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THE CITY OF DELIGHT
A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem
by
Elizabeth Miller
Author of
_The Yoke_ and _Saul of Tarsus_
With Illustrations by
F.X. Leyendecker
Indianapolis
The Bobbs-Merrill Company
Publishers
1908
March
[Illustration]
To
My Elder Brother
Otto Miller
CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I A Prince's Bride 1
II On the Road to Jerusalem 31
III The Shepherd of Pella 56
IV The Travelers 85
V By the Wayside 108
VI Dawn in the Hills 124
VII Imperial Cæsar 148
VIII Greek and Jew 169
IX The Young Titus 189
X The Story of a Divine Tragedy 212
XI The House of Offense 233
XII The Prince Returns 253
XIII A New Pretender 274
XIV The Pride of Amaryllis 284
XV The Image of Jealousy 300
XVI The Spread Net 322
XVII The Tangled Web 337
XVIII In the Sunless Crypt 358
XIX The False Prophet 374
XX As the Foam upon Water 390
XXI The Faithful Servant 408
XXII Vanished Hopes 417
XXIII The Fulfilment 427
XXIV The Road to Pella 441
THE CITY OF DELIGHT
Chapter I
A PRINCE'S BRIDE
The chief merchant of Ascalon stood in the guest-chamber of his house.
Although it was a late winter day the old man was clad in the free
white garments of a midsummer afternoon, for to the sorrow of
Philistia the cold season of the year sixty-nine had been warm, wet
and miasmic. An old woman entering presently glanced at the closed
windows of the apartment when she noted the flushed face of the
merchant but she made no movement to have them opened. More than the
warmth of the day was engaging the attention of the grave old man, and
the woman, by dress and manner of equal rank with him, stood aside
until he could give her a moment.
His porter bowed at his side.
"The servants of Philip of Tyre are without," he said. "Shall they
enter?"
"They have come for the furnishings," Costobarus answered. "Take thou
all the household but Momus and Hiram, and dismantle the rooms for
them. Begin in the library; then the sleeping-rooms; this chamber
next; the kitchen last of all. Send Hiram to the stables to except
three good camels from the herd for our use. Let Momus look to the
baggage. Where is Keturah?"
A woman servant hastening after a line of men bearing a great divan,
picking up the draperies and pillows that had dropped, stopped and
salaamed to her master.
"Is our apparel ready?" he asked.
"Prepared, master," was the response.
"Then send hither--" But at that moment a man-servant dressed in the
garb of a physician hastened into the chamber. Without awaiting the
notice of his master he hurried up and whispered in his ear.
Costobarus' face grew instantly grave.
"How near?" he asked anxiously.
"In the next house--but a moment since. The household hath fled," was
the low answer.
"Haste, haste!" Costobarus cried to the rush of servants about him.
"Lose no time. We must be gone from this place before mid-afternoon.
Laodice! Where is Laodice?" he inquired.
Then his wife who had stood aside spoke.
"She is not yet prepared," she explained unreadily. "She needs a
frieze cloak--"
Costobarus broke in by beckoning his wife to one side, where the
servants could not hear him say compassionately,
"Let there be no delay for small things, Hannah. Let us haste, for
Laodice is going on the Lord's business."
"A matter of a day only," Hannah urged. "A delay that is further
necessary, for Aquila's horse is lame."
The old man shook his head and looked away to see a man-servant
stagger out under a load of splendid carpets. The old woman came
close.
"The wayside is ambushed and the wilderness is patrolled with danger,
Costobarus," she said. "Of a certainty you will not take Laodice out
into a country perilous for caravans and armies!"
"These very perils are the signs of the call of the hour," he
maintained. "She dare not fail to respond. The Deliverer cometh; every
prophecy is fulfilled. Rather rejoice that you have prepared your
daughter for this great use. Be glad that you have borne her."
But in Hannah's face wavered signs of another interpretation of these
things. She broke in on him without the patience to wait until he had
completed his sentence.
"Are they prophecies of hope which are fulfilled, or the words of the
prophet of despair?" she insisted. "What saith Daniel of this hour?
