An inert, moldy breath reached Marsyas. He turned his head. The panel between the cestophori was gone and a square of darkness yawned its miasma into the hall.
The prince made a lightning movement; noiselessly the two servants dived into the blackness; Marsyas followed; after him, the prince.
An eclipsing wall began to slide between them and the hail they had left.
"Her arms were languidly lifted—arms that for whiteness shamed this marble—" the old man was saying as the panel glided back into place and shut them in darkness.
"Ow!" Agrippa whispered in delight, "he tells that story better every year!"
Agrippa crowded past the three that had preceded him into the black passage and, whispering a command to follow, led on. They kept track of him by the sound of his shoes on the stone, but the absolute darkness and the unfamiliar path made their steps uncertain and slow. Frequently the sure footfall before them receded and in fear of losing their guide they stumbled forward in nervous haste.
Presently the darkness about them lifted; the sensation was not that light had entered in, but that the darkness had simply failed in strength. There was a perceptible increase in temperature and the atmosphere, changing from a chill, became muggy and oppressive. Marsyas, drawing in a full breath in search of freshness, told himself that this was the original air of chaos, penned in at the hour of creation.
The floor under his feet became irregular, the instinctive realization that a roof was imminent overhead, passed, and, when the darkness became sufficiently feeble, they discovered that they were following through an immense chamber. Light came in through air-holes in the rock above.
Agrippa spoke aloud.
"This is a quarry-chamber. It was also my grandsire's secret stronghold, trial-chamber and tomb where many of his private grudges were satisfied. But there are no evidences, now. The place was open to the hill-jackals, by another passage which, if my memory has not failed me, shall lead us out."
One of the servitors, whose teeth had been chattering, made a shuddering sound. Agrippa laughed.
"Thou, Eutychus?" he said. "Comfort thee; the jackals have ceased to haunt the place since their hunger was last satisfied, thirty years ago."
An irregular spot of blackness in one of the walls swallowed up the prince as he spoke. Eutychus halted at the edge and drew back with a whimper. But the second servitor, who had not spoken since Marsyas had first seen him, muttered contemptuously some inarticulate word and pushed Eutychus into the blackness. Marsyas followed.
Thereafter it was only time which ensued. Sound, sight and, except for the stone under their feet, feeling were defeated. They moved interminably. Once or twice Eutychus became hysterical from the depression, but the stolid servitor smote him and bundled him on. Ahead a light laugh floated back to them in appreciation of the humor in Eutychus' predicament.
In time a yellow star with ragged points appeared ahead of them, high above the level upon which they had been walking. Eutychus trembled before it, but Agrippa quickened his steps.
"What a memory I have," he observed cheerfully. "Any other than myself would have been hopelessly entangled in these galleries and perished miserably some days hence."
The star enlarged, lost substantiality and presently Eutychus with a gasp of joy faltered that it was daylight. Several minutes later they emerged through an open tomb into high noon over Judea.
Before their blinded vision, the green hills swimming in sunlight upheaved between them and all points of the horizon. The City of David was nowhere to be seen; the sun stood directly in the zenith. Marsyas was lost; but the prince smiled in immense satisfaction and, seeking a grassy spot, sat down and breathed deeply. Presently he motioned to the others to sit. Marsyas came close to him; the others remained at a respectful distance.
For a long time no one spoke.
At last Agrippa fell to inspecting his delicate hands and his garments for marks of the long journey under the earth, and the embroidered shoes for evidences of contact with jagged rock. Satisfied that he was clean and intact, he laughed a little.
"By the hat of Hermes, this was noble apparel to wear through the bowels of the earth.Eheu! I was at my best, and not so much as a she-bat saw me!"
Eutychus, entirely recovered, chuckled, and a grin overspread the face of Silas; but Marsyas was plunged in his own reflections.
"This is the country-side west of Jerusalem," Agrippa resumed presently, for the young Essene's information. "Yonder," pointing north, "the road runs which shall lead us hence. We are an hour's journey by daylight above ground, from the Tower of Hippicus. But we are not beyond the zone of danger yet."
Marsyas did not answer. Reaction had set up within him against the foreign interest which had engaged his attention since sunrise. He had thought of himself and had been concerned for Agrippa; he had planned and had achieved ends. Entanglements straightened, immediate danger passed, the cloud of his sorrow embraced him wholly. He did not want to see that Canaan was beautiful, indeed a land of milk and honey. The wind laden with spring sweets struck a chill in his soul; the singing birds hurt him with a pain greater than he could endure. His heart was bruised, his every sensation sore and weighted with a numb consciousness that a dread thing had happened and that it was useless to pray and hope now. The presence of others was an obstacle, vaguely realized, that kept him from yielding to his desire to lie down on his face and hate everything and give himself up to whatever chose to befall him. Agrippa's hand, presently laid on his shoulder, irritated him. He had to restrain himself to keep from shaking it off. But the prince spoke, and his words were helpful.
"Marsyas, I know thy pain. I, too, had a beloved friend foully murdered, and the agony of helplessness against the power that did him to death sowed ashes on my heart. But the time of the Lord God, slow as it approaches, fell at last. The only bitterness in my cup of fierce triumph was that it was another, and not I, who accomplished, at the end, the undoing of the murderer."
