Stephen Part 19

Raising his eyes he saw the brown head and bright eyes of a sparrow, perched securely upon the ledge of the arch above him; the little creature was regarding the scene with apparent curiosity. Presently with a wild cry it darted away to join its fellows. The lad followed its flight with envious eyes, and for the second time he remembered the strange words of John, "Not a sparrow falleth to the ground without your Father." Again he prayed to the unknown G.o.d who minded even the little wild things of the air, and as before he was comforted.

Gestas was evidently considering the situation with care, for he continued to stand silent before his prisoner, his arms akimbo, his small savage eyes riveted upon the figure before him. "Wouldst thou that I release thee?" he asked suddenly in the Greek tongue.

"If it please thee, good sir," responded Seth, quite off his guard.

Gestas smiled evilly. "It doth not please me, boy. Now march before me--so. Remember that I have in my hand a knife." And grasping the boy by the shoulders, he shoved him with a kind of terrible gentleness into the street.

Like one in a dream the lad walked before his captor. From time to time he looked wildly about in the vain hope of rescue, but the few pa.s.sers-by went about their business with unseeing eyes, and an occasional p.r.i.c.k of the knife from behind warned him that instant death awaited him should he venture to cry out. At length they had pa.s.sed quite out of the city; here Gestas paused for a moment, and seeing that no one was by, he proceeded to bind the lad's hands securely behind his back.

"Thou art such a proper liar," he remarked with a grin, "that I am minded to leave thee alive for a while longer." Seth made no reply, nor did he cry out when Gestas playfully thrust the knife within a hair's breadth of his throat.

"If I must die," he thought, "I will at least die like a man." Then he remembered Anat sitting happily at her spinning at the feet of the gentle Mary; the tears rose to his eyes and br.i.m.m.i.n.g over rolled in great drops down his brown cheeks. He shook them off valiantly. "Tears do not become a man," he said to himself sternly.

"Come, come, my lad," cried Gestas, "my business requireth haste as well as diligence. We must be getting on." Then feeling very merry indeed, he put up his knife and fetched out his newly-acquired pouch; shaking it so that all the gold pieces within clinked musically, he strode along, chanting a pagan rhyme of Bacchus and the pleasures of the vine.

After a time they reached one of the narrow denies which wind between the hills on either side of the Valley of Hinnom, and here they presently came upon the encampment, cunningly placed within a copse of low-growing trees on the edge of a stream.

Half a score of men were scattered about upon the greensward, some of them eating and drinking, others playing at dice, and others still stretched out at full length in the shade asleep.

The arrival of Gestas and his prisoner was greeted with a shout of laughter. "Ha! our worthy chief hath made a notable capture," cried one, sauntering up to Seth and looking down at him. "A mighty man of valor is he truly to accomplish the overthrow of such as this. How many bags of gold didst thou take from him?"

Gestas winked significantly. "I shall take three, if the G.o.ds prosper me," he replied; then he bound the lad's ankles together, and bidding the man keep an eye upon the prisoner, he threw himself down upon the ground and demanded food and drink. Two or three others gathered about him, and to these he talked rapidly in low tones as he ate; but nothing of what was being said reached the ears of Seth, who was beginning to suffer intense agony from the tightness of the cords with which his wrists and ankles were bound.

He ventured at length to speak of this to the man who had been detailed to watch him; his guard good-naturedly loosened the bonds, then relapsed into a doze, which presently deepened into a heavy sleep.

As the hours crept slowly by, Seth worked cautiously and unceasingly to loosen further the cords at his wrists. Towards evening he found to his intense joy that his hands were free. No one noticed him; the man at his feet still slept heavily; and after awhile he ventured stealthily to undo the thongs which bound his feet together; then he sat motionless, not daring to stir till the shadows should deepen.

As evening drew on, Gestas accompanied by two of the other men left the camp; he cast a glance in the direction of the lad as he pa.s.sed by him, and hesitated for a moment as if he were minded to examine his bonds, but finally went his way. No sooner had he disappeared, than the lad crept away among the trees and bushes; before many minutes he had reached the edge of the thicket, here he paused breathlessly to listen, then rising to his feet, ran like the wind in the direction of the city.

"I must find Ben Hesed," he said. "He will know what to do."

CHAPTER XX.

WITHOUT THE JAFFA GATE.

The sunset hour was always a time of peace and peculiar joy in the house of John. The toils and dangers of the day being well over, the family were wont to gather upon the housetop, there to talk over what had happened during the hours that were pa.s.sed. The golden glories of the dying day served to bring to their minds, each recurring evening, that place beyond the toils and sorrows of earth which their Lord had gone to prepare, and toward which each day's journey was swiftly hurrying them.

Here the mother of Jesus sat enshrined in saintly peace; here also were John and Peter with the other apostles; Anna, the wife of Caiaphas, Stephen, and of late the black-eyed Egyptian maiden, together with many others who came to them for help, instruction, or healing. The number of such homes was daily increasing in Jerusalem; yet it was at this door, perhaps more often than at any other, that wretched humanity knocked for admittance, and admittance was always granted. For to these had been committed the ministry of the ascended Christ, with all that this signified of power and of blessing.

To-night into their midst came Ben Hesed, to talk once more with the apostles concerning the Crucified One. He brought with him the scrolls of the Prophecies, for he was troubled about certain points therein.

"How is it," he said, "that it is written, 'Accursed be every one that hangeth upon the tree?' Surely G.o.d's Anointed could not be accursed."

