Before sunset that day, Flaccus had received two messages. One was brought by a Jewish slave. It read:
"TO FLACCUS AVILLUS, PROCONSUL OF EGYPT, GREETING:
"I have departed.
"CYPROS."
The other came by a Roman courier, who had landed an hour before from one of the swift-going triremes which had left Ravenna three days later than the passenger boat that had brought Marsyas' tidings.
The message also was written in a woman's hand and was no less enraging than the other:
"ROME, Kal. Jul. X, 790.
"This bulletin to tell thee, O my raging corybant, that thy cause hath ceased to prosper for the past three days. Mine own part was well performed as was thine other minion's, the bewitching Eutychus, but desperate work hath been done which bids fair to upset thee and me and preserve thine enemies.
"First and above all things, thou wilt remember that it was not in the pact that I should do more than lead the Herod out of the path of domestic uprightness and hold off my hands. This hath been already done, but the Parcæ have grown weary of yielding thee favor, so read, here, following, disaster!
"Herod and his friend, the Essene Marsyas, who had become a dangerous Roman, filled with a Jew's cunning and the boldness of a wolf-suckled Romulus, till misfortune cut him down—this same fallen Herod and his friend have dropped out of sight, except as Death may bare its arm and reach down to cut off the head of the one and the income of the other. This much in three days; but Rome hath taught herself to forget in a twinkling.
"But Cæsar hath been for many days troubled of a dream. He telleth it thus, in no more words, no fewer: 'I cast dice with Three; three grisly hags, and I lose, though the tesseræ were cogged!' His collection of soothsayers, the completest in the world, offered as many readings as there are numbers of them in the court. But Tiberius drew his lip and bared his teeth at them and called them pea-hens and cockchafers. Even Thrasullus, he lampooned—Thrasullus, whom once he feared.
"Whereupon, the store of haruspices and augurs that feed upon superstitious Rome were brought in—only to furnish mirth for the court and victims for Tiberius.
"Then Macro, rummaging about in musty and alien-peopled corners of the Imperial City, brought forth a wonder!
"It—and would I could call the sex of the creature—came hither from the Orient. On that naked fact, Rome is left to build its biography, describe its looks and fathom its purpose. For it came before Cæsar, and stood, a column in white—hooded, mummied, shawled, veiled in white! The court hath had spasms, since, fearing that it might have been a leper, but I say that there was no sick frame within those cerements! It had the stature and brawn of a man, but it managed its garments with the skill of a woman. It came, heard Cæsar's dream, plucked off a husk of its wrappings, produced pigment and stylus and wrote thereon.
"Then it vanished quite away.
"A hundred courtiers rushed upon the wrapping that it left, and Cæsar, pallid even under his wrinkles, screamed to them to pursue the Thing and fetch it back. But it was gone; vanished into thin air.
"Then Macro plucked up courage and, taking up the cloth, fetched it to Cæsar to read.
"And Cæsar, ashamed to show fear in the face of his court, snatched the linen away and read—to himself!
"Now, whether the writing assured Tiberius that he was the comeliest monarch on the earth, or unfolded this scheme which is to follow, no man knows. But that which was written contained persuasion which worked on Cæsar's mirth, for he smiled, as he hath not smiled since Sejanus tasted death.
"'Go forth and search out that soothsayer,' he commanded Macro, 'that I may give him whatsoever thing he would have!' But Macro hath not discovered the soothsayer unto this day.
"Meantime Cæsar cleared his audience-chamber, but despatched a slave to bring me back to him.
"And when I came I was bidden in whispers to take Caligula to the deepest hidden villa on Capri, and entertain him until I was bidden to return.
"An hour later, I met my father, the simple Euodus, who told me after many charges to keep it secret, that he had been bidden to fetch at daybreak the coming morning, whichever prince, Caligula or Tiberius, who stood without the emperor's door to give him greeting.
"And yet another hour later, the little Tiberius' tutor was summoned to the imperial bed-chamber and came forth some minutes later with a face as blank as a Tuscan sherd.
"Now, though I saw not the cloth of revelation, nor heard the emperor's plans, I knew then, as I know now, that the mysterious soothsayer wrote that the dream meant that Cæsar and the Destinies should choose the coming emperor, and bade him proceed by these means.
"And I, dutiful lady to an engaging prince, took Caligula, nothing loath, and went privately into the interior of the island to that small wasp-nest palace clinging to the side of the cruelest precipice in these bad hills of Capri.
"But in the night, while yet Caligula lingered at the board, because forsooth the slaves had carried me away first, there came the thunder of hoofs without, sentries and servants, asleep or drunken or afraid, fell right and left, flying feet rang upon the pavement, and before any could resist, Caligula was snatched up, rushed out and away into the night—and not any one saw the face of his abductor.
"But when my father duly emerged from the emperor's bed-chamber there stood without, not little Tiberius, but Caligula, drenched as if he had been soused in a horse-trough to sober him, with immense dazed eyes and trembling like an aspen.
"When he was led within, Cæsar started up and glared at him with baleful eyes.
"'I was sent by a Dream,' Caligula whispered. 'What wilt thou have of me?'
"And Tiberius, struggling with an apoplexy, fell back and made no instant answer. But presently he said,
"'Perpol! I cogged the dice for myself, but it was the Destinies who threw them! Oh, well, it was written, and had to come to pass!'
"Where was the little Tiberius? Being assured that naught should prevent his election, he lingered for his breakfast. O fatal appetite of lusty youth! He lost an empire by it. For Cæsar, still afraid of the mysterious Thing from the Orient, ratified the choke of the Destinies.
"But Caligula hath discovered the identity of the Dream that fetched him; which being very substantial and human stands in high favor with the prince imperial. And so, through him as well as through the Herod's own claim on Caligula, Agrippa's hopes are brighter.
"Wherefore thy campaign against the obstacle between thee and the maker of that twenty-year old wound in thy heart must be cautious, no longer overt, and above all things not of such nature as may recoil upon thee. Hear for once a woman's reason. If thou accomplish the Herod's end, remember that Caligula succeeds Tiberius and will not fail to visit vengeance on those who ruined his friend!
"Be wise, be covert, be wary! If thou hast made mistakes, correct them! Make no new enemies, and turn old ones into friends. I will help thee, here, in Rome, except to the point of exposing myself.
"If thou wilt work, be rapid, for Cæsar declines. We go hence as soon as he may be removed, to Misenum. But it is only animal flight from death; he seems to turn like a wounded jackal and snap at his heels. Matters of state, beyond the satisfying of a multitude of grudges, are entirely given up to Macro. But daily the dullness on his brain shifts a little, so that the light of recollection penetrates to it, and he remembers forgotten animosities. Herein lies thy hope. I will not suggest Agrippa to him; Caligula would cut my throat before daybreak, for the eaves-dropping Macro would know what I did.
