MARSYAS ASSUMES A CHARGE
Agrippa crowded past the three that had preceded him into the black
passage and, whispering a command to follow, led on. They kept track
of him by the sound of his shoes on the stone, but the absolute
darkness and the unfamiliar path made their steps uncertain and slow.
Frequently the sure footfall before them receded and in fear of losing
their guide they stumbled forward in nervous haste.
Presently the darkness about them lifted; the sensation was not that
light had entered in, but that the darkness had simply failed in
strength. There was a perceptible increase in temperature and the
atmosphere, changing from a chill, became muggy and oppressive.
Marsyas, drawing in a full breath in search of freshness, told himself
that this was the original air of chaos, penned in at the hour of
creation.
The floor under his feet became irregular, the instinctive realization
that a roof was imminent overhead, passed, and, when the darkness
became sufficiently feeble, they discovered that they were following
through an immense chamber. Light came in through air-holes in the
rock above.
Agrippa spoke aloud.
"This is a quarry-chamber. It was also my grandsire's secret
stronghold, trial-chamber and tomb where many of his private grudges
were satisfied. But there are no evidences, now. The place was open
to the hill-jackals, by another passage which, if my memory has not
failed me, shall lead us out."
One of the servitors, whose teeth had been chattering, made a
shuddering sound. Agrippa laughed.
"Thou, Eutychus?" he said. "Comfort thee; the jackals have ceased to
haunt the place since their hunger was last satisfied, thirty years
ago."
An irregular spot of blackness in one of the walls swallowed up the
prince as he spoke. Eutychus halted at the edge and drew back with a
whimper. But the second servitor, who had not spoken since Marsyas had
first seen him, muttered contemptuously some inarticulate word and
pushed Eutychus into the blackness. Marsyas followed.
Thereafter it was only time which ensued. Sound, sight and, except for
the stone under their feet, feeling were defeated. They moved
interminably. Once or twice Eutychus became hysterical from the
depression, but the stolid servitor smote him and bundled him on.
Ahead a light laugh floated back to them in appreciation of the humor
in Eutychus' predicament.
In time a yellow star with ragged points appeared ahead of them, high
above the level upon which they had been walking. Eutychus trembled
before it, but Agrippa quickened his steps.
"What a memory I have," he observed cheerfully. "Any other than myself
would have been hopelessly entangled in these galleries and perished
miserably some days hence."
The star enlarged, lost substantiality and presently Eutychus with a
gasp of joy faltered that it was daylight. Several minutes later they
emerged through an open tomb into high noon over Judea.
Before their blinded vision, the green hills swimming in sunlight
upheaved between them and all points of the horizon. The City of David
was nowhere to be seen; the sun stood directly in the zenith. Marsyas
was lost; but the prince smiled in immense satisfaction and, seeking a
grassy spot, sat down and breathed deeply. Presently he motioned to
the others to sit. Marsyas came close to him; the others remained at a
respectful distance.
For a long time no one spoke.
At last Agrippa fell to inspecting his delicate hands and his garments
for marks of the long journey under the earth, and the embroidered
shoes for evidences of contact with jagged rock. Satisfied that he was
clean and intact, he laughed a little.
"By the hat of Hermes, this was noble apparel to wear through the
bowels of the earth. _Eheu_! I was at my best, and not so much as a
she-bat saw me!"
Eutychus, entirely recovered, chuckled, and a grin overspread the face
of Silas; but Marsyas was plunged in his own reflections.
"This is the country-side west of Jerusalem," Agrippa resumed
presently, for the young Essene's information. "Yonder," pointing
north, "the road runs which shall lead us hence. We are an hour's
journey by daylight above ground, from the Tower of Hippicus. But we
are not beyond the zone of danger yet."
