Ere midnight, had reveillé to those twainSounded, and from brief slumber rallied them.They passed from the surprise of that farewellKissed on the coolness of Gamaliel's brow—He his reveillé waiting from the trumpOf resurrection, tranced in happy sleep!—From this passed Paul and Stephen to the courtWithout, where stood, made ready in array,Five hundred Roman soldiers, foot and horse,Filling the place with frequence and ferment.Armed men, and horses in caparison,And saddled asses thick together poured—All was alive with motion and with sound.There was the stamping hoof of restless steed,The rattling bridle-rein, the bridle-bitChamped hoary, the impatient toss of headShaking the mane disheveled, and with foamFlecking the breast, the shoulder, and the flank,Eruptive snort from nostril and from lip,The ass's long and melancholy bray,Horse's salute of recognition neighedTo greet some fellow welcomed in the throng,Therewith, voices of men, scuffle of feet—All under bickering light and shadow flungFrom torches, fixed or moving, fume and flame.To Paul and Stephen sharp the contrast wasBetween that quietude and this turmoil,Sleeping Gamaliel and these urgent men!But Paul his peace held fast amid it all,Peace, yet a posture girded and alert;While Stephen, hanging on his uncle's eye,Caught the contagion of that heedful calm.The natural pathos of one fond regretAched in the heart of Paul, a hoarded pain—His wish, denied him, to have given in charge,Before he went, Gamaliel's lifeless form,If to the keeping of his kindred not,At least to Roman care and piety;Amid the hurly-burly of the hour,No chance of speech, with any that would heed,For Jewish prisoner hurried thence by night!But Paul's reveréd friend, safe fallen asleepIn Jesus, beyond care or want was blest;Yea, and the human reverence of great death,Toward one in death so reverend great as he,Well might be trusted, for such clay to win,Through kindred care, the sepulture most meet.Yet Paul, come to Antipatris, and thereLeft with the horsemen only thence to ride,A needless careful message touching thisGave to the chief of the returning foot.When to the chiliarch's ear such word was brought,That captain deeply mused it in his mind—To find it throw a most unlooked-for lightOn certain dark alternatives of doubtThat had meanwhile his judgment sore perplexed.Lowly upon an ass they seated Paul,And Stephen, likewise mounted, ranged beside.Then those appointed to prick forth before,Out through the two-leaved gate at sign withdrawn,Were issuing on the street in order due,When the proud prudent steed that led the waySwerved, and, with mighty surge of rash recoil,Had nigh his rider from the saddle thrown.He, his fine nostril wide distended, snuffedSuspicion on the tainted wind, and, dazedHis eyes with darkness from the glare just leftOf torchlight in the court, uncertain saw,To the right hand beside the open port,There on the ground, as ambushed at his feet,A motion, or a shadow, or a shape,Which to his careful mind portended ill."Halt!" rang abrupt the startling stern command;"Seize him!" the leader of the vanguard cried,And pointed to the skulking figure near.Darted three soldiers from the rank of foot,With instant light celerity—a flashOf movement from the serried column sentInerrant to its aim, like lever-armOf long bright steel by some machine flung forthTo do prehensile office and fetch home—Darted upon the man in hiding there,And brought him prisoner to the chiliarch."Knowest thou this man?" the chiliarch asked of Paul."Shimei his name, an elder of the Jews,"Responded Paul; turning, the chiliarch thenSaid: "Thou—Stephen, I think they call thee—speak.Thou toldst me yesterday, not naming him,Of one all-capable of crime, the headAnd chief of a conspiracy to slay;Answer—thou needst not fear—is this the man?"Stephen flushed shame; "The same, my lord," he said;He dropped therewith his eyes, and head declined."Thou stayest," the chiliarch said to Shimei;"On, and with speed!" he to the soldiers said.To a centurion, then, attending him:"Relieve the sentry set outside the port,And hither bid the man released to me.""What wast thou doing at thy sentry-post,That miscreant such as this should sit him thereUnchallenged? Sleeping? Soothed perhaps to sleepWith chink of gold sweet-shaken in thine ear?"—A perilous frown dark on his imminent brow,The chiliarch thus bespoke the sentinel.But with full steady eye, the man replied:"I crave thy pardon, if, through ignoranceI erred, but I nowise forgot myself,Or failed my duty of strict challenging.Indeed, sir, if the man in presence beAught but a loyal, honest gentleman,Then am I much deceived, and punish me;But not for slackness or base traitorhood.As I my oath and office understand,I was true soldier and true sentinel."'Sound heart, if addle head,' the chiliarch thought,"Thy oath and office, my good sentinel—Thou needest to understand them better," said.The sentry, fain to clear himself, began:"He told me"—"Doubtless some amusing tale,"Smiling an easy scorn, the chiliarch said.Surging with zeal and conscious honesty,The sentinel again his part essayed:"He said, sir"—"Aye, I warrant thee he did,If but thou hearkenedst," said the chiliarch;"Tongue seldom lacks, let ear be freely lent.Sharp question and short answer, there an end—That is the wisdom for the man on watch.Words are a master snare, beware of words,Thine own or other's, either equal fear;No parley, is the sentinel's safe rule.Whet up thy wits, my man, but this time—go!"The sentry thus dismissed, retiring, shotInto the chiliarch's ear a Parthian word:"Beseech thee, sir, prejudge nor him, nor me;Wait till thou hear the gentleman explain.""Thou hast bewitched him well," to ShimeiTurning, the chiliarch said; then, with cold eyeRegarding and repelling him, exclaimed"Hoar head, thou lookest every inch a rogue!"Shimei had marked with a considering mindThe chiliarch's manner with the sentinel;In dilatory parry, he replied:"Not what we look, but what we are, we are.""But what we are, conforms at length our looks,"Surprised, amused, in doubt, but dallying, matchedThe Roman his rejoinder. Then the Jew,Adventuring on one more avoidance, said:"Well dost thou say 'at length'; for it might chanceThat looks were obstinate, requiring time.""Coiner of wisdom into apothegm!An undiscovered Seneca in sooth,Where least expected, seems I meet to-night!But spare to bandy sentences with me."With change to chilling dignity from sneer,The Roman so rebuffed the cringing Jew;Who, cringing, yet was no least whit abashed,But answered: "Pardon, sir, thy servant, whoHas missed his mark in his simplicity.I thought, 'If I might spare my lord his time!'And dutifully thereto spared my words.The farthest was it from my humble aimTo mint my silly thought in adages.Forgive me, if, unconsciously set onBy thy example of sententious speech—True wisdom closed in fitting words and few—I seemed to match my worthless wit with thine.I have a helpless habit of the mind,A trick of mimicry that masters me;When I observe in them what I admire,I can not but my betters imitate.I fear me I have compromised my cause;Had I been deeper, I had less seemed deep!I lack the art to show the artless manThat in my own true self, sir, thou shouldst see.With my superiors, I am not myself;I take on airs, or seem to, copying them.Quite other am I with my proper like;I feel at home, and am the man I am.Ask that plain-spoken, honest sentinel—He now was my own sort, I never thoughtTo strain myself above my natural markWith him; we were hail fellows, he and I,And talked the harmless wise that such know how.With thee—oh, sir, myself I quite forsook,And slipped into a different Shimei.Pity my weakness, I am sick of it;To ape the great is folly for the small—But small may hope forgiveness from the great!"The chiliarch listened, unconvinced; yet charmed,Like the bird gazing by the serpent charmed."Pretend that I am of thy kind," said he,"And show me how thou with the sentry talkedst."Now Lysias nursed a proudly Roman mindDisdainful of all nations save his own—Disdainfully a Roman but the more,That he by purchase, not by birth, was such;The nation that he ruled he most disdained.Child of the high-bred fashion of his time,By choice and culture he a skeptic was.Skeptic, he yet was superstitious too,Open and weak to