He threw himself down by the still figure.
Julian of Ephesus, now the presumptive Philadelphus Maccabaeus, rode up the broad brown bosom of a hill that had confronted him for miles to the south, and the sun had sloped until its early spring rays struck level from the west. At the summit, he drew up his horse suddenly with a quick intaking of the breath.
Below him lay Jerusalem.
South and east the barren summits of brown hills shaped a depression in which the city lay. North, clean-white and regular, the wall of Agrippa was printed against the cold blue of the sky. Below on three lesser mounts and overflowing the vales between was the goodliest city in all Asia.
About it and through it climbed such walls, planted on such bold natural escarpment, that made it the most inaccessible fortification in the world. On its highest hill stood a vision of marble and gold–a fortress in gemstone–the Temple. Behind it towered Roman Antonia. Westward the Tyropean Bridge spanned a deep, populous ravine. The high broad street upon which the giant causeway terminated was marked by the solemn cenotaphs of Mariamne and Phaselis and ended against the Tower of Hippicus–a vast and unflinching citadel of stone. Under the shadow of this pile was the high place of the Herods; in sight was a second Herodian palace. South was the open space of the great markets; near the southernmost segment of the outer wall was the semicircular Hippodrome. Cut off from its neighbor by ancient walls were Ophlas, overlooking Tophet and under the shadow of the Temple; Mount Zion which the Lord had established, Akra of the valley, Moriah, the Holy Hill, and Coenopolis or Bezetha which Agrippa I had walled. About the immense outer fortifications crawled the shadowy valleys of Tophet, of Brook Kedron and of Hinnom. Thickly scattered like fallen patches of skies the pools of Siloam, Gihon, Shiloh, En-Rogel, the Great Pool, the Serpent's Pool and the Dragon's Well reflected the color of the mountain heavens. Between them wandered the blue threads of certain aqueducts that supplied them. Everywhere rose the shafts of monuments and memorials, old as the pride of Absalom, new as the folly of the Herods; everywhere the aggressive paganism of Rome and Greece, which would have paganized this monotheistic race out of very rancor against its uprightness, violated with insolent beauty the hieratic severity of the city's face. Rich, bold, strong, beautiful, Jerusalem was at that hour, as viewed from the hill to the north, the perfection of beauty and the joy of the whole earth.
For a moment ambition struggled nobly in the breast of the man that overlooked it. Except for the obstacles he had placed in his own way by his misdeeds, Julian of Ephesus at that moment might have become great. But he had struck down his kinsman on the way, and such deeds were remembered even in war-ridden Judea; he had come to Jerusalem wearing his kinsman's name that he might despoil that kinsman's bride of her dowry; a hundred other crimes of his commission stood in the way to peace and success.
But about him the Passover pilgrims, catching their first glimpse of the Holy City, gave way to the storm of emotion that had gradually gathered as they drew near to the threatened City of Delight.
It had moved him to look upon this most majestic fortification, embattled and begirt for resistance against the most majestic nation in the world. But he who came as a stranger could not feel within him the tenderness of old love, the sanctity of old tradition, and the desperation of kin in his blood as he gazed upon Jerusalem. Yonder was a roof-garden; to him, no more than that. But the inspired Jews beside him knew that in that place the sun of noon had shone upon Bathsheba, the beautiful; and in that neighboring high place the heart of the Singing King had melted; to the north was a stretch of monotonous ground overgrown with a new suburb; but that was the camp of Sennacherib, the Assyrian whom the Angel of the Lord smote and his army of one hundred and four score and five thousand, before the morning. Yonder were squalid streets, older than any others. But the Kings had walked them; the Prophets had helped wear trenches in their stones; the heroes and the strong-hearted women of the ancient days had gone that way. No house but was holy with tradition; no street but was sanctified by event. Small wonder, then, that these who came to this Passover, the most momentous one since that calamity which had occurred forty years ago on Golgotha, wept, cried aloud to Heaven; became beatified and made prophecies; railed; anathematized Jerusalem's enemies; assumed vows and were threatening. Julian of Ephesus was shaken. He looked about him on the tempestuous host, then touched his horse and rode down to the city.
On the Hill Scopus over which he approached an inferior number of Romans were camped, and these had maintained a semblance of siege only sufficiently effective to close all the gates on three sides. The Sun Gate to the south of the city was therefore the most accessible point of entry for the pilgrims. Following the people who had preceded him, Julian approached this portal, left his horse with the stable-keeper without and prepared to enter Jerusalem.
Collecting at the causeway of the Sun Gate the pilgrims came with such impetus that the foremost were rushed struggling and protesting through the tunnel under the wall and forced well into Jerusalem before they could control their own motion. Once within, the host spread out so that one looking at the immense space they instantly covered wondered how so great a mass ever passed through the circumscribed limits of a fifty-foot gate. At times stopping was impossible. Again there were momentary lulls, as when the sea recoils upon itself and is stilled for an instant. They who stood to watch, wearied of days of such invasion, unconsciously wished that the interval might endure till they could rest their number-wearied brains. But, as if the stagnation were the result of congestion somewhere without the walls, when the wave returned it came with redoubled height and power and the Sun Gate would roar with the noise of their entry.
After the Ephesian had been swept in with his own company of pilgrims, he saw that which even few of the new-comers had expected to see. The immediate vicinity of the gate was laid waste. Up Mount Zion opposite Hippicus and along the margin of the Tyropean Valley where the Herodian and Sadducean palaces had seemed so fair from the north were great blackened shells of walls and leaning pillars, partly buried in ruin and rubbish. Far and wide the streets were littered with debris and charred fragments of burned timbers. At another place on the breast of Zion was a chaos of rock where a mansion had been literally pulled down. Somewhere near Akra pale columns of pungent, wind-blown smoke still rose from a colossal heap of fused matter that the Ephesian could not identify. About it were neglected houses; not a sign of festivity was apparent; windows hung open carelessly; the hangings in colonnades were stripped away entirely or whipped loose from the fastenings and abandoned to the winds. Numbers of dwellings appeared to have been sacked; others were so closely barred and fortified that their exteriors appeared as inhospitable as jails.
Confusion prevailed on the smoked and untidy marble Walk of the Purified leading down from the Temple. Here those who held fast to the Law met and contested for their old exclusiveness with wild heathen Idumean soldiers, starvelings, ruffians and strange women from out-lying towns. Far and wide were wandering crowds, surly, defiant, discourteous, exacting. Manifestly it was the visitors who were the aggressors. They had been overthrown and driven from their own into an unsubjugated city which was secure. They felt the rage of the defeated which are not subdued, and the resentment against another's unearned immunity. The citizens of Jerusalem had not welcomed them and they were enraged. Half a dozen fights of more or less seriousness were in sight at once. A column of black wiry men in some semblance of uniform pushed across the open space toward the Essene Gate. They took no heed for any in their path. Those who could not escape were overturned and trampled on. Meeting a rush at the gate they drew swords and coolly hacked their way through screams of fear and pain and amazement. After them went a wave of curses and complaint. Citizens against the visitors; visitors against the citizens; soldiers against them all!
