The Big Fisherman (15 page)

In spite of Saidi's strong objections to leaving the broad highway, Fara turned off at the unmistakable spot where an improvised road, fully fifty yards wide, led northward through a stubble-field. The tilled ground had been trampled soft and the going was slow.

The deserted trail moved on across the field, across another less travelled highway, through another harvested field, over a bridge that spanned a little stream. It curved to miss a grove of cypress, climbed a hill, traversed a pasture, forded a creek, and went on—and on. After five miles of monotonous riding, Fara sighted a village. At the cross-roads a stone said the place was Tekoa. The trail had bypassed the little town, but Fara rode into it. Perhaps someone could inform her how far she must go to find the prophet.

The village was quite abandoned. The small bazaars and markets on the principal street were closed. Further on, in the residential section, a frail old woman bent over the ledge of a community well, tugging at the handle of the windlass. Fara drew up alongside, dismounted, and lent a hand. The dripping chain brought up a large wooden bucket which they pulled to anchorage on top of the low wall. The ragged old woman, breathing heavily, gave Fara a toothless smile and offered a rusty iron dipper.

'It is good!' said Fara. She filled the dipper for her hostess, emptied the bucket into the stone trough beside the well, and slipped off the filly's bridle. 'Saidi is thirsty too,' she added, lowering the bucket again.

'Never knew of a horse named Saidi,' remarked the old woman. 'Where do you come from, young master?'

'Arabia.'

'But you are an Israelite, I think.'

'No—we are both Arabians, Saidi and I.'

The old woman tightened her shrunken lips and scowled.

'How do you happen to ask a drink of me?' she demanded crossly.

'Because you seemed friendly; and, besides, I was thirsty,' replied Fara, unruffled by the woman's surliness. 'I shall gladly pay you for the water.'

'We don't sell water.'

'Here is a little gift, then.' Fara offered her a shekel.

The beady old eyes brightened at the sight of so much money, but the white head shook vigorously. Fara laid the shekel on the ledge of the well. The old woman turned and spat unprettily on the ground.

Suppressing her amusement, Fara said, 'I am looking for a Jewish prophet. His name is John. Many people are following him, and I wish to hear him. I think he has passed this way. Do you know where he has gone?'

'He is a son of Satan!' shrilled the old woman. 'A blasphemer! Cursed be all the infidels who listen to his revilings of Israel!'

Fara, who had been toying with her coin-pouch, unwound its thong and asked quietly, 'Do you know where he is?'

For a moment the old woman maintained a sullen silence while Fara poured a few silver coins into her own palm. Pouring them back into the pouch, she vaulted into the saddle and gathered up the bridle-reins. The wrinkled old jaw was quivering. Obviously her poverty and her piety were in combat. Impetuously she pointed toward the north-east.

'They said he was heading for the river,' she shouted, 'and all Judaea is following him! Everybody in Tekoa has joined the infidels!' Tears ran down the leathery cheeks. 'My own son—and my daughter and her husband—and their children—they too have gone mad, like the others.'

Honestly sorry for the pitiable old creature, who was now weeping aloud, Fara asked quietly, 'But what has this man been saying—to distress you so?'

'He scorns our ancient faith!' sobbed the old woman, scrubbing her cavernous eyes with the skirt of her faded apron. 'He sits out there in the desert for years, doing no work, helping nobody, never attending the Synagogue, never bringing a gift to the altar; and now he comes forth railing at the religion of his fathers!'

'He has a new religion then?' asked Fara.

'An angel is about to appear, he says, who will show us what to do—as if we were heathen who knew no God.'

'Your priests are probably annoyed by such talk,' surmised Fara.

'Annoyed!' The old woman slowly nodded her head and drew an unpleasant grin. 'You wait! They will soon silence his blasphemies! God is not mocked!'

Fara opened her pouch and poured silver into the wrinkled hand. The old woman clutched the money, scowled, and made an unsuccessful effort to spit. Saidi, who had been pawing the ground impatiently, was pleased to be on their way at a brisk trot.

