Saul Of Tarsus Part 48

"Thy love?" she repeated softly, with a question in her tone. But he did not answer it.

"A hopeless tangle," she said at last, "from which our ruling philosophers, degenerate imitators of Pyrrho, offer but one escape.

Turn from it, cease to trouble over it, leave it, cast off all thought and memory of it--and begin anew!"

He shook his head, his eyes on the pavement, his hands clasped before him. But the primrose hand found his again.

"Thou canst not, by the choicest revenge, force Thanatos to yield up thy dead; thou confessest the evil thou workest in revenge as equal to the satisfaction; thou complainest that thy love is faithless--what else? So many thy pains, I can not remember them all; but in them all there is not the worth of one of thy sleepless nights. If thou canst not be a Spartan, be a Stoic; if not an avenger, then a forgetter; if not a lover, then a gallant! Above all things, harken unto a pagan truth: love's a l.u.s.ty wight and can suffer forty mortal wounds and love again. None but an ostrich loves but once! Perchance I was right at first; thou shouldst have begun thine education in the first of Flora's celebration."

He winced, but presently raised his head.

"What didst thou when the procession carried me away that night?" he demanded, searching her face.

"When thou didst go away with the procession?" she laughed. "I went with them--of a necessity."

"And how didst thou escape?"

"When they all departed after Flora danced."

Thus beyond doubt a.s.sured that she had witnessed the dance of Flora, he was afraid to inquire further, lest he betray Lydia. But he wanted mightily to know if she had recognized the alabarch's daughter.

The disturbing reflection diverted his line of thought. Many of the night's events which the greater one had overshadowed came back to him.

He saw again the miraculous dance of Brahma on the roof of the Temple of Rannu, fled again with Lydia in his arms into the musky shrine and thence into the city; strove hard to convince himself that if he, sharpened of sight by love, had not recognized Lydia except for the bayadere's note and his acquaintance with Lydia's apostasy and her former defense of the Nazarenes, others could not have done so. Again he fought with Flaccus and discovered Agrippa in the dark and abandoned street in Alexandria. And now the image of Eutychus became particularly distinct.

His brow blackened suddenly and he sprang to his feet.

"It is solved!" he cried, striking the palm of one hand with the other.

"By the wrath of G.o.d, he is Flaccus' emissary. He turned on Agrippa in Alexandria when Flaccus ambushed the prince! He was part of the conspiracy! It was no blind blow that Agrippa struck. And the soul in me nourishes a lie or he meditates more work for the proconsul in this!"

Throughout his intensely confident accusation, Junia had watched him with changing eyes. She had had to feel her way frequently in this last hour.

"What?" she asked finally.

In a few and rapid words, Marsyas told her of Eutychus' theft and flight, but his ideas hasted from his narrative to more testimony in favor of his conclusion. He remembered Eutychus' jealousy of Drumah, his ruffian mistreatment of Lydia when the praetor moved against the Nazarenes, his attempt to expose her to Justin Cla.s.sicus because, his jealousy of Marsyas revived, he had no other way of retaliating; and finally of his humiliation at Marsyas' hands before Agrippa and Drumah.

"Bitter fool that I was not to understand him in time!" he cried. "In my soul, I know that we follow him to a pitfall in this matter!"

Junia slipped her fingers along the gilt grooves in the arm of the divan. Flaccus was a clumsy villain, of a surety! What overt conspiracies he evolved! A wild boar of the German forests would not make more clamor at its attacks! A wonder he had not exposed her, ere this. But for his influence, which made her a place in Caesar's house, she had given up his service long ago. Her lips curled with disgust and perplexity.

"Forewarning," she said gloomily, "is a torture when forearming avails naught."

He caught the depression in her tone and turned to her quickly.

"Agrippa hath been here, Marsyas," she continued. "Yet he was not to be stopped, I thought, then, that it was only the knave's playing for time!"

"What dost thou mean?" he demanded. "Tell me!"

"Agrippa was here. Eutychus hath been caught, but Piso notifies the Herod that the prisoner hath appealed to Caesar, claiming to have information against Agrippa which concerns Caesar's life and welfare!"

Marsyas seized her arm.

"What sayest thou?" he cried.

"And since thou hast uncovered Flaccus' hand supporting the villain, Agrippa is in greater peril than I had supposed!"

For a moment the two looked at each other: Junia with uneasiness on her face, and Marsyas transfixed. He saw his plans against Saul of Tarsus tumbling; he saw the Pharisee triumphing over Lydia!

"It may still be hoped," she ventured, "that the knave lies!"

"Junia, thou knowest Agrippa! It is my terror lest the knave be armed with a truth!"

"Out with it all," she went on desperately. "The Herod is convinced that he is innocent--this time--of any ill-will against Caesar, and he came here and spent the greater part of an hour, beseeching me to use my influence to hasten Caesar's hearing of Eutychus!"

"In G.o.d's name, answer! Did you refuse him?"

"I did! I besought him to let Caesar follow his own way, since the emperor is notedly slow in hearing charges in these later years. I a.s.sured him that Caesar might be more displeased, urged against his inclination to hear a stupid slave, than the slave's charge could make him. But the Herod is more stubborn than the cla.s.sic steed of Judea.

He demanded haughtily of me, if I expected him to treat with a slanderer or beg a truce with a lie. Then I refused him my offices.

Wherefore he hath posted off to Antonia!"

"She will not harken to him--!" he cried with sudden desperation.

"O Marsyas, this day I should be exorcised as a fury, bringing evil happenings. But better the sorry truth than a fair lie. Antonia hath lived out of the world for the last decade, as hast thou. But her seclusion hath achieved the opposite harm, that is hatched by solitariness. She retired, full of years and honor; the world, approaching her door, comes in fair garments, bringing tokens of esteem, talks of ancient triumphs, the virtues of Antonia and the great respect Caesar hath for her. Wherefore, kindly treated by the world, remembering nothing but the good of the old days and believing in her sweet dotage that she crushed evil when she crushed Seja.n.u.s, her natural strategic sense hath been lost in a great, all-enveloping charity. Her natural n.o.bility hath outgrown the wariness which aids youth, and her dimmed sight sees things of stature, only, or of high relief. She will see in the prince's desire only a desire to clear himself of a charge and she will honor him for it! She will do his bidding!"

Marsyas s.n.a.t.c.hed up his cloak and sprang toward the archway.

"Let me to her!" he cried.

"Wait!" Junia cried. "Be prepared against defeat, though it never come! What wilt thou do, if she be immovable, or already gone--for Caesar is in Tusculum to-day?"

Marsyas stopped and his face grew ashen. He saw Lydia again, among the stones of the rabble, and murder leaped into his heart.

"Kill Eutychus!" he declared desperately.

"It would be fatal for Agrippa," she protested.

His hunted ideas turned then upon Caesar. Suddenly he rushed back to Junia and seized her hands.

"Thou art close to Caesar," he said rapidly and with great supplication in his voice, "and thou art in Caesar's favor! Beseech him and right Agrippa's mistakes, I implore thee! Help me, Junia! Be my right arm!

Promise me thine intercession!"

Her face suffused, and she waited a moment before she could trust her voice.

"For thy sake, Marsyas," she answered. "I give thee my word!"

He pressed her hands to his lips and ran out of the house. She dropped back on her couch and put her fingers to her temples.

"Save Agrippa, to kill Saul, to save Lydia, for this Judean vestal's sake?" she speculated to herself. "And where doth Junia profit? Ah!

I shall get him in debt, and extort mine own price! Jew or Gentile, he will not think it exorbitant, for under it all, he is a man! But to Tusculum!"

She clapped her hands and ordered her litter.