"Because thou hast saved the life of my little one, may
the Lord bless thee and keep thee; the Lord make His face to
shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee; the Lord lift up
His countenance upon thee and give thee peace."



IV

Again there was a silence in the Hall of Dreams, deeper and
more mysterious than the first interval, and I understood that
the years of Artaban were flowing very swiftly under the
stillness, and I caught only a glimpse, here and there, of the
river of his life shining through the mist that concealed its
course.

I saw him moving among the throngs of men in populous
Egypt, seeking everywhere for traces of the household that had
come down from Bethlehem, and finding them under the spreading
sycamore-trees of Heliopolis, and beneath the walls of the
Roman fortress of New Babylon beside the Nile--traces so faint
and dim that they vanished before him continually, as
footprints on the wet river-sand glisten for a moment with
moisture and then disappear.

I saw him again at the foot of the pyramids, which lifted
their sharp points into the intense saffron glow of the sunset
sky, changeless monuments of the perishable glory and the
imperishable hope of man. He looked up into the face of the
crouching Sphinx and vainly tried to read the meaning of the