CHAPTER XIV
FOB A WOMAN'S SAKE
The sails of the freighter had fallen slack in the breathless shelter of the Alexandrian harbor. It was night, and only by daylight could the seamen pull the vessel by oar through the devious, perilous lanes between the fleets and navies packed in the greatest port in the world. The freighter would lie to until morning. The passengers would land in boats.
Its anchor rumbled down and plunged into a sea of stars.
It had been a ship of silence, manned by barefoot, cowed slaves, captained by a surly, weather-beaten Roman and freighted with a strange, sorrowful company. Now that the journey was at an end, there were no shouts, no noisy haste, no excited preparation. When the wash of the disturbed bay settled over the anchor and the reflected stars grew steady again, there was silence.
Marsyas stood in the bow and looked ashore. Over the whole arc of the southern heavens, he saw long, beaded strands of infinitesimal points of fire, tangles, cross-hatchings, eddies and jottings of light—the lamps of Alexandria. Right and left of him and embracing much of the bay, the confusion of stars swept, culminating in the towering flame surmounting the Pharos to the east, and failing in featureless obscurity to the west. It might have been a congress of fireflies tranced in space. But there came across the waters, not appreciable sound, but the mysterious telepathic communication of animate life. Marsyas sensed the heart-beat of the great invisible city under the ignes fatui swung in the purple night.
He did not contemplate it calmly. The mystery of impending destiny was written over it all.
The silent company of Nazarenes was put ashore an hour later at the wharf of the Egyptian suburb, Rhacotis, and together Silas and Marsyas passed up through the easternmost limits of the settlement toward the Regio Judæorum.
They had not progressed beyond sight of their former traveling companions, before the cluster of Nazarenes seemed to huddle and recoil, and presently turn back and flee over their tracks.
As they rushed down upon the two Jews, the body seemed to have increased greatly in number. The accessions were men, women and children; some were very old, all apparently very poor, so that the one small, female figure, in fine white garments showing under a coarse mantle, was conspicuous among the rough dark habits.
Marsyas had time to note this one out of the many when the flying company rushed about him; after it a body of city constabulary, at the heels of which followed a howling mob of rabid Alexandrians. In an instant, Marsyas and Silas were in the thick of the tumult. The fugitives, demoralized by the attack of the constabulary, rushed hither and thither; the mob closed in upon them and a moving battle raged in the night on the square.
Events followed too swiftly for Marsyas to grasp them as they happened. He had a heated sensation that he defended himself, defended others, struck gallantly, received blows, snatched up a small figure in white from the attack of a vindictive assailant, and then the running fight swept by and away in dust.
He came to himself, panting and enraged, under a lamp, with a girl in his arms. Confronting him with a stone in his hand was Eutychus, petrified with amazement and apprehension. At one side, groaning and bent double with kicks and blows, was Silas. At the other, a silent, brown woman peered at the insensible girl. Up the street receded the sounds of riot.
Marsyas permitted his angry gaze to fall from Eutychus' face to the stone the servitor held. The fingers unclosed and the missile dropped. Then Marsyas looked down at the girl in his arms. He drew in a full breath. The hill bird in the broken wilds of Judea whistled again; the incense from the blooming orchards breathed about him, and the flower face that had looked back at him from the howdah rested now, white and peaceful against his breast. Her long lashes lay on her cheeks, the pretty disorder of her yellow-brown curls was tossed over his arm. He was strangely untroubled for all that.
The brown woman watched him from the gloom.
Silas meanwhile had straightened himself and was gazing with stupefaction at the insensible face on the Essene's breast.
"It—it—" he began, stammering before the rush of recognition and astonishment. "It is the alabarch's daughter—hither, fellow!" to Eutychus; "see this face! See whom thou wast pursuing."
Eutychus looked and fell immediately into a panic.
"I did not know her!" he cried. "By my soul, I did not know her! I was only visiting vengeance on the apostates, with the people! How should I expect to find her here!"
Marsyas broke in on his avowal.
