Title:  The Little Hunchback Zia

Author:  Frances Hodgson Burnett

Release Date:  March, 2004 [EBook #5303] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on June 25, 2002] [Date last updated:  August 13, 2005]

Edition:  10

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

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THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

BY

FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT

With illustrations by
Spencer Baird Nichols
and
W. T. Benda

And it came to pass nigh upon nineteen hundred and sixteen years ago

THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK ZIA

The little hunchback Zia toiled slowly up the steep road, keeping in the deepest shadows, even though the night had long fallen.  Sometimes he staggered with weariness or struck his foot against a stone and smothered his involuntary cry of pain.  He was so full of terror that he was afraid to utter a sound which might cause any traveler to glance toward him.  This he feared more than any other thing—­that some man or woman might look at him too closely.  If such a one knew much and had keen eyes, he or she might in some way guess even at what they might not yet see.

Since he had fled from the village in which his wretched short life had been spent he had hidden himself in thickets and behind walls or rocks or bushes during the day, and had only come forth at night to stagger along his way in the darkness.  If he had not managed to steal some food before he began his journey and if he had not found in one place some beans dropped from a camel’s feeding-bag, he would have starved.  For five nights he had been wandering on, but in his desperate fear he had lost count of time.  When he had left the place he had called his home he had not known where he was going or where he might hide himself in the end.  The old woman with whom he had lived and for whom he had begged and labored had driven him out with a terror as great as his own.

“Begone!” she had cried in a smothered shriek.  “Get thee gone, accursed!  Even now thou mayest have brought the curse upon me also.  A creature born a hunchback comes on earth with the blight of Jehovah’s wrath upon him.  Go far!  Go as far as thy limbs will carry thee!  Let no man come near enough to thee to see it!  If thou go far away before it is known, it will be forgotten that I have harbored thee.”