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Tor, A Street Boy of Jerusalem

<h1>CHAPTER V DEEP CALLETH UNTO DEEP</h1> “Where is the man who heals the blind?” demanded Chelluh, leaning heavily on the child. Tor trembled, but he answered boldly enough. “He will be in the court of the Gentiles healing the blind.” There was a great concourse of people crowding the street which led up to the temple, and amongst them numerous cripples, palsied men on litters, sick children in the arms of anxious, wild-eyed mothers, and blind beggars, led like Chelluh by willing guides. “Yes, the King is in the temple,” repeated Tor confidently. Then he shouted “Hosanna!” in his shrill childish voice, as he had done the day before. The cry was echoed by myriads of voices both far and near. Chelluh’s heavy hand descended upon his guide’s curly head. “Be silent, fool,” he hissed. “There is tumult ahead. Keep clear of the crowd, I say, and look sharp!” They were near the main entrance of the temple now, and the stream of newcomers was met by an excited mob of people coming out. Imprecations, shouts, and loud angry cries blended confusedly with the whir of moving wings, for a great cloud of doves hovered uncertainly over the place, now flying, now settling on the roofs and pinnacles of the marble porticoes. Chelluh stopped determinedly and snuffed the air like an animal. “What is going on within?” he demanded of Tor. The question was answered by a woman in a foreign head-dress who chanced to pause in the crowd beside them. “The Nazarene has thrust out the sellers of doves and the money-changers from the great court,” she said laughingly. “With these eyes I saw it. The Prophet cast down the tables with no gentle hand, loosed the doves, and drove out the craven Jews before him like a flock of frightened sheep. ’Twas a great sight. Also, the money was scattered all over the court among the multitude. Even I, a Gentile, am the richer for it.” “Money?” exclaimed the blind beggar greedily. “Come, let us go in, I would I had eyes that I might glean of this harvest.” “The man gives eyes also for the asking,” said the woman indifferently. “I have witnessed miracles of healing till I am weary of them. The Jew is a great magician, surely; but his own countrymen hate him, and the Romans care naught for miracles, so betwixt the two he will perchance fall to the ground.” Tor was not listening, he was watching for a good opening through which to pilot his blind charge. “When thou art healed, thou wilt become a servant of the King,” he said softly in the ear of the blind beggar. “Ay, and will I?” sneered Chelluh; “and what will I do then?” “Fetch blind folks to be healed,” said the child simply. “Now I see him,” he added, with joyful certainty. “Do but follow quickly and thou shalt be blind no longer!” Like the showers and sunshine of the Father which bless the good and the evil alike through all the years of all the ages, so was the healing power of him who manifested the Father in every act of his life. And so it came to pass that many came to be healed of blindness in those last great days, and went away with seeing eyes and blind souls. Chelluh’s first act after receiving his sight was to stare hard at Tor. “I am minded to know thee again,” he said thoughtfully. The boy shivered beneath his gaze. Chelluh with seeing eyes was even more terrible than Chelluh blind. Those devouring eyes were roving like the eyes of a beast of prey over the excited crowd. They fastened at last on a man who stood not far from the Nazarene. “I know that man’s voice,” said Chelluh. “Who and what is he?” “He is a servant of the King,” said Tor. “His name is Peter.” “His name is Peter,” repeated Chelluh, and struck his palms together softly. He turned and without another word plunged into the crowd and was gone. Tor forgot him presently. He was edging his way nearer and nearer to the wondrous Voice. Jesus was teaching the people, and his words fell upon the child’s ignorant ears with a strange and potent charm. He could not understand; but he listened because he loved; and, listening and loving, he comprehended something of what was being said, even as a babe discerns the speech of its mother. Love answereth love, as deep calleth unto deep. At night Tor followed his Master and the twelve when they went forth out of the city to lodge in the house of his friends in Bethany. This time the child slept on the ground in the shelter of the garden wall, begging a crust and a cup of water from one of the villagers at dawn. No one questioned the boy and so he was able again to follow almost at their heels when the little party set out for Jerusalem. There was a withered fig-tree near the wayside, and Tor heard the Galilean, Peter, pause and say to his Master, “Rabbi, behold the fig-tree which thou cursedst is withered away.” And Jesus looked upon the withered tree and answered the Galilean on this wise: “Have faith in God; for I tell thee that whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou taken up and cast into the sea, and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that what he saith cometh to pass; he shall have it. Therefore I say unto you, All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye have received them, and ye shall have them. And whensoever ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have aught against any one; that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.” Tor was crouching in the shelter of a bush and heard every word distinctly. His thin face burned with excitement. “He said ‘whosoever,’ ” he murmured. “He said ‘whosoever.’ ” Tor knew something of the custom of prayer. Many times he had seen the rich Pharisees standing motionless at the street-corners praying. Also, he had begged in the temple court, where many persons prayed aloud. For himself, he never prayed. The God of the Jews regarded not beggars, he told himself. Now as he crouched behind the bush, listening to the departing footsteps of the thirteen men, he began to say over to himself the word “Father,” which the man who had opened his eyes said so often. He repeated it softly to himself many times. Then he sprang up and followed hard after his Master, vaguely comforted and glad at heart. The day was a long one, passed mainly in the great Court of the Gentiles, and Tor, mingling with every gaping crowd which surrounded the Nazarene, was puzzled and troubled by much that he saw and heard. There was no shouting of Hosanna to-day, no royal acclamations. The people stood close in serried ranks and listened doubtfully to the strange teachings of the King in the seamless robe—the King who wore no crown and whose followers bore no arms. He was telling stories to the multitude, stories so simple that even a beggar could understand them. The child pressed close, so close that he could have touched