Saul Of Tarsus Part 59

"Am I pardoned?" he asked plaintively.

"Thou didst no harm; but it should serve to awaken thee to the evil in this dangerous Roman! If only Agrippa would return, how readily the skies would brighten for us all!"

"What wilt thou do if the Herod returns not?" he asked after a little silence.

"Do not speak of it, Cla.s.sicus," she said hurriedly. "Flaccus is desperate."

"If Agrippa abandon Cypros," he offered, "she can divorce him, and simplify the tangle."

"Oh, no, Justin! Cypros is bound heart and soul to Agrippa. Even if he died, she would not turn to Flaccus! The dear Lord be thanked that we have a virtuous woman to defend!"

"Nay, then, thou strict little rabbin, what shall we do?"

"How slow these s.h.i.+ps! The last letter we sent to him can hardly have reached Sicily!"

"He hath had a sufficiency of letters by this time! What was it he wrote thy father, last: 'I come with all speed; but reflect that Caesar is master over me: his consent is needful!' Ha! ha! Caligula would give Agrippa half his Empire did he ask for it!"

She leaned her cheek in her hand, turning her face away from Cla.s.sicus.

"Alas! I know why he lingers," she said to herself. "Marsyas hath departed unto Judea, and Agrippa lacks his controlling hand!"

"I appreciate the peril threatening thy father's house," the philosopher added after her continued silence, "and thou knowest thou shall have my help--blundering as it may be!"

There were footsteps in the vestibule, and the alabarch stood in the archway. Lydia sprang up.

"What," she cried, unable to wait for his report, "what said the proconsul?"

The alabarch came into his presiding-room with a slow step; he let his cloak fall on his chair, and stood in the lamplight worn and troubled.

Seeing Cla.s.sicus, he greeted the visitor before he answered Lydia.

"Evil, evil; naught but evil," he sighed, "and threats. And the proconsul's threats are never empty!"

"What does he threaten?" Cla.s.sicus asked.

"Me--and mine."

"Alas! our people!" Lydia sighed.

"No, daughter! Thee!"

"Lydia!" Cla.s.sicus exclaimed.

"Why does he threaten me?" Lydia cried.

The alabarch shook his head. "Flaccus betrayed only enough to show that he will concentrate his vengeance against me and thee, or me through thee, but thee of a surety, my Lydia! Yet, he was as dark and ominous as the wrath of G.o.d!"

Lydia came close to her father and he laid his arm about her shoulders.

"Lydia, that bat escaped from Sheol, Eutychus, is openly attached to Flaccus' train; once, he abode under my roof, where he could learn many things. Has he any information against thee which Flaccus could use?"

Lydia's answer was not ready. It meant too much to tell that which the alabarch groped after. Already she had surrendered until she was stripped of all but her father's confidence, and her people's respect.

She could not cast off these ties to all that was desirable on earth.

And Cla.s.sicus, silent and smug behind her, seemed to be a prepared witness awaiting a confession. Conscience and human nature had the usual struggle, and when she replied she did not raise her head.

"My father, Eutychus will never be at a loss for information. What actualities he can not furnish, he may have from his imagination."

"Alexandria does not wait for charges against the Jews," the alabarch said.

"But what says Flaccus?" Cla.s.sicus urged after a silence.

"That I have abducted Agrippa's wife; that I have been guilty of insubordination to him, my superior; that thou, my Lydia, art amenable to him and all the people of Alexandria, and that he will proceed as his information warrants, unless I produce Cypros--between sunrise and sunset, to-morrow!"

There was silence.

"What wilt thou do?" Lydia asked in a suppressed voice.

"I can produce Cypros," he answered, torn by the inevitable.

"No!" Lydia cried.

"If Agrippa cares so little for her--" the alabarch began, but Lydia put off his arm and stood away from him.

"This matter is neither thine nor Agrippa's to decide! Cypros is a good woman and she shall be kept secure--even against herself, if need be! Thou shalt not bring her before Flaccus!"

"Lydia, I am brought to decide between her and thee!"

"Thou canst suffer dishonor and peril, even as Cypros," Cla.s.sicus put in, to Lydia. "We are no less unwilling to surrender thee to the unknown charges Flaccus brings against thee, than thou art to give up Cypros!"

"Flaccus is no arbiter of the virtue of women! He is not Caesar, beyond whom there is no human appeal! Let him remember that it is no longer the old man Tiberius who is emperor of the world, but the young man Caligula, whose warmest friend is a Jew! Let him touch Cypros at his peril!"

"Daughter, why should Caesar defend a woman for whom not even her husband cares?"

There was no ready reply to this, and Lydia's face grew white.

"Is it like thee, my father, to abandon the wholly undefended?" she asked.

The alabarch bit his lip and turned his head away.

"Granted, then," put in Cla.s.sicus in his even voice, "that we shall keep the lady in hiding and treat her to no ungentle usage! Now, what will become of Lydia?"

The alabarch raised his eyes, filled with fire and desperation. Lydia drooped more and more, and presently she put her hand to her forehead.

"Is there nothing to be done?" Cla.s.sicus persisted calmly.

The silence became strained and lengthened to the s.p.a.ce of many heart-beats before he spoke again.

"Lydia can be hidden, with the princess," he offered finally.