"Do we go now to her father's house?" he asked of Silas.
"Even now!"
"Lead on, then. Eutychus! Follow!"
Silas looked at the brown woman in the shadows, who beckoned and, turning, took roundabout and deserted passages toward the Jewish quarter, so that the extraordinary party proceeded unseen to the house of the alabarch. Once or twice, Eutychus attempted to press up beside Marsyas and excuse himself, but he was bidden to be silent. Then, on missing the charioteer's footfall, Marsyas turned to see him slipping away. Immediately Silas was despatched to bring him back; and so, placed between the two, he was dragged on to the house he had attempted to injure.
Remembering Eleazar's statement concerning the breadth of the schism, Marsyas was prepared to discover the alabarch a Nazarene.
"O Israel! after triumph over the oppression of the mighty, is this your overthrow?" he said bitterly to himself.
Long before he reached the alabarch's house, the figure in his arms stirred and made a little questioning sound. But against her manifest wish, the promptings of his Essenic training and the admission that she had been overtaken among apostates, something in him locked his arms about her and brought a single word to his lips. The gentleness of his voice surprised him.
"Peace," he said, and she lay still.
After he had said it, a sudden rage against Eutychus seized him. The charioteer's part in the pursuit of the fugitive apostates assumed a brutality and an enormity many times greater than it had originally seemed. He took savage pleasure in anticipating turning over the culprit to Agrippa for justice.
He was led presently into a dark porch and admitted into a hall. The startled porter glanced at him, and, seeing Lydia in the stranger's arms, the serving-man cried out. The brown woman answered with a guttural sentence or two, and by the time Marsyas, following the lead of the agitated porter, entered a beautiful chamber, people were running in from brilliantly-lighted apartments beyond.
The spare and elegant old figure in the embroidered robes and cap of a Jewish magistrate hurried toward him with terror written on his face.
"Lydia! What hath befallen thee? Is she dead?" he cried.
Back of him came a rush of people. Foremost was Herod Agrippa; behind him, Cypros. With the growing group, Marsyas ceased to note the details of their identity and remarked at random that one was a man who wore a fillet and that the other was a woman and beautiful.
The number of servants increasing, the babble of questions and exclamations creating a great confusion, none who made answer was heard. But Marsyas looked at the master of the house. He saw this time, not the magistrate's alarm, but his character, his nationality, his religion. In that aristocratic old countenance there was nothing of the Nazarene. Marsyas let his eyes fall on the face against his breast. By the brighter light, he saw now that which he had not seen under the smoky street-torch. In the folds of her white dress, beautiful and rich enough for a feast, reposed a small cedar cross, depending from a scarlet cord.
The young Jew with the fillet about his forehead sprang forward to take Lydia from Marsyas' arms. But with the instinctive feeling that none must see but himself, he disengaged one hand and stopped the Jew with a motion.
"I will put her down," he said calmly.
Classicus drew himself up to his full height, but Marsyas had already turned toward the divan. With a quick movement, he slipped the crucifix from about the girl's neck and thrust it into his tunic.
Out of the babble about him he learned that the girl had supposedly gone to attend a maiden gathering in the Regio Judæorum with the brown woman as an attendant. Catching with relief at this bit of foundation for a story, he stood up prepared to tell anything but the truth.
Meantime, attendants and a house physician bent over the girl with wine and restoratives, and the company's attention was directed toward her recovery. Presently she put aside her waiting-women and sat up.
Marsyas glanced from her to the brown woman, who hovered on the outskirts. The handmaiden's great, mysterious, olive-green eyes were fixed upon him, half in appeal, half in command. Before he could understand the look the Jew in the fillet turned upon him.
"Come, we are learning nothing," he said in a voice that silenced the group. "Thou," indicating Marsyas with an imperious motion, "seemest to show the marks of experience. Tell us what happened."