"And this cousin of mine meant to pacify all this!" the Ephesian exclaimed to himself.
Jerusalem, that had for fifteen hundred years adorned herself at this time with tabrets and had gone forth in the dance of them that make merry, was drunken with wormwood and covered with ashes.
All at once the Ephesian saw four soldiers standing together and with them, manifestly under their protection, was a Greek of striking beauty. He wore on his fine head a purple turban embroidered with a golden star.
Without a moment's hesitation, the Ephesian approached. The spears of the four soldiers fell and formed a barrier around the Greek. The new-comer smiled confidently.
"Greeting, servant of Amaryllis," he said. "I am your lady's expected guest."
The Greek came forth from the square formed by his guard.
"I am that servant of Amaryllis," he said courteously. "But show me yet another sign."
The Ephesian drew from his bosom the Maccabaean signet and flashed its blue fires at the Greek. The servant stepped hastily between the soldiers and the new-comer.
"Thy name?" he asked in a whisper.
"I am Philadelphus Maccabaeus."
The servant bent and taking the hem of the woolen tunic pressed it to his lips.
"Happy hour!" he exclaimed. "I pray you follow me."
The pretender breathed a relieved sigh and joined his protector.
They passed down into Akra and approached the straight column of pungent smoke towering up from a charred heap that the Ephesian in spite of his haste inspected curiously.
"What is that?" he asked of the Greek.
"That, master, is the city granaries."
"The granaries!" the Ephesian cried, aghast.
The Greek inclined his head.
"What–what–fired them?" the Ephesian asked.
"John and Simon differed on the point of its control and each fired it to keep the other from possessing it!"
For a moment the Ephesian was thunderstruck. Then he quickened his pace.
"By the horns of Capricornus!" he avowed. "The sooner one gets out of this, the wiser he must be counted!"
The Greek looked at him with lifted brows and led on.
They crossed the Tyropean Valley and approached a small new house of stone, abutting the vast retaining wall that was built against Moriah. A line of soldiers was thrown out from the entrance to the house and his conductor, after whispering a word to the captain, led the way up to a double-barred door. A long time after he had rapped, there was the sound of falling chains and the door swung open. A second Greek servant of no less beauty bowed the new-comer and his companion within. The noise of the streets was suddenly cut off. Soft dusk and quiet proved that the doors of Amaryllis had been shut upon unhappy Jerusalem.
The second servant drew a cord and a roller of matting lifted and showed a skylight. Philadelphus the pretender was in the andronitis of a Greek house.
It was typical. None but a Greek with the purest taste had planned it. Walls and pavement were of unpolished marble, lusterless white. A marble exedra built in a semicircle sat in the farther end, facing a chair wholly of ivory set beside a lectern of dull brass. At either end of the exedra on a pedestal formed by the arms, a brass staff upheld a flat lamp that cast its luster down on the seat by night. Against an opposite wall built at full length of the hall, was a pigeonholed case, which was stacked with brass cylinders. This was the library of the Greek. At a third side was a compound arch concealed by a heavy white curtain. There were low couches spread with costly white material which were used when Amaryllis set her table in her andronitis, and at the arches leading into the interior of the house there were draperies. But the chamber, with all its richness, had a splendid emptiness that made it imposing, not luxurious.
After a single admiring survey of the hall in which he had been left alone, the pretended Philadelphus fortified himself against his most critical test.
Without a sound, without even so much as the rustling of a garment to announce her, a woman emerged from a passage leading into the interior of the house. He confronted the only person in Jerusalem who might know him as an impostor.
The woolen chiton of her countrywomen draped a figure almost too slender, yet perfect in its delicate modeling. Though her eyes were black, her hair was fair and brilliant with a wash of gold powder. Her features were Hellenic, cold, pure and classic, and for all her youth and beauty there was an atmosphere about her of middle-age, immense experience, and old sagacity.
The pretender braced himself for the scrutiny the eyes made of him.
"You are that Philadelphus, as my servant tells me?" she asked.
"I am he."
She inclined her head.
"Welcome; in the name of all the need of you!"
After a silence he came closer and lifted her hand to his lips. He added nothing, but presently raised his eyes softened with feeling and unexpressed appreciation.
"Certainly you have suffered, lady," he said finally in a subdued tone. "But please God you will not suffer alone hereafter."
Amaryllis' non-committal front changed.
"You are gentler of speech than is common among the Maccabees," she said.
"Nevertheless the Maccabees are the more touched by devotion," he maintained.
He led her to the exedra, unslung his wallet and laid it on the lectern before them.
"When thou hast leisure, perchance thou wilt find interest in these papers here."
She thanked him and there was a moment's silence. Under his lashes the impostor saw that he had not filled her fancied picture of the Maccabee made from long years of correspondence. She was disappointed; her intuition was perplexed. He would complete his work and get away in time.
"My wife is here?" he asked.
"She came yesterday," Amaryllis responded, clapping her hands in summons. A female servant of such prepossessing appearance that Philadelphus looked at her again, bowed in the archway.
"Send hither the princess," Amaryllis said.
"The princess," Philadelphus repeated to himself. "Then, by Ate, I am the prince!"
"While we wait," Amaryllis continued, "let us talk of details which you may not have patience to hear after she comes. Jerusalem, as you have learned, is in grave danger–"
"Jerusalem should fear the Roman army less than herself. I have seen its disease."
"The citizens will hail Titus as a deliverer. But this week's ceremonies are bringing us disaster. Should Titus be forced to lay siege about us, how shall we feed this multitude of a million on the supplies gathered for only a third of that number?"
"Gathered and burned."
"Even so. But of your creature comforts. My house is open to your chief enemy. It must be so. You must be hidden–not concealed, but disguised. You know my weakness for people of charm and people of ability. My house is full of them. The master of this place is indulgent; he permits me to add to my collection whatever pleases me in the way of society. Therefore, you are come as a student of this wonderful drama to be enacted in Jerusalem presently. You may live under part of your name. Substitute, however, your city for your surname. Be Philadelphus of Ephesus. No one then will question your presence here.
"I have bound to me by oath and by fear one hundred Idumeans who will rise or fall with you. They are of John's own army and alienated to you without his knowledge. Hence they are in armor and ready at any propitious moment. This house is provisioned and equipped for siege; everything is prepared."
"At what cost, my Amaryllis?" he asked tenderly.
She drew away from him quickly, as if his tone had touched a place of deeper disappointment.
"That I do not remember. I am your minister; you need no other. More than the one would be multiplying chances for betrayal."
