looked up into the vast countenance of the crouching Sphinx and vainly
tried to read the meaning of the 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 the acquaintance
of grief.

"And remember, my son," said he, fixing his deep-set eyes upon the face
of Artaban, "the King whom you are seeking 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 splendor, 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 perfect and unconquerable love.

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