calm eyes and smiling mouth. Was it, indeed, the mockery of
all effort and all aspiration, as Tigranes had said--the cruel
jest of a riddle that has no answer, a search that never can
succeed? Or was there a touch of pity and encouragement in
that inscrutable smile--a promise that even the defeated
should attain a victory, and the disappointed should discover a
prize, and the ignorant should be made wise, and the blind should
see, and the wandering should come into the haven at last?

I saw him again in an obscure house of Alexandria, taking
counsel with a Hebrew rabbi. The venerable man, bending over
the rolls of parchment on which the prophecies of Israel were
written, read aloud the pathetic words which foretold the
sufferings of the promised Messiah--the despised and rejected
of men, the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

"And remember, my son," said he, fixing his eyes upon the
face of Artaban, "the King whom thou seekest is not to be
found in a palace, nor among the rich and powerful. If the
light of the world and the glory of Israel had been appointed
to come with the greatness of earthly splendour, it must have
appeared long ago. For no son of Abraham will ever again
rival the power which Joseph had in the palaces of Egypt, or
the magnificence of Solomon throned between the lions in
Jerusalem. But the light for which the world is waiting is a new
light, the glory that shall rise out of patient and triumphant
suffering. And the kingdom which is to be established forever is
a new kingdom, the royalty of unconquerable love.

"I do not know how this shall come to pass, nor how the