The unfortunate Paulus sat on a stone bench in front of the senator’s
door, and shivered; for, as dawn approached, the night-air grew cooler,
and he was accustomed to the warmth of the sheepskin, which he had now
given to Hermas. In his hand he held the key of the church, which he had
promised the door-keeper to deliver to Petrus; but all was so still in
the senator’s house, that he shrank from rousing the sleepers.
“What a strange night this has been!” he muttered to himself, as he drew
his short and tattered tunic closer together. “Even if it were warmer,
and if, instead of this threadbare rag, I had a sack of feathers to wrap
myself in, still I should feel a cold shiver if the spirits of hell that
wander about here were to meet me again. Now I have actually seen one
with my own eyes. Demons in women’s form rush up the mountain out of the
oasis to tempt and torture us in our sleep. What could it have been that
the goblin in a white robe and with flowing hair held in its arms?
Very likely the stone with which the incubus loads our breast when he
torments us. The other one seemed to fly, but I did not see its wings.
That side-building must be where the Gaul lives with his ungodly wife,
who has ensnared my poor Hermas. I wonder whether she is really so
beautiful! But what can a youth who has grown up among rocks and caves
know of the charms of women. He would, of course, think the first who
looked kindly at him the most enchanting of her sex. Besides she is
fair, and therefore a rare bird among the sunburnt bipeds of the desert.
The centurion surely cannot have found the sheepskin or all would not
be so still here; once since I have been here an ass has brayed, once a
camel has groaned, and now already the first cock is crowing; but not
a sound have I heard from human lips, not even a snore from the stout
senator or his buxom wife Dorothea, and it would be strange indeed if
they did not both snore.”
He rose, went up to the window of Phoebicius dwelling, and listened at
the half open shutters, but all was still.
An hour ago Miriam had been listening under Sirona’s room; after
betraying her to Phoebicius she had followed him at a distance, and had
slipped back into the court-yard through the stables; she felt that she
must learn what was happening within, and what fate had befallen Hermas
and Sirona at the hands of the infuriated Gaul. She was prepared for
anything, and the thought that the centurion might have killed them both
with the sword filled her with bitter-sweet satisfaction. Then, seeing
the light through the crack between the partly open wooden shutters, she
softly pushed them farther apart, and, resting her bare feet against the
wall, she raised herself to look in.
She saw Sirona sitting up upon her couch, and opposite to her the Gaul
with pale distorted features; at his feet lay the sheepskin; in his
right hand he held the lamp, and its light fell on the paved floor in
front of the bed, and was reflected in a large dark red pool.
“That is blood,” thought she, and she shuddered and closed her eyes.
When she reopened them she saw Sirona’s face with crimson cheeks, turned
towards her husband; she was unhurt--but Hermas?
“‘That is his blood!” she thought with anguish, and a voice seemed to
scream in her very heart, “I, his murderess, have shed it.”
Her hands lost their hold of the shutters, her feet touched the pavement
of the yard, and, driven by her bitter anguish of soul, she fled out by
the way she had come--out into the open and up to the mountain. She
felt that rather would she defy the prowling panthers, the night-chill,
hunger and thirst, than appear again before Dame Dorothea, the senator,
and Marthana, with this guilt on her soul; and the flying Miriam was one
of the goblin forms that had terrified Paulus.
The patient anchorite sat down again on the stone seat. “The frost
is really cruel,” thought he, “and a very good thing is such a woolly
sheepskin; but the Saviour endured far other sufferings than these, and
for what did I quit the world but to imitate Him, and to endure to the
end here that I may win the joys of the other world. There, where angels
soar, man will need no wretched ram’s fell, and this time certainly
selfishness has been far from me, for I really and truly suffer for
another--I am freezing for Hermas, and to spare the old man pain. I
would it were even colder! Nay, I will never, absolutely never again lay
a sheepskin over my shoulders.”
Paulus nodded his head as if to signify assent to his own resolve;
but presently he looked graver, for again it seemed to him that he was
walking in a wrong path.
“Aye! Man achieves a handful of good, and forthwith his heart swells
with a camel-load of pride. What though my teeth are chattering, I am
none the less a most miserable creature. How it tickled my vanity, in
spite of all my meditations and scruples, when they came from Raithu and
offered me the office of elder; I felt more triumphant the first time
I won with the quadriga, but I was scarcely more puffed up with pride
then, than I was yesterday. How many who think to follow the Lord
strive only to be exalted as He is; they keep well out of the way of His
abasement. Thou, O Thou Most High, art my witness that I earnestly seek
it, but so soon as the thorns tear my flesh the drops of blood turn to
roses, and if I put them aside, others come and still fling garlands in
my way. I verily believe that it is as hard here on earth to find pain
without pleasure, as pleasure without pain.”
