locks and classically arranged toga, was addressing a small group
within a portico. He was just saying: "Hear then the words of the
divine Plato, 'When a beautiful soul harmonizes with a beautiful body,
and the two are cast into the same mould, that will be the fairest of
sights to him that has an eye to contemplate the vision.' Truly the
soul is made fair by the fairness of the body. Thought glows when the
eye sparkles. Heroism is bred of conscious strength of muscle. Love
burns within the arms of beauty, and with the kisses scented with the
sweet breath of health. Think you that the gods would dwell within
the statues if the sculptors did not shape the marble and ivory to
exquisite proportions?
"Behold, then, the stupidity of these Jews whose foul nests we are
destroying. They read their Rolls, but they gain no wisdom. They pray,
yet remain impious. It is because they know not the first of maxims,
namely, that the body is the matrix of the mind."
"The fool!" was Dion's comment. "There are better declaimers in any
Greek village. And"--more to himself than to his comrade, as a band of
Jews, among them even some renegade priests, stripped naked, ran by
them on their way to the racing stadium--"yet see, there are bigger
fools!"
When the two men passed into the gymnasium proper, the crowd on the
benches raised the cry of "Dion! Dion!" until the crossbeam shook down
its dust of applause.
The Captain gracefully acknowledged the compliment by taking from his
brow the chaplet, now well withered, and flinging it from him into the
crowd with the exclamation: "I will win it again before I wear it."
The magnanimous challenge brought the champion another ovation.
The chief gymnasiarch approached, and read from his tablets the names
of the day's victors in the various contests that had already taken
place. He bade Dion select an antagonist from the list.
"I will throw the discus," said the Captain.
"Then your competitor will be Yusef, the Lebanon giant," read the
gymnasiarch. He shouted:
"Hear ye! Yusef of Damascus is challenged by Dion of Philippi."
Divesting himself of his garment the Greek now stood naked among his
compeers.
"Adonis has descended," shouted one, in a tone that might have been
taken for either admiration or contempt.
An alipta came and rubbed Dion's arms and back with oil mingled with
dust.
"Better rub him against the Jew. He'll get both grease and dirt at a
touch," sneered some one.
Dion turned, and, fronting the group whence the insult came, scanned
the faces one by one; but there was no response to his mute challenge.
As he moved away one ventured to say, loud enough to be heard by a few
about him:
"The Jewish renegade is protected by special order of the King, or, by
the club of Herakles! I would grind his face with my fists."
"The Captain seems to be the pimp's special body-guard just now,"
was a reply; after which the knot of men talked in low tones among
themselves, casting furtive glances in the direction of Dion.
"Yusef stands on his record of this morning," shouted the gymnasiarch.
"He need not throw again unless Dion shall pass him."
The Greek balanced in his hand two circular pieces of bronze, in order
to select one of them. The crowd densely lined the way the missile was
to fly. There was eager rivalry for places at the goal end, where the
friends of the contestants craned their necks to see the exact spot
the discus would strike, ready to applaud or dispute it. In this group
Glaucon had secured a foremost stand, and waited, leaning with the
crowd.
"Here's your chance to stick the pig of a Jew," whispered one to his
neighbor, who stood just behind Glaucon.
Dion held the bright bronze in his right hand, his fingers grasping
tightly the outer rim, while the weight fell upon his open palm and
wrist. Raising his left arm the more perfectly to balance his weight,
he pivoted himself upon his left foot, then, swinging the discus
backward in almost a complete circle, and combining the muscles of arm
and trunk and leg in one tremendous return motion, he flung the metal
gleaming through the air.
At the same instant Glaucon was thrust by those behind him headlong
into the path of the flying missile. The swift swirl of the disc
together with its weight made its impact as dangerous as that of a
sword blade. It struck the falling form of Glaucon, terribly bruising
the base of his head, and laying open a ghastly wound in his neck and
shoulder.
Dion strode down the line. He glanced an instant at the prostrate form
of his friend, turned as quickly as a bear, seized two of the throng of
bystanders, dashed their heads together until they were half-stunned,
then flung them sprawling apart. They lay moaning and cursing on the
ground amid the derisions of the crowd until the gymnasiarch ordered
them under arrest.
The gymnastæ, or surgeons of the field of sports, were summoned; but
the case of Glaucon was beyond the present need of their splints and
unguents.
