The Little Hunchback Zia

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%

BY MRS. BURNETT

That Lass o' Lowrie's.

A Fair Barbarian.

Through One Administration.

Little Lord Fauntleroy.

Sara Crewe.

The Pretty Sister of Jos4.

A Lady of Quality.

His Grace of Ormonde.

The Making of a Marchioness,

The Shuttle.

The Dawn of To-morrow.

The Secret Garden.

My Robin.

T. Tembaron.

etc., etc.

I :: -

4^. a

THE LITTLE
HUNCHBACK ZIA

BT

FRANCES HODGSON J^URNETT

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BT

SPENCER BAIRD NICHOLS

AND

W. T. BENDA

NEW YORK
FREDERICK A, STOKES COMPANY

PUBLISHERS

V >

fW.^

■■ _ • v

u * * * •

• « « • • • *

« *

• • «• » .. • * .. * *

..916366

i

• , •"tor, lenox and
1 ::l:; 1=::; .^: nylons

1 v 1---U

Copyright, 1916, by
Frederick A. Stokes Company

Copyright, 1915, by
The Century Co.

» . • » • . k • 4 • • •

• •

• •

* - • # •• • • «,

• •> •• • • » *

• • •

• * • *
••••"•• •• • • •

• • 1 • •".••• »

« • • • •

And it came to pass nigh vpon
nineteen hundred and sixteen years ago

>

ILLUSTRATIONS

" 'Draw nigh/ said the woman, 'and let His
hands rest upon thee' " . . Frontispiece

WAOIXQ
PAGB

" 'Alms ! alms !' he stammered. 'Master —
Lord — I beg for — for her who keeps
me"' 12

« t

Perhaps when he is a man he will be a
great soothsayer and reader of the
stars'" 14

«

Zia's eyes grew wide with awe and wonder-
ing as he gazed, scarce breathing" . .38

"'How beautiful he is!"' 54

■ m

THE LITTLE
HUNCHBACK ZIA

The little hunchback Zia toiled
slowly up the steep road, keeping in
the deepest shadows, even though the
night had long fallen. Sometimes he
staggered with weariness or struck his
foot against a stone and smothered his
involuntary cry of pain. He was so
full of terror that he was afraid to utter
a sound which might cause any traveler
to glance toward him. This he feared
more than any other thing — that some
man or woman might look at him too

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

closely. If such a one knew much and
had keen eyes, he or she might in some
way guess even at what they might not
yet see.

Since he had fled from the village in
which his wretched short life had heen
spent he had hidden himself in thickets
and behind walls or rocks or bushes dur-
ing the day, and had only come forth at
night to stagger along his way in the
darkness. If he had not managed to
steal some food before he began his
journey and if he had not found in one
place some beans dropped from a cam-
el's feeding-bag, he would have starved.
For five nights he had been wandering
on, but in his desperate fear he had lost
count of time. When he had left the
place he had called his home he had not

[i]

I

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

known where he was going or where he
might hide himself in the end. The old
woman with whom he had lived and for
whom he had begged and labored had
driven him out with a terror as great as
his own.

"Begone I" she had cried in a smoth-
ered shriek. "Get thee gone, accursed!
Even now thou mayest have brought
the curse upon me also. A creature
born a hunchback comes on earth with
the blight of Jehovah's wrath upon him.
Go far! Go as far as thy limbs will
carry thee! Let no man come near
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 had always
regarded her with slavish fear. What
he was to her he did not know ; neither
did he know how he had fallen into her
hands. He knew only that he was not
of her blood or of her country and that
he yet seemed to have always belonged

to her. In his first memory of his ex-
istence, a little deformed creature roll-
ing about on the littered floor of her
uncleanly hovel, he had trembled at the
sound of her voice and had obeyed it
like a beaten spaniel puppy. When he
had grown older he had seen that she
lived upon alms and thievery and witch-
like evil doings that made all decent folk
avoid her. She had no kinsfolk or
friends, and only such visitors as came

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

to her in the dark hours of night and
seemed to consult with her as she sat and
mumbled strange incantations while she
stirred a boiling pot. Zia had heard of
soothsayers and dealers with evil spir-
its, and at such hours was either asleep
on his pallet in a far corner or, if he lay
awake, hid his face under his wretched
covering and stopped his ears. Once
when she had drawn near and found his
large eyes open and staring at her in
spellbound terror, she had beaten him
horribly and cast him into the storm
raging outside.

