A LETTER AND A LOSS
When Agrippa returned to his house that night, he found old Silas
sitting in the vestibule, opposite the place of the atriensis, his
hands on his knees, his dull face uncommonly animated and expressive.
It was long past the hour when the household servants had retired, and
the porter at the door was drowsy, but the instant Agrippa set foot on
his threshhold Silas started up and bowed in excitement.
"An evil day," he said. "Thy wardrobe hath been entered and much fine
raiment is gone."
"But thou hast made an evil night of it, Silas: thou shouldst have
withheld thy calamitous recital until the morning. Hast discovered the
thief?"
Silas bowed again. "I have: yet, I have been restrained from taking
him."
"O pliable Jew! None but Caesar can steal my wardrobe unmolested. Who
protects the thief?"
"Marsyas."
"What! Marsyas? Save thou art too unimaginative to be a fictionist I
should say thou makest thy story. Why does Marsyas protect my
pillager?"
"He says we are well rid of the knave."
"Not if he carried off so much as a sandal-lace. I am a Jew and
therefore jealous for my own property. Marsyas, as an Essene, is given
to dividing without protest with thieves. I remember the Greek who
helped himself to Marsyas' patrimony on Olivet. But who is the thief?"
"Eutychus."
"Eutychus! By Hermes, he could not help it with that face! But go on;
what is the circumstance?"
"He took," Silas continued, "the umber toga, embroidered with silver,
much of thy Jewish vestments, the gazelle wallet which contained thy
amulet, and drachmae and bracelets of gold. He is rich!"
"Of a surety: the knave hath only the more attached himself to me.
What a pity! Otherwise we were well rid of him. And Marsyas bade thee
let him go?"
"The young man was disturbed. According to instructions, he sent a
messenger to thy stables, without the walls, to bid Eutychus have thy
car ready to-morrow for thy visit to Tusculum. But the messenger
presently returned with the information that Eutychus had not been seen
about the stables that day. At the same moment, I discovered the
losses among thy apparel. And Marsyas instantly suspected Eutychus.
He sent two slaves in search of him. They returned in an hour saying
that he had been discovered in Janiculum in a wine-shop, robed like an
Augustan in thy umber toga, and making merry with wine that could only
tickle a Samaritan's throat. When they tried to bring him, he
objected, saying thou shouldst not miss him, seeing that thou hadst
learned the pleasure of walking in thy less fortunate days."
Agrippa's forehead darkened.
"Even for that I should hand him over to the lictors!" he exclaimed.
"It is not all. When the two slaves then tried to fetch him by force,
they were attacked by him and the wine-shop keeper and others, and
obliged to flee for their lives. I besought Marsyas, then, to permit
me to inform the authorities and have him taken, but he opined that the
charioteer's insolence was new and sudden, wherefore full of meaning.
Seeing that it was Eutychus' intent to enrage thee, thou wast better
not enraged; to wash thy hands of him and bless the day that he
departed."
Agrippa yawned.
"To-morrow we shall search for him and have him taken. It is
improvident to have so much philosophy as Marsyas. But what had the
knave of a charioteer against me? It is Marsyas who hath enchanted
Drumah, and who took him by the throat in the alabarch's house. I
shall speak with Marsyas to-morrow."
He took himself with increasing effort up the stairs along the corridor
toward his rest. With the facility which characterized many of
Agrippa's troubles, the offender had already dropped out of his mind.
He had fenced with Caligula that morning, he had feasted with Macro
that night. At midday he had slighted Piso, the enemy of both.
Caligula had had him draw a sketch of Judea on the wax of the gymnasium
floor and designate the possessions of the old Herod; Macro, in his
cups, had asked confidentially if Caligula approved him. Altogether
the day had been filled with tokens presaging success. He smiled
sleepily, remembering Silas' extravagant concern over the robbery.
"Calamity is all in the mark on the scale of Fortune," he opined. "A
year ago to lose a handful of drachmae would have ruined me."
As he passed Marsyas' door, he stepped back suddenly and stopped. The
long curtain dragged on the floor at one side had given him an
interesting glimpse of the lighted interior. Within, Marsyas, seated
at a table, had at that moment flung away his stylus and dropped his
head on the writing. Almost immediately he sprang up, and, seizing the
parchment, thrust it into the blaze of the lamp at his hand.
Astonishment gathered on the Herod's face.
In the blaze the writing curled, the flame eating into the slow-burning
parchment, burned low, but surely, reaching toward the fingers that
grasped it. Presently Marsyas dropped it. Then the night-wind, rising
from the sea, swept in through the cancelli with a shriek, put out the
lamp instantly and swept the long dragging curtain against the Herod
standing in the dimly-illuminated corridor. He got out of sight
hurriedly.
After the first gust, the wind dropped, sending long streams of
impelling draft through cancelli, doorway and hall. Before it, along
the pavement, something came skittering out of Marsyas' cubiculum.
Agrippa looked at it. It was a roll of parchment, charred and crushed
by the tense grip of fingers.
Agrippa waited. After a slight movement within, silence fell again,
and was not thereafter broken. The prince's eyes fell on the charred
writing. It was almost at his feet. His fine head dropped to one
side, then to the other; he put his fingers into his hair, smiled a
little and picked up the parchment. A moment later, in his own
apartment, he unrolled it by his lamp.
Only a word here and there, at the end held in Marsyas' fingers, was
legible, but Agrippa gathered from these the tone, the purpose and the
identity, as he thought, of the one addressed.
"-- me for loving thee -- my punishment --. Yet ---- sin against my
teachi ---- Willingly for thy sake ------ but to pretend ---- continue
my ---- against ---- which threatens thee. Have I lost -- soul for a
caprice ---- and beseech levity -- to lov -- me? the pointing finger
---- of sel -- scorn! An outcast from Heaven ---- truant from hell,
haunting earth in search of thee for ever!--SYAS."
Agrippa's eyes sobered.
"Junia is a brand of fire," he said to himself. "I shall make an end
of this!"