THE RANSOM
Marsyas passed up to his room to put his belongings together. The
sound of his movements within reached Lydia in her refuge, and, when he
came forth, she stood in the gloom of the hall without, awaiting him.
Moved with a little fear of her reproach, he went to her, with extended
hands.
"What have I done?" she whispered.
"Thou hast done nothing," he said quickly. "I blame myself for keeping
the amulet about me, when I should have destroyed it. But I could
not--I have not yet; because--it is thine!"
"But I kept silence--I who owned the crucifix--"
"I made thee keep silence!"
"But what have they said to thee; what wilt thou do?" she insisted.
"I go without more obloquy than I brought hither with me; I was
accused, before; I could stand further accusation, for thy sake! They
have said nothing; done nothing--I go to Rhacotis, to await the
departure of Agrippa, who goes to Rome at the end of three days--nay;
peace!" he broke off, as a momentous resolution gathered in her pale
face. "Thou wilt keep silence, else I do this thing in vain!"
"I will not slander myself!" she cried. "I am not afraid to confess my
fault--"
"But thou shall not do it!" he declared. "The punishment for it would
not be alone for thyself! Choose between the quiet of thy conscience
and the peace and pride of thy father! Bethink thee, the inestimable
harm thou canst do by this thing! Be not deceived that the story of
thy lapse would be kept under thy father's roof. That ignoble pagan
governor below has no care for thy sweet fame! He would tell it; thy
maidens would hear of it and fear thee or follow thee! Thy father's
government over his people would be weakened; the elders of the
Synagogue would question him--Lydia, suffer the little hurt of
conscience for thine own account, rather than afflict many for thy
pride's sake!"
Her small hands, white in the darkness of the corridor, were twisted
about each other in distress. Marsyas' pity was stirred to the deepest.
"How unhappy thou hast been!" he said, touching upon her apostasy.
"Give over thy wavering and be the true daughter of God, once more!
Let us destroy this evil amulet!"
He plucked the crucifix from his tunic and caught it between his hands
to break it, when she sprang toward him and seized his wrists.
"Do not so!" she besought, her eyes large with fright.
He had forced her to defend it, and she had stood to the breach; he had
proved the gravity of her disaffection for the faith of Abraham.
"Why wilt thou endanger thyself for this social drift?" he demanded
passionately. "Lydia! How canst thou turn from the faith of thy
fathers?"
"I--I am not worthy to be a Nazarene!" she answered. "They are
forbidden to enact a falsehood!"
"Let be; I do not care for their philosophy; it is like the Law of
Rome.--an empty armor that any knave can wear. But I urge thee to
behold what misery thou invitest upon thyself! What will come of it?
Immortal as thou art in soul, thou canst not keep alive the single
spark of wisdom in the ashes of their folly; thou canst not save them
against the combined vengeance of the whole world! But thou canst be
disgraced with them, persecuted with them, and die with them!
Unhallowed the day that ever Classicus spoke their name to thee!
Cursed be his words! May the Lord treasure them up against him--!"
"Hush! hush!" she whispered.
He became calm with an effort.
"Lydia," he began after a pause, "it is a poor intelligence that can
not foresee as ably as the augurs. One successful life gives
opportunity, to all that spring from it, to be successful; a failure
scatters the seed of misfortune through all its blood. Choose thou for
thyself and thou choosest for a nation which comes after thee. I see
thee radiant, crowned, worshiped; and if they who come up under thy
guidance walk as thou dost walk, Lydia shall give queens unto
principalities and rulers unto satrapies. These be days when women of
virtue and women of remark; women of wisdom are remembered women. And
thou, virtuous, wise and noble--the empresses of coming Caesars will
assume thy name to conceal their tarnishment under a badge of luster!
This on one hand. On the other thou shalt flee from the stones of the
rabble, come unto the humiliation of thy womanhood and the agony of thy
body in the torture-cell, and die like a criminal!"
She shrank away with a quivering sound and flung her hands over her
ears. He caught her and drew her close, until she all but rested on
his breast.
"Lydia, naught but mine extremity could make me speak thus to thee," he
said tremulously and in a passion of appeal. "If the words be hideous,
let the actualities that they mean warn thee in time!"
"But--thou dost not understand," she faltered, drawing away from him.
"I do understand; through anguish and rancor and suffering, I have
learned. Must I give all to the vengeance of God, who visiteth
apostates for their iniquity? Lydia, depart not from the righteous
religion, I implore thee. Behold its great age," he went on, speaking
rapidly and with quickened breath, "behold its history, its monuments,
its achievements, its great exponents, its infallibility! The rest of
the world was an unimagined futurity when an able son of thy race was
minister to Pharaoh and lord over the whole land of Egypt. The godly
kings of thy people were poets and musicians when Pindar's and Homer's
ancestors were still Peloponnesian fauns with horns in their hair.
Before Isis and Osiris, before Bel and Astarte, thy God was molding
universes and hanging stars in the sky. And lo! the sons of the
Pharaohs are wasted weaklings, fit only for slaves; the Chaldees are
dust in the dust of their cities; Babylonia is hunting-ground for
jackals and the perch of bats; Rome--even Rome's greatness hath
returned into the sinews of her hills, but there is no decadence in
Israel, no weakness in her God! Aid not in the perversion of her
ancient faith--thou who art the incarnation of her queens--"
He halted, but only for an instant, in which he seemed to throw off
recurring restraint and drove on:
"David did not seek for one more lovely, nor Solomon for one more wise!
Truth, even Truth demands dear tribute when it takes a life. For a
mere scintillation of verity, wilt thou die?"