"Calculate for thyself; get others to do thy work and to shoulder the peril.
"Meanwhile Venus prosper thee, and may the Parcæ repent.
"JUNIA."
"Oh, well I know that mummied mystery, that Dream, that unseen abductor!" Flaccus raged, gnawing his nails. "It is that villain Essene to whom I owe torture and death! He, to direct the imperial succession!"
Then he fell to considering his obstacles. Caligula as prince imperial and friend to the Herod would permit no persecution of the Jews. That method of coercing the alabarch had to be abandoned. Next, he re-read the single line from Cypros. She had not gone to Rome; she had hidden herself. That was what the line meant. They had told her, so she hated him. But he did not wince so much under her hate, as he raged over his bafflement.
Then he thought of Classicus, and with the thought his hope revived. Finally he sprang up, and, summoning slaves, scattered them broadcast over Alexandria in search of the philosopher.
He would go to Rome! He would bear to Cæsar an appeal from Flaccus to command the alabarch to produce Cypros, Herod Agrippa's wife, who had been abducted.
The plan unfolded itself so readily and so helpfully, that the proconsul's face grew radiant with anticipated triumph.
In an hour, a slave returned with Justin Classicus.
Cæsar left Capri and roved along the Italian coast in his splendid barges, or approached by land close to Rome, even to spend the night just without her walls, or in Tusculum, Ostia, Antium or Baiæ. He dragged his court with him, by this time deserted of all upright men, and circling, slinking, making sorties and retiring, he brought up at last in the villa of Lucullus on Misenum with all his unclean party.
Macro in attendance upon Cæsar had left a tribune in Rome as a post of despatch from which necessary information could be communicated to the prefect in Misenum. The tribune, a sour old prætorian, with more integrity than graciousness, charged to protect Agrippa's interests for Macro's sake, now that Caligula was prince imperial, was empowered with not a little of the prefect's authority, which he administered with a kind of slavish awe of it.
So, when a young Alexandrian Jew, giving the name of Justin Classicus, bearing a letter of introduction from the Proconsul of Egypt, applied for a tessera which would give him admission to Misenum, the tribune refused, declaring that the visitor must be indorsed by a Roman of rank and in good odor with the emperor. Classicus took his departure, assuring the tribune that he would go to Baiæ where young Tiberius lived in his father's villa, and get the indorsement of the lad, to whom Flaccus was notedly a partizan.
As soon as Classicus had departed, the tribune rushed a messenger to Marsyas, with Macro's signet which would command horses at posts between Rome and Misenum, and informed the young man what menaced the Herod.
Marsyas did not tarry for preparation. He knew that Classicus would go by the common route, by sea from Ostia, and that the overland route was only, by the luckiest of circumstances, the speedier.
Before the messenger had returned to the tribune, Marsyas was on the road to Misenum.
A day later, he passed the picket thrown out a hundred paces from the actual precincts of the villa of Lucullus, but when he offered his tessera to the prætorian posted at its inner walls, the soldier did not lower his short sword. Marsyas, who had come to know many of the prætorians, looked in surprise at the man.
"Turn back, good sir," the man said. "None enters the lines to-day."
While he knew that it was useless to ask the sentinel why the arbitrary order was in force, the question leaped to his lips before he could stop it. His voice was eager.
"What passeth within?"
The soldier shook his head. Marsyas drew away a space and thought. He knew that the little Tiberius was an exception to every law laid down by Cæsar; Classicus could not have armed himself with a more potent name. Caligula's friends, even Macro's friends, might be barred, not the friends of the little beloved Tiberius.
The obstruction was dangerous.
He knew that he had to deal with Classicus.
The bitterness in his heart rose up and smothered his distress: for the moment he lost sight of Agrippa's peril, his hope against Saul of Tarsus and his fear for Lydia, in the all-overwhelming rancor against the man who was setting foot upon all the purposes in the young Essene's life.
While he stood wrestling with a mighty impulse to kill Classicus, a courier in a well-known livery bowed beside him.
"The Lady Junia sends thee greeting and would see thee in her father's house."
Marsyas turned readily and followed the servant.
He had come to look upon the Roman woman as a counselor, of whom he had some serviceable ideas out of the many he had not adopted. He knew that if he crossed her threshold to find distressing tidings within, he was sure of finding an attempt at alleviation at the same time. He might come forth vexed with all his friends, hating more hotly his enemies, but less amazed at sin in general. He had not learned to apologize for the world, nor even to believe in it; he had simply come to accept it as a necessary and irremediable evil. The general condemnation of his skepticism had not left her untouched, but he felt, nevertheless, that no one was so bad that another much worse could not be found. Junia, therefore, occupied a position of lesser blame. She was charitable and amiable, and whatever she had done that failed to measure up to his Jewish standard of virtue had been overshadowed by her usefulness.
He was led toward a little inclosure of lattice-work and vines on the summit of a knoll, from which the imperial demesnes were visible.
Between the screen and the brink of the eminence was earth enough for the foothold of an olive, and its dark crown reached over and shaded the space within. There was a single marble exedra with feet and arms of carven claws, and through the interstices of the vinery and the farther shade and foliage of the new spring, the insula of Euodus arose white and graceful. The sunshine lay in brilliant mosaics over the thick sod, and above, lozenges of blue showed where the light had entrance. The breeze from the warm bay went soft-footed through the trees, and for the moment Marsyas felt that all the friendliness which the world held for him had been caught and pent in the little garden.
Junia was there, luxuriously bestowed in the cushions of the stone seat. She made room for him beside her, but he took one of the pillows and, dropping it on the grass, sat at her feet.
He looked at her with expectancy in his eyes.
"O my Junia," he said, "why dost thou wear that eager, uninformed look, as if thou wouldst say, 'Tell me quickly what news thou hast!' when thou knowest invariably I bring no cheer!"
"Hear him!" she cried. "Shall I look thus: 'Here comes Marsyas, bearing evil tidings and craving comfort, for he does not care for me except when I may do something for him?'"
"Of a truth, dost thou not say that in thy heart?" he insisted.
"No! I say this: 'Yonder young man is much in debt to me, but my requital when I ask it will be equal to his debt.' Wherefore, I shall serve on till the sum is equal."
"Thou speakest truly when thou sayest I am in debt to thee, but if thou hast in thy heart something which thou wouldst have me do, command me now!"
"Perchance when I see what brought thee to Misenum, to-day," she smiled.
"If thou canst help me, Junia, I shall owe thee a life!"
