XLVIII
A BROKEN SENTENCE FINISHED
General Agathocles recognized the magnanimity of Judas in granting him the alternative of remaining in Jerusalem under the honorable guard of Dion, or of joining his own people. He chose the latter course. Yet from day to day he postponed his departure. It was whispered that his fatherly affection and authority would ultimately win back his son from his Jewish allegiance; but a few, among them Jonathan, shook their heads at this.
At length the General must take up his journey.
"My son, it may be—but the gods forbid it—that we shall not meet again. I would always keep you in my mind as in a mirror. It will not be enough that I learn of your welfare, and your doings; I would make your very thoughts my own, and so live within your life, be it glad or sorrowful. You have revealed to me that much of your thought will be given to this woman you have learned to love. May she prove all that your partiality has dreamed her to be! But beware! We do not love our ideal, so much as we idealize what we love. I would see this woman, so that I may know more of yourself, since it is evident that her image moulds itself in you as a seal in wax. If I can see her, I will more plainly see you."
Together they sought the house of Elkiah. The outer door being ajar they entered the court without announcement, and without being observed by the actors in a scene at the moment transpiring. Dion would have advanced, but Agathocles laid his hand upon his arm and detained him.
The fountain statue of Aphrodite had been removed. The water shot up as of old in a thin shaft, and fell in spray upon the surface of the broad lower basin, glistening like the dust of gold in the morning sunshine. Beside the fountain in a great chair sat Gideon ben Sirach. Deborah was with him. The old man's eyes seemed enchanted by the play of the sparkling water. He extended his hands and clutched as if to hold the warmth of the sun that fell upon them. His features were drawn out of shape by the palsy. Dion thought of a house from which the occupant is about to remove, its furniture displaced, much of it already gone; for Sirach's face was empty of the old expression of his soul. It was evident that much of the meaning of his life, the furniture of his mind, had been removed even from his memory. Deborah sat upon a little bench, where Sirach's feet also rested. She took his withered hands, and rubbed them as if to impart to them some of her own vitality.
"You can hear to-day, Gideon?"
His eyes turned toward her, but his features were as immobile as a death-mask.
"You have no pain, Gideon? And God's own peace is with you? Yes, I can read it in your eyes. Judas is now lord of Jerusalem; do you understand? He bids me say that your master's property shall be sacredly kept until its rightful owner comes home. He and I will seek him. You hear, and understand? Gideon, you are an old man, and near to the life of the blessed. Let me put your hands upon my head, that the daughter of Elkiah may have the blessing of her father's friend. Here, by this very fountain, my father and your master have often sat in the years that are gone."
She bowed her head, and lifted Sirach's thin white fingers to her black hair. So white were they that they seemed like points of light, radiating the blessing they would impart.
Agathocles whispered to Dion: "Come away! This is no place for a stranger."
They walked far down the street before either of them spoke. At length Dion awoke his father from his reverie.
"You have seen her, father."
"There was never but one fairer woman," replied Agathocles. "Dion, with such a woman to love you, I could leave you willingly in Jerusalem or in the desert. Does she give you her favor? If so, here abide. If she will not love you, Dion, flee; flee with me—to the wars, over the seas, anywhere; and pray that the gods give you every day a drink from Lethe's waters of forgetfulness. That woman, my boy, will fill a man's heart or break it. Does she love you?"
"I would that I knew, father."
"Then find out, and at once. If so, stay here. Become a Jew, an Arab, or what she bids you. Her answer will make Jerusalem either Elysium or Tartarus for you."
"But," replied Dion, "I would that you knew her. I may not tell her that my father left the city without caring to speak a word with her. Though she love me not, I have been too intimate in the house of Elkiah for so unkindly a departure."
"It shall be as you say," replied the General. "What women these Jews have! Dion—but no—I will not say it; for what slips down from the lips never climbs back again. Let us go again to the house of Elkiah. An old Greek never loses his gallantry. If your heart fails you, Dion, I will pay my own homage at her feet. Does that prick you? Come."
When they re-entered the court, Deborah had risen. She stood by the chair, holding Sirach's hands and gazing closely into his eyes. Hearing footsteps, and supposing them to be those of the servants, she did not turn to look, but cried:
"Quick! Help! Sirach is stricken. See! His eyes do not follow one. I fear he is dead. Sirach! Gideon! Alas, he does not hear."
The two men drew near. Deborah, absorbed with the face that was growing rigid, and with the hands that were becoming as lead in her grasp, did not recognize the visitors. Agathocles startled her. Forgetting that he was a stranger, and caught by sudden emotion, he exclaimed:
"By all the gods! It is Sirach, servant of Shattuck! How came this man here? Dion, tell me, knew you this man?"
Then, the first surprise past, the General made his obeisance to Deborah, as Dion announced his name:
"My father, General Agathocles, begs to salute the daughter of Elkiah before he leaves the city."
Deborah rose. The gracefulness of her courtesy as she recognized her visitors matched her beauty. The Greek afterward said it was as fitting as the light is to the flame which emits it.
"You are welcome to our home, sir, both for your own sake and the sake of Dion. But do you know this good man whom God has just taken from us?"
"I knew him," replied the Greek, bowing beside the stiffening form. "I knew Gideon ben Sirach. And aye for a good man too."
He raised the deformed arm of the dead man, and pressed it to his lips. He drew up Sirach's loose sleeve, and looked long upon a terrible scar that lay among the shrivelled muscles. Then, speaking to himself, seemingly unaware that he was uttering his thoughts aloud:
"To this poor hand, good Gideon, do I not owe more than to any other, living or dead? These arms brought me my greatest treasure—the only treasure I would live for, or die for."