supernatural fears;He easily believed in magic powers,Charms, sorceries, witchcrafts, incantations, spells,And all the weird pretensions of the East.His habit of disdain and skepticismMade him a cynic in his views of men;Whereby he oft, wise-seeming, was unwise.He took upon himself laconic airsIn speech, in action airs abrupt, as whoBold was, and strong, and from reflection deep—The manner, rather than the matter, his.To any chance observer of his waysIn use of office and position, theseCould but have seemed comportable and fair.Accesses too of gentleness he had,Wherein a strain of kindly in the manOpened and gushed in flow affectionate,Or well-becoming courtesy and grace.This Roman chiliarch, Claudius Lysias, nowFound himself much at leisure and at ease,Rid of that worrying case of prisoner strange;Unconscious satisfaction with himselfWarmed at his heart, a pleasurable glow—He had so neatly got it off his hands!He was quite ready, mind acquitted thus,Heart buoyant, to disport himself. He sawThat in the man before him he had metNo dull mere mediocrity, but oneWho, besides being ruler of the Jews,As Paul pronounced him, had a quality,An individual difference, all his own.Claudius might test this man, get him to talk—An interesting study, learn his make.Besides the pleasure to his appetiteFor piquant knowledge of his fellow-man,It might in some way, indirect the better,Give him a point or two of policyTo guide the conduct of his rulershipAmong a people difficult to rule.In such mood, idle, curious, partly wise,This half-wise man, unwise through cynicism,Gave himself leave to say to Shimei:"Pretend that I am of thy kind, like him,Let me hear how thou with the sentry talked."Hardly could Shimei, through the mask he woreOf feigned simplicity, help leering out,Confessed the mocker that he ever was,In that sardonic grin, as he replied:"Pretense, of whatso sort, be far from me—Save when my betters wish it of me; then,I think it right to put my conscience by;Or rather place it at their service—that,The dearest thing the poor good man can claim!I reason in this way, 'Why should I presumeTo scruple, where those wiser far than IAre clear?' That sure would be the worst pretense—Pretending to be holier than the saints.My will, thou seest, is tractable enough;But how, with thee, to feel sufficient easeTo do what thou desirest, go right onAnd talk and chatter as we simple did!"First, then, perhaps I said: 'This is dull work'—And no offense to thee, sir, that I said it—'Dull work,' said I, 'to stand, or pace, and watch,Long hours alone, and nothing like to happenThat makes it needful thou shouldst thus keep watch!''Aye,' grunted he; I thought him stupid like,But I had something I could tell him thenThat might rub up his wits and brighten them.'There is a plot,' said I. 'Aye, plots enough,'Said he. 'And something thou shouldst know,' I said.'I doubt,' said he; and added: 'Soldiers shouldKnow nothing but their duty, how to watch,March, dig, fight, slay, be slain, and no word speak.Thou hadst better go,' said he, like that, more frankThan courteous, thou mightst think—he meant no harm,But only like a loyal soldier spoke.I did not go, but said: 'The plot I meanIs of escape from prison.' But he replied:'Nobody can escape these times from prison;The emperor has a hundred million eyes,That never wink, because they have no lids,And never sleep, because they never tire,And these run everywhere and all things see;The emperor's arms are many, long and strong,East, west, north, south, they range throughout the world.Oh, he can reach thee wheresoever hiding,And pluck thee thence and fetch thee safely home;The world is all his prison, the emperor's.''Thou thinkest that?' said I. 'No doubt,' said he.'But captives still,' said I, 'might try to escape?''Oh, aye,' said he, 'that is quite natural.''And should they try,' I said, 'with thee on watch,And should they somehow skill to get by thee,Then—and although they be thereafter caught—How fares it then with thee?' said I to him—'Yea, how with thee that lettest them go by?''Then there would be,' he said, 'account to give,And I should wish I had not been on watch.''Nay, better wish, man, thou hadst better watched,'Said I, 'and thyself caught the fugitive.''Aye, that were something better yet,' said he.'Why, yea,' said I, 'that, laid to thy account,Might win thee prompt promotion out of this.''I never dream,' said he, 'of anythingTo lift me from the common soldier's lot.''Dreaming is idle, yea,' said I to him,'But waking thought and action need not be.For instance, now,' I then went on and said"—The subtle Hebrew, drawing out his tale,Mock-artless long, of gossip with the watch,Had never intermitted an intent,Considerate, sly, solicitous regardFixed on the chiliarch's face, therein to readThe reflex of the phases of his thought;And now he marked with pleasure how their mereIndifferent or incredulous cold scornWas fading from the haughty Roman's eyes,Merged in a dawn of curious interest.Disguisedly, but confidently, glad—His course seen smooth before him to his goal—Shimei thence eased that tension of the willTo simulate simplicity of speech,As, more directly, his ambages spared,He almost blithely, in his natural veinOf fondness for the false and the malign,Slid on, in fabrication of report,Or in report of fabrication, thus:"Inside those castle walls there is a man,A Jew, one Paul, I know him very well,Prisoner for crime that richly merits death.The outraged people yesterday were fainTo wait no longer, but at once inflict,Themselves, with righteous hands, the penalty.The gentle chiliarch rescued him from them,Not knowing, as of course how could he know?What a base wretch he plucked from doom condign.So here Paul is in Roman custody,Safe for the moment, but full well aware,As he deserves to die, that die he will,Whenever once he shall be justly judged.He therefore schemes it to attempt escape,This very night, from his imprisonment.He has his tool, tool and accomplice both,In that young fellow thou hast seen pass by,Entering and issuing through the castle-gate.'Aye, I have seen him plying back and forth,'The sentry said, 'a likely Hebrew lad;I challenged him, but he had documents.Wicked, ungrateful!—that good chiliarchHad shown such grace to him for his fair looks.''Well, I will stay,' said I, 'and watch with thee,And help thee foil their game, and thy chance mend.But let us have two stout young fellows ready,I can provide them, hidden nigh at hand—No call for us to spend our breath in running!—To give the prisoner chase, should need arise.Arise it will not, if my guess is right,And I know Paul so well, I scarce can miss.Paul stakes his hope on craft, and not on speed;Still, it is good to be at all points armed,And should craft fail, there will be test of speed,No doubt of that, since Paul would run for life,And life is prize to make the tortoise fleet.Paul is no stiff decrepit—far from such;Old as his look is, he is light of heel.Running, however, only last resort,The desperate refuge of necessity;Paul's main reliance is on something else,To wit, a pretty ruse and stratagem.A wary fellow Paul, and deep in wiles!"Shimei was entered on a mingled veinOf true and false reflection of his thought,Wherein himself could scarce the line have drawnTo part the fabrication from the fact.Partly, he thought indeed that Paul was suchAs he was now describing him to be,In image and projection of himself;Partly, he painted an ideal mere,Conscious creation of malicious mind.He did uneasily believe, or fear,That Paul would somehow cheat the malice yetOf those who hated him; perhaps contriveEscape by night from prison. His restless mind,Hotbed of machination, equallyWas hotbed of suspicion and surmise.His mere suspicion and surmise became,To his imagination, certainty;Or else he took, himself, for certainty,At length, what he for certainty affirmed,Swearing the false till he believed it true.He thus the story of his talk prolonged:"'Now hark thee, friend, and hear me prophesy,'So to the worthy sentinel I said,'Thou sawest Paul brought in, and he was Paul—Tell me, was not he Paul, when he came in?Aye, Paul he was, thou sayest. Well, what I say—And this now, mark it, is my prophecy—Paul will come out, not Paul, but some one else;In short, will hobble forth—Gamaliel!Gamaliel, thou must