Tor led the blind man to his old place by the gate, and fetched him his cup, his staff, and his water-gourd.
“Now go, little dog, buy me oil and wine,” cried the beggar, with one of his frightful maledictions, “and return to me quickly, for I am devoured with this flame.”
But Tor, looking upon him sorrowfully, knew that he could no more serve this evil master as in the old days. “I have done thus far for thee,” he said in his clear childish voice, “because of the King, my Master, and because of my [pg 171]Father in heaven. But I can no longer abide in thy presence. Farewell!” And with this he was gone, his naked feet making no sound upon the stones of the street.
Many days thereafter did Chelluh send forth his dolorous cry for alms in the doomed city of Jerusalem, for he lived until the terrible days of the Roman siege, perishing at last of hunger in his chosen place by the Damascus gate.
In the green garden-close, hard by Calvary, where the Roman guard paced ceaselessly back and forth before that silent tomb, Tor lingered, unnoticed and unafraid as the birds that flitted among the branches of the blossoming trees. It comforted him to be near the resting-place of his Master; and the lusty life of the young summer sent vague thrills of expectancy through his brown limbs, as [pg 172]he lay upon the warm earth watching the shifting leaf-shadows playing upon the sealed door of the sepulchre, and the slow-moving figures of the guard clad in the scarlet and gold of imperial Rome.
Toward midnight of the second night, when the great passover moon rode high in the heavens and the garden slept in its silver light like the garden of a dream, the child slept, too, held in the soft clasp of a vision which laid cool fingers of delight on his drowsy lids. When he awoke he lay for a full minute staring into the branches of the olive-tree above his head. The gray-green leaves were all alive with a tremulous motion in the fresh morning breeze; a newly-awakened bird trilled softly somewhere in the depths of the garden; the aromatic breath of serried lilies swept his cheek like a caress. It was happiness [pg 173]to have slept—to be once more awake. Then he remembered.
The Roman guard had disappeared; this much Tor perceived at a single glance. A second searching stare told him much more: the door of the tomb gaped wide, beside it stood a young man clad in white garments.
Tor approached this radiant figure unafraid. “Where is the man who opens eyes?” he asked quite simply, for the empty tomb appeared nothing strange to the child newly emerged from his healing dreams.
“He is not here,” the young man made answer, with grave sweetness. “He is risen, as he said. Behold he goeth before you into Galilee; there shalt thou see him.”
Tor opened wide eyes of rapture upon the angel. “My Master is alive!” he [pg 174]whispered to himself. “I shall see him.”