AS THE FOAM UPON WATER
The madness on Jerusalem poured like an overwhelming flood into the
cavern under the ruin of the Herodian palaces. There was Hesper, with
most of his Gibborim gathered, preparing to proceed to the defense of
the First Wall in Akra against which the Roman would hurl himself in
the morning.
For days he had controlled his men only by the force of his fierce
will. Restlessness, little short of turbulence, had changed his six
hundred from earnest recruits to bright-eyed, contentious,
irresponsible enthusiasts whom only intimidation could manage. They
seemed to be balanced, prepared, ready at the least whisper in the
wind to scatter madly, each in his own direction, after a vagary,
albeit the end were destruction.
Throughout these latter days the Maccabee had become strained and
unnatural in his manner. There was a vehemence in all he did which
seemed to be a final resolution against despair. His decisions were
arbitrary; his methods extreme. Laodice, sensing something climacteric
in his atmosphere, kept aloof from him, and regarded him from the dusk
of her corner with wonder and a pity that she could not explain. The
Christian on the other hand seemed always in an unobtrusive way to be
at the Maccabee's elbow. The apparition with the long white hair,
however, ran away and was found on the streets by the Christian and
brought back to the cavern, where he hid in a dark shadow in the
remote end of the crypt and was not seen.
Of late the cavern was always full of suppressed excitement;
unpremeditated conferences among the Gibborim, which Hesper harshly
forbade; and general sharp resentment against imposed regulations and
military drill. On several occasions the six hundred were sent in
defense of the walls only by sheer force of their leader's will-power.
And there they fell in at once with the irregular methods of the
Idumeans and fanatics that fought each after his own liking, and the
careful instruction of the Maccabee was disregarded. Only so long as
he cowed them, they obeyed him; and he seemed to feel, as they seemed
to indicate, that when that thing happened which all Jerusalem
indefinitely expected and could not name, his control over them would
be lost beyond restoration.
On the night of the fall of the Roman tower, the Maccabee's forces had
been withdrawn for rest to their retreat and at midnight were formed
again for return to the fortifications.
By the strange inscrutable spread of rumor, sweeping with the air, the
tidings of the miracle and the rise of Seraiah poured in upon the
restive hundreds that the Maccabee was attempting to form in his
fortress. It came like the gradual velocity of a burning star across
the sky. From the ranks nearest the exit from the burrow the murmur
issued, growing into intelligible sound, mounting to the wildness of
hysteria and prevailing wholly over the Gibborim in the space between
heart-beats. Everywhere they cast down their spears and their weapons,
everywhere they gazed at him with brilliant threatening eyes and cried
in loud voices so that the things each mad mind put into expression
were lost in a great unintelligible raving.
Laodice, the Christian and that white-haired trembler in his refuge,
saw the Maccabee raise himself to his full height and lifting his
sword confront in one grand effort at command a mob of six hundred
madmen!
Perhaps that manifestation of iron courage and strength, which the
crazy lot somehow realized, saved him from death. Instead of falling
upon him they turned away from the scene of the last vain effort for
their own salvation and rushed, trampling one another, into the mad
city of Jerusalem.
From without, the hoarse uproar of their desertion was heard to merge
with the great tumult over the Holy City. Tense silence fell in the
crypt.
The light of the torch wavered up and down the tall figure of the
Maccabee as he stood transfixed in the attitude of command that had
achieved nothing. It seemed the final inclination beyond the
perpendicular that precedes the fall. The Christian started from his
place and hurried toward the tense figure in the torch-light. Laodice,
unconscious of what she did, approached him with an agony of distress
for him written in her face. The white-haired apparition crept out a
little way on his knees and putting aside his tangled locks gazed with
burning eyes at the defeated man.
Laodice, in her anxiety, moved into the range of the Maccabee's
vision. The next instant he had thrown away his sword and had caught
her in a crushing embrace to him. His voice, blunted and repressed as
if something had him by the throat, was stunning her ear.