Marsyas' mind went through prodigious calculation. If he frankly told the truth, he betrayed the girl to much misery and peril. If he evaded, Eutychus, wishing to justify himself and to escape punishment, might wreck a fabrication by a word. But the young man made no appreciable hesitation in answering. He caught the charioteer's eye and held it fixedly while he spoke.
"I know little," he said. "From the ship we came up a certain street, where we met tumult between fugitives and pursuers. So disorderly the crowd and so extensive its violence that whosoever met it on the street was instantly caught in its center and mistreated as much as the guiltiest one. Thus I and Prince Agrippa's servant were caught; thus, the lady.
"We defended ourselves and should have escaped scathless, but that we stayed to save the lady from the rioters. This done we came hither. That is all."
"Who were the fugitives?" the Jew in the fillet demanded.
The thick lips of Eutychus parted and he drew in breath, but the lower lids of the black eyes fixed upon him lifted a little and he subsided.
"Sir, one does not stop to identify passing strangers when one fights for his life," Marsyas explained calmly.
Eutychus lost his air of trepidation, and his taut figure relaxed.
"Where was it?" the beautiful woman asked of the charioteer.
Marsyas answered directly.
"Lady, one does not locate himself in the midst of turbulence."
Lysimachus came closer to Marsyas.
"Who art thou?" he asked. "I met thee once, it seems."
"That," Agrippa broke in, "by every act he hath done since I knew him, is the most generous of Jews, Marsyas, an Essene, by his permission, my friend and companion. Know him, Alexander; it is a profitable acquaintance."
Marsyas flushed under the prince's praise, and Cypros, drawing closer, took his arm and pressed her cheek against it.
"Thrice welcome to my house," the alabarch said with emotion. "Blessed be thy coming and thy going; may safety be thy shadow!"
Marsyas, coloring more under the comment, thanked the alabarch and cast a beseeching look at the prince. The prince smiled.
"Let us supplement blessings with raiment and thanks with wine," he said to the alabarch. "This is an Essene to whom uncleanliness is as great a crime as a love affair."
"Thou recallest me to my duty," the alabarch returned, at once. "Stephanos,"—signing to a servitor,—"thou wilt take this young man to the room which hath been prepared for him and give him comfort. If he hath any hurts, the physician will wait on him. Remember, brother, I am at thy command."
With these words, he bowed to Marsyas, who inclined his head to the company and followed Stephanos.
But at the arch leading into the corridor, there was a low word at his hand. Lydia, with the rough mantle dropped from her, stood there in her rich white garments.
"I owe thee my life," she said, in a little more than a whisper. "Aye, even more—a greater debt which I can not make clear to thee now."
He looked down into her lifted eyes, pleading for pity and forgiveness.
"I made thee traffic with the truth," they said. "Thou who art an Essene and a holy man!"
Something happened in Marsyas; a quickening rush of rare emotion swept over him. He took her small hand and held it, until, shyly and reluctantly, she drew it away.
He went then through broad halls, flooded with lights from costly lamps, past whispering fountains and motionless potted plants, through arches relieved by silken draperies which adorned without screening, up a broad flight of stairs to his own chamber.
This was all very beautiful and restful with its occasional whiffs of incense, or the musical drip of the waterfall or the soft murmur of distant voices. His lot had fallen in splendid places, he told himself, and, though opposed, by teaching, to the difference men make in each other, he was glad that he was not to live as a manumitted slave under the roof of the alabarch's house.
As he stepped into the chamber which Stephanos told him was his own, Drumah appeared. Startled at first sight of a man bearing marks of ill-usage, she stopped and cried out as she recognized him.
"I am not hurt, Drumah," he said, to quiet the rush of questions on her lips. "I was caught in a riot. It is nothing."
"But I see marks on thy face," she persisted, coming near him; "and thy garments have bloodstains on them. Thou dost not know that thou art hurt. O Stephanos," she cried to the servitor, "fetch balsam and volatile ointment. Eutychus, art thou there? Run to the culina and get wine! Where is the physician?"