Then, raising his face as if to discern the spirit of Sirach hovering above his body, as it was believed by many in that age that newly departed spirits were loath to venture suddenly out upon the great unknown journey, and remained for a while near to their former house of clay—he said:
"Gideon, let me speak the gratitude that I have longed these years to tell into your living ears. Sirach! Alas, I have found him too late. My thanks, good lady, to all in this house that such a man came to no want in his last days."
Agathocles noted the surprise upon his son's face, and, looking anxiously from one to another, asked:
"Did Sirach ever tell his story in this house?"
"We know his story," replied Deborah. "Never was man more faithful to man than this man has been."
Agathocles took from her words more than she had meant.
"O Gideon! Gideon! why were not your lips stricken dumb before they had uttered it?"
He shook the dead body in anger. "Gideon, you gave me my boy. Why did you steal him away from me?"
He turned back and paced the court in his excitement. Suddenly he stopped before Dion.
"Now I know why you would be a Jew. It was because you knew that you are one. But I swear by all the gods! I swear by the memory of my sweet Agnes! Dion, you are mine. Sirach lied to you. Believe him not. Dion, you are my boy."
He held the young man fast as he would some captive seeking to escape.
"And ever shall be yours, my father," replied Dion.
"Father? Say it again, Dion. That is a sweet word from your lips—sweet as were the kisses of your mother. Swear to me, Dion, that not even Gideon's story shall separate us."
"I swear it by Sirach's corpse that you are my father, and ever shall be."
"Well, then"—taking Dion's cheeks between his hands—"then believe Sirach. He has spoken the truth."
"But this is strange," replied the young man. "Gideon mentioned not your name, father. He told us a story of Ctesiphon, the friend of one Nahum."
"He spake not my name at all? He told you not that Agathocles was not your father? Then, Gideon, you were faithful to me. But why, now, did not those still lips open and check mine before they had uttered the fatal words? But let it be so, since Dion is still my own."
"But who, then, was Ctesiphon, father?"
Agathocles stood a moment in thought. He then took Dion's arm and led him away.
"Come, my boy; this is no place for us. Pardon me, my lady; let us not intrude these matters of our privacy. We will come again, and take part in honoring Sirach in his burial."
But what change had come over the fair woman? As the Greek had seen her sitting by the side of the dead man, he noted how pale she was within the hood of her raven hair; how Niobe-like was her attitude. Now she was transformed, radiant; the blood tingeing her cheeks like sunshine on snow. Her lips seemed to be about to utter some passionate cry. Her hand clasped that of Dion.
There was another who saw this tableau and knew its meaning. Judas Maccabæus had entered the court at the moment, and, as his custom was, without heralding. He paused by the entrance. He took in at a glance all the scene,—and saw also some things which were not outwardly acted. Noting that he had been unobserved, he went silently out, and with bowed head tramped along the Street of David, through the Cheesemakers' Street, and out to the Hill of Ophel, where he sat long upon a ruined coping of the Gymnasium, and gazed down the Valley of Kedron, and over the slopes of the mountains of the Wilderness. But, as Meph, who had followed him, said to a comrade, "Judas looked, but he saw nothing."
Deborah had led her visitors into a room adjacent to the court. Here Agathocles narrated that part of Sirach's story which the old servant's sudden infirmity, many days before, had cut short.
"Ctesiphon! Well did Sirach give him praise. It was Ctesiphon who dared to plead for the Jews before the raging Ptolemy. It was he who, when the elephants were about to trample the Jews in the arena, went in among them, and dragged Nahum away.
"Nahum's daughter, Sara, was at the time concealed at my house. I had loved my neighbor's child alway, though we were of different races. After King Ptolemy's rage had abated—thanks chiefly to Ctesiphon's influence with the King—the Jews often came to my house when they visited their kinsman Nahum. Thus I often saw your father, Shattuck. He was a princely fellow; of wondrous gentility; and withal as much shrewdness as any of his race. My money I left with him, sure of its proper usury. He soon won the affection of Sara, and they were betrothed and wedded according to their nation's custom. The coming of Sara's child, and the death of Shattuck, her husband, were near together. The attempt upon little Gershom's life led me to take Sara and her babe to my home. To better protect her from unknown enemies I brought her to Macedonia. There she became my wife. She took the name of Agnes for better concealment of her identity. Her child Gershom she consented to call Dion. But this is no place to open the memories of a broken heart."
He rose to go away. Deborah besought him to remain.
"No, no!" he replied, and he passed into the street, leaving Dion to piece together the story as he might; or, if he cared, to begin his own life-story anew.
An hour later a horn sounded from the parapet of the house of Elkiah; for such was the custom of the Jews, that the passers-by might know that death was within the walls. They washed the body of Sirach, trimmed the hair and nails, and wrapped him in new white linen. They laid the form upon a bier. A rabbi came, and spoke words of eulogy over a faithful servant. Women entered the court, with dishevelled hair, and, to the accompaniment of flutes, chanted a weird mourning dirge, and cast dust of ashes toward the body.
About sunset a little procession emerged from the house. Ephraim would have taken the position of chief mourner, as befitted his condition at a fellow-servant's burial; but Agathocles displaced him, and walked nearest to the bier. Dion went by his side.
Thus they buried Gideon ben Sirach on the slope of the vale of Jehoshaphat, in the family tomb of the house of Shattuck—for so Dion, now Gershom ben Shattuck, ordered it to be.