"A horrible suspicion now seized upon me. Could I have drained the
contents of the spring of inestimable value? Could I, without knowing
it, have deprived my king of the great prize for which he had searched
so long, with such labor and pains? Of course I was certain of nothing,
but I bowed before Alexander, and told him that I had found an
insignificant little puddle at the place, that I had tasted it and found it
was nothing but common water, and in quantity so small that it scarcely
sufficed to quench my thirst. If he would consent to camp in the shade,
and wait a few hours, water would trickle again into the little basin, and
fill it, and he could see for himself that this could not be the spring of
which he was in search.
"We waited at that place for the rest of the day and the whole of the
night, and the next morning the little basin was empty and entirely dry.
Alexander did not reproach me; he was accustomed to rule all men,

even himself, and he forbade himself to think that I had interfered with
the great object of his search. But he sent me home to his capital city,
and continued his journey without me. 'Such a thirsty man must not
travel with me,' he said. 'If we should really come to the immortal
spring, he would be sure to drink it all.'
"Nine years afterward Alexander returned to his palace, and when I
presented myself before him he regarded me steadfastly. I knew why he
was looking at me, and I trembled. At length he spoke: 'Thou art not
one day older than when I dismissed thee from my company. It was
indeed the fountain of immortality which thou didst discover, and of
which thou didst drink every drop. I have searched over the whole
habitable world, and there is no other. Thou, too, art an aristocrat; thou,
too, art of the family of Shem. It was for this reason that I