A strange passion in her seemed her
hatred of his eyes. She could not en-
dure that he should look at her as if he
were thinking. He must not let his
eyes rest on her for more than a moment

[i]

91C366

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

when he spoke. He must keep them
fixed on the ground or look away from
her. From his babyhood this had been
so. A hundred times she had struck
him when he was too young to under-
stand her reason. The first strange
lesson he had learned was that she hated
his eyes and was driven to fury when
she found them resting innocently upon
her. Before he was three years old he
had learned this thing and had formed
the habit of looking down upon the earth
as he limped about. For long he
thought that his eyes were as hideous as
his body was distorted. In her frenzies
she told him that evil spirits looked out
from them and that he was possessed of
devils. Without thought of rebellion
or resentment he accepted with timor-

—

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

ous humility, as part of his existence,
her taunts at his twisted limbs. What
use in rebellion or anger? With the
f atalism of the East he resigned himself
to that which was. He had been born a
deformity, and even his glance carried
evil. This was life. He knew no
other. Of his origin he knew nothing
except that from the old woman's ram-
bling outbursts he had gathered that he
was of Syrian blood and a homeless out-
cast.

But though he had so long trained
himself to look downward that it had
at last become an effort to lift his heav-
ily lashed eyelids, there came a time
when he learned that his eyes were not
so hideously evil as his task-mistress had
convinced him that they were. When

[7]

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

V

<<j

he was only seven years old she sent him
out to beg alms for her, and on the
first day of his going forth she said a
strange thing, the meaning of which he
could not understand.

'Go not forth with thine eyes bent
downward on the dust. Lift them, and
look long at those from whom thou ask-
est alms. Lift them and look as I see
thee look at the sky when thou knowest
not I am near thee. I have seen thee,
hunchback. Gaze at the passers-by as
if thou sawest their souls and asked help
of them."

She said it with a fierce laugh of de*
rision, but when in his astonishment he
involuntarily lifted his gaze to hers, she
struck at him, her harsh laugh broken in
two.

[8]

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

"Not at me, hunchback ! Not at me !
At those who are ready to give!" she
cried out.

He had gone out stunned with amaze-
ment. • He wondered so greatly that
when he at last sat down by the roadside
under a fig-tree he sat in a dream. He
looked up at the blueness above him as
he always did when he was alone. His
eyelids did not seem heavy when he
lifted them to look at the sky. The
blueness and the billows of white clouds
brought rest to him, and made him for-
get what he was. The floating clouds
were his only friends. There was some-
thing—yes, there was something, he did
not know what. He wished he were a
cloud himself, and could lose himself at
last in the blueness as the clouds did

[»]

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

when they melted away. Surely the
blueness was the something.

The soft, dull pad of camel's feet ap-
proached upon the road without his
hearing them. He was not roused from
his absorption until the camel stopped
its tread so near him that he started and
looked up. It was necessary that he
should look up a long way. He was a
deformed little child, and the camel was
a tall and splendid one, with rich trap-
pings and golden bells. The man it
carried was dressed richly, and the ex-
pression of his dark face was at once
restless and curious. He was bending
down and staring at Zia as if he were
something strange.

"What dost thou see, child?" he said
at last, and he spoke almost in a breath-

[10]

THE IJTTXE HUNCHBACK ZIA

less whisper. "What art thou waiting
for?"

Zia stumbled to his feet and held out
his bag, frightened, because he had
never begged before and did not know
how, and if he did not carry back money
and food, he would be horribly beaten
again.

"Alms ! alms 1" he stammered. "Mas-
ter — Lord — I beg for — for her who
keeps me. She is poor and old. Alms,
great lord, for a woman who is old I"

The man with the restless face still
stared. He spoke as if unaware that he
uttered words and as if he were afraid.

"The child's eyes I" he said. "I can-
not pass him by ! What is it ? I must
not be held back. But the unearthly
beauty of his eyes!" He caught his

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

breath as he spoke. And then he
seemed to awaken as one struggling
against a spell.

"What is thy name?" he asked.

Zia also had lost his breath. What
had the man meant when he spoke of his
eyes?

He told his name, but he could answer
no further questions. He did not know
whose son he was; he had no home; of
his mistress he knew only that her name
was Judith and that she lived on alms.

