Saul Of Tarsus Part 29

"To Marsyas, the Essene, to whom Cypros the Herod would owe a greater debt, greeting and these:

"It hath come to us here in Alexandria that Vitellius pursues thee with a mind to punish thee for helping my lord away from his difficulty in Judea. The legate hath sent couriers broadcast over the Empire to seek thee out, but the n.o.ble Flaccus, Proconsul of Egypt, though forewarned and required to deliver thee up, hath promised thee asylum in Alexandria. Wherefore, if it please G.o.d that thou art preserved until my servant Silas reaches thee, do thou return to this city, secretly and with all speed.

"That thou care for thyself and that thy despatch be a.s.sured, I add further that there is much thou canst do for me. Delay not if the same good heart which suffered for us in Ptolemais still beats within thee.

"Thy friend, "CYPROS."

Within were three notes of a talent each, signed by Alexander Lysimachus, the Alabarch of Alexandria. Six weeks before, they would have been mere strips of parchment to Marsyas; to-day, with the commercial knowledge of a steward, Caesar's gold would not have commanded more respect in him. But he crushed them in his hand and turned his face, suddenly grown pale and tense, toward the east and Jerusalem. They meant the beginning of the destruction of Saul!

Presently he signed to Silas to follow and led the way to old Peter, who sipped his wine in his sleeping apartment. On the way, they met a slave whom Marsyas despatched to the khan for Eleazar.

"But," objected Peter, with the querulousness of an old man, after the first flush of satisfaction over the return of his three talents, "I took thee in hostage, young man, because I wanted thy service as steward, not because I wished to please Agrippa."

"But I have summoned my better to take my place," Marsyas a.s.sured him.

"Thou shall not be without an able steward, who will serve thee for hire."

And thus it was arranged when Eleazar arrived, that the rabbi should take Marsyas' place as steward and Peter, grumbling, but no less mollified, put on his cloak and repaired to the authorities to make the young Essene's manumission a matter of record.

By sunset all the negotiations were completed and Marsyas, with Silas, pa.s.sed out into the twilight and proceeded toward the mole.

As they went, others were going; the freighter which was the first to sail for Alexandria bade fair to be crowded with pa.s.sengers. Curious that so many wished to depart, Marsyas looked critically at the people as they moved toward the water-front. He saw that many of them had been with him in the Nazarene meeting the night before. They were obeying the command to move on.

Suddenly one of them, a young man in advance of two, old enough to be his parents, stopped and pointed with an outstretched arm.

Marsyas glanced in the direction the youth indicated.

The lower slopes of the immense western sky over the placid sea were delicate with the pale shades of a clear, cold, spring sunset. The point where the sun had sunk, alone glowed with a sparkling, golden brilliance. And set against that, far out in the bay, was a frail dark mast, crossed by a faint yard--a fragile crucifix sunk in a glory!

The elder man did not speak; the younger looked at the thing he had discovered, but as Marsyas hurried in agitation by the woman, he heard her speak softly:

"But it is bright--beyond!"

CHAPTER XIV

FOB A WOMAN'S SAKE

The sails of the freighter had fallen slack in the breathless shelter of the Alexandrian harbor. It was night, and only by daylight could the seamen pull the vessel by oar through the devious, perilous lanes between the fleets and navies packed in the greatest port in the world.

The freighter would lie to until morning. The pa.s.sengers would land in boats.

Its anchor rumbled down and plunged into a sea of stars.

It had been a s.h.i.+p of silence, manned by barefoot, cowed slaves, captained by a surly, weather-beaten Roman and freighted with a strange, sorrowful company. Now that the journey was at an end, there were no shouts, no noisy haste, no excited preparation. When the wash of the disturbed bay settled over the anchor and the reflected stars grew steady again, there was silence.

Marsyas stood in the bow and looked ash.o.r.e. Over the whole arc of the southern heavens, he saw long, beaded strands of infinitesimal points of fire, tangles, cross-hatchings, eddies and jottings of light--the lamps of Alexandria. Right and left of him and embracing much of the bay, the confusion of stars swept, culminating in the towering flame surmounting the Pharos to the east, and failing in featureless obscurity to the west. It might have been a congress of fireflies tranced in s.p.a.ce. But there came across the waters, not appreciable sound, but the mysterious telepathic communication of animate life.