"The Lord God forfend any such misfortune from me!" was the bitter rejoinder. "Vengeance can not be vengeance, if it fall from any hand but mine!"
"Thou speakest truly: be thy requital sweeter than mine!"
It was good to find the reflection of his own hurt in another's experience. It did not lessen his pain; but it gave him expression and the assurance of sympathy. Agrippa continued in his pleasant voice.
"This persecution will cease ere long. It is only Jonathan's device to make him noted as one zealous for the faith. He is much disliked. It is reproach enough for a High Priest to be popular with the Sadducees: it is well-nigh unforgivable to be set up by Rome; it is an insurmountable obstacle to be other than eligible, Levitically; but this man hath been wholly undone by these and an offensive personality. Wherefore the people hate him with a fervor which Vitellius must respect. But Jonathan fancies that if he can make him a name as a defender of the faith, the rabble will applaud, and thou and I and Vitellius and the discerning Jews will achieve no more against him than flies whining about a wall! What folly! How oft we believe a thing to be so, because we wish it to be so! Vitellius does not see how the stoning of blasphemers indorses a man whom he dislikes. So Jonathan's time is short and the persecution will cease with him. His minion will be discountenanced with the master, and thine opportunity is made. Be of hope; thy day is not distant."
But Marsyas' brow blackened.
"A noble reflection!" he exclaimed passionately, "and one that should soothe the Tarsian's dreams! Binding and stoning and killing in his zeal for an usurper of the robes of Aaron! Shedding sweet blood—doing irreparable deeds to serve a vain end, to further a useless attempt—a thing to be given over to-morrow! O thou God of wrath! If it be not sin to pray it, let him stumble speedily in the Law!"
Meanwhile Agrippa observed the sun, and after a little silence that his return to spirits seem not to grate upon the young Essene's distress, arose briskly.
"Up! up!" he said. "It is not at variance with Vitellius' extreme methods to empty the whole Prætorium into the hills in search of us. Up, fellows! To Ptolemais!"
Marsyas arose with the others, but he hesitated and glanced down at the fine garments that covered him. He remembered that he had not brought his soiled Essenic robes with him. He unslung his wallet and extended it to Agrippa.
"Take it, and forget not that I shall ask payment from the strength of that high place to which this may help thee! The vengeful spirit is not of choice a patient thing! I shall wait—but to achieve mine ends. God prosper thee! If thy servants will lend me each a garment thou shalt have back thy dress once more and I will depart."
"Whither?" asked Agrippa without taking the purse.
"To En-Gadi, for the present."
"But the brotherhood will then be guilty of befriending thee and thou art a living example of that which befalls him who befriends one of Saul's marked creatures."
"So I am become as a pestilence," Marsyas said grimly. It was another count against the Pharisee.
"Thou art much beset. Doubt not that Vitellius will seek for thee in En-Gadi, and it were better for thee and for the brotherhood that thou be not found. Thou must leave Judea, for the arm of the Sanhedrim is long."
To leave Judea meant to be banished among the Gentiles, to step out of four whitewashed walls into unknown turmoil; to leave the pleasures of solitude, the peoples of parchment, the events of old history, the ambitions of the soul and go forth amid arrogant heathen godlessness to meet precarious fortunes. The whole course of his life had been entirely reversed in a few hours. Resolute and strong as the Essene was, his face contracted painfully.
Agrippa laid a hand on his arm.
"Remember, it is our faith that this persecution will cease and then thou canst return to thy study in safety," he said as gently as if he were speaking to a child. But in that moment, Marsyas told himself that there would be no returning to his old peace.
"Come with me," Agrippa continued. "I will afford thee protection and thou shalt provide me with funds."
He paused and, taking Marsyas' arm, led him down to a little meandering vale, sweet with blossoming herbs.
"Look," he said, pointing back toward the east.
The hills stood aside in a long, full-breasted series, and revealed through a narrow, green-walled aisle a distant view of Jerusalem, white and majestic on her heights. The morning blue that encroaches upon the noon in early spring softened the spectacle with a tender atmosphere; distance glorified its splendors, and the light upon it was other than daylight—it was a nimbus, the ineffable crown.
Thus seen it was no longer the city of subjection, filled with wrongs and griefs and hopelessness. It was the Holy City, upright with the godliness of David, lawful in the government of Solomon; sacred with the presence of the Shekinah in the Holy of Holies. Here, Sheba might have stood first to be shown the glories of Solomon; here, Alexander might have drawn up his Macedonian quadriga to behold what excellence he was next to conquer. Marsyas felt emotion seize him, the mighty welling of tears in their springs.
"Behold it!" Agrippa said. "We go forth beaten and ashamed, but thou shalt return to it justified; I shall return to it crowned. Believe in that as thou believest in Jehovah!"
He drew the young Essene away and signed to the servitors.
In the days that followed, Agrippa tactfully and little by little won Marsyas out of his brooding. Delicately, he sounded the young man's nature and discovered the channel into which his sorrowful thoughts could be diverted. Stirring incidents of the Herod's own astounding history, graphic accounts of great pageants, of contests of famous athletæ, or of gorgeous cities, vivaciously told, engaged Marsyas' attention in spite of himself. Gradually his sharpened interest began to choose for itself. Expectancy of things to come communicated by Agrippa presently possessed Marsyas.