Even while he related these things he
remembered his lesson, and, dropping
his eyelids, fixed his gaze on the camel's
feet.

'Why dost thou cast thine eyes down-
ward?" the man asked in a troubled and
intense voice.

u^

[12]

: 'Alms ! alms !* he stammered. 'Master — Lord — I
beg for — for her who keeps me' "- — Page 11

THE n:

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^ i

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

Zia could not speak, being stricken
with fear and the dumbness of bewilder-
ment. He stood quite silent, and as he
lifted his eyes and let them rest on the
stranger's own, they became large with
tears — big, piteous tears.

"Why ?" persisted the man, anxiously.
"Is it because thou seest evil in my
soul?"

"No, no!" sobbed Zia. "One taught
me to look away because I am hideous
and — my eyes — are evil."

"Evil!" said the stranger. "They
have lied to thee." He was trembling
as he spoke. "A man who has been
pondering on sin dare not pass their
beauty by. They draw him, and show
him his own soul. Having seen them,
I must turn my camel's feet backward

[13]

.<

and go no farther on this road which
was to lead me to a black deed." He
bent down, and dropped a purse into
the child's alms-bag, still staring at him
and breathing hard, "They have the
look," he muttered, "of eyes that might
behold the Messiah. Who knows?
Who knows ?" And he turned his cam-
el's head, still shuddering a little, and he
rode away back toward the place from
which he had come.

There was gold in the purse he had
given, and when Zia carried it back to
Judith, she snatched it from him and
asked him many questions. She made
him repeat word for word all that had
passed.

After that he was sent out to beg day
after day, and in time he vaguely under-

[14]

>v

THE IJTTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

|S —-- -. ~

" 'Perbaps when he is a man be will be a great sooth*
Sayer and reader of the stars'"

"Bag* 16

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

stood that the old woman had spoken
falsely when she had said that evil spirits
looked forth hideously from his eyes.
People often said that they were beauti-
ful, and gave him money because some-
thing in his gaze drew them near to him.
But this was not all. At times there
were those who spoke under their breath
to one another of some wonder of light
in them, some strange luminousness
which was not earthly.

"He surely sees that which we can-
not. Perhaps when he is a man he will
be a great soothsayer and reader of the
stars," he heard a woman whisper to a
companion one day.

Those who were evil were afraid to
meet his gaze, and hated it as old Judith
did, though, as he was not their servant,

^

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

they dared not strike him when he lifted
his soft, heavy eyelids.

But Zia could not understand what
people meant when they whispered
about him or turned away fiercely. A
weight was lifted from his soul when he
realized that he was not as revolting as
he had believed. And when people
spoke kindly to him he began to know
something like happiness for the first
time in his life. He brought home so
much in his alms-bag that the old woman
ceased to beat him and gave him more
liberty. He was allowed to go out at
night and sleep under the stars. At
such times he used to lie and look up at
the jeweled myriads until he felt him-
self drawn upward and floating nearer
and nearer to that unknown something

_■

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

which he felt also in the high blueness of
the day.

When he first began to feel as if some
mysterious ailment was creeping upon
him he kept himself out of Judith's way
as much as possible. He dared not tell
her that sometimes he could scarcely
crawl from one place to another. A
miserable fevered weakness became his
secret. As the old woman took no
notice of him except when he brought
back his day's earnings, it was easy to
evade her. One morning, however, she
fixed her eyes on him suddenly and
keenly.

"Why art thou so white?" she said,
and caught him by the arm, whirling
him toward the light. "Art thou ail-
ing?

[18]

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

"No! no!" cried Zia.

She held him still for a few seconds,
still staring.

"Thou art too white," she said. "I
will have no such whiteness. It is the
whiteness of — of an accursed thing.
Get thee gone!"

He went away, feeling cold and
shaken. He knew he was white. One
or two almsgivers had spoken of it, and
had looked at him a little fearfully. He
himself could see that the flesh of his
thin body was becoming an unearthly
color. Now and then he had shuddered
as he looked at it because — because —
There was one curse so horrible beyond
all others that the strongest man would
have quailed in his dread of its draw-
ing near him. And he was a child, a

[19]

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

twelve-year-old boy, a helpless little
hunchback mendicant.

When he saw the first white-and-red
spot upon his flesh he stood still and
stared at it, gasping, and the sweat
started out upon him and rolled down
in great drops.

" Jehovah I" he whispered, "God of
Israeli Thy servant is but a child!"