Did he not name it the abomination of desolation? Said he not that the
city and the sanctuary should be destroyed, that there should be a
flood and that unto the end of the war desolations shall be
determined? Desolations, Costobarus! And Laodice is but a child and
delicately reared!"
"All these things may come to pass and not a hair of the heads of the
chosen people be harmed," he assured her.
"But Laodice is too young to have part in the conflict of nations, the
business of Heaven and earth and the end of all things!"
A courier strode into the hall and approached Costobarus, saw that he
was engaged in conversation and stopped. The merchant noted him and
withdrew to read the message which the man carried.
"A letter from Philadelphus," he said over his shoulder, as he moved
away from Hannah. "He hath landed in Cæsarea with his cousin Julian of
Ephesus. He will proceed at once to Jerusalem. We have no time to
lose. Ah, Momus?"
He spoke to a servant who had limped into the hall and stood waiting
for his notice. He was the ruin of a man, physically powerful but as a
tree wrecked by storm and grown strong again in spite of its
mutilation. Pestilence in years long past had attacked him and had
left him dumb, distorted of feature, wry-necked and stiffened in the
right leg and arm. His left arm, forced to double duty, had become
tremendously muscular, his left hand unusually dexterous. Much of his
facial distortion was the result of his efforts to convey his ideas by
expression and by his attempts to overcome the interference of his wry
neck with the sweep of his vision.
"Whom have we in our party, Momus?" Costobarus asked. As the man made
rapid, uncouth signs, the master interpreted.
"Keturah, Hiram and Aquila--and thou and I, Momus. Three camels, one
of which is the beast of burden. Good! Aquila will ride a horse; ha! a
horse in a party of camels--well, perhaps--if he were bought in
Ascalon. How? What? St--t! The physician told me even now. Let none of
the household know it--above all things not thy mistress!" The last
sentence was delivered in a whisper in response to certain uneasy
gestures the mute had made. The man bowed and withdrew.
A second servitor now approached with papers which the merchant
inspected and signed hastily with ink and stylus which the clerk bore.
When this last item was disposed of, Hannah was again at her husband's
side.
"Costobarus," she whispered, "it is known that the East Gate of the
Temple, which twenty Levites can close only with effort, opened of
itself in the sixth hour of the night!"
"A sign that God reëntereth His house," the merchant explained.
"A sign, O my husband, that the security of the Holy House is
dissolved of its own accord for the advantage of its enemies!"
Costobarus observed two huge Ethiopians who appeared bewildered at the
threshold of the unfamiliar interior, looking for the master of the
house to tell them what to do. The merchant motioned toward a tall
ebony case that stood against one of the walls and showed them that
they were to carry it out. Hannah continued:
"And thou hast not forgotten that night when the priests at the
Pentecost, entering the inner court, were thrown down by the trembling
of the Temple and that a vast multitude, which they could not see,
cried: 'Let us go hence!' And that dreadful sunset which we watched
and which all Israel saw when armies were seen fighting in the skies
and cities with toppling towers and rocking walls fell into red clouds
and vanished!"
"What of thyself, Hannah?" he broke in. "Art thou ready to depart for
Tyre? Philip will leave to-morrow. Do not delay him. Go and prepare."
But the woman rushed on to indiscretion, in her desperate intent to
stop the journey to Jerusalem at any cost.
"But there are those of good repute here in Ascalon, sober men and
excellent women, who say that our hope for the Branch of David is too
late--that Israel is come to judgment, this hour--for He is come and
gone and we received Him not!"
Costobarus turned upon her sharply.
"What is this?" he demanded.
"O my husband," she insisted hopefully, "it measures up with prophecy!
And they who speak thus confidently say that He prophesied the end of
the Holy City, and that this is not the Advent, but doom!"
"It is the Nazarene apostasy," he exclaimed in alarm, "alive though
the power of Rome and the diligence of the Sanhedrim have striven to
destroy it these forty years! Now the poison hath entered mine own
house!"
A servant bowed within earshot. Costobarus turned to him hastily.
"Philip of Tyre," the attendant announced.
"Let him enter," Costobarus said. "Go, Hannah; make Laodice
ready--preparations are almost complete; be not her obstacle."
