CHAPTER III
THE FIRST MARTYR
Mid-March in Judea was the querulous age of the young year. It was atime of a tempered sun and intervals of long rains and chill winds.Under such persuasion, the rounded hills which upbore and encompassedJerusalem took on a coat green as emerald and thick as civet-fur.Above it the leaning cedars, newly-tipped with verdure, spread theirpeculiar flat crowns like ancient hands extended in benediction overthe soil. Shoals of wild flowers, or rather flowers so long infellowship with the fields of Palestine as to become domesticated, werescarlet and gold in shallows of green. Almond orchards snowed in thevalleys and every wrinkle and crevice in the hills trickled with clearcold water. The winds whimpered and had the snows of Lebanon yet inmind; the days were not long and the sun shone across vales filled withundulating vapors, smoky and illusory.
The shade was not comfortable and within doors those apartments whichdenied entrance to the sun had to be made tenantable by braziers.Loiterers, wayfarers and outcasts betook themselves to protected anglesand sat blinking and comatose in the benevolent warmth of the sun.
It was late afternoon and without the cedar hedge of Gethsemane, wherethe ancient green wall cut off the streaming wind, was a group sittingclose together on the earth.
One, much covered in garments barbarously striped, and who bestirredlong meager limbs now and then, was an Arab. Next to him a Jewishhusbandman from Bethesda squatted awkwardly, the length of his coarsesmock troubling him, while his hide sandals had been put off his hardbrown feet. His neighbor was a Damascene, and two or three others satabout two who were employed in the center of this racial miscellany.
One of these was a Greek, the ruin of a Greek, not yet thirty andbearing, in spite of the disfigurement of degradation, solitaryevidences of blood and grace. Opposite him sat a Roman, in a scarlettunic.
The two were playing dice, but the end of the game was in sight, forthe neat pile of sesterces beside the Roman was growing and the Greekhad staked his last on the next throw.
Presently the Greek took the tesserae and threw them. The Roman glancedat the numbers up and smiled a little. The Greek scowled.
"The old defeat," he muttered. "Fortune perches on the standards ofRome even in a game of dice. Oh, well, we have had our day!"
The Roman stowed away the sesterces in a wallet and hung it againinside his tunic.
"Yes, you have had your day," he replied. "Marathon, Thermopylae andPlataea--in my philosophy you can afford to lose a game of dice to awolf-suckled Roman!"
The Greek sat still with his chin upon his breast, and the Roman,getting upon his feet, scrutinized the sluggish group of on-lookers.
His interest was not idle curiosity in the men. Such as they were tobe seen cumbering the markets and streets of Jerusalem by day or bynight throughout the year. They were types of that which the worldcalls the rabble--at once a strength and a destruction, a creature or amaster, as the inclination of its manipulators is or as the call of thesituation may be. Individually, it has a mind; collectively, it hasnot; at all times it is a thing of great potentialities overworked, andof great needs habitually ignored. That the man in scarlet should scaneach one of these, as one appraises another's worth in drachmae, was anatural proceeding, old as the impulse in the shrewd to prey upon theunwary. Out of this or that one, perhaps he could turn an odd denariusat another game of dice.
But when he looked reflectively at the west, where the broad brow ofthe hills was outlined against a great radiance, he calculated on thehour of remaining daylight and the distance from that point to anotherin Bezetha far across Jerusalem, and felt of his wallet.
It was bulky enough for one day's winnings, and entirely too bulky tobe lost to some of the criminals or vagrants that would walk the night.With a motion of his hand he saluted the defeated Greek and the gapinggroup which sat in its place and watched him, and turned down the Mounttoward Jerusalem.
To a casual observer it would appear that he was a Roman. He wore theshort garments characteristic of the race, was smooth-shaven, anddisplayed idolatrous images on his belt, and, in disregard of Judeancustom, uncovered his head. But his features under analysis wereArabic, modified, not by the solidity of Rome but by the grace of theclassic Jew.
