Chapter XXIV. THE ROAD TO PELLA
The chief merchant of Ascalon stood in the guest-chamber of
his house.
Although it was a late winter day the old man was clad in the
free white garments of a midsummer afternoon, for to the sorrow
of Philistia the cold season of the year sixty-nine had been
warm, wet and miasmic. An old woman entering presently glanced
at the closed windows of the apartment when she noted the
flushed face of the merchant but she made no movement to have
them opened. More than the warmth of the day was engaging the
attention of the grave old man, and the woman, by dress and
manner of equal rank with him, stood aside until he could give
her a moment.
His porter bowed at his side.
"The servants of Philip of Tyre are without," he said. "Shall
they enter?"
"They have come for the furnishings," Costobarus answered.
"Take thou all the household but Momus and Hiram, and dismantle
the rooms for them. Begin in the library; then the
sleeping-rooms; this chamber next; the kitchen last of all. Send
Hiram to the stables to except three good camels from the herd
for our use. Let Momus look to the baggage. Where is Keturah?"
A woman servant hastening after a line of men bearing a great
divan, picking up the draperies and pillows that had dropped,
stopped and salaamed to her master.
"Is our apparel ready?" he asked.
"Prepared, master," was the response.
"Then send hither--" But at that moment a man-servant dressed
in the garb of a physician hastened into the chamber. Without
awaiting the notice of his master he hurried up and whispered in
his ear. Costobarus' face grew instantly grave.
"How near?" he asked anxiously.
"In the next house--but a moment since. The household hath
fled," was the low answer.
"Haste, haste!" Costobarus cried to the rush of servants
about him. "Lose no time. We must be gone from this place before
mid-afternoon. Laodice! Where is Laodice?" he inquired.
Then his wife who had stood aside spoke.
"She is not yet prepared," she explained unreadily. "She
needs a frieze cloak--"
Costobarus broke in by beckoning his wife to one side, where
the servants could not hear him say compassionately,
"Let there be no delay for small things, Hannah. Let us
haste, for Laodice is going on the Lord's business."
"A matter of a day only," Hannah urged. "A delay that is
further necessary, for Aquila's horse is lame."
The old man shook his head and looked away to see a
man-servant stagger out under a load of splendid carpets. The
old woman came close.
"The wayside is ambushed and the wilderness is patrolled with
danger, Costobarus," she said. "Of a certainty you will not take
Laodice out into a country perilous for caravans and armies!"
"These very perils are the signs of the call of the hour," he
maintained. "She dare not fail to respond. The Deliverer cometh;
every prophecy is fulfilled. Rather rejoice that you have
prepared your daughter for this great use. Be glad that you have
borne her."
But in Hannah's face wavered signs of another interpretation
of these things. She broke in on him without the patience to
wait until he had completed his sentence.
"Are they prophecies of hope which are fulfilled, or the
words of the prophet of despair?" she insisted. "What saith
Daniel of this hour? Did he not name it the abomination of
desolation? Said he not that the city and the sanctuary should
be destroyed, that there should be a flood and that unto the end
of the war desolations shall be determined? Desolations,
Costobarus! And Laodice is but a child and delicately reared!"
"All these things may come to pass and not a hair of the
heads of the chosen people be harmed," he assured her.
"But Laodice is too young to have part in the conflict of
nations, the business of Heaven and earth and the end of all
things!"
A courier strode into the hall and approached Costobarus, saw
that he was engaged in conversation and stopped. The merchant
noted him and withdrew to read the message which the man
carried.
"A letter from Philadelphus," he said over his shoulder, as
he moved away from Hannah. "He hath landed in Caesarea with his
cousin Julian of Ephesus. He will proceed at once to Jerusalem.
We have no time to lose. Ah, Momus?"
He spoke to a servant who had limped into the hall and stood
waiting for his notice. He was the ruin of a man, physically
powerful but as a tree wrecked by storm and grown strong again
in spite of its mutilation. Pestilence in years long past had
attacked him and had left him dumb, distorted of feature,
wry-necked and stiffened in the right leg and arm. His left arm,
forced to double duty, had become tremendously muscular, his
left hand unusually dexterous. Much of his facial distortion was
the result of his efforts to convey his ideas by expression and
by his attempts to overcome the interference of his wry neck
with the sweep of his vision.
"Whom have we in our party, Momus?" Costobarus asked. As the
man made rapid, uncouth signs, the master interpreted.
"Keturah, Hiram and Aquila--and thou and I, Momus. Three
camels, one of which is the beast of burden. Good! Aquila will
ride a horse; ha! a horse in a party of camels--well, perhaps--if
he were bought in Ascalon. How? What? St--t! The physician told
me even now. Let none of the household know it--above all things
not thy mistress!" The last sentence was delivered in a whisper
in response to certain uneasy gestures the mute had made. The
man bowed and withdrew.
A second servitor now approached with papers which the
merchant inspected and signed hastily with ink and stylus which
the clerk bore. When this last item was disposed of, Hannah was
again at her husband's side.
"Costobarus," she whispered, "it is known that the East Gate
of the Temple, which twenty Levites can close only with effort,
opened of itself in the sixth hour of the night!"
"A sign that God reentereth His house," the merchant
explained.
"A sign, O my husband, that the security of the Holy House is
dissolved of its own accord for the advantage of its enemies!"
Costobarus observed two huge Ethiopians who appeared
bewildered at the threshold of the unfamiliar interior, looking
for the master of the house to tell them what to do. The
merchant motioned toward a tall ebony case that stood against
one of the walls and showed them that they were to carry it out.
Hannah continued:
"And thou hast not forgotten that night when the priests at
the Pentecost, entering the inner court, were thrown down by the
trembling of the Temple and that a vast multitude, which they
could not see, cried: 'Let us go hence!' And that dreadful
sunset which we watched and which all Israel saw when armies
were seen fighting in the skies and cities with toppling towers
and rocking walls fell into red clouds and vanished!"
"What of thyself, Hannah?" he broke in. "Art thou ready to
depart for Tyre? Philip will leave to-morrow. Do not delay him.
Go and prepare."
But the woman rushed on to indiscretion, in her desperate
intent to stop the journey to Jerusalem at any cost.
"But there are those of good repute here in Ascalon, sober
men and excellent women, who say that our hope for the Branch of
David is too late--that Israel is come to judgment, this
hour--for He is come and gone and we received Him not!"
Costobarus turned upon her sharply.
"What is this?" he demanded.
"O my husband," she insisted hopefully, "it measures up with
prophecy! And they who speak thus confidently say that He
prophesied the end of the Holy City, and that this is not the
Advent, but doom!"
"It is the Nazarene apostasy," he exclaimed in alarm, "alive
though the power of Rome and the diligence of the Sanhedrim have
striven to destroy it these forty years! Now the poison hath
entered mine own house!"
A servant bowed within earshot. Costobarus turned to him
hastily.
"Philip of Tyre," the attendant announced.
