A TRUST FULFILLED
Marsyas came forth moodily convinced by Eleazar's words. No; it was
not the method. Revenge would have to come through another medium than
the Nazarenes. Stephen had told him before that the privilege of
taking vengeance had been removed from the followers of Jesus of
Nazareth. At that time Marsyas had not believed it of the whole sect;
but now he was not too much irritated to be convinced.
"Is there any doctrine too mad to get it followers?" he said.
"O brother," Eleazar said, with his chin on his breast, "it is a period
of change. The world wearies of its manner from time to time. Surfeit
of good is not less common than surfeit of evil, but it is deadlier.
Men tire of their gods as they do of their women, and thou, being an
eremite and unfamiliar, may not know that death is much more desirable
than enforced toleration of satiety."
Marsyas heard; satiety was only a word to him and the rabbi's
earnestness carried no conviction for him.
"It is the time for change; rest under old usages is no longer
possible. But Israel hath endured a long, long time in one habit."
"Give me thy meaning, Rabbi."
"Thou and I are good Jews, Marsyas, yet I can not say that of a surety
of any other man in Judea. I have come from Jerusalem, David's City,
the rock of Israel, but the hosts of schism possess it from the Ophlas
to the uttermost limits of Bezetha!"
"Rabbi!"
"I have seen; I have seen. Saul hath set for himself a task of
emptying the sea. In Jerusalem they come singing to torture and death,
but armies of them go fleeing into the rest of Judea and all the world.
And, hear me, thou true son of Israel, the pastor of the apostates we
heard this night declared at least one truth. The Pharisee hath
diffused an influence; he hath scattered a pestilence."
Because it was a new charge against Saul, Marsyas accepted it.
"Is there no help against him?" he exclaimed.
"Marsyas, there stirreth a dread fear in me that he is the instrument
of the time. If not he, then another would have been called by the
spirit of change--"
"There is no such extenuation in me!" Marsyas broke in.
"Might promises no allegiance to its ministers," the rabbi replied.
Marsyas recalled his history for evidence to corroborate this hope that
Saul's calamitous work might recoil upon him. From Prometheus to
Augustus, the declaration was sustained. He lost sight of the rabbi's
actual concern. Saul covered his horizon; he could not know that
Eleazar looked upon the Pharisee as only a detail in an immense stretch
of grave possibilities.
The young man made no reply. A hope had been snatched from him that
night before his sense could grasp its reality, but the disappointment
had not weakened his intent. His hope, for the moment centered upon
the Nazarenes, turned again upon Agrippa. He did not permit himself to
speculate on the prince's possible failure.
At an intersecting street they parted, without further plan than that
they should meet again.
But the next morning when Marsyas came with little spirit into the
sunless counting-room, his first visitor was Agrippa's lugubrious old
courier, Silas.
With a cry, Marsyas wrenched open the wicket and seized the old man's
shoulders.
"Dost thou bring good or evil news?" he cried, unable to wait on the
slow servant's deliberate speech.
"Perchance either, or both," the courier answered, fumbling in the
wallet for his written instructions. "Perchance that which thou
already knowest, and that which may be news. At least, I fetch thee a
ransom."
"God reward thee for thy fidelity," Marsyas replied, "and forget thy
sloth! Here, let me help thee to thy message."
He put away the servant's inflexible fingers and wrested the parchment
from the wallet. It was wrapped in silk and sealed with wax. It was
directed to Marsyas. He ripped it open hastily and read:
"To Marsyas, the Essene, to whom Cypros the Herod would owe a greater
debt, greeting and these:
"It hath come to us here in Alexandria that Vitellius pursues thee with
a mind to punish thee for helping my lord away from his difficulty in
Judea. The legate hath sent couriers broadcast over the Empire to seek
thee out, but the noble Flaccus, Proconsul of Egypt, though forewarned
and required to deliver thee up, hath promised thee asylum in
Alexandria. Wherefore, if it please God that thou art preserved until
my servant Silas reaches thee, do thou return to this city, secretly
and with all speed.
"That thou care for thyself and that thy despatch be assured, I add
further that there is much thou canst do for me. Delay not if the same
good heart which suffered for us in Ptolemais still beats within thee.
"Thy friend,
"CYPROS."
Within were three notes of a talent each, signed by Alexander
Lysimachus, the Alabarch of Alexandria. Six weeks before, they would
have been mere strips of parchment to Marsyas; to-day, with the
commercial knowledge of a steward, Caesar's gold would not have
commanded more respect in him. But he crushed them in his hand and
turned his face, suddenly grown pale and tense, toward the east and
Jerusalem. They meant the beginning of the destruction of Saul!
Presently he signed to Silas to follow and led the way to old Peter,
who sipped his wine in his sleeping apartment. On the way, they met a
slave whom Marsyas despatched to the khan for Eleazar.
"But," objected Peter, with the querulousness of an old man, after the
first flush of satisfaction over the return of his three talents, "I
took thee in hostage, young man, because I wanted thy service as
steward, not because I wished to please Agrippa."
"But I have summoned my better to take my place," Marsyas assured him.
"Thou shall not be without an able steward, who will serve thee for
hire."
And thus it was arranged when Eleazar arrived, that the rabbi should
take Marsyas' place as steward and Peter, grumbling, but no less
mollified, put on his cloak and repaired to the authorities to make the
young Essene's manumission a matter of record.
By sunset all the negotiations were completed and Marsyas, with Silas,
passed out into the twilight and proceeded toward the mole.
As they went, others were going; the freighter which was the first to
sail for Alexandria bade fair to be crowded with passengers. Curious
that so many wished to depart, Marsyas looked critically at the people
as they moved toward the water-front. He saw that many of them had
been with him in the Nazarene meeting the night before. They were
obeying the command to move on.
Suddenly one of them, a young man in advance of two, old enough to be
his parents, stopped and pointed with an outstretched arm.
Marsyas glanced in the direction the youth indicated.
The lower slopes of the immense western sky over the placid sea were
delicate with the pale shades of a clear, cold, spring sunset. The
point where the sun had sunk, alone glowed with a sparkling, golden
brilliance. And set against that, far out in the bay, was a frail dark
mast, crossed by a faint yard--a fragile crucifix sunk in a glory!
The elder man did not speak; the younger looked at the thing he had
discovered, but as Marsyas hurried in agitation by the woman, he heard
her speak softly:
"But it is bright--beyond!"