Saul of Tarsus: A Tale of the Early Christians

  CHAPTER XXXIV

  CAPTIVES OF THE MIGHTY

  The second night after the riot about the Synagogue, one of Flaccus'sentries, posted about the small cramped portion of the Regio Judaeorum,into which the forty thousand Jews had been driven, brought his spearat guard and called "Halt!"

  But the object approaching spun on toward him noiselessly, passed thelines, and disappeared up the dark, sandy roadway, into the night onthe beleaguered quarter.

  "Ha, ha! Ho, ho!" roared the next post, who had heard his challenge,"challenging sand-columns, Sergius? Flaccus should know of thythoroughness!"

  The discomfited sentry muttered and shouldered his weapon.

  But the column of sand disintegrated before a hovel, and became a snakywoman-shape that disappeared into the dark door of the house.

  Within, she stumbled over prostrate bodies, sleeping on the earthenfloor, and, muttering in Hindu against the darkness, stopped finally.

  "Master!" she called softly, in her native tongue.

  There was instant reply.

  "Thou, Vasti! The Lord God be praised! What news?"

  The woman felt her way to the voice, and, encountering the alabarch'soutstretched hands, began at once, in a whisper:

  "I have come, but not to abide," she said. "The Nazarenes took Lydia,and fled with her unto Judea!"

  "Unto Judea! Away from me?" the alabarch said piteously.

  "Nay, but Egypt hath risen against her. The Roman hath put forth allhis soldiery to look for her. If she remained in Alexandria she wouldsurely die!"

  The alabarch moaned. The last of his fortitude had gone with Lydia,and helpless, disgraced and old, he was beginning to surrender. Thebayadere put her hands on him.

  "Be of hope," she insisted, "for the white brother departed at sunsetto seek for her, and to get protection from the Herod!"

  "Judea!" the alabarch repeated miserably. "There she entereth intoequal danger, for there it is death to be a Nazarene!"

  "But the white brother is sworn to kill the leader of the persecution,"she said grimly. "Speed him with thy prayers, for he is weighted withno little mission. I come unto thee with cheer. Listen, and be ofhope! The city of the Jews, here, is all but destroyed, but I buriedthy moneys, thy drafts, thy money-papers and thy jewels. Though theyburn thy house, thou art still rich!"

  "Buried them?" he repeated.

  "In the earth of thy court-yard, ere the Herod departed, for the flameon the altar of Mahadeva burned crimson and murky! And I took certainof thy moneys and gave them to certain of the Nazarenes and bade thembe prepared to care for her, who had cared for them! They went untothe Synagogue! They rescued her from the stone, after the sending ofVishnu upon the rabble! They went unto Judea with her--and I, Vasti, Idid it, as Khosru, the Mahatma, bade!"

  "Be thou blessed, Vasti; blessed be the day that I held up the handthat would have fallen on thee, in the markets of Sind!But--but--Marsyas--what manner of vessel carryeth him? How long!Alas, how wide the sea!"

  "But the vengeance of the Divine hand is loosed! Sawest thou thedestruction of the host, before thy people's Temple? The bay was blackwith them this morning and the vultures come even from Libya. Knowestthou the evil mouth that spread sayings against Lydia? I was in thecity and beheld it! It was the charioteer, Eutychus! Him I kept in mysight, while I ran at the forefront of the riot with the white brother,and when we stood upon the rock, I saw him! This morning, I sought forhim before the Synagogue, and I found him!"

  She brought her teeth together with a click.

  "I burned incense for the purification of the fire, straightway," shesaid sententiously.

  "Canst thou endure?" she asked after a silence.

  "All--so that Lydia be saved!"

  "Thy spirit may be tried," she said. "The Roman hath commanded that yebe pent here until Lydia is found, believing that imprisonment andhunger and torture may persuade the Jews to give her up if she be hidamong them. But I shall come to thee with comforts and such tidings asI may learn."

  She touched his hands to her forehead and moved away, calling back:

  "The time is not long; the Jewish king will not lag in his ownrequital! Be assured! I abide without these lines, since I can nothelp thee within! Farewell!"

  At the door she stopped, but, reconsidering her impulse, went outwithout speaking.

  "It would not be seemly to tell, now, that I saw Classicus' green andgold garment exposed in a usurer's shop."

  A sand-column passed before the wind, by the sentry at the upper end ofthe street; but he did not attempt to halt it.