Saul Of Tarsus Part 42

He continued to press forward. The small figure on the summit of the Temple stirred, turned half about and slowly raised her arms with a motion that seemed half-command, half-salute to the great expectant crowd below.

Then wing-like mists, taking into themselves the sunset flush of the fires of the City of Love, rose up and fluttered about her. Long, flaming, melon-colored tongues licked in and out of the illusion: distended convolutions of tissue tinged with rose floated and drifted above her, beside her, before her; s.h.i.+vering streamers of silver reached up and failed and dissolved; jagged streaks and reduplications of fiery jets stood out and up and all about her. When the clouds of pearly vapor lifted and eddied about her head, girdled her with circles or framed her with rosy wheels, the center of all this motion was distinguishable only as a snow-white spindle that whirled with dizzy rapidity. And presently it was noted that the shape was losing the mummy form, that more and more the outlines of a beautiful body were blossoming out of the impearled mists: that petaline wings opened out, fold on fold, as a rose-bud would blow, and each successive disclosure gave the entranced vision a clearer image of the dancer at the heart.

Ever the motion seemed slow and stately as do all great and graceful things maintaining splendid speed; ever the crimson light from the City of Love lent its illimitable range of shade to the motion of the mists.

Below the great mult.i.tude, with its face lifted to the midnight sky, pa.s.sed from uproar into silence and from silence into thunders of applause. The immense voice was the voice of admiration, for the cooling hand of wonder pressed back the crowd's pa.s.sion for a let to its reason. They forgot their disappointment, their bloodthirst, their hate of the Nazarenes, and stood to marvel that the G.o.ddess burned but was not consumed.

But Marsyas, patiently working his way forward, pressed by a tall black man who was saying over and over to himself in Hindu:

"It is the bayadere dance, for the glory of Brahma! A sacrilege!"

The rest of Flora's program meanwhile was proceeding. Slowly and mightily, magnificent young athletes, for only such could drive their way through so solid a pack of humanity, were working toward the portico of the Temple. These were candidates for Flora's favor. Among them were black-eyed Roman youths with laurel around their heads; golden-haired Greeks, crowned with stephanes; lithe, bronze Egyptians with ribboned locks at the temple which were the badge of princehood.

And after them came one, crowned with grape-leaves, with a thyrsus in his hand, but he had s.h.i.+ning black curls, the silken beard and the crimson cheeks of a Jew. The eyes of this one glittered, not from excitement of fancy, but from desperate resolution and astounded recognition. The pagans were far in advance of him.

Now the crowd understood where they were bound and shouted to them; now the youths forced themselves past the cornucopia, the mimes, the flamens, and ran into the open s.p.a.ce before the Temple. In poses characteristic of their captivation and intent, they looked up at the dancing fires and cried aloud to the G.o.ddess.

Meanwhile the morning-tinted mists whirled in a circular plane about the girl; suddenly they began to tremble and rise,--up, up until the ripple and s.h.i.+ver of the shaken silk took on the action and appearance of an illuminated cataract. Through it, the beautiful outlines of the dancer were distinguished, veiled as a Nereid beneath waters, leaping, running. Thousands below instinctively raised their arms to catch the figure which inevitably must leap through the inspirited cataract and over the parapet of the Temple unless the rosy element pent her within its bosom.

The flight gradually changed from a simple step into the entanglement and intricacy of a dance. No gossamer adrift on the wind was more a creature of the air, no tranced ephemera more the genius of motion.

The roar of the mult.i.tude failed in a vast suspiration of surprise and bewildered delight. Flora had invented, not a new wantonness, but a new grace.

But the young men shouted: each sprang to a column which upheld the portico upon which Flora danced, and began to climb, helping themselves by the incrusted garlands of stone which ran up the pillars from base to capital. It was a contest in climbing, and the best of the contestants was not long in proving himself. He was one of the golden-haired Greeks and the mult.i.tude, for ever partizan to the strongest man, roared and thundered its encouragement to him.

He went up with an ease and swiftness almost superhuman; now, he drew himself across the outstanding corner of the architrave, and stood with delicate foothold on its molding while he reached up past the frieze and caught the cornice with his hands.

The dancer caught the flash of light on his golden stephane and wavered.

"_Habet_! _Habet_!" roared the mult.i.tude. "Evoe, Ionides!"

And Ionides, lazily lifting himself to the top of the portico, lingered a moment on one hand and knee to contemplate his prize.

The cataract sank; the flying feet halted, the glory of fire and motion was lost in lengths of silk which the dancer began hastily to wind about her head and body. Sufficiently covered to hide her face, she paused and looked to see his further move.

The Greek, with s.h.i.+ning eyes and smiling lips, began slowly to raise himself.

Then the one with the black curls and silken beard tore himself from the foremost of the crowd and rushed toward the portico.

The dancer saw him come. She moved toward the edge of the cornice.

The Greek leaped: the other below flung up his arms, but the roar of the mult.i.tude swept away the cry that came from his lips.

The dancer, eluding the triumphant Greek, rushed over the brink of the portico and dropped like a plummet entangled in gossamer into the upreached arms of Marsyas below.