know, I said to him,'Is the old man that lad this morn led in;Making, forsooth, a touching sight to see,So tenderly and gingerly the ladGuided and stayed the steps of that old man.A pretty acted piece of loyaltyTo venerable age from blooming youth!Watch, thou shalt see it acted over againTo-night, with haply some improvement madeOn the rehearsal, when he leads out Paul.Paul's hair and beard will not need dusting white,Being as white as old Gamaliel's now;But edifying it will be to markThe careful studied totter of the step,The tremble of the hand upon his staff,The thin and querulous quaver of the voice,The helpless meek dependence on his guide,And all the various aged make-believe,Wherewith that subtle master of deceit,That natural, practised, life-long actor, Paul,Will put the guise of old Gamaliel on.'He-he!' I chuckled to the sentinel,'To me the spectacle will be as goodAnd laughable, as I should guess a play,A roaring one, of Plautus were to thee!'"Shimei was venturing to let lapse his partOf mere reporter to a talk supposedBetwixt himself and the dull sentinel—This to let lapse, or, if not quite let lapse,Mix and confound with his own proper part,Inveterate, unassumed, of scoffer free;He saw the chiliarch sink so deep immersedIn hearing and in weighing what was said,He deemed he might thenceforward trust his speech,With scant disguise of indirection, aimedAs frankly for a keen intelligence—The chiliarch's own, and not the sentinel's—To snare his listener's now less warded wit.Paul was clean gone indeed, gone otherwiseThan through the guile that he had dared impute;But he, meantime, would such a chance not miss,A golden chance that might not come again,To prepossess the chiliarch's captive mindWith pregnant ill surmise concerning Paul.There yet was unexhausted circumstanceSuggestively at hand, seed that but sownWould a fine harvest of suspicion spring.Point-blank his aim shifted to Lysias now,He said: "Why did Gamaliel stay so long?Why, indeed, come at all, but, having come,Why so long tarry, wearing out the day?Where is Gamaliel now? What did it meanThat that officious Hebrew youngster—heWho, at Paul's wish, Gamaliel hither brought,Who back and forth has flitted through the gateAll day, carrying and fetching as he liked—What did it mean, I ask, that he bore inFlagons of wine and loaves of bread? What mean?Why, this, provision got to serve Paul's need,When, issuing in Gamaliel's vesture, heShould shuffle forth, Gamaliel, on the street,To try the fortune of a runaway,A hopeless runaway in Cæsar's world.The clement chiliarch never would be hardOn an old dotard of a hundred years,Found aider and abettor in such wile,Where left behind in ward to take his chance;Or, possibly, Gamaliel might not know,Much more, not share, the stratagem of Paul.It would be easy to put him to sleepAnd strip him of his raiment, unawares,For the exchange, unbargained-for, with Paul.Paul has much travelled everywhere abroadAnd freely commerced with all kinds of men.He has the skill of many magic arts,The virtue knows of many a mighty drug;He can compound thee opiate drinks to drownThy thought and senses in oblivion.He could compose thee in so deep a sleep,Fair like an infant's, that not all the blareOf all Rome's trumpets loud together blownCould rouse thee ever from that fixéd sleep.A dangerous wicked man to wield such power!"The chiliarch stood suspended in fast gazeOn Shimei, not perusing him, but lostIn various troubled and confounded thought.'Had he indeed been tricked? Was Paul such knave?Had that young Hebrew, with his innocentBright look of truth and faith and nobleness,Had he been hollow, false, base, treacherous,And played upon a Roman father's heartTo rid a rascal out of custody?Gamaliel—was that reverend-looking man,That image of a stately-fair old age,Was he a low complotter of deceit?Or, if not that, had nameless turpitudeAbused such dignity into a tool,Helpless, unwitting, of ignoble wile?'Thought, question, doubt, suspicion, guess, surmise,Tumbled, a chaos, in the chiliarch's mind.Shimei paused, watching, with delight intense;He felt the chiliarch fast ensnared, his prey.Wary as was his wit, and ill-inclinedEver to take a needless risk, or dipHis feet in paths wherein, once entered, hePerforce must fare right forward, no retreat—Though such in temper, such in habit, yet—Either that instant suddenly resolvedThat his true prudence was temerity,Or trusting his resourceful craft to pluckDesperate advantage from the jaws of chance—Shimei dared interrupt the Roman's muse:"Will not my lord the chiliarch now think wellTo call Gamaliel into presence here?Well frightened, the old man perhaps might tellWhat passed in his long interview with Paul,Something to help thee judge betwixt us twain,Which it were well to credit, Paul or me."The chiliarch started from his reverie;"Go bring that Hebrew ancient here," he said.Then neither Jew nor Roman uttered word,Each busy with his own unsharéd thought,Till the centurion from his quest returned,Alone, and serious, no Gamaliel brought."I found"—but scarcely the centurion,Faltering, had so essayed to make report,When the wroth chiliarch snatched the word from him:"Was not he there? Did he refuse to come?The more loth he, the more to be required!Gray hair will not atone for stubbornness;Thou shouldst have brought him, though by greater force.Something lurks here lends color to the taleThis hoar-head Jew has filled my ear withal.I will Gamaliel see and learn from him—""But, sir," spoke up the loth centurion,"Nothing from that old Hebrew wilt thou learn,For—" "I will hear no 'fors,'" the chiliarch said,"But, hark thee, have the man before me straight!"Mute, the centurion, left no option, turned,And, with four soldiers bidden follow him,Went to the lodgment where Gamaliel slept.Those five men, used to death in many forms,Yet in the presence of such death were awed.The four in silence took the sleeper up,Motionless, with the couch whereon he lay,And bore him, as to honored burial,Into the court beneath the starlit sky,And set him down before the chiliarch.Like one of those gray monuments in stone,Oft seen where church or minster of old days,In secret vault or holy chapel dim,Gathers and wards its venerated dead—Marmoreal image of some man, supine,Deep sunken, in marmoreal down, to sleep,Safe folded in marmoreal robes from cold,The meek, pathetic face upturned to heaven,And thither-pointing hands forever laidTogether on the breast, as thus to prayFor the shriven spirit thence to judgment fled—So, stretched upon his couch amid the court,White with his age, yet purer white with death,An unrebuking, unrebukableReminder of the nothingness of time,Unheeding who beheld or what was spoke,Silent, and bringing silence touched with awe,There in marmoreal calm Gamaliel lay.The simple presence of the living man,In native majesty august with age,Would have subdued who saw to reverence;But the ennoblement and mysteryOf death, now added, wrought a mightier awe,And almost breathless made the hush whereinThe chiliarch for the moment from the spellOf Shimei's woven words was quite set free,Seeing things true by his simplicity.Breaking that hush, while never once his gazeUnfixing from the features of the dead,"Thou shouldst have told me this," said LysiasTo the centurion, gently chiding him.But the centurion understood arightThat his superior's words were less as blameThan as atonement meant for fault his ownIn that his late too peremptory air—This the subaltern knew, and answered not.Shimei, alone not capable of awe,Coolly had used the interval of pause,To take the altered situation in,And to his own advantage fit his part.Two points of promise to his profit heSaw, and at once to seize them shaped his course:First, to release himself from duress there,And, further, still to sow the chiliarch's mindWith seed of foul suspicion against Paul."Gamaliel mute," said he to Lysias,"Might, peradventure, if but understood,Even better witness to thy purpose proveThan should he waken from his swoon to speak."The sleight of tone with which was uttered "swoon"—No emphasis, insinuation all,Subtle suggestion, naught to be gainsaid,Since naught was really said, however muchWithout the saying got itself conveyed—This well subserved the wish of Shimei.For, like a sovereign solvent, that, with