CHAPTER XXIII
A LETTER AND A LOSS
When Agrippa returned to his house that night, he found old Silas sitting in the vestibule, opposite the place of the atriensis, his hands on his knees, his dull face uncommonly animated and expressive.
It was long past the hour when the household servants had retired, and the porter at the door was drowsy, but the instant Agrippa set foot on his threshhold Silas started up and bowed in excitement.
"An evil day," he said. "Thy wardrobe hath been entered and much fine raiment is gone."
"But thou hast made an evil night of it, Silas: thou shouldst have withheld thy calamitous recital until the morning. Hast discovered the thief?"
Silas bowed again. "I have: yet, I have been restrained from taking him."
"O pliable Jew! None but Cæsar can steal my wardrobe unmolested. Who protects the thief?"
"Marsyas."
"What! Marsyas? Save thou art too unimaginative to be a fictionist I should say thou makest thy story. Why does Marsyas protect my pillager?"
"He says we are well rid of the knave."
"Not if he carried off so much as a sandal-lace. I am a Jew and therefore jealous for my own property. Marsyas, as an Essene, is given to dividing without protest with thieves. I remember the Greek who helped himself to Marsyas' patrimony on Olivet. But who is the thief?"
"Eutychus."
"Eutychus! By Hermes, he could not help it with that face! But go on; what is the circumstance?"
"He took," Silas continued, "the umber toga, embroidered with silver, much of thy Jewish vestments, the gazelle wallet which contained thy amulet, and drachmæ and bracelets of gold. He is rich!"
"Of a surety: the knave hath only the more attached himself to me. What a pity! Otherwise we were well rid of him. And Marsyas bade thee let him go?"
"The young man was disturbed. According to instructions, he sent a messenger to thy stables, without the walls, to bid Eutychus have thy car ready to-morrow for thy visit to Tusculum. But the messenger presently returned with the information that Eutychus had not been seen about the stables that day. At the same moment, I discovered the losses among thy apparel. And Marsyas instantly suspected Eutychus. He sent two slaves in search of him. They returned in an hour saying that he had been discovered in Janiculum in a wine-shop, robed like an Augustan in thy umber toga, and making merry with wine that could only tickle a Samaritan's throat. When they tried to bring him, he objected, saying thou shouldst not miss him, seeing that thou hadst learned the pleasure of walking in thy less fortunate days."
Agrippa's forehead darkened.
"Even for that I should hand him over to the lictors!" he exclaimed.
"It is not all. When the two slaves then tried to fetch him by force, they were attacked by him and the wine-shop keeper and others, and obliged to flee for their lives. I besought Marsyas, then, to permit me to inform the authorities and have him taken, but he opined that the charioteer's insolence was new and sudden, wherefore full of meaning. Seeing that it was Eutychus' intent to enrage thee, thou wast better not enraged; to wash thy hands of him and bless the day that he departed."
Agrippa yawned.
"To-morrow we shall search for him and have him taken. It is improvident to have so much philosophy as Marsyas. But what had the knave of a charioteer against me? It is Marsyas who hath enchanted Drumah, and who took him by the throat in the alabarch's house. I shall speak with Marsyas to-morrow."
He took himself with increasing effort up the stairs along the corridor toward his rest. With the facility which characterized many of Agrippa's troubles, the offender had already dropped out of his mind.
He had fenced with Caligula that morning, he had feasted with Macro that night. At midday he had slighted Piso, the enemy of both. Caligula had had him draw a sketch of Judea on the wax of the gymnasium floor and designate the possessions of the old Herod; Macro, in his cups, had asked confidentially if Caligula approved him. Altogether the day had been filled with tokens presaging success. He smiled sleepily, remembering Silas' extravagant concern over the robbery.
"Calamity is all in the mark on the scale of Fortune," he opined. "A year ago to lose a handful of drachmæ would have ruined me."
As he passed Marsyas' door, he stepped back suddenly and stopped. The long curtain dragged on the floor at one side had given him an interesting glimpse of the lighted interior. Within, Marsyas, seated at a table, had at that moment flung away his stylus and dropped his head on the writing. Almost immediately he sprang up, and, seizing the parchment, thrust it into the blaze of the lamp at his hand.
Astonishment gathered on the Herod's face.
In the blaze the writing curled, the flame eating into the slow-burning parchment, burned low, but surely, reaching toward the fingers that grasped it. Presently Marsyas dropped it. Then the night-wind, rising from the sea, swept in through the cancelli with a shriek, put out the lamp instantly and swept the long dragging curtain against the Herod standing in the dimly-illuminated corridor. He got out of sight hurriedly.
After the first gust, the wind dropped, sending long streams of impelling draft through cancelli, doorway and hall. Before it, along the pavement, something came skittering out of Marsyas' cubiculum. Agrippa looked at it. It was a roll of parchment, charred and crushed by the tense grip of fingers.
Agrippa waited. After a slight movement within, silence fell again, and was not thereafter broken. The prince's eyes fell on the charred writing. It was almost at his feet. His fine head dropped to one side, then to the other; he put his fingers into his hair, smiled a little and picked up the parchment. A moment later, in his own apartment, he unrolled it by his lamp.
Only a word here and there, at the end held in Marsyas' fingers, was legible, but Agrippa gathered from these the tone, the purpose and the identity, as he thought, of the one addressed.
"— me for loving thee — my punishment —. Yet —— sin against my teachi —— Willingly for thy sake ——— but to pretend —— continue my —— against —— which threatens thee. Have I lost — soul for a caprice —— and beseech levity — to lov — me? the pointing finger —— of sel — scorn! An outcast from Heaven —— truant from hell, haunting earth in search of thee for ever!—SYAS."
Agrippa's eyes sobered.
"Junia is a brand of fire," he said to himself. "I shall make an end of this!"