What time the lower horn of a new moon touched the castellated piles on
Mount Sulpius, and two thirds of the people of Antioch were out on
their house-tops comforting themselves with the night breeze when it
blew, and with fans when it failed, Simonides sat in the chair which
had come to be a part of him, and from the terrace looked down over the
river, and his ships a-swing at their moorings. The wall at his back
cast its shadow broadly over the water to the opposite shore. Above him
the endless tramp upon the bridge went on. Esther was holding a plate
for him containing his frugal supper—some wheaten cakes, light as
wafers, some honey, and a bowl of milk, into which he now and then
dipped the wafers after dipping them into the honey.
“Malluch is a laggard to-night,” he said, showing where his thoughts
were.
“Do you believe he will come?” Esther asked.
“Unless he has taken to the sea or the desert, and is yet following on,
he will come.”
Simonides spoke with quiet confidence.
“He may write,” she said.
“Not so, Esther. He would have despatched a letter when he found he
could not return, and told me so; because I have not received such a
letter, I know he can come, and will.”
“I hope so,” she said, very softly.
Something in the utterance attracted his attention; it might have been
the tone, it might have been the wish. The smallest bird cannot light
upon the greatest tree without sending a shock to its most distant
fibre; every mind is at times no less sensitive to the most trifling
words.
“You wish him to come, Esther?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, lifting her eyes to his.
“Why? Can you tell me?” he persisted.
“Because”—she hesitated, then began again—“because the young man is—”
The stop was full.
“Our master. Is that the word?”
“Yes.”
“And you still think I should not suffer him to go away without telling
him to come, if he chooses, and take us—and all we have—all, Esther—the
goods, the shekels, the ships, the slaves, and the mighty credit, which
is a mantle of cloth of gold and finest silver spun for me by the
greatest of the angels of men—Success.”
She made no answer.
“Does that move you nothing? No?” he said, with the slightest taint of
bitterness. “Well, well, I have found, Esther, the worst reality is
never unendurable when it comes out from behind the clouds through
which we at first see it darkly—never—not even the rack. I suppose it
will be so with death. And by that philosophy the slavery to which we
are going must afterwhile become sweet. It pleases me even now to think
what a favored man our master is. The fortune cost him nothing—not an
anxiety, not a drop of sweat, not so much as a thought; it attaches to
him undreamed of, and in his youth. And, Esther, let me waste a little
vanity with the reflection; he gets what he could not go into the
market and buy with all the pelf in a sum—thee, my child, my darling;
thou blossom from the tomb of my lost Rachel!”
He drew her to him, and kissed her twice—once for herself, once for her
mother.
“Say not so,” she said, when his hand fell from her neck. “Let us think
better of him; he knows what sorrow is, and will set us free.”
“Ah, thy instincts are fine, Esther; and thou knowest I lean upon them
in doubtful cases where good or bad is to be pronounced of a person
standing before thee as he stood this morning. But—but”—his voice rose
and hardened—“these limbs upon which I cannot stand—this body drawn and
beaten out of human shape—they are not all I bring him of myself. Oh
no, no! I bring him a soul which has triumphed over torture and Roman
malice keener than any torture—I bring him a mind which has eyes to see
gold at a distance farther than the ships of Solomon sailed, and power
to bring it to hand—ay, Esther, into my palm here for the fingers to
grip and keep lest it take wings at some other’s word—a mind skilled at
scheming”—he stopped and laughed—“Why, Esther, before the new moon
which in the courts of the Temple on the Holy Hill they are this moment
celebrating passes into its next quartering I could ring the world so
as to startle even Cæsar; for know you, child, I have that faculty
which is better than any one sense, better than a perfect body, better
than courage and will, better than experience, ordinarily the best
product of the longest lives—the faculty divinest of men, but which”—he
stopped, and laughed again, not bitterly, but with real zest—“but which
even the great do not sufficiently account, while with the herd it is a
non-existent—the faculty of drawing men to my purpose and holding them
faithfully to its achievement, by which, as against things to be done,
I multiply myself into hundreds and thousands. So the captains of my
ships plough the seas, and bring me honest returns; so Malluch follows
the youth, our master, and will”—just then a footstep was heard upon
the terrace—“Ha, Esther! said I not so? He is here—and we will have
tidings. For thy sake, sweet child—my lily just budded—I pray the Lord
God, who has not forgotten his wandering sheep of Israel, that they be
good and comforting. Now we will know if he will let thee go with all
thy beauty, and me with all my faculties.”
Malluch came to the chair.
“Peace to you, good master,” he said, with a low obeisance—“and to you,
Esther, most excellent of daughters.”
He stood before them deferentially, and the attitude and the address
left it difficult to define his relation to them; the one was that of a
servant, the other indicated the familiar and friend. On the other
side, Simonides, as was his habit in business, after answering the
salutation went straight to the subject.
“What of the young man, Malluch?”
The events of the day were told quietly and in the simplest words, and
until he was through there was no interruption; nor did the listener in
the chair so much as move a hand during the narration; but for his
eyes, wide open and bright, and an occasional long-drawn breath, he
might have been accounted an effigy.
