was as though they were not. He thrust back the covering from his chest
and saw the spots there. But there were no lepers, there were no
hunchbacks; there were only Zia and the light. He knelt and turned
himself toward the cave and prayed, and as he so knelt and prayed the
man Joseph rolled open the heavy wooden door.

Then Zia, still kneeling, beat himself softly upon the breast and prayed
again, not as before to Jehovah, but to that which he beheld.

The light was there, fair, radiant, wonderful. The cave was bathed in
it. The woman in the blue robe sat upon the straw, and in her arms she
held a new-born child. Zia touched his forehead to the earth again,
again, again, unknowing that he did so. The child was the light itself!

He must rise and draw near. That which had drawn him up the mountainside
drew him again. The child was the light itself! As he crept near the
cave's entrance, the woman's eyes rested upon him soft and wonderful.

She spoke to him--she spoke!

"Be not afraid," she said. "Draw nigh and behold!"

Her voice was not as the voice of other women; it was like her eyes, his
body, through his blood, through every limb and fleshy atom of him, he
felt it steal--new life, warming, thrilling, wakening in his veins new
life! As he felt it, he knelt quaking with rapture even as he had stood
the night before gazing at the light. The new-born hand lay still.

He did not know how long he knelt. He did not know that the woman leaned
toward him, scarce drawing breath, her wondrous eyes resting upon him as