CHAPTER VIII.
HIGH up among the black lava crags of Perea stood the dismal fortress ofMacherus. Behind its close prison bars a restless captive groped his wayback and forth in a dungeon cell. Sometimes, at long intervals, he wasgiven such liberty as a chained eagle might have, when he was led upinto one of the towers of the gloomy keep, and allowed to look down,down into the bottomless gorges surrounding it. For months he had chafedin the darkness of his underground dungeon; escape was impossible.
It was John Baptist, brought from the wild, free life of the desert tothe tortures of the "Black Castle." Here he lay at the mercy of HerodAntipas, and death might strike at any moment. More than once, thewhimsical monarch had sent for him, as he sat at his banquets, to be thesport of the passing hour.
The lights, the color, the flash of gems may have dazzled his eyes for abrief space, accustomed as they were to the midnight darkness of hiscell; but his keen vision saw, under the paint and purple of royalapparel, the corrupt life of king and court.
Pointing his stern, accusing finger at the uneasy king, he cried, "It isnot lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife!" With words that stunglike hurtling arrows, he laid bare the blackened, beastly life thatsought to hide its foulness under royal ermine.
Antipas cowered before him; and while he would gladly have been freedfrom a man who had such power over him, he dared not lift a fingeragainst the fearless, unflinching Baptist.
But the guilty Herodias bided her time, with blood-thirsty impatience;his life should pay the penalty of his bold speech.
Meanwhile he waited in his cell, with nothing but memories to relievethe tediousness of the long hours. Over and over again he lived thosescenes of his strange life in the desert,--those days of hispreparation,--the preaching to the multitudes, the baptizing at the fordof the Jordan.
He wondered if his words still lived; if any of his followers stillbelieved on him. But more than all, he wondered what had become of thatOne on whom he had seen the spirit of God descending out of heaven inthe form of a dove.
"Where art Thou now?" he cried. "If Thou art the Messiah, why dost Thounot set up Thy kingdom, and speedily give Thy servant his liberty?" Theempty room rang often with that cry; but the hollow echo of his ownwords was the only answer.
One day the door of his cell creaked back far enough to admit two men,and then shut again, leaving them in total darkness. In that momentaryflash of light, he recognized two old followers of his, Timeus bar Joramand Benjamin the potter.
With a cry of joy he groped his way toward them, and clung to theirfriendly hands.
"How did you manage to penetrate these Roman-guarded walls?" he asked,in astonishment.
"I knew the warden," answered Benjamin. "A piece of silver convenientlycloses his eyes to many things. But we must hasten! Our time islimited."
They had much to tell of the outside world. Pilate had just givenspecial offence, by appropriating part of the treasure of the Temple,derived from the Temple tax, to defray the cost of great conduits he hadbegun, with which to supply Jerusalem with water.
Stirred up by the priests and rabbis, the people besieged the governmenthouse, crying loudly that the works be given up. Armed with clubs,numbers of soldiers in plain clothes surrounded the great mob, andkilled so many of the people that the wildest excitement prevailedthroughout all Judea and Galilee.
There was a cry for a national uprising to avenge the murder.
"They only need a leader!" exclaimed John. "Where is He for whom I wasbut a voice crying in the wilderness? Why does He not show Himself?"
"We have just come from the village of Nain," said Timeus bar Joram. "Wesaw Him stop a funeral procession and raise a widow's son to life. Hewas followed by a motley throng whom He had healed of all sorts ofdiseases; and there were twelve men whom He had chosen as life-longcompanions.
"We questioned some of them closely, and they gave us marvellous reportsof the things He had done."
"Is it not strange," asked Benjamin the potter, "that having such powerHe still delays to establish His kingdom?"
The captive prophet made no answer for awhile. Then he groped in thethick darkness till his hand rested heavily on Benjamin's arm.
"Go back, and say that John Baptist asks, 'Art Thou the Coming One, ormust we look for another?'"
Days passed before the devoted friends found themselves once more insidethe prison walls. They had had a weary journey over rough hills androcky by-paths.
"What did He say?" demanded the prisoner, eagerly.
"Go and tell John what ye saw and heard: that the blind receive sight;the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed; the deaf hear; the dead areraised; and the poor have the gospel preached unto them."
The man stood up, his long hair hanging to his shoulder, his handuplifted, and his eyes dilated like a startled deer that has caught thesound of a coming step.
"The fulfilment of the words of Isaiah!" he cried. "For he hath said,'Your God will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall beopened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lameman leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing!' Yea, he _hath_bound up the broken-hearted; and he shall yet 'proclaim liberty to thecaptives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound, toproclaim the acceptable year of the Lord!'"
Then with both hands clasped high above his head, he made the prisonring with the cry, "The kingdom is at hand! The kingdom is at hand! Ishall soon be free!"
Not long after that, the castle blazed with the lights of anotherbanquet. The faint aroma of wines, mingled with the heavy odor ofcountless flowers, could not penetrate the grim prison walls. Nor couldthe gay snatches of song and the revelry of the feast. No sound ofapplause reached the prisoner's ear, when the daughter of Herodiasdanced before the king.
Sitting in darkness while the birthday banqueters held high carnival, heheard the heavy tramp of soldiers' feet coming down the stairs to hisdungeon. The great bolts shot back, the rusty hinges turned, and alantern flickered its light in his face, as he stood up to receive hisexecutioners.
A little while later his severed head was taken on a charger to thesmiling dancing girl. She stifled a shriek when she saw it; but thewicked Herodias looked at it with a gleam of triumph in her treacherousblack eyes.
