The beggar strained his sightless eyes after the departing footfalls. “Peter, the fisherman,” he repeated with a ferocious smile. “Ah, most honorable and never-to-be-forgotten benefactor, I humbly thank thy noble honor for relating to me thy name. May, Jove, Jehovah, and all lesser deities enable me to suitably requite the man, and I will offer of my gains a sacrifice—a yearling lamb, no less. I will, I swear it.”
CHAPTER II
A SPARROW FALLETH
The Galilean, having thus made for himself an enemy, plunged into one of the narrow streets leading toward the temple. He was still breathing deep, and thrust his pilgrim’s staff fiercely into the red dust of the gloomy thoroughfare. “Who am I that I should follow a prophet?” he demanded of himself angrily. “ ‘If thine enemy smite thee smite not thou again,’ saith my Master; and behold I have smitten a stranger and one born blind. Verily, I am glad that the Nazarene did not see me do it. Hold, I had forgotten the boy!” He stopped short and presently spied Tor’s [pg 25]small head running over with sunburnt curls peeping out from the shelter of a projecting archway. The boy’s wild, bright eyes met his own defiantly.
“Thou’lt not catch me a second time, Galilean.”
The man’s white teeth flashed in a quick answering smile. “He who is once bitten by a wolf’s whelp in future remembers and is content.”
“Did I bite thee to bleeding, Galilean?”
“Aye, verily, look thou at my hand.”
Tor laughed aloud. “It is well,” he said briefly.