softAssiduous chemistry insensible,Some solid to a fluid form breaks down,There stole from Shimei's speech an influence in,Which, by degrees not slow, dissolved the charmShed from the solemn spectacle of deathUpon the chiliarch's mind; his childlike moodVanished, his simple wise credulity!Lysias reverted to his cynicism,And, unawares lured on by Shimei,Followed false lights to a conclusion vain.Once more he overweened to be astute,And, with astuteness recommencing, fellFrom the brief wisdom reverence brief had brought.His faith in human virtue undermined,He doubted and believed exactly wrong;There where he ought to have believed, he doubted,And where he should have doubted, there believed—The captor fallen into the captive's snare.Lysias resumed to do what Shimei wished;The tissue of sophistication setAlready well aweaving in the loomOf fancy and false reason and unfaith,Which had before been humming in his brain—This to piece out, and make a finished web."'Swoon,' sayest thou?" To Shimei, Lysias thus;"That is not death, thou thinkest, but a swoon?""It looks indeed like death," the crafty JewResponded; "yea, it looks like death indeed.It was not meant, but death it sure must be.""What wilt thou say?" said Lysias. "'Was not meant!'—Thy words conceal thy meaning; speak it out.""Why, sir, I have no meaning to conceal,"The Jew replied, "no meaning to conceal.I only thought, I could but only think—Why, see, Paul was Gamaliel's pupil once,And loved his master, so as such can love;At least I thought so. Paul, for sure I know,Gamaliel like a doting father loved.""Thou dost not thus explain, 'It was not meant';Out with thy thought, sir Jew," the chiliarch said."What was not meant? By whom not meant? Forsooth,Not by Gamaliel meant that he should die?Except the suicide, none means to die;And death like this is not the suicide's.""Oh, nay, sir," Shimei said, "no suicideWas our Gamaliel; far the heinous thought!A good old man, whom all the people loved,Paul even, yea, Paul—I thought—till now—but now—But I will not believe so base of him,Even him; he did not mean it, did not meanWorse than to make Gamaliel deeply sleep.Paul's drug belike was stronger than he thought,Or weaker waxed Gamaliel with his age.Paul would himself repent it, now, too late—Particularly since of no avail,Thy wise forestalling plan defeating his,And fruit none from it ripening to his hand!""This is too foully base!" said Lysias,And Shimei's heart misgave him with a fear.'Too foully base insinuation mine,Does Lysias mean?' he closely asked himself;But calmly, with deep candor, said aloud:"Yea, even for Paul, beyond belief too base!Paul never meant it, I shall still insist.He meant at most such sleep as should prevailOver Gamaliel's scruple to take partWillingly in his surreptitious flight.And such a master of his arts is Paul,I shrewdly doubt if here his mark he missed.Were Paul but now at hand to try his skill,I should not wonder yet to see this swoonYield to some potent drug of counter force,And good Gamaliel wake to life again.Once, as they say—in Troas, I believe—Where he all night was lengthening out harangue,After his manner, in an upper room,A youngster, tired to death of hearing him,And sensible enough to go to sleep,Not sensible enough to seat him safe,Fell headlong out of window, whence he sat,A good three stories' fall—which finished him.Stay, not so fast—thou reckonest without Paul!Yea, Paul performed some sort of magic riteOver the body of the luckless lad,Which, presto, brought him round as brisk as ever!A mighty master in his kind, that Paul!""Perish thy Paul with his accurséd craft!"Burst out the chiliarch in indignant heat."Would I but had him back here safe in thrall!—I should have let them rend him limb from limb!"A sudden hope beyond the bounds of hopeFlourished up rank, gourd-like, in Shimei's breast.Were it but possible to have Paul back,To take that walk yet to the judgment-hall!The forty faithful should not fail their task!"Might I propose if it be yet too late?"With timid daring, Shimei inquired."A fleet-foot horse should overtake the troop,If so thou choose, and turn them hither back.And thou couldst cause that Paul exert his powerTo lift this corpse into a living man—Which were a famous spectacle to see!Besides that then thou mightst assure thyself,Through counsel of our Sanhedrim, what crimesWorthy of death are proved upon this Paul.""Thou art a superserviceable Jew,"The chiliarch frowned and said. A choleric man,He choleric now, through self-expression, grew.Exasperate thus, he added: "'Ruler' thouOf thine accurséd nation—as I hear—Me too thou fain wouldst rule, with thy adviceOfficiously advanced unsought. Know, then,That I confound thee with thy race, and curseYe all together, pestilent brood—not lessThee than thy fellows, whom thou rulest, forsooth,Worthy to rule those worthily so ruled!Like ruler to like people, vipers all!If I believe thee of thy brother Paul,It is no wise that I suppose thee trueRather than him; but only that I reckonOne rascal feels another by mere kin,And can, and, if so be he hates him, will,Into his own soul look and paint himthat—Making a likeness apt to two at once!Nay, nay, thou wretched, reptile Jew, all thanks!I would not have Paul back upon my hands.I am well rid ofhim, and now hence thou!Go tell thy fellow-elders of the JewsThat here Gamaliel lies, dead or aswoon,And bid them haste to bear him hence away.Go, not one further word from thy foul mouth,Lest whole thou never go!"Red with his wrath,Abruptly on his heel turned the wroth manAnd disappeared within. The Jew so spurned—Though disappointed, imperturbable—With wry grimace hugging himself, made speedTo use the freedom thus in overplusThrust on him, and incontinently went.Scarce was he well without the castle gate,When a brusque message from the chiliarchSummoned him back. He came, with supple kneeCringing his thanks and deprecations dumb."So act thy abject language, if thou will,But no word speak, edging thine ear to hear,"The chiliarch, from his heat of passion passedTo a grim mood of resolution, said;"I will that—no delay—thou hither bringLarge satisfaction from thy countrymen—Just measure of their estimate of thee!—That thou wilt duly bide within commandThe suddenest from this castle, and appear,Whenever I may call for thee, to goWhithersoever I shall bid thee hence,Whether to Cæsarea or to Rome,Whether now presently or hereafter long,Accuser meet and witness against Paul.Count it that thou thus much at least hast gained,Through thy this night's adventure, chance, to wit,Assuréd chance, thy famished grudge to glutUpon thy brother rogue and countryman—Be he, that is, the wretch thou paintest him,And, mark it well, be thou his overmatchIn lying eloquence to make appearLikeliest whatever best thy turn shall serve.Perhaps twin rascals, of each other worthy,Will, both at once, and each the other, proveJust to be what they are, and earn their doom!""Send with this worthy," thus the chiliarch,To his centurion turning, said, "some manWho knows, if nothing more, thus much at least,How to be adder-deaf and death-like dumb—To dog him hence about and hither back!""I wish thee pleasure of thy evening walk!"To Shimei, in mock courtesy, he said.With pleasantry as bitter as his ownThe mocker found himself a second time,And now to discomposure worse, dismissed.Of his own will he gladly would have goneFrom east to west as wide as was the world,To weave the meshes of his witness falseAbout Paul's feet, or still to ambush himWith instant bloody death at unawares;But thus to go, a lasso round his neckHeld in the hand of Rome—it irked him sore.His heart misgave him heavily; he felt:'And here perhaps is destiny for me,Perhaps, who knows? at last, at last, for me!On mine own head do I Paul's house pull down?'Strange, but, born with the boding sense thus bornOf unguessed danger for himself, there creptInto that case-hard heart, long exercisedTo plot of mischief for his fellow-man,A softness, that was nigh become remorse,A kind of pity from self-pity sprung,Toward whoso was endangered, yea, even Paul!It was the slow beginning of an end—Slow, liable to be quenched like smoking flax,Yet not so quenched to be—with Shimei.Meanwhile, from this to that there stretched much road,And Shimei still had demon's work to do.