Marsyas did not answer. Reaction had set up within him against the
foreign interest which had engaged his attention since sunrise. He had
thought of himself and had been concerned for Agrippa; he had planned
and had achieved ends. Entanglements straightened, immediate danger
passed, the cloud of his sorrow embraced him wholly. He did not want
to see that Canaan was beautiful, indeed a land of milk and honey. The
wind laden with spring sweets struck a chill in his soul; the singing
birds hurt him with a pain greater than he could endure. His heart was
bruised, his every sensation sore and weighted with a numb
consciousness that a dread thing had happened and that it was useless
to pray and hope now. The presence of others was an obstacle, vaguely
realized, that kept him from yielding to his desire to lie down on his
face and hate everything and give himself up to whatever chose to
befall him. Agrippa's hand, presently laid on his shoulder, irritated
him. He had to restrain himself to keep from shaking it off. But the
prince spoke, and his words were helpful.
"Marsyas, I know thy pain. I, too, had a beloved friend foully
murdered, and the agony of helplessness against the power that did him
to death sowed ashes on my heart. But the time of the Lord God, slow
as it approaches, fell at last. The only bitterness in my cup of
fierce triumph was that it was another, and not I, who accomplished, at
the end, the undoing of the murderer."
"The Lord God forfend any such misfortune from me!" was the bitter
rejoinder. "Vengeance can not be vengeance, if it fall from any hand
but mine!"
"Thou speakest truly: be thy requital sweeter than mine!"
It was good to find the reflection of his own hurt in another's
experience. It did not lessen his pain; but it gave him expression and
the assurance of sympathy. Agrippa continued in his pleasant voice.
"This persecution will cease ere long. It is only Jonathan's device to
make him noted as one zealous for the faith. He is much disliked. It
is reproach enough for a High Priest to be popular with the Sadducees:
it is well-nigh unforgivable to be set up by Rome; it is an
insurmountable obstacle to be other than eligible, Levitically; but
this man hath been wholly undone by these and an offensive personality.
Wherefore the people hate him with a fervor which Vitellius must
respect. But Jonathan fancies that if he can make him a name as a
defender of the faith, the rabble will applaud, and thou and I and
Vitellius and the discerning Jews will achieve no more against him than
flies whining about a wall! What folly! How oft we believe a thing to
be so, because we wish it to be so! Vitellius does not see how the
stoning of blasphemers indorses a man whom he dislikes. So Jonathan's
time is short and the persecution will cease with him. His minion will
be discountenanced with the master, and thine opportunity is made. Be
of hope; thy day is not distant."
But Marsyas' brow blackened.
"A noble reflection!" he exclaimed passionately, "and one that should
soothe the Tarsian's dreams! Binding and stoning and killing in his
zeal for an usurper of the robes of Aaron! Shedding sweet blood--doing
irreparable deeds to serve a vain end, to further a useless attempt--a
thing to be given over to-morrow! O thou God of wrath! If it be not
sin to pray it, let him stumble speedily in the Law!"
Meanwhile Agrippa observed the sun, and after a little silence that his
return to spirits seem not to grate upon the young Essene's distress,
arose briskly.
"Up! up!" he said. "It is not at variance with Vitellius' extreme
methods to empty the whole Praetorium into the hills in search of us.
Up, fellows! To Ptolemais!"
Marsyas arose with the others, but he hesitated and glanced down at the
fine garments that covered him. He remembered that he had not brought
his soiled Essenic robes with him. He unslung his wallet and extended
it to Agrippa.
"Take it, and forget not that I shall ask payment from the strength of
that high place to which this may help thee! The vengeful spirit is
not of choice a patient thing! I shall wait--but to achieve mine ends.
God prosper thee! If thy servants will lend me each a garment thou
shalt have back thy dress once more and I will depart."
"Whither?" asked Agrippa without taking the purse.
"To En-Gadi, for the present."
"But the brotherhood will then be guilty of befriending thee and thou
art a living example of that which befalls him who befriends one of
Saul's marked creatures."
"So I am become as a pestilence," Marsyas said grimly. It was another
count against the Pharisee.
"Thou art much beset. Doubt not that Vitellius will seek for thee in
En-Gadi, and it were better for thee and for the brotherhood that thou
be not found. Thou must leave Judea, for the arm of the Sanhedrim is
long."