He was built on long, narrow lines, spare as a spear stuck in the sandbefore a dowar, but Judean flesh rounded his angles and reduced theArabian brownness of complexion. He was strikingly handsome and tall;not imposing but elegant, modeled for symmetry of his type, not forideality, for refinement, not for strength. His hands were delicatealmost to frailty, his feet slender and daintily shod. Never a Romanwalked so lightly, never a Jew so jauntily.
His presence was captivating. Naivete or impudence, carelessness orrecklessness, gravity or mockery were ever uncertain in theirdelineation on his face, and one gazed trying to decide and gazing wasundone. Never did he reveal the perspective of a single avenue in hisintricate and indirect disposition. He forwent the human respect thatis given to the straight-forward man, for the excited interest whichthe populace pays to the elusive nature.
It was hard to name his years. He was too well-knit to be young, toosupple to be old. The only undisputed evidence that he was pastmiddle-age was not in his person but behind the affected mood in hissoft black eyes. There was another nature, literally in ambush!
He had reached the gentler slopes of the Mount, when a young mandressed wholly in white approached from the north. The wayfarer walkedhesitatingly, his eyes roving over the towered walls of the City ofDavid. There were other wayfarers on Olivet besides the man in whiteand the man in scarlet. There were rustics and traveling Sadducees, inchairs borne by liveried servants, Pharisees with staff and scrip,marketers, shepherds, soldiers on leave and slaves on errands, men,women and children of every class or calling which might have affairswithout the walls of Jerusalem. But each turned his steps in onedirection, for the night was not distant and Jerusalem would shelterthem all.
The hill was busy, but many took time to observe the one in white. Themen he met glanced critically at his fine figure and passed; the womenlooked up at him from under their wimples, and down again, quickly;some of the children lagged and gazed wistfully at his face as if theywanted his notice. Even the man in scarlet, attracted by the wholesomepresence of the comely young man, studied him carelessly. He was alittle surprised when the youth stopped before him.
"Wilt thou tell me, brother, how I may reach the Gate of Hanaleel fromthis spot?" he asked. His manner was anxious and hurried, his eyestroubled.
"Thou, a son of Israel, and a stranger in the city of thy fathers?" theother commented mildly.
"The Essenes are rare visitors to Jerusalem," was the reply.
"Ah!" the other said to himself, "the bleached craven of En-Gadi. Dostthou come from the community on the Dead Sea?" he asked aloud.
"I journey thither," the Essene answered patiently. "I come fromGalilee."
The man in scarlet looked a little startled and put his slender hand upto his cheek so that a finger lay along the lips. "Now, may thy hastedeaden thy powers of recognition, O white brother," he hoped in hisheart, "else thou seest a familiar face in me."
He lifted the other arm and pointed toward the wall of the city.
"Any of these gates will lead thee within," he said.
"Doubtless, but once within any but the one I seek, I am more lost thanI am here. Wilt thou direct me?"
The man in scarlet motioned toward a splendid mass of masonry risingmany cubits above the wall toward the north. "There," he said. "Gohence over the Bridge of the Red Heifer and follow along the roadway onthe other side of Kedron."
As the man in white bowed his thanks, his elbow struck against anobstruction which yielded hastily. The two looked, to see the Greekwho had been defeated at dice make off up the hill. The Essene caughtat his pilgrim wallet which hung at his side and found it open.
"Ha! a thief!" the man in scarlet cried. "Did he rob thee?"
His quick eyes dropped to the wallet. There were many small roundcylinders wrapped in linen within, evidently stacks of coin of varioussizes from the little denarius to the large drachma; a handful of loosegold and several rolls of parchment which might have been bills ofexchange. The Essene frowned and closed the mouth of the purse.
"A trifle is gone," he said. "He was discovered in time."
"If thou carryest this to the Temple, friend," the older man urged,"get it there to-night, else thou walkest in danger continually."
"I give thee thanks; I shall be watchful; peace to thee,"--and theyoung man walked swiftly away.
"Wary as the eyes of Juno!" the man in scarlet said to himself."Essenes never make offering at the Temple; that treasure goes into thecommon fund of the order. Now, what a shame that the unsated maw ofthe Essenic treasury should swallow that and hold it uselessly when Ineed gold so much! Would that I had been born a good thief!"