"Dost thou doubt concerning him already?" asked Peter sternly.

"Nay, I doubt not, man; my spirit witnesseth within me that the thing is true. But I would fain be able to speak convincingly to them which believe not, when I shall have returned into the wilderness. It is not granted to every one to behold the angel of deliverance."

"Thou hast spoken wisely, who art wise," said John gently. "The young man Stephen doth without ceasing make study of that which hath been written aforetime concerning the Christ. Yea, the spirit also hath revealed to him many things which have been hid from the eyes of the wise; and this to our profit who are sorely beset with the duties of our ministry. Read, I beseech thee, my brother, from the scroll which thou hast prepared."

"Concerning him which hath been hanged, it is written in the law thus,"

said Stephen, who a little apart from the others had been poring in silence over a number of parchments. "'If a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be put to death, and thou hang him upon a tree.

His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt surely bury him that day; for he that is hanged is accursed of G.o.d. That thy land be not defiled which the Lord thy G.o.d giveth thee for an inheritance.'

"But and if a sinless and holy man be put to death by false accusation, how is it that he is accursed? Herein is a great mystery, which as yet we see only in part, nor indeed can it be apprehended of mortals, that G.o.d gave his only begotten Son, not only that he should live amongst us a holy and sinless life, but that he should yield up that life in all meekness at the hands of his enemies. This also being the will of the Father concerning him; as he himself said, and as the voice of many prophets declare--who being dead yet speak to us in the words of the scripture. Are we not every one accursed, for we have sinned in the sight of G.o.d; and he, the sinless one, hath through the infinite compa.s.sion of the Father become accursed in our place. Even as it is written by the hand of the prophet Isaiah, 'He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, the chastis.e.m.e.nt of our peace was upon him and with his stripes we are healed.'

"And behold these sayings--'I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and from spitting'--'The a.s.sembly of the wicked have closed in upon me, they pierced my hands and my feet'--'They parted my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture'--'They gave me also gall for my meat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink'--'I became a reproach unto them, when they looked upon me they wagged their heads.' And this, 'his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men'--'He was despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and we hid as it were our faces from him'--'He was taken from prison and from judgment and who shall declare his generation, for he was cut off out of the land of the living, for the transgression of my people was he stricken'--'And he made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death.'

"All these sayings I found concerning him," continued the young man gravely, "written many generations before his birth; they might have been writ yesterday by one who witnessed his death. Also by the hand of the prophet Daniel is this: 'And after three score and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself, and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be as a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.'"

"The end is yet to come," said Ben Hesed, involuntarily clenching his strong hands and looking toward the walls of the mighty temple, which shone white and mystical in the soft light of the rising moon.

"He himself foretold all that hath happened," said John sorrowfully, "and what is yet to come; how that he should be delivered up to the Romans, and should be mocked and spitefully entreated, spitted upon, scourged and crucified. It lay heavily upon him so that even he, who walked ever in the light of G.o.d, was exceeding sorrowful; and when he looked to us for sympathy that last awful night, we--slept. G.o.d forgive us!"

"He hath forgiven us all things," said Peter. "He bore our sins in his own body on the tree. For the love of him, shall we not gladly suffer what shall yet befall us? for he told us plainly that the world would hate us, even as it hated him; that we also should be persecuted, scourged, and put to death. Yet how soon will all be past, and then we shall go to him."

In the silence which followed these words a loud knocking was heard at the outer gate of the courtyard. Stephen arose quietly from his place and descended the stair. When he had opened the door, he saw standing in the street a man. He was meanly clad, as Stephen could see by the dim light; therefore his voice was more gentle than usual as he said:--

"What wilt thou, friend?"

"Is there here a young man called Stephen?"

"I am he; wilt thou enter?"

The man shuffled uneasily on his feet, then looked furtively up and down the street. "There be a sick man who hath need of thee for healing and strong words of thy faith," he said at length, fixing his eyes upon Stephen.

"Wouldst thou not rather inquire for one of the twelve?"

"Nay, it was for one Stephen, a Greek, I was bidden to ask. The man I have spoken of is also a Greek, and would not ask for healing at the hands of a Jew."

"The healing cometh from G.o.d," said Stephen gravely. "I will come though. Where is the sick man?"

"I will show thee where he lieth," said the man eagerly; "and I pray thee to make haste, for his case is desperate."

"Let me first speak to them that are within, I will join thee immediately," said Stephen, stepping back into the courtyard and leaving the door partly open.

The man listened to the sound of his retreating steps as he ascended the stair. "They be all above," he muttered, stepping softly within. "Now if by any chance--Ha! what is this? A capital warm cloak, 'twill serve to shelter me these chill nights. Body of Jove! but I am always in luck of late!"

When Stephen returned, the man was waiting humbly without as he had left him. The two immediately set forth, the man going before; they walked swiftly through the dark narrow streets, the stranger glancing frequently over his shoulder to make sure that Stephen was following.

After a time he paused, "'Tis without the walls," he muttered hoa.r.s.ely.

"We must pa.s.s through the Jaffa Gate."

"There is moonlight," said Stephen rather absently, raising his eyes to the heavens, where in truth his thoughts had been as he followed his strange guide.

"There is moonlight," repeated the man with a hoa.r.s.e chuckle. "So much the better."

Stephen looked at the speaker more attentively than he had done at first; the white light which poured down from above revealing clearly every feature of the brutal face before him. He started visibly. "I have somewhere seen thee before!" he exclaimed. "Nay I know now, thou art of them who formerly----"