"Thy life, Marsyas?"
"No; Agrippa's—or the life of Justin Classicus!"
"How now!" she cried, and there was more genuine interest in her soft voice than she had previously shown. "What hath stirred thee against Classicus?"
At that moment an indistinct shout of great volume, as of many men cheering behind walls, interrupted him. He turned his head quickly in the direction of the palace.
"What passeth within?" he asked; "why will they not admit me?"
"Nothing, nothing," she said hurriedly, "or at least only an important ceremony which none but Cæsar can perform; Macro does not wish him to be interrupted. Go on with thy story!"
"Flaccus hath sent a messenger to the emperor—a messenger that commands the favor of the little Prince Tiberius."
"Who told thee?" she asked.
"Well?" she inquired.
He studied the look on her face and felt that it was strangely composed for the assumed eagerness in her voice.
"The tribune refused him the tessera which he must have to approach the emperor's abode, and required that he produce the indorsement of some notable Roman before he return again. The messenger went away boasting that he would get it of the little Tiberius."
"He will!" she assented, "for little Tiberius is not on the promontory to-day, and the sentries without dare not refuse the lad's signet!"
Marsyas frowned and looked down: he was perplexed that she did not help.
"Is there no way to shut him out of Misenum?" he asked.
"Cæsar's passport is as much a command as Cæsar's denial—when the little Tiberius delivers it," she repeated.
"But can I not reach Macro?"
"No," she said decisively. "Macro's powers pale before the lad's."
Was she at the end of her ingenuity, or her willingness, he asked himself.
"He will get to the emperor, then, if he start?" His desperation grew under the lady's easy irony.
"Unless thou or some other of Agrippa's friends disable him permanently with a bodkin, or a storm deliver him up to the Nereids."
Marsyas' hands clenched: he moved as if to rise, but she slipped her hands through the bend of his elbow and let them retard him, more by their presence than by actual strength.
"Is there something thou canst do?" he asked.
She hesitated; something seemed to fill her eyes; her lids quivered and dropped; speech trembled on her lips, but the momentary impulse passed. After a little silence, she lifted her eyes, composed once more.
"I told thee, once upon a time," she said, "of the world. I have counseled with thee for thine own good, and sometimes thou didst heed me, but on the greater number of occasions thou hast chosen for thyself. What hast thou won from thy long battle for the stern purposes which have engaged thee? What hast thou achieved in controlling this Herod, or in working against Saul of Tarsus? What?"
He frowned and looked away.
"Nothing," she answered, "save thou hast gathered perils around thee, forced thyself into sterner deeds, and there—"
She laid a pink finger-tip between his eyes.
"—there is a blight on thy comeliness."
"Dost thou urge me to give over mine efforts? If so, speak, that I may tell thee I can not obey!" he declared.
"No? Not even if thy work maketh another unhappy—whom thou wouldst not have to be unhappy?"
He looked at her: did she mean Lydia? Or was she concerned for Classicus?
"Art thou defending Classicus?" he asked.
"Nay," she smiled, "but I defend myself!"
This was puzzling, and at best irrelevant. He had come, burdened with trouble and concern for Agrippa's life, and she was leading away into less serious things. It was not like her to be capricious. Perhaps there was more in her meaning than he had grasped.
"I pray thee," she continued, "mingle a little sweet with thy toil!"
He arose and moved away from her.
"O Junia, how can I?" he demanded impatiently.
"Nay, but I am asking payment of the debt thou confessest to me!"
"Help me yet in this danger of Classicus, and I shall be thy slave!"
She arose and approached very close to him. Her face was flushing, her hands were outstretched. He took them because they were offered. "Marsyas," she whispered, her brilliant eyes searching his face, "I shall not cease to be thy confederate, but I would be more!"
With a little wrench she freed her hands from his and drew a packet from the folds of silk over her breast.
"See! I have here thy letter, which Herod brought and bitterly reproached me for mine enchantment of thee. And I kept it, till this hour!"
She put into his hands the scorched and broken letter that he had written to Lydia and had believed that he had destroyed so long before. While he looked at it, stupefied with astonishment, she slipped her arms about his neck.
"I do not ask thee to marry me," she whispered, a little laugh rippling her breath. "Eros does not summon the law to make his sway effective. For thou art an Essene, by repute, and no man need surrender his reputation for his character. Wherefore, though ten thousand dread penalties bound thee to celibacy, they do not dull thine eyes nor make thy cheeks less crimson! Be an Essene, or a Jew, Cæsar or a slave—that can not alter thy charm! And I shall not quibble, so thou lovest me!"
Marsyas stood still while he searched her changing face. It was not a new experience for him who had brought picturesque beauty into Rome, but the source was different, the result more grave. On this occasion the seductive enumeration of his good looks awakened in him something which was affronted; whatever thing it was, it possessed an intelligence which comprehended before his brain grew furious, and, flinging itself upon his soul, buffeted it into sensitiveness.
With a rush of rage, he understood all that her act had accomplished for him.
The world of helplessly-impelled children that she had pictured to him, the world of innocence and forgivable inclinations, little warfares and artless badness, play or the feeding of primitive hungers, or of building of roof-trees—all that with which she had partly enchanted him was suddenly stripped of its atmosphere, and the glare of realities, fierce passions, deadly hates, shamelessness and blood stood before him. In short, he had been instantly precipitated into his old Essenic misanthropy now directly imposed upon the heads of individuals, which before in his solitary days had been heaped without understanding upon the heads of strangers.
He did care because that the creature had simply betrayed her true self; more dreadful than that, she had wrested from him the charity his experience in the world had yielded him—for Lydia!
Blind fury maddened him; her offense called for a fiercer response than a blush; she had robbed his heart wholly and was burning its empty house.
He put forth his strength, undid her arms and flung her from him. For a moment he felt a bloodthirsty desire to follow her up and break her over the stone exedra, but remnants of reason prevailed.
Springing through the exit, he was gone without uttering a word in answer to her.
Junia heard the last of his footsteps on the flagging leading out of her father's grounds, and for a moment wavered between screaming for her own slaves to pursue him, or delivering him up to the prætorian guards.
"For what?" Discretion asked. "To have him tell, under torture, thy part in sheltering Agrippa? At thy peril!"
But he had flung her away; he had rejected her; he had escaped after all her pains, her pretensions, her plans! For him, she had left Alexandria and endured Cæsar. For him, she had forgone seasons of conquest in Rome! For him, she had neglected Caligula, and now Caligula would be emperor. For him she had sacrificed everything and had lost, at last. He, a Jew, a manumitted slave, a barbarian! She, a favorite of emperors and consuls, a manipulator of affairs, fortunes and families! And he had rejected her!
