Wandering Jew was seen always in the thickest of the fight, and that when

battle-axes gleamed in the air, he bowed his head beneath them; when

swords flashed their deadly lightnings, he sprang in their way; he bared

his breast to whizzing javelins, to hissing arrows, to any and to every

weapon that promised death and forgetfulness, and rest. But it was

useless--he walked forth out of the carnage without a wound. And it is

said that five hundred years afterward he followed Mahomet when he

carried destruction to the cities of Arabia, and then turned against him,

hoping in this way to win the death of a traitor. His calculations were

wrong again. No quarter was given to any living creature but one, and

that was the only one of all the host that did not want it. He sought

death five hundred years later, in the wars of the Crusades, and offered

himself to famine and pestilence at Ascalon. He escaped again--he could

not die. These repeated annoyances could have at last but one effect

--they shook his confidence. Since then the Wandering Jew has carried on a

kind of desultory toying with the most promising of the aids and

implements of destruction, but with small hope, as a general thing. He

has speculated some in cholera and railroads, and has taken almost a

lively interest in infernal machines and patent medicines. He is old,

now, and grave, as becomes an age like his; he indulges in no light

amusements save that he goes sometimes to executions, and is fond of

funerals.

There is one thing he can not avoid; go where he will about the world, he

must never fail to report in Jerusalem every fiftieth year. Only a year

or two ago he was here for the thirty-seventh time since Jesus was

656

The Innocents Abroad