Ere midnight, had reveillé to those twainSounded, and from brief slumber rallied them.They passed from the surprise of that farewellKissed on the coolness of Gamaliel's brow—He his reveillé waiting from the trumpOf resurrection, tranced in happy sleep!—From this passed Paul and Stephen to the courtWithout, where stood, made ready in array,Five hundred Roman soldiers, foot and horse,Filling the place with frequence and ferment.Armed men, and horses in caparison,And saddled asses thick together poured—All was alive with motion and with sound.There was the stamping hoof of restless steed,The rattling bridle-rein, the bridle-bitChamped hoary, the impatient toss of headShaking the mane disheveled, and with foamFlecking the breast, the shoulder, and the flank,Eruptive snort from nostril and from lip,The ass's long and melancholy bray,Horse's salute of recognition neighedTo greet some fellow welcomed in the throng,Therewith, voices of men, scuffle of feet—All under bickering light and shadow flungFrom torches, fixed or moving, fume and flame.
To Paul and Stephen sharp the contrast wasBetween that quietude and this turmoil,Sleeping Gamaliel and these urgent men!But Paul his peace held fast amid it all,Peace, yet a posture girded and alert;While Stephen, hanging on his uncle's eye,Caught the contagion of that heedful calm.
The natural pathos of one fond regretAched in the heart of Paul, a hoarded pain—His wish, denied him, to have given in charge,Before he went, Gamaliel's lifeless form,If to the keeping of his kindred not,At least to Roman care and piety;Amid the hurly-burly of the hour,No chance of speech, with any that would heed,For Jewish prisoner hurried thence by night!But Paul's reveréd friend, safe fallen asleepIn Jesus, beyond care or want was blest;Yea, and the human reverence of great death,Toward one in death so reverend great as he,Well might be trusted, for such clay to win,Through kindred care, the sepulture most meet.Yet Paul, come to Antipatris, and thereLeft with the horsemen only thence to ride,A needless careful message touching thisGave to the chief of the returning foot.When to the chiliarch's ear such word was brought,That captain deeply mused it in his mind—To find it throw a most unlooked-for lightOn certain dark alternatives of doubtThat had meanwhile his judgment sore perplexed.
Lowly upon an ass they seated Paul,And Stephen, likewise mounted, ranged beside.Then those appointed to prick forth before,Out through the two-leaved gate at sign withdrawn,Were issuing on the street in order due,When the proud prudent steed that led the waySwerved, and, with mighty surge of rash recoil,Had nigh his rider from the saddle thrown.He, his fine nostril wide distended, snuffedSuspicion on the tainted wind, and, dazedHis eyes with darkness from the glare just leftOf torchlight in the court, uncertain saw,To the right hand beside the open port,There on the ground, as ambushed at his feet,A motion, or a shadow, or a shape,Which to his careful mind portended ill.
"Halt!" rang abrupt the startling stern command;"Seize him!" the leader of the vanguard cried,And pointed to the skulking figure near.Darted three soldiers from the rank of foot,With instant light celerity—a flashOf movement from the serried column sentInerrant to its aim, like lever-armOf long bright steel by some machine flung forthTo do prehensile office and fetch home—Darted upon the man in hiding there,And brought him prisoner to the chiliarch.
"Knowest thou this man?" the chiliarch asked of Paul."Shimei his name, an elder of the Jews,"Responded Paul; turning, the chiliarch thenSaid: "Thou—Stephen, I think they call thee—speak.Thou toldst me yesterday, not naming him,Of one all-capable of crime, the headAnd chief of a conspiracy to slay;Answer—thou needst not fear—is this the man?"Stephen flushed shame; "The same, my lord," he said;He dropped therewith his eyes, and head declined.
"Thou stayest," the chiliarch said to Shimei;"On, and with speed!" he to the soldiers said.To a centurion, then, attending him:"Relieve the sentry set outside the port,And hither bid the man released to me."
"What wast thou doing at thy sentry-post,That miscreant such as this should sit him thereUnchallenged? Sleeping? Soothed perhaps to sleepWith chink of gold sweet-shaken in thine ear?"—A perilous frown dark on his imminent brow,The chiliarch thus bespoke the sentinel.But with full steady eye, the man replied:"I crave thy pardon, if, through ignoranceI erred, but I nowise forgot myself,Or failed my duty of strict challenging.Indeed, sir, if the man in presence beAught but a loyal, honest gentleman,Then am I much deceived, and punish me;But not for slackness or base traitorhood.As I my oath and office understand,I was true soldier and true sentinel."
'Sound heart, if addle head,' the chiliarch thought,"Thy oath and office, my good sentinel—Thou needest to understand them better," said.
The sentry, fain to clear himself, began:"He told me"—
"Doubtless some amusing tale,"Smiling an easy scorn, the chiliarch said.
Surging with zeal and conscious honesty,The sentinel again his part essayed:"He said, sir"—
"Aye, I warrant thee he did,If but thou hearkenedst," said the chiliarch;"Tongue seldom lacks, let ear be freely lent.Sharp question and short answer, there an end—That is the wisdom for the man on watch.Words are a master snare, beware of words,Thine own or other's, either equal fear;No parley, is the sentinel's safe rule.Whet up thy wits, my man, but this time—go!"
The sentry thus dismissed, retiring, shotInto the chiliarch's ear a Parthian word:"Beseech thee, sir, prejudge nor him, nor me;Wait till thou hear the gentleman explain."
"Thou hast bewitched him well," to ShimeiTurning, the chiliarch said; then, with cold eyeRegarding and repelling him, exclaimed"Hoar head, thou lookest every inch a rogue!"
Shimei had marked with a considering mindThe chiliarch's manner with the sentinel;In dilatory parry, he replied:"Not what we look, but what we are, we are."
"But what we are, conforms at length our looks,"Surprised, amused, in doubt, but dallying, matchedThe Roman his rejoinder. Then the Jew,Adventuring on one more avoidance, said:"Well dost thou say 'at length'; for it might chanceThat looks were obstinate, requiring time."
"Coiner of wisdom into apothegm!An undiscovered Seneca in sooth,Where least expected, seems I meet to-night!But spare to bandy sentences with me."With change to chilling dignity from sneer,The Roman so rebuffed the cringing Jew;Who, cringing, yet was no least whit abashed,But answered: "Pardon, sir, thy servant, whoHas missed his mark in his simplicity.I thought, 'If I might spare my lord his time!'And dutifully thereto spared my words.The farthest was it from my humble aimTo mint my silly thought in adages.Forgive me, if, unconsciously set onBy thy example of sententious speech—True wisdom closed in fitting words and few—I seemed to match my worthless wit with thine.I have a helpless habit of the mind,A trick of mimicry that masters me;When I observe in them what I admire,I can not but my betters imitate.I fear me I have compromised my cause;Had I been deeper, I had less seemed deep!I lack the art to show the artless manThat in my own true self, sir, thou shouldst see.With my superiors, I am not myself;I take on airs, or seem to, copying them.Quite other am I with my proper like;I feel at home, and am the man I am.Ask that plain-spoken, honest sentinel—He now was my own sort, I never thoughtTo strain myself above my natural markWith him; we were hail fellows, he and I,And talked the harmless wise that such know how.With thee—oh, sir, myself I quite forsook,And slipped into a different Shimei.Pity my weakness, I am sick of it;To ape the great is folly for the small—But small may hope forgiveness from the great!"
The chiliarch listened, unconvinced; yet charmed,Like the bird gazing by the serpent charmed."Pretend that I am of thy kind," said he,"And show me how thou with the sentry talkedst."
Now Lysias nursed a proudly Roman mindDisdainful of all nations save his own—Disdainfully a Roman but the more,That he by purchase, not by birth, was such;The nation that he ruled he most disdained.Child of the high-bred fashion of his time,By choice and culture he a skeptic was.Skeptic, he yet was superstitious too,Open and weak to supernatural fears;He easily believed in magic powers,Charms, sorceries, witchcrafts, incantations, spells,And all the weird pretensions of the East.His habit of disdain and skepticismMade him a cynic in his views of men;Whereby he oft, wise-seeming, was unwise.He took upon himself laconic airsIn speech, in action airs abrupt, as whoBold was, and strong, and from reflection deep—The manner, rather than the matter, his.To any chance observer of his waysIn use of office and position, theseCould but have seemed comportable and fair.Accesses too of gentleness he had,Wherein a strain of kindly in the manOpened and gushed in flow affectionate,Or well-becoming courtesy and grace.