"And thou!" he was saying. "What from thee, now? Hate! Curses!
Ingratitude! Hast thou poison for me, or a knife? Or worse, yet,
scorn? Speak! It is a day of enlightenment! I'll brook anything but
deceit!"
She stopped him in the midst of his vehement despair, by laying her
hands on his hair. There surged to her lips all the eloquence of her
love and sympathy, but beside her old Nathan stood--an embodiment of
her conscience, watching.
Twice she essayed to put into words the comfort of her submission to
his love. Twice her lips failed her; but the third time she turned to
the Christian.
"Rabbi, what shall I do?" she implored. "Tell me out of thy wisdom!"
"What is it?" he asked, feeling that there was more than sympathy for
the defeated man in her heart.
"What would thy Christ have me to do?" she insisted. "This stranger,
here, is the joy of my heart; I am like to die if I can not give him
the love that I feel for him this hour!"
The startled Christian looked at her with suspicion growing in his
eyes.
"Art thou a wife? Wedded to another than this man?" he asked gravely.
"Wedded," she whispered, "to one who hath denied me, affronted me and
cast me out of his house! In this man I have found favor from the
beginning. He has been tender of me, he has sheltered me, and he has
strengthened me against himself to this hour. There has been nothing
sinful between us!"
The old Christian's face grew immeasurably sad.
"There is but one thing for you to do," he said.
She wrenched herself away from the Maccabee, who had been angrily
protesting against her carrying his case to another for decision, and
confronted Nathan.
"But he rejected me!" she cried with earnestness. "That alone is
enough among our people for divorcement!"
The Christian shook his head sadly. He was not happy to lay down this
prohibition before them who suffered.
"There is no help in thy faith for such as I am. In that thy religion
fails!" she cried.
"Love, now, is all in all to thee, daughter. It is but the speech of
thy young blood running through thy veins, the claim of thy youth to
thy use upon earth. Resist it; for when thy years are as many as mine
thou wilt lose thy rebellious spirit and the fervor will have died out
of thy heart. Then, if thou hast fallen in this hour, how vain and
worthless it will seem to thee! Divine fires in the heart of men never
become changed in value. Love purely and thou wilt never repent; but I
say unto thee thou fashionest for thyself humbled and shamed old age
if thou transgressest the Law!"
"What mercy, then, since thou preachest mercy, in filling me with this
weakness if my life must be darkened resisting it, and my future show
no relief for it?" she insisted passionately.
It was the cry old as the world. He looked at her sadly, hopelessly.
"As for God, His way is perfect," he said. "_How unsearchable are his
judgments, and his ways past finding out!_ Thou shalt struggle with
the truth, my daughter, but without fail and most readily thou shalt
know when thou hast sinned!"
She was past the influence of argument. Impulse controlled her now
entirely. She would see if there were not an intelligence, even a
religion which would see her sorrow from her own heart's position.
She listened now to the words of her lover.
"He is an exclaimer, a prophet of doom!" he was crying. "Love me and
let us die!"
Without in the entrance of the crypt some great-lunged fanatic was
calling the multitude to harken to the prophetess.
The Maccabee's lips were against her cheek as he continued to speak.
"It is the end! There is no help for us. Love me, and let me be happy
an hour before we perish! The Nazarene is right! The city is cursed!
God's wrath is upon us. The hour is still ours. Love me and let us
die!"
Without the great voice, like an unwearying bell, was calling:
"A sign! A sign! Behold the Deliverer! Come all ye who would share his
triumph and hear! Hear! Come ye and be fed, ye hungry; be drunken, ye
thirsty; love and be loved, ye forlorn!"
Laodice stiffened in the Maccabee's clasp.
"Dost thou hear?" she whispered. "It may be true!"
He shook his head that he had bowed upon her shoulder.
"Let us go," she urged. "Perchance he has comfort for us. Come,
Hesper; let us see what he has for the forlorn."
"Who?" he asked dully.
"They say the Deliverer has come."
