COME FORTH.'

Evening Star, Issue 8267, 12 July 1890, Page 1 (Supplement)

COME FORTH.'

[Copyrighted.]

a sport op tue time op christ. Ur Ei.izabeth Stpart Phblps, Author of ‘The Gates Ajar,’ • Beyond the Gate,’ etc. An® Tntc Rkv, Herbert D. Ward. CHAPTER X. When Ariella and Rachel and Baruch reached the house together that evening a strange spirit fell upon them. The excitement of the tremendous event which hud befallen Avidia tool: on the form of an intense calm. Baruch hardly knew what ho expected ; move and lew than he expeeled had come to pass. Ho strained hia sensitive ears to hear the sound of Ariella’s step upon his mother’s floor. Wonderful sound ! Ariclla walked to and fro to try her foot; they sprang like birds or butterflies lightly hovering up and down : for some momenta she flitted about, for sheer pleasure of the flitting ; but she did not say one word ; then suddenly she sank upon a little white. linen Ottoman which stood against the wall, and gave a pretty yawn, like a child who is sleepy or tired—a sound of pure health and physical comfort. When imd anyone hoard », sound like that from the invalid’s young lips ? “ Rachel,” said Ariella, “ I am so sleepy, i-iow strange a feeling. Hear Baruch, you cannot think how delightful it is! It runs through my body and my brain like the fall of i.’icw. 1 have no pain. What shall I do? How does one act who has no pain? I ought to sneak ; I should talk to you, I have nothing to say. What shall I do? Bo patient with me. To wait for the ache to lire itself out—that is the way to go to

.sleep. But there is no ache to wait for. [low can this be? ... I will return. It roust be that it is coming buck to me, I v.o'i'd sit a while further and wait for it, and br.ttle with it, and say to it : Ah, you demon of the siek ! I have escaped you for a ilttlo time—"o long—ouo hour—two hours t have? defied you ! Now we will have it out between u:>, you and I *" But while Ariella spoke tho words sho r.-.ik upr*u the ottoman suddenly, threw one .''.v. it'ni around her head, curled her face i.:.0 tho bend of the elbow, smiled more like a h.ihy than a iiiek womar, r.ud fell straightway into !•. deep sleep. It was a wonderful w!i.:-p. It lasted all that night; her even, iie.t"' f.'iy In-.'■■itbiug v/as not interrupted by ao 1 i;i. !i ii> a &;':.'!:. She slept on and on, aa if tloith it.-'/ii could nover interfere with that i..i(.-.w.,1 recuperation of the wasted nerve; ii.ud >■.:'. If life loved her too well ever to f.iv.iiblo her by waking. ' ; Suppose the wake not ?" a:jkeil Baruch, :n i-,'v; ;mrea : Pliable terror of love, ' ; What if ;,;.■• !!';v<r wake. O niy mother?" '• Le : ; her be," said the practical Rachel. ■'Tii-.: girl pemhoth for sleep like thia, I (•oi'ht mo if ah:: can remember what i; is to i\.-t Hi:o other human creatures. Mark you, ;ny «;,n, the healing U not complete upon iie'i- yet. Without this sleep she fall .i;'.".'i her old way a to-morrow. It takes ::~..i\: thun two hours to heal a woman for •.one years ridden upon her bed. Let hor alone, Baruch. There are many that do j.irofess to heal the sick. Time it their -.estiinouy, my son. I have seen many a hfokci in'.irt i:i my day come from false he-.l'P!;." " i'i.ei'e are pretender?, I know," said C .ruAi, "I have heard of them." " :'-iid J have seen them," whiiMvrcd j'".e! - .cl, >viih the caution of an elderly woman. "I hava seen lame men throw away tiii-'i: - s:avca by reason of faith in fake gjiis ,)>nl propue'.s ; and I've seen them send to ,i rusal'.'iii for now ones next week." " P,ut );e i". not as they," murmured i'.aruo!-,, with the obstinacy of faith, Now i!iichel quite pgrjed with Baruch concerning he r;onuifieness of the healing quality rt--if.-ted of the Nazarene ; but it pleased her to .'.hu'.-j her head with the dignity of ex-;-.,.rii'!ieo uud auswer only : " At any rate, you had bottsr let the girl : ::ep : ;md do as much for yourself." " I go without," said Baruch, " and keep ,"ii, f cii. .Stay with our guest, my mother, and her ; for she is precious." iLj!jti-.[ loikf"! aftoi hei sou as ho deri i-Let from tho room and shook her head .'.ldly.