"But--but," she insisted with whitening lips, "I have not said that I
believe all this. I only urge that, in view of this time of war, of
contending prophecies and of all known peril, that we should keep her,
who is our one ewe lamb, our tender flower, our Rose of Sharon, yet
within shelter until the signs are manifest and the purpose of the
Lord God is made clear."
He turned to her slowly. There was pain on his face, suffering that
she knew her words had evoked and, more than that, a yearning to
relent. She was ashamed and not hopeful, but her mother-love was
stronger than her wifely pity.
"Must I command you, Hannah?" he asked.
Her figure, drawn up with the intensity of her wishfulness, relaxed.
Her head drooped and slowly she turned away. Costobarus looked after
her and struggled with rising emotion. But the curtain dropped behind
her and left him alone.
A moment later the curtains over the arch parted and a middle-aged
Jew, richly habited, stood there. He raised his hand for the blessing
of the threshold, then embraced Costobarus with more warmth than
ceremony.
"What is this I hear?" he demanded with affectionate concern. "Thou
leavest Ascalon for the peril of Jerusalem?"
"Can Jerusalem be more perilous than Ascalon this hour?" Costobarus
asked.
"Yes, by our fathers!" Philip declared. "Nothing can be so bad as the
condition of the Holy City. But what has happened? Three days ago thou
wast as securely settled here as a barnacle on a shore-rock! To-day
thou sendest me word: 'Lo! the time long expected hath come; I go
hence to Jerusalem.' What is it, my brother?"
"Sit and listen."
Philip looked about him. The divan was there, stripped of its covering
of fine rugs, but the room otherwise was without furniture. Prepared
for surprise, the Tyrian let no sign of his curiosity escape him, and,
sitting, leaned on his knees and waited.
"Philadelphus Maccabaeus hath sent to me, bidding me send Laodice to
him--in Jerusalem," Costobarus said in a low voice.
Philip's eyes widened with sudden comprehension.
"He hath returned!" he exclaimed in a whisper.
For a time there was silence between the two old men, while they gazed
at each other. Then Philip's manner became intensely confident.
"I see!" he exclaimed again, in the same whisper. "The throne is
empty! He means to possess it, now that Agrippa hath abandoned it!"
Costobarus pressed his lips together and bowed his head emphatically.
Again there was silence.
"Think of it!" Philip exclaimed presently.
"I have done nothing else since his messenger arrived at daybreak.
Little, little, did I think when I married Laodice to him, fourteen
years ago, that the lad of ten and the little child of four might one
day be king and queen over Judea!"
Philip shook his head slowly and his gaze settled to the pavement.
Presently he drew in a long breath.
"He is twenty-four," he began thoughtfully. "He has all the learning
of the pagans, both of letters and of war; he--Ah! But is he capable?"
"He is the great-grandson of Judas Maccabaeus! That is enough! I have
not seen him since the day he wedded Laodice and left her to go to
Ephesus, but no man can change the blood of his fathers in him. And
Philip--he shall have no excuse to fail. He shall be moneyed; he shall
be moneyed!"
Costobarus leaned toward his friend and with a sweep of his hand
indicated the stripped room. It was a noble chamber. The stamp of the
elegant simplicity of Cyrus, the Persian, was upon it. The ancient
blue and white mosaics that had been laid by the Parsee builder and
the fretwork and twisted pillars were there, but the silky carpets,
the censers and the chairs of fine woods were gone. Costobarus looked
steadily at the perplexed countenance of Philip.
"Seest thou how much I believe in this youth?" he asked.
A shade of uneasiness crossed Philip's forehead.
"Thou art no longer young, Costobarus," he said, "and disappointments
go hard with us, at our age--especially, especially."
"I shall not be disappointed," Costobarus declared.
The friendly Jew looked doubtful.
"The nation is in a sad state," he observed. "We have cause. The
procurators have been of a nature with their patrons, the emperors. It
is enough but to say that! But Vespasian Cæsar is another kind of man.
He is tractable. Young Titus, who will succeed him, is well-named the
Darling of Mankind. We could get much redress from these if we would
be content with redress. But no! We must revert to the days of Saul!"
