CHAPTER XIV
FOB A WOMAN'S SAKE
The sails of the freighter had fallen slack in the breathless shelterof the Alexandrian harbor. It was night, and only by daylight couldthe seamen pull the vessel by oar through the devious, perilous lanesbetween the fleets and navies packed in the greatest port in the world.The freighter would lie to until morning. The passengers would land inboats.
Its anchor rumbled down and plunged into a sea of stars.
It had been a ship of silence, manned by barefoot, cowed slaves,captained by a surly, weather-beaten Roman and freighted with astrange, sorrowful company. Now that the journey was at an end, therewere no shouts, no noisy haste, no excited preparation. When the washof the disturbed bay settled over the anchor and the reflected starsgrew steady again, there was silence.
Marsyas stood in the bow and looked ashore. Over the whole arc of thesouthern heavens, he saw long, beaded strands of infinitesimal pointsof fire, tangles, cross-hatchings, eddies and jottings of light--thelamps of Alexandria. Right and left of him and embracing much of thebay, the confusion of stars swept, culminating in the towering flamesurmounting the Pharos to the east, and failing in featurelessobscurity to the west. It might have been a congress of firefliestranced in space. But there came across the waters, not appreciablesound, 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 waswritten over it all.
The silent company of Nazarenes was put ashore an hour later at thewharf of the Egyptian suburb, Rhacotis, and together Silas and Marsyaspassed up through the easternmost limits of the settlement toward theRegio Judaeorum.
They had not progressed beyond sight of their former travelingcompanions, before the cluster of Nazarenes seemed to huddle andrecoil, and presently turn back and flee over their tracks.
As they rushed down upon the two Jews, the body seemed to haveincreased greatly in number. The accessions were men, women andchildren; some were very old, all apparently very poor, so that the onesmall, female figure, in fine white garments showing under a coarsemantle, was conspicuous among the rough dark habits.
Marsyas had time to note this one out of the many when the flyingcompany rushed about him; after it a body of city constabulary, at theheels of which followed a howling mob of rabid Alexandrians. In aninstant, Marsyas and Silas were in the thick of the tumult. Thefugitives, demoralized by the attack of the constabulary, rushed hitherand thither; the mob closed in upon them and a moving battle raged inthe 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, snatched up a small figure in whitefrom the attack of a vindictive assailant, and then the running fightswept by and away in dust.
He came to himself, panting and enraged, under a lamp, with a girl inhis arms. Confronting him with a stone in his hand was Eutychus,petrified with amazement and apprehension. At one side, groaning andbent double with kicks and blows, was Silas. At the other, a silent,brown woman peered at the insensible girl. Up the street receded thesounds of riot.
Marsyas permitted his angry gaze to fall from Eutychus' face to thestone the servitor held. The fingers unclosed and the missile dropped.Then Marsyas looked down at the girl in his arms. He drew in a fullbreath. The hill bird in the broken wilds of Judea whistled again; theincense from the blooming orchards breathed about him, and the flowerface that had looked back at him from the howdah rested now, white andpeaceful against his breast. Her long lashes lay on her cheeks, thepretty disorder of her yellow-brown curls was tossed over his arm. Hewas strangely untroubled for all that.
The brown woman watched him from the gloom.
Silas meanwhile had straightened himself and was gazing withstupefaction at the insensible face on the Essene's breast.
"It--it--" he began, stammering before the rush of recognition andastonishment. "It is the alabarch's daughter--hither, fellow!" toEutychus; "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! Iwas only visiting vengeance on the apostates, with the people! Howshould 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 passages toward the Jewishquarter, so that the extraordinary party proceeded unseen to the houseof the alabarch. Once or twice, Eutychus attempted to press up besideMarsyas and excuse himself, but he was bidden to be silent. Then, onmissing the charioteer's footfall, Marsyas turned to see him slippingaway. Immediately Silas was despatched to bring him back; and so,placed between the two, he was dragged on to the house he had attemptedto 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 thisyour overthrow?" he said bitterly to himself.
Long before he reached the alabarch's house, the figure in his armsstirred and made a little questioning sound. But against her manifestwish, the promptings of his Essenic training and the admission that shehad been overtaken among apostates, something in him locked his armsabout her and brought a single word to his lips. The gentleness of hisvoice surprised him.
"Peace," he said, and she lay still.
After he had said it, a sudden rage against Eutychus seized him. Thecharioteer's part in the pursuit of the fugitive apostates assumed abrutality and an enormity many times greater than it had originallyseemed. He took savage pleasure in anticipating turning over theculprit to Agrippa for justice.
He was led presently into a dark porch and admitted into a hall. Thestartled porter glanced at him, and, seeing Lydia in the stranger'sarms, the serving-man cried out. The brown woman answered with aguttural sentence or two, and by the time Marsyas, following the leadof the agitated porter, entered a beautiful chamber, people wererunning in from brilliantly-lighted apartments beyond.