" What: irj t'lo use," sho thought, " in a Mod son'' IJe tliinketh of the maiden like a iHi..i with eyas." Hut; Rachel was sound asleep herself in '.,'.n niur.tes : and ncifchar blind eon nor ..•■.-.■.lid ','izeafc troubled her comfortable .-I. i'. Only Banicii knew—and he only by ■ '.vaiiiK; r.ow and then to the doorway, and •,v,u'i/;>r,ly listening to tho slightest sound :.---,m within—only Hansen knew if Ariella .; pt the strange sleep of health, or ceased :>t' lou;.; familiar moan of suffering. Baruch ••.t::h:(i till dawn; and when dawn came '..<•: prayed. Ariella .woke quietly. For some moments ; ;•'.• lay still: the old expression of patieuce . 'tiled upon her features; she did not try ;. move. Raeliel watched iier intently; iiaruch quivered without, a breathless listf.'iic; 1 . •' Rachel," called Ariella, Rachel," I ;,i..v, slept. It ia good to be within your •.'.■,'.;lh. Rest liveth here, I know not when '! hive .ttJtpt BHuh sleep. Will you como rHhe]- ft.*.i help mo, dear Rachel, and bring v/atar i may bathe my face and cool

-.11-/ p.rrn:i ? _ tl '■' There im Wfcujr in the inner room, !:<;.-eivcl Rachel nonchalantly, "and fresh ■r.rn ni.'d conveniences suitable for a guest. ■)..' .r.') iu yoiKier with me and I will show

you them.' Arie'.iii stared at h?r Jnstess; her large •-=. -.vidt-ned with hurt surprise. '•Come!" rcpe&tad Rachel, in a firm,

■:i-, .'.ii.'rlv tone. "Oh," J remember!" cried Ariella, "I "■•::>i.':nbcr it u,!!. I have put my feet upon ■■'"n ground. They have borne my weight. -: imv" wi'.U.ed. The Nazarene commanded Tir.: and I obeyed. I walked. But that was V'-r.terday," '' And this in to-day," replied Rachel, in a '-• m.Cortablo tone. " Arise, Ariella, Arise .•.-.■-: v/nlk." Tims cawio to Ariella the two • •",ni:ii-i.nd:-<—that of the divine spirit and ..;;.; uf common life—and they took au they .auyt needs do to the sick the same forms, •vv.n thn name language. Rachel performed ;v> wonder : she used her good sense, which -■-,\.\ her that many a wonder failed, whether ,-..- lack of wonder-working power or of •;i!uck. to back It she could not say and did ':ot care. The ucint was that Arieila had -.valked. And walk ahe must. And, verily, ■.vnlk sho did.

The girl arose at once. She tottered for , moment, then struck out strongly into the tiiddlc of the room and walked £rmly into "-.he adjoining apartment. The linen curtain •wayed and fell acd hid her. Rachel couid hear the littlo splash of the cool watcr_ with which her young guest bathed. She did not offer to help her. She went without and i-old Baruoh that Ariella was cj well as vther people. a.? soon as the morning meal was over, .'•.rioMft started for her father's home. 'While yet the cool of the day wa3 upon ilothany, the little journey would be more v.ii'Jy made. Ariella was impatient for it. tf.iruch could jaot understand this, but he titxitl nothing to delay her. The girl came out into the morning, look■n:> Jike a cloud or a bud or a dewdrop, or jay lovely thing that is born oi the young iour and belongs to it. Her eyes burned with excitementcompared •jo which the fever of love is tame. The joy •,i the cured invalid has no similar upon this ?:irth.

Ariella could not keep still. She bounded .; and fro. Her feet had wings. Her ■lair seemed electric with life, and floated •bout her on whims of its own. Waves of

xquisite color ran over hor pale face, as if learning their way to tint her cheek ; thon /hey would retreat suddenly, like strangers. Jj'.fe came to her lips ; they curved into smiles. She nodded and laughed nioud at little things like a little girl. She ran to and fro. She called and sang. Sho was idonorbed —she woa intoxicated. It was t. hard thing to Baruch that she was in such o. hurry to get away. He would have beeu glad if she had stayed, or had i.ven wanted to otay beside them, hifl another aud himself, for that one day—the liriit day of her delight. This well Ariella he did not understand. The eld Ariella was ijone. In her place, what had he ? "Is it possible," thought the blind man, " that I have lost her? What is thia dfaco very 2 Doos it cost me Ariella ?"