But there broke out upon him other
spots, and every time he f ound a new
one his flesh quaked, and he could not
help looking at it in secret again and
again. Every time he looked it was
because he hoped it might have faded
away. But no spot faded away, and
the skin on the palms of his hands began
to be rough and cracked and to show
spots also.

[20]

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

In a cave on a hillside near the road
where he sat and begged there lived a
deathly being who, with face swathed in
linen and with bandaged stumps of
limbs, hobbled forth now and then, and
came down to beg also, but always keep-
ing at a distance from all human crea-
tures, and, as he approached the pitiful,
rattled loudly his wooden clappers, wail-
ing out: "Unclean! Unclean!"

It was the leper Berias, whose hope-
less tale of awful days was almost done.
Zia himself had sometimes limped up
the hillside and laid some of his own
poor food upon a stone near his cave so
that he might find it. One day he had
also taken a branch of almond-blossom
in full flower, and had laid it by the
food. And when he had gone away

[irj

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

and stood at some distance watching to
see the poor ghost come forth to take
what he had given, he had seen him first
clutch at the blossoming branch and fall
upon his face, holding it to his breast,
a white, bound, shapeless thing, sobbing,
and uttering hoarse, croaking, unhuman
cries. No almsgiver but Zia had ever
dreamed of bringing a flower to him who
was forever cut off from all bloom and
loveliness.

It was this white, shuddering creature
that Zia remembered with the sick chill
of horror when he saw the spots.

"Unclean! Unclean !" he heard the
cracked voice cry to the sound of the
wooden clappers. "Unclean! Un-
clean I"

Judith was standing at the door of

[22]

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

her hovel one morning when Zia was
going forth for the day. He had fear-
fully been aware that for days she had
been watching him as he had never
known her to watch him before. This
morning she had followed him to the
door, and had held him there a few mo-
ments in the light with some harsh
speech, keeping her eyes fixed on him
the while.

Even as they so stood there fell upon
the clear air of the morning a hollow,
far-off sound — the sound of wooden
clappers rattled together, and the hope-
less crying of two words, "Unclean!
Unclean I"

Then silence fell. Upon Zia de-
scended a fear beyond all power of
words to utter. In his quaking young

[M]

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

torment he lifted his eyes and met the
gaze of the old woman as it flamed down
upon him.

"Go within !" she commanded sud-
denly, and pointed to the wretched room
inside. He obeyed her, and she fol-
lowed him, closing the door behind them.

"Tear off thy garment I" she ordered.
"Strip thyself to thy skin — to thy skin!"

He shook from head to foot, his trem-
bling hands almost refusing to obey him.
She did not touch him, but stood apart,
glaring. His garments fell from him
and lay in a heap at his feet, and he
stood among them naked.

One look, and she broke forth, shak-
ing with fear herself, into a breathless
storm of fury.

"Thou hast known this thing and Irid-

ic]

den it!" she raved. "Leper! Leper!
Accursed hunchback thing!"

As he stood in his nakedness and
sobbed great, heavy childish sobs, she
did not dare to strike him, and raged the
more.

If it were known that she had har-
bored him, the priests would be upon
her, and all that she had would be taken
from her and burned. She would not
even let him put his clothes on in her
house.

"Take thy rags and begone in thy
nakedness! Clothe thyself on the hill-
side! Let none see thee until thou art
far away! Rot as thou wilt, but dare
not to name me ! Begone ! begone ! be-
gone !"

And with his rags he fled naked

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

through the doorway, and hid himself in
the little wood beyond.

Later, as he went on his way, he had
hidden himself in the daytime behind
bushes by the wayside or off the road;
he had crouched behind rocks and boul-
ders ; he had slept in caves when he had
found them; he had shrunk away from
all human sight. He knew it could not
be long before he would be discovered,
and then he would be shut up; and
afterward he would be as Berias until
he died alone. Like unto Berias 1 To
him it seemed as though surely never
child had sobbed before as he sobbed,
lying hidden behind his boulders, among
his bushes, on the bare hill among the
rocks.