“Thank you, thank you, Malluch,” he said, heartily, at the conclusion;
“you have done well—no one could have done better. Now what say you of
the young man’s nationality?”
“He is an Israelite, good master, and of the tribe of Judah.”
“You are positive?”
“Very positive.”
“He appears to have told you but little of his life.”
“He has somewhere learned to be prudent. I might call him distrustful.
He baffled all my attempts upon his confidence until we started from
the Castalian fount going to the village of Daphne.”
“A place of abomination! Why went he there?”
“I would say from curiosity, the first motive of the many who go; but,
very strangely, he took no interest in the things he saw. Of the
Temple, he merely asked if it were Grecian. Good master, the young man
has a trouble of mind from which he would hide, and he went to the
Grove, I think, as we go to sepulchres with our dead—he went to bury
it.”
“That were well, if so,” Simonides said, in a low voice; then louder,
“Malluch, the curse of the time is prodigality. The poor make
themselves poorer as apes of the rich, and the merely rich carry
themselves like princes. Saw you signs of the weakness in the youth?
Did he display moneys—coin of Rome or Israel?”
“None, none, good master.”
“Surely, Malluch, where there are so many inducements to folly—so much,
I mean, to eat and drink—surely he made you generous offer of some
sort. His age, if nothing more, would warrant that much.”
“He neither ate nor drank in my company.”
“In what he said or did, Malluch, could you in anywise detect his
master-idea? You know they peep through cracks close enough to stop the
wind.”
“Give me to understand you,” said Malluch, in doubt.
“Well, you know we nor speak nor act, much less decide grave questions
concerning ourselves, except as we be driven by a motive. In that
respect, what made you of him?”
“As to that, Master Simonides, I can answer with much assurance. He is
devoted to finding his mother and sister—that first. Then he has a
grievance against Rome; and as the Messala of whom I told you had
something to do with the wrong, the great present object is to
humiliate him. The meeting at the fountain furnished an opportunity,
but it was put aside as not sufficiently public.”
“The Messala is influential,” said Simonides, thoughtfully.
“Yes; but the next meeting will be in the Circus.”
“Well—and then?”
“The son of Arrius will win.”
“How know you?”
Malluch smiled.
“I am judging by what he says.”
“Is that all?”
“No; there is a much better sign—his spirit.”
“Ay; but, Malluch, his idea of vengeance—what is its scope? Does he
limit it to the few who did him the wrong, or does he take in the many?
And more—is his feeling but the vagary of a sensitive boy, or has it
the seasoning of suffering manhood to give it endurance? You know,
Malluch, the vengeful thought that has root merely in the mind is but a
dream of idlest sort which one clear day will dissipate; while revenge
the passion is a disease of the heart which climbs up, up to the brain,
and feeds itself on both alike.”
In this question, Simonides for the first time showed signs of feeling;
he spoke with rapid utterance, and with clenched hands and the
eagerness of a man illustrating the disease he described.
“Good my master,” Malluch replied, “one of my reasons for believing the
young man a Jew is the intensity of his hate. It was plain to me he had
himself under watch, as was natural, seeing how long he has lived in an
atmosphere of Roman jealousy; yet I saw it blaze—once when he wanted to
know Ilderim’s feeling towards Rome, and again when I told him the
story of the sheik and the wise man, and spoke of the question, ‘Where
is he that is born King of the Jews?’”
Simonides leaned forward quickly.
“Ah, Malluch, his words—give me his words; let me judge the impression
the mystery made upon him.”
“He wanted to know the exact words. Were they TO BE or BORN TO BE? It
appeared he was struck by a seeming difference in the effect of the two
phrases.”
Simonides settled back into his pose of listening judge.
“Then,” said Malluch, “I told him Ilderim’s view of the mystery—that
the king would come with the doom of Rome. The young man’s blood rose
over his cheeks and forehead, and he said earnestly, ‘Who but a Herod
can be king while Rome endures?’”
“Meaning what?”
“That the empire must be destroyed before there could be another rule.”
Simonides gazed for a time at the ships and their shadows slowly
swinging together in the river; when he looked up, it was to end the
interview.
“Enough, Malluch,” he said. “Get you to eat, and make ready to return
to the Orchard of Palms; you must help the young man in his coming
trial. Come to me in the morning. I will send a letter to Ilderim.”
Then in an undertone, as if to himself, he added, “I may attend the
Circus myself.”
When Malluch after the customary benediction given and received was
gone, Simonides took a deep draught of milk, and seemed refreshed and
easy of mind.
“Put the meal down, Esther,” he said; “it is over.”
She obeyed.
“Here now.”
She resumed her place upon the arm of the chair close to him.
“God is good to me, very good,” he said, fervently. “His habit is to
move in mystery, yet sometimes he permits us to think we see and
understand him. I am old, dear, and must go; but now, in this eleventh
hour, when my hope was beginning to die, he sends me this one with a
promise, and I am lifted up. I see the way to a great part in a
circumstance itself so great that it shall be as a new birth to the
whole world. And I see a reason for the gift of my great riches, and
the end for which they were designed. Verily, my child, I take hold on
life anew.”
