“Can’t thou see any way-marks, Jew?”
“I discern but few. Yet, what matter? It is enough that He who leads us sees?”
“The night is getting blacker and blacker; the omen makes my heart shiver as it beats.”
As the knight spoke there came a terrific crash of thunder and a succession of blinding lightning flashes. Sir Charleroy clasped the Jew’s arm and in startled voice questioned:
“Dost thou not fear these?”
“Why should I? The angel guides swing the torches of the unchangeable Father to give us glimpses of our way. All is well; I saw by the lightning flash that we are passing safely the camp lines of our captors.”
A few miles were over-past. The storm had abated a little, and the first streaks of dawn, like spears, were rising in the east.
“Would God, good Jew,” said the now wearied Sir Charleroy, “that the Prophet of the Moslem, who, near by here, is said once by a stamp of his foot to have brought forth from the rock a camel, were present to dance for us now.”
“He is not here, so we must help ourselves, knight.”
“Ah, my dear man, canst thou dance rocks into camels?”
“No, but there are houses nigh, and each thou knowst has it’s stable-yard in front.”
“But there is the thorny nubk tree, surrounding the herds.”
“I’ve faith to try my faith when all I have is faith.”
“What for; to steal a camel?”
“Oh, no; I’d not steal a camel but I’d borrow a couple of them. Two; for I’m not one of the knights who exhibit poverty, by riding double, thou dost know.”
“Borrow? Well so be it; the black infidels owe us for two years’ service. They borrowed us!”
“It’s pious to take the beasts; for we pay so honest debts of these heathens and shorten the list of their souls’ sins by removing from them, in our escape, the opportunity for our murder.”
“If this be sophistry, Ichabod, it is so sweet that it is taken as delightful truth.”
“Thou art persuaded?”
“No man can out run me, be he rabbi or priest, in condemning vices, if they be such as I do not care to practice, and I am a profound believer in every creed that’s sweet to my desires. Here action treads the heels of persuasion.”
On beasts, borrowed without formality, the fugitives hurried toward Jordan, only there to find a barrier to their progress in the angry torrent swelled by the recent storms. It was clearly futile to attempt a passage, and to tarry, waiting the ebb of the waters, was to bring certain detection. They turned the heads of their borrowed camels toward their master’s homes and waited the sunrise, meanwhile moving about to find some means of safety.
“Well, my comrade, I think it will not be long until those Turks will give our souls an Elijah-like ascension except that there will be no chariot. The morning shimmering on his mountain makes me think of this, Ichabod.”
“The tracks of our returning camels in the wet earth will guide our pursuers.”
“Suppose we climb a tree as Zacchaeus, since we can not have a chariot. By my plume! which I’ve not seen for a year, I think that would be safety; the Turks never look up except in prayer, and the wolf Azrael seldom prays. But God pity us! there they are coming.”
“To the tombs, master! On the left.”
“Refuge for jackals?”
“Yes, but also for the miserable, living and dead! Now haste!”
Sir Charleroy obeyed quickly, but recoiled with a groan of disgust as he suddenly pushed against an entombed body. He touched his hilt, as if determined to abandon attempt at flight, and then, overcoming the rash impulse to confront the pursuers, turned about, seized the corpse, and dragging it from its place, hurled it over the river bank into the torrent. He was in the dispoiled nich in an instant. A cry from the pursuers drew him forth. “See, Ichabod, the Turks are running along the river banks watching the mummy bobbing along in the torrent. See, it sinks. Ah, the brutes, how they shout! They think that body alive, and that one poor slave is hounded to death.”
“Jehovah Jeireh, now help us; they’ll soon be back,” cried Ichabod.
“Ah, I forgot; they’ll remember there were two of us.”
“Calm, Sir Knight, ‘By this sign I conquer,’ quoting thy words of another. I’ll go forth; the only one left; at least so they’ll think.”
Sir Charleroy turned and looked at the Jew, and was amazed to see him binding in front of himself a board having the ominous words, “Unclean” upon it.
“What; thou, a Jew, and touch that foul thing, worn to festering death by some leper!”
“Better night and a clean soul, though in a body burned by the cursed leprosy, than life in Moslem slavery.”
“But what if the disease cleave to thee, and we escape?”
“Sir Knight, thou wilt live to tell others that a once hated Jew was led of thee to truth, and after died a living death, that his benefactors might survive. I think such deeds cause noble lights to glow in human souls.”
“God bless and pity thee, Ichabod.”
“Ah, he does; even now. I see the scarlet line of Rahab, and it binds the pestilence that walketh by noonday.”
The furious pursuers spurred their steeds up toward the tombs, but as they beheld the solitary man, sitting in painful attitude with beggar-like palm extended and wearing the dread sign, they rapidly wheeled their steeds about and galloped away. The Moslem had heard that a Jew would suffer any torture rather than ceremonial pollution; hence judged that the object before them could not be the refugee they sought.
“I wonder not that the demoniac cut himself madly when among the tombs, good Jew. Sure it’s like going to glory to get out once more. Methinks freedom is only sweet when taken with fresh air! Well, we are out and the enemy thwarted.”
“Methinks, master, that the leper that died here, leaving no legacy but the sign of his death, did some good in unknowingly making me his heir.”
“And the corpse I disposed of so unceremoniously left me a house of safety, though small and musty. I’ve a bitter thought.”
“So, Sir Charleroy, tell it me, perhaps I can sweeten it.”
“I, the heir for a little time of that soulless clay, am like it.”
“Not much being here and alive.”
“I rather think like it. See me tossed about by strangers, robbed of my rights, helpless to resist fate’s tides, begrudged the room I occupy, and not one who once knew me to weep over my besetments.”
“Sir Knight, the miracles of our frequent preservation should make our murmurings dumb.”
In the evening Jordan ebbed a little and the two wanderers passed over. Nor did they regret the consequent immersing in its flood. No word was spoken as they passed through the current, for, before they entered, having remembered that at this Bethabara ford man’s Savior was baptized, they were each busy with his own meditations. When they stood on the other shore, Sir Charleroy reverently said: “Comrade, I prayed as we passed that we might have the dove of peace henceforth above our souls at least.”
“I prayed on my part that God would accept the act as the Christian’s typical burial to the world and separation from its sins.”
“How like death and birth is that beautiful type.