All this was a new and inviting experience for the young Essene, as well as an alleviation. He had lived a placid, passionless life with the old Essenic master and centered his broad loves on one or two. Evil happenings had wrenched these from him and his affections wandered and wavered, lost only for an hour. By the time the journey to Ptolemais was ended, Agrippa had stepped into his own place in the heart of the bereaved young man.
Ptolemais was built for solidity and strength. Its houses were defenses, its public buildings were fortifications; its mole, harbor front and wall the most unassailable on the Asiatic seaboard. From the plains of Esdraelon in their dip toward the sea, the city was seen, set broadside to the waves, stanch, regular, square and bulky—embodied defiance for ever uttered to whatever sea-faring nation turned its triremes into her roadsteads.
In a narrow street near the southernmost limits of the city, Agrippa stopped. A house of a single story stood before them, its roof barely higher than its door; a heavy wall before it, a narrow gate in that.
"Enter," said the prince to Marsyas, "into the unctuous hospitalities of Agrippa's palace."
He unlatched the gate, and, leading his companion across a small court, knocked at the door, which after a little wait swung open.
An uncommonly pretty waiting-woman stepped aside to let them enter. Marsyas put off his sandals and followed the prince into a small recess cut off by curtains from the interior of the house. A bronze lamp was in a niche in the wall and a taboret stood in the corner. No other furniture was visible.
The prince dismissed the two servitors and they passed behind the curtains, Eutychus stumbling as he went, because his eyes were engaged in attempting to attract the attention of the pretty waiting-woman, who seemed quite oblivious of his glances.
"Send hither your mistress, Drumah," Agrippa said to her. She bowed and departed and presently one of the curtains lifted and a woman hastened into the apartment.
With a low cry of joy she ran to the prince and flung herself on his breast.
"Oh, that thou shouldst come and none to watch for thee!" she exclaimed. "That thou shouldst enter thy house and none but thy hireling to meet thee!"
He laughed lightly and kissed her.
"I have brought also a guest, Cypros," he said. For the first time her eyes lighted on Marsyas and blushing she drew away from her husband.
"I pray thy pardon," she murmured.
The light from the day without shone full on her through a lattice, and since his journey to Nazareth Marsyas had learned to look on women with an interested eye.
She was small, but her figure showed the perfect outlines of the matron, and the Jewish dress, bound about the hips with a broad scarf, let no single grace lose itself under drapery. But it was the face that held the young Essene's attention. There, too, was the blood of the Herod, for Agrippa had married his cousin, but its attributes were refined almost to ethereal extremes. Flesh could not have been whiter nor coloring more delicate. The effect rendered was an impression of exquisite frailty, produced as much by the pathos in the over-large black eyes and the serious cut of the tender mouth as by the transparency of the exceedingly small hand which lay on her breast as if to still a fluttering heart. Her beauty was not aided by strength of character or intellectuality; it was distinctly the simple, defenseless, appealing type which is an invincible conqueror of men.
"This is Marsyas of Nazareth, an Essene in distress, yet not so unfortunate that he is not willing to help us. What comfort canst thou offer him from thy housekeeping?"
The Essenes were the holy men of Israel; the large eyes filled with deference and she bowed.
"Welcome in God's name. My lord has bread and a roof-tree. I pray thee share them freely with us."
Marsyas' formality so serviceable among the women of Nazareth suddenly seemed infelicitous here, but it was all he had for response to this different personage.
"The blessing of God be with thee; I give thee thanks."
She summoned the pretty waiting-woman.
"Let my lord and his guest be given food and drink; set wine and such meats as we have, and let the children come and greet their father."
The prince thrust the curtains aside and, motioning to Marsyas', waited until his princess and the young man had passed within.
The apartment was a second recess larger than the first, shut in by hangings of sackcloth and furnished with rough seats and tables of unoiled cedar. It was a cheerless room, fit for the humblest man in Ptolemais, but the unconquered Herod and his lovely princess ennobled it.
There was a scarf of damask thrown over one of the tables and two or three pieces of magnificent plate sat upon it.
"That," said Agrippa, pointing to the silver, "hath been my moneyer for years. I have lived a month on a flagon."
Cypros sighed, but three pretty children, a boy and two girls, rushed in from the rear of the house and engaged the prince's attention.
Meanwhile, the attractive servant entered with plates for the table and Eutychus followed with a platter of food. As she passed the young Essene she tripped on an unevenness in the floor and would have fallen, but Marsyas, with a quick movement, more instinctive than gallant, threw out a hand and stayed her.
She thanked him composedly and went about her work, but Marsyas, chancing to raise his eyes to Eutychus' face, caught a look from the servitor that was livid with hate. Shocked and astonished, Marsyas turned his back and wondered how he had crossed the creature.
Agrippa sat at the table, and, with Cypros at his left, bade Marsyas sit beside him. The children were carried protesting away.