"Let him enter," Costobarus said. "Go, Hannah; make Laodice
ready--preparations are almost complete; be not her obstacle."
"But--but," she insisted with whitening lips, "I have not
said that I believe all this. I only urge that, in view of this
time of war, of contending prophecies and of all known peril,
that we should keep her, who is our one ewe lamb, our tender
flower, our Rose of Sharon, yet within shelter until the signs
are manifest and the purpose of the Lord God is made clear."
He turned to her slowly. There was pain on his face,
suffering that she knew her words had evoked and, more than
that, a yearning to relent. She was ashamed and not hopeful, but
her mother-love was stronger than her wifely pity.
"Must I command you, Hannah?" he asked.
Her figure, drawn up with the intensity of her wishfulness,
relaxed. Her head drooped and slowly she turned away. Costobarus
looked after her and struggled with rising emotion. But the
curtain dropped behind her and left him alone.
A moment later the curtains over the arch parted and a
middle-aged Jew, richly habited, stood there. He raised his hand
for the blessing of the threshold, then embraced Costobarus with
more warmth than ceremony.
"What is this I hear?" he demanded with affectionate concern.
"Thou leavest Ascalon for the peril of Jerusalem?"
"Can Jerusalem be more perilous than Ascalon this hour?"
Costobarus asked.
"Yes, by our fathers!" Philip declared. "Nothing can be so
bad as the condition of the Holy City. But what has happened?
Three days ago thou wast as securely settled here as a barnacle
on a shore-rock! To-day thou sendest me word: 'Lo! the time long
expected hath come; I go hence to Jerusalem.' What is it, my
brother?"
"Sit and listen."
Philip looked about him. The divan was there, stripped of its
covering of fine rugs, but the room otherwise was without
furniture. Prepared for surprise, the Tyrian let no sign of his
curiosity escape him, and, sitting, leaned on his knees and
waited.
"Philadelphus Maccabaeus hath sent to me, bidding me send
Laodice to him--in Jerusalem," Costobarus said in a low voice.
Philip's eyes widened with sudden comprehension.
"He hath returned!" he exclaimed in a whisper.
For a time there was silence between the two old men, while
they gazed at each other. Then Philip's manner became intensely
confident.
"I see!" he exclaimed again, in the same whisper. "The throne
is empty! He means to possess it, now that Agrippa hath
abandoned it!"
Costobarus pressed his lips together and bowed his head
emphatically. Again there was silence.
"Think of it!" Philip exclaimed presently.
"I have done nothing else since his messenger arrived at
daybreak. Little, little, did I think when I married Laodice to
him, fourteen years ago, that the lad of ten and the little
child of four might one day be king and queen over Judea!"
Philip shook his head slowly and his gaze settled to the
pavement. Presently he drew in a long breath.
"He is twenty-four," he began thoughtfully. "He has all the
learning of the pagans, both of letters and of war; he--Ah! But
is he capable?"
"He is the great-grandson of Judas Maccabaeus! That is
enough! I have not seen him since the day he wedded Laodice and
left her to go to Ephesus, but no man can change the blood of
his fathers in him. And Philip--he shall have no excuse to fail.
He shall be moneyed; he shall be moneyed!"
Costobarus leaned toward his friend and with a sweep of his
hand indicated the stripped room. It was a noble chamber. The
stamp of the elegant simplicity of Cyrus, the Persian, was upon
it. The ancient blue and white mosaics that had been laid by the
Parsee builder and the fretwork and twisted pillars were there,
but the silky carpets, the censers and the chairs of fine woods
were gone. Costobarus looked steadily at the perplexed
countenance of Philip.
"Seest thou how much I believe in this youth?" he asked.
A shade of uneasiness crossed Philip's forehead.
"Thou art no longer young, Costobarus," he said, "and
disappointments go hard with us, at our age--especially,
especially."
"I shall not be disappointed," Costobarus declared.
The friendly Jew looked doubtful.
"The nation is in a sad state," he observed. "We have cause.
The procurators have been of a nature with their patrons, the
emperors. It is enough but to say that! But Vespasian Caesar is
another kind of man. He is tractable. Young Titus, who will
succeed him, is well-named the Darling of Mankind. We could get
much redress from these if we would be content with redress. But
no! We must revert to the days of Saul!"
"Yes; but they declare they will have no king but God; no
commander but the Messiah to come; no order but primitive
impulse! But the Maccabee will change all that! It is but the
far swing of the first revolt. Jerusalem is ready for reason at
this hour, it is said."
"Yes," Philip assented with a little more spirit. "It hath
reached us, who have dealings with the East, that there is a
better feeling in the city. Such slaughter has been done there
among the Sadducees, such hordes of rebels from outlying
subjugated towns have poured their license and violence in upon
the safe City of Delight, that the citizens of Jerusalem
actually look forward to the coming of Titus as a deliverance
from the afflictions which their own people have visited upon
them."
"The hour for the Maccabee, indeed," Costobarus ruminated.
"And the hour for Him whom we all expect," Philip added in a
low tone. Costobarus bowed his head. Presently he drew a scroll
from the folds of his ample robe.
"Hear what Philadelphus writes me:
Caesarea, II Kal. Jul. XX.
To Costobarus, greetings and these by messenger;
I learn on arriving in this city that Judea is in truth no
man's
country. Wherefore it can be mine by cession or conquest. It
is
mine, however, by right. I shall possess it.
I go hence to Jerusalem.
Fail not to send my wife thither and her dowry. Aquila, my
emissary, will safely conduct her. Trust him.
Proceed with despatch and husband the dowry of your
daughter,
since it is to be the corner-stone of a new Israel.
Peace to you and yours. To my wife my affection and my
loyalty.
PHILADELPHUS MACCABAEUS.
Nota Bene. Julian of Ephesus accompanies me. He is my
cousin. He
will in all probability meet your daughter at the Gate.
MACCABAEUS."
Slowly the old man rolled the writing.
"He wastes no words," Philip mused. "He writes as a
siege-engine talks--without quarter."
Costobarus nodded.
"So I am giving him two hundred talents," he said
deliberately.
"Two hundred talents!" Philip echoed.
"And I summoned thee, Philip, to say that in addition to my
house and its goods, thou canst have my shipping, my trade, my
caravans, which thou hast coveted so long at a price--at that
price. I shall give Laodice two hundred talents."
"Two hundred talents!" Philip echoed again, somewhat taken
aback.
Costobarus went to a cabinet on the wall and drew forth a
shittim-wood case which he unlocked. Therefrom he took a small
casket and opened it. He then held it so that the sun, falling
into it, set fire to a bed of loose gems mingled without care
for kind or value--a heap of glowing color emitting sparks.
"Here are one hundred of the talents," Costobarus said.
A flash of understanding lighted Philip's face not unmingled
with the satisfaction of a shrewd Jew who has pleased himself at
business. One hundred talents, then, for the best establishment
in five cities, in all the Philistine country. But why?
Costobarus supplied the answer at that instant.
"I would depart with my daughter by mid-afternoon," he said.
