The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander | Page 6

placed thee
near me, that I gave thee great power; and now thou hast destroyed all
my hopes, my aspirations. Thou hast put an end to my ambitions. I had
believed that I should rule the world, and rule it forever.' His face grew
black; his voice was terrible. 'Retire!' he said. 'I will attend to thy
future.'
"I retired, but my furious sovereign never saw me again. I was
fifty-three years old when I drank the water in the little pool under the
rock, and I was well aware that at the time of my sovereign's return I
felt no older and looked no older. But still I hoped that this was merely
the result of my general good health, and that when Alexander came
back he would inform me that he had discovered the veritable spring of
immortality; so I retained my high office, and waited. But I had made
my plans for escape in case my hope should not be realized. In two
minutes from the time I left his presence I had begun my flight, and
there were no horses in all his dominions which could equal the speed
of mine.
"Now began a long, long period of danger and terror, of concealment
and deprivation. I fled into other lands, and these were conquered in
order that I might be found. But at last Alexander died, and his son died,
and the sons of his son died, and the whole story was forgotten or
disbelieved, and I was no longer in danger of living forever as an

example of the ingenious cruelty of an exasperated monarch.
"I do not intend to recount my life and adventures since that time; in
fact, I shall scarcely touch upon them. You can see for yourself that that
would be impossible. One might as well attempt to read a history of the
world in a single evening. I merely want to say enough to make you
understand the situation.
"A hundred years after I had fled from Alexander I was still fifty-three
years old, and knew that that would be my age forever. I stayed so long
in the place where I first established myself that people began to look
upon me with suspicion. Seeing me grow no older, they thought I was a
wizard, and I was obliged to seek a new habitation. Ever since, my fate
has been the necessity of moving from place to place. I would go
somewhere as a man beginning to show signs of age, and I would
remain as long as a man could reasonably be supposed to live without
becoming truly old and decrepit. Sometimes I remained in a place far
longer than my prudence should have permitted, and many were the
perils I escaped on account of this rashness; but I have gradually
learned wisdom."
The man spoke so quietly and calmly, and made his statements in such
a matter-of-fact way, that I listened to him with the same fascinated
attention I had given to the theory of telegraphy without wires, when it
was first propounded to me. In fact, I had been so influenced by his
own conviction of the truth of what he said that I had been on the point
of asking him if Abraham had really had anything to do with the
building of the Islam temple, but had been checked by the thought of
the utter absurdity of supposing that this man sitting in front of me
could possibly know anything about it. But now I spoke. I did not want
him to suppose that I believed anything he said, nor did I really intend
to humor him in his insane retrospections; but what he had said
suggested to me the very apropos remark that one might suppose he
had been giving a new version of the story of the Wandering Jew.
At this he sat up very straight, on the extreme edge of his chair; his
eyes sparkled.

"You must excuse me," he said, "but for twenty seconds I am going to
be angry. I can't help it. It isn't your fault, but that remark always
enrages me. I expect it, of course, but it makes my blood boil, all the
same."
"Then you have told your story before?" I said.
"Yes," he answered. "I have told it to certain persons to whom I
thought it should be known. Some of these have believed it, some have
not; but, believers or disbelievers, all have died and disappeared. Their
opinions are nothing to me. You are now the only living being who
knows my story."
I was going to ask a question here, but he did not give me a chance. He
was very much moved.
"I hate that Wandering Jew," said he, "or, I should say, I