There were muffled flying footsteps on the sod without, and Caligula, pallid and moist with terrified perspiration, dashed into the inclosure as if seeking a place to hide.
When he saw her, he sprang back, but halted, on recognizing her.
"Ate and the Furies!" he said in a strained whisper. "What hath happened but that Cæsar revived while the guards were hailing me as Imperator!"
A hater of pork, a wearer of gowns, a mutterer of prayers, a bearded clown of a rustic! And she, it was, whom he had rejected!
"Stand like a frozen pigeon!" Caligula hissed, "while I tell thee of my death! He knew what the shouts meant! He showed his teeth like a panther, transfixed me with his dead eyes and signed for wine! When he hath strength enough to order it, and breath enough to form the words—"
And she had not urged the Herod's death for his sake, and thereby imperiled her own living with Flaccus; she had sent him a passport to Capri and one to Misenum, and rescued him from the admiring eyes of other women, to make sure of him—and he had flung her away, at last!
"He will starve me to death: drown me in the Mamertine!" Caligula raged under his breath. "Starve me, I say! Speak, corpse! What shall I do!"
Her rage by this time had so filled her that it meant to have expression or have her life.
"Kill him!" she hissed through her teeth.
It was Marsyas' sentence, but it fell upon Tiberius.
Caligula ceased to tremble and stared at her with a strange look in his bird-like eyes.
"How?" he asked.
She seized one of the pillows and brought it down over the seat of the divan, and held it firmly as if to prevent it from being thrown off.
"Thus!" she said venomously.
"But the nurses and Charicles, the physician," Caligula protested, fearing nevertheless that his protest might hold good.
"Put them out! Will they dare resist the coming emperor? Have Macro aid thee, so he dare not tell upon thee."
She was becoming cool. It would be good to vent her murderous impulses on something. Caligula gazed at her with fascination in his face.
"Come, then, thou, and see it done! Neither shalt thou talk," he said suddenly.
She stepped to his side, but before she reached the exit of the inclosure, she stopped and looked squarely into his eyes.
"Herod hath a slave who hath wronged me," she said.
"Which one?" he demanded.
"The Essene!"
"Nay, take vengeance on some other, then, for He is my friend! I have vowed him favor!"
"Why?" she demanded.
"Nay; do not stop—thou art to see this thing done! Why do I promise the Essene favor? Because, forsooth, he made an emperor of me! Come!"
Marsyas left the promontory at once. He had hired one of the public passenger boats to cross from Baiæ to Misenum and the boatman had waited for the return of his fare.
Many went as he was going, but they were patricians singly and in groups that passed him, with sober faces and without a word to each other. He recognized senators, ædiles, consuls, duumvirs, prætors, legates all hurrying toward the landing. All noble Misenum seemed suddenly to have determined on an exodus. An anxious and distressed company they were, and had Marsyas' own brain been less hot with anger, he might have meditated on the meaning of it all.
By the time he reached the bay, the sunset-reddened water was covered with light-running coasters, by the signs on aplustre or vexillum, a fleet of patrician craft making across the bay to Neapolis, or scudding for the open sea and Ostia. He saw one or two vessels approaching Misenum, hailed by departing ones, and, after a colloquy, turned back.
Vaguely wondering whether Cæsar's latest whim was to drive his court from him, Marsyas got into his own highly-painted shell and told his oarsman to take him across to Baiæ.
As he sat at the tiller and moodily watched the Italian night come up over the sea, the capes, the hill-slopes and finally cover the somber head of the unsuspected Vesuvius, he was afraid that his long ignored Essenic rigor would assert itself. He was ashamed of himself, and for the moment looked upon the life he had led in Rome with revulsion. But he put off his self-examination with a kind of terror. There was yet much that was harsh and unlawful to be done, and he dared not hold off his hand. Lydia's life and good name, the avenging of Stephen, Agrippa's life and Cypros' happiness were weighed against Classicus and his own soul in the other balance. He could not hesitate now.
When he set foot in opulent Baiæ the night had fallen and with his return to the city, which he knew sheltered Agrippa's most active enemy at that hour, all his energies turned toward the purpose that had originally brought him to Misenum. He believed that if Classicus had insinuated himself into young Tiberius' favor, doubtless the prince's hospitality had been extended to him. He turned his steps toward the range of villas built between Baiæ and Puteoli, overlooking the bay.
He had in mind the method of his last resort, and he went as one goes when desperation carries him forward—swiftly and relentlessly.
But, crossing the town by the water-front, he met a handful of slaves bearing baggage toward the wharves. With his old Essenic thoroughness he halted to examine them to make sure that Classicus had not outstripped him finally. By their particularly fine physique and diverse nationality Marsyas knew them to be costly slaves of the familia of no small patrician.
He heard the ramble of chariot-wheels on the lava-paved streets; the master was following. As the vehicle passed under a lamp a few paces away, Marsyas distinguished the occupants as Classicus and the young Tiberius.
He felt a chill creep over his heart; the hour had come.
He moved after the slaves toward the wharf.
Baiæ's beauties extended out and waded into the waves. The landings of marble had to be fit masonry for the feet of the Cæsars and their train when they asked the hospitality of the sea. Luxury, not commerce, came down to the water's edge and gazed Narcissus-like at its lovely image in the quiet bay. Here were no Algerian hulks with their lateen sails, no evil-smelling fishing fleets, or docks or warehouses, or city cloacas. Baiæ was a city of dreams and warm baths, of idleness and temples and villas, of gardens and fragrance and beauty and repose. Now, the velvet winds of the starry Italian night rippled the face of the bay; the last faint luster of a set moon showed a bar of white light, low down in the southwest, and against that, blackly outlined, a splendid galley was driving like the wind into port.
A dozen yards from the end of the pier lay a passage-boat, with a light on its mast and a soft glow in its curtained cabin, Marsyas wondered if Tiberius meant to accompany his guest to Misenum.
But while he thought, Tiberius set Classicus down, took leave with an apology and a reminder that guests awaited him at home, and drove rapidly back into Baiæ.
A small rowboat lay under shadow at the side of the landing and the two couriers loading the baggage awaited now their passenger.
But Marsyas emerged from the dark and stepped before Classicus. A glance at the tidy countenance of the philosopher sent a rush of heat through Marsyas' veins. Classicus was not feeling the spiritual combat within him, for the work he meditated, that racked the young Essene. That fact acknowledged helped Marsyas in his intent.
"A word," Marsyas said.
Classicus stopped, a little startled.
"Who art thou?"
"Marsyas, the Essene."
The young man had not helped his cause by the introduction.