_

THE UTTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

For the first four nights of his wan-
dering he had not known where he was
going, but on this fifth night he discov-
ered. He was on the way to Bethlehem
— beautiful little Bethlehem curving on
the crest of the Judean mountains and
smiling down upon the fairness of the
fairest of sweet valleys, rich with vines
and figs and olives and almond-trees.
He dimly recalled stories he had over-
heard of its loveliness, and when he
found that he had wandered unknow-
ingly toward it, he was aware of a faint
sense of peace. He had seen nothing
of any other part of the world than the
poor village outside which the hovel of
his bond-mistress had clung to a low
hill. Since he was near it, he vaguely
desired tp see Bethlehem.

[27J

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

He had learned of its nearness as he
lay hidden in the undergrowth on the
mountain-side that he had begun Jo
climb the night before. Awakening
from sleep, he had heard many feet
passing up the climbing road-fte feet
of men and women and children, of cam-
els and asses, and all had seemed to be
of a procession ascending the mountain-
side. Lying flat upon the earth, he had
parted the bushes cautiously, and
watched, and listened to the shouts,
cries, laughter, and talk of those who
were near enough to be heard. So bit
by bit he had heard the story of the
passing throng. The great Emperor
Augustus, who, to the common herd
seemed some strange omnipotent in his
remote and sumptuous paradise of

[5] f

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

Rome, had issued a decree that all the
world of his subjects should be enrolled,
and every man, woman, and child must
enroll himself in his own city. And to
the little town of Bethlehem all these
travelers were wending their way, to the
place of their nativity, in obedience to
the great Casar's command.

All through the day he watched them
— men and women and children who be-
longed to one another, who rode to-
gether on their beasts, or walked to-
gether hand in hand. Women on cam-
els or asses held their little ones in their
arms, or walked with the youngest slung
on their backs. He heard boys laugh
and talk with their fathers — boys of his
own age, who trudged merrily along,
and now and again ran forward, shout-

[29]

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

ing with glee. He saw more than one
strong man swing his child up to his
shoulder and bear him along as if he
found joy in his burden. Boy and girl
companions played as they went and
made holiday of their journey; young
men or women who were friends, lovers,
or brothers and sisters bore one another
company.

"No one is alone," said Zia, twisting
his thin fingers together— "no one ! no
one! And there are no lepers. The
great Caesar would not count a leper.
Perhaps, if he saw one, he would com-
mand him to be put to death."

And then he writhed upon the grass
and sobbed again, his bent chest almost
bursting with his efforts to make no
sound. He had always been alonj

[so]

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

always, always; but this loneliness was
such as no young human thing could
bean He was no longer alive; he was
no longer a human being. Unclean !
Unclean! Unclean!

At last he slept, exhausted, and past
his piteous, prostrate childhood and
helplessness the slow procession wound
its way up the mountain road toward
the crescent of Bethlehem, knowing
nothing of his nearness to its unbur-
dened comfort and simple peace.

When he awakened, the night had
fallen, and he opened his eyes upon a
high vault of blue velvet darkness
strewn with great stars. He saw this
at the first moment of his conscious-
ness ; then he realized that there was no
longer to be heard the sound either of

131]

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

passing hoofs or treading feet. The
travelers who had gone by during the
day had probably reached their jour-
ney's end, and gone to rest in their tents,
or had found refuge in the inclosing
khan that gave shelter to wayfarers and
their beasts of burden.

But though there was no human crea-
ture near, and no sound of human voice
or human tread, a strange change had
taken place in him. His loneliness had
passed away, and left him lying still
and calm as though it had never ex-
isted, as though the crushed and broken
child who had plunged from a precipice
of woe into deadly, exhausted sleep was
only a vague memory of a creature in a
dark past dream.

Had it been himself? Lying upon

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

his back, seeing only the immensity of
the deep blue above him and the great-
ness of the stars, he scarcely dared to
draw breath lest he should arouse him-
self to new anguish. It had not been
he who had so suffered; surely it had
been another Zia. What had come
upon him, what had come upon the
world? All was so still that it was as
if the earth waited — as if it waited to
hear some word that would be spoken
out of the great space in which it hung.
He was not hungry or cold or tired. It
was as if he had never staggered and
stumbled up the mountain path and
dropped shuddering, to hide behind the
bushes before the daylight came and
men could see his white face. Surely
he had rested long. He had never felt

[33]

THE UTTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

like this before, and he had never seen
so wonderful a night. The stars had
never been so many and so large.
What made them so soft and brilliant
that each one was almost like a sun?
And he strangely felt that each looked
down „t him J if it said tte word,
though he did not know what the
word was. Why had he been so ter-
ror-stricken? Why had he been so
wretched? There were no lepers ; there
were no hunchbacks. There was only
Zia, and he was at peace, and akin to
the stars that looked down.