"Yes; but they declare they will have no king but God; no commander
but the Messiah to come; no order but primitive impulse! But the
Maccabee will change all that! It is but the far swing of the first
revolt. Jerusalem is ready for reason at this hour, it is said."
"Yes," Philip assented with a little more spirit. "It hath reached us,
who have dealings with the East, that there is a better feeling in the
city. Such slaughter has been done there among the Sadducees, such
hordes of rebels from outlying subjugated towns have poured their
license and violence in upon the safe City of Delight, that the
citizens of Jerusalem actually look forward to the coming of Titus as
a deliverance from the afflictions which their own people have visited
upon them."
"The hour for the Maccabee, indeed," Costobarus ruminated.
"And the hour for Him whom we all expect," Philip added in a low tone.
Costobarus bowed his head. Presently he drew a scroll from the folds
of his ample robe.
"Hear what Philadelphus writes me:
Cæsarea, II Kal. Jul. XX.
To Costobarus, greetings and these by messenger;
I learn on arriving in this city that Judea is in truth no man's
country. Wherefore it can be mine by cession or conquest. It is
mine, however, by right. I shall possess it.
I go hence to Jerusalem.
Fail not to send my wife thither and her dowry. Aquila, my
emissary, will safely conduct her. Trust him.
Proceed with despatch and husband the dowry of your daughter,
since it is to be the corner-stone of a new Israel.
Peace to you and yours. To my wife my affection and my loyalty.
PHILADELPHUS MACCABAEUS.
Nota Bene. Julian of Ephesus accompanies me. He is my cousin. He
will in all probability meet your daughter at the Gate.
MACCABAEUS."
Slowly the old man rolled the writing.
"He wastes no words," Philip mused. "He writes as a siege-engine
talks--without quarter."
Costobarus nodded.
"So I am giving him two hundred talents," he said deliberately.
"Two hundred talents!" Philip echoed.
"And I summoned thee, Philip, to say that in addition to my house and
its goods, thou canst have my shipping, my trade, my caravans, which
thou hast coveted so long at a price--at that price. I shall give
Laodice two hundred talents."
"Two hundred talents!" Philip echoed again, somewhat taken aback.
Costobarus went to a cabinet on the wall and drew forth a shittim-wood
case which he unlocked. Therefrom he took a small casket and opened
it. He then held it so that the sun, falling into it, set fire to a
bed of loose gems mingled without care for kind or value--a heap of
glowing color emitting sparks.
"Here are one hundred of the talents," Costobarus said.
A flash of understanding lighted Philip's face not unmingled with the
satisfaction of a shrewd Jew who has pleased himself at business. One
hundred talents, then, for the best establishment in five cities, in
all the Philistine country. But why? Costobarus supplied the answer at
that instant.
"I would depart with my daughter by mid-afternoon," he said.
"I doubt the counting houses; if I had known sooner--" Philip began.
"Aquila arrived only this morning. I sent a messenger to you at once."
Philip rose.
"We waste time in talk. I shall inform thee by messenger presently.
God speed thee! My blessings on thy son-in-law and on thy daughter!"
Costobarus rose and took his friend's hand.
"Thou shalt have the portion of the wise-hearted man in this kingdom.
And this yet further, my friend. If perchance the uncertainties of
travel in this distressed land should prove disastrous and I should
not return, I shall leave a widow here--"
"And in that instance, be at peace. I am thy brother."
Costobarus pressed Philip's hand.
"Farewell," he said; and Philip embraced him and went forth.
Costobarus turned to one of his closed windows and thrust it open, for
the influence of the spring sun had made itself felt in the past
important hour for Costobarus.
Noon stood beautiful and golden over the city. The sky was
clean-washed and blue, and the surface of the Mediterranean, glimpsed
over white house-tops that dropped away toward the sea-front, was a
wandering sheet of flashing silver. Here and there were the ruins of
the last year's warfare, but over the fallen walls of gray earth the
charity of running vines and the new growth of the spring spread a
beauty, both tender and compassionate.
In such open spaces inner gardens were exposed and almond trees tossed
their crowns of white bloom over pleached arbors of old grape-vines.