"I doubt the counting houses; if I had known sooner--" Philip
began.
"Aquila arrived only this morning. I sent a messenger to you
at once."
Philip rose.
"We waste time in talk. I shall inform thee by messenger
presently. God speed thee! My blessings on thy son-in-law and on
thy daughter!"
Costobarus rose and took his friend's hand.
"Thou shalt have the portion of the wise-hearted man in this
kingdom. And this yet further, my friend. If perchance the
uncertainties of travel in this distressed land should prove
disastrous and I should not return, I shall leave a widow
here--"
"And in that instance, be at peace. I am thy brother."
Costobarus pressed Philip's hand.
"Farewell," he said; and Philip embraced him and went forth.
Costobarus turned to one of his closed windows and thrust it
open, for the influence of the spring sun had made itself felt
in the past important hour for Costobarus.
Noon stood beautiful and golden over the city. The sky was
clean-washed and blue, and the surface of the Mediterranean,
glimpsed over white house-tops that dropped away toward the
sea-front, was a wandering sheet of flashing silver. Here and
there were the ruins of the last year's warfare, but over the
fallen walls of gray earth the charity of running vines and the
new growth of the spring spread a beauty, both tender and
compassionate.
In such open spaces inner gardens were exposed and almond
trees tossed their crowns of white bloom over pleached arbors of
old grape-vines. Here the Mediterranean birds sang with poignant
sweetness while the new-budded limbs of the oleanders tilted
suddenly under their weight as they circled from covert to
covert.
But the energy of the young spring was alive only in the
birds and the blossoming orchards. Wherever the solid houses
fronted in unbroken rows the passages between, there were no
open windows, no carpets swung from latticed balconies; no
buyers moved up the roofed-over Street of Bazaars. Not in all
the range of the old man's vision was to be seen a living human
being. For the chief city of the Philistine country Ascalon was
nerveless and still. At times immense and ponderous creaking
sounded in the distance, as if a great rusted crane swung in the
wind. Again there were distant, voluminous flutterings, as if
neglected and loosened sails flapped. Idle roaming donkeys
brayed and a dog shut up and forgotten in a compound barked
incessantly. Presently there came faint, far-off, failing cries
that faded into silence. The Jew's brow contracted but he did
not move.
From his position, he could see the port to the east packed
with lifeless vessels. The stretches of stone wharf and the mole
were vacant and littered with rubbish. The yard-arms of
abandoned freighters were peculiarly beaded with tiny black
shapes that moved from time to time. Far out at sea, so far that
a blue mist embraced its base and set its sails mysteriously
afloat in air, a great galley, with all canvas crowded on, sped
like a frightened bird past the port that had once been its
haven.
A strange compelling odor stole up from the city. Costobarus
glanced down into his garden below him. It was a terraced court,
with vine-covered earthen retaining walls supporting each
successive tier and terminating against a domed gate flanked on
either side by a tall conical cypress.
He noted, on the flagging of the walk leading by flights of
steps down to the gate, a heap of garments with broad brown and
yellow stripes. Wondering at the untidiness of his gardener in
leaving his tunic here while he worked, Costobarus looked away
toward the large stones that lay here and there in gutters and
on grass-plots, remnants of the work of the Roman catapults the
previous summer. In the walls of houses were unrepaired
breaches, where the wounds of the missiles showed. On a slight
eminence overlooking the city from the west center-poles of
native cedar which had supported Roman tents were still
standing. But no garrison was there now, though the signs of the
savage Roman obsession still lay on the remnants of the
prostrate western wall. So as Costobarus' gaze wandered he did
not see far above that heap of striped garments in his garden
walk, fixed like an enchanted thing, moveless, dead-calm, a
great desert vulture poised in air. Presently another and yet
another materialized out of the blue, growing larger as they
fell down to the level of their fellow. Slowly the three swooped
down over the heap on the garden walk. The tiny black shapes
that beaded the yard-arms in port spread great wings and soared
solemnly into Ascalon. The three vultures dropped noiselessly on
the pavement.
Cries began suddenly somewhere nearer and instantly the
tremendous booming of a great oriental gong from the heathen
quarters swept heavy floods of sound over the outcry and drowned
it. The vultures flew up hastily and Costobarus saw them for the
first time. A chill rushed over him; revulsion of feeling showed
vividly on his face. He shut the window.
Noon was high over Ascalon and Pestilence was Caesar within
its walls.
It was the penalty of warfare, the long black shadow that the
passage of a great army casts upon a battling nation. Physicians
could not give it a name. It seized upon healthy victims, rent
them, blasted them and cast them dead and distorted in their
tracks, before help could reach them. It passed like fire on a
high wind through whole countries and left behind it silence and
feeding vultures.
As Costobarus turned from his window to pace up and down his
chamber, Hannah's argument came back to him with new energy. He
felt with a kind of panic that his confident answer to her might
have been wrong. When a girl appeared in the archway, he moved
impulsively toward her, as if to retract the command that would
send her out into this land that the Lord had spoken against,
but the strength and repose in her face communicated itself to
him.
Above all other suggestions in her presence was that
overpowering richness of oriental beauty which no other kind in
the world may surpass in its appeal to the loves of men. Enough
of the Roman stock in her line had given structural firmness and
stature to a type which at her age would have developed weight
and duskiness, but she was taller and more slender than the
women of her race, and supple and alive and splendid. About her
hips was knotted a silken scarf of red and white and green with
long undulant fringes that added to the lithe grace in her
movements. Under it was a glistening garment of silver tissue
that reached to the small ankles laced about by the ribbons of
white sandals. For sleeves there were netted fringes through
which the fine luster of her arms was visible. About her wrists,
her throat and in her hair, heavy and shining black, were golden
coins that marked her steps with stealthy tinkling.
Costobarus, in spite of the shock of doubt and fear in his
brain, looked at her as if with the happy eyes of the astonished
Maccabee. In those full tender lips, in the slope of those
black, silken brows, in the sparkling behind the dusky slumbrous
eyes, there was all the fire and generosity and limitless charm
that should make her lover's world a place of delight and
perfume and music.
"How is it with you, Laodice?" he asked, faltering a little.
"I am prepared, my father," she answered.
"I commend your despatch. I would be gone within an hour."
She bowed and Costobarus regarded her with growing
wistfulness. At this last moment his love was to become his
obstacle, his fear for his child his one cowardice.
"Dost thou remember him?" he asked without preliminary.
Laodice answered as if the thought were first in her mind.
"Not at all; and yet, if I could remember him, I may not
discover in the man of four-and-twenty anything of the lad of
ten."
"He may not have changed. There are such natures, and, as I
recall him, his may well be one of these. His disposition from
childhood to boyhood did not change. When I knew him in
Jerusalem, he was worthy the notice of a man. The manner he had
there he bore with him to this, a smaller city, and hence to
Ephesus, a city of another kind. It was good to see him examine
the world, reject this and that and look upon his choice
proudly. He made the schools observe him, consider him. He did
not enter them for alteration, nor was he shut up in a shell of
self-satisfaction. He entered them as a citizen of the world and
as an examiner of all philosophy. Yet the world taught him
nothing. It gave him merely the open school where regulation and
atmosphere helped him to teach himself. O wife of a child, thou
shalt not be ashamed of thy husband, man-grown!"