While thus he meditated his teeth chattered with cold, but suddenly
his reflections were interrupted, for the dogs set up a loud barking.
Phoebicius was knocking at the senator’s door.
Paulus rose at once, and approached the gate-way. He could hear
every word that was spoken in the court-yard; the deep voice was the
senator’s, the high sharp tones must be the centurion’s.
Phoebicius was demanding his wife back from Petrus, as she had hidden in
his house, while Petrus positively declared that Sirona had not crossed
his threshold since the morning of the previous day.
In spite of the vehement and indignant tones in which his lodger spoke,
the senator remained perfectly calm, and presently went away to ask his
wife whether she by chance, while he was asleep, had opened the house to
the missing woman. Paulus heard the soldier’s steps as he paced up and
down the court-yard, but they soon ceased, for Dame Dorothea appeared
at the door with her husband, and on her part emphatically declared that
she knew nothing of Sirona.
“Your son Polykarp then,” interrupted Phoebicius, “will be better
informed of her whereabouts.”
“My son has been since yesterday at Raithu on business,” said Petrus
resolutely but evasively; “we expect him home to-day only.”
“It would seem that he has been quick, and has returned much sooner,”
retorted Phoebicius. “Our preparations for sacrificing on the mountain
were no secret, and the absence of the master of the house is the
opportunity for thieves to break in--above all, for lovers who throw
roses into their ladies’ windows. You Christians boast that you regard
the marriage tie as sacred, but it seems to me that you apply the rule
only to your fellow-believers. Your sons may make free to take their
pleasure among the wives of the heathen; it only remains to be proved
whether the heathen husbands will be trifled with or not. So far as I am
concerned, I am inclined for anything rather than jesting. I would have
you to understand that I will never let Caesar’s uniform, which I wear,
be stained by disgrace, and that I am minded to search your house, and
if I find my undutiful wife and your son within its walls, I will carry
them and you before the judge, and sue for my rights.”
“You will seek in vain,” replied Petrus, commanding himself with
difficulty. “My word is yea or nay, and I repeat once more no, we
harbor neither her nor him. As for Dorothea and myself--neither of us
is inclined to interfere in your concerns, but neither will we permit
another--be he whom he may--to interfere in ours. This threshold shall
never be crossed by any but those to whom I grant permission, or by the
emperor’s judge, to whom I must yield. You, I forbid to enter. Sirona is
not here, and you would do better to seek her elsewhere than to fritter
away your time here.”
“I do not require your advice!” cried the centurion wrathfully.
“And I,” retorted Petrus, “do not feel myself called upon to arrange
your matrimonial difficulties. Besides you can get back Sirona without
our help, for it is always more difficult to keep a wife safe in the
house, than to fetch her back when she has run away.”
“You shall learn whom you have to deal with!” threatened the centurion,
and he threw a glance round at the slaves, who had collected in the
court, and who had been joined by the senator’s eldest son. “I shall
call my people together at once, and if you have the seducer among you
we will intercept his escape.”
“Only wait an hour,” said Dorothea, now taking up the word, while she
gently touched her husband’s hand, for his self-control was almost
exhausted, “I and you will see Polykarp ride home on his father’s horse.
Is it only from the roses that my son threw into your wife’s window,
that you suppose him to be her seducer--she plays so kindly with all
his brothers and sisters--or are there other reasons, which move you to
insult and hurt us with so heavy an accusation?”
Often when wrathful men threaten to meet with an explosion, like black
thunder-clouds, a word from the mouth of a sensible woman gives them
pause, and restrains them like a breath of soft wind.
Phoebicius had no mind to listen to any speech from Polykarp’s mother,
but her question suggested to him for the first time a rapid retrospect
of all that had occurred, and he could not conceal from himself that his
suspicions rested on weak grounds. And at the same time he now said to
himself, that if indeed Sirona had fled into the desert instead of to
the senator’s house he was wasting time, and letting the start, which
she had already gained, increase in a fatal degree.
