“From that time forth many Indians came who were very ill, some paralyzed, and by prayer, and with my breath, and by touching them, I restored each to health. This caused great amazement. Nothing was talked about in this country but the wonderful cures, and all who heard of it came to me that I might heal them and bless their children.

“Then I was brought a man whom I could not treat in that way. He was from a different tribe and earlier had been shot deep with an arrow, the head of which had lodged close to his heart. He said it gave him much pain, and that on this account he was ill. I touched the region and felt the arrowhead there, and so with a sharp shell I cut open the breast and found the point next to the tissue of the heart; with great difficulty I removed it. The man said he felt no pain, and with a deer bone I made simple stitches and sewed the wound. From this cure I gained such fame among various tribes among the country that there was much competition to have me. But my own village would not let me go, saying they had such confidence in my skill that they believed none of them would die as long as I remained among them.”

“Come on,” somebody whispered behind Lipiczany’s ear, and his own heart, like that of the wounded warrior, practically stopped. He whirled, squinting, peering into the dark. Einhorn was there, with his flat nose, his eyes like a Tatar’s, his perfect teeth. “Come,” he repeated, stepping toward the doorway and beckoning Nisel to follow. “Hurry. A mission is about to begin.” In the hall, at the top of the stairs, two or three shadowy figures, Kipnis probably, and Julius Szypper, were already waiting. Something in Lipiczany—the carefree boy, the cracker of nutshells—stirred. He got to his feet and, while Trumpelman went on with his tale, edged toward the open door.

The old man was describing his greatest challenge, the time that the Indians brought him to a patient who—from his upturned eyes, from the many mourners about him—Chaim knew had already died. “It was a trick! My enemies did this! The medicine men who had lost their power. I saw them laughing behind their hands. But I prayed, I breathed upon the cold body, I touched it—again and again, through the whole of the night. At dawn the dead man—whether charmed or, in fact, briefly expired—rose from his pallet, walked about, and asked for something to eat, because he was well. Then all the Indians there, even those who did hate me, raised their hands and said together that I was a Child of the Sun.”

Yes! thought Nisel. Yes! I too was raised from the dead, and the next thing he knew someone had grabbed him by the arm and was pulling him, half resisting, from the room.

“Shhh,” Hersh Einhorn warned, and placed his hand, still scarred from the fire, over Lipiczany’s mouth. At the top of the stairway they were joined by Szypper and Kipnis; all four boys went down together, on tiptoe. They came to the front door of Tsarskoye Selo.