Here the Mediterranean birds sang with poignant sweetness while the
new-budded limbs of the oleanders tilted suddenly under their weight
as they circled from covert to covert.
But the energy of the young spring was alive only in the birds and the
blossoming orchards. Wherever the solid houses fronted in unbroken
rows the passages between, there were no open windows, no carpets
swung from latticed balconies; no buyers moved up the roofed-over
Street of Bazaars. Not in all the range of the old man's vision was to
be seen a living human being. For the chief city of the Philistine
country Ascalon was nerveless and still. At times immense and
ponderous creaking sounded in the distance, as if a great rusted crane
swung in the wind. Again there were distant, voluminous flutterings,
as if neglected and loosened sails flapped. Idle roaming donkeys
brayed and a dog shut up and forgotten in a compound barked
incessantly. Presently there came faint, far-off, failing cries that
faded into silence. The Jew's brow contracted but he did not move.
From his position, he could see the port to the east packed with
lifeless vessels. The stretches of stone wharf and the mole were
vacant and littered with rubbish. The yard-arms of abandoned
freighters were peculiarly beaded with tiny black shapes that moved
from time to time. Far out at sea, so far that a blue mist embraced
its base and set its sails mysteriously afloat in air, a great galley,
with all canvas crowded on, sped like a frightened bird past the port
that had once been its haven.
A strange compelling odor stole up from the city. Costobarus glanced
down into his garden below him. It was a terraced court, with
vine-covered earthen retaining walls supporting each successive tier
and terminating against a domed gate flanked on either side by a tall
conical cypress.
He noted, on the flagging of the walk leading by flights of steps down
to the gate, a heap of garments with broad brown and yellow stripes.
Wondering at the untidiness of his gardener in leaving his tunic here
while he worked, Costobarus looked away toward the large stones that
lay here and there in gutters and on grass-plots, remnants of the work
of the Roman catapults the previous summer. In the walls of houses
were unrepaired breaches, where the wounds of the missiles showed. On
a slight eminence overlooking the city from the west center-poles of
native cedar which had supported Roman tents were still standing. But
no garrison was there now, though the signs of the savage Roman
obsession still lay on the remnants of the prostrate western wall. So
as Costobarus' gaze wandered he did not see far above that heap of
striped garments in his garden walk, fixed like an enchanted thing,
moveless, dead-calm, a great desert vulture poised in air. Presently
another and yet another materialized out of the blue, growing larger
as they fell down to the level of their fellow. Slowly the three
swooped down over the heap on the garden walk. The tiny black shapes
that beaded the yard-arms in port spread great wings and soared
solemnly into Ascalon. The three vultures dropped noiselessly on the
pavement.
Cries began suddenly somewhere nearer and instantly the tremendous
booming of a great oriental gong from the heathen quarters swept heavy
floods of sound over the outcry and drowned it. The vultures flew up
hastily and Costobarus saw them for the first time. A chill rushed
over him; revulsion of feeling showed vividly on his face. He shut the
window.
Noon was high over Ascalon and Pestilence was Cæsar within its walls.
It was the penalty of warfare, the long black shadow that the passage
of a great army casts upon a battling nation. Physicians could not
give it a name. It seized upon healthy victims, rent them, blasted
them and cast them dead and distorted in their tracks, before help
could reach them. It passed like fire on a high wind through whole
countries and left behind it silence and feeding vultures.
As Costobarus turned from his window to pace up and down his chamber,
Hannah's argument came back to him with new energy. He felt with a
kind of panic that his confident answer to her might have been wrong.
When a girl appeared in the archway, he moved impulsively toward her,
as if to retract the command that would send her out into this land
that the Lord had spoken against, but the strength and repose in her
face communicated itself to him.
Above all other suggestions in her presence was that overpowering
richness of oriental beauty which no other kind in the world may
surpass in its appeal to the loves of men. Enough of the Roman stock
in her line had given structural firmness and stature to a type which
at her age would have developed weight and duskiness, but she was
taller and more slender than the women of her race, and supple and
alive and splendid. About her hips was knotted a silken scarf of red
and white and green with long undulant fringes that added to the lithe
grace in her movements. Under it was a glistening garment of silver
tissue that reached to the small ankles laced about by the ribbons of
white sandals. For sleeves there were netted fringes through which the
fine luster of her arms was visible. About her wrists, her throat and
in her hair, heavy and shining black, were golden coins that marked
her steps with stealthy tinkling.
