CHAPTER XXX
THE EREMITE IN SCARLET, AND THE BANKRUPT IN PURPLE
Lydia came upon Vasti, the bayadere, returning to the culina with aflaring taper in her hand. The brown woman's eyes were fixed on theflame and she whispered under her breath, till the licking red tongueof the taper flickered and wavered back at her as if speaking in signs.
"What saith the Red Brother?" Lydia asked, in halting Hindu, for shehad begun to learn her waiting-woman's tongue.
"He keeps his own counsel, who is fellow to the Fire," was the answer."Thy neighbor, the philosopher, awaits thee within."
Lydia went slowly on.
When she entered the alabarch's presiding-room, Classicus arose from aseat beside a cluster of lamps and came toward her.
"Thy servant at the door tells me that thy father is not in," he said."I came to speak with him of thee: but perchance it is better that Itell thee that which I have to tell, before any other."
Lydia sat down on the divan, and Classicus sat beside her.
"I come to submit to thy scorn or thy pity," he said, "either of whichI deserve!"
"What hast thou done?" she asked, feeling a vague sense of fear.
"I have been Flaccus' fool!" he vowed.
Lydia's eyes grew troubled.
"What didst thou for him?" she asked in a lowered tone.
"I permitted him to catch me up in the city and rush me to Rome with amemorial to Caesar, beseeching the emperor's aid in seeking the LadyCypros, who had been abducted."
Lydia's level brows dropped.
"Charging us with abduction?" she remarked.
"Charging no man with abduction, but declaring that she was missingfrom thy father's roof!"
Classicus' face filled with contrite humiliation under her gaze.
"Why so late with the story?" she asked. "Why didst thou not come tous before thou wast persuaded to go!"
"Charge me not with more folly than I did commit!" he besought. "I wascaught by his servants in the Brucheum and haled before him, where, inall excitement, he told that the Lady Cypros was missing, and that I,as the safe friend of the alabarch and the proconsul, had beencommissioned to enlist Caesar's interest in her cause! The vessel readyfor Puteoli waited only on the night-winds to sail! I was not giventime to change my raiment, or to fill my purse from mine own treasure,much less to take counsel with thy father and learn the truth!"
"And besides Flaccus, we must now take Caesar into consideration inprotecting this unhappy woman!" she exclaimed.
"No!" he cried. "A friend of Agrippa's, whom I met in Rome, stopped mein time!"
She looked away from him and he took her hand.
"Am I pardoned?" he asked plaintively.
"Thou didst no harm; but it should serve to awaken thee to the evil inthis dangerous Roman! If only Agrippa would return, how readily theskies would brighten for us all!"
"What wilt thou do if the Herod returns not?" he asked after a littlesilence.
"Do not speak of it, Classicus," she said hurriedly. "Flaccus isdesperate."
"If Agrippa abandon Cypros," he offered, "she can divorce him, andsimplify the tangle."
"Oh, no, Justin! Cypros is bound heart and soul to Agrippa. Even ifhe died, she would not turn to Flaccus! The dear Lord be thanked thatwe have a virtuous woman to defend!"
"Nay, then, thou strict little rabbin, what shall we do?"
"How slow these ships! The last letter we sent to him can hardly havereached Sicily!"
"He hath had a sufficiency of letters by this time! What was it hewrote thy father, last: 'I come with all speed; but reflect that Caesaris master over me: his consent is needful!' Ha! ha! Caligula wouldgive Agrippa half his Empire did he ask for it!"
She leaned her cheek in her hand, turning her face away from Classicus.
"Alas! I know why he lingers," she said to herself. "Marsyas hathdeparted unto Judea, and Agrippa lacks his controlling hand!"
"I appreciate the peril threatening thy father's house," thephilosopher added after her continued silence, "and thou knowest thoushall have my help--blundering as it may be!"
There were footsteps in the vestibule, and the alabarch stood in thearchway. Lydia sprang up.
"What," she cried, unable to wait for his report, "what said theproconsul?"
The alabarch came into his presiding-room with a slow step; he let hiscloak fall on his chair, and stood in the lamplight worn and troubled.Seeing Classicus, he greeted the visitor before he answered Lydia.
"Evil, evil; naught but evil," he sighed, "and threats. And theproconsul's threats are never empty!"
"What does he threaten?" Classicus asked.
"Me--and mine."
"Alas! our people!" Lydia sighed.
"No, daughter! Thee!"