"I--I fear not," she answered painfully. "I--who could be affrighted
out of telling a truth!"
Not his prayer, but the Nazarene's teaching had weight with her, at
that moment!
"All thy hazard of life and fame for their vague philosophy," he cried,
"and not one stir of pity for me!"
There was a moment of complete silence; then she lifted her face.
"Thou knowest better," she said, "thou, who labored in vain with
Stephen, who loved thee!"
His heart contracted; for a moment he entertained as practicable a
resolve to stay stubbornly under the alabarch's roof until he had
broken the determination of this sweet erring girl to destroy herself.
He drew in his breath to speak, but the futileness of his words
occurred to him. Again, he had a thought of telling the alabarch
privately of his daughter's peril, but instantly doubted that the good
old Jew could move her. While he debated desperately with himself, she
drew, nearer to him.
"Be not angry with me! If thou leavest Alexandria in three days, it
may be that I--shall not see thee again--"
"So I am dismissed to know no rest until I have brought Saul of Tarsus
low, for thy sake, as well as for Stephen's!"
He knew at the next breath that he had hurt her, and repented.
"I shall see thee once more," he said hurriedly, feeling that he dared
not make retraction. He took up the pilgrim's wallet containing his
belongings, and put out his hand to her. She took it, so wistfully, so
sorrowfully, that a wave of compunction swept over him. Bending low,
he pressed his lips to her palm, and hastened, full of agitation, out
of the alabarch's house.
The preparations for the Feast of Flora had been brought to
completeness. The funds for the lavish display had come out of the
taxes upon provinces, the flamens managed it, the patricians and the
rich patronized it and all Alexandria, whether rich or poor, free or
enslaved, plunged into its celebration with recklessness and relish.
The dwellers of the Regio Judaeorum took no part in the celebration, but
Marsyas saw that a spirit of interest invaded the district, even to the
doors of the great Synagogue. Mothers in Israel put aside the wimples
over their faces when they met in the narrow passages or the
market-places to talk of the recurring abomination in lowered voices
and with sidelong glances to see if the velvet-eyed children, who clung
to their garments, heard. Fathers in Israel, rabbis and constabularies
were abroad to make preparation against the local characteristic which
tended to turn every popular gathering into a demonstration against the
Jews. The bloody uproar of the preceding year was fresh in the fear of
the people, and though Lysimachus had spread abroad the promise of the
proconsul, the Regio Judaeorum had cause to be doubtful of the favor of
a former persecutor.
But as the young man entered the Gentile portion of the city, he saw
that, from the Lochias to the Gate of the Necropolis, Alexandria was no
longer a city of normal life and labor but a play-ground for revel and
lawlessness. The two main avenues which crossed the city toward the
four cardinal points were cleared of traffic and the marks of wheel and
hoof were stamped out by crowds that filled the roadways. The crowding
glories of Alexandrian architecture which lined these noble
highways--temples, palaces, theaters, baths, gymnasia, stadia and fora,
high marks of both Greek and Roman society--were wreathed, pillar and
plinth, with laurel and roses, lilies and myrtle, nelumbo and lotus.
Fountains gave up perfumed water; aromatic gums in bowls set upon
staves fumed and burned and were filling the dead airs of the
Alexandrian calm with oriental musks; everywhere were the reedy
shrilling of pipe, the tinkle of castanet, the mellow notes of flutes
and the muttering of drums. Wine was flowing like water; immense
public feasts were in progress, at which droves of sheep and oxen were
served to gathered multitudes, which were never full-fed except at
Flora's bounty. Processions were streaming along the streets, meeting
at intersections to romp, break up in revel and end in excess. Tens of
thousands with one impulse, one law, frolicked, fought, drank, danced,
sang, piped, wooed, forgot everything, grudges and all, except Flora
and her license and bounty. The citizens were no longer the
descendants of Quirites, remnant of the Pharaohs or the Macedonian
kings, but satyrs, fauns, bacchantes, nymphs, mimes and harlequins.
Marsyas kept away from the crowds and went by deserted paths toward
Rhacotis.
He knew without inquiry where to find the Nazarene quarter. It was
marked by the strange, strained silence that hovers over houses where
life is not secure, by poverty, by orderliness, by the patient faces of
the humble dwellers, by the brotherly greeting that the few citizens
gave him as he approached. He saw many of the garrison loitering
about, but they permitted him to pass without notice.
The roar of the merrymaking without swept into the quiet passages like
a titanic purr of satisfaction. The young man had grown away from his
toleration of solitude. His Essenic training had suffered change; its
usages, at variance with his nature, had become difficult as soon as
the opportunity for more congenial habits had presented itself. Only a
few weeks before, he could voyage the giant breadth of the
Mediterranean, excluding himself from the contaminating Nazarenes,
without effort. Now, he asked himself how he was to live among these
people for three days.
He found the quarter absolutely packed with people, and realized then
how many followers of Jesus of Nazareth there were in Alexandria, and
how thoroughly Flaccus had weeded them out of the rest of the city.
He looked about him, grew impatient, and, with the ready invention of a
man who has lived only by devices for the past many months, made up his
mind to house himself elsewhere than in the crowded Nazarene quarter.
"I will go to the ship," he said to himself. "It is victualed and
ready for the prince's arrival to weigh anchor. No one but my seamen
need know that I am there, and they will be too intent on Flora to
speak of me abroad in the city!"
He turned promptly and made his way down the quarter toward the harbor.
Within sound of the waters lapping on the wharf piling, a soldier of
the city garrison stepped into his way.
"Back!" he said harshly.
Marsyas stopped.
"Why may I not pass?" he demanded.
"None passes from this rebel's nest hereafter!"