"Out of my path," Classicus said coldly. "I have nothing to say to thee!"
"I have somewhat to say to thee, Classicus. If thou must be hard of heart, be not foolish and injurious to thyself."
"Suffer no pangs of concern for my welfare," the philosopher said. "Preserve them, lest thine own cause find thee bankrupt in tears!"
"My cause will not need them: thou mayest. I know why thou art here and whither thou art going and for what purpose. I know who sent thee, why and what thou wilt accomplish. I know how feebly thou art aided and how much imperiled. Above all things I know what will happen to thee unless thou hearest me!"
"What a number of door-cracks hath yielded thee information! Stand aside before I call my servants to thee!"
Marsyas folded his arms. The green blackness of the bay threw his solid outlines into relief. The threat he had made suddenly appealed to Classicus as ill-advised.
"Jewish brethren," Marsyas answered, his voice dropping into the softness which was premonitory, "do not speak thus with each other. This was taught thee in the Synagogue. If thy lapse into evil hath let thee forget it, I care enough for thy manner to recall it to thee.
"First and above all things, know thou that I am not here to satisfy the hate of thee because thou hast wrested from me my beloved! Next, that I am here to stop thee in order to save her life, more than any other's. Now, for thyself. Thou goest to accomplish a deed that would recoil upon thine own head. If thou be tired of living, Classicus, choose another way than to perish for the entertainment of him who duped thee."
"For thy peace of mind, O sage fool," Classicus observed, "know that I come bearing a petition to the emperor to seek for Agrippa's wife, who hath been abducted!"
"If thou present a petition which in any way favors Agrippa or his wife, Tiberius will test the cord on thee to be sure it is strong enough to strangle Agrippa. And I tell thee, Classicus, the Charon of the heathen Shades will not push off with the Herod; he will save himself a journey and await thy arrival!"
"Still threatening, still trembling for me! If I call these slaves to remove thee thou mayest tremble for thyself!"
"I am large, Classicus, strong and determined. I could kill thee before thy stupid slaves ran three paces!"
Classicus turned his eyes to the level line to the southwest. The luster on the horizon was gone. The great galley, broadside now as she hunted her channel, loomed large on the outskirts of the sheltered water. Once, the deck-lights flashed on a bank of her oars, rising wet and slippery from the sea.
"Listen, brother," Marsyas continued. "Thou shall proceed with me to the maritime harbor at Puteoli, and get aboard the vessel there which sails for Alexandria. Thou shall leave Italy: thou shalt discontinue thy work against Agrippa—or have the knife, now! Decide!"
The hiss and protest of plowing waters came now on the breeze; the regular beat of many oars, working as one, broke the hiss into rhythmical bars: an invisible pennant, high up in the helpless shrouds where night covered canvas and mast, was caught suddenly by a vagrant current of wind and fluttered with rapid pulsations of sound. Long lances of light reached out on the water and began to stretch broadening fingers toward the pier. Humming noises like blended voices came with the rattle of chains.
Marsyas knew that Classicus was awaiting the arrival of the galley for the advantages of the interruption and to secure Marsyas' arrest.
The young Essene stepped close to Classicus.
"I shall wait no longer for thy answer," he said softly.
The philosopher's voice rang out, clear and unafraid.
"Hither, slaves!"
Marsyas was not unprepared. He seized Classicus and forced him back into the black shadows of the clustered columns with which the inner edge of the landing was ornamented.
The two couriers came running, but Marsyas spoke authoritatively.
"Good slaves, if ye come at me ye will force me to kill this young man!" he said.
"Take him!" Classicus cried.
The two servants sprang forward, but Marsyas, seizing Classicus by the hair, thrust his head back and put the point of the knife at his throat.
The two halted, tautly drawn up as if the point of the blade touched their own flesh. Instinctively they knew that the silky quiet in the voice was deadly; Marsyas had them.
Meanwhile the galley was delivering up her passengers to the land. The first ship's boat that touched the landing carried four patricians. The soft sound of heelless sandals on the pavement drifted down from Babe. Some one of the citizens was coming to meet the arrivals.
The four stepped out, and the ship's boat shot back into the darkness.
"Ho! Regulus," one of the four cried.
"Coming!" the citizen answered from the street. "What news?"
"Cæsar is dead!"
Classicus relaxed in Marsyas' grip; the slaves stood transfixed; the young Essene, holding fast, stilled his loud heart and listened.
"Old age?" the citizen ventured.
"Perchance; yes, doubtless," one of the four answered in a lower tone, for the citizen had come close and was taking their hands. "Smothered in his silken cushions—died of too much comfort! Dost understand? Well enough!"
Marsyas' hands dropped from Classicus.
By the time the Alexandrian aroused to his opportunity, Marsyas had disappeared like a spirit into the night.
Lydia came upon Vasti, the bayadere, returning to the culina with a flaring taper in her hand. The brown woman's eyes were fixed on the flame and she whispered under her breath, till the licking red tongue of the taper flickered and wavered back at her as if speaking in signs.
"What saith the Red Brother?" Lydia asked, in halting Hindu, for she had begun to learn her waiting-woman's tongue.
"He keeps his own counsel, who is fellow to the Fire," was the answer. "Thy neighbor, the philosopher, awaits thee within."
Lydia went slowly on.
When she entered the alabarch's presiding-room, Classicus arose from a seat beside a cluster of lamps and came toward her.
"Thy servant at the door tells me that thy father is not in," he said. "I came to speak with him of thee: but perchance it is better that I tell thee that which I have to tell, before any other."
Lydia sat down on the divan, and Classicus sat beside her.
"I come to submit to thy scorn or thy pity," he said, "either of which I deserve!"
"What hast thou done?" she asked, feeling a vague sense of fear.
"I have been Flaccus' fool!" he vowed.
Lydia's eyes grew troubled.
"What didst thou for him?" she asked in a lowered tone.
"I permitted him to catch me up in the city and rush me to Rome with a memorial to Cæsar, beseeching the emperor's aid in seeking the Lady Cypros, who had been abducted."
Lydia's level brows dropped.
"Charging us with abduction?" she remarked.
"Charging no man with abduction, but declaring that she was missing from thy father's roof!"
Classicus' face filled with contrite humiliation under her gaze.
"Why so late with the story?" she asked. "Why didst thou not come to us before thou wast persuaded to go!"
"Charge me not with more folly than I did commit!" he besought. "I was caught by his servants in the Brucheum and haled before him, where, in all excitement, he told that the Lady Cypros was missing, and that I, as the safe friend of the alabarch and the proconsul, had been commissioned to enlist Cæsar's interest in her cause! The vessel ready for Puteoli waited only on the night-winds to sail! I was not given time to change my raiment, or to fill my purse from mine own treasure, much less to take counsel with thy father and learn the truth!"