"Lydia!" Classicus exclaimed.
"Why does he threaten me?" Lydia cried.
The alabarch shook his head. "Flaccus betrayed only enough to showthat he will concentrate his vengeance against me and thee, or methrough thee, but thee of a surety, my Lydia! Yet, he was as dark andominous as the wrath of God!"
Lydia came close to her father and he laid his arm about her shoulders.
"Lydia, that bat escaped from Sheol, Eutychus, is openly attached toFlaccus' train; once, he abode under my roof, where he could learn manythings. Has he any information against thee which Flaccus could use?"
Lydia's answer was not ready. It meant too much to tell that which thealabarch groped after. Already she had surrendered until she wasstripped 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 Classicus, silent and smug behind her, seemed to be a preparedwitness awaiting a confession. Conscience and human nature had theusual struggle, and when she replied she did not raise her head.
"My father, Eutychus will never be at a loss for information. Whatactualities he can not furnish, he may have from his imagination."
"Alexandria does not wait for charges against the Jews," the alabarchsaid.
"But what says Flaccus?" Classicus urged after a silence.
"That I have abducted Agrippa's wife; that I have been guilty ofinsubordination to him, my superior; that thou, my Lydia, art amenableto him and all the people of Alexandria, and that he will proceed ashis information warrants, unless I produce Cypros--between sunrise andsunset, 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 Lydiaput off his arm and stood away from him.
"This matter is neither thine nor Agrippa's to decide! Cypros is agood woman and she shall be kept secure--even against herself, if needbe! 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," Classicus putin, to Lydia. "We are no less unwilling to surrender thee to theunknown charges Flaccus brings against thee, than thou art to give upCypros!"
"Flaccus is no arbiter of the virtue of women! He is not Caesar, beyondwhom there is no human appeal! Let him remember that it is no longerthe old man Tiberius who is emperor of the world, but the young manCaligula, whose warmest friend is a Jew! Let him touch Cypros at hisperil!"
"Daughter, why should Caesar defend a woman for whom not even herhusband 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?" sheasked.
The alabarch bit his lip and turned his head away.
"Granted, then," put in Classicus in his even voice, "that we shallkeep the lady in hiding and treat her to no ungentle usage! Now, whatwill become of Lydia?"
The alabarch raised his eyes, filled with fire and desperation. Lydiadrooped more and more, and present
ly she put her hand to her forehead.
"Is there nothing to be done?" Classicus persisted calmly.
The silence became strained and lengthened to the space of manyheart-beats before he spoke again.
"Lydia can be hidden, with the princess," he offered finally.
Lydia raised her head, and looked at Classicus. Not for her the refugethat was Cypros', for if Flaccus held in truth the secret of herconversion to the Nazarene faith, she would only lead his officersstraight upon the Nazarenes all over Egypt. Whatever people shelteredher, she would bring disaster and death on their heads. As Marsyas hadbeen under the oppression of Saul of Tarsus, she had become as apestilence! She wondered if Classicus realized how thoroughly sheunderstood him. His face did not wear an air of respect for his plan.
"It can not be," she said quietly, and the alabarch looked startled ather words. Classicus submitted to her objection at once.
"Then," he said, "there is but one other way that I can invent--andthis I offer last, because it is dearest to me. I have lands in Greeceand favor with the legate there. Flaccus' power can not extend beyondhis own dominions. Wilt thou not come to Greece--with me, my Lydia?"
Lydia's gaze did not falter throughout this speech; she had expected,long ago, that when Classicus had hedged her about, he would offer hishand as her one escape. Drop by drop the color left her face; her lipsgrew pale, and took on a curve of mute appeal; her eyes were the eyesof suffering, but not the eyes of a vanquished woman.
The alabarch had turned hurriedly away. But Classicus gazed, as ifawaiting her reply, at his smooth, thin hands, now stripped of theirjewels, incident to the shrinkage in his purse.
The drip of the waterfall in the garden within came very distinctlyupon the silence in the room.
A cry from the porter, speaking in the vestibule, brought the alabarchup quickly.
"Master! master! The prince! The prince!"
"The king, thou untaught rustic!" Agrippa's tones, subdued butmirthful, followed upon the porter's cry.
Lysimachus sprang toward the vestibule, but Lydia, transfixed byreactionary emotions, did not move.
But before the alabarch reached the arch, two men appeared in theopening. Except for the fillet of gold set so low on his head that itpassed around his forehead just above the brows, Agrippa might havebeen the same nonchalant bankrupt gambling with loaded tesserae orhunting loans on bad security.
