Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
And it came to pass nigh uponnineteen hundred and sixteen years ago
The little hunchback Zia toiled slowly up the steep road, keeping in thedeepest shadows, even though the night had long fallen. Sometimes hestaggered with weariness or struck his foot against a stone andsmothered his involuntary cry of pain. He was so full of terror that hewas afraid to utter a sound which might cause any traveler to glancetoward him. This he feared more than any other thing—that some man orwoman might look at him too closely. If such a one knew much and hadkeen eyes, he or she might in some way guess even at what they might notyet see.
Since he had fled from the village in which his wretched short life hadbeen spent he had hidden himself in thickets and behind walls or rocksor bushes during the day, and had only come forth at night to staggeralong his way in the darkness. If he had not managed to steal some foodbefore he began his journey and if he had not found in one place somebeans dropped from a camel's feeding-bag, he would have starved. Forfive nights he had been wandering on, but in his desperate fear he hadlost count of time. When he had left the place he had called his home hehad not known where he was going or where he might hide himself in theend. The old woman with whom he had lived and for whom he had begged andlabored had driven him out with a terror as great as his own.
"Begone!" she had cried in a smothered shriek. "Get thee gone, accursed!Even now thou mayest have brought the curse upon me also. A creatureborn a hunchback comes on earth with the blight of Jehovah's wrath uponhim. Go far! Go as far as thy limbs will carry thee! Let no man comenear enough to thee to see it! If thou go far away before it is known,it will be forgotten that I have harbored thee."
He had stood and looked at her in the silence of the dead, his immense,black Syrian eyes growing wider and wider with childish horror. He hadalways regarded her with slavish fear. What he was to her he did notknow; neither did he know how he had fallen into her hands. He knew onlythat he was not of her blood or of her country and that he yet seemed tohave always belonged to her. In his first memory of his existence, alittle deformed creature rolling about on the littered floor of heruncleanly hovel, he had trembled at the sound of her voice and hadobeyed it like a beaten spaniel puppy. When he had grown older he hadseen that she lived upon alms and thievery and witchlike evil doingsthat made all decent folk avoid her. She had no kinsfolk or friends, andonly such visitors as came to her in the dark hours of night and seemedto consult with her as she sat and mumbled strange incantations whileshe stirred a boiling pot. Zia had heard of soothsayers and dealers withevil spirits, and at such hours was either asleep on his pallet in a farcorner or, if he lay awake, hid his face under his wretched covering andstopped his ears. Once when she had drawn near and found his large eyesopen and staring at her in spellbound terror, she had beaten himhorribly and cast him into the storm raging outside.
A strange passion in her seemed her hatred of his eyes. She could notendure that he should look at her as if he were thinking. He must notlet his eyes rest on h