"And besides Flaccus, we must now take Cæsar into consideration in protecting this unhappy woman!" she exclaimed.
"No!" he cried. "A friend of Agrippa's, whom I met in Rome, stopped me in time!"
She looked away from him and he took her hand.
"Am I pardoned?" he asked plaintively.
"Thou didst no harm; but it should serve to awaken thee to the evil in this dangerous Roman! If only Agrippa would return, how readily the skies would brighten for us all!"
"What wilt thou do if the Herod returns not?" he asked after a little silence.
"Do not speak of it, Classicus," she said hurriedly. "Flaccus is desperate."
"If Agrippa abandon Cypros," he offered, "she can divorce him, and simplify the tangle."
"Oh, no, Justin! Cypros is bound heart and soul to Agrippa. Even if he died, she would not turn to Flaccus! The dear Lord be thanked that we have a virtuous woman to defend!"
"Nay, then, thou strict little rabbin, what shall we do?"
"How slow these ships! The last letter we sent to him can hardly have reached Sicily!"
"He hath had a sufficiency of letters by this time! What was it he wrote thy father, last: 'I come with all speed; but reflect that Cæsar is master over me: his consent is needful!' Ha! ha! Caligula would give Agrippa half his Empire did he ask for it!"
She leaned her cheek in her hand, turning her face away from Classicus.
"Alas! I know why he lingers," she said to herself. "Marsyas hath departed unto Judea, and Agrippa lacks his controlling hand!"
"I appreciate the peril threatening thy father's house," the philosopher added after her continued silence, "and thou knowest thou shall have my help—blundering as it may be!"
There were footsteps in the vestibule, and the alabarch stood in the archway. Lydia sprang up.
"What," she cried, unable to wait for his report, "what said the proconsul?"
The alabarch came into his presiding-room with a slow step; he let his cloak fall on his chair, and stood in the lamplight worn and troubled. Seeing Classicus, he greeted the visitor before he answered Lydia.
"Evil, evil; naught but evil," he sighed, "and threats. And the proconsul's threats are never empty!"
"What does he threaten?" Classicus asked.
"Me—and mine."
"Alas! our people!" Lydia sighed.
"No, daughter! Thee!"
"Lydia!" Classicus exclaimed.
"Why does he threaten me?" Lydia cried.
The alabarch shook his head. "Flaccus betrayed only enough to show that he will concentrate his vengeance against me and thee, or me through thee, but thee of a surety, my Lydia! Yet, he was as dark and ominous as the wrath of God!"
Lydia came close to her father and he laid his arm about her shoulders.
"Lydia, that bat escaped from Sheol, Eutychus, is openly attached to Flaccus' train; once, he abode under my roof, where he could learn many things. Has he any information against thee which Flaccus could use?"
Lydia's answer was not ready. It meant too much to tell that which the alabarch groped after. Already she had surrendered until she was stripped of all but her father's confidence, and her people's respect. She could not cast off these ties to all that was desirable on earth. And Classicus, silent and smug behind her, seemed to be a prepared witness awaiting a confession. Conscience and human nature had the usual struggle, and when she replied she did not raise her head.
"My father, Eutychus will never be at a loss for information. What actualities he can not furnish, he may have from his imagination."
"Alexandria does not wait for charges against the Jews," the alabarch said.
"But what says Flaccus?" Classicus urged after a silence.
"That I have abducted Agrippa's wife; that I have been guilty of insubordination to him, my superior; that thou, my Lydia, art amenable to him and all the people of Alexandria, and that he will proceed as his information warrants, unless I produce Cypros—between sunrise and sunset, to-morrow!"
There was silence.
"What wilt thou do?" Lydia asked in a suppressed voice.
"I can produce Cypros," he answered, torn by the inevitable.
"No!" Lydia cried.
"If Agrippa cares so little for her—" the alabarch began, but Lydia put off his arm and stood away from him.
"This matter is neither thine nor Agrippa's to decide! Cypros is a good woman and she shall be kept secure—even against herself, if need be! Thou shalt not bring her before Flaccus!"
"Lydia, I am brought to decide between her and thee!"
"Thou canst suffer dishonor and peril, even as Cypros," Classicus put in, to Lydia. "We are no less unwilling to surrender thee to the unknown charges Flaccus brings against thee, than thou art to give up Cypros!"
"Flaccus is no arbiter of the virtue of women! He is not Cæsar, beyond whom there is no human appeal! Let him remember that it is no longer the old man Tiberius who is emperor of the world, but the young man Caligula, whose warmest friend is a Jew! Let him touch Cypros at his peril!"
"Daughter, why should Cæsar defend a woman for whom not even her husband cares?"
There was no ready reply to this, and Lydia's face grew white.
"Is it like thee, my father, to abandon the wholly undefended?" she asked.
The alabarch bit his lip and turned his head away.
"Granted, then," put in Classicus in his even voice, "that we shall keep the lady in hiding and treat her to no ungentle usage! Now, what will become of Lydia?"
The alabarch raised his eyes, filled with fire and desperation. Lydia drooped more and more, and presently she put her hand to her forehead.
"Is there nothing to be done?" Classicus persisted calmly.
The silence became strained and lengthened to the space of many heart-beats before he spoke again.
"Lydia can be hidden, with the princess," he offered finally.
Lydia raised her head, and looked at Classicus. Not for her the refuge that was Cypros', for if Flaccus held in truth the secret of her conversion to the Nazarene faith, she would only lead his officers straight upon the Nazarenes all over Egypt. Whatever people sheltered her, she would bring disaster and death on their heads. As Marsyas had been under the oppression of Saul of Tarsus, she had become as a pestilence! She wondered if Classicus realized how thoroughly she understood him. His face did not wear an air of respect for his plan.
"It can not be," she said quietly, and the alabarch looked startled at her words. Classicus submitted to her objection at once.
"Then," he said, "there is but one other way that I can invent—and this I offer last, because it is dearest to me. I have lands in Greece and favor with the legate there. Flaccus' power can not extend beyond his own dominions. Wilt thou not come to Greece—with me, my Lydia?"
Lydia's gaze did not falter throughout this speech; she had expected, long ago, that when Classicus had hedged her about, he would offer his hand as her one escape. Drop by drop the color left her face; her lips grew pale, and took on a curve of mute appeal; her eyes were the eyes of suffering, but not the eyes of a vanquished woman.
The alabarch had turned hurriedly away. But Classicus gazed, as if awaiting her reply, at his smooth, thin hands, now stripped of their jewels, incident to the shrinkage in his purse.