"And what wilt thou have out of all this for thyself?" he asked.
Slowly she turned her face back to him.
"I would have it said that I made a king," she said.
There was a step in the corridor leading into the andronitis, and, smiling, Amaryllis rose. Philadelphus got upon his feet and looked to catch the first glimpse of the woman who was bringing him two hundred talents.
A woman entered the hall. Behind her came a servant bearing a shittim-wood casket.
Had Amaryllis been looking for suspicious signs, she would have observed in the intense silence that fell, in the arrested attitude of the pair, more than a natural embarrassment. Any one informed that these were a pair of impostors would have seen that there was no confusion here, but amazement, chagrin and no little fear.
Instead, Amaryllis, nothing suspecting, glanced from one set face to the other and laughed.
"Poor children! Married fourteen years and more than strangers to each other! I will take myself off until you recover."
She signed to the servant to follow her and passed out of the hall.
Philadelphus then put off his stony quiet and gazed wrathfully at the woman who had entered.
Hers was a fine frame, broad and square of shoulder, tall and lank of hip as some great tiger-cat, and splendid in its sinuosity. She had walked with a long stride and as she dropped into the chair she crossed her limbs so that her well-turned ankles showed and the hands she clasped about her knees were long and strong, white and remarkably tapering. Her features were almost too perfect; her beauty was sensuous, insolent and dazzling. Withal her presence intimated tremendous primal charm and the mystery of undiscovered potentialities. And she was royal! No mere upstart of an impostor could have assumed that perfect hauteur, that patrician bearing.
But the pretended Philadelphus was not impressed by this beauty.
"How now, Salome?" he demanded. "What play is this?"
The Ephesian actress motioned toward the shittim-wood casket.
"For that," she said calmly.
Her voice became, instantly, her foremost charm. It was a deep voice; the profoundest contralto with an illimitable strength in suggestion.
"Where is–what is that?"
"Two hundred talents."
Philadelphus took a step toward her.
"What!" he exclaimed evilly. "Whose two hundred talents?"
"Mine."
There was silence in which the man's fingers bent, as if he felt her throat between them. Then he recovered himself.
"But–this woman–where is she?"
The actress lifted her shapely shoulders.
"Where is the Maccabee?" she asked in return.
He made no answer.
"Did you get that treasure here–since yesterday?" he asked at last querulously.
"No, by Pluto! I got it in the hills near to Emmaus. You would have had it in another day." She laughed impudently, in spite of the murderous blackening in his face.
"Then, since you are such a shrewd thief, why did you come here at all, since you had the gold?" he demanded, astonished in spite of his rage.
She waved a pair of jeweled hands.
"They said that the Maccabee was strong and ambitious and forceful, that he would be king over Judea. Knowing you, I believed he would still come to Jerusalem in spite of you. How did you do it? In his sleep? Now, I," she continued with an assumption of concern, "failed in that detail. She was guarded by a monster. I could not get near her. But I got the casket."
"She will come here then!" Philadelphus exclaimed.
"What of it! Amaryllis does not know her; no one else does. And I have her proofs–and her dowry!"
After a silence in which she read the expression on his face, she rose and came near him with determination in her manner.
"You will have the wisdom not to recognize her," she said, "lest I suddenly discover that you are not the Philadelphus I expected."
He made rapid survey of her advantage over him, and submitted.
"But there will be no need of waiting for such an issue," he fumed, after a silence. "I am here and not the Maccabee, whose crown you coveted. We shall get out of this perilous city."
"So?" she said, lifting her finely penciled brows. "No, we shall not."
"Why?" he stormed.
"Because," she answered, "John of Gischala may yet be king of Judea–and John hath a queen's diadem for sale at two hundred talents–or a heart which I can have for nothing."
There was malevolent and impotent silence in the andronitis of Amaryllis, the Greek.
They who stood on the wall by the Tower of Psephinos in Coenopolis of Jerusalem on a day in March, 70 A.D., saw prophecy fulfilled.
Since the hour in which the Roman eagles had appeared above the horizon to the west in their circling over the rebellious province of Judea there had not been one day of peace. Then their coming had meant the approach of an enemy. But in a short time such implacable and fierce oppressors, with such genius for ferocity and bloodshed, had developed among the Jews' own factions that the miserable citizens had turned to the tyrant Rome for rescue. They who had risen against Florus and had driven him out would have willingly accepted him again in place of Simon bar Gioras and John of Gischala, before two years had elapsed. Now, their plight was so desperate that they clambered daily upon the walls of their unhappy city to look for the first glimpse of the approaching enemy, Titus, whom they had learned to call the Deliverer.
Near noon of this day in March certain citizens on the wall beside Hippicus saw a flash down the road to the west beyond the Serpent's Pool near Herod's monuments. Again they saw it and again, until they observed that its appearance was rhythmic, striking through a soft colored cloud of Judean dust.
Out of that yellow haze, rolling nearer, they saw now the glittering Roman standards emerge, one by one; saw the spiky level of shouldered spears; saw the shapes of horses, saw the shapes of men; heard the soft thunder of six hundred horse on the packed earth, heard the music of six hundred whetting harnesses; heard like a tender, far-off song the winding of a Roman bugle and heard then in their own hearts, the shout: "He has come! The Deliverer!"
It was the hour of the City's last hope.
On the near side of the Pool of the Serpent, they saw the body of horse break into a light trot and, wheeling in that fine concord in which even the dumb beasts were perfect, turn the broadside of the splendid column to Jerusalem as it swept up Hill Gareb to the north.
The citizens clambered down from the wall by Hippicus and, speeding silently but with moving lips and shining eyes through alleys and byways, came finally to an angle in Agrippa's wall that stood out toward Gareb. Here was built the Tower of Psephinos. Dumb and callous as beasts to the blows and commands of the sentries there mounted, the citizens clambered up on the fortifications and, with their chins on the battlements that stood shoulder-high, gazed avidly at the sight they saw.
Scattered confidently over the uneven country the six hundred had broken file and were in easy disarray all over Gareb. Spears were at rest, standards grounded, many were dismounted, whole companies slouched in their saddles. The Jews, long used to rigid military discipline among the Romans, looked in amazement. Then a light click of a hoof attracted their attention to the bridle-path immediately under the overhanging battlements.
There a solitary horseman rode. Not a scale of armor was upon his horse; not a weapon, not even a shield depended from his harness. His head was uncovered and a sheeny purple fillet showed in the tumbled, dusty black hair. There was no guard on the hand that held the bridle; the cloak that floated from his shoulders was white wool; the tunic was the simple light garment that soldiers usually wear under armor; the shoes alone were mailed. It seemed that the young Roman had stripped off his helmet, breast-plate and greaves to ride less encumbered or to appear less warlike.