* * * * * *

Half an hour before sunset she found them, acres of them it seemed, seated singly or in pairs or by families in a close-nibbled sheep pasture on the high-banked shore of the Jordan. They were busy with their supper, which they had been foresighted enough to bring with them. Fara stopped a little way apart from the area where most of the pack-animals were tethered, hung Saidi's bridle on the pommel of the saddle, loosed the girths, adjusted a stout halter, buckled on a well-filled feed-bag, and staked out the tired filly for a hard-earned rest.

Strolling forward among the groups of people, she sat down near a good-looking family—father, mother, two half-grown boys, and a pretty girl of her own age. The girl turned her head toward Fara and smiled shyly. Her father instantly muttered an inaudible command and his daughter, with some reluctance, left her place and wedged in between her parents. Fara was amused. She unwrapped her parcel of food and made a leisurely survey of the great multitude. It was a strangely quiet crowd. There was a low, inarticulate rumble of subdued conversation, but all faces were sober, pensive, and there was no laughter to be heard anywhere. A gentle but insistent, one-sided argument was in progress near by. The mother of the adjacent family was pleading earnestly with her husband. Yielding to her importunity he nodded at length, and their well-favoured daughter rose to resume the place where she had sat before. Her long black hair, unbound, was spread out covering her shoulders and back, and she seemed troubled about it. Turning to Fara with a smile she offered her a sweet roll, which was accepted gratefully.

'My hair looks untidy,' said the girl. 'It's wet. I was baptized.'

'It's beautiful,' said Fara gallantly. 'How did you say it got wet?'

'The great prophet was baptizing this afternoon.'

'I'm afraid I don't know,' confessed Fara. 'What does that mean—baptizing? This is my first time here.'

'The prophet leads us into the river and pushes us down under the water. That washes away our sins—and we are clean.'

'And very wet, I suppose,' remarked Fara sympathetically.

The girl's full lips parted in a slow, reluctant smile that displayed the tips of beautiful teeth. Unable to think of an appropriate rejoinder to this dry drollery on a solemn occasion, she suddenly sobered and nodded her head.

Nothing further was said for a while, Fara regretting that she had spoken flippantly, the pretty Jewess, her face averted, apparently wishing she knew how to explain the cleansing she had had in the Jordan.

'I cannot think that you have been so very sinful,' ventured Fara gently.

'We are all sinful,' murmured the girl in a lugubrious imitation of experienced piety.

'Yes—I suppose so,' admitted Fara with a companionable sigh. 'Do you think the prophet is finished—for the day?'

'Oh no, he will speak again when the people have had their supper. It should not be long now.' The young Jewess tipped her head toward the groups who were rising and stirring about.

The girl's plump mother, now that her family had been fed, wrapped up what was left; and, scrambling to her feet, came over and sat down beside her daughter. She and Fara exchanged amiable smiles.

'I am glad you made friends with our Ruth,' she leaned forward to say. 'There are so few young people here of her own age. Hundreds of us older ones and swarms of small children; but it seems that our young people nowadays—' She broke off abruptly in response to an imploring look from her daughter, but immediately continued, 'They don't seem to know that they have souls to save from the wrath to come!'

Ruth turned her head slowly toward Fara, with an expression that apologized for her zealous mother. Quite at a loss for a suitable comment, Fara mumbled, 'Probably not,' quickly aware that it was the wrong thing to have said, for it showed a deplorable unconcern. The woman's eyes were alive with reproach.

'Young man,' she said severely, 'may I ask whether you have come to seek salvation?'

'I came to see and hear the prophet,' replied Fara.

'But not your own soul's salvation?' demanded the woman.

'The prophet is interested only in his own countrymen, I think,' said Fara.

'Of course! But you are an Israelite, are you not?'

'I am an Arabian.'

'Then you have no right to be here at all!'

'But—mother!' pleaded Ruth.

'Never mind! You come with me!' Rising, the indignant Jewess drew her embarrassed daughter to her feet.

'Good-bye.' Ruth turned to say softly.

Fara, who had risen, bowed and said with her lips rather than her voice, 'I'm sorry.' Striding through the milling crowd she observed that the people well forward were seating themselves compactly in rows. Finding an unoccupied spot, she sat down to wait. Presently a murmur of expectation swept the great audience. The prophet John, who had evidently been resting by the river's brink, appeared over the top of the embankment.

