XVIII
HIGH PRIEST! HIGH DEVIL!
Deborah threw off her coarse garment, and before the mirror of polished brass—in which many generations of women had been made conscious of the beauty for which their family was famous—she arranged her hair as decorously as its brief length permitted, supplementing its lost beauty with a band of pearls which she discovered in the great carved wooden chest. Her arms were now as sun-stained as those of a Bedouin maiden from the tribes beyond Jordan, and made goodly contrast with the silver bracelets which once scarcely rivalled the whiteness of her skin. She donned an embroidered bodice and outer robe of white linen, and put on the sandals with the golden-threaded strings binding the ankles, such as she had often worn.
"Once more I am the daughter of Elkiah."
A momentary flush of pride answered the reflection in the mirror.
She pushed it from her, and sat with folded hands upon the couch.
"A hypocrite! What better am I than that brazen mistress of Apollonius? Oh, God, must I do this? A spy in the house of my father? Lord, lead me. Save me from wrong-doing. Yet is it not Thy will?"
"What is it, sister?" asked Caleb, who was now awakened by Deborah's soliloquy. He stretched out his hands to her, but shrank back as he felt the strange texture of her robe.
"We are home again, my dear. Come, you must wear your pretty clothes."
While dressing Caleb neither of them spoke, for their attention was drawn to loud voices which sounded from the adjacent chamber.
"The Lord be with thee, Glaucon!"
"And with thee, Menelaos!"
"Ha! ha! you haven't forgotten your old-time piety."
"If I had, the presence of the High Priest would revive the memory. I take it that your office has more agreeable functions, now that the King will not allow the priests to smell so much of blood and offal as formerly. A journey to Antioch, a chariot in the processions, and a symposium in the King's new banqueting-hall—though the wine has too much mastic in it—must be preferable to playing chief butcher at the Temple. Is it not so, my lord?"
"Hush, Glaucon! Your words have too much truth in them to be agreeable," replied Menelaos. "But, by Jove!—it is convenient to have an oath one can use without blasphemy—by Jove! I would rather be here hobnobbing with an old comrade than tripping up on my official skirts in Antioch."
The Priest threw himself upon the wide divan, while an attendant arranged behind him a pile of cushions.
"Wine, Ajax!" cried Glaucon. "I am sorry we must take it no cooler than the cellar, for these rebels have let no snow be brought from Hermon since they sent Apollonius across the Styx."
"The gods forbid that that ravening beast Judas cut off other supplies," replied the Priest. "Not a partridge nor a fish has been sold at the market for a fortnight. The Princess will have double cause for grief over the death of her cousin, the General, if she stays in Jerusalem. So goodly a bit of flesh should be fed better. But a fine convoy is coming down from Antioch."
"There is no doubt about her kinship to the General?" asked Glaucon.
"Oh, none whatever. Apollonius' letter to me implied as much. They say she has great riches. The tribute of a whole city in Anatolia, or Syria, or the devil may guess where, follows her; for Apollonius was as bold in robbing his enemies as he was in killing them; and he loved the woman so well that he would have let her melt off his legs had they been golden. The Princess says that a thousand shekels belonging to her were in Apollonius' military chest and fell into the hands of the damned Maccabaean."
"That is the worst thing I have heard about Judas' victory," laughed Glaucon. "But the Princess has plenty of credit, I take it, even if she can't transport through the air the gold plates on the roofs of her many palaces."
"Gold plates or thatch, she's rich enough," rejoined the Priest. "And, by Aphrodite's ankle! what a woman she is! Glaucon, if it were not that I have already at least one wife, I would cut your throat for jealousy, for Helena evidently takes to you. She has an eye for manly beauty. And you, Glaucon, have a face which, but for the twist in your nose that the alipta has not yet mollified enough to straighten out, would be the face of a god. You are an Adonis in figure. If I had your shoulders and calves I would forswear priest's robes. What a couple you and the Princess would make!"
The click of a brass mirror was heard as Glaucon replied, "'By Aphrodite's ankle!' A good oath that. I will remember it. 'By Aphrodite's ankle!' Ha! ha! A good saying! a good saying! The Princess is a beauty, I swear! Her lips are always red."
"Not from over-use either, I take it," interjected his coacher.
"And her skin so fair!"
"Never saw anything fairer outside the shop of Demos, the cosmetic seller in Antioch," replied Menelaos. "And, by Jove, you are a fool, Glaucon, if you don't get her. Listen! With all of her distant possessions I happen to know that the loss of Apollonius' box left her in need of ready money; ready money, you understand, for she has plenty that isn't ready. I proposed to advance her a few shekels, but my wife Lydia, the chaste—please tell her I called her that—objects on the ground that as High Priest I should not lend money. But really, my wife is as jealous of Helena as a hen is of a duck. A gift from your strong-box, Glaucon, would not be a bad investment. 'Cast thy bread upon the waters,' says Solomon, 'and thou shalt find it after many days.' I commend the precept to your piety, son of Elkiah the provident."