The charioteer, who had appeared in the upper story for the express purpose of seeking Drumah to tell the details of the day's excitement, stopped short and scowled.
"I thank thee," Marsyas said to her. "I am not in need of assistance. The physician is with the master's daughter. I can care for myself. Pray, do not give thyself trouble."
He stepped into the apartment and dropped the curtain upon himself and Stephanos.
He had given himself up to the servitor's attentions, when it occurred to him that he had let slip a chance to deliver a telling and a much-needed warning to Eutychus. The more he considered his neglect, the more serious it seemed. At last he hurried his attendant, and, getting into fresh garments, descended again to the first floor. He despatched Stephanos in search of Eutychus and stopped by the newel to await the charioteer's coming.
As he stood, the brown waiting-woman came to him, gliding like a sand column across the desert. Coming quite close to him, she dropped on her knees at his side and touched her forehead to the ground.
"I am a Brahmin," she said in Hindu, "and I owe thee a debt. I shall not forget!"
Rising, she flitted away.
Marsyas looked after her in amazement. It was the same slave-woman whom he had helped at Peter the usurer's.
Cypros, with her head drooping, a delicate forefinger on her chin, came slowly and sorrowfully into the hall. As Marsyas looked at her, she seemed to him to be half-woman, half-child. But when she saw him, her face lighted, her eyes glowed. With extended hands she came toward him.
"Nay, nay," she said, seeing that thanks were on his lips. "Do not shame me with thy thanks, Marsyas, for I had a selfish use in releasing thee."
"But I know, nevertheless, that I should have had freedom at thy hands though I never saw thee again."
"Oh, be not so filled with confidence and sweet believing, else I fear for myself," she said earnestly. "Nay, if I were wholly unselfish, I should come to thee, this hour of thy honor, to bring thee praise. Yet I come with mine own interest, to charge thee anew!"
"Command me; thou hast purchased me!"
"Not so; but thou hast purchased my husband, with the extreme of thy sacrifice for his sake!"
"Lady, I did that thing for myself—for mine own ends!"
"Nevertheless, it was my husband who profited. Thou must learn that much hath transpired here in Alexandria. The alabarch had not the three hundred thousand drachmæ to lend—"
Marsyas' forehead contracted; was not his work against Saul of Tarsus progressing?
"—but he gave my lord in all readiness five talents, with which we ransomed thee. It was all the good alabarch could afford, but it is not enough for me and my babes. Wherefore Agrippa goes to Rome without us. There, infallibly he will obtain money from Antonia, discharge his debt to Cæsar and settle Vitellius' vengeful search after thee. There, he shall be restored to favor with Cæsar and come into possession of his kingdom!"
"How thou liftest my bitter heart!" Marsyas exclaimed. "Go yet further and say that, thereafter, I shall have my requital, my hunger after vengeance satisfied!"
"All that shall be," she said with gravity, "on one condition!"
"What?" he besought earnestly.
"That he who hath Agrippa's welfare deepest in his heart shall ever be near my lord to protect him against himself!"
"O lady, even thou canst not wish thy husband successful with greater yearning than I!"
"So I do believe! But hear me. Thou seest my husband; thou knowest that he plans only for the moment, risks too much, is over-confident and too little cautious! In the beginning he believes that he is right, and thereafter and on to the end he acts, chooses friends, and makes enemies as his conviction directs him. Thus he ruined himself thrice over from Rome to Idumea. None but one so eager for his success as I, but abler than I, can govern him! And thou must be his keeper, Marsyas!"
"Thou yieldest me a welcome charge, lady," he said quickly. "Thou knowest that I would not have him fail; wherefore, I yield thee my word!"
"Be thou blessed! Yet there is more!"
In spite of her preparation, her face flushed, and she hesitated. Then as if forcing herself to speak, she said:
"Thou—thou wilt keep my lord's love for me, Marsyas?"
"I do not understand," he said kindly.
"Thou didst not say such a thing when my lord asked thee for twenty thousand drachmæ. Thou didst get the drachmæ; keep now my husband's love for me. As thou didst offer thyself for his purse, offer thyself for his soul—if need be!"