The spare and elegant old figure in the embroidered robes and cap of aJewish magistrate hurried toward him with terror written on his face.
"Lydia! What hath befallen thee? Is she dead?" he cried.
Back of him came a rush of people. Foremost was Herod Agrippa; behindhim, Cypros. With the growing group, Marsyas ceased to note thedetails of their identity and remarked at random that one was a man whowore a fillet and that the other was a woman and beautiful.
The number of servants increasing, the babble of questions andexclamations creating a great confusion, none who made answer washeard. But Marsyas looked at the master of the house. He saw thistime, not the magistrate's alarm, but his character, his nationality,his religion. In that aristocratic old countenance there was nothingof the Nazarene. Marsyas let his eyes fall on the face against hisbreast. By the brighter light, he saw now that which he had not seenunder the smoky street-torch. In the folds of her white dress,beautiful and rich enough for a feast, reposed a small cedar cross,depending from a scarlet cord.
The young Jew with the fillet about his forehead sprang forward to takeLydia from Marsyas' arms. But with the instinctive feeling that nonemust see but himself, he disengaged one hand and stopped the Jew with amotion.
"I will put her down," he said calmly.
Classicus drew himself up to his full height, but Marsyas had alreadyturned toward the divan. With a quick movement, he slipped thecrucifix from about the girl's neck and thrust it into his tunic.
Out of the babble about him he learned that the girl had supposedlygone to attend a maiden g
athering in the Regio Judaeorum with the brownwoman as an attendant. Catching with relief at this bit of foundationfor a story, he stood up prepared to tell anything but the truth.
Meantime, attendants and a house physician bent over the girl with wineand restoratives, and the company's attention was directed toward herrecovery. Presently she put aside her waiting-women and sat up.
Marsyas glanced from her to the brown woman, who hovered on theoutskirts. The handmaiden's great, mysterious, olive-green eyes werefixed upon him, half in appeal, half in command. Before he couldunderstand the look the Jew in the fillet turned upon him.
"Come, we are learning nothing," he said in a voice that silenced thegroup. "Thou," indicating Marsyas with an imperious motion, "seemestto show the marks of experience. Tell us what happened."
Marsyas' mind went through prodigious calculation. If he frankly toldthe truth, he betrayed the girl to much misery and peril. If heevaded, Eutychus, wishing to justify himself and to escape punishment,might wreck a fabrication by a word. But the young man made noappreciable hesitation in answering. He caught the charioteer's eyeand held it fixedly while he spoke.
"I know little," he said. "From the ship we came up a certain street,where we met tumult between fugitives and pursuers. So disorderly thecrowd and so extensive its violence that whosoever met it on the streetwas instantly caught in its center and mistreated as much as theguiltiest one. Thus I and Prince Agrippa's servant were caught; thus,the lady.
"We defended ourselves and should have escaped scathless, but that westayed to save the lady from the rioters. This done we came hither.That is all."
"Who were the fugitives?" the Jew in the fillet demanded.
The thick lips of Eutychus parted and he drew in breath, but the lowerlids of the black eyes fixed upon him lifted a little and he subsided.
"Sir, one does not stop to identify passing strangers when one fightsfor his life," Marsyas explained calmly.
Eutychus lost his air of trepidation, and his taut figure relaxed.
"Where was it?" the beautiful woman asked of the charioteer.
Marsyas answered directly.
"Lady, one does not locate himself in the midst of turbulence."
Lysimachus came closer to Marsyas.
"Who art thou?" he asked. "I met thee once, it seems."
"That," Agrippa broke in, "by every act he hath done since I knew him,is the most generous of Jews, Marsyas, an Essene, by his permission, myfriend and companion. Know him, Alexander; it is a profitableacquaintance."
Marsyas flushed under the prince's praise, and Cypros, drawing closer,took his arm and pressed her cheek against it.
"Thrice welcome to my house," the alabarch said with emotion. "Blessedbe thy coming and thy going; may safety be thy shadow!"
Marsyas, coloring more under the comment, thanked the alabarch and casta beseeching look at the prince. The prince smiled.
"Let us supplement blessings with raiment and thanks with wine," hesaid to the alabarch. "This is an Essene to whom uncleanliness is asgreat a crime as a love affair."
"Thou recallest me to my duty," the alabarch returned, at once."Stephanos,"--signing to a servitor,--"thou wilt take this young man tothe room which hath been prepared for him and give him comfort. If hehath any hurts, the physician will wait on him. Remember, brother, Iam at thy command."
With these words, he bowed to Marsyas, who inclined his head to thecompany and followed Stephanos.
But at the arch leading into the corridor, there was a low word at hishand. Lydia, with the rough mantle dropped from her, stood there inher rich white garments.