How heavenly still the waiting world
was, how heavenly still! He lay and
smiled and smiled; perhaps he lay so for
an hour. Then high, high above he
saw, or thought he saw, in the remote-

[34]

l

THE UTTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

ness of the vault of blue a brilliant
whiteness float. Was it a strange
snowy cloud or was he dreaming? It
seemed to grow whiter, more brilliant.
His breath came fast, and his heart beat
trembling in his breast, because he had
never seen clouds so strangely, purely
brilliant. There was another, higher,
farther distant, and yet more dazzling
still. Another and another showed its
radiance until at last an arch of splen-
dor seemed to stream across the sky,

"It is like the glory of the ark of the
covenant," he gasped, and threw his
arm across his blinded eyes, shuddering
with rapture.

He could not uncover his face, and it
was as he lay quaking with an unearthly
joy that he first thought he heard

[35]

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

sounds of music as remotely distant as
the lights.

"Is it on earth?" he panted. "Is it
on earth?"

He struggled to his knees. He had
heard of miracles and wonders of old,
and of the past ages when the sons of
God visited the earth.

"Glory to God in the highest!" he
stammered again and again and again.
"Glory to the great Jehovah!" and he
touched his forehead seven times to the
earth.

Then he beheld a singular thing.
When he had gone to sleep a flock of
sheep had been lying near him on the
grass. The flock was still there, but
something seemed to be happening to it.
The creatures were awakening from

[36]

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

their sleep as if they had heard some-
thing. First one head was raised, and
then another and another and another,
until every head was lifted, and every
one was turned toward a certain point as
if listening. What were they listening
for? Zia could see nothing, though
he turned his own face toward the
climbing road and listened with them.
The floating radiance was so increas-
ing in the sky that at this point of the
mountain-side it seemed no longer to
be night, and the far-away paeans held
him breathless with mysterious awe.
Was the sound on earth? Where did
it come from? Where?

"Praised be Jehovah!" he heard his
weak and shaking young voice quaver.

Some belated travelers were coming

[37]

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

slowly up the road. He heard an ass's
feet and low voices.

The sheep heard them also. Had
they been waiting for them? They
rose one by one — the whole flock — to
their feet, and turned in a body toward
the approaching sounds.

Zia stood up with them. He waited
also, and it was as if at this moment his
soul so lifted itself that it almost broke
away from his body — almost.

Around the curve an ass came slowly
bearing a woman, and led by a man who
walked by his side. He was a man of
sober years and walked wearily. Zia's
eyes grew wide with awe and wondering
as he gazed, scarce breathing.

The light upon the hillside was so
softly radiant and so clear that he could

" [88]

"Zia's eyes grew wide with awe and wondering as W.
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i

THE UTTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

see that the woman's robe was blue and
that she lifted her face to the stars as she
rode. It was a young face, and pale
with the pallor of lilies, and her eyes
were as stars of the morning. But this
was not all. A radiance shone from
her pure pallor, and bordering her blue
robe and veil was a faint, steady glow
of light. And as she passed the stand-
ing and waiting sheep, they slowly
bowed themselves upon their knees be-
fore her, and so knelt until she had
passed by and was out of sight. Then
they returned to their places, and slept
as before.

When she was gone, Zia found that
he also was kneeling. He did not know
when his knees had bent. He was faint
with ecstasy.

[39]

THE UTTUE HUNCHBACK ZIA

"She goes to Bethlehem/' he heard
himself say as he had heard himself
speak before. "I, too; I, too."

He stood a moment listening to the
sound of the ass's retreating feet as
it grew fainter in the distance. His
breath came quick and soft. The light
had died away from the hillside, but the
high-floating radiance seemed to pass to
and fro in the heavens, and now and
again he thought he heard the faint,
far sound that was like music so dis-
tant that it was as a thing heard in a
dream.

"Perhaps I behold visions," he
murmured. "It may be that I shall
awake."

But he found himself making his way
through the bushes and setting his feet

[40]

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

upon the road. He must follow, he
must follow. Howsoever steep the hill,
he must climb to Bethlehem. But as
he went on his way it did not seem steep,
and he did not waver or toil as he
usually did when walking. He felt no
weariness or ache in his limbs, and the
high radiance gently lighted the path
and dimly revealed that many white
flowers he had never seen before seemed
to have sprung up by the roadside and
to wave softly to and fro, giving forth
a fragrance so remote and faint, yet so
clear, that it did not seem of earth. It
was perhaps part of the vision.