He was indeed a striking figure, tall, lean, lithe, bronzed. His heavy, tousled hair indicated an immense latent vitality. His massive head was held high above broad, bony shoulders. The craggy face was bearded, the forehead deep-lined, the dark eyes deep-set. He had the bearing of a man who had thought much and suffered. The crowd was very still. Stretching forth his long brown arms, the prophet began to speak in a tone and mood of quiet entreaty. Fara found herself yielding at once to the strange compulsion of his vibrant voice. It was as one speaking from a great distance; from another age; from another world.

God had been patient—long—long. Of old He had planted a garden of delicious fruits and scented flowers for the delight of the human creatures He had made. It was a spacious garden, watered by cool springs and graceful rivers, along whose green banks were to be found much gold and many precious stones. On the hillsides jutted various metals which man's ingenuity might fashion into ploughs, pruning-hooks and other implements of husbandry. Great quarries bulged with enduring granite and delicately tinted marbles with which man might build temples and monuments. There were tall forests filled with all manner of trees from which might be hewn boats and shelters. Innumerable beasts pastured in the valleys, some to provide food, some to bear burdens. And had God's fortunate children been content to preserve and bequeath their rich heritage, their posterity might still be living comfortably and at peace in a garden.

Here the voice of the prophet rose to a little higher pitch as he proceeded to relate how this paradise was permitted to grow rank with weeds and brambles.

For, from the very beginning, God's children cared nothing about the garden. The first man flouted God's instructions. The elder of his two sons slew his brother and fled to the jungle. Restless and dissatisfied, humanity abandoned their paradise and began to roam, everywhere, without food, clothing, shelter, or destination, hoping only to escape the reproving eyes of their disappointed Father.

Sometimes, after long and aimless wandering, a group or tribe would settle in a fertile valley and till the soil. Another nomadic tribe, jealous of their neighbours' small prosperities, would come upon them with spears and swords and stones, killing the workers together with their old and helpless ones and their little children. Their Father had endowed them with inventive minds, so that they might make better and better tools, but their most ingenious inventions were not better tools but deadlier weapons. Stone was not quarried for the building of temples and monuments, but for great fortifications. Iron was not moulded into implements of husbandry but into instruments of war.

Everywhere there was fear, hardship, hunger. Pillage, rapine, and slaughter spread over the face of the world until there was no peace at all, anywhere at all, and a man was not safe even in the home of his brother.

But—John was continuing with mounting heat—throughout all these dreadful ages of hatred and oppression, God had waited, waited patiently, anxiously for the world's great ones to become aware of the poverty of their ill-gained wealth, and the empty sham of their vaunted power, and the shabbiness of their royal raiment, and the stink of starvation in their pilfered food. Now and again some brave voice would be raised in warning, but it would soon be stilled. Many were the messengers, sent of God, who were beaten, imprisoned and slain; fed to wild beasts, sawn asunder.

As a child, Fara had heard the legends about the world's creation, the disobedience of Adam, the wickedness of his posterity, and the great flood that had drowned them all—except one family. But the ancient tales, as John recited them, seemed fresh and frightening. For now his voice was at storm! God's patience was exhausted! He finally gave up hope of seeing His incorrigible children develop any beauty, any grace, any goodness, any peace. He determined to wash the world clean of them—thoroughly clean of them—and their filth and their spoor and the ravages of their hands until not a trace or a track or a trail of them remained! He told one peace-abiding old man to build a boat for his household; and the rain began to fall. The rain kept on coming—and coming—day after day after day. It poured as no rain had ever poured before!

Fara had listened, quite unmoved, when the wandering minstrels had sung of the fabled rain, but today the graphic picture of that appalling disaster made her draw her burnous tightly about her shoulders. The story made her flesh creep, as she heard the hoarse cries and strangled gasps of the doomed, clutching at one another in the swirl of rising waters, while the livid sky roared and the tempest screamed and the lightning stabbed relentlessly at the tossing debris.

And then—there was a sudden calm. The waters stilled and subsided. The sun was shining again; not upon a garden this time, but upon a stripped, deserted world of ruined cities levelled to the ground, and of empty thrones half-buried in the mud. Now men could begin anew and try to build a better world. But it was without any success—and without any promise.