This Roman chiliarch, Claudius Lysias, nowFound himself much at leisure and at ease,Rid of that worrying case of prisoner strange;Unconscious satisfaction with himselfWarmed at his heart, a pleasurable glow—He had so neatly got it off his hands!He was quite ready, mind acquitted thus,Heart buoyant, to disport himself. He sawThat in the man before him he had metNo dull mere mediocrity, but oneWho, besides being ruler of the Jews,As Paul pronounced him, had a quality,An individual difference, all his own.Claudius might test this man, get him to talk—An interesting study, learn his make.Besides the pleasure to his appetiteFor piquant knowledge of his fellow-man,It might in some way, indirect the better,Give him a point or two of policyTo guide the conduct of his rulershipAmong a people difficult to rule.In such mood, idle, curious, partly wise,This half-wise man, unwise through cynicism,Gave himself leave to say to Shimei:"Pretend that I am of thy kind, like him,Let me hear how thou with the sentry talked."
Hardly could Shimei, through the mask he woreOf feigned simplicity, help leering out,Confessed the mocker that he ever was,In that sardonic grin, as he replied:"Pretense, of whatso sort, be far from me—Save when my betters wish it of me; then,I think it right to put my conscience by;Or rather place it at their service—that,The dearest thing the poor good man can claim!I reason in this way, 'Why should I presumeTo scruple, where those wiser far than IAre clear?' That sure would be the worst pretense—Pretending to be holier than the saints.My will, thou seest, is tractable enough;But how, with thee, to feel sufficient easeTo do what thou desirest, go right onAnd talk and chatter as we simple did!
"First, then, perhaps I said: 'This is dull work'—And no offense to thee, sir, that I said it—'Dull work,' said I, 'to stand, or pace, and watch,Long hours alone, and nothing like to happenThat makes it needful thou shouldst thus keep watch!''Aye,' grunted he; I thought him stupid like,But I had something I could tell him thenThat might rub up his wits and brighten them.'There is a plot,' said I. 'Aye, plots enough,'Said he. 'And something thou shouldst know,' I said.'I doubt,' said he; and added: 'Soldiers shouldKnow nothing but their duty, how to watch,March, dig, fight, slay, be slain, and no word speak.Thou hadst better go,' said he, like that, more frankThan courteous, thou mightst think—he meant no harm,But only like a loyal soldier spoke.I did not go, but said: 'The plot I meanIs of escape from prison.' But he replied:'Nobody can escape these times from prison;The emperor has a hundred million eyes,That never wink, because they have no lids,And never sleep, because they never tire,And these run everywhere and all things see;The emperor's arms are many, long and strong,East, west, north, south, they range throughout the world.Oh, he can reach thee wheresoever hiding,And pluck thee thence and fetch thee safely home;The world is all his prison, the emperor's.''Thou thinkest that?' said I. 'No doubt,' said he.'But captives still,' said I, 'might try to escape?''Oh, aye,' said he, 'that is quite natural.''And should they try,' I said, 'with thee on watch,And should they somehow skill to get by thee,Then—and although they be thereafter caught—How fares it then with thee?' said I to him—'Yea, how with thee that lettest them go by?''Then there would be,' he said, 'account to give,And I should wish I had not been on watch.''Nay, better wish, man, thou hadst better watched,'Said I, 'and thyself caught the fugitive.''Aye, that were something better yet,' said he.'Why, yea,' said I, 'that, laid to thy account,Might win thee prompt promotion out of this.''I never dream,' said he, 'of anythingTo lift me from the common soldier's lot.''Dreaming is idle, yea,' said I to him,'But waking thought and action need not be.For instance, now,' I then went on and said"—
The subtle Hebrew, drawing out his tale,Mock-artless long, of gossip with the watch,Had never intermitted an intent,Considerate, sly, solicitous regardFixed on the chiliarch's face, therein to readThe reflex of the phases of his thought;And now he marked with pleasure how their mereIndifferent or incredulous cold scornWas fading from the haughty Roman's eyes,Merged in a dawn of curious interest.Disguisedly, but confidently, glad—His course seen smooth before him to his goal—Shimei thence eased that tension of the willTo simulate simplicity of speech,As, more directly, his ambages spared,He almost blithely, in his natural veinOf fondness for the false and the malign,Slid on, in fabrication of report,Or in report of fabrication, thus:"Inside those castle walls there is a man,A Jew, one Paul, I know him very well,Prisoner for crime that richly merits death.The outraged people yesterday were fainTo wait no longer, but at once inflict,Themselves, with righteous hands, the penalty.The gentle chiliarch rescued him from them,Not knowing, as of course how could he know?What a base wretch he plucked from doom condign.So here Paul is in Roman custody,Safe for the moment, but full well aware,As he deserves to die, that die he will,Whenever once he shall be justly judged.He therefore schemes it to attempt escape,This very night, from his imprisonment.He has his tool, tool and accomplice both,In that young fellow thou hast seen pass by,Entering and issuing through the castle-gate.'Aye, I have seen him plying back and forth,'The sentry said, 'a likely Hebrew lad;I challenged him, but he had documents.Wicked, ungrateful!—that good chiliarchHad shown such grace to him for his fair looks.''Well, I will stay,' said I, 'and watch with thee,And help thee foil their game, and thy chance mend.But let us have two stout young fellows ready,I can provide them, hidden nigh at hand—No call for us to spend our breath in running!—To give the prisoner chase, should need arise.Arise it will not, if my guess is right,And I know Paul so well, I scarce can miss.Paul stakes his hope on craft, and not on speed;Still, it is good to be at all points armed,And should craft fail, there will be test of speed,No doubt of that, since Paul would run for life,And life is prize to make the tortoise fleet.Paul is no stiff decrepit—far from such;Old as his look is, he is light of heel.Running, however, only last resort,The desperate refuge of necessity;Paul's main reliance is on something else,To wit, a pretty ruse and stratagem.A wary fellow Paul, and deep in wiles!"
Shimei was entered on a mingled veinOf true and false reflection of his thought,Wherein himself could scarce the line have drawnTo part the fabrication from the fact.Partly, he thought indeed that Paul was suchAs he was now describing him to be,In image and projection of himself;Partly, he painted an ideal mere,Conscious creation of malicious mind.He did uneasily believe, or fear,That Paul would somehow cheat the malice yetOf those who hated him; perhaps contriveEscape by night from prison. His restless mind,Hotbed of machination, equallyWas hotbed of suspicion and surmise.His mere suspicion and surmise became,To his imagination, certainty;Or else he took, himself, for certainty,At length, what he for certainty affirmed,Swearing the false till he believed it true.
He thus the story of his talk prolonged:"'Now hark thee, friend, and hear me prophesy,'So to the worthy sentinel I said,'Thou sawest Paul brought in, and he was Paul—Tell me, was not he Paul, when he came in?Aye, Paul he was, thou sayest. Well, what I say—And this now, mark it, is my prophecy—Paul will come out, not Paul, but some one else;In short, will hobble forth—Gamaliel!Gamaliel, thou must know, I said to him,'Is the old man that lad this morn led in;Making, forsooth, a touching sight to see,So tenderly and gingerly the ladGuided and stayed the steps of that old man.A pretty acted piece of loyaltyTo venerable age from blooming youth!Watch, thou shalt see it acted over againTo-night, with haply some improvement madeOn the rehearsal, when he leads out Paul.Paul's hair and beard will not need dusting white,Being as white as old Gamaliel's now;But edifying it will be to markThe careful studied totter of the step,The tremble of the hand upon his staff,The thin and querulous quaver of the voice,The helpless meek dependence on his guide,And all the various aged make-believe,Wherewith that subtle master of deceit,That natural, practised, life-long actor, Paul,Will put the guise of old Gamaliel on.'He-he!' I chuckled to the sentinel,'To me the spectacle will be as goodAnd laughable, as I should guess a play,A roaring one, of Plautus were to thee!'"