Of the distance he climbed his
thought took no cognizance. There
was in this vision neither distance nor
time. There was only faint radiance,

[41]

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

far, strange sounds, and the breathing
of air which made him feel an ecstasy of
lightness as he moved. The other Zia
had traveled painfully, had stumbled
and struck his feet against wayside
stones. He seemed ten thousand miles,
ten thousand years away. It was not
he who went to Bethlehem, led as if by
some power invisible. To Bethlehem!
To Bethlehem, where went the woman
whose blue robe was bordered with a
glow of fair luminousness and whose
face, like an uplifted lily, softly shone.
It was she he followed, knowing
no reason but that his soul was
called.

When he reached the little town and
stood at last near the gateway of the
khan in which the day-long procession of

[42]

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

wayfarers had crowded to take refuge
for the night, he knew that he would
find no place among the multitude
within its walls. Too many of the
great Caesar's subjects had been born in
Bethlehem and had come back for their
enrolment. The khan was crowded to
its utmost, and outside lingered many
who had not been able to gain admission
and who consulted plaintively with one
another as to where they might find a
place to sleep, and to eat the food they
carried with them.

Zia had made his way to the entrance-
gate only because he knew the travelers
he had followed would seek shelter
there, and that he might chance to hear
of them.

He stood a little apart from the gate

__

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

and waited. Something would tell him
what he must do. Almost as this
thought entered his mind he heard
voices speaking near him. Two women
were talking together, and soon he be-
gan to hear their words.

"Joseph of Nazareth and Mary his
wife," one said. "Both of the line of
David. There was no room for them,
even as there was no room for others not
of royal lineage. To the mangers in
the cave they have gone, seeing the
woman had sore need of rest. She,
thou knowest — "

Zia heard no more. He did not ask
where the cave lay. He had not needed
to ask his way to Bethlehem. That
which had led him again directed his
feet away from the entrance-gate of the

[44]

THE UTTIiE HUNCHBACK ZIA

khan, past the crowded court and the
long, low wall of stone within the in-
closure of which the camels and asses
browsed and slept, on at last to a path-
way leading to the gray of rising rocks.
Beneath them was the cave, he knew,
though none had told him so. Only a
short distance, and he saw what drew
him trembling nearer. At the open
entrance, through which he could see
the rough mangers of stone, the heaps
of fodder, and the ass munching slowly
in a corner, the woman who wore the
blue robe stood leaning wearily against
the heavy wooden post. And the soft
light bordering her garments set her in
a frame of faint radiance and glowed
in a halo about her head.

"The light! the light !" cried Zia in

[45]

THE UTTXE HUNCHBACK ZIA

a breathless whisper. And he crossed
his hands upon his breast.

Her husband surely could not see it.
He moved soberly about, unpacking the
burden the ass had carried and seeming
to see naught else. He heaped straw
in a corner with care, and threw his
mantle upon it.

"Come," he said. "Here thou canst
rest, and I can watch by thy side. The
angels of the Lord be with thee!" The
woman turned from the door and went
toward him, walking with slow steps.
He gazed at her with mild, unillumined
eyes.

"Does he not see the light!" panted
Zia. "Does he not see the light!"

Soon he himself no longer saw it.
Joseph pf Nazareth came to the wooden

[46] f

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

doors and drew them together, and the
boy stood alone on the mountain-side,
trembling still, and wet with the dew of
the night ; but not weary, not hungered,
not athirst or afraid, only quaking with
wonder and joy — he, the little hunch-
back Zia, who had known no joy before
since the hour of his birth.

He sank upon the earth slowly in an
exquisite peace — a peace that thrilled
his whole being as it stole over his limbs,
deepening moment by moment. His
head drooped softly upon a cushion of
moss. As his eyelids fell, he saw the
splendor of whiteness floating in the
height of the purple vault above him.

The dawn was breaking and yet the
stars had not faded away. This was

[47]

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

his thought when his eyes first opened
on a great one, greater than any other
in the sky, and of so pure a brilliance
that it seemed as if even the sun would
not be bright enough to put it out. It
hung high in the paling blue, high as the
white radiance; and as he lay and gazed,
he thought it surely moved. What new
star was it that in that one night had
been born? He had watched the stars
through so many desolate hours that he
knew each great one as a friend, and
this one he had never seen before.