But the Jews who looked at him understood. Here was Titus come in peace!
The horse went with loosened rein, while the young Roman's eyes raised to the great wall towering over him had more of admiration and a generous foe's appreciation of his enemy's strength than of the note-making search of a spy in them.
"Ha! By Hector, that penurious Herod was a builder!" they seemed to say. "There is enough stone insolence in these walls to trouble Rome for a while!"
Rod after rod of the slowly rising ground he traversed; rod after rod of the tall fortification passed under his inspection, and now the twin Women's Towers rose upon the ashes and scarped rock to the north.
Titus spoke to his horse and rode faster.
Meanwhile silent dozens climbed panting and dumbly resisting the sentries up beside the first Jews. They were citizens who dared not rejoice aloud. They followed the young Roman with brightened eyes, saying each within his heart:
"Thus David came up against Saul, unto Israel!"
But there was an increase of uproar in the city below, as if news of the coming of Titus had spread abroad.
Titus was now almost a mile from the nearest of his soldiers. He passed the Gate of the Women's Towers. Hedges, gardens, ditches and wind-breaks of cedars of Lebanon from time to time obscured him. When he came in sight again, he had placed obstruction between himself and retreat.
The next instant the Gate of the Women's Towers swung in. Out of it rushed a sortie of motley soldiery, brandishing weapons and shouting the war-cries of Simon and John.
The citizens on the walls pressed their hands to their temples and watched, transfixed with horror. Jerusalem's defenders had gone out against the Deliverer!
The attack had been seen by the disorganized troops on Gareb and the rapid trumpet-calls showed formation. But between the time of their movement and the moment of their relief a company could have been unhorsed. Meanwhile Titus, with nothing less than Fate preserving him for its own work, dodged javelins and, enraging the white stallion that he rode, kept out of reach of hand-to-hand encounter with his assailants. Back and forward he rode, his horse carrying him at times out of range of missiles; again, all but surrounded by the unorganized enemy. About his head whizzed axes and spears, wild, and frequently slaying their own. Far up the slope of Gareb the six hundred gathered itself and swept in mass down upon the conflict.
Between them and Titus lay two furlongs. To join his column with all honor to himself, he had to work back over the wadies he had crossed and circle the gardens that stood in his way. But a hedge pressed too close upon the space he must pass, between it and the enemy, before he could return to his men. An ax glanced beside his ear; he wavered in his saddle. Then, that happened which a Roman of that day could not be forced to do and forget.
Titus wheeled his horse and, plunging his spurs into its sides, fled on into the open country to the north, with the jeers of the men of Simon and John following him.
His troops rushed down upon his assailants. But the wary soldiers turned when the Roman had fled and the Gate of the Women's Towers closed upon them.
Up from the visitors within the wall rose a shout:
"A sign, a sign! An omen! Thus shall the children of God overthrow the heathen in battle!"
But one of the Jews on the wall thrust his fingers under his turban and seized his hair.
"Jerusalem is fallen! Woe! Woe to the wicked city!"
He turned in his place and leaped a good twenty feet to the ground. When he raised himself the look of a maniac had settled on his face. Tearing his garments from him as he went, he entered a narrow street that made its ascent toward Zion by steps and cobbled slants. Here he came upon great crowds of terror-stricken citizens who had rushed together as the news spread abroad over Jerusalem that the men of Simon and John had gone out against the Deliverer. No definite news of the outcome of the sortie had reached them and they were moving in a dense pack down toward the walls to hear the worst. The whole hurrying mass seemed to vibrate with suspense and dread. The maniac met them.
"Woe, woe to Jerusalem!" he cried.
A lean, apish, half-naked, lash-scarred idiot in the street, instantly, as if in echo to that mad cry, shouted in a voice of the most prodigious volume:
"A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the Holy house, a voice against the bridegrooms and the brides and a voice against this whole people!"
The temper of the crowd had reached that point of tension that needed only a little more strain to become panic. Some one received the discordant cries of the maniacs with piercing rapid screams. Instantly the choked passage filled with frantic uproar. Scores attempting to flee blindly trampled over those transfixed with fear. They fought, men with women, youths with old age, children with one another. Hundreds attracted by the tumult rushed in on the panic and added fresh victims and new death. Out of the horror rose the fearful cries of the madmen:
"Woe, woe to this wicked city!"
Meanwhile, the soldiers of Simon and John came to prevent citizens from gathering in bodies, and with sword and spear drove into the struggle and added murder to it all. The spirit of terror then issued out of that bloody alley and seized upon street by street. Far and wide the tumult ran, growing in volume with every accession, until the raging and humiliated Titus, among his six hundred, heard Jerusalem howl like a beaten slave and hushed his pagan curses to listen.
Late that same afternoon, the Esquiline Gate, inaccessible, despised and sealed, was broken open from within and under it and down its difficult and dangerous approach poured a silent multitude, numbering thousands. They were abandoning the Rock of David to its fate. Among them went the last remnants of that sect of Christians who had tarried long after their brethren had been warned away, hoping against hope.
They were not missed among the numbers in Jerusalem, for the Passover hosts still poured through the gates to the south and took their places in the unhappy city. And with these that same afternoon Laodice and her old servant came into Jerusalem.
It was the eighth day after they had applied to the priest at Emmaus whither they had fled in their search for the frosts, a good three leagues north of the direct road to Jerusalem. They had stopped at the Lavatory outside the walls, washed themselves and had purchased the white garments of the purified. Old Momus carried with him the price of the lambs, of the fine flour and the oil for their cleansing and the two were ready to present themselves for their purification at the Temple. But all the roar and disorder of the great city in its warfare and its discord confused them. Ascalon had not a thousandth part of this turmoil at its busiest season. Neither was there a servant in a purple turban with the gold star to meet them and they were bewildered and lost.
The rest of the visitors to the Passover hurried into the heart of the city; wave after wave of new-comers replaced them; but the young woman and her dumb old servant stood aside just within reach of the shadow of the immemorial portal and waited.
Time and again wolfish Idumean soldiers who were numerous about the place noted the pair and commented to one another or spoke insolently to the shrinking girl who hid ineffectually behind her veil. Hour after hour they stood with growing distress and no friendly face in all that army of hurrying, restless, quarreling Jews welcomed them.
The afternoon waned. Laodice thought of the darkness and trembled.
An old man fumbling a talisman of bone drew near them. Laodice took courage and approached him.
"I pray thee, sir, I seek Amaryllis, the Seleucid."
The old man turned large, grave eyes upon her.
"Daughter, what dost thou know of this woman?" he asked.
"My husband knows her; I do not. I am to join him under her roof."
The old man looked reassured.
"Follow this street unto one intersecting it on the summit of Zion. That will be a broad street and a straight one, terminating on a bridge. Go thence to the hither side of that bridge, pass down the ravine and cross to the other side against Moriah. There thou shalt see a new Greek house. It is the residence of Amaryllis."