The prince filled a goblet of silver with a pale wine, slightly effervescent and exhaling a bouquet peculiarly subtle and penetrating. He raised the frosty cup between his fingers—drink, drinker and cup of a type—and looked at the strip of sky visible through the lattice.
"This to the gods," he said, "or whatever power hath fortune to give, and a heart to be won of libation. I yield you my soul for a laurel!"
The princess leaned her forehead against his arm and whispered:
"It is wicked—forbidden!"
"I poured but one glass: I make the prayer; I have not asked thee or our young friend to pray it with me. But my devices are exhausted. I make appeal now, haphazard, for I grope!"
"And didst thou fail in Jerusalem?"
"As I have failed from Rome to Idumea."
She drew in a little sobbing breath and hid her eyes against his sleeve. Marsyas sat silent. This first evidence of despair on the prince's part was most unwelcome. His own fortunes were too much entangled with Agrippa's for him to contemplate their fall. He felt the prince's eyes upon him. The silver cup had been refilled and was extended to him.
Marsyas took it.
"This to success," he said, "not fortune!"
Cypros stirred. "Success is so deliberate!" she sighed.
Marsyas made no answer; would it be long before he should have his bitter wish?
"Thou seest Judea," Agrippa began, "thou heardest me aspire to it and thou didst abet me in mine ambition. But learn, for thy own comfort, Marsyas, the vagabond to whom thou hast attached thyself doth not grasp after another man's portion. Judea is mine! And Rome must yield me mine inheritance!" The prince's eyes glowed with youth's ambition.
Marsyas listened intently.
"A Herod's word is in disrepute," the prince continued. "Hence I am limited to action to prove myself. But look thou here, Marsyas. Judea is pillaged: so am I. Judea is despised: so am I! Judea weltereth in her own blood: am I not sprung from a murdered sire, who was son of a murdered mother—each dead by the same hand of father and husband? Dear Lord, I am an offspring of the shambles, mother-marked with wounds!"
He shuddered and drew his hand across his forehead.
"Having thus suffered the same miseries which are Judea's, is it not natural that I should relieve her when I, myself, am relieved? I should rule Judea as Judea would rule herself—"
He broke off with a gesture of impatience.
"How I hate the blatant vower of vows! Help me to mine opportunity, Marsyas."
As between Rome and Herod the Great as sovereign, there was no choice. Though the Asmonean Slave, as the Jewish patriots named the capable fiend, gave Judea the most brilliant reign since the glories of Solomon and the most monstrous since Ahab, the nominal independence offered by his administration was absolutely submerged and lost in the terror of his absolutism and the devilish genius in him for oppression.
Herod and Abaddon were names synonymous in Judea, and the mildness of his sons or their inefficiency had not been able to set the reproach aside. No able Herod had arisen since the founder of the house, except, as Marsyas hopefully believed, this man before him. Herod Agrippa was the son of Aristobolus, who was murdered in his youth before his capabilities developed. The Herods, Philip and Antipas, had been mild because they were incapable. The recurrence of mental strength in the blood was an untried contingency. All this came to Marsyas, now, suggested by the implied self-defense in the prince's words, and for a moment he wavered between concern for his people and anxiety for his own cause. Agrippa and Cypros watched him.
"Thou art a just youth," the prince went on in the winning voice that had already made its conquest over the Essene. "I can not prove myself until I am given trial, and judgment without trial is an abomination even unto the tyrant Rome!"
"I have not judged, lord," Marsyas protested.
"And thou wilt not until I have shown myself unworthy of thy confidence. Thou hast even now bespoken God's favor for me—be then, His instrument! Thou art the first ray of light in a decade of darkness that has enveloped me and mine!"
Marsyas put out his hand to the prince. The peril in the Herod blood, in his calculations, had dropped out of sight.
"What dost thou say to me, my prince?" he said. "How is it that thou beseechest me—me, the suppliant, praying thy help for mine own ends? But hear me! Thou aspirest to that place of which I have no knowledge, among peoples whose paths I never cross, into the calling of the great! Yet, though most unequipped to yield thee support, I am thy substance. Use me! Thou knowest my price."
Agrippa smiled.
"Though I die owing even mine embalmer, I shall pay thee that debt. I have said. And now to the process. What money hast thou?"
Agrippa was silent and Marsyas, watching his face, waited.
"I need," the prince said slowly, "twenty thousand."
Marsyas got upon his feet, and for a moment there was silence.
"I will get it for thee," he said.
In a city like Ptolemais, where many pagans lived extravagantly and many Jews lived thriftily, there were, as naturally follows, many money-lenders among the sons of Abraham.
"Seek them all," was Agrippa's charge, "but Peter, the usurer. Him, thou hadst better avoid."
The young Essene laid aside the prince's dress, with its embroidery of precious metal, and, getting into a simpler garment affected by the stewards to men of rank, went out into the city to borrow twenty thousand drachmæ.
He did not get the twenty thousand drachmæ, but he found, instead, that Herod Agrippa was the most notorious bankrupt in the world. Being a Jew and by heritage thrifty, the discovery shook him in his respect for the prince, but at the same time a resolution shaped itself in him against the usurers. But, on a certain day, he returned to the little house in the suburbs of the city to report that he had been placidly refused by every money-lending Jew or Gentile, except Peter, in the seaport.