But few seconds were needed for these reflections, and as he was
accustomed when need arose to control himself, he said:
“We must see--some means must be found--” and then without any greeting
to his host, he slowly returned to his own house. But he had not reached
the door, when he heard hoofs on the road, and Petrus called after him,
“Grant us a few minutes longer, for here comes Polykarp, and he can
justify himself to you in his own person.”
The centurion paused, the senator signed to old Jethro to open the gate;
a man was heard to spring from his saddle, but it was an Amalekite--and
not Polykarp--who came into the court.
“What news do you bring?” asked the senator, turning half to the
messenger and half to the centurion. “My lord Polykarp, your son,”
replied the Amalekite--a dark brown man of ripe years with supple limbs,
and a sharp tongue--“sends his greetings to you and to the mistress, and
would have you to know that before mid-day he will arrive at home with
eight workmen, whom he has engaged in Raithu. Dame Dorothea must be good
enough to make ready for them all and to prepare a meal.”
“When did you part from my son?” inquired Petrus.
“Two hours before sundown.”
Petrus heaved a sigh of relief, for he had not till now been perfectly
convinced of his son’s innocence; but, far from triumphing or making
Phoebicius feel the injustice he had done him, he said kindly--for he
felt some sympathy with the Gaul in his misfortune:
“I wish the messenger could also give some news of your wife’s retreat;
she found it hard to accommodate herself to the dull life here in the
oasis, perhaps she has only disappeared in order to seek a town which
may offer more variety to such a beautiful young creature than this
quiet spot in the desert.”
Phoebicius waved his hand with a negative movement, implying that he
knew better, and said, “I will show you what your nice night-bird left
in my nest. It may be that you can tell me to whom it belongs.”
Just as he hastily stepped across the court-yard to his own dwelling
Paulus entered by the now open gate; he greeted the senator and his
family, and offered Petrus the key of the church.
The sun meanwhile had risen, and the Alexandrian blushed to show himself
in Dame Dorothea’s presence in his short and ragged under-garment, which
was quite inefficient to cover the still athletic mould of his limbs.
Petrus had heard nothing but good of Paulus, and yet he measured him
now with no friendly eye, for all that wore the aspect of extravagance
repelled his temperate and methodical nature. Paulus was made conscious
of what was passing in the senator’s mind when, without vouchsafing
a single word, he took the key from his hand. It was not a matter of
indifference to him, that this man should think ill of him, and he said,
with some embarrassment:
“We do not usually go among people without a sheepskin, but I have lost
mine.”
Hardly had he uttered the words, when Phoebicius came back with Hermas’
sheepskin in his hand, and cried out to Petrus:
“This I found on my return home, in our sleeping-room.”
“And when have you ever seen Polykarp in such a mantle?” asked Dorothea.
“When the gods visit the daughters of men,” replied the centurion, “they
have always made choice of strange disguises. Why should not a perfumed
Alexandrian gentleman transform himself for once into one of those rough
fools on the mountain? However, even old Homer sometimes nodded--and I
confess that I was in error with regard to your son. I meant no offence,
senator! You have lived here longer than I; who can have made me a
present of this skin, which still seems to be pretty new--horns and
all.”
Petrus examined and felt the skin, “This is an anchorite’s garment,” he
said; “the penitents on the mountain are all accustomed to wear such.”
“It is one of those rascals then that has found his way into my house!”
exclaimed the centurion. “I bear Caesar’s commission, and I am to
exterminate ill vagabonds that trouble the dwellers in the oasis, or
travellers in the desert. Thus run the orders which I brought with me
from Rome. I will drive the low fellows together like deer for hunting,
for they are all rogues and villains, and I shall know how to torture
them until I find the right one.”
“The emperor will ill-requite you for that,” replied Petrus. “They are
pious Christians, and you know that Constantine himself--”
“Constantine!” exclaimed the centurion scornfully. “Perhaps he will let
himself be baptized, for water can hurt no one, and he cannot, like the
great Diocletian, exterminate the masses who run after the crucified
miracle-monger, without depopulating the country. Look at these coins;
here is the image of Caesar, and what is this on the other side? Is this
your Nazarene, or is it the old god, the immortal and invincible sun?
And is that man one of your creed, who in Constantinople adores Tyche
and the Dioscuri Castor and Pollux? The water he is baptized with to-day
he will wipe away to-morrow, and the old gods will be his defenders, if
in more peaceful times he maintains them against your superstitions.”