Laodice thanked her informant and began the pursuit of the cloudy directions to her destination. Twice before she brought up at the sentry line before the house of the Seleucid, she asked further of other citizens. Many times she met affront, once or twice she perilously escaped disaster. At last, near sunset, she stood before the dwelling-place of the one secure citizen of the Holy City.
A sentry dropped his spear across her path and she had not the countersign to give him. There she and her helpless old attendant stood and looked hopelessly at the refuge denied them.
Presently a man appeared in the colonnade across the front of the house and descending to the sentry line called to him the officer in command. They stood within a few paces of Laodice and she heard the soldier address the man as John, and heard him deliver a report of the day.
When the soldier withdrew to his place, Laodice stepped forward and called to the Gischalan. He stopped, noted that she was beautiful and waited.
"I would speak with the Lady Amaryllis," she hesitated.
"Have you the countersign?" he asked.
"No; else I should have entered. But Amaryllis will know me."
"Enter then," the Gischalan said.
In a moment she was admitted at the solid doors and led into a vestibule. Here, a porter took charge of Momus and showed him into a side passage, while Laodice followed her conductor through a corridor into an interior hall of splendid simplicity. Lounging on an exedra was a young woman in a woolen chiton, barefoot and trifling with the Greek ampyx that bound her golden hair.
Laodice put up her veil and looked with hurrying heart at her hostess. Before she could get a preliminary idea of the woman she was to meet, John spoke lightly:
"Be wearied no longer. I have brought you a mystery–a stranger, without the countersign, asking audience with you."
"Go back to the fortress," the young woman answered. "Sometime you will find strangers awaiting you there, also without the password. You will lose Jerusalem trifling with me. I have spoken!"
John filliped her ear as he passed through into a corridor which must have led into the Temple precincts. Under the light, Laodice saw that he was a middle-aged Jew, not handsome, but luxuriant with virility. His face showed great ability with no conscience, and force and charm without balance or morals. Here, then, thought Laodice, is the first of Philadelphus' enemies.
The idler in the exedra, meanwhile, was awaiting the speech of her visitor.
"Art thou she whom I seek?" Laodice asked. "Amaryllis, the Seleucid?"
"I am called by that name."
"I was bidden," Laodice continued, "by one whom we both know, to seek asylum with thee."
"So? Who may that be?"
Laodice whispered the name.
"Philadelphus Maccabaeus."
The Greek's eyes took on a puzzled look. Then she surveyed the girl and as a full conception of the beauty of the young creature before her formed in the Greek's mind, the perplexity left her expression. Her air changed; a subtle smile played about her lips.
"He sent you to me for protection?"
"Until he arrives in Jerusalem," Laodice assented.
"But he is already here."
It was the moment that Laodice had avoided fearfully ever since she had gathered from that winsome stranger by the roadside that his companion was her husband. Although, after that fact had been made known to her, she had felt that she ought to join Philadelphus and proceed with him to the Holy City, she had endured the exposure of the hills, the want and discomfort of insufficient supplies and the affronts of wayfarers, that she might spare herself as long as possible her union with the unsafe man who had become even more hateful by comparison with the one who had called himself Hesper.
"Perchance thou wilt lead me to him," Laodice said finally.
Amaryllis made no immediate answer. It would have been a natural impulse for her to wish to inquire for the girl's business with the man that the Greek as hostess was expected to conceal. But Amaryllis had her own explanation for this visit. It had been plain to less observant eyes than hers that the newly arrived Philadelphus was not delighted with the bride he had met.
The Greek summoned a servant.
"Go summon thy master, Prisca; and haste. I doubt not I have for him a sweet relief."
The woman bowed.
"If it please thee, madam, the master is without in the vestibule, returning from the city." Amaryllis signed to the ivory chair before her.
"Sit, lady," she said to Laodice. "He will come at once."
The young woman dropped into the seat and gazed wistfully at her hostess. Instinctively, she knew that in this woman was no relief from the darkened life she was to lead with her husband. The Greek's face, palely lighted by a thoughtful smile, vanished in sudden darkness. Laodice saw instead an image of a strong intent face, brightening under the sunrise, saw it relax, soften, grow inexpressibly kind, then pass, as a tender memory taking leave for ever.
She was brought to herself by the Greek's rising suddenly. The Ephesian appeared at the arch, tossing mantle and kerchief to the porter as he entered. Laodice rose to her feet with difficulty. It was he, indeed!
He was kissing Amaryllis' hand. The Greek was smiling an accusing, conscious smile. She indicated Laodice. The Ephesian's face showed startlement, suspicion and a quick recovery. He bowed low and waited for explanation.
"Then I will go," Amaryllis said with amusement in her eyes, "if you are acting pretenses for my sake."
Amaryllis the Greek.
She turned toward the arch which led into the interior of the house. The pretender glanced again at Laodice and again at the Greek.
"What is the play, lady?" he asked.
Amaryllis looked at Laodice standing stony white at her place, and lost her confident smile.
"Is this not he?" she asked.
"Is this Philadelphus Maccabaeus?" Laodice asked.
The Ephesian's face changed quickly. Enlightenment mixed with discomfiture appeared there for an instant.
"I am he," he said evenly.
"Then," Laodice said, "I am she whom thou hast expected."
Philadelphus smiled and dropped his head as if in thought.
"One always expects the pleasurable," he essayed, "but at times one does not recognize it when it comes. Who art thou, lady?"
"Pestilence, war and the evil devices of men have desolated me," she said coldly. "I have only a name. I am Laodice."
"Laodice!" he repeated amiably. "A familiar name; eh, Amaryllis?"
Laodice waited. Philadelphus looked again at her and appeared to wait.
"I am Laodice," the girl repeated, a little disconcerted, "thy wife."
"So!" Philadelphus exclaimed.
There was such well-assumed astonishment in the exclamation that she raised her eyes quickly to his face. There was another expression there; one wholly incredulous.
"Now did I in the profligacy of mine extreme youth marry two Laodices?" he said. "For another Laodice, wife to me, joined me some days since."
Laodice gazed at him without comprehending.
"I say," he repeated, "that my wife Laodice joined me some time ago."
"Why, I–I am Laodice, daughter to Costobarus, and thy wife!" she exclaimed, while her eyes fixed upon him the full force of her astonishment.
He turned to Amaryllis.
"What labyrinth is this, O my friend," he asked, "in which thou hast set my feet?"
"I do not know," Amaryllis laughed suddenly. "Call the princess."
Philadelphus summoned a servant and instructed her to bring his wife. For a short space the three did not speak, though Laodice's lips parted and she stroked her forehead in a bewildered way.
