Saul Of Tarsus Part 6

A cry, heartrending in its agony, broke from his lips. He dropped to his knees and fell forward with his face in the dust. A murmur of compa.s.sion arose from the little group around him, and the man in scarlet lifted his shoulders and turned his back on the blighting spectacle of the young man's anguish.

He walked hurriedly out of the falling night on the Mount, through Ha.n.a.leel, into the lights and noise of the City of David. Soldiers on the point of closing the great gate paused to let him through.

"Comrade," he said to one, "what did they out yonder?"

"They stoned a Nazarene named Stephen," was the reply.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "They stoned a Nazarene named Stephen"]

CHAPTER IV

THE BANKRUPT

Somewhat subdued, the man in scarlet walked through the night in the City of David. After his first sensations he was discomfited.

"Now this is what comes of the irregular barbarity in Judean executions," he ruminated. "In Rome this Nazarene would have been despatched in order and his body borne away to the puticuli and no opportunity given for that painful scene outside. Doubtless I should have convinced the young man and borrowed his gold of him, by this time. Certainly, Fortune is a haughty jade when once offended. But I shall be fortunate again; by all the G.o.ds, Jewish or Gentile, I will compel her smiles!

"It would be my luck never to see him again; he will probably linger only to see this dead man buried, and go on to En-Gadi, as he said he would. It would hardly be seemly to approach him about his gold, in his unhappiness, or I would waylay him, yet. A pest on the zealots!

Why did they not hold off this stoning for a day?"

Moodily occupied by his thoughts, he pa.s.sed unconscious of the careless people about him. The huge tower of Antonia set on the brink of Mount Moriah frowned blackly over the street and in its shadow the idle life of the night laughed and reveled and sauntered. The woman of the city was there, the Roman soldier in armor, the alien that bowed to Brahm or Bel, the son of the slow Nile, of the Orontes and of the yellow Tiber.

It was not the resort of the lowest cla.s.ses, but of those that were at variance with the spirit of the city, or the times and their philosophies. Light streamed from open doorways, the wail of lyres and the jingle of castanets resounded within and without. Now and then belated carters, driving slow donkeys, would plod through the revelry--a note of relentless duty which would not be forgotten.

Again, humbler folk would retreat into wagon-ways or hug the walls to permit the pa.s.sage of a Sadducee and his retinue, or a decurion and his squad--rank and power a.s.serting their inexorable prerogative.

Presently there approached the click of hoofs upon flagging. A soldier, pa.s.sing through a broad shaft of light from a booth, stopped short, drew himself up and swung his short sword at present. Up the street, from lip to lip of every arms-bearing man, ran his abrupt call to attention.

A body of legionaries appeared suddenly in the ray of light--bra.s.sy shapes in burnished armor, picked for stature and bearing. Not even the plunge into blackness again broke the precision and confidence of that tread before which the world had fled as did now the mule-riders and the pedestrians of Jerusalem.

After them, the beam of light projected two hors.e.m.e.n into sudden view.

There was the rattle and ring of saluting soldiers by the way. The radiance showed up a typical Roman in the armor of a general, but in deference to Israelitish prejudice against images, the eagle was removed from his helmet, the bosses of t.i.tan heads from breastplate and harness. This was Vitellius, Proconsul of Syria and the shrewdest general on Caesar's list. By his side rode Herrenius Capito, Caesar's debt-collector, a thin-faced Roman in civilian dress, and with the ashes of age sprinkled on his hair.

The man in scarlet took one glance at the gray old countenance frowning under the sudden light of the lamp and slid into the obscurity of an open alley at hand. He did not emerge till the hoof-beats had died away.

"So thou comest in search of me, sweet Capito," he muttered, "and I am penniless. But it is comforting to know that thou hast no more hope of getting the three hundred thousand drachmae which I owe to Caesar, than I have of paying it!"

After a little silence, he said further to himself, with added regret:

"Now, had I that young Essene's gold, Capito would not find me in Jerusalem! O Alexandria! I must reach thee, though I turn dolphin and swim!"

He continued on his way to the north wall, where he found exit presently into Bezetha, the unwalled suburb of Jerusalem. Here the houses were comparatively new, less historic, less pretentious than those in the old city. Here were inns in plenty, relaxed order and a general absence of the racial characteristics and the influence of religion. The middle cla.s.ses of Jerusalem dwelt here.

It was dark, poorly paved, and the man in scarlet laid his hand on his purse under his tunic and walked with circ.u.mspection toward a khan. It was no surprise to him to hear the sounds of struggle and outcry. He stopped to catch the direction of the conflict that he might avoid it.

It came out of a street so narrow, in a district so squalid, that happiness seemed to have fled the spot. If ever the wealthy entered the place, it was to seek out human beings hungry enough to sell themselves as slaves.

The commotion centered before a hovel, a tragedy in sounds, ghastly because the night made it unembodied. The man in scarlet located it as out of his path and would have continued but for the insistent screams of a woman in the struggle. Harsh shouts attempted to cry her down, but desperation lent her strength and the suburb shuddered with her mad cries.

The man in scarlet lagged, shook his shoulders as if to throw off the influence of the appeal and finally stopped. At that moment several torches of pitch, lighted at once, threw a smoky light over the scene.