"I owe thee my life," she said, in a little more than a whisper. "Aye,even more--a greater debt which I can not make clear to thee now."
He looked down into her lifted eyes, pleading for pity and forgiveness.
"I made thee traffic with the truth," they said. "Thou who art anEssene and a holy man!"
Something happened in Marsyas; a quickening rush of rare emotion sweptover him. He took her small hand and held it, until, shyly andreluctantly, she drew it away.
He went then through broad halls, flooded with lights from costlylamps, past whispering fountains and motionless potted plants, througharches relieved by silken draperies which adorned without screening, upa broad flight of stairs to his own chamber.
This was all very beautiful and restful with its occasional whiffs ofincense, or the musical drip of the waterfall or the soft murmur ofdistant voices. His lot had fallen in splendid places, he toldhimself, and, though opposed, by teaching, to the difference men makein each other, he was glad that he was not to live as a manumittedslave under the roof of the alabarch's house.
As he stepped into the chamber which Stephanos told him was his own,Drumah appeared. Startled at first sight of a man bearing marks ofill-usage, she stopped and cried out as she recognized him.
"I am not hurt, Drumah," he said, to quiet the rush of questions on herlips. "I was caught in a riot. It is nothing."
"But I see marks on thy face," she persisted, coming near him; "and thygarments have bloodstains on them. Thou dost not know that thou arthurt. O Stephanos," she cried to the servitor, "fetch balsam andvolatile ointment. Eutychus, art thou there? Run to the culina andget wine! Where is the physician?"
The charioteer, who had appeared in the upper story for the expresspurpose of seeking Drumah to tell the details of the day's excitement,stopped short and scowled.
"I thank thee," Marsyas said to her. "I am not in need of assistance.The physician is with the master's daughter. I can care for myself.Pray, do not give thyself trouble."
He stepped into the apartment and dropped the curtain upon himself andStephanos.
He had given himself up to the servitor's attentions, when it occurredto him that he had let slip a chance to deliver a telling and amuch-needed warning to Eutychus. The more he considered his neglect,the more serious it seemed. At last he hurried his attendant, and,getting into fresh garments, descended again to the first floor. Hedespatched Stephanos in search of Eutychus and stopped by the newel toawait the charioteer's coming.
As he stood, the brown waiting-woman came to him, gliding like a sandcolumn across the desert. Coming quite close to him, she dropped onher knees at his side and touched her forehead to the ground.
"I am a Brahmin," she said in Hindu, "and I owe thee a debt. I shallnot forget!"
Rising, she flitted away.
Marsyas looked after her in amazement. It was the same slave-womanwhom he had helped at Peter the usurer's.
Cypros, with her head drooping, a delicate forefinger on her chin, cameslowly and sorrowfully into the hall. As Marsyas looked at her, sheseemed to him to be half-woman, half-child. But when she saw him, herface lighted, her eyes glowed. With extended hands she came toward him.
"Nay, nay," she said, seeing that thanks were on his lips. "Do notshame me with thy thanks, Marsyas, for I had a selfish use in releasingthee."
"But I know, nevertheless, that I should have had freedom at thy handsthough I never saw thee again."
"Oh, be not so filled with confidence and sweet believing, else I fearfor myself," she said earnestly. "Nay, if I were wholly unselfish, Ishould come to thee, this hour of thy honor, to bring thee praise. YetI come with mine own interest, to charge thee anew!"
"Command me; thou hast purchased me!"
"Not so; but thou hast purchased my husband, with the extreme of thysacrifice for his sake!"
"Lady, I did that thing for myself--for mine own ends!"
"Nevertheless, it was my husband who profited. Thou must learn thatmuch hath transpired here in Alexandria. The alabarch had not thethree hundred thousand drachmae to lend--"
Marsyas' forehead contracted; was not his work against Saul of Tarsusprogressing?
"--but he gave my lord in all readiness five talents, with which weransomed thee. It was all the good alabarch could afford, but it isnot enough for me and my babes. Wherefor
e Agrippa goes to Rome withoutus. There, infallibly he will obtain money from Antonia, discharge hisdebt to Caesar and settle Vitellius' vengeful search after thee. There,he shall be restored to favor with Caesar and come into possession ofhis kingdom!"
"How thou liftest my bitter heart!" Marsyas exclaimed. "Go yet furtherand say that, thereafter, I shall have my requital, my hunger aftervengeance satisfied!"
"All that shall be," she said with gravity, "on one condition!"
"What?" he besought earnestly.
"That he who hath Agrippa's welfare deepest in his heart shall ever benear my lord to protect him against himself!"
"O lady, even thou canst not wish thy husband successful with greateryearning than I!"