Both fell like stones. But Marsyas sprang up with his prize in his arms, and fled up the steps through the black porch and the stone valves into the Temple of Rannu.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Marsyas sprang up with his prize in his arms (missing from book)]

Outside, the mult.i.tude, having seen Flora flout her rightful possessor, fell for a moment silent. Then, a part having but one desire to choose for itself, fell to its own choosing; but the rest, already cheated of blood and spoil, howled their disapproval, fought their way through disinterested ma.s.ses in order to reach the refuge of the capricious Flora, met resistance and precipitated warfare, and in an incredibly short time, bedlam reigned in the square before the Temple of Rannu.

The public celebration of the Feast of Flora was at an end. Meanwhile there was a trail of yellow roses, beginning abruptly in the Nazarene community and leading around every household and out and on toward the west. The roses lay untouched and wilting through the night and were shoveled up and carted away by the street-cleaners the next morning.

And on the summit of the Gate of the Necropolis, a painted beauty sat in jewels and flowers and little raiment, and wondered why she was not sought and found and why her followers stayed and roared before the Temple of Rannu.

CHAPTER XXI

THE FINING FIRE

As Marsyas leaped into the Temple of Rannu, a figure started up beside him. He sprang away from it in alarm, but a word in Hindu rea.s.sured him.

"It is I, Vasti."

With the bayadere following he raced through the cloyed musk of the temple toward the square of lesser darkness at the rear, which showed the exit into the court. He flung himself across the pavement of the inner inclosure and down its aisle of sphinxes, through the gate in the rear wall and out into a black pa.s.sage.

Behind, the roar of the contending host of Flora followed him. Though, for a second time this day he had run with peril on his track, the threatened identification of the precious burden he bore was more terrifying than death had been at sunset.

It was a long alley, the single outlet for a jam of humble houses surrounding the temple, and it opened into a street deep in the Egyptian quarter. Though Marsyas ran splendidly, he carried no little burden, and the way was black, unpaved and treacherous. He had begun to fear that he could not reach the end before pursuers, so minded, could hem him in, when almost as if the thought had invited the actuality, he saw a figure appear at the mouth of the alley. With a furious but repressed exclamation, the unknown plunged at the Essene.

Determined to defend Lydia's ident.i.ty as long as he might, Marsyas swung her behind him, and with a whisper to Vasti to hide Lydia, made ready to fight fast.

With the dim illumination of the city behind him, Marsyas was better able to see his antagonist. As the solid body projected itself at him, like a springing beast, he met it with a raised left arm and a ready right hand. Instantly the two closed and for a brief, fierce moment, fought savagely. But Marsyas discovered that he was far more agile, taller and apparently younger than his a.s.sailant, and for a s.p.a.ce he had only to fight away the knife that glinted and darted hungrily at his throat. Then, seizing upon his antagonist's first imperfect guard, he delivered a stunning blow over the heart. The heavy body staggered, quivered and collapsed.

Expecting to find the pa.s.sage before him filling with ruffians, Marsyas was astonished to see the way clear and vacant. Without waiting to catch breath Marsyas sprang back in the alley, and, whispering the bayadere's name, found Lydia and the serving-woman only a pace from the spot.

Catching Lydia up again, in spite of her protests, he was about to spring over the prostrate body that all but blocked the pa.s.sage, when his eye fell upon the upturned face. The dim light of the city fell on it.

It was Flaccus!

For a single moment of surprise and bewilderment, Marsyas stood still.

Then very surely it penetrated through his brain that the proconsul had recognized him at the moment of Flora's drop into his arms, and had come to capture him--or to identify the Dancing Flora!

He knew that he had not struck a fatal blow and the proconsul's knife lay near. He picked it up.

It was b.l.o.o.d.y.

Startled and aghast, he flung the weapon away, and, leaping over the unconscious Roman, fled out of the alley. A torch of pitch, burnt down to a charred knot, with a feeble flame playing over it, was set upon a staff hardly ten paces from the mouth of the pa.s.sage. It was a dark street, and deserted. The roar of the populace still centered about the square of the Temple of Rannu. Marsyas turned toward the torch, and, as he ran, he saw under its sickly light the figure of a man stretched on the earth. At another step, he tripped over a second fallen body. It moved and groaned.

Marsyas put Lydia down. Carrying her through a street c.u.mbered with prostrate men might mean bodily injury for both of them. With a rea.s.suring word, he led her between the head of the obscured man and the feet of the one under the torch, and stumbled at his second step on a contorted shape.

Marsyas stopped, to ask himself if the deadly hand that had brought these men low might not await him and his dear charge farther on.

Vasti leaned over the one under the torch. Then she sprang up.

"Come! Look!" she whispered in excitement.

Marsyas hurried to the man, and met at that instant the last conscious light in the eyes of Agrippa.

The young Essene dropped to his knees without a word, thrust his hand into the embroidered tunic and felt for the prince's heart. It beat but slowly. Vasti, meanwhile, s.n.a.t.c.hed the torch from the staff and beat the charred pitch knot on the ground till the still inflammable heart broke open and ignited afresh.