Dion bade them carry the apparently lifeless form to Elkiah's house,
and himself led the way. It was this sad company which the clairvoyant
mind of the blind boy detected before the searching gaze of Deborah saw
the approaching litter.
V
A FLOWER IN A TORRENT
"It is Benjamin! Benjamin is hurt!" cried Caleb, leaning an instant
over the parapet. While Deborah was looking into the street he felt
his way to the steps leading down from the roof into the open court
around which the house was built. He darted across this as quickly and
silently as a flash from the brass mirror, not even waking Ephraim,
the servant, who had fallen asleep watching the ripples in the great
basin of the fountain that stood in the centre of the court. In
another instant the boy had raised the crossbar from the lintels and
was hasting down the narrow street. Extending his hands he guided
himself through the crowds, keeping always in the centre of the way as
infallibly as a stick floats in the middle of a wild rushing torrent.
In vain did Deborah, as she saw him, call him from the parapet. She
flew down the stone stairway and out into the street.
"What haste, my black-eyed beauty?" said an impudent soldier, blocking
her way.
By a quick movement Deborah eluded him, but only to be stopped
scarcely twenty paces beyond by another, who stretched out his arms
and seized her by the wrists. She stood as if paralyzed by her
wrath at this indignity, for never before had a rude hand touched
her; then, with sudden agility and strength which seemed beyond a
woman's, she wrenched herself from her captor. Taking time and breath
for one indignant cry, "You coward!" she ran on, while the crowd was
temporarily diverted by their jeers at the discomfited soldier.
"The eunuchs are stronger than you, man, for they can keep the women
from running away from the harems."
"Her fire-eyes burnt out your heart, did they? Open your corselet, and
let's see if it be charred."
Deborah turned into the Cheesemakers Street. Here she met a company of
officers.
"Catch the gazelle! She is my spoil!" shouted the leader.
Her arms were instantly seized from behind.
"Apollonius has captured the very Daughter of Jerusalem that the Jews
talk about," remarked one.
"Apollonius?" cried Deborah, looking at one whose gorgeous plumage
indicated that he was the chief officer.
He was a man of prepossessing appearance. His brow was broad, features
finely proportioned; a man evidently trained to think and govern. In
younger days he must have been exceedingly handsome, but middle life
showed the effects of dissipation. A furtive flicker in his eyes belied
his assumption of self-command. His lips were swollen from too frequent
communion with the spirit of the vine.
"Apollonius!" cried Deborah. "Does Apollonius dare to break his own
orders? Is it true, then, as men say, that there is neither honor nor
mercy in a Syrian?" fixing her gaze unflinchingly upon the Governor's
face.
"Ah! and who is my charmer? Beautiful as a leopard at bay, or Aphrodite
herself is a hag. Come, can you leap as high as my arms?" said the
Governor, amid the laughter of his attendants.
"I am the daughter of Elkiah," said Deborah, "whose house you have
given your sworn word to spare, if you be indeed General Apollonius."
"By all the nymphs this side of Olympus! I am sorry to hear it,"
replied he. "If I had known that the old bigot had so fair a daughter,
I would have qualified my order. But let her pass, my men. We must keep
our word, of course."
A counter commotion was heard down the street.
"Way for the litter! Way for the litter!" shouted those coming.
With a sharp outcry, Deborah darted from the soldiers about her and ran
to the side of the wounded man.
"It is Benjamin!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms about the insensible
form which the bearers had for the moment put down. "Speak to me, my
brother!"
The girl's grief at first seemed inconsolable. But suddenly she was
transformed into a Fury. She stood straight but trembling, with hands
clenched, and glared upon the bystanders. For a little her passion
prevented speech. Then she broke forth, with tone and gesture and look
which fitted her words:
"A curse upon his murderer! Who struck this cowardly blow?"
She raised her hand as if to smite any one who dared confess the deed.
"It was but an accident, fair daughter of Elkiah," responded Dion,
with a manner that disarmed her rage. "Your brother is not dead. See,
he lives."
He bent over his friend with evident joy as the Jew opened his eyes
and gazed, at first with stupidity and then curiously, at the Greek
and his sister. The glance at Dion was with the flicker of a smile;
that upon his sister brought an expression of pain. The next moment
he put his hand to his head, and, uttering a sharp cry, lapsed into
unconsciousness.