To leave Judea meant to be banished among the Gentiles, to step out of
four whitewashed walls into unknown turmoil; to leave the pleasures of
solitude, the peoples of parchment, the events of old history, the
ambitions of the soul and go forth amid arrogant heathen godlessness to
meet precarious fortunes. The whole course of his life had been
entirely reversed in a few hours. Resolute and strong as the Essene
was, his face contracted painfully.
Agrippa laid a hand on his arm.
"Remember, it is our faith that this persecution will cease and then
thou canst return to thy study in safety," he said as gently as if he
were speaking to a child. But in that moment, Marsyas told himself
that there would be no returning to his old peace.
"Come with me," Agrippa continued. "I will afford thee protection and
thou shalt provide me with funds."
He paused and, taking Marsyas' arm, led him down to a little meandering
vale, sweet with blossoming herbs.
"Look," he said, pointing back toward the east.
The hills stood aside in a long, full-breasted series, and revealed
through a narrow, green-walled aisle a distant view of Jerusalem, white
and majestic on her heights. The morning blue that encroaches upon the
noon in early spring softened the spectacle with a tender atmosphere;
distance glorified its splendors, and the light upon it was other than
daylight--it was a nimbus, the ineffable crown.
Thus seen it was no longer the city of subjection, filled with wrongs
and griefs and hopelessness. It was the Holy City, upright with the
godliness of David, lawful in the government of Solomon; sacred with
the presence of the Shekinah in the Holy of Holies. Here, Sheba might
have stood first to be shown the glories of Solomon; here, Alexander
might have drawn up his Macedonian quadriga to behold what excellence
he was next to conquer. Marsyas felt emotion seize him, the mighty
welling of tears in their springs.
"Behold it!" Agrippa said. "We go forth beaten and ashamed, but thou
shalt return to it justified; I shall return to it crowned. Believe in
that as thou believest in Jehovah!"
He drew the young Essene away and signed to the servitors.
In the days that followed, Agrippa tactfully and little by little won
Marsyas out of his brooding. Delicately, he sounded the young man's
nature and discovered the channel into which his sorrowful thoughts
could be diverted. Stirring incidents of the Herod's own astounding
history, graphic accounts of great pageants, of contests of famous
athletae, or of gorgeous cities, vivaciously told, engaged Marsyas'
attention in spite of himself. Gradually his sharpened interest began
to choose for itself. Expectancy of things to come communicated by
Agrippa presently possessed Marsyas.
All this was a new and inviting experience for the young Essene, as
well as an alleviation. He had lived a placid, passionless life with
the old Essenic master and centered his broad loves on one or two.
Evil happenings had wrenched these from him and his affections wandered
and wavered, lost only for an hour. By the time the journey to
Ptolemais was ended, Agrippa had stepped into his own place in the
heart of the bereaved young man.
Ptolemais was built for solidity and strength. Its houses were
defenses, its public buildings were fortifications; its mole, harbor
front and wall the most unassailable on the Asiatic seaboard. From the
plains of Esdraelon in their dip toward the sea, the city was seen, set
broadside to the waves, stanch, regular, square and bulky--embodied
defiance for ever uttered to whatever sea-faring nation turned its
triremes into her roadsteads.
In a narrow street near the southernmost limits of the city, Agrippa
stopped. A house of a single story stood before them, its roof barely
higher than its door; a heavy wall before it, a narrow gate in that.
"Enter," said the prince to Marsyas, "into the unctuous hospitalities
of Agrippa's palace."
He unlatched the gate, and, leading his companion across a small court,
knocked at the door, which after a little wait swung open.
An uncommonly pretty waiting-woman stepped aside to let them enter.
Marsyas put off his sandals and followed the prince into a small recess
cut off by curtains from the interior of the house. A bronze lamp was
in a niche in the wall and a taboret stood in the corner. No other
furniture was visible.
The prince dismissed the two servitors and they passed behind the
curtains, Eutychus stumbling as he went, because his eyes were engaged
in attempting to attract the attention of the pretty waiting-woman, who
seemed quite oblivious of his glances.