The pa.s.sage was obstructed by a group of men uniformly dressed, and several spectators attracted by the commotion. a.s.sured that this was arrest and not violence, the curiosity of the man in scarlet drew him that way. At a nearer view, he saw that the aggressors were Shoterim or Temple lictors, under command of a Pharisee wearing the habiliments of a rabbi. The man in scarlet identified him as the referee in the center of the ring about the stoning. The sudden lighting of the torches convinced him that the attack had its inception in secret.

In the center of the fight was a middle-aged woman clinging desperately about the bodies of a young man and a young woman. It was the efforts of the Shoterim to tear her away and her resistance that had made the arrest violent.

Shouts and revilings told the man in scarlet the meaning of the disturbance. The ferrets of the High Priest, Jonathan, had discovered a house of Nazarenes and were taking them.

"More ill-timed zeal!" he muttered to himself. "Or let me be exact: more b.l.o.o.d.y politics!"

He had turned to leave when a figure in white, directed from the city, drove past him and through to the center of the crowd, with the irresistible force of a hurled stone. Spectators fell to the right and left before it and the man in scarlet drawing in a breath of amazement turned to see what the light had to disclose.

It was the young Essene, hardly recognizable for the distortion of deadly hate and pa.s.sion on his face. There were dark stains on his garments and dust on his black hair. Every drop of blood had left his cheeks, but his eyes blazed with a light that was not good to see.

He went straight at the Pharisee. His grasp fell upon Saul's shoulder, drove in and seized upon its sinews. The startled Tarsian turned and the young Essene with bent head gazed grimly down at him. An interested silence fell over both captor and captive. The blaze in the young man's eyes reddened and flickered.

"I have been seeking thee, Saul of Tarsus," he said in a voice of deadly silkiness. "Thou hast been most zealous for the Law in Stephen's case. Look to it that thou fail not in the Law, for I shall profit by thy precept! And even as Stephen fell, so shalt thou fall; even as Stephen came unto death, so shalt thou come! Mark me, and remember!"

The words were menace made audible; it was more than a threat: it was prophecy and doom.

A tingle of admiration ran over the man in scarlet. He who could leave the bier of a murdered friend to visit vengeance on the head of the murderer was no weakling.

"A Roman, by the G.o.ds!" he exclaimed to himself. "A n.o.ble adversary! a man, by Bacchus!"

A threatening murmur arose from the spectators. But there was no responsive fury kindled in Saul's eyes. Instead he looked at Marsyas with unutterable sorrow on his face. Presently his shoulders lifted with a sigh.

"The city festereth with Nazarenes as a wound with thorns," he said to himself; aloud he called, "Joel."

The Levite materialized out of obscurity and bowed jerkily.

"Bear witness to this young man's behavior. Lictors, take him. We shall hold him for examination as a Nazarene and an apostate."

Marsyas started and his hand dropped. Plainly, he had not expected to be accused of apostasy. But the old mood a.s.serted itself.

"This for thy slander of Stephen in the college," he said with premonitory calm when the Levite approached him, and struck with terrific force. The Levite's body shot backward and dropped heavily on the earth. The rest of the lictors precipitated themselves upon the young man, and, in desperation and in fury, the one man and the numbers fought.

Meanwhile the man in scarlet thought fast. His Roman love of defiance and war had roused in him a most compelling respect for the young Essene, but cupidity put forth swift and convincing argument even beyond the indors.e.m.e.nt of admiration. If the Shoterim took the young man in ward, he would be executed and the treasure come into the hands of the state for disposition. In view of the fact that Herrenius Capito had traced the bankrupt to Jerusalem, Jerusalem was no longer tenantable for the bankrupt. He had to have money to escape to Alexandria and the Essene was too profitable a chance to be lost to the murdering hands of fanatics.

Excited and bent only on preventing the arrest, the man sprang into the crowd and forced his way to the Essene's side. But the next instant he also was sent reeling by a blow delivered by Marsyas in his blind resolution not to be taken without difficulty. Before the bankrupt could recover, the united force of spectators and lictors flung itself upon Marsyas.

Steadying himself, the man in scarlet urged his bruised brain to think.

Half of his life for a ruse! for nothing but a ruse could save the young man, now.

Then, with a half-suppressed cry of eagerness, the bankrupt took to his heels and ran toward the city as only an Arab trained in Roman gymnasia could run.

The sentry at the gate pa.s.sed him and he entered on the marble pavements of the streets for the finest exhibition of speed he had shown since he had carried off the laurel in Rome. He knew the city as a hare knows its runways. He cut through private pa.s.sages, circled watchful constabulary, eluded congestions, and took the quick slopes of Jerusalem's hills as though the deep lungs of a youth supplied him.

When the broad, marble-paved street, which let in some glimpse of the starry sky upon the pa.s.ser, opened between the rich residences of the Sadducees, the white l.u.s.ter of many burning torches lighted an area on a distant slope at its head. The running man sped on, taking the rise of Mount Zion without slackening, until he rushed upon a sentry obscured under the brooding shadow of a heavy wall.

"Halt!" The challenge of the sentry brought him up.