He bowed his patient head ; but, to himself, he said : "So be it; if ao he that Ariella suffer sot, lam content. I have had my will. She is healed." Ariella did not understand tho thought of Baruch. She meant to be very grateful and loving to him. But health and joy were too new to Ariella—they dazzled her. Sho could see nothing else. To be sure she said: " Baruch ! dear Baruch ! I am well. I walk. I fly. I suffer nothing. O Baruch, what do I owe thee !" But Baruch answered nothing. He felt bereaved of Ariella. She had insisted on going home alone, for some whim she had about it. But Rachel overruled her, and accompanied the maiden, who yielded carelessly. What difference did it make? What did anything matter? Sho could walk. When she departed from the house she took the hand of Baruch and said some words to him, ha knew not what. But the blind man turned away and thought: " She hath forgotten me." Ariella trod the roads of Bethany like a spirit. Hor feet did not seem to touch the ground. She walked on air. She held her head like a bird. She wished that she knew everybody she met, and could call out and say : "Behold me! I am Ariella. I am well. I walk." But Ariella knew few people; she had been a prisoner of the couch so long. She bounded along uninterrupted. Rachel putfed and labored, but could not keep up with her. It was perhaps half a mile to the house of Malachi. Now, as chance had it, the first person known to Ariella whom alio met that wonderful morniug was a young man walking slowly, with his head bent and eyes upon tho ground. " What a handsome fellow !" thought the girl. Wiien she came up to him she saw that it was a neighbor unseen of her for a long time, but well enough remembered. In fact it was Lazarus. He had a strange expression. His look was high and distant. His eyes were radiant and full. His face was quite pale. His talith was wet with dew and crumpled, as though he had spent the night without upon the ground. The decorous citizen, the man of proprieties andQ customs, presented an unprecedented appearance. Ariella was not vailed. She had, to tell the truth, forgotten all about it ; veils not bclns useful in the sick room were without her instincts, which were therefore natural. Lazarus turned upon Ariella fho uasceir;.f eye of him who had mt slept the entire night. Rachel came panting up. Then Liiznin said slowly : " W'hv Ariella !—Ariella ?"

"ft is indeed Arieila," said Rachel. " Behold what wonder God hath wrought upon her." "I walk," crivd Ariella; " I fly. Behold me. lam healed. 1 walk from tho house of Rachel to the house of my father—l Ariella!" "What meaneth thia?" demanded Lazarus, now aroused to the extraordinary nature of the scene, "The Nazxreno bade me," answered Ariella mora quietly than ahe had yet spoken that morning. " lie comm&nded, and 1 do »valk." The countenance of Lazarus expressed a battle of emotions as Rachel, in defiance of Jewish conventionality—for such a thing as this did not happen every day, and the proprieties did—p.uned, and related to their neighbor what had occurred. If Lazarus had ever cherished any reserved opinions about the reported cures wrought by his friend and Muster—and it is not impossible, for the strongest of powers were tugging at the faith of tho young man—the sight of Ariella was confounding and convincing. Ariella he knew, and her piteous fate. What wonder was this ? Ariella—treading the streets of Bethany ! What manner of m--.n was he who wrought the deed? Lazarus congratulated Ariella cordially, and hurried uwiiy from her. lie could not talk aboil*; the matter. His braia seethed with the crowding impressions of the last twenty-four hours. For this was the dawn of the day succeeding the confession of Zahara. Lazarm had spirit the entiic night wandering over Olivet, sleepless, staggering, drunken with rapture. On that tolitary mountain-top now sacred to history, where the moat devout; man in Judea too ottiu exhausted himself with nights of prayer and with the fervor of consecration to a lonely and terrible fate, his fraiier friend for love of a woman kept a wild and fevered watch. When L.'./irus reached home that morning he learned that Jesus had spent tho night in the house- of Simon the Leper ; had rested in the upper chamber ; and had departed at dawn, before the morning meal, setting his face towards JeriKiilem. " And we could not even tell him where you were, Lasurua !" complained Martha, '• £ was thoroughly ashamed of you." ''But he asked no question," said Mary, gently, " lie scarcely made mention of thy name, my brother." Lazarus bowed his head in silence. He felt helpless before hia own nature. He had made vows enough. He did not say to Mary this time : " I will see the JSTazareno as coon as possible." He made haste to change the subject by reporting the wonder wrought on Ariella. But far from changing, this only seemed to accentuate the great topic upon which in this, as in hundreds of Jewish families at that time, the force of daily interest powerfully centred. " He that can put Ariella on her feet is a prophet, verily !" cried Martha. "She is more care to her mother than any girl in Bethany '." But Mary's eyes shone peacefully. It was quite what she was prepared to believe. Why be so surprised about it ? " Happy Ariella ! " she whispered. Mary thought it might be worth nine years of misery to be healed as Ariella was. Martha set forth at once to the house of Malachi to gossip about tho news ; and Lazarus retired to his own portion of the house. He tried to sleep. He was thoroughly uncomfortable. Two faces, like statues graven from his heart, filled the silent shaded room. Zahara's was the one ; but the other was the likeneos of the Nazirene. The girl seemed to regard the Rabbi haughtily ; but he looked with gentle dignity at Lazarus and at the scowling beauty. "I am torn in twain !"cried Lazarus. Ariella reached home in wonderful time. No feet in Bethany trod that half mile so swiftly on that fair morning, Radiantly swaying, flying, flushed, and beautiful, tho girl who had gone forth borne upon the litter, moaninK with pain, ran up the Blope, and flashed into the door of her father's house.

