Aleph, the Chaldean; or, the Messiah as Seen from Alexandria

by E. F. Burr

Cimon was surprised at the magnificent beauty that now disengaged herself from the arms of Seti and stood blushing before them. Aleph had indeed spoken of her as beautiful, but with no particularity and effusion: and so he was not prepared for the lovely vision. It seemed to him for a moment as if he had before him one of the Hellenic goddesses—a sort of compound of Aphrodite and Athene and Artemis. As to Aleph—such a look of glad recognition sprang to his face at the unexpected meeting that she could not but notice it. It gave her courage to advance and give her hand to Cimon, saying, “The daughter of Alexander gratefully remembers our friend of the Diapleuston”—to then turn to Aleph with a welcoming look and a new flush on her cheek as she said, “You see one has to make much of her grandfather, especially when she has but one. Perhaps you, too, have a mother-father and know how good it is to have him.”

“The lady has guessed rightly,” returned the young man. “The last thing I did when leaving my country was to bow my tearful face on the shoulder of a white-haired man whose form was not bent, nor eye dim, nor natural force abated, though he had long passed his century; and who laid his hand on my head and sent me away with the blessing of a grand sire. God willing, I shall see him again. The mother-fathers of Chaldea live long.”

“May the God of Chaldean Abraham grant it,” said the maiden devoutly.

“And grant also that I may carry back to him the news he has so long waited for—that the Desire of all nations has at last come!”

“Amen,” said Rachel; “and, according to my promise, I have something new to tell you touching that matter. So come with me, all of you—I mean you, mother-father,” and she threw a graceful gesture at Seti as she led the way to seats near a window.

While the young people had been talking, Seti, with folded arms, had kept his eyes fastened on them as if by some irresistible attraction. Rousing himself at the call of Rachel, he said to Cimon with a smile, “In these days the Egyptian is in bondage to Israel,” and added as he closed the door and followed, “and is not very discontented—certainly not enough to make an exodus.”

When they were seated, Rachel said to Aleph, “I promised that if I obtained any new facts about Jesus I would communicate them to you. And this is what I have heard this morning.”

She then proceeded to say that on her way to the Serapeum she had seen Miriam, found that her husband had not appeared, found that she had improved so much that she was able to tell her sad story since her marriage. She had first gone with her husband to Tyre, where he professed to have property. After a few days he removed her to a small house near the city. This was the first of a succession of removals east and south. They never stopped long in a place—never lived in any but the poorest and obscurest part of a place. She never knew her husband do any work, or seek for any. She often wondered at first how he obtained such scanty and irregular supplies as they had. Once when she asked him about the matter, he said that he was living on his property; and accompanied the information with such a storm of abuse that she never after dared to refer to the subject. She did not need to do so. He was abroad much at night; and she noticed that when abroad during the day he shunned thoroughfares, and sometimes disguised himself. Moreover, the men whom he brought to the house were of the lowest sort, and she could not well avoid overhearing enough of their talk to assure her that they agreed in thinking that property was robbery and might be taken wherever it could be found. After the first few weeks he cast off all semblance of regard for her. He would often leave her for weeks without any means of support; and had it not been for the compassion of the poor people about her she would have starved. As it was, her suffering from exposure, privation, and remorse reduced her almost to a skeleton. Ah, what days those were! She shuddered when she spoke of them. Such wretched living as they had was gotten by robbery, and sometimes by murder. He no longer pretended the contrary. She came to know that their frequent changes of place were made necessary by his crimes. As soon as he found himself an object of suspicion, he went to a new place and there repeated his thefts and burglaries until his safety required him to move on. In this way they slowly drifted from the Phenician coast to the Sea of Galilee.

She now thinks that she could not have lived through that awful pilgrimage had it not been for one thing. Wherever she went she met with poor people who had been cured of some incurable ail by the new prophet Jesus—cured by a touch or a word. Sometimes it was a palsy, sometimes consumption, sometimes leprosy, sometimes blindness or deafness or a lost limb, sometimes devils or death. And he asked nothing in return for such wonderful deliverances. Of course all mouths were full of his praises. They told of his gentle and compassionate ways; how he did not disdain publicans and sinners, saying that he came to seek and save the lost: how he took little children in his arms and caressed and blessed them; how patiently and wisely and wonderfully he taught the humblest as well as the highest—told of such things till her heart burned and ached to see him, to be near him, to pour out her oppressed soul into his pitiful ears.