The morning was cold, and his clothes
were wet with dew, but he felt no chill.
He remembered; yes, he remembered.
If he had lived in a vision the day be-
fore, he was surely living in one yet.
The Zia who had been starved and

[48]

MM

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

beaten and driven out naked into the
world, who had clutched his thin breast
and sobbed, writhing upon the earth,
where was he? He looked down upon
his hands and saw the cracked and
scaling palms, and it was as though they
were not. He thrust back the covering
from his chest and saw the spots there.
But there were no lepers, there were no
hunchbacks; there were only Zia and
the light. He knelt and turned him-
self toward the cave and prayed, and
as he so knelt and prayed the man
Joseph rolled open the heavy wooden
door.

Then Zia, still kneeling, beat himself
softly upon the breast and prayed
again, riot as before to Jehovah, but to
that which he beheld.

[49]

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

The light was there, fair, radiant,
wonderful. The cave was bathed in it.
The woman in the blue robe sat upon
the straw, and in her arms she held a
new-born child. Zia touched his fore-
head to the earth again, again, again,
unknowing that he did so. The child
was the light itself !

He must rise and draw near. That
which had drawn him up the mountain-
side drew him again. The child was the
light itself I As he crept near the cave's
entrance, the woman's eyes rested upon
him soft and wonderful.

She spoke to him — she spoke 1

"Be not afraid," she said. "Draw
nigh and behold 1"

Her voice was not as the voice of
other women; it was like her eyes,

[50]

THE MTTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

soft and wonderful. It could not be
withstood even by awe such as his.
He could not remain outside, but en-
tered trembling, and trembling drew
near.

The child lying upon his mother's
breast opened His eyes and smiled.
Zia fell upon his knees before Him.
He held out his piteous hands, re-
membering for one moment the Zia
who had sobbed on the mountain-side
alone.

"I am a leper I" he cried. "I may not
touch Him! Unclean! Unclean!"

"Draw nigh," the woman said, "and
let His hand rest upon thee!"

Zia crouched upon his knees. The

new-born hand fell softly upon his

shoulder and rested there. Through

—

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

his body, through his blood, through
every limb and fleshy atom of him, he
felt it steal — new life, warming, thrill-
ing, wakening in his veins new life ! As
he felt it, he knelt quaking with rapture
even as he had stood the night before
gazing at the light. The new-born
hand lay still.

He did not know how long he knelt.
He did not know that the woman leaned
toward him, scarce drawing breath, her
wondrous eyes resting upon him as if
she waited for a sign. Even as she so
gazed she beheld it, and spoke, whisper-
ing as in awed prayer:

"Go forth and cleanse thy flesh
in running water/' she said. "Go
forth."

He moved, he rose, he stood upright

t

i«]

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

— the hunchback Zia who had never
stood upright before 1 His body was
straight, his limbs were strong. He
looked upon his hands, and there was no
blemish or spot to be seen I

"I am made whole!" he cried in ec-
stasy so wild that his boy's voice rang
and echoed in the cave's hollowed roof.
"I am made whole 1"

"Go forth," she said softly. "Go
forth and give praise."

He turned and went into the dawn-
ing day. He stood swaying, and heard
himself sob forth a rapturous cry of
prayer. His flesh was fresh and pure ;
he stood erect and tall. He was as
others whom God had not cursed. The
light! the light! He stretched forth
his arms to the morning sky.

[58]

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

Some shepherds roughly clothed in
the skins of lambs and kids were climb-
ing the hill toward the cave. They
carried their crooks, and they talked
eagerly as though in wonderment at
some strange thing which had befallen
them, looking up at the heavens, and
one pointed with his crook.

"Surely it draws nearer, the star!" he
said. "Look!"

As they passed a thicket where a
brook flowed through the trees a fair
boy came forth, cleansed, fresh, and
radiant as if he had but just bathed
in its clear waters. It was the boy
Zia,

"Who is this one?" said the oldest
shepherd.

"How beautiful he is! How the

[54]

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

light shines on him! He looks like a
king's son."

And as they passed, they made
obeisance to him.

[55]

~*

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.V-J

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

REFBRBNCB DEPARTMENT

Thin book ii under no circumstance* to be
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