The other was Marsyas.
Classicus lifted his brows and arose to the proper spirit in which togreet a king.
"Count it not flattery, lord," the alabarch cried, extending his handstoward the new-comers, "that I say that Abraham's radiant visitors werenot more welcome than thou!"
"Better the unprepared alabarch," said Marsyas, "than any host who hathexpected his guests!"
The prince laughed, and discovering Lydia, bowed low to her.
"No change in thee, sweet Lydia," he exclaimed as she bent in obeisanceto the fillet of gold about his forehead.
Marsyas stood a moment aside, his glance roving quickly from her toClassicus. With an effort he put back the rush of feeling that crowdedupon his composure and came to her.
"Hast thou not changed, Lydia?" he asked. The hand closing over hisdid not belie the tremor in her voice.
"A blessing on you both," she said. "You are the redemption of thishouse of trouble!"
"We have been everything but heroes in our days," Marsyas said."Welcome the opportunity!"
"Ho! Classicus!" Agrippa cried jovially, "hast thou failed tooverthrow the tribute-demanding Sphinx or the Dragon?"
Marsyas gazed at the philosopher standing with inclined head, while hemade felicitous answers to the prince, and said to himself:
"Happy phrase, my lord King! There standeth the tribute-demandingSphinx, even now!"
Agrippa addressed himself to the alabarch, and between Marsyas andClassicus there stood no saving obstruction. Marsyas' nostrilsquivered; he had fleeting but perfect summaries of the wrongs the manhad worked against him. To find him now a guest entertained under theroof he had striven to injure, brought the Essene's temper up to aclimacteric point. But he felt Lydia's presence, pacific, temperateand persuasive, restraining him. Of all the many deceits he had usedthroughout his precarious life of late, none seemed so impossible ofpractice as to offer a dispassionate word to Classicus.
He was saved for the moment by an exclamation from the alabarch.
"In all truth, that manifestation of Caesar's favor?" he cried eagerly.
"A truth!" Agrippa declared. "Rome made a dandy out of Marsyas.Twelve legionaries, before he would stir a step to Egypt! Twelve! Allarmed; brasses so polished that one looks into the sun who looks atone. None short of three cubits in stature and visaged like Mars!"
Marsyas cut off the prince's raillery with a direct and serious query.
"How is it with our lady?"
"Still in hiding from Flaccus," the alabarch replied.
Agrippa looked in astonishment from one to another.
"Surely," he said earnestly, "you have not carried this delusion tosuch an extreme!"
"Delusion, lord," Marsyas repeated, facing him. "Let those first speakwho are not deluded. Then thou shall apply the word to him it fits."
"Good friends," the Herod protested, "all wise men cherish a folly.Marsyas, being the wisest of my knowing, hath his own. He hath heldfast against flawless argument and solid truth to the delusion that myhonest, timid wife hath awakened passion in the heart of thisproconsul, who hath all the beauty and wit of Egypt and Rome from whichto choose."
"Wilt thou continue further, lord," Marsyas said, "and tell them howthou hast explained this mystery to thyself?"
"What, Marsyas! Make confession here, openly, of a thing which I blushto confess to myself?" the Herod laughed.
"Never fear; thy audience hath already acquitted thee of blame!"
"Nay, then; so assured of clemency, I tell this behind my palms andwith the prayer that the walls do not repeat it to my lady's ears!Learn, then, for the first time, that Junia is the cause of mydisaster, because, forsooth, she is as fickle and capricious a woman asshe is bad. Until the unhappy Herod was blown of ill winds toAlexandria, his single haven, she was Flaccus' mistress. When Iappeared, for no other cause than the Mightiness of her fancy, shedropped Flaccus and precipitated all manner of disaster upon my head.There is the true story! Cypros, forsooth! Cypros is an upright Arab,twenty years married and mother of three!"
"Junia!" the alabarch repeated irritably. "Junia constructed more ofFlaccus' villainies than Flaccus himself!"
"And will nothing dislodge this wild thing from your brain?" Agrippacried.
"Name it what you will, lord," the alabarch answered, "but I have afurther story to tell than all my fruitless letters told, when I stoodin fear of their interception! Thou hast not forgotten the attack onthee on the night of Flora's feast; that, thou canst ascribe toFlaccus' jealousy, but how wilt thou explain that when the news of thydisaster reached Alexandria, Flaccus put off his amiable front andcommanded me to deliver Cypros to him--"
"Commanded you to deliver Cypros to him!" Agrippa cried, the fires ofanger igniting in his eyes. "What had she to do with this?"