Deborah and Dion stood one on either side of the litter. Their hands
touched as they stroked the forehead of the sufferer. They looked into
each other's faces. With her it was only the recognition of a common
sympathy.
But Dion had other thoughts. The vision of the face he had seen at
Elkiah's doorway had not faded for an instant from his imagination.
Now his impression of her beauty was reinforced by the revelation of
her soul. What courage! what audacity! yet not beyond a woman's right!
Had he struck a wilful blow at Glaucon, he thought that her wrath
would have killed him, so just would it have been, and so imperious
was her voice and action. Yet what love this woman was capable of! She
seemed to him like some goddess weeping at her own altar which had been
despoiled; for surely Glaucon was not worthy of this outpouring of
her affection. Dion thought that he knew women. To him the most were
but as stagnant pools, with surface glistening in the sunlight, while
the depths--if there were any--were soiled. But he imagined that this
woman's soul was transparent, limpid, and infinitely deep; pouring
itself out spontaneously, with as little self-consciousness as that of
a fountain when it throws aloft its white spray.
Yet he had injured this woman--unintentionally, it was true; but his
hand had thrown the fatal disc which cut its way into her soul, as
really as into the flesh of her brother. How could he atone for this?
There came also to Dion a deeper anxiety. Glaucon would recover; but
what of this girl's coming life? A Jewish maiden left alone amid the
license of Antiochus' soldiers! A dove in the serpent's nest would
be as safe. Glaucon could not protect her. With Elkiah's death the
renegade son would--as he had heard frequently in the camp--quickly "be
cashed," and another estate rattle as coin in Apollonius' belt. Then
what of this girl? Dion felt as if a hand from the sky was ordaining
him her protector. Yet what power had he?
Upon hearing the commotion about the litter Apollonius turned back.
As if to redeem his repute for the dastardly insult of a few moments
before, he now made most respectful salaam to the young woman, and,
with the semblance of kindly solicitude for Glaucon, gave orders
detailing Captain Dion to act as guard for the wounded man. Thus,
having assumed by his manner the credit for what Dion had already done,
he rejoined his suite.
The men were about to lift the litter when Deborah startled them with
the cry:
"But Caleb! Where is the blind boy? Surely he came this way."
"We have seen none such. He must have passed by another street.
Doubtless he has gone home," was the Greek's response.
"Oh, I must find him!"
There was a maternal depth in the girl's tones.
"Where could he have gone? Help me, good sir, and the blessing of the
Lord will be upon you."
"We could not find him in these streets," said Dion. "Let us go first
to your home. If he is not there we will search elsewhere. And I think
that my name will open any place where he may be detained."
"Quick, then; let us haste!"
The girl in her eagerness led the way. Reaching the house, she opened
the outer door, which had not been fastened after her exit a little
while before, and sped across the open court. Elkiah was calling.
"Here am I, father!" and in an instant more she was beside him on the
roof.
"My daughter, where have you been? Have the Gentiles bewitched even my
Deborah, that she should go out of doors to gaze at them? Nay, veil
your face with shame, child. Henceforth you must abide strictly in the
house. It may be our sepulchre, but I would rather my daughter died
here, than that the same sun should greet her eyes and theirs, except
that she hated them. But for a daughter of Jerusalem to so much as look
upon their garments is to play the wanton."
"Speak not such words, my father," cried Deborah, kneeling by his side,
and placing his hands upon her forehead in claiming his blessing.
"It is Benjamin, father. They have brought him back to us, and----"
"Benjamin!" cried the old man, his voice failing in utterance until
it became almost a hiss. "Benjamin! I have no son Benjamin. He has
disowned his name; I disown his blood. What does the traitor Glaucon
do in the house of Elkiah? Let him be gone! I charge thee, Deborah, if
thou be a true daughter, banish him from our house."
"But, father----"
"Nay, let him be gone!"
"But, father, Benjamin is harmed; wounded; it may be he is killed."
The venerable man raised himself on his arm, and stared about him.
Deborah laid him gently back upon the pillows.
"Oh, father, do not curse him. It may be he will not live. Do not curse
him."
He gazed at her, taking her face between his hands and drawing it close
to his.
"Aye, my Miriam again! Would God, Deborah, you had been my son!"
"But, father, pity our Benjamin. He is grievously hurt."
