Saul Of Tarsus Part 36

Marsyas replied, "wherefore we must abide until after the Feast."

"But my raiment is not prepared," Agrippa protested.

"Thou goest hence, my lord, to Rome, to be dressed by the masters of the science of raiment," Marsyas a.s.sured him.

Cla.s.sicus raised his head and addressed to the Essene the first remark since the memorable night of Marsyas' arrival in Alexandria.

"What a game it is," he opined amiably, "to see thee managing this slippery Herod!"

Agrippa flushed angrily, but Marsyas did not await the retort.

"My brother's pardon," he said, "but the Herod has fine discrimination between cares becoming his exalted place, and the labors of a steward."

Agrippa's face relaxed, but Cla.s.sicus broke off the swinging end of a vine that reached over his shoulder and slowly pulled it to pieces.

Junia sitting next to Marsyas turned to him.

"So thou wilt follow Flora?" she asked.

"No."

"Why?" she insisted, smiling. "Thou must go to Rome, where Flora runs every day. Wilt thou turn thy back upon Egypt's joy and see only Italy's?"

"Is Rome so much worse than Alexandria?"

"Not worse; only more p.r.o.nounced. There is more of Rome; the world gets its impulse there. So much is done; so many are doing. And, by the caprice of the Destinies, thou art to see Rome more than commonly employed."

"How?" he asked. By this time, the others were talking and the two spoke unheard together.

"Hist! I tell it under my breath, because the n.o.ble proconsul is burdened with the great responsibility of declaring the emperor's deathlessness, and I would not contradict him aloud. But Tiberius is old, old--and Rome casts about for his successor. But chance hath it that interest hath uncoupled the two eyes so that the singleness of sight is divided. 'Look right,' saith one; 'look left,' saith the other, and each looking his own way reviles his fellow and creates disturbance in the head. But it behooves thee, gentle Jew, to bid thine eyes contemplate Tiberius, to do oriental obeisance and say as the Persians say; 'O King, live for ever!"

"But yesterday, thou didst cast a kindly light over the world's hardness. Tear it not away thus soon and frighten me with the fierce power against which I must shortly go and demand tribute," he protested lightly.

She took down her arms, clasped back of her head, to look at him.

"Light-hearted eremite!" she chid. "Never a Jew but believed that all the happenings in the world happen in Jerusalem--that there is nothing else to come to pa.s.s after Jerusalem's full catalogue of possibilities is exhausted. But I tell thee that, compared to Rome, Jerusalem is an unwatered spot in the desert where once in a century a loping jackal pa.s.ses by to break its eventlessness."

"Lady," he said with his old gravity, "Judea is a Roman province. Is Rome harsher to her citizens than she is with her subjugated peoples?"

"Thou art nearer the executive seat; under the eye of Power itself.

Icarus, on his waxen wings, was unsafe enough in the daylight; but he was undone by soaring too close to the sun!"

"What shall I do, then?" he asked.

"Attach thyself to a power; get behind the buckler of another's strength!"

"Power is not offering its protection for nothing; what have I to give in exchange for it?"

Almost inadvertently, she let her eyes run over him, and seemed impelled to say the words that leaped to her lips. But she recovered herself in time.

"It is a generous world," she said, "and such as thou shall not go friendless; depend upon it!"

When Marsyas glanced up, his eyes rested on Lydia's, and for a moment he was held in silence by the faint darkening of distress that he saw there. Something wild and sweet and painful struggled in his breast and fell quiet so quickly that he sat with his lips parted and his gaze fixed until the alabarch's daughter dropped her eyes.

"I heard thee speak of Rome," she said. "After thy labor is done, wilt thou remain there?"

"No," he answered slowly, "I return to En-Gadi."

"En-Gadi," Junia repeated. "Where is that and why shouldst thou go there?"

"It is the city of the Essenes, a city of retreat. It is in the Judean desert on the margin of the Dead Sea."

"After Rome, that!" Junia cried.

But Lydia said nothing and Marsyas, gazing at her in hope of discovering some little deprecation, some little invitation to remain in the world, forgot that the Roman woman had spoken.

Cla.s.sicus, who had been a quiet observer of the few words spoken between the Essene and the alabarch's daughter, drew himself up from his lounging att.i.tude.

"To En-Gadi?" he repeated, attracting the attention of the others, who had not failed to note his sudden interest in Marsyas. "Why?"

"I am an Essene fallen into misfortune; but once an Essene, an Essene always," Marsyas answered.

"An Essene?" the philosopher observed. Then after a little silence he began again.

"In Alexandria, we live less rigorously than in Judea, even too little so, we discover at times. Wherefore it is needful that we watch that no further lapse is made, which will carry us into lawlessness."

"Ye are lax, yet wary that ye be not more lax?" Marsyas commented perfunctorily.

"Even so. From Agrippa's lips, we learn that thou hast led a precarious life of late; an eventful, even adventurous life: that thou hast been accused and hast escaped arrest. Thou wilt pardon my familiarity with thine own affairs."

"Go on," said Marsyas.

"In Alexandria--even in Alexandria, of late, the Jews have resolved not to entertain heretics--"

"In Alexandria, the extreme ye will risk in hospitality is one simply accused."

"I commend thy discernment. But we separate ourselves from the convicted."

"So it is done in Judea. But continue."

Cla.s.sicus waited for an expectant silence.

"Thou carryest about thee," he said, "an emblem which none but a Nazarene owns."

Marsyas contemplated Cla.s.sicus very calmly. He had been accused of apostasy before, but by one whose every impulse had root in irrational fanaticism. He had not expected this Romanized Jew to become zealous for the faith; instead, he knew that Cla.s.sicus would have pursued none other for suspicion, but himself. Why?

He glanced at Lydia. Alarm and protest were written on every feature.

Cla.s.sicus saw that she was prepared to defend Marsyas and his face hardened. Then the Essene understood!