Then Salome, late actress in the theaters at Ephesus, came into the hall. Amaryllis bowed to her and the impostor gave her a chair. He turned to Laodice and with the faintest shadow of a grimace motioned toward the new-comer.
"This," he said, "is Laodice, daughter of Costobarus."
Laodice blazed at the insolent beauty who stared at her with curious eyes.
"That!" she cried. "The daughter of Costobarus!"
The fine brown eyes of the woman smoldered a little, but she continued to gaze without the least discomposure.
"Who is this, sir?" she asked of Philadelphus.
"That," said Philadelphus evenly, to the actress, "is Laodice, daughter of Costobarus."
"I do not understand," the actress said disgustedly. "You are clumsy, Philadelphus, when you are playful. If this is all, I shall return to my chamber."
She rose, but Laodice sprang into her path.
"Hold!" she cried. "Philadelphus, hast thou accepted this woman without proofs?"
Philadelphus smiled and shook his head.
"And by the by," he asked, "what proof have you?"
Up to that moment Laodice had burned with confident rage, feeling that, by force of the justice of her cause, she might overthrow this preposterous villainy, but at Philadelphus' question she suddenly chilled and blanched and shrank back. A new and supreme disadvantage of her loss presented itself to her at last. She could not prove her identity!
Meanwhile, seeing Laodice falter, the woman's lip curled.
"Weak! Very weak, Philadelphus," she said. "You must invent something better. The success of a jest is all that pardons a jester."
"She robbed me!" Laodice panted impotently. "Robbed me, after my father had given her refuge!"
"Of what?" the Greek asked.
"My proofs–and two hundred talents!"
"Lady," the actress said to Amaryllis, "my husband's emissary, Aquila, was a pagan. He had with him, on our journey, this woman and her old deformed father who fled when the plague broke out among us. She hoped, I surmise, that we should all die on the way. Even Samson gave up secrets to Delilah, and this Aquila was no better than Samson."
Oriental fury fulminated in the eyes of Laodice. Philadelphus, fearing that she was about to spring at the throat of her traducer, sprang between the two women. In his eyes shone immense admiration at that moment.
There was an instant of critical silence. Then Laodice drew herself up with a sudden accession of strength.
"Madam," she said coldly to Amaryllis, "with-hold thy judgment a few days. I shall send my servant back to Ascalon for other proof. He can go safely, for he has had the plague."
Philadelphus started; the actress flinched.
"Friend," Philadelphus said in his smooth way, "I came upon this woman by the wayside in the hills. I and a wayfarer cast a coin for possession of her–and the other man won. Give thyself no concern."
Laodice flung her hands over her face and shrank in an agony of shame down upon the exedra. Amaryllis looked down on her bowed head.
"Is it true?" she asked. After a moment Laodice raised herself.
"God of Israel," she said in a low voice, "how hast Thy servant deserved these things!"
There was a space of silence, in which the two impostors turned together and talking between themselves of anything but the recent interview walked out of the chamber.
After a time Laodice lifted her head and spoke to the Greek.
"If thou wilt give me shelter, madam, for a few days only, I promise thee thou shalt not regret it," she said.
The girl was interesting and Amaryllis had been disappointed in Philadelphus. Nothing tender or compassionate; only a little curiosity, a little rancor, a little ennui and a faint instinctive hope that something of interest might yet develop, moved the Greek.
"Send your servant to Ascalon for proofs," she said. "I shall give you shelter here until you are proved undeserving of it. And since the times are uncertain, do not delay."
The following morning, there was a rap at the door of the chamber to which Laodice had been led and informed that it was her own.
She had passed a sleepless night and had risen early, but the knock came late in the morning.
She opened the door.
Without stood a ten year old girl, of the most bewitching beauty, as barely clad as ever the children of her blood went over the green meadows of Achaia. Her golden hair was knotted on the back of her pretty head and held in place by an ampyx. On her feet were tiny sheepskin buskins; about her perfect little body, worn carelessly, was a simple chiton, out of which her dimpled shoulders and small round arms showed pink and tender as field-flowers. Nothing could have been more composed than her gaze at Laodice.
"We breakfast in the hall, now. You are to join us," she said.
Laodice stepped, out of the chamber into the court and followed her little guide.
"The mistress and her guests rise late," the child went on. "That perforce starves the rest of us until mid-morning. Eheu! It is the one injustice in this house."
Laodice dumbly wondered if she were to be classed with the house servants while she waited until the return of her devoted old mute.
She was led into a long narrow room, showing the same simple elegance that marked all the house of Amaryllis, the Greek. Down the center were two tables, separated by a cluster of tall plants that almost screened one from the other.
At the first table place was laid for one. At the other, she found by the talk and laughter the rest of the company were gathered. The little girl led Laodice to the single place, seated her, and kissing her hand to her with an almost too-practised bow, fled around the cluster of tall plants. There she heard her childish voice imperiously ordering a servant to attend the mistress' latest guest.
Prisca appeared and silently served Laodice with melon, honey-cakes and milk. Other of the house-servants were visible from time to time. This, then, manifestly was not the breakfast of the menials. She glanced toward the cluster of tall plants. Through an interstice she was able to see all the persons seated at the other table.
There first was the blue-eyed, golden-haired girl. Beside her was a youth, slim, dark, exquisitely fashioned, with limbs and arms as strong as were ever displayed in the games, yet powerful without brutality, graceful without weakness–marks of the ideal athlete that had long since disappeared with the coming of the Roman gladiator. Opposite was a grown man, tall, broad and deep chested, with prominent eyes wide apart and a large mouth. There was a singleness of attitude in him, as in all persons reared to a purpose. It was that certain self-centeredness which is not egotism, yet a subconsciousness of self in all acts. He was the finished product of a specific, life-long training, and the confidence in his atmosphere was the confidence of one aware of his skill and prepared at all times.
Besides these three, there were two women, both in the garments of the ancient atelier. One was bemarked with clay; the other was stained with paint. Laodice knew at a glance that she looked at a gathering of artists.
"Evidently a gift from John," the little girl was saying. "He can not see that our lady does anything but collect curiosities in this her search after art, and so he must needs add a contribution in this Stygian monster we saw yesterday evening."
Laodice knew that they discussed Momus.
"Perhaps," the athlete said, "he bought this left-handed catapult thinking he might throw the discus farther than I can throw it."
"Well enough," the woman with paint on her tunic put in; "she sent the monster packing. He went out of the gates post-haste last night, they say."
"The pretty stranger that came with him stayed, I observe," the athlete said.
"Pst!" the girl said in a low voice. "Where are the man's eyes in your head, that you do not see her?"
"Looking at you!" the athlete answered.
"Too soon!" the child retorted. "A good six years before I shall know what your looks mean!"
"Is she, this pretty stranger, something of John's taste?" the woman who had blue clay on her garment asked.