A change passed over the features of Elkiah. Suddenly the tears dimmed
his sight, and he said:
"Benjamin hurt? My boy? The child of Miriam harmed? Where is he? Help
me, that I may go to him."
He vainly tried to rise. His hands clenched as he muttered:
"The Lord avenge the house of Elkiah upon the heads of the heathen! The
Lord spare my child! Benjamin! Benjamin! Would God I had died for thee!"
When she had seen the wounded man brought safely into the lower
chamber, Deborah quickly searched every part of the house, and her cry
for Caleb rang from the roof to the court.
"He is not here. I will go again to the street."
The strong, but kind, hand of Dion blocked the way: "Nay, good maiden,
you cannot return to the city. I will go where you could not. I swear
to search the streets and camps if you will but pledge me to abide
here."
"A pledge to a Greek!"
But the look of scorn passed quickly from her face, as she saw the
solicitude in his. After a little thought, in which her agitated manner
told that she could keep such a promise only with her body, and that
her whole soul would go with Dion in his search, she replied:
"It is well. I see it is my duty to stay here, sir. But hasten! Hasten,
and I will pray for you every step. The Lord bless you, good sir!"
"Your own blessing were enough," said Dion, as he ran down the steps.
VI
A JEWISH CUPID
Dion knew that a personal search for the lad among the crowds of
soldiers, who were lodged in half the houses of the city, and in
hundreds of tents beyond the walls, would be a long, if not a useless
one, since, if any persons had captured the child, they would have
reason for concealing his whereabouts. Dion went, therefore, at once to
the headquarters of Apollonius, that he might obtain an order that none
would dare disregard.
The house appropriated to the Governor's use was the palace on Mount
Sion. Though the finest residential structure in Jerusalem, like
Elkiah's house, it was but a sorry scion of its architectural pedigree.
For instead of the colonnades where Solomon once walked, and the golden
roof which had sheltered the harem of that pious libertine, where now
the lime whitened walls and domes of what, but for its site, might have
been taken for a caravansery.
Captain Dion passed through the court, with its broken ancient
fountains and cheap reproductions of recent Greek statuary. He was
greeted by Apollonius at the entrance to the hall of audience.
"Welcome, Dion! In time to sup with me to-night. After the feast we
will have a symposium that will make the dead Alexander come to life
with envy. He would risk another death by fever for the sake of a
draught of such wines as the King has sent me from Antioch."
Dion excused himself, and stated the purpose of his visit.
"Nay; so jovial and witty a comrade as yourself cannot be let off,"
cried the roystering commandant. "Nor need you trouble yourself about
the boy. I will issue the order that he be brought here. It will be
a quicker way and more certain--that is, if the circumcised dog be
living, which we may doubt; for, since the permission given yesterday,
the men are making short work of all this Jewish spawn."
Dion changed his tack, and urged that he must return to take care of
his friend Glaucon.
"What care you for the traitor Glaucon?" replied the General. "If that
man betrays his own race he will not be true to you. It is enough that
such creatures as Glaucon are allowed to live, and keep their property,
which should be our common spoil. Let him die of his hurt; we shall
all be the better off, with one Jew less and houses more. But stay you
shall, Dion, or, by Herakles! I will issue orders to cut the boy's
throat when found. No carouse is complete if Dion be absent," he said,
throwing his arm about him. "Come now, it's a treaty with you. I know
that your friendship is not for Glaucon, but for the black-eyed Diana,
his sister, whom I saw to-day. Drink with us you shall, or I shall be
jealous as Zeus is of his Hera, and send your Jewish goddess straight
to Antiochus as a gift. Go, then, get your ivy and head-grease, and
come back quickly; for see, the gnomon already casts shadow of six
paces--the hour the gods themselves have set for supper."
"Then I must eat your dainty meats," said Dion, seeing the futility of
opposing the distempered will of his superior. Veiling his resentment
under a forced hilarity, he retired, and a half-hour later returned in
company with the other guests.
These were high officers in gorgeous togas, and caps whose tasselled
tops lapped down to their shoulders. Each of these revellers was
accompanied to the palace by one or more slaves, who would wait upon
their masters at the feast, and take them home when drunk. A few
subalterns were invited who, like Dion, compensated for lack of rank by
their ready wit and their repertoire of stories and songs.