Costobarus, in spite of the shock of doubt and fear in his brain,
looked at her as if with the happy eyes of the astonished Maccabee. In
those full tender lips, in the slope of those black, silken brows, in
the sparkling behind the dusky slumbrous eyes, there was all the fire
and generosity and limitless charm that should make her lover's world
a place of delight and perfume and music.
"How is it with you, Laodice?" he asked, faltering a little.
"I am prepared, my father," she answered.
"I commend your despatch. I would be gone within an hour."
She bowed and Costobarus regarded her with growing wistfulness. At
this last moment his love was to become his obstacle, his fear for his
child his one cowardice.
"Dost thou remember him?" he asked without preliminary.
Laodice answered as if the thought were first in her mind.
"Not at all; and yet, if I could remember him, I may not discover in
the man of four-and-twenty anything of the lad of ten."
"He may not have changed. There are such natures, and, as I recall
him, his may well be one of these. His disposition from childhood to
boyhood did not change. When I knew him in Jerusalem, he was worthy
the notice of a man. The manner he had there he bore with him to this,
a smaller city, and hence to Ephesus, a city of another kind. It was
good to see him examine the world, reject this and that and look upon
his choice proudly. He made the schools observe him, consider him. He
did not enter them for alteration, nor was he shut up in a shell of
self-satisfaction. He entered them as a citizen of the world and as an
examiner of all philosophy. Yet the world taught him nothing. It gave
him merely the open school where regulation and atmosphere helped him
to teach himself. O wife of a child, thou shalt not be ashamed of thy
husband, man-grown!"
"How is he favored?" she asked with the first maiden hesitation
showing in the question.
"He was slender and dark and promised to be tall. He was quick in
movement, quick in temper, resourceful, aye, even shifty, I should
say; stubborn, cold in heart, hard to please."
"Fit attributes for a king," she said, half to herself, "yet he will
be no soft husband."
Costobarus looked away from her and was silent for a time.
"Daughter," he said finally, "thou hast learned indeed that thine is
to be no luxurious life. In thy restrained heart there are no dreams.
Let not thy youth, when thou seest him, put obstacle in the way of thy
duty. Whether thou lovest him or lovest him not, he is thy husband,
thy fellow in a great labor for God and for Israel. Remember the times
and the portents and shut thine ears against selfish desire. Thou
seest Judea. That which the Lord hath uttered against it through the
prophets has come to pass. Abandon thy hopes in all save the Son of
God; forget thyself; prepare to give all and expect nothing but the
coming of the King! For verily thou lookest over the edge of the world
past the very end of time!"
The solemn announcement of the Advent by this white-bearded prophet
should have discovered in her a very human and terrified girl. But it
was no new tidings to her. Since her earliest recollection she had
heard it, expected it, contemplated it, till the magnitude and terror
of it had been lost in its familiarity. She clasped her hands and
dropped her eyes and her lips moved in a silent prayer.
Costobarus remained for a space sunk in glorified meditation. But
presently he raised himself, with signs of his recent feeling showing
on his face.
"Send hither thy mother; bid Aquila and our servants stand here before
me a little later."
She bowed and withdrew. As she passed out a servant stepped aside to
give her room and at a sign from his master approached.
"A messenger from Philip of Tyre," he said.
A moment later an old courier carrying a sheepskin wallet came into
the chamber. He salaamed and produced a tablet which he handed to
Costobarus.
Herewith, O my brother, I send thee one hundred talents. May it
prove part of the corner-stone of a new Israel. Peace to thee and
thine!
PHILIP OF TYRE.
Costobarus looked up at the old courier.
"Take my blessings to thy master. May he come to a high seat in that
new Israel which he hath helped to build! Farewell."
The courier withdrew. When his footsteps died away the old merchant
reached under the divan and drew forth the shittim-wood box. Producing
a key he unlocked and opened it. From his bosom he drew forth the
letter from Philadelphus and laid it within.