Esther nestled closer to him, as if to bring his thoughts from their
far-flying.
“The king has been born” he continued, imagining he was still speaking
to her, “and he must be near the half of common life. Balthasar says he
was a child on his mother’s lap when he saw him, and gave him presents
and worship; and Ilderim holds it was twenty-seven years ago last
December when Balthasar and his companions came to his tent asking a
hiding-place from Herod. Wherefore the coming cannot now be long
delayed. To-night—to-morrow it may be. Holy fathers of Israel, what
happiness in the thought! I seem to hear the crash of the falling of
old walls and the clamor of a universal change—ay, and for the
uttermost joy of men, the earth opens to take Rome in, and they look up
and laugh and sing that she is not, while we are;” then he laughed at
himself. “Why, Esther, heard you ever the like? Surely, I have on me
the passion of a singer, the heat of blood and the thrill of Miriam and
David. In my thoughts, which should be those of a plain worker in
figures and facts, there is a confusion of cymbals clashing and
harp-strings loud beaten, and the voices of a multitude standing around
a new-risen throne. I will put the thinking by for the present; only,
dear, when the king comes he will need money and men, for as he was a
child born of woman he will be but a man after all, bound to human ways
as you and I are. And for the money he will have need of getters and
keepers, and for the men leaders. There, there! See you not a broad
road for my walking, and the running of the youth our master?—and at
the end of it glory and revenge for us both?—and—and”—he paused, struck
with the selfishness of a scheme in which she had no part or good
result; then added, kissing her, “And happiness for thy mother’s
child.”
She sat still, saying nothing. Then he remembered the difference in
natures, and the law by which we are not permitted always to take
delight in the same cause or be equally afraid of the same thing. He
remembered she was but a girl.
“Of what are you thinking, Esther?” he said, in his common home-like
way. “If the thought have the form of a wish, give it me, little one,
while the power remains mine. For power, you know, is a fretful thing,
and hath its wings always spread for flight.”
She answered with a simplicity almost childish,
“Send for him, father. Send for him to-night, and do not let him go
into the Circus.”
“Ah!” he said, prolonging the exclamation; and again his eyes fell upon
the river, where the shadows were more shadowy than ever, since the
moon had sunk far down behind Sulpius, leaving the city to the
ineffectual stars. Shall we say it, reader? He was touched by a twinge
of jealousy. If she should really love the young master! Oh no! That
could not be; she was too young. But the idea had fast grip, and
directly held him still and cold. She was sixteen. He knew it well. On
the last natal day he had gone with her to the shipyard where there was
a launch, and the yellow flag which the galley bore to its bridal with
the waves had on it “Esther;” so they celebrated the day together. Yet
the fact struck him now with the force of a surprise. There are
realizations which come to us all painfully; mostly, however, such as
pertain to ourselves; that we are growing old, for instance; and, more
terrible, that we must die. Such a one crept into his heart, shadowy as
the shadows, yet substantial enough to wring from him a sigh which was
almost a groan. It was not sufficient that she should enter upon her
young womanhood a servant, but she must carry to her master her
affections, the truth and tenderness and delicacy of which he the
father so well knew, because to this time they had all been his own
undividedly. The fiend whose task it is to torture us with fears and
bitter thoughts seldom does his work by halves. In the pang of the
moment, the brave old man lost sight of his new scheme, and of the
miraculous king its subject. By a mighty effort, however, he controlled
himself, and asked, calmly, “Not go into the Circus, Esther? Why,
child?”
“It is not a place for a son of Israel, father.”
“Rabbinical, rabbinical, Esther! Is that all?”
The tone of the inquiry was searching, and went to her heart, which
began to beat loudly—so loudly she could not answer. A confusion new
and strangely pleasant fell upon her.
“The young man is to have the fortune,” he said, taking her hand, and
speaking more tenderly; “he is to have the ships and the shekels—all,
Esther, all. Yet I did not feel poor, for thou wert left me, and thy
love so like the dead Rachel’s. Tell me, is he to have that too?”
She bent over him, and laid her cheek against his head.
“Speak, Esther. I will be the stronger of the knowledge. In warning
there is strength.”
She sat up then, and spoke as if she were Truth’s holy self.
“Comfort thee, father. I will never leave thee; though he take my love,
I will be thy handmaid ever as now.”
And, stooping, she kissed him.
“And more,” she said, continuing: “he is comely in my sight, and the
pleading of his voice drew me to him, and I shudder to think of him in
danger. Yes, father, I would be more than glad to see him again. Still,
the love that is unrequited cannot be perfect love, wherefore I will
wait a time, remembering I am thy daughter and my mother’s.”
“A very blessing of the Lord art thou, Esther! A blessing to keep me
rich, though all else be lost. And by his holy name and everlasting
life, I swear thou shalt not suffer.”
At his request, a little later, the servant came and rolled the chair
into the room, where he sat for a time thinking of the coming of the
king, while she went off and slept the sleep of the innocent.