He sauntered after the young Essene and idly kept him in sight.
"He walks like a legionary and talks like a patrician, but doubtless hehath the spirit of an ass, or he would not have let that knave of aGreek make off with so much as a lepton. I wonder if I should not seekout the thief and win his pilferings from him."
The Essene in the distance, just before he reached the Bridge of theRed Heifer, unslung his wallet and resettled the strap over hisshoulder, but the purse did not reappear at his side. He had concealedit within his gown.
"I wish he were not in such uncommon haste; I might persuade him toloan it me. Money-lending is second nature to a Jew. There must beseveral thousand drachmae in that wallet--enough to take me toAlexandria. I wonder if he sped so all the way from--_Hercle!_ Whatan aristocrat!"--noting the Essene draw aside his robes from contactwith the unclean mob at the opposite end of the causeway.
"What! do they resent it?" he exclaimed, lifting himself on tiptoe towatch the young man, who seemed suddenly pressed upon and swallowed upby rapidly assembling numbers.
Distant shouts arose, the Sheep Gate choked suddenly with a mass,Kedron's banks, the tombs of Tophet and the rubbish heaps there yieldedup clambering, running people. The hurry was directed along the brookoutside the wall; stragglers closed up and the whole, numberinghundreds, flung itself toward the north.
The man in scarlet, moved by amazement and a half-confessed interest inthe man he had seen disappear, ran down the Mount and after the crowd.
But a glance ahead now showed him that the Essene had not called forththis demonstration. The gate next beyond the heavy shape of Hanaleelwas discharging a struggling mass that instantly expanded in the openinto a great party-colored ring, dozens deep. The flying body the manin scarlet believed to encompass the young Essene swept up to thecircle and melted into it.
Meanwhile, around him came running eagerly the travelers, themarketers, shepherds, soldiers and slaves, and behind, the loiterers,who had watched him defeat the Greek. Focalizing at the Bridge of theRed Heifer which spanned Kedron at a leap, the mob caught andprecipitated him into its heart. Rushed toward the road on theopposite side, he seized a corner of the parapet, and, holding fast,let the mass stream by him.
When the rush trailed out, thinned and ceased altogether, he leisurelydrew near the huge compact circle and stood on its outskirts. But hecould hear and see nothing but the crowd about him.
"What is it?" he asked, touching a man in front of him. The man shookhis head and stood fruitlessly on tiptoe.
Presently unseen authority in the hollow ring pressed the crowd back.In the ferment and resistance, he caught, through a zigzag path ofdaylight between many kerchiefed heads, a glimpse of a segment of thecenter. A young man stood there. About his forehead was bound thephylactery of a Pharisee. At his feet was a tumbled heap of whiteouter garments. Then the breach closed up.
"A sacrifice?" the man in scarlet asked himself. But such a deductionwould not answer for the behavior of the crowd. Its temper wasferocious. They howled, they spat, they shook arms and clenched handsabove their heads and forward over their neighbors' shoulders; theycursed in Greek and Aramic; they twisted their faces into furiousgrimaces; they pressed forward and were driven back and the foremostrank which knew wherefore it raged was not more violent than therearmost which was perfectly in the dark.
It was typically the voice of the Beast in man. Some circumstance,unknown to the greater body, had waived restraint. Therefore thewolves of Perea could have come down from the bone-whited wadies of thewilderness and said to them with truth: "We be of one blood, ye and we!"
Each felt the support of numbers, the momentum of unanimity, theincentive of relaxed order, and the original cause, however heinous,was forgotten in the joy of the reversion to primordial savagery.Their quiet fellow stood on the outskirts and listened to the yelp ofthe jackal in man. Before him was a wall of variously clad backs andupstretched heads, beside him rows of raving men in profile, withstrained eyes, open mouths and working beards; and one of them was theman who had shown, when asked, that he did not understand thisdemonstration.