the sandaled feet of the man who had opened his eyes. And so he listened to the stories of the father and his two undutiful sons; the absent lord of the vineyard and his wicked servants; the generous king who made a marriage feast for his son, and how it befell that the very beggars were gathered into the feast. The child smiled and trembled and wept aloud beneath the power of that wondrous Voice; more than once the Master’s deep eyes rested upon the small upturned face with its wistful look of adoration. And once, as he was speaking, the hand of Jesus rested for a moment on the rough curls of the beggar’s head. Ah, the rapture of that moment! Tor knew now deep in his heart that he was the accepted servant of the King. He could have remained there forever listening to the stories; but the temple police began to clear away the crowd with loud authoritative cries and random thrusts of their gilded poles of office. “Make way!” they shouted. “Make way for the holy and reverend chief priests and the honorable elders of the Sanhedrim!” Through the narrow passage thus cleared there came presently in great pomp and glory a stately delegation from the supreme council of the Jewish hierarchy. The chief priests wished to question publicly this worker of miracles—this teller of strange parables, who openly wrought his mighty works in the temple of Jehovah without their will or permission. “By what authority doest thou these things?” they demanded. “And who gave thee this authority?” And Jesus, calm and unafraid, answered them after their own custom with another question. “I also will ask you one thing,” he said, “which if ye tell me, I likewise will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John, whence was it? from heaven or from men?” The gorgeously-robed official who had put the question glanced about him at the hostile faces of the multitude, with a truculent air of scorn and contempt. Thus mumbling and stammering angrily in the midst of his great beard, he turned and conferred in a whisper with his companions. “If we say, From heaven,” he muttered, “the fellow will ask, Why then did ye not believe him?” “Ay,” quoth another, “but if we say, From men, there is the multitude to be reckoned with, for all hold that John was a prophet.” And so they presently faced the Master, their fierce eyes under the glittering insignia of the priestly office glaring at the calm, pale Man of Nazareth. “We know not,” they said. And Jesus replied, “Neither tell I you by what authority I do these things.” The priests withdrew in sullen silence, and the telling of strange stories went on; but Tor, somehow swept from his position by the shifting crowd, found himself near the defeated priests. They had paused to listen with the others, and were standing with folded arms and sneering faces by one of the great pillars of the portico. Tor slipped behind the column, of a sudden all ears. These men were speaking in a half whisper of the King, his Master. They hated him; Tor was sure of it. “The fellow will ruin us if we cannot stop his blatant mouth,” said one. “Listen now to his open threats: ‘The kingdom of God shall be taken away from you, and shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.’ ” “And he calleth himself our King,” sneered another. “A pretty pass hath the chosen people come to when the rabble choose a Nazaritish carpenter for King. Aha, I laugh at him!” “’Tis no time for mirth,” growled another. “The multitudes are ever agog for some new thing; stoning or crucifixion is better than laughter for such an one. Hark you, the thing must be put down and speedily. I know a way and a man; he—” The voice dropped to low whispers, and Tor, trembling with vague fright, and scarce knowing what he did, wriggled his way through the crowd toward the white-robed figure of Jesus. Peter, the Galilean, was also talking excitedly with a man in the outskirts of the crowd. Tor fixed his eyes upon the tall, broad-shouldered fisherman with some confidence. “I will tell him,” he said to himself, and hovered expectantly near, waiting for an opportunity to speak. “He must declare himself unmistakably and at once,” the small, dark-faced man was saying with an impatient gesture. “This telling of pretty tales and working of miracles has gone on over long, say I. We should arm ourselves and make ready, and the Sanhedrim must be won over by some great sign from heaven. We can do nothing without them.” “And I say let the Master work out his plans as it pleaseth him,” said Peter boldly. “Saw you not his kingly air on Sunday, Judas? He is every inch a King, I tell thee, and able to make of us princes and high priests—ay, and to sweep away all oppressors by the word of his mouth.” “Able, perhaps,” muttered Judas shaking his head, “but I doubt him. The man careth nothing for money—nothing for power. I know him. What are his plans? Does any one know them? Do we who are nearest him dare ask him? He is, perchance, nothing more than a dreamer, and our ambitions and hopes are founded upon the shifting sands of his visions. Nay, I know what thou wouldst say, Simon. But thou art no statesman—no patriot. I hear the chosen people groaning in their slavery. I see the iron heel of Rome about to crush out the last lingering life of the nation. Will this man save us? Can he, I ask? Or is he—” Judas choked convulsively, and tore at the neck of his garment with quivering hands. “I am half mad with the torture of it,” he groaned, “the—the waiting—the doubt; I—I fear that he—” “Nay, thou art a truculent and unbelieving fellow at heart,” said Peter easily. “Didst hear how the Master answered the priests but now? I could have laughed aloud to see them slink away like whipped curs.” “Like whipped curs—yes,” muttered the other. “But they will return anon like ravening wolves, unless he declare himself. ’Tis folly—folly!” He turned and plunged hastily into the crowd, and Peter, left to himself, began to smite his great hands softly together. “He hath the power to put them all to silence,” he said half aloud. “He will do it—let no one fear!” “I fear,” said Tor, suddenly speaking at the fisherman’s elbow. “I fear—for him.” “What now, small one,” quoth Peter, staring down at the child with a displeased shrug. “Have I not told thee to keep thy distance?” “Yes, but I will not,” said Tor doggedly. “Listen, Galilean. I heard the men in long robes speak of him. They hate him. They will kill him, if they can. Take care of him—thou.” “My Master can take care of himself, boy,” said Peter boastfully. “He is a King; also, I am his servant.” “Where is thy sword, servant of a King?” demanded Tor, eyeing him doubtfully. “My sword—my sword?” stammered the fisherman. “I have no sword.” “Then get one,” advised Tor briefly. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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