Marsyas sensed the heart-beat of the great invisible city under the _ignes fatui_ swung in the purple night.

He did not contemplate it calmly. The mystery of impending destiny was written over it all.

The silent company of Nazarenes was put ash.o.r.e an hour later at the wharf of the Egyptian suburb, Rhacotis, and together Silas and Marsyas pa.s.sed up through the easternmost limits of the settlement toward the Regio Judaeorum.

They had not progressed beyond sight of their former traveling companions, before the cl.u.s.ter of Nazarenes seemed to huddle and recoil, and presently turn back and flee over their tracks.

As they rushed down upon the two Jews, the body seemed to have increased greatly in number. The accessions were men, women and children; some were very old, all apparently very poor, so that the one small, female figure, in fine white garments showing under a coa.r.s.e mantle, was conspicuous among the rough dark habits.

Marsyas had time to note this one out of the many when the flying company rushed about him; after it a body of city constabulary, at the heels of which followed a howling mob of rabid Alexandrians. In an instant, Marsyas and Silas were in the thick of the tumult. The fugitives, demoralized by the attack of the constabulary, rushed hither and thither; the mob closed in upon them and a moving battle raged in the night on the square.

Events followed too swiftly for Marsyas to grasp them as they happened.

He had a heated sensation that he defended himself, defended others, struck gallantly, received blows, s.n.a.t.c.hed up a small figure in white from the attack of a vindictive a.s.sailant, and then the running fight swept by and away in dust.

He came to himself, panting and enraged, under a lamp, with a girl in his arms. Confronting him with a stone in his hand was Eutychus, petrified with amazement and apprehension. At one side, groaning and bent double with kicks and blows, was Silas. At the other, a silent, brown woman peered at the insensible girl. Up the street receded the sounds of riot.

Marsyas permitted his angry gaze to fall from Eutychus' face to the stone the servitor held. The fingers unclosed and the missile dropped.

Then Marsyas looked down at the girl in his arms. He drew in a full breath. The hill bird in the broken wilds of Judea whistled again; the incense from the blooming orchards breathed about him, and the flower face that had looked back at him from the howdah rested now, white and peaceful against his breast. Her long lashes lay on her cheeks, the pretty disorder of her yellow-brown curls was tossed over his arm. He was strangely untroubled for all that.

The brown woman watched him from the gloom.

Silas meanwhile had straightened himself and was gazing with stupefaction at the insensible face on the Essene's breast.

"It--it--" he began, stammering before the rush of recognition and astonishment. "It is the alabarch's daughter--hither, fellow!" to Eutychus; "see this face! See whom thou wast pursuing."

Eutychus looked and fell immediately into a panic.

"I did not know her!" he cried. "By my soul, I did not know her! I was only visiting vengeance on the apostates, with the people! How should I expect to find her here!"

Marsyas broke in on his avowal.

"Do we go now to her father's house?" he asked of Silas.

"Even now!"

"Lead on, then. Eutychus! Follow!"

Silas looked at the brown woman in the shadows, who beckoned and, turning, took roundabout and deserted pa.s.sages toward the Jewish quarter, so that the extraordinary party proceeded unseen to the house of the alabarch. Once or twice, Eutychus attempted to press up beside Marsyas and excuse himself, but he was bidden to be silent. Then, on missing the charioteer's footfall, Marsyas turned to see him slipping away. Immediately Silas was despatched to bring him back; and so, placed between the two, he was dragged on to the house he had attempted to injure.

Remembering Eleazar's statement concerning the breadth of the schism, Marsyas was prepared to discover the alabarch a Nazarene.

"O Israel! after triumph over the oppression of the mighty, is this your overthrow?" he said bitterly to himself.

Long before he reached the alabarch's house, the figure in his arms stirred and made a little questioning sound. But against her manifest wish, the promptings of his Essenic training and the admission that she had been overtaken among apostates, something in him locked his arms about her and brought a single word to his lips. The gentleness of his voice surprised him.

"Peace," he said, and she lay still.

After he had said it, a sudden rage against Eutychus seized him. The charioteer's part in the pursuit of the fugitive apostates a.s.sumed a brutality and an enormity many times greater than it had originally seemed. He took savage pleasure in antic.i.p.ating turning over the culprit to Agrippa for justice.