"How is he favored?" she asked with the first maiden
hesitation showing in the question.
"He was slender and dark and promised to be tall. He was
quick in movement, quick in temper, resourceful, aye, even
shifty, I should say; stubborn, cold in heart, hard to please."
"Fit attributes for a king," she said, half to herself, "yet
he will be no soft husband."
Costobarus looked away from her and was silent for a time.
"Daughter," he said finally, "thou hast learned indeed that
thine is to be no luxurious life. In thy restrained heart there
are no dreams. Let not thy youth, when thou seest him, put
obstacle in the way of thy duty. Whether thou lovest him or
lovest him not, he is thy husband, thy fellow in a great labor
for God and for Israel. Remember the times and the portents and
shut thine ears against selfish desire. Thou seest Judea. That
which the Lord hath uttered against it through the prophets has
come to pass. Abandon thy hopes in all save the Son of God;
forget thyself; prepare to give all and expect nothing but the
coming of the King! For verily thou lookest over the edge of the
world past the very end of time!"
The solemn announcement of the Advent by this white-bearded
prophet should have discovered in her a very human and terrified
girl. But it was no new tidings to her. Since her earliest
recollection she had heard it, expected it, contemplated it,
till the magnitude and terror of it had been lost in its
familiarity. She clasped her hands and dropped her eyes and her
lips moved in a silent prayer.
Costobarus remained for a space sunk in glorified meditation.
But presently he raised himself, with signs of his recent
feeling showing on his face.
"Send hither thy mother; bid Aquila and our servants stand
here before me a little later."
She bowed and withdrew. As she passed out a servant stepped
aside to give her room and at a sign from his master approached.
"A messenger from Philip of Tyre," he said.
A moment later an old courier carrying a sheepskin wallet
came into the chamber. He salaamed and produced a tablet which
he handed to Costobarus.
Herewith, O my brother, I send thee one hundred talents.
May it
prove part of the corner-stone of a new Israel. Peace to thee
and
thine!
PHILIP OF TYRE.
Costobarus looked up at the old courier.
"Take my blessings to thy master. May he come to a high seat
in that new Israel which he hath helped to build! Farewell."
The courier withdrew. When his footsteps died away the old
merchant reached under the divan and drew forth the shittim-wood
box. Producing a key he unlocked and opened it. From his bosom
he drew forth the letter from Philadelphus and laid it within.
"Let her take it with her," he said, speaking aloud. "Here,"
lifting a cylinder of old silver exquisitely chased, "are her
marriage papers; this," lifting delicately embroidered squares
of linen, "her marriage tokens, and here, her dowry."
He opened the inner box and laid the sheepskin wallet in upon
the gems. He closed the lid, and, locking the case, lifted it
and set it beside him on the divan.
When he looked up, he saw a man standing within a few paces
of him and perfunctorily gazing at anything but the display of
Laodice's fortune.
He was lean, muscular, somewhat younger than forty but
already gray at the temples, of nervous temperament, direct of
gaze and of attractive presence. He wore a tunic of gray wool
bordered with red, and a gray mantle hung negligently from his
shoulders. Limbs and arms were bare and his head-covering of red
wool hung from his arm.
Costobarus, a little discomfited that he had been surprised
with Laodice's dowry exposed, spoke briskly.
"Well, Aquila? Prepared?"
"Everything is in order. I am ready to proceed at once."
"How many in your party?"
"But myself."
"Have you ever been to Jerusalem?"
"Never."
"How, then," Costobarus asked, with a keen look, "came
Philadelphus to appoint you to conduct Laodice to the city?"
"His retinue is small; he could not come himself, and he
chose me as safer than the other member of his party," was the
direct reply.
Costobarus studied this reply before he questioned his
son-in-law's courier further.
"Jerusalem, they say, is in disorder. How will you get my
daughter to shelter when you have reached the city?"
"Philadelphus hath instructed me that there will be a Greek
at the Sun Gate daily, awaiting us. He will wear a purple turban
embroidered with a golden star. He will conduct us to the house
of Amaryllis the Seleucid, who is pledged to the Maccabee's
cause. Philadelphus will be in her house."
"Why hers?" Costobarus persisted.
"Because it is the only secure house in Jerusalem. She stands
in the good graces of John of Gischala and she is safe."
Costobarus ruminated.
"There is too much detail; too many people to depend upon and
therefore too many who may fail you. Aquila!"
"Sir?"
"I am going to Jerusalem with you."
He turned without waiting to see the effect of this speech
upon the Maccabee's courier and clapped his hands for an
attendant. To the servitor who responded he said:
"Send hither our party. It is time. Bring me my cloak."
He looked then suddenly at Aquila. The Roman's face had
cleared of its astonishment and discomfiture.
"Well enough," the courier said bluntly and closed his lips.
The servitor reappeared with his master's cloak and kerchief.
After him came Keturah, the handmaiden, and Hiram, a
camel-driver, prepared for a journey. The mute Momus presently
appeared. Costobarus got into his cloak without help, made
inquiry for this detail and that of his business and of his
journey, gave instruction to his attendants, and then asked for
Laodice.
There was a moment of silence more distressed than
embarrassed. Momus dropped his eyes; Keturah looked at her
master with moving lips and sudden flushing of color, as if she
were on the point of tears. Aquila stared absently out of the
arch beyond.
Costobarus glanced from one to the other of his company and
then went toward the corridor to call his daughter. As he lifted
the curtain, he started and stopped.
[Illustration: At her feet Hannah knelt.]
The lifted curtain had revealed Laodice. At her feet Hannah
knelt, as if she had flung herself in her daughter's path, her
arms clasping the young figure close to her and an agony of
appeal stamped on her upraised face. The last of the rich color
had died out of the girl's face and with pitiful eyes and
quivering lips she was stroking the desperate hands that meant
to keep her for ever.
Except for the sudden sobbing of the woman servant, tense and
anguished silence prevailed. The old merchant was confronted
with a perplexity that found him without fortitude to solve. He
felt his strength slip from him. He, too, covered his face with
his hands.
At the opposite arch another house servant appeared, lifted a
distorted, blackening face and, doubling like a wounded snake,
fell upon the floor.
A moment of stupefied silence in which Hannah, with her
mother instincts never so acutely alive, turned her strained
vision upon the writhing figure. Then shrieks broke from the
lips of the serving-woman; the hall filled with panic. Hannah
leaped to her feet and thrust Laodice toward her father.
"Away!" she cried. "The pestilence! The pestilence is upon
us!"