“But it will be a good while till then,” said Perrus coolly. “For the
present, at least, Constantine is the protector of the Christians. I
advise you to put your affair into the hands of Bishop Agapitus.”
“That he may serve me up a dish of your doctrine, which is bad even for
women,” said the centurion laughing; “and that I may kiss my enemies’
feet? They are a vile rabble up there, I repeat it, and they shall be
treated as such till I have found my man. I shall begin the hunt this
very day.”
“And this very day you may end it, for the sheepskin is mine.”
It was Paulus who spoke these words in a loud and decided tone; all eyes
were at once turned on him and on the centurion.
Petrus and the slaves had frequently seen the anchorite, but never
without a sheepskin similar to that which Phoebicius held in his hand.
The anchorite’s self-accusation must have appeared incredible, and
indeed scarcely possible, to all who knew Paulus and Sirona; and
nevertheless no one, not even the senator, doubted it for an instant.
Dame Dorothea only shook her head incredulously, and though she could
find no explanation for the occurrence, she still could not but say to
herself, that this man did not look like a lover, and that Sirona would
hardly have forgotten her duty for his sake. She could not indeed bring
herself to believe in Sirona’s guilt at all, for she was heartily well
disposed towards her; besides--though it, no doubt, was not right--her
motherly vanity inclined her to believe that if the handsome young
woman had indeed sinned, she would have preferred her fine tall
Polykarp--whose roses and flaming glances she blamed in all
sincerity--to this shaggy, wild-looking graybeard.
Quite otherwise thought the centurion. He was quite ready to believe
in the anchorite’s confession, for the more unworthy the man for whom
Sirona had broken faith, the greater seemed her guilt, and the more
unpardonable her levity; and to his man’s vanity it seemed to him
easier--particularly in the presence of such witnesses as Petrus and
Dorothea--to bear the fact that his wife should have sought variety
and pleasure at any cost, even at that of devoting herself to a ragged
beggar, than that she should have given her affections to a younger,
handsomer, and worthier man than himself. He had sinned much against
her, but all that lay like feathers on his side of the scales, while
that which she had done weighed down hers like a load of lead. He began
to feel like a man who, in wading through a bog, has gained firm ground
with one foot, and all these feelings gave him energy to walk up to the
anchorite with a self-control, of which he was not generally master,
excepting when on duty at the head of his soldiers.
He approached the Alexandrian with an assumption of dignity and a
demeanor which testified to his formerly having taken part in the
representations of tragedies in the theatres of great cities. Paulus,
on his part, did not retreat by a single step, but looked at him with
a smile that alarmed Petrus and the rest of the bystanders. The law put
the anchorite absolutely into the power of the outraged husband, but
Phoebicius did not seem disposed to avail himself of his rights, and
nothing but contempt and loathing were perceptible in his tone, as he
said:
“A man who takes hold of a mangy dog in order to punish him, only
dirties his hand. The woman who betrayed me for your sake, and you--you
dirty beggar--are worthy of each other. I could crush you like a fly
that can be destroyed by a blow of my hand if I chose, but my sword
is Caesar’s, and shall never be soiled by such foul blood as yours;
however, the beast shall not have cast off his skin for nothing, it is
thick, and so you have only spared me the trouble of tearing it off you
before giving you your due. You shall find no lack of blows. Confess
where your sweetheart has fled to and they shall be few, but if you are
slow to answer they will be many. Lend me that thing there, fellow!”
With these words he took a whip of hippopotamus hide out of a
camel-driver’s band, went close up to the Alexandrian, and asked: “Where
is Sirona?”
“Nay, you may beat me,” said Paulus. “However hard your whip may fall on
me, it cannot be heavy enough for my sins; but as to where your wife is
hiding, that I really cannot tell you--not even if you were to tear my
limbs with pincers instead of stroking me with that wretched thing.”
There was something so genuinely honest in Paulus’ voice and tone, that
the centurion was inclined to believe him; but it was not his way to
let a threatened punishment fail of execution, and this strange beggar
should learn by experience that when his hand intended to hit hard, it
was far from “stroking.” And Paulus did experience it, without uttering
a cry, and without stirring from the spot where he stood.
When at last Phoebicius dropped his weary arm and breathlessly repeated
his question, the ill-used man replied, “I told you before I do not
know, and therefore I cannot reveal it.”