The alabarch drew himself up, ready in his dignity and authority tojustify his deeds.
"If it proceedeth to an accounting, I and mine will bear witness to herinnocence and loving fidelity to thee! Yet, remember, lord, she haththe first right to ask why she hath been left without thy care thuslong!"
Agrippa flushed darkly, but Marsyas stopped the retort on his lips.
"Let us not try each other! Go on, good sir," he pleaded.
"I refused, and he threatened to hurl the Alexandrians on the RegioJudaeorum. But in the meantime, fate or fortune, God knows which,ordered that Tiberius should choose Caligula to succeed him. The newsreached Alexandria and stayed Flaccus' hand, for then he stood inwholesome fear of thy friend, the prince imperial. But thou didsttarry and ta
rry, and the more thou didst tarry, the more his hopes andhis desires grew. No longer the Regio Judaeorum dared he threaten, butme and mine--Lydia, above all!"
"Lydia!" Marsyas exclaimed.
"And I tell thee, my Lord Agrippa," the alabarch continued, by thistime a picture of refined indignation, "at this very hour I was broughtface to face with a hard decision between my daughter and thy wife!"
Marsyas turned toward Classicus, but the storm of denunciation thatleaped to his lips was checked. What should he win for his exposure ofClassicus, but scorn from Lydia, and a misconstruction of his motive?
Atavistic ferocity glittered in Agrippa's eyes.
"It is my turn!" he brought out between clenched teeth, "and I have along score, a long score with Flaccus! Where is my lady? Let her bebrought!"
Lydia broke in before the alabarch could answer.
"In hiding!" she answered quickly, and Marsyas fancied that she feareda too explicit answer from her father. Before whom was she afraid todisclose the princess' refuge, if not Classicus?
"Take four of my praetorians, then," Agrippa commanded, "and lead me toher hiding-place!"
The alabarch bowed and summoned servants.
"Have we, then, delivered this house of peril?" Marsyas asked ofAgrippa.
"Flaccus," said Classicus, speaking for the first time, "may feed histhirst for revenge!"
"Get but my lady, first!" Agrippa insisted. "Flaccus hath played andlost! He shall pay his forfeit!"
The servants were ready with the alabarch's cloak; the porter announcedchariots waiting, and in an incredibly short time, Marsyas was alonewith Lydia and Classicus, in the presiding-room.
"I shall return to the ship and prepare it for voyage," Marsyas said,in the silence that instantly fell. "Since I return to Judea with theKing, perchance I should say farewell!"
Lydia's lips parted, and her miserable eyes turned away from him.
"Await my father's return," she said in a low voice,
"Hath he far to go?" he asked.
"Yes--far!"
Classicus waited serenely for Marsyas' answer. In that composureMarsyas read unconcern, which the Essene interpreted as hopelessnessfor his own cause.
"So long as we abide in Egypt, we are a peril," he replied. "Even nowwe have delayed too long!"
He extended his hand to Lydia, and slowly, she put her own into it.The touch of the small fingers played too strongly upon hisself-control. He released them hurriedly and strode toward thevestibule.
But at the threshold, indecision and astonishment and acute realizationof the meaning of the thing he was doing seized him. He whirled about.Classicus stood beneath the cluster of lamps, his face alight withtriumphant superciliousness. Even under Marsyas' eye the expressiondid not alter. Lydia seemed to have shrunk; her hands clasped beforeher were wrung about each other in an agony of restraint, but thepitiful appeal in her eyes was all that Marsyas saw.
In an instant he was again at her side, his heart speaking in his face.
"Thou wearest yet the free locks of maidenhood," he said, in a voice sosmooth and low that it chilled her, "perchance thou wilt tell me ere Idepart if thou art to marry--this man?"
For a moment there was silence; Marsyas heard his mad heart beating,but if Classicus felt apprehension, there was no display of it on hisface. Then Lydia raised her head.
"No," she said, in a voice barely audible.
Marsyas turned upon Classicus, and between the two there passed thesilent communication of men who wholly understand each other. ThenClassicus took up his kerchief, and, with a smile and a wave of hishand, walked out of the presiding-room.
But Lydia was out of reach of Marsyas' arms when he turned to her.Crying and afraid, she motioned him back as he pressed toward her.
