Seth's eyes blazed. "The curses of Sechet light upon thee!" he cried fiercely; "thou hast the withered heart of a mummy a thousand years dead!" Then he caught up his burden once more and fled away, the furious imprecations of the Jew sounding in his ears.
Hurrying blindly forward, he neither knew nor cared whither he was going, but he became conscious after a few moments that he had come into a quieter place. With a dim sense of relief he once more laid the limp figure down upon the pavement; this time, to his great joy, he heard a faint sound. She was trying to speak. He kneeled at her side and lifted her head to his knees. "Water! Water!" she moaned feebly.
He looked distractedly about him. The long narrow street was suffocatingly hot, on either side of it stretched blank walls of rough-hewn masonry, pierced occasionally with a deep-set door; two or three dogs skulked in the black shadow of an archway near by, and a flock of swallows swooped back and forth in the dazzling sunshine, crying out to each other with wild sweetness, but there was no human being in sight. He could hear the distant cries of the venders, and the shouts of the muleteers from the busy street which he had just left. It seemed to him presently, as he listened, that somewhere near by he could hear the cool tinkle of a fountain; he looked up, from the top of the wall above his head there fluttered a glimmer of green leaves. There must be--there was a garden there, and water, he was sure of it. He sprang up, and laying Anat's head carefully down, pulled impatiently at the bell which hung at the side of one of the sunken doorways. After a long delay, every minute of which seemed a separate eternity to the boy, a panel in the door swung open, and the head of a man was thrust out.
"What wilt thou?" he said in a surly tone, as his eye fell upon the boy.
"Water! for the love of all the gods, water! my----"
"What dost thou mean, fellow," interrupted the man, scowling, "by coming to the palace of the High Priest for water? The public fountains are for such as thou." And without further ado he shut the door with a decisive clap.
Seth stood for a moment as if stunned, then he threw himself down upon the hot stones with a smothered cry of despair, and bowed his head upon his knees. After what seemed a long time a touch upon his shoulder aroused him, he looked up dully, his eyes red with weeping.
"What aileth thee, lad?"
He stared at the face of his questioner without answering. It was like no other face he had ever seen, and yet, strangely enough, something in the dark eyes brought back to him the dim memory of his mother. The young man--for it was a young man who had spoken--repeated his question, and this time the lad answered.
"My sister hath been trampled upon by a beast of burden. She is dying for water, no one will help me, my bottle is empty, and I know not where to find a fountain."