News of the appearance of the plague in the house of
Costobarus traveled fast after the death of the gardener, who
had fallen in the open and in sight of the watchful inhabitants
of Ascalon. So by the time the house servants of the merchant
were made aware of their peril by the death of one of their own
number, Philip of Tyre with the courage of affection and loyalty
stood on the threshold of the guest-chamber informed of the
situation and prepared to help. Hannah, supported by the
Tyrian's assurance of her rescue and protection, succeeded in
urging Costobarus and Laodice not to delay for her to the peril
of the thrice precious daughter.
So with his house yet ringing with the first convulsion of
terror Costobarus ordered his party with all haste to the
camels.
Keturah, Laodice's handmaiden, had fainted with terror and
was carried parcel-wise over the great arm of Momus, the mute,
out into the street and deposited summarily on the floor of
Laodice's bamboo howdah. The camel-driver, Hiram, seemed only a
little less stupefied than she. The mute, with a face as
determined and threatening as an uplifted gad, drove him from
the shelter of a dark corner out to his place on the neck of his
master's camel. Aquila, the emissary, showed the immemorial
composure in the face of disaster that was the badge of the
Roman in the days of the degenerate Caesars, and, mounting his
horse when the rest of the party were in their places, headed
the procession toward the northeast.
From an upper window behind a lattice, Hannah cried her
farewells and fluttered her scarf. She was smiling the drawn,
white smile of a mother who is forcing herself to be cheerful in
the face of danger, for the peace of those she loves. Laodice
understood the tender deception and when a sharp turn of the
street cut off the sight of the plumy trees of the garden, she
covered her face and wept inconsolably.
On either side of the passage there came muffled sounds from
houses; out of open alleys leading into interior courts stole
the fetor of death that even the spice of burning unguents could
not smother. The whole air shuddered with the drumming of
heathen physicians in the pagan quarters, through which the
silence of long stretches of ominously quiet houses shouted its
meaning. At times frantic barefoot flights could be glimpsed as
households deserted stricken houses, but whatever outcry arose
came from bedsides. Ascalon fled as a frightened animal flees,
silently and under cover.
They rode now through a shrieking wind, burdened with sallow
smoke and dreadful odors. Denser and denser the cloud grew till
the streets ahead were hidden in yellow vapor and near-by houses
loomed with dim outlines as if far off, and even the sounds of
death and disaster became choked in the immense prevalence of
smell. Blinded, with scarf and kerchief wrapped over mouth and
nostril, the fleeing party swept down upon the very heart of
that stifling mystery. Through it presently, as the houses
thinned out, they saw cores of great heat surmounted by
black-tipped flames that crackled savagely. Momus, now in the
lead, turned sharply to his right and the next instant had the
wind behind him. Almost involuntarily each member of the party
looked back. Outside the breach of the broken wall, standing
clear to view with the wind from the hills sweeping townward
from them, were diabolical figures, naked and black, feeding
immense pyres with hideous fuel.
Past this grisly line, a camel with a single rider swept in
from seaward. The traveler lifted an arm and signaled to the
party. Aquila seemed not to see this hail, and rode on; but
Costobarus, after the traveler motioned to them once more,
spoke:
"Does not this person make signs to us, Aquila?"
The pagan looked back.
"Why should he?" he asked.
"He can tell us," the master observed and spoke to Momus and
Hiram, who drew up their camels. The traveler raced alongside.
It was a woman, veiled and wrapped with all the jealous care
of the East against the curious eyes of strangers. Aquila took
in her featureless presence with a single irritated look and
apparently lost interest.
"Greeting, lady," Costobarus said.
"Peace, sir, and greeting," she replied respectfully. Her
tones were marked with the deference of the serving-class and
Costobarus gave her permission to speak.
"Art thou a Jew and master of this train?" she asked.
Costobarus assented.
"I was journeying to Jerusalem with a caravan of which my
master was owner, but the Romans came upon us and took every one
prisoner, except myself. I escaped, but I am without protection
and without friends. In Jerusalem, I have relatives who will
care for me, yet I fear to make the journey alone. I pray thee,
with the generosity of a Jew and the authority of a master,
permit me to go in the protection of thy company!"
Costobarus reflected and while he hesitated he became aware
that Momus was looking at him with warning in his eyes. But
Laodice, so filled with loneliness and apprehension, was moved
to sympathy for the solitary and friendless woman. She leaned
toward her father and said in a low voice:
"Let her come with us, father; she is a woman and afraid."
Aquila heard that low petition and he flashed a look at the
stranger that seemed reproachful. But Costobarus was speaking.
"Ride with us, then, and be welcome," he said.
The woman bowed her shawled head and murmured with emotion
after a silence:
"The blessings of a servant be upon you and yours; may the
God of Israel be with you for evermore."
She dropped back to the rear of the party and the train moved
on.
Meanwhile, Keturah, who sat huddled on the floor of Laodice's
howdah, had not moved since they had left the doorway of
Costobarus' house. Momus, on the neck of Laodice's camel, had
observed her once or twice, and now he reached back and touched
her. He jerked his hand away and brought up his camel with a
wrench. Hiram, following close behind, by dint of main strength
managed to avoid a collision with Momus' beast so suddenly
halted. The mute leaped down from his place and in an instant
Costobarus joined him. Alarmed without understanding, Laodice
had risen and was drawn as far as she might from the
serving-woman. Momus, lifting himself by the stirrup, seized the
stiff figure and laid it down upon the sands. Aquila dismounted
and the three men bent over the woman. Then Costobarus glanced
up quickly at Laodice, made a sign to Momus, who, with a face
devoid of expression, climbed back into his place on the neck of
the camel.
The strange woman who had stood her ground was heard to say
in a low voice, half lost in the muffling of her wrappings:
"One!"
Momus drove on leisurely and Laodice, knowing that she must
not look, slipped down in her place and wrapped her vitta over
her face.
Pestilence was riding with them.
After a long time, Costobarus' camel ambled up beside hers,
and she ventured to uncover her eyes. Her father smiled at her
with that same heart-breaking smile which her mother had for her
in face of trouble.
"The frosts! The frosts!" he whispered to Momus, and the mute
laid goad about his camel.
Aquila, seeing this haste, checked his horse's gait and fell
back beside the strange woman. Together they permitted the rest
of the party to ride ahead, while they talked in voices too
restrained to be heard.
"There is pestilence in this company," Aquila said angrily;
"will that not persuade you to abandon this plan?"
"No. When all of you are like to die and leave this great
treasure sitting out in the wilderness without a guardian?" she
said lightly. There was no trace of a servant's humility in her
tone.
"Hast had the plague that thou seem'st to feel secure from
it?" he demanded.
"O no; then there would be no risk in this game. There is no
sport in an unfair advantage over conditions. No! But how comes
this Costobarus with you?"
"He would not trust his daughter and a dowry to me, alone."
"How shall we get to Emmaus, then?" she asked.
"We shall not get to Emmaus; so you must inform Julian, who
will expect us there," he declared.
The woman played with the silken reins of her camel. Behind
her veil a sarcastic smile played about the corners of her
mouth. Aquila watched her resentfully, waiting with an immense
reserve of caustic words for her refusal to accept the charge.