The drip of the waterfall in the garden within came very distinctly upon the silence in the room.
A cry from the porter, speaking in the vestibule, brought the alabarch up quickly.
"Master! master! The prince! The prince!"
"The king, thou untaught rustic!" Agrippa's tones, subdued but mirthful, followed upon the porter's cry.
Lysimachus sprang toward the vestibule, but Lydia, transfixed by reactionary emotions, did not move.
But before the alabarch reached the arch, two men appeared in the opening. Except for the fillet of gold set so low on his head that it passed around his forehead just above the brows, Agrippa might have been the same nonchalant bankrupt gambling with loaded tesseræ or hunting loans on bad security.
The other was Marsyas.
Classicus lifted his brows and arose to the proper spirit in which to greet a king.
"Count it not flattery, lord," the alabarch cried, extending his hands toward the new-comers, "that I say that Abraham's radiant visitors were not more welcome than thou!"
"Better the unprepared alabarch," said Marsyas, "than any host who hath expected his guests!"
The prince laughed, and discovering Lydia, bowed low to her.
"No change in thee, sweet Lydia," he exclaimed as she bent in obeisance to the fillet of gold about his forehead.
Marsyas stood a moment aside, his glance roving quickly from her to Classicus. With an effort he put back the rush of feeling that crowded upon his composure and came to her.
"Hast thou not changed, Lydia?" he asked. The hand closing over his did not belie the tremor in her voice.
"A blessing on you both," she said. "You are the redemption of this house of trouble!"
"We have been everything but heroes in our days," Marsyas said. "Welcome the opportunity!"
"Ho! Classicus!" Agrippa cried jovially, "hast thou failed to overthrow the tribute-demanding Sphinx or the Dragon?"
Marsyas gazed at the philosopher standing with inclined head, while he made felicitous answers to the prince, and said to himself:
"Happy phrase, my lord King! There standeth the tribute-demanding Sphinx, even now!"
Agrippa addressed himself to the alabarch, and between Marsyas and Classicus there stood no saving obstruction. Marsyas' nostrils quivered; he had fleeting but perfect summaries of the wrongs the man had worked against him. To find him now a guest entertained under the roof he had striven to injure, brought the Essene's temper up to a climacteric point. But he felt Lydia's presence, pacific, temperate and persuasive, restraining him. Of all the many deceits he had used throughout his precarious life of late, none seemed so impossible of practice as to offer a dispassionate word to Classicus.
He was saved for the moment by an exclamation from the alabarch.
"In all truth, that manifestation of Cæsar's favor?" he cried eagerly.
"A truth!" Agrippa declared. "Rome made a dandy out of Marsyas. Twelve legionaries, before he would stir a step to Egypt! Twelve! All armed; brasses so polished that one looks into the sun who looks at one. None short of three cubits in stature and visaged like Mars!"
Marsyas cut off the prince's raillery with a direct and serious query.
"How is it with our lady?"
"Still in hiding from Flaccus," the alabarch replied.
Agrippa looked in astonishment from one to another.
"Surely," he said earnestly, "you have not carried this delusion to such an extreme!"
"Delusion, lord," Marsyas repeated, facing him. "Let those first speak who are not deluded. Then thou shall apply the word to him it fits."
"Good friends," the Herod protested, "all wise men cherish a folly. Marsyas, being the wisest of my knowing, hath his own. He hath held fast against flawless argument and solid truth to the delusion that my honest, timid wife hath awakened passion in the heart of this proconsul, who hath all the beauty and wit of Egypt and Rome from which to choose."
"Wilt thou continue further, lord," Marsyas said, "and tell them how thou hast explained this mystery to thyself?"
"What, Marsyas! Make confession here, openly, of a thing which I blush to confess to myself?" the Herod laughed.
"Never fear; thy audience hath already acquitted thee of blame!"
"Nay, then; so assured of clemency, I tell this behind my palms and with the prayer that the walls do not repeat it to my lady's ears! Learn, then, for the first time, that Junia is the cause of my disaster, because, forsooth, she is as fickle and capricious a woman as she is bad. Until the unhappy Herod was blown of ill winds to Alexandria, his single haven, she was Flaccus' mistress. When I appeared, for no other cause than the Mightiness of her fancy, she dropped Flaccus and precipitated all manner of disaster upon my head. There is the true story! Cypros, forsooth! Cypros is an upright Arab, twenty years married and mother of three!"
"Junia!" the alabarch repeated irritably. "Junia constructed more of Flaccus' villainies than Flaccus himself!"
"And will nothing dislodge this wild thing from your brain?" Agrippa cried.
"Name it what you will, lord," the alabarch answered, "but I have a further story to tell than all my fruitless letters told, when I stood in fear of their interception! Thou hast not forgotten the attack on thee on the night of Flora's feast; that, thou canst ascribe to Flaccus' jealousy, but how wilt thou explain that when the news of thy disaster reached Alexandria, Flaccus put off his amiable front and commanded me to deliver Cypros to him—"
"Commanded you to deliver Cypros to him!" Agrippa cried, the fires of anger igniting in his eyes. "What had she to do with this?"
The alabarch drew himself up, ready in his dignity and authority to justify his deeds.
"If it proceedeth to an accounting, I and mine will bear witness to her innocence and loving fidelity to thee! Yet, remember, lord, she hath the first right to ask why she hath been left without thy care thus long!"
Agrippa flushed darkly, but Marsyas stopped the retort on his lips.
"Let us not try each other! Go on, good sir," he pleaded.
"I refused, and he threatened to hurl the Alexandrians on the Regio Judæorum. But in the meantime, fate or fortune, God knows which, ordered that Tiberius should choose Caligula to succeed him. The news reached Alexandria and stayed Flaccus' hand, for then he stood in wholesome fear of thy friend, the prince imperial. But thou didst tarry and tarry, and the more thou didst tarry, the more his hopes and his desires grew. No longer the Regio Judæorum dared he threaten, but me and mine—Lydia, above all!"
"Lydia!" Marsyas exclaimed.
"And I tell thee, my Lord Agrippa," the alabarch continued, by this time a picture of refined indignation, "at this very hour I was brought face to face with a hard decision between my daughter and thy wife!"
Marsyas turned toward Classicus, but the storm of denunciation that leaped to his lips was checked. What should he win for his exposure of Classicus, but scorn from Lydia, and a misconstruction of his motive?
Atavistic ferocity glittered in Agrippa's eyes.
"It is my turn!" he brought out between clenched teeth, "and I have a long score, a long score with Flaccus! Where is my lady? Let her be brought!"
Lydia broke in before the alabarch could answer.
