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.
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."
But the stranger did not wait to hear all, he was already sprinkling the face of the girl, who had again lapsed into unconsciousness.
"She is not much hurt," he said at length. "See, she is reviving already." And indeed under his skilful ministrations the color had begun to return to the cheeks and lips of the injured girl.
"But she is blind," said Seth, looking up wistfully into the face of the young man, "and we have come from Egypt, seeking for the man Jesus who can heal such. A beggar told me that he was dead, but it is not true?"
The face of the stranger glowed with a smile so angelic that the lad involuntarily cried out with wonder.
"Nay," he cried, "he is not dead, he liveth forever more at the right hand of God."
Then he fixed his eyes upon the lad. "Tell me," he said gravely, "all that hath befallen thee, and how it is that ye seek Jesus in this far country."
So the lad told him all. How that their parents had passed into the regions of the dead, leaving them alone; and how for many years he had cared for his blind sister; of the man who would have sold them into bondage, and how fleeing from before his face they had first heard of the man who could heal blindness; of their awful journey in the wilderness; of their deliverance from the vultures, and their escape from the hand of Pagiel. When he ceased from speaking, the young man was silent for a space.
"Of a surety," he said at length, "the Lord hath led thee." Then raising his head he looked up into the dazzling blue of the sky.