He looked at me severely and answered:
“What are the words of Moses on the subject? Listen: ‘A man or a woman
that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to
death. They shall stone them with stones.’”
This did not convince me that my father was in error.
Months passed; and a gradual and saddening change was creeping over our
life and its surroundings. I had detected no robbery, no magical
practices; but I had no faith in my uncle. Cautious and reticent as he
was, he could not conceal some of the ugly points of his character. He was
violent and cruel in his dealings with his slaves. He was addicted to
falsehood, and in both opinion and practice was destitute of charity. His
strict observance of the ceremonial law and his intense ritualism, could
not conceal from me the fact that his heart was wholly untouched by the
spiritualizing influences of true religion.
He ceased after a while to take us to see our aunt. Our teachers in
various branches were not re-engaged, or were dismissed. Education came to
a stand-still. Company was excluded from our house. His own was opened at
night to suspicious characters. By bribing one of his servants one dark
night, I obtained admission to his courtyard, and discovered, by muffled
sounds of music and dancing, that a bacchanalian revelry was going on
underground. He sometimes betrayed the next day, in his face and manner,
the effect of these midnight orgies.
In the mean time my beautiful sisters pined, neglected and sorrowful.
Magistus rarely visited them; and when he did, he was guilty of coarse
familiarities which shocked and repelled them. I summoned courage, boy as
I was, on one of these occasions to reproach him bitterly for these
things; for neglecting our education, our dress, our manners, our
comforts; and for falling himself into habits which would certainly lead
to the ruin of us all. He stared at me insolently, and said that I had
better get my father’s friend Caiaphas to revise his guardianship.
Like a man who sits helpless in a boat without oars, gliding down a swift
current, and hears the far-off but inevitable cataract, I contemplated the
dark future that awaited us. I grieved for my sisters more than for
myself. We had just been mourning together one day over our sad fate, when
Magistus came into the room. He had held a long private interview that
morning with a strange man of gigantic size and very coarse manners, whose
appearance, as he entered the guest-chamber, excited my gravest
suspicions.
“You complain so bitterly,” said he, looking reproachfully at me, “of the
general decay and ruin into which everything about here, animate and
inanimate, is falling, that it is surprising you have not yet intimated
your doubts about your father getting his proper supply of provisions.”
“Oh no, uncle!” said Mary, tenderly, “you could not forget so sacred a
duty as that. Surely no one ever hinted such a thing. The thought of it
would drive me mad.”
“I wish you to satisfy yourselves perfectly upon that point,” he
continued, in the tone of a man who thought himself aggrieved. “A trusty
servant is to convey to him a basket of things the day after to-morrow.
Let Lazarus accompany him. Let his daughters send some little presents.
His son can see him and even speak with him at a distance. He can see his
lodging and satisfy himself that he is comfortably situated.”
“Without confessing, uncle,” said I, “that this visit is necessary for my
faith in your attention to my father, I concede that it will give me very
great pleasure.”
“How long will he be gone?” said Martha.
“Is there no danger?” said Mary.
“He will run no risk and will return the same night,” said Magistus,
answering both questions in a breath.
This visit occupied our thoughts continually, and we delighted to imagine
what joy it would give our poor father. I was out of bed before daylight
that morning, impatient to start. I partook heartily of an extempore
breakfast which Ethopus provided me. That personage to my surprise seemed
sad and abstracted. I could say nothing to him, however, for Magistus was
present. I kissed my sisters good-bye at the door of their room, for they
too could not sleep for excitement. Magistus waved his adieu at the front
door. I walked through the courtyard with Ethopus, who carried a covered
basket on his arm.
We were near the gate, when Ethopus coming close to me slipped something
into my hand. It was a long, thin, bright dagger. I concealed it
immediately in my bosom.
“Ethopus thinks there will be danger,” said I, to myself.
I would perhaps have said something, but I observed the porter admitting a
person through the gate, whose entrance at that hour in the morning caused
me the greatest surprise.
It was a woman; and at the age of sixteen a woman occupies a great deal of
the field of vision before the masculine eye. This woman was very
young—not more than fifteen, although perfectly mature. She was very
beautiful—so beautiful that everybody must have turned to look after her.
Her eyes were large, soft and hazel; her hair brown and wavy; her cheeks
blended roses and pearls: her mouth small and curved like a bow; her voice
and smile perfectly bewitching—all that I took in at a glance: nor did it
need the splendid ear-rings and brilliant necklace and scarlet robe she
wore, to impress it very deeply on my mind.
She bade me good-morning with the sweetest smile imaginable, and with the
affable, self-possessed manner of a woman much older than herself.
Startled and abashed, I could do nothing but bow profoundly and hurry into
the street where Ethopus had given the basket to the person who was to be
my guide.
I made signs to Ethopus, by a kind of pantomime we had acquired, to keep a
watchful eye on my sisters. He replied by an affirmative motion of the
head and a deep sigh, which was evidently on my own account.
This woman was destined, under the leadings of Providence, to make a
greater and more lasting impression on my soul than all others. And this
was our first meeting: I a bashful boy; she a strange woman, too gaudily
dressed, entering my father’s house at a strange hour. So two ships might
pass each other on the Great Sea, merely exchanging signals of
good-morning—ships destined long afterward to convoy each other beyond the
Pillar of Hercules into the infinite unknown!
This woman was Mary Magdalen.
[Illustration: Ornament]
[Illustration: Ornament]