He stopped.
"Am I still unacceptable to thee, Lydia?" he asked.
"O Marsyas, thou returnest in the same spirit as thou didst depart fromme--unchanged, unchanged! But striving to change--for my sake! Do notso, for me! Not for me!"
The grief and pleading in the black eyes that rested upon her changedslowly. Rebuffed and stung he threw up his head.
"Better the old Essenic shape in which I was bound against thee andthou against me?" he said bitterly. "So! The Essenes seem not to bewrong in their teaching of distrust in women!"
If he expected her to retort, the compassion and gentleness in heranswer surprised him.
"Not that, my Marsyas," she said, coming nearer to him in herearnestness. "But change does not consist in the raiment thou wearest,nor in the claim to be altered. Thou canst not in truth believe that Ihave done right! Thou forgivest me for thy love's sake, but thyintelligence is no less critical! I can not, will not put away thefaith of the Master; I can not regret the spirit of the deed I did fortheir sake. And between us it is as it was the night I sent thee fromme, so long ago!"
"But I have changed," he protested hastily. "The world hath taught memuch: I can understand; I can extenuate greater errors--I have done so;believe me, it is only for thy sake--"
"But canst thou wholly acquit me--wholly justify me, Marsyas?"
He looked at her with pleading in his eyes, and made no answer.
"No man should wed or worship with a single doubt," she said.
Fearing more than he dared confess to himself, he caught her hands andwould not let her leave him.
"Lydia, I have not had the portion which God and women allot to mostmen," he said almost piteously. "There are delights that should bemine by right, but they are denied me! Other men have their dreams,their moments of tender preoccupation. They can live again throughhours between only themselves and one other. They can feel again thetouches of a woman's hand upon them, the warmth of her cheek and thelove in her kiss. No matter the evil, the sorrows that follow, thesethings are theirs, to hold in memory! No matter the time or the place,they can summon it all from a song, drink it from a goblet of wine, orbreathe it in from a flower! It is twice living it; once, in theactuality; again, in the dream! But I--I have nothing! My teachingdid not permit me to look forward to such a thing--and thou,Lydia--Lydia, thou dost not permit me to look back upon it!"
Her eyes filled with tears, and a rush of tender words trembled on herlips. His gaze, quickened by longing for the thing these signstypified, caught the softening in her young face. He seized upon thehope that it gave him.
"Dost thou love me, Lydia?" he asked.
"I love thee, Marsyas."
He drew her to him, put his arms about her and pressed her to hisbreast. She did not resist him, for she was tired of contention withherself, tired of distress, afraid of the menace the future showed her,and withal fainting in hope. She dropped her head on his shoulder,with her face turned up to him. Marsyas' soul filled to the full withsubdued, bewildering emotions. It was not the first time he had heldthis sweet child-woman in his arms, but fear, tumult, impetuousness andprotest had claimed preeminence in his thoughts before. Now in thequiet and shelter of the alabarch's deserted presiding-room, he foundnew experience, new feelings. Under the low light of the clusteredlamp, he looked down on the face turned to him, smoothed with softtouches the long, delicate black brows; passed light fingers over thebloom of her cheek and saw the faint rose color come again in the whitelines the little pressure made; put back the loose curl fallen beforeher perfect ear and marveled at its silkiness; watched the quietpalpitation in the milk-white throat--sensed, somehow, the repose inherself, the command, even in this momentary surrender, the divinity inher womanliness. He was ashamed of his distrust, startled at his newsensations.
Perhaps she saw the passing of feeling over his face, for she stirredand would have raised herself, but the movement brought him back toreality, and a fiercer rebellion against it.
"Nay, nay, Lydia; I love thee! It is my one virtue; my sinful soulhath been married to thee these many strange months. Thou art become anecessity to my life, as needful as bread and drink, as blood andbreath! Thou art the
essential salt in my veins--the world to me!Nay, more! Thou art love, for world is a word with boundaries! I havestriven for thy sake and I have not failed. I am able now to obtainthe quieting of thy chief enemy, the refreshment of the starved heartin me, thirsting for revenge, and of our own security henceforward inthe world. Yet, I am not going to Judea with Agrippa. I abide herewith thee in Alexandria, until I have won the immediate safety of thybody and thy soul!"
She strove to stop him in his resolution, but he kissed her, and,leading her to the foot of the well-remembered stairs, whispered hisgood night.