But he delivered his tidings unmoved.
"Be of hope," he said to Cypros, whose head drooped at the news; "there are many untried ways."
He went again into the city, and visited the khans. There might be new-comers who were money-lenders in other cities.
There were such as guests in Ptolemais, but from their lips he learned that Agrippa was black-listed from the Adriatic to the Euphrates; but Marsyas did not return to the house in the suburbs that night. The weight of his obligation was too heavy to endure the added burden which the sight of Agrippa's suspense had become.
He went to the rabbis of Ptolemais; they told him that they were not money-lenders. He applied to the prefect of the city, who laughed at him. Hoping that the name of Agrippa as a bankrupt had not penetrated into the fields he journeyed into the country-side of Syria and tried an oil-merchant, a rustic, rich and unlettered. But the oil-merchant came up to Ptolemais and made inquiry, shrugged his shoulders, glowered at Marsyas and went back to his groves.
An Egyptian seller of purple landed at Ptolemais from Alexandria. The name of the city of hope attracted Marsyas and he met the merchant at the wharves. But the seller of purple had been to Rome and the topmost name on his list of debtors was Herod Agrippa.
At the end of three days, Marsyas returned to the house in the suburbs to assure the prince that he had not deserted and went again on his search.
His invariable failures began to teach him a certain shrewdness. He discovered early that Essenic frankness would not serve his ends. He found that men were approachable through certain channels; that it was better to speak advisedly than frankly; to lay plans, rather than to wait on events; to use devices rather than persuasion. These things admitted, he discovered that he had unconsciously subordinated them to his use. Though momentarily alarmed, he did not hate himself as he should. On the other hand, it was pleasurable to lay siege to men and try them at their own scheming.
At night in a dutiful effort to cleanse himself of the day's accumulation of worldliness, he went to the open proseuchæ, where in the dark of the great out-of-doors, he was least likely to be noticed, to comfort himself with stolen worship, stolen profit from the Law. But the Law was not tender to those who lived as Stephen lived, and died as Stephen died. Not in all that great and holy scroll which the Reader read was there compassion for the blasphemer. Also, he heard of the great plague of persecution which Saul had loosed upon the Nazarenes in Jerusalem and how the Pharisee had become a mighty man before the Council, and an awe and a terror to the congregation. So he came away from the proseuchæ, not only unhelped but harmed, embittered, enraged, alienated from his faith, and hungering for vengeance.
By day, he walked through the commercial districts of Ptolemais and pushed his almost hopeless search with an energy that did not flag at continued failure. He knew that if he obtained the twenty thousand drachmæ, he bound Agrippa the surer to his oath of allegiance to the cause against Saul. Despair, therefore, was a banished and forbidden thing.
His plans, however, had been tried and proved fruitless. Typically a soldier of fortune, he was relying upon the exigencies of chance.
Ptolemais was a normal town, with large interest and pleasures, and the fair day was too fleeting for one to stop and take heed of another. Passers pushed and hurried him when he came upon those more busy than he. Sailors, bronzed as Tatars, were probably the sole loiterers besides the inevitable oriental feature, the sidewalk mendicant.
So it was that on a certain day when Marsyas overtook a lectica in the street, the old man within complained aloud and had no audience, except his plodding bearers, or the attention of a glance, or a slackened step now and again among the citizens.
"They rob me!" he was crying when Marsyas came up with him.
The young man turned quickly; the declaration was alarming. His eyes encountered the face of Peter, the usurer, a stout, gray old Jew, in the apparel of a Sadducee.
Seeing that he had won the young man's notice the old usurer seized the opportunity to enlarge.
"They ruin me!" he cried.
Marsyas bowed gravely. "Thy pardon, sir," he said. "May I be of service?"
"They sap my life!" the old man continued more violently, as if the young man's question had excited him. "They take, and demand more; they waste, and must be replenished! I drop into the grave and there will be nothing left to buy a tomb to receive me!"
The words were directed to Marsyas, and the young man having halted could not go on without awkwardness.
"I pray thee," he urged, "tell me who plagues thee thus."
"The tradesmen! Because I am wealthy, they augment their hire; because I must buy, they increase their price; they hold necessities out of my reach! It is a conspiracy between them because I am of lowly birth, and I go from one to another and find no relief! Behold!" He shook out a shawl which had been folded across his knees. "I must have it to protect me against the cold. It is inferior; it is scant; yet it cost me fifteen pieces of silver!"
Marsyas glanced at the mantle; even with his little knowledge of fabrics it appeared not worth its price.
"Thou hast servants, good sir, and camels," he said, drawn into suggestion in spite of himself. "Do I overstep my privilege to suggest that thou mayest send to Anthedon or to Cæsarea and buy in other cities?"
"But the hire—the hire! And how should I know that the knavery does not extend to Anthedon and Cæsarea?"
"Then," said Marsyas, "establish thine own booths here and undersell the robbers."
There was silence; the small eyes of the old man narrowed and ignited.
"A just punishment," he muttered. "A proper punishment!"