"Tut!" the athlete broke in. "John never departed from his ancient barbarism to that extent. That, unless I misjudge my own inclinations in a similar matter, is something this mysterious Philadelphus hath arranged to relieve the tedium of–"
"Tedium!" the girl exclaimed. "By Hector, this Jewish wife of his would open his Ephesian eyes were she to let loose all I suspect in her!"
"Brrr! But you are suspicious!" the athlete shivered. The little girl shaped her lips into a kiss and the athlete leaning across the table snatched it from her before she could avoid him.
The women caught him by the back of his tunic and pulled him down in his chair.
"Sit down!" they whispered. "Don't you see that Juventius is about to speak?"
The athlete glanced at the grown man, who had looked down into his plate at the youth's frolic with the child, with the utmost disdain and boredom in his expression. Now that the silence became noticeable, he spoke in an affected voice, but one of the deepest music.
"Alas, these Jews!" he said. "How little they know about art! How long has it been since he introduced one of the Temple singers into our lady's hall to show what a piercing high note could be reached by a male voice? And he had the creature sing to prove his contention. I thought I should die! It was worse than awful; it was criminal!"
The athlete laughed.
"Any singer, then, but Juventius therefore is a malefactor!" he said.
"No, it does not follow," Juventius protested in all seriousness, while the child flashed a look of intense amusement at the athlete. "But," waving a pair of long white hands, "none should trifle with music. It is one of the graces of Nature, divine and elemental. Wherefore, anything short of a perfect production becometh a mockery and a mockery against divine things is blasphemy. Ergo, the poor musician is in danger of Hades!"
"The monster is safe, safe!" the girl protested. "He does not sing, and from what I caught through the crack of the door, the pretty stranger had better not. My lady, the princess, had a merry time with my lord, the prince, at breakfast this morning, all about this same pretty one. So this is why she breakfasts with us–the second table."
Laodice heard this with a sinking heart. This was a strange house in which to live at no definite status, with a future blank and inscrutable.
"Is it, then, that you are wary of offending the over-nice exactions of music, that you do not sing?" the athlete demanded of Juventius.
"Song," replied the singer gravely, "is originally the expression of the highest exaltation. To sing before the high mark of feeling is reached is an insincerity."
"Alas, Juventius," the girl was saying, "how much difficulty you lay up for yourself in determining the limits of art! Teach broadly and the fulfilment of your laws will not be such a task for the overworked and irritable gods of art."
"Child!" Juventius cried passionately. "Your ignorance outreaches your presumption!"
"Fie! Fie!" the athlete put in comfortably. "Let us make a truce, for I announce to you the opportunity each to have whatever you wish. We are to have at the proper moment, according to the Jews, a celestial visitation which will enable us to have what we most desire."
"You announce it!" the girl scoffed indignantly. "I have heard of that ever since I was born!"
"I, too, have heard it," said Juventius.
"Well," said the unabashed athlete, "the Pharisee that brings Amaryllis her fruit is so full of it that he gets prophecies mixed with his prices and the patriarchs with his fruit. He says that there are those that declare he is already in the city."
"That he has been seen?" Juventius asked, after a little silence.
"No; merely suspected. They say that things go on in the Temple which seem to show that some resident of their Olympus already inhabits the air."
"I saw Seraiah to-day," one of the women said in a low voice.
"Silent as ever? Spotless as ever? Mysterious as ever?" the athlete asked.
The woman who had spoken shook her head at him as if alarmed.
"I can not bear to hear him ridiculed," she said. "Somehow it seems blasphemous. They say he marks every one who laughs in his hearing."
"They are not many," the girl said. "For the most part, the citizens of Jerusalem feel as apprehensive about him as you do."
"I wonder that John will stay in the Temple with a god in it," Juventius said, as if he had not heard the rest of the discussion.
"John!" the athlete exclaimed. "John is an adventurer that believes in nothing, has no cause and furthers this warfare for loot and the possible chance of escape when the conflict comes."
"Simon is different," another said. "Now he is wild and mad and insolent and foolhardy, because he believes that, no matter what tangle the situation is in, the celestial emissary he expects will straighten it out for him."
"In short, he means to work such a complexity here that the man who unravels it must needs be divine."
At this moment the door that cut off the rest of the house from this dining-room opened smartly and the supposed Philadelphus stepped in. He closed the door behind him and glanced at the filled table. Those there seated rose. He spoke to each one by name, and after they had greeted him, they filed out into the court and the servants began to remove the remnants of their meal. Laodice rose at sign of this concerted deference to Philadelphus but sat down again, with her lips compressed. However they had disposed her, she would not accept the menial attitude. She had not finished her honey-cakes.
He came round to her, drew up a chair and sat down beside her. She ignored him, making a feint that was not entirely successful at interest in her fruit.
"Who art thou, in truth?" he asked finally.
"Laodice," she answered coldly.
He sighed and she added nothing more.
"What can your purpose be in this?" he asked.
She ignored the question. After a longer silence, he said in an altered and softened tone:
"What an innocent you are! Certainly this is your first attempt! What marplot told you that such a thing as you have essayed was possible?"
She put aside her plate and her cup, and turned to him.
"By your leave I will retire," she said.
"Not yet," he answered, smiling. "It is my duty as a Jew to help you while there is time."
She settled back in her chair and looked at the cluster of plants while he talked.
"Nothing so damages the beauty of a woman as trickery. No bad woman is beautiful very long. There comes a canker on her soul's beauty, in her face, that disfigures her, soon or late. Whoever you are, whatever your condition, you are lovely yet. Be beautiful; of a surety then you must be good."
It was the same old hypocritical pose that the bad man assumes to cloak himself before innocence. Laodice remembered the incident in the hills.
"Where," she asked coldly, "is he who was with you at Emmaus?"
The pretender started a little, but the increase of alarm on his face showed that he realized next that here was a peril in this woman which he had overlooked.
"Gone," he said unreadily, "gone back to Ephesus."
She did not know what pain this announcement of that winsome stranger's desertion would waken in her heart. Her eyes fell; her brows lifted a little; the corners of her mouth became pathetic. The pretender, casting a sidelong glance at her, saw to his own safety that she had believed him.
"He was a parasite," he sighed, "living off my bounty. But even that did not invite him when he neared the peril of this city. So he turned back. I–I do not blame him," he added with a little laugh.
"Blame him?" she said quickly. "You–you do not blame him?"
"No! Any place, any condition is more desirable than residence in Jerusalem at this hour."
"If one seeks but to be comfortable. But here is a place for work and for achievement," she declared.
"Too desperate an extreme. Nothing can be done here," he observed, shrugging his shoulders.
She gazed at him with immense contempt.
"That from a son of Judas Maccabaeus!" she exclaimed.
He looked disconcerted.