"Send hither your mistress, Drumah," Agrippa said to her. She bowed
and departed and presently one of the curtains lifted and a woman
hastened into the apartment.
With a low cry of joy she ran to the prince and flung herself on his
breast.
"Oh, that thou shouldst come and none to watch for thee!" she
exclaimed. "That thou shouldst enter thy house and none but thy
hireling to meet thee!"
He laughed lightly and kissed her.
"I have brought also a guest, Cypros," he said. For the first time her
eyes lighted on Marsyas and blushing she drew away from her husband.
"I pray thy pardon," she murmured.
The light from the day without shone full on her through a lattice, and
since his journey to Nazareth Marsyas had learned to look on women with
an interested eye.
She was small, but her figure showed the perfect outlines of the
matron, and the Jewish dress, bound about the hips with a broad scarf,
let no single grace lose itself under drapery. But it was the face
that held the young Essene's attention. There, too, was the blood of
the Herod, for Agrippa had married his cousin, but its attributes were
refined almost to ethereal extremes. Flesh could not have been whiter
nor coloring more delicate. The effect rendered was an impression of
exquisite frailty, produced as much by the pathos in the over-large
black eyes and the serious cut of the tender mouth as by the
transparency of the exceedingly small hand which lay on her breast as
if to still a fluttering heart. Her beauty was not aided by strength
of character or intellectuality; it was distinctly the simple,
defenseless, appealing type which is an invincible conqueror of men.
"This is Marsyas of Nazareth, an Essene in distress, yet not so
unfortunate that he is not willing to help us. What comfort canst thou
offer him from thy housekeeping?"
The Essenes were the holy men of Israel; the large eyes filled with
deference and she bowed.
"Welcome in God's name. My lord has bread and a roof-tree. I pray
thee share them freely with us."
Marsyas' formality so serviceable among the women of Nazareth suddenly
seemed infelicitous here, but it was all he had for response to this
different personage.
"The blessing of God be with thee; I give thee thanks."
She summoned the pretty waiting-woman.
"Let my lord and his guest be given food and drink; set wine and such
meats as we have, and let the children come and greet their father."
The prince thrust the curtains aside and, motioning to Marsyas', waited
until his princess and the young man had passed within.
The apartment was a second recess larger than the first, shut in by
hangings of sackcloth and furnished with rough seats and tables of
unoiled cedar. It was a cheerless room, fit for the humblest man in
Ptolemais, but the unconquered Herod and his lovely princess ennobled
it.
There was a scarf of damask thrown over one of the tables and two or
three pieces of magnificent plate sat upon it.
"That," said Agrippa, pointing to the silver, "hath been my moneyer for
years. I have lived a month on a flagon."
Cypros sighed, but three pretty children, a boy and two girls, rushed
in from the rear of the house and engaged the prince's attention.
Meanwhile, the attractive servant entered with plates for the table and
Eutychus followed with a platter of food. As she passed the young
Essene she tripped on an unevenness in the floor and would have fallen,
but Marsyas, with a quick movement, more instinctive than gallant,
threw out a hand and stayed her.
She thanked him composedly and went about her work, but Marsyas,
chancing to raise his eyes to Eutychus' face, caught a look from the
servitor that was livid with hate. Shocked and astonished, Marsyas
turned his back and wondered how he had crossed the creature.
Agrippa sat at the table, and, with Cypros at his left, bade Marsyas
sit beside him. The children were carried protesting away.
The prince filled a goblet of silver with a pale wine, slightly
effervescent and exhaling a bouquet peculiarly subtle and penetrating.
He raised the frosty cup between his fingers--drink, drinker and cup of
a type--and looked at the strip of sky visible through the lattice.
"This to the gods," he said, "or whatever power hath fortune to give,
and a heart to be won of libation. I yield you my soul for a laurel!"
The princess leaned her forehead against his arm and whispered:
"It is wicked--forbidden!"
"I poured but one glass: I make the prayer; I have not asked thee or
our young friend to pray it with me. But my devices are exhausted. I
make appeal now, haphazard, for I grope!"