"Or this," Marsyas continued, interested in his own conspiracy. "Thou sayest they oppress thee because thou art a lowly man! They are foolish. Display them thy power and punish them. Thou art a great usurer; powerful families here are in thy debt. How strong a hand thou holdest over them! What canst thou not compel them to do! Nay, good sir; to me, it seemeth thou hast the whip-hand over these tradesmen!"
The old man rubbed his hands. "An engaging picture," he said. "But unless I haste, they will ruin me yet!"
Marsyas shook his head. "Not if the tales of thy famous wealth be true."
The lectica had moved along beside him and he waited now to be dismissed; but, contrary to custom of that rank which is privileged to command, the old man waited for Marsyas to take his leave.
"Methinks," he began, "I have seen thee—"
"Doubtless," Marsyas interrupted hastily. "I am a steward here in Ptolemais. But I have an errand here, good sir; by thy leave, I shall depart."
The old man made a motion of assent, but he followed the young Essene with a thoughtful eye.
"If I am to know the world's way," Marsyas said to himself, "I can use it, if need be."
He did not visit another usurer, but on the following day went to those places likely to be the haunts of Peter. When, presently, he discovered the old man near a fountain, Marsyas did not attempt to catch his eye. But one of Peter's servants touched him on the arm and told him that the master beckoned, and he hastened to the old man's side.
"Who is thy master?" Peter asked.
Marsyas winced, but restrained a declaration of his free-born state.
"A Roman citizen who is preparing to return to Italy."
"A Roman!" Peter repeated. "But thou art a Jew, or the blood of the race in thee lies."
"A Jew without taint of other blood in all the line."
"Art satisfied with thy service—serving a Roman?" was the demand.
"None has a better lord!" replied Marsyas quietly, but with an inward delight in leading the old man on.
"But it should be more lawful for thee to serve a Jew," Peter declared. "A Roman's slave, a slave for ever; a Jew's slave, a slave but six years—"
Marsyas could rest no longer under the intimation of bondage.
"Good sir, I am not a slave."
"Ho! a hireling."
"No; a free man, unattached and serving for love."
Peter scratched his head. "For love only? Then why not come and be my steward for wages?"
"Thou canst not pay my price," he said with meaning.
The old man lifted his withered chin.
"Thy price!" he repeated haughtily. "And pray, sirrah, what is thy price?"
A figurative answer to add to his first sententious remark was on Marsyas' lips, but he halted suddenly, and a little pallor came into his face.
"On another day, I shall tell thee," he said after a silence, and the old man impatiently dismissed him.
Marsyas turned away from the heart of the city and went straight to the house in the suburbs.
He found Agrippa stretched on a couch where the air entered through the west lattice, and the place otherwise solitary. The princess and the children with the servants had gone into the city.
Marsyas came uncalled to Agrippa's side, and the prince noted the change on the young man's face. He looked expectant.
"My lord," Marsyas said, "thou didst say to me several days ago that thou didst hate a vower of vows. Yet no man is chafed by a vow except him who finds it hard to keep. Wherefore, I pray thee, for the prospering of the cause and mine, assure me once more of thy good intent toward Judea."
The Herod raised his fine brows.
"How now, Marsyas? Has the knowledge that I am a Herod been slandering me to you?"
"Nay, my lord; thou hast won me; and I shall not stop at sacrifice for thy cause, which is mine."
"What canst thou do, my Marsyas?"
"Get thee money."
"I give thee my word, Marsyas. It has been sorely battered dodging debts, yet it is still intact enough to contain mine honor. I give thee my word."
Marsyas lingered with an averted face, which Agrippa tried in vain to understand. He added nothing to emphasize his avowal; perhaps he realized at that moment, more keenly than ever afterward, how much a man wants to be believed.
Presently the young man spoke in another tone.
"Who is this Peter, that I may not ask him for a loan?"
"I owe him a talent already," Agrippa answered with a lazy smile, "which he advanced to me while he was yet my mother's slave."
"Then thou knowest him! How—how is he favored in disposition?"
"How is Peter favored? Are slaves favored? Nay, they are tempered like asses, cattle and apes—like beasts. Wherefore, this Peter is voracious, balky, amiable enough if thou yieldest him provender—not bad, but, like any donkey, could be better."
Marsyas' eyes fell again; it seemed that he hesitated at his next question, as though upon its answer turned a matter of great moment.
"Art thou in all truth assured that this Alexandrian will lend thee money?" he asked presently, beset by the possibility of doubt.
Agrippa laughed outright. "Jove, but this questioning hath a familiar ring! Surely thou wast sired of a money-lender, Marsyas, else his inquiries would not arise so naturally to thy lips! Will the Alexandrian lend? Of a surety! And even if not, then will my mother's friend, the noble Antonia, Cæsar's sister-in-law. If Cæsar had not been so precipitate and hastened me out of Rome, I should have borrowed the sum of her ten years ago. I have not borrowed of the Alexandrian ere this because I had not the money to carry me thither."
After a pause, Agrippa anticipated a further question and continued.