Uagar threw down the d;sh in which she was preparing leavened bread, and shrieked mightily. *' A spirit! A spirit ! Malachi, come hither! Ariella is dead and her spirit is running about the house !" " I'll teach her better manners, then !" growled Malachi, who came lumbering in with l«io fiats clenched. Malachi was one of the people who do not believe in ghosts, and are afraid of them accordingly. Panting behind the girl came Rachel; and down the street Martha hurried up as fast a3 the dignity of a wealthy widow permitted. O.her neighbors had by this time got wind of the news, and a little crowd might be seen gathering, moving towards the house, "I walk!' 1 cries Ariella. "I run. The Nazarene commanded, end I fly. Kiss me, omy mother ! Bless me, father—for lam like other girls." " Would you believe it ?" demanded Rachel with holy indignation, when she came home to tell the tale to Baruch. " What think iyou of such a father ? Malachi owore a great oath and vowed by Jehovah that the girl did mako sport of them; and might have walked any day, if she had wanted to."

" Impossible I" cried the blind man. _ "And more than that is possible," continued Rachel, "for when he was forced to perceive that the wonder had come upon Ariella, he fell with a mighty rage. He let loose the violp of his wrath upon me, for stealing his daughter—so he said—from her shelter in her father's house ; and upon thee, for the trick, he called it, thou didst play upon him, ' The impostor hath bewitched the girl!' he shouted to the neighbors, 'Go ye to your homes—disperse—and trouble an afflicted house no more. Leave us alone in our disgrace,' said Malachi. But Hagaar said- " "What said the mother of the maiden?" asked Baruoh in the greatest distress. " Hagaar did go up to her husband and seize him as if he had been a rebellions little boy. Before all the neighbors the wife of

Malachi, the Pharisee, did shake her husband to and fro. And she did clutch his beard and pulled upon it so he was fain to utter a yell of pain, and she took the courage of a man upon woman's lipß, and she did say—and a noise she made in saying it I testify—' Malachi, all theae year 3 thou hast been lord unto me and I have served thee as thine handmaid ; but now thou shalt not lord me for I am a woman, and the mother of the maiden and I say .- Look upon her ! Look upon her ! She is like other girls —poor Ariella—walking about ! and he that is her father, and docs cot bless God for the sight of her to-day, he deserveth to be crucified !' And Martha in a stately voice, she cried : * Amen.' And all the neighbors did aay ' Amen.' And Malachi was ashamed ; but he was the more wroth in so mush as he tvaa ashamed, and he turned him about, and cried aloud : 'Ye shall see her on her couch again, yo people of Bethany, for all this pretender pretendeth. Look ye to it ? Ye shall see if Ariella riseth and goeth about to-morrow.' " "Oh, horrible!" cried Baruch, "what did she say ?"' " Why, she said ' Shame on you, my husband !' And "

" What did Ariella say?" interrupted Baruch. "Naught," said Rachel, "naught. She did turn as pale as the dead and quail before her father. And Hagaar, her mother, enveloped the girl in her arms, and shielded her, and all tho people cried out upon Malachi." " Poor lamb," moaned Baruch ; " poor quivering little lamb !" " Well, if sho is a lamb, Hagaar is a considerable sheep," said Rachel dryly. " You may trust the woman with her young, my son. Then is she a mighty power. As for Malachi, verily I believe he would rather tie the girl upon her bed than to permit the Nazarene to cure hor." Baruch replied with an inarticulate sound of distress. " And Lazarus said ■ " continued Rachel. " When 3aw you Lazarus ?" demanded Baruch quickly. Rachel related the details of the meeting between Lazarus and Ariella op the way to the house of Malachi. Vhe blind man turned away. His face fell ; but his lips were silent. Lazarus could see. And Ariella in tho excitement of the wild scene at home had omitted to send any message back to Baruch by his mother. isa.rueh went away, and sat under the olive tree, alone, and patient. ( To be continued.)