"Perhaps I could spare something," said Glaucon, musingly.
"I do not doubt it," replied the Priest, "else you have not used well the office I have secured for you. And how goes farming the taxes?"
"Thanks to your favouring me at Antioch, my good Menelaos, I am in fair prospect, though we have not much gold in Jerusalem. The soldiers have gleaned everything that glittered. But I am getting hold of some estates, the heirs to which have either been killed or have joined the rebels, so that their titles revert to the King. For these he gives me fair commission.
"But there is one matter that puzzles me, Menelaos. Do you remember the house of Shattuck? It is now a score and a half years since that family disappeared from the city. Hosea ben Shattuck was a merchant in Sidon wares, his shop where the Street of David bends toward the Tyropean, his house the great one by the Tower of David. Report has it that he journeyed to Alexandria—took ship at Gaza—but he never returned. As Shattuck was unmarried there seems to be no one interested in chronicling his whereabouts. The property is now one of the largest on the tax list. I could secure the title for the value of a pedlar's pack. Among my father's accounts I found the evidence of Shattuck's indebtedness to the house of Elkiah in the sum of fivescore shekels, some little matter of business between them, such as my father would never press against a neighbor. Though he did not ask the repayment of it, he made record, as was his habit in all money matters. He would not exact usury from a fellow Jew, but with the usury such as our new customs allow it would amount to thrice as much as the original debt."
"Claim the property, the whole of it, or you are a fool for a Jew, much more for a Greek," said Menelaos eagerly.
"But if any heir should return?" queried Glaucon.
"But you said there was no heir."
"True, but one doesn't always know about such matters."
"Well, if there be, what then? On what ground could he make claim for restitution? All titles of absentees now rest with the King. The property, according to the last edict, will be confiscated. I can fix it at Antioch that your indebtedness will be recognized. One hundred? Make it a thousand. I myself will file claim, and vouch for it that your credit in the matter is worth the entire estate of Shattuck."
"You have great power with the King, my dear Menelaos."
"Power with the King? Why, I bought him when I bought my High Priesthood. You know that Jason, my brother, sent me to Antioch with six hundred talents to bribe the royal pleasure for his appointment to be High Priest. I appropriated the six hundred, added three hundred more to it, and bought the office for myself; and so outplayed the young trickster at his own game. Beside that, you recollect that it was I who gave Jerusalem to the King."
"How was that? I am not so well versed in state secrets as I should be," replied Glaucon.
"Why, when Jason, the Priest, came suddenly back from Egypt, hearing the false report that Antiochus had died, he threw me into the dungeon at Akra. To rescue me, and regain my conduct of affairs, the King sent his army and took the city. So without me the King would not have had it. No man, my dear friend, has had more to do with making the King's fortune than I. And he cannot dispense with me yet. But I must have some return for what I do for him—and for you. For my part in your business, Glaucon, I shall have what portion of the gain?"
"A third," said Glaucon, hesitating, and watching the face of his comrade.
"Make it half."
"The old greed, Menelaos. The same that always claimed the fattest bird we snared together when we were boys."
"Greed! A proper taunt from the lips of the son of Elkiah, indeed. Who secured for you your office of tax-farmer? And how many other estates have you tapped like a wine-skin to fill your own jars, of which you have told me nothing? Simon ben Shem wants to be tax-farmer in your stead. He has done as much for me as you have, and will pay me a higher rate for protection at Antioch."
"Forgive me, Menelaos," cried Glaucon, quivering before the Priest's gaze like a bird bewitched by the eyes of a snake. "I always bantered you for taking the largest game; but in the end, as you know, always let you have it. Let it be play between us."
"Good!" replied Menelaos. "And what news of the Greek who loved you so well that he split your skull with the discus?"
"I fear," said Glaucon, "that we will get no news from Dion. He was in command of a company sent from our city garrison, and not a man has returned. Poor Dion! Next to yourself, Menelaos, I never had a truer friend. Thorough Greek that he was, he seemed to have a love for our people. He knew the legends of Moses as well as he knew the stories of Homer, and I think he loved them better. The Lord rest his soul if we see him no more!"
"Amen!" said the Priest. "May Pluto give him a high place at his banquets, for Dion was a good roysterer. He was as faithful to your father as Æneas was to his. And he could not have searched the camps for your brother and sister more thoroughly had he been her lover. But farewell! The blessing of Jehovah, or Jove, or both, be with you, Glaucon; and the smile of the Princess. Farewell!"
"Jehovah, Jove, damn him," ejaculated Glaucon, as he threw himself upon the divan the High Priest had left. "It is bad enough for one like me to have turned against one's people, one's own house; but for a High Priest to become a heathen—High Devil! Faugh! Wine, Ajax! My purple himation! The large mirror! Some oil, here! Do the locks curl at the neck? Call the litter. I'll away to the Princess, and cast my bread—Ha! ha!"