Up to this moment Petrus, though he had felt strongly impelled to rush
to the rescue of his severely handled fellow-believer, had nevertheless
allowed the injured husband to have his way, for he seemed disposed
to act with unusual mildness, and the Alexandrian to be worthy of all
punishment; but at this point Dorothea’s request would not have been
needed to prompt him to interfere.
He went up to the centurion, and said to him in an undertone, “You have
given the evil-doer his due, and if you desire that he should undergo
a severer punishment than you can inflict, carry the matter--I say once
more--before the bishop. You will gain nothing more here. Take my word
for it, I know the man and his fellow-men; he actually knows nothing
of where your wife is hiding, and you are only wasting the time and
strength which you would do better to save, in order to search for
Sirona. I fancy she will have tried to reach the sea, and to get to
Egypt or possibly to Alexandria; and there--you know what the Greek city
is--she will fall into utter ruin.”
“And so,” laughed the Gaul, “find what she seeks--variety, and every
kind of pleasure. For a young thing like that, who loves amusement,
there is no pleasant occupation but vice. But I will spoil her game; you
are right, it is not well to give her too long a start. If she has found
the road to the sea, she may already--Hey, here Talib!” He beckoned to
Polykarp’s Amalekite messenger. “You have just come from Raithu; did you
meet a flying woman on the way, with yellow hair and a white face?”
The Amalekite, a free man with sharp eyes, who was highly esteemed in
the senator’s house, and even by Phoebicius himself, as a trustworthy
and steady man, had expected this question, and eagerly replied:
“At two stadia beyond el Heswe I met a large caravan from Petra, which
rested yesterday in the oasis here; a woman, such as you describe, was
running with it. When I heard what had happened here I wanted to speak,
but who listens to a cricket while it thunders?”
“Had she a lame greyhound with her?” asked Phoebicius, full of
expectation.
“She carried something in her arms,” answered the Amalekite. “In the
moonlight I took it for a baby. My brother, who was escorting the
caravan, told me the lady was no doubt running away, for she had
paid the charge for the escort not in ready money, but with a gold
signet-ring.”
The Gaul remembered a certain gold ring with a finely carved onyx, which
long years ago he had taken from Glycera’s finger, for she had another
one like it, and which he had given to Sirona on the day of their
marriage.
“It is strange!” thought he, “what we give to women to bind them to us
they use as weapons to turn against us, be it to please some other
man, or to smooth the path by which they escape from us. It was with a
bracelet of Glycera’s that I paid the captain of the ship that brought
us to Alexandria; but the soft-hearted fool, whose dove flew after me,
and I are men of a different stamp; I will follow my flown bird, and
catch it again.” He spoke the last words aloud, and then desired one of
the senator’s slaves to give his mule a good feed and drink, for his own
groom, and the superior decurion who during his absence must take his
place, were also worshippers of Mithras, and had not yet returned from
the mountain.
Phoebicius did not doubt that the woman who had joined the
caravan--which he himself had seen yesterday--was his fugitive wife, and
he knew that his delay might have reduced his earnest wish to overtake
her and punish her to the remotest probability; but he was a Roman
soldier, and would rather have laid violent hands on himself than have
left his post without a deputy. When at last his fellow-worshippers came
from their sacrifice and worship of the rising sun, his preparations for
his long journey were completed.
Phoebicius carefully impressed on the decurion all he had to do during
his absence, and how he was to conduct himself; then he delivered the
key of his house into Petrus’ keeping as well as the black slave-woman,
who wept loudly and passionately over the flight of her mistress; he
requested the senator to bring the anchorite’s misdeed to the knowledge
of the bishop, and then, guided by the Amalekite Talib, who rode before
him on his dromedary, he trotted hastily away in pursuit of the caravan,
so as to reach the sea, if possible, before its embarkation.
As the hoofs of the mule sounded fainter and fainter in the distance,
Paulus also quitted the senator’s courtyard; Dorothea pointed after him
as he walked towards the mountain. “In truth, husband,” said she, “this
has been a strange morning; everything that has occurred looks as clear
as day, and yet I cannot understand it all. My heart aches when I think
what may happen to the wretched Sirona if her enraged husband overtakes
her. It seems to me that there are two sorts of marriage; one was
instituted by the most loving of the angels, nay, by the All-merciful
Himself, but the other it is not to be thought of! How can those two
live together for the future? And that under our roof! Their closed
house looks to me as though ruined and burnt-out, and we have already
seen the nettles spring up which grow everywhere among the ruins of
human dwellings.”