"So, my Mars of the gray temples, thou meanest in all faith
to deliver up this lady and her treasure to Julian?"
"By those same gray temples, I do! And hold thy peace about
my white hairs. Nothing made them so but thyself--and this evil
plot in which I am tangled. What does Julian mean to do with
this poor creature?"
"He has not got her yet and by the complication thou seest
now, wearing its turban over one ear in yonder howdah, it may
come to pass that he will never have her--and her dowry."
"Pfui! How little you know this Julian! Besides, I am pledged
to deliver him--at least the treasure."
"And thou meanest to line his purse with this great treasure
because he paid thee to do it?"
"I shall; and be rid of it!"
The woman smiled sarcastically.
"And scorn it for thyself?"
Aquila made no answer, but rode on in sulky silence.
"Perpol, it must be pleasant to be a queen," the woman
observed with an assumption of childishness in her voice.
"Peril's own habit!" Aquila declared.
"Peril! Fie! That is half the pleasure of this game of life.
It is tiresome to live any other way than hazardously."
"Thou shalt have pleasure enough in this journey thou art to
take," Aquila declared a little threateningly.
The woman laughed. When Aquila spoke again, his voice was
full of concern.
"I was a fool for not forcing you to stay in Ascalon. You are
reckless--reckless!"
"It was that which made me attractive," the woman broke in,
"to Nero, to Vitellius and to you."
"Reckless and useless!" Aquila went on decisively. "Hear me,
now; I trifle no longer. Sometime to-night thou'lt leave us and
journey to Emmaus and inform Julian what has wrecked his plans,
and send him with despatch to Zorah. This thou wilt do, by all
the Furies, or when I do catch thee as I shall, since there is
no other fool in Judea who will undertake to feed thee, I shall
leave the print of my displeasure on thee from thy head to thy
heel! Mark me!"
The woman laughed aloud, with such peculiar insolence and
amusement that one of the servants heard her and turned his head
that way.
"Pah! What a timid villain thou art," the woman said, when
the servant looked away again. "How much better it would have
been had Julian fixed upon me as his confederate!"
"Not for Julian! You plot against him even now. But say what
you will, you go to Emmaus to-night, without fail. I have
spoken!"
Aquila touched his horse and riding away from the woman came
up beside Costobarus who was gazing over the country through
which they were passing.
It was a great plain, advancing by benches and slopes to the
edge of a rocky shore. Without forests, spotted only with
verdure, vast, barren, exhausted with the constant production of
fourteen centuries, it was a cheerless sea-front at its best. To
the west the wash of the tideless Mediterranean tumbled along an
unindented coast; to the east the sallow stony earth went up and
up, toward an ever receding sallow horizon. Between lay humbled
towns, wholly abandoned to the bats and to the ignoble wild life
of the Judean wilderness. There were no sheep or cattle.
Vespasian had passed that way and required the flocks of the
nation for the subsistence of his four legions. There were no
olive or fig groves. They had been the first to fall under the
Roman ax, for the policy of Roman warfare was that the first
step in subduing a rebellious province was to starve it. The
vineyards had suffered the same end. The enriched soil of these
inclosures, made one now with the wild at the leveling of their
hedges, produced acres of profitless weeds, green against the
rising brown bosom of the hill-fronts. Here and there were the
fallen walls of isolated homes--wastes of masonry already losing
all domestic signs. There were no gardens; it had been two
seasons since the wheat and the barley had been reaped last, and
the seaboard of southern Judea, in the path of Rome the
destroyer, was a wilderness.
Over all this immense slope the eyes of Costobarus wandered.
However he had felt in the preceding days when he looked upon
this ruin of the land of milk and honey, he realized now
suddenly and in all its fearful actuality the predicament of
Judea, its despair and the gigantic travail before those who
would save it from the united sentence passed upon it by God and
the powers. Immense dejection seized him. He looked from the
face of the country, upon which not a single thing of profit
showed, toward the bowed head and oppressed figure of his young
and inexperienced daughter who was to put her tender self
between Ruin and its victim. Chills, succeeded by flashes of
fever, swept over him. He raised himself as if to give command
to Aquila but settled back under the canopy, grown immeasurably
older and feebler in that moment of helpless surrender to
conditions of which he had been part an artificer. It was not as
if he had made an incautious move in a political game; it was,
as it seemed to him undeniably then, that he had advanced
against the Lord God of Hosts, and there was no turning back!
He settled slowly into a stunned anguish that seemed to rise
gradually, like a filling tide, shutting out the sunset and the
seaboard, the bald earth and the streaming wind, and engulfing
him in roaring darkness and intense cold.
They were in sight of a cluster of Syrian huts, the first
inhabited village they had come upon since leaving Ascalon, but
he was not aware of it. The sudden halting of his camel and a
hoarse strained cry at hand seemed to bear some relation to his
condition, but he did not care. He felt his howdah lurch to one
side as some one leaped up beside him; he felt remotely the
great grasp of hands on him, which must have been Momus'; the
quick military voice of Aquila he heard and then, keen and
distinct as a call upon him, the sound of Laodice's tones made
sharp with terror.
He opened his eyes and saw her, holding him in her arms.
Somewhere in the background were the faces of Momus and Aquila.
Between the pagan and the old servant passed a look that the old
man caught. Then he heard Aquila say:
"The village--his sole chance, if there is a physician
there."
Laodice held him fast only for a moment, when it seemed that
she was wrenched away. The dying man was glad. If this were
pestilence, she should not come near. The hiss of the lash and
the bound of the stung camel disturbed him but he lapsed into
the immense cold again as they raced down the slight declivity
toward the Syrian village. But Pestilence was riding with them
and the odds were with it.
But the dwellers of that little huddle of huts had nothing to
do but to sit in their doorways and suspect. Whatever came their
way from the sea for many months had brought them disaster and
long since they had learned to defend themselves. So now, when a
party riding at breakneck speed, bearing with them an old man on
whom the inertia of death was plain, came across the frontiers
of their little town, they met them with the convenient stones
of their rocky streets, with their savage, stark-ribbed dogs,
with offal from kitchen heap and donkey stall and with insults
and curses.
"Away, ye bringers of plague! Out, lepers; be gone, ye
unclean!"
Laodice and Aquila who rode in the open were fair targets for
half the hail that fell about them. The girl groaned as the
missiles fell into the howdah upon the helpless shape of
Costobarus, who did not lift a hand to fend off the stones. The
pagan, bruised and raging, drew his weapon and spurred his horse
to ride down his assailants, but they scattered before him and
from safe refuge continued their assault with redoubled
determination.
Momus, seeing only injury in attempting to enforce
hospitality, turned his camel and, swinging around the outermost
limits of the settlement, fled. Aquila followed him, and a
moment later the rest of the party joined them.
Without the range of the village, the party halted. Momus and
Aquila lifted Costobarus down and laid him on a rug that Laodice
had spread for him. But when she would have knelt by him, he
motioned to Aquila not to permit her to approach. The mute stood
by his master. In that countenance fast passing under shade was
written charge and injunction as solemn as the darkness that
approached him.