"So I do believe! But hear me. Thou seest my husband; thou knowestthat he plans only for the moment, risks too much, is over-confidentand too little cautious! In the beginning he believes that he isright, and thereafter and on to the end he acts, chooses friends, andmakes enemies as his conviction directs him. Thus he ruined himselfthrice over from Rome to Idumea. None but one so eager for his successas I, but abler than I, can govern him! And thou must be his keeper,Marsyas!"
"Thou yieldest me a welcome charge, lady," he said quickly. "Thouknowest that I would not have him fail; wherefore, I yield thee myword!"
"Be thou blessed! Yet there is more!"
In spite of her preparation, her face flushed, and she hesitated. Thenas if forcing herself to speak, she said:
"Thou--thou wilt keep my lord's love for me, Marsyas?"
"I do not understand," he said kindly.
"Thou didst not say such a thing when my lord asked thee for twentythousand drachmae. Thou didst get the drachmae; keep now my husband'slove for me. As thou didst offer thyself for his purse, offer thyselffor his soul--if need be!"
He frowned at the pavement and then at her. He had evolved enough fromher words to believe that her call aimed at his spiritual welfare andhe remembered that he was an Essene.
"Be his companion," she hurried on, "be more; be his comrade, hisabettor, even; sacrifice much; thy prejudices, even some of thyspotlessness, but make thyself desirable to him. Then thou canstcontrol him. Promise, Marsyas! Oh, thy hope to overthrow Saul is notdearer to thee than this thing is to me! Promise!"
"Be comforted," he said hurriedly, for there were steps approachingfrom the inner room. "I shall do all that I can. More than that, oneless than an angel can not promise!"
She, too, heard the footsteps and passed up the stairs.
Looking up from his disturbed contemplation of the pavement, Marsyassaw Classicus in the arch leading into the hall. If the young Essenehad been a cestophorus upholding the ceiling, the philosopher's gazecould not have been more indifferent. He passed on and disappearedinto the vestibule.
Hardly had he passed, before the dark end of the corridor leading infrom the garden gave up the stealthy figure of Eutychus, running, bent,purposeful and a-tiptoe, to overtake Classicus. Evidently he had notseen Marsyas, for he passed without faltering and disappeared the wayClassicus had taken.
Instantly and as silently Marsyas followed.
At the porch, the alabarch bade his guests good night, and when Marsyasbrought up, he found Classicus just departing and Eutychus nowhere tobe seen. Surmising that there was a humbler exit for the servants, outof which the charioteer had taken himself, Marsyas passed out directlyafter the philosopher.
His surmises were not wrong, for the instant Classicus planted foot onthe earth without, Eutychus came out of the darkness and bowed.
"Good my lord," he began, "the story truly told is this--" but hiswords babbled off into stammers and inarticulate sound, for Marsyas,large in the gloom, stood over him.
"Thy master hath need of thee, Eutychus," he said in a soft voice. Thecharioteer gulped and slid back into the door that had given him exit.
"Peace to thee, sir," the Essene said to Classicus, and bowing,returned into the house.
"The truth of the story is this," said Classicus as he stepped into hischair and was borne away, "the Essene is no Essene!"
At the farther end of the corridor within, Marsyas saw Eutychuslurking. Silent and swift the young Essene went after him. Thecharioteer, fearing for cause, fled and Marsyas followed.
Agrippa, on the point of ascending to his chamber, saw them flitnoiselessly into the dusk. His wonder was awakened. Drumah, with alaver under her arm, was emerging from the kitchens when she caught aglimpse of them. The prince stepped down and followed; Drumah slippedafter.
At the door leading into the colonnade of the garden, Marsyas seizedEutychus.
"Thou insufferable coward!" he brought out. "Thou blight and perilunder a hospitable roof! I know what thou wouldst have said to themaster's guest!"
Eutychus paled and struggled to free himself, but Marsyas forced himagainst the wall and pinned him there.
"If so much as a word escape thee, concerning the alabarch's daughter,if by a quiver of thy lashes thou dost betray aught that thou knowestto any living being, or dead post, or empty space, I shall kill theeand feed the eels of the sea with thy carcass!"
Fixing the charioteer with a menacing eye he held him until he was surehis words had conveyed their full meaning.
"I have spoken!" he added. Then he threw the man aside and turned togo back to his room. But in his path, though happily out of earshot ofhis low-spoken words, stood Agrippa; behind him, Drumah. Not a littledisturbed, Marsyas stopped. Eutychus saw the prince and expectedpartizanship.
"Seest thou how thy servant is used by this vagrant?" he demanded.
But Agrippa laid his hand on Marsyas' arm.
"I do not know thy provocation," he said, "but I know it was just. Goback! It is not enough. Teach him to respect thy strength. Thou hastmerely made him dangerous!"
But Marsyas begged Agrippa's permission to go on and the prince, stilldeclaring that the Essene had made a mistake, turned and went with him.
Drumah, with her head in the air, passed Eutychus without casting alook upon him.