"The Alexandrian is Alexander Lysimachus, the noblest Jew a generation hath produced. Even Rome, that hath such little use for our blood, waives its ancient judgment against Lysimachus. He is alabarch of the Jews in Alexandria, able as a Roman, just as a Jew, refined as a Greek, versatile as an Alexandrian. I saw him four years ago, here, in Jerusalem, when he brought his wife's remains to bury them on sacred soil. He had with him two sons, one a man, grown, with his father's genius, but without his father's soul; the other a handsome lad of undeveloped character, and a daughter, a veritable sprite for beauty, and a sibyl for wits. I was afraid of her; I, a Herod and a married man, turning forty, was afraid of her! But get me the twenty thousand drachmæ, Marsyas, and thou shall see her—Hercle—a thousand pardons! I forgot that thou art an Essene!"
Marsyas stood silent once more, and Agrippa waited.
"And yet one other thing, my lord," the Essene said finally. "I serve thee no less for love, because I serve thee also for a purpose. Thou wilt not forget to serve me, when thou comest to thine own?"
"I give thee again my much misused word, Marsyas. Believe me, thou hast forced more truths out of me than any ever achieved before. Cypros will make thee her inquisitor when next she suspects me of warmth toward a maiden!"
Marsyas lifted the prince's hand and pressed it to his lips. Without further word, he went out of the chamber and returned to the city.
He sought out the counting-room of Peter the usurer, and found within a commotion and a gathered crowd. The old man himself stood in a steward's place behind a grating of bronze, with lists and coffers about him. Without stood a brown woman, in a strange dress sufficiently rough to establish her state of servitude, and she bore in her hands a sheep-skin bag that seemed to be filled with coins.
About her was a group of men of nationalities so diverse and so evidently perplexed that Marsyas immediately surmised that they had been summoned as interpreters for a stranger whom they could not understand.
The brown woman was passive: the usurer behind his grating in such a state of great excitement and anxiety that moisture stood out on his wrinkled forehead. His eyes were on the sheep-skin bag; evidently the brown woman was bringing him money, and his fear that the treasure would escape made the old man desperate.
"Have ye forgotten your mother-tongues?" he fumed at the polyglot assembly, "or are ye base-born Syrians boasting a nationality that ye can not prove? Hold! Let her not go forth, good citizens; doubtless she hath come from a foreign debtor to repay me! Close the doors without!"
Marsyas pressed through the crowd to the grating, and the old man discovered him.
"Hither, hither, my friend," he exclaimed. "See if thou canst tell what manner of stranger we have here."
The young Essene had been examining the woman; with a quick glance, now, he inspected her face. Dark the complexion, the eyes olive-green as chrysolite, mysterious and hypnotic; the features regular as an Egyptian's, but stronger and more beautiful; the physique refined, yet hardy. The mystic air of the Ganges breathed from her scented shawl. The young man's training in languages was not overtaxed.
"What is thy will?" he asked in the tongue of the Brahmins.
"To exchange Hindu money for Roman coin," was the instant reply.
Marsyas turned to Peter.
"This is an Indian woman," he explained. "She wishes to exchange coin of her country for Roman money."
"Good!" the old man cried, rubbing his hands. "We shall oblige her. Foreign coins are so much bullion; yet, we pay only its face value, in Roman moneys! Good! I shall melt it, and deliver it to the Roman mint! Good! But—but how shall I know one of these outlandish coins from another?"
"I can tell you," Marsyas answered.
The assembled group drifted out of the counting-room and the usurer, sighing his delight, opened a gate and bade Marsyas and the Hindu woman come into the apartment behind the screen. There the exchange was made, and the old usurer, trusting to the Hindu's ignorance of the language, permitted no moment to pass without comment on his profit.
Presently, Marsyas turned to the woman.
"You lose money by this traffic," he said deliberately.
"Rest thee, brother," was the calm reply, "I know it. Yet I must have Roman coin to carry me to Egypt."
Marsyas glanced at her apparel. In spite of its humble appearance, it was the owner of this treasure, that dwelt within it.
The exchange was made, amounting to something over twenty thousand drachmæ. Marsyas, with wistful eyes, saw her put the treasure away in the sheepskin bag. He arose as she arose, and the two were conducted out by Peter.
Without, it had grown dark. The woman had made no effort to hide the nature of her burden. She made an almost haughty gesture of farewell to Marsyas.
"I shall serve thee, perchance, one day," she said and passed out.
Marsyas followed her. At the threshold, he wavered and stepping into the street stopped.
She made a small, frail, dusky apparition, under the black shadows of the bulky buildings of Ptolemais—a profitable victim for some light-footed highwayman, less sorely in need of money than he. But she evidently felt no fear.
Then, he turned and went back into the counting-room.
Peter was behind his grating.
"Who and what art thou?" the usurer demanded, with no little admiration in his tone.
"I am," Marsyas answered, "a doctor of Laws, a master of languages, a doctor of medicines, a scholar of the College at Jerusalem, a postulant Essene."
The reply was intentionally full.
"And a steward for love, only!"
"Only for a time. When I can repay thee a debt long standing, I shall cease to serve at all."
The usurer's eyes brightened. "A debt," he repeated softly. "Is this my fortunate day? Which of the bankrupts who owe me has been replenished?"
"Not yet, the one of whom I speak," Marsyas replied. "Hast thou heard of Herod Agrippa?"