"Here, O faithful servant, is the wife of a prince, the
daughter of thy master, the joy of thine own declining days.
Shield her against wrong and misfortune by all the strength that
in thee lies, as thou hopest in the King to come and the reward
of the steadfast. Promise!"
They were silent lips that once knew the art and the sound of
speech. The old habit never entirely fell away from them. Under
this anguish they moved--fruitlessly; over the deformed face
flitted the keen agony of regret; then he lifted his great left
arm and bent it upward at the elbow; the huge, even monstrous
muscles, knotted and kinked from shoulder to elbow, sank down
under the broad barbarian bracelet of bronze and rippled under
and rose again from elbow to wrist, ferocious, superhuman! In
that movement the dying man read the mute's consecration of his
one great strength to the protection of the tenderly loved
Laodice. Costobarus motioned to the shittim-wood casket and
Momus undid it and strapped it on his own belt.
"The frosts! The frosts!" the dying man whispered. The mute
understood. Then the father's eyes wandered toward the figure of
his daughter fended away from him by the pagan. The agony of her
suffering and the agony of his distress for her bridged the
space between them. And while they yearned toward each other in
a silence that quivered with pain, the light darkened in
Costobarus' eyes.
When Laodice came to herself, she was laid upon a spot of
rough grass, in the shelter of an overhanging bluff. It was not
the scene upon which her sorrow-stunned eyes had closed a while
before. The village was nowhere in sight; the plain had been
left behind; any further view was shut off by Aquila's horse,
and the two camels whose bridles were in the hands of Hiram.
Beside the stricken girl knelt Momus and Aquila; standing at her
feet was a new-comer, on whom her wandering and half-conscious
gaze rested.
He was an old man, clad in a short tunic, ragged of hem and
girt about him with a rope. Barefoot, bareheaded and provided
only with a staff and a small wallet, he was to outward
appearances little more than one of the legion of mendicants
that infested the poverty-stricken land of Judea. But his large
eyes, under the tangle of wind-blown white hair and white
shelving brows, were infinitely intelligent and refined. Now,
they beamed with pity and concern on the bereaved girl.
But she forgot him the next instant, for returning
consciousness brought back like a blow the memory of the death
of her father.
From time to time she caught snatches of conversation between
the old wayfarer and Aquila. They were spoken in low tones and
only from time to time did they reach her.
"He was Costobarus, principal merchant of this coast," she
heard Aquila explain shortly.
"I shall go on to Ascalon; I do not fear," the old man said
next. "I shall bring his people to fetch his body. I marked the
spot. Comfort her with that, when she can bear to talk of it."
"We go to Jerusalem," Aquila went on, some time later, "else
we should turn back with him ourselves. But we dare not risk the
pestilence on her account, for it seems that she is very
necessary to the Jews at this hour--very necessary."
"I follow to the Holy City," the old wayfarer added at last.
"The Passover is celebrated there within two weeks. But I shall
not fail; nothing will harm me."
"What talisman do you carry to protect you?" the pagan asked
a little irritably.
"No talisman, but the love of Jesus Christ, the Saviour!"
"A Christian!" Aquila exclaimed.
Even through her stupor of grief and hopelessness, Laodice
heard this exclamation. Here, then, was one of the Nazarenes,
that mysterious sect whose tenets she had never been permitted
to hear; But also, she knew that the old apostate had braved the
plague and had buried her father. She turned to look at him in
time to see him extend his hands in blessing over her.
"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and his comfort be
with you, for ever; amen. Farewell."
He was gone. Momus raised her in his arms and, lifting her
into her howdah, laid her tenderly on the improvised reclining
seat that had been made of the chair therein. In a twinkling the
whole party had mounted, and passed swiftly on toward Jerusalem.
As they moved forward, the strange woman murmured softly:
"Two!"
Laodice's camel mounted the slope toward the east and
stretched away on a comparative level toward an immense white
moon. Aquila's horse kept up with the matchless speed of the
tall camel only at times, and Laodice, dully sensing that they
were going at hot haste, realized that a race was on between
them and the pestilence. Momus was wielding the goad for a run
to the frosts.
A camel raced up beside Aquila.
"Look!" the woman said to him in a lowered tone, showing back
over the road by which they had come. Aquila turned in his
saddle and looked. Momus rose in his seat and looked. Behind
them only one camel rocked along in their wake. The other and
its driver had disappeared.
"Deserted!" Aquila exclaimed under his breath.
"Three!" the woman said.
"A pest on your counting for a Charon's toll-taker!" Aquila
whispered savagely. "We will have no more of it!"
"No?" the woman said with a meaning that made the pagan
shiver.
Momus laid goad about his camel.
The way continually ascended toward the east; the soil was no
longer sandy, but rocky; no longer given up to desolate gardens,
but black with groves of cedars and highland shrubs. They swung
off a plateau that would have ended in a cliff, down a shaly
sheep-path into a wady. Under the moonlight, the bottom was seen
to be scarred with marks of hoof and wheel. It debouched
suddenly into a Roman road, straight, level, magnificently built
and running as a bird flies on to Jerusalem.
The camel's gait increased. Momus settled himself in a
securer position and Laodice, careless of the outcome of this
breathless hurry, yielded herself to the careen of her howdah.
At times, her indifferent vision caught, through moonlit notches
and gaps, glimpses of great blue vapors, crowned with pale fire
and piled in glorious disorder low on the eastern horizon. They
were the hills encompassing Jerusalem. The stream of wind on her
face cooled and drove stronger.
Aquila rode closer to her, his horse panting under the
effort. His face looked strange and distressed.
"Lady," he said in low tones, "necessity forces me to speak
to you in your grief; do not blame me for indifference to your
desire to be alone. But we must care for you, though in your
heart this moment you may resent a wish to live. But your father
commanded me!"
She gave him attention.
"Let us not carry peril with us," he added in a half-whisper.
"Let us not carry food for pestilence with us."
"I do not understand," she answered, adopting his low tone.
"The more we are, the more of us to die. You must live; I
must live," he explained, nodding toward Momus.
After a little silence, she asked:
"Do we not ride toward the frosts?"
"Yes; but even now pestilence may ride on beside us--your
servant and this woman. Let us save ourselves."
"Abandon them?" she questioned.
"Lest they go on without us," he added.
Momus turned suddenly and gazed at Aquila. Then he
imperiously signed the pagan to fall back.
They rode on.
The pagan slackened his horse's gallop and reined in beside
the woman. They talked together, argumentatively, for a single
tense minute and then Aquila, with a bitter word, put spurs to
his animal and dashed up beside Laodice's camel. In his one
uplifted hand a knife gleamed. The other reached toward the
casket bound to Momus' hip. Laodice, raised to an upright
attitude in her fresh fright, saw that his face was black and
twisted and that he wavered stiffly in his saddle.