"Let her take it with her," he said, speaking aloud. "Here," lifting a
cylinder of old silver exquisitely chased, "are her marriage papers;
this," lifting delicately embroidered squares of linen, "her marriage
tokens, and here, her dowry."
He opened the inner box and laid the sheepskin wallet in upon the
gems. He closed the lid, and, locking the case, lifted it and set it
beside him on the divan.
When he looked up, he saw a man standing within a few paces of him and
perfunctorily gazing at anything but the display of Laodice's fortune.
He was lean, muscular, somewhat younger than forty but already gray at
the temples, of nervous temperament, direct of gaze and of attractive
presence. He wore a tunic of gray wool bordered with red, and a gray
mantle hung negligently from his shoulders. Limbs and arms were bare
and his head-covering of red wool hung from his arm.
Costobarus, a little discomfited that he had been surprised with
Laodice's dowry exposed, spoke briskly.
"Well, Aquila? Prepared?"
"Everything is in order. I am ready to proceed at once."
"How many in your party?"
"But myself."
"Have you ever been to Jerusalem?"
"Never."
"How, then," Costobarus asked, with a keen look, "came Philadelphus to
appoint you to conduct Laodice to the city?"
"His retinue is small; he could not come himself, and he chose me as
safer than the other member of his party," was the direct reply.
Costobarus studied this reply before he questioned his son-in-law's
courier further.
"Jerusalem, they say, is in disorder. How will you get my daughter to
shelter when you have reached the city?"
"Philadelphus hath instructed me that there will be a Greek at the Sun
Gate daily, awaiting us. He will wear a purple turban embroidered with
a golden star. He will conduct us to the house of Amaryllis the
Seleucid, who is pledged to the Maccabee's cause. Philadelphus will be
in her house."
"Why hers?" Costobarus persisted.
"Because it is the only secure house in Jerusalem. She stands in the
good graces of John of Gischala and she is safe."
Costobarus ruminated.
"There is too much detail; too many people to depend upon and
therefore too many who may fail you. Aquila!"
"Sir?"
"I am going to Jerusalem with you."
He turned without waiting to see the effect of this speech upon the
Maccabee's courier and clapped his hands for an attendant. To the
servitor who responded he said:
"Send hither our party. It is time. Bring me my cloak."
He looked then suddenly at Aquila. The Roman's face had cleared of its
astonishment and discomfiture.
"Well enough," the courier said bluntly and closed his lips. The
servitor reappeared with his master's cloak and kerchief. After him
came Keturah, the handmaiden, and Hiram, a camel-driver, prepared for
a journey. The mute Momus presently appeared. Costobarus got into his
cloak without help, made inquiry for this detail and that of his
business and of his journey, gave instruction to his attendants, and
then asked for Laodice.
There was a moment of silence more distressed than embarrassed. Momus
dropped his eyes; Keturah looked at her master with moving lips and
sudden flushing of color, as if she were on the point of tears. Aquila
stared absently out of the arch beyond.
Costobarus glanced from one to the other of his company and then went
toward the corridor to call his daughter. As he lifted the curtain, he
started and stopped.
[Illustration: At her feet Hannah knelt.]
The lifted curtain had revealed Laodice. At her feet Hannah knelt, as
if she had flung herself in her daughter's path, her arms clasping the
young figure close to her and an agony of appeal stamped on her
upraised face. The last of the rich color had died out of the girl's
face and with pitiful eyes and quivering lips she was stroking the
desperate hands that meant to keep her for ever.
Except for the sudden sobbing of the woman servant, tense and
anguished silence prevailed. The old merchant was confronted with a
perplexity that found him without fortitude to solve. He felt his
strength slip from him. He, too, covered his face with his hands.
At the opposite arch another house servant appeared, lifted a
distorted, blackening face and, doubling like a wounded snake, fell
upon the floor.
A moment of stupefied silence in which Hannah, with her mother
instincts never so acutely alive, turned her strained vision upon the
writhing figure. Then shrieks broke from the lips of the
serving-woman; the hall filled with panic. Hannah leaped to her feet
and thrust Laodice toward her father.
"Away!" she cried. "The pestilence! The pestilence is upon us!"