He frowned at the pavement and then at her. He had evolved enough from her words to believe that her call aimed at his spiritual welfare and he remembered that he was an Essene.
"Be his companion," she hurried on, "be more; be his comrade, his abettor, even; sacrifice much; thy prejudices, even some of thy spotlessness, but make thyself desirable to him. Then thou canst control him. Promise, Marsyas! Oh, thy hope to overthrow Saul is not dearer to thee than this thing is to me! Promise!"
"Be comforted," he said hurriedly, for there were steps approaching from the inner room. "I shall do all that I can. More than that, one less than an angel can not promise!"
She, too, heard the footsteps and passed up the stairs.
Looking up from his disturbed contemplation of the pavement, Marsyas saw Classicus in the arch leading into the hall. If the young Essene had been a cestophorus upholding the ceiling, the philosopher's gaze could not have been more indifferent. He passed on and disappeared into the vestibule.
Hardly had he passed, before the dark end of the corridor leading in from the garden gave up the stealthy figure of Eutychus, running, bent, purposeful and a-tiptoe, to overtake Classicus. Evidently he had not seen Marsyas, for he passed without faltering and disappeared the way Classicus had taken.
Instantly and as silently Marsyas followed.
At the porch, the alabarch bade his guests good night, and when Marsyas brought up, he found Classicus just departing and Eutychus nowhere to be seen. Surmising that there was a humbler exit for the servants, out of which the charioteer had taken himself, Marsyas passed out directly after the philosopher.
His surmises were not wrong, for the instant Classicus planted foot on the earth without, Eutychus came out of the darkness and bowed.
"Good my lord," he began, "the story truly told is this—" but his words babbled off into stammers and inarticulate sound, for Marsyas, large in the gloom, stood over him.
"Thy master hath need of thee, Eutychus," he said in a soft voice. The charioteer gulped and slid back into the door that had given him exit.
"Peace to thee, sir," the Essene said to Classicus, and bowing, returned into the house.
"The truth of the story is this," said Classicus as he stepped into his chair and was borne away, "the Essene is no Essene!"
At the farther end of the corridor within, Marsyas saw Eutychus lurking. Silent and swift the young Essene went after him. The charioteer, fearing for cause, fled and Marsyas followed.
Agrippa, on the point of ascending to his chamber, saw them flit noiselessly into the dusk. His wonder was awakened. Drumah, with a laver under her arm, was emerging from the kitchens when she caught a glimpse of them. The prince stepped down and followed; Drumah slipped after.
At the door leading into the colonnade of the garden, Marsyas seized Eutychus.
"Thou insufferable coward!" he brought out. "Thou blight and peril under a hospitable roof! I know what thou wouldst have said to the master's guest!"
Eutychus paled and struggled to free himself, but Marsyas forced him against the wall and pinned him there.
"If so much as a word escape thee, concerning the alabarch's daughter, if by a quiver of thy lashes thou dost betray aught that thou knowest to any living being, or dead post, or empty space, I shall kill thee and feed the eels of the sea with thy carcass!"
Fixing the charioteer with a menacing eye he held him until he was sure his words had conveyed their full meaning.
"I have spoken!" he added. Then he threw the man aside and turned to go back to his room. But in his path, though happily out of earshot of his low-spoken words, stood Agrippa; behind him, Drumah. Not a little disturbed, Marsyas stopped. Eutychus saw the prince and expected partizanship.
"Seest thou how thy servant is used by this vagrant?" he demanded.
But Agrippa laid his hand on Marsyas' arm.
"I do not know thy provocation," he said, "but I know it was just. Go back! It is not enough. Teach him to respect thy strength. Thou hast merely made him dangerous!"
But Marsyas begged Agrippa's permission to go on and the prince, still declaring that the Essene had made a mistake, turned and went with him.
Drumah, with her head in the air, passed Eutychus without casting a look upon him.