But the mute did not await the attack. He seized the pagan's
outstretched hands with that monstrous left and flung him
backward. Without an effort to save himself, falling rigidly and
with a strange cry, Aquila dropped back over his horse's crupper
into the dust of the road.
"Momus!" Laodice screamed.
Back of her the woman cried out:
"On! On! It is the pestilence!"
Momus wielded his goad. Laodice, shaking and crying aloud,
looked back to see the strange woman swerve her camel past the
dark shape lying with out-flung arms in the road and sweep
quickly on after them.
The scourge had overtaken Aquila.
All night the camels fled east, all night the soft footfall
of the woman's beast pursued them; all night the wind freshened
until Laodice's bared face stiffened with the cold and the
breath of the mute that sat upon her camel's neck steamed in the
moonlight. Up and up, by steep and winding wadies they mounted;
under overhanging cliffs and past bald towers of hill-rock
staring white in the moon, along black passes between brooding
eminences of solid night, crowned with ghost-light; over high
plateaus darkened with groves, down dales with singing,
invisible streams running seaward and up again and on until the
hills engulfed them wholly and those before were higher than any
they had seen. Then their flying beasts, leaving the Roman road
over which they had sped for some distance, followed a
sheep-path and burst into an open immersed in moonlight. Below
in the distance was a cluster of huts, white and lifeless. But
abroad, over the crisp grass and misty white on all the exposed
slopes, sparkled the deep hoar frost!
Momus drew up his camel. The woman who had followed halted.
Except for the hurried breathing of their beasts, a critical
silence brooded over the moon-silvered wilderness. The moment
was tense with the agony of human bitterness against the
immitigable despatch of death. There could be no thanksgiving
for their own safety from those who were not glad to be given
life. Laodice resented her preservation; old Momus, aside from
the wound of personal loss sore in his heart, was stricken with
the realization of the grief of his young mistress, which he
could not help. He did not raise his eyes to her face when he
turned toward her; there was no speech. In the young woman's
heart the pain was too great for her to venture expression
safely. The silence was poignant with unnatural restraint.
Presently Momus inquired of her by signs if she wished to go
on to the lifeless village below the camp. She did not observe
his gestures, and Momus decided for her. He drove on and the
woman, who had wrapped her cloak about her as the biting wind of
the hills heightened through the narrow defiles to the north,
followed.
But almost the next instant Momus drew up his mount so
suddenly that Laodice was roused. He turned and began to make
rapid signs. Laodice half rose as she read them and pressed her
hands together.
"Seven days!" she exclaimed in dismay. There was silence.
Momus made the camel kneel. He dismounted slowly, and began
to undo the tent-cloth in a roll beside the howdah. The woman
rode up and instantly the mute stepped between her and his young
mistress and went on with his work.
Laodice understood the question in the woman's attitude
although, with true sense of an inferior's place, the stranger
did not speak.
"We are unclean," Laodice said with effort. "We have come
from a pestilential city and we have touched the dead. We can
not enter a town with these defilements upon us, except to
present ourselves to a priest for examination and separation.
Furthermore, we must burn our unessential belongings. If you are
a Jewess all these things are known to you."
The woman extended her hands, palms upward, with a grace that
was almost dainty.
"Lady," she said behind her unlifted veil, "I am an
unlettered woman and have been accustomed to the instruction of
my masters. I am obedient to the laws of our people."
"You would have been in less peril to have ridden alone,"
Laodice sighed. "Our company has been no help to you."
"We can not say that confidently. There are worse things than
pestilence in the wilderness," the woman replied.
Momus seemed to observe more confidence than was natural in
the ready answers of this professed servant, and before he would
leave Laodice to pitch camp, he helped her to alight and drew
her with him. The woman remained on her mount.
Gathering up sticks, dead needles of cedar and last year's
leaves, he made a fire upon which he heaped fuel till it lighted
up the near-by slopes of the hills and roared jovially in the
broad wind.
It was a pocket in the heart of high hills into which they
had fled. The bold, sure line of a Roman road divided it,
cutting tyrannically through the cowed hovels of the town as an
arrow drives through a flock of pigeons. On either side were the
dim shapes of great rocks and semi-recumbent cedars. Retiring
into shadow were the darker outlines of the surrounding circle
of hills, rived by intervals of black night where wadies
entered. From their summits the flying arch of the heavens
sprang, printed with a few faint stars, but all silvered with
the flood-light of a moon cold and pure as the frost itself. It
was unsympathetic, aloof and wild--a cold place into which to
bring broken hearts to assume banishment from the comfort and
companionship of mankind.
Laodice slowly and with effort began to separate those
belongings which were to be laid upon the fire from those which
were too necessary to be burned. The woman alighted but, on
offering to assist, was warned away from the girl with a
menacing gesture of Momus' great arm. The stranger drew herself
up suddenly with a wrath that she hardly controlled but came no
nearer Laodice. When the girl finally finished her selection,
the woman begged permission to attend to the camels and getting
the beasts on their feet led them together to be tethered.
Laodice, assisted by Momus, took up the condemned supplies
and flung them one at a time upon the roaring fire. Little by
little, with growing reluctance, the heap of spare belongings
was examined and condemned, until finally only the garments they
wore, the tents that were to shelter them and the essential
harness of the camels were left. Then Momus drew from his wallet
a fragment of aromatic gum and cast it on the blaze. While it
ignited and burned with great vapors of penetrating incense, he
unstrapped the precious casket, set it down between his feet,
stripped off his comfortable woolen tunic and passed it through
the volumes of white smoke piling up from the fire.
And while he stood thus a deft hand seized the casket from
behind. There was a sharp, warning cry from Laodice. The old man
staggered only a moment from the tripping that the wrench gave
him, but in that instant of hesitation the pillager vanished.
The old mute shouted the infuriated, half-animal yell of the
dumb and started in pursuit, but at his second step he saw the
fleeter camel swing down the declivity, at top-speed, with the
other trailing with difficulty at full length of its bridle
behind. The next instant the muffled beat of the padded hooves
drummed the solid bed of the Roman road, and the shapes of
camels and fugitive were lost in blue darkness beyond the town.
There was no need for the pair left behind to await a
realization of all that the loss meant to them. One running
swiftly as a fine young creature can run when spurred by
desperation, and the other, lamely but doggedly, as an old
determined man, rushed down the rough side of the slope, leaped
into the roadway and ran irrationally after the fugitive mounted
upon a camel, fleeter than the fastest horse.
Momus saw with fear that Laodice on this straight inviting
road would out-distance him to her peril. He shouted
inarticulately after her, but her reply came back, high with
desperation and terror.
"The corner-stone of Israel! All his treasure! God's portion,
lost, lost!"
She was out of his sight. The sudden barking of dogs told him
that she had crossed the outskirts of the village, and groaning
with alarm for her the old man stumbled on after her. He saw
lights flash out; heard shouts, and out of the confusion
distinguished Laodice's, vehement and urging. The yapping of the
town curs became less threatening and, by the time Mom
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