When the lights were out, and the feasters gone, two men came in at thewarden's bidding,--two men with heavy hearts, and voices that shook alittle when they spoke to each other. They were Timeus and Benjamin.Silently they lifted the body of their beloved master, and carried itaway for burial; and if a tear or two found an unaccustomed path downtheir bearded cheeks, no one knew it, under cover of the darkness.
So, out of the Black Castle of Macherus, out of the prison-house of amortal body, the white-souled prophet of the wilderness went forth atlast into liberty.
For him, the kingdom was indeed at hand.
* * * * *
Meanwhile in the upper country, Phineas was following his friend fromvillage to village. He had dropped his old familiar form of address, somuch was he impressed by the mysterious power he saw constantlydisplayed.
Now when he spoke of the man who had been both friend and playfellow,it was almost reverently that he gave Him the title of Master.
It was with a heavy heart that Joel watched them go away. He, too,longed to follow; but he knew that unless he took the place at thebench, Phineas could not be free to go.
Gratitude held him to his post. No, not gratitude alone; he was learningthe Master's own spirit of loving self-sacrifice. As he dropped theplumb-line over his work, he measured himself by that perfect life, andtried to straighten himself to its unbending standard.
He had his reward in the look of pleasure that he saw on the carpenter'sface when Phineas came in, unexpectedly, one day, dusty andtravel-stained.
"How much you have accomplished!" he said in surprise. "You have filledmy place like a grown man."
Joel stretched his strong arms with a slight laugh. "It
is a pleasure towork now," he said. "It seems so queer never to have a pain, or thatworn-out feeling of weakness that used to be always with me. At first Iwas often afraid it was all a happy dream, and could not last. I amgetting used to it now. Where is the Master?" Joel asked, as Phineasturned towards the house.
"He is the guest of Simon. He will be here some days, my son. I know youwish to be with Him as much as possible, so I shall not expect your helpas long as He stays."
"If I could only do something for Him!" was Joel's constant thoughtduring the next few days. Once he took a coin from the little money bagthat held his hoarded savings--a coin that was to have helped buy hisrevenge--and bought the ripest, juiciest pear he could find in themarket. Often he brought Him water, fresh and cold from the well when Helooked tired and warm from His unceasing work.
Wherever the Master turned, there, close beside Him, was a beaminglittle face, so full of love and childish sympathy that it must havebrought more refreshment to His thirsty soul than either the choicefruit or the cooling water.
One evening after a busy day, when He had talked for hours to the peopleon the seashore who had gathered around the boat in which He sat, Hesent away the multitude.
"Let us pass over unto the other side," He said.
Joel slipped up to Andrew, who was busily arranging their sails. "Let mego, too!" he whispered pleadingly.
"Well," assented the man, carelessly, "You can make yourself useful, Isuppose. Will you hand me that rope?"
Joel sprang to obey. Presently the boat pushed away from the shore, andthe town, with its tumult and its twinkling lights, was soon left farbehind.
The sea was like glass, so calm and unruffled that every star abovecould look down and see its unbroken reflection in the dark water below.
Joel, in the hinder part of the ship, lay back in his seat with a sighof perfect enjoyment. The smooth gliding motion of the boat rested him;the soft splash of the water soothed his excited brain. He had seen hisUncle Laban that afternoon among other of the scribes and Pharisees, andheard him declare that Beelzebub alone was responsible for the wondersthey witnessed.
Joel's indignation flared up again at the memory. He looked down at theMaster, who had fallen asleep on a pillow, and wondered how anybodycould possibly believe such evil things about Him.
It was cooler out where they were now. He wondered if he ought not tolay some covering over the sleeping form. He took off the outer mantlethat he wore, and bent forward to lay it over the Master's feet. But hedrew back timidly, afraid of wakening Him. "I'll wait awhile," he saidto himself, folding the garment across his knees in readiness.
Several times he reached forward to lay it over Him, and each time drewback. Then he fell asleep himself.
From its situation in the basin of the hills, the Galilee is subject tosudden and furious storms. The winds, rushing down the heights, meet andclash above the water, till the waves run up like walls, then sink againinto seething whirlpools of danger.
Joel, falling asleep in a dead calm, awoke to find the ship rolling andtossing and half-full of water. The lightning's track was followed soclosely by the crash of thunder, there was not even pause enough betweento take one terrified gasp.
Still the Master slept. Joel, drenched to the skin, clung to the boat'sside, expecting that every minute would be his last. It was so dark andwild and awful! How helpless they were, buffetted about in the fury ofthe storm!
As wave after wave beat in, some of the men could no longer controltheir fear.
"Master!" they called to the sleeping man, as they bent over Him interror. "Carest Thou not that we perish?"
He heard the cry for help. The storm could not waken Him from His deepsleep of exhaustion, but at the first despairing human voice, He was up,ready to help.
Looking up at the midnight blackness of the sky, and down at the wildwaste of waters, He stretched out His hand.
"_Peace!_" he commanded in a deep voice. "_Be still!_" The storm sank toearth as suddenly as a death-stricken raven; a great calm spread overthe face of the waters. The silent stars shone out in their places; thesilent sea mirrored back their glory at His feet.
The men huddled fearfully together. "What manner of man is this?" theyasked, one of another. "Even the wind and the sea obey Him!"
Joel, looking up at the majestic form, standing so quietly by therailing, thought of the voice that once rang out over the night ofCreation with the command, "Let there be light!" At its mere biddinglight had flowed in across the darkness of primeval night.
Just so had this voice thrilled the storm with its "Peace! Be still!"into utter calm.
The child crouched at His feet, burying his face in his mantle, andwhispering, in awe and adoration, "He _is_ the Christ! He is the son ofGod!"