CHAPTER XIII
A TRUST FULFILLED
Marsyas came forth moodily convinced by Eleazar's words. No; it was not the method. Revenge would have to come through another medium than the Nazarenes. Stephen had told him before that the privilege of taking vengeance had been removed from the followers of Jesus of Nazareth. At that time Marsyas had not believed it of the whole sect; but now he was not too much irritated to be convinced.
"Is there any doctrine too mad to get it followers?" he said.
"O brother," Eleazar said, with his chin on his breast, "it is a period of change. The world wearies of its manner from time to time. Surfeit of good is not less common than surfeit of evil, but it is deadlier. Men tire of their gods as they do of their women, and thou, being an eremite and unfamiliar, may not know that death is much more desirable than enforced toleration of satiety."
Marsyas heard; satiety was only a word to him and the rabbi's earnestness carried no conviction for him.
"It is the time for change; rest under old usages is no longer possible. But Israel hath endured a long, long time in one habit."
"Give me thy meaning, Rabbi."
"Thou and I are good Jews, Marsyas, yet I can not say that of a surety of any other man in Judea. I have come from Jerusalem, David's City, the rock of Israel, but the hosts of schism possess it from the Ophlas to the uttermost limits of Bezetha!"
"Rabbi!"
"I have seen; I have seen. Saul hath set for himself a task of emptying the sea. In Jerusalem they come singing to torture and death, but armies of them go fleeing into the rest of Judea and all the world. And, hear me, thou true son of Israel, the pastor of the apostates we heard this night declared at least one truth. The Pharisee hath diffused an influence; he hath scattered a pestilence."
Because it was a new charge against Saul, Marsyas accepted it.
"Is there no help against him?" he exclaimed.
"Marsyas, there stirreth a dread fear in me that he is the instrument of the time. If not he, then another would have been called by the spirit of change—"
"There is no such extenuation in me!" Marsyas broke in.
"Might promises no allegiance to its ministers," the rabbi replied.
Marsyas recalled his history for evidence to corroborate this hope that Saul's calamitous work might recoil upon him. From Prometheus to Augustus, the declaration was sustained. He lost sight of the rabbi's actual concern. Saul covered his horizon; he could not know that Eleazar looked upon the Pharisee as only a detail in an immense stretch of grave possibilities.
The young man made no reply. A hope had been snatched from him that night before his sense could grasp its reality, but the disappointment had not weakened his intent. His hope, for the moment centered upon the Nazarenes, turned again upon Agrippa. He did not permit himself to speculate on the prince's possible failure.
At an intersecting street they parted, without further plan than that they should meet again.
But the next morning when Marsyas came with little spirit into the sunless counting-room, his first visitor was Agrippa's lugubrious old courier, Silas.
With a cry, Marsyas wrenched open the wicket and seized the old man's shoulders.
"Dost thou bring good or evil news?" he cried, unable to wait on the slow servant's deliberate speech.
"Perchance either, or both," the courier answered, fumbling in the wallet for his written instructions. "Perchance that which thou already knowest, and that which may be news. At least, I fetch thee a ransom."
"God reward thee for thy fidelity," Marsyas replied, "and forget thy sloth! Here, let me help thee to thy message."
He put away the servant's inflexible fingers and wrested the parchment from the wallet. It was wrapped in silk and sealed with wax. It was directed to Marsyas. He ripped it open hastily and read:
"To Marsyas, the Essene, to whom Cypros the Herod would owe a greater debt, greeting and these:
"It hath come to us here in Alexandria that Vitellius pursues thee with a mind to punish thee for helping my lord away from his difficulty in Judea. The legate hath sent couriers broadcast over the Empire to seek thee out, but the noble Flaccus, Proconsul of Egypt, though forewarned and required to deliver thee up, hath promised thee asylum in Alexandria. Wherefore, if it please God that thou art preserved until my servant Silas reaches thee, do thou return to this city, secretly and with all speed.
"That thou care for thyself and that thy despatch be assured, I add further that there is much thou canst do for me. Delay not if the same good heart which suffered for us in Ptolemais still beats within thee.
"Thy friend,
"CYPROS."
Within were three notes of a talent each, signed by Alexander Lysimachus, the Alabarch of Alexandria. Six weeks before, they would have been mere strips of parchment to Marsyas; to-day, with the commercial knowledge of a steward, Cæsar's gold would not have commanded more respect in him. But he crushed them in his hand and turned his face, suddenly grown pale and tense, toward the east and Jerusalem. They meant the beginning of the destruction of Saul!
Presently he signed to Silas to follow and led the way to old Peter, who sipped his wine in his sleeping apartment. On the way, they met a slave whom Marsyas despatched to the khan for Eleazar.
"But," objected Peter, with the querulousness of an old man, after the first flush of satisfaction over the return of his three talents, "I took thee in hostage, young man, because I wanted thy service as steward, not because I wished to please Agrippa."
"But I have summoned my better to take my place," Marsyas assured him. "Thou shall not be without an able steward, who will serve thee for hire."
And thus it was arranged when Eleazar arrived, that the rabbi should take Marsyas' place as steward and Peter, grumbling, but no less mollified, put on his cloak and repaired to the authorities to make the young Essene's manumission a matter of record.
By sunset all the negotiations were completed and Marsyas, with Silas, passed out into the twilight and proceeded toward the mole.
As they went, others were going; the freighter which was the first to sail for Alexandria bade fair to be crowded with passengers. Curious that so many wished to depart, Marsyas looked critically at the people as they moved toward the water-front. He saw that many of them had been with him in the Nazarene meeting the night before. They were obeying the command to move on.
Suddenly one of them, a young man in advance of two, old enough to be his parents, stopped and pointed with an outstretched arm.
Marsyas glanced in the direction the youth indicated.
The lower slopes of the immense western sky over the placid sea were delicate with the pale shades of a clear, cold, spring sunset. The point where the sun had sunk, alone glowed with a sparkling, golden brilliance. And set against that, far out in the bay, was a frail dark mast, crossed by a faint yard—a fragile crucifix sunk in a glory!
The elder man did not speak; the younger looked at the thing he had discovered, but as Marsyas hurried in agitation by the woman, he heard her speak softly:
"But it is bright—beyond!"