"Why not?" he urged. "It is neither rational nor practical to attempt the impossible. Jerusalem is doomed. I would but add myself to the sacrifice did I interfere between destruction and its sure prey."
After a silence in which she confronted him with many emotions showing on her face, she said with infinite pity and disappointment:
"O Philadelphus, you to throw greatness away!"
"Where, O my mysterious genius, are my army, my engines, my subsistence, my advantage and the prize?"
"What was that dowry which was stolen from me to purchase for you but these things? I brought it for this purpose. Another than myself delivered it to you; the end is achieved; what use will you make of it?"
"There is no nation here for that dowry to defend, no crown for it to support. But for this same madness which possesses my lady, the princess, I should depart this day for a safer venture, in some safer country!"
She faced him intently.
"And you will do nothing for Judea?" she asked.
"What can be done?" he asked, throwing out his hands with a careless gesture.
"Oh," she exclaimed with a rush of passionate feeling, "that I were you! You, with the materials for empire-building at your feet! You, with the hour beseeching you, with a people searching for you, with a treasury filled for you, with ancient prophecy establishing you, ancient precept teaching you, and the cause of God arming you! Philadelphus, son of a great patriot, what are you saying! What can there be done! Oh rather, how dare you not do! What have you about you but the inevitable end of Judah, living contrary to God's plan for it! It is the conscience of Israel rising against its sin and submission! It is the blood of David rebelling against the heathen yoke! It is the hour foretold by Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Daniel and the Twelve, when Israel shall repent and be chastened and return to the heritage of Jacob. Be the repairer of the breach! Be the restorer of the paths to dwell in, my husband! Go out and let Israel behold you! Help them to wipe out the shame of Babylonia and Persia and Macedonia and Rome! Make Jerusalem not only a sanctuary but a capital! Restore the glory of David and the peace of Solomon, for those were God's days and Judah can not prosper except as it returns to them! Philadelphus–"
Laodice halted abruptly in her appeal, breathless with feeling.
The amusement had gone out of his face and his expression was one of mingled discomfort and surprise at her speech.
"Since you are a thinking woman," he answered, "I must answer you soberly. Even I, expecting disorder and uproar in Jerusalem, when I came from Ephesus, was not prepared for this chaos! Never was such a time! Order is not possible in this extreme. It is unthinkable. Nothing human can save Jerusalem!"
She laid her hand upon him.
"Nothing human!" she repeated quickly. "Seest not that this is the time of the Messiah? Be ready to be helped of God!"
Philadelphus drew away from her uneasily and looked at her from under lowered brows.
"They say," he said in a suppressed voice, as fearing his own words, "that He has come and gone!"
She looked at him blankly. He was glad he had thought of this; it would divert her from a discourse momently growing unpleasant for him. And yet he was afraid of the thing he had said.
"What dost thou say?" she asked.
"He is come and gone–they say."
"Come and gone!"
He nodded irritably. It made him nervous to dwell on the subject.
"Who say?" she demanded.
"Many! Many!" he whispered.
"It is not–do you believe it?" she persisted, with strange terror waiting upon his answer. He moved uneasily but he answered the truth. It was superstition in him that spoke.
"Something in me says it is true," Philadelphus whispered.
She stood transfixed; then all her horror rose in her and cried out against the story.
"It can not be!" she cried. "See the misery and oppression, here, tenfold! Nothing has been done! Nobody heard of Him! He could not fail! What a blasphemy, what a travesty on His Word, to come and fulfil it not and go hence unnoticed! It can not be!"
"But, but–" he protested, somehow terrified by her denial, "only you have not heard. Everywhere are those who believe it and I saw–I saw–"
The growing violence of dissent on her face urged him to speak what his shamed and guilty tongue hesitated to pronounce.
"I saw in Ephesus one who saw Him; I saw in Patmos one who had reclined on His breast!"
"A–a–woman?" she whispered.
"No! No!" he returned in a panic. "A man, a prisoner, old and white and terrible! But it was in his youth! He told me! And the one in Ephesus, a red-beard, hunchbacked and half-blind and even more terrible than the first! He saw Him after He was dead!"
"Dead!" Her lips shaped the word.
"They–yes! He was crucified!"
Her lips parted as if to speak the word, but her mind failed to grasp it certainly. She stood moveless in an actual pain of horror.
"But He rose again from the dead," he persisted, "and left the earth to its own devices hereafter. And so behold Jerusalem!
"And there was one woman," he added, "who had been a scarlet woman. She had anointed His feet with precious oil and wiped them with her hair. And I saw her also–I sought them all out, because they could do miracles and foretell events. Thousands upon thousands believe in them."
"Crucified!" she whispered.
"They say," he went on, "that He pronounced judgment on Jerusalem and that it now cometh to pass!"
The accumulated effect of the calamitous recital was to stun her. She gazed at him with unintelligent eyes, and her lips moved without speaking. For one reared in constant contemplation of God's nearness to His children, acquainted with divine politics, divine literature and divine law, cut off from the world and devoted wholly to religion, the story of a divine tragedy carried with it the full force of its fearful import. Philadelphus' narrative meant to her the crumbling of earth and the effacement of Heaven. She cried wildly her unbelief when words returned to her. But under the fury of her denunciation, unconsciously directed against the conviction that the story was true, she felt her hope of a restored Kingdom of David wavering toward a fall.
While she stood thus, Amaryllis, languid and pre-occupied, entered the room with John of Gischala at her side. The Greek noted Philadelphus with a quick accession of interest. John's attention had been instantly arrested by the presence of the other man. Philadelphus turned with fine ease to meet the man whom he must regard as his enemy and Laodice shrank back in an attempt to get out of sight of the trio.
"Welcome!" said Amaryllis to Philadelphus. "A fortunate visit that makes possible an amnesty for two of my friends at once. This, John, is Philadelphus of Ephesus, a seeker of diversion out of mine own country come to see the end of this great struggle thou wagest against Rome. And thou, Philadelphus, seest before thee, John of Gischala, the arbiter of Judea's future. Be friends."
With a comprehensive sweeping glance John inspected the man before him.
"John of Gischala," he repeated in his feline voice, "the oppressor John. Art thou not afraid of me, sir?"
"Dost thou meditate harm for me, sir?" Philadelphus smiled.
"Art thou, in that case, against me, sir?" John parried.
"On that hingeth his answer," Amaryllis said, glancing at Laodice. "And here is this same pretty stranger who bewitched thee yesterday. Know her as Laodice. Let that be parentage, history, ambition and religion for her. She, too, seeks diversion in Jerusalem, and is my guest for a while."
The Gischalan took Laodice's hand and held it.
"Welcome, thou," he said. "I will tolerate another man under thy roof if thou wilt but make this pretty bird of passage a permanency," he said to the Greek, after a silent study of Laodice's beauty.