The man in scarlet finally shrugged his shoulders. He had suddenlyevolved an explanation--the blood of a fellow man. He turned away, notbecause he had revolted--he had seen too many spectacles in the Circusin Rome--but because he was disinclined to stand till he had learnedthe particulars of the uproar. A gnarly hummock, white, harsh and dry,as if it were a heap of disintegrated ashes, rose several rods away onthe brink of Kedron. He mounted it and sat. Yes; he would wait, also,till he saw the Essene again, who, he was sure, had been buried in thering. It would be unkind to himself to permit a chance for a loan topass untried.
The tumult continued many minutes before he noticed abatement in theforward ranks. Movement which had been general throughout the intervalincreased at times, but the mob showed no signs of dispersing.
The western slope of Olivet was now in its own shadow, its ravinesalready purpling with night. Only the glory on the summit of Moriahblazed with undiminished fire, as the gold of the gates gave back thegold of the sunset.
Presently a number of men, dressed alike in priestly robes, hurriedback through Hanaleel into the city. Hardly had they disappearedbefore the gate gave up a number of radiant shapes in a column, whichbroke suddenly and flung itself upon the great raving circle. Theflash of armor and the glitter of swords were suddenly interjected intoa demoralized eddy of stampeded hundreds. Another sort of clamorarose, no less voluminous, no less fervid, but it was a howl of panicand protest against the methods of Vitellius' legionaries sent todisperse a crowd.
A solid core of fugitives drove through the gate beside Hanaleel andthe Sheep Gate; fragments, detachments and individuals rolled down thebanks into Kedron; screaming, tumbling, falling bodies fled north andsouth by the roadway and wherever there was a gate or a niche or acrevice it received fugitives who appeared no more. Dust arose andobscured everything but the flash of arms and armor which rived throughit like lightning in a cloud. The uproar began to subside, andpresently the laughter and jests of the soldiers mounted above theprotest. Fainter and fainter the cries grew, fewer the sounds offlying feet, and at last, strong, harsh and biting as the clang of asledge upon metal, the command of the centurion to fall in settled eventhe shouts of the soldiers.
There was the even, musical ring of whetting armor as the column filedback through Hanaleel, and silence. The man in scarlet, who had sat onhis ash-heap and smiled throughout the dispersing of the mob, a royalcreature enthroned and entertained by the discomfiture of the mass,suddenly realized that the obscurity, which he had expected to lift,was the shadow of night. He arose and, dusting off his scarlet skirt,moved out into the road.
At that moment, a figure moving nearer the wall passed him, walkingswiftly. It was the Essene.
"Ho! a discreet youth! a cautious youth!" the man in scarlet said tohimself; "profiting by experience, he waited in safety somewhere untilthis light-fingered rabble was dispersed. That must be a fat purse, afat purse! And I am lookin
g for such!"
He quickened his pace to overtake the young man and in his interestforgot the late riot. Suddenly the young Essene stopped as if he hadbeen commanded. The man in scarlet brought up and looked.
Before them was an immense trampled dusty ring. In the fallingtwilight, he saw several huddled shapes, in attitudes of suffering andsorrow, kneeling together in its center over something which wasstretched on the sand.
A strangling gasp attracted the older man's attention once more to theEssene. His figure seemed to shrink, his cheeks fell in. Swiftlyabout his lips crawled the gray pallor of one physically sick fromshock to the senses. His eyes flared wide and the next instant he flewat the mourning cluster about the prostrate shape in the ring. One ortwo fell back under his hand, and he leaned over and looked.
A cry, heartrending in its agony, broke from his lips. He dropped tohis knees and fell forward with his face in the dust. A murmur ofcompassion arose from the little group around him, and the man inscarlet lifted his shoulders and turned his back on the blightingspectacle of the young man's anguish.
He walked hurriedly out of the falling night on the Mount, throughHanaleel, into the lights and noise of the City of David. Soldiers onthe point of closing the great gate paused to let him through.
"Comrade," he said to one, "what did they out yonder?"
"They stoned a Nazarene named Stephen," was the reply.
"They stoned a Nazarene named Stephen"]