As the guests reclined upon the cushions their shoes were unlaced and
removed by Apollonius' menials, their feet washed in scented water, and
gently rubbed with towels, while their caps were displaced by crowns
of bay leaves gemmed with the pearly berries. Then the low tables were
drawn within reach, laden with all that the distant markets of Antioch
could furnish; for the conquered land of Judea gave them not so much as
a fig or date. The Jews had left for the invaders only fish and game;
but woe to the Syrian soldier who should venture beyond his camps to
drop a line in lake or send an arrow after beast or bird!
The viands were quickly disposed of, for, following the Greek custom,
no wine was poured until the meats and spicy condiments had created
abundant thirst.
"A soldier's hunger is soon satisfied, but his thirst is like the river
Oceanus that runs round the earth and has no end," cried Apollonius.
"Let's to the potation. Who shall be master of the feast?"
"Dion! Dion!" was shouted, with clapping and cheers.
Apollonius whispered to his next neighbor:
"The master of the feast, according to custom, must remain sober. We
must have Dion's tongue loosened with wine, or we shall not skim the
cream of his wit. Call for Kallisthenes. He is duller drunk than sober."
"Kallisthenes! Kallisthenes!" went round the table, as the suggestion
of the host was whispered from one to another.
"This is a deserved honor," shouted Apollonius, "for the man who fired
the gates of the Jews' Temple."
"Aye, it was a valiant deed, for there wasn't so much as a lame Jew to
stop him," said Sotades to Dion, who reclined next to him.
"If Apollonius is scattering heroic honors to-night, he should send for
the High Priest, Menelaos, for he stole the golden candlesticks from
the Holy Place before we could get hold of them," said another.
"Menelaos! The Jew turned Greek! Dion says he once frightened an
Ethiopian into a white man. So Menelaos became a Greek. That Jew's lips
would poison the wine. Let him get ready for his feast with the worms
of Gehenna," grunted the Governor.
Kallisthenes at once assumed the prerogative of Ruler of the Feast. He
put on a chaplet of ivy, and proclaimed the laws for the hour.
"Hear ye, my subjects, the rules of the feast, which all shall obey
under penalty of the wrath of the gods. May Bacchus and Aphrodite both
desert the wretch who fails in his duty."
"Law the first--The wine shall not be mixed with more than half water."
"What goblets shall we use?" asked one. "If the larger ones, I vote for
one part wine to three parts water, as Hesiod recommends."
"A frog's drink, as Pharecrates called it," replied the Ruler. "Half
and half it shall be, and he who shirks the large goblet shall drink
from the crater itself. Are we not all philosophers? And did not
Socrates drink from the wine cooler?"
"Agreed! Agreed!" echoed round the circle.
One ruddy-faced veteran knelt in mock adoration at the feet of the
Feast Master:
"I humbly crave that, since I was born in distant Phrygia, we to-night
follow the custom of the barbarians, and drink no water at all. Let us
be inspired with the unadulterated soul of the god."
"Bacchus pardon thy gluttony for the sake of thy piety," said the
Master.
"Law the second--Whereas wine should be drunk either hot or cold, and
whereas, these Jews who are still above Hades have stopped the way to
the mountains where lies the snow to chill it, therefore it is ordained
that all drinks shall be heated with both fire and spice."
"Agreed! Agreed!"
"Law the third--Every goblet shall be quaffed from brim to bottom
between two breaths."
"It is agreed!"
"Oh! my paunch!" cried one. "Do you think me a Deucalion to stand the
deluge?"
Servants poured the water and wine in equal quantities into the crater,
or great bowl, from which it was ladled into the large goblets,
holding half a quart each.
"A bumper first to Bacchus."
It was drunk with avidity. One started a song from the old poet
Anacreon:
"Thirsty earth drinks up the rain,
Trees from earth drink that again,
Ocean drinks the air, the sun
Drinks the sea, and him the moon.
Any reason canst thou think
I should thirst while all these drink?"
"Eros follows Bacchus," cried the Feast Master. "Now a cup to the
Syrian goddess Astarte, since we are in her land, or to Aphrodite,
Venus, or whatever name each one calls his lady-love."
"Aye, a cup to Bathsheba! if any one has found a Jewess to his taste,"
shouted Apollonius, lifting his goblet toward Dion.
Songs and comic speeches, extemporized pantomimes, riddles and stories,
as the wine happened to stir the peculiar talent or caprice of the
guest, interspersed the drinking.