He shook his head again, but with her two hands she lifted his face
from its refuge, and urging with her eyes and her hands and her lips
she led him toward the stairs. The Christian looked after them.
"_For there shall arise false Christs; and false prophets, and shall
shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they
shall deceive the very elect_," he said sorrowfully.
The horror of the city augmented hour by hour. The Jerusalem Laodice
locked upon now was infinitely more afflicted than the one she had
seen in the daylight days before.
The walls were now outlined by fire which illuminated all the city
that lay directly beneath the beacons. To the north gnomish outlines
by hundreds against the flames showed where the soldiers of the
factionists were placing the topmost stones upon an inner wall or
curtain erected just within the Old Wall, which was by this time
shaking and cracking under the assaults of a great siege-engine
without. Titus, awakened by the fall of his tower, had immediately
renewed the attack, although the morning was still some hours distant.
But the citizens were no longer disinterested, no longer wrapped in
hopelessness and dull misery.
Hungry, sleepless, houseless, diseased and mad though they were, their
hollow eyes gleamed now with hope that was almost defiant. Around the
Maccabee and Laodice roared the comment of the multitude.
"They say he climbed to the summit of the outer wall overlooking
Tophet and remains there a target for the Roman arrows, which rebound
from him!" cried one.
"One of John's men says that the heads of the arrows are blunted and
the most of them snapped in two when they are picked up."
"The Romans have ceased to shoot at him!"
"They say that his footprints in the dust on the Tyropean Bridge are
Hebrew letters writing 'Elia' in gold!"
"It is said that the inner Temple is rocking with trumpet blasts and
that John is struck dead!"
"They say that those who believe in him shall ask for whatever they
would have and have it!"
"The breaches in the First Wall have been healed; the old rock is back
in its place!"
"They say that the dead beyond the wall in Tophet are prophesying!"
"There is a bolt of lightning fixed in the sky over Titus' camp. We
are called to go forth and see it fall!"
A voice swept by distantly crying that a woman had eaten her child.
Crazed Posthumus, self-elected guardian of the Law, with the sacred
roll under his arm, declaimed, without any of his audience attending,
that prophecy which this horror fulfilled.
All Jerusalem was in the streets; all Jerusalem poured into the
immense open space where some palatial ruin stood, and melted in the
giant concourse that gathered to hear the prophetess.
Laodice and the Maccabee were unable to see the woman; only her voice,
mystic, musical, pitched at a singing monotone, intoning rather than
speaking, reached them from the distance. The long harangue, delivered
as a chant, had long ago had a mesmerizing effect on her audience.
Absolutely she controlled them; along the dead level of her preaching
they maintained a low continuous murmur, accompanied by a slight slow
swaying of the body; in the climaxes of the appeal they responded with
cries and wild gestures, flinging themselves about in attitudes
characteristic of their frenzy. In their faces was the reflection of a
peculiar light that proved that derangement had settled over
Jerusalem. It was the end of the reign of reason.
"It is the abomination of desolation. Even so, it is finished! It is
the time, it is full time, and Michael hath come. There are seventy
weeks; behold them. The transgression is finished and the end hereto
of all sins. Approacheth the hour for the reconciliation for iniquity
and to bring in everlasting righteousness and to seal up the vision
and prophecy and to anoint the most Holy! Prepare ye!"
Somewhere in the city a voice that was heard even by the fighting-men
on the wall in Akra cried:
"The Sacrifice has failed! The Oblation is ceased! There is no
Offering for the Altar; none is left to offer it!"
The vast gathering heard it, and immediately from the high place of
the prophetess came back the words, prompt and effective:
"_And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the
midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to
cease!_"
Posthumus, buried in the midst of the crowd, was shouting, but over
him the splendid mesmerism of the prophetess' voice soared.
"_The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children; they
were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people ...
The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of
Zion; ... and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it
desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be
poured upon the desolate_!"
Among the crowd now growing frantic, people began to cry:
"A sign! A sign!"