Shimei was venturing to let lapse his partOf mere reporter to a talk supposedBetwixt himself and the dull sentinel—This to let lapse, or, if not quite let lapse,Mix and confound with his own proper part,Inveterate, unassumed, of scoffer free;He saw the chiliarch sink so deep immersedIn hearing and in weighing what was said,He deemed he might thenceforward trust his speech,With scant disguise of indirection, aimedAs frankly for a keen intelligence—The chiliarch's own, and not the sentinel's—To snare his listener's now less warded wit.Paul was clean gone indeed, gone otherwiseThan through the guile that he had dared impute;But he, meantime, would such a chance not miss,A golden chance that might not come again,To prepossess the chiliarch's captive mindWith pregnant ill surmise concerning Paul.There yet was unexhausted circumstanceSuggestively at hand, seed that but sownWould a fine harvest of suspicion spring.
Point-blank his aim shifted to Lysias now,He said: "Why did Gamaliel stay so long?Why, indeed, come at all, but, having come,Why so long tarry, wearing out the day?Where is Gamaliel now? What did it meanThat that officious Hebrew youngster—heWho, at Paul's wish, Gamaliel hither brought,Who back and forth has flitted through the gateAll day, carrying and fetching as he liked—What did it mean, I ask, that he bore inFlagons of wine and loaves of bread? What mean?Why, this, provision got to serve Paul's need,When, issuing in Gamaliel's vesture, heShould shuffle forth, Gamaliel, on the street,To try the fortune of a runaway,A hopeless runaway in Cæsar's world.The clement chiliarch never would be hardOn an old dotard of a hundred years,Found aider and abettor in such wile,Where left behind in ward to take his chance;Or, possibly, Gamaliel might not know,Much more, not share, the stratagem of Paul.It would be easy to put him to sleepAnd strip him of his raiment, unawares,For the exchange, unbargained-for, with Paul.Paul has much travelled everywhere abroadAnd freely commerced with all kinds of men.He has the skill of many magic arts,The virtue knows of many a mighty drug;He can compound thee opiate drinks to drownThy thought and senses in oblivion.He could compose thee in so deep a sleep,Fair like an infant's, that not all the blareOf all Rome's trumpets loud together blownCould rouse thee ever from that fixéd sleep.A dangerous wicked man to wield such power!"
The chiliarch stood suspended in fast gazeOn Shimei, not perusing him, but lostIn various troubled and confounded thought.'Had he indeed been tricked? Was Paul such knave?Had that young Hebrew, with his innocentBright look of truth and faith and nobleness,Had he been hollow, false, base, treacherous,And played upon a Roman father's heartTo rid a rascal out of custody?Gamaliel—was that reverend-looking man,That image of a stately-fair old age,Was he a low complotter of deceit?Or, if not that, had nameless turpitudeAbused such dignity into a tool,Helpless, unwitting, of ignoble wile?'Thought, question, doubt, suspicion, guess, surmise,Tumbled, a chaos, in the chiliarch's mind.Shimei paused, watching, with delight intense;He felt the chiliarch fast ensnared, his prey.
Wary as was his wit, and ill-inclinedEver to take a needless risk, or dipHis feet in paths wherein, once entered, hePerforce must fare right forward, no retreat—Though such in temper, such in habit, yet—Either that instant suddenly resolvedThat his true prudence was temerity,Or trusting his resourceful craft to pluckDesperate advantage from the jaws of chance—Shimei dared interrupt the Roman's muse:"Will not my lord the chiliarch now think wellTo call Gamaliel into presence here?Well frightened, the old man perhaps might tellWhat passed in his long interview with Paul,Something to help thee judge betwixt us twain,Which it were well to credit, Paul or me."
The chiliarch started from his reverie;"Go bring that Hebrew ancient here," he said.Then neither Jew nor Roman uttered word,Each busy with his own unsharéd thought,Till the centurion from his quest returned,Alone, and serious, no Gamaliel brought."I found"—but scarcely the centurion,Faltering, had so essayed to make report,When the wroth chiliarch snatched the word from him:"Was not he there? Did he refuse to come?The more loth he, the more to be required!Gray hair will not atone for stubbornness;Thou shouldst have brought him, though by greater force.Something lurks here lends color to the taleThis hoar-head Jew has filled my ear withal.I will Gamaliel see and learn from him—""But, sir," spoke up the loth centurion,"Nothing from that old Hebrew wilt thou learn,For—" "I will hear no 'fors,'" the chiliarch said,"But, hark thee, have the man before me straight!"
Mute, the centurion, left no option, turned,And, with four soldiers bidden follow him,Went to the lodgment where Gamaliel slept.
Those five men, used to death in many forms,Yet in the presence of such death were awed.The four in silence took the sleeper up,Motionless, with the couch whereon he lay,And bore him, as to honored burial,Into the court beneath the starlit sky,And set him down before the chiliarch.
Like one of those gray monuments in stone,Oft seen where church or minster of old days,In secret vault or holy chapel dim,Gathers and wards its venerated dead—Marmoreal image of some man, supine,Deep sunken, in marmoreal down, to sleep,Safe folded in marmoreal robes from cold,The meek, pathetic face upturned to heaven,And thither-pointing hands forever laidTogether on the breast, as thus to prayFor the shriven spirit thence to judgment fled—So, stretched upon his couch amid the court,White with his age, yet purer white with death,An unrebuking, unrebukableReminder of the nothingness of time,Unheeding who beheld or what was spoke,Silent, and bringing silence touched with awe,There in marmoreal calm Gamaliel lay.
The simple presence of the living man,In native majesty august with age,Would have subdued who saw to reverence;But the ennoblement and mysteryOf death, now added, wrought a mightier awe,And almost breathless made the hush whereinThe chiliarch for the moment from the spellOf Shimei's woven words was quite set free,Seeing things true by his simplicity.Breaking that hush, while never once his gazeUnfixing from the features of the dead,"Thou shouldst have told me this," said LysiasTo the centurion, gently chiding him.But the centurion understood arightThat his superior's words were less as blameThan as atonement meant for fault his ownIn that his late too peremptory air—This the subaltern knew, and answered not.
Shimei, alone not capable of awe,Coolly had used the interval of pause,To take the altered situation in,And to his own advantage fit his part.Two points of promise to his profit heSaw, and at once to seize them shaped his course:First, to release himself from duress there,And, further, still to sow the chiliarch's mindWith seed of foul suspicion against Paul."Gamaliel mute," said he to Lysias,"Might, peradventure, if but understood,Even better witness to thy purpose proveThan should he waken from his swoon to speak."
The sleight of tone with which was uttered "swoon"—No emphasis, insinuation all,Subtle suggestion, naught to be gainsaid,Since naught was really said, however muchWithout the saying got itself conveyed—This well subserved the wish of Shimei.For, like a sovereign solvent, that, with softAssiduous chemistry insensible,Some solid to a fluid form breaks down,There stole from Shimei's speech an influence in,Which, by degrees not slow, dissolved the charmShed from the solemn spectacle of deathUpon the chiliarch's mind; his childlike moodVanished, his simple wise credulity!Lysias reverted to his cynicism,And, unawares lured on by Shimei,Followed false lights to a conclusion vain.Once more he overweened to be astute,And, with astuteness recommencing, fellFrom the brief wisdom reverence brief had brought.His faith in human virtue undermined,He doubted and believed exactly wrong;There where he ought to have believed, he doubted,And where he should have doubted, there believed—The captor fallen into the captive's snare.Lysias resumed to do what Shimei wished;The tissue of sophistication setAlready well aweaving in the loomOf fancy and false reason and unfaith,Which had before been humming in his brain—This to piece out, and make a finished web.
