“Joseph of Nazareth and Mary his wife,” one said.  “Both of the line of David.  There was no room for them, even as there was no room for others not of royal lineage.  To the mangers in the cave they have gone, seeing the woman had sore need of rest.  She, thou knowest—­”

Zia heard no more.  He did not ask where the cave lay.  He had not needed to ask his way to Bethlehem.  That which had led him again directed his feet away from the entrance-gate of the khan, past the crowded court and the long, low wall of stone within the inclosure of which the camels and asses browsed and slept, on at last to a pathway leading to the gray of rising rocks.  Beneath them was the cave, he knew, though none had told him so.  Only a short distance, and he saw what drew him trembling nearer.  At the open entrance, through which he could see the rough mangers of stone, the heaps of fodder, and the ass munching slowly in a corner, the woman who wore the blue robe stood leaning wearily against the heavy wooden post.  And the soft light bordering her garments set her in a frame of faint radiance and glowed in a halo about her head.

“The light! the light!” cried Zia in a breathless whisper.  And he crossed his hands upon his breast.

Her husband surely could not see it.  He moved soberly about, unpacking the burden the ass had carried and seeming to see naught else.  He heaped straw in a corner with care, and threw his mantle upon it.

“Come,” he said.  “Here thou canst rest, and I can watch by thy side.  The angels of the Lord be with thee!” The woman turned from the door and went toward him, walking with slow steps.  He gazed at her with mild, unillumined eyes.

“Does he not see the light!” panted Zia.  “Does he not see the light!”

Soon he himself no longer saw it.  Joseph of Nazareth came to the wooden doors and drew them together, and the boy stood alone on the mountain-side, trembling still, and wet with the dew of the night; but not weary, not hungered, not athirst or afraid, only quaking with wonder and joy—­ he, the little hunchback Zia, who had known no joy before since the hour of his birth.

He sank upon the earth slowly in an exquisite peace—­a peace that thrilled his whole being as it stole over his limbs, deepening moment by moment.  His head drooped softly upon a cushion of moss.  As his eyelids fell, he saw the splendor of whiteness floating in the height of the purple vault above him.

The dawn was breaking and yet the stars had not faded away.  This was his thought when his eyes first opened on a great one, greater than any other in the sky, and of so pure a brilliance that it seemed as if even the sun would not be bright enough to put it out.  It hung high in the paling blue, high as the white radiance; and as he lay and gazed, he thought it surely moved.  What new star was it that in that one night had been born?  He had watched the stars through so many desolate hours that he knew each great one as a friend, and this one he had never seen before.