Others shouted:
"Lead us!"
"Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the Heaven of the
Lord!"
"Lead us!" they still shouted.
They were hungry; they had been abstinent; they had surrendered their
riches and their comforts. It was not independence but necessities
that they wanted now. The primal wants were at the surface.
"Come up and be filled!" she cried. "Ask and it shall be given unto
you! Eat of the grapes and the honey; drink of wine and warm milk;
sleep as kings; be housed in mansions; be rulers; command potentates!
Let kings bow at your footstools! Be replenished; be great! Suffering
hath been your portion since the earth was; but the end is come. Draw
nigh and have your recompense. Laugh, you whose eyes have trickled
down with the waters of affliction! You in the low dungeon come forth
and range all the free boundaries of the world. Whosoever hath gravel
between his teeth, let them be grapes! He who sitteth alone, gather
company and revel unto him! Feast, ye hungry; be drunken, ye thirsty;
love and be loved, ye forlorn!"
Laodice leaned forward suddenly and hung on the woman's words.
"The time for sacrifice and humiliation is paid out! It was a long
time! Now, behold in the generosity of his repentance, ye shall ask
and nothing shall be denied. Speak! Ask! The whole world, Heaven and
earth and the delights of all the years are yours, now and for all
time!"
At Laodice's side was Amaryllis. The Greek's face was pale but lighted
with a certain enlightenment that was almost threatening.
Startled and frightened Laodice moved back from the Greek, who moved
with her, without a glance at the Maccabee.
The voice of the prophetess swept on:
"Ye have bowed to tyrants and bent your necks to murderers; ye have
waged wars for pillagers and shared not in the spoils. Why are ye
hungry now? Who is full-fed in these days of want, yourselves or your
masters? A sword, a sword is drawn; uphold the arm that wields it!"
"Sedition!" Amaryllis whispered, as the mob began to murmur and stir
at this new doctrine.
"For behold, he shall go forth with great fury to destroy and utterly
to make away many!"
Amaryllis bent so she could whisper in Laodice's ear.
"John hath taken him a new woman to keep him cheerful this hour. I was
not daring enough. Philadelphus' wife hath supplanted me. Your place
with him is vacant. Go back and possess it!"
"Why was appetite and desire and thirst of power and the love of
riches lighted in you, but to be satisfied?" The prophetess' words
swept in after Laodice's sudden fear of returning to Philadelphus. "We
have expiated the sin of Adam, the greed of Jacob and the fault of
David. The judgment is run out; ye have come to your own! Verily, I
say unto you, if ye follow me in the name of him who hath come unto
you, the world shall be yours!"
Amaryllis still continued to whisper, and Laodice, fearing that the
Maccabee might hear, drew farther away. He stood where she had left
him, with his head lowered, waiting--at last a creature dependent on
another's will.
"Listen!" Amaryllis said. "I have been seeking you since midnight!
Philadelphus' doubt was awakened in this woman. He questioned her, so
minutely that she betrayed ignorance of many things she should have
known had she been the real daughter of Costobarus. And when finally
he taxed her with imposture, she robbed him of the dowry and fled to
John. Convinced that you are his wife, he set forth and hath since
searched for you without ceasing! See, over there! He seeks you, now!"
Laodice looked the way the Greek pointed and saw Philadelphus,
standing with lifted head and stretched to his full height, as if
searching over the crowd for her.
Panic seized her. She wrenched herself from the Greek's hold and,
forgetting even the protection of Hesper who was within touch of her,
she threw herself into the crowd behind her and struggled out of the
press.
Nathan, the Christian, saw her turn and followed instantly in the path
she made.
Once out, she turned in a bewildered manner this way and that. What
refuge, now, for her, indeed, but the cavern under the ruin and the
care of Hesper, until the end which should swallow them all!
A trembling hand was laid on her arm.
She whirled, expecting to find Philadelphus. Beside her, his old face
radiant with emotion, stood Momus!