"'Swoon,' sayest thou?" To Shimei, Lysias thus;"That is not death, thou thinkest, but a swoon?"
"It looks indeed like death," the crafty JewResponded; "yea, it looks like death indeed.It was not meant, but death it sure must be."
"What wilt thou say?" said Lysias. "'Was not meant!'—Thy words conceal thy meaning; speak it out."
"Why, sir, I have no meaning to conceal,"The Jew replied, "no meaning to conceal.I only thought, I could but only think—Why, see, Paul was Gamaliel's pupil once,And loved his master, so as such can love;At least I thought so. Paul, for sure I know,Gamaliel like a doting father loved."
"Thou dost not thus explain, 'It was not meant';Out with thy thought, sir Jew," the chiliarch said."What was not meant? By whom not meant? Forsooth,Not by Gamaliel meant that he should die?Except the suicide, none means to die;And death like this is not the suicide's."
"Oh, nay, sir," Shimei said, "no suicideWas our Gamaliel; far the heinous thought!A good old man, whom all the people loved,Paul even, yea, Paul—I thought—till now—but now—But I will not believe so base of him,Even him; he did not mean it, did not meanWorse than to make Gamaliel deeply sleep.Paul's drug belike was stronger than he thought,Or weaker waxed Gamaliel with his age.Paul would himself repent it, now, too late—Particularly since of no avail,Thy wise forestalling plan defeating his,And fruit none from it ripening to his hand!"
"This is too foully base!" said Lysias,And Shimei's heart misgave him with a fear.'Too foully base insinuation mine,Does Lysias mean?' he closely asked himself;But calmly, with deep candor, said aloud:"Yea, even for Paul, beyond belief too base!Paul never meant it, I shall still insist.He meant at most such sleep as should prevailOver Gamaliel's scruple to take partWillingly in his surreptitious flight.And such a master of his arts is Paul,I shrewdly doubt if here his mark he missed.Were Paul but now at hand to try his skill,I should not wonder yet to see this swoonYield to some potent drug of counter force,And good Gamaliel wake to life again.Once, as they say—in Troas, I believe—Where he all night was lengthening out harangue,After his manner, in an upper room,A youngster, tired to death of hearing him,And sensible enough to go to sleep,Not sensible enough to seat him safe,Fell headlong out of window, whence he sat,A good three stories' fall—which finished him.Stay, not so fast—thou reckonest without Paul!Yea, Paul performed some sort of magic riteOver the body of the luckless lad,Which, presto, brought him round as brisk as ever!A mighty master in his kind, that Paul!"
"Perish thy Paul with his accurséd craft!"Burst out the chiliarch in indignant heat."Would I but had him back here safe in thrall!—I should have let them rend him limb from limb!"
A sudden hope beyond the bounds of hopeFlourished up rank, gourd-like, in Shimei's breast.Were it but possible to have Paul back,To take that walk yet to the judgment-hall!The forty faithful should not fail their task!
"Might I propose if it be yet too late?"With timid daring, Shimei inquired."A fleet-foot horse should overtake the troop,If so thou choose, and turn them hither back.And thou couldst cause that Paul exert his powerTo lift this corpse into a living man—Which were a famous spectacle to see!Besides that then thou mightst assure thyself,Through counsel of our Sanhedrim, what crimesWorthy of death are proved upon this Paul."
"Thou art a superserviceable Jew,"The chiliarch frowned and said. A choleric man,He choleric now, through self-expression, grew.Exasperate thus, he added: "'Ruler' thouOf thine accurséd nation—as I hear—Me too thou fain wouldst rule, with thy adviceOfficiously advanced unsought. Know, then,That I confound thee with thy race, and curseYe all together, pestilent brood—not lessThee than thy fellows, whom thou rulest, forsooth,Worthy to rule those worthily so ruled!Like ruler to like people, vipers all!If I believe thee of thy brother Paul,It is no wise that I suppose thee trueRather than him; but only that I reckonOne rascal feels another by mere kin,And can, and, if so be he hates him, will,Into his own soul look and paint himthat—Making a likeness apt to two at once!Nay, nay, thou wretched, reptile Jew, all thanks!I would not have Paul back upon my hands.I am well rid ofhim, and now hence thou!Go tell thy fellow-elders of the JewsThat here Gamaliel lies, dead or aswoon,And bid them haste to bear him hence away.Go, not one further word from thy foul mouth,Lest whole thou never go!"
Red with his wrath,Abruptly on his heel turned the wroth manAnd disappeared within. The Jew so spurned—Though disappointed, imperturbable—With wry grimace hugging himself, made speedTo use the freedom thus in overplusThrust on him, and incontinently went.Scarce was he well without the castle gate,When a brusque message from the chiliarchSummoned him back. He came, with supple kneeCringing his thanks and deprecations dumb."So act thy abject language, if thou will,But no word speak, edging thine ear to hear,"The chiliarch, from his heat of passion passedTo a grim mood of resolution, said;"I will that—no delay—thou hither bringLarge satisfaction from thy countrymen—Just measure of their estimate of thee!—That thou wilt duly bide within commandThe suddenest from this castle, and appear,Whenever I may call for thee, to goWhithersoever I shall bid thee hence,Whether to Cæsarea or to Rome,Whether now presently or hereafter long,Accuser meet and witness against Paul.Count it that thou thus much at least hast gained,Through thy this night's adventure, chance, to wit,Assuréd chance, thy famished grudge to glutUpon thy brother rogue and countryman—Be he, that is, the wretch thou paintest him,And, mark it well, be thou his overmatchIn lying eloquence to make appearLikeliest whatever best thy turn shall serve.Perhaps twin rascals, of each other worthy,Will, both at once, and each the other, proveJust to be what they are, and earn their doom!""Send with this worthy," thus the chiliarch,To his centurion turning, said, "some manWho knows, if nothing more, thus much at least,How to be adder-deaf and death-like dumb—To dog him hence about and hither back!""I wish thee pleasure of thy evening walk!"To Shimei, in mock courtesy, he said.
With pleasantry as bitter as his ownThe mocker found himself a second time,And now to discomposure worse, dismissed.Of his own will he gladly would have goneFrom east to west as wide as was the world,To weave the meshes of his witness falseAbout Paul's feet, or still to ambush himWith instant bloody death at unawares;But thus to go, a lasso round his neckHeld in the hand of Rome—it irked him sore.His heart misgave him heavily; he felt:'And here perhaps is destiny for me,Perhaps, who knows? at last, at last, for me!On mine own head do I Paul's house pull down?'
Strange, but, born with the boding sense thus bornOf unguessed danger for himself, there creptInto that case-hard heart, long exercisedTo plot of mischief for his fellow-man,A softness, that was nigh become remorse,A kind of pity from self-pity sprung,Toward whoso was endangered, yea, even Paul!It was the slow beginning of an end—Slow, liable to be quenched like smoking flax,Yet not so quenched to be—with Shimei.Meanwhile, from this to that there stretched much road,And Shimei still had demon's work to do.
The narrative returns to Paul riding with young Stephen, under escort of Roman soldiers, toward Cæsarea. The uncle and nephew (at sufficient remove from the cavalry before them and the infantry behind them) after an interval of silence, engage in conversation on a subject suggested by young Stephen's quoting against Shimei one of the imprecatory psalms. This conversation is prolonged till Antipatris is reached, from which point young Stephen comes back to Jerusalem with the returning foot-soldiers, while Paul goes on with the horse to Cæsarea.
BY NIGHT FOR CÆSAREA.