"In hiding!" she answered quickly, and Marsyas fancied that she feared a too explicit answer from her father. Before whom was she afraid to disclose the princess' refuge, if not Classicus?
"Take four of my prætorians, then," Agrippa commanded, "and lead me to her hiding-place!"
The alabarch bowed and summoned servants.
"Have we, then, delivered this house of peril?" Marsyas asked of Agrippa.
"Flaccus," said Classicus, speaking for the first time, "may feed his thirst for revenge!"
"Get but my lady, first!" Agrippa insisted. "Flaccus hath played and lost! He shall pay his forfeit!"
The servants were ready with the alabarch's cloak; the porter announced chariots waiting, and in an incredibly short time, Marsyas was alone with Lydia and Classicus, in the presiding-room.
"I shall return to the ship and prepare it for voyage," Marsyas said, in the silence that instantly fell. "Since I return to Judea with the King, perchance I should say farewell!"
Lydia's lips parted, and her miserable eyes turned away from him.
"Await my father's return," she said in a low voice,
"Hath he far to go?" he asked.
"Yes—far!"
Classicus waited serenely for Marsyas' answer. In that composure Marsyas read unconcern, which the Essene interpreted as hopelessness for his own cause.
"So long as we abide in Egypt, we are a peril," he replied. "Even now we have delayed too long!"
He extended his hand to Lydia, and slowly, she put her own into it. The touch of the small fingers played too strongly upon his self-control. He released them hurriedly and strode toward the vestibule.
But at the threshold, indecision and astonishment and acute realization of the meaning of the thing he was doing seized him. He whirled about. Classicus stood beneath the cluster of lamps, his face alight with triumphant superciliousness. Even under Marsyas' eye the expression did not alter. Lydia seemed to have shrunk; her hands clasped before her were wrung about each other in an agony of restraint, but the pitiful appeal in her eyes was all that Marsyas saw.
In an instant he was again at her side, his heart speaking in his face.
"Thou wearest yet the free locks of maidenhood," he said, in a voice so smooth and low that it chilled her, "perchance thou wilt tell me ere I depart if thou art to marry—this man?"
For a moment there was silence; Marsyas heard his mad heart beating, but if Classicus felt apprehension, there was no display of it on his face. Then Lydia raised her head.
"No," she said, in a voice barely audible.
Marsyas turned upon Classicus, and between the two there passed the silent communication of men who wholly understand each other. Then Classicus took up his kerchief, and, with a smile and a wave of his hand, walked out of the presiding-room.
But Lydia was out of reach of Marsyas' arms when he turned to her. Crying and afraid, she motioned him back as he pressed toward her.
He stopped.
"Am I still unacceptable to thee, Lydia?" he asked.
"O Marsyas, thou returnest in the same spirit as thou didst depart from me—unchanged, unchanged! But striving to change—for my sake! Do not so, for me! Not for me!"
The grief and pleading in the black eyes that rested upon her changed slowly. Rebuffed and stung he threw up his head.
"Better the old Essenic shape in which I was bound against thee and thou against me?" he said bitterly. "So! The Essenes seem not to be wrong in their teaching of distrust in women!"
If he expected her to retort, the compassion and gentleness in her answer surprised him.
"Not that, my Marsyas," she said, coming nearer to him in her earnestness. "But change does not consist in the raiment thou wearest, nor in the claim to be altered. Thou canst not in truth believe that I have done right! Thou forgivest me for thy love's sake, but thy intelligence is no less critical! I can not, will not put away the faith of the Master; I can not regret the spirit of the deed I did for their sake. And between us it is as it was the night I sent thee from me, so long ago!"
"But I have changed," he protested hastily. "The world hath taught me much: I can understand; I can extenuate greater errors—I have done so; believe me, it is only for thy sake—"
"But canst thou wholly acquit me—wholly justify me, Marsyas?"
He looked at her with pleading in his eyes, and made no answer.
"No man should wed or worship with a single doubt," she said.
Fearing more than he dared confess to himself, he caught her hands and would not let her leave him.
"Lydia, I have not had the portion which God and women allot to most men," he said almost piteously. "There are delights that should be mine by right, but they are denied me! Other men have their dreams, their moments of tender preoccupation. They can live again through hours between only themselves and one other. They can feel again the touches of a woman's hand upon them, the warmth of her cheek and the love in her kiss. No matter the evil, the sorrows that follow, these things are theirs, to hold in memory! No matter the time or the place, they can summon it all from a song, drink it from a goblet of wine, or breathe it in from a flower! It is twice living it; once, in the actuality; again, in the dream! But I—I have nothing! My teaching did not permit me to look forward to such a thing—and thou, Lydia—Lydia, thou dost not permit me to look back upon it!"
Her eyes filled with tears, and a rush of tender words trembled on her lips. His gaze, quickened by longing for the thing these signs typified, caught the softening in her young face. He seized upon the hope that it gave him.
"Dost thou love me, Lydia?" he asked.
"I love thee, Marsyas."
He drew her to him, put his arms about her and pressed her to his breast. She did not resist him, for she was tired of contention with herself, tired of distress, afraid of the menace the future showed her, and withal fainting in hope. She dropped her head on his shoulder, with her face turned up to him. Marsyas' soul filled to the full with subdued, bewildering emotions. It was not the first time he had held this sweet child-woman in his arms, but fear, tumult, impetuousness and protest had claimed preëminence in his thoughts before. Now in the quiet and shelter of the alabarch's deserted presiding-room, he found new experience, new feelings. Under the low light of the clustered lamp, he looked down on the face turned to him, smoothed with soft touches the long, delicate black brows; passed light fingers over the bloom of her cheek and saw the faint rose color come again in the white lines the little pressure made; put back the loose curl fallen before her perfect ear and marveled at its silkiness; watched the quiet palpitation in the milk-white throat—sensed, somehow, the repose in herself, the command, even in this momentary surrender, the divinity in her womanliness. He was ashamed of his distrust, startled at his new sensations.
Perhaps she saw the passing of feeling over his face, for she stirred and would have raised herself, but the movement brought him back to reality, and a fiercer rebellion against it.
"Nay, nay, Lydia; I love thee! It is my one virtue; my sinful soul hath been married to thee these many strange months. Thou art become a necessity to my life, as needful as bread and drink, as blood and breath! Thou art the essential salt in my veins—the world to me! Nay, more! Thou art love, for world is a word with boundaries! I have striven for thy sake and I have not failed. I am able now to obtain the quieting of thy chief enemy, the refreshment of the starved heart in me, thirsting for revenge, and of our own security henceforward in the world. Yet, I am not going to Judea with Agrippa. I abide here with thee in Alexandria, until I have won the immediate safety of thy body and thy soul!"