"Herod Agrippa! Evil day that he borrowed a talent of me, never to return it!"
"Perchance, some day—"
"Never! Whosoever lends him money pitches it into the sea!"
"Yet the sea hath given up its treasure, at times. But let me trouble thee with a question. What price did the costliest slave in thy knowledge command?"
"What price? A slave? In Rome? Nay, then, let me think. A Georgian female captive of much beauty was sold to Sejanus once for six hundred thousand drachmæ—"
"I speak of serving-men," Marsyas interrupted.
"Nay, then: Cæsar owns a physician worth eighty thousand drachmæ."
"Hath he cured any in Cæsar's house of poisoning; can he speak many languages; is he also a doctor of Laws and a good Jew?"
The usurer shook his head.
"What price, then, should I he worth to Cæsar?" Marsyas demanded.
"Sell not thyself to Cæsar," Peter cried, flinging up his hands. "It is forbidden!"
"I shall not sell myself," Marsyas said. "I have come only to find how to value my services."
"Whom dost thou serve?" the old man demanded. Marsyas was not ready to disclose his identity.
"A Roman. Peace and the continuance of good fortune be thine."
He bowed and passed out of the counting-room.
The usurer stood a moment, then summoned his servants, and, getting himself into street dress, hastened to follow the young man. Marsyas turned his steps toward the house in the suburbs.
There were several torches about the painted gate in the wall and the light shone on a group alighting from a curricle. Cypros and her children had returned from the city, and Agrippa had come forth to receive them. Marsyas joined the group and Peter's lectica was borne up to the circle of radiance under the torches. The old man's eyes filled with wrath when he recognized Agrippa. He stood up and surveyed him with scorn.
"A Roman!" he scoffed. "A Roman, only to add the vices of the race to the meanness of a Herod! Back to my house, slaves! We have taken profitless pains!"
Agrippa's anger leaped into his face and Marsyas pursued and overtook the litter.
"Thy pardon, sir," he began.
"I have a right to attach thee for the talent thy master owes me," Peter stormed.
"Peace, good sir! I am not a slave."
Peter chewed his mustache impotently, but the young Essene dropped his Greek and spoke in Hebrew, the language of the synagogue, the true badge of Judaism.
"Perchance we may bargain together. Wouldst have me for hire?"
Peter smoldered in sulky silence.
"I can not serve longer without compensation," Marsyas pursued.
"What sum in hire?" Peter demanded.
"Twenty thousand drachmæ—"
Peter blazed, but Marsyas stopped his invective with a motion.
"Nay, peace! I have not finished. Twenty thousand drachmæ in loan to Agrippa, and I will serve thee gratis till he redeems me by paying the principal and the talent he owes."
The usurer, with a snort, abruptly ordered the slaves to proceed.
The next day, Marsyas, loitering on purpose near the usurer's, was approached by a servant and sent into the presence of Peter.
"Hath the bankrupt any hopes?" the money-lender demanded without preliminary.
"He goes to Alexandria, for money, and thence to imperial favor in Rome. There is Antonia who will aid him, as thou knowest. Unless thou helpest him to reach either of these two places, he is of a surety bankrupt; wherefore he can never pay thee the talent or even the interest."
Peter dismissed him moodily and Marsyas returned to the prince. But the next day Peter appeared at Agrippa's door and was conducted to the prince's presence, where Cypros sat with him and Marsyas waited. The old man made no greeting.
"Thou knowest me, Agrippa," he began at once. "For thy mother's sake, whose happy slave I was, I will take thine Essene at his terms, less the interest on the twenty thousand drachmæ."
"My Essene at his terms," Agrippa repeated in perplexity. But Marsyas, with a movement of command, broke in.
"The bargain is at first hand between thee and me, good sir," he said to Peter. "The second contract shall be between the prince and myself. Bring the money here at sunset and the writings shall be ready for thee."
"Twenty thousand drachmæ, less mine interest on the sum," Peter insisted.
"Less thine interest," Marsyas assented, and Peter went out.
Agrippa got upon his feet and gazed gravely at Marsyas.
"What is this?" he asked.
"I have bound thee to my cause," the young man answered.
"How? Nay, answer me, Marsyas. What hast thou done?" the prince urged, impelled by affection as well as wonder.
"I have bought my revenge, and have paid for it with a season of bondage."
"Hast thou given thyself in hostage for us?" Cypros cried, springing up.
Marsyas, without reply, moved to leave the room. But Agrippa planted himself in the young man's way, and Cypros in tears slipped down on her knees at his side, and, raising his hand, kissed it.
"We shall not forget," she whispered to him.
"I shall not know peace till I have redeemed thee," Agrippa declared with misted eyes.
Great haste to get away from the overwhelmed pair seized the Essene. Trembling he shook off their hold and hurried out into the air.
He had to quiet a great amazement in him at the thing he had planned for so many days to do. After a long agitated tramp in search of composure, he began to see more clearly the results of his extreme act. He had fixed himself within reach of Vitellius and the Sanhedrim: unless the ill fortune of the luckless prince improved, he had bound himself to servitude for a lifetime.
But he drew his hand across his troubled forehead and smiled grimly. He had made his first decisive step against Saul!