"And didst thou fail in Jerusalem?"
"As I have failed from Rome to Idumea."
She drew in a little sobbing breath and hid her eyes against his
sleeve. Marsyas sat silent. This first evidence of despair on the
prince's part was most unwelcome. His own fortunes were too much
entangled with Agrippa's for him to contemplate their fall. He felt
the prince's eyes upon him. The silver cup had been refilled and was
extended to him.
Marsyas took it.
"This to success," he said, "not fortune!"
Cypros stirred. "Success is so deliberate!" she sighed.
Marsyas made no answer; would it be long before he should have his
bitter wish?
"Thou seest Judea," Agrippa began, "thou heardest me aspire to it and
thou didst abet me in mine ambition. But learn, for thy own comfort,
Marsyas, the vagabond to whom thou hast attached thyself doth not grasp
after another man's portion. Judea is mine! And Rome must yield me
mine inheritance!" The prince's eyes glowed with youth's ambition.
Marsyas listened intently.
"A Herod's word is in disrepute," the prince continued. "Hence I am
limited to action to prove myself. But look thou here, Marsyas. Judea
is pillaged: so am I. Judea is despised: so am I! Judea weltereth in
her own blood: am I not sprung from a murdered sire, who was son of a
murdered mother--each dead by the same hand of father and husband?
Dear Lord, I am an offspring of the shambles, mother-marked with
wounds!"
He shuddered and drew his hand across his forehead.
"Having thus suffered the same miseries which are Judea's, is it not
natural that I should relieve her when I, myself, am relieved? I
should rule Judea as Judea would rule herself--"
He broke off with a gesture of impatience.
"How I hate the blatant vower of vows! Help me to mine opportunity,
Marsyas."
As between Rome and Herod the Great as sovereign, there was no choice.
Though the Asmonean Slave, as the Jewish patriots named the capable
fiend, gave Judea the most brilliant reign since the glories of Solomon
and the most monstrous since Ahab, the nominal independence offered by
his administration was absolutely submerged and lost in the terror of
his absolutism and the devilish genius in him for oppression.
Herod and Abaddon were names synonymous in Judea, and the mildness of
his sons or their inefficiency had not been able to set the reproach
aside. No able Herod had arisen since the founder of the house,
except, as Marsyas hopefully believed, this man before him. Herod
Agrippa was the son of Aristobolus, who was murdered in his youth
before his capabilities developed. The Herods, Philip and Antipas, had
been mild because they were incapable. The recurrence of mental
strength in the blood was an untried contingency. All this came to
Marsyas, now, suggested by the implied self-defense in the prince's
words, and for a moment he wavered between concern for his people and
anxiety for his own cause. Agrippa and Cypros watched him.
"Thou art a just youth," the prince went on in the winning voice that
had already made its conquest over the Essene. "I can not prove myself
until I am given trial, and judgment without trial is an abomination
even unto the tyrant Rome!"
"I have not judged, lord," Marsyas protested.
"And thou wilt not until I have shown myself unworthy of thy
confidence. Thou hast even now bespoken God's favor for me--be then,
His instrument! Thou art the first ray of light in a decade of
darkness that has enveloped me and mine!"
Marsyas put out his hand to the prince. The peril in the Herod blood,
in his calculations, had dropped out of sight.
"What dost thou say to me, my prince?" he said. "How is it that thou
beseechest me--me, the suppliant, praying thy help for mine own ends?
But hear me! Thou aspirest to that place of which I have no knowledge,
among peoples whose paths I never cross, into the calling of the great!
Yet, though most unequipped to yield thee support, I am thy substance.
Use me! Thou knowest my price."
Agrippa smiled.
"Though I die owing even mine embalmer, I shall pay thee that debt. I
have said. And now to the process. What money hast thou?"
Agrippa was silent and Marsyas, watching his face, waited.
"I need," the prince said slowly, "twenty thousand."
Marsyas got upon his feet, and for a moment there was silence.
"I will get it for thee," he said.