"Watch; forget it not!" Eleazar turned to Marsyas. "I have seen, my brother," he said. "This is not the method. Let us wait; our time will come."
Contented to go, Marsyas turned with the rabbi and together they passed through the gathering to the door. But before they went out, Marsyas spoke again to the silent congregation.
"Rest ye," he said, "we are not informers." They went forth.
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.