I hid my face in the sand. Whether or not I slept, and how long I lay there, I cannot tell! But I suddenly heard someone breathing close to me; I spring up and—I am not alone! Two well-known, deep, black eyes are gazing at me in all candor and gentleness.
It is the lunatic.
"What are you doing here?" I ask in smothered tones.
"I never sleep in the town!" he answers sadly, and his glance is so gentle, the voice so brotherly, that I recover myself completely and lose all fear.
"Once upon a time," I reflected, "lunatics were believed to be prophets—it is still so in the East—and I wonder, perhaps he is one, too! Is he not persecuted like a prophet? Don't they throw stones at him as at a prophet? Don't his eyes shine like stars? Doesn't his voice sound like the sweetest harp? Does he not bear the sorrows of all, and suffer for a whole generation? Perhaps he also knows what shall be hereafter!"
I have a try and begin to question him, and he answers so softly and sweetly, that I think sometimes it is all a dream, the dream of a summer's night outside the fortress.
"Do you believe in the days of the Messiah?" I ask him.
"Of course!" he answers gently and confidently, "he must come!"
"He must?!"
"O, surely! All wait for him, even the heavens and the earth wait! If it were not so, no one would care to live, to dip a hand in cold water—and if people live as they do